Went to visit friends last night, like I try to do most Fridays. We generally play games and visit, and eat cheese. The cheese is important. We have only been doing it a couple of decades now, so we already know what everybody thinks about most things, but we say it anyway.

Last night was not a good night at the table for me. While waiting for others to show up, three of us played a game of The Ark of the Covenant, a variant of Carcassonne. It was made a bit more interesting because we were playing on an end table, the large table being used by the children for a game of Killer Bunnies.

The much smaller space made it much easier to decide to close off the castle holding bubba. (The prophet piece. I had to look that up, we never call it that. Big meeples are bubbas, in all the games.) The turn before I played a piece to share sheep with another player, who had more than me, the third player put down a piece to block it. At the endof the game, the third player ended up winning, with me second, and the other player last. If I had managed to share the sheep, I would have won the game.

When everybody showed up, we started a game of 6 player Empire Builder. This is very rare for us, we usually only manage to get 3 or 4 people at a time there, because 2 of us live over an hour away, and the others mostly have lives. We really wanted to make it a game of Iron Dragon or Lunar Rails, but one person had only played once before, and we were getting a late start because of the Killer Bunnies game.

I went first, and because of the 6 players, I decided not to try the sugar run to Chicago I had. I figured it would be too expensive to get through the Rockies since others would grab cheap routes. So I took a shorter double run of Lead to a couple of places in Mexico. Then I watched everybody else build East of Kansas City. The entire eastern half of the US was packed.

That is an example of how the decisions I made worked for the rest of the game. I am not bad at these games, I won the Empire Builder International championship at the Puffing Billy tournament at Origins this last year. But lately I am getting my butt kicked at our weekend games. Good thing I am the only one from them that makes it to conventions.

But it was a fun night, even though I was just over $100 million when the game ended. And the 5th place person had almost $200 million. It wasn’t even close.

I am definitely not cut out to be any kind of public figure. I do not know how the President-Elect (Officially now!) can stand all the harping and complaining about the job he is doing and the people he is picking to help do it. Yes, I wrote about this stuff before. But it really annoys me, so I am doing it again.When Obama was elected, the majority of the country was happy. That was apparent almost everywhere you looked. The Democrats in Congress were happy, the blogosphere was happy, about the only people that weren’t happy were the conservatives, and even a few of them were not too upset.

Obama was very popular when he was elected and he still enjoys that popularity. Congress, on the other hand, was about as popular as Bush, and that hasn’t changed either. So now, the very popular President-Elect is getting closer to taking office and the very unpopular Congress is feeling their oats.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t like the fact that Obama wants to just allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. Instead, they should be repealed as soon as possible. While I admit to feeling that way myself, I am willing to admit it may not be the best idea. The tax cuts expire at the end fo 2010, so they have less than 2 years to go. Why doesn’t she worry about getting the stimulus passed as soon as possible, see what happens, then take up the question about the tax cuts. That makes more sense to me than slowing down important legislature that the entire country wants passed.

Then there is Representative  John Conyers of Michigan. He is objecting to Dr. Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General because Gupta is not qualified. A practicing neurosurgeon, reporter, and speaker, who was a White House Fellow in the class of ’97-’98, not qualified to be the spokesman for the Public Health Service?

Admittedly, Paul Krugman also has a problem with Gupta’s appointment, but not because of his lack of qualifications. And the issues Krugman brings up about Gupta’s encounter with Moore should definitely be explored. By the Senate, when they hold hearings on his confirmation, if he even decides to accept the appointment. (I don’t know if I would, it would be an immense pay cut.)

Then there is Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was very unhappy about Obama’s choice (still not official mind you) of Leon Panetta for head of the CIA. I guess I am somewhat confuse, I did not realize that the President had to clear his choices with the Senate before he actually made them. Questions about his qualifications should be brought up in the confirmation hearings. Getting upset because you were not asked about him being nominated? Not really part of the Senate’s job, as I understand the Constitution.

But Obama, and Joe Biden, called and apologized to the Senator. Because they know that if they did not, she would probably cause all kinds of trouble for any of their nominations that went in front of her committee. And any other committee she serves on.

And Holder may have some trouble getting through the committees to the floor vote. But at least that is coming from the Republicans, not the Democrats.

