Your Virtual Front Page, Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Just very quickly:

  1. India’s Power Grid Collapses (WSJ) — More than twice as many people as live in all the United States are without power, calling into question the viability of the infrastructure of Asia’s third-largest economy.
  2. ‘Thousands trapped’ in Syria city (BBC) — While the rest of us are dazzled by sport, the Beeb keeps its eye on the ball.
  3. Boehner, Reid reach short-term spending deal (WashPost) — For “short-term,” read “until after the election.” Hmm. This raises a question: Can Boehner make a deal like this? Did he check with Cantor?
  4. Phelps Sets New Olympic Record With 19 Medals (NPR) — Oh, wait — were you waiting to see this on TV tonight? Too late — everybody’s reported it.
  5. Romney campaign attacks media (The Guardian) — “Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.” It now joins “nattering nabobs of negativism” among the annals of warfare between GOP pols and the American news media.
  6. Partisan Rifts Hinder Efforts to Improve U.S. Voting System (NYT) — This is the kind of “thumb-sucker” (to use the phrase of a national editor who once worked for me) that the NYT saves to top its report with on a slow news day. The premise: “Twelve years after a too-close-to-call presidential contest in Florida ended in a divisive Supreme Court ruling, the United States’ voting methods are as laden with problems as ever…”

I know my mix is missing anything local, but I could not find anything worthy. I’ve no idea what The State will put on its front tomorrow…

17 thoughts on “Your Virtual Front Page, Tuesday, July 31, 2012”

  1. Juan Caruso

    Considering India’s major power grid outages, other Hindustani news 7/31/2012 seems especially ironic:

    “India develops submarine-launched ballistic missile, joins elite club” …
    India has successfully developed its first submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) for the indigenous nuclear submarine ‘INS Arihant’, joining an elite club of nations possessing such weaponry.

    In another sign of India’s ascendency, “First Indian Woman Poses For Playboy, Calls It An ‘Achievement’”
    And no, Ms Chopra appears not to have Sikh ties.

    With regard to Syria’s civil war, the rebels now have a fledgling maritime force, the Free Syrian Navy… “The newly created Free Syrian Navy is starting an initiative to develope a fleet via fishing boats, small transport boats, and other small crafts to take control of the Syrian coast. We feel that by outfitting these boats with armour plating and large machine guns we can take on patrol boats and small torpedo boats to stop shipments of weapons to Bashar al-Assad and protect new shipments in to the Free Syrian Army.”

  2. bud

    As per number 6, what difference does any of this make in a presidential election? It’s official constitutional policy that we don’t care if the person who gets the most votes becomes POTUS so what difference does voter fraud or voter disenfranchisment make? It’s kind of like arguing about the color of the car when it doesn’t have tires. Let’s fix the biggest problem first then we’ll worry about the other stuff.

  3. Phillip

    I can’t claim original credit for this, a friend reposted this from a blog at The Guardian, but it hits the mark brilliantly:

    “I thought Sacha Baron Cohen’s form had dipped a little after “Bruno,” but this Mitt Romney character of his is hilarious!”

  4. bud

    Nate Silver gives Romney a 3.7% chance of winning the popular vote but losing the electoral. For Obama it’s 1.8%. That means there is a better than 1 in 20 chance that the voters will will NOT be followed. How are we better off as a nation if that happens again? Did the first four years of the Bush administration demonstrate the wisdom of such a system? Were we somehow “saved” from an Al Gore presidency because the founding fathers wisely confered the selection process on 438 anonymous electors who are (in some cases) required to vote the will of the people in their repective states (or in two cases their respective congressional districts)?

    I offer this challenge – Demonstrate how this ridiculous system makes us a better country. No vague platitudes about separating the uninformed electorate from the process. That’s NOT what the electoral college does in 2012. Rather it has evolved into a clumsy process that generally mimics the will of the people but may not actually do so in all cases. No. Show me in clear, concise easy-to-follow facts how THIS system (not the system envisioned in the 1790s) improves our country verses a pure majority rule election.

  6. j

    Bud,
    Nate was the only one to predict all electoral votes exactly including those by congressional districts in the last Pres election. Thanks for sharing.

  7. Steven Davis II

    Brad, who do you know at The State that can put a hold on the number of ads on their website? There’s more screen space taken up by ads than news. Now they have videos that start up as soon as the page loads.

  8. Kathryn Fenner

    @steven Firefox has great add-ons, like Ad Block Plus and pop up blockers. I use Safari on this iPad, and I do not like all the ads, either. They do pay for the content, though.

  9. bud

    j, I’ll go back and check but I think Nate missed on Missouri. But I think he rated it something like 52% odds for Obama (McCain won by something like 1/2 of 1%) so not sure you could really count that as a miss.

    Currently Nate has Obama with about a 67% chance of winning. And it’s been remarkably stable for a couple of months now. I would guess the next 2 jobs reports (the first is due out Friday) will decide the election. Perhaps up to 96% of those who will actually voter are already locked in. That probably explains why the numbers are so remarkably stable.

  11. Juan Caruso

    bud says:

    “As per number 6, what difference does any of this make in a presidential election?”

    I dunno, Bud, but some of us suspect that more numerous state and local elections are also of strategic importance. From many of your earlier criticisms I suspect
    you share our attitude.

  12. bud

    My virulent opposition to the electoral college of course has nothing to do with any other race except POTUS.

    But I do think we should get rid of the Gerrymandered House Districts. Let’s just draw them on the basis of population without regard to race or past voting tendancies and let the chips fall where they may.

  15. Steven Davis II

    @Kathryn – I realize that, but it doesn’t stop the 60% of the screen covered by ads imbedded into their layout. I can stop the pop-ups, the videos are a little different.

  16. Kathryn Fenner

    I still think are extensions to block because I don’t have that problem on Firefox on my laptop wt home and I do on this iPad.

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