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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. On 2/13/2024 at 12:44 AM, texastough said:

    Makes me want to move to ND to vote for her

    Eh, . . . can I maybe just visit for a few hours?  Like fly into Fargo, cast a ballot, and then fly right back out?

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  2. 1 hour ago, bolverk said:

    Last weekend, I was fooling around with demographic figures to assess the likelihood that a state would swing Democratic and picked four traits, which, if a high enough share of the population exhibited, would favor going Blue. These are 1) the percentage of adults (25+) with a Bachelor's degree, 2) the percentage of people living in urban areas (as defined by the Census), 3) the percentage of people who are not Anglo (white non-Hispanic), and the percentage of people who are non-Evangelical (used a dated Pew survey). 

    After doing some sorting of each and comparing it to the percentage of the vote that Biden got in 2020, I tried to pick the tipping point for each and shaded everything above that blue. If it didn't seem to matter, I left the numbers black. And, if they clearly favored Republicans, I shaded the numbers red.

    The overall results composite score in the TOTAL column (sum of each percentage) that should serve as a predictor for the likelihood of voting Democratic holds up pretty well. If a state got 2.40 or greater, then it *should* vote Democratic. If it scored below 2.00, then theoretically, it should be a Republican state, according to these indicators.

    It's not perfect because there are some outliers, such as Vermont, Maine, and Utah (the Pew Survey I looked at didn't have Mormon as a religious group). Vermont and Maine are largely rural and very white, but they're both irreligious and educated, especially Vermont.

    For the Democrats, Texas scores very well, with our population being pretty urbanized on the scale and very well on non-Anglo. We do so-so on education but poorly on the share of our population that's non-Evangelical. After reflecting on these scores, I think what would tip us into the Democratic column would be more college graduates, as we're already Brown and Black enough.

    North Carolina's problems are that it's still pretty rural, White, and Evangelical.

    With these four factors, it's pretty easy to see why Iowa and Ohio have gone GOP and why Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia are swing states. Nevada and Arizona *should* be blue from here on out, but the latter needs a few election cycles to prove it.

    Texas and Florida, man. Those are the two really tough ones to figure out. They have the numbers to be Democratic.

    image.png.d0c5889aa90511c75b50d3dfc42fdf6e.png

    image.png.f0d18a9238a4e8c58a21994cb88ae260.png

    I think people sleep on Alaska, and your overview kind of reflects that.

    Alaska has stayed Republican because, well let's face it, it's a reasonably new state and a lot of its partisan alignment is the direct result from the issues over statehood and the personal brand of certain long-serving officeholders (Hawai'i is the same way).  Alaska is hugely supported by the federal government.  So nobody has really cared whether Ted Stevens or Don Young or Frank Murkowski is a Dem or a Rep; all that matters is whether they bring home the federal money.

    But the fundamentals don't completely favor the GQP.  As noted above, it has an enormous non-white population.  And it is actually surprisingly urban.  And while the percentage of the population with a bachelor degree is low, there are comparatively few Evangelicals.  

    So when Don Young died, it's not particularly surprising that Peltola won.  And she's now the most popular figure in Alaska politics.  And that's the model.  It's the Arizona model.  Get the Native American population on board and mobilized for voting Democratic.  And then blend that with the urban and educated suburban electorate.  Oh, and weird thing--they really like weed in rural Alaska.  So that's another occasional base for Democratic support (particularly in the bush).

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  3. 5 minutes ago, Viper said:

    So this doesn't seem good. Wonder if it's the gps jamming in Königsberg that's been going on for the last few months or something more to do with online hacking and/disinformation campaigns or maybe new nuclear testing going on? 

     

     

     

    This seems . . . not ideal.

     

    eta: Oh, fun--it looks like "Cuban Missile Crisis II: Nukes in Space" is coming.  

    I kinda think I'm not going to like this sequel.

     

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  4. 19 hours ago, jdhorn92 said:

    Well this solves my 2025 problem of not getting into Delta SkyClub

    https://about.americanexpress.com/newsroom/press-releases/news-details/2024/American-Express-To-Open-Largest-Centurion-Lounge-at-Hartsfield-Jackson-Atlanta-International-Airport/default.aspx

     

    With Delta's '25 change to Skyclub access, having the Amex Platinum will get you in free (well $500 technically, iirc).  Wonder if this will ease 2024 overcrowding in ATL Skyclub? 

    26K square feet, in E concourse, so a bit of hike if you connect in B, but their plane train is very efficient and I usually just walk anyway, as the ATL has done a great job with the walking museums, art etc.. between several of the terminals.

