Serious Criminals

As my Dutch co-worker and I were walking back from dinner last night, we saw a police car on the sidewalk, with several policemen speaking to several people on bikes, taking notes. Was it a drug bust? Or a bike accident?

I asked Patrick, "What is going on?"

He replied, "Oh, it must be a light check."

"A light check? What is that?" I responded.

Patrick explained, "The police set up checkpoints on the bike paths and give you a 25 Euro ticket if you don't have a proper, working headlight on your bicycle."

If only bike light checks were the biggest worry for American police officers...

Quote of the Weekend

"No, we're not taking the highway to Copenhagen" - Said by the pilot of the plane I was on after taxiing for over 20 minutes after leaving the gate.

Best T-Shirt Ever

Seen at a store in Copenhagen:

667: Because I'm One Step Ahead of the Devil

Ebertesque

There are two films that open to the masses that week that I highly recommend. I saw both of them as part of the Chicago International Film Festival in October, which presents films from over 40 different countries during for two weeks each year. This was the first year I attended any of the films (I attended the opening night since I won tickets), but highly recommend it to any film buffs out there. And if you think Chicago is devoid of celebrity sightings compared to New York or L.A., the stars come out for this festival, as I stood within 10 feet of both Liam Neeson and Tom Hanks during the festival.

I went to the opening and closing night films this year, and I can't think of two films that are on more opposites of the film spectrum. The opening film for 2004 was Kinsey, a biographical movie about the infamous Indiana University sex researcher. Prior to the movie, I knew a few basic things about Kinsey and the uproar that his ground-breaking research caused in America, but the film shows the professional and personal challenges that Kinsey faced. The movie takes you on a fascinating and dramatic journey of Kinsey's work and life, with Liam Neeson acting in Oscar-like fashion as an intelligent yet conflicted man and the always fabulous Laura Linney as his supportive, though not naive, wife. I highly recommend this film to anyone who is interested in the evolution of sexuality in society, or anyone who enjoys a good story about America in the 1950s.

Prior to Kinsey's published sex research reports, sex was seldomed talked about in America. And despite critics trying to depict him as a person who will "bring down" the moral values in society, he went ahead with his research. After 50 years, it's reassuring to know how far society has come in its acceptance of sexual mores. (Insert cynical grin here)

The closing film was The Polar Express, a technologically amazing holiday tale for kids of all ages. Many of us have grown up reading Chris Van Allsburg's story of anticipation and the Christmas spirit. Director Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks, with the use of a new type of animation, create a wonderful film that draws the audience in with both visual excitement and emotion. I could go on and on about the new technology used in the movie, but if you are interested, you can read about it here, or just go and see the movie. It's a movie that I am sure will be remembered for many Christmases to come.

Transitioning from Politics to Celebrity Trash

Ok, the blog is going to get less political and more fun, I promise.

Did any of you hear about P.Diddy's "Vote or Die" campaign? Well, he enlisted a bunch of celebs to help get today's youth out to vote. Apparently the celebs involved really took the message to heart.

From the New York Daily News: "The early returns from Sean Combs' mega-hyped Citizen Change campaign suggested that reality television star Paris Hilton and rapper 50 Cent - who appeared in eye-catching posters modeling Combs' "VOTE OR DIE!" T-shirts to encourage voting - didn't make it to the polls yesterday. Another star, rapper Ludacris, did mail in an absentee ballot, according to his publicist.

But Lowdown's spot check of voting records in California, New York and Georgia - where Hilton, Curtis Jackson 3rd (aka 50 Cent) and Christopher Bridges (aka Ludacris), respectively, maintain residences - indicated that the three weren't even registered, let alone exercising their constitutional right."

And that, loyal readers, is what is wrong with America.

Front Page of the Day

Today's Daily Mirror of London

Moral Majority?

Does anyone else find it ironic that "moral" issues (meaning abortion and gay marriage) were the most important issue to nearly 25 percent of voters (who almost all voted for President Bush) even though those are issues than truly impact less than one person (those who would get abortions and would consider having a gay marriage) of Americans?

Is the preservation of civil liberties a moral issue? Apparently not in 2004 for a majority of Americans.

Post Election .... Waiting

As of 4 a.m. CST, there is still no official winner of the Presidential election. Bush is winning the popular vote by about 3 million votes, and there are four states without a declared winner (Ohio, Iowa, and New Mexico). At this point, whoever wins Ohio wins the election.

As I predicted yesterday, the election will hinge - and is still hinged - on Ohio. Even though all precincts have been counted in Ohio, there are still several hundred thousand provisional and absentee ballots left to count. Bush is leading in Ohio by nearly 200,000 votes, and seems likely to hold that lead and be re-elected. Stranger things have happened (e.g. Florida 2000), but I am resolved that Bush will get the four more years he wanted.

