President (To Win Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
April 27, 2009 03:44 PM UTC
68 Comments
The only modification I would make is that often the many short races overlap, rather than wait their turn.
There are so many challenges that confront us, as individuals and as communities of various sizes and forms, challenges both internal and external. Some sharpen us, and some dull us; some invigorate and some enervate; some inspire the spark of hope, and some sow the seeds of despair.
There is one thing of which I am certain: Humans are capable of doing so much better than we have yet done, so much better than we are doing now. The means can be debated, but the goal should not be: To increase human welfare, here and elsewhere, in a sustainable fashion, balancing the dual concerns of efficiency and fairness.
Of course, there are other debates to be had as well, debates concerning what constitutes human welfare, and how willing we should be to comprommise short-term individual and more local interests in pursuit of long-term collective and more global interests. But we should frame these debates as rational human beings of good will pursuing what is ultimately a common goal. The fact that we are all inextricably intertwined, that humanity is characterized by increasing, deepening and broadening interdependence, should be obvious to all.
It’s time we faced the challenges that confront us, rather than attempt to define them out of existence: They will not honor our arbitrary declarations. It’s time we relied more on our minds than on our mouths disconnected from them.
And here’s a place to start: I challenge all of here, who participate in this discussion, to defend our assertions rather than insist on them arbitrarily. If you bemoan a policy, explain why. If you support another, explain why as well. Unsupported opinions are a counterproductive flood of noise we have in great abundance. Thoughtful analyses are a precious resource we should produce as prolifically as possible.
because I’m the mom and I said so…
OR: Politics is a manifestation of class warfare–which is well understood by Republicans–and virtually all challenges (except for onrushing meteors) can be best understood in that context. Man the barricades!
“To complicate is to thwart effective action.” –Honey Buns the Humpin’ Heifer of Eads, CO.
As far as introducing facts into the discussion, well, you musta had one helluva weekend if you think that’s going to prevail!
is to contextualize the class warfare such that it maximizes the degree of realization of the goals described.
Personally, I think the “class-warfare” representation is the type of oversimplification that obscures more than illuminates. A game theoretic, micro-economic approach captures all that “class-warfare” captures, filtering out the latter’s defects, and adds much more into the analytical framework that “class-warfare” disregards.
people are for more fundamentally and essentially people than they are members of classes, and they act for more in their individual and local interests than they act in any coherent class interest. Of course, since classes to some extent do exist, and since members of classes have some shared interests, and since those interests are to some extent conflicting between classes, and since the wealthiest class (it can no longer be reduced to the “propertied class”) is smaller in membership and richer in resources and thus more organically and intentionally organized, some of the social phenomena conceptualized as class warfare does exist. But the competition among members of a class, the mobility, limited that it is, that does exist, the conversion of a class into the ruling class once it obtains power, the non-zero-sum nature of the struggles between classes, the many cross-cutting group identifications that obscure class integrity, and the degree to which a continuum of statuses rather than discrete classes exist even in the absence of the other things that muddy the waters, all undermine the value of a class-warfare analytical framework.
I meant to get across that politics is class warfare carried out without violence (mostly). Of course, people have other aspects to their lives (notaby sex), but at the end of the day (GMT), the competition for limited resources pervades nearly all aspects of life, and certainly all aspects of political life. That’s one reason, for example, that foreign policy didn’t used to be part of the domestic political debate; ditto for issues like “gay marriage” or “religion in politics.” The latter are distractions introduced by the Propertied Right to befuddle and divert attention from working peoples’ real interests. We could argue over whether it’s possible to be “wealthy” without owning “property.” Expensive hired hands certainly do exist, but they are more on the order of gladiators than true players. BUT, in order to generate effective action, I’d argue that laser beams and La Marsaillaise are preferable to diffuse mood lighting and Muzak.
