Delaware and Maryland aren't going to get the worst of it. Weep for Jersey. Or Long Island, who knows. Anyhow, it's the places north and east of where the center comes ashore.

But I won't weep for the value of Jersey and New York's electoral contribution, which should still be intact.

If it disproportionately hit NYC vs. upstate (and that's plausible), that could be a problem. The city doesn't tend to be paralyzed by tropical storms. But I've never been here when there was significant flooding.

Surely, there must be better ways to compensate for occasional, localised disasters than the electoral college?

Anyway, perhaps many of us could benefit from spending the weekend away from the election.

4: I can't think of any better alternatives in years when the electoral college stands to benefit the Democratic candidate.

It'll be sucky if it sits over eastern Pennsylvania for a while.

Good thing we got rid of all those mechanical voting machines!

I keep wanting to make some Operation Desert Storm joke, because Sandy, but I can't think of anything funny. (That's never stopped me before, zing!)

NJ is making a constant stream of "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" jokes. Because maybe Asbury Park will cease to exist! (Probably not.)

5: Hurricanes generally hit the bible belt! God hates Republicans as a general rule.

Everything bad relentlessly hits the bible belt, because that's what happens when you spend the past 150 implementing policies designed to promote inequality and screw the less fortunate, and you are now filled with people who are less fortunate.

So more people can be screwed. It's all about scaling up.

I can't think of any better alternatives in years when the electoral college stands to benefit the Democratic candidate.

If Congress saw high voter turnout as a social good it could mandate postponement of Election Day in case of natural disaster. Also early voting may blunt the impact (to what extent is it available in the states to be affected?).

Also, at what point are the media storm nicknames going to get so ridiculous we refuse to use them on a day-to-day basis?

13: That rule would let them dick with timing for partisan reasons.

Wouldn't that be weird and hilarious if an independent, non-partisan body oversaw our elections?

14: I feel like it's still doable, if not in current politics. Require a certain expert-determined level of disaster (intensity for earthquakes, designation for storms, etc.).

How many inches of snow equals a point on the Richter scale?

Both can be converted to mouse-orgasms for a proper comparison.

Mice perv on anything.

Christ, now you people are converting the joy children get from playing in the show into units of "mouse orgasms"? Is there no limit to your depravity?

Toronto's going to be west enough to be fine, yes? Someone let me know if that changes (yes I know we can Google, but you have tv updates and so on), because my younger two are about 40 miles west of Toronto this week.

I thought that when snow falls, mice go to children for a slow rub?

Only to get warm heebie!!! You have a dirty mind *tut*

I grew up in sunny Florida, where there are no snow mice perversions. I can only imagine what depravities the rest of you get up to.

21. This map has it hitting Toronto on Wednesday or thereabouts. But it'll have had to cross the whole of New York/Pennsylvania by then, so it'll have lost a lot of power. I'm pretty sure the city fathers will know what to advise in good time.

How many electoral votes does Toronto get?

As many as the Pope has divisions.

So, you know, if you give the Pope an army Toronto's electoral importance will increase accordingly.

13: Also early voting may blunt the impact (to what extent is it available in the states to be affected?).

Maryland's early voting started today; word is the lines are quite long. Churches, especially black churches, are doing a big "souls to the polls" thing after services tomorrow, with buses bringing people to the polls.

If anything, though, the storm will blunt the early voting, more than the election-day turnout (which favors Republicans).

Early voting is awesome. I voted like three weeks ago.

I'm a little worried that the storm might knock out the subway system--not for its effect on the election, but because it would just suck.

I wish early voting had started earlier here! The only thing I'm still undecided on is expanded gambling in Maryland.

Apparently, the West Virginia casino owners are funding the Maryland gambling opposition.

33: I know; they're apparently the sole anti-MD gambling funders. That's actually the thing that makes me wonder. On the anti- side, we have the fear/suspicion/claim that the monies from expanded gambling which are to go to schools will actually not be *added* to the school budget, but will just replace the currently budgeted amount (the old switcheroo that's happened in many states over time). On the pro-side, we have ads featuring our Dem. governor, the Dem. mayor of Baltimore, and many, many schoolteachers saying that no, that switcheroo won't happen, it's written into the law that it can't.

More research is needed. On the anti- side, there's also the observation that expanded gambling revenues are essentially regressive. True.

Almost everyone I've informally polled is going to vote no.

Well, given how much they botched the last round of expanded gambling in Maryland, why not let them try again?

Are they still claiming that expanded gambling is supposed to save the horse racing industry? Because it was pretty funny last time how exactly 0 casinos ended up at Maryland race tracks.

Heh. A friend used to work for the city planning dept. here, and his objection is essentially that: gambling revenue is not a good basis for essential funding, and the monied interests involved seriously cannot be trusted, 'cuz look what happened last time.

It's just that the pro- ads (O'Malley and city mayor Rawlings-Blake) keep insisting that they've got that covered, seriously they really do.

And anti- ads are so clearly engaged in making you afraid, very afraid. I honestly don't know what to think.

36: Nah. It's all about additional funding for schools. The new gambling facilities wouldn't have anything to do with the racetrack: there's a massive mini-village compound thingy proposed to be built in Prince George's county by some big-time developer. A whole new situation. The developer runs pro- ads standing around at the proposed site (maybe wearing a hard hat) and gesturing his arms around saying, 'We're ready to go! Ready to break ground! Jobs!'

Of course the developer will be getting huge tax breaks.

Puts a bad taste in one's mouth, it does.

3, 31 The Times had an article saying that they'll probably shut down the subway system. It shouldn't affect voting since everybody in NYC is within walking distance of their polling place and in any case the election is a week after the storm.

I took the OP to be a hypothetical where the storm was late enough or big enough to affect election day. This storm, I'm not betting on anything more than nasty rain that might shut down the subway for half a day.

I think the main thing with this storm is to avoid being on a fishing boat with George Clooney.

The effects will mostly be felt in areas with trees, and in coastal/watery areas. Storm drains backing up (some roads impassable). Lots of downed trees, meaning downed power lines and blocked roads, because the rain is going to last so long and soak the ground -- trees, they fall down.

PA is going to have a hard time, it looks like. Is that still a battleground state? Do you guys have early voting?

Do you guys have early voting?

No, we decided to go with racist buffoons in state government instead.

Early voting is an interesting issue. It doesn't seem to even be a possibility here. I can't remember anybody proposing it or even suggesting that it might be valuable for some reason. My general impression of early voting has been that it's something that exists in Oregon for weird Oregon reasons and maybe one other state. But people keep posting on Facebook that they have already voted in Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, all kinds of places.

How was it introduced in these places?

Re: the Electoral College: When Josh Marshall is on, he's on.

Marshall is on now, but is he hardened sufficiently to bear 12 inches of rain, high winds, and near freezing temperatures?

45: It's gotten pretty common. The most populous states without it are New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and Massachusetts.

44: So sorry. Well, hey, maybe the suburbs will be without power for a whole week, while the cities will be able to vote on election day. Silver lining and all that, JP.

45: Oregon is all by mail. I talked to my Dad about getting an absentee ballot, and he said that he enjoyed going down to the polling place. I like early voting, but I don't think I would like a system that was entirely by mail.

49: Well, it will be the Philly suburbs likely to be most affected which have been electorally reasonable unlike the racist fucking exurban goobers here in Western Pa.

The racist urban goobers still lean D.

51: You guys have got to do something about your situation, man. Early voting.

It's just that the pro- ads (O'Malley and city mayor Rawlings-Blake)

Fucking Martin O'Malley. I was so impressed with the Democrats for blocking casinos under Ehrlich, and then, BAM, a Democrat gets elected, and the casinos start opening.

53: Well at least it looks like we're not quite stupid or bigoted enough to vote for a soulless creature of finance a mere four years after the finance sector nearly took us all down the drain.

I don't like systems that make it easy to vote by mail or any other way that isn't at a polling place. The secret ballot matters.

54: I'm not sure what O'Malley is thinking, no. That's one reason I'm confused. It's so obvious that the general public is not privvy to the full information, so we're supposed to make our best guess, which is rather infuriating.

I don't like systems that make it easy to vote by mail or any other way that isn't at a polling place. The secret ballot matters.

This is an important criticism of Vote-by-mail, but honestly the convenience is great. Not just being able to vote early, but being able to stop in the middle of the ballot and look up issues or candidates or ask questions of friends.

I liked going to the poling place, but now that I've done vote-by-mail for a couple of elections I like it, and I'd want to see evidence of vote-selling before that would convince me to change.

Even Texas has early voting. Even us.

Every time somebody tries to make it easier to cast a ballot, I think of how the path to avoiding dimpled chads lead to electronic machines with no paper trail or check.

Every time somebody tries to make it easier to cast a ballot, I think of how the path to avoiding dimpled chads lead to electronic machines with no paper trail or check.

Every time MH makes a double comment I think of thai furries on i-phones.

Either there's a backstory I'm unaware of or teraz has a rich, rich inner life.

I have a droid phone and an iPod, but no iPhone.

Having just looked at the link in 46, yeah. Marshall should speak so more often.

context

context

Aw, too bad about your inner life of deprivation.

46: Wow. Time to tackle the Real Issues here: has Josh Marshall undergone 15 years of apparent aging in half that actual time or is it just me?

I don't know what you looked like fifteen years ago.

But 25 years ago, Castock was adorable.

I don't know what Marshall looked like 7 years ago, but I was surprised, yes. It just looks like he's gone bald and entered middle age. Things can go that way. Life goes on.

Marshall went from having a very flattering profile photo when he was an average butt-ugly mid-thirties blogger to having a fairly accurate profile photo as a mid-forties editor.

Remind me never to ask you for an opinion about my photo.

I assume LC has in mind this photo that topped TPM c. 2004. I remember being a bit suprised that he looks more like this. But though years have passed, I think it's more that the original photo was well chosen than that Marshall has been ravaged by time.

73 probably gets it right. Also I think Marshall and his partner have a couple of young kids now. That's practically like being president or something, in terms of what it does to your physical aspect, exhaustedness level, and what not.

Are you fucking people seriously dissecting what Josh Marshall looks/looked/might look like? He's not an actor, he's not a television personality, and he's certainly not a model. Given that, why do you care?

you fucking people

Assumed facts not in evidence.

I think it's just surprise that he appears to have aged so much in so little time, VW. It's a natural response to the reminder that fellmonger Death gets every skin.

78: fair point. People here have aged too much and become too fat to fuck. Or maybe I'm just thinking of myself.

I mean, apparently he appears thus. I'm too above it all to keep track of his appearance.

