Baron Dave Romm
By Baron Dave Romm
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Recent political essays
The next few essays will be sound-bite sized chunks of political thoughts, bullet-point phrases to throw in conversation, left over links and general random comments. Some are repeated from recent essarys. This is an important election, and it's time to fire up the left's base of sane people.
Recent Political Columns:
Bartcop-E 9/6/10 featuring The Campaign Begins
Bartcop-E 9/13/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Returning the Favor
Bartcop-E 9/13/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Returning the Favor
Bartcop-E 9/20/10 featuring Campaign 2010: In Karl Rove's Face
Bartcop-E 9/27/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Why You Should Vote Democratic
Bartcop-E 10/4/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Grading On A Curve
Bartcop-E 10/11/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Bullet Points
GOTV: Cell Phone Tree
This was originally an idea inspired by< a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/14/910136/-Pew:-Excluding-cell-phones-biases-poll-results-in-GOPs-favor">Pew: Excluding cell phones biases poll results in GOP's favor and published as GOTV: Phone Tree Strategy, edited for Bartcop-E.Surveys of polls suggest that people who rely on cell phones and have no landline are being seriously undercounted in most polls. Shades of 1948!
This suggests a strategy for Democrats: A GOTV Phone Tree. Volunteers should call their friend's cell phones to urge them to vote, especially the ones without land lines. And get their friends to call their friends.
A robocall to a cell phone would backfire. But a personal contact could be very effective.
Let's put 21st Century technology to use!
Truman's victory in 1948 was unforseen by pollsters because they undercounted people who didn't have telephones. As one analysis put it, The only poll that really counts is the one on Election Day:
The reason the polls got it wrong? Polling, then in its infancy, relied, like today, on telephone interviews. However, in 1948 telephone service was still expensive and a luxury: most typical homes did not have phone service. Polling services did not account for this upper-income bias, and as a result, their surveys were comprised disproportionately of upper-income citizens, who tend to be identified with and vote Republican. Those tens of millions of Americans who didn't have phones voted for Truman, granting him the victory.
Further, pollsters missed a late shift to the incumbent Truman who blamed The GOP's lack of action in the "turnip" session of Congress allowed Truman to continue his attacks on the "do-nothing" Republican-controlled Congress.
The telephone situation is reversed: The young and upwardly mobile rely on cell phones. And they are more likely to support Obama and liberal policies than their fuddy-duddy grandparents. And, true, politicians who invoke Truman are on the desperate side. 2010 is not 1948. Still, there are parallels both in the political realities and the flaws in polling methodologies.
Now, go call an unenthusiastic friend's cell phone.
Texting is okay too.
Leftoever links
It's Official: More Private Sector Jobs Created In 2010 Than During Entire Bush Years
"Saying you're a fiscal hawk doesn't necessarily make it true" Alexi Giannoulias demolishes Mark Kirk's lies about being a "fiscal hawk" during a debate on Meet the Press.
And let me repeat a link from last week, with a quote: Campaign 2010--THE WINNING SPEECH FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA from Norman Spinrad At Large 10/10/10, which begins:
As Jim Morrison put it, "The people know what the people understand," so understand what I intend to do after this Congressional election, whether the Democrats win, lose, or draw."Violence is coming": Glenn Beck's long history of violent rhetoricAs soon as it can be written into legislation, and not by congressional committees beholden to lobbyists and special interests, I will personally propose to the incoming Congress the following program to put people back to work and revive the American economy and the American Dream without increasing the Federal budget deficit at all, indeed perhaps even reducing it.
1) A revision of the income tax rules to lower income tax on the middle class and the poor and pay for it by raising the rates for anyone earning more than a million dollars a year in a progressive manner so that the biggest increase will fall upon the upper three percent of the taxpayers.
The estimate is that renewing the Bush tax cut giveaway to the super rich will cost about $800 billion dollars over ten years. By not doing so, and by increasing taxes on the super rich, it will be possible to pump at least half a trillion dollars into the real economy with the stroke of my pen on the legislation without increasing the Federal budget deficit.
What do taxpayers earning a million dollars a year do with their excess money once they've bought their second yacht and their third vacation home?
