Patient Etherised

Noticed while on the NYT weddings site

2010-06-02T20:01:00.003-05:00

1. She looks like she's playing dress-up in her mother's clothes.

2. Therefore for her to be trying to look alluring is slightly Jon-Benet Ramsey.

3. Also, there is such a thing as being over-matched.

That is all.

A bit of veiled conceit: Chaudhary-Warren*

2010-06-02T19:07:00.006-05:00

Sometimes, an announcement appears to be written in English, but needs a little translation to actually make sense. Witness the mild hipster** love of Dimple Chaudhary and Previn Warren.

I don't have the energy to lay this out properly, and these two don't really deserve any filleting. It's not like they cheated on their previous spouses together then ran off to Italy. Instead, I'll just reprint sections of the vows, along with my asides and translation.

Quotes:
In November 2005, Dimple Chaudhary was happily single, but wasn’t against getting her feet wet, that is, leaving before breakfast.

“I’m always struck by her vivaciousness and good humor,” (her friend) Ms. Larson said, "I also plan on remaining her friend, so what else would I say?"

The next morning, while going for coffee in Park Slope, Ms. Larson saw a good-looking fellow across the street. They made eye contact, but he wasn't into her and so they kept walking. Next thing she knew, she was running toward him. “Sir! Excuse me! I have this friend. ... ”

This section is the reason I wanted to write about this announcement:

Mr. Warren, who was living in Park Slope, gave his number to Ms. Larson, who immediately called Ms. Chaudhary, who also lived in the neighborhood.
Her first thought? “Ax murderer,” Ms. Chaudhary said of her friend’s catch. “It was adorable that she ran after him, but you never know. He was just some guy!”
Her second thought? He said he was 23 — three years her junior. “In New York there’s this idea of prolonged youth,” she said, noting that most men of that age “want to date lots of girls, and I felt I wanted to build something with someone.”
Ms. Chaudhary spent days weighing the pros and cons of calling. “I finally decided it was one of those neighborhood-y things,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like something that would happen in Midtown.”

The reason I wanted to blog this vows was because this part of the announcement doesn't make any sense.

1. Ax[e] murderer, who lives in Park Slope? I'm not a New Yorker, but my impression is that Park Slope is basically the nicest neighborhood in New York, if not the U.S. People on the street there are liable to be quality, not axe murderers. There is also somewhat of a man-woman thing here. Guy approaches a girl on the street - could be weird (but it happens in NYTWCA fairly often***). Girl approaches guy on the street, he's liable to be receptive. Girl's friend approached a guy on the street, has spoken to him, so he's pre-vetted as a non-obvious axe murderer (and is there any other kind).

2.Prolonged youth nonsense... eh. One can figure that out.

3. Days deciding? Maybe.

4. Neighborhoody thing? I suppose 34th and Park isn't quite midtown. This seems over-determined. Read on:

“I’m glad you called,” he said when he answered. They arranged to meet at a Prospect Heights dive bar of her choosing.

Here's what I'm thinking. She decided to blow him off completely. Then, she got drunk, started complaining to Ms. Larson, and Ms. Larson called the groom on the bride's cell phone and put the phone in her hand. That would explain the delay, and the preposterous post-facto reasons. It also puts this in a much more interesting context:

She dialed, praying it would go to voice mail.

*: Veiled Conceit concept, or at least blogging, originated by Zach of nytimesweddings.blogspot.com

**: "But, p.e.", you say, "how do you know they're hipsters?" I'll tell you. I induce it from the following. 1. They live in Brooklyn, capital of American Hipsterdom. 2. Unnatural fascination with dive bars. 3. Explicit disowning of 'tatooed 30 year olds who've spent the decade perfecting being 21,' i.e. hipsters (as hipsters will always disavow being hipsters, often on preposterous and narrow grounds). 4. Pizza as an after-proposal meal. 5. For that matter proposing in LAX terminal 5. 6. Vintage Checker cab instead of limo. 6 1/2. Wrote own stupid vows. (does not really count, everyone does it). 7. Guy with whiskers, girl who likes guys with whiskers (may not really count - cultural thing? am _I_ racially profiling?). 8. Two 'funny' mentions of racial profiling within a single short entry (Is this really a hipster behavior? It's extraordinarily preening and annoying, so, YES). 9. The bride makes pottery.

***: Since I'm trying to not infringe, I didn't quote the bit from the begining about flagging down a mate like you flag down a cab, but the choice seems unfortunate given the cab-flagging-driven romance featured 3 weeks previous.

