Here sits McCain, in a darkened room, pretending to be gracious to Obama on this historic night.  He almost pulls it off, but the look on his face and in his eyes betrays him.  It's disgusting, and pretty obvious to me that he doesn't mean a single word of what he's saying.

Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4KIvRTg6KQ

I follow my last post about how much I hate polls with a post about how much I love today's Gallup:  Obama 48, McCain 42.

I apologize for my hypocrisy.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/109897/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Moves-Ahead-48-42.aspx

Like many people, I read Nate Silver's 538 blog religiously.  I like to tilt my laptop screen to see whether or not Virginia is pale red or pale blue.  Likewise in Ohio, Nevada, and Colorado.  But quite frankly, why do it?  Why am I a slave to these polls when I know that when it comes right down to it, it doesn't mean a damn thing.  They're all flawed.  It all goes back to a basic principle of science experiments:  the simple act of performing the experiment has an effect on the results.  Similarly, with polls, the simple act of asking a question, no matter how neutral the intentions, has an effect on the person being asked, and thus an effect on the answer. 

Take this simple question:  "Will you vote for Barack Obama, John McCain, or another candidate?"  For a voter who made his or her choice long ago and won't be changing their mind, it's fair to say that their response is valid.  But for an undecided voter or someone with frequently changing allegiance, I believe that even something as innocuous as the order in which the options are presented may have an impact on the answer.

But hey, how would I know?  No one has called my cell phone....the only phone I have other than work, I might add....and asked me anything.  None of my cell-phone-only friends have been polled either.  Funny, isn't it, that in this day where a huge portion of younger voters don't have a land line, that their opinions aren't being taken into account.

And what is this "margin of error" business?  Is that pollster-lingo for "we don't know how else to make up for our obvious shortcomings?"  Maybe a margin of error of 4% suggests that 4% of those polled could be lying.  Or maybe it means that 4% of likely voters such as myself aren't even frickin' polled.

Don't even get me started on polls of polls.  It's like trying to measure how much stink is coming out of a pile of shit.

But alas, I'll wake up again tomorrow morning, and I'll check the latest numbers.  And so will you.  And Nate Silver's little map will continue to blink all shades of red and blue.  That's just the way it is....and I'm not even close to being smart enough to suggest an alternative.

Here we are, less than a week from the RNC, and lo and behold, a hurricane is again bearing down on the Gulf Coast of the United States.  Bobby Jindal just announced that he would stay in Louisiana if the storm hits his state, and is preparing for evacuations in New Orleans as we speak.

What a distraction this could be for the Republican National Convention.  While I, of course, wish no ill will on anyone living along the Gulf Coast, think about what a calamity this could be for the RNC.  The convention is already starved of big-name party-folk like Jindal, who have instead elected to tackle more important issues with their constituents.  And what better way to give everyone a fresh reminder of the idiocies of the Bush administration than another huricane hitting the ravaged Gulf Coast.  Cue up images of McCain and Bush eating cake at Bush's birthday party.  Talk about how little the government seemed to care about its levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Regardless of whether or not this will be another catastrophic event on the Gulf Coast, it will certainly deflect some media attention from the Republican convention, and bring back all-too-familiar memories of a failed White House.

All that aside, let's all hope and pray that this storm spares us another tragedy.