CODA iPad Art Car by Matthew Watkins

No Question, Romney Was The Best Possible GOP Candidate This Year

But the chair was my favorite moment of the entire campaign.

The Daily Show
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Petraeus Resigns

Because he's running for the GOP nomination for President in 2016? No! Oh no, it's John Edwards all over again!:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has confirmed to TPM that Gen. David Petraeus has resigned as the director of the CIA.

"Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA," Petraeus said in a statement, obtained by CNN. "After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation."

Four Years Is An Eternity

Just ask liberals! They remember 2004!

But, this time, it's going to be a lot longer than four years. Nate Silver says that the Democrats will have an Electoral College advantage of about 2.5% for 2016 and 2020, meaning that the GOP will have to have at least a 2.5% advantage in the national popular vote to have a chance of victory. Rots of ruck there, with all your voter suppression tactics!

In any event, courtesy of Washington Monthly, these folks will be in pine boxes before things look up for them.

I do think that it's interesting that Emma Runion's statement:

“The battle is lost, the war is not. And it begins today.”

is a precise echo of what Sean Hannity said on his radio show last night. God bless them, they are perfect parrots, with scarcely an original thought in their precious little heads:

VALRICO, Fla. — The first thing Emma Runion did when she woke up Wednesday was to go out into the yard and pull up the signs. ... “For my own psyche,” said Runion, a 58-year-old Republican and tea party activist. “If I drive home with the signs in the yard, it’s rubbing salt in the wound.”

...Four More Years is a long time — enough to dampen the spirit. But the opposite was true for Emma Runion. “The battle is lost, the war is not,” she said. “And it begins today.”

...After gathering her signs Wednesday morning, Emma went to her computer. First she scanned it for spyware. “Hackers were very busy last night,” she said. Her second order of business was dropping Fox News as her home page, annoyed with the network for pitching in the towel so early and calling Obama the winner. Her new home page: the Blaze, the Glenn Beck-run news site.

...“We’ll probably get a long gun and a short gun,” Emma said. “We’ve already got our concealed carry permits; we just need to be finger­printed.” That last step was the one that made her hesitant. “Once you are registered, they know who you are. Most firearms now are chipped” for tracking.

They worried that Obama would now downsize the military — “MacDill is going to be a ghost town,” Emma said of the Air Force base in Tampa — to build his own military consisting of the National Guard, the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.

...“This guy, who is he?” asked John, at the kitchen counter. “He’s Buddhist, he’s Muslim, he’s Christian. When he addresses the Muslims, he speaks Muslim. When he addresses blacks, he goes into that black dialect. It’s creepy.”

...Finally, “we are gonna end up like Greece.”

Mitt Romney Lost Because He Wasn't White Enough?

How could that be? Mitt's Mormon!

I remember when I lived in Salt Lake City, and it struck me all the time how white the people there were. Really white. Fluorescent white, like light bulbs. There were common inherited facial features that signaled that most people really were closely related. Maybe six or seven common kinds of faces, coming directly from the Mormon pioneers; just yesterday in genetic time. One common kind of face, with the receding jaw line, was even light-bulb shaped.

Even black people looked white. Sometimes you'd spot Utah Jazz players on the street - you could spot them from a mile away - but even they looked a little pale.

I know, I know, Mitt lost because he looks too Mexican! Ha, ha!

No, I'm sorry, Mitt is the quintessence of white. He's a white supermodel!:

Look, I didn’t plan to do too much celebratory/mean-spirited “mocking the losers” stuff after Tuesday, besides of course joining in my favorite new American Electoral Tradition, “spending Wednesday retweeting funny pre-election tweets from people who were really wrong.” But this Jay Cost column in The Weekly Standard is full of so much delightful Republican bubble analysis, and it has such a remarkable prescription for the party as a whole, that I think it deserves at quick look.

...It turns out this is a call for the GOP to do its version of “identity politics” (you may know it as “the Southern Strategy”) better. Cost’s argument is that Romney lost because he was not white enough. And in the future, the GOP must nominate a candidate so white that Democrats cannot “scare” white voters into not voting for him. So I guess Haley Barbour it is.

