Month: October 2014

‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).’

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), R.E.M.

…by request, of all things.  Apparently people outside of this site notice that I put up music videos every night.  I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does.

AP-GfK: 9% of voters enthusiastic about Barack Obama.

Ouch.

[A recent] AP-GfK poll asked the approve/disapprove question, finding 17 percent of likely voters said they strongly approve of Obama and 44 percent strongly disapprove. But then it asked a separate — and we would argue, more enlightening — question about the Obama administration. It asked how people felt about it, and gave them four options: “enthusiastic,” “satisfied but not enthusiastic,” “dissatisfied but not angry,” and “angry.”

That would seem to be a pretty good analogue for the approve/disapprove question, but the answers are quite a bit different. While 17 percent of likely voters “strongly approve” of Obama, just 9 percent say they are “enthusiastic” about his administration.

Continue reading AP-GfK: 9% of voters enthusiastic about Barack Obama.

Marvel’s Age of Ultron counter-leak gambit.

Interesting point here from Reason on the leaked Marvel Age of Ultron trailer:

The trailer wasn’t supposed to be released this week at all. Marvel had originally planned to release the trailer next Tuesday, in conjunction with a new episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, a TV show with close ties to Marvel’s ever-expanding Avengers movie universe. After a low-resolution version of the trailer leaked, some copies were pulled at the request of Disney, which owns Marvel.

[snip]

…within about two hours of the leaked version hitting the web, Marvel went ahead and posted the official version. So much for carefully stage-managed corporate PR, eh? But this is one of the reasons why Marvel is doing such great business these days. They’re not fighting the fans, not trying to control the crowd. The company is accepting the reality of the Internet—that a leak can’t really be contained—and giving fans what they want.

Continue reading Marvel’s Age of Ultron counter-leak gambit.

White House pretends that not trusting them on immigration is crazy-talk.

There are times when I don’t really get this administration’s messaging strategy.

The White House said Wednesday it was “crazy” to attempt to divine the president’s post-election plans for an immigration executive order based on a procurement request issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

“I mean, this is crazy,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, adding he would caution reporters against “making assumptions” based on the “procurement of green paper.”

The proposal, unveiled earlier this week by Breitbart News, asks potential contractors to prepare for the possibility of producing up to 34 million green cards and work permits over the next five years.

I mean, let’s game this out. Continue reading White House pretends that not trusting them on immigration is crazy-talk.

Mary Landrieu is losing, but it’s not DOOM.

Sean Trende goes over why I think Mary Landrieu is going to lose, but haven’t called DOOM yet:

It happens like clockwork.  Every six years, observers start the cycle predicting the demise of Louisiana’s Sen. Mary Landrieu.  Every six years, they are proven wrong, as she somehow pulls off an improbable victory.

But this year might really be different.  For the first time, Landrieu trails badly as we approach the November primary.  Her saving grace in 2008 – historically high black turnout – seems unlikely to materialize this cycle, while her saving grace in 2002 – a runoff coalition that favored her – seems impossible to re-create.

You see, I’m pretty sure that she’s going to lose. If I bet on politics* I’d put five bucks on Landrieu losing. But it’s not a gimme by any means at this point.

Moe Lane

*I DO NOT BET ON POLITICS. For largely the same reason that Pete Rose shouldn’t have bet on baseball games, although admittedly I have much, much, much less in the way of influence over elections than Rose did on baseball games.

A vote for Democrats is ‘A Vote for President Obama.’

Variants of this are going up in six states:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yl-PbIMVz0&feature=youtu.be

Courtesy of Freedom Partners Action Fund, this is part of a $6.5 million ad buy hitting Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire (online only), and North Carolina. Which is good news, but I have to ask something: how, in God’s name, can anybody look at this and not see it as speech? Just how ignorant do the professional scaremongers of the Democratic party think that we are that we might not recognize that the ability to say This politician is a fool; do not vote for fools is the bedrock of the First Amendment? What are they scared of?

Continue reading A vote for Democrats is ‘A Vote for President Obama.’