A bit of Veiled Conceit* Darria Long- Bryce Gillespie

2010-04-18T22:13:00.005-05:00

[Caption: The only time in the last three years that this power couple have been motionless in the same room]
They met in medical school, which is common enough. But how?

"He saw her sing a spoof of 'He Had it Coming,' from 'Chicago.'"** Just so we're clear on what he's implying, she probably looked like this:

[Caption: Her mouth is singing an in joke about some professor. The rest of her is communicating more universally]
He thought she was unattainable since, as a 4th year, she was going to end up working in a hospital far from where he was, and that her having an extra degree would make it difficult for them to relate.

Like the other 4th years, she did vanish, but instead of going to a residency, she showed up two years later with a different extra degree.***

They formally met in an anatomy refresher course, though one hopes that memories of the Cell Block Tango kept Bryce warm in the cold Rochester night. Like all medical students, she had apparently forgotten anatomy immediately after leaving it. There was a cadaver lab that they could go to, but she thought it was 'cold' and 'creepy,' so she wanted backup. Really? A 27 year old with a bachelors and an advanced degree that's already been through anatomy is scared of cadaver lab / doesn't own a sweater? Cynics in the audience will say she was fishing for someone more handsome than Bryce to show up, but other cynics (and me) will say that, like all medical students, she wanted to avoid doing real work in her 4th year, so Darria sent an e-mail out asking if people actually wanted to do this lab thing.

"I always joke that he had me at the shoulder joint dissection." She says. In reality he just kept offering to show her his bones until she fell for it. There's also a cute story about him pumping gas for her because it was too cold for her to do it herself. That's cute, but it misses a key point - that was 4th year medical school He's now a 4th year resident in Boston, and she's a 3rd year resident in New Haven****. What happened in the last 4 years? Why aren't they in the same schools? Did distance keep them together, or apart? In the heat of residency, is it better to be 'dating' someone in another state where they can't trouble your sleep? Who kept the "Cell Block Tango" outfit?

I'm swooning... must be the formaldehyde!

*: In immitation of Zach at the now defunct nytimesweddings.blogspot.com

**: Technically "The Cell Block Tango," but these people don't have to be precise, right?

***: Though not one that tends to socially separate possessors from non-possessors the way the MD does.

****: I'm not trying to conceal that the one is at Harvard and the other at Yale, I'm just trying to reveal distances.

A bit of veiled conceit, 3AM edition

2009-08-10T03:38:00.010-05:00

"A glimpse into that haven of superficial, pretentious, pseudo-aristocratic vanity: The NY Times' Wedding & Celebration Announcements "*

Cailin O'Connor and James Weatherall

"Hello! We might be as upset that you are that our picture wasn't online and you were forced to take a picture of your own newspaper, then remember how to use the rotate tool in GIMP.** Or maybe we just like teeth."

The bride! Likes teeth, not T's. Look at her first name more closely and feel the shame of a hundred substitutes while the rest of the class snickers on.

The bridegroom! Getting a PhD in philosophy, ATM machine FAIL! He already has a PhD in physics from here - never heard of it, won't make fun of it, guess he didn't like the program at his undergrad. He's appears to have been an experimentalist. Now, he's pursuing both that doctorate of philosophy in philosophy, and an MFA in creative writing - something terrible happened. The boson is a lie.

Mary Ziegler and John Roberts III

"I knew that I was seeing a very beautiful woman at her frumpiest"

When they first met, she was wearing her 'beater glasses.' I, too, have beater glasses. Coincidentally, they are also my nice glasses.

This would be a perfectly ordinary couple were it not for the couch. Actually, an "uncomfortable," "ugly," "stain-spotted" love seat. Very romantic. She was sick of it, and New York, so she sold it to him so that his female visitors wouldn't have to sit on the bed.

Then she laid beater-glasses-corrected eyesight on him and it was she that ended up back on the couch and back in New York.

As for the couch itself, it makes a cameo on the couple's wedding cake:

It's smaller than I expected. Also, fewer stains. Just let me run the blacklight over it before I hand over the cash.

*This quote and concept are stolen from 'Zach's' original Veiled Conceit

**GIMP - Photoshop for people that haven't got $1000 lying around and think they might be getting a little old to steal everything. Really, when was the last time you used it for anything but crop and autocontrast (don't answer Hippity, Westy, or Milensomthingsomthing).

Primary care - good and good for you!

2009-03-24T19:36:00.003-05:00

Abraham Verghese thinks there aren't enough primary care doctors. Perhaps he's right.