But now I'm agéd
You're out of luck
I'm posting on the blog
Too fat to fuck

79: have I mentioned my recently acquired pronounced limp? I need no reminders that time and tide wait for no man.

I've recently acquired a headache.

I think a limp is a far more novel excuse for not fucking than is a headache, heebie, which is rather banal.

I only limp going down the stairs. Stupid tendons.

Indeed, a limp would not necessarily interfere with the fucking process at all, depending on various other factors.

It takes a banal excuse to avoid banal sex.

a limp is a [...] excuse for not fucking

Try again.

87: Right. There's always oral.

82 is funny.
Anyway, Wafer, you have a couple kids, so, duh, of course you are a grotesque hag-man. QED.

90: Yes, but you've got to sell it right.

89 -- also funny!

If godzilla came ashore at one of our proud cities on election day, what then? Our primary concern regarding natural disasters should always be their effect on the electoral college, right heebie?

55 is the most disturbing one-sentence summary about the election I've seen so far.

94 makes a good point. It's not like the identity of the President of the United States is of much importance.

Right, Walt. It's not the government's responsibility to prepare for natural disasters or mitigate their effects; the time is better spent figuring out how disasters can aid our chances of election and/or provide coverage for what looks to be (for some) a crushing loss.

Text, don't be an ass.

I just can't help it, nosey flow.

Try, text. For me.

78: assumes facts not in evidence

I refute it thus.... laydeez.

but why?

oh, fine.

48 45: It's gotten pretty common. The most populous states without it are New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and Massachusetts.

Contrary to what your link says, I wasn't asked for an excuse for absentee voting in Massachusetts, except to the extent that the form had some disclaimer about who was supposed to be able to vote absentee.

I wasn't asked for an excuse for absentee voting in Massachusetts, except to the extent that the form had some disclaimer about who was supposed to be able to vote absentee.

Did you fall into any of those categories, or do they just not enforce the requirement? This seems to say it's only for reasons of absence, disability, or religious belief.

104: I'm going to be out of town. I just don't see how they can enforce it. The form you link doesn't ask for any explanation. It does include a warning about a fine, but how would they know?

I've never voted by absentee ballot, but I'm fairly certain they aren't making you show an airplane ticket or anything.

My parents, who are retired and traveling in an RV, failed to settle on an address to which I could mail their absentee ballots, so they won't be voting. Also, they're going to be in Virginia during the storm, I think.

105: they track blog comments.

I've done vote-by-mail for a couple of elections I like it, and I'd want to see evidence of vote-selling before that would convince me to change.

The NYT had a story about problems with absentee ballots recently.

It's nothing that couldn't be solved by allowing OSCE monitors to do random checks of people's homes and workplaces, though. I could see Thomas Friedman defending the monitoring campaign: "You think we're going to give up these ballots without checking that they're filled out freely and fairly? Well, vote on this, ok."

103, 105: Voter fraud!

Is vote selling really more likely in vote-by-mail systems? Either way you have to convince large numbers of people to do something fraudulent and against basic American values.

||

The Yale history prof I'm listening to just described Theodora, the consort of the Emperor Justinian, as having been an "amateur, semi-pro or perhaps professional prostitute."

Aren't we all amateur prostitutes?

|>

Oh, I wouldn't commit voter fraud. I'm going to be too busy wasting taxpayer dollars so I can go on a junket to look at Renaissance art and eat gelato.

You don't need to get verification from everyone to enforce it - just maybe occasionally follow up, issue a few fines, and publicize it. And just calling it early voting rather than absentee voting, even if there's no difference in enforcement, is a qualitative difference; GOTV workers will usually avoid telling people to break the law, for example.

I'm going to be too busy wasting taxpayer dollars so I can go on a junket to look at Renaissance art and eat gelato.

Oh shit, essear is actually Matt Verilek.

GOTV workers will usually avoid telling people to break the law, for example

"Look, I can't tell you to ingest them -- they're specifically sold not to be consumed. But if you're putting them in your bath because it's not salty enough you're not getting the point, that's all I'm saying. Anyhow, need a ride election day?"

114: I deny that I have ever eaten corndogs in a swanky setting.

111: Not all amateurs are unpaid. Not all the unpaid are amaterus.

But no unpaid are prostitutes.

Is vote selling really more likely in vote-by-mail systems?

I'm not worried about selling, I'm worried about pressure. Employers have taken to passing out suggestions about how to vote, but with secret ballots they can't know how anybody voted.

Is vote selling really more likely in vote-by-mail systems? Either way you have to convince large numbers of people to do something fraudulent and against basic American values.
Given the number of businesses suggesting their employees vote a certain way if they know what's good for them, I'm less enthusiastic about the lack of a secret ballot.

The ballot is still secret. You fill in the bubble and drop the paper in a mailbox of take it to a government office, and no one knows.

119: What came to my mind was people filling out ballots for family members.

121: Not if you're pressured to fill it out in front of other people.

I don't think vote-selling/vote-extortion is very likely under vote-by-mail systems, but it's easily possible in a manner that voting booths prevent.

You can't sell your vote at an ordinary polling place without the connivance of the people running the polling place, because there's no way for the purchaser to check that you voted the way you said you would, so they won't pay. Vote-by-mail, someone can watch you fill it out and drop it in the mail, and not pay until they know you've done it right. I think slightly more realistic than vote-selling is vote-extortion: "Let's all of us [employees/members of some organization] sit down together here and fill out our ballots. Everyone's voting for Chad Ourguy, right? I'll just be walking around to make sure we're all on the same page with that. I sure am glad we don't have anyone here voting for Darla Demonspawn."

And there I was feeling silly because Moby had pwned me by six minutes.

Everyone's voting for Chad Ourguy, right?

Fucking Chad.

I sure am glad we don't have anyone here voting for Darla Demonspawn.

Delia, technically.

But helpy-chalk remained confused. And I was much more verbose than all the rest of you put together, which makes up for the pwnage.

124.last is pretty much what I was thinking of.

Topical!

I feel like genuine vote-selling isn't actually that much harder with in-person voting, given the existence of camera phones / Google Glasses.

It's certainly true that the social pressure thing is easier with vote-by-mail. On the other hand, you can always go "Oops, we were doing that today? I already mailed in my ballot yesterday..."

given the existence of [...] Google Glasses.

Do they actually exist at this point?

It looks like they exist as prototypes but won't be going on sale for another year or two.

I will happily believe that when I see it.

Aargh. I am *trying* to send my brother a copy of the letter I received from the *police department* in NH saying that they responded to an alarm call at my mom's house about a week ago, and yo we're supposed to have the house alarm system registered with them, we need a permit for that, and (a) of course we did not know that, so thanks for not fining us $100, and (b) is there a reason the letter from the police department says "dog on premises"? Because there is not supposed to be any dog.

My internet connection appears to be spotty. I think I've sent my brother half of this thing now.

133: That is of course your prerogative, but the relevant feature in this case is the easy one (a tiny camera), not the hard ones (a usable display and corresponding IO).

111.3: With what clients?

1997 Miami mayoral contest overturned due to absentee ballot fraud.

And of course absentee balloting is one of the "remedies" that the racist fuckwad goobers in my fair commonwealth point to when people point out how fucked their fucking voter ID law is.

95.1: Paraphrased form Charles Pierce.

I think this is the only argument I've ever heard in favor of the electoral college. But I am not sure I buy it. I find it odd, for example, the idea that Delaware "deserves" a certain amount of political power, as a state, and that the people of that state are somehow disenfranchised if they don't cast enough votes. I feel disenfranchised at nearly every election, because I live in a red state and vote blue. But my standing lack of power is apparently okay, as it is built into the electoral college system. But a one-time event that might result in temporary lack of power for one state, that would be disastrous? Isn't the relative power of each state entirely dependent on the electoral college system anyway?

The storm is an argument for early voting, or extended voting if your state is in a state of emergency, but not for the electoral college. Making it possible for everyone to vote is the imperative. Distributing political power as if people voted when they really didn't seems to be the opposite, to me. What am I missing?

I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to make wrenae's point, but it sounds right to me. The argument in the post only works if you take seriously the idea that states are meaningful entities deserving of political representation in their own right, as opposed to semi-arbitrary divisions of an overall national electorate made up of individual people who's personal political representation is of primary importance. Many people do take this idea seriously, of course, but my general impression has been that it's not very widely held here at Unfogged.

134: Maybe the dog broke in.

135: I don't think the cameraphone allows for reliable voteselling. You can take a picture of a ballot and then change it after the picture is taken. It depends on the specific voting technology, but I don't think there's anything I've ever voted on where a picture would both show how I voted and that the vote had been irrevocably cast.

I suppose video would do it, but that seems much more cumbersome.

My vote is for sale. Just putting that out there in case James O'Keefe is listening.

He's just not that into you.

My vote-by-mail ballot just arrived after I remembered to register after having moved (twice) on the last day one could do such things in CA! Someone remind me what propositions are good/not terrible and what propositions are bad/terrible, pls.

Ohio State beat Penn State which, aside from being good in its own right, also makes people In Ohio happy which may help the incumbent.

145: Drum just had something that seemed relatively sensible. Ah, here it is. I'm not convinced he's right about a couple of those, but I'm not convinced he's wrong either.

What am I missing?

This is a really good question.

140: The argument in the post only works if you take seriously the idea that states are meaningful entities deserving of political representation in their own right, as opposed to semi-arbitrary divisions of an overall national electorate made up of individual people who's personal political representation is of primary importance.

I'm not going to put this very felicitously.

Regions are important. We wouldn't want to do away with states/regions: they have governors and such whose mandate is to look after the best interests of those regions. I simply don't want a popular vote on matters to do with coastal fishing off the north Atlantic to be decided by people in South Dakota.

Are we talking about getting rid of states, or just getting rid of the electoral college for presidential elections? How does Congressional representation work if we get rid of states?

I appear to find this frustrating.

145: This has some good rundowns, which I endorse except for 37 (I'm very lukewarmly in favor) and 38 (doesn't really make sense to vote yes if you also vote yes on 30). The most important to approve is 30; the objectively terrible ones are 32 and 33.

Von Wafer is withholding his own recommendations until he gets some bids from the various sides.

149: I'm even more lukewarmly opposed to 37 than you are in favor. But I agree that voting for 38 and 30 seems weird and possibly even ill considered. Mostly I wish we had an opportunity to vote on getting rid of the death penalty -- but only after ritualized cleansing of the electorate's appetite for revenge by putting Molly Munger to death by pressing.

Looks like he got some.

That was rather poorly written, it's true (Vicodin is not the writer's friend). But the point is that Molly Munger should be crushed to death beneath huge stones before this state gets rid of the death penalty once and for all.

