Cooped up in the decidedly warm and dry comforts of its dorm room today, Bwog noticed on this most spooky and rainy of autumn afternoons that the jokesters at the Fed have published their third (and equally eerie) issue of the semester. 

Prez-Bo-Hef likes Halloween parties, digs Kanye even more.

Find yourself at Ricky’s? Not your typical Sarah Palin Halloween costumes.

Columbia twenty-four years hence, it’s not a pretty picture.

The Fed‘s November 4th guide to understanding non-voters.

A long-anticipated and much-needed scientific treatise on the mediocrity of the food at John Jay dining hall.

With the election a mere week away and the presidential candidates making their final appeals to voters in swing states tirelessly this week, it seems that Columbia political science professors have been all but missing out on the action.  That is of course, until now. 

According to the popular electoral projections website fivethirtyeight.com, founded in March by baseball sabermetrics whiz Nate Silver, a calculation of the odds of your vote actually deciding the outcome of the upcoming election in the contested states of New Mexico, New Hampshire, Virginia or Colorado yielded a whopping 1 in 10,000,000 chance. 

Five Thirty Eight (the grand total of electors in the American electoral college) gleaned this information from the recent and ever-so-sleek projection of none other than Silver’s good friend, Columbia professor Andrew Gelman, author of Red State, Blue State. 

Bwog invites you to look at Gelman’s nifty electoral regression and chuckle at how meaningless your vote actually might prove to be this year.

In which Lecture Hop Editor Pierce Stanley takes in the second of two economic forums held at Columbia last night.

Another spectacle of epic proportions has come and passed in Roone Arledge Auditorium.  Yet, last night’s Presidential Economic Forum courtesy of Columbia’s Program for Economic Research and co-sponsored by the Economics Department, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Business School seemed to pass quietly into the night with a whimper far more than with a bang.  While not quite on the level of spectacle that characterized the original Obamacain affair, yesterday’s Presidential Economic Advisors Forum, which pitted self proclaimed “data hound” Austan Goolsbee, Senior Economic Advisor of the Obama-Biden ticket and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Chief Economic Advisor of the McCain-Palin camp against a serious panel of Columbia Economics department heavy-hitters, including Professors Richard Clarida, Janet Currie, Joe Stiglitz, and Michael Woodford, resembled a high school policy debate round moderated by a panel of seriously pretentious judges more than a forum of any academic import with serious implications for the fate of the economy. Read more…

Obamacain economic advisers hold debate in a Columbia economic forum.  This part is brought to you by Aleve.

Obamacain healthcare advisers hold debate in a Columbia healthcare forum.  This part is brought to you by Mylanta.

Housing says bid farewell to your VingCard and its cutout Starbucks doppelganger.

Change at African Institute brings instant success.

Change in gifted students programs reshuffles NYC public schools.

Oh yeah, CCSC finally gets one right.

The highly anticipated second Presidential debate of the 2008 election commenced mere moments ago.  Tonight’s affair should prove to be quite the slug-fest, as both camps have turned up the heat with nasty smears and negative ads as of late, with just under thirty days until election day.  Also, tonight’s debate from Belmont University in Nashville, TN will prove to be extra-interesting as it features the first and last time that Obama and McCain will square off in a Town Hall-style format.

In typical fashion, the Columbia Democrats, College Republicans and the CPU (and LionPAC!) have teamed up to turn the Lerner Piano Lounge into the campus debate-watching hub.  So, stop by and grab a lime-green seat, a corner of the suede swirly thing.  If you can’t make it out to the Piano Lounge this evening, Bwog’s got you covered with news from around the blogosphere.

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In this whole hubbub about NROTC forums and referenda,  the Wall Street Journal has raised its voice once again.

Yesterday, in an article centered around future Marine and Junior Austin Byrd, columnist William McGurn said that PrezBo better straighten out his act and grant the ROTC access to Columbia’s campus.  After all, McGurn wrote, even Barack “the most liberal member of the United States Senate” Obama said that Columbia was out of line that one time when he bothered to come back to campus! 

The article also called Bollinger on his slip-up about who instituted Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Congress, not the DOD) and claimed that the administration was “throwing up side issues” when most students, famous alumni and an adjusted JFK quote are all against him. 

A Robyn Schneider for a new generation.

