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Who’da thunk it?

The home of such dreck as Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers, and Only in America with Larry The Cable Guy may have actually gotten something almost right, almost historically accurate:

That’s the trailer for an episode of “Mega Disasters” on The History Channel, ordinarily as misnamed a channel as there can be. What the environs of New York City are facing in the next few days may, in fact, be even more catastrophic than that program envisions. To wit:

• The storm depicted in the show comes up the coast, basically tracking toward the northeast. Hurricane Sandy is expected to travel in a northwesterly direction, churning into New York Harbor directly from the open ocean.
• The hypothetical storm moves very fast, with clear skies arriving within less than a day. Sandy, we’re told, will stall over Pennsylvania for days, deluging the entire Northeast under at least 6-12 inches of rain.
• Coming at the end of October, newly-fallen leaves will obstruct and clog storm drains, making for faster and deeper flooding than would happen in the September timeframe of the TV show’s storm.
• As a final kicker in the real scenario, Monday, October 29 is a full moon, when tides are always at their highest. High tides at the Battery will occur at 8:31am and 8:53pm Monday, 9:06am and 9:32pm Tuesday, and 9:40am and 10:13pm Wednesday.

Here’s hoping it isn’t nearly as serious as the dire predictions are telling us. I expect to hear reports from my nephew, who lives near Lincoln Center, once the worst passes … if there’s any electric power in the area, that is.

PS. This is Bruce’s Sandy:

Last week’s contest was unsolved as of Thursday night. It was in Yakima.

This week’s contest is related to something in the news from October, good luck!

[HA Bible Study is on hiatus through the November election as we honor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by studying the scriptures of his Mormon religion.]

Doctrine and Covenants 130:22
The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.

Discuss.

Stephen: voting and hormones.

Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Sensual Voting:

• Lose it to Barack Obama:
• Young Turks: Lena Dunham ‘First Time’ voting commercial controversy.
• One Minute News: Your first time.

Mark Fiore: Suzilection.

Andy Cobb: Why everything sucks now (hint…Ohio).

Thom: More Republicans arrested for election fraud.

Willard! (and Friends):

• Maddow: Ryan, a liability to Romney’s moderate myth, is kept hidden
• Sharpton: Mitt’s ‘fake it ’til you make it’
• Mitt pours a glass of water.
• Sam Seder: Romney’s got Iran covered, “We’ll just arrest Ahmadinejad!”
• Bill Press: Mitt Romney and YOUR sex life.
• Maddow: Mitt Romney’s willingness to say anything makes integrity the issue
• SlateTV: Romney surrogate says Powell endorsed Obama because he’s black.
• Young Mitt learns about poor people.
• Conan: Something missing in Eastwood’s new Romney ad.
• Young Turks: Romney surrogate Sununu is a racist.
• Bill Press: You cannot believe a thing Mitt says.
• One Minute News: Obama calls Mitt a bullshitter?
• Bill Maher with some more secretly recorded video.
• Pap: Romney is a Foreign Policy Disaster.
• Sam Seder on Iran’s route to the sea.

Leno: Obama on Donald Trump:

Key & Peele: Luther on Romney’s Debate Face.

Thom: Has Darrell Issa committed treason by leaking identities of Syrian informants?

Mockit TV: The Donald’s big announcement.

Ann Telnaes: McCain criticizes Powell.

God’s Little Rape Snowflakes:

• Sam Seder: Richard Mourdock, ‘Pregnancy from rape? God intended it!’
• Bill Press: Emily’s list responds to Mourdock
• Tina Fey on Republican Rape (via Slog).
• Young Turks: Republican rape panels.
• SlateTV: GOP candidate says Rape births are “something God intended”
• Stephen on Mourdock (via Slog).
• Conservative Mitt endorses Richard Mourdock
• Maddow: Mourdock reaffirms opposition to abortion rights of rape victims
• Bill Press: Chorus of Republican voices trying to immunize the brutality of rape
• Obama with Leno on Mourdock
• Romney and Republicans on Women’s Health:See a pattern?
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Richard Mourdock, ‘I Know’ I gained voters after ‘rape comments’
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Rape, abortion and taxes.
• Sam Seder: Todd “legitimate rape” Akin compares opponent to a dog
• Young Turks: GOP’s ‘Easy,’ ‘Enjoyable,’ ‘Honest’ rape.
• Jon: Rape and incest and abortion (via TalkingPointsMemo):
• When will Romney stand up to extremism?
• Sam Seder: Mourdock’s apology, “Sorry…that YOU don’t like God’s rape”.

The Ann Coulter 60 second karma smackdown.

Pap: Republican perverts trying to control your sex life. Part I.

Pap: Republican perverts trying to control your sex life. Part II.

Indecision Forever: The five funniest Congressional ads.

Michelle’s plan to get people to vote.