Couldn't she just be crushed under huge stones after the state gets rid of the death penalty as an unpunished act of vigilantism?

I'm having a hard time with the syntax of that sentence, neb, but I think I'm on board with what you're proposing.

Initiatives may be problematic in various ways, but I'm pretty sure they don't actually count as vigilantism.

Are we talking about getting rid of states, or just getting rid of the electoral college for presidential elections?

Only the latter. I wouldn't want to abolish states, just the red state vs blue state false dichotomy that emerges during the presidential election. We're all just varying shades of purple states, la la la, hold hands and skip, etc.

We wouldn't want to do away with states/regions: they have governors and such whose mandate is to look after the best interests of those regions.
We wouldn't? States hit a nice sweet spot where they're too big to be accountable but too small to be noticeable.

And why should urban areas be ruled by the hinterlands? Or vice versa, if you want to be extremely charitable.

158 is wrong in both respects.

I thought it was important to vote no on 38 because in the unlikely event that more than one of the budget initiatives gets a majority, the one with the most yes votes will win. I confess I don't really understand the budget initiatives; only that if 30 doesn't pass that will be really bad.

I'm probably going to vote yes on 37. And also I'm voting no on 34, even though I'm opposed to the death penalty. I really wish we could get rid of this stupid initiative system.

Surely someone's thought of proposing an initiative to get rid of the initiative system (or at least require that initiatives pass with 2/3)

Okay, some states might be closer to the right size population than others. Montana, for instance.

161: Why no on 34?

California should have a constitutional convention, I think. Increase the assembly by 10x. Get rid of the stupid shit, and make initiatives harder.

If every state had the population of Montana, there would be 300 of them. Which might not be a bad idea. I don't actually have particularly strong opinions about these issues.

(Early mail-in voting is great, by the way. And my county elections office has a website where you can search and make sure they got your ballot.)

164. My understanding is that practical effects of Prop 34 on death row inmates would be negative. Although there are lots of people on death row, the number of people California actually executes is very low. Meanwhile, death row inmates have an automatic right to state-funded attorneys for habeas appeals. Those opportunities to appeal -- and to bring the truth to light where a prisoner has been wrongly convicted -- would disappear if the death penalty is abolished.

158 and 159 confuse me. I certainly think that California should be divided into three or even five states. And the Mid-Atlantic should be merged: what's known as Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) should be one. That's because they have similar interests, chiefly environmental, to do with the coastal and Chesapeake Bay areas. Pennsylvania is involved as well, environmentally. It's about water.

I can't figure out what 158 is talking about. I understand that state lines are rather arbitrary, and it's somewhat ridiculous that California or Texas is huge while Maryland or Massachusetts is teeny. Yes.

As I've mentioned before, one of the ballot questions in Alaska this year asks whether there should be a constitutional convention. This is because of a provision in the current constitution requiring that the question be put to the voters every 10 years. Most "serious" people have been arguing for a no vote this time, but I'm inclined to vote yes anyway.

All of 169 is confusing me. The Chesapeake should become a super-state. But California should be balkanized. And Maryland and Massachusetts are teeny.

More important, 168, the Berkeley Death Penalty Clinic strongly disagrees with you and wants you to vote yes on 34.

I used to know even less about Hawaii's politics than I do about Alaska's. That's no longer true.

Can you gaze into Putin's soul from your verandah? Do Alaskans have verandahs? (That's how little I know.)

I'd think at least some Alaskans have a verandah but that it isn't required.

Do Alaskans have verandahs?

Some do.

Anyway, who's been telling you about Hawaiian politics?

171: Dude, look at the map. If you combine Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, they don't become a gigantic super-state. Meanwhile, California is gigantic, and its interests don't mesh. Northern CA, with the redwood forests, have little in common with southern CA. Why is your state so riven by partisan divides?

I know that it would be best if we can all get along on a national level, and that is hopefully everyone's goal.

168: I realize the system is set up to give a lot more aid to those seeking exoneration if they've been sentenced to death, but keeping the death penalty purely to keep providing them with that assistance seems like very odd priority-setting. If you think they should be given this aid even when their sentences are reduced to life, shouldn't other people originally given life get that aid too? And why should we keep the death penalty around going forward when we know it's such a mess? And is preserving this existing aid worth $100 million a year? (Questions of basic morality aside.)

I understand why some death row inmates personally would prefer a chance at full exoneration over certain life imprisonment, but a lot of them aren't actually seeking exoneration and presumably therefore are not talking to the press about their preferences. Also, that preference is arguably irrational (people become relatively risk-tolerant when the outcomes are a huge loss versus a small loss).

Why is your state so riven by partisan divides?

Urban-rural divides, just like in Oregon and Washington! (LA is blue now.) Maybe the policy status quo would shift a little if California were bisected, but I think it would stay just as bitterly divided.

Also it's completely ridiculous to suggest that dividing California into three or five states constitutes balkanizing it. Unless you think that having teeny states is balkanization, in which case, look at the map.

I'm curious what political problems would be solved by Delaware signing their autonomy over to Virginia and Maryland.

179: I was going to divide it in half horizontally, and in half vertically.

176: my brother- and sister-in-law moved back there (she's a native but not a native).

I'm curious what political problems would be solved by Delaware signing their autonomy over to Virginia and Maryland.

Less extortionate toll booths on I-95.

181: No signing over of autonomy. This is fantasy-land, in which we rewrite state lines.

There are already regional partnership agreements. It's a tough go between Maryland (strongly blue state) and Virginia (red state). New England states are doing regional partnership agreements as well, in some cases with Canadian provinces.

182: There's fuck-all in the southeast quarter. More meaningful might be South, North Coast, and Central Valley.

But parsimon is all about the bio-regions, so what we really need to do is bisect the state north and south and then graft the northern part onto Ecotopia -- or whatever we're going to call what used to be the coastal Northwest. Of course that state will be huge, which is also a problem for parsimon, so it will have to be no wider than Israel. And given that, we'd better bring in US peacekeepers from the get-go.

she's a native but not a native

Is that what they call "local" there? I know a little bit about Hawaii, but very little.

This thread is really validating my general policy of ignoring parsimon.

Actually, that should make President Romney happy, so I think we're a go.

OT: I just watched Valhalla Rising and it didn't make much sense at all. I think it's Denmark's fault, but it could be my own.

188: yes, that's right. She's Chinese-Hawaiian by birth. And she married my wife's brother, who's a Jew from Massachusetts. So their kids are hapa, which is about as cool as it gets (unless you're on the North Shore or some of the outer islands, in which case being local-local is where it's at). It's a pretty fascinating place, though it freaked me out to be in the middle of nowhere. I mean, seriously, you're on a rock in the middle of the Pacific. It's just weird.

The rock is at least growing.

It's a pretty fascinating place, though it freaked me out to be in the middle of nowhere. I mean, seriously, you're on a rock in the middle of the Pacific. It's just weird.

Yeah, it sounds like a really interesting place. I've been hearing about it more lately because it's sort of the default place Alaskans go in the winter. Given that, I'm sure I'll get there at some point.

I just watched another anti-30 ad funded by Molly Munger. Holy shit, this is one hell of a vanity project for her. When both 38 and 30 go down, it's going to be pretty devastating. Thanks, Molly!

Debating how to combine or divide states introduces too much room for partisan bickering. We should just pick a well-defined clustering algorithm, get a reasonably reliable map of population density, and let a computer design the appropriate state boundaries.

Isn't that guy's idea for Europe that you'd have a bunch of 5 million person countries? If we did that here we'd have around 60 states or so. That seems like a good number. Alaska could be part of AlMoNoSoDakHo.

This is the first time I've watched live tv in a very long time. It's wall-to-wall political commercials. And they're all for Republicans. Every last one of them. I'm pretty sure that one of them just said that the only answer to California's problems is to cut the state into 37 pieces. That will break the partisan gridlock in Sacramento.

If Alaska's going to be combined with any other states it should definitely be Washington, or whichever successor to Washington contains Seattle.

And now it sounds like it's going to pour on Halloween. The only good part of having a pronounced limp is taking it out for a stroll on Halloween, and now that's going to be ruined.

Alaska will be combined with Russia, naturally. Or perhaps with Japan (see the Tanaka Memorial*).

* Which I only recently learned was probably faked.

189: Whoa. I had no idea. Duly noted.

Russia would make sense, yes, as would Hawaii (though Alaska and Hawaii combined still wouldn't come close to the 5 million threshold). Judging by my neighborhood South Korea would also be a viable option.

Or Canada, but at this point they probably wouldn't take us.

Well if we're crossing national boundaries, then obviously Alaska would benefit most from combination with its analogous Canadian province, with an exclave on the coast of France, for the cuisine. Its new name would be AlHavNunavut.

South Korea

Really? See, that's fascinating to me.

205 is a horrible beauty.

193

The rock is at least growing.

Until it isn't.

Yeah, Anchorage seems to have a substantial Korean population, and there's an area near me that seems to be the main Korean commercial district. It's not clear how many Koreans actually live in this area now, but most of the businesses definitely seem to be catering to a Korean clientele.

Anchorage also has a large Samoan population. They mostly live in a different neighborhood, though.

Meanwhile the important news: Giants 2 Tigers 0.

It's not clear how many Koreans actually live in this area now...

They just finished a census. You could probably look it up.

Samoans have a huge (just don't) community in Hawaii as well. South Koreans not so much, I don't think. Still, I don't think of Alaska as a destination for Pacific Islanders. I'm sure this makes me racist in a de Gobineau sort of way.

(just don't)

I almost did to 210, but decided against it.

I'm finding 189 truly obnoxious, teo. Fair enough, I suppose; you ignore the people you ignore.

That is, I'm going to bed.

I don't think of Alaska as a destination for Pacific Islanders.

My understanding is that they're mostly drawn here by jobs in the fish-processing industry. Same for Filipinos, who are the largest immigrant group in the state and have been for some time but have more of a presence in Southeast and Southwest Alaska than here in Southcentral.

They just finished a census. You could probably look it up.

Yeah, I know, but I haven't gotten around to it yet, and the new Census FactFinder website is really annoying and hard to use so I haven't been all that motivated to.

the new Census FactFinder website is really annoying and hard to use

God, yes. Obama's fault, I'm sure. Also, that makes sense about immigration to AK.

My understanding is that there are a lot of Korean Americans in Hawaii. But maybe VW means South Koreans, as in visa-holding nationals, or recent immigrants? There aren't very many of those, I think.

189 was rude and uncalled for.

220: I'm referring to Korean-Americans generally when talking about Alaska; not sure what VW means.

221 may well be true, but I nevertheless stand by 189.

