John Adams- Gnarly Buttons

I really really do not like how this race is shaping up.

I guess my candidate preference would be Albanese >>> DeBlasio >> Thompson > Quinn > Weiner >>> Liu.

I would vote for Joe Lhota over the corrupt liar Liu.

Australia is killing my scores here.

On the bright side, I was able to pinpoint one location exactly- it was a highway interchange in the Everglades, complete with nice and legible signage.

Ugh, boo hiss.

Weiner's transportation plan is nonexistent at best, and he's sure to suck the oxygen out of the room from better candidates (not just, of course, my favorite no-hoper, but de Blasio qualifies as "better" here too).

http://secondavenuesagas.com/2013/05/22/on-candidate-weiners-lackluster-transportation-plan/

And that’s it. On the one hand, Weiner doesn’t argue for pie-in-the-sky impracticalities as Christine Quinn did when she requested city control over the MTA. He seems to recognize the limits of the office and is planning accordingly. On the other, he doesn’t go even a quarter as far as Sal Albanese does. There is nothing about safe streets. DOT and its ability to dictate bus lanes and speed up the Select Bus Service rollout is roundly ignored. The only nod to congestion pricing is to call it “dead,” and East River Bridge tolls garner nary a mention.

There's basically no way I'm voting for Weiner with a platform like that.

The world desperately needs more Abenomics.  The EU and US should be following his inflationary lead.

Huge FF.

I never go to Target or similar stores because I use Amazon or Fresh Direct for the type of stuff I would get at Target.  But, I think there are some products where the cheap crap from China/mega-store model works: Electronics, paper towels, basic food items like salt and rice, shaving cream, condoms, etc.  For those type of items, there is a standard of quality that is easily met and sourced in bulk by Target.

But, there are other products where quality matters and Target can never really deliver.  For example, I can't imagine buying a suit or a tie from Target.  Target isn't going to have high quality clothing, wine, food or furniture.  If people are shopping from Target for those types of items, Target is lowering our standards and replacing quality with the illusion of value by selling cheap, lousy substitutes.  

I dunno, the quality of the food they sell at the Target near me is, if anything, better than what you can get in grocery stores around here, and compares pretty well with your average suburban supermarket (though the selection is not quite as wide).  

I'm not going to get a suit at Target, that's for sure.  I would totally buy socks there, though.  I'd say the sort of thing we tend to go to Target most for is cleaning supplies and those sorts of household dry goods.

J.S. Bach- Brandenburg Concerto #1

Hell of a lot better than Wal-Mart in every way, and I'm glad the nearest mega-store (about a 12 minute walk) is Target rather than Wal-Mart.  Obviously Costco is better from a labor standpoint, but Costco is not exactly compatible with the sort of household I currently live in (small apartment, two twentysomethings, no kids, no cars).

I'm well aware they do some things that would bother me if I looked more closely, but there's only so much you can do.

It's got very little to do with guns, and it's got very little to do with abortion, and it's got very little to do with policing methods, either.

It has a lot to do with leaded gasoline.  Banning that foul stuff was one of the most important things we've ever done.

You know what's way more surprising?
Yep.  All alone in the Midwest.  (I'm sure you all know what this is a map of.)

That's not really surprising.  In Iowa it happened like in Massachusetts.  It was a court case.  Not like in those states where people actually democratically decided the thing.  And the court case started in Johnson County.  That's where Captain Kirk was from.  (Actually, Kirk was born in adjacent Washington County, but it's close enough.)

The only surprising thing about Iowa is what Jack Kerouac says:  "Iowa has the prettiest girls in the world."  But that's only surprising at first.  Then you remember that Kerouac lived during the 40s and 50s, when the standard of beauty was busty, Germanic, blonde cheesecake.  This was all before the time of dark tanning, exotic foreign models, and rail-thin supermodels.  If curvaceous and pale is your thing, you'll love Iowa women. 

No, actually, opebo has it right.  That's a map of the white vote in 2012.  Though, the fact that Iowa was the first midwestern state to approve gay marriage is of course less surprising when you realize they were also the only midwestern state to vote for Obama over Romney (judges or no judges).

The strong correlation between legalized gay marriage and white liberals can hardly be considered a surprise though.

Yes, that's exactly my point.  People were surprised that Iowa was the first Midwest state to legalize gay marriage, but it's not surprising when you realize that the white voters of Iowa are in fact the most liberal white voters outside of the coasts!

You know what's way more surprising?
Yep.  All alone in the Midwest.  (I'm sure you all know what this is a map of.)

That's not really surprising.  In Iowa it happened like in Massachusetts.  It was a court case.  Not like in those states where people actually democratically decided the thing.  And the court case started in Johnson County.  That's where Captain Kirk was from.  (Actually, Kirk was born in adjacent Washington County, but it's close enough.)

The only surprising thing about Iowa is what Jack Kerouac says:  "Iowa has the prettiest girls in the world."  But that's only surprising at first.  Then you remember that Kerouac lived during the 40s and 50s, when the standard of beauty was busty, Germanic, blonde cheesecake.  This was all before the time of dark tanning, exotic foreign models, and rail-thin supermodels.  If curvaceous and pale is your thing, you'll love Iowa women. 

No, actually, opebo has it right.  That's a map of the white vote in 2012.  Though, the fact that Iowa was the first midwestern state to approve gay marriage is of course less surprising when you realize they were also the only midwestern state to vote for Obama over Romney (judges or no judges).

But seriously, this entire country is very very urban at this point (especially if you're including all the suburbs and horrible exurbs, as one should).  I wonder if any state is more than 50 percent rural at this point.  Wyoming?  The Dakotas?  Mississippi?  West Virginia?  I'd frankly be shocked if there were any besides those five- and maybe not even those five.

EDIT: Forgot about Vermont- okay, six.

You know what's way more surprising?



Yep.  All alone in the Midwest.  (I'm sure you all know what this is a map of.)

[Greens]

Expanding on my post in the other thread:

There are five main parties: the Greens, Liberals, Social Democrats, Conservatives, and Center.  Each party has two preferred coalition partners, and two parties it doesn't like that much.  Generally whichever party gets a plurality will invite its two preferred parties.  Since the Greens are the largest party right now, they get to invite the Liberals and Social Democrats, despite the fact that those two parties are somewhat in friction.

The Green Party likes the Social Democrats and the Liberals, and it doesn't like the Center or the Conservatives.  Although, it is not 100 percent opposed to forming coalitions with any of them.  The Greens here are somewhat more pragmatic and less ideological than most other green parties, and their willingness to work with anybody was presumably a big help in becoming the current largest party, despite their newness.  Their base is less-wealthy white collar workers: academics, students, artists, bureaucrats, etc; their general ideology can probably be best described as technology-positive environmentalism.  As far as they relate to other "leftist" ideals, they do advocate for social justice for minorities and women, but explicitly reject anti-capitalist and Marxist thought, believing that an otherwise capitalist market that properly corrects for externalities does the best job of delivering environmental benefits and general prosperity.

The Liberals like the Greens and the Conservatives, and they don't like the Center or the Social Democrats.  Despite the Liberals and the Center both claiming the mantle of "moderates", they are very different: the Liberals are the party of urban professionals and the elite, and tend to be center-right (by Trainland's standards that is) on economics and strongly left on social issues.  Whereas the Center Party is a party of rural interests, and is socially conservative but economically interventionist.  The Liberals would probably be considered "social liberals" in general; they are the most heavily secular and technocratic party of the five; while their calls for lower taxes and fiscal restraint place them on the center-right of Trainland's spectrum, they are also well-educated realists, and on economic issues probably fall in the center-left by US standards.

The Social Democrats obviously like the Greens and the Center, and don't like the Liberals or Conservatives.  Their base tends to be immigrants and manual laborers.  They are easily the most left-wing on general redistribution issues, but tend to maintain a "broad church" on other issues, which leads to a leadership which takes a more populist approach, and they are often mealy-mouthed centrists on social issues.  They were for a long time the largest party of the left, but have fallen on relatively hard times since their heyday in the 1960s.

The Conservatives like the Liberals and the Center, but not Greens or SocDems.  They poll best among people who actually drive cars, i.e. police officers, contractors etc., basically better-off blue collar folks, and their signature issues tend to be a reduction in the carbon tax, as well as a hawkish foreign policy.  The Conservatives have generally been the main party of the right, and have adapted their views as the concerns of the right wing have shifted over time.  They're hurt today by the fact that many fiscal center-right individuals have defected to the Liberals, leading them to fight mainly a losing battle on social issues.

The rural-focused, communitarian Center likes the SocDems and Conservatives, but not so much the Liberals and Greens.  This causes a lot of problems for them these days, since the Social Democrats and Conservatives are the only two parties who outright refuse to form a coalition together, and the Liberals and Greens have been the two largest parties for most of the past 25 years.  So the Center Party has the bleakest prospects. 