The Daily Show On The Election

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Obama Wins

The Juncos Are Back!

Those two birds are so small! How do they remember how to migrate back to my yard from Oregon, or wherever they go in the summer? But it looks like it will be their third winter with me, leaning on my seed hospitality, and I couldn't be happier!

TV Ad In Rocklin?

Dancing like a sprinkler? Sounds like a pragmatic move....

YouTube Offers Strange Fruit

Election Craigslist Ad

Unfortunately, Craigslist ad removed, but must be remembered:

• This just might be the best ad on Craigslist EVER:

Pickup Truck/Campaign Prop (Wrentham)
Rarely used green GMC Canyon pickup truck for sale. Was used mainly to pander to voters so little actual wear and tear. Low mileage and in good shape- truck was garaged for long stretches until owner needed to pretend to be "regular guy." State of art GPS system which allows driver to completely avoid all urban areas, communities of color and Cambridge. Alignment might need some work- truck always seems to pull to the right.
Several vintage political bumper stickers need to be removed.

Turd Blossom Spins Like A Quasar

Karl Rove, the man in today's hot seat!

Daily Kos explains the various reasons why at least half of what Karl says is BS.

I was more impressed that Karl Rove tries to employ his classic, trademarked career maneuver, of using his opponent's greatest strength against him, but this time, in a new, clever sort-of reverse way.

For example, in the 2004 election, Rove accused war heroes John Kerry and Max Clelland of being suspect shirkers in their duty to the nation; perhaps even traitors. They're heroes! No, they're traitors! OMIGOD!

And now, the reverse move!

In the 2012 election, the GOP was doing all it could to suppress the vote. Here, Rove accuses Obama of suppressing the vote!

Reverse move (but it doesn't work as well as the original move)!

Support The Ami Bera Recount Fund!

The infinitely-loathsome Dan Lungren is right at the precipice, but it will require a little bit more effort to secure Ami Bera's right to a fair and just recount! Donate now!:

The odious Rep. Dan Lungren is almost, almost ousted. But not yet. Dr. Ami Bera has the tiniest of leads against him in this Sacramento-area seat, just 186 votes as of late last night.

A close registration split between the two parties and a flood of outside spending rendered the battle between Lungren and Bera one of the country's most competitive and costly congressional contests. [...]

Sacramento County Registrar Jill LaVine said Wednesday that the U.S. Committee on House Administration, which is chaired by Lungren, told her it is sending observers to monitor the count in what it called the closest congressional race in the country.

The call came from the committee's deputy general counsel Peter Schalestock, who she said told her "We'll be arriving (Thursday) to observe" with two Republicans and two Democrats from Washington, D.C.

Lungren loves to fight losing legal battles. He's the guy who authorized the $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars spent to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, after the administration decided to stop pursuing a law they had determined was unconstitutional. Of course, DOMA has been Lungren's baby from the beginning. That's one of the key reasons we targeted Lungren, and the fact that Bera is a fantastic progressive was icing.

This could get pretty damned expensive for Ami Bera, so we're helping him get ready.
Please contribute $3 to Bera's recount fund.

The race for the east Sacramento County seat is far from over. Election officials said Wednesday that they still need to process 162,000 absentee and 31,000 provisional ballots cast countywide.

Disappointed That Measure T Passed

Ryan A. got my goat with his celebration of the passing of Sacramento's Measure T on Tuesday. As he wrote:

Of all of the important things on Tuesday's ballot here in Sacramento, was Measure T, which would allow the City of Sacramento to give residents yard waste containers instead of exercising what people in the Land Park and East Sacramento apparently believe is their god-given right to dump leaves in their gutters. Apparently, the machine that picks up the leaves -- the claw -- is a Sacramento "icon." It passed and apparently is controversial because some Sacramentans can't bring themselves to do what the rest of us in non-Land Park and East Sacramento do: put the freaking leaves in a yard waste container.