Bryan Fischer, list of racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-troops views. A partial list, of course.
America is on the right path chart of job growth and loss Bush vs. Obama
Good
Ad for Democrats in history
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Progress: Moving America Forward
David H. Freedman: Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science (theatlantic.com)
MUCH OF WHAT MEDICAL RESEARCHERS CONCLUDE IN THEIR STUDIES IS MISLEADING, EXAGGERATED, OR FLAT-OUT WRONG. SO WHY ARE DOCTORS-TO A STRIKING EXTENT-STILL DRAWING UPON MISINFORMATION IN THEIR EVERYDAY PRACTICE? DR. JOHN IOANNIDIS HAS SPENT HIS CAREER CHALLENGING HIS PEERS BY EXPOSING THEIR BAD SCIENCE.
Marc Dion: Clarence "The Hook" Where Are You? (creators.com)
I wanna be mobbed up. The freak-job radio talk shows gas on about "union bosses" and "union thugs," but down on the ground, where some of us still belong to labor unions, a good thug is hard to find.
Mark Shields: Two Things are Important in Politics (creators.com)
Mark Hanna, a wealthy Ohio industrialist, while managing the winning presidential campaign of William McKinley put such a heavy arm on his corporate colleagues that McKinley's campaign out-raised and outspent Democrat William Jennings Bryan by more than 10 to one. Hanna knew whereof he spoke when he concluded: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one is."
Josh Levin: The Other Blind Sides (slate.com)
The Michael Oher story may have been amazing, but was it unique?
Marc Dion: Fashion on the Street (creators.com)
The kid, who was maybe 20 years old and black, stopped. "I like your hat," he said.
Michelle Hanson: Where are those car keys again? (guardian.co.uk)
Rosemary has lost her car key again. The cost to replace it? 'Upwards of £1,000.' For a car key!
Terry Savage: Walking on Mortgage Is No Underwater Escape Hatch (creators.com)
If you're like nearly 20 million American homeowners, you owe more on your mortgage loan than your home is worth. You probably have serious doubts that it will ever be worth what you paid for it. In a word, you're "underwater" on your home.
"Ideas That Matter: The Concepts That Shape the 21st Century" by A. C. Grayling: A review by Justin E. A. Busch
The one-author dictionary of ideas has been a fixture on the Western intellectual scene at least since Pierre Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary in the 1690s, but has enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent decades. Few modern authors are as ambitious as Bayle, who wrote multiple volumes, but most follow his tendentious approach, with the entries selected in accord with this or that overall view of how things ought to be.
"The Last Boy" by JANE LEAVY: Reviewed by Chuck Leddy
The schizophrenic quality of Mickey Mantle's life is made powerfully manifest throughout Jane Leavy's exhaustively researched, delightfully readable biography.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll
As you read this, I'll either be on the way to, already at, or returning from the VAMC in Dee-troit (right on the Wayne State University campus) gettin' a pre-admission work up for my surgery next week. As such, there'll be a Poll hiatus whilst said procedure is done and recovery endured. I hope to have one up on the 26th asking yer predictions concerning the election on November 2nd. Those will be posted that morning (the 2nd) and we shall see later that evening who's got it right. At least that's the plan... Until then, TTFN...
wrote:
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Purple Gene Reviews
"JACKASS 3D"
PURPLE GENE'S SKEWED, SCREWED AND SPEWED REVIEW OF THE HIT MOVIE "JACKASS 3D"
AGAINST THE ADVISE OF MY DEAREST FRIENDS....I DID IT....I PAID REAL MONEY AND WALKED IN THE THEATRE TO WATCH "JACKASS 3D"
I WAS WARNED ...WATCHING GROWN MEN DO STUPID SHIT ON CAMERA WOULD BE DISQUSTING...(ON TOP OF ME PAYING GOOD HARD EARNED CASH).....BUT THERE ARE SOME THINGS GUYS JUST HAVE TO TO DO ALONE....WITHOUT WOMEN !