There are several fringe protest parties as well, the largest three being a) a rump of Marxists, b) an anti-immigration far right populist group, and c) a libertarian/Pirate sort of thing.  All three of them will occasionally send someone to Parliament, but currently none of the five mainstream parties will have anything to do with them- the cordon sanitaire is in full effect.

The main unique thing here, of course, is the very close working relationship between the Liberals and Greens, as well as the fact they tend to do better than your "typical" red and blue teams.  This is because, although they disagree on redistributionist issues, both have a strongly technocratic bent (as opposed to the relative populism of the other three parties), and are to the nation's left on social issues- and even on redistribution, it's fairly easy for them to come to a center-left compromise most of the time.  The philosophical basis of their social leftism is sightly different (social justice vs. live and let live), but they have generally been able to find common cause for the past quarter-century.

...

A brief note on the history of the parties: There's a lot of similarity with the UK, actually.  You start out with the urban secular bourgeoise voting Liberal and the rural landowners voting Conservative.  The Liberals enact voting reform and some mildly progressive things in the early 20th Century, but their left flank quickly gets eaten up by a rising Socialist party, and voting reform empowers poor rurals to put together various religiously-flavored populist parties which initially break down upon sectarian lines but merge into the Center Party.  The Conservatives dominate the 20s (with the Center's help), and they enact the beginnings of things like urban growth boundaries and limits to cars in cities on "rural preservation" and "law and order" grounds.

The Socialists take power after the Depression and bring along the (rapidly-shrinking) Liberals and Center to prove they're not crazy, then add the Conservatives too when WWII hits.  (Basically everyone except a crazy fascist splinter that arose in the 20s and rapidly dies after the war.)  Post-war is mostly Socialists vs. Conservatives (edge to Socialists but it goes back and forth), with the Center and Liberals fighting a third-party battle mostly along secular vs. religious lines, with the winner getting to be the junior coalition partner.   You've also got a sizable protest Communist vote that never gets into gov't.

Everything goes topsy-turvy in the 70s.  The Green Party arises, and takes votes from the Socialists.  So does deindustrialization and a resurgence in Communists.  The Socialists try to hang onto power by bringing the Commies into their coalition, this proves VERY unpopular and a lot of voters bolt to the Greens and Liberals (who try to position themselves as basically an SDP-Lib Alliance).  Then the Conservatives take power, but get involved in a disastrous and unpopular foreign war, so sane Conservatives rush to the Liberals too.  Voila, mid-80s, the Liberals are the largest party again, and they surprise observers by bringing the surging Greens along for a "new look" coalition.  They've been more or less the two largest parties ever since (though the Socialists rebranded as Social Democrats and did take one election in the early '90s).  More recently, the chance of the SocDems breaking the yellow-green chokehold on the top two spots has been hurt by the Center Party's effort to take votes from the socially conservative immigrants who have been a large source of votes for them.  (The Center Party has bled some to far-right parties in response, though).  The Conservatives' best chance to ever get a plurality is if/when bureaucratic scandals ever get uncovered; they came close once in the early 2000s, but didn't quite make it.

Vote share of the last election (2011).  Current coalition is Green-Lib-SocDem.

Greens: 29%
Liberals: 24%
Conservatives: 18%
Social Democrats: 17%
Center: 9%
Minor parties: 3%

Primarily human, of course.  Note that "primarily human" is not the same as "entirely human"- of course natural variability plays some part.  But the bulk of the observed warming effect is almost certainly manmade, and natural variability serves mainly to make the data noisier.

Gorby of course.  JPII a distant second.

...Um, BTRD third.

Everyone else?  No, just no.

Among people who I might have any actual chance to vote for in the near future:

I'd be very hard pressed to vote for Andrew Cuomo, though I might hold my nose anyway if he gets the 2016 Prez nomination.

Under no circumstances will I vote for John Liu (easily the worst of the mayoral candidates) or Simcha Felder (turncoat State Senator).  A Liu vs. Lhota matchup in the NYC Mayor's race is the one hypothetical in which I can confidently say that, yes, I would vote for the Republican.  (If Castimatidis gets the nom vs. Liu, it's Jimmy McMillan time.)

Elvis Costello- Blood and Chocolate (album)

IRS (D) is the only one worth talking about, frankly.