As the news story states:

In the 1970s, residents passed Measure A, a law that prevented the city from forcing residents to use a container for yard waste. Because of Measure A, residents created leaf piles that would be picked up by the city's leaf picking truck, a.k.a. the claw.

On Tuesday, a "Yes" vote on Measure T would essentially repeal Measure A, and require Sacramento homeowners to use containers to for their yard waste.

"The key purpose of that measure was to prevent 100 percent containerization where the Claw became extinct, and that's what we fear again today," Measure T opponent Dennis Neufeld said.

"The Claw," the machine that scoops up yard waste left in piles in front of people's homes has become a Sacramento icon, and Neufeld credits freedom from containers for paving the way for the machine.

As I replied to Ryan:

It's more complicated than that. There are many yards where the volume of leaves AND LARGE BRANCHES is very hard to keep pace with. Hence the resistance: it's a bitch of a job, and the Claw helps. But more importantly, utility bills for the City of Sacramento have always outpaced inflation. There is NOT A SINGLE MONTH since I started keeping detailed records in 1998 where City of Sac billing fell behind inflation. NOT ONE! Since 2008, the increases are accelerating, and with implementation of yard containers, actual service is being cut. I've read that utility bills may even triple by the end of the decade, which is simply unacceptable.

I add:

I can appreciate the desire for containers - bicycling can be hazardous with all the leaf piles. But we must manage our urban forest and sweep after vegetable refuse that isn't just our own (I was surprised to be profusely thanked by a state worker for sweeping a portion of the DMV parking lot, which I do because I treat that fence line tree as mine, whether it technically is, or not). And we will continue to be charged for the Claw's service despite no longer receiving it. That aggravates me mightily.

And:

There will be more leaf piles than ever, because by restricting access to the Claw in favor of limited volume containers, there will be little choice but to create more and larger piles, either in the streets or people's yards.

And:

I'll become the Robin Hood of Curtis Park, afflicting the treeless poor and soothing the treeful rich, scooping up leaf piles late at night into a pickup truck and using my leaf blower to scatter the piles into random orderly yards in other neighborhoods. No one can stop me! NO ONE! Bwahahahaha!

Losers

I was listening to the confusion on conservative Talk Radio, and listening to the phone callers get emotional and start crying and asserting all kinds of Leftie conspiracies.

Damn, I feel good!:

"I don't think anyone on our side understood or comprehended how good their turnout was going to be," said Henry Barbour, a Republican committee man from Mississippi. "The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs."

...Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, a conservative blog, said Republican candidate Mitt Romney's approach to Hispanic voters was "atrocious."

"Frankly, the fastest-growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people," Erickson said.

However, the day after was not all self-reflection for those on the right. Some struck a far more combative tone.

"We are in a war. We're in a war to save this nation," said Michael Needham, chief executive of Heritage Action, an arm of the conservative Washington think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Needham spoke in a direct-to-camera video as martial-sounding music swelled in the background. Persuasion as a political strategy did not appear to be on his mind.

...Many of the lightning bolts were aimed at none other than Karl Rove, the former Bush administration political genius who oversaw the deployment of nearly $400 million in campaign spending through outside groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS toward the presidential race and toward numerous Senate and House races.

"The billionaire donors I hear are livid," one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. "There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing."

...There was also talk of a new conservative populism, an explicit admission that the GOP has lost all connection to working-class and lower-income voters, as well as minorities.

In The Chaos, Missed This Awesome Romney Plug

Schadenfreude, Glenn Beck, And Conservatives

You know, Glenn, it's finally time to start dealing with reality:

Losing a presidential election is always tough, but this one was presented to them in unusually apocalyptic terms. Obama was a closet socialist. He was un-American. He wanted to destroy capitalism. He's been responsible for endless economic misery. He's left America open to attack from foreign enemies. He wants to immiserate small business owners in order to distribute goodies to poor people. He engineered a total government takeover of the healthcare industry. He deliberately allowed four brave Americans to die in Benghazi and then ruthlessly covered it up. He wants to outlaw churches. He wants to take away your guns. Etc. On Fox News last night, there was palpable disbelief from right-wing pundits that he could possibly have won. They thought Mitt Romney should have been able to blow Obama out of the water in a massive defeat, and the fact that he didn't meant the Republican Party ought to commit ritual suicide to pay for its world historic incompetence.

