Originally Posted by Justin '77

Granted, you use my name to argue against a made-up position you fabricated yourself, but still, I wonder about this...

Really, the shame is all those people who get angry for not being taken care of, instead of taking responsibility for helping themselves and their neighbors out. They screwed themselves over, screwed the people around them over, then think they somehow are being wronged for not having things fixed for them?

Gee, I thought you loved mobs and riots-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XazOm...eature=related

Originally Posted by The Rani

25,000 is a lot of "stupid" people.
I don't blame Obama/Christie for it, but I don't give them credit for saving the "smart" ones who evacuated either.
The (non-partisan) weather forecast deserves credit for that.

I'm sorry, but maybe you don't keep up with things.

The Ryan budget plan would basically dismantle the NOAA weather satellite program that provides the hurricane tracking. Romney has 2-thumbs up on the Ryan plan as well as up his ass - just in case you didn't notice that either.

Originally Posted by Aramea

Good point. The early warning systems are getting pretty good at predicting the magnitude of these storms so people can get the hell out of the way. I am baffled at the ones that stay behind and piss and moan because the have no food and water.

Do you really think a Justin or Rani would pack it up because some govt agency suggested it? If you do, you haven't been paying attention.

Then there are the t-baggers? They like their SS and Medicare checks but whoa to the govt person who suggests that they have to do something like evacuate. You'll have to pry their guns from their cold dead hands - even in Jersey.

Originally Posted by The Rani

25,000 is a lot of "stupid" people.

That's nothing.

Think of all those voting for Romney that don't even make a million dollars a year!

Wow, now that's stupid!

Originally Posted by Copperfield

What's worse... Two whole days without power? The inconvenience! The horror!

I suspect that there is a good chance that his various portable devices finally ran out of juice and drove him out of his home.

Well, let's just hope the t-bagger can collect his SS check and get to the polls to vote for Romney and stop all this socialism once and for all!

A pretty good breakdown of the internals of the lates Quinnipiac "poll" of battleground states...

Florida: The Lion

• Obama leads +1 at 48 to 47 with 3% Undecided; Romney leads with Independents by 5
• Party ID wasD +7 (Dem 37, Rep 30, Ind 29). In 2008 it was D +3 (Dem 37, Rep 34, Ind 29). In 2004 it was R+4 (Dem 37, Rep 41, Ind 23). Good show Quinnipiac! In a state with a GOP governor and massive increases in congressional delegations, popular GOP Senator, and strong state house swings to the GOP since 2008, you found Democrat strength equal to 2008 while Republican flight since 2004 continues unabated. You found the Democrat advantage in your survey more than double the advantage they enjoyed in 2008 despite a nearly net 300,000 swing towards Republicans in voter registrations. Your Florida poll is unassailable…at least in Narnia.
• Obama job approval +1 at 49/48 … if Quinnipiac surveyed only Dade County and even there I’d double check the numbers

Ohio: The Witch

• Obama leads +5, 50 – 45 with 4% Undecided; Romney leads with Independents by 6
• The party ID was D +8 (Dem 37, Rep 29, Ind 30). This compares to D +8 in 2008 (Dem 39, Rep 31, Ind 30) and R +5 in 2004 (Dem 35, Rep 40, Ind 25). There is no chance the Democrat turnout advantage will meet Obama’s 2008 best in a generation turnout which we write as D +8 based on the CNN party ID generally used. This is even though the actual 2008 party ID was really only D +5 making this D +8 that much more implausible. How many statistics on changes in enthusiasm favoring Republicans, unrealistic Democrat demographic assumptions and elimination of Obama’s early vote advantage do you need to see before they start polling an electorate dissimilar to 2008 when their dream candidate fulfilled their liberal inner guilt and healed a nation or whatever BS they were peddling at the time? Quinnipiac is not going to let silly facts get in the way of its mission to buck up the Lefties and turn this contest into a horse-race. One more piece to the puzzle before the Death Star is complete.
• Obama job approval +3 at 50/47 — Can you imagine what it would be if they surveyed Ohio?