205- Well, you could combine most of the mountain west into one region that provides sage advice for everyone here- WyIdNevOrMontNebAz.

So I did some digging in the FactFinder and the best I could come up with is that there are slightly more Samoans than Koreans in Anchorage. More geographically detailed information does not appear to be available, but it's also possible that I just can't figure out how to get to it.

220: sorry, I meant recent immigrants. My sense is that the Korean community is older and very well established. That said, I don't know enough about these issues to speak with anything like a definitive voice.

Life on the frontier has made teo hard.

Also, I don't really want to get into an argument about this, because I feel like I'm somewhat overstating my opposition to Prop 34 (I've been flipping back and forth on it, and may well vote yes come Tuesday), but the thing is this. I oppose the death penalty, but I feel much more strongly about the horrific conditions in prison generally. Life without parole as practiced in California is basically a sentence to torture for the rest of one's life. Prop 34 does nothing to ameliorate this, and it may worsen this situation for a few people. I understand that we could end the death penalty and then work to improve prison conditions, but honestly, is that going to happen? The occasional successful habeas petition is one of the few times that Californians are called to remember the fact that we are warehousing a huge population of our people in a terrible terrible way. Prop 34 would give that up. In exchange, the death penalty would come to an end. That's a good thing certainly, but in terms of hard numbers it's a small good thing-- we've only executed 13 people in the last 35 years.

Again, I don't want to overstate my opposition -- I don't disagree with what Minivet says above. I change my mind on this one and the GMO one every couple of days. Seriously, I hate the initiative system.

I've only skimmed this report, but it seems to contain a lot of interesting information. Specific to Alaska, it says that the statewide Pacific Islander population has doubled between 2000 and 2010 and that Anchorage has the highest percentage of Pacific Islanders of any county(-equivalent) outside of Hawaii.

I'm reading this thread through tears and bourbon, but let me just say I am on team execute Molly Munger.

After that's done, though, it seems to me that abolishing the death penalty by initiative (which, to be clear, I don't think will happen) would send such an overwhelming and unexpected signal that humane punishment policy can also be popular that it could only help to alleviate the horrible incarceration/prison gang/street gang death lock system we have now.*

*In which, to be clear, our major "mafias" are basically insurance against horrible prison conditions -- if you're a crook and kick up to the Mexican Mafia, you know that in your inevitable stint in prison you have your get out of rape free card.

I would suggest the symbolism of a loss on this would be way, way worse for prison reform than any slight practical negative effects. (I'm not in California, so I dunno, but that is my feeling.)

||

Squirrels celebrate Halloween, but not in a way we can understand.

|>

227: Laydeez.

If only there were some laydeez up here.

Maybe you should look for your local noraebang.

Maybe I should.

Echoing 230.2/231: On prison/sentencing policy, I think there is so much inertia we should welcome forward motion of any kind whatsoever, and worry about any countereffects or resulting gaps later.

My current bout of insomnia has me looking up details on Faithless Electors and the various state laws. Let's say you need to swing 5 or fewer and you're Sheldon Adelson and 10 of his buds.

Stormcrow, dude, you need to stop obsessing about this stuff.

238 is way too awesome to ever actually happen.

239: Thank you. But it happened to be what I woke up thinking about. Unhealthy? Sure. This election has me in more of a rage than usual. I knew I should have signed up for that South American knitting cruise...(or maybe one that took place the two weeks before the election).

And you're right the precise place where we happen to be on the downward spiral to a complete Corporatocracy is really not that material.

I told them I don't even know anybody in Toronto.

Natilo understands. The ROI would be phenomenal.

I'm sorry but I don't feel awful
It wasn't the end of the world

241: Dude, listening to you rant is the best part of this election. It's angry poetry. When the history books on "The Decline and Fall of the United States of America" are written, they should plagiarize 55.

Sheesh, you guys. Some of us are planning to live for another 50 or 60 years, you know. Dire prophecies sound a little different in that context.

Anyway, Obama is still probably going to win this election, and his second term is probably going to be underwhelming compared to the first (because that's what usually happens). After that, who knows?

244.1: My rage is mostly for my kids and people like you, you fucking undeserving cunt. And of course you are right, Mr. Oh So Reasonable Beyond Your Years. The flip side of wonder is angst. Walt understands.

Huh. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to drain all the wonder from the world.

Somewhat on topic: Saw Seven Psychopaths earlier tonight. It worked quite well for me, probably in part because I went in with a completely mistaken view of what it was "about" (knew nothing of it apart from one 30-second ad I had seen). Had a discussion/argument afterwards revolving around its spectacular failure to meet the Bechdel test, but possible redemption through the meta-Bechdel test.

My recommendation is to go see it, but don't read any reviews or semi-spoilers on blogs beforehand and certainly not this interview with Martin McDonagh (it's best if you don't even know it is his film--like I didn't).

I'm all for executing the initiative system and then desecrating Hiram Johnson's grave. My default position on all initiatives is No, and then I look for reasons to vote yes. So I'll vote yes on 30, 34 and and I haven't really looked at the others yet besides seeing no reason to vote yes on anything having to do with the budget other than 30.

Don't we elect people to specialize in this kind of policymaking?

I think the Mungers have spent something like $75 million, over $44 million for Molly on yes on 38 and $30 million for Charles on no on 30. Fortunately, political science has discovered no connection between campaign finance and electoral outcomes. Around $25 million in the last week or so.

I'm going to pretend those sentences were in the proper order.

Also, California isn't really that divided if you take partisan divide to mean something close to 50-50. There's just very little in the way of majority rule. Party registration might be closer since so many people decline to state a party affiliation, but in terms of elected officials it's pretty Democratic.

||This storm is set to make landfall at my mom's house. For real -- that's what it says on the news "Oudemia's Mom's House." Fuuuuck.|>

This thread has moved on, but I have to say that I wish that there was somewhere that I could vote early without requesting an absentee ballot and see my ballot go into the machine. I suppose that that could be a burden on my town.

*In which, to be clear, our major "mafias" are basically insurance against horrible prison conditions -- if you're a crook and kick up to the Mexican Mafia, you know that in your inevitable stint in prison you have your get out of rape free card.

Can you spell out what you mean here? I'm sure that I'm a little thick, but I don't exactly follow what you're saying.

253 was obviously addressed to Tigre in 230, which I am writing out now, only because he might be more likely to answer my question if he sees his sexy, sexy name.

||
Good grief, does any male making public statements about conception have any idea how things work? Thomas Friedman today:

And there is no way that respect for the sanctity life can mean we are obligated to protect every fertilized egg in a woman's ovary, no matter how that egg got fertilized, but we are not obligated to protect every living person from being shot with a concealed automatic weapon.

|>

Prisoners who affiliate themselves with prison gangs are protected by the gangs from the prisoner-on-prisoner violence that is very common otherwise. This makes the prison gangs powerful, because every prisoner has a powerful motivation to join.

255: WOW.

every fertilized egg in a woman's ovary, no matter how that egg got fertilized,

Ouch.

It's kind of reminding me of those crazy dermoid tumors women sometimes get in their ovaries -- you know, and eyeball with teeth and hair or whatever. Kill it!

Thomas Friedman's 2013 book: Everything I Know About Sex I Learned in the Backseat of Taxicab.

Does no one else read this stuff before it gets published?

256: That makes sense. I was reading "Get out of rape free card" to mean that you got a chance to rape somebody without paying the consequences. If that means something else, what does it mean? Because I wasn't following the line of reasoning.

255 is really surprisingly stupid. It must have been a typo but I can't quite figure out how.

263: No, Friedman really is that clueless. I think he's actually relatively smart but he has a kind of tenuous connection to reality.

||

I'm eavesdropping on two men having a rather earnest conversation, one who is recently divorced, about being introspective and knowing oneself. One just posed the question "What would you say gives you the strongest sense of self?" to the recent divorcee, who is mulling it over. The whole thing is rather sweet and charming.

|>

So I'll vote yes on 30, 34 and and I haven't really looked at the others yet besides seeing no reason to vote yes on anything having to do with the budget other than 30.

Look at 36 and maybe 37, then. Also 39 and 40 are so uncontroversial that their "no" campaigns gave up.

I remember reading that Obama's campaign pulled out of North Carolina, but the electoral websites show NC as a tie. Has he actually stopped campaigning there?

I mean, have commercials, etc stopped airing. I know he's always in Ohio, etc.

||Tueday's Frontline looks promising.|>

267, 268: NC remains maybe a 3rd tier presence For O. Ads yes. Michelle yes. Obama no. I think Romney even doing less there (O probably trying to keep him engaged in a covering defense*)--Romney either wins it on a general tide (or the southern tide which has moved Florida and his national numbers) or he is screwed in 6 or 7 other places. Very unlikely to be the swing

It's pretty much Ohio and then every place else at this point.

*Although the massive $$s everyone has makes the strategic spend less important--more about which message you are emphasizing. For instance I'm sure Romney campaign did nothing on Murdock because they feel they can't risk any de-motiviation in the evangelical goober turnout in Ohio.

269: I think a missed message opportunity for Obama has been linking Rs and Romney to the corporate campaign $$ via the Supreme Court. "If you love the Super PACs, you'll love Romney's Supreme Court picks." Probably too much of a bank shot. But at least on the surface* there is large bi-partisan rejection of the influence of corporate money in campaigns.

*Of course since it has not arisen as an issue FoxHATE and the radio screamers haven't been out there telling the base that they're actually for it, so I'm sure it would partisan up pretty nicely.

The ads on the teevee here are insane and unceasing. (And mostly for Romney.)

I'm just excited for November because Criterion is releasing Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life" -- Decameron, Canterbury Tales and The Thousand and One Nights!!!

248: You should vote yes on Prop 36, which seeks to ameliorate our ridiculous and terrible three strikes law.

I was reading "Get out of rape free card" to mean that you got a chance to rape somebody without paying the consequences. If that means something else, what does it mean?

Like how the original "Get out of jail free card" means you get to put one of the other players in jail.

273: "You can see Doctor Who's ass!"

Try rephrasing 255 to get at Friedman's missed point.

"Every fertilized egg in a woman's uterus" does not quite get at the control of potential that the forced-birthers desire and Friedman is attacking.

"Every egg in a woman's ovaries" doesn't make it either.
Or maybe it does.

I keep wanting to insert "un-" as in every un-fertilized egg in a woman's ovary,

but then the next clause - no matter how that egg got fertilized - really wrecks that impuse.

And so I'm left with 264.

There is no uterus, just us.

277.1: Try sticking your thumbs up your ass and walking on your elbows.

Uterus?! You don't even know us!

