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Huckleberry

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Huckleberry

  1. 20 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

    You mean other than the 30 plus countries where they can?

    It's interesting to me that so many people are pointing to other countries and saying we should be more like them but ignoring the ones with jus soli. 

    863px-Jus_soli_world.svg.png

     

    Now is there any reason that these people would be ignoring all those countries in Latin America and instead looking to all those countries in Europe for guidance? Any reason at all? Hard to come up with one, you know what I mean? What is it about Europe that makes these people agree with them on this particular issue even though they disagree with Europe on so much else? A complete and total mystery.

    • Like 1
  2. My point is that almost no analysts are even looking at what is going on in the rest of the state.  Beto won't win the top 15 by over 1 million votes (assuming 75-80% of 2016 turnout).  So he has to reduce the Cruz' margin in the rest of the state.  I see very few people asking that question, much less seriously looking for answers.

    I'm sure people are looking, the problem is that the State of Texas hasn't released more early voting data until this year (Top 30 counties) so comparative analysis to previous elections is impossible.

    But yes, he absolutely has to narrow the rural gap. He's never going to win those areas, just has to lose them by less. It's still a huge uphill fight I don't see him winning, just saying that nobody has any real idea where this is going to end up percentage wise. That's why I keep just playing the middle between the extreme predictions and seeing a 4-6% Cruz win.

     

     

  3. 2 minutes ago, sushihorn said:

    In raw votes, Clinton piled up a 500k vote margin in the top 15 counties in 2016.  The real problem for her was that the rest of the state went the other way by 1.3 million votes.  All of the analysis is focusing on the top 15 counties because that's where we have detailed data.  It may be a case of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlamp because that's where the light is.

    Right, what's your point? Everyone is aware that O'Rourke would need a huge margin in the Top 15 counties to win the election.

  4. 35 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

     

     

    30 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

    That's probably overstating it quite a bit but is the exact reason that nobody knows anything about how these elections are going. I find it hard to believe that independents will break 67/33 for Democrats (that's an estimate based on eyeballing that chart to show 58/28 with 14 undecided and then assigning the undecided votes proportionally) but it wouldn't take that big of a discrepancy to overcome what looks like early voting Republican leads.

    To follow up on this a bit, there was a tweet put out last week that listed party identity numbers for early voters. Using that information, and assigning Republicans to R votes and Democrats to D votes, I found that meant that the early Texas votes at that point in the election were 50.4% Republican and 49.6% Democrat in the 15 largest counties. That didn't include independent voters but was bad news for O'Rourke.

    In 2016 Clinton won those counties 54.5% to 45.5% over Trump (not counting votes that went to another candidate).

    Now, let's use this guy's vote breakdown. If Republicans are going 88/12 in favor of Rs, Democrats are going 92/8 in favor of Ds, and Independents are going 67/33 in favor of Ds, then instead of 50.4% to 49.6% in favor of Republicans we now have a total at that point of 56.2%-43.8% in favor of the Democrats. That would mean that in the top 15 counties O'Rourke would be leading by 12.4% versus the 9% that Clinton won them by.

    Again, I don't think 67/33 is realistic, but just pointing out how important actual votes versus party identity are in this election.

    By the way, in order for O'Rourke to have the same 9% lead as Clinton had, the independent vote would need to be 61/39 toward the Democrats.

    • Like 3
  5. It's already established that you don't realize that low income people are still a net tax positive, slorch, we don't need to rehash it here.

    Payroll taxes, consumption taxes, etc. Just because you don't want to believe it doesn't make it wrong. In 2010 the SSA estimates that illegal immigrants and their employers paid $13B, that's billion, in social security payroll taxes. Other studies have found that illegal immigrants pay approximately 8% of their income in state and local taxes. That's a higher rate than the wealthiest Americans because apparently Turbo Tax isn't quite the same as having a private accountant finding loopholes. Also, 6 million illegal immigrants file income taxes each year. So even though you might not choose to do so if you had a fake SSN, turns out that there are quite a few illegal immigrants who dutifully pay taxes to a government that claims they don't want them here (but privately knows they need them here).

  6. That's probably overstating it quite a bit but is the exact reason that nobody knows anything about how these elections are going. I find it hard to believe that independents will break 67/33 for Democrats (that's an estimate based on eyeballing that chart to show 58/28 with 14 undecided and then assigning the undecided votes proportionally) but it wouldn't take that big of a discrepancy to overcome what looks like early voting Republican leads.

  7. 28 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

    While I don't think it should be done by Executive Order,  I would like to see birthright citizenship go away.  

