What time do polls close?

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Here's a useful map for those of you who are trying to picture the way the news will roll out on Tuesday night. What places will we hear from first? Where might we see surprisingly early evidence of a Romney blowout, if that's what's about to happen? The earliest sign might come from Virginia, where the polls close at 7 ET. I was imagining Pennsylvania as the possible first sign, but polls don't close there until 8, at which point we'll be seeing Michigan and Missouri. Ohio and North Carolina come in at 7:30, so the impression from Ohio will precede Pennsylvania.

"Billionaire Thomas Peterffy's ‘socialist’ ads raise questions."

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Headlines Politico, pointing its readers at a very effective ad that they might otherwise avoid:



The "questions" referred to in the headline are about who is helping Peterffy, a political neophyte, to make and place such ad. But there's nothing interesting there, and Peterffy comes across as an intelligent, persuasive independent:

Typically, such ads call for supporting or opposing specific candidates, but Peterffy’s ad is more vague because it doesn’t mention specific candidates — only an encouragement to vote Republican....

Peterffy said he supports Republican candidates because he sees the rhetoric of social justice and fairness from Democrats, including President Barack Obama, as a slippery slope. He also said Romney’s 47 percent comment reflected his own fears about the future of the country and was taken out of context.

“My understanding was that he said he had no ability to influence the 47 percent,” Peterffy said. “That’s the very logic I’m based on. I’m worried about when that 47 percent goes to 60 percent.”

"Unprecedented micro-targeting by campaigns creeps out voters."

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And they're especially willing to say so when they're targeted by their zip code and they don't agree with the party that dominates there:

"It was Mitt Romney saying, 'I know you have an absentee ballot and I know you haven't sent it in yet,' " Trulen said in an interview. "That just sent me over the line. Not only is it like Big Brother. It is Big Brother. It's down to where they know I have a ballot and I haven't sent it in! I thought when I requested the ballot that the only other entity that would know was the Mukwonago clerk.... It's alarming to me.... It's just not right. . . . It's like you can feel the tentacles creeping into your house under your door."

The calls to Trulen were likely part of the GOP's effort to get out the vote in what the party considers one of its strongest counties. Waukesha County is traditionally a Republican stronghold, just as Milwaukee tends to go for Democrats.

The irony is that the robocallers apparently haven't figured out Trulen is actually a minority in her county: She has been voting Democratic.

For comparison, check out the "report card" the liberals send to our house yesterday... "I'm sure they chose Meade as a recipient based on our zip code."

"A rising tide of outrage is forming after pictures emerged of a 20-year-old diver who dragged a giant Pacific octopus from its watery home..."

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"... and then killed and ate it for his friends art project."

[Dylan Mayer] now is in the position of having to justify to the diving community why he hunted the gentle and intelligent animal....

'I eat it for meat. It's no different than fishing. It's just a different animal,' said Mayer...

So what is it — meat or art? Let's not overdo the denunciations. Portraying him as an artist....

ADDED: Octopus art should relate to "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife."

"Does Mitt Romney’s Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected to president of the United States?"

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Asks Glenn Beck, a Mormon, speaking to Evangelical Christians, reported in the NYT.

During his special program, Mr. Beck took questions from mostly evangelical Christian listeners, colorfully debunking misperceptions about Mormonism. The “magic underwear” was compared to a skullcap, and Mr. Beck insisted that polygamy was seen as a “perversion” in the modern church.

“It’s not weird to be a Mormon,” he assured his listeners at the end of the program, “and it’s not weird to be president if you’re Mormon.”

It's fascinating — isn't it? — how little anti-Mormon material has been spread about in this election. The only notable person who seems to be going there is Andrew Sullivan:

Andrew Sullivan recently posted YouTube footage of LDS temple ceremonies in an effort to turn Romney’s Mormonism into an argument against his candidacy.

The video posted by Sullivan was shot surreptitiously inside LDS temples by a former Mormon who wanted to use the publicity connected with the Romney campaign to embarrass the LDS community. (The video creator enhanced the footage with his own monologue — wearing a gorilla mask — and spooky "Carmina Burana" soundtrack.)...

I think most Americans have a deep sensibility respecting religion and don't care to look into details about any given sect that could be exploited to make outsiders see it as bizarre. Sullivan, like Joe Biden, is a Catholic. You could make an equivalent YouTube video holding Catholics up to derision and contempt. That's generally not how we behave in America. I wonder who is more susceptible to this anti-Mormon material: the middle Americans who are aggregated under the "Evangelical Christians" label, who listen to Glenn Beck, or the affluent, educated coastal Americans who read Andrew Sullivan and the New York Times? Whichever, the notable fact is that there has been very little effort to stimulate anti-Mormon sentiment, and that's an excellent thing about America.

Did Biden blame Hillary for Benghazi?

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Mickey Kaus thinks so.

Will Hillary now retaliate and protect herself by leaking word that the White House did too know? Will her husband continue to tour the country trying to pull Obama’s bacon out of the fire (as he did at the convention) even as Obama points a finger at his wife? Will they all cut some sort of deal in which Hillary agrees to take the fall and Bill soldiers on … in exchange for, what? Have they already cut a deal?  Is the White House going to try to hang its hat on the idea that Obama and Biden didn’t know, but maybe their staffs knew? Will that really fly? Aren’t they responsible for their staffs? Will the staffs fight back?

That's a lot of internal intrigue to keep under control until the election. What an October surprise!

They October-surprised themselves. 

"Orally urinating turtle boffin in nominative-determinism classic case/Shit Fun Chew probes mouth-excreting chelonian."

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Actual headline — not a joke — about actual scientific research.

What's nominative-determinism?, you may ask. Possibly not your first question, but you may get to it. You might have asked, before that, what Google alert does Althouse maintain that gets her there? (Answer: "boffin"!) Anyway:

The theory of nominative determinism suggests that a person’s name can help form their choices in life, influencing the character they develop or profession they adopt.

Examples: "Poet William Wordsworth, caricaturist and Disney animator Mr T Hee, and sprinter Usain Bolt..."

Which reminds me, chez Meadhouse, we're supporting the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS, because of Prince Fielder, whom we like not because of nominative determinism, but because he's an ex-Brewer.