The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Open Thread At Noon

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Deborah — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:28:23 -0000

Dan Savage has posted this next to a video of misspelled Tea Partier signs.

Obama won handily with college educated voters. Do the Partiers really want to say only those with at least a Bachelor's can vote?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

pete from baltimore — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:48:35 -0000

Baltimore is completly snowed in!

So, for those commenters in the mid-atlantic who are stuck in the snow, i just wanted to wish you all luck and to say that i hope that you dont have to leave your neighborhood anytime soon.

And be careful out there!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sv — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:04:36 -0000

That's my plan as a Jets fan!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Bluestatewatchdog — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:48:56 -0000

Yet again I encounter HTML failure. Why oh why do I continue to try? One mo' gin': We Draw The Lines

Don't tell my boss, he'll never let me near the web site again.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Juaquin Murrieta — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:34:16 -0000

Well, I tried to do it.

The link is defective, BlueState. And I can't get messages through the filter here. Grr.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Juaquin Murrieta — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:31:25 -0000

Done, BlueState.

And here's a line for the filter.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Juaquin Murrieta — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:38:26 -0000

I wouldn't take Ishmael Reed too seriously, unless you're talking about his art. (As to that, opinions vary, of course. I think highly of him. Your mileage may vary.) But when he writes an Op-Ed for the NY Times? As an essayist, an analyst, as a film critic?

Come on. Read the guy's books and love them, he's one of the greats. But don't turn to him to be coherent in a situation where he's probably no more analytic than I am.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

toddbbq — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:40:42 -0000

Has anyone seen this? The Tea Party suggests bringing back literacy tests for (black and brown) people to vote.

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/tea-party-opening-speaker-suggests-blacks-voting/

Money quote:

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Rhialto — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:56:32 -0000

Anybody see Rep. Anthony Weiner on with Stewart? Thoughts?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Bluestatewatchdog — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:34:34 -0000

I just submitted my application today to , We Draw The Lines, the California Citizen's Redistricting Commission. I strongly encourage every CA resident who is a regular reader/commenter of TNC's blog to apply. If we can inject some of the cogent and rational analysis that I read daily here into CA government, at any level, the entire state would be better off for it.

I love California. No matter how tough things can get here, no matter how many people flee the state citing many of it's problems(real and imagined), no matter how much the lack of real fiscal discipline rears it's ugly head, I refuse to abandon my home. I refuse to cede this state to people who only want to use up it's great and abundant resources and leave it stripped and bare on the side of the road like it's some cheap, strung out hooker. It is too unique, too special, and too important to let it be neglected much further and descend into some pseudo-third world status among states. I have resolved within myself to stay and fight for my state.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

dmf — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:08:07 -0000

s, good luck with your fight with the demon weed.

The Old Flame

My old flame, my wife!

Remember our lists of birds?

One morning last summer, I drove

by our house in Maine. It was still

on top of its hill -

Now a red ear of Indian maize

was splashed on the door.

Old Glory with thirteen stripes

hung on a pole. The clapboard

was old-red schoolhouse red.

Inside, a new landlord,

a new wife, a new broom!

Atlantic seaboard antique shop

pewter and plunder

shone in each room.

A new frontier!

No running next door

now to phone the sheriff

for his taxi to Bath

and the State Liquor Store!

No one saw your ghostly

imaginary lover

stare through the window

and tighten

the scarf at his throat.

Health to the new people,

health to their flag, to their old

restored house on the hill!

Everything had been swept bare,

furnished, garnished and aired.

Everything's changed for the best -

how quivering and fierce we were,

there snowbound together,

simmering like wasps

in our tent of books!

Poor ghost, old love, speak

with your old voice

of flaming insight

that kept us awake all night.

In one bed and apart,

we heard the plow

groaning up hill -

a red light, then a blue,

as it tossed off the snow

to the side of the road.

Robert Lowell

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Jennifer D. — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:08:58 -0000

I saw that! And I gave her the benefit of the doubt yesterday. Lesson learned.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Pontchartrain Girl — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:09:00 -0000

CitE, I totally agree that last championship game was riveting, and that's part of why--in addition to feeling like an asshole in public--I wished I'd been at home, to fully concentrate and enjoy it.

I expect the SB to be a close, suspenseful game too. Yeah, the Colts are a well-oiled machine and the Saints less predictable. But that's exactly why it will be good. Psychologically, overcoming our record and actually *winning* the NFC trophy seemed more nerve-wrecking to me. Whatever happens in the SB will be gravy, but that's not to say I'm predicting a Saints' loss. I just want them to be real contenders.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Ulysses (not yet home) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:58:03 -0000

Rush Limbaugh": "our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards."

Sarah Palin: .......

Sarah Palin spokesperson: "Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name-calling at the expense of others is disrespectful."

Hmmmmm.....

Re: Open Thread At Noon

ptp — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:59:46 -0000

Felt the same in 05 (for the other side). Looking at this game I'm really kind of happy with the two teams playing; my dad's a Louisiana guy and I'm starting to think Peyton Manning might be the best QB to ever play the game, or at least legendary enough that getting to watch him play turns into one of those generational things that you get to tell stories to your kids about.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Andy in Texas — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:54:14 -0000

As with all things Black and Confederate, Civil War Memory is your one-stop shop. I can hear the writer's pitch now -- "it's like Glory, from the other side."

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Byrk — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:48:05 -0000

It's called Bayes Theorum and Wikipedia does a pretty good drug testing example. To put it in fairly basic terms, let's say that the test is 95% specific, meaning that there's a 5/100 false positive rate and for simplicity I'll assume there's zero false negatives. False negatives will actually make the positive predictive value here worse, but adds to the math. The population of drug users is 5%.

What this means is if you test 100 people, 5 of them will be false positive and you'll find 5 true positives for a total of 10 positive tests. Unfortunately, 50% of the positives are non-users meaning so the positive predictive value is somewhere around 50%. Repeat testing will mitigate most of this, but there will be X% of non-users who have their welfare taken away.

I'm also going to call BS on a 99% sensitivity and specificity rate drug testers claim. I don't believe for one moment that the providers have the necessary controls in place to prevent a lower sample mix-up rate than 1%, or any desire to put those controls in place.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

BreakerBaker — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:53:14 -0000

Yeah, the original is a ton better. Of course, I now have to take this opportunity to say how overrated Christopher Nolan is.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

clc — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:30:16 -0000

Sorry about the lack of links. I submitted them and they haven't gone through yet. Apparently the movie is based on the book "Cleburne: A Graphic Novel"

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Jimmy D — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:30:06 -0000

Ha. Good thinking. Though, the thought of gaining some fair-weather fans is at the same time inconceivable and excellent.

We will progress nicely, but not quite that nicely.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Jennifer D. — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:26:10 -0000

Wow, brawn and brains. He is lovable. One more reason to root for the Saints.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CitizenE — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:24:46 -0000

TO Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

All pray in their distress;

And to these virtues of delight

Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is God, our Father dear,

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is man, His child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,

Pity a human face,

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,

That prays in his distress,

Prays to the human form divine,

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,

In heathen, Turk, or Jew;

Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell

There God is dwelling too.

William Blake

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Jennifer D. — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:24:21 -0000

As per our conversation somewhere else yesterday, notice how it's "crackheads" and not "methheads"? Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Bill Rutherford, Princeton Adm — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:24:14 -0000

"How is a person supposed to act when they have even marginal levels of success?"

By complaining about all the team's new fair-weather fans, naturally.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

clc — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:21:27 -0000

Sorry, my original links did not go through. Let's try this again -

CW Memory Blog Post

Movie Cast List