At least it looks like Tom Daschle will be getting through the various committees without too much trouble. Not really surprising, since he is appearing before a lot of old friends.

All of this, along with trying to figure out how to lead the nation, and the world, out of the troubles we are in. Nope, I am not cut out to be a public figure. Thank god there are people that are.

The Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D) has been having a bit of a tiff with the Republican Party the last month or so. They keep insisting that too many people are wanting to do radical things like vote in the General Election. Unlike her predecessor, she keeps telling them that, well, that is allowed, even if the voters are probably Democrats. So the two sides went to court until the US Supreme Court said the GOP was not actually allowed to go to court over the issue.

Since they were not allowed to bring suit, the GOP decided to pull out the big guns. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) asked President Bush and the Department of Justice to investigate, saying that otherwise “there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted.” He is correct to a certain extent, there will be unlawful votes cast and counted in the upcoming election.

But that will happen no matter what is done. Expecting that out of the millions of votes that will be cast in Ohio all of them are legal and that nobody in the entire state is trying to vote illegally is naive. But trying to say that there will be enough illegal votes cast to have any kind of affect on the outcome of the race is disingenuous. Increasing the work loads of the various county Boards of Elections and the poll workers (and since I have volunteered to be a poll worker, this has a direct effect on me) along with the possible disenfranchisement of thousands of legal voters, makes this a very bad thing in my opinion.

There is good news for people wanting to vote in Ohio. As reported in the New York Times, the Justice Department will not be pursuing any litigation before the November 4 election. They do not way what will happen after November 4 (If I were a conspiracy theorist I would worry about that.) but at least this should end the court battles for a week or so. Not that it will stop the GOP from innuendo and other attacks.

Speaking of GOP attacks, TPMMuckraker has a listing of what is going on around the country with regards to attempts to suppress or intimidate voters. I do not see any Democratic organizations trying to do any of the suppression. But the only Republican that seems to be making it easier for people to vote is Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida. He is supported by some of the state Republicans, although some of them just seem to realize that trying to fight his move would not be a very good idea politically.

The two stories that bother me the most are the ones from New Mexico and Colorado. The New Mexico story because these are new citizens, exercising their rights and getting intimidating visits because of it. Welcoming new citizens, and giving them the same rights as those born here is one of the foundations of our society. I don’t like it when that is threatened. The Colorado story bothers me because it is somewhat like what happened in Ohio in 2004. A Republican Secretary of State making decisions that constantly take away the opportunity of people to express themselves in the voting booth.

The Republican party and McCain/Palin campaign have been really hitting things hard with their messages. It is apparent that they are really starting to feel the pressure of the polling numbers that are coming out daily. There is some movement in the polls, including some tightening of the race in the national numbers, but the state polls are not looking good for McCain and it is hurting the down ticket Republicans. Although several of them have managed to shoot their own foot, i.e. Michelle Bachman.

The most irritating Republican talking point is the idea that it is a bad thing to have both the White House and Congress in the hands of the same party. As someone who tends toward the middle of the road, I generally agree with this sentiment. It does help keep the country more toward the center of the road when the President and Congress have to compromise. Unfortunately, it can also lead to gridlock and necessary work not getting done when both sides refuse to compromise.

David Frum, a conservative political commentator at the Washington Post, has written an article with this talking point. He is really afraid of the leftist domination of the Democratic party and what it will do to the country. But Brad Delong, in a very short post called, I Call Bullshit on David Frum, did just that. If it is so bad now, why wasn’t it bad in 2000? or 2002? or 2004?

The interesting part of this tactic is that the Republican Party is using it to push voting for Republican senators and representatives. John McCain is using it to say vote for him. Considering the polling numbers for McCain, unless something really drastic occurs, it is doubtful his use of this message will do much. The Republican senators and representatives may have better luck, probably depending on how closely they have tied themselves to the McCain/Palin ticket.

Carl Huse and David M. Herszenhorn point out in The New York Times that even a veto proof majority in congress does not mean that everything can get passed. Both the major parties are in reality, coalitions of smaller groups that tend to work together. In a parlimentary system, neither would be nearly as large as they are in the US system. Blue Dog Democrats can easily align with fiscally conservative Republicans, with the blessings of their constituents, to block bills they think go too far.

