jerseyhoya wrote:Unless your whole goal in running is to become a celebrity and not actually try and win an election.

B-I-N-G-O. No doubt Fox already has a gig lined up for her after the election.

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/10/04/libertarian_fire_department

This is really interesting on a bunch of different levels. I don't know how I feel about it.

Aside from the moral issues raised, there's at least two problems with libertarian fire protection--first, the fact that fires spread. Now this is obviously a more severe problem in an urban area (for example, see the Move fire in West Philly in 1985) but it could easily be a problem anywhere. Secondly, I would imagine fewer than half the people of a town pay the volunteer fire membership. This means that the fire company is not as well equipped, trained, etc. as it would be if it were supported in the normal way.

I also wonder how this arrangement affects property insurance rates. It is certainly the case that your rates in part depend on the rating the fire fighting force has.

This set up makes the free rider problem worse, not better. Everyone benefits from having some fire protection in town, but no one individual is likely to have a serious house fire. (Bucky, what are the odds?) So, really, it makes sense for no one to pay. If you doubt me, then why aren't there private fire fighting companies--there are of course private security companies.

jerseyhoya wrote:As far as hail mary spots go I think it has a few things going for it. Blumenthal has high favorability ratings and this attacks his credibility. It's factually accurate, which is important for newspaper coverage and Blumenthal's response. And it is kind of incendiary, which is what you have to do down ten points with a month to go.

oh, yea, of course, forgot, it's the horse race not the horse shit that matters

It's a campaign ad. Its job is to move poll numbers. Campaign ads are all about the horse race. Why would you forget that?

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/10/04/libertarian_fire_department

This is really interesting on a bunch of different levels. I don't know how I feel about it.

Aside from the moral issues raised, there's at least two problems with libertarian fire protection--first, the fact that fires spread. Now this is obviously a more severe problem in an urban area (for example, see the Move fire in West Philly in 1985) but it could easily be a problem anywhere. Secondly, I would imagine fewer than half the people of a town pay the volunteer fire membership. This means that the fire company is not as well equipped, trained, etc. as it would be if it were supported in the normal way.

I also wonder how this arrangement affects property insurance rates. It is certainly the case that your rates in part depend on the rating the fire fighting force has.

This set up makes the free rider problem worse, not better. Everyone benefits from having some fire protection in town, but no one individual is likely to have a serious house fire. (Bucky, what are the odds?) So, really, it makes sense for no one to pay. If you doubt me, then why aren't there private fire fighting companies--there are of course private security companies.

Hmmmm. Lots to think about here.

First off, make sure you make the distinction between volunteer and career departments. This was a career department here. I have never heard of any volunteer company with a subscription based model.

This seems like a case of a municipality hiring out their protection services much like trash collection. This county had an agreement with a neighboring city-you provide protection, but only from those households who pay. It's not uncommon-there are several municipalities in Montgomery County who pay the PA state police to provide law enforcement, for example. This is just a little different because of the subscription requirement.

And yes, fire companies do receive ISO ratings based on their equipment and certifications. That factors into the insurance cost, as does distance from water supply and a number of other factors. HOWEVER, I've been told that the fire insurance portion of a homeowners premium is only about 10% of the total policy cost, so it's not a lot of money we're talking about here.

As to the odds for a "serious" house fire, I'd have to say much greater without a fire company response. It's probably a 10 to 1 ratio of "structure fire calls" that are actually just a smell vs. something burning. There's no real way of knowing, but I can guess a good number of "smells" calls would result in serious fires if the problem is not remediated (smoldering wires, dryer lint, etc.). And then there's the indoor trash fires and room-and-content fires where the damage is held in check. I'd have to say your chances for a "serious" fire go up ten-fold without some kind of intervention. Now if you're a builder, electrician, or other savvy person, you can possibly do what the fire company does in this situation- identify and isolate the issue. But maybe we're already at that critical mass where people who can do that on their own actually do it- the overwhelming number of these types of responses are to residents who have no real clue what's going on. So I'll keep the risk at ten-fold.

