What's with this Nate Silver character? An outlier is a point that lies far out in the unlikely part of the distribution, far enough so that one might regard it as not part of the distribution, but a sort of intrusion by an unexpected event. So if one result should be regarded as an outlier, he says we should regard several more as outliers also. This would only be so if there is something really wrong with the polling methodology.

Trust me, in December, Kamiya and Greenwald will simultaneously write 'dissections'...

Surely one of the stupidest things written here in a while. Why not think a little longer and come up with a better insult. "Fewer posts, better posts" should be your motto. In fact, in the limit in which your number of posts goes to zero, you could have something worth saying. But no one would ever know.

Still there.

Jews know that they are the people Palin is talking about when she describes the not-real-Americans who live in big cities.

I see no creditable evidence that Palin knows who lives in American cities, that is, south of AK.

Katzman is not so worried about bombing Iran because many of the targets are secluded. I discussed just this issue with an Iranian scientist last year. Her concern was that some of the potential targets are near or in densely populated areas, and that the civilian population would be in danger.

I am presuming that this congressional research organization actually works for congress, and therefore must respond to its direction? Perhaps it would be helpful to write to your congressman and suggest that it needs an organization with some real academic standing. The republicans cannot get away with as much as they used to. Perhaps this neocon snakepit could be cleaned out as well.

My simplistic view: In order to have enemies that we can irrationally oppose, we must have friends that we irrationally support. But our friends have to be very smart in order to really take advantage of our friendship. Israel has done pretty well. Georgia, not so much.

"there are plenty of big examples of the abject failure of the mainstream media to investigate Barack Obama’s background and record with even a fraction of the vigor and skepticism with which they have investigated Sarah Palin's,"

is that when the RW dug into Obama's record and background, if they had found anything like the arrogant ignorance that Palin's shows, then these RW victims would have something to say other than the quoted passage to write about. And so would the press. But, hey, to maintain the self-delusion, you have to blame the press for not reporting what you "know" to be true.

Well said, but not quite complete.

In addition, the US government has shown that it has no respect human rights, and that it will ignore at will any inconveient international agreement it has signed.

The key to understanding Dylan is to get a feel for the cultural assumptions of the time. Easy for me, I was there! (or at least partly there, I do not think any of us are really there even when we think we are.) I think you are younger, but not so young that you have no strong connections to that time. Think of that time of incredible innocent growing wealth and optimism for many, but not those denied, when people were locked into a narrow set of ideas, but were open-minded enough to be looking for new ones, or at least to think they were.

Which sad-eyed lady would have those memories? I have always loved that line for making so little sense on the surface.

The McCain campaign folks might have no class, but give them a break. They have had to deal with her. I am surprised that someone has not broken a chair over her head. Surely Palin 2012 is a bad joke. There are other republicans.

I agree with you on something. I think she has had her eye on that senate seat for some time. Sure, VP is better, but junior senator from AK is not so bad.

....It takes real political insight to admit that Obama might win, especially in the shadow of all those lying polls controlled by the liberal media. Fool me once, fool me twice, you cannot fool me!

I find the idea that any app that can be used without the web residing only on the web appalling. And I think a lot of business folks will to. Sounds like a great way for Microsoft to continue its difficulties started with that operating system whose name I forget.

The purpose of the banking system, loosely speaking, is to make production and commerce function well. It is a service that should pay those who perform it a reasonable living. But the proximity to all that money leads to a belief among those in charge of these businesses that they are justified in taking some significant fraction of what passes through their hands. They are not; banks merely provide a simple set of services, having a direct pipe into the source, under the control of the voters through their representatives. Perhaps as it becomes better known how little banks do and how much they take, the calls for punishmnet will become, well, capital.

how un-serious you are. Just as banking corporations are entitled to take as much money as they can get away with, the traditional media is entitled to the news, period. Be happy you are not in jail for stealing their news before they find it by their traditional means. That is, taking it from someone else.

Remember, bloggers get a free ride on the traditional media, who do all the hard work. They work for years to learn the deep dark secrets of their craft, and establish fragile personal bonds with those who are there news. This is how it must work; I heard it in the news.