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Where all the sea level dooms day folks go wrong is that they view the earth’s crust as a static, more or less immovable thing. The crust under the oceans is thinner on the whole and it can flex in the face of vast additional downward pressures. Adding trillions of tons of water weight to the system would deflect the ocean bottom downward; which would offset any sea level rise by quite a bit. Granted, that added pressure will cause an uplift in adjacent areas which in turn means an increase to earthquake and volcanic activity in various parts of the planet as a new equilibrium is established.

Don’t their predictions fall into the range of Punxsutawney Phil in terms of their overall accuracy?

I completely agree with your take. On the farm my father had a rule that if any animal continually showed aggressive tendencies such that it put people (most important) or other animals or livestock at risk - they were put down. He had a dog that was wonderful around immediate family members, but it wouldn’t stop killing chickens and ducks and would be suddenly aggressive with visitors. It pained him to put the dog down but he didn’t hesitate. Then again, he didn’t go off and write a book about it either. The shoot, shovel and shut up rule tends to be part of the farmer / rancher way in my experience at least.

And Joe wonders why his ice cream and snack containers are getting smaller with less product in them.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the spin they’ll use on the campaign trail is to talk about how much worse things would have been if the former vice president hadn’t taken bold, decisive action.

Definitely not guilty!

I’ve been doing extensive genealogy research on my family tree. One of the things that has jumped out at me in looking at census documents back in the early 1900’s (and prior) was how many young adults back then lived with the “head of household” well into their 20’s. While I’m not dismissing concerns / criticisms about a portion of the current generation entering the job market (I have been doing hiring for 30+ years and I have seen firsthand examples of entitled mindsets or unrealistic expectations definitely on the rise) but I do also think the presumption that kids should be on their own by 18-20 is a phenomenon that is somewhat unique in the past couple of generations based on my own ancestry research.

I was a teenager back when Reagan ran against Carter and then against Mondale. I remember watching the news with my father most every evening and being quite engaged in following politics for a kid my age. Going into the final weekend before both elections the news kept saying it was too close to call or within the margin of error in the polls - only to find out it wasn’t even close. I turned to my father and said that from my perspective a rule of thumb should be that regardless of the poll the press cited, five percentage points should be taken away from the democrat and given to the republican in order to reflect something closer to reality. My father smiled and said he agreed that the facts in that time period gave credence to my youthful analysis. While not always 100% accurate, as a general rule I’ve found this method still works a generation later.

I agree with your assessment of things. While I will attest that my limited experiences with Carnahan’s efforts during the 2020 campaign season were quite positive - her early departure from being the head of the party is a cloud over her that the libs will hound her with every step of the way.

Munson is an outstanding candidate for that congressional seat. I’m friends with our local state house representative who is in the “New Republican Caucus” that Munson and our rep started because of their concerns about RINOs driving the agenda of the legislative sessions. I’m thrilled he is in the running for congress (but bummed we might lose him in the MN legislature.)

Your point is well taken however to my understanding, price controls started during Nixon’s time. Carter simply kept them in place and further tinkered with them. My father was a federal meat inspector back then and I recall him telling us kids about the new cuts of meat that were created at that time to get around government price control requirements.

I thought I was the only one to have that stray thought pop into my mind (along with the end times leader who had a fatal head wound but was miraculously healed.)

Anecdotal MN info from our precinct that just finished processing ballots here in southwest MN on the prairie. Same day totals had Trump at 72% of the votes cast. He carried our precinct by 59.95% last time. Granted, there are absentee ballots to be counted that based on the primary results had absentees coming in more for dems; but by my back of the napkin math Trump is still set to outperform here this round. He lost the state by 1.5% and if his trends outstate are similar to ours here, I think MN still can be won. Tough, but still possible.

I’ve described the Minnesota Iron Range is to Minnesota what the deep south was prior to Reagan. Southern states including Texas were reliably democrat strongholds up until a generation ago. The Iron Range in MN was like that as well. Blue Collar, immigrant settled areas (with many immigrants from Sweden, Norway, Czechoslovakia - more liberal home countries) in mining & manufacturing industries - all union, all company men(and women). They were yellow dog democrats all the way. That’s is changing as the dems go away from being the party of the working person and instead the party of fringe activists in big cities. I live in the SW part of the state and while it has been a ‘lean republican’ area for a while, this year there are probably 75 Trump signs for every Biden one. I was in the Twin Cities yesterday in the north metro - in areas I myself campaigned in back 20 years ago so I know they are liberal... and even in those bastions of traditional democrats I only saw a smattering of Biden signs. Granted, more than I’ve seen anywhere else, but WAY less than I’ve personally observed in other election cycles. There is zero enthusiasm for Biden. There’s crawl-over-broken-glass-to-vote enthusiasm that you can feel in the air for Trump. I predicted Trump’s support in this state would get him within 2% of winning in 2016 (actual numbers were 1.5%) and I predict he wins Minnesota by at least 2% this time around. Closer than I’d like or is warranted - but a win is a win.