One of the things that has hurt the Republicans this year, especially in the Presidential campaign, is that they seem to have forgotten they are a coalition. McCain/Palin seem to be working hard to pull in the social conservatives, but they are losing the fiscal conservatives and social moderates. And losing the moderates, whether fiscal or social, is a losing strategy in the United States.

Another meme that seems to be flowing through various comment sections on the web is that John Kerry was ahead of Bush in 2004 at this point and McCain can still come back. In reality, Kerry was mostly behind in electoral votes for the last month or so. He had some good polling days, much better than McCains to be honest, but Electoral-vote.com has all of their pages from the 2004 election up, showing that Kerry and Bush were close all through the last month, with Bush usually polling ahead. From the looks of his data, who won was almost random, depending on who had a headache when they got up and decided to skip voting that day.

In comparison, Obama has been leading on the Electoral-vote.com site since mid September just before the economy crashed, with his lead in electoral votes growing steadily. He makes it easy to compare the two campaigns with graphs on this page. Combined with the work that Nate Silver and compatriots have been doing at FiveThirtyEight.com, and it looks like it would take something truly catastrophic to stop Obama.

If you pay any attention to news programs and/or election news, it is easy to guess what is the top story of the day. That would be Secretary Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president on Meet The Press Sunday morning. I just watched it again, and it is  one of the most thoughtful and articulate listings of the current state of the country and the world, and what is needed to meet the problems that exist, that I have ever seen. The video is here on MSNBC.com.

This is all over the blogosphere of course. The Arena at Politico.com has a large number of comments, from all over the political spectrum, talking about it. There is also a variety of responses at Mike Murphy’s Swampland blog, some well reasoned, others much less so. Some on the left were very happy about the endorsement, others discounted it because of Powell’s history with Iraq.

CNN just had an interesting piece on an encounter outside a McCain rally. Someone was making some nasty comments about Islam, and passing out bumper stickers equating Obama with radical Islam and the Soviet Union. He was confronted by the American News Project reporter about what he was saying, then several Muslims and Christians that are McCain supporters started taking him to task. Then a McCain campaign organizer came up and told him that the McCain campaign did not support what he was saying and did not want him saying it there. The video is not the highest quality but it is a good story.

This is a very good look at the McCain campaign, showing them supporting moderates and repudiating some of the extreme points of view that have been outside their rallies in the past. The sad part is, Rich Sanchez was going to do an interview with the McCain staffer, but had to cancel because the McCain hadn’t given him permission to talk to the press. I can understand the campaigns wanting to make sure their staffers do not say unfortunate things. But it seems to me that stopping a story like this is counter-productive.

It is sad to see how McCain’s campaign has been using innuendo and smears to try and beat Obama. I didn’t like it when it happened to McCain in 2000, especially since he would have been my choice to vote for in the general election that year. (Yes I am a Democrat, but that doesn’t mean I turn off my brain and follow blindly where someone else leads.) His choices since then, especially the way he has ran his campaign this year, have lost him a lot of respect from moderates and even conservatives. He has to have seen this, endorsements like Powell’s, the Chicago Tribune’s, and the Salt Lake Tribune, show how much he is driving away the moderate conservatives. But he continues, using the same kind of negative campaigning that he once denounced so loudly.

Got up today and went over to Ft. Wayne, IN. Michelle Obama was speaking there, in a campaign rally for her husband. It was originally supposed to be in a pavilion in a park in Ft. Wayne, but it was moved to the Grand Wayne Center Monday. Either someone looked at the weather forecast for today, or there were security concerns. I would bet on the weather.

I had to park a few blocks off, since the closer parking lots were full. Can’t imagine why that happened. There were hucksters on the sidewalk outside the convention center. They were selling everything from Michelle Obama T-shirts to Obama/Biden buttons. There were also some protesters on the sidewalk, with signs against abortion. They were quiet and polite, unlike the idiot that stuck his head out of his car yelling Obama bin Laden.

Things were well organized inside, although I got there early, so they were hardly overwhelmed. I don’t know if there was ever a time it would have overwhelmed them, it was not a huge crowd, although it was respectable.

