Paris Werewolves

One of these characters is a werewolf.

Excel charts make for an ugly blog. So why not a gratuitous photo of Sugar in front of a mid-1960s Facel-Vega III? IEM VS: IEM vote share contracts; WAF VS: Werewolves Adjustment Factor applied to IEM VS At the end of September 2024, IEM voter share contracts averaged $0.56 for the Democratic presidential candidate (Harris), and $0.47 for the Republican presidential candidate. By applying the Werewolves Adjustment Factor (WAF) to account for traders' historic over- and under-valuations of Democratic and Republic vote shares, at the end of September 2024, a good guess might be 53% of the votes for Harris and 48% for Trump (which adds up to more than 100% of the vote share--but hey, the smart money had spoken, if not amongst themselves). Maxim Lott and John Stossel's Election Betting Odds  site tracks presidential bets made on commercial gambling sites. On September 30, their method gave Harris a 52% chance of winning. In the case of both Lott-Stossel and WAF VS, there's ab...

The Excel chart image from the previous post on political forecasting left the webpage ugly. Let's pretty it up again with a vintage Aston Martin, done up mildly for bridal photos.

  Sugar with her vintage AC Ace. Matching numbers unverified. Our new routine in the 7th Arrondissement occasionally takes us by Royal Automobile , a storefront broker-dealer of classic Jaguars, Porsches, Alfas, and other choice rides. It also acts as a modest shrine to America's greatest actor-Le Mans idols, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. I noticed that several listings for sale in the window specified that the cars had "Matching numbers." For car collectors, matching numbers indicates that the vehicle contains original major components such as the engine, frame, and transmission--the very same ones that it had the very same day it rolled out of the factory for the very first time. This makes the car more valuable to some collectors, for some reason. What interested me more than the originality of the vehicles for sale (which does not interest me at all, since I do not collect, buy, sell, or underwrite vintage vehicles) was that except for the phrase "matching numbe...

I can't imagine owning a car in Paris--too much traffic, too little parking, too many strange intersections, and too many better public transit options. But tons of people do, usually newer, fuel-efficient or electric small- to mid-size models. I have noticed that electric options seem to be bumping up some vehicle sizes to near-US levels for minivan/crossover models (e.g., the massive Volvo XC90 will get a direct replacement in the EX90). If true, that will be a bummer for the supply chain of batteries and all the carbon-intensive rare-earth materials that go into making them--but still a better option than the swarms of cheap, dirty, leaf-blower-powered scooters that vastly outnumber passenger cars in Paris (in the streets and on the sidewalks) and that currently enable many Parisiens' order-on-demand lifestyles. But some gearheads (or cheapskates) over here are getting the most out of their older model cars. As long as I don't have to drive or ride in them, I can appreci...