Archive for September, 2011

Open Mic September 30

90
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in
Open Mic Afternoon

Your turn at the mic

There was no Repub­li­can debate this last week. Perry fell in the polls any­way, while those being polled were rais­ing Cain, the “fla­vor of the week”. Chris Christie wavered slightly on his ear­lier insis­tence that he’s not a can­di­date for Pres­i­dent, lead­ing most “pro­fes­sional” com­men­ta­tors to spec­u­late about his inten­tions and and about when he’ll get into the race. The Chi­nese launched their first space sta­tion into orbit. Mes­sen­ger, NASA’s Mer­cury orbiter, returned spec­tac­u­lar pho­tographs and a wealth of data. A flock of way­ward neu­tri­nos report­edly broke the speed limit. No indi­ca­tion of whether they got pulled over and cited.

Don’t see an arti­cle on a par­tic­u­lar topic, but want to talk about it some­where? This is Open Mic. Talk about what­ever you want, but stay respectful.

We cre­ate a new Open Mic every week to give a clean slate, but feel free to add to this topic at any time.

The Primary Primary Gamble

12
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

Yes­ter­day I pro­vided an illus­tra­tion of how one’s strate­gic moves can appear to be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive, but yet turn out to be ratio­nal gam­bles with advan­ta­geous odds. This week, Florida is weigh­ing a sim­i­lar sort of deci­sion.

Per the Repub­li­can Party Pri­mary Elec­tion rules, only four states are per­mit­ted have their del­e­gate selec­tion process (cau­cus or pri­mary elec­tion) prior to March 1, 2012 (and must have them in Feb­ru­ary): Iowa, New Hamp­shire, South Car­olina, and Nevada. States who award their del­e­gates pro­por­tion­ally are per­mit­ted to have their selec­tion process in March, while winner-​​take-​​all states must wait until April. All states who vio­late these rules are penal­ized by hav­ing half their del­e­gates disqualified.

Thus far, Col­orado and Ari­zona have sched­uled their elec­tions on Feb­ru­ary 7th and 28th, respec­tively, in vio­la­tion of the rules. Michi­gan is expected to also vio­late the rules, and hold elec­tions on Feb­ru­ary 28th.

Florida, in a fit of chutz­pah, is con­sid­er­ing hold­ing its pri­mary elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 31st, ahead of even Iowa’s Feb­ru­ary 6th cau­cuses. And South Car­olina (tra­di­tion­ally the “first in the South” pri­mary), in a game of one-​​upmanship, has promised to have its pri­mary elec­tion in advance of Florida’s, regard­less of Florida’s cho­sen date.

Why on earth are these states will­ing to give up half of their del­e­gates? (more…)

Flipping Out

22
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

I read this arti­cle on the topic of both Democ­rats and some Repub­li­cans crit­i­ciz­ing Mitt Rom­ney for hav­ing switched posi­tions on a num­ber of issues. The label of “flip flop­per” has become a par­tic­u­larly deadly polit­i­cal insult in Amer­ica. There are times when this crit­i­cism may point toward real prob­lems. There also are plenty of instances when use of the label instead indi­cates cyn­i­cism and dis­hon­esty on the part of the peo­ple who sell it, and some shal­low­ness — even dan­ger­ous shal­low­ness — on the part of the peo­ple who buy it.

There are at least three sorts of sit­u­a­tions in which I’ve seen the label “flip flop­per” used as a polit­i­cal curse. In two of them it is entirely unjus­ti­fied. In the third, the true sin is deeper. In all three, a dif­fer­ent word would be more accu­rate. (more…)

The Ideology Gamble

109
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

Los­ing with Chris­tine seems like a funny way of winning.

Last year, peo­ple all over the polit­i­cal uni­verse were call­ing Repub­li­cans crazy for reject­ing the more mod­er­ate Mike Cas­tle, Sue Low­den, and Jane Nor­ton for the more extreme Chris­tine O’Donnell, Shar­ron Angle, and Ken Buck. After all, those three Sen­ate seats would have been enough to shift the major­ity from the Democ­rats to the Republicans.

The response from many in the Tea Party wing of the Repub­li­can Party is that it’s bet­ter to lose with a “real” con­ser­v­a­tive than to win with a RINO. Is that posi­tion really all that crazy? It’s worth inves­ti­gat­ing, given that this year’s lead­ing Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, other than Mitt Rom­ney, have all been work­ing dili­gently to find just how far off the right end of the polit­i­cal spec­trum they can go. (more…)

One Week at a Time

12
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

Tomor­row, a one-​​week exten­sion on fund­ing the fed­eral gov­ern­ment will likely pass with the sup­port of a minor­ity of the House.

Wait…a minor­ity will pass it?

This is one of those sub­tle, strange facets of our leg­isla­tive gov­ern­ment. (more…)

The Ice, Man, Recedeth

13
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Cling­ing to a dying lifestyle, or going with the floe? Source: myfun​space​.com

This week’s Econ­o­mist has an arti­cle about the unex­pect­edly rapid dis­ap­pear­ance of Arc­tic sea ice.

In 2007, the area of the Arc­tic Ocean cov­ered by sea ice reached a record min­i­mum, at 4.2 mil­lion square kilo­me­ters, or about 1.7 mil­lion square miles.  Sep­tem­ber of each year, at the end of sum­mer, is when the sea ice reaches its annual min­i­mum. This year’s min­i­mum, 4.3 mil­lion square kilo­me­ters, was almost as low as the record. The thick­ness, which can­not be eas­ily mea­sured, seems to have reached a his­tor­i­cal min­i­mum as well, and the total vol­ume of arc­tic ice may be as low as it has ever been in the last 8,000 years, since the global warm­ing that sig­naled the end of the last Ice Age.

The mod­els used by cli­ma­tol­o­gists are clearly faulty and have not accu­rately pre­dicted the vol­ume of sea ice. How­ever, con­trary to the asser­tions of Gov­er­nor Rick Perry, the books (mod­els) haven’t been cooked to exag­ger­ate the rate of sea ice dis­ap­pear­ance — the mod­els have under­pre­dicted the loss of sea ice. (more…)

Go to Top