A terrorist attack might save McCain.  Beyond that, I just don't see it, honestly.

He's getting slaughtered -- literally by double digits -- in every Kerry state.  One good example: He's losing Michigan by 16 in the last Rasmussen poll (a poll that tends to have a Republican lean).  That was supposed to be his big pick-off state, but he had to tuck his tail between his legs and pull out.

He's trying to play in Pennsylvania, but he's losing by 12-15 points.

Trying to hold Virginia, but losing by 8-12 points.  Trying to hold North Carolina, but losing by 2-6 points (prior to the Wachovia collapse).

He's losing Georgia by double digits in the early voting, because black folks have come roaring into the polling stations at 38% of the electorate.  They're literally lined up for hours in Atlanta.  Obama's even making inroads with ATL's notoriously right-wing suburbs (Bob Barr-Newt Gingrich Country).

Losing Colorado by 10 according to yesterday's PPP poll.  Now, for the record, I'm reluctant to immediately take that result from them as they don't really have a history of polling in the Mountain West (they're great in the Midwest and the least-bad in the South though).  But I have no reason to really doubt it beyond perhaps a slight overstatement of Obama's support (feels like a solid 6- to 8-point lead to me).

Every poll has Obama up in Florida and consistently hitting 50-51%, with margins ranging from small to impressive.  That should never have happened.  How, in an election breaking on age all year, is McCain losing the oldest state in the Union to a black guy with a name that probably strikes most Americans as being "Islamic"?

West Virginia seems to be steadily closing for Obama, even if we throw out the laughable ARG poll that had him ahead.  West Virginia?!  The state with the ex-Klansman for a senator?!

Everybody but Rasmussen has Obama up in Ohio.  Missouri's now a toss-up, but it's probably lean Obama given the wide gap on the ground games.

A new poll out today from Minnesota State University has Obama taking the lead in North Dakota for what I think is the first time ever.  I generally don't trust university polling, and McCain is probably still ahead, but the fact that ND is even close tells you how much trouble McCain is in.

Iowa's gone.  New Mexico's probably gone.  The Kerry states are probably gone.  Virginia's dangerously close to gone.  North Carolina will be gone if the trends keep up for another week or two.

It will take a lot for McCain to get out of the hole.  He's in deep.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

Or maybe Missouri's not a toss-up anymore.  SurveyUSA:

Obama 51
McCain 43

Throw another 11 points on the pile for now.  That gets Obama to 364.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

McCain's biggest problem always been McCain. He has no message beyond 'I'm a hero' - which seems to be a lie anyway - and 'Give it to me.'

Otherwise he's just a random guy in a suit with a combover. He's a salesman with a fine line in bullshit but no product to sell.

Palin is already hating on McCain for losing her the presidency (sic). She will never forgive him for this - it couldn't her fault, clearly - so expect reports of 'tensions' if not outright civil war from the McCain camp in the next few weeks.

The wheels are off, the damage is done. It's over.

Only a big dramatic event - an assasination, a dead city - might have a hope of bringing it back to McCain.

Even then the odds would only be 50:50, because I think there might be some serious unpleasantness if something like that happened now.

Besides, Bush and Cheney are more than happy to throw McCain overboard. They've made their money and had their fun, and I don't think they're interested in what happens next.

The Reps are in open rebellion behind the scenes.  They're furious with McCain, because he's now dragging down their congressional and senatorial candidates.  The polls put out by the tradmed seem to be returning to the old status of being 3-4 points better for Obama than the trackers (the one exception being Kos's poll which lines up with the tradmed polls).  The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  Meaning 7 or 8 points feels like the state of the race in LV models.  Among registered voters, it's more like 9 or 10.

The press has brutalized McCain for weeks.  I don't know what sparked it initially (Palin, lying, economic incompetence, wacky stunts, take your pick), but they're pissed, especially at the racialized hatefests that McCain-Palin rallies have become.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

I'm honestly not convinced Huckabee wants to run again.  I think he had a good time, especially once he knew he was going to lose.  Now he's a commentator and making some good money.  I think he may be happy with that.

Huckabee can't play outside of rural areas.  It's not just the South.  But a grip on the rural areas is powerful within the GOP.

Palin is going to get part of the blame for McCain's loss if Obama wins.  She's going to be ridiculed by the competition.  And she's not likely to handle it well.  As you know, she's kind of an idiot.  She came off as doing pretty well in the Veep debate, but that was only because she had index cards to read from.  Take the index cards away, and what have you got?  My guess is you're back to Palin the Idiot in that case.

A lot will depend on the state of the country.  If the economy turns around by 2012 (and I think it will by then, although 2010 midterms could be a little rough) -- again, assuming for simplicity's sake that Obama wins -- it'll probably be an election much like 1984 -- meaning the Reps will run some "electable" loser whose "turn" has arrived, and who'll get his ass kicked in every critical state.

A win for Obama also means he has four years to keep building his ground game for the general instead of just 6-11 months like he had this year.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

By 2012 the only people left registered as republican will be the base

That might be < 5%. The other >95% will be registered independent/unaffiliated, of which some portion will express a preference to opinion pollsters for Palin or proto-Palin or other "maverick"/transmorgifying candidate/progressive.

Are you suggesting
1.The Democratic Party will rule forever?

2. Americans will always wear their hearts on their sleeves?
   
3. Sophisticated COINTEL surveillance technologies will obviate professional opinion surveys?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Huckabee/Palin'12: Back to the middle ages!

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith

Having looked a bit more at windpower in Sweden, there is something which might be more interesting than the o2 co-op coming up.

It's a company called Arise Windpower.

It's not a co-op but an ordinary for profit company which makes me feel a bit more comfortable, it being easier to understand and having no limit on how much you can invest (in o2 you can only invest enough to cover your household consumption). Further, o2 and the related companies are led by entrepeneurs from the IT boom, while Arise is led be experienced industrialists from utilities and heavy industry.

Arise is still privately held but will be floated on the stock market next year. They are planning to invest about 1.1 billion euros to annualy produce something like 2 TWh of windpower (200 turbines at 2-3 MW each) in a number of different fully owned subsidiary companies, onshore on forest land. They do it in this way to ease financing so I guess we are talking wind power project finance, exactly the kind of stuff Jerome does for a living.

The first 12 turbines are already under construction and another 30 are in the detailed planning phase.

:: ::

The somewhat worrying thing is that they put the the turnkey cost for turbines at 15 million kronor per MW, about 1.5 million euros.

If we compare this with nuclear energy and generously believe the nukes will just have three times as high capacity factors that gives us a cost of 7.2 billion euros for 1600 MW nuclear equivalent, the size of the new reactor in Finland. That reactor was originally supposed to cost 3 billion euros, but even with the massive cost overruns it's still a third cheaper than wind power (even if this ignore that O&M&fuel costs might be a bit higher for nuclear than for wind).

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Yes, but the F-35 program is in rather deep shit so the Brits are talking about getting modified Eurofighters for the carriers instead.

In my opinion the most reasonable solution for the Brits would be to choose Rafales for the carriers as there is already a carrier version of Rafale.

But Rafale, the indignity! ;-D

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Probably {depressed sigh}

keep to the Fen Causeway

I propose we dedicate our 'cool stuff' money to stuff that isn't made to kill with. Something useful would be a bonus.