The Conservatives I Follow

I've three blogs I keep up with which are mostly conservative.  The Volokh Conspiracy is a bunch of law professors.  Powerline is four lawyers/scholars.  Ann Althouse is a law professor.  Althouse voted for Obama in 2008, don't think she revealed her choice in 2012, and is keeping quiet about her vote in 2016, though I'd say her posts tend to be pro-Trump and her readership definitely tilts to the right. (She tends to tease her views.)  Powerline contributors are torn, but my guess is they'll vote Trump or a write-in, never Clinton.  Orin Kerr at Volokh did an anonymous survey of contributors--only one voting for Trump, the rest for others.

Where I'm At: Optimistic

At noon on Election Day, I'm optimistic, both about the election and the country:

• I want and expect Clinton to win.
• Trump will concede, either graciously or at the behest of his family.
• If the Dems take the Senate, they'll still be at the mercy of their conservatives: Manchin and Donnelly. If they don't, I expect the remnants of the Gang of Eight (or was it Sixteen) to help pass legislation.  (Republicans don't have many running in 2018 so Senators won't be pulled to the right by primary fears.)
• Clinton will likely work from the center, both as a result of Congress being narrowly divided. She'll turn out to be a good president.

As always, I'd predict an extension of past trends (which is a sure way of being wrong--things stay the same until they don't)--growth in the economy, improvements in social trends (teen pregnancy down, crime low, lower obesity), and innovations which help and hurt (autonomous vehicles, health care innovations, etc.)

You Don't Get It Right the First Time: China's Carriers

If there are any long-term readers out there, you'll recognize the title as one of my rules from early on.

Robert Farley has an interesting take on the new Chinese carrier.  (Full disclosure: I was a long timer naval war addict.  Ballantine paperbacks had a series of WWII books back in the 1950's.

Terrorism in Vermont?

Beings with destruction on their minds destroyed a portion of the Internet yesterday--I'm sure it's just a taste of what will happen on election day.

That's Our President

Obama tells crowd to "respect" protester at Clinton rally: "We live in a country that respects free speech." https://t.co/DlTg7Y6ULY

Sixty Plus Years Later--Appalachian Regional Commission

JFK got the Appalachian Regional Commission established as a result of campaigning in West Virginia and seeing the poverty.  For political reasons (gaining more support in Congress) they made Appalachia spread into NY, including Broome County. (I never thought of myself as living in Appalachia.) The ARC is still around, and The Rural Blog has a post on their latest status report.

A Sixth Hack--Mess With GOTV

David Sanger at the Times has a piece on five possible hacks of the election process. All very good, but he misses what seems to me to be the most significant hack: messing with a party's "get out the vote" (GOTV) operation. Unlike most of the election operation, this seems to be centralized, so if there's one central database it's a high-reward target. Screw up the database and the GOTV effort is wasted. Barring that, do a denial of service attack, and you have a similar effect.

Humans Are Strange

"Active and ambitious in a career notorious even among slave owners for its viciousness, Bacon Tait nevertheless married a free woman of color, Courtney Fountain, whose extended family were involved in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad."

From a book review at Dead Confederates, a reminder that history is stranger than fiction.  Book sounds good.

Times and GMO's--II

I blogged previously about the NYTimes article on GMO's,  Tyler Cowen links to another approach--the writer arguing that farmers are making rational decisions on which seeds to buy, which must mean that GMO seeds have advantages over nonGMO.

An Idea for Grain Elevators

This post from Life on a Colorado Farm caught my attention.  They are in the midst of corn harvest:

"One of the things she wanted to do was ‘Go with Grandpa to the Elevator’.  Terry left early…7:30 in the morning…he was 11th in line.  The Elevator opens at 6:00 a.m.  There were trucks there starting at 4:30 a.m.  The days are long during harvest. The wait is longer."

Not clear how long it was before he unloaded but at least 3 hours or more.  So with 11 trucks at 3 hours per that's a good bit of time.

How difficult would it be to do a software program to coordinate scheduling between farmers and grain elevators? It is, after all, just a scheduling problem:  you've got a resource that's time-bound just like a doctor's time, and you've got patients wanting service.   I suppose the reason there is no such program (if that's a true fact, maybe there is one used everywhere but in this Colorado county?) is that it's only a yearly thing, and maybe farmers enjoy the break and the chance to compare notes with the others waiting?