Electability v. Passion, Plus a Baked Potato Recipe

We have to prize electability over enthusiasm. I know what that sounds like... that sounds like I'm down on Bernie. I'm not! I love the guy. I've always loved him. I love his guts. I love him like Trump loves Kim Jong Un. I love him like Johnny Cash loved June Carter. Alright, that's too much. Way too much.

There's enthusiasm for Bernie, but that enthusiasm is measurable now that we have a lot of primary vote data. Does it make him more electable? If so, the enthusiasm will have translated into support, i.e. electability.

Bernie seems like he beats Trump in nationwide polls, but remember what Mr. Natural said to Flakey Foont when asked, "What does it all mean?" Mr. Natural- "Don't mean sheeit."

The polls in the battleground states show Bernie and Biden both beating Trump, but Biden beating him by a wider margin, i.e. data shows Biden has an edge to win the presidency. That is data we can't ignore. 

Thought Experiment- imagine there were only one battleground state... that we knew it would decide the election... and it had Candidate Q beating Trump by 20 points, and Candidate P losing by 5. And imagine the rest of the country voted for Candidate P because they like his policies more. That's an extreme example, but I believe even slight preferences of battleground states need to be weighed heavily.

A Politico article today shows that exit polling does not reflect Sanders main argument. I'll let them tell it:

"As for Sanders, Biden did not just defeat him across the country, he made a mockery of the senator’s main argument for his campaign. Sanders has repeatedly said that he will turn out new disaffected voters, rally the working class to his cause, and spike youth turnout to unprecedented levels. None of it has happened. Take his home state of Vermont. Turnout was higher there this year than in 2016, but Sanders won 86% of the vote then and just 51% this year. Biden is also winning the working class. To the extent that new voter turnout is higher, it isn’t breaking for Sanders, and youth turnout hasn’t exploded. That’s the revolution Sanders promised. But 18 states have voted and it hasn’t materialized."

Here's another problem, when we want someone to win, our confirmation bias kicks in and positive data is remembered, and negative data that contradicts our belief is disregarded. Once you recognize your own confirmation bias you can fight it. This data confirms the opposite of what I want to believe.

Are we reformers or revolutionaries? When we are surrounded by revolutionaries, it's easy to think that everybody's a revolutionary. And vice versa. 

Same thing with Trump supporters in the Midwest. If he loses, they'll look at all their neighbor's yard signs and have no idea what happened. ("70 million illegal immigrants voted!") 

Data seems to suggest we're reformers, and although Sanders may very well be the best person for the country, the country just might not be ready for him. If not, he'll lose. 

What's the best data that proves the opposite? I'd love to justify voting for him.

March 4, 2020

Postscript- I lost at least one Bernie fan over this!

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Oh what a horrible thing! We went to Dragon Buffet tonight, and I sliced my thumb on a crab shell. I didn't realize my hand was all bloody until I noticed there was blood on my tea handle. Next I saw that Gretel's hand looked bloody too, and in the identical places. It turned out that hers was bloody because she grabbed one of the same serving utensils that I grabbed! Who else grabbed it???!!!

March 4, 2023

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Mighty future kicker.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02CuyPy3TcFigau7bXVEnnSZqErRJYy9VwR1KbjEiSYvDG6APuWjfEY1mfGrAvvHpBl&id=741063511&mibextid=NnVzG8

March 4, 2018

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Denis McDonough, Obama's chief of staff for his entire second term, was on Meet the Press this morning. Wait, who? When an administration isn't run by chaos you don't even know who the chief of staff is.

March 4, 2018

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The president accused Obama of wiretapping him and exclaims, "This is McCarthyism!" And he oughta know- his early mentor, Roy Cohn, was McCarthy's aide. You don't think he was complimenting Obama for a job well done?

March 4, 2018

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The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club...

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I thought everyone could do this.

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When the knife gets unburied, you better be worried.

March 4, 2016

Postscript- Apparently some knife was dug up, perhaps associated with the OJ Simpson case.

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2016 produce quality meeting.

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For about a week or two I've been thinking my baby's hair looks like Hitler's, but I kept it to myself. Guess what Emma told me tonight- she thinks the baby's hair looks like Hitler's. You know what this means? It means the baby's hair looks like Hitler's.

March 4, 2014

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Tragedy on this day in 1908- the Collinwood school fire in Collinwood, Ohio killed 174 people.

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On this day in 1952, Hemingway finished writing The Old Man and the Sea and wrote his publisher to tell him it was the best writing he has ever done.

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Rod Serling's closing narration of Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street",  which first aired on this day in 1960.

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own - for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The Twilight Zone."

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On this day in 1966, John Lennon declared that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now".

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The Phillies' Nick Castellanos joined us on this day in 1992. He's a great example of how you can have a pretty bad year, and then do something in the postseason that you will be remembered for forever.

"This game is a really humbling game. If forever owes you nothing. It doesn't matter how hard you work the year previous or what you had in the past. You have to come and earn your meal every single night."

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Nikolai Gogol left us on this day in 1852. From Dead Souls:

"However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man."

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Other notable deathdays- John Candy (1994), Minnie Pearl (1996), Luke Perry (2019)

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A lot of info jammed in this short Alain de Bottom lecture... different perspective on the modern world.

https://youtu.be/MtSE4rglxbY

March 4, 2012

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Julian Baggini on what it is to be a self. Do we have any experience with our identity that is something other than our memories, desires, beliefs and knowledge? 

https://youtu.be/TF2A3rKqoY0

March 4, 2012

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Marty the Martyr

http://www.cracked.com/video_18543_the-horrifying-deleted-timeline-from-back-to-future.html

One more thing we all had the ability to think of, but didn't.

March 4, 2013

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I'm always blown away by now and then pics of dilapidated places. This is from a Detroit High School.

http://detroiturbex.com/content/schools/cass/thenandnow/index.html

March 4, 2013

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Emma just asked me how to bake a potato. I gave her the only baked potato recipe I know and she got mad. "It takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I just throw one in there, even if I don't want one. Cause by the time it's done, who knows?"

https://youtu.be/9rvVugY-kZc

March 4, 2013

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Truthout- Trump May Want to Be President Forever. Take the Threat Seriously.

Excellent, short article outlining how Trump may not leave office willingly even if he loses... i.e. if he loses, the election was rigged (the only possible explanation in his mind.)

https://truthout.org/articles/trump-may-want-to-be-president-forever-take-the-threat-seriously

March 4, 2019

Postscript- With all the things we know unequivocally about trump, imagine the things we don't know!

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Joseph Goebbels- "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

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The Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup, takes place in the fictional country of Freedonia. Upon its release, the mayor of Fredonia, NY publicly questioned their motive of using his town in their movie. Marx Brothers responded, "Your Excellency. Our advice is that you change the name of your town. It's hurting our picture."

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Heath Ledger- “Everyone you meet always asks if you have a career, are married or own a house; as if life was some kind of grocery list. But nobody ever asks if you are happy.”

Well that's because that would be creepy!

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Vivian Maier 

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Norm Macdonald, apparently channeling Rodney Dangerfield- "Before I met my wife I felt incomplete. Now I'm finished."

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Virginia Woolf- "How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself."

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Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels- "The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and lawsuits."

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Mitch Hedberg- "A fly was very close to being called a "land" because that's what it does half the time."

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David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest- "God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not crazy about."

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Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims- "There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one's efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire."