Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

have you ever been involved in a matter at the decision level that has gone through trial? don't bother answering, this is rhetorical.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You mean like characterizing the case as strong or poor? Yeah, all the time.

Gee, I'm sure glad that I never said anything about assigning a percentage probability.

I agree!

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Through trial? No. There are maybe a handful of trials a year, at most, in my field. All of my civil matters have either settled (treble damages are a bitch), been dismissed in my client's favor, or become moot before things got that far.

Guilty plea and/or whether to cooperate or seek amnesty, yes.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

How long have you been beating your wife? Don't bother answering, this is rhetorical.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

adder can't convince a woman to talk to him. he'll never marry. sad, but he is a decent looking guy. I keep telling him something a teacher told me in 11th grade. I'd just said some nonsense to some girl who wandered off. my teacher said, "it's not that you don't know what to say, it's that you don't know what not to say."

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yes, that has the ring of truth to it.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

FWIW, this is what I read:

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Best advice I've gotten is similar: "it doesn't matter what you say, it's how you say it."

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

what stock should I sell short in Asia Sunday night based upon the doa HCR?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

mine wasn't really advice, it was simple criticism.

edit: that is, what was said to me

After last night's debate
 

http://bit.ly/pdhLkX

They're still searching for a decent Republican presidential candidate.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I don't know, but even the National Review was disgusted with the 8 R's tax pledge last night. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...-d-williamson#

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

If that's your assessment, US treasuries.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

A new Little Caesar's commercial helped me distinguish between Dems and Rs.

the commercial claimed that every Little Caesar's branch made it's own dough each day.

A Dem would say, "That can't be true. Let's investigate and require corrective advertising if we're right and it is false."

An R would say, "Why bother making fresh dough when the rest sucks anyway?"

think about it

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

you know all of the stones moved from GB to avoid taxes in the 70s? does the author?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I intuit that the author hasn't followed popular music since Edith Piaf, but who knows.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

do you use "intuit" in staff meetings?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Was ist das "staff meeting"?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You don't have "staff" meeting? What goodies corner office without?

pm if you can't understand and I'll pm details
 

Corti et al have my proxy on climate change. Their findings track my initial results.

• A crucial question in the global-warming debate concerns the extent to which recent climate change is caused by anthropogenic forcing or is a manifestation of natural climate variability1. It is commonly thought that the climate response to anthropogenic forcing should be distinct from the patterns of natural climate variability. But, on the basis of studies of nonlinear chaotic models with preferred states or 'regimes', it has been argued2,3 that the spatial patterns of the response to anthropogenic forcing may in fact project principally onto modes of natural climate variability. Here we use atmospheric circulation data from the Northern Hemisphere to show that recent climate change can be interpreted in terms of changes in the frequency of occurrence of natural atmospheric circulation regimes. We conclude that recent Northern Hemisphere warming may be more directly related to the thermal structure of these circulation regimes than to any anthropogenic forcing pattern itself. Conversely, the fact that observed climate change projects onto natural patterns cannot be used as evidence of no anthropogenic effect on climate. These results may help explain possible differences between trends in surface temperature and satellite-based temperature in the free atmosphere4,5,6.

Re: pm if you can't understand and I'll pm details
 

Dinosaurs killed by globle worming, but Im still here.

Suckuz.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

When did it go wrong? How are these MPs behaviors different from the behavior of last five Centuries of British governors?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

that was my point, sort of.

I don't get it.
 

I don't understand the thinking behind the results of the Iowa straw poll. Is there such a large group of people who will vote Republican on matter who the candidate is, that the GOP powers that be (at least the Iowa ones) think Bachmann is electable?

If I were someone who really wanted a GOP candidate to win the presidency, I'd worry less about finding a candidate that will appeal to the rapid right and more about finding a candidate who will appeal to what I assume (perhaps wrongly) is a big bunch of people in the middle and taking those votes away from either the Dems or a 3rd party independent. I don't see Bachmann being that person.

Or are the rabid right voters so likely to vote for an ultra-conservative 3rd party candidate -- even at the risk of a Dem candidate winning the election -- that they must be appeased?

(And yes, I know the Dems are equally guilty of doing this. I don't get it there either and am frustrated because between the two parties I usually am left with the choice of voting for someone I think is way too liberal or way too conservative or throwing away my vote on an independent.)

Re: I don't get it.
 

The straw poll is meaningless. Unless you were T-Paw and doing well in it was a key to your strategy and you won't be able to raise any money otherwise.

There's a reason that Romney mostly stayed away and Perry didn't start to run until things were about done in Iowa.

Re: I don't get it.
 

I wouldn't say it's meaningless. It's going to give Bachmann some momentum. Romney stayed away so he could lose and say "no surprise, I stayed away."

Anyway, Fugee's overarching point is correct, and something we've all bitched about-- the way in which the primaries push the parties to the fringe.

Re: I don't get it.
 

It takes about 10 million votes to get nominated by either party. Because most republican primaries are closed, and only republicans can vote in them, that means basically an R candidate can win by motivating about 1/6 of Republicans to vote for them - in other words, they need just 1/6 of the 1/3 most conservative americans. It's easier to get an ideologue to the polls.

Dems opened up most of the primaries after McGovern, so it is easier to draw from the center as a Dem (thus we've gotten nominees from the south fairly consistently, evne though it's not a source of democratic party strength generally). Still easier to motivate liberals though.

The salvation of each party is the institutional tendancy of the other to lunacy, but the Rs have built that more heavily into the process.

Re: I don't get it.
 