Seriously, a guy just cut in front of me at trader joes? Why do impending storms make people insane? Is it the drop in air pressure?

A guy cut in front of me in the wine line at the symphony last night. I attributed that to asshole old person entitlement, but maybe it was the air pressure!

Line jumping has become more frequent lately. I blame the anarchists and libertarians.

No shit, though, I have sensed some pretty abrupt slippage in the tectonics of civil society lately. But I'm pretty sure that's because I'm old and gimpy. Being temporarily disabled shifts one perspective, it seems. Or maybe it's just election season, and people are inundated with advertising telling them how much the members of the other tribe are trying to screw them.

Plus, there's this storm that's apparently going to destroy California, so be prepared.

Hey! Anarchists are some of the most punctilious queuers you'll ever meet! Yuppies are the ones who are bad at lining up. Anarchists take things like keeping your right place in line VERY SERIOUSLY.

Texans take lines seriously. Or rather, Texans get into this stupid you-first-no-you-first dance forever and ever, and I always am willing to be the asshole who concedes after one round and goes first.

288: fine, then it's the hippies and the libertarians. Whoever is carrying the papier mache puppets and the inflatable Ron Paul dolls (other than PGD, I mean) at the grocery store* and Trader Joes.

* A Whole Foods just opened! Which reminded me how much I hate Whole Foods.

white people do it like this, black people do it like that.

I mean, I get that if you live in Norman, OK, as I once did, having a Whole Foods open would be a wonderful thing. But here in topless California, we don't need no stinking Whole Foods, thanks, what with its reek of faux activism and foodie sophistication. They have a sign -- maybe more than one! -- which says, "Our workers speak foodie." Oh, go fuck yourself. At the co-op down the road, the workers speak to farmers. Directly. All the time. And at the Nugget a mile away, they do everything that Whole Foods does but better. So there. I went once, yesterday, for the novelty (and because my disabled parking placard* meant I could jump the queue to get close to the front door), but I won't go again.

* Purchased from a UCLA football player.

How many people here hate grocery chains? Why? I mean I get not liking a store because it doesn't carry items you want or because you think it's overpriced. But I can't imagine the amount of displaced hostility it takes to hate a food chain when you can just as easily not go there.

Do you think perhaps we could form in bands based on our grocery store allegiances and then have a war-making pageant or something?

I guess what I'm saying is that Von Wafer should probably be sharing her Whole Foods issues with a professional. Barring that, I guess it's ok to post them on the internet.

I'm more embarrassed for the NYT copy editors than for Friedman.

The sentence makes sense, though, if you just substitute 'uterus' for 'ovary.' I'm willing to accept that this kind of word substitution is a simple slip, and not deep biological ignorance.

Has anyone mentioned the missing "of"? Sanctity OF life, surely. I'm guessing the editor hadn't had coffee yet, but that's some real bush-league stuff.

292: The nugget is an awesome supermarket. The quasi-caryatids on the outside always cracked me up.

The sentence makes sense, though, if you just substitute 'uterus' for 'ovary.'

I don't think it does make sense! "Every fertilized egg in a woman's uterus" would mean every now and then, spaced over years. I think "Every fertilized egg in her ovaries" is intended to imply way too many eggs for us to fret about individually, the way we don't fret about unfertilized eggs.

295: I hate Whole Foods, because, having worked there, I know that their working conditions suck.

300: That I can understand.

Massachusetts residents, any thoughts on the ballot questions.

(1.) Is there any reason to oppose #1? I am inclined to think that independent garages ought to be able to compete with dealers and that they can't do this if they don't know the diagnostic codes.

(2.) Death with Dignity? I have a social worker friend who worked in hospice and strongly supports this. I'm still deciding.

(3.) Medical Marijuana. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it spells out how the law will be implemented instead of leaving that to the General Court. I don't want the regulatory scheme to be an undue burden on the Department of Public Health. Does anyone have any background information on this?

I recently had the opportunity to go to the new Whole Foods in Rural Plains State, and it had an adorable hippie-ish vibe. In NYC, Whole Foods is totally intolerable, but the one here was very pleasant. I don't think snobby signage would go over well here.

I'm voting yes on all 3.

||

Lena Dunham is too young for me using the 1/2 + 7 rule. It bothers me that a successful writer-director is too young for me. I'm used to singer-songwriters being to young. But writer-directors, that's different.

|>

Does masturbation fall into the 1/2 +7 rule? I thought it was just actual relationships. Let's not be fascists.

At the very least it shouldn't be used to determine an upper bound.

Masturbation clearly follows the 18+ rule.

You didn't know about Lena Dunham and Rob Chalk? It's all over the dailies.

302, 304: I voted yes for everything. Can't say I have any particularly well-informed (or even well-formed) thoughts on them, though.

It occurs to me that I need to buy some groceries and in light of tomorrow's weather it's probably going to be a madhouse, isn't it? Sigh.

||
FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUCK. I just saw a really stupid error in one of my job app letters, already uploaded. If I withdraw the application, I can't re-apply. In the penultimate line, I name the other materials that are also attached with my letter--my CV, a dissertation abstract, and my letters of recommendation. But it's really just a list of references, which is what was asked for. So how bad is that? Could it be generously read as, these are the names of the authors of her letters of recommendation? God damn it. I fucking hate hate hate applying for jobs.
|>

312: Relax. It's not a big deal.

I have a perverse urge to go shop at Market Basket for the first time in months just to see if it gets much crazier than usual before a big storm.

312: I swear on the memory of my dearly departed grandmother -- who survived the Holocaust in hiding, so this is serious shit, yo -- that it will make no difference at all. None. I can't promise you'll get the job, but I can promise that what you describe will not make any difference one way or the other.

Unless the job is in an endowed chair of Stupid Nit-picking Shit, in which case you're screwed.

312: No one will care, especially because of the newness of the electronic application process. I had to upload a letter of recommendation four times recently.

Don't worry about it. If you are worried about it, send an explanatory e-mail to the head of the search committee, mentioning your poverty and quirks of the system.

314: I'm going to the one in Burlington in a bit. I can report back.

304 and 310: I just did some research and found out that there was a compromise bill that passed just after the deadline for removing the question from the ballot. So, now I don't know.

send an explanatory e-mail to the head of the search committee

Please don't do this* -- unless the letter can be quirky and hilarious and demonstrate that you're totally a manic panic dreamgirl.

Just *.

Maybe it was supposed to be "fertile" rather than "fertilized"? I'm not committed enough to truth (or to be honest, continued living) to look at the Friedman column to check.

320 is my general sense. Weirdly, I've only ever been offered jobs from letters I made terrible errors in. For my last position, I wrote a letter that said that I hoped "to join an environment in which I could create an environment of..." and for this position, I wrote a letter in which I misspelled my favorite author's name. I am the sort of person who is incredibly nitpicky and obsessed with careful editing, but something about the job letter makes me lose my mind.

Well, ok, don't do it. But if short and anodyne (which isn't exactly what I said), it wouldn't do any harm, any more than the initial error did.

I'm just hoping that the "blah blah blah" parts of the letter are parts they will "blah blah blah" during. A note from me would be like, "Hey, perhaps you didn't notice this boner of mine, but here's an opportunity to inspect it and consider what it says about me as a candidate."

Also, there are only 15 jobs, total, in my field this year (usually there are about three times this many by now), and of those, 10 are really super-excellent tier-one-type positions, which means, for sure, that every single person who gets a job this year will already be tenure-track somewhere else, and there will be piles of applications 300-deep or more for each one.

As I've said, I don't think not getting a job means I live on a bench next year (for a change), as my current place will consider extension, but it still sucks to look like such a dumb terrible idiot all the time.

Storm update: Drexel University has canceled classes for Monday and Tuesday.

Job letters are as awkward as adolescent boys: boners happen all the time. Unless yours was especially huge, nobody will notice and will be glad of not having their attention drawn to it.

On early voting: I just spoke to a friend who went to vote early an hour or two ago, and immediately turned around and went home (well, went to the co-op for supplies): the line was apparently out the building and halfway around the block. It sounds like in-person early voting needs some work here -- not enough polling stations.

328 is beautiful.

311: we just went to the store and it was basically fine. I think "during the Patriots game" is a good window.

I'm on line at the grocery store now. Everyone seems calm, but the place is *packed*.

I just thought of an idea for a really great harlequin-type romance novel. (Having read a lot of these with my college roommate, I have the formula pretty much down.) OK, ready? It's called "Spousal Hire," and it's about two single good-looking bookworms who are "just" friends but decide that if one gets a job this year, they'll pretend the other is their partner and angle for a position. So then they do this and show up on a campus where everyone can't stop talking about how great they are together, how obviously in love, and after a few faculty parties, they fool around a bit, and repress their major secret feelings. Then one of them drunkenly spills the beans at a party at the dean's house, saying they're not together at all, prompting confessions all around, both to the faculty and to one another, and they end up doing it and it's great and they both get tenure. The end. Right?

Wait, that's the plot of Possession, isn't it? Fuck.

330: Yes, very nice. I agree with Von W. I'd be annoyed at having to read an inconsequential explanation of an inconsequential mistake if I were swamped with applications.

That sounds more like comedic chick-lit to me. Try calling it "The Two-Buddy Problem".

333: The Cinderella Deal, by Jennifer Crusie.

Crusie herself is pretty interesting, having started to read romance novels as part of a dissertation on "the impact of gender on narrative strategies" and then becoming a writer herself.

Current headline on weather.com: "WHERE WILL TERRIFYING MONSTER STORM HIT?"

Good way to calm the public.

Maybe I'll change my evening plans to popping popcorn and watching the Weather Channel.

338: Bah. That's nothing. Philly.com has just posted a huge headline: HURRICANE TO BRING HAVOC. I've never seen such a giant font on their home page.

It's pretty calm here at present. Everyone is buzzing around getting ready, but the wind is only gusting a little and there's no rain yet.

311 I just went. The Office Max (batteries) had its normal ghost town vibe, the Pathmark was its usual level of fairly crowded. The little place with the eggs at $5/half dozen, forty dollar a pound cheeses and 12 dollar a pound pork shoulder was a madhouse with what looked to be at least a half hour line. And it's getting pretty windy out there. I'll have to go out again in a few hours for smokes.

One of the crucial aspects of harlequin-type stories is that there's some really superficial reason why the woman in the story is a virgin who has never ever ever been kissed. It's usually that she used to be a little overweight (gross!!) but then she spent a few years as a nurse in Africa and lost the weight but never got used to the idea that she could be attractive. In my book, it's going to be that she was always the hard-working one in school and never had time to consider boys, while her male colleague was having to beat women off with a stick. He's a player and she doesn't really intellectually respect him, but he's the one that gets the job, and she resents being...

