Funmurphys: the Blog

Corwin Derkatch Gridlocked me

Too much time on your hands? I used to worry that blogging was taking too much of my time but thanks to a pointer from Ole Eichorn at Critical Section I learned about Corwin Derkatch's Gridlock and burned about 10 hours over the last ten days. Forewarned is forearmed.

Sandstorm Over Baghdad

I got an 'A' on my student paper, so it must have been halfway decent. You can read all about the dust storm that hit Iraq last year during Operation Iraqi Freedom at:

Sandstorm Over Baghdad: The Dust Storm that Stalled the Coalition Invasion of Iraq

Now that I've posted my report on the web, I can't understand why it looks to be less work than it really was! The paper is mostly about meteorology, but there are lots of pretty weather pictures and some satellite views of the Persian Gulf region.

And you might learn something new. Did you know that the Marines used captured AK-47s during the storm, since M16 rifles are more vulnerable to grit? I didn't.

More Lessons From History

The most horrible story in the Bible is told in Judges 19-21. Here we read the tragic tale of a reluctant young bride who is assaulted, raped, and murdered by criminals from the tribe of Benjamin. The unfeeling husband dismembers her body and sends the pieces throughout Israel in witness to the foul deed. The other tribes unite to punish the guilty, and demand that Benjamin hand over the criminals. For reasons that are not recorded, "the Benjaminites would not listen to their fellow Israelites." (Judges 20:13b) They gird for war instead.

In the course of that war tens of thousands of Israelites are killed. The tribe of Benjamin is wiped out, except for a small remnant of 600 men who flee to the Rock of Rimmon. Israel mourns the destruction of their brother tribe, and eventually uses more war and trickery to arrange wives for the remnant, so that the tribe of Benjamin will not die out completely.

This happened in roughly 1,100 BC. Perhaps the Benjaminites were unaware that a similar fate had befallen another city about 100 years earlier - a city that had also refused to correct its own wrongdoing, but had armed themselves defiantly for war instead. The name of that city was Troy.

As recounted in Homer's Illiad and brought again to life by Brad Pitt and Eric Bana in the movie Troy, a few Trojans had committed a grave sin against their neighbors. Prince Paris of Troy had stolen away Queen Helen of Sparta from her lawful husband Menelaus. Instead of returning Helen with apologies as by all rights he should have done, King Priam resolved to fight the Greeks instead. Nobody claimed that stealing another man's wife was right, but they held their nationalism above what was right and wrong.

And for that sin, they died.

I find this stuff fascinating even if nobody else does. This thought is still under development, but what I see here is a pattern in history. Here's how it works:

1. A small band of people commit a crime, a deed that everybody agrees is wrong. The victims are members of another ethnic or nationalist group.
2. The offended group (Israelites, Greeks) demands punishment of the guilty persons.
3. The offending group (Benjaminites, Trojans) refuses these demands. They turn the problem into an ethnic/nationalist conflict instead. In doing so, they bring the guilt for the original crime upon themselves.
4. The offended group prevails in war. After great loss of life on both sides, the offending group is utterly destroyed.

The Book of Judges and the Trojan War are relevant today. In Darfur the Janjaweed militia commit atrocities against Sudanese villagers. The U.S. and U.N. demand that Khartoum disarm the militia. In response, the Sudanese government attempts to whip up nationalist feeling and portray the conflict as the nation of Sudan against those nasty Western imperialists.

In April in Fallujah, Iraq, terrorists murder four American contractors and hang their mutilated bodies from a bridge. No rational person claims this is right, but when coalition forces demand the murderers be turned over for justice, the leaders in Fallujah beat the drums of ethnic/nationalistic/religious war instead. They portray the crime in terms of Islamic jihad, instead of some out-of-control terrorists committing crimes that Islam forbids. The original guilt was confined to a small group of people, but by offering sanctuary to terrorists and not fixing their own problem, the Fallujans have taken the guilt upon all themselves.

We saw the consequences of the same history pattern this week: The city of Fallujah depopulated and severely damaged by the coalition assault. Thousands of terrorists killed (no regret there). Many civilians wounded and killed.

I saw this same pattern occur in Serbia during the 1990s. Ethnic and nationalistic pride were held higher than what was right and wrong. Muslim civilians were massacred at Srebrenica. Serbia later paid the price. Unfortunately, so did lots of innocent people. If the Taliban had turned over bin Laden they would probably still be in power.