Primary care doctors - internists, pediatricians, and family practice docs - are patients' first point of contact. There are two ways to think about primary care. I would argue that because primary care doctors need to be able to distinguish between tension headaches and brain cancer (for instance) that primary care physicians should be The Best doctors, while people working in a specialty need less diagnostic expertise due to the smaller disease spectrum they see. Curmudgeons, like V, would argue that because you have virtually no way to distinguish between tension headaches and brain cancer without an MRI (or similar) that primary care should be done by flowchart wielding nurse practitioners.*

Verghese wants more primary care physicians because:

Real patients want someone whose examining skills, when combined with common sense and sound judgment, can spare us the costly, blind, shotgun, ‘tick-all-the-boxes” kind of testing and imaging that has come to be the American brand of medicine. We want a doctor who orders tests judiciously, who calls in specialists sparingly, and who rides herd on them and weighs and translates what they say. What we want, in other words, is a primary-care physician.

Now, I agree with this entirely.** However, if V were to read this, he would point out patients, with the exception of Abraham Verghese (note the they -> we switch mid-paragraph), do not know and are not particularly interested in the formal status of the person caring for them. An M.D. does not increase, and likely decreases compassion. Becoming a primary care physician does not make one conscientious, similarly specialization does not remove that characteristic.

Since I agree with Verghese entirely, though, let's look at why there aren't enough primary care physicians. Verghese lists several reasons, summarized as: Primary care doesn't pay enough relative to the degree of training and the debt level most M.D.s graduate with.*** That's it. Secondarily to this, because primary care physicians are paid on a per-patient basis, they have to work long hours and don't get to spend much time with patients, so the work-style isn't much fun.

The above paragraph carries three completely plausible suggestions in it. Verghese clips one of them and misses the others completely. Instead he suggests an Peace Corps style program in which recent med school grads would be forced**** to work for a year doing primary care in an underserved area, in exchange for lowered student debt. Students exposed to the joys of primary care would abandon their future plans and switch to primary care in droves.

Students are already exposed to the joys of primary care, in the form of (at Dupont) 12 weeks of medicine (1/3 outpatient), 6 weeks of pediatrics (1/2 outpatient), and 4 weeks of family practice (all outpatient). One might argue for adding more to the curriculum, but if a student is offered primary care in at least 3 different flavors and likes none of them, what are the chances that a fourth will change their mind? Treating the students like grunts to be worn down in the toughest areas is also likely to leave a sour taste in the mouth.

Verghese does hit one nail on the head - debt forgiveness. Unfortunately, his program is begging to be ripped off. What's that you say, it will help me get a dermatology residency, and it will decrease my debt? A more straightforward plan would be to pay off the debt of students that go into primary care and practice in it for at least 5 years after their residency is over.

Consider the two other problems Verghese identifies - excessive training times, and reimbursement. Adding a year to training will only exacerbate the problem. Conversely, switching to a more nurse practitioner-based system (i.e. fewer years of training) could increase the number of primary care providers without provoking bitterness. Finally, why not suggest a tweak in the reimbursement system?

Funny conclusion goes here.

*:

Is the headache new or old?
New -> Consider headache characteristics
Thunderclap headache -> Head CT / LP
Signs of infection -> Consider meningitis
Headache with neurologic signs -> Neuroimaging
Morning headache -> Consider broad differential (including brain cancer)
Else -> New onset primary headache (give up)

Stern SDC, Cifu AS, Altkorn D.

**: See answer #9 here, except replace "NBME" with "Abraham Verghese"

***: Note that the difficulty of acquiring a residency 'slot' in a given specialty directly proportional to the future compensation of that residency. Surprise, M.D.'s are human!

****: He says it is voluntary, but says that competitive specialties (particularly dermatology) would use it as a criterion for entering physicians. Let me translate that into med studentese: Unless you want to end up as a [least favorite specialty] practicing in [a state you hate], you WILL do this program.

Roger Cohen meet Stanley Kubrick

2009-02-12T12:36:00.003-06:00

So there's an Op-ed where some guy went to Iran and discovered:
Iran's inner America

I'll hold my tongue, except for one quote from Full Metal Jacket

We are here to help the Vietnamese,

because inside every

gook there is an

American trying to get out.

What's in _The Atlantic_'s library?

2009-02-07T19:12:00.004-06:00

Red Arrow - Harrison's Internal Medicine, 14th Edition. Next to it, Physician's Desk Reference. Should come in handy if healthcare ever comes up.

Image: The Table.

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-billion

2009-02-05T19:21:00.002-06:00

People need to stop talking about the stimulus as being this many Bbbbbbbbillion or that many bbbbbbbbillion dollars. To the government, a billion dollars is like 100 dollars to you or me. In order to get anything done, a billion is the right amount of money to spend. I understand you all went to diction school and have to ENunCiAte so people don't get confused about billion versus million, but there's a difference between, "Obama plans to add 3 Billion to the NIH budget" and "Obama plans to add... B-b-b-b-billion dollars..."