...A relative told me last night about a friend who's literally afraid that her life savings are now in danger because Obama was reelected. James Fallows has been following the story of a small businessman who says it's over: he's going to close up shop now that Obama is back in office. All of these people believe that Obama is something close to a dystopian antichrist. And yet....a majority of Americans decided to put him back in office. If Obama really is the guy you've been told he is, that's not just inexplicable, it's nothing short of criminal.

So what happens now? What happens when churches continue to thrive, the economy recovers, Obamacare turns out to be a fairly benign expansion of healthcare coverage, taxes don't change much, and America doesn't find itself under foreign occupation?

What does 'One Hand Clapping' think of this? I stopped reading him in 2003, when it was clear he was in the bag for Bush's Iraq war, but immediately after 9/11 he seemed sensible enough (for a conservative). Interestingly, his thoughts echo mine, except he's utterly depressed, while I'm utterly ecstatic, about the turn of events:

The short answer: the 2012 election forms a Rubicon that, now having been crossed, this country will never cross back. Forget all the pundit talk (like Ed Rollins this morning on Fox) that elections go through cycles and this one was just another example. Forget the mid-terms of 2010. Forget the Tea party; it's finished forever.

The basic, fundamental nature and character of the American electorate has changed, and will not be changed back. Ever. The Republican Party can foresee nothing but diminishment henceforth. There are no rising superstars who can save it. Jindal? Nope. Rubio? Nope. Rand Paul? Nope. Paul Ryan? He's done already. And there is absolutely no Republican whom Romney ran against in the primaries who has a ghost of a chance in the future.

...The Republican Party cannot stay true to its historical principles and win again. For most of the last eight decades, the American Left has taken over, successively, American political theory, opinion leaders, university academia, the media, mainline churches, public education and finally the entire Democrat party. They Left has suffered only rare and temporary setbacks in their Great March. Now it is ensconced and it is permanent. Generations younger than the retiring Boomers literally do not have the historical knowledge or intellectual tools to grasp the concept of inherently limited government and restricted, delegated powers.

...I am tempted to say that only a severe national-security crisis will turn the electorate toward a Republican candidate again. But I yield not to that temptation.

Goodbye, party of Lincoln. It was fun while it lasted. Last one out turn out the lights.

A DLCer Explains Why The GOP Will Resist Advice

I never liked the DLC - I'm a paleoliberal - but there's no question they had their moment in the sun. The GOP needs something like a DLC (but won't get it):

As the long-time policy director for the once-influential (if now-defunct) Democratic Leadership Council, I have often been asked whether a clear defeat of Mitt Romney on November 6, of the sort we saw yesterday, might drive Republicans to create a similar party-changing “centrist” organization.

The short answer is “no.” (And I’m tempted to say the long answer is “Hell, no!”)

...Perhaps the simplest way to explain why is to re-examine the conditions that led to the formation and rise of the DLC, and compare them to those now facing the Republican Party.

...Regional disunity. ...The most remarkable development in the GOP during the last decade, by contrast, has been the gradual extinction of major regional differences, at least outside New England (and even there on many issues, as reflected in the remarkable unanimity of Republican congressional voting on economic and fiscal issues). In particular, Midwestern conservatives are now ideologically very close to their southern cousins on such previously Dixiefied issues as the legitimacy of unions. Pro-choice Republicans are very rare. Perhaps a DLC-style “centrist” organization might serve as a symbolic “triangulating” device in New England, but it would not represent a nationally significant party faction.

Alternative explanations for defeat. ...The overwhelming point of view in the GOP today is that a clearly-articulated “movement conservative” message embracing smaller government, laissez-faire economics, and cultural conservatism (there is a bit, but only a bit, of dissension on national security and immigration) is and remains a winner. “Bad candidates,” or worse yet, half-hearted conservatives, can still lose presidential elections and congressional majorities, but too much conservatism is never the problem.

