DC is at DEFCON 2 security level, with riot fencing lining blocks adjacent to Pennsylvania Avenue. There is a thin blue line leading to the White House, and scores of uniformed officers milling around talking about the Friday weather forecast. The kid is curious about the spectacle, but with the chance of rain and certainty of crowds and pat-downs I am suggesting the view will be better on TV. I made another idiotic bet ($6.50 for 15 shares of NO) on the speech, still trying to recover from the November upset. Or maybe we should finish watching Game 3 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. YouTube says there is a brawl.
How'd you do? The thing happened, I think, although I was on a plane. A plane, incidentally, which had to be rebalanced by the trustworthy method of moving a couple of people toward the back. I was thinking of demanding compensation for playing the role of counterweight in addition to that of passenger.
Yeah, as veen pointed out I didn't have to watch very long to find out that another bet went bust. I left it on though, and NBC News cut back and forth to downtown protesters. One guy with an "antiestablishment slant" took questions as an ad hoc spokesperson for the vandals and gawkers and hardly flinched as flashbang grenades and tear gas bombs went off just behind him. Periscope has been entertaining as well. Norman Borlaug got a long mention before the victory luncheon, and the new president did not close his eyes during the prayer. A Starbucks on I Street got its windows smashed, possibly the one I patronized on Thursday morning. I asked the manager why all the furniture was missing; he said they were expecting record crowds and they wanted to maximize flow; he said nothing about projectiles.
I watched his speech (for some reason, Dutch public broadcasting thought it was important enough to broadcast live) and he did name previous presidents in his first line.
Counting heads is tough. The park service used to make an eyeball guesstimate, but stopped after the Nation of Islam threatened to sue after NPS said the Million Man March wasn't. The biggest crowd appears to have been around 1.4 to 1.8 million eight years ago. Of course, it's not obvious whose side anyone is on in a satellite photo. There are several other silly prediction markets: PEOTUS tweet count for the week ending today (99¢ on 45-49) A post-speech victory stroll (84¢ on YES) Clinton mentioned in speech (81¢ on YES) Obama mentioned (91¢ YES) Putin mentioned (79¢ NO) China mentioned (52¢ NO) Hacking mentioned (75¢ NO)
"You know, comrades," says Stalin, "that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how." still true I guessUpdate: A historical source has been found for one version of this quote. The source is Boris Bazhanov's Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary, published in 1992 and only available, so far as I know, in Russian. The pertinent passage, which appears near the end of chapter five, reads as follows (loosely translated with the help of Google):