Four years from now?

2 comments September 5th, 2010 03:23pm Pat Cunningham

I can’t decide if this kind of stuff is cool or not. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Uh-oh! Global-warming skeptics here in the Midwest likely will be chortling like mad this coming winter

8 comments September 5th, 2010 12:28pm Pat Cunningham

 

As I’ve noted here on previous occasions, global-warming skeptics often foolishly base their rhetoric regarding climate change on what the weather is like outside their windows.

For example, if a climate-change conference is held in a city where it’s especially cold and snowy, guys like Matt Drudge go crazy pointing out the irony of it all and celebrating what they see as evidence that scientific theories about global warming are pure bunk.

The reality, of course, is that unusually cold weather in one locale or one region has no great bearing on the overall global climate trends. And it’s unscientific in the extreme to suggest that it does.

Nonetheless, this peculiar right-wing phenomenon is sure to emerge once again this coming winter, perhaps especially here in the Midwest.

You see, THIS EARLY FORECAST calls for colder than usual temperatures across much of the country. And the outlook for here in the heartland reads as follows:

“Bitter Cold, significantly colder than last year. It also looks like it will be much snowier than average. Snowfall amounts may be 10-15+ inches more than last year.”

If it’s Sunday, John McCain’s on TV

3 comments September 5th, 2010 10:33am Pat Cunningham

 

Isn’t it strange that John McCain seems to be on the tube on Sunday mornings more often than some televangelists?

Steve Benen PONDERS this peculiar phenomenon.

An excerpt:

McCain lost a presidential election; he’s not in the GOP leadership; he’s not especially influential with anyone; he’s not playing an active role in shaping any legislation; his re-election appears secure; and he doesn’t appear to have any expertise in any area of public policy. The Sunday shows seem to book him out of habit. It remains farcical.

Five ways in which 2010 is not 1994

1 comment September 5th, 2010 09:48am Pat Cunningham

 

In his ASSESSMENT of the daunting situation faced by Democrats going into this year’s midterm elections, Jim Kessler looks back to 1994 and 1982 to draw some parallels and distinctions.

An excerpt:

All in all, the president’s party holds some pretty bad cards — but even so, this year needn’t be like 1994. If Democrats take a close look at what happened that year, they can avoid repeating it. And if they look to another election year, 1982, they might even find inspiration in an unlikely place: President Ronald Reagan’s leadership. In the run-up to that year’s midterm elections, Reagan faced 10.8 percent unemployment, 6 percent inflation, a declining GDP, an approval rating barely above freezing and the indignity of having drastically increased the budget deficit over the previous year after running as a fiscal hawk. You can’t get a hand much worse than that, but Reagan nonetheless managed to hold all 54 GOP Senate seats while losing only 26 House races.

UPDATE: It says HERE that Democrats will try a form of political triage to minimize their losses in November.

UPDATE II: Political forecasters Larry Sabato and Charlie Cook SEPARATELY SEE a strong likelihood that Republicans will capture control of the House, but perhaps not the Senate.

Truthiness on the National Mall?

6 comments September 5th, 2010 08:00am Pat Cunningham

 

Here’s a good idea:

There’s a movement afoot to persuade satirist Stephen Colbert to hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a la Glenn Beck.

Colbert, of course, is famous for his brilliant caricature of a conservative pundit on Comedy Central. He’s a tongue-in-cheek advocate of what he calls “truthiness” — which is defined HERE as an intuitive sense of the truth ”without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts.” Sounds like the stuff Beck peddles, right?

Accordingly, the rallying cry of folks who want Colbert to do the National Mall thing is this: “It’s time to Restore Truthiness to America!”

Read about it HERE.

FOOTNOTE: Who knows! A Colbert rally might even draw a few credulous wingnuts.

As I reported here last year, a serious ACADEMIC STUDY conducted at Ohio State University showed that some conservatives believe that Colbert genuinely means what he says when he mouths right-wing rhetoric on his TV show.

FOOTNOTE II: The recorded theme music on “The Colbert Report” is performed by Rockford’s own Cheap Trick.

Next month from PBS: Must-see TV

10 comments September 4th, 2010 04:29pm Pat Cunningham

Here’s a trailer for the upcoming six-hour documentary series “God in America” on PBS. It starts on Oct. 11.

President Obama’s weekly YouTube address

Add comment September 4th, 2010 02:34pm Pat Cunningham

The president’s focus this week is on the annual observance of Labor Day.

Fox News poll: Three-fourths of Americans say economy would be just as bad or worse if McCain had been elected

16 comments September 4th, 2010 08:12am Pat Cunningham

 

Despite the widespread notion among conservative pundits that the condition of the nation’s economy is cause for Americans to regret having elected Barack Obama president, the latest Fox News poll (HERE) suggests that the public doesn’t necessarily see it that way.

Seventy-four percent of respondents in the survey commissioned by Fox and conducted earlier this week say the economic situation would be no better (54 percent) – or even worse (20 percent) – if John McCain had defeated Obama.

In another interesting result, a plurality of respondents SAID they would prefer Obama to George W. Bush for president if they had a choice. The margin in Obama’s favor was 8 percentage points, which is a little wider than the margin of 7.2 percentage points by which Obama defeated McCain in the popular vote of 2008.

These results should stand as evidence that polls sponsored by Fox — just like polls sponsored by other major media organizations — are free of political bias.

Yet, I can’t count the number of times that Applesauce commenters have contended that polls commissioned by certain networks, magazines or newspapers are not to be trusted. Such nonsense ignores the fact that all the big media outfits hire reputable, independent firms to conduct their polls and don’t want results that are biased.

Making folks laugh from coast to coast

7 comments September 3rd, 2010 05:43pm Pat Cunningham

This video jab at Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is pretty funny.

No, it’s not as funny as the stuff about her we posted yesterday (HERE), but still…

A speling lessun frum are freinds in the Tee Partie moovmunt

9 comments September 3rd, 2010 04:39pm Pat Cunningham

I love this little video — the pictures, the song, the whole thing. It’s just delicious. And I can’t help but wonder if any of our Applesauce regulars are among the folks shown herein.

Let me know if you see yourself.