Philosophical and operational flexibility. ...Indeed, the rapidly growing habit among Republican politicians of making frequent references to the Declaration of Independence (treated as of equal or superior status to the Constitution itself) reflects the belief that conservative governing principles are intrinsic to the American character and even divinely ordained. In this context, “pragmatism” is unpatriotic and perhaps sinful, and compromise is (to use the term conservative activists so often apply to any form of accommodation with Democrats or progressives) betrayal.

...In the end, Democrats (in no small part because of Bill Clinton) adopted much of the New Democrats’ willingness to adjust to political circumstances. They came to favor slow and steady progress towards a fairer, more diverse society, even if that meant compromise and even accommodation of the electorate’s less enlightened impulses.

Today's GOP, by contrast, still seems dedicated to all-or-nothing politics. ... “Constitutional conservatives” profess that they will never accept the need for “modernization.” They should be taken at their word.

Our Next California Legislative Session May Be The Most Consequential In Half a Century

Difficult to overemphasize this:

California, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, may have delivered the most unexpected news in a night full of surprises:

California Democrats appear to have picked up a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature Tuesday night, a surprise outcome that gives the party the ability to unilaterally raise taxes and leaves Republicans essentially irrelevant in Sacramento.

If preliminary results hold, 2012 will mark the first time in 80 years that either political party in California has enjoyed supermajority control.

...But in the early 1990s California became a majority-minority state, and since then the state has inexorably turned bluer and bluer (aided by ham-handed Republican legislation on immigration that profoundly alienated Hispanics). Only 30 percent of Californians are now registered Republicans, the lowest mark since record-keeping began. In 2012, every single statewide office belonged to Democrats, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein ran essentially unopposed. Arch-conservative Republican Dan Lundgren was the state’s attorney general from 1991-1999. He lost his U.S. House of Representatives seat last night.

...Because the true significance of the new Democratic Californian supermajority is that, at least for a couple of years, it finally releases Californians from the shackles of Proposition 13, the state initiative passed in 1978 that so severely limits the legislature’s ability to raise taxes and govern effectively.

Proposition 13 was a watershed moment in American history, the first crumbling of the post New Deal consensus that supported an activist government intent on educating its citizens and providing them with an adequate safety net. California’s own native son, Ronald Reagan, rode the ideological wave of Proposition 13 right into the White House, and launched an era in which Republicans successfully devoted themselves to crippling government at all levels for decades. Proposition 13 broke California’s government.

The election of Democratic supermajorities suggests that Californians have had enough with broken government. Guess what? If you break something, the other side may get the chance to fix it.

Lynette At The Petting Zoo

Albuquerque's Lynette did a number of videos on behalf of the New Mexico State Fair (which was held in September). I particularly like this video - reading the minds of goats, and all.

The Democrats PARTAY!

Jetta mentioned two days ago that the Democrats were going to have a party on Election Night, but she didn't say where the party was going to be.  That was too bad.  I could use a party tonight!  So, on Election Night, I cruised past Democratic headquarters in Sacramento, but no party wasn't there.  Nevertheless, I coincidentally drove past the party in full swing, on J St. near 13th, so I stopped by.

Surprise!  Jetta was already at the party!

I wore my Obama 'Believe' T-Shirt, festooned with campaign buttons.  I almost never wear this T-Shirt - too provocative with its quasi-religious aura.  I picked up this shirt at an Obama rally at Bonanza High School in Las Vegas, NV, on October 25, 2008, and if there ever was a more suitable occasion to wear it than this place tonight, I can't think of it!

The crowd prepares for Obama's Victory Speech.  Mitt Romney was an excellent candidate - the best the GOP could possibly offer in 2012 - but I am confident that, with continuing demographic changes and the continuing and worsening extremism of the GOP, that I will never see another Republican President in my lifetime.  George W. Bush was the last link in that line of tyrants.  The GOP doesn't even know it yet - self-knowledge is hard - but the GOP is as dead as Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Say buh-bye everyone!

