Guess "Morning Joe" is off my list

I used to watch Morning Joe from time to time but I think I'll quit.

Apparently Joe Scarborough abruptly and strangely resigned from Congressional office six months after his re-election, in June of 2001. He had divorced his wife of thirteen years only a short time before. (after running as a "family values" conservative) On July 20, 2001, a couple who made an appointment to meet with him about a green card came into his office at 8 am and discovered the body of one of his interns, Lori Klausutis. There was no apparent cause of death, and the autopsy ruled she had hit her head on the desk and died after passing out due to a heart condition. This finding was quite controversial for many reasons.

A few months later, he married another former staffer, in October of 2001.

Today I read that the doctor who gave that controversial finding has been arrested for storing (selling?) body parts in a rental unit. He had lost his license twice before, once related to falsifying an autopsy. Does this mean Joe Scarborough had her killed? No. But it definitely is a news story worth reporting on.

At the very least people should seriously think twice about giving this guy the time of day.


References:
http://surftofind.com/scandal
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Is-Morning-Joe-Scarborou-by-Roger-Shuler-110315-128.html
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010808Klausutis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough
http://open.salon.com/blog/rogershuler/2012/09/07/grisly_discovery_has_curious_ties_to_joe_scarborough
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/29/us/florida-storage-body-parts/index.html
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2012/09/discovery-of-human-remains-in-florida.html

Dust in the wind

This was a moving article, with a quote that jumped out at me:

All of our accomplishments are few. All of our accomplishments are minor: my scribblings, his book, the best lines of the best living poets. We embroider away at our tiny tatters of insight as though the world hung on them, when it is chiefly we ourselves who hang on them. Often a dog or cat with none of our advanced skills can offer more comfort to our neighbor than we can. (Think: Would you rather live with Shakespeare or a cute puppy?) Each of us has the ability to give only a little bit of joy to those around us.

The author was responding to "Far from the Tree", a book about special-needs and exceptionally-gifted children, and the "burden" that their parents bear. Her Down-Syndrome daughter, she argues, brings her much more joy than any of her work or other pursuits.

Let them secede

The math doesn't work out too well for secession-happy Southern states. For, you see, for all the whining about "takers versus makers", the solid-red South is a gigantic leech on the Federal gov't. Some good editorial cartoons below:

"Fantasyland": where Republicans love to dwell

I have always read and liked him, since I discovered him probably around 2006 or so. Last month he predicted that the Republican Party would only double down on its hard-right base if they lost the election. He lays out more in "Fantasyland":

Heavens forbid!

We certainly don't want a mural painting of the president within site of a voting area in the election. It might have a chilling effect on people voting for Willard!

On the other hand, though, please make sure to prominently display religious imagery at a HUGE number of voting locations nationwide (i.e., churches) since religion doesn't have anything to do with politics...

GOP = Geriatric, Obtuse & Pallid

From the LATimes:

There are many ways to illustrate the descent of the California Republican Party into oblivion. A starting point is the demographic breakdown of the members of Congress elected last week in the state.
Assuming the leaders in the few remaining close races hold their leads, there will be 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans representing California in Congress come January. Of those 38 Democrats, 18 are women, nine are Latinos, five are Asian Americans, three are African Americans, four are Jews and at least one is gay. Just 12 are white men. Of the 15 Republicans, on the other hand, all are white men — not a woman, let alone a member of a racial minority or a Jew, among them.

Lolcats\

I was wrong, Nate Silver was right

Nate Silver was right. I was wrong. Of course it isn't like I did a rigorous statistical analysis of polls using an amazing and complex model to predict the election results, so I don't exactly have egg on my face. Actual results:

POTUS 2012

Hold a gun to my head and I predict that Obama will be re-elected today by a narrow margin.

Unlike a lot of other predictions, the idea that he will lose the popular vote doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If anything, I would bet that Romney could win without the popular vote, just as Bush did in 2000.

Here's my 270towin map:

Blast from the past:


Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush

By RON SUSKIND

Published: October 17, 2004

...



In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''