November 2012

Know Your Battleground States 5/9: Wisconsin

Gerry Lynch on November 3, 2012, 8:00 am | Readers 68

Cheese, beer and beef are what Wisconsin is best known for in America. Milwaukee’s professional baseball team is named the Brewers. The dairy industry dominates Wisconsin’s landscape, with idyllic pastureland giving way in the north and west to rocky glacial hills, covered in forests, which resemble the middle Germany many Wisconsinites’ ancestors came from, and glacial lakes which resemble the Scandinavia of many others’. Wisconsin is a contradictory state – a European ethic of social solidarity and religious moderation sits …

Know Your Battleground States 4/9: Iowa

Gerry Lynch on November 2, 2012, 7:35 pm | Readers 58

Iowa’s role in the political process is firmly cemented by its first-in-the-nation role in choosing presidential candidates. In past decades, when Iowa was another reliably Republican plains state, that was the end of its serious role in the political process. Some are critical that an unrepresentative state, heavily white, heavily rural, with no major metropolitan areas, should play such a critical role in choosing presidents. Local political science professor Stephen G White says, “There are few minorities, no sizable cities, …

The murder of David Black and our wafer thin ‘politics of condemnation’…

Mick Fealty on November 2, 2012, 3:10 pm | Readers 91

It shouldn’t be let pass the murder of Prison Officer David Black without some comment here on Slugger. Early indications are that official responses are largely of the type Sinn Fein used to dismiss as ‘the politics of condemnation’. Some republicans are even starting to toy with the idea that the security forces (with their supposedly blanket infiltration may even have had some ulterior motive for letting this happen. The truth is that for 200 years there have been generations …

America’s standoff between the shills and the gamblers…

Mick Fealty on November 2, 2012, 1:14 pm | Readers 38

I’m afraid there will be no #DigitalLunch today due illness (mine) in the kitchen… So I’ve a couple short posts to share that I’ve collected over the last few days. One of the things that’s been exercising comment in America is the dominance of number cruncher in chief Nate Silver, who’s dominance of the prediction market this time out has been frustrating some of the old schools hacks and shills. In the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf points out that this came …

Ridley Scott Presents…

Pete Baker on November 1, 2012, 9:57 pm | Readers 60

The BBC reports some good news for the Northern Ireland film-making industry. From the statement on the Northern Ireland Screen website Academy-Award nominated director and producer Ridley Scott (Prometheus, Blade Runner) and Scott Free London are partnering with Orchard Media and Focus Features International on a slate of six genre low-budget feature films over a period of three years. Ridley Scott will executive produce and present the slate which will be focused primarily on horror, thriller and science fiction. The …

Romney Expands the Battlefield: Clever Sucker Punch or Desperate Hail Mary Pass?

Gerry Lynch on November 1, 2012, 7:53 am | Readers 61

In American Football, the Hail Mary pass “refers to any very long forward pass made in desperation with only a small chance of success, especially at or near the end of a half”, according to Wikipedia. With the final seconds of the game ticking away, and the team in possession just a few points down but a long way from the goal line, the quarterback will launch the ball as far down the pitch as he can, in the hope …