Well, this is it. Just the 64 million of us (my guess for today's election turnout). I haven't voted yet—one of the benefits of a home office in a big city is that I can vote after the morning rush—but I've got my sample ballot all ready to go.
Polls actually opened almost 8 hours ago in Dixville Notch, N.H., where, for the first time in my life, the Democratic candidate won 15-6.
More updates throughout the day. Bottom line: the next 15 hours, until polls close in California, will not be the most professionally productive of my life.
Go Bama!
Great comic this morning from Garry Trudeau:
Now if I can only get "One More Day" out of my head, I'll have better luck concentrating on my first day of a new project.
Atlantic reporter James Fallows blogged this morning that McCain appearing on Saturday Night Live means, unmistakably, that he's given up:
[I]f McCain really thought he had a chance of catching up, he wouldn't have wasted time on an audience that might repair his reputation among liberals and journalists but does him no good with the crucial swing votes. And if he thought he were secretly ahead, he wouldn't comport himself this way. He would be more like the stiff character we saw in the debates.
Polls open in 35 hours.
I just read a fascinating story in The Economist that would have probably gotten more attention in the U.S. but for our recent distractions. It seems Porsche made possibly €12 billion on the Deutsche Bourse by cornering the market in Volkswagen shares:
Porsche’s gambit was as old as finance itself. For about three years it had been steadily increasing its stake in VW, a much larger yet less profitable carmaker with which it shares a little production. Its buying had driven up the price of VW’s shares to above the level at which it would make any economic sense for Porsche to buy VW. Seeing this, hedge funds sold shares in VW that they did not own. One strategy was a bet that VW’s share price would fall. Some also bought shares in Porsche, in a wager that shares of both would converge.
...
[O]n October 26th it executed a handbrake turn, saying that it owned nearly 43% of VW’s shares outright and had derivative contracts on nearly 32% more. That meant it had tied up almost all of the freely available shares (the rest are held by the state government and index funds). Hedge funds quickly did the maths, concluding that they could be caught in an “infinite squeeze” in which they were forced to buy shares at any price.
Huh. Sucks to own a hedge fund right now.
First, if you know anything about Chicago, you'll understand why I nearly passed out to see this week's Economist in my mailbox this week. Since I moved into this neighborhood I think I've gotten it once on Saturday, and the rest of the time on Monday or Tuesday. So, wow.
Second, even more stunning if you know anything about the the Economist: they've endorsed Obama for President:
The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
Third, not a stunner at all, I had a good flight this morning, from which I'll post a Google Earth track tomorrow morning.
Finally, friend-of-a-friend Jerry Fields has a new website as "a truth oasis in these truth-thirsty political times."
Polls open in 3 days, 8 hours, and 12 minutes...
After the Chicago Tribune's endorsement of a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in history, the New York Times following suit surprises no one, but it's still welcome:
As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
...
Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”
This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.
The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.
Polls open in a little more than 8 days and 15 hours.
...the FDIC moves into your neighborhood (via Calculated Risk):
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plans soon to sign a major lease of office space in Orange County, probably in Irvine, where as many as 600 people would liquidate the assets of troubled banks and thrifts based in California and other Western states.
The agency needs 200,000 square feet of space and has looked at locations across Southern California, FDIC spokesman David Barr said.
"It's a temporary office—three to five years is what we're looking at," Barr said Tuesday. "We hope to find the space within the next few weeks."
Three to five years. "Short term." Heavens.
The Chicago Tribune today endorsed the Democratic candidate for President, for the first time in its 160-year history:
The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause--the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.
With that in mind, in 1872 we endorsed Horace Greeley, who ran as an independent against the corrupt administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. (Greeley was later endorsed by the Democrats.) In 1912 we endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party candidate against Republican President William Howard Taft.
The Tribune's decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.
We see parallels today.
Possibly some of this has to do with Sam Zell, but possibly it has to do with the 45-year slide of the Republican Party into, well, whatever it's become today.
Another gap in the fossil record has gotten filled:
In a new study of a fossil fish that lived 375 million years ago, scientists are finding striking evidence of the intermediate steps by which some marine vertebrates evolved into animals that walked on land.
The scientists said in a report being published Thursday in the journal Nature that the research exposed delicate details of the creature's head and neck, confirming and elaborating on its evolutionary position as "an important stage in the origin of terrestrial vertebrates."
There seem to be two possibilities here, depending on whether you're voting for Barack Obama or that other one. In the reality-based world, one would say that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; this fossil, being entirely consistent with the prevailing explanation of how life evolved on earth, just adds one more bit in favor of it.
Senator McCain's running mate, on the other hand, would say either the scientists made it up, or God did, leaving unanswered the obvious question: why bother? I've never understood that.