A lighter moment in voting

We need some light election relief so here is a video for your enjoyment.

I have mentioned before how president Obama seems to be always calm and in control of himself, not allowing others to put him off-balance. In this example, when he was voting early in Chicago, another booth next to him had a young woman also voting. A smart-aleck guy who was the boyfriend of the young woman passed by and ‘warned’ Obama not to touch his girlfriend.
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What does early voting mean?

Today being the Saturday before the election, there will likely be a lot of early voting in those states that allow it. According to some estimates, about 34 million people have already voted, which is about 27% of the 125 million total votes cast in the 2012 election. After this weekend, it could well have risen to a third or more of the final total, though some states such as Nevada and Florida ended early voting yesterday (Friday). There are already analyses of early voting patterns and efforts to draw conclusions from the available data with each party trying to spin the data in its favor. These analyses are based on how many people have voted early, which political parties they belong to, and comparisons with previous years, though of course we do not know who people actually voted for.
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Why jetlag is worse flying east

As someone who has family in Sri Lanka and New Zealand, this necessitates periodic long flights. Fortunately for me, I do not suffer as much from jet lag as some others do. I am usually back to normal within a day of arrival at my destination whereas I have friends who take up to a week. My personal hypothesis is that the after-effects of jet lag are caused largely by tiredness due to lack of sleep. As a result, on these long flights, I ignore all the in-flight entertainment and instead spend as much of my time as possible sleeping, only waking up to eat or read. Fortunately I can sleep seated.
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Trump and Clinton are not equally bad

Anyone who has been a long time reader of this blog knows that I have not been a huge fan of Hillary Clinton. But the idea that she and Donald Trump are equally bad is preposterous. There is simply no comparison and Seth Meyers, in his update on the state of the election, does a wonderful job of comparing the negatives of both candidates, starting at the 6:10 mark. And he does not even mention Trump’s sociopathic levels of lying and his ignorance of major issues.
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The Curse of Wahoo strikes again

Yesterday, the Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in the deciding seventh game of the World Series of baseball, an odd title for a contest in which the existence of only one Canadian team prevents the entire season from being an all-American affair. There had been hopes that the local baseball team would add to the national championship already won earlier in the year by the Cavaliers basketball team. In that case, Cleveland had fought back from a 3-1 deficit to win the last three games and the series but this time it was the reverse and the Indians blew a 3-1 lead. I think the reason is the Curse of Wahoo.
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