Brock Beauchamp

This is a really good article about state politics. My takeaway is that if you see a state representative running their platform on abortion or another national issue that state legislatures cannot impact whatsoever, you should drill deeply into that candidate to see if they actually have ideas they can implement at the local level or whether they're simply a partisan hack, playing on politics they can't deliver. I'm going to reexamine my local representatives tonight. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/all-politics-is-national/

I tend to side with Silver on this one. I've read a lot about his modeling - thankfully, he's very open about it - and I think his model taking into account inter-state influence is a superior system. It's doesn't make sense to treat each state as an island. Minnesota influences Wisconsin and vice-versa. Maybe Silver's model is wrong and I doubt he'd be too upset if it is... this election is way out on the edge of the cliff and we have very few data points to predict presidential elections in the first place. If he's wrong, that gives important precedence for coming elections.

There may be some of that but it's hard to make the argument FiveThirtyEight is clickbaiting to keep readers tuned in. And they're talking about the closeness of this race as much or more than many other news outlets. They've actually been hedging their numbers with caution more than most other polling aggregates I've seen.

Promising numbers coming out of Nevada early voting: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/has-trump-already-lost-nevada/

Ah, didn't realize you were talking about retirement accounts. Missed that when I responded.

It's not a terrible idea but I'm not ready to pay tax on my gains all at once. Plus, I'm still confident Clinton will win on Tuesday.

I have few problems with career politicians. I have much bigger problems with the money found both in and after serving a national office, particularly in lobbying. Some career politicians might be lazy asshats but that's true of other professions as well. People usually get better at their jobs as they practice said jobs and there's no reason to think politics are an exception. I'm not against term limits, either... But I think they should be longer than most advocates suggest. A limit of 15-20 years seems reasonable to me. If you haven't moved up or out of the position in two decades, it's probably time to shuffle chairs.

Do you want high quality people in the position or not? Sure, a few high quality people will jump into the public sector either for the service aspect or personal satisfaction but when you're well-paid to do a job that consumes a large portion of your time in the private sector, it's really hard to abandon that for five, ten years so you can serve for a pittance in the public sector. There has to be some kind of balance to make it worth the time of the people you want to attract to the job. And that's ignoring that if you pay a pittance to serve publicly, that means you're only drawing from people who are wealthy enough to be able to afford working part-time for several years. You're reducing the qualified candidate pool to people who already have money and, generally, people serve in their own interest first, everyone else second (if at all). Not that I'm accusing you of this but it's really weird how some people tout free market practices on a daily basis but then refuse to apply those same principles to the public sector.

I file that game seven under the category of "soul crushing". It was a great game but so painful for one dugout.

The second best game seven I've seen for sure. The bar I was in blew up when Gonzalez hit that blooper to center.

Ah, right. No argument here. Dozier is a second baseman or bust, in my opinion. If he had more of an arm, he'd be valuable at third but I don't see that happening.

Another thing about the 91 series is the build-up of excitement leading into game seven. Game two was decided by one run. Game three was decided by one run in 12 innings. Game four was decided by one run. Game six was decided by one run in 11 innings. And then that absurd game seven happened. Five games decided by one run, three of them going into extras.

That's fair. I'd just be wary about throwing out big numbers re: lawyer pay. It's not as much as you think or expect. There are far more lawyers able to practice than there are jobs for said lawyers. The market is completely saturated.

I think there will be skepticism whether Dozier is a 40 homer guy - and there should be - but given his 2016, I think teams will be comfortable bidding on a 30 homer second baseman who has the ability to touch 40 homers in the right season. People tend to overlook Dozier's continual rise in homers since he entered the league: 6, 18, 23, 28, 42. No dips, no stalling out, just a steady climb upward over four full seasons. Home runs aren't everything but they're the only guaranteed run-scoring play in baseball. And getting 30+ of them from a middle infielder is a pretty big deal, especially if he's slotted into a lineup where he's taking 50% of his plate appearances with men on base. That will lead to anywhere between 20-50 more runs scored in a season over the typical 10-15 homer second baseman.

Also, let's not forget Cleveland never led the game. The energy was all one-sided.

Dunno. Game seven this season was great and all but I didn't even watch part of the game because the Cubs were up by a somewhat cushy margin for several innings. The slow ramping up of suspense found in a 0-0 game may seem a bit underwhelming for the first, say, five innings but then you begin to realize one run might decide this thing, which cranks up the intensity from inning six onward.

