5 Thoughts for November 1, 2016

1. Forgiveness: I suspect most Christians would fail Jesus as Peter did when he struck that Roman soldier with his sword. These days, we're bombarded with a public showing of people who are quick to forgive someone of their own tribe while insisting that there are obstacles to forgiving someone from another tribe. Yeah, it's hard, but is it that hard?
2. 8 Years: Regardless of who wins -- hint: Hillary -- the odds are stacked against the next POTUS serving out a second term and having a full 8 years in office. By virtue of having entered the longest expansion period in a business cycle in American history, we're practically guaranteed to hit a recession within the next four years. Then there is the reality that the two current candidates will both be in their mid-70s, and with the stress of the job, will not by physically fit to carry that sort of weight heading into another campaign cycle.
3. PAC-12's Demise: I'm not saying that we're almost there, but this weekend will mark two straight weeks of zero PAC-12 football games on broadcast TV. Last week Fox chose to air #10 West Virginia against unranked Oklahoma State over #4 Washington at #17 Utah. As a result, not a single PAC-12 matchup garnered more than 1.4M viewers in the country during those two weeks. Fewer eyeballs is bad -- that's one possible reason why Washington wasn't in the first CFP top-4 rankings, despite being #4 in the AP and Coaches polls. PAC-12 commissioner, Larry Scott, is doing one heckuva job, don't you think? Fortunately, the UW - USC game will be on Fox the following week. Nonetheless, two straight weeks off broadcast TV in the back-half of the season is disturbing and a really bad trend for the PAC-12.
4. Polls: I know it seems rough when the polls get close, but it's not what it looks like. Hillary's numbers are durable and haven't actually moved; it's Donald's numbers that have climbed off their floor. For all of October, Morning Consult's tracking showed Hillary at 42% while Donald has gone down then back up between 36% and 39%. Within the undecided group, Hillary maintains a healthy 5pp margin between leaners. In other polls, the wide swings come from voter participation based on their mood, so when bad news comes out for Donald his voters will stop participating in polls and vice versa. I'll explain it all next week Tuesday or Wednesday after the election is finished, depending on whether I'm having a ball chatting it up with others online on political websites -- I'll have a bit of gloating to do if Hillary wins, as well as chase down that guy who made a bet with me online.
5. Unclog That Sink: Ever had to unclog your sink? It's been probably longer than a decade since I last bought extra-strength Draino to clear out a clog, but it has never left my mind that they used bleach (potassium hypochlorite). The other week I had bought a smaller bottle of store-brand bleach, and today I finally decided to test my suspicion that I could simply dump a half-cup of bleach into the drain and let it sit there to eat through the gunk. It worked. Cleared drain, $1.