Jake

We begin a new tomorrow, tomorrow. How the hell could you want a President that says that?

Okay...I'm going to be drinking a lot tomorrow. I just can't decide what.

I think as fans that follow the team so closely, it is far easier for us to imagine the many bad ways for the next season to go. It's less objective and of course we don't look at others teams closely enough to see the cracks in their armor (real or imagined)

QUOTE (kev211 @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 08:57 PM) The GOP better hope that Nate Silver is the blubbering idiot they've tried to make him out to be. You know how sometimes you make a shot from half-court? That doesn't make it a good shot to take because you saw it go in once. If Romney wins, he made a half-court shot. Nate Silver and every political scientist that likes things like numbers says what they say because the polls make it almost an undeniable Obama win. The only chance is if the average polling number is strongly biased towards Obama, to an extent that is completely unprecedented. No one can think of a particularly good reason that in an era that these things should be getting MORE accurate, they would suddenly find a bias. The newer challenges faced by pollsters have been found to produce pro-Republican bias, in most cases. Read this Professor's discussion of the potential for bias: http://votamatic.org/can-we-trust-the-polls/ He has some other very awesome, pretty nerdy analyses of the data. The most convincing to me is that the aggregate of small polling firms (only do 1 or a few polls) err from the total average in the same way that PPP and that ilk do. It seems unlikely that the aggregate of a bunch of independent pollsters would ALL be biased one way, far more likely that the Rasmussens of the world are systematically biased the wrong direction. All will be answered tomorrow though. The political science world (one that I am proud to be a part of ) will be shaken if so many pollsters miss by so much tomorrow. It won't be the fault of every political scientist that aggregates polls if they miss, it'll be a systematic problem with poll tabulation by the individual polling firms. I find that unlikely to be the case, but you never know. These things are always super unlikely until they happen.

Why is it that every political scientist everywhere (and don't get it wrong, that's what Nate Silver is) is predicting an Obama win?

Silver as of this evening: 91.6% chance of Obama re-election

another message board poster

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 04:09 PM) Is that an actual ballot measure? That's a pretty loaded phrasing. lol I can't believe that phrasing made it to the ballot, even if I am somewhat ambivalent

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 03:23 PM) That's interesting, I guess it's good that they care about voting that much. Like I had said, I have voted in 4 different cities in my life and never once have I experienced any kind of line. I've voted in one, but it has always been early due to college. There's never anyone there....but my hometown only has 10,000 people lol

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 02:30 PM) By "Right On" you are of course talking about the hologram Will. I. Am. correct? Yes. Also, I think I'm going to start my drinking right now so maybe by tomorrow I can relax

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/barac...-yes-great.html

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 01:23 PM) I am an undecided voter today because I think both candidates suck. I have a couple questions. Please keep answers short. 1.) Why should I vote for Obama? 2.) Why should I vote for Romney? 3.) Why should I vote at all, being that the state of Kansas would vote Rebublican and my vote won't matter, even if the Republican candidate for president was Donald Trump? What is the argument for voting when your state is 100 percent going one way. Why greg775 should vote for: Obama - He's a Christian. He is a known entity and under his watch you have seen the economy finish crashing and start coming back up. He has increased the rights of all kinds of Americans, namely the right to equal pay for women and the right to serve openly for gays, and will end up on the right side of history, socially. In the coming term, several Supreme Court seats are likely to open up...what kind of justices do you want to see appointed? If you want ones that will protect the rights of women, gays, minorities, etc. then Obama may be your choice. If you like helping your fellow man when things are down, Obama is probably your guy. If you don't want to use a voucher to buy healthcare when you get older or perhaps you don't want your social security checks to be underfunded, Obama is your guy. If you want someone that is worldly working in foreign affairs that has no impulse to justify our foreign wars and understands foreign cultures, there's Obama again. If you want someone who won't be run over by his party leadership because he IS the party leadership, there he is again. Romney - He's new. He ran a business very successfully. He claims to wish to lower your income tax rate further than it already has. You may think the Supreme Court justices he would appoint would reflect your values better. As someone who has outsourced, he likely has a very intimate idea of what causes someone to do that and probably knows that there are actually good times to do things like that (would you rather be partially outsourced or not exist? for instance). Despite what he's said, he's unlikely to prioritize a repeal of Obamacare because it is so similar to the law he pushed so hard for in Mass. Also, Romney will inherit a recovering economy so he won't have to change much to keep things going. You also may find the same party holding Pres and House to be better than Pres and Senate (if BO is elected). Vote for anyone - Don't be the kind of person that embarrasses the country that claims to be the most democratic place in the world while boasting a terrible turnout rate in comparison to other democratic governments. Speak your voice in local politics, spend time tonight and see who is running locally. Even if your vote tomorrow doesn't result in a different candidate being elected, you will be heard. Every city, county, state is evaluated not just for which candidate they went for, but also at what strength. Your rep., your president, everyone cares about who you voted for. If your vote makes your area more R-leaning, then R's will please you more. If your vote makes your area more D-leaning, then D's will try to please you more and the R's will try to win you back. Speak out!

