Open Thread for Thursday, October 27, 2016

33 Replies
I was going to give you a post on Life, Baseball, and Everything, but it just got out of hand...

I was going to give you a post on Life, Baseball, and Everything, but it just got out of hand…

I hate it when I give you back-to-back Open Threads, with no intervening sole-subject posts. And I started to give you something earlier today, inspired by the World Series. But it began to morph into one of those meandering Baseball and Life things with Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox Scandal, and the 1927 Yankees, and Satchel Paige, and Ring Lardner’s You Know Me Al, and Roy Hobbs wanting to be the best player there ever was, and playing catch with your Dad and the smell of a baseball in a glove, and it just got totally out of hand and I didn’t finish it. I think it was in about the 12th inning when I stopped.

So here’s an Open Thread:

  1. The State endorses Susan Brill over Mia McLeod — I’m guessing this was a tough one for the paper, based on the debate I moderated the other day. Cindi writes of Mrs. Brill being a consensus-builder, which the Senate badly needs after losing Larry Martin, Wes Hayes and now Joel Lourie. Similar themes were sounded in the paper’s endorsement of Nikki Setzler this morning.
  2. Some Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Clinton Wins — Oh, gimme a break, people. I think we’ve all been through enough already this year, don’t you? Yes, I know: The next four years will be uglier than anything we’ve ever seen — as bad as partisanship has been in the Bush and Obama years, neither of them had already been hated by the opposition for decades. But spare us the revolution talk, OK?
  3. Russia’s: Kuznetsov battle group refuels off North Africa — To give you something serious to think about. I well remember when the Med was our pond. But on the upside, this is Russia’s only carrier, and apparently its crew is made up of landsmen who don’t know how to do underway replenishment — they’re at anchor for the operation. Here’s the way real seamen do it.
  4. Uber won’t build flying cars but they sure want someone else to — Hey, I’m up for it, because then we’ll know it’s the future, for which most of us have been waiting our entire lives. The Star Trek communicators that have become the centers of our lives are pretty cool, but the future, by definition, must have flying cars.
  5. Vine Withers, Reminding Us That Nothing Is Forever — Yeah, especially when it only lasts six seconds. Did y’all look at it much? Neither did I. Maybe that’s why.
  6. ‘Southern Charm’ will return for fourth season — I’m just telling you in case the current election hasn’t fully convinced you that our culture has gone to a warm place in a handbasket, and we are in the End Times.

both

33 thoughts on “Open Thread for Thursday, October 27, 2016”

  1. Bryan Caskey

    Alternate topic, only HALF of the graduates of the Charleston School of Law who sat for this year’s bar examination passed.

    Yeah, half is really bad. (Unless you’re Juan, and fewer lawyers are a good thing.)

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  2. Claus

    Grab your guns boys, we’s having us a revolution.

    ABC POLLING, 4-way race

    October 25, CLINTON +12
    October 26, CLINTON +9
    October 28, CLINTON +4

    Considering Wikileaks hasn’t even released the good stuff yet, it’s going to take an awful lot for Hillary to rebound in these last few days.

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    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Yep, that trend you cite is what concerns me. And I agree that Wikileaks MUST be holding back something big, because what they’ve provided so far as been SO boring. If they want to do maximum damage to America — and they do — they’ll want to drop their biggest bomb when it’s too late for Hillary to recover.

      Of course, on the other hand — polls always start getting closer at about this point…

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    1. Kathryn Fenner

      They never closed it. All Comey did was update, as required. The emails are from Huma Abedin’s device and are related to Anthony Weiner.
      Nothing to see here.

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  4. Doug Ross

    Voted absentee today in Richland County. Only anecdotal, but since I travel most weeks, I’ve voted absentee in most of the elections since 1990. The line today was a little shorter than past elections.. I was about the 30th person in line at 1:00. The difference today was instead of being 95% black to white, it was about 75% black to white ratio. May not mean anything but could mean the black community isn’t as enthused to vote for Hillary and/or the white community is more enthused to vote for Trump.

    I proudly voted for neither of them. And I voted against Joe Wilson even though it doesn’t matter. That he is able to represent a Congressional district is all the evidence I need to show how broken the system is.

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    1. Claus

      I’ve been reading that it’s been reported that the Clinton campaign team was en route when the FBI announcement was made and Hillary’s plane didn’t have WiFi capability and that the plane has landed but nobody is getting off because her team didn’t find out about it until they touched down. Too bad there isn’t an audio recorder in the cabin area.

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    2. Jeff Mobley

      Looks like Eddie McCain is going to avoid the shutout! (I estimate the likelihood of Doug voting for Bjorn as being less than 1%). Of course, I could be wrong, and also, it’s really none of my business.

      Actually, there’s going to be a debate among these three, at River Bluff High school, in the middle of the morning, on Friday, November 4th. According to the report, it will be “live-streamed by the school via the internet”.

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      1. Doug Ross

        ” and also, it’s really none of my business”
        Why is it not ANYONE’s business. If you’re willing to cast a vote for someone, why would you be afraid to state it publicly? To choose not to say who you voted for is an odd stance in my view.

        I am proud to say I voted for Johnson and not a corrupt liar or Trump.

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        2. Jeff Mobley

          Right, I think most of the folks who regularly comment here on Brad’s blog don’t mind volunteering information about who they’ll vote for, and why. I don’t really mind sharing that information myself. But at the same time, I realize not everyone feels like sharing that kind of information, and so I try not to assume anything.

          So, when I made my guess about who you voted for in the 2nd district race (Eddie McCain), I was curious about whether I’d guessed right, but I also wanted to express that I didn’t necessarily feel entitled to a definitive confirmation from you, if that makes sense.

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          1. Brad Warthen Post author

            As y’all know, there’s not much I hesitate to share, in terms of what I think about things.

            But when it comes to how I vote, I always feel a slight inhibition — just before I go ahead and tell you.

            In part, it’s a journalist thing. I’ve known at least one colleague who doesn’t vote at all, because even HE doesn’t want know.

            I prefer to be more self-aware than that…

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      2. Bryan Caskey

        I sort of doubt Comey would have stirred up this absolute hornets’ nest over “nothing of any import whatsoever”.

        He had to know that sending his report to Congress was going send everyone to DEFCON 2.

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        1. Mark Stewart

          I think I am most concerned about what this does to the case against Weiner himself. Does politicizing the evidence of his crime at this level taint his prosecution to such an extent that he never even gets charged, let alone convicted?

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          1. Brad Warthen Post author

            Yeah… I’m sorry; I couldn’t care less about the case against Weiner. The only thing I want with regard to him is, I don’t ever want to hear of him again…

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            1. Mark Stewart

              I don’t either. The 15 yr old girl, however, I do care about. Society doesn’t deserve known predators going unpunished.

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  6. Bryan Caskey

    So Hillary spends years defending her husband’s indiscretions, and mostly that all works. None of Bill’s indiscretions ever bring her or him down.

    But now it’s possible that Hillary’s aide’s husband’s indiscretions (and the resulting FBI’s investigation into him) end up bringing Hillary down?

    I dare you to tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor.

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    2. bud

      Don’t gloat just yet Caskey. This is shaping up to be yet another nothing burger. By the time the Gamecocks pull the big upset of UT the whole thing will have run it’s course.

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  7. Benton Williamson

    Not sure we are there yet, but is Thomas Hobson at the Trolley switch? Despite all the vitriolic dislike that follows the Clinton’s ( which I do not quite understand) , a vote for Trump IS a vote for Trump. Full stop.

    Reply ↓

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