    Ok.  But they just changed the admission rules on the Centurion Lounge.  I can't remember what the deal is exactly, but they've imposed some spending requirements to get the access you used to have just by being a member.

    But if you meet those spending requirements, then you also have access to the Delta SkyClub.  So that's nice.

  5. 1 hour ago, Js1 said:

    If the polls are constantly overrating the GOP by 4-5 points, then Biden is likely winning by 3-4 points nationally and probably just repeating 2020’s results. Not much seems to have changed since 2020, really 

    The polls are broken because there's a bunch of people who only fucking come out when Donald Trump is on the ballot.  They view politics as entertainment.  And they're not going to go to the show if Bette Midler isn't going to be on stage that night.  They're showing up for the star, not the fucking understudy.

    Polls of "likely voters" can't account for that.  So you're saying you voted in 2016 and 2020?  Well, you're probably a likely voter for purposes of the likely-voter screen.  But--and stay with me here--that person really isn't a likely voter in a special election in the middle of February if he didn't vote in 2022 or 2018 or any fucking presidential election before 2016.

    But is he a likely voter in November with Trump on the ballot?  My guess is "yes."

    11 hours ago, TheStoicPaisano said:

     

    So, Donald, you fucking moron, here's the real scoop: Souzzi won by the margin he did entirely BECAUSE OF YOU!

    Pilip went out and toed the GQP line in favor of killing the (formerly bipartisan) border deal.  And Souzzi fucking hung her with that.  He argued that immigration is a clusterfuck and the border is in crisis, and it is Republicans like Pilip who refuse to do anything about it.  They're imperiling national security for perceived political gain.  "Blame me," said Trump, and the voters fucking did.

    I don't think Souzzi could turn immigration into a positive for Democrats.  But he sure showed the gameplan for how to neuter the issue.  

    And the gameplan exists entirely because of Trump.  He's the one who took his own best issue off the field.  It's like having Reggie Bush on the fucking sideline for 4th and 2.  Fucking unbelievable (thanks, Sark).

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  6. Just now, Voldemort86 said:

    Man I hope one of their members suddenly gets extremely sick or hurt to where they can’t walk or there’s some kind of transportation issue that cancels flights or ices roads. Anything to make them hold off the vote until they just give up.

    I suspect they don't have a real good whip count because . . . well, they just really suck at it.  But even if they were good at it, this would be a challenging situation given the flight schedules and the weather.  

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  7. On 2/8/2024 at 10:56 AM, Da Fino said:

    Did you always dislike going to the grocery store? The one I go to is pretty efficient on the inside. I have gotten to where I enjoy bringing a kid to ride in the basket and take time to pick stuff out, try out new offerings, etc. Plus you never get stuck with shitty fruit or soggy greens.  I don't see that as 30 minutes to an hour each week that I lost. 

    My local grocery store is the Westlake HEB.  So there's no fucking way I'm getting my groceries curbside--I'd miss all the hot Westlake mom ass parading around inside.

  8. 15 hours ago, horn4life said:

     

    The way the US elects Presidents does not count each vote equally, no matter how you slice it.  Whether you want to call us a Democracy, a Republic or a Democratic Republic.

    ONLY for the Presidency are some votes worth a lot more than others depending on what state you are in.  Which... dare I say it... seems like "not democratic" when the person with fewer votes wins?  Or maybe I don't understand math... 😉

     

     

     

    That's not true at all.  It's definitely the case in the Senate.  And it's also the case in the House.  Wyoming has one member of the House for its 580,000 people.  A congressional district in Texas has, on average, 790,000 people.

    The fact that individual small-state voters' voters count for more across the entire federal government has been a feature of the Constitution since the beginning.

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  9. 1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

    Pick your candidate.  Who would be a better choice than Biden right now?

    Honestly, probably Gavin Newsom.  Maybe Andy Beshear.

    I would like to say Gretchen Whitmer.  She's nice.  I really like her.  But then I remember the inherent misogyny of the American electorate, and I think "nah."

  10. 29 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    Giving this much of a shit about Toria Nuland is absolutely a tell, the only people who care this much or can even talk about who she is are those who inhabit the rankest fever swamps of Kremlin-aligned propaganda.  It is absolutely hilarious to frame this as some sort of principled stand against David Frum and Toria Nuland. 

    Ok--I guess I'll bite.  Fuck . . . I know I'm going to regret this.  Dammit.

     

    Who is Toria Nuland?

  11. 10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

    Not to dismiss your question, but I think you're not using these terms correctly. For example, both France and Ireland are also "republics" and have direct elections by the people for their leaders.

