Independent Redistricting and the Political Landscape: Georga
I considered tacking on "Southern Fried Redistricting" to the title, but it would have broken my format for the series so I'm wasting your time to mention it here.The concept behind this series is...
View ArticleGore Vidal: An American Voltaire
Several days ago, on July 31st, 2012, the great writer and American man of Letters, Gore Vidal died at age 86 and some nine odd months. My first encounter with Vidal, with the name, came in the Stephen...
View Article"Democratic Indecency"
I don't normally post such short tossed together posts based on a fleeting bit of irritation, but this time I felt like I wanted to share my thoughts on the Republican attitude towards Reid's remarks...
View Article2014 LA-SEN Mary Landrieu vs. a far-right Republican
Now U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is not particularly popular around here. I find she's gotten a lot of flack, even if she's never at the top of the leftist activist's shit-list as I call it. Still...
View ArticleThe Path to a Democratic House Majority (Part 1)
There have been so many of these, that at this point such introductions are tedious formalities. Basically, to contextualize what led to this diary was the constant discussion of how taking the House...
View ArticleFinal Predictions (Or the Reason I'm not doing my homework right now)
There have been many final predictions, many seeking bragging rights. I initially just posted mine as a comment, but was encouraged to make a diary out of them, so here it is:
View ArticleThe "Silver Fox" Edwin Edwards and Louisiana Political History
I wanted to bring back some old political history, simply to fulfill folks curiosity. Everyone here has probably heard of Edwin Edwards, of "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in...
View ArticleBooks go Boom! Poetry of Japan: Then and Now
I have written about many books, and attempted to introduce people to many authors of fiction whose work held special appeal to me, particularly within the deeply underappreciated field of Japanese...
View ArticleFox News: Science Says Woman Aren't Supposed to Work and Earn Money
It's been a while since I've done an impulse micro-diary, but today for the first time a while, I saw something so egregious that I wanted to share it.
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! Guns, Germs and Steel
Well, I am back again, (this time a week early due to Brecht's generosity and my own conflation of dates), and I'm again doing something a little different. In fact, for me, this project was something...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom: Colonization and Independence in the Works of Achebe and Fanon
Coming into what I believe is my last guest appearance on Brecht's Books go Boom! series, I decided to push the envelope, this time combining a pair of responses I'd been meaning to write forever on...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! The Painted Bird and Holocaust Fiction
Well, for what may be my last Books go Boom contribution (grad school is starting up and I'm also thinking about trying to start my own, bi-monthly series), I decided to do a more conventional project...
View ArticleAs You Like It: A Special Election for Neil Riser in LA-05
U.S. Representative Rodney Alexander, the most senior member of Louisiana's House delegation, and infamous for his rude and disrespectful, dishonest party switch in 2004, minutes before the filing...
View ArticleLA-05 Election Results
Just over one month ago, on Saturday November 16th, Louisiana's Fifth Congressional district held a runoff to replace Rodney Alexander, who had stunned political observers several months earlier by, in...
View ArticleObligatory Final 2014 Prediections (Plus LA-SEN Parish Benchmarks)
"No true individual has existed yet, able to live, able to die. Only diseased, tragic, or dismal and ludicrous fools who sometimes hoped to acheive some ideal by fiat, by their great desire for it. But...
View ArticleAre you Sh*tting Me? I'm tired of the Democratic Primary Already
The fervent stream of hyperbolic Clinton hate just continues to build up, to exhausting levels of Bullshit. Now let me, who was an early supporter and avid early advocate of Barack Obama outline why...
View ArticleThe Long Post - Rambles for Hillary Supporters and Why We Don't "Feel the Bern"
There is something juvenile about debating politics in the ways that we debate on online forums. It reminds of me a schoolyard playground where we insult each other, throw names and do the political...
View ArticleA Message in Vernacular to Hillary Supporters: Quit Being Asses
I’m going to keep this short. I am not in the Bernie Camp. I’ve posted some pretty critical accounts of Sanders supporters and the arguments they use and the way they portray both Hillary Clinton and...
View ArticleAre we a reality-based community? Then here is reality: Bernie Sanders Lost...
Let me speak here first and foremost as a proponent of sound, logical assessments and outlines of fact based reality that Dkos prides itself on. Two caveats: First, I am NOT saying Sanders should drop...
View ArticleShame on you for using Berta Cáceres legacy for your own cheap talking points
I’m going to be quick here: I’m fucking repulsed. The news of environmentalist and indigenous leader Berta Cáceres’ assassination at the hands of thugs in Honduras was only just out when Sanders...
View ArticleWarning: Bubble Bursting Ahead
This isn't the diary I intended to be writing next, and in any case I am under the weather with a cold. But I was just going to note that today’s primary’s went exactly how I projected after Super...
View ArticleElectoral Math Continued: Bernie Gets His Big Upset
First I gotta congratulate Bernie on his huge upset in Michigan. It’s a testament to how his campaign can close hard when they go all in and contest with 110% of their energy and resources. Polls were...
View ArticleWHAT TO EXPECT: Super Tuesday 2: Electric Boogaloo -- Clinton still favored
I am returning to write a bit about the primaries on Tuesday, starting with a brief guide to Illinois, which is, along with Ohio, the big prize tomorrow that is up for grabs, though Hillary seems...
View ArticleYou Want Answers? I got ya Answers for ya Right Here! 2016 Primary Demystified
What was Hillary’s best performance this year? Iowa. Does the Democratic primary have a stable progression? Yes. Would Obama have won Michigan had he and Hillary both been contesting it in a normal...
View ArticleState (End) of the Primary: How and Why Hillary is Winning
Inflammatory title aside, what I am setting out to do is not put down Sanders or his supporters, but rather attack implausible projections that make Sanders as still decent odds to win the nomination,...
View ArticleLet's Not Pretend the Wisconsin Result was Important (Or Why there is no Surge)
Writing from Japan, I feel as serene as Mt. Fuji in the backdrop there (a classic ukiyoe by Hokusai). I remain as assured as I was 2 weeks ago about the Democratic primary. And it has little to do with...
View ArticleGermany, Free Speech and the Story Behind the Erdogan Lawsuit
I have a German friend I've known for a long time, who heard about the John Oliver segment on the Erdogan lawsuit, in conjunction with the reaction from some people in Germany, and infuriated, asked me...
View ArticleMy Fellow Clinton Supporters; can we please shut up for five minutes about...
I will keep this very short. i am sure that many people will appreciate brevity at a time like this. I am an aggressive Clinton supporter ( former Obama supporter in 2008), and i think the volume and...
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Why and How Clinton will Defeat Donald Trump on Election Day
Part 1: Modeling Assumptions and the National VoteIt seems like this cycle, the new vogue is up to date, breathless models giving you real time odds of political results. Each day, a new poll or two...
View ArticleWhat the Hell is Clarence Thomas Babbling About
I was just reading an article about a case the Supreme Court thankfully declined to take up and was treated to the sight of Justice Thomas’s decent. Supreme Court Turns Down Case on Carrying Guns in...
View ArticleGOP Talking Heads trash Ocasio-Cortez's Comments while screwing up their own...
Last week Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Trump-Camps on the border, where migrant children and others seeking refugee status are held without toothpaste, soap, (and in many cases) clean...
View ArticleCOVID-19: Don't Panic. Wash Your Hands and Don't Touch Your Face.
A precise estimate of the case fatality rate is therefore impossible at present. — 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV): estimating the case fatality rate – a word of caution - Battegay Manue et al.,...
View ArticleBoeing Broken: The Marring of THE American Company
The Atlantic recently published an article ”How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class”, which is worth a read as a general point of reference. There are lot of other perspectives I could go into (Fordism...
View ArticleWhat Went Wrong With Warren, A Post-Mortem of a Promising Campaign
What went wrong with Warren? Aside from the wonderful, pulsing alliteration of that sentence, that is a question that I, a fan and strong supporter of Elizabeth Warren have been grappling with for...
View ArticleWhat Bernie Sanders (and the far-left) Misunderstood
I imagine that right this moment many are probably screaming in their heads at my choice of words—only a corporate hack would characterize Bernie as far-left, I imagine, is what is going through the...
View Article2020 Elections Uncoded: The South
I am doing a four part series on the 2020 election, to keep each piece from being too unwieldy. The first section, the South, is made up of the 11 states of the Confederacy, plus Kentucky, and...
View ArticleElection Day Evening: My Final Predictions
So as we await for Election Day, I will make some of my last predictions. I project the national top lines will be around 53-44 Biden, with some hardening of each parties coalitions. Trump’s vote total...
View ArticleLife Expectancy and Public Health
Life expectancy is a complex statistical measurement, and what is meant by the term, whenever it is discussed in media or in terms of contemporary public health, is Period Life Expectancy; the...
View ArticleQAnon, Conspiracy Theories, and the Crisis of the Information Age
Society has entered the age of the conspiracy, and the radicalisation and violence tied to conspiracy theorists will continue as one of the biggest sources of social instability in the Western world....
View ArticleBookchat: Buying Bertrand Russell on my way to Japan
Welcome to bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.Bertrand Russell may not be as...
View ArticleBookchats on Fantasy: A Look into Garth Nix's Abhorsen Series
Welcome to bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us, this time we will take a...
View ArticleA Run Down of Japan's 2021 General Elections
*Note: All Japanese names in this entry are written Family Name First, given name Second, as is done in Japanese and as the Japanese government has been moving to implement in official English...
View Article2000 Dollar Tacos and a World Teetering on Collapse
Most people who disdain the ultra-rich, I can say, don’t scorn them nearly enough. Just as equally, the enablers and flunkies, the savvy marketeers that make a lucrative living catering to exclusivity...
View ArticleBookchats: Into the world of One Piece, Japan's sprawling Pirate Epic
Welcome to bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. Despite being a lurker within...
View ArticleThe Wellness Movement is Rotten, and American Food Culture is Too
This piece, along with many others on mountain climbing in Japan, book reviews, and politics alike is on my blog: theravingsofthaneauxthemadcajun.wordpress.com/… I have written in the past about how...
View ArticleVitamins: A Question of Supplements
This is a list of the vitamins and mineral supplements that nutritional science and medicine generally agree the general population should take (and would benefit from) daily:Surprise, there aren’t...
View ArticleCan we admit now that crypto is a festering cesspool of alt-right...
Also posted on my blog: thaneauxthemadcajun.com/... A month has passed and the FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapse just keeps getting worse and worse, with founder and wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried...
View ArticleWho is Kyrsten Sinema?
Kyrsten Sinema’s political career is something of a raging hurricane, a careening cyclone that developed rapidly, and is now unraveling into chaos right before our eyes. The issue with Sinema is that...
View ArticleBookchats: Not even to the rain
Welcome to Bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.I am happy to be writing again...
View ArticleBook chats - J.K. Rowling and Saying Goodbye to Childhood
Welcome to Bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.I love the story of the Ship of...
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