LIKE SIT AND WATCH:
A MAN STRAPPED IN BUNGIED CORD PORT-O-POTTY (SHIT FLYING EVERYWHERE)SWINGING DICK BASEBALL
FARTING DARTS
SLO MO BIG BELLY PUNCHES AND HEAD SHOTS
DRINKING FAT ASS CROTCH SWEAT
CLIMBING 40' TREE AND GETTING IT CHOPPED DOWN WITH 2 DUMMIES AT THE TOP AND FALLING INTO SNOW DRIFT.
PIG PULLING APPLE OUT OF FAT ASS.
MULTIPLE SURPRISE PISSINGS ON UNSUSPECTING DUPES
FAKE GRANPA FRENCH KISSING 18 YEAR OLD GRANDAUGHTER IN FRONT OF TECH NERD..
TOOTH BEING PULLED BY LAMBORGHINI.
MINATURE HELICOPTER ATTACHED TO DICK AND FLYING AROUND.
FAKE MIDGET BAR BRAWL IN REDNECK BAR (WITH MIDGET COPS AND PARAMEDICS) ....LEAVING STUNNED AND DRUNK PATRONS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS..
GUT SHOTS, HEAD SHOTS, ASS SHOTS....MULTIPLE CROTCH SHOTS.
HUGE BULL GORING AND FLIPPING OF KNOXVILLE.
FARTING ASS PLAYING A TRUMPET
FAT PEOPLE CRAZY GLUED TOGETHER.
FAKE GORILLA UNLEASHED ON UNSUSPECTING HOTEL CUSTOMERS
GRAND FINALE WITH EXPLODING ROOM AND FLOODED WALL CRASHING DOWN AND ...
THE END (WITH MORE PRANKS DURING THE CREDITS)
WHY DID I GO ????
THIS IS NOT A CHICK FLICK (SERIOUSLY DONT TAKE A GIRL TO SEE THIS MOVIE).
WHAT IT IS IS A SICK INSIPID STUPID TEENAGE MALE DUMB ASS FANTASY......
AND YOU KNOW WHAT....THERE WERE SO MANY SICK SCENES WHERE I FOUND MYSELF DOUBLED OVER IN CONVULSIVE HILARITY (IF I WAS WITH A GIRL I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE FELT GUILTY FOR GAFFAWING)..BUT NO....IT WAS A NO GUILT...DUMB A THON......
I SHOULDN'T BE TELLING YOU ALL THAT I WENT TO THIS MOVIE...BUT GODDAMIT ....SOMETIMES TOTAL MORONIC DUMBASS IS THE BEST....LIKE THE 3 STOOGES ON STEROIDS IN 2010 (IN 3D AND VIVID COLOR)...WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO!
PS...REMEMBER....NO SPECIAL EFFECTS...NO PRACTICE.....NO SECOND TRIES....AND NO FEAR...OF STUPID AND PAINFUL TRICKS!
~ PURP
Link from RJ
The Astonishing City of Sciences and Arts
Hi there
I thought you might like this one!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast, again, but no rain - yet.
Philippine Comic Industry Fights For Survival
Komiks
Philippine comic books have nurtured talent for international TV and animation blockbusters, but the once-mighty industry is fighting to survive as it comes up against the Internet and other new media.
Comic books that dominated the Philippine publishing industry just a couple of decades ago are now largely relegated to photocopied titles sold in a few specialty stores and at conventions, lamented veteran artist Rico Rival.
"There are still a lot of good Filipino artists. They just don't have an outlet anymore. They just photocopy their own works," said Rival who has worked for local publications as well as US comic and animation companies.
The 72-year-old Rival is now retired but still indulges his passion by drawing occasionally for Philippine magazines and doing commissioned art at conventions.
Local comic books, popularly known as "komiks", were once the most widely read periodicals in the country with dozens of titles sold on newsstands every day.
Komiks
Cancels Israel Trip
Mike Leigh
British filmmaker Mike Leigh has canceled a visit to Israel to protest against a proposed loyalty oath for new citizens.
The bill, passed by Israel's Cabinet last week, would require non-Jewish immigrants to pledge loyalty to a "Jewish and democratic" state - language widely seen as discriminatory toward Israel's Arab minority.
Leigh, the award-winning director of "Naked" and "Secrets & Lies," was to participate in a film festival next month. He is Jewish.
