*exhales in a deep and satisfying way*

[linnaeus]

Credit goes to $employer, which apparently set up a room for people to watch the inauguration this morning. Sadly I only found out about this now, since some rocket scientist sent a "TEST" email to the Everybody In The Whole Wide World, and my inbox has been flooded with helpful acknowledgments of message receipt, and notifications of failed

Comments

[lady_curmudgeon]

I posted the quartet performance (Yo-Yo Ma!) on my el-jay. I think I can safely assure you that "cockthirsty" didn't come up during the performance.;) Is that a spoiler?

[linnaeus]

Eh. It was a longshot anyway.

[emrldgirrl]

Rob had "ha ha suckers!" as his entry in a similar pool

[ziabandito555]

Eh the extremists of all the parties (including all the second tier ones) usually spout such drivel. Most people, Democrats, Green, Republicans and Libertarians are doing what they normally do and giving the benefit of the doubt. I'm just glad it was a clear win by one of the largest margins in nearly two decades and I'll move on from there.

[jeffreycwells]

Don'tcha just love the graphic on his site that is just begging for you to make the leap that because a larger *geographic* area voted for McCain that there's some unfairness going on? Phone me next time we start voting by square mileage instead of people.

[linnaeus]

Wait, are you saying it doesn't work that way? All those weekends I spent last year in rural Wyoming handing out Obama pamphlets to cattle and tumbleweeds didn't make a difference?

I think Republicans like those maps for a couple of reasons. Yeah, all that red makes it look like they have more support than they really do, but also the fact that the cities are always blue while rural areas tend red lets them take advantage of the vague notion a lot of people (even city dwellers) have that urban = depraved criminal jerks, while rural = paperboys, apple pies and Aunt Bea. Clearly this is a compelling argument, as most folks don't want to see themselves as being on the same side as those hippie weirdos in Iowa.

Granted, this map shows each county as red or blue in a "winner take all" fashion, which is misleading to begin with. There's a nice one that colors each county based on proportion of votes, and most of the country comes out in varying shades of purple.

[ziabandito555]

looks a bit like this when writ large I think: http://innovation.cq.com/prezMap08/?tab=2

[ziabandito555]

oops i meant: http://innovation.cq.com/prezMap08/?tab=4

[toob]

IAWTP!

[lobowolf]

Rush committing suicide...I, for one, would be all for that.