We Really Did Win.

The hots for Nate Silver

A DATE WITH NATE
BY PAUL RUDNICK
NOVEMBER 19, 2012


Dear Nate Silver:

My name is Emma Gertlowitz and I’m eleven years old and for a million years I liked Justin Bieber because he was so cute but now I like you. I watched you on MSNBC and HBO and on “Charlie Rose” and I can’t stop thinking about how you study polls and create probability models and predict elections and how you’re always right, which I think is so unbelievably cute, and I keep imagining you saying to me, “Emma, I think that there’s a 93.7% chance of me falling in love with you.”

..............................

I wonder if when you get up in the morning you open your kitchen cabinet and go, I’m feeling 18.5% Rice Chex and 27.9% Frosted Mini-Wheats and 32% one of those whole-grain Kashi cereals which have photos of smiling multicultural people on the boxes, as if smiling multicultural people were a new form of fibre. And then I wonder if you think, But I’m really feeling 58.3% like having a cupcake for breakfast, but then your mom says, “I don’t care if you’re a fancy statistician with a Times blog and Seattle green-architect eyeglass frames, you still need something heart-healthy to start your day,” but then you tell her, “Mom, if you keep nagging me I will never let you meet my new boyfriend, Matt Bomer.”

See, I think that because you predicted the election with near-100% accuracy Matt Bomer is way more likely to go out with you than with Dick Morris, who predicted a Romney landslide, or with Karl Rove, who kept predicting that Ohio was still in play a week after the election was over. In fact, right now I bet that you could get anyone to go out with you just by saying something like “I predicted Florida, North Carolina, and Illinois, and now I’m predicting that you’ll have dinner with me.” I know that you can also predict the careers of baseball players and that you made a ton of money playing online poker, all of which makes you really cool because you can gamble and do sports without leaving your room; you’re like James Bond in saggy sweatpants whose pockets are filled with wadded-up Kleenex.

I know that you’re too old for me and that if we actually met you’d probably be really nice and say something like “I predict that someday you’ll meet a boy who’s 100% right for you,” and then I would tell you my secret, that I was totally crushing on this geeky anorexic goth boy but he turned out to be Ann Coulter. So maybe I should just keep fantasizing about you, because statisticians are the new sexy vampires, only even more pasty. I just hope that tonight I can dream that the next time you’re on “Rachel Maddow” you’ll look right into the camera and say, “I can predict that Hillary will win Nevada in 2016, and that Emma Gertlowitz will at least get wait-listed for Brown.”

Your No. 1 fan,

Emma ?



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2012/11/19/121119sh_shouts_rudnick#ixzz2CIibtcJa

KRUGMAN: Conservative Patriarchy: Bosses OVER Workers-Men OVER Women-Whites OVER Those People

E.J. Dionne: "The tea party was less the wave of the future than a remnant of the past."

From EJ...

"Their Republicans attempts to demonize President Obama and undercut him by obstructing his agenda didn’t work. Their assumption that the conservative side would vote in larger numbers than Democrats was wrong. The tea party was less the wave of the future than a remnant of the past. Blocking immigration reform and standing by silently while nativist voices offered nasty thoughts about newcomers were bad ideas. Latino voters heard it all and drew the sensible electoral conclusion."

MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-jr-the-inconvenient-truths-of-2012/2012/11/14/c3c1d452-2e96-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_story.html?hpid=z2

¿''que piñata''?

BP to get record US criminal fine over Deepwater disaster (four BP staff will be arrested)

Source: BBC

BP to get record US criminal fine over Deepwater disaster


BP is set to receive a record fine of between $3bn and $5bn (£1.9bn-£3.2bn) to settle criminal charges related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the BBC has learnt.

It will be the biggest criminal penalty in US history, BBC business editor Robert Peston says.

The settlement with the Department of Justice involves BP pleading guilty to criminal charges.

It is thought that up to four BP staff will be arrested, Robert Peston says.





Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20336898

“not very bright.”

State Legislators in Rhode Island and Maine Are Announcing Marijuana Legalization Bills Tomorrow

Source: Reason

State Legislators in Rhode Island and Maine Are Announcing Marijuana Legalization Bills Tomorrow
Mike Riggs|Nov. 14, 2012 11:20 am

State legislators in Rhode Island and Maine will announce bills tomorrow to legalize recreational marijuana, a spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project announced today.

Rhode Island Rep. Edith Ajello and Maine Rep. Diane Russell will hold a conference call tomorrow with the Marijuana Policy Project to announce the legislation.

MPP says that "similar proposals will be submitted in at least two other states — Vermont and Massachusetts." A ballot iniative legalizing medical marijuana passed in Massachusetts last week with more than 60 percent of the vote. Maine voters voted to expand the state's 1999 medical marijuana law in 2009 to include dispensaries. The Rhode Island legislature decriminalized marijuana earlier this year, and has had medical marijuana since 2006 (a stupid error on my part, since I blogged the Rhode Island legislature's decrim vote).

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/14/state-legislators-in-rhode-island-and-ma

EXCLUSIVE: Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS Never Filed Legally Required Registration

Source: Think Progress

EXCLUSIVE: Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS Never Filed Legally Required Registration
By Josh Israel on Nov 14, 2012 at 5:00 pm

When Karl Rove’s Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS) formed in 2010, it established its official address in Warrenton, VA, and registered with the Internal Revenue Service a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization.” It apparently did not, however, register as a charitable organization with the Commonwealth of Virginia, as appears was legally required.

According to state code, non-profit groups that intend to solicit contributions must first register with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs. Groups must pay an annual fee ($325 for groups raising over $1 million annually), provide basic information about their operations, and must sign statements affirming that no funds “have been or will knowingly be used, directly or indirectly, to benefit or provide support, in cash or in kind, to terrorists, terrorist organizations, terrorist activities, or the family members of any terrorist.”

The Virginia law explicitly exempts political campaign committees that are “required by state or federal law to file a report or statement of contributions and expenditures.” Crossroads GPS has consistently kept its contributors secret as it has raised and spent tens of millions of dollars against Democratic candidates.

While the group’s federal tax filings and registration with the District of Columbia indicate that it is a Virginia corporation — and Crossroads GPS did apparently register with the state’s corporation commission — the Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs confirmed to ThinkProgress that no entity named Crossroads GPS or Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies has ever registered to solicit contributions in Virginia. Additionally, no entity with the tax identification number listed on Crossroads GPS’s tax filings has ever registered with the agency.



Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/14/1188771/exclusive-karl-roves-crossroads-gps-never-filed-legally-required-registration/

Senator Graham DARES to talk about someone being 'disconnected from reality'?!