Writing to the school sponsoring the event, Leigh said he opposed Israel's policies on Gaza, but called the loyalty oath the "last straw."
Mike Leigh
Clock Collection Sings Again
Qing Dynasty
Restored Qing Dynasty musical clocks designed to delight emperors in the Forbidden City and never seen outside China will go on display from Saturday at Utrecht's Speelklok museum.
The clocks stored in the Forbidden City's Palace Museum were silent for decades until a team from the Utrecht museum began working with Chinese experts to restore them three years ago.
The 18th century clocks made in Europe were imported to China by emperors fascinated by their mechanical craftsmanship.
The exhibition, SingSong, Treasures from the Forbidden City, runs until February 28.
Qing Dynasty
New Produce
Red Celery
Is America ready for red celery? A Florida produce company thinks so and has bet consumers will bite on the colorful crunch of its new product.
Red celery will hit selected supermarkets Dec. 1 - in time to add some eye-catching color to holiday tables, said Dan Duda, president of Duda Farm Fresh Foods, which was set to unveil the new celery at a produce industry trade show in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.
It was nearly 20 years in the making, he said. One of the family owned company's celery breeders, Larry Pierce, started developing it in 1991, working off a European heritage variety using natural breeding methods.
Red celery will be test marketed first on the west coast and in the northwest and southwest, Duda said. It will carry a premium price that will vary by location as they gauge how much extra shoppers are willing to pay. It will be rolled out nationwide sometime later. Duda declined to go into much detail about the company's marketing plans for competitive reasons and would not say which retailers would carry it or specify which cities.
Red Celery
New Saint Faced Old Problem
Mary MacKillop
Pope Benedict XVI canonised Australia's first saint, Mary MacKillop, at a mass in Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican on Sunday in front of tens of thousands of cheering pilgrims.
Benedict praised Melbourne-born MacKillop's record as a teacher in the "difficult and demanding terrain" of the Australian Outback and said the teachers she inspired had educated "countless young people".
Referring to her frequent run-ins with senior Australian clergymen, Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, added: "She's a wonderful example of truthfulness, obedience and loyalty to the Church despite the fact that she was treated unjustly."
MacKillop was an inspirational nun and educator who fell out with Australian Church authorities and was briefly excommunicated in 1871 in a fight over control of her order and after her denunciation of a paedophile priest.
Mary MacKillop
Islamic Singer Pleads Guilty
Abu Ratib
A prominent Islamic singer accused of concealing ties to a terrorist group has pleaded guilty to making false statements during the U.S. naturalization process.
Syrian native Mohamad Masfaka uses the stage name Abu Ratib. He pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Detroit.
The government says Masfaka was the Holy Land Foundation's Detroit-area representative in 1997 and 1998 but didn't mention it in a 2002 application for naturalization.
The U.S. labeled the foundation a terrorist group in 2001, saying it had provided money and support to Hamas.
The U.S. attorney's office says Masfaka likely faces 10 to 16 months in federal prison before being deported to Syria. He'll be sentenced on Dec. 14. A message seeking comment was left for his lawyer.
Abu Ratib
Some Charges Dropped
Anand Jon Alexander
Prosecutors have dropped some of their slate of sex charges against fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander, but he's still fighting allegations of molesting nine would-be models.
Alexander remains convicted in a similar case in California. But one of his lawyers hailed Wednesday's dismissal of some of the New York charges as a good step for the designer, who says he's innocent of all the allegations.
Born in India, Alexander - known professionally as Anand Jon - launched a fashion line in 1999 and built it into a high-flying career. He was featured on "America's Next Top Model," worked with such celebrities as Paris Hilton and Mary J. Blige and was among 20 people profiled by Newsweek in 2006 as up-and-coming players in various industries.
Then sex assault allegations against Alexander began surfacing in 2007. He was convicted in Los Angeles the next year of sexually assaulting seven women and girls, some as young as 14. He was sentenced to 59 years to life in prison.
Anand Jon Alexander
Flew Plane 80 Times Without Repair
Corporate Air
Federal regulators on Wednesday proposed fining a feeder airline, Corporate Air, $455,000 for allowing a small airliner to carry passengers on 80 flights despite an engine that needed repair.