Philip Roth makes it big, in Hollywood!

Woody Allen makes things beautiful and slightly off-putting, in Barcelona!

Standing up to middle school and high school bullies: what you need to know.

That time you sat uncomfortably on the Steps yesterday: relive the magic!

That time you watched the Summit and were vaguely bored: relive the magic!

Waterfalls are magic.

Photo by Anthony Yim

Today, we received many outstanding photographs of various things like David Gergen and cops on the roof of Butler and Joe Biden befriending a small child on a bicycle. Here is a collection of the day’s special moments. Plus a bonus PhotoShop Contest after the jump!

Photo by Jon Hill

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As we wait for Barack Obama to walk across College Walk and hop into a white SUV at the sundial – UPDATE 10:10 PM: Security says they’re “having trouble with the dorms” and this walk is canceled — we’ve received a Shocking Report that an estimated 75 seats located on the lower level of Roone were completely empty.

A Roone insider reports that ServiceNation brochures and a copy of Time were placed on these seats, indicating that they were, at least in theory, designated for audience members. 

The main event is here! Check back at other liveblogs dedicated to the opening act and pre-gaming on the Steps.

8:01 PM: The screen is back. And Judy Woodruff is here. 

8:03 PM: Oh, here is Rick Stengel. Is it just our TV or is his face bright yellow?

8:04 PM: It’s McCain! Hello, McCain!

8:05 PM: He just pointed in the audience, maybe at Meghan!

8:04 PM: It’s time to talk about 9/11. Are we forgetting about it? How will McCain make us remember, because clearly this is his responsibility.

8:05 PM: He replies that serving our country is what this forum is all about.

Read more…

We’ll start a second liveblog dedicated to the Summit itself, which is about to start. Join us! Or reminisce about all the fun times we had on the lawn, with our earlier liveblog.

7:04 PM: Everyone took their seats off the stage. Ushers are ushering people to chairs. If Bwog sees one empty chair…

7:06 PM: Ooh, we’re starting, we’re starting! Thank you to our sponsors, Target and Time magazine, and others!

7:07 PM: It’s Joseph Ienuso, who just asked one million people to turn off their cell phones.

7:08 PM: Bwog operative spots a sniper on the roof of Butler. Awesome.

7:09 PM: It’s someone from Target and someone from AARP talking about ServiceNation. Hm, it seems most of the sodas that were here earlier are gone.

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Check in as we bring you updates and photographs from the Steps, Lerner, and the Press Room.

5:24 PM: Sarah Besnoff, George Krebs, and Peter Valerias are talking to us about the community service fair that’s still happening but no one is going to forfeit their spots on the steps. 

5:27 PM: Someone is speaking very quickly and softly now, there is literally no way to tell who it is. It’s quite windy out. 

5:32 PM: The mic keeps going out but Bwog heard the phrases “commuity lunch” and “not to be too corny, but to quote Martin Luther King…”

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World-renowned Service-enthusiast Usher just walked up the Lerner ramps, right in front of your Bwog editor! He was wearing a scarf and sunglasses and was surrounded by many others wearing sunglasses. He was hurried into the piano lounge, but apparently that was the wrong place to go and he was taken to a second mysterious location.

Oh, and then these guys walked up to Bwog and asked who that was we just took a picture of. We replied it was none other than Usher. “Ha! I told you so!” one of them shouted. “You owe me $5.”

More horrible paparazzi shots after the jump.

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The lottery winning ticket-holders have began to line up at the entrance of Roone. Ha! They have to line-up inside already and the rest of us get to hang around and enjoy this lovely, overcast day. Who’s the lucky one now?

Meanwhile, Bwog actually heard a pantsuit-wearing lady say “I just spoke to the White House this morning…” 

Some of your classmates have already started sitting on the steps, willing to sit there bored, for hours and hours, just to watch Obamacain on the Jumbotron, which your student leaders fought for so valiantly.

Michael Snyder and Tobin Mitnick, both CC ’10, said that they weren’t sure they were going to hang around until the speech. “I don’t have class,” Snyder shrugged noncommittally, and later admitted that he would “probably hang around.” Mitnick doesn’t expect Obama or McCain to say anything of substance, but said that if there were a debate, he’d like Lee Bollinger’s hair to moderate.

Read more…