What happened to Kerry? First of all, I must admit that he performed quite well, winning essentially all of the same states as Gore in 2000, plus New Hampshire. The fact there is not a definitive winner in this election says he was competitive. Why isn't Kerry winning Ohio now? Well, I think the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, which was overwhelmingly approved by a 3-2 margin yesterday, played a large factor in Bush's presumed Ohio victory. For as evil as I think that Karl Rove is, his plan to "save" traditional marriage with Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment to the referendums placed on 11 state ballots yesterday motivated people to vote. In Ohio, some people who might not have left their homes to vote just for president were motivated to "save" marriage (and outlaw all forms of civil unions in Ohio, too, but that's a whole other discussion) and cast a vote for Bush at the same time. James Bones, columnist for The Times in London, shares similar opinions.

The high voter turnout didn't help Kerry as most political pundits anticipated.

A clear Republican majority in both chambers of Congress and in The White House will create a interesting, possibly scary four years. If Bush continues on the same path he has been on for the last two years, there will be a Democrat elected in 2008. Whether or not it's Hillary Clinton is the $64,000 question ...

The Election According to This John

Today is the culmination of 18 months of verbal harrassment, mudslinging and old-fashioned bribing by the both (face it, there are only two choices) campaigns for President.

Most pollsters and pundits think it will be a close race today. I do not - well, not a razor thin margin. In fact, based on the electoral college, I think Kerry will win with a clear majority of the votes. I base my conclusion on three factors:

1. Many Bush supporters in 2000 are now supporting and voting for Kerry. Not only do I find this to be a common theme among friends, but I think the newspaper endorsements (or lack there of in some cases) send a clear message that people who previously supported Bush four years ago will be voting for Kerry today. Editor and Publisher magazine has a great summary of newspaper endorsements.

2. The huge number of new voter registrations, including those in the minority and poor communities. If these people vote today, Kerry will win the vote.

3. The cell phone factor: Pollseters only call registered voters/likely voters who have a home phone number listed when taking these widely broadcast polls. Statistics show that nearly 5% of Americans do not have a home landline, but use their cell phone as their only phone. Who are these people without a home phone? Usually young people (between 18 and 29), who statistically are more liberal and will vote Democratic.

As of midnight, Tuesday, November 2nd, here is what I see unfolding today:

The election hinges on six states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Mexico and New Hampshire. Whichever candidate wins most of those states will win the election. Before those states, I put the electoral vote at 227 for Bush, 227 for Kerry, with the remaining 84 votes to decided by those six states:

Florida goes to Bush, by a slim margin. His brother is governor, so even if Bush doesn't win the actual vote, I'm sure he'll still get all the electoral votes somehow. 254 Bush, 227 Kerry.

Iowa and New Mexico go to Kerry. 254 Bush, 239 Kerry.

New Hampshire goes to Bush. 258 Bush, 239 Kerry.

Pennsylvania, with the very Democratic Philly and Pittsburgh areas, will go to Kerry. 258 Bush, 260 Kerry.

So, as predicted, it all comes down to my home state - Ohio. And rightly so. Ohio has been hurt by economy more than any other state, and I think that today's election will reflect that sentiment. Kerry will win Ohio by 2 percent of the vote, giving him the Presidency with 280 electoral votes, compared to Bush's 258.

That's what I think, and I will reflect on my prediction tonight - at which time we will hopefully have a definitive winner in the race.

If you as much as a political junky as I am, here are two great websites that have created statistical models based on the polling numbers.

http://election.princeton.edu/

http://www.electoral-vote.com

Best use of an over-used phrase

Seen on an poster for soon-to-be-released Oceans 12:

Twelve is the new Eleven.

Would we care?

On my flight over to Amsterdam last night, I sat next to a Dutch women who is a journalist for a Dutch weekly news maganize (the equivalent of Time or Newsweek in The Netherlands). She and 10 colleagues were returning from a week-long tour of the United States to write all about the presidential election. They saw George Bush speak in Ohio, were in D.C. to meet some Congressmen, interviewed Barrack Obama in Chicago - all so they could report about the election process in the U.S. to their Dutch readers.

Would a U.S. news magazine even report that The Netherlands was having an election, much less send a team of reporters to cover it? Obviously, the United States is over 10 times the size of The Netherlands and has a much larger role in world affairs. This is my fourth trip to The Netherlands this year and I have no idea who is the Prime Minister, yet every Dutch person I have spoken to about the election clearly knows who Bush and Kerry are.