That the competition for scarce resources is central to political struggles supports a game theoretic approach as much as (or more than) any other. That those the quantity of those resources is in part a function of the arrangements we live by, and the productivity of those arrangements, inserts an element of coinciding interests to complicate the element of competing interests (ie, it’s a non-zero-sum game). The fact that people are just as competitive vis-a-vis members of their own “class” as against members of any other class increases the degree to which “class warfare” is a conceptual net too loosely woven to capture much of the complexity of social systemic dynamics. And the reason that I qualified “propertied” class isn’t so much because there are propertyless wealthy people, but because many working class people have substantial stock portfolios, and are home-owners, and, by the classical definition, would belong to the propertied class.
Yes, we can dance around these complexities, as neo-marxists have long tried to do: Stock portfolios are risk-sharing rather than power-sharing vehicles, the strugle for political power rather than the actual resources for which political power is useful in accessing is a zero-sum game, and so on. But it’s a dance to avoid the conclusion that the marxist framework is both analytically and politically sterile.
As I have often said, BOTH libertarians and marxists have assumed oversimplistic and dysfunctional conceptual and political frameworks. “Class warfare” is a concept that neither informs nor rectifies, it merely obfuscates and misdirects. People who look through it as a lens will have their vision more obstructed than added by it, and people who act on it as a foundation-stone of a political agenda will do more harm than good. They will create more conflict than necessary, to the detriment of all or nearly all members of both “classes.”
There are simply sharper, more useful, and less divisive conceptual tools available.
“Fuck the Running Dog Capitalists” as an all-purpose slogan? Problem with libertarians, on the other hand, is that they don’t have a political philosophy–just a work of fiction (Atlas Shrugged). Wealth is purely a social phenomenon–ain’t no such thing as the Stand-Alone He Men, unless you want to account the odd hermit in the Hills.
Okay, my nurse is coming now with my new larger dose of tranquilizers. Taking effect now….. d r o w s y . . . . . . . .
“The audacity of hope,” and “Yes we can!” Now, THOSE are pretty damn good all-purpose slogans!
“Fuck the running dog capitalists,” not so much….
Can I get back to you on that?
We are not so much rational animals as rationalizing animals.
The same branch of mathematics is used to represent and explore ecological and ecological evolutionary systems as human social institutional and economic historical systems (with much of the same language shared as well). Biological adaptation doesn’t depend on the rational capacities of the individual organisms, but rather on the lathe of trial and error.
The echo of that process that is human history, generated by the informational reproduction, competition for reproductive sucess, and thus evolution of memes rather than genes, is different only in that it is vastly accelerated (due to the accelerated, and accelerating, processes by which the former is reproduced and mutates in comparison to the latter), and in that our choices affect it.
We don’t have to be rational animals for this model to inform us (though reason certainly is a valuable tool in our tool kit). We just have to recognize that our choices of what to believe, what to support, what to pursue, what to aspire to, all matter, and to strive to make those choices, select those beliefs, aspire to those goals, using our minds to the best of our abilities to do so.
We certainly have gotten some things better with time, and thought, and effort. We have intentionally refined and accelerated the very process I am alluding to, through a methodology called “science,” that has produced tremendous advances in that cultural evolutionary process. We may not be fundamentally rational animals, but reason is far from irrelevant to our existence.
I don’t think so.
Partial differential equations are used for ecological predictions. I’ve never heard of a branch of mathematics used to represent “human social institutional and economic historical systems.” I’m guessing you mean economics, and the math behind that is considered somewhat different.
They start to look somewhat similar when you talk about financial math, but in terms of broader economics, I don’t think so. And in terms of history, I can’t imagine what you’re referring to.
which is used extensively in both fields to show how trial and error can be analyzed by the mathematics of rational strategic interaction.
But partial differential equations are used in economic analyses as well as ecological analyses (I took mathematical economics as a grad student); and economic history, though it originated as the study of historical economic systems, has become in many instances the application of microconomic analysis to historical developments, sometimes applying game theoretic or other microeconomic mathematical models.
