The thing that remains horrifying is this: The Harris campaign had the best week ever. The debate was wildly decisive and spawned a thousand memes and soundbites in her favor, and it was immediately followed by a strong Taylor Swift endorsement. And yet the electoral college will remain terrifyingly close.

I know there will be a polling bump, and then it will wash out, and yes, I'm feeling better about Harris's chances than I am otherwise, but it's this old tweet again from 2016:

This election is like if your friends pick dinner and 3 vote pizza and 2 vote "kill and eat you". Even if pizza wins, there's a big problem. -- Andrew Shvarts (@Shvartacus)

(found here; it doesn't appear to be on Twitter anymore.)

Like, I have so much despair over the sheer closeness of this election.

Mossy Character writes: From a totally unrelated post:

I've also seen several people comment about how their message on abortion has changed. It is no secret that Democrats are talking about reproductive rights a lot more in post-Dobbs era. But what I haven't seen anybody talk about - and maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention or I'm consuming the wrong media sources - is a shift in how they're making this argument. There are far fewer stories about 16 year-old girls who don't want to be pregnant because they want to have a career, get an education, or aren't ready for parenthood. Instead, we're hearing stories about married women who really want to have a baby but had a miscarriage or difficult pregnancy and how restrictive reproductive health laws endangered their ability to have future children, take care of their current children, or even threatened their lives (and marriages). That is, the main message is no longer about sexual freedom or personal autonomy. Instead, it has become a pro-family discourse. This strikes me as similar to the shift we saw in the gay rights movement about 15 years ago. When that movement stopped emphasizing sexual freedom and started emphasizing long-term, loving, committed relationships, it suddenly gained a lot more support in the broader society. Likewise, I suspect that recasting the "pro-choice" position on the "abortion issue" as a "pro-family" position on the "reproductive health issue" makes that position more palatable for a significant slice of the population.

Heebie's take: This is spot on. It's like the pro-choice movement is distancing itself from the unpalatability of feminism and making the case that abortion rights need to fit seamlessly into the patriarchal America you know and love.

NickS writes: With two important caveats (1) I am not a gambler and (2) I haven't read Nate Silver's book; I saw two comments about gambling this week which caught my eye. First Adam Savage talking about pool* and hustling.

I played a lot; I played with hustlers. I never hustled but I played with hustlers. I hung out in a hustler zone in New York .. and I bought other books on Hustlers. ... I was fascinated in reading this book about six different Hustlers: a pool Hustler, a tennis Hustler, a backgammon Hustler, a golf Hustler, a darts Hustler and the most surprising thing was that many of these people hustled at multiple things. So how can anyone get that good that they could hustle at both tennis backgammon or Golf and billiards? They're all completely different sports and the answer is it has nothing to do with the mechanics of the game ... When you are a hustler specifically is someone for whom the stakes just don't matter. You could make that game for $1 or a million and they are going to apply the same amount of attention to the game. The stakes don't affect their emotionality; that is all that I think really typifies an excellent Hustler. Which means that they are not trying to beat you at the game, they're trying to set Stakes for the game that have you thinking about the stakes not the game. That's why a golf Hustler will always go double or nothing on that last hole because now you're thinking about the mortgage payment that you're going to be able to make and you're going to choke on your shot.

Second, Dan Davies on betting on horses which concludes:

Which comes back to the point I foreshadowed earlier; this is not an easy or fun way to make money. I tried to take it seriously for a while, a few years ago, keeping records and everything; I concluded that a) it was basically possible to reasonably consistently show a profit, and b) to do so involved more and more tedious work than I was used to from having a full time job in the stock market. My conclusion is that a version of Keynes' famous maxim applies; you cannot actually make money out of horse race gambling unless you are, to say the least, a bit funny about horses.

In both cases they believe in and respect the skills and temperament required to make a living gambling. But they also both talk about it as a somewhat marginal pastime. People become professional gamblers (or hustlers) because that's what they are drawn to, not because it's a particularly attractive career path**. My sense is that both of them would say that there might be value in learning something from the skills of professional gamblers, but that learning a little might be a better decision than learning a lot.

This makes me think that one or both of the following is true: Nate Silver is unusual in the degree to which he personally considers gambling a core part of his identity and/or the massive growth of Silicon Valley and the financial sector over the last few decades has legitimized the appeal of taking big gambles. When David Karpf winces at the first sentence of Silver's final chapter, "Ever since 1776, we risk-takers have been winning." You could be surprised by two things there, his use of "we" and/or the fact that for much of US history quote-unquote risk takers were more likely to be seen as cautionary tales than exemplary winners.