Fox News, Karl Rove Argue Over The Outcome In Ohio

Failures At Arithmetic Need To Self Deport

Mitt, we'll be kind: you go back to Boston:

Dubya won 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004. McCain won 31% in 2008. Romney won 21% in 2012. Do the math.

The Latino Effect was observable in many unexpected places:

The effect was at least as dramatic in swing states, most notably in Colorado, which Obama won on Tuesday. There Latinos went for the president by an astounding 87-10 margin, an edge not far from the near-monolithic support he received from African American voters. In Ohio, with a smaller but still significant Latino population, Obama won by an 82-17 margin.

“This poll makes clear what we’ve known for a long time: the Latino Giant is wide awake, cranky, and its taking names,” Eliseo Medina, Secretary-Treasurer of the SEIU, told reporters Wednesday on a conference call discussing the results.

Pointer Sisters - Yes We Can Can 1974

Oops!

Sister Suffragette - Mary Poppins

(h/t Michelle S.)

Voted Today

Things seemed quiet and calm. There were no Black Panthers, or, indeed, demonstrations of any kind. No one at the polling place seemed eager to ask me about ID. The early afternoon buzz in the voting hall seemed purposeful and happy. I referred to my voter's booklet while making choices (the absence of campaigning on some propositions and candidates tends to slow things down otherwise). I ran into Friend Earl, and we talked about vegetative barriers. Afterwards, I went home, sauteed some vegetables, mixed it with tomato soup, and had a calm repast while balancing the checkbook.

You'd Think The Son Of An Auto Manufacturer Would Understand These Things

But Mitt is second generation, which means he doesn't understand jack:

Instead, Romney got a wave of negative coverage over the issue, with journalist after journalist saying forthrightly in their stories that the Romney attack is misleading or deceptive. This was particularly true in Michigan and Ohio, where the state of the auto industry is kind of important. Why did they do that? Two reasons, I think. The first and less important one is that after so many shamelessly false statements by Romney and his campaign, journalists' tolerance for this stuff may have run out. But the more important reason is the car companies stepped up to act as third-party validators of the truth. The Chrysler CEO wrote an emphatic letter to the company's employees assuring them no American jobs were moving to China, and a GM spokesperson criticized the ad as well.

Which, if the Romney campaign had been a bit more thoughtful, they might have expected. Don't forget that Chrysler and GM have their own interest in maintaining support for the bailout. They got lots of help from American taxpayers, and they want those taxpayers to see the bailout as a success story, continue to feel good about American car companies, and continue to buy their cars. They might stay silent while Republicans criticize the bailout, but if you accuse them of a specific act that they aren't guilty of, they're going to speak up.

Final Presidential Predictions

Kos gives his final predictions in a number of contested states.  Obama carries all but North Carolina.

Last night on the radio, Sean Hannity gave his list of contested states that Romney will nevertheless carry.  It's exactly the same list of states!  

The only thing they both agree on is that Romney will carry North Carolina.

Can't wait to find out who is right!

Henri, The Existentialist Cat, Reports On The DMTC Haunted House

(h/t Badtux the Snarky Penguin)

One of Haunted House volunteers was a teenage girl dressed as a cat: cat whiskers, cat ears, cat tail. While we waited for guests to appear, she sprawled face down on the stage and rested. A teenage boy reached over and playfully lifted up her little cat tail. "Stop!" she shouted. "You've got to buy me dinner first!"

Henri was appalled, but the rest of us laughed like demons....

The Achilles Heel Of The Republicans

It's always been there, but the last decade's worth of events has made it more vulnerable than ever:

A couple things happened on the left. The small group of people who were initially receptive to thinking in empirical terms happened to be in influential if low-profile positions mostly in the prominent institutions of the left: labor, women’s groups, and environmental groups. They were very interested in being smarter about they do politics because they wanted to use their money more effectively.