Linda Pence was the opener, she is the Democratic candidate for State Attorney General in Indiana. She talked about being inspired by Obama to run for office for the first time. She was followed by local organizer who encouraged everyone there to go directly to the local court house and vote early. I am sure that the workers there would have really appreciated a few hundred people showing up all at once to vote.

Birch Bayh introducing Michelle Obama

A few minutes later, after an invocation, Birch Bayh came out. He was very popular with the crowd there, not surprising given his and his family’s history in the state. He said that as soon as he met Michelle, he knew that he and Barack had something in common. They had both married above themselves. He was very passionate speaking about the election and getting Obama elected.

There was also a speaker that told about her niece and the way the current health care system didn’t cover her, or find the cancer that is killing her. The she talked about the children that came into the library where she worked that couldn’t go to the doctor, because their family could not afford more than one at a time at the doctor.

When Michelle Obama came out, the crowd was very excited. The signs came

Michelle Obama, surrounded by signs.

out and they were very loud and enthusiastic. She was also enthusiastic, and seemed to like being there. She seemed to be a little shaky starting off. but quickly warmed up and talked to the crowd. Not as well as Barack, but still very good.

She talked about where she and Barack came from, him a single parent family and her a blue collar family from the South side of Chicago. She talked about how he understands what it is like to watch his mother try and keep things going at home while working and going to school. About seeing his mother die from ovarian cancer at 53, trying to figure out how to pay for treatments that the insurance wouldn’t cover because they said that cancer was pre-existing. She really did a good job getting across the idea that Barack understands what it is like to actually live in this country. It was the first political rally I have been to. I hope to get to one with the actual candidates before the election.

After that, it was home to do some reading, until now. I have been watching the debate on CNN. It is not very exciting, but I didn’t expect it to be. Obama has been very even tempered and calm, not getting upset or excited. McCain has also been doing better in this debate than the first couple. He has actually looked at and talked to Obama, and been much more focused. But he has not been outstanding, which he really needed to do to improve his polling numbers.

McCain did bring up Ayers, as he said he would. And Obama gave the same answers he has been giving since Clinton brought up Ayers during the primaries. But of course, that will not really answer anyone that still has questions. After all, if they did not believe it the last few hundred times it was brought up, why should they believe it now.

All in all, it was pretty much a tie. Which is the same as a win for Obama considering the polling numbers at various sites here on the web. I follow the numbers at these sites:

• Electoral-vote.com
• FiveThirtyEight.com
• RealClearPolitics

It will be interesting to see how the numbers go after tonight.

I am not sure about starting this blogging thing. There are already plenty of them out there, and I am not really certain I have a lot to add to the current flood of words that is flowing through the channels of the web. On the other hand, I am not a typical middle aged white male from the Midwest USA.

I admit, there are not actually very many people that are typical. Everyone has their own foibles and idiosyncrasies, some blatant, others more subtle. This means that being normal is somewhat difficult, if your particular oddities are too far from that mythical standard.

And the worst part is that what is defined as normal shifts based on where you are. Normal at a high school in Ohio is very different than normal at Juilliard in NYC. But in some ways, they are identical compared to what constitutes normal at a school in Zagreb or Beijing. Not that most students from that Ohio school would necessarily agree with that if suddenly placed in Juilliard.

But despite the differences between each of those places, I would bet that they all have their in-crowds and outcasts. The in-crowd defines the limits of normality, then spends their time categorizing where the outcasts belong in their exile. The outcasts then have the choice of accepting their place outside of normality or trying to convince the in-crowd that they are not really beyond the pale.

Personally, I was a nerd when I was younger. No, not a geek, geeks were still relegated to the sideshow at circuses back then. Now I am a geek, in a variety of ways, although I prefer the term polymath (my learning may or may not be great, but it is varied). I don’t claim to be of the same capabilities as the men listed at Wikipedia, but someone has to be on the low end of the scale.

Two of the areas I am interested in are traveling and photography, which I have combined at my main site. Other things include reading, gaming, TV, history, and recently, trying orienteering. And I have been known to listen to music and follow some of the politics that has been going on. That is probably something I will comment on from time to time, at least until the general election.

That may be the most useful part of this. Someplace to vent when something really irritates me. I guess I will see.