Michigan ballot initiatives

I voted (for the first time since I was in college) mainly because the cost was lower and because of the two initiatives on the ballot in Michigan. I walk past my polling place every day on my way to work and I walked back to it in the mid-afternoon to vote and had no line at all.

The ballot initiatives seek to allow medical marijuana and to roll back some additional restrictions on stem cell research in Michigan beyond those imposed by the federal government. CNN has just called the medical marijuana initiative for the "yes" side; to my surprise it is about 10 points ahead of the stem cell initiative. There must be a lot of pro-life stoners out that there that I was unaware of. The stem cell initiative is leading too, but only 53-47 and so remains too close to call at this point.

Addendum: the stem cell initiative passed too.

Obama

I agree with the fellow on Fox News who said that, regardless of what you think of his policies, for an African-American to win a presidential election is indeed "America at its grandest".

Let's hope he does not waste this on ideological crap like card check and the fairness doctrine.

Addendum: McCain gave a very classy concession speech. His audience was a bit less classy.

Addendum 2: Here is reason's take on the concession speech from Matt Welch, who is no fan of McCain.

Should you vote?

Things seem remarkably calm today, given that the Second Coming is tomorrow.

Here is an argument in favor of voting from the Economist's Voice; there is related discussion on volokh.com here.

The argument hinges criticially on the idea that you, the reader, knows that one candidate rather than another will lead to a large increase in the size of the pie. It also seems to hinge on one not caring about how the pie is distributed either in the sense of equality of outcomes or in the sense of fairness and efficiency of process. I am not surprised I suppose that the authors think they know of a candidate who would increase the size of the pie enough to justify voting without assigning utility from warm glow. However, I think their intellectual hubris in this regard is unjustified. There are way too many variables and the disconnect between what candidates say before an election and what they do afterwards is just too large. Think about FDR, who ran as a budget-balancer, or Bush II and his promised "humble" foreign policy.

I may vote tomorrow because I will get a warm glow from voting in favor of stem cell research (which also will pragmatically help UM get more grant money and attract good researchers) and in favor of loosening the restrictions on medical marijuana.

Legal caveat: Though UM President Mary Sue Coleman's email to the entire university came perilously close to urging a "no" vote on Prop. 2, in our capacity as university employees we are forbidden from using university resources to support or hinder particular ballot propositions or candidates. This posting is being done on my home computer (which is not owned by the university) and on my own time.

USC 56 Washington 0

I think Washington has only beaten the spread twice this year in eight games.

Not pretty at all, though they played pretty even against the second team.

This is the fourth-worst loss in Washington history.

Wonder who the new coach will be.

Purdue 48 Michigan 42

This one was great fun to watch - especially the fake punt and lateral-after-the-pass trick plays by Purdue - but it was not exactly a brilliant defensive show by Michigan.

I am guessing this will be another 0-2 day for me.

Addendum: ND loses in quadruple overtime to Pitt after trying some hocus-pocus with the automatic sprinklers, so the day may not be a total loss.

News flash: price, quantity related

NYT discovers downward sloping demand curves.

Surely the end times are upon us.

Huskies

Some thoughts on Tyrone Willingham from the LA Times.

I share the view that Tyrone's performance at Washington does not excuse his firing at Notre Dame. That firing has to be judged in light of the information available at the time the decision was made.

Washington is a 46 point (!!) underdog to USC today, which appears to be both the largest line ever against UW in the history of the team and also the largest line ever between two PAC-10 teams.

Ugh.