The other thing that happened is they lost in 2004 and they attributed that largely to technique. In many cases Democrats did not really understand what Republicans had done but they began to impute these almost magic powers to Karl Rove and “microtargeting” and the “72 hour plan,” things that had been sketchily and sometimes inaccurately described in press clippings. It inspired Democrats who might have been skeptical of new ways of running campaigns to put aside their business interests and parochial rivalries in the interest of building institutions that could make their campaigns smarter every year.

The fact that Republicans lost so overwhelmingly in 2008, I think, delayed an awareness of the technical gap between the two sides, and they imputed Obama’s win to much broader conditions in the country. For the sake of innovation on the Republican side, the best thing that could happen to them is that they lose narrowly on Tuesday, that the story becomes how Obama and his allies ran a mechanically superior campaign, and Republican donors, party leaders, consultants face the existential predicament that Democrats did at the end of 2004, which is, “We’re going to lose forever unless we figure out how to make our campaigns better.”

That’s the first step. The second step is finding social scientists who want anything to do with the Republican party in the 21st century, and that probably won’t be solved on Tuesday one way or the other. That’s a bigger cultural problem.

Musings Of An Idiot

If I do achieve normal blood pressure through weight loss, that would be a major triumph. Nevertheless, I may cross that happy finish line as a gibbering idiot rather than the promising young man I used to be:

A twenty- or thirtysomething adult with blood pressure that's even a little high is risking damage to the structural integrity of his brain that may be evident by the age of 40, says a new study. The early appearance of hypertension's toll on the brain suggests that physicians should act sooner and more aggressively to control the upward creep of blood pressure in their younger patients, say the authors of the latest research, published online in the Lancet on Thursday.

...This meant that the brain integrity of a 40-year-old with hypertension, for instance, was roughly equivalent to that of a person 7.2 years older whose systolic blood pressure reading was in the normal range. A 40-year-old with prehypertension had a brain that looked more like that of a 43-year-old.

...While "optimal" blood pressure control is rarely sought or achieved in younger patients, they wrote, it ought to be.

Sean Noble Is The Sumbitch!

Bastardo Republicans! But I repeat myself:

In a move that cuts directly against the secretive nature of dark money political efforts, California’s campaign finance watchdog on Monday publicly released the names of donors behind an Arizona group’s $11 million donation to ballot initiative efforts in the Golden State.

...In a sharply worded press release, California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) said the money for ARL’s donation came from Americans for Job Security, the conservative super PAC, and was funneled through The Center to Protect Patient Rights, a non-profit helmed by Sean Noble, a former congressional aide tied to the movement of millions of dollars between political non-profits. The FPPC also said that in disclosing the donors, the Arizona group Americans for Responsible Leadership admitted to “campaign money laundering.”

"...Under California law, the failure to disclose this initially was campaign money laundering.”

I Itch; Therefore I Am

My basement is an odd place. It's large: a full, ground-level floor, with the living quarters up above, and full of boxes and weird furniture, some of which isn't mine. Technically, my basement is not even a basement, since it's not below ground level. Only half of the basement has a cement floor - the other half is dirt. Thus, the basement's dirtier than most, and can support more wildlife than typical basements do.

All summer long, while Bailey the Rabbit retreated from the heat into the basement and tried to chill, he began suffering from a growing flea problem. I could see the growing problem of the fleas and their larvae, but Bailey's reticence when dealing with people prevented quick action.

Eventually, in September, Bailey's reticence broke, and he began allowing people to touch and pet him, but it was still difficult to effectively put flea powder and flea medication on him.

Early in October, I noticed that the number of fleas was increasing. Then, I left Sacramento, and traveled to New Mexico and Arizona for ten days....

While in New Mexico, I received a voice mail from E. It went something like this:

MMMMMMAAAAAAARRRRRCCCCCCC! The fleas! They are jumping! I went into the basement, and they are crawling on all my clothes! They are on my socks! They are on my pants! They are in my hair! Bailey panicked too! Bailey ran out of the basement. He's in the yard now. MMMMMMAAAAAAARRRRRCCCCCCC! It's crazy! MMMMMMAAAAAAARRRRRCCCCCCC! MMMMMMAAAAAAARRRRRCCCCCCC!

Typical E. overreaction, I thought.

