Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour--Here We Come!

Best birthday present ever! I just bought a pair of tickets to the Sexy Liberal Show at the Warner Theatre here in Washington, D.C. on January 19th. And my dear birthday co-celebrator has agreed to go with me--she has SO generously treated me to birthday events at the Kennedy Center (La Cage Au Faux and South Pacific) for the past two years. Could this be morphing into a tradition? I hope so!

Pride Birthdays and Memorials for the Week ~ November 25th to December 1st

Signs Of The Season #2

Getting ready to trim my x-mas tree with some of the ornaments that I've made over the years.

The Daily Take On Karl Rove

Bird of Paradise Kaleidoscopes

From this single photograph taken by my friend Rob Coysh who lives in Australia.

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The Signs Of The Season #1

Lego X-mass village is on the mantle above the fireplace!

Happy Thanksgiving!

At one point today at work a colleague got an automated message that a major highway in the region was just shutdown due to an accident. It was a couple of hours away from early dismissal and anyone who uses that road began to chatter about it. A new member of the staff entered and was being apprised of the situation that would likely effect her commute, too. The people in the room all said at once: "270 north is closed," "It's a mess," "Traffic is backed up!". She asked, "What's clogging the road?" And I said, matter-of-factly, "Cholesterol". My one friend, M. shot me a look and said, "I get you--I love that." And I thought, it's great to be "gotten" by a cadre of amazing people I can call friends. And that's what I will be "Thankful" for come tomorrow! I hope those of you with big plans and hungry hoards to feed get through everything with grace and good results. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

What I'm Listening To #112

Alex Cuba has a voice that never fails to touch me at some point beneath and inside my sternum. He resonates in my heart of hearts.

What I'm Reading #49

This is a book about fishing that my only recently made Facebook friend wrote. Jeff found me through a mutual friend and sent me a request, we shared an interest in cooking. On November 9th, Jeff died. He was only 48. The circumstances have been withheld by his family, I do respect that. Like discovering a flower that too soon fades.

Ice Cream Shop Done!

Views of the Ice Cream Shop (bird's eye and lego person's eye), and two shots up and down the block.

Pride Birthdays and Memorials for the Week ~ November 18th to November 24th

Future President?

The year is 2036 and one of these 11 year olds could become president of the United States.

Freshmen Class of Senators

Post Election Redux: North Carolina

While North Carolina went to Romney by 2.2%, the Democrats still won women, youth, African Americans, Hispanics, and urban areas like Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Asheville. And perhaps the most interesting Obama margin was in Cumberland County, home of Fayetteville and the largest military installation in the state: Fort Bragg. Another blow to the myth that the military is in the pocket of the Republican party. North Carolina, like Florida, Virginia and Ohio, IS a true swing state.

Post Election Redux: Wisconsin

Wisconsin went for Obama by 6.7% which is SO FAR outside of the margin of error and any definition of a "swing state". Only the extremely rural areas and wealthy suburbs of Milwaukee went for Romney. Everywhere else, all over the state, went for Obama. Paul Ryan's hometown went for Obama. Wisconsin was the foam on the Obama Swing State Tsunami.

Post Election Redux: Iowa

Iowa is a story of East versus West, and more people live in the eastern part of the state. Other strongholds were the university towns. Another surprise component to Democrat's victory was the Hispanic community in the state. And with 5.6% margin, another NOT swing state treated like a swing state.

Post Election Redux: Colorado

Colorado went from predictions of a razor thin margin at best to a victory by 4.7% in favor of Obama. Women, Hispanics, youth all turned out for Obama. Denver, Bolder, Fort Collins, and interestingly Aspen and Telluride all when for Obama. Colorado Springs a national haven of Evangelical Christianity went for Romney.

Post Election Redux: New Hampshire

New Hampshire went 5.8% for Obama to suggest that it wasn't actually a swing state at all in this election. The only thing that sets New Hampshire apart is that Romney succeeded in the largest urban areas of Portsmouth when most urban areas in states went to Obama. In other elections, Democrats took back both House seats and the governorship and now those three offices are held along with both of the Senate seats by women. New Hampshire becomes the first state with a complete Federal congressional delegation to be 100% female. Awesome!

Pollster Report Card Time!

I took this information from the Nate Silver blog on the New York Times website and constructed this graphic out of it giving my own grades to the major polling organizations. Ranked from most accurate results to least accurate the data reveals some stunning facts--if you ask me. 1) The majority of the bias favored the Republicans and was thus reflected in the media---Liberal media bias? NOT so much. 2) You know how most polls give the caveat + or - 3 percentage points, or somethings that's called the "margin of error," well what do you call it when you are consistently 4 to 7.2 points off? Incompetence? 3) What names fall off the scale as being terrible at this? Rasmussen Reports (which Fox bought a few years back and turned into a tool of their own Conservative Agenda News machine), ARG, Mason-Dixon, and....dare I say it, GALLUP! These are among the most well established and oft quoted polling companies in the nation. If they were publicly owned and traded today, Gallup and Mason-Dixon would be at the penny stock level. What statistician worth their salt would even want to work there--or is that already the problem?

Post Election Redux: PENNSYLVANIA

I have Reduxed the three big swing states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia. And you may recall that throughout the election there were 9 of these attention getters out there. The other five were New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina. And so you would expect that the nine closest races would be in these 9 states. But the reality is a bit different and tips the hat to the Romney team, and begs perhaps a rethinking come the next presidential election. Top ten closest states in descending order: 0.9% FLORIDA 1.9% OHIO 2.2% NORTH CAROLINA 3.0% VIRGINIA 4.7% COLORADO 5.2% PENNSYLVANIA 5.6% IOWA 5.8% NEW HAMPSHIRE 6.6% NEVADA 6.7% WISCONSIN Did you catch that? PENNSYLVANIA was closer that nearly half of the swing states. So IF Pennsylvania wasn't a swing state, why was Wisconsin or Nevada? I would suggest that Nevada never was (in spite of a certain casino magnate’s hundreds of millions of dollars in free speech), and that the only thing that made Wisconsin one was Paul Ryan's name on the ticket.

Looking more closely at the map of Pennsylvania you see a story very much like that of other states. Most notably the vote of urban areas going to Obama: Pittsburgh, Erie, Allentown, Harrisburg, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and the mother of all--Philadelphia! If you were to take the vote in Philadelphia and subtract from those who voted for Obama the voters who voted for Romney and others so that you are only talking about the net winning votes for Obama, MORE people voted for Obama in Philadelphia that voted for BOTH of the candidates in all of the highlighted and most successful counties for Romney. I hope that what I just described makes sense, but in the abstract what it means is that Philadelphia is the 900 lb gorilla in the room called Pennsylvania.