This is more about slavery than plankton.
Fertile land does not equal Obama votes.
Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
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Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#32This article is nothing more than blog spam. Yeah, it provides a link back to the original post, but that's about it. Even most of the images are lifted.
"blog spam" aka packaging and reporting a story from elsewhere, a basic part of journalism. People around here really try too hard to be indignant.
A part which made more sense in the days when you could only read your local newspaper, so you didn't have easy access to the original story.
When the original story is just a click away, a repackager only adds value if he/she expands on the original in some material way -- coming at the story from a different perspective, say, or adding facts or background information that were not present in the original.
This post does none of that. It's a straight-up rewrite of the original, with no new contributions to the story. It makes the same points and even uses the same illustrations as the original. It does cite the original and link to it, but there's nothing in the new piece that would make it a more authoritative version of the story than the old one.
I generally don't oppose people posting links to blogs, but in this case it really does seem like sending people straight to the original post would have been the classier thing to do.
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#33This is more about slavery than plankton. Fertile land does not equal Obama votes.
Fertile land in the south did definitely correlate with Obama votes, as the article made clear.
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
"blog spam" aka packaging and reporting a story from elsewhere, a basic part of journalism. People around here really try too hard to be indignant.
A part which made more sense in the days when you could only read your local newspaper, so you didn't have easy access to the original story. When the original story is just a click away, a repackager only adds value if he/she expands on the original in some material way -- coming at the story from a different perspective, say, or adding facts or background information that were not present in the original. This post…
> but in this case it really does seem like sending people straight to the original post would have been the classier thing to do.
I think the poster has said it was an oversight; that the links to the original article were missed.
In this case it would have been nice to post to the original article, but as you say they're pretty similar.
I think it's much worse when some document is released, and then eight different tech blogs have a minimal but opinionated write up which each get posted to HN, and then people don't reply in the threads but on their own blogs, and then the tech blogs pick up each other's coverage.
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#35I guess the conservatives get to reap what their racist, pro-slavery ancestors sowed.
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#36Considering that Obama was trounced in those states and thus won no votes in the Electorial College, it is hardly a "secret weapon." Were it one, the consistency of its Democratic lean in previous elections, would call into question that it was his. The article just promotes an ignorant sort of racial understanding while missing the really curious relationship between agriculture and his campaigns. Obama's secret wea…
Or money+incumbency Roosevelt,Truman,Eisenhower,Johnson,Nixon,Reagan,Clinton,BushII all had plenty of time to plan for 2nd term. Of course so did Ford, Carter and Bush I. There may not be enough samples to get a good p-value, but more often than not the recipe of "just don't mess up too bad" gets a another term for a sitting President.
Paul Graham wrote an essay on this. The most charismatic candidate is elected, every time: http://www.paulgraham.com/charisma.html
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#37I live in Birmingham AL and the existence of the black belt is common knowledge here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_(U.S._region) As a kid, I assumed it was called the black belt because of the black people, not knowing it's because the soil is black.
OMG me too. That also explains the large black population also along that belt. I always assumed it was a mildly racist thing. Now I feel kind of silly actually...
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or money+incumbency Roosevelt,Truman,Eisenhower,Johnson,Nixon,Reagan,Clinton,BushII all had plenty of time to plan for 2nd term. Of course so did Ford, Carter and Bush I. There may not be enough samples to get a good p-value, but more often than not the recipe of "just don't mess up too bad" gets a another term for a sitting President.
Iowa is where Obama upset the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton four years ago. It is overwhelmingly made up of a constituencies which tend to vote Republican. Not only did he win the caucuses, he flipped the state in the general election and carried it by a substantial margin in his reelection. If you ever go to Iowa, you won't see many people likely to vote for Obama on the basis of racial affinity.
Not overwhelmingly. The rural areas in the northwest of the state are hard-red, but the rest of the rural areas vary from mostly-red to evenly split. Des Moines is mostly split, but the SE and E areas are fairly blue. My federal house district includes the heart of downtown Des Moines and almost exactly split down the middle, which is partially why our last house race was so contentious. The state just happened to barely go for GWB in 2004 because of John Kerry's weak campaign.
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or money+incumbency Roosevelt,Truman,Eisenhower,Johnson,Nixon,Reagan,Clinton,BushII all had plenty of time to plan for 2nd term. Of course so did Ford, Carter and Bush I. There may not be enough samples to get a good p-value, but more often than not the recipe of "just don't mess up too bad" gets a another term for a sitting President.
Paul Graham wrote an essay on this. The most charismatic candidate is elected, every time: http://www.paulgraham.com/charisma.html
Thanks, I hadn't seen this. Certainly the case in the last 4 or 5 elections. It's why Obama killed Romney with young voters.
That awkward kiss between Al and Tipper also comes to mind.
Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old
#40This is more about slavery than plankton. Fertile land does not equal Obama votes.
Fertile land in the south did definitely correlate with Obama votes, as the article made clear.
Yeah, just like slabs of thick bedrock in lower New York correlate with Obama votes, since it enabled large highrises to be constructed in a small, densely populated area. How far back are we willing to go to draw these correlations?