    As for the underlying question of whether we had direct elections for president requiring a majority vote, that's a hypothetical I've often pondered. For the sake of argument with an assumption that the popular vote over the past 30+ years would've remained the same (they wouldn't because electoral strategies would be different), then yes, we'd be in a vastly different climate across multiple fronts. If we took it all the way back to the beginning of the country, well, who the fuck knows?

    As a republic, France has a potential two-round process for electing their president. The first round includes candidates from all parties. If one doesn't gain a majority, then the election goes to the top two vote-getters. Apply this process to the 1992 election, where it was Clinton (43.0%), Bush (37.5%), and Perot (18.9%), the latter of whom would've been eliminated in the first round. Clinton probably(?) would've gotten over that hump in the second round and most assuredly would've in the 1996 election when he won it with 49.2% in what would've been the first round.

    Then we come to the 2000 election. First round, Gore (48.4%), Bush (47.9%), and Nader (2.7%). Yeah, most Nader voters would hook up with the Gore camp. From there, the timeline branches far too much because it's not guaranteed that even with more vigilance, 9/11 could've been prevented. But even if it had been, we can't know if voter fatigue would've set in and some upstart candidate like Bush Jr. would've beat him in 2004. It's really unknowable.

    If we elected our presidents like Ireland, where I believe they have a ranked-choice system, then I can't even begin to speculate.

    Ok--we need to flesh this bit of language out right now.  And I love you, @horn4life, but you and everyone else who espouses the "we're a republic, not a democracy" line of shit needs to go and slap the elementary-school teacher who taught them that.  Because "democracy" and "republic" literally mean the same thing; the only difference is whether you prefer Ancient Greek or Latin to name your form of government.

    "Democracy" comes from the ancient Greek: "Demos"=people and "kratos"=rule.  So literally "rule by the people."  

    "Republic" comes from Latin: "Res"=the thing and "publica"=the people.  So literally "the affair of the people."

    The dichotomy that people think they're ascribing between "democracy" and "republicanism" is actually between "direct democracy" and "representative democracy."  In a direct democracy (e.g., ancient Athens), all of the voters get together in the town square and vote on individual pieces of legislation.  In a representative democracy (e.g., the UK), the people vote for representatives, who then vote on legislation.

    The Roman Republic had aspects of both representative and direct democracy.  The Senate was a representative body.  And constitutionally, matters of treasury and foreign affairs were handled exclusively by the Senate (until the Gracchi upset that constitutional order, but that's a discussion for another thread).  But then there was the Assembly (which were actually three different Assemblies, but that's not important right now), which were convened in the Forum and in which every citizen voted on individual propositions.  So even the Roman Republic--from which the term "republic" derives--was not a purely representative democracy.

    So please, please, please, for the love of God, Zeus, Jupiter, and for good measure Odin and Horus, please stop drawing a false distinction between a "democracy" and a "republic."  We live in both a democracy and a Republic.

     

    For now.

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  12. 24 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

    Would you also put part of the blame on American?  They were one of the first defectors to Airbus.  I guess when the SWA issue came up, Boeing was already scared of losing bigger market share.  

    No, because AA was never a huge 737 customer.  AA was primarily an MD-80 Family operator.  Only when the MD-80s came to be retired did AA start to buy the 737 in large numbers.  But even then, AA was never exclusive to Boeing in the way Southwest was.  Owing largely to its various mergers, AA has operated the A320 for as long as it has operated the 737.

    And that's important for Boeing when it has to go to the banks to get financing for the development of a new aircraft model.  Whether AA is going to buy the new model (rather than switch to Airbus) is pretty speculative.  But Southwest--that's a different story.  Southwest is going to give you the firmest of firm orders pretty damned quickly so long as the new model shares the 737 certification.

    But if it's not a 737?  If that new model is a 7X7?  That Southwest business looks a lot more speculative.  Southwest may place orders for a 7X7, but we all know that orders can get canceled.  And that makes the debt Boeing has to take on to develop the 7X7 a lot more expensive.  And that makes the 7X7 less economically viable and a lot less economically attractive than just figuring out how to put the CFM LEAP engine on that low-ass 737 wing.

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  13. 2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

    It wasn't.  The 737 is a great airframe.  They just tried to turn it into something it's not.  They tried to make a Frankenplane.  It turns out to be only slightly less absurd than trying to slap modern turbofans onto a B-24.  The B-24 was a great plane.  Turbofans are great engines.  But trying to match them would be folly.

    Boeing bet on that modification to the 737, instead of developing a new airframe.  Turns out, it bet wrong.