Virginia: The Wardrobe

• Obama leads by 2, 49 – 47 with 3% Undecided; Romney leads with Independents by 21
• The party ID is D +8 (Dem 35, Rep 27, Ind 35). This compares to 2008 of D +6 (Dem 39, Rep 33, Ind 27) and 2004 of R +4 (Dem 35, Rep 39, Ind 26). Who knew the blue wave continues so far South of the DC Beltway? Certainly not Virginia and certainly not Governor Creigh Deeds. Just because Virginia flipped its state delegation dramatically in favor of Republicans doesn’t mean the voters turned their back on Democrats, it just there must have been a good TV rerun of Martin Sheen spouting non-sensical liberal tripe on the Left Wing that distracted Democrats from voting. Good thing Quinnipiac found these ultra-micro-targeted hidden Democrats only Project Narwhal knows about because otherwise, without those gnomes (Step 1: Call random #s only in Fairfax County, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Obama wins!) I’m not sure we’d have a fully operational Death Star. Come November 6, we’ll see how well those gnomes delivered for this survey of a fantasy electorate.

This was by Battlegroundwatch.com

Originally Posted by playwrite

Gee, I thought you loved mobs and riots-

That's the made-up guy in your head you're thinking of. Sorry I can't help with that.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I agree, and the data on abortions is closer to 800,000 a year ... roughly 1 in 5 pregnancies. That's far too many, but let's be accurate.

Unfortunately, there is no direct way to determine how many are the result of medical issues, like tubal pregnancies or the grossly conpromised health of the fetus, and how many for other reasons ... not that it is anyones' business other than the one's directly involved.

What the anti-choice people ignore, probably willfully, is that most of those abortions would occur anyway, leading to women dying in botched back-alley abortions. I say probably willfully because they probably think those "sinful" women "deserve" to die.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

That's the made-up guy in your head you're thinking of. Sorry I can't help with that.

Well then, you're going to have to turn in that Anarchist badge you've been wearing for some time now.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Do you really think a Justin or Rani would pack it up because some govt agency suggested it? If you do, you haven't been paying attention.

Then there are the t-baggers? They like their SS and Medicare checks but whoa to the govt person who suggests that they have to do something like evacuate. You'll have to pry their guns from their cold dead hands - even in Jersey.

I was wondering if perhaps these big natural disasters that big govt tends to both mitigate and respond to are simply nature's way of keeping the Libertarian, Anarchists and Nihilist populations in check?

Perhaps a two-fer with improving the human gene pool?

A silver lining in every storm.

The City was pretty chaotic today. Nothing like the aftermath of 9/11, however.

We'll survive.

Depressing to see several big bank buildings all lit up as usual and a major hospital dark and abandoned. 3T priorities still apparent.

Another math exercise, out of curiosity. The new CBS/NYT poll, which shows Obama with a 1 point lead nationally, 48-47, with 3% undecided.

Here's a link to the full published data: CBS/NYT POLL

When you scroll down to the bottom, this is what you find:

Unweighted Registered Voters

R: 257 (28.6%)
D: 297 (33.1%)
I: 344 (38.3%)

Weighted Registered Voters

R: 242 (27%)
D: 321 (35.8%)
I: 335 (37.3%)

Likely Voters (drawn from weighted sample)

R: 175 (31.1%)
D: 200 (35.5%)
I: 188 (33.4%)

What you see from those numbers:

1. Their weighting of the registered voter sample increased Democrats by 2.7%, decreased Republicans by 1.6%, and decreased independents by 1%.

2. Their likely voter sample compared to the weighted registered voter sample shows 4.1% more Republicans, 3.9% fewer Independents, and 0.3% fewer Democrats.

So what happens if you throw out their "weighting" and apply the likely voter percentages to the unweighted data?

Romney: 51.6%
Obama: 48.4%
Margin: Romney +3.2

Crazy how that works.

The CBS polls and sometimes the other TV networks definitely favor Democrats more than the average, while polls like Rasmussen and Gallup certainly favor Republicans, although they all fluctuate. Each poll has its virtues and vices. That's why the averages are the best approach.