* Youtube has started suggesting Adam Savage videos and they're often quite interesting.

** Though Davies' may be saying that the same temperment can make much more money in the financial sector.

Heebie's take: At first I was going to let the debate thread ride today, but everyone seems bored with it, so I think there's interest in a new post after all. Take it away, gang!

(Like any good mathematician, I absolutely cannot gamble. Drugs and other vices are fine - I'm not a biologist. But pretending not to understand expected value unless I'm willing to dedicate the necessary time and energy to card counting? please.)

aaaaaaaaaugh.

Moby Hicks writes: This can't possibly be true. If it is, I'm an asshole for making fun of the guy. But I believe that many of our current problems stem from the fact that the world is under-consequenced for the well-off and richer. So it's good to be reminded that if all the experts tell you something is dangerous, you should consider that the experts may be right.

Heebie's take: Click through to see if you think Moby's an asshole!

Me personally, I'm getting notes of Herman Cain awards and whiffs of Darwin Awards coming strong off this one.

Politicalfootball writes: A lot of people have been mystified by the behavior of the New York Times in these troubled times. Publisher AG Sulzberger offers an excellent explanation here (gift link).

Sulzberger details efforts to suppress the media in other countries, and discusses how those efforts resemble Trump's rhetoric, actions and plans. Then he explains his view of his role in this context.

As someone who strongly believes in the foundational importance of journalistic independence, I have no interest in wading into politics. I disagree with those who have suggested that the risk Trump poses to the free press is so high that news organizations such as mine should cast aside neutrality and directly oppose his reelection. It is beyond shortsighted to give up journalistic independence out of fear that it might later be taken away. At The Times, we are committed to following the facts and presenting a full, fair and accurate picture of November's election and the candidates and issues shaping it. Our democratic model asks different institutions to play different roles; this is ours.

So while Sulzberger has an opinion about press freedom, this opinion cannot be reflected in the newspaper's news columns. This piece itself was published in the rival Washington Post.

Yes, Sulzberger favors press freedom, but if other people don't, well, they are entitled to their opinion. The Times is preparing to work with an oppressive regime.

At The Times, we already report every day from countries where the safety and freedom of the press are not a given. We are taking active steps to prepare ourselves for a more difficult environment at home, as well ...

Sulzberger emphasizes the importance of "refusing to be baited into opposing or championing any particular side," and offers this quote from a legitimate champion of the international free press:

"No matter how well-intentioned," Joel Simon, the former head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote last month on what he's learned studying attacks on press freedom, "such undertakings can often help populist and authoritarian leaders rally their own supporters against 'entrenched elites' and justify a subsequent crackdown on the media."

Sulzberger doesn't link the source, which is a Vanity Fair piece in which Simon advises us that direct opposition to tyranny results in resistance from tyrants and is therefore best avoided. It is especially important, Simon says, not to be perceived as favoring democracy.

When one party claims the mantle of "democracy," efforts by journalists and media organizations to reaffirm their commitment to democratic principles can be perceived as partisan.

It's easy to mock this sort of thing, and I invite the Unfoggetariat to do so, but I also ask that we offer a tiny bit of sympathy, too. I believe Sulzberger and his ilk are acting out of sincere conviction as we all prepare for the possibility that democracy in this country will go South -- Deep South, Reconstruction South.

We are all thinking about what we need to do to maintain our equilibrium, and few of us are going to be burning shit down -- especially our own shit.

Heebie's take: Two thoughts:

1. I'm confused because it doesn't sound like Sulzberger is responding to the big criticisms that I have, which is that the NYT was a giant asshole about Biden stepping down and put their finger on the scale in a really deliberate and biased way.

If the Vanity Fair piece is saying "Avoid neutrality in order to prevent Trump from being elected!" well, then there's plenty of room to be neutral, and report the facts honestly, and let Trump come off like the incoherent dictator that he genuinely wants to be. What's so hard about this?

It's a tired trope about how "If we only covered American politics the way we cover foreign politics! Look how bad we'd look!" but really. Just cover him in straightforward terms the way you'd cover any other wannabe tyrant, and don't try to shoehorn him into a cutout of a standard American politician.

2. The gift link works, but they make you give them an email address, which is sort of annoying.