McCain won this district 55.7 to 43.3. A Dem could win here - but it would be anything but a comfortable Dem district. A decent Republican candidate should do well here.

Ah, I see. If it can be done by home production, it's ok. You only need to go through oficial stores if we are talking industrial production. Well, that was, more or less, how it was in the old Soviet Union. You could buy potatos in the market, or even some canned mushrooms from your neighbour, but, say, shirts - well, that's what they've done an ancestor of mine in for.

Not sure what any of that has to do with selling cars.  The auto manufacturers encourage a gigantic brick and mortar dealership network.  A manufacturer can't come in and just cut the legs out from underneath the dealership network.  The dealership needs to be compensated for the investment they made at the enticement of the manufacturer.

America is wasteful.  There are already plenty of abandoned eyesore dealerships dotting the landscape.  You want there to be even more?

If they can't sell cars, wastefulness is to keep them open. If their owners insist on keeping them open by bribing legislators, they should be shot.

Ah, I see. If it can be done by home production, it's ok. You only need to go through oficial stores if we are talking industrial production. Well, that was, more or less, how it was in the old Soviet Union. You could buy potatos in the market, or even some canned mushrooms from your neighbour, but, say, shirts - well, that's what they've done an ancestor of mine in for.

People invest in all sort of sh**t that other people don't want to use. Running a bakery is also expensive - we should prohibit home bakeries. And what about bookstores? Reading books on electronic screens should be prohibited under the penalty of torturous death.

When I hear the words "unfair competition" I want to shoot whoever speaks them. Good, they are not allowing concealed gun permits where I live, or I would have had a little personal cemetery to my name.

As every ex-Soviet would tell you, one can always use the newspaper. We had a lot of experience with this kind of shortage

3-way races in FPTP elections are iherently unstable. As soon as one of the candidates gets behind, he tends to hemorrage votes. Early polls wouldn't catch it: nobody is - yet - convinced their prefered candidate has no chance. Sometimes, this uncertainty leads to a three-way all through the election day. But this is very hard to sustain for 2 elections in a row - especially in the face of the incumbent that would lose in a 2-way race to any opponent. Let the campaign dynamics play out. LePage would have to be VERY lucky, for something like this to be the next election result.

Actually, I'll let you in on a secret: at that level of "connectedness", it all goes back to George Washington. Uninterrupted So, the likelyhood of having to "adjust to a completely new line" is about equal to the likelyhood of the US being occupied by China

Not if the Senate remains in D hands.  If both houses are solidly GOP in 2014, maybe. 

Obama isn't likely to be voted out of office even if the Republicans do take the Senate in 2014.  There will be too many Republican senators up for reelection in two years, then.  The House... might be a different story.

Removal needs 67 votes in the Senate. It would need serious evidence of real high crimes for enough democrats to vote for it: and pretty much anyone would resign long before.  Impeachment in the House only needs a simple majority vote. But, unless there is some serious evidence of some misbehavior that is not even suspected now, Republicans would be nuts to try.

Unlike the Benghazi bullsh**t, this looks very serious. At the very least, some people should be fired - and fast. It is up to the lawyers to tell us if somebody should be prosecuted. But I don't like any of it.

William Blaine Richardson III says Rafael Edward Cruz is not a Hispanic

And most Hispanics agree

Another problem for BN is that it is increasingly becoming just UMNO, at least in the peninsular.  MCA was important in establishing Chinese acquiescence to the Malay nationalist policy. That it can no longer do. In much of the country BN is no longer a national coalition, but merely an ethnic Malay party. This puts their entire model of governance in question.

An interesting feature of it all is, the complete collapse of MCA. They are down to se en federal and 11 state seats. BN is now, basically, just UNMO. The government's ethnic identity is clearly established.

So, looking at the state results, PK lost Kedah  and BN also held Perak, where it's control has been based on defectors.  Selangor, Penang and Kelatan stay with PK - and with huge majorities at that.

One funny thing: loosing BN honchos, instead of showing a modicum of grace, all seem to blame the "ungrateful" people.

Another interesting question is what if they were a convert from Judaism. Would this anger some Jewish voters and cause them to do worse with the Jewish vote, or would they do a bit better because they'd still be ethnically Jewish and would probably still have some cultural ties? I'm really not sure.

Yeah, this would cause discomfort. Both among the secular and among the religious. This is too much of a tribal treason thing. There aren't enough Jews for this to matter much, but it would be an issue.

In contrast, being of Jewish origin would only be a plus for such a candidate with in the tribe. As long as the treason's not his.

http://westlake.patch.com/articles/best-high-schools-list-released-where-does-westlake-rank

There is something more than vaguely indecent in my fellow-tribesmen pleading whiteness. Our ancestros WERE the archetypal unassimilable minority among the whites - for a whole of a 1000 years. Whenever I hear of a "Judeo-Christian" whatever, I want to through up.

The GOP needs to show Latinos that we are not anti-immigration, just anti-illegal immigration.  In other words, if you want to come here, do it legally.  

This will only work if accompanied by a clear support for some provisions that would let people come into US legally. Because for the overwhelming majority of those, who are currently in the US illegally, there has never been any realistic way to immigrate - or even to temporarily come to work - into the US legally. It's not the matter of going into a queue - it is not being allowed into the queue. For the vast majority of Latinos anti-illegal is anti-immigration - not because they do not understand the difference, but because there IS no difference.

Come on guys, he's not 'white' in any sense that is meaningful in an Anglo-Saxon (and particularly American) culture.  90% of Americans wouldn't consider him 'white' and they'd be right.

What about me, opebo?

Ой, не шейте вы, евреи, ливреи.
Не ходить вам в камергерах, евреи.
Не горюйте вы зазря, не стенайте -
Не сидеть вам ни в Синоде, ни в Сенате.

Well, about 0% of the population would consider him "white" in Russia. Then, again, most Italians wouldn't qualify there either.

Different kettle of fish claiming deaths, no? Namely there'd have to be victims bodies, evidence etc. This video suggests the news are reporting on their deaths - wouldn't they playing them down as a nondescript statistic if they were false? Actually, are the opposition contesting them?

From what I have seen, the opposition believes these to be caused by the government thugs.

Think this is one of those moments when facts become essentially partisan things. Better to treat everything with caution.

True. But, at least, one thing is not in question (since it has long been known): there is a side that has paramilitary groups at its disposal - and that side isn't the opposition. Nor is the opposition in the control of the military and/or law-enforcement.

Who killed 7 people?

This seriously passed you by?

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/uk-venezuela-election-idUKBRE93C0B220130416

According to some reports, the father of one of those 7, I believe, has said that his son was, indeed, killed - by the chavista thugs, as the two of them were together, protesting against the government victory declaration. So, at the very least, I'd be very cautious about bringing this up.

Man, this was a boring election.

Looks like a scary post-election. At this point, the relevant question is, when is it becoming a self-coup, I am afraid.

Pity. Anyway, just eyeballing the data do not seem overly strange. One would have to do some statistical tests, but, at least, it does not seem to be too blatant. For the moment, I will wait for more evidence before making any conclusions. I do think they have a circuit breaker somewhere, but I don't see any obvious evidence of it being employed this time.

I'd just love to review the text of the curriculum manual on this. I could benefit myself from learning how to act more Hispanic. Hopefully it does not entail learning how to speak Spanish. That would just be too tough for this old man to navigate.

Just learn a few words of Portugese or Italian and sing them indistinctively in reponse to any question.