Pennsylvania still a battleground state?

If this latest poll is accurate, it hardly sounds like it.

President Obama, already ahead in Pennsylvania, received a small bump from the Democratic National Convention and now leads Mitt Romney in the state by 11 points, according to the Inquirer Pennsylvania Poll.

But with eight weeks left before the Nov. 6 election, with debates yet to be held, and with foreign affairs suddenly atop the national agenda, it's early to concede the state to Obama, a bipartisan team of Inquirer pollsters said.

"I'm not 100 percent prepared to say Pennsylvania is not in play," said Adam Geller, of National Research Inc., a Republican firm.

Maybe Pennsylvania is 99%? Read the rest of this post...

Santorum: "We will never have the elite, smart people on our side"

Failed GOP presidential candidate, former US Senator, and all around gay-hating guy, Rick Santorum told a religious right conference (sponsored by a number of officially-designated "hate groups") that smart people will never support religious right Republicans.

Santorum seems to have missed the irony.

Let's dissect Santorum's statement (which is below).

1. Smart people will never be on your side - but the audience, made up of religious right leaders from around the country, is on your side.  Thus religious right leaders are not "smart people."

2. If you really had the correct policy prescriptions for America, wouldn't you think "smart people" would embrace that?  I mean, do you think "dumb" people are better able to determine the life of a fetus than "smart" people?  Are dumb people better able to analyze the science on global warming and determine whether or not it's a hoax?  On gay rights, are dumb people really more capable at determining whether there's a constitutional right to civil rights for gays?  And finally (but not limited to), health care reform - you really think dumb people are better than smart people and determining its constitutionality, let alone whether health care reform is the best approach, among those available, at helping more Americans get more affordable, and better, health care without hurting the economy, et ?

I'm sorry, but when you have a brain tumor, you don't seek out a dumb doctor.  When the IRS audits you, you don't hire a dumb accountant.  No one wants a dumb banker, or a dumb lawyer.

It's seems the only time you really want someone dumb is when Rick Santorum and the religious right are stumping for votes.

That ought to tell them something.  But it clearly doesn't.

I'm reminded of a quote from high school (from the poet TS Eliot to be exact), "we had the experience but missed the meaning."

Perhaps they're just too dumb to get the irony.

PS I still can't read stuff like this and not see the word "Jew" hidden between the lines.  Maybe it's just me.

Rick Santorum at the hate group sponsored Values Voter Summit 2012:

"[T]he media doesn't go along with us. You have to understand that. They don't like conservatism. They like the other side. Not necessarily, I would argue, because they necessarily agree with them -- it's because they can influence the country more. You see, if just a few people make decisions about what this world looks like and what this country looks like, well then you can have people sitting in offices -- the major media outlets and in Hollywood -- they can deal with a small group of people, and influencing them and getting them to jump through the hoops they want them to. It's much harder if all of you collectively build America. It's much harder to influence you. We will never have the media on our side -- ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do. So our colleges and our universities, they're not going to be on our side."

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Poll: Marijuana legalization leading in CO

It's close, but it's still ahead. If not this year, eventually Colorado voters will approve this. We really need to quit wasting money on this useless "war on drugs" and corporate prisons and focus somewhere else.

Denver Post:

The poll found that the measure, Amendment 64, has the support of 51 percent of likely voters surveyed, compared with 40 percent opposed. Men favor the measure more than women, a common gender split on the issue. But 49 percent of women polled said they support the measure, compared with 39 percent who said they are opposed.

Across every income bracket and in every age group except those 65 and older, more voters told pollsters they support the measure than oppose it, though some of the leads fall within the 4-percentage-point margin of error. Voters younger than 35 support the measure by a margin of 30 percentage points, 61 percent to 31 percent, according to the poll.

