Well, it’s been something of a rough week for me. But I am mostly recovered now, I’ve been off narcotics for almost a day, and I’ll likely be discharged this evening.

With any luck, I’ll do a new poll analysis by late this evening or tomorrow morning. I’ve entered most of the polls up through yesterday, but since they were entered under the influence of morphine, I’ll have some error checking to do.

Oh…and sorry about Kentucky thing. That’s the kind of error I usually find before posting, typically while writing up the summary of polls. But I skipped all that to get up what I figured to be the last analysis for awhile.

Just looking at the polls that have come in, I see no big shake-ups. I expect Obama will still be above a 90% probability of winning and somewhere around a mean of 300 electoral votes.

I thought I might be all out of what the fucks this campaign season. Especially after the shitty hurricane coverage. But there’s still at least one more. What the fuck, John Koster?

Koster: “When a mother’s life in in danger. I’m not going to make that decision. You know, I know they go out and… incest is so rare, I mean, it’s so rare. But the rape thing…you know, I know a woman who was raped and kept her child, gave it up for adoption, she doesn’t regret it. In fact, she’s a big pro-life proponent. But on the rape thing, it’s like, how does putting more violence onto a woman’s body and taking the life of an innocent child that’s a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better? You know what I mean?”

First off, if that story is true it doesn’t really change the facts for the women who get an abortion after being raped. If a woman decides to have a kid after being raped, I want to live in a society that respects that. But society should have just as much respect for a woman who doesn’t want to bring her rapist’s child into the world.

Now I think all women should be able to make that decision for themselves under any circumstances. But it’s tough to imagine that a person wouldn’t feel a little compassion sneak in when we’re talking about rape victims.

– Aside from the anti-bus one, I like these reasons to bike to work.

– I’m not an evangelical, and we live in a secular society is a better response on policy than to tell them what they should believe about religion. But the relatively recent change to opposition to abortion in the evangelical community is pretty fascinating.

– Good for Italy.

– Bogus photos, however, are a strange new form of popular expression attached to unfolding crises, hovering somewhere on the boundary between art and commentary.

– Obviously, it’s limited in geography and scope, but I think the MTA Flickr had the best pictures.

– When I was in England and people would ask me why people call it football, I would tell them it was because the ball was shaped like a foot. I like this answer better.

I don’t care how desperate you are for a local angle on the biggest story right now. If the story you’ve decided to write is What does Michael Brown think of Sandy (h/t) you’re writing the wrong goddamn story. I mean maybe if you preface it with, and do the opposite of what this fucker says.

Seriously, after his monumental fuckup in the wake of Katrina why the hell would you ask his opinion if you had a hangnail? Honestly.

Also, even if you didn’t know it was this fucker, that’s really terrible advice. Obama is being too prepared for a disaster and Something something Benghazi.

Seriously. It’s cheap enough to be like “storm good for candidate arrrgh” or “Storm Bad for candidate!” But to be both for no real reason other than to just have something to say? Boo.

And yes, I realize that if you’re a pundit, you have to keep doing punditry. But maybe take a breath or some shit. I don’t know.

Just to be clear, I’m not inherently opposed to tying Sandy to the presidential election. It’s a week away, and Sandy may have an impact. But when there is a disaster, maybe step up your game.

Please join us tonight for a special edition of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally, where we’ll all raise a pint in honor of Darryl’s aging pancreas.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Our gatherings are informal. If you show up and don’t immediately recognize the pack of liberals, ask a bartender or server.

Over lunch today, I was putting together a post with the latest election analysis. I started feeling bad. It got worse, and to make a long story short, I ended up in the ER.

The diagnosis is pancreatitis. So, I’ll be in the hospital for a couple of days, receiving morphine for the pain. I will try to finish an abbreviated poll analysis, but it will include only polls through this morning.

Morphine makes me tired.

– If you’ve got any money left over after campaign giving season, this kickstarter for Bezango, WA looks pretty good (h/t).

– Larry Stickney, as you can see, is super concerned with privacy.

– I’m still put off by Powell’s endorsement because of the war. But John McCain doesn’t really have a right to complain.

– And Barbara Guzzo, organizer of Catholics for Marriage, argued that the bishops have brought “anguish, division and sadness” to the faithful, “particularly those with a gay person in their families, the hurt that this has caused.”

– Still have to take some time to digest this XKCD on the partisan makeup of Congress

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?