Bruce Ivins is still getting published

2009-01-04T22:54:00.003-06:00

In the Journal of Infectious Disease.
But also in the NY Times.
Basically, the evidence against Ivins is that he was a mentally troubled guy that drank too much. Also, he had the technology and expertise available to produce the anthrax spores sent out. Also, he really creeped out one woman when she was in grad school. Seriously.
Nancy Haigwood knew Bruce Ivins when she was in grad school and decided he was creepy. Then her house was vandalized, and a letter was written to the local newspaper in her name defending a campus sorority. She decided that Ivins had done both those things. There's no evidence, as it was 30 years ago, but because she was creeped out by Ivins, she assumed that he did these things. Later, in e-mail conversations, Ivins mentioned things to Haigwood about her children that she hadn't told him. This is rendered as evidence of stalking, but it seems to me like evidence of gossip.**
Flash forward to after the anthrax attacks. She receives an e-mail from Ivins with a picture of him in an anthrax lab working without gloves. She decides that this demonstrates an unnerving hubris - a very odd conclusion to make from a single photograph.*

o.k. o.k. some of the defenses that I've thrown up of Ivins in the past - that he may not have known how to make dried spores, that he was just a bit eccentric. Obviously, Ivins was in an excellent position to make the anthrax, and he was in some way mentally outside the normal range. You might argue that alcoholism and psychiatric hospitalization, even voluntary, should disqualify someone from working with anthrax. That seems a bit harsh.

But the evidence actually linking Ivins to the anthrax attacks is nonexistant. He worked late prior to the attacks, but on what? The FBI must have asked him, but I don't have his answer. They couldn't match him to the envelopes, the stamps, or the post office in New Jersey. The fact that he takes long drives does not, in fact, mean that he was in Princeton lo that mailing morning.

Remember Steven Hatfill. The FBI's positioning of him as Mr. Anthrax was very convincing for a while.*** As the NYT says, "Dr. Hatfill, too, was eccentric. He, too, had begun drinking heavily as he came under scrutiny. He, too, had grown depressed and erratic under the FBI's relentless gaze. What if Dr. Hatfill had committed suicide in 2002, as friends feared he might? Would the investigators have released their evidence and announced that the perpetrator was dead?"

The reporter is too polite to provide an answer. I'm too worried about a future FBI investigation into me to be honest.**** But you aren't. And you know the same answer applies to Bruce Ivins.

*: There is definitely bacteria growing on some of the plates, and they are definitely blood agar or similar, invalidating any suggestion that he was just looking at media or working with a non-anthrax bug (like E. coli). On the other hand, the initial investigation of anthrax was done by Robert Koch working in an upstairs bedroom of his house with zero protective gear - caution and a lifetime of working with the bug might be protection enough.

**: BTW, if I can find your home address or details about your kids with a single search on Google or Facebook, it's not stalking. It's hardly even research.

***I particularly like that the 'damning evidence' brought over to this article was that Hatfill bragged about having a "working knowledge" of biowarfare pathogens. Imagine, someone actually bragging on their resume. That's amazing. Also, if I can have working knowledge of Drosophila genetics and vector construction, why can't someone else have working knowledge of biowarfare pathogens {presumably he enumerated them, NY Times said biowarfare pathogens}

****: Dressed up in a fly costume. Drank tea from a mason jar (repeatedly!). Liked Iowa. Secretly devout. A momma's boy. History of binge drinking. Once messaged a woman on facebook mere hours after meeting her at a party and knowing only her first name and major. Worked late hours. Worked odd hours. Occasionally handled hazardous materials without gloves. Struck some people as weird. Laughed at odd times in medical school classes. Once came to medical school class with a mowhawk hair cut. Longstanding interest in synthesis of methamphetamine from commercially available products. Previous interest in synthesis of chemical warfare agents from commercially available products. Interest in home microbiology. Interest in home distillation. Reputation for attempting techniques merely to see if they work. Occasionally angry. Hubristic. Questions medical hierarchy. Questions findings of the FBI...

-EDIT-
Also, 'working knowledge' of multiple (2) human pathogens (E. coli and a 5 week stint of Hepititis C work).

Sent to Andrew Sullivan

2009-01-02T19:50:00.002-06:00

Glenn Greenwald asks:

Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?