This Week in G.O.P. Voter Suppression:

• Young Turks: Maricopa County Latinos get false voting information.
• Sam Seder: G.O.P. ongoing voter suppression efforts.
• Ed: “True the Vote” thuggery.
• Sharpton: Investigating Tagg Romney’s ties to voting machines

GAJILLIONAIRES: Zombie Romney.

Leno: Obama comments on the debates.

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Stephen make a $1 million dollar offer to Donald Trump.

Powell endorses Obama…“not sure which Romney we’d be getting”.

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican—Oregon edition: .

MockTV: Bidenetics.

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow: Union rights victory in Ohio becomes Obama asset.

Ann Telnaes: Romney and Obama clones on drones.

Thom: more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

In our secular, democratic country, it probably shouldn’t matter that a large group of Catholics is taking out an ad saying they support marriage equality. You can be any religion and support any law based on the merits. But since the hierarchy is making a push, it seems fair for a large group of laity to push back.

The names of more than 1,000 Catholics will appear in a full-page newspaper ad Sunday endorsing Washington’s marriage equality law.

[…]

The advertisements of Catholics in support of same-sex marriage will appear in the Herald of Everett, The Seattle Times, and the Yakima Herald-Republic.

– Obama endorses R-74.

– Either these pro-life advocates are complacent monsters every bit as callously unconcerned with saving unborn babies as those they oppose. Or else, just like those they oppose, these folks do not really believe that “every embryo is morally equivalent to a fully developed child.”

– What the property tax swap would mean.

– What strangers does the McKenna campaign imagine are going to teach about alternative lifestyles? If your kid’s teachers are strangers, you’re doing something wrong.

– The My Lai is no big deal, wave fake anthrax to start a war guy endorses Obama. Yay? And the GOP reaction to it is pretty awful.

– A neocon word for chutzpah

Over at The Ave a guest editorial appears from Robert called, “The Worst Case Scenario” (my emphasis):

Assuming Romney & Ryan (these lethal bozo’s should not have even been close) win their attitude of extreme conservative austerity, the sworn oath of the Tea party politicians to never raise taxes on the wealthy and the republican obsession to regain power by sabotaging the black man’s presidency at any cost will result in America’s very own holocaust. The next four years will include a collapse of the American economy, drastically increased unemployment, destroy the social safety net, gut the public schools system, close the US Post Office, deprive millions of healthcare, expand the war on collective bargaining and working people, on women, on the underemployed, on minorities, end fair elections, end affordable higher education, reinforce a corporate dominated supreme court, keep money in politics, start unnecessary wars resulting in millions of casualties, destabilize world peace, put global warming on steroids which could be the beginning of the end of the human species. The Tea party republicans then would give the trillions they skin for social services to the already obscenely rich and a bloated military.

Robert argues his case from these premises.

To me, the essay is a little over the top, and a little on the pessimistic side. But it raises a good question: “What is the worst case scenario for a Romney–Ryan presidency?”

I remember when Shrub more-or-less won in 2000. I imagined that we were in for a depressing four years in which not much got accomplished except the decimation of the responsible fiscal budgetary policy of the Clinton administration.

And then came 9/11.

Rather than impeaching the President for ignoring a memo titled, “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”, America reacted by turning over and playing dead.

The nine years that followed were a worst case scenario, from throwing fiscal responsibility totally out the window, starting two wars, including one that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, allowing N. Korea to develop and test a nuclear weapon, providing for unprecedented powers of spying on the American people, creation of the seemingly biblically inspired Department of Homeland Security and the fucking TSA (together a huge expansion of the federal government), sanctioned torture in our name, indefinite detention, vilification of Islam, and the Roberts/Alito court.

And the whole clusterfuck was capped by the collapse and near-ruin of the U.S. economy.

Man…that was some shitty scenario! But not really on the level of a holocaust—except, maybe, what happened in Iran.

Would a Romney–Ryan administration be worse than that? I cannot imagine it so…

But, then again, I could not foresee the profound wounds that the Bush–Cheney administration would end up inflicting on my country.

So what do you think? Am I not pessimistic enough? Is Robert too pessimistic? Seriously, what is the likely and the worst case scenarios from a Romney–Ryan administration?

Just how bad could it get?

It seems to have worked out just perfectly that my first year in France is an American election year. I came with the intention to understand the culture of France and advance my level of French but what has been the most interesting part is learning about French culture and simultaneously critiquing and comparing it with our own systems in the States.

One thing that has really stood out is the interest that France takes in American politics. Whereas in the United States, we tend to take little to no interest in international politics unless we feel threatened by someone who came into power. And even then, it’s usually only the most politically informed who seem to know about international politics with any sort of depth. I’m sure we could all take a lesson from that, because we aren’t the only one’s living on this planet.

