Republicans made significant gains in House races, mostly it seems because they nominated and supported women candidates. For that they deserve congratulations, even though one of the successful candidates is an OAnon supporter.
This is one of the ways our politics works in the long run: one party comes up with an advance, like nominating women candidates or a fund-raising mechanism like ActBlue; the party gains an advantage; the other party then tries to catch up.
Once again the elections defied my predictions. I'm assuming Joe Biden will be inaugurated on Jan 20, but that's about the only thing I got right this year (won't talk about 2016).
Time enough for analysis when all the votes are in, but it seems the national polls once again were reasonably close, the state ones had their problems.
But the lesson for me, once again, is to warn that my picture of reality is warped by my desires for what reality should be. You'd think after almost 80 years I'd learn.
As in my previous post, I'm confident of the election outcome. Georgia and Texas might or might not vote for Biden/Harris, but it's clear that Democrats owe a lot to the efforts of Stacy Abrams in Georgia and Beto O'Rourke in Texas.
I'm confident that the Biden/Harris ticket will win, likely tonight. In that confidence I want to link to this NYTimes article on perhaps the most important bureaucrat/nerd involved in the election: the man running the Fox decision desk.
He's important because the media decision desks provide the data for analysts to call a state as having firm results. He's doubly important in my scenario because the Fox news people are the ones who have the credibility to persuade Trump supporters that their man has lost. And he's triply important because of the big unknowns of this election: the impact of early voting, of the massive turnout, and of the pandemic. And he's quadruply important because of the uncertainty of Trump's reaction to a defeat.
It's interesting to follow the posts on the FSA Facebook Group for a number of reasons.
Sometimes posters in the group ask for help on various issues, questions of policy, software, approaches to handling service during the pandemic. Sometimes it's just sharing news, funny stories, etc.
In the last week there was a work issue which seems to have been solved by some software developed by a county employee, which a number of people asked for. Back in the day that sort of thing happened as well. A couple difference from 30-40 years ago:
Some are worried by the possibility of violence resulting from the 2020 election. Their fears seem mostly to be that Trump supporters will be upset by a Biden victory and commit some violence. The fear is of "sore losers" I suppose it's possible that some on the right have a similar "sore loser" fear of violence coming from Biden supporters if Trump pulls off another upset.
As a general proposition I'm not that afraid of the scenario. But there is one which I just thought of which scares me.
I remember occasions, I think mostly when a college wins either the NCAA football or basketball championship where the students take to the streets and riot, destroying property, etc. We normally dismiss such episodes, at least I dismiss them, as "boys will be boys".
But, there's a lot of emotion invested in the outcome of this election. Isn't it more likely that election violence will come from "exultant winners"? I remember the election of 2008, when the winners exulted. That was a victory of love, of belief in Obama, of the redemption of America, and I don't remember any particular violence, or animosity directed towards McCain supporters.
But a Biden victory on Tuesday would be a victory based on a lot of animosity towards Trump, and some of his supporters.
I always like a metaphor, so think of the exultant winners and despondent losers as two masses of plutonium, back in the days of the Manhatten Project. Keep them separate and everything is copasetic. Bring them together and you get a nuclear explosion.
This asks the question: Can Vertical Farming Grow Beyond Herbs and Leaves?
I'm dubious, if we're talking generally. I can see vertical farming might work in niche areas: on the moon and Mars or in permanently inhabited space stations, where it's the only economical alternative. Or in areas such as Iceland, where geothermal power means cheap cheap electricity, which current powers aluminum smelters and datacenters for block-chain systems. Or in the grand future when we have practical fusion.
Or there may be a technological breakthrough which drastically changes the economics. But bottom line, I don't see its broad comparative advantage, particularly as long as we use fossil fuel to generate electricity and, if as I assume, it's a net contributor to carbon dioxide emissions.
From this source via the Templeton foundation, it's Africa. The trick here is that the ranking is based on total numbers, so Africa with 631 million has more Christians than Latin America with only 601 million, but in percentage terms Latin America at 92 percent blows away the other continents.
Where is North America, you ask? At 277 million it's the smallest of the big five continents.
She's almost guaranteed to. Only Justices Alito and Thomas have not, in recent memory at least, disappointed the right on some decision or other. Kavanaugh is too early to be a fair case, but I'd predict he also will. (For one thing, he's the father of daughters, which research has shown sometimes leads to more liberal conclusions.)
What are some things which might lead her to surprise conservatives on some cases?
Matt Yglesias at Vox writes on nepotism. It's a thorough and to my mind bipartisan treatment.
I do wish Biden had been asked during the debate what role, if any, his family would play in his administration. Would he have replied: the same sort of roles as my predecessor has assigned to Ivanka, Don Jr., Eric, Jared Kushner or would he have excluded them? Would he promise to put his assets into a blind trust?