Somebody here said Nate Silver had a liberal background, but he did not demonstrate that on Charlie Rose last night. If anything, he is libertarian, and he said he's not voting this year. His background is in predicting baseball stats, not working for liberals. He is using state polls rather than national polls, even to predict the national popular vote. He shows how state polls have averaged out to be more accurate in recent years, and there are many more of them now. His prediction is based on the likelihood that final election results will change if the poll averages reach a certain level at a certain time. He is predicting Obama will win both the popular and electoral vote. His prediction matches mine, reached through consulting the "stars."

I quoted his list of 7 current state poll averages as of midnight Oct.31 on the previous page of this thread.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

His own current averages:
CO +1.0 Obama
FL +0.7 Romney
Iowa +2.6 Obama
NV +3.5 Obama
NH +2.9 Obama
NC +2.7 Romney
Ohio +2.6 Obama
VA +0.7 Obama
Wis. +4.2 Obama

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The CBS polls and sometimes the other TV networks definitely favor Democrats more than the average, while polls like Rasmussen and Gallup certainly favor Republicans, although they all fluctuate. Each poll has its virtues and vices. That's why the averages are the best approach.

Somebody here said Nate Silver had a liberal background, but he did not demonstrate that on Charlie Rose last night. If anything, he is libertarian, and he said he's not voting this year. His background is in predicting baseball stats, not working for liberals. He is using state polls rather than national polls, even to predict the national popular vote. He shows how state polls have averaged out to be more accurate in recent years, and there are many more of them now. His prediction is based on the likelihood that votes will change if the poll averages reach a certain level at a certain time. He is predicting Obama will win both the popular and electoral vote. His prediction matches mine, reached through consulting the "stars."

I quoted his list of 7 current state poll averages as of midnight Oct.31 on the previous page of this thread.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

His own current averages:
CO +1.0 Obama
FL +0.7 Romney
Iowa +2.6 Obama
NV +3.5 Obama
NH +2.9 Obama
NC +2.7 Romney
Ohio +2.6 Obama
VA +0.7 Obama
Wis. +4.2 Obama

... In any event, the States elect the President, and the People do not. In any state people see something like this for President:

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Electors for Barack Obama, Democrat
Electors for Mitt Romney, Republican

(nominees of minor parties ignored here)

One votes for the electors voting on behalf of the State as a whole, and in all but two states (Maine and Nebraska, which allocate two electoral votes at large and others by Congressional district) the one whose electors get the most votes gets the electoral votes of that state. Such is federalism in practice.

For a US Senator, the ballot looks different:

Debbie Stabenow, Democrat
Pete Hoekstra, Republican
(nominees of minor parties here ignored)

We directly elect our US Senators, at least since the 17th Amendment has been in force.

If I were weighting the polls I would throw out certain ones associated with campaigns or advocacy groups. and those with big problems. Would you fully trust a poll commissioned by the NAACP? I would otherwise weight them for recentness because events can shape polls. The closest ones to the election are probably more reliable.

... Mitt Romney is winning the most of the states that he has been winning mostly by huge margins. President Obama has not been winning the states that he won in 2008 by gigantic margins. (Of course some recent polls in some non-swing states suggests that those states that President Obama won big are likely to go big again. In 2008 millions panicked about the economy voted for Barack Obama. This year we do not have the imminent threat of an economic meltdown analogous to that of 1929-1933. That is an improvement. Recently Mitt Romney seemed to have the prospect of winning the popular vote but losing in the Electoral College. That may be over.

Originally Posted by The Rani

This is a good point.
Every potential tornado is now a LIFE-THREATENING EMERGENCY!!

Ah, actually that is correct.

Obviously you've never lived in the Midwest.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Definitely. It's God's Will.
In case you missed it, the guy in Hoboken whom you described as a nihilist tea-baggger actually did listen to the official evacuation orders ... first floor and basement only.

The bathroom must be upstairs. Even a bagger needs to 'go' on occassion; on the other hand, a true nihilist, however, well, you know...

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Another math exercise, out of curiosity. The new CBS/NYT poll, which shows Obama with a 1 point lead nationally, 48-47, with 3% undecided.

Here's a link to the full published data: CBS/NYT POLL

When you scroll down to the bottom, this is what you find:

Unweighted Registered Voters

R: 257 (28.6%)
D: 297 (33.1%)
I: 344 (38.3%)

Weighted Registered Voters

R: 242 (27%)
D: 321 (35.8%)
I: 335 (37.3%)

Likely Voters (drawn from weighted sample)

R: 175 (31.1%)
D: 200 (35.5%)
I: 188 (33.4%)

What you see from those numbers:

1. Their weighting of the registered voter sample increased Democrats by 2.7%, decreased Republicans by 1.6%, and decreased independents by 1%.