This really belongs to yesterday’s discussion re La Markey, but it has broader implications as well. Check out http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…
from Time Magazine
Portugal decriminalized drugs because they took an honest look at the system and determined that was the only sensible answer.
So how did it work out?
So tell me again, why is the legislature unwilling to even investigate this?????
1. Your house plants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 a.m. is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “break up.”
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”
10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids nextdoor won’t turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You take naps.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 a.m. would severely upset rather than settle your stomach.
19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good shit.”
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again.”
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
25. When you find out your friend is pregnant, you congratulate them instead of asking “Oh shit, what the hell happened?”
Bonus:
26: You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old ass.
Though, at 22, #16 most definitely still applies. Naps never go out of style.
I just noted that it’s great (read: factual).
And I will always defend napping.
Just some advice on the list in general. Agree, napping is good.
It’s just a blog, it’s not like it’s a job or something (well for you maybe, but not most of us). Chill out and stop being creepy and stalkery.
The declaration of the statement was interesting, then the Kid slapped back with a campaign finance issue, then silence.
It just seemed odd, but then again I haven’t seen a post from the Kid today.
Yep. This is Day 4 of the Ritter / Republican 36 cover up. Who is paying for Bill Ritter’s polling, which R36 so vocally championed last week?? We deserve an answer.
we’re still awaiting your provision of a post supporting, empirically and analytically, anything you’ve ever posted on this blog. I mean, you being such an expert, and all.
It shouldn’t be too hard.
We have an nth-hand unverified source that says he did unaccounted for internal polling, and speculation that it is not accounted for under another campaign expense heading more inclusive than “polling.” That is neither empirical, nor evidence.
But keep trying, and don’t forget to remind us of your expertise on all topics of public interest in the meantime.
I should have said “nth hand unverified anonymous source.” Your example is so far removed from empiricism, it’s hard to keep track of the full extent of its attenuation.
But you’re starting to sound like him, with all that replying to yourself.
that my initial impression of your reasons for interjecting on another thread a few days ago were so far off base. Obviously, it had, and has, nothing to do with personal animus. I mean, someone tacking on an after-thought to a post being such an important concern, and all.
I’m just teasing.
“It’s just a joke” only works when everyone’s laughing. Otherwise, it’s hostility, not humor.
And judging by your determination to take me down a peg, I’m pretty sure it’s the former.
Look, just be direct about. Say, “Steve, I think you’re an asshole.” That’s okay. It’s direct, honest, no problem.
But this passive aggressive stuff…. Not so much.
I think your arguing style sometimes works against you. Since I generally agree with you, I would like to see you more effective.
Consider it given and received, and not in need of repetition every time you feel like shoving your hand up my ass and moving my lips for me.
That’s a possibility. If so, I would hope you would agree R36 is completely discredited. I should sure hope you would aim some of your demands for empiricism toward R36!
You did.
I don’t remember exact numbers. 58 job approval I think. That is an empirical measure. So yes, he did.
We’re not talking about R36. If you reference some other faux-empirical claim as your contribution to empiricism, the other person is not the issue at that moment. I never cared about, nor placed any credence in, R36’s claim.
Will you please remind us about R36 on Day 444?
Hi all;
Well we’re starting to sell into the government and the big discovery, more so at the state than the federal level, is we need to hire a lobbist (yes, to sell software).
We’re going to learn on Nevada & Virginia because we’ve already sold to them so they have in-house references. But I figure we might want to try Colorado too as we are located here.
Does anyone know of a good lobbist for an enterprise software company who has a bit of spare time? If so, please ask them to call or email me.
has some time on his hands.
as folks lined up to get married (not opposite) I noticed something that I have noticed every time a state legalizes same sex marriage. Not one person in line brings a horse.