As far as converting that to odds, that's even less precise, projecting a guess out further. We have about 4000 home in our first-due response area. Of that, I'd say we go to 20 calls per year where we remediate a potentially serious situation, while we have 1 or 2 "serious" fires. So quick math gives a .0005 percent chance of a serious fire with immediate FC response; that "jumps" to .005 percent without a response. BIG DISCLAIMER: these are numbers from a fairly high per-capita-income municipality, where fires trend much lower than poorer areas. I can't readily find any NFPA data to corroborate this, but a google search puts the odds at having a house fire to .08 percent nationwide. Adding my 10x factor to that jumps it to .8% without a fire protection response. I'd call that pretty significant, but I really have no way of validating those numbers at this point.

Finally, there are lots of for-profit fire companies out there. Check out Rural Metro, who is the biggest and most well-known. They contract out to municipalities and (anectdotally) have lots of subscription-based customers.

This all harkens back to the days when insurance companies provided fire protection. Lots of fire brigades stood and watched buildings burn down because they didn't have the right fire mark....

hahahaha

http://gawker.com/5656514/leaked-emails-sarah-palin-doesnt-give-out-endorsements-for-nothing

She and her husband are both so trashy.

I think I would bet money on her running in 2012. She's arrogant enough to believe that she would win.

Ok, that was a little misleading I think--the headline led me to believe they were selling endorsements for cash, which is bad form. However, giving an endorsement and expecting the recipient of the endorsement to say nice things seems to me to be a pretty reasonable expectation.

I was really laughing at the whole "Sarah spent an entire morning writing a facebook post in support of you" line.

I stumbled into it, but I'm enjoying Parker-Spitzer on CNN. Eliot was obviously restraining himself, but any non-fundamentalist could have noted how he just took Dick Armey to task. Actually, it was quite embarrassing b/c I don't think Armey had any idea: 1)what the CDC was, 2)the % of the budget that constitutes defense spending, or 3)how he was selling out his principles when pressed to name budget cuts. Yea, cutting the National Endowment for the Arts is going to make a huge difference. Then the notion that you can keep SS with a COLA based on the CPI while allowing people to opt out is madness.

jerseyhoya wrote:It's a campaign ad. Its job is to move poll numbers. Campaign ads are all about the horse race. Why would you forget that?

So if I understand you correctly, they're not about saying anything of value to any voter about either the candidate or the candidate's opponent. Just so we're clear.

Sestak's new ad against Toomey seems pretty good.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It's a campaign ad. Its job is to move poll numbers. Campaign ads are all about the horse race. Why would you forget that?

So if I understand you correctly, they're not about saying anything of value to any voter about either the candidate or the candidate's opponent. Just so we're clear.

Ads that have no relevance about either candidate tend to have less impact on the horse race aspect of things.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It's a campaign ad. Its job is to move poll numbers. Campaign ads are all about the horse race. Why would you forget that?

So if I understand you correctly, they're not about saying anything of value to any voter about either the candidate or the candidate's opponent. Just so we're clear.

Ads that have no relevance about either candidate tend to have less impact on the horse race aspect of things.

I'm guessing you're just giddy about the Grayson ads

I think my position on Grayson's ads has been made pretty clear in this thread.

Fairleigh Dickinson releases new U.S. Senate race poll for Delaware with Coons +17 (53-36). Who knows? They just might be bitter that she stiffed them for tuition for 17 years.

SQUIRE

I would like to meet an undecided person and slap them in the face

kopphanatic wrote:She and her husband are both so trashy.

I think I would bet money on her running in 2012. She's arrogant enough to believe that she would win.

Todd always struck me as being as slimy as Sarah is stupid. If Palin does run in 2012 maybe she could get O'Donnell to be her running mate.

traderdave wrote:

kopphanatic wrote:She and her husband are both so trashy.

I think I would bet money on her running in 2012. She's arrogant enough to believe that she would win.

Todd always struck me as being as slimy as Sarah is stupid. If Palin does run in 2012 maybe she could get O'Donnell to be her running mate.

this is what i'm hoping happens. then president comacho comes in and shoots everyone up and takes over the world.

jerseyhoya wrote:I think my position on Grayson's ads has been made pretty clear in this thread.

I think you've not been as clear as you think you've been if you think you've been drawing clear, rational, meaningful distinctions among these bits of "poli porn" from both sides