Billings, Mont.,-based Corporate Air flew the Beech 1900C - a 19-passenger twin-engine turboprop plane - without repairing its right engine, which was consuming excessive amounts of oil, FAA said. Mechanics repeatedly added more oil when the plane landed despite directions in the engine manufacturer's service manual to make repairs, the agency said
Executives with Corporate Air didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has scheduled flights in eight states in addition to Montana: Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. It also operates six aircraft repair and maintenance facilities, according to a company website.
Corporate Air
Cemetery Pit
Arizona
The scene at a cemetery in southern Arizona was startling - two open pits filled with human skulls, ribs, femurs and other bones.
The visitor to the Memory Gardens Cemetery in Bisbee contacted police after spotting them.
Authorities concluded no laws were broken, even though they found the discovery of the sprawling pits very disturbing, Bisbee Police Sgt. Benjamin Reyna said.
But investigators want to find out if the remains were handled properly by a cremation business that was contracted to dispose of them for a medical research company.
The pits contained countless human bones - some with artificial knees and hips still attached - and were so large it took several tarps to cover each one while investigators examined the scene.
Arizona
'Fast Track' To Sainthood
JP II
The process leading to sainthood for late Polish pope John Paul II has recently been accelerated, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said on Saturday after talks with Pope Benedict XVI.
Italian daily Il Giornale this week reported that initial medical confirmation of John Paul II's first miracle -- a vital step towards beatification and eventual canonisation -- could come "in the next few weeks."
There had been speculation in Poland earlier this year that Saturday's anniversary could see the beatification of John Paul II -- the first step toward formal recognition as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
JP II
Weekend Box Office
'Jackass'
Johnny Knoxville and his "Jackass" gang are even bigger hits in three dimensions.
"Jackass 3D," their latest big-screen collection of crazy stunts and antics, opened with a whopping $50 million, soaring past the debuts of their first two movies, according to studio estimates Sunday.
It was the third-straight No. 1 opening for Paramount's franchise, which launched with a $22.8 million opening for 2002's "Jackass: The Movie" and continued with a $29 million debut for 2006's "Jackass Number Two."
Premiering at No. 2 with $22.5 million was Summit Entertainment's action comedy "Red," starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker in the tale of retired black-ops agents targeted by the CIA.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Jackass 3D," $50 million.
2. "Red," $22.5 million.
3. "The Social Network," $11 million.
4. "Secretariat," $9.5 million.
5. "Life as We Know It," $9.2 million.
6. "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," $4.2 million.
7. "The Town," $4 million.
8. "My Soul to Take," $3.2 million.
9. "Easy A," $2.7 million.
10. "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," $2.4 million.
'Jackass'
In Memory
Belva Plain
Belva Plain, who wrote more than 20 best-selling novels during a literary career that spanned several decades, has died. She was 95.
Plain's daughter, Barbara, said the author died in her sleep Tuesday at her home in New Jersey. A cause of death was not disclosed.
Plain, known for epic novels of family and forgiveness, never owned a computer and wrote her novels longhand on a yellow pad. And while she had written short fiction for women's magazines in her younger days, Plain put her pen on hold and instead focused on raising her three children.
She didn't start writing novels until after she became a grandmother.
Her first novel, "Evergreen," was published in 1978. It follows the saga of a young girl who trades the desperate squalor of rural Poland for the teeming slums of New York, where she is torn between the love and ambitions of two men. It went on to spend more than 40 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list and was developed into a TV miniseries.
Shortly before her death, Plain completed a sequel to "Evergreen," which will be published in February. Plain had previously revived some of the "Evergeen" characters for three other novels: "The Golden Cup," "Tapestry" and "Harvest."
A New York City native, Plain was an only child who wrote poetry as a teenager and graduated with a history degree from Barnard College.
A few years later, she was at a dinner party when she met Irving Plain, an aspiring doctor who became a prominent Newark-based ophthalmologist. They were married in 1939 and settled in South Orange, where they lived for many years until Irving's death in 1982. She then moved to Short Hills.
Besides her children, Plain is also survived by six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Belva Plain
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