But are the people who vote in GOP primaries completely deluded about the electability of the candidate for whom they are voting or do they just not care and only care about having a candidate as conservative as they are?

Re: I don't get it.
 

By the way, I just got a new Jeep. I need three essential bits of personalization: (i) bumper stickers; (ii) wheel cover; and (iii) gun rack. Any good ideas you've seen?

Also, a bike rack. The old one is now on my wife's car.

Re: I don't get it.
 

Yup, at least 10 million totally deluded conservatives.

The republicans encourage them - they won them the house. You won't find Hank or Clubby getting anywhere near as annoyed with the Tea Partiers as they do with the likes of Ty or Sidd, and I think the tollerance of moderate Rs for the lunatics in their party is enabling.

And then the presidential year comes round and it bites 'em in the ass

By the way, we have plenty of deluded lefties in the Democratic party, but our primary process gives disproprotionate weight to party office holders, who are more practical, and states where we are weak. The formula for delegate seats has changed a bit recently to favor some of the more Dem-heavy states and lessen the impact of the ex-officios, but I think that was meant to benefit Hillary last time around (oops!) and Obama is likely to push it back.

Re: I don't get it.
 

Yes, but.....

Okay, certainly this is true in Congressional races, where you get a lot of fringers because they were the only ones who could make it thru the primaries.

Is it really that true of the Presidential race? Were McCain, W, Dole, Bush I the far right of the GOP? I don't think so. While GOP primary voters, particularly in some of the early states (Iowa, SC especially) may be far right, eventually the money necessary for a national primary flows to people who are a little more electable, sane, moderate, whatever. No?? (I would guess that the money sits on the sidelines for awhile, until the key donors can identify who the most likely sane candidate is.)

Maybe you're just saying that this time will be different. Or, that the primary season drives the moderate/sane candidates to the fringe (viz, Romney) -- which is certainly true, though whether that lasts through the general election, let alone after someone is actually elected, is another question.

Re: I don't get it.
 

I think the story of the Rs for the last 15-20 years has been a steady moving to the right, and that they have pushed to right particularly strongly since Gingrich during the Clinton presidency and very consistently during Bush II. During th Clinton Presidency, you'll also find the rules became more restrictive, largely under the influence of Atwater and Ailles, who were strategizing for the resurgence of the Bush dynasty and still had a lot of party influence.

In other words, I don't think the rise of the tea party is an accident. I think this is who the Rs decided to nurture to combat Clinton, and that the strategy is still bearing fruit for them. I don't think wall street has much influence among the Rs any more - this is their new establishment.

Re: I don't get it.
 

God, you are wrong pretty much every time you put hand to keyboard.

The tea party movement is not top down. It is bottom up, and the current GOP field is cultivating its vote. It is similar to the move-on.com crowd, to which the Ds to certainly give lip service. The difference, however, is that the tea party was actually effective in the 2010 races, so it now has legitimacy among the Rs. It can't be ignored, so what you see is a spectrum in the R field, from the Bachmans of the race - who need to actively cultivate and rely on the tea party as part of her coalition, to the Romneys - who can't risk offending them.

The Ds did something similar with Moveon. The far left candidates acted like Bachman (see your boy Dennis). The more moderate candidates, like Obama, played them like Romney.

Re: I don't get it.
 

I didn't say it was top down, I said it was encouraged and fostered by the rules. It is. The old R establishment chose a set of rules that gives a small core set of players disproportionate power; the Dems, on the other hand, have rules, since McGovern, designed to discourage that. The rump may try to control the Dems, but they fight an upstream battle.

Without that R structure, and the core emphasis within the Rs of feeding the hard care, the t party would look more like move-on and less like the defining force in the Republican party. There is no Move-on caucus in congress.

Note, I'm not saying the old line establishment intended to encourage the tea party - they thought they were playing with a different and easier to manage set of radical right wingers, from the Jerry Falwall days. I'm saying they did, whether they intended to or not. If they want to discourage it, open their primaries and watch it fade away.

Re: I don't get it.
 

Thank you for comparing Kucinich to Bachman. The comparison is apt.

Do you think Bachman will get more votes than Kucinch did?

Re: I don't get it.
 

So why does the GOP cultivate the tea partiers rather than the vast middle of the political spectrum? Wouldn't they have a better chance of winning the white house by giving the middle someone to vote for? I can't imagine Bachmann being elected in a million years -- why make her a front runner? Is the party so afraid the tea partiers will splt off and run their own 3rd party candidate (which would be completely stupid, as it would guarantee another Dem president)?

Re: I don't get it.
 

Yes, but I don't think she will win the nomination. She may hold on long enough to be considered for VP.

I'm still waiting for another player to come into the race (not Perry). The current crop is a joke. Bloomberg would be a dream, but I think it's unlikely. I would love to see Christie, but he says he isn't running. Jeb would probably win the primary, but I don't think enough time has gone by to win the general. It's ugly out there. Obama is totally unfit to be president, yet the GOP can't put forth a decent alternative. Once again, we are fucked.

Re: I don't get it.
 

Because the Tea Partiers just sent 80+ members to congress (or about 1/3 of the GOP congressional block). They are a serious voting block that can't be ignored. Just like in the D primaries, after the nomination is sealed, the nominee will need to make a hard pivot to the middle, and the election will depend on whether or not that pivot is successful.

Re: I don't get it.
 

They aren't afraid of a third party. They are afraid the Tea Partiers will stay home (which has the same effect).

Moreover, it's the Tea Partiers that are "making her a front runner" not "the GOP."