When I returned from New Mexico, E. wasn't at the house, so I went into the basement, late at night, to assess the problem on my own. In the darkness of the basement, it was hard to see the fleas, but in the quiet, I could clearly hear the fleas jumping - everywhere! Needless to say, I was instantly covered, head to toe, with fleas. It was also clear that, when it came to matters of pestilence, E., if anything, was a master of understatement.

What to do with a population explosion of fleas (or whatever these bugs are)? And not just the bugs either, but their crawling larvae? The crawlers are worse than the hoppers. I endeavored to treat Bailey more thoroughly with powders, sprays, and medication.

Bugs started showing up on my body when I was at work, or elsewhere in society, threatening my exalted status as a functioning member of society with instant humiliation. Whether people knew it or not, I was a vector for disease. My legs were getting pocked with bites. Not just my legs either. Typhoid Mary of the Sacramento Valley!

So, I had to take showers more frequently, but the bugs often showed up in the house anyway, lurking in my bed, feasting on my blood at night, and jumping on my body in the day, especially while I was naked while preparing to shower.

I tried to stay out of the basement, hoping that the flea numbers would eventually drop because of a lack of mammalian blood down there, but that effort proved futile. There were nearly as many bugs there as before. I don't know how they survive - maybe there are enough traumatized mice down there to support an army of vampires - but whatever the mechanism, the bugs continued to thrive.

So, more action was required. I set off a bug fogger bomb (featuring pyrethrins, today's bug poison of choice), and left home for a few hours.

Over the next two weeks, the problem improved, but there were still quite a few bugs left anyway. I decided to release two more bug fogger bombs, but then realized there was a problem. The furnace and the hot water heater, which both feature ignition points, are also in the basement. Probably it was only by chance the house didn't explode in a fireball when I used the first bug fogger bomb. I'd better not use more.

So, this weekend, I tried more cleanup. I did more vacuuming than I ever have before of the dirt areas, even vacuuming loose, bare dirt, particularly in those areas where Bailey used to frequent. Still, the basement is too large to get it all, but at least it might help. Then I laid down pyrethrin sprays. Once again, the basement is too large, but maybe it will help. From the distance of the garage, Bailey watched (and hopefully approved). And I had to be careful to shower up afterwards too.

I hope this problem can eventually be corralled. I don't want to die of weird diseases, like hantavirus, or whatever else the local wildlife supports these days.

Forgive me: I know it's just psychosomatic, but I itch just everywhere right now!

Pictures From The 2012 DMTC Haunted House

Seance room

Amanda obtained these sturdy gravestones from the Hawkins School of Dance in Folsom, where they had been used in a recital.

Styrofoam YPT 'Fiddler on the Roof' headstone prop.

Miss New Jersey

Zombie Land.

The Smith's scary skeleton.

Piazza Halloween tree, plus pumpkin.

Lobby

Halloween tree.

Heidi Johnson's 'Miss Creeps'

Lobby.

So true!

It's Grim Below!

A Zombie!

Lab table 1.

Lab table 2.

The stairway into the pit.

Lab table 3.

Lab assistant chair.

lab exit.

The way out.

Talk to the hand!

Wildlife.

Crazy Light.

Parade of the dead.

Soldier detail.

Backstage.

Pirate cove.

Treasure.

lab table 1.

Lab table 2.

Butcher holler.

Chainsaw alley.

Meanwhile, back in the graveyard.

We all end of here eventually.

Cheerleaders pause.

Ballerina fate.

Cemetery.

Glowing eyes.

Player piano.

Spider.

Lanterns.

Mausoleum.

This scary portrait scared ME!

Talkative pirate.

Odd proportions.

Marti's Cityscape.

Rick James as a skeleton.

Miss Creeps

Miss Creeps

The Smith's skeleton in a cage.

My skeleton, plus hand prints on the Orchestra Pit walls from the 2007 DMTC Haunted House.

What chainsaw murderers find funny.

Parade detail.

Howdy!

Orchestra Pit.

2007 stigmata.

The treacherous exit.