O'Sullivan's proposal is an interesting one, but has a fatal flaw: Democrats have never (and will never) take ownership of their own failures. Regardless of what Republicans do, and regardless of what happens, any success will be claimed and any failure will be blamed.

There was a great example of this when the Iraq surge troops were drawing down after their spectacular success. The Democrats had fought tooth-and-nail against the surge troops, instead pushing for immediate withdrawal. Harry Reid, who'd said "The war is lost" was especially vocal about withdrawal. So what happened when we withdrew the surge troops in victory? Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrats claimed credit for the troop withdrawal! It was a breathtaking example of shameless spin.

So, no, if we give the Democrats what they want, we won't even get the Pyrrhic victory! We'll lose, and the country will lose, and the Democrats will finally have their workers' paradise, or something.

I think one main problem with the site, now that Ricochet has grown, is that there are essentially only two pages to the entire website: the main feed and the member feed. Both show the title, date, author, and the first paragraph of every story, taking up almost 20 screen lines each. Which means that "to browse the site" means endlessly scrolling down.

The Site Map, however, has a very concise summary of all the most recent Main Feed posts (conversations), plus some aggregated posts on a variety of topics.

One solution to the "cacophony" problem would be to have a page much like the Site Map, but one that is more of a usable index: Title, Date, and Author of every post, and few values for number of comments and popularity. Have this index be sortable by Date (default), comments, and popularity.

In terms of Popularity, I strongly recommend (as mentioned above) that Ricochet adopt a "Like" (a la Facebook) or "Thumbs Up" (a la YouTube) index for posts (just as there is for comments), so that people can sort on popularity if they choose. Comments should also have the sort-by-popularity option.

Sorry to be late to the party, but I've got two to add:

"Describe how the Tea Party could express opposition to Obama's policies without being accused of racism."

And closely related to #15: "After the 'Tax cuts for the rich' were enacted, did tax revenues from the rich increase or decrease?" (Answer: they increased every time they've been enacted, under Presidents Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush... please see Thomas Sowell's excellent booklet.)

Awesome analysis. You initially threw me off with your use of Intrade values, but then I saw that it was to rank the states, which effectively cancels out the loopiness of the values.

It seems that Intrade is largely using the forecasting skills of MSNBC's core audience, which is why they're predicting a blowout Obama victory. I was unlucky enough to buy my Romney shares at $4.07... at least I'm going to get $5.93 profit per share. But I could have bought them at $3 and change! :-)

The citizens (and indeed the buildings) of Benghazi did not kill our guys.

A 72 hour notice would not cause a 100% evacuation of the city so we'd end up killing not a few children, pregnant mothers, and senior citizens. Of course the real murderers would have split the scene long before the nuke, so the whole exercise would be wasted, with a whole lot of blood on our hands.

We are not a barbaric nation, and we do not deliberately target civilians, we leave that exercise to our enemies.

1. Romney Electoral Votes =337
2. Obama Electoral Votes =201
3. Rep. House Seats =247
4. Dem. House Seats =188
5. Indep. House Seats =0
6. Rep. Senate Seats =51
7. Dem. Senate Seats =48
8. Indep. Senate Seats =1

I recommend that you make "percent change" calculations based only on #1, #3, and #6 (since the other ones are basically mirror images of these values, ignoring independents), comparing our guesses to the actual election results.

For example, I say Romney will get 337, well let's say he gets only 330. That means my "percent change" will be 7/330 or 2.1%. Ricochetti with the lowest sum of percent change wins the vaunted mug.

Romney 330, Obama 208  (simply subtract 5 to 10% from Obama's poll numbers everywhere... Shy Tory effect plus Bradley effect, don't ya know)

Did you hear about the vulture carrying two dead racoons, who was stopped at the airport boarding gate?

The flight attendant said, "Sorry, only one piece of carrion per passenger."

Welcome to Ricochet, Pig Man!

I'm extremely confident in a Romney win, I think he'll get at least 330 Electoral College votes, wining every battleground state and even a few blue ones. And I've put my money where my mouth is, investing a bit of my summer-school income at Intrade:

I live in southeast Pennsylvania, and work in Philly. Let me tell you that this entire place was festooned with Obama yard signs and bumper stickers in '08, but now I see maybe 3 bumper stickers per week, and I commute on the Schuylkill Expressway!

Today, yard signs are heavily outnumbered by Romney signs. It's especially telling when I see a home with a cluster of yard signs for local Democrats (state and local offices), with a glaring lack of an Obama/Biden one.

Does any of this mean anything? No, it's all anecdotal. But the anecdotes are getting compiled into a book that says Romney will win handily. :-)

Now the question is whether Harper could be punished for some sort of homicide if he shot an unarmed man three times before he gave him any warning to back off or refused to back off himself. 

Sorry, Counselor, I stopped reading here. Harper did give warning, telling the guy he had a gun and Fredenberg, drunk, kept advancing. Harper also fired once, and Fredenberg said, "You shot me," and kept advancing.

It's one thing to argue the facts, another entirely to misrepresent the situation so as to portray Harper as homicidal.

The pink stinks. Today, when I see someone wearing pink, I'll comment to my wife it's because it's Breast Cancer Awareness Year.

King Prawn said it best:

With all due respect to Mr. Epstein, who I greatly enjoy reading, I feel his misunderstanding of this case can be traced to the source: The New York Times.

If you read the prosecutor's actual reasoning, with a lot more detail,  eyewitness testimony, and forensic evidence, you'll see that this is clearly a case of self-defense.

I would have shot the guy myself, and I'm glad there are no charges against the homeowner.

Let them spend all they want, it won't help Obama in the privacy of the voting booth. In Southeast Pennsylvania lawn signs are sprouting like spring crocuses. The ones for local Republican pols are frequently accompanied by a Romney/Ryan one, while the signs supporting local Democrats do not seem to have any Obama/Biden company. Very telling.

People have been told for four years that opposition to Obama is the very definition of racism, so I think people are going to keep their mouths shut and vote their conscience. Hardline Democrats will have a big surprise come Election night.

Professor Rahe called it here first.

Yes. (Just tryin' to lighten the mood in this room a bit. :-)

I had the fortune to be present for five of Steve Jobs' keynote addresses at various conferences, and let me tell you, the reality distortion field is real. But I'm thinking this is because he was such a visionary, he could sell an audience on a concept, even if it wasn't entirely realized in the current shipping product. The man was a genius.

After watching (and being frustrated by) presidential "debates" for decades which have been nothing but pre-recorded sound bites delivered in an alternating fashion on one stage, I found last night's debate to be very refreshing.

Lehrer allowed (and encouraged) the candidates to speak to each other and respond to the other's arguments! That never happens in these debates, because they're always so tightly controlled. Lehrer's job wasn't to be in control, it was to be referee, just like in a boxing match. It's a shame he's getting such a drubbing.