prin

But I am obsessed with the Heat. I want them to win so much just to shut up all the haters and people/media that dissect every single little word that Lebron and his teammates utter. I think it is a travesty the way Lebron's been treated. I want the Heat to win! Go HEAT!

I am glad that teacher didn't get charged. The kid was obviously threatening her. I hope she didn't get fired.

Pawlenty would get destroyed by Obama.

My point is that I disagree with your claim that it is extremely difficult to unseat an incumbent president. I realize that the last two have been two-termers, but the circumstances really vary on a case to case basis. Things aren't bad for Obama as they were for Jimmy Carter yet in the eyes of the public, but it definitely won't take a Ronald Reagan; it will, however, take someone with more appeal than Tim Pawlenty. I certainly agree that Obama is on course to secure a second term, but if that happens it has less to do with Obama's popularity and more to do with the weakness of his opponent. However, if the economy does deteriorate to a certain extent (which it is certainly capable of doing), I think EricWeiner is right and even a Pawlenty could beat Obama. And I don't think that Obama's GOTV performance will be as strong this time around, because a lot of the people who bought into his "message" last time feel cheated. In 2008, people were not just voting against Bush (McCain by extension), but also voting for Obama. I think in 2012, you will see more of the "lesser of two evils" mentality. That's usually what it means when his approval ratings are below 50% and he still manages to beat his opponent. When was the last time an incumbent president beaten by a mediocre candidate? Things would have to be going Jimmy Carter bad for that to happen. I highly doubt that will be the case next year. Incumbents are really hard to beat.

Obama doesn't need a Ronald Reagan to defeat him. His handling of the economy has been dismal and seems to be received that way by independent voters. A month ago his approval rating with independents was only 35%. Obviously the Bin Laden stuff has bumped that up, but when people start feeling the effects of inflation they will begin to forget OBL. Obama is definitely beatable, but the Republicans literally have nobody. It would be even easier if the GOP ran somebody with George W. Bush's foreign policy in 2000, because Obama's occupation of Afghanistan is turning off a lot of people. Agreed, but like you said none of the Repubs that can get the nomination can beat him. You're right that inflation can be a huge X factor here. We will have to wait and see what happens with that. My view is this: no high inflation, no double dip and Obama wins against this crop of Repblicans unless they nominate Romney. Also recall that presidential elections are much about your GOTV infrastructure. Obama is strong there.

Huntsman will not get the nomination, but even if he does he's no match for Obama. It's incredibly hard to defeat an incumbent president. You need to be special to be able to achieve that or things need to be going very poorly. An all time great politician like Reagan or Bill Clinton can do it. I only fear Romney, but he won't be getting his party's nomination.

Anibal is an animal. I always knew he was capable of being an ace, but he just needed to recover from the surgery enough to regain his control. Dude has 4 pitches he can throw for strikes. And all of them are above average. That's legit.

It's funny that Stanton doesn't sign autographs, and he's "all business." If that was Hanley, he'd be an "asshole." (not a knock on you GFMGM, it's just how they're viewed) You took the words right out of my mouth. Thinking the exact same thing.

I don't see anyone among the GOP hopefuls that could be president from a gut perspective other than Romney, who will not get the nomination. As an Obama supporter, I only fear Romney (and maybe Huck).

There are always people with crazy views and that includes athletes. Think about how something like 30% of Republicans STILL think Obama wasn't born in the U.S. Or all of the truthers that think 9-11 was an inside job. And now the deathers... who don't believe Osama Bin Laden is dead. Craziness.

Haha. Hilarious!

On a more serious note, Obama is going to benefit huge politically because of this. I bet his approval rating goes over 60% in the next week. What makes it so redeeming is that he appears to have gone down in a rage of gunfire instead of something anti-climatic like kidney failure. Absolutely.

JJ has given up 13 hits in 34 innings Phenomenal.

nice job anibal! i know it's still early, but i'm getting the feeling that this will be a special season. i felt this way in 2003 and 2006. i know in 2006 we had a losing record, but it was nonetheless a special season in my eyes, with the kids overcoming an 11-31 start and having a heck of a fun and entertaining season.

Nice. I am looking forward to the 7,000-square foot restaurant that will be open year round.

And you forgot his quotes on why we should stay in Iraq and get involved in Libya: "we need to take the oil."

I don't know that anyone on this site has ever seen their data set, so who really knows.

I post under the screenname prinmemito and I've been trying to recover my password forever now, with no success. So, I got a new screenname. So, anyway, here's my take. I am very very comfortable with statistics and I think it is very useful. However, the conclusions that statistics give you are only as good as how you framed the questions in the first place and your assumptions. In addition, I think people often over rely on statistics and fail to see obvious flaws in the conclusions. Without seeing the exact results I have no idea how meaningful these results are. Did the regression explain 50% of the variation in runs scored, 75%, or 90%? There's a big difference between 50% and 90%. Were all of the results statistically significant? If so, how significant? In addition, if p