The DOJ is entirely within their rights to subpoena phone records as part of an investigation into leaks (with potential security implications).  People seem to think they're tapping phone lines, which is not what "phone records" are at all.  Really, the AP is just being a bunch of biased, whining ninnies on this point.

Benghazi is one of those things where the saying "never attribute to malice which can properly be attributed to incompetence".  Mistakes were, as they say, made.  But they were obviously just mistakes- you fix them, move on, and don't politicize it.  Of course certain elements on the right want to make it out as some sort of conspiracy coverup related to elections or Sharia socialism or I don't even know.  But the facts clearly indicate that's bull.

IRS... I think that all of those "social welfare" orgs, left and right, should be subject to strict scrutiny.  But if it appears that employees were only scrutinizing one side of the aisle, well then that is a definite problem and whoever came up with that idea needs to be relieved of their post, stat.

Fantasizing about an idealized society is for Marxists and libertarians, and I am neither. There is no ideal society; there is only the society that we have now, and what matters is what can be done to improve that society.

On the other hand, Hashemite's country does seem ideal.

lol, my country is far from ideal.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I went out of my way to show the negative consequences of utopia.

But otherwise, yeah I agree.  Hashemite's country does seem by far the best.

This is a good point.

I tried to sort of hint at some of the potential downsides of "my" ideology, but reading it again, I didn't really hint strongly enough.  So, in that spirit, here are some potentially bad things about Trainland:

* First and foremost, living space is pretty cramped.  Not Lower East Side tenement-level cramped, but most people live in fairly small apartments, or share smallish rowhomes with friends or family, and things like private yards and detached homes are pretty much luxury goods.

* Unemployment is virtually nil- anyone who wants a job can have one- but underemployment is an issue sometimes, and working class jobs are much more of the "service sector drone" model than the "unionized factory worker" model.

* The urban/rural divide is an issue, and since the population is overwhelmingly urban, rural residents can feel aggrieved at times.

* The strict environmental regulations that virtually killed off most mining mean that Trainland has to import a lot of raw materials, which is potentially a drag on the economy.  (It doesn't really have to import fossil fuels, since it's built in such a way as to basically not need them, but stuff like thorium and rare earths are still vital.)  It's not normally a huge issue, but the prospect of supply shocks does hang over the nation, and when it gets recessions that's usually the reason.

* Some folks complain that politicians don't really have any power, and that "unelected bureaucrats" decide everything.

* The predominance of the arts and entertainment as a major industry (and, in fact, one of the nation's largest exports) has led to copyright laws that, while not as stringent as currently found in the USA, would rankle many posters here.

* Hipsters, hipsters everywhere. 

Apparently, unlike NY, Christie and the head of NJ Transit were not in communication at all in the run-up to Sandy, and that may have been a factor in the disastrous mistakes that scuttled a quarter of NJ Transit's fleet.

Christie's skillful handling of Sandy has been his calling card, but... this is a real black mark against that narrative.

The NEC is also the only electrified portion of the Amtrak network.  In the rest of the U.S., Amtrak uses mainly GE diesel electric locomotives purchased 20 years ago or so.

This is not technically true; the Keystone Corridor is electrified as far as Harrisburg. 

When I first heard about this, it bothered me the most of the "three huge scandals".  Now that I read more, it bothers me the least.

Of course, the AP conveniently left out the reason for the investigation (which is totally legit), and are of course relying on the confusion between phone records and phone recordings.

This is a nothingburger, and frankly makes the AP just look petty and partisan.

...

The IRS thing, okay there might be some malfeasance there, and at least a couple heads should roll.  The other two, no effin' way.

"Hipsters" (whatever that word means) don't really like Pabst, they just drink it 'cause that's the cheap option.  It's an entirely rational decision.

No. Kids these days purposefully drink PBR because they want to seem trendy.

Maybe they'll choose it over Bud Lite for that reason, whatever.  They won't choose it over expensive/better beers for that reason- at least, not anyone I've ever hung around.

I still have no idea what a hipster is other than someone who likes Pabst and someone who is admired by BRTD.  On those two criteria alone I can understand why their approvals are so low.

...Sigh.

"Hipsters" (whatever that word means) don't really like Pabst, they just drink it 'cause that's the cheap option.  It's an entirely rational decision.

There's a place (actually there are probably several now) in Philly that sells cans of PBR with a shot of Jim Beam for $3.  It's called the "special".  Basically the best deal on the entire East Coast if you want to get drunk.

Anyway, you know what I am "so over"?  Hating on hipsters.  It's just ridiculous.