2. Their likely voter sample compared to the weighted registered voter sample shows 4.1% more Republicans, 3.9% fewer Independents, and 0.3% fewer Democrats.

So what happens if you throw out their "weighting" and apply the likely voter percentages to the unweighted data?

Romney: 51.6%
Obama: 48.4%
Margin: Romney +3.2

Crazy how that works.

Have you ever considered how scary your analysis will be to you should Obama win?

People on the streets here are all talking about a news story.

Seems Romney is having his 80-ft motor yacht literally delivering a boat load of flip-flops to the Jersey Shore today!

Some people see it as a big gesture of good will, but many New Yorkers, being such a cynical lot, see that Romney's always has had a huge excess of flip-flops and just wants to dump some before the election.

I've discounted, out of hand, the rumor that he's also delivering by train a trainload of Etch-A-Sketches. The trains are not yet running in NJ.

Here we have it. An article that confirms all of my amateur poll analysis:

Parties Wonder Which Side's Polls Reflect Reality

Republicans say their party is a victim of media bias -- but not in the standard Lamestream Media sort of way. Pollsters on both sides try to persuade public surveyors that their voter turnout models are more accurate reflections of what's going to happen on Election Day. This year, GOP pollsters and strategists believe those nonpartisan pollsters are adopting Democratic turnout models en masse.

This is way beyond the realm of conspiracy theories now. Professional Republican pollsters working for actual candidates are coming up with different numbers from the Democrats and the media in their private, internal campaign polls.

There are two critical things that are consistent in every poll, regardless of whether the end result leans towards Obama or Romney:

1. Romney is winning independents by double digits.

2. Obama is winning less than 40% of white voters.

Every poll that has Obama ahead has him overcoming those factors through a massive Democrat turnout advantage, above and beyond 2008.

Dick Morris's predictions should not be taken seriously, but Karl Rove's should. Regardless of what you think of him, there is no one who knows this stuff better than he does. He wrote this article for the WSJ today:

Sifting the Numbers for a Winner

Desperate Democrats are now hanging their hopes on a new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll showing the president with a five-point Ohio lead. But that survey gives Democrats a +8 advantage in turnout, the same advantage Democrats had in 2008. That assumption is, to put it gently, absurd.

In addition to the data, the anecdotal and intangible evidence—from crowd sizes to each side's closing arguments—give the sense that the odds favor Mr. Romney. They do. My prediction: Sometime after the cock crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America's 45th president. Let's call it 51%-48%, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more.

The data is showing that Democrat early voting in Ohio is down substantially from 2008, and Republican early voting is up slightly. The whole Obama "machine" is looking like smoke and mirrors at this point, with the media running interference. As Rove says (you have to read the whole article to get the full extent of the analysis), there is simply no way the Democrats can have the kind of turnout advantage they had in 2008, let alone the even greater advantage many polls are being weighted for. Not just because of the economy and lack of enthusiasm among Democrats, but because of how low Republican turnout was in 2008, and how high it has been ever since.

I hesitate to be too definite about making a prediction, but it's not just that many of the media polls are producing a result that I don't like. It's that they're producing results that don't square with reality.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Dick Morris's predictions should not be taken seriously, but Karl Rove's should. Regardless of what you think of him, there is no one who knows this stuff better than he does.

The captain of the Boomer Right certainly has the most money invested in a particular outcome! Not to mention prejudice.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The captain of the Boomer Right certainly has the most money invested in a particular outcome! Not to mention prejudice.

Are you referring to Rove as the captain? It would be between him and the Koch Brothers. Anyone read the book about Boss Rove yet?

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Are you referring to Rove as the captain? It would be between him and the Koch Brothers. Anyone read the book about Boss Rove yet?

Yeah, except the JPT refers to the leaders of "the Left that have ruined America" as all "Boomers." Rove is the captain of the Right among the Boomers, but the Koch Brothers and most of the other financiers of the Corporate Right are still Silents.

Thanks to the right-wing media, Rove gets to play the role of pundit reporter as well as the role of backstage puppeteer and strategist.

Unwanted email based text messages in Virginia.

Originally Posted by Yahoonews

- A controversial Virginia marketing and polling firm appears to have used a legal loophole to bombard scores of Americans with unsolicited text messages berating President Barack Obama less than a week before Election Day.

More than a dozen different messages landed on the screens of phone users late on Tuesday, originating from mysterious websites instead of phone numbers. They attacked Obama and Democrats on a variety of issues such as abortion, foreign policy, same-sex marriage and taxation....

...On Wednesday, Reuters compiled a list of at least nine websites gathered from reporters who received the political text messages. A review of websites that track domain name registrations revealed that three of the nine websites that sent the messages were registered by Jason Flanary. Those sites had been suspended for spam and abuse.

An email for Jason Flanary indicated he works for ccAdvertising...

...Based in Centreville, Virginia, ccAdvertising is a firm that has represented Republican candidates. It has been fined, sued and pursued for aggressive political pushes that state authorities and private parties have argued violate laws against robo-calls and other types of automated phone contact.

It remains unclear who may have paid for the latest wave of messages and how many people received them....

....In 2011, Flanary unsuccessfully ran as a Republican for state Senate in Virginia, and his company was sued in Fairfax County, for allegedly unleashing thousands of spam texts in the last days of campaigning.

Federal law generally prohibits sending text messages to phone users who did not give prior consent, but does not specifically address non-commercial messages that originate as email, which includes political ones....


...The FCC and major phone carriers including Verizon and T-Mobile have encouraged users to report spam messages, which can be done by forwarding them to a short phone number 7726 (spells "SPAM").

Celling the vote?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Here we have it. An article that confirms all of my amateur poll analysis:

Parties Wonder Which Side's Polls Reflect Reality ...

I hesitate to be too definite about making a prediction, but it's not just that many of the media polls are producing a result that I don't like. It's that they're producing results that don't square with reality.

If, as I suspect, you are wrong, will be willing to say so? I'll be happy to take a beating if I'm wrong ... and I'm merely counting on Nate Silver's superior knowledge of the field. Still, if my judgement is faulty, I'll say so ...

in bright RED, BOLD size 7 type!

How about you?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Oh my. Shall we place bets on that one, too?

On which? That you once lived in the Midwest? Or, that you once lived in the Midwest and didn't pick up the obvious that potential tornados are life threatening situations?

Kind of like the question of when did you stop beating your husband?

Mayor Bloomberg (R) just endorsed Obama. And based on his concern for climate change!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...te-change.html

A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change

....
Leadership Needed

But we can’t do it alone. We need leadership from the White House -- and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.

Mitt Romney, too, has a history of tackling climate change. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed on to a regional cap- and-trade plan designed to reduce carbon emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels. “The benefits (of that plan) will be long- lasting and enormous -- benefits to our health, our economy, our quality of life, our very landscape. These are actions we can and must take now, if we are to have ‘no regrets’ when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this Earth to the next generation,” he wrote at the time.

He couldn’t have been more right. But since then, he has reversed course, abandoning the very cap-and-trade program he once supported. This issue is too important. We need determined leadership at the national level to move the nation and the world forward.

I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. He understands that America was built on the promise of equal opportunity, not equal results. In the past he has also taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care. But he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts.

If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing.

In 2008, Obama ran as a pragmatic problem-solver and consensus-builder. But as president, he devoted little time and effort to developing and sustaining a coalition of centrists, which doomed hope for any real progress on illegal guns, immigration, tax reform, job creation and deficit reduction. And rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice, he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it....

Holy crap, first the Christie bro-mance and now Bloomberg going over. What next, JPT sending a check to Planned Parenthood????

Could these things be more telling than any polls in these last few days before the election?

Maybe google "Bloomberg" "Christie" "rats leaving the sinking ship" to see if heads are exploding?

What's really funny about this is that yesterday the right wingnut bloggers were all orgasmic about Bloomberg supposedly turning Obama down for a visit to the Big Apple to survey the damage.

Bloomberg and/or Christie in 2016? Whoa