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Romney's tax plan to significantly increase taxes

Voodoo economics have been a hallmark of GOP politics since the Reagan years. Much like Mitt Romney's MIA tax documents, his proposed tax plan is murky and he's been unwilling to provide many details. Studies are now showing that the Romney plan is likely to hit typical Republican voters hard.

The rich will of course get their massive tax cuts but the upper middle class will lose deductions and pay considerably more than before. LA Times:

Mitt Romney's budget plan would significantly raise income taxes for many families making between $100,000 and $200,000, analyses by leading Republican economists cited by the Romney campaign show.

The Republican analyses were designed to rebut the Democratic charge that Romney's plan would "increase taxes for the middle class." The studies conclude that the plan could work as Romney has said, but that doing so would require eliminating all or most deductions and credits for households with income over $100,000. That would include wiping out such popular tax provisions as the deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.

Campaign debate so far has largely focused on the 2% of taxpayers with the highest incomes — whose taxes President Obama wants to increase — and those with earnings in the middle range of U.S. incomes. Much less attention has focused on the large number of families whose incomes are twice the national median or higher but whom Romney has defined as part of the middle class.

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Thoughts on climate crisis speed — Polar ice "retreated faster than anyone expected, record smashed to smithereens"

UPDATE: A complete list of climate series pieces is available here:
The Climate series: a reference post.
________

This post is not about the Arctic, but it starts there. The Guardian (my emphasis and paragraphing):

[Arne] Sorensen has sailed deep into ice at both poles for 30 years, but this voyage is different, he says. The edge of the Arctic ice cap is usually far south of where we are now at the very end of the melt season.

More than 600,000 square kilometres (sq km) more ice has melted in 2012 than was ever recorded by satellites before. ...

"This is the new minimum extent of the ice cap," he says, the "frontline of climate change".

"It is sad. I am not doubting this is related to emitting fossil fuels to a large extent. It's sad to observe that we are capable of changing the planet to such a degree."

But that's not my main point. This is closer:

The vast polar ice cap, which regulates the Earth's temperature and has been a permanent fixture in our understanding of how the world works, has this year retreated further and faster than anyone expected.

Here's what that means, ice-wise:

The previous record, set in 2007, was officially broken on 27 August when satellite images averaged over five days showed the ice then extended 4.11 million sq km, a reduction of nearly 50% compared to just 40 years ago.

But since 27 August, the ice just kept melting – at nearly 40,000 sq km a day until a few days ago. Satellite pictures this weekend showed the cap covering only 3.49m sq km. This year, 11.7m sq km of ice melted, 22% more than the long-term average of 9.18m sq km. The record minimum extent is now likely to be formally called on Monday by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Colorado.

The record hasn't just been broken, it's been smashed to smithereens, adding weight to predictions that the Arctic may be ice-free in summer months within 20 years, say British, Italian and American-based scientists on board the Arctic Sunrise. They are shocked at the speed and extent of the ice loss.

If you're hearing a theme, it's that things are happening faster than anyone anticipated. That's my main point. All of our models are wrong in the same direction — the bad one.

Climate predictions are consistently wrong to the slow side

Nearly all recent predictions of global warming speed have been wrong to the slow side. The crisis is proceeding faster than expectations, and that should scare the whole of humanity.

Scientists are conservative by nature, so their predictions are near the conservative end of their data. Paid deniers — the "tobacco scientists" of our day — have relentlessly attacked the honest investigators, making them even more conservative than usual.

But every story we've gotten lately has been about speed — how the speed and extremity surprises everyone. Look again at Figure 1 from the Copenhagen Diagnosis (pdf) document prepared by the world's climate scientists for the December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference:

The predictions were made in 2000 or so. The data was laid in later, through 2009. Wrong to the slow side.

At what point should we, you and I, start building unexpected speed into our personal models and expectations?

My personal climate model

My personal climate model goes like this:

■ Based on Figure 21 from the Copenhagen Diagnosis (pdf; click for high-res version), I put 1½°C arriving shortly after 2020. Call it 2022 for a clean decade from now.