    As a poster mentioned earlier, it was implemented to give citizenship to freed slaves.  I think citizenship should be granted automatically based on the citizenship of the mother, and applied for in all other cases.  I have a nephew who was born in Germany, but he's not a German citizen.  

    While racism may be behind the Right's reasoning, getting rid of birthright citizenship isn't an inherently racist position.  In my case it's largely a fiscal one.  

    I want universal healthcare and education in the US.  That's sustainable if anyone citizenship is granted solely based on being born in the US.

    So, aside from attacking Trump (which I do on a regular), or claimed racism, what is the argument in favor of birthright citizenship?  

    Your logic is here is questionable at best. How do you figure more citizens makes these things less fiscally attainable? You realize that new citizens pay taxes just like old citizens, right? Or would you rather more people be illegal and therefore less likely to pay income tax (although we still obviously collect lots of other taxes even from those who don't pay income tax).

    Hell, some of our entitlements wouldn't just continue with an ever-growing population, they actually depend on it just like a ponzi scheme.

  8. 7 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

    While I don't think it should be done by Executive Order,  I would like to see birthright citizenship go away.  

    As a poster mentioned earlier, it was implemented to give citizenship to freed slaves.  I think citizenship should be granted automatically based on the citizenship of the mother, and applied for in all other cases.  I have a nephew who was born in Germany, but he's not a German citizen.  

    While racism may be behind the Right's reasoning, getting rid of birthright citizenship isn't an inherently racist position.  In my case it's largely a fiscal one.  

    I want universal healthcare and education in the US.  That's sustainable if anyone citizenship is granted solely based on being born in the US.

    So, aside from attacking Trump (which I do on a regular), or claimed racism, what is the argument in favor of birthright citizenship?  

    Elimination of stateless individuals, extreme promotion of immigrant assimilation into American society, defending and ensuring the idea that American society should not be based on bloodlines, and promotion of immigration are the ones I came up with in five seconds on another thread.

  9. 10 hours ago, sushihorn said:

    When the head of the DNC, Tom Perez say "we always knew it was going to be close" is he part of a right-wing conspiracy?  Do you think the SF Chronicle is shilling for Trump?

    Could it still happen?  Yes.  Is there any evidence that it is happening?  Not really.

    There's plenty of evidence it's happening. There's also plenty of evidence it's not happening. We've seen contradictory data and reports for the last week-and-a-half out of multiple outlets.

    It's just that you're employing some of the heaviest confirmation bias I've ever seen out of you in all your analyses.

  10. I am absolutely certain you think you’re smarter than everyone here.
    Of course you are, but that's only because you're dumb. I'm absolutely certain that there are dozens of posters here smarter than I am in various ways (e.g., mathematically, musically, creatively, etc.). You are correct, though, that I've so far been unable to identify an area in which you might be smarter than the average poster.
  11.  

     

     

    You expect it to die down when every Lib wets there pants about how smart he allegedly is?

    Seems reasonable.

     

    Yes, it is truly a mystery why the people you call libs think they're smarter than you.

     

  12. A particular incentive system might be better than another in some regard and yet encourage other undesirable outcomes and be worse overall.  That is the case here.  I would rather have no score or points based system (I don't have any objection to a system that allows one to write a private & succinct note associated with a post) and think any such public point totaling aspect is silly for adults, but these systems seem to have taken over the internet.  Beyond these systems, the forum has a general cultural problem and any internet nomad, regardless of the normally required affiliations to a place like this, will be welcomed and preferred if they accept & repeat the necessary dogma.  I know, you think I only care because the dominant dogma of this forum doesn't align with my views.  You think this despite the fact that you know I've solicited & value yours and other ideological opponents' feedback on various thoughts.  
    No, the point is that both systems encourage the exact same undesirable outcome - high volumes of short posts that lack actual thought.

    You have solicited thoughts on both boards, both boards exhibited the same behavior, with the difference being that right-wing shit posters weren't outnumbered by left-wing shit posters at the old site. There is a reason that people on surly still refer to "Cloak Room bullshit." It was just as bad.

    My conclusion isn't meant to be insightful or a dig at you, rather it is completely obvious. You have spoken up and complained here after never having done so there because of the one difference, which is that you disagree politically with more of the posters here.
  13. Okay, but I think what we're wondering right now is what point you were trying to make with this information:

    12 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

    The racial diversity of the Texan population is currently at 74.8% Caucasian, 11.9% African American, 5.8% other races, 4.4% Asian, 2.5% two or more races, and .5% Native North Americans.

