It’s time, once again, for the Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language please.

This is a chance to make comments on any topic of your choosing, to be written and read at the leisurely pace of the weekend. I’d welcome pieces a little longer than the usual comments, but not full-length essays. If you want to draw attention to something longer, try an extract or summary with a link. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language.

I’m already getting polite reminders that it’s time for the Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language please.

This is your chance to make comments on any topic of your choosing, to be written and read at the leisurely pace of the weekend. I welcome pieces a little longer than the usual comments, but not full-length essays. If you want to draw attention to something longer, try an extract or summary with a link. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language.

It’s time for the Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language please.

Reader Mark Upcher has suggested that this item be moved to the weekend, when readers might have a bit more free time. In the spirit of free competition, I plan to run both for a while. The weekend board might be a better one for longish, more reflective, pieces.

Early exit polls are showing Kerry ahead in nearly all the swing states – I don’t know how much weight to place on this. Slate is releasing exit polls as they come to hand, and is rather hard to reach as a result. The major networks have agreed not to release exit polls until voting has finished.

A more solid positive indicator is very high turnout, particularly in Democratic precincts.

Good coverage is at myDD or you can tune into the NRO Corner to see what the Bush camp is making of all this.

Access to US sites with any data is getting steadily worse. So I’ll post these numbers leaked to Wonkette – usual caveats apply

FL: 52/48 – KERRY
OH: 52/47 – KERRY
MI: 51/48 – KERRY
PA: 58/42 – KERRY
IA: 50/48 – KERRY
WI: 53/47 – KERRY
MN: 57/42 – KERRY
NH: 58/41 – KERRY
ME: 55/44 – KERRY

NM: 49/49 – TIE

NV: 48/49 – BUSH
CO: 49/50 – BUSH
AR: 45/54 – BUSH
NC: 47/53 – BUSH

For those who haven’t been following obsessively, this means (with the usual kilo of salt) that Kerry is leading in all the main swing states, and some that were seen as leaning to Bush.

Update Rather belatedly, the betting markets are swinging heavily to Kerry – they’re also hard to reach. You can follow updates in this thread at Crooked Timber

The results for Dixville Notch are in !. Bush 19, Kerry 7. In 2000, Bush got 21 to Gore’s 5. There was a similar swing in Hart’s Location. Repeated nationwide, this swing would give Kerry a thumping victory[1].

fn1. As bases for spurious predictions go, I’d rank this one somewhere between the Washington Redskins home games and Ray Fair’s econometric model.

As usual before the first Tuesday in November, Australians are closely studying the papers, trying to predict the winner in tomorrow’s race, and planning the well-lubricated parties that are essential as we wait for the results. A critical question here, and one that has been the subject of vigorous debate, is whether betting markets are efficient predictors. While some have argued strongly in favor of the markets recently, long-standing Australian tradition holds that they are utterly unreliable. There’s also a lot of debate about whether the whole turnout may be affected by the weather, and if so, in whose favour.

The level of interest is so high that the event is almost impossible to avoid. Even those who are completely apathetic have found it easier to pick an allegiance at random than to admit to not caring one way or the other.

Work will stop around the nation as we try to digest the results, and the champagne. Victorians, who take all matters of this kind more seriously than other Australians, will take the entire day off.

Update 2/11 A triumph for the betting markets, as the favorite Makybe Diva came home on the inside, the first mare to win two successive Cups. I managed a successful arbitrage on the office Calcutta buying the favorite for $25 in a pool of over $150, as opposed to market odds of 5/1 or less.

fn1. This is mainly intended as a mild leg-pull for the international audience at CT, but I thought I’d post it here as well.

With the recent emergence of stories about the looting of high explosives and pre-1991 chemical weapons from UN-secured sites, I’d like to remind everyon that this was not simply the result of negligence or inadequate numbers of troops. The Coalition forces explicitly encouraged looting. While the war was still continuing, I noted a report in The Times (4 April 2003), saying that the British were encouraging looters. The report said

The British view is that the sight of local youths dismantling the offices and barracks of a regime they used to fear shows they have confidence that Saddam Hussains henchmen will not be returning to these towns in southern Iraq.

One senior British officer said: We believe this sends a powerful message that the old guard is truly finished.

My London Times link is broken, but the report is reproduced, with attribution in the Daily TImes of Pakistan . As far as I know, there was no denial of this report at the time. Although the US forces aren’t mentioned in this report, it’s clear they were equally supportive of looting, if not more so.

As the various UN officials quoted in the story observe, once you’ve started encouraging looting, it’s going to be difficult to stop, especially in a situation where neither the troops nor their commanders had any idea about what was where. The one crucial site that was secured immediately was, of course, the Oil Ministry.

It’s time for the Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language please. Feel free to give predictions and comments on the US election.