The moral lesson here is that if you don't fix your own moral problem, somebody else will. And you probably won't like the way they go about fixing it.

Hey Wait a Minute, That's Me in the "Before" Picture

In Adding Value -- but at What Cost? Marshall Goldsmith distills a useful prescription out of a recent conversation:

In my experience, one of the most common challenges that successful people face is a constant need to win. When the issue is important, they want to win. When the issue is trivial, they want to win. Even when the issue isn't worth the effort or is clearly to their disadvantage, they still want to win.

Research shows that the more we achieve, the more we tend to want to "be right." At work meetings, we want our position to prevail. In arguments, we pull out all the stops to come out on top. Even at supermarket checkouts, we scout other lines to see if there's one that's moving faster.

In Jon's case, he was displaying a variation on the need to win: adding too much value. It's particularly common among smart people. They may retain remnants of a top-down management style even if they don't want to. These leaders are smart enough to realize that most of their subordinates know more in specific areas than they ever will, but old habits die hard. It's difficult for them to listen to others disclose information without communicating either that they already knew about it or that they know a better way.

The problem is, while they may have improved the idea by 5%, they've reduced the employee's commitment to executing it by 30%, because they've taken away that person's ownership of the idea. Therein lies the fallacy of added value: Whatever is gained in the form of a better idea may be lost six times over in the employee's diminished enthusiasm for the concept.

It can be painful to see yourself in the "before picture" of an advice column, and this one points how you can fool yourself by cleverly reframing "winning" as "adding value" and be just as obnoxious and counter-productive. I guess that's the difference between my 20's and my 40's. In my 20's I believed that I was held back by the people around me (typically managers) and situations I found my myself, now I see that it's mainly my own actions/inactions that hold me back.

A Quartet of Quotes on Innovation, Strategy, Reflection, and Duty

"Innovation is the first reduction to practice of an idea in a culture."
James Brian Quinn from Intelligent Enterprise

"A strategy is a pattern or plan that integrates an organization's major goals, polices, and action sequences into a cohesive whole. A well-formulated strategy helps to marshal and allocate an organization's resources into a unique and viable posture based on its relative internal competences and shortcomings, anticipated changes in the environment and contingent moves by intelligent opponents."
James Brian Quinn in Strategies for Change

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection.
From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."
Peter F. Drucker

"Never mind your happiness; do your duty."
William Durant

These are a few of my favorite quotes. Taken together, they suggest to me a harmony of perspectives that I find useful to maintain when I am making plans.

We Have Nothing To Fear From Pat Robertson

In January 2004 Pat Robertson of the "700 Club" predicted that George Bush would win re-election by a landslide. Predictions come and predictions go, but this one was notable because Robertson said God told him so! If you search Google for

"Pat Robertson" blowout landslide

You will get a few news stories like these:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat_quotes/pat_god.htm
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/news2004/0104/010504-robertson.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/2004-01-02-god-bush_x.htm
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=65520&ran=236535

Robertson, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 1988 against former President George H. W. Bush, told viewers of the nationally-syndicated "700 Club" that there are "things that I believe the Lord was showing me as I spent several days in prayer at the end of 2003."

The long-time televangelist told his Christian Broadcasting Network audience that God said Bush will win in a landslide in 2004.

"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk," Robertson said, explaining that the Lord has been speaking to him a lot recently about the upcoming presidential election.

He added, "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way."

Robertson was clearly not offering his personal judgment here; he is obviously claiming to speak for the Lord. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in February, Robertson confirmed his prediction. Although Howard Dean was mentioned in the original story, Robertson did not qualify his prediction that way: "Robertson offered no prediction on who will get the Democratic nomination. 'I don't have a clue,' he said with a laugh."

Robertson was wrong. Bush indeed defeated Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election, but it was no landslide, and no commentator is calling it a blowout:

Bush: 59,459,765 popular votes (51%) and 286 electoral votes.
Kerry: 55,949,407 popular votes (48%) and 252 electoral votes.

So - Pat Robertson issued a prophecy in God's name, and it turned out to be wrong. What does the Bible say about this situation?

Deuteronomy 18:20-22: "But the prophet who presumes to say in my name a thing I have not commanded him to say, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. You may say in your heart, 'How are we to know what word was not spoken by Yahweh?' When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh and the thing does not happen and the word is not fulfilled, then it has not been spoken by Yahweh. The prophet has spoken with presumption. You have nothing to fear from him."

Pat Robertson is a false prophet. There is no other reasonable conclusion.

In the context of Deuteronomy, the phrase "that prophet shall die" implies "...and you shall carry out the execution by stoning him to death." False prophecy is very serious! False prophets discourage people from believing in God, and those people may end up going to hell. God doesn't like that. See Matthew 18:14: "Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."; and Luke 17:2: "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble."

Let me state clearly here that I am not advocating the Old Testament's death penalty for Pat Robertson. The New Testament provides another way to deal with the situation. 2 Peter 2 reads in the NIV:

1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-- 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

My understanding of that passage is that we should have nothing more to do with the false prophets. God will deal with them in His own way and in His own time.

"But be doers of the Word, and not only hearers" - James 1:22

The Soup Is Hot, The Soup Is Cold

From the movie Cleopatra (1963) :

Messenger: Antony is dead.

Octavius: [Quietly, stunned] Is that how one says it? As simply as that? Antony is dead. Lord Antony is dead! The soup is hot, the soup is cold, Antony is living, Antony is dead.

[He suddenly turns and begins to shout.]

Shake with terror when such words pass your lips, for fear they be untrue! And Antony cut out your tongue for the lie, if not true! For your lifetime boast that you were honored to speak his name even in death! The dying of such a man must be shouted, screamed...it must echo back from the corners of the universe. Antony is dead! Marc Antony of Rome lives no more!

Yasser Arafat lives no more! An old era has passed, a new one has begun.

Proposition: Never before has a leader ruled for so long and accomplished so little for his people.

I think the modern competitors might be Fidel Castro, Mobutu Sese Seko, and Robert Mugabe. Arafat definitely has a shot at the title. At least Castro delivered his people from Fulgencio Batista, and then gave them some kind of stability for 40 years afterwards. Arafat presided over a slow erosion of Palestinian status, repeatedly rejecting deal after deal only to see the next offer be worse than the previous. I'll bet he would have liked to return to the pre-1967 borders, the same borders he rejected before 1967 because he wanted more. Now he and his people have gotten far less. How could a leader consistently make the wrong choices and yet stay in power?

But Yasser Arafat stood at the center stage of Palestinian politics for decades. His passing marks the end of an era. Arafat's death is momentous just as Marc Antony's was.

Oh Yeah, The Election

If there's a wall of separation between church and state, why did I vote in a church?

As I'm going into vote, I see a sign about no cell phones. So I figure what are the odds I'll get a call. You guessed it, my phone rings just as I'm signing my name. You'd think from the reaction I just offered 50 bucks for a vote for the Socialist Workers party. I mean really, what's the big deal. The Fruit of the Murphy Loin's pediatrician has a sign please don't talk on the cell phone during the examination -- that I understand, although since it's a nice practice in the heart of West St. Louis county it makes me wonder what's wrong with people in a way that no election does -- but what is the burning problem with getting a phone call at a polling place. Somebody is going to tell me how to vote? I just don't get it. But I'm not about to get into an argument with a bunch of nice old people who have an ounce of authority once a year, so I turn the phone off without answering. Turns out it was my wife calling to ask how bad the lines were. I should have ignored the old people.

Once again I was able to vote using a butterfly ballot and a punch card without any problem, just like I have for the last 20 years I've been voting in Missouri.

What amazes me about polling is how people try to use them like a scalpel when really they are a club. If a candidates poll numbers change by 1% between two polls that have a quoted margin of error of 3.5%, you know exactly zilch. This statistical noise is invariable quoted as a sure sign that a candidate's message is working if an increase or support is ebbing away if a decrease. If a candidate is up by 5 percentage points in a poll with that same margin of error, then we know that either candidate could be winning. You ever see a poll reported that way? Only if it's a Republican that is up and it is the New York Times doing the reporting.

And polls are never as accurate as the quoted margin of error. The margin that's quoted is the mathmatical error of a random sample compared to a full population based on the size of the random sample. Mathematics has a wonderful neatness to it that real life rarely obtains. The sample is never random and people lie. There have been very few presidential elections that weren't inside the polls' true margin of error, and yet like lie detectors, which aren't, we follow polls with great fanfare and fascination. I have to admit though, it takes rare talent to screw up exit polls as badly as they did this election.