    Using the United States categorization system, Honduras is 98% white and 2% black. I'm not sure on this but I don't believe that the United States recognizes any Honduran tribes as eligible for Native American classification.

  14. 2 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

    The racial diversity of the Texan population is currently at 74.8% Caucasian, 11.9% African American, 5.8% other races, 4.4% Asian, 2.5% two or more races, and .5% Native North Americans.

    So you think something less than 5.8% of the Texas population is Hispanic?

    bad_teammate already gave you the answer. The people who you think are Hispanics and brown so they would assimilate better in Mexico are Caucasian in your breakdown.

  15. 16 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

    Though I think Honduras is modern day Mayan land, so the ancient blood there had people looking different than the Aztecs/Mexicans.

    Honduras has a little Mayan territory; the plurality is in Mexico. Mayan territory also includes all of modern Guatemala and Belize, about half of El Salvador, and a small portion of Honduras.

    Ancient-Maya-Civilization-map.jpg

    • Like 1
  16. The charisma is a byproduct of the effort and engagement. I've listened to debates, speeches, and seen his direct commercials. O'Rourke is not actually that charismatic. He has been latched onto because he tries to show he cares, he goes out and meets the people, and the Republican party has a huge number of terrible people and ideas right now.

    I should clarify that he's a lot more charismatic than Ted Cruz, but so is the chair you're sitting in right now.

    • Like 4
    • Haha 1
  17. Yeah, I think it's unknowable so their strategy is to simply get as many as possible. It's the right move.

     

    The bigger issue i'll be watching is if the Democrats have any clue how to seize momentum in the likely event that Cruz wins. If Cruz wins by around 5% that should energize Democrats after the initial strong disappointment wears off. At that point Texas has become competitive, even recognizing that Cruz is a terrible Senator and candidate. There's nothing special about O'Rourke beyond effort and grass roots engagement.

     

     

  18. 4 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

    Thanks. For some reason percentages have always fucked me up. I can design complex buildings, but move a couple decimal places and my brain goes to mush. Lulz

    It messes up a lot of people, but your instinct was correct to start questioning your interpretation when you saw the negative increase for Native Americans. All you have to do is add 100% to the percentage increase to see what percent of the old total the new total is. So on Native Americans we know that as of right now 2018 Native American votes total to only 13% of how many there were at the same point in 2014.

    And, of course, that means that a percentage increase of votes can't be less than -100%, but it can be infinitely large.

    • Like 1
  19. I still don't understand how that's not a 196% increase, not 96%

    The increase is 96%. The second total is 196% of the first total. 

    Just think of it like this, if 2018 were the exact same as 2014 then these two things are obviously true:

     

    It is 100% of the 2014 value

    There is zero, i.e. a 0%, increase over 2014

     

     

     

  20. 13 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

    There were several prominent garbage right wing posters that persisted out of obstinance and because with the old system it was incredibly difficult to crowdsource ban posters.  Even posters who were almost universally reviled could stick around indefinitely.  If we had the system now in place back then, they likely would have been crowdsourced.  The evidence for this is that this is exactly what happened as soon as we switched to this format.  So there were bad right wing posters and there were many trash threads, but pointing this out has nothing to do with my claims.  There is a relatively new & growing phenomenon that encourages high volumes of spam and content free posting; it is not merely crap shifting sides of the aisle.  

    The old system also created a phenomenon that encouraged high volumes of spam and content free posting. That has not changed. In the old system pos rep was worth twice as much as neg rep so the shitty posters would simply make a ton of terrible or short posts and pos rep each other to fend off the neg reps. It wasn't hard because you only needed half as many pos reps to stay alive. That is exactly why it was difficult to crowdsource them.

     

  21. 10 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

    I don't really care about whether a poster is right wing or left wing nor the ratio of the two collective groups.  In fact, I would much prefer to read the views of the thoughtful progressive posters vs the conservative ones.   It is a matter of thoughtful content and legitimate attempt at contribution (or at least a ratio of this to spam, which has become increasingly lopsided in favor of spam).   

    You keep claiming that and yet your complaints are almost entirely about the hive mentality that you view coming from the left side of the proverbial aisle. I don't recall ever seeing you complain about the spam and attacks coming from the right on shaggy. You have a nostalgic view of the past that doesn't match reality, and the only difference is the side of the aisle that more of the crap is coming from.

    Tell me where all the intellectual discussion was in this thread from the same point in the Obama administration:

    http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/76134-Election-night-returns-game-thread/page3

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