THE SPOUSAL HIRE.

But he shows her, sexually, in long pornographic scenes, that she was amazing and great all along.

May I say in my own defense that I wouldn't care about whether I received an inconsequential explanation of an inconsequential error?

I'm starting to feel like the villain in this thread.

It's either me or Sandy.

338, 340 The NYT has 'East Coast Prepares for Storm's Arrival' in it's normal lead story font. Then below the stuff about all transit getting shut down through Tuesday and mandatory evacuations. Let's hope it's like the last time they did this.

343: Don't worry about it. Every good story needs a villain and you're it for this one. Bob will take over when the situation calls for nukes, exploding gas bubbles, or a complete meltdown of civilization.

Pittsburgh is in total chaos if the Harry Potter party at the library is anything to go by.

342: while her male colleague was having to beat women off with a stick

Oh, for some reason I thought the spouse was also female. I thought these were two women.

Also, "he's the one who gets the job". Jeez, AWB.

But he shows her, sexually, in long pornographic scenes, that she was amazing and great all along.

it may be tricky to get women to buy a college professor as a pornographic sex god. What will the cover photo look like? Bare-chested or in tweed?

it may be tricky to get women to buy a college professor as a pornographic sex god

You're joking, right? This is one of the great oddities of gender stereotypes--a man with a PhD is insanely hot, while a woman with a PhD is a dork.

Also, "he's the one who gets the job". Jeez, AWB.

That's a correction notice that would annoy me. I get 405 million hits on google for 'the person that' in quotes, with the first explaining that you might think that it's not grammatical, but it is.

It's grammatical, but dehumanizing. I was sort of thinking of these characters less as people and more like pegs in holes, so it's symptomatic.

350: That may be a highly localized set of views.

This is one of the great oddities of gender stereotypes--a man with a PhD a professorship is insanely hot, while a woman with a PhD is a dork.

Or so says a male friend of mine in your field, AWB. He was telling me about the shocking change in status on the dating scene when he got the professor title.

348.3: Oh gmafb.

354: Interesting. I wonder if it's also a humanities thing; all the women PhDs I know in science are well-partnered, while I know lots of male math/science PhDs who complain of being seen as lonely dorks.

Welcome to Grading-Avoidance Gender-Stereotype Fight-Picking Sunday, everybody!

Sigh. I'm going to the office.

@346

Are there any harlequin-type romances set against a backdrop of violent proletarian revolution and punctuated by lengthy didactic monologs on dialectic materialism?

If not, unfogged should take up the challenge.

356: Crucially, the guy with a humanities PhD must also have a good job. If he's un/underemployed he's an off-the-charts sadsack.

352: Yes, that was my second thought. Agreed.

He could also be independently wealthy. An underemployed PhD who can afford to be underemployed and not give a shit gets plenty of tail.

Hey, this thread is called "Electoral College", not "Elective Affinities At College".

If he's un/underemployed he's an off-the-charts sadsack.

Eh, my friend who experienced the big shift in status went from grad student at a fancy school to professor at a pretty crappy school. But he gets to teach intro poetry and Henry James all he wants, and he has enough time to write little jaunty pieces for the nearby city's alt-weekly and occasionally for Slate. He loves it.

Has anyone else here read Goethe's Elective Affinities? That book is messed up.

He could also be independently wealthy. An underemployed PhD who can afford to be underemployed and not give a shit gets plenty of tail.

I suspect that's also true of an independently wealthy guy choosing to do just about any non-remunerative job.

363: Oh, I would absolutely consider that a good job. When I said underemployed I was thinking more like desk jockey at a library or maybe adjuncting.

361 is definitely in Harlequin romance territory (I went through a 6-month period of reading a lot of them as well). He has to be rakish in some way, though it's possible that not everyone realizes how rakish he is -- he reveals it to our heroine. It's possible that he was once rakish, but something happened in his personal life such that he became a more retiring, bookish person, at least on the surface. He managed to do this in, like, 3 years.

Ha! Harlequin scenarios are so entertaining.

AWB, would more reassurance be welcome? I've been on ten or fifteen different hiring committees, in what I think is your discipline, and I've never read a boilerplate paragraph, nor heard anyone else mention it. It's not like there's some doubt about whether the candidate is including the materials we asked for, or planning on attending the MLA. And if I did notice the mistake, I'd think, right, of course, she's customizing a template and forgot to change one little detail. It's true that the process is insane, but that doesn't mean that the members of the hiring committee are.

But more importantly, doesn't your plot work better if *she* gets the job, since she was busy publishing articles while he was being a player?

or maybe adjuncting

I think the hierarchy-obsession my graduate institution marks me here, because my first thought was, But then you're not a professor!

365: Someone should see if there are any independently wealthy firemen. Maybe base a romantic comedy character off of him?

I have yet to figure out what 355's "gmafb" means.

Grab My Ass Facebook
Go Make A Flubby Bitch
Grammar Me A

I don't know.

368.last: But it's so important that there is lots of sexy resentment and hurling of insults! She did publish more, of course, and suspects that he got the job because he is charming and well-dressed at conferences. (She is shy at conferences and asks awkward questions.)

Awkward questions, or good questions that receive an awkward response from the pompous and sexist people she's asking them to?

371: That is a bit of a poser. Go Make A Fricking Baby?

Get Me A Fucking Beer?

Give Me A Fucking Break. It's easier to decipher if you share the sentiment.

Gyrocopters maintain airspeed fairly briefly, parsimon.

Though 376 is a tempting explanation, 377 is more fun and therefore wins.

376: Ah!

As for sharing the sentiment, I've said before that the substitution of "that" for "who" clangs really noticeably for me. I've noticed that it's increasingly prevalent, and has a very long history, so you're welcome to dispense with "who" in that grammatical place altogether if you like. Really, if you're someone that wants to do that, go ahead.

When I said underemployed I was thinking more like desk jockey at a library or maybe adjuncting

It's probably a lot easier to find the adjunct job if all you have is a Ph.D. I don't know what a desk jockey is though.

Turn off Young Törless right now! NMM to Hans Werner Henze.

I have yet to figure out what 355's "gmafb" means.

I don't know what a desk jockey is though.

Jesus, people, get it together. Life gets a lot more obscure than these things...

Really, if you're someone that wants to do that, go ahead.

I have the chilling feeling that I'm being dehumanized. It's not bad, actually.

Female PhDs are stereotypically hot. It's like no one has seen Top Gun.

For the record, 348 was teasing in the first place. The word "jeez" is the clue.

||

So yesterday i go the grocery store with Joey, and he asks to ride in one of those kids shopping carts that looks like a race car. I push him down a few aisles and pick up a few items, and then he asks to go into the store's kid area. I drop him off and go to the beer department.

As I'm loading the cart up with beer, I notice that people are looking at me funny. I can't figure out why...then I think "oh yeah, it must look odd to be loading beer in to a kids' shopping cart."

Another couple minutes pass before I think "oh yeah, I'm walking around the grocery store with a kids shopping cart and no kid" and move my groceries to a regular cart.

|>

382: It's possible that I know what it means and am being dismissive of the dismissiveness. Sorry to have to make that explicit, but some people are dense.

387: Maybe I knew that and I'm being tongue in cheek about your dismissiveness of the dismisiveness? I guess you'll never know for sure!

372: Ah, I see, that does work. But what made you think of this plot? I ask because I know a woman who was offered a job and then heavily pressured by one of her grad school friends to pretend that they were a couple and that she needed a partner hire (I think he even made an unauthorized call to the hiring committee?). It was a big mess and ended their friendship, of course.

I ask because I know a woman who was offered a job and then heavily pressured by one of her grad school friends to pretend that they were a couple and that she needed a partner hire (I think he even made an unauthorized call to the hiring committee?).

Whoa.

389: Was there any reason other than outright sociopathy that he thought the plan was reasonable?

Holy shit, Merle, that is fucked up. I was thinking about it because it's kind of a joke among some of my friends--that we wish there were such a thing as "friend hires." Or "collaborator hires," etc. Why is having a sexual relationship the only way of verifying that you have someone you need in your life?

Of course the worst possible circumstance for people with jobs is being hired far away from a beloved partner, and many of my friends are in this situation. Less terrible is the hire of the single person who must make a social life from scratch, often in small, too-tight-knit communities where you either try to have sex with the locals or you live like a nun, trying not to create scandal on the faculty. But the fantasy would be to get a job somewhere and get to bring your life partner (sexual or otherwise) along. I think about that pretty often.

The occasion for today's thinking was that I saw that one of the schools I'm applying to also has an opening in the field of a friend who is also on the market. He is more likely to get a job than I am, so for a second I was like, "Whoa, what if we pretended to be a couple?" Then the temptation passed because that's gross.

I have to admit: From this distance Stormpockopockocentury looks like a big mandatory vacation and I'm somewhat jealous.

essear: The report from Market Basket is that at 1:45 PM it was busy and somewhat chaotic but that I've seen worse before a snow storm. Nothing is quite like the day before Thanksgiving.

I have to admit: From this distance Stormpockopockocentury looks like a big mandatory vacation and I'm somewhat jealous.

If you pray real hard maybe God will send you a tornado or something.

Can God still keep daycare open? That's really what would make it count.

God can do anything if you pray hard enough.

393: I live on the east coast, and I will be at work tomorrow.

Also I got a flat tire today.

So no need to be jealous.

Also the storm needs to close my job but not knock out power so that I can actually crank through all this work that I'm so far behind. And it needs to spare daycare in its path, in some obviously predictable way.

Actually if the storm could just get my kid to stop screaming, I'd count myself lucky.

I need a storm to really be like a grandmother who lives down the street.

401: We had that when I was a kid. Lots of help but a fair bit of damage to the cars.

How often did she shut down the local university?

[On edit: I was just about to post this when our power went out briefly, so maybe you'd like to rethink your mockery of our hurricane, Miss Heebie.]

391: I wish I remember the details better, since this was more than a decade ago. But from what I recall, he had gotten depressed after several years on the market and obsessive, and so when my friend got a job, he became fixated on her. And in that state, he more and more began to think that it was reasonable to expect her to get him a job as well, since, he thought, it wouldn't be that big a deal for her to do so. Crazy, sure, but you can kind of understand how he might, after years of frustration, get a little unhinged when it seemed like a solution might finally be near to hand.

But AWB, in bringing this up, I didn't mean to suggest that the fantasy of working with one's friends is intrinsically ridiculous--I sympathize with your situation.

||

B-school student standing in line with me to try to buy bus tickets to Boston: "There's a 66 percent chance I'll be on my way out of town within an hour and a half." I ask him where he gets his probabilities. "Don't question my math, dude! This isn't class. I do it in my head."

