Last Call

Politico's Ken Vogel picked a fight with the wrong guy...Nate Silver.

Polling guru Nate Silver and Politico investigative reporter Ken Vogel lobbed angry messages at each other Friday on Twitter over, of all things, whether to call something a “clarification” or a “correction.”

At issue was an article Silver had written for the New York Times about GOP strategist Karl Rove’s new Conservative Victory Project, which was formed to back electable Republican candidates in order to win back a majority in the Senate.

After the article was published, Silver updated the piece and appended a clarification to the end explaining the change. Vogel thought that note should have been labled a “correction” instead, and he took to Twitter to complain. Silver fired back, and the battle was on.

“At this point you’re just being a troll and misleading your Twitter followers about what I wrote,” Silver wrote to Vogel. “Grow up.”

“I’m happy to have a debate about this in any forum you chose, but please try to stick to the merits & avoid name calling,” Vogel responded.

This isn’t the first time Silver has sparred with someone at Politico. In late November, he said the news outlet covers politics like sports but “not in an intelligent way at all.” Politico media reporter Dylan Byers also wrote critically of Silver ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

Responding to the spat, Silver told TPM in an email on Friday: “I’ve been pretty jetlagged and had forgotten that the first rule of the Internet is ‘don’t feed the trolls.’ Was a mistake for me to get involved on Twitter.”

True, but it's fun to beat up WIN THE MORNING.  Hell, I do it whenever possible, but picking a nerd fight with the High King of all Political Wonks?  Bad idea, Vogel.

Read the play-by-play after the jump:

Super Powers Not Included

A meteor went screaming over the Ural Mountains near the Russian border with Kazakhstan early this morning, leaving behind hundreds injured from the impact wave as it detonated over the city of Chelyabinsk. 

People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt the shock wave, according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.

The fireball, travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second according to Russian space agency Roscosmos, had blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail that could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away.

Car alarms went off, thousands of windows shattered and mobile phone networks were disrupted. The Interior Ministry said the meteor explosion, a very rare spectacle, also unleashed a sonic boom.

"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it were day," said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.

"I felt like I was blinded by headlights."

The meteor, which weighed about 10 tons and may have been made of iron, entered Earth's atmosphere and broke apart 30-50 km (19-31 miles) above ground, according to Russia's Academy of Sciences.

No deaths were reported but the Emergencies Ministry said 20,000 rescue and clean-up workers were sent to the region after President Vladimir Putin told Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov to ease the disruption and help the victims.

The Interior Ministry said about 1,200 people had been injured, at least 200 of them children, and most from shards of glass.

Meanwhile, we dodged an even larger rock this afternoon as asteroid 2012 DA14 missed the Earth by 17,500 miles...considerably less than the circumference of the planet we're on.

It's raining things, man.  Things.

[UPDATE]  Heh.

Four Versus Thousands

John Hinderaker at Power Line is outraged, OUTRAGED I TELL YOU that President Obama did nothing to stop the BENGHAZI MASSACRE DEBACLE and HAS HE NO SHAME?

The White House admitted today that President Obama made no phone calls–none, zero–on the evening of September 11, 2012, during the seven or eight hours when Americans were being murdered in Benghazi. He didn’t talk to Leon Panetta, or any military personnel, or Hillary Clinton. What was he doing that night? We may never know; perhaps writing the speech that he gave at a campaign event the next day in Las Vegas.

Information on Benghazi has to be pried out of the administration with a crowbar; Lindsay Graham got the White House to identify the calls that Obama made that night–none–by holding up Chuck Hagel’s confirmation. Graham says he will put a hold on John Brennan, too, until he gets more facts on Benghazi from the stonewalling White House. Good for him.

The administration’s quiescence in the face of the terrorist attack in Benghazi has always seemed inexplicable. Why didn’t anyone try to help the besieged Americans over the course of that long night? Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey testified on Benghazi before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, but their account made no sense. They said that no help was dispatched to try to save the Americans because 1) the State Department never requested it, and 2) there wasn’t enough time. But there was plenty of time, seven or eight hours before the last two Americans were finally overcome.

Hey Johnny?  I've got seven words for you.

"Bin Laden determined to Strike in US".

You see, when the previous President went AWOL, thousands of US civilians died and we got stuck in two decade-plus long wars where hundreds of thousands more died.   The current President is the one who cleaned up that particular Bin Laden mess and is still cleaning up after it.

And you bring up four guys after that happened?  You're not even worth the time to mock, man.  Go away.  Shoo.

StupidiNews!

• The body pulled from a burned cabin near Big Bear Lake in California has been confirmed as fugitive former LAPD cop Chris Dorner.
• Senate Democrats have unveiled a plan to avoid steep sequestration cuts, the plan includes the "Buffett Rule" to raise revenue to avert the cuts.
• Red state governors in Atlantic coastal states say Interior Secretary nominee Sally Jewell needs to allow offshore drilling as soon as possible if confirmed.
• A 1982 drawing by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was the biggest prize at a London contemporary art auction this week, fetching nearly $20 million.
• Oakland, California residents are up in arms over the Alameda County Sheriff's Department being the first agency in the state to propose using domestic surveillance drones.