…are private, but believe me, there are hundreds, maybe tens of thousands, of them. “Do you, Dobbins, take this man…”
Now I know why we need to restrict marriage ceremonies to those led by respectable clergy. With all the private ceremonies, we’re sure to be overrun by human-animal hybrids any day now!
How else to explain the vast quantities of bullshit and horseshit visible, olfactible, and audible everywhere…especially on this medium? [Didn’t know smells had gone digital, did you.]
All those cows being stolen when the oil workers left the state. In a lot of cases it was just them taking their girlfriend home with them…
Probably Moot now.
It’s probably moo now 🙂
The EnergyTomorrow ad says the country that supplies us with the most oil is Canada – wrong! Canada is second, domestic sources is first. So the answer as the question is phrased is the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
He complains that the “memorandums for the record” were filed and not brought forward to others. They were, and that fact was discussed several years ago when it was first revealed that some Representatives/Senators had disagreed with the programs.
In reality, he’s just worried that, as one of those in the decision-making process, he’ll be standing trial for crimes against humanity.
Torture is illegal. It’s illegal in US law and in International law. The United States spent most of my life railing against inhumane treatment of prisoners. President Reagan championed and signed the UN Convention on Torture. And now, “conservatives” can’t seem to move fast enough to defend “enhanced interrogation techniques” as effective. As if putting lipstick on the pig would make it anything other than a pig.
Seriously. Put. The. Big. Line. Back. On. The. Left.
I feel unbalanced by the new location of the formerly left-hand bar contents. And you don’t want me to be unbalanced…
Oh, OK, fine, I thought it was funny though.
the content is now biased toward the left more than ever before. It’s the Big Line that’s moved to the Right.
We’re performing a bunch of deferred (as deferred by years in some cases) tweaks right now. Wait until everything’s done before you pass judgment, eh?
And yes, the Big Line may finally swing to the right when all is said and done. We’re loving the irony.
and the Alferd Packer quote. The new logo is attractive, but kind of sterile.
We’re working on this in real-time, the whole effort was necessarily realizing we had no good way to display two horizontal ads. Stand by while we experiment, comments welcome.
Just kidding.
Now that TV is in the digital age there is no more adjusting the vertical and horizontal controls to make the picture stop doing weird things, like making columns appear on the wrong side of the picture tube or zigzaged across the screen.
My samsung syncmaster 205bw does not have vert and horz controls to move the column back where it belongs, which must mean Pols is digital now.
Every major paper except the WSJ has declined readership over the last year – http://www.editorandpublisher….
44 talks a lot about health care costs, pegging a big part on the stupidity of not having digital medical records, and the associated costs of paying humans to copy, digitize or otherwise interpret them for someone else.
The example he keeps rolling out is the VA’s medical record system, (Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture) VistA. Unlike the Microsoft version this works.
Now, since this was developed internally by the VA, the source code can be requested as an FoIA inquiry. Many people have done so, and have their own open-source project:
http://worldvista.org/
Now, can we harness the power of the interwebz, and using Mozilla Firefox as an example, develop a free, open-source medical records system that’s already proven it can work?
Along with the medical records the VA medical system has changed the way they handle appointments. You get a reminder card and told to call to make your appointment. It works very good. And it is really appreciated after years of getting notices of appointments changed with a note that if you can’t make the one given you call to cancel.
Countdown to the new VA hospital has begun. Groundbreaking in June. Teardown and site clearing until August and then construction.
Now if we can just get discharged vets in to the building trades apprenticeship programs so they can build the hospital for themselves and other vets.
It’s called Helmets to Hardhats:
http://helmetstohardhats.org/
A quick search of Colorado on the website reports 29 jobs. A tiny amount, but perhaps it will be getting bigger soon.
Now, the Repubs on the site will probably have their heads explode when they realize this is a UNION program. That happens because they can’t consolidate their own freakish thought processes that the EVIL UNIONS are taking care of Vets, while Corporate American continues to discriminate against them…