The Jacksonville PBS pulled out all the stops for the pledge drive. Coming at you live from the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, Cantors: A Faith In Song.

Lastly, Jews in India.
And Jews in Space.

So the question obviously becomes this: why weren't you here? Had you been there, then you could have seen page 45 of this, which is perhaps the most amazing set of data in the world. I mean, if this isn't your homepage, I mean: whatever. You probably couldn't have completed the following: "Water, race and . . . " BEWARE: There be .pdfs here!

I make no comment on the content of this analysis, but on average, I find myself much more effectively swayed by its style of argument than what I usually see today. Unfortunately for me, I suspect I am in the minority.

Come on over with me to the Backpage and whisper some more of these in my ear, won't you?

A teacup is a doughnut, some Krispy Kreme-snatching topologist will have you believe, but is a simply connected closed three-manifold a three-sphere?

According to this gem of mathematical correspondence, it very will might be:
----- Forwarded message from Grigory Perelman -----
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 11:46:49 +0300 (MSK)
From: Grigory Perelman
Reply-To: Grigory Perelman
Subject: Re: geometrization
To: Vitali Kapovitch

That's correct.
Grisha

On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Vitali Kapovitch wrote:

> Hi Grisha,
> Sorry to bother you but a lot of people are asking me about your preprint
> "The entropy formula for the Ricci...". Do I understand it correctly
> that while you can not yet do all the steps in the Hamilton program
> you can do enough so that using some collapsing results you can prove
> geometrization?
> Vitali
>

----- End forwarded message -----

That's Grisha Perelman who will claim one million dollars if he has indeed proven the Poincare Conjecture.

While I might not know much about topology, this is starting to look like the real deal, so you'll understand if you see me sitting on our roof with a shotgun to ward off white-board looters. I only hope that Gainesville PD will take a page from Chicago's playbook:

"Math hooligans are the worst," said a Chicago Police Department spokesman. "But the city learned from the Bieberbach riots. We were ready for them this time."

I say give 'em mounted police and tear gas, damn punks.

Recipe blogging! (Many thanks to Aditee who first introduced us to this lovely dish.)

Kheera Ka Raita (Cucumber in Spiced Yogurt)

• 2 large cucumbers, peeled, finely grated
  
• 1 green chile, finely chopped
  
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped cilantro leaves, plus a sprig of cilantro for garnish
  
• 4 teaspoons sugar
  
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 cup plain yogurt

Remove excess juice from cucumbers by straining through vegetable strainer or use your hands as strainer. Set aside.

In medium bowl, mix green chile, cilantro, sugar and salt with yogurt. Add cucumber and mix well. Garnish with fresh sprig of cilantro leaves. Serve chilled. Makes 1 1/2 cups or enough for 4 to 5 servings.

Note: Fat-free yogurt can be substituted for plain yogurt. Artificial sweetener can also be substituted for sugar, if needed.

RE: previous post. Actually, we can't run a logit. What I'm sure is due to secrecy laws, CNN is not allowing us to see the actual records. But we could conjecture one, which would be just as fun.

Labor economists have taken over the CNN Primary Exit Poll pages. Check out the big MO. Now everyone can run a logit. We're not just inv(X'X)X'Y anymore!

Also, if you're following the numbers as a time trend/VAR-cum-VMA, I highly recommend the following Matlab commands to help you deal with all of the lagnomial nastiness: this and that.

That presidential futures market is one unpredictable... market.

Frontline consistently delivers superlative television quality. Now they direct me toward this (fake) presidential futures market.

This is such a lovely, innovative, and satisfying idea of late. It pained me greatly when public backlash stoped DARPA's terrorism futures market.

However, the University of Iowa seems to operate something with real money. After yesterday's poker performance, I'm not about to start trading.