The answer: Immigration. The Republicans. 2005. oh crap.

via Andrewsullivan

Lay off Barack Obama's Birth Certificate

2008-12-04T15:07:00.002-06:00

In re:

I’m sure the comments section will fill with various conspiracy theories over Indonesian school records, Kenyan births, and so on. None of it — absolutely none — has any real, solid evidence showing that Obama was born anywhere else than Hawaii apart from sheer speculation and hearsay, and even less evidence that Obama’s stepfather renounced Obama’s birthright citizenship, which he didn’t have the power to do anyway. It’s a conspiracy theory spun by conspiracy theorists (Philip Berg is a 9/11 truther) who use their normal thresholds of evidence for this meme.

Ed Morrisey via Andrew Sullivan

There are two ways to be a native born American citizen.
1. Be born within the United States (14th Amendment, *1)
2. Have a parents that was a U.S. dwelling U.S. citizens (U.S.C. Title 8 thingy 1402-g *2)

1. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, therefore he is a native born citizen.
2. Barack Obama's mother was a U.S. citizen, therefore he is a native born citizen.

Hardly anyone belives #1, but even if they did, they still run up against #2.

*1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside

*2: The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
...
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person
(A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or
(B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and

Failout

2008-12-03T08:35:00.002-06:00

Submitted to UrbanDictionary

Failout
1. When you try to bail someone out, and fail.

2. A level of failure more severe than an epic fail.

use 1. After David got picked up for public drunkenness, I tried to get him out of jail, but didn't have enough money, that was a real failout.

use 2. Henry Paulson - failout.

The Notch, updated

2008-11-03T23:52:00.003-06:00

2008 Primary results
Democratic Primary: (10 voters)

* Barack Obama - 7
* John Edwards - 2
* Bill Richardson - 1

Republican Primary: (7 voters)

* John McCain - 4
* Mitt Romney - 2
* Rudy Giuliani - 1

Therefore, Obama got all the independents and 1 of the Republicans to switch to him. DN went 19-7 for Bush over Kerry. Obviously Obama will win the national popular vote 70-30.

Note that Hillary got 0 votes in the primary, so DN may not be all that representative... small n, damn!

Edit: Silver!

Dixville Notch

2008-11-03T23:50:00.002-06:00

The New Hampshire township where the polls open at 12:01 November 4.

General Election: (21 voters)

* Barack Obama - 15
* John McCain - 6

This is the first time Dixville Notch chose a Democrat since 1968.

Meh meh meh meh.

Latest outrage

2008-10-27T21:02:00.003-05:00

The Economist has set up a mock electoral college where people from around the world can 'vote' to determine who America's next president should be. Of course, Barack Obama is winning. It's practically an indictment of him! After all, what kind of elitist Francophile, wine snob, Democrat would think we should show, "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind?"

Meta voting for the nigger

2008-10-26T22:41:00.003-05:00

From 538:

Last week, Julie Hensley made one of her thousands of phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama. A woman answered. As Hensley ran through her short script, the husband impatiently broke in.

"Ma'am, we're voting for the n***er." And hung up.

Hensley wasn't having it. "I went and made a couple other calls but chafed over this absurdity," she told us, "so I called them back, as I still had a couple questions for the wife." This time the man answered, asked pointedly who she was, and when she replied he hung up again.

If I were a journalist, I would put this in the 'too good to check' category. I'm not, so I went looking for evidence. Surely in 2008, some Western PA canvasser with a cell phone camera caught the evidence and posted it... right? So, I check on the YouTube and got the image above. I guess YouTube is worried about the racism, but should I be forced to guess which letters of nigger to star out? Also, what does it say about latent racism in the U.S. that YouTube seems to have replaced "nigger" with "devil?"

Fruitfly v. Palin

2008-10-25T17:58:00.003-05:00

D.M. and Olbermann both reference Sarah Palin's attack on frivolous fruit fly research.

There's been a major pushback. I note this is the third time biology research grants have come up in the campaign. First McCain attacked earmarks for studying those undeserving grizzly bears. Then, Democrats shot back with Palin's earmarks to study harbor seals.

One of the many P.R. problems of science is that virtually all research topics can be made to sound silly - who cares about glowing jellyfish, and who wrote that grant for counting the number of cells in a worm, anyway?

Perhaps the real reason Palin hates the fruit fly isn't about wasting money, it's about the culture wars. The fruit fly looms in this arena, even to a greater extent than it is loomed over in everyday life. Think you can pray away the gay? Meet fruitless. Some mutations make male flies try to mate with other males, others remove gender preference, or create flies with no interest in mating.

There isn't a gene in mammals that seems directly related to fruitless (a homolog, in the parlance). However, such genes do exist for other diseases, for instance myc, a determinant of cell growth, and thus cancer. Our ability to productively apply research from Drosophila myc to our understanding of human cