WHEN A GEEK MEETS A GEEK: Nerd York City.
Archive for 2012
October 27, 2012
Well, it’s too late to stock up on milk.
THE DEFERRED DREAMS OF MARS. “I found that Mars wasn’t an entirely happy subject in Houston—especially among people who believe that humans, not only robots, should be exploring there.”
UPDATE: More from Rand Simberg.
HEY, FROM BERNANKE’S STANDPOINT IT’LL BE “STIMULUS!” How Much Will the Frankenstorm Cost? “If the storm is actually as bad as people are suggesting it might be, then it will probably do much, much more damage than that. No, not because global warming is generating superstorms. The reason is much simpler that that: there’s more stuff in the way, especially beachfront property. Hurricanes hitting the gulf coast can do fantastic amounts of damage, but the area is sparsely populated compared to the northeast corridor. . . . This is the downside of density: when something goes wrong, it happens to a lot more people.”
PICKING FIGHTS WITH BLOGGERS is almost always a bad idea. Michael Mann take note. Oops — too late!
READER BOOK PLUG: Dennis Beezley writes: “My buddy Tim O’Mara has written a Brooklyn-flavored detective novel. He’s a city schoolteacher (as is his protagonist) and this is his first in a series. Reviews so far are very strong.” It’s called Sacrifice Fly.
OK, MAYBE IT’S DEJA McGOVERN ALL OVER AGAIN.
Incidentally, the YouTube clip of the 1972 McGovern ad that Moe links to seems to cut out with 10 seconds left on my browser. The complete ad is online here, for what it’s worth. But you’ll get plenty of the sweaty, desperate, “please, please, please don’t vote for the other guy, who’s a mean old nasty Republican, even though I’ve made such a lousy case all year” tone from the YouTube clip.
STOPPING BLOOD LOSS with smart bandages.
SHOWING UP: Reader Dave Stewart writes from Lawrenceville, Georgia:
We arrived an hour before the polls opened, and were shocked to see the parking lot at George Pierce Park Community Center already full and the line of early voters snaking out and around the parking lot. As we were leaving (we will still have to vote yet) we noticed people walking up to the community center after having parked in the other adjacent parking lots (some as far as a half mile away). Our eyes welled up with tears at the turn out this morning. Gwinnett County has had 2 1/2 hour wait times most days at the local courthouse since early voting began. We’ve never seen participation in the general election at this level before. Thanks so much for everything you do. By the way, we support you heavily by being Amazon Prime members and clicking through your site to make our purchases.
Thanks! I don’t think these people are lining up to vote for Obama. Meanwhile, reader Charles Fenwick writes from Jacksonville, Florida:
Writing in to report my early voting experience.
On the morning of one of Jacksonville’s showcase events, the Florida-Georgia game, there were more than 50 people in line to vote at my location when the doors open at 7:00 AM. I was 30th or so in line and was in a booth at 7:15.
The big concern about voting in person in Florida is the length of the ballot; two double-sided pages due to the full text of 11 proposed state constitutional amendments being on the ballot. Person in front of me worked around that problem by not voting the second page. Which triggered an error message when he deposited his ballot. Voting official confirmed that it was his intent to cast a blank ballot page and the process continued smoothly. I counted around 60 people waiting to enter the voting room when I left. Brisk business.
Remember, it’s all about showing up now.
FUNNY, WHENEVER THEY GET DESPERATE THEY START ACTING MORE REPUBLICAN: White House considering new tax cut.
VANDAL KEYS ‘OBAMA’ INTO TWO CARS IN ALTA LOMA, CALIFORNIA, parked in front of a residence with a pro-Romney sign, according to this report with video, from CBS-LA.
Somebody with a CafePress account needs to start selling an updated version of these T-shirts:
UPDATE: Nobody steps on a church in my town.
GOOGLE RELEASES Hurricane Sandy Crisis Map.
HMM: If this is true, it’ll probably leak out elsewhere.
UPDATE: “I suggest that @barackobama should have Gen. Ham come out and debunk this rumor IMMEDIATELY.”
GEORGE HERBERT WALKER OBAMA: Andrew Ferguson on Deja #41 all over again.
CONFIDENCE: Romney Campaign Launches “Expand The Map” Project.
Also, you can go here if you’d like to volunteer. Or go to Freedomworks’ FreedomConnector if you’d like to find people in your area to work with outside the campaign.
HOW BIG DOES MITT HAVE TO WIN FOR FRAUD NOT TO COUNT: Is voter fraud being committed in Ohio? It’s like this administration comes from Chicago or something…
UPDATE: To clarify — those voters on buses might be perfectly legitimate. Even the sort of voter “aid” that’s being provided while shady fits in with an American tradition in the immigrant precincts in the early twentieth century. What made me scared in that article were Ohio’s requirements to register to vote. I don’t live in Ohio, but guys: neither the social security number, nor the drivers’ licenses, nor the electricity bill are proof of citizenship. I know. I am an immigrant. When did citizenship stop mattering? When are we going to puncture through the idea that people with an accent or imperfect English are offended at being asked for proof of citizenship? We’re not. Those of us who have naturalized, those of us who are Americans are PROUD to show THAT paper, proud to be accorded the legitimate right to vote. Trust me. I know.
BUT DOES THE PRESIDENT KNOW THIS? Golf Is A Simple Game: Golf Is Not Life.
IN THE MAIL: From John Ringo, Citadel.
Also, today only: $1.99 Kindle Romance novels.
VIDEO: Obama Ducks Questions On Why Help Wasn’t Sent To Benghazi. “It sure is odd how thoroughly uninformed he seems to have been about what was happening in Libya, which is supposed to be a key part of his reelection foreign-policy credentials.”
BRENDAN LOY: Hurricane Sandy’s Track Speeding Up; Today is the Day to Prepare. “Everyone from the Beltway north to New England needs to prepare — and do so TODAY. (Preparedness links can be found at the bottom of this post.) Don’t wait until tomorrow to prepare. Sandy’s forecast track is speeding up. Landfall is now expected to occur Monday night, not Tuesday, and bad weather will begin well in advance of the center. If you’re in the potential strike zone, PREPARE NOW.”
UPDATE: Here’s your NYC Flood Impact Map.
THE THIRD TAMMY VS. TOMMY DEBATE WAS “A SMACKDOWN”: “When it was all over… Baldwin had taken quite a beating from the governor. Oh, she fought back, but Thompson’s victory was almost as decisive as Mitt Romney’s drubbing of Barack Obama in their first debate.”
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Green Fail On The Campaign Trail:
It’s not much of a surprise to see this from Romney, but this is a major shift for Obama. The president’s 2008 campaign was filled with grand statements about how we needed to implement bold new plans to combat climate change, and for the first two years of his administration, it seemed as though he would be likely to follow through. Green jobs programs, subsidies for electric cars, and even pie-in-the-sky carbon-trading schemes were all discussed, and some were eventually passed.
Those days are long gone. The closer we come to the election, the less we hear about green and the more we hear about brown, about oil and gas drilling. Obama wants to win in November, and he’s clearly made the (correct) choice that he can’t do it if he continues to be the green candidate.
This is a testament to the spectacular failures of the environmental movement to articulate any policies that aren’t political suicide for those who support them. When Obama was elected, many Greens felt that their time had come, that one of their own was sitting in the Oval Office. But it only took two years of political defeats and embarrassments to convince the president and many of his party colleagues that the green movement’s polices of choice are political non-starters.
This time around, the Greens won’t be pulling the lever enthusiastically for either candidate. For this, they have only themselves to blame.
Well, a platform based on Luddism and oikophobia is a hit with celebrities and lefty pundits, but not so much with voters.
MICKEY KAUS: Did the Web lead Obama astray?
Why has Obama’s public campaign been so ineffective for the past month? . . . Specifically, a) he exaggerated the power of his Web-friendly left wing; b) he overestimated the force of attack lines the Web-friendly left wing would find convincing, like pointing out, when discussing Iran in Debate #3, that Romney had once “invested in a Chinese state oil company that was doing business with the Iranian oil sector;” c) he fell for the netroots’ psychological impulse to “fight back” when he should have been borrowing, triangulating and coopting; d) he ended his campaign pushing lame internet-friendly rhetorical gimmicks–”Romnesia,” “The 1980s are … calling”–instead of tried and true substantive pitches about protecting Medicare and Social Security, etc. ** Memes instead of meat! His team is so Web-savvy they’ve forgotten how to campaign.
You do have to get out from behind the computer occasionally.