BestofBarack.com

What happens when baseball stat geeks start running tens of thousands of simulated elections? Today, Obama wins a majority of the virtual elections but it looks like it'll be a squeaker.

FiveThirtyEight.com

At Things Younger Than McCain we learn:

"Alaska - the freaking state - is younger than John McCain. And, for that matter, so is Hawaii. McCain is older than two of the fifty states."

But in the meantime, a fine alternative at Zazzle.

More creative casting as Barack begins his Jedi training to take on the Galactic Empire of you-know-who.

"What if the only thing you knew about Thomas Jefferson was that he owned slaves?

What if, instead of the video of the I Have a Dream speech, elementary school students were taught that Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "My government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world ..."?

What if the single piece of information you possessed about Nelson Mandela was that he co-founded a terrorist organization called Umkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK), which stands for Spear of the Nation?

With apologies to William Blake, if you believe you can see the world in a grain of sand, you better make sure it is the right grain."

-- On Faith, Washington Post

I know some folks feel bitter about me, as bitter as the first dandelion greens of the season. Yet these people are not without hope, hope that is drizzled on those dandelion greens like a dash of sweet pomegranate vinegar. Do they begrudge the scorpion its sting, or the duck its quack? How can I be other than what I am, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He's Black?

-- Visible Man, Colson Whitehead, New York Times

A little non-traditional casting not to be confused with another blood-pumping effort with a similar name.

A long, thoughtful analysis of the current election by Stanford Law prof. Lawrence Lessig. Well worth the 20 minutes.

A warm, low-key, unscripted endorsement from a writer in her kitchen.