We did not end up with tickets, but that doesn't falsify his "math." Which I'm sure he thinks is a good thing.

|>

I'll be the first to call 405 a "Dutch Book argument."

403: There was none.

397: the elusive communion wafer conditional!

The Feds in DC just closed for Monday!

Ron Paul has won.

Oddly enough I am not happy about this. I lose a day of leave.

Wait. Feds, not Teh Fed. Nevermind.

Now worries. Superset.

Ron can still rejoice that for one day the Fed is closed.

410: I believe I have to gin up telework now for tomorrow. Sucks. Would rather have taken the leave.

393: I still have a take-home midterm to do tomorrow, and three hours of class on Tuesday, not to worry.

TJ, I am still thinking of going in. I think OPM is reacting to all the school closings. Metro is still planning on normal service. DC isn't the DE, NJ, NY shore. Philly, now Philly (even though inland) might get smeared like cream cheese.

418: Yeah? Hm. As I am a creature of habit that would be even better.

Here is the most accessible (yet still technical) description I've found of why Sandy is likely to anomalously turn left and go inland (can you say Fujiwhara effect?). Winds likely to not be that high by hurricane/trop. storms but makes it be a direct rather than glancing landfall and puts NYC and other Northeastern populated coastal areas more squarely in the "strong" side of the surge and wind field.

I don't know, maybe that has been clear from the weather shouters on TV, wouldn't know.

So yeah, some wind, some rain, some flooding potentially extended over longer periods than typical for this kind of thing.

404: I didn't take offense! There are a lot of terrible ideas that occur to a person on the job market that would be psychotic if you actually enacted them. It's a lot like sexual fantasy that way.

Without ever mentioning it to my friend, I guess there's a big part of me that hope that he applies to the same place I do, they'll see that we're coming from the same place, and they'll assume we're a couple, and therefore likely to come to stay--they've had problems with other people leaving--and will at least interview both of us. It's not like it's legal to ask what our relationship is. I did send him the ad, with a comment about what a nice place it is.

But, like, OBVIOUSLY 421.2 is nothing I would ever suggest as a strategy. I just have a lot of paranoia to work through about the market.

But AWB, in bringing this up, I didn't mean to suggest that the fantasy of working with one's friends is intrinsically ridiculous--I sympathize with your situation.

If you were scientists or even social scientists you might be able to claim that you and your friends comprise a "consortium" or at least a "collaboration".

it may be tricky to get women to buy a college professor as a pornographic sex god. What will the cover photo look like? Bare-chested or in tweed?

I don't see how these have to me mutually exclusive.

This is one of the great oddities of gender stereotypes--a man with a PhD is insanely hot, while a woman with a PhD is a dork.

It's a well established fact that women are only attracted to power and brains, and men are only attracted to barely-legal coeds. It has been this way since the first universities on the veldt.

423: I do have collaborators that I want to bring with me, with whom I am actually collaborating. But I don't think anyone does this.

404: That's still taking human self-centeredness and turning the dial to 11.

423: Yes, and if AWB were already senior, she could simply describe her friend as "a leading figure in his field." I don't want to be too cynical, but it's not like senior people don't do friend hiring all the time.

But AWB, did you read the series of columns in the Chronicle (last year or two years ago, I think) written by a pair of friends/ collaborators who went on the market asking to be hired as a pair (I think they worked in video game studies or some such thing)? It's a great subject, but somehow the columns themselves were lackluster. And you won't be surprised to hear that they didn't end up getting hired, although whether that was the partner gambit or the video games, I don't know.

I gather that the NYC subway system is on full shutdown as of tonight, or now, or midnight (it wasn't clear). My housemate is still pretending that he's going to drive in a 12-foot truck full of valuable artwork up the NJ Turnpike to NY on Tuesday morning. At least he's now acknowledging that it's 'preposterous'.

Some great art is water resistant. Maybe it will be fine.

427.1: AMEN.

My neighborhood is under evacuation order from Bloomberg. Based on the number of lights on the windows around here, most people seem to be sticking around. As are we.

If you evacuate far enough, you can have a giant soda.

427: The usual technique way back when was to write the requirements so only one or two people could fill them. The non-chosen got some travel, good food, and contacts for the future.

Speaking of, can I quickly consult with Boston-area people as to how seriously we're taking this thing? My partner, who is trapped in San Francisco because they pre-emptively cancelled his flight, just called and asked me to take photos of all the rooms because Storm of the Century. But no one on my block has even moved their pumpkins and Elizabeth Warren signs.

Why is having a sexual relationship the only way of verifying that you have someone you need in your life?

As a practical matter that would necessitate keeping two people together, it seems like shared finances and parenting would be of more concern.

The NYT and WSJ (if anyone cares to read that) have lifted their paywalls so that people may get news of the storm. Have at it.

Maybe everyone knows that, but I just heard.

how seriously we're taking this thing

Maybe these will be famous last words, but, meh. I would be more worried if I were on the coast or in the suburbs or western Mass.

I just spent a awhile at NOAA and NASA

951 fucking millibars and strengthening

500 mile diameter (radius?) tropical winds;175 mile hurricane

9-11 feet storm surge LI Sound

this is a motherfucker for the NE

(Katrina bottomed at 908)

I you have a giant soda, you can evacuate farther.

435: But when you say you need help with your partner getting hired, no one asks if you share a bank account or have kids.

I am worried about Sandy from here.

The NYT interactive map (thanks for the tip, parsimon) says a 34% chance of tropical-storm-force winds and 1.5 inches of rain over the next five days in Cambridge. That's not nothing, and I'm not heading out on any road trips, but I'm not terribly worried. Tweety did move our car to a spot on the street as far from any trees as he could get.

I did move my car a couple blocks inland.

371: Give me a fucking break.

Oh wait, that was like hours ago. Refresh, self.

When I try to load the NYT interactive map I get an error message saying Google has disabled their use of its maps.

Hm, I should probably move my car. Probably that tree won't fall down, but I'll sure feel like an idiot if it does.

How about this one?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/26/us/hurricane-sandy-map.html

I just want to say that I'm loving Mme Merle's contributions here. Oh, and that heebie's grandmother storm is welcome to come and put kids to bed here so I can sleep. I feel like such a cliche. A tired cliche, no less.

437: I'm pretty sure you're right. There's still a bunch of stuff that can happen between now and tomorrow, but it's very hard for me to imagine how this becomes truly apocalyptic (unless someone moves the Caribbean way the fuck up the Atlantic Coast and sets it down underneath the storm for a day or two). A bunch of areas will have a lot of rain, many trees will fall (some will even fall on houses or people, which will be awful), but that's about it. Having said that, the variable is the storm surge, and maybe that will be much greater than I'm guessing. If it is, wow, a lot of people are in harm's way.

Autumn leave clogging the storm drains is going to be a problem.

Also, no matter what happens, because of its size and where its going to hit, it's going to be hugely expensive, so it will almost certainly be considered among the worst storms in US history -- because the insurance companies, more than anyone else, seem to make that call.

Thanks, Blume and (by extension) Parsimon! I was having trouble finding reliable information--it's either the weather channel websites, which take over my computer with the music of impending doom, or the official governmental websites, which require me to speak millibars (as Bob now does, it seems).

Thanks, Blume and (by extension) Parsimon! I was having trouble finding reliable information--it's either the weather channel websites, which take over my computer with the music of impending doom, or the official governmental websites, which require me to speak millibars (as Bob now does, it seems).

Oh no, the dreaded double post! You jinxed me, Thorn.

Finally, I hope I'm right and wish all the best to those of you in the path of the storm.

Doesn't the Boston Globe have information?

I did! But what the hell is the story with Von Wafer's leg? I'm limping a bit too, but I'm tired of whining about spending the night in the Er with Mara, who's now doing so much beter but does still weight 50 lbs., which is a lot to hold for hours on end. Anyway, I should be back to my normal tomorrow if I get a good night's rest. My leg is already staring to snap back into place.

I think Von Wafer has sciatica. I know the feeling.

Jeff Masters

May hit 945 millibars, and the 1938 record N of Cape Hatteras is 946

Masters gives a 50/50 chance of flooding NYC subway with 11 ft surge at Battery

It's really big, but moving fast, and 3-5 hours of 50 mph...well, still a Cat 1, not a Caribbean or Gulf Cat 3-5.
Big bad storm.

457: it's either an affectation (I'm thinking of getting a cape to go with my top hat and monocle) or I need spinal surgery. But don't worry! It's the good kind of spinal surgery! In the meantime, I've lost almost all of the strength in my left leg and my foot is entirely numb. So I stump around like a Civil War veteran in advance of a cold front.

My tendons are still fucking with me. I need to see a tendon doctor or whoever won't give me the obvious advice to drop twenty pounds and then take up running.

Maybe these will be famous last words, but, meh. I would be more worried if I were on the coast or in the suburbs or western Mass.

I agree. Even more so here since DC is on the weak side. Also, what VW said. Folks in coastal flood zones from NY to DE are the ones who will get the brunt.

460: Wafer, I assume you've seen a doctor? Had scans? Physical therapy?

Well. I don't want to turn this into a medical complaint thread, but sir, that's just awful, and one hopes that the medical community can help out before going all the way to surgery. My back doctor always said: We want to avoid the needle and the knife. Yes, we do!

TJ, Metro just bailed for Monday. They explicitly say that OPM's decision was a factor. Not that the forecast has changed. Grrr.

NYC is at 85% for TS strength winds with an expected 3 inches of rainfall. Bad, but we do get winds like that once every year or two from non-tropical storms. For some reason people freak out a lot less about really strong normal storms unless they're supposed to be bringing lots of snow and even there it's the snow everyone talks about, even though a strong nor'easter will have TS strength winds.

463.2: Right. (Anyone wishing to scare themselves with reasons and details can do it all by their lonesome)

Joss Whedon endorses Romney

460: My dad went through lumbar decompressive laminectomy at 81 and was saw complete reversal of the pain. The day after his surgery he was running errands (with me driving because I wasn't on pain pills).

463: I've been to a doctor. I've had an MRI. I'm in PT. And yes, spinal surgery -- except the good kind! -- is deprecated. Alas, so, too, is permanent nerve damage. And as much as I'm digging my limp, and as much as I wish I could have a hump that moves from side to side to go with it, I want to be able to walk and maybe ride a bike again. So I'll have the surgery.

I really do wish I could have a variably placed hump. I wonder if I can talk to the surgeon about installing one.

468: yup. It's seriously not a big deal. And other than the limp, which I find hilarious, I didn't mean to bring it up.