    @Ghost of LL has an explanation of how SWA bears a chunk of the blame for that, BTW.

     

    3 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

    This is 100% what Boeing should have done with the 737 twenty years ago.  You can argue about whether the 787 was really the right move, given the 777 emerging dominance in global long haul, but regardless, trying to glue a modern hi bypass turbofan onto a 50 year old design was such a Jack Welch/McDonnell Douglas quick cash grab style move.  

    I honestly can't pin that blame on Boeing.  That is what its customers demanded.  And by "customers," I really mean "Southwest Airlines."

    Southwest is the largest 737 customer, and it's not even particularly close.  Southwest has ordered nearly 900 of the 737-Max; the next largest airline order is United for 666 (not making that up).  Southwest alone accounts for about 15% of the 737's order book.  So here's the thing:  Boeing does what Southwest wants.

    And Southwest wants the 737.

    There are some significant cost benefits associated with flying one aircraft type.  We can argue whether those benefits outweigh the costs for an airline of Southwest's current size and system complexity; I would argue that its one-type fixation has outlived its usefulness.  But regardless, flying both the 737 and some other aircraft type (whether it be the A320 or a new 7X7) would come with some significant costs.  There's the obvious cost in spare parts and maintenance, but the real cost is in labor.  Union contracts would have to be completely overhauled.  New mechanics would have to be hired (or mechanics qualified on both airframes would have to be paid more).  And it would impair flight-crew flexibility for dispatch purposes.

    Oh, and here's the real fun thing--Southwest's flight-dispatch software isn't set up to allow for that.  That's not to say that it couldn't be changed.  It is to say that such a change would add cost.

    So Southwest wants the 737.

    And so Boeing is very keen to keep the 737 certified.  But that's a real challenge.  Because engine design has evolved a bit over the past 60 years.

    The original 737 was powered by the Pratt & Whitney JT8D engine.  It's a low-bypass, two-spool design on a four-stage turbine, all of which leads to a very long, slim engine design. 

    image.png.ce50569634e5e2999151fa288b4b00a9.png

    So the great thing about this design is that it allows for a very short landing gear.  And that's nice, because it's super simple.  The main landing gear retracts right up into the fuselage without any extension or rotation.

    image.thumb.png.7a3086b9940dfb2bb7654f90afeac768.png

    In 1983, Boeing developed the 737-300 series, which was powered by the CFM-56 engine.  This was a much higher-bypass design than the JT8D, leading to a fatter, but shorter engine.

    image.png.a9d562b8097ce9cbe7d2ea846306c3ca.png

    Boeing was able to deal with this by mounting it slightly forward of the wing.  And that allowed Boeing to retain the main landing gear.  But to come up with the next generation--the MAX--Boeing was going to need to plan for a newer, larger engine.  It is powered by the CFM LEAP, which is significantly more fuel-efficient.  The trouble with it is, though, that it is wider than the CFM-56. 

    So Boeing here had a problem.  The CFM LEAP is too big to fit under the 737 wing with the landing gear.  And you can't just slap on a new main landing gear, because that completely fucks up the design of the fuselage and the wing spar.  It could come up with a brand new aircraft, which is what it did with the 787.  There's no way to keep the 737 certification with a complete redesign of the mid-fuselage and wing spar.  And that's going to piss off Southwest.  But more importantly, it's going to create an opening for Airbus.  "Hey, Southwest--since you're going to have to have two different aircraft types anyway, why not buy the A320?".

    So Boeing needed to do whatever it could to keep the 737 family going.  To do that. it moved the engine even further forward of the wing to allow part of the engine to actually be above the leading edge of the wing.  Compare the picture of the 737-800 above with the MAX:

    image.png.9cffd260ed96f2d42b5b405772b364ca.png

    Now this is really a cool design.  It wildly shifts the center of gravity forward, which is just fine because of the modern avionics (assuming you get the computer programming right).  I mean, look--there are some things I like a lot more about the A320 family, particularly from the passenger perspective.  But the 737 is still a pretty good design.  And when considering what the engineers have had to do to satisfy the business considerations, it's pretty damned impressive.

    But bottom line here--let's not put those business considerations on McDonnell Douglas or the accountants.  It doesn't take an MBA to tell you that you need to do what you can to keep your largest customer tied to you, particularly when that customer is 15% of your order book.

    This is entirely about Southwest, the limitations inherent in its model, and its refusal to invest on the front-end to get a better plane on the back end.  This isn't a fuck-up conceived in Chicago or even Seattle; it started on Love Field Drive.

     

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