This is an interesting exploration of a possible cause for Kerry's rise and dean's fall in the past few weeks, essentially saying that Kerry appeals more to people who were initially for the war, but have since felt misled and unjustified. Dean's "have always been against the war" may be right and admirable in retrospect, but it also makes people feel like morons, and that causes a disconnect. So, those people say, "Well, here's a guy, a Senator even, who got duped just like i did." Kerry makes them feel better about themselves, so he's a more comfortable candidate. I guess i can understand that, but i'd hope that people would vote on elements more substantive than their own past chagrin.

I don't buy the Kerry "Electability" meme either. As many of the posts in the linked thread say, he doesn't have the force of conviction, or the record to back his statements. He *feels* wishy-washy. Ultimately, he's not gonna win any debates against Bush on the war, and i don't think his economic standpoints are catalyzing enough to make a difference. So what are the presidential debates going to be about?

I have a bad feeling that come this time next year, people are gonna be feeling this meme in a bad way :

] Dated Dean
]
] Married Kerry
]
] Woke up with Bush

Daily Kos || Dean and the real buyer's remorse

] A Danish biotech company has developed a genetically
] modified flower that could help detect land mines and it
] hopes to have a prototype ready for use within a few
] years.

hot damn that's cool.

Yahoo! News - Flower-Power Could Help Clear Land mines

] THE CONGRESSIONAL Budget Office released its new deficit
] projections yesterday, and the bad news is that the
] deficit is forecast to total nearly $2.4 trillion over
] the next decade, almost $1 trillion more than the
] estimate just five months ago. The worse news is that the
] actual prognosis is far grimmer. Because the budget
] office is required by law to ignore some likely costs,
] the more realistic scenario is that the federal
] government will spend about $5 trillion more over the
] next 10 years than it takes in.

ouch.

Dangerous Deficits (washingtonpost.com)

James Carville says the number is 35%. Anything over 35% for Kerry and he's pretty much rolling. Anything less opens it up wide for 2/3.

Exciting politics.

CNN.com - Carville: Kerry needs big win to solidify position - Jan. 27, 2004

] Microsoft could soon be facing multi-billion euro fines
] and other sanctions for breaking European competition
] law.

we'll see...

BBC NEWS | Business | EU's mind 'made up' on Microsoft

] Challenged by Blitzer that the media did not create his
] performance in Des Moines, Dean said, "But you chose to
] play it 673 times in one week. That's your privilege.
]
]
] "If you want to be president of the United States, you
] had better be willing to take whatever the news media
] throw at you, and I'm very willing to take it," he said.

CNN.com - Dean predicts comeback, takes swipe at media - Jan. 26, 2004

Elonka wrote:
] If I were voting in tomorrow's primary, I'd vote for
] Lieberman.

alas, he'll be dropping out shortly, i predict. probably not this week, but he's got hardly a shot on 2/3 unless he pulls off a miracle in NH.

back on topic, i agree that there's a lot of misrepresentation of Kay's resignation and subsequent discussions. Self-interested Democrats are painting it as proof that the administration was lying, which is itself pretty indistinguishable from lying, since that's not what Kay has stated.

That being said, the administration is doing an awful lot of "It's not our fault, we had bad intelligence!", "Everyone *thought* they were there" and "We got hosed!" or "We're just doing what Bill Clinton wanted!" I'm still incredibly skeptical of statements like that.

Fundamentally, I'm not as angry about the fact that we went to war on shaky pretenses as much as the way in which it was handled on the global stage, and the lack of adequate planning before engagement. I also maintain that congress acted irresponsibly, at least, by effectively signing away their oversight to the Bush administration. That's my main problem with the Dem contenders who voted for the resolution... not that they supported invading Iraq, but that they permitted it to be done in a poorly thought out manner.

It would seem that most people don't agree with me, since Kerry is at the head of the pack right now, but people are fickle... it might come back up. On the electability tip, none of the senators could go antiwar very effectively against the prez, since he could diffuse it with a quick "[BZZT] You told me to do it. You're done now." Fortunately, there are plenty of other complaints to bring to bear.

RE: CNN.com - Democrats attack administration over Kay's comments

]] The H3Viewer library provides layout and interactive
]] navigation of node-link graphs in 3D hyperbolic space.
]
]Now this is how I want to see my social network laid out. Don't ]know if it is any good, but it looks pretty cool

very interesting. i'm not competent to comment on the math, but it seems pretty smart.

silly academics need to put screenshots on the main page though, not buried inside a bunch of papers... don't they know most people only care for the shiny things? ;)

H3Viewer

] Dean needed the Zogby and this SUSA poll to fuel the
] media "Dean is closing in fast" theme. Drudge has it
] splashed all over his homepage. AP and Reuters both have
] big headline stories with the Zogby poll.
]
]
] And whether it's based on reality or not is beside the
] point. Most polls show Kerry comfortably ahead. Zogby and
] SUSA -- two of the least respected polls in polling
] circles (unfairly so, imho) -- may very well be outliers.
] But given the media need for ratings, creating an
] exciting NH photo finish is imperative. And it may be a
] self-fulfilling prophecy. Demoralized Dean supporters are
] newly energized. Voters who tuned out Dean after the
] Rebel Yell may now be willing to give him another look.

we shall see, i guess. maybe the media can help now in roughly equal proportion to the hurt it inflicted last week. doubt it, but every bit helps.

I don't think dean has to win NH to stay in this, but he does need a decent second place... like, within 5 points at most i think. anything outside that and Kerry's meteoric rise will probably continue, and he'll probably get some fundage from those who were holding out to give to the most likely candidate, instead of "wasting" money on the early primary contenders. Dean's still got a lot of cash, and more infrastructure in the Feb 3 states, so a good second in NH should be enough to regain some momentum.

It'll be interesting.

Daily Kos :: NH Poll info

abaddon wrote:
] so which is it, global warming, or global cooling...they need
] to make up their minds so I know which sort of clothes to
] buy...
]
] --Abaddon

well, as the article says, a general warming trend, which we're seeing, can do things like turn off the gulf stream, which feeds heat (in the form of tropical water) to northern europe. If that happened it would create a localized cooling effect up there, while most everyone would continue to get warmer.

RE: Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age