469: Sounds like the right things have been done. Good luck with it. You can always fake the limp and hump later if you wish. I'm thinking of getting a cane as soon as I decide on the caliber.

The example of Preston Brooks suggests that a man can never have too many canes.

439: If you evacuate to Ohio, you can have a giant pop.

464: fucksocks.

Given the choice between caning Tim McCarver and Molly Munger, I would find myself paralyzed by indecision.

473: someone should have taken that asshole's pizzle and shoved it up his tailpipe.

Yes, best wishes. I was thinking about the permanent nerve damage thing, but didn't want to frighten anyone. Okay.

My only concern is the big old tree in the back but peak expected sustained wind is forecast at 40 which isn't bad. Also loss of power would be bad for basement flooding since the pump wouldn't work. Oh, and we have four gallons of frozen breast milk in the basement freezer, wife would be pissed to lose that. We'd have to make cheese or something.

I expect to be stuck in my apartment with a small, energetic boy for the next 48 hours or more. God save us if we lose power to the Wii. We are stocked with all the essentials (including, critically, Halloween candy from a party last night). Also including some serious prime steak, because why not spoil oneself in a situation like this?

I suspect you can. Call it a hunch.

I don't know why I italicized that. Also why I omitted the "470:".

I went out and bought a candle in case of power outage but now I'm searching my apartment and I can only find a single match. How did they make fire on the veldt?

Volcano.

Another useful map.

Is there anything worse than fat, vegetarian professional athletes who can't perform in the clutch? No, Prince Fielder, there is not.

It should be fairly horrid by my mom's house, since landfall should be very, very close. But she is about a mile inland and 40 ft. above sea level. My brother had to evacuate, since his house is conveniently located between a river and an ocean, a few blocks from either. So he's fucked.

We'd have to make cheese or something.

Do you have a gas stove? The pilot light probably makes enough heat to incubate breastmilk yogurt in the oven.

The storm sounds like not so huge a deal here but an 11' storm surge in Manhattan could be genuinely problematic. And, of course, coastal Jersey and L.I. might be kinda fucked.

Lightning. Get a big metal pole, attach it outside your window and run a copper wire into the apartment. The storm should do the rest.

an 11' storm surge in Manhattan could be genuinely problematic

Yup, that's the worry.

487: Yikes! I hope the damage won't be as bad as you might fear...

Since this is the Electoral College thread: I spoke with my parents a while ago and they were telling me their nightmare scenario in which this storm is really destructive and the Romney campaign starts blaring ads about how it's Obama's Katrina and the Democrats have completely failed to make the necessary preparations for disaster, and this turns enough votes that Romney wins. And it's... more plausible than I would like?

Would you like me to make fun of your anxieties? I'm more than willing to do so. With a limp, even.

Limpness is the classic anxiety.

I would actually love it if you made fun of that particular anxiety.

494: Yes, please. I assured them the electoral college arithmetic makes this election safe, but I'm not really sure how much damage a vicious press could do in the next week if it wanted.

Isn't it just as likely BHO ends up on the teevee a lot being authoritative and reassuring? (Cue moaning that that's unfaaaaaair.)

496: okay, I haven't warmed up, but I'm willing to handle this one cold coming out of the pen: there's a very good chance that this storm isn't going to be that awful (though I really do worry about people like oud's brother); there's a very good chance that if it is awful, Obama will look presidential and calm, and that FEMA will do a relatively good job (as the organization reputedly has throughout his term), and thus it will help and not hurt the president's electoral prospects; and there's very good chance that everybody, especially everybody in Ohio, which is the only state that actually matters, has already made up their mind, so nothing that happens between now and election day will matter; and there's a very good chance that Democrats are so fucking neurotic that shutupshutupshutupshutup.

I can go on and on. I mean, I'm just getting warmed up.

498: you fucking pwned me? I have a limp!

Good luck to all involved in the storm. My weather bones tell me that this won't be that big a deal, but what do I know.

Also, if it really is a huge catastrophe, it's going to steal LOTS of time from the election process stories, and those stories are Romney's best friends at the moment. I mean, fuckshit but the press wants a horse race in the worst way. Not that this news or anything, but the media must be put to the flame.

Question for a press conference: With two major hurricanes hitting the Mid-Atlantic in the last two years, when can Americans expect the President to present his plan for fighting global warming?

the media must be put to the flame flood

504 gets it exactly right.

502: I dunno, people thought Irene was going to be a big deal, then people were like pssh no thing, but then in fact it was a huge deal, just not where it was expected to be. So my prediction is that Sandy will be a big deal somewhere for sure. I mean somewhere besides Cuba, where it already was one.

504: fuck, I can't make fun of that anxiety, because that anxiety keeps me up nights. I'm looking forward to a conversation twenty or so years from now: "Sorry, kids, we knew there was a problem, but we were too busy figuring out which candidate could more effectively fellate Bibi Netanyahu to do anything about it."

VW, I hear you're feeling limp. Have you asked your doctor about Viagra? *throws football through tire swing*

effectively fellate Bibi Netanyahu

Geoengineering is so weird.

509 was rude and uncalled for.

Sad to say, I think we're well past the point when mitigating climate change was the main concern and well into the period when adaptation is the main area we need to focus on.

Well, you know there are election anxieties and then there areElection Anxieties ...FDL this evening. You have been warned.

Despite an almost total blackout from the corporate media, the Romney family has a personal ownership (through the investment firms Solamere and H.I.G. Capital) in Hart Intercivic, which owns, maintains, programs and will tabulate alleged votes on machines in the critical swing states of Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Colorado.

Yeah I think Ohio was stolen in 2004.

This year, I am not expecting it, but neither will I be shocked election night by President-Elect Romney.

Y'all won't do a thing.

Aw.

Don't listen to him, shrub. 509 was awesome.

Sorry, I was riffing off of 221. 509 was indeed awesome. I would have laughed, but I've got this limp, you see...

That limp is rude and uncalled for.

A rude and savage limp.

Oddly, I shopped a lot less than usual this weekend, food-wise. Didn't want a freezer full of junk if the power goes out.

507: Yes, I think stalling over central Pa. and NY and flooding the shit out of stuff would be the most likely scenario to cause anything really significant enough to reach the level of political ramifications of the response.

Anomalous monster storm surge into NY Harbor is a long shot second.

507: Sandy's most likely robbing us of an evening in NYC, so I'm comfortable declaring it a big deal right here right now.

Speaking of New York, I was wondering how Bob Kerrey was overcoming having lived there.

513: unlike good ol' "barricade" bob mcmanus?

Obama was on the TeeVee earlier, sitting next to a FIMA guy, and sounding presidential.

Federal Imaginary Management Agency?

That real-time wind map linked here some time ago. You can click on an area to zoom.

I certainly think that California should be divided into three or even five states. And the Mid-Atlantic should be merged: what's known as Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) should be one.

Like this?

I love that wind map so much.

528: Been toking up this evening, eh?

Someone ought to comb the southwest.

It's like that because of all the mountains. It would take one hell of a comb to straighten them out.

Comment 538 better be good.

Someone ought to comb the southwest.

First, they should check the index of that vector field.

Who is the Kobe! of the electoral college?

Nate Silver, of course.

I'm holding out for someone with a deeper voice and unskewed polls and stuff.

Here's the pitch...

Is everybody waiting for somebody else to say something witty?

Not any more.

Comment 270 is more important anyhow.

I can now predict with 97.6% probability that this comment will *not* be number 538.

Never do that again, Minivet.

I always pledge allegiance to the flag at the fiftieth comment.

The baseball game is very exciting right now.

Agreed. But as with the election, I would just like it to be over.

I'm not sure what to do with all this power. It's burdensome. And, what with the limp, incongruous.

Roberto Tigre!

Poor Roberto Tigre.

Damned Dutchman.

Boy, I'm hearing a lot of honking car horns and so ons.

This is hurricane is great news for John McCain Mitt Romney!

I wasn't hearing anything, but now some fireworks.

That's the sound of the Revolution, comrade. I hope your hands are calloused and your boots covered in mud.

First against the wall are those with limps.

I acquired my limp fighting for the People, running dog.

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My choice tonight was between the giant catbus, and Isabelle Adjani and her tentacled lover.

Yes there is such an Isabelle Adjani movie. Carlo Rimaldi, designer of the Alien and ET created the tentacled one.

You know, I blew off the IMDB thread where Totoro = Death, but there is this weird little throwaway. Right before the bus stop umbrella scene Mei little sister wanders off and looks through a gap in the trees. There is a spooky little shrine in the dark woods with offerings and what is probably a statue of a fox. A little like Anubis, but even if just a guard fox, wtf. Wtf.

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328 is great.

Catching up on the thread, I assert that there's nothing dehumanizing about "that" in reference to a person, only "which".

Crucially, the guy with a humanities PhD must also have a good job.

What if you have a humanities PhD and a good job, but you can't call yourself "Professor"? I'm asking for a friend, of course.

Has anyone else here read Goethe's Elective Affinities? That book is messed up.

The impression one gets from Förster's The 25 Years of Philosophy is that Goethe was a great philosopher, scholar, and natural scientist who also happened to write a poem about plants.

Yeah, is what I thought, Torii often come with guardian statues, but are consistently big hulking dogs.

Check it out if you have a copy.

Wait a minute Foxes at Inari Shrines

Exactly Inari Shrines

some statues of kitsune, which are often adorned with red yodarekake (votive bibs) by worshippers out of respect. This red color has come to be identified with Inari, because of the prevalence of its use among Inari shrines and their torii

The kitsune statues are at times taken for a form of Inari, and they typically come in pairs, representing a male and a female.[24] These fox statues hold a symbolic item in their mouths or beneath a front paw--most often a jewel and a key, but a sheaf of rice, a scroll, or a fox cub are all common. Almost all Inari shrines, no matter how small, will feature at least a pair of these statues, usually flanking or on the altar or in front of the main sanctuary.[24] The statues are rarely realistic; they are typically stylized, portraying a seated animal with its tail in the air looking forward. Despite these common characteristics, the statues are highly individual in nature; no two are quite the same.[25][26]

Maybe 300,000 little hidden Inari Shrines in Japan. Pretty ordinary

Not that wading through 560 comments isn't big fun, but can we get a storm thread up on this bitch? There's going to be a lot of live blogging to be done.

561: on s/b in and my seemingly rude and uncalled for request is a reference to my favorite Key and Peeled sketch.

Darn it.
d

527: Yeah!

393, 398: Apparently I spoke too soon.

It is drizzling a little bit, here, and I can hear a little wind sometimes, so I'm sure closing everything for today and tomorrow was justified.