If I recall the story shared with me by people behind the scenes in MN at the time, there were enough ‘abnormalities’ in some of the Minnesota results that Reagan’s people approached him and asked if they should actively challenge the results and request a recount. Reagan apparently said not to pile on and give Mondale his token victory so the matter was dropped.

I saw my first Kanye for President sign yesterday here in SW Minnesota. That puts him in a close third for total campaign signs displayed... just behind Biden. The rest of the area is awash in Trump signs.

Four years ago my liberal friends here in Minnesota mocked me when I said that I wasn’t going to say Trump was going to win Minnesota, but I believed it was within a point or two of being a dead heat. The President lost MN by 1.5% - a state that hasn’t gone Republican in a generation. This year I’ve never seen so many Trump signs. I would guess there are 15 Trump signs to every Biden one I see in the southwestern part of the state and that’s a conservative estimate. Friends in the traditional democrat stronghold of the Iron Range (northeast MN) are telling similar stories. My gut instincts are telling me that Trump pulls off a win here by 1 to 2%. It is crazy to think it is even that close but in the Twin Cities you can’t fix stupid.

I am in SW Minnesota and I bet you there are ten times more Trump signs in the area this time around compared to 2016; and our small (2,500 pop.) community voted 70% Trump last time. Last cycle I told some of my crazy liberal friends in Minneapolis that I didn’t know if Trump could win the state but I thought he was within a couple percentage points of pulling it off based on what I was seeing on the ground out here. The laughter and mockery that came my way was noteworthy (as was the reciprocal mockery I gave back when the final tally proved me right.) People in the sane parts of this state have had enough and those fleeing the Minneapolis area to places like ours are telling their stories and further convincing “traditional democrats” that their party has left them in the dust. Trump will win Minnesota as long as the rumored voter fraud antics in the Minneapolis & St. Paul metro doesn’t negate the tidal wave of support outside of the Twin Cities metro.

I’m also mindful that only a small percentage of Nazi party members much less the whole of the German population in the 1930’s and 40’s actually killed Jews, gypsies and the disabled. It is not the size of the group that is of consequence, but its relative impact on doing good or evil in the world that is at the heart of the issue.

I agree with your points. I’m a head election judge in our precinct in a city (in the sane western side of Minnesota) and I observed first hand the cannibalizing of the Democrat’s same-day voting due to absentee / early voting during the primary election a month or so ago. In our primary elections voters can choose which party to vote in but they can only choose candidates in that party’s column (otherwise it spoils their ballot.) The tabulator tape that I run once the polls close provides me with info on all of the same-day results. Now that the county processes all absentee / early voting ballots - those vote totals get added to mine later in the evening which provides a little bit of added info on party affiliation (presumed) of those voting early or absentee. Our early voting & absentee ballots skewed around 30% higher Dem votes while same day vote totals looked like blowouts for the Republicans. The absentee ballots moderated the percentage gap between the sides, but the net numbers still skewed to the Republican side by my assessment. While this is anecdotal evidence being offered, it nevertheless lends credence to your assumptions.

I’m a city administrator in Minnesota and this darned virus has upended my whole week with probably 30 extra hours added to my normal routine. I’ve explained this phenomenon as the “Caring Olympics” where organizations and entities do not want to be the odd man out when it comes to telling people how their organization is monitoring things closely, are focused on the health and safety of their customers and employees and that their thoughts and prayers are with everyone. With even our local gas station sending out such messages, I have no choice but to offer up messages of our own or else risk appearing like “government” is not attentive or concerned to this situation. (Behind the scenes I’ve been working with health care, nursing care and school representatives to monitor things without overreacting or causing undue concern when there are no indications of issues in our region as of yet; so we are indeed attending to things and are rightly focusing our concerns.)

I’m not saying the present situation is not without concern or risk, but the pressure to match everyone else’s knee-jerk reactions is a fascinating psychological phenomenon I find myself in.