Taurids tonight

Like many Americans, the television is blaring out numbers tonight. CNN just showed a hologram, which, I suppose, may be amazing in the studio, but loses something on a two-dimensional screen.

CNN also just posted a set of numbers for McCain and Obama that added up to far less than 100%. Either we have a mysterious 3rd candidate, or the staff at CNN is infected with the same innumeracy virus that allowed the last election to be stolen.

Wolf Blitzer continues to intone that CNN will only call states based on "real numbers by real voters" yet called Vermont with 0 votes in. Either he can lie with a straight face, or he doesn't understand numbers. I fear it's the latter.

(Later CNN reported that 1% of the Texas votes had been recorded--and the number was over a million votes. Even with voter fraud, hard to imagine Texas getting over 100 million votes in this election.)

When you get tired of the nonsense, wander outside tonight. Look up. While the Taurid meteor shower might be better named the Taurid Trickle, the few extra meteors you can catch tonight have the chance to be spectacular. The Taurids are known for slow, majestic meteors. You might even catch a fireball.

Let me know. We're socked in here in New Jersey.

The photo is of a Taurid fireball in Japan, October 28, 2005, taken by Hiroyuki Iida, from the NASA archive.
Somebody's awake and math literate on CNN--they corrected their numbers.