Reasons for a beer today

It's the Winter Solstice today. The hours of daylight now begin to increase.

And ...

There are less than 30 days until George Bush leaves the White House.

Two reasons for a beer!

Engagement is NOT appeasement.

"Engagement is not appeasement. Diplomacy is not retreat."

So said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Speaking at the Johns Hopkins School of AdvancedInternational Studies, he continued:

There is always going to be a certain know-nothing element to democracy. That is their choice. But in a world that is so vitally interconnected, it does help if you try to understand the other side.

More here.

Talking to your enemies: a strategy to consider as the world is about to confront a nuclear Iran. Anything would be better than the current US government's actual strengthening of Iran.

Veterans' Day

Thank a veteran today .. and honor the memories of all before ... and work for the improvement of all veterans' health care now.

VeteransForAmerica.org

Tickets to the Inauguration

A disgusting but expected thing: scammers and scalpers may already be wreaking their mischief on the Inauguration.

The public should also be aware that no website or other ticket outlet actually has inaugural swearing-in tickets to sell, regardless of what they may claim.

Tickets can only be attained from your US Senator or Congressman.

The tickets are free; they will not be distributed to Congressional offices until the week before the inauguration; they will require in-person pick-up.

Tickets to the 56th Inaugural Ceremonies will be provided free of charge and distributed through Members of the 111th Congress. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies does not provide tickets to the public. Members of the public interested in attending the Inaugural Ceremonies should contact their Member of Congress or U.S. Senators to request tickets.

How to Get Inauguration Tickets
DCist.com
6 November, 2008

Watching history

I Twitter-ed watching the election results. [Twitter may have been overwhelmed; some of my posts appeared out of the order in which I had texted them. So I've reordered them in the order I actually had sent them. Typos abound: forgive my thumbs.]

Time to open the Lagavulin now
11:41 PM

I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE THE DAY
11:02 PM

NBC calls Pennsylvania for Obama. Obama now at 103 to 34 for McCain.
10:49 PM

Enjoying a Small Craft Warning Uber Pils watching --hopefully-- the arrival of a storm of change. Come on, Virginia.
10:45 PM

NBC JUST has called Virginia for Obama!
10:57 PM

Obama starting to pull ahead in Va: 1,538,629 to McCain's 1,481,403. 51-49%. I sooo want my state to be the one for "that one".
10:48 PM

Inn Virginia. As of 10 PM, 50%-49% Obama over McCain. 13,000 vote difference with 83% of precincts reported.
10:14 PM

Twitter VERY slow tonight ... but holding up.
10:03 PM

Go Virginia! By 10 AM 50% of all registerd voters -including absentee- had voted.
10 PM

Obama goes ahead for first time this evening. At 9:54 its 1,312,072 to McCain's 1,299,987 with 80% 0recincts reporting.
9:50 PM

NBC says Ohio goes to Obama.
9:25 PM

Most Hillary supporters in Pennsylvania voted for Obama. Yes maam!
8:11 PM

retweet @PostVoteMonitor Obama's Dead Grandmother's Vote Still Counts: http://twurl.nl/knx7se
7:33 PM

Related posts:

• PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
• My Vote

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

I never thought I would see the day.

There are red states; there are blue states.

But there is only one UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

• Voting
• [UPDATE: Watching History]

My vote

Coffee brewed and getting ready to leave for polls. Chair, book, coat, umbrella. And photo ID.
-- 5 AM

Taking my 82 year young mother who had her hair done yesterday so she'd look good for Obama.
-- 7 AM

One hour and 20 minute wait at Poll. [So said an exiting voter.]
-- 7:10 AM

A through K line is maybe 5x the size of the L through Z line. Why dont they subdivide the line? Falls Church VA.
-- 8 AM

Done! Voted! Brief hiccup with optical scanner machine. OK now. Hour and 10 minute wait. Fairfax, VA
8:30 AM

I blogged in real time on Twitter.

Exit Exit Polls, stage left

Thanks to Nate Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com I've learned much about polling data and technique in the last 5 months. Aggregating and analyzing most major polling data, Mr. Silver has had a better predictive track record in the primaries —and so far in the campaign— than any one major polling service, network, or print news organization.

And he's a sports statistician by trade!

Mr. Silver had this to say today about exit polls, and why we should ignore them, and backed up his position with 9 arguments.

an exit poll is not a definitive record of what happened at the polling place; it is at best a random sampling.

His 10th point was a plea for sanity patience:

You'll know the actual results soon enough anyway.

Here's his prediction for the election:

Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana. These states total 353 electoral votes. Our official projection, which looks at these outcomes probabilistically -- for instance, assigns North Carolina's 15 electoral votes to Obama 59 percent of the time -- comes up with an incrementally more conservative projection of 348.6 electoral votes.

We also project Obama to win the popular vote by 6.1 points; his lead is slightly larger than that in the polls now, but our model accounts for the fact that candidates with large leads in the polls typically underperform their numbers by a small margin on Election Day.

What you need - to vote in Virginia

Here is a guidebook in a pdf file listing the requirements for voting in person in Virginia.

Go to http://maps.google.com/vote to see where your voting polls are located.

Redskins lose, Obama wins?

As it turns out, the Washington Redskins football team have been a very accurate predictor of US presidential elections.

Whenever the Redskins lose their last home game played before a national election the party in power loses. And, vice versa, if the Redskins win, the challenging party wins.

This prognosticating record began in 1936, when the team was still the Boston Redskins. From Snopes.com:

On 1 November 1936 the Boston Redskins downed the Chicago Cardinals at Fenway Park, 13-10, predicting a win for the incumbent Democrats. Two days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election over Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas.

I am a Redskins fan. They play the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight, at home at FedEx Field. It should be a Hobson's Choice for me. Either the 'Skins lose or Obama loses.

But not to worry. Recent history has refuted this football augur. Again from Snopes.com:

Reality finally trumped coincidence in 2004: Despite the Green Bay Packers' 28-14 defeat of the Redskins at the latter's home field on 31 October, presaging a victory for Democratic challenger John Kerry in upcoming the presidential election, two days later incumbent President George W. Bush was re-elected, breaking the Redskins' predictive pattern.

Go Redskins!

[UPDATE 2008.11.03: The Washington Redskins lose to Pittsburgh Steelers 23-6. So, there's a 97% chance that Republicans and John McCain will lose the presidential election.]