Note: All science in this field is done in °C. For the same in Farenheit, see the end of this post. The conversion is 5:9 — 1°C = slightly less than 2°F.

■ We're at .8°C now with 1½°C in the pipeline. When we get to 1½°C, will 3°C (the start of "mass extinction") also be in the pipeline? If that 1:2 ratio (0.8°C now : 1.5°C coming) holds, I'd say Yes.

■ If true, we'll know in a decade if the "mass extinction" scenario is inevitable.

Would I love to be wrong? Of course; I plan to be alive in a decade. But should we plan on having more time than a decade to dither and coddle the rich?

You pick — choices are Yes and No.

■ Using Figure 21 again, when does 3°C actually arrive? The most aggressive scenario gives us actual 3°C between 2050–2060.

■ If so, that's all she wrote. In 2055, say, when 3°C shows up, I'll bet all I own that 6°C is in the pipeline. 2055 will mark the start of a new geological era.

Even if I'm off by, say, twenty years, it's still our children's lifetime we're talking about. I'm going to check this carefully, but I don't think I am off. Remember, recent predictions have been consistently wrong to the slow side. That's what this post is about.

Note: Geologic eras are very large divisions. The Mesozoic ("middle life" or large reptiles) Era sits between two mass extinctions, the one that opened the door for big dinosaurs (about 250 million years ago) and the one that closed it (about 65 million years ago). That's 185 million years by my math.

We're now in the Cenozoic ("new life" or large mammals) Era. That started 65 million years ago and is still going on.

But a mass extinction on the order of either of the previous two would close that door and open another. Do we end the "era of large mammals" at that point?

Either way, we've triggered a world-historical event — assuming we're around to record it.

Bottom line

If I'm right (and everyone playing this game has been wrong to the slow side), mark your calendars. Sometime in the next 10 years or so, we'll know if we've pulled back from the brink or leaped over it.

By that I mean: If I'm right and we reach 1½°C by 2025 — the U.S. has just 35 years to pack its bags and move to Canada, a country that will still be able to grow things and maintain a national electrical grid.

Ready for the near-term geopolitical question of the century? What are the odds the Canadian government will let us all in? (Me, I place that at zero, but that's just a guess. Some people think we're universally loved.)

The next climate post will review the five-pronged approach I think is needed to put the current effort into a higher gear, and then we'll press on from there.

Stay tuned. This is not over; just urgent. And this time the planet is helping to make the case.

[Help for the Centigrade-disabled: .8°C = 1½°F; 1½°C = 3°F;
3°C = 5½°F; 6°C = you don't want to live there (more or less)]

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Los Saicos - Demolición

The Guardian had an article about Los Saicos yesterday. Some suggest they were the first punk band in the world, forming in the early 1960s in Peru. Perhaps. For me they sound like a harder version of The Trashmen. For me, I'm inclined to stick with Iggy Pop as the Godfather of punk but it's still fun hearing such a unique sound out of South America. Read the rest of this post...

UK pro-austerity government to cap unfair dismissal payout

Isn't it curious how wage earners somehow need to be controlled and limited yet the most abusive people - the 1% - are not being asked to sign up for similar controls? It wasn't the middle class that caused the economic crisis so why are they always on the front line of cuts?

There's nothing fair about this, at all.

The maximum £72,000 [$117,000] compensation cap for unfair dismissal is to be slashed as part of a package of measures designed to remove disincentives from employers to take on new staff. The new cap may be set at the employee's annual salary, or another lower figure.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, thinks the current maximum – though awarded in only 1% or 2% of cases a year – deters employers from hiring staff. The current median award is only £5,000 to £6,000, with just 6% of cases leading to awards over £30,000.

Cable has resisted pressure to adopt compulsory no-fault dismissal – a proposal advanced by Adrian Beecroft in a report commissioned by David Cameron and given near totemic status by the Tory right.

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