CNN was basically right on last time.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 07:33 AM) But why? And I don't see why a voter would spend his whole Saturday in line when they can vote in 5 minutes on Tuesday. I guess some people may have work obligations, but the polls are open for 13 hours and most aren't working 5 hours OT. I think some, other than those that MUST vote on a different day, are anticipating an even more difficult voting experience on Tuesday. I don't know if those are all inaccurate anticipations of Tuesday or not. QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 07:49 AM) All I know is that if Romney wins, Nate Silver should close his blog down. He is leaving small windows open in case Mitt win but predicts a big time Obama win. Nobody but the partisan speculators that don't believe polls would look good if Obama wins. Silver, Princeton's Professor Wang, RealClearPolitics, Votamatic, every pollster except Rasmussen will look terrible if Obama loses. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 5, 2012 -> 12:24 PM) The sample sizes don't need to be that large to get an accurate estimation. bingo

The Bears' problem with the Packers is their pass rush. The inability to deal with the pass rush from an OL, QB, and scheme standpoint make it more or less impossible to really say whether the other aspects of those teams really matter. Hopefully by the next GB game Mike Tice learns things like the three step drop, the run play on first down, etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 3, 2012 -> 03:33 PM) David Ortiz just got 2 years/$26 million. Will be 38 at the end of that contract, following a season in which he only played 90 games. His production has still been pretty good, but there is certainly a degree of risk. Not a bad deal for either side though. Papi gets a big chunk of change, BoSox don't get a tremendous commitment. If I'm comparing it to Peavy deal, I like Peavy deal even more though they're somewhat similar

A good start would be the parties using an alternate vote system for the primaries. This could help folks have less crazy people come out as nominees -- its a miracle that Barack and Romney came out of their respective parties

QUOTE (Reddy @ Nov 4, 2012 -> 06:42 PM) unfortunately he's actually right, as much as i hate to say it. i'm here. i'm volunteering on the ground in these areas. FEMA and the Red Cross are nowhere to be found and the media's ignoring the atrocities that are going on. I can't defend it. I got the impression that they are having a really hard time actually reaching the area due to all kinds of different things they had mentioned (streets/bridges closing, lack of gas, etc)

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 4, 2012 -> 07:13 PM) This election will have a record number of early voters, as did the previous. Both campaigns have seen the utility in pushing early voting. I say that, but I see that early voting is down in Chicago. Maybe projections were off. I know some places with R-controlled governments have restricted early voting further, like Florida. I read someplace that about 75% of Nevada's ballots have been cast already, on the other hand.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 4, 2012 -> 06:58 PM) Are there more people early voting than normal? I don't remember seeing this many people. And why are they all waiting in line for a few hours? I've never waited in any line to vote on Election Day. This election will have a record number of early voters, as did the previous. Both campaigns have seen the utility in pushing early voting.

The government at some level needs to provide some way to get people evacuated in these instances. The whole premise of our government is preventing you from dying needlessly from things like starvation. Take the goddamn public transit and ship people to safety. Go door to door to spread the info if you have to.

Yeah, the guy has never even put together a single full season performance. Brandon has looked great since his surgery, but he has way too much left to prove for me to put much more than 5-6M a year in him.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 4, 2012 -> 04:56 PM) Unfortunately, at this point, the electoral college is all we have, and it's better than the alternative of a pure popular vote. I'd love to hear of a better system to replace it that they'd actually implement, but removing it in favor of a popular vote isn't something I'd be interested in them doing...ever. Again, I'm sure some people are in favor of it now, short term, because they can't see the forest for the trees and it happens to favor at the moment, but long term (which they aren't seeing), it would destroy what little choice the people currently have. If the electoral college is replaced by a superior system, that's not a popular vote, I'd be all for such a change. But if the alternative is moving to a popular vote, no thanks...I'd rather keep the flawed system we have now. I don't think it's the best system, but I prefer it to the electoral college and it really has a legitimate chance to upseat it with popular support. I'm not fathoming the issues that make electoral college better than pure popular vote...can you make some sort of argument (you don't have to do an exhaustive analysis, I understand these things can get long-winded) for your stance? I'm not trying to be a dick, I just don't know what a present-day pro-electoral college argument sounds like so it is hard for me to weigh pros and cons.

There are some that probably will, I agree, and some probably should. I just hope that Congress agrees to negotiate each separately so that there is no chance that everyone gets f***ed over because they can't agree about one part of the taxes. They could dig into the deficit substantially if they let them expire, but from what I can tell it would probably end any notion of recovery.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 4, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) Ask the same question Wednesday. Once BO is reelected, it will be the top new story until it's resolved, I'm sure. What confuses me is why the Republican campaign hasn't given this attention. They could have been accusing BO of having a master-plan of giant tax increases because that's technically what the current laws call for.