Thursday Open Thread

Filed in National by on May 6, 2010

It’s that time again, the time when we open a thread for you to play. Play away, but remember, play nice!

With all the natural disasters unfolding right now, I don’t know how much you’ve been following the flooding in Nashville. It’s very, very severe. Landmarks like the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame have been flooded. Below is a video showing a house floating down the highway. It’s I-24, and it’s a section of road that I’ve driven many, many times. Horrific.

You know one of the strangest parts? It’s being reported that piranhas have escaped from tanks in a restaurant at the Opry Mills Mall (also a place I’ve visited many times). It’s just what they need around there – piranhas.

Politico reports on a poll done by a Republican polling organization showing Republicans are in trouble with their messaging:

Republican voters want Congress to repeal the healthcare overhaul, aren’t convinced that climate change is happening, and don’t think illegal immigrants should have a way to become citizens or that President Barack Obama has improved the United States’ global standing – all stances that put them at odds with the majority of voters, according to a new survey by Resurgent Republic.

Resurgent Republic, a 501(c)4 non-profit founded by GOP operative Ed Gillespie, provides polling and research intended to assist conservatives and Republicans. Though no consensus emerged among its panel members, some suggested messaging solutions included calling for “amending” – rather than “repealing” – the healthcare overhaul, talking about “legalization” rather than “amnesty” in any discussion about providing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, and not denying that climate change is taking place.

On each issue, the contrast between views of Republicans and independents was striking. For instance, the Resurgent Republic poll of 1,000 likely voters found that only 35 percent of respondents agreed with the approach of the GOP members of Congress who sounded the call to “repeal and replace” the health care reform legislation passed in March. Among respondents who identified themselves as Republicans, however, support for a repeal-and-replace strategy was 67 percent, compared to 36 percent among independent respondents.

Republicans continue to be held hostage by their base. We’ll have to see how this plays out in November. I think the election results are going to depend highly on how the economy is doing.

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

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  1. 1922 $20 ST. GAUDENS GOLD PCGS MS63-SHARP COIN-N.R. | Coin Talk | May 6, 2010
  1. anon says:

    Governor Markell makes his acting debut on the stage of the DuPont Theatre tonight. He’s making a guest appearance in the musical ‘Xanadu,’ which is a roller-skating musical parody set in 1980. So, will the governor be on roller skates? “

  2. This story is so nutty, it’s hard to describe. A birther group tried to make a citizens’ arrest of a Grand Jury foreman for not calling a Grand Jury on Obama’s legitimacy. The birther was arrested. Another birther tried to go free the arrested birther armed with an AK-47. Bizarre story.

  3. a.price says:

    but they arent violent extremists They are just Patriots with legitimate questions and at the same time defending their right to kill people…. er um.. own guns

  4. Very good article in the NYT about the use of dispersants on the oil spill:

    Even in the best cases, dispersants are applied in what might be termed a lose-lose strategy. Scientists make the calculation that it is better to have the ocean filled with low concentrations of the dispersant chemicals — which are in themselves mild to moderate poisons — than to have dense oil on the surface or washing up onshore, places where it is most likely to harm wildlife.

    Dispersants make sure the oil stays in the water, rather than wash up on land. But what we’re really going to get is both – a lot in the water and a lot on the land.

    Dispersants do not remove the oil from the ocean but instead bind with it and cause oil slicks to break up into tiny droplets that sink and can be “dispersed” by the current. They are particularly effective in treating spills in deep water and far from land, where the current can spread the particles over a large range, diluting their dangerous effects.

    “You’re basically taking the oil and transferring it to other compartments where it won’t do so much damage,” said Mr. Kirby, a team leader at Cefas Lowestoft Laboratory in Britain.

    Most dispersants, he said, are a mixture of four to six chemicals that in tandem cause the oil to break up. Roughly 20-odd dispersant products exist, he said, and while they have generally similar types of components, they “have proprietary recipes like Coca-Cola.”

    When used out at sea, the products create a toxic plume in the immediate area that might be dangerous for marine life there, scientists agree, but they are diluted rather quickly by currents.

  5. SRC says:

    Germaine (?) to the original thread: Independents, who actually decide elections, are not figured in.

  6. AQC says:

    the Dow dropped 870 points

  7. The Dow’s now only down 480 points. The Greek crisis is heating up quite a bit.

  8. Jason330 says:

    Greek crisis yes. But the markets are absorbing the fact that the gulf states are suddenly into socialism.

  9. Jason330 says:

    If I were a building I’d be trying like hell to get out of Tennessee too.

  10. jason330 says:

    Tom Carper votes with Republicans to kill Ted Kaufman’s “Too Big to Fail” amendment. Shocking!! In his statement Carper said, “I don’t work for Delawareans and the American people I work for the banks. If Delawareans want my vote they can show me the money. Until then they can piss off.”