Another plus, not only do the French seem more often politically and internationally informed, according to a recent study done by BBC, France is the country with the highest support for Obama. However, by living here, that fact is pretty clear.

An easy way to depict this is by showing some of the numerous magazines that feature articles about the upcoming election.

Here are a few examples that I love:

“Obama’s America”; the cover of the most well known magazine series in France. They published this magazine with a full, detailed description of current state of the United States and the context and implications of this in the upcoming election.

This is one of the articles in the same magazine that reads, “The Elusive Mitt Romey.”

Another magazine cover that reads, “Romney Against The World.” Sadly, a large portion of Americans can’t seem to see that…

This one reads, “The America That We Love, And Those Who Scare Us.” With clear intentional placement of Obama next to the words, “the america that we love” and Romney next to “those who scare us”.

After posting a few of these photos on my facebook page, an American friend of mine living in Nantes as well cleverly stated, “France loves to hate Romney, and I love France.” Which in my opinion pretty well sums it up.

I don’t have much to add to this Seattle Transit Blog piece. But right on.

The few million in this proposed budget seems like so little compared to the huge Sound Transit projects many of us are used to – but in this case, at this time, it goes a long way.

In the next couple of years, Sound Transit is likely going to put together their ST3 package; sources in Sound Transit say it’s looking more likely that we could see a regional vote in 2016. The primary goals for the next package are to connect Everett, Tacoma and Redmond (and maybe Issaquah) with extensions of Link. This means there will be money in Seattle for projects too, but it might not be exactly the right amount for the big projects we need in the city – it could be too much for one surface or elevated rail line, or too little for underground rail. We don’t know.

The projects on the table right now – major improvements to the streetcar line on Westlake (likely making it more like Link than streetcar), connecting it through downtown to the First Hill line, to Ballard via Fremont, and to the U-district via Eastlake, building real BRT on Madison, and extending the First Hill streetcar to Aloha – are all projects that might fill in those gaps.

Seriously, Donald Trump is like the worst person in the world. It’s tough to imagine someone you don’t like offering to give money to charity, and you liking them less as a result, but kudos to Trump for paving the road to that particular place.

To be fair, we did enjoy your impression of Dr. Evil as you sat behind your very big desk and shouted into the camera, vowing to contribute “five mill-ion dol-lars!” to the charity of the president’s choice if he releases “to my satisfaction!” all of his college records and passport applications by, appropriately enough, Halloween at 5 p.m.

Seriously, Donald Trump, if you’ve got $5 Million to spend on charity, don’t play this game. Just give it to charity. Don’t waste the finite amount of time the President of the United States has on your paranoid nonsense. Just give the money to charity.

Also, passport applications? I’m pretty disorganized, but I’m not sure if I was better organized that I could just pull up all of the passport applications I’ve made in a week. And I’m not in the middle of, you know, running for president. Do you keep them? Would the government keep the passport applications of a 7 year old (or whatever) kid from Hawaii from when he went to visit his dad, like years after it had expired? That’s such a strange request. And really, can you imagine Obama using the last week of the campaign to argue with Trump about if that was really all, and the correct, passport applications to his satisfaction? That’s just bizarre.

– There ain’t enough fuck you in the world for this guy.

– Nepotism on full view on TV.

– At what point do the R-71 people give up their court case to keep their signatures hidden?

– It is ridiculous — RIDICULOUS — that we live in a society where it’s a good guess that a shooting in a place often frequented by women is going to be an extension of a “domestic dispute.”

– Family values.

– Bikers and walkers spend more money than drivers over time.

– Anyone interested in seeing a MST3King of BIRDEMIC tomorrow?

Goldy points to this piece by the Sky Valley Chronicle taking the Seattle Times to task for their Rob McKenna ad.

And now the Times asks for forgiveness. Asks for another chance.

But as the Times reader comment noted in the headline of this piece – produced in response to a column written by Times Executive Editor David Boardman called “A vow to continue impartial reporting,”- it may be far too little and way too late.

I get why people are upset with the ad. I’m upset with the ad. The real problem is that Frank Blethen runs the paper. The problem isn’t the perception, it’s the reality. The paper is owned by a bully who has a toy that he pretends is a public service, but that he uses to tilt toward corporate power and the status quo.

The ad is just a symptom of that. And the symptom was far worse a few years ago, for example, when The Seattle Times decided to run a phoney story about Darcy Burner’s diploma. But they circled the wagons when people like Goldy pointed it out.

And it wasn’t just The Seattle Times staff. I couldn’t find anything in the Sky Valley Chronicle criticizing that. Plenty of main stream people ran with it. After all, if it’s in The Seattle Times, it must be true. But that was far worse than the ad people in The Seattle Times giving away the space in their paper. That was a news decision clearly directed by Blethen’s desire to swing the race. So, color me unimpressed that the people who are fine that sort of content are upset about the ads around it.