A comment comment by internationaljock mentioned a website-turned-book called sorry everybody (http://sorryeverybody.com/).  As I followed and started looking at scores of pictures of people young and old (mostly old) moved to apologize to the world for what their country had done -- who they had elected in 2004 -- I vividly recalled the grief that I felt at that time.

It occurs to me that we may do the democrats a favor, and energize a new group of young voters, by widely publicizing these images.

I was there tonight, in Clap recital hall, at the University of Iowa campus.  I sat in an auditorium with 765 neighbors, including many friends. The people for Obama sat on the left, the folks for Edwards on the right.  A blue rope divided the two groups.  The folks for Clinton were in the foyer outside.  Kucinich, Dodd, Richardson supporters were in front.  A few other groups were in side areas.  To take a count, each person held up their card and said their number, in order, one after another, by row.  

It is a beautiful thing to watch people stand up and be counted.

Literally.

An article today by 3k set me to thinking again about a conversation I had last week.  I don't think anyone has hammered this point yet, so I thought I would take it up.

I would like to see our democratic leaders set up operating rules where the ethics committee has some teeth.  I think they should begin with the assumption that in 15 years, if the democrats don't have any checks and balances (as the republicans did not), then they will fall into corruption.  We all suffer when this happens.  As Lord Acton said:  "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  I think the corruption process occurs faster with the top-down, follow-the-leader model preferred by the republicans than it does with the bottom up, let-everyone-say-their-piece model preferred by the democrats.  Nevertheless, democrats will become corrupt and we should put plans in place to slow this inevitable process.

Pollster.com has a great article today about how likely a candidate is to win, given a particular poll spread before the race. We are pinning our hopes on a great many coin flips landing the way we would like. To understand this quantitatively, I did a little calculation.

• Probability that the dems control the senate: 0.03
• Probability that there is a 50/50 split: 0.11
• Probability that the republicans hold: 0.86

UPDATE: As several alert readers have pointed out, this assumes that the results are statistically independent, which is probably not the case. However, it does suggest that our optimism may be fueled by enthusiasm as much as by history and science. The independent odds are 3%, the rest is a wave.

Take the jump for the details.

My boys were watching Christmas cartoons while I was wrapping a few presents.  A commercial came on that basically says: kids, ask your parents what to do if your house or town is attacked by terrorists.

This seems rather odd to me.  I found myself explaining that the chance that our house or town is attacked by terrorists is much smaller than the chance that we are struck by lightning or a tornado.

Clearly I was irritated by the commercial and the boys asked me why.  I explained that I didn't think the government should be scaring kids about low probability event that kids could have little control over.  It reminded me of the call to buy duct tape and plastic for windows in case of terrorist attack.

He said:  It's kind of like reverse terrorism.

Out of the mouth of babes.

Would anyone be willing to help lobby to stop this Department of Homeland Security website from posting a special "ready kids." section?  Seems like putting an advertisement on cartoon network on Christmas eve is a bit extreme.