Why do people sit glued to the TV on election night and watch the returns like it's the Superbowl? Yes, the election is more important than the Superbowl (as long as the Rams aren't playing), but it's not like you miss anything by just turning the TV on the next morning and finding out the results. It's not like you get to watch the ballots being counted or anything; what you get is the same old people saying the same old things (with the exception of Brit Hume, Michael Barone and the occaisonal guest who actually has something to say despite the best efforts of the media to keep those people off the air). I understand all you people who tuned into CBS to see if Dan Rather would talk his own style of gibberish, or better yet, have a complete emotional breakdown on air. Understand, but not approve.

I, like my fellow Americans, was so looking forward to November 3 so that I could watch the idiot box without announcers telling me how awful some politician was over menacing music (or worse, how life would just be perfect if only I voted for some politician over saccherine music). Now if we could just vaporize the yard signs when the polls close, life would be complete. Except for the breast beating of the losers. I know the word was out for Bush suporters not to gloat (you'll notice this blog was a gloat free zone despite the fact that I voted for more winners than losers this election, a pretty rare event), but I wish the word had gone out to Kerry supporters to keep the wailing and gnashing of teeth private. Instead, I was treated to more insults by people who don't know me and have gone out of their way to not understand me than I've gotten since junior high. Can't we just insult the politicians before and after the elections, and leave me and my fellow Americans out of it?

In Other News ...

Yes, it's time to hear about my favorite topic -- intestinal bacteria. This time, it's a downside. The little critters may be responsible for obesity:

Friendly bacteria in your gut could determine whether you pack on fat or stay lean, according to new research from Washington University. A team of researchers led by Fredrik Backhed, Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon and Dr. Clay F. Semenkovich at Washington University discovered that bacteria, which are a normal part of the intestine, help unlock a gate that allows fat to enter cells for storage.

The researchers raised some mice in a germ-free environment. Those animals had no bacteria in their intestines and had little body fat. Mice that grew up in a conventional environment with bacteria in their intestines had 50 percent more body fat than the germ-free mice did, even though the mice ate the same amount of food.

The researchers then transplanted bacteria from the conventionally reared mice into previously germ-free mice. The animals ate no more than before, but dramatically packed on fat, increasing their body fat content 60 percent in two weeks, Gordon said.

I'm not overweight; I'm overcolonized by gut microbes.

What a mixmaster our dreams are for our memories

It's a strange thing about sleep and dreams, I can go to bed worrying about a problem and either wake up around 2 or 3 and be unable to get back to sleep or wake up at 6 or 7 and have this plan fully formed in my head as to what to do. And sometimes I pull together bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated events and go on a tangent. Or they may be actually unrelated events but my well developed apophenia finds a connection anway.

I woke up this morning with the memory from one of my seventh grade Religion classes: Fr. Miles reading Genesis 46:4 and explaining it to us.

"I shall go down to Egypt with you and I myself shall bring you back again, and Joseph's hand will close your eyes."

which was juxtaposed with a remark a good friend of mine from college made the last time he was in town

"I was there for my father's last breath."

I couldn't remember my dream directly, but somehow it had combined those two memories.

As Fr. Miles explained, God is speaking to Jacob in Genesis 46:4, promising him that he will be re-united with his estranged son Joseph, who will be with him when he dies. That Joseph will close his eyes means that he will be with him when he draws his last breath.

So I e-mailed my friend and told him of my dream, and that I thought it meant that he had been a comfort to his father. I am not in the habit of dreaming about Bible verses, much less e-mailing people about them, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

When I first heard the verse and the explanation I was twelve. Four years later my grandfather was felled by a series of strokes over a period of about nine months, he never recovered enough from the first one to live at home, and the succeeding ones washed away his personality until there was nothing left. But after the first stroke I remember going to visit him in the hospital and hearing this terrible loneliness in his voice as he recounted awakening in the middle of the night in the intensive care ward and crying out for his children (and he named them one by one as he recalled it, moving on to his grandchildren). And I got a better idea of the comfort promised in "Joseph's hand will close your eyes," that Jacob would not die alone, and understood the comfort that my friend had offered his father sitting next to his deathbed for his last week.

Election Fallout

To all those priests, pastors, and bishops who urged their flock to vote for George Bush:

I hope you enjoyed your foray into politics, the Kingdom of this World.

From you I heard several non-Biblical claims during the course of the 2004 campaign:

1. That opposition to abortion is the greatest commandment, that it should take precedence over all other considerations when selecting a candidate to vote for.

Why not elect Jack Ryan as U.S. Senator from Illinois? He's against abortion. He just has this little problem of taking his wife to strip clubs.

Apparently the directive to oppose abortion takes precedence over the Pope's strong opposition to invading Iraq.

2. That it's okay to withhold Holy Communion from politicians who don't oppose abortion in public policy, and from members of your congregations who don't vote for anti-abortion candidates. (I wonder, are some parishioners required to tell who they voted for?)

3. That the ongoing presidency of George Bush will somehow overturn Roe vs. Wade; despite the fact that he has no plan to ban abortion, as he stated in the Tempe, Arizona debate: "no, I will not have a litmus test. I will pick judges who will interpret the Constitution, but I'll have no litmus test."

Well, you got what you wanted: George Bush is president for four more years. If you are correct then we should expect to see Roe vs. Wade overturned by Election Day 2008, or the abortion rate drop significantly, or at least substantial progress made in those directions. Put up now or shut up the next time around.

The calling to Christian ministry includes accountability by the leaders. I will be watching.

I'm aware that overturning abortion depends on more than just the president. Another principle of accountability is this: You get credit or blame for whatever happens on your watch. President Harry Truman had a placard on his desk saying, "The buck stops here."

We need one of those tire-ripping devices that they put on the entrance to rental car lots, to keep people from backing up.

Presidential Election Challenge - I'm Out !

Here's the hour-by-hour narrative of how I fared:

Tuesday, Election Day, noon. I think I'm pretty safe today. There won't be a projected winner until sometime tonight, so how can I find out who won the presidential election if nobody knows? Still, I take precautions. No checking out those news sites on the web. This cuts out CNN.com, MSN.com, the BBC, and the New Zealand Herald.

Tuesday, 1:30pm. I discover that if I'm very careful, I can surf the web. I can look at Mt. St. Helens, Longs Peak, and some weather stations. But all it will take is some "news ticker" across the bottom of the page and I'll be outta the game!

Tuesday, 3pm. I need to look up where is Bari, Italy. Do I dare use Google? Google has a big check box in honor of Election Day today, but no news ticker. Whew! Bari is on the Adriatic coast near Brindisi. I'd like to go there.

Tuesday, 4pm. I overhear some talk from Daran in the office next to me. "All the states are still gray." No winner projected anywhere. That's good for me.

Tuesday, 8pm. I overhear Christine talking on the phone that "it could be weeks!" That long to figure out who won, huh? It sounds like things are close.

Wednesday, 6am. I really gotta watch it today. I realize that there will come a time when I know that we have a winner, and another time when I know who that winner is. Or will I find out in one fell swoop? Who knows?

Wednesday, 7am. Off to work on my bicycle. Ack! There's the morning paper at the end of the driveway! That probably contains THE ANSWER. Carefully I walk backwards to the paper, and locate it with my feet. I pick it up behind my back, and carry it there to the front door. I drop it inside, keeping my eyes averted. That was close. Too close.

Wednesday, 7:05am. As I ride out the driveway I see two women taking their morning walk up the street. They're talking! Every conversation holds danger for me! Danger!!! I tighten my ear flaps and quickly ride out of earshot.

Wednesday, 7:30am. I get to work early, and there is nobody around. That's good. But Graham kept me up last night, and I need a cup of coffee. Oh, no! What do you think people talk about around the coffee pot on the morning after an election?!! But I need that coffee! I decide to risk it.

Wednesday, 7:35am. The coffee is not made yet. Drat! After several agonizing minutes watching the stupid coffee machine take forever to produce one measly cup of coffee, I scurry back to my office with the hot cup of coffee in hand. Safe!

Wednesday, 7:40am. Suspecting that the news might leak in through Daran's office next door, I close my own office door. Just as a precaution.

Wednesday, 7:47am. My brother Michael in Utah sends me an e-mail. The subject is: "Results (not yet)". Do I dare open it? Yes, I told him that I was playing this game, and I think he's playing it too. He merely informs me that he doesn't know the results yet, and that he carefully did not unfold the newspaper this morning. Whew!

Wednesday, 7:56am. Another e-mail from my brother. He says "Oh well, the conversations filtered over the wall. Presidential results known at 7:56 AM." I tell him that I'm holed up in my office with the door closed, desperately trying to keep the news from leaking in. I feel like the proverbial Dutch boy with his little finger in the dike.

Wednesday, 8:13am. Yet another e-mail from Michael: "Oops! I guess that the results in the presidential election are not known yet." Ha!

Wednesday, 8:27am. I'd really like to see how the Alan Keyes - Barack Obama Senate race in Illinois turned out, but I don't dare look.

Wednesday, 10:24am. Michael (my 'safe' news source) reports: "At 10:09 AM MST the news filtered over the wall that one of the candidates had conceded." Hmmm. Generally that means he lost the election. I wonder who it was, Bush or Kerry? What's going on out there?

Wednesday, 11am. I'm having lunch with a friend in the company cafeteria. The cafeteria! That was a dumb idea. Andy has been sworn to secrecy, but the whole company has not. Looking out the window, I don't see anyone wildly celebrating. Or jumping off the roof, either.

Wednesday, 1:30pm. I can't believe it! I made it through lunch! Andy and I found a nice quiet corner away from everybody else. He did tell me there was a concession this morning, and there will be an acceptance speech shortly. Andy said he could hardly believe that Ralph Nader won! Riiiiight . . .

Wednesday, 2:03pm. At the beginning of my 2:00 meeting someone says, "I was out electioneering yesterday. But we won't talk about that any more." Knowing this person, I'm pretty sure the remark means that Bush won.

Thursday, 8:24am. A new day. And I still don't know who won the presidential election! I'm pretty sure it must be George Bush, though, based on people's moods. Known Bush supporters are pretty cheerful, and known Kerry supporters are kind of subdued. I also think there would be more talk of "transition" and some excited or cynical speculation if we were going to change presidents. It's too normal out there. So Bush must be the winner.

I'm not going to sequester myself like I did yesterday. I'm leaving my office door open. But I will continue to avoid certain web sites. I will not peek. I will be the Master of My News Domain!

Thursday, 1:45pm. At the end of my Dynamic Meteorology class the professor said something about how he thought of writing in "Vorticity" on the ballot for president (I didn't hear the beginning of the conversation). The guy next to me groaned, "I'll take anybody but George."

That is not something you say if John Kerry won! When combined with the other clues I've picked up, I think I can safely conclude that George Bush won the 2004 presidential election. This takes me officially out of the 2004 Presidential Challenge at 1:45pm.

If one can make it safely through the initial news blast the game gets easier. I think I'll keep on ignoring the news just for the heck of it. I'll let you all know when and how I get full-fledged confirmation.

If you want to relate your own experience in playing the 2004 Presidential Election Challenge, please enter them as Comments for this entry. Thanks for playing!

My Civic Duty

I voted this morning. I took the day off to have some brake work done, paint the kitchen, and go to the doctors. I managed to squeeze in voting this morning. All this talk of record turnout, of people parking on 141 in Fenton, and I just waltzed right in and punched my little card without delay. Only one vote came down to the wire for me - Blunt vs. McCaskill. Claire gave a great interview on local radio a while back, and I have to admit I was leaning towards voting for her. My wife warned me that while she might be good for the state now, she would probably win a race for senator in eight years and then all that talk about social issues not mattering would be out the window. Still, tomorrow is another day, and I'm worried about right now. But then, last night, Rudi Guilliani called me. Yep, the mayor of New York himself called me to ask for my vote for Matt Blunt, and he told me how important it was. Who am I to refuse Rudi? Sorry Claire, but I'm thinking you'll go on to victory even without my vote.

2004 Presidential Election Challenge

Here's the challenge: Avoid learning who won the presidential election for as long as possible.

In 2000 I managed to make it for a whole month! But that was an exceptional year.

I think the networks will avoid projecting the winner until sometime late on Election Night, so Tuesday should be pretty easy. Wednesday will be more difficult. I have to avoid the newspaper, the radio, the Internet, and of course TV. But I have some meetings at work during the day, and probably somebody will spill the beans then. I'll request my wife's forbearance in telling me who won, although Christine is keenly interested in the outcome. My guess is that I'll make it until Wednesday about noon.

Who else wants to participate? Come on! Everyone who reads this blog is a news junkie, so it will require all your restraint. But you don't really have to know right away! You can do your job and go about your daily life for a few days without knowing who is going to be our next (or continuing) president. How far do you think you can make it? Until Thursday? If you decide to go on a backpacking trip in November just to avoid finding out, you deserve to win the challenge.

You're out of the game when you know that you know who won. I will post a follow-up entry when I find out. I will note the exact local time, and exactly how I accidentally found out. If you want to play, you can post similar information in the Comments section of that future entry. If you have to ask "What's the point of this?", you probably aren't the right person to play.

I'm going out now. You will not hear from me until we meet again on the other side of that Great Divide . . .