1991 was one of the greatest, maybe the greatest, baseball games I've ever seen. The fact that it was 0-0 heading into the 10th inning and Morris was still on the mound makes it the winner, in my opinion. The amount of suspense in a zero run game with the starter still on the mound in extra innings is something I never saw before that night and haven't seen since. I'd compare the 2016 game seven more to the 2009 game 163 between the Twins and Tigers. Loads of fun, lots of suspense, but only a close game because both teams made several mistakes that allowed the game to ping-pong back and forth.

I agree that they probably need a raise but I wouldn't compare them to lawyers: 1. Lawyers make less than you think. There are only a handful of firms in the metro area that pay $200k a year and that number generally requires someone well into their career (10+ years). Most lawyers make somewhere at or near $100k and only after they drop the "junior" from their title. 2. Lawyers, especially the top echelon, work absurd hours. I mean, ****ing absurd hours. Hours the rest of us consider completely out of line, particularly given the fact most of them don't make huge money. 3. Kids, don't become a doctor or lawyer. The professions sound nice but, in actuality, really suck. Were I to go find a "real" job (I'm currently a contractor who works when I want), I'd make as much as my wife, who graduated law school (top 15% of her class) eight years ago and has been a lawyer in a firm for five of those years (she was a clerk before that time). Me? I went to school for illustration and taught myself how to code in my spare time.

Absolutely, and if this was a normal election, it'd be easier to take a republican victory. If Mitt Romney was about to win a general election, I'd say "Damn it. I don't agree but at least he won't burn the place to the ground." Trump? I honestly can't say that. And the fact people can't see it is so ****ing depressing.

Oh, I'm not naive enough to believe those places don't have a slew of their own issues but I'm exhausted by the way this country has drifted right in so many ways since Goldwater flipped the south. It's hard to believe this country once declared war on poverty. Many of the ideas contained within were bad long-term strategies but there was a certain nobility in the attempt that we don't see today.

We get 10,000 and throw a bigger fit. Again, Europe isn't perfect, far from it... But suggesting there are things we can learn from them isn't some form of heresy.

I don't recall saying Europe was perfect nor do I feel we should model everything we do on their political systems. There's a difference between acknowledging they're ahead of us in some ways (the fact many of their governments haven't stagnated is a good place to start) and saying we should emulate everything they do. If you don't like "Europe", replace with "Canada".

Yep. I'm not convinced many leftist ideas are good to implement... But they should be on the table because you can't push forward if one side doesn't have a voice. We've spent the past few decades bouncing around in an increasingly conservative and right-drifting political landscape. It was startling when I was speaking to a German friend a few weeks ago and he said "Your political spectrum is pretty ****ed up. Clinton stands to the right of our conservative chancellor and Bernie Sanders is a mainstream candidate over here." It was a wake-up call just how far the US's conversation on social policy and economic policy have stagnated since Jimmy Carter. And it's not as if Germany is floundering under these increasingly socialistic principles.

I agree and in no way do I intend to give the Democrats a pass on their own failings. But what you just described is what happens when you have a centrist party and a far right party controlling the national conversation. There isn't a legitimate leftist party in this country and there hasn't been one in decades. Both parties defend the status quo most of the time but only one of them makes even a token gesture of inclusion. The other has turned exclusive and almost violently so.

I'm sorry but man, people are really twisting my words in what was a pretty simple statement. I said I was tired of white people. I didn't call them names, I didn't affix a label onto them, I said I was tired. Are there racist traits within the white community? Of course. But I think the far bigger problem is selfishness and a lack of empathy. Either way, we end up in a ****ty situation where we have people with eighth grade educations telling scientists they're wrong about their conclusions. We have people telling others their life experiences are invalid because they're not the accepted "norm". We have people voting in more radical political elements every election. We have people supporting obvious voter suppression tactics (if you can't win by the rules, change the rules). And all of these regressive ideas are coming from a single party that is almost exclusively supported by one race of people and, more specifically, one gender of that race. Not coincidentally, that gender/race also holds a disproportionate amount of power. In no way am I suggesting #NotAllWhitePeople isn't a thing but when the majority of this country's regressive policy and non-governance is coming from a single demographic, we should call out that demographic for its bad behavior. This isn't a case where we're punching down at a marginalized population. We're clearly punching up at those who wish to keep the status quo (and in many cases, actually go backwards) so they can keep their disproportionate power over society. And that's the difference. Being "tired" of black people implies hostile intent toward a marginalized people. As a voting bloc, black people aren't trying to get a leg up over white people. Neither are hispanics, Muslims, women as a whole, or pretty much anyone that isn't white male. Those groups are fighting for equality. On the other hand, as a voting bloc, white people are clearly trying to keep a leg up over everybody else. Again, I'm surprised by the response to my comment. Why aren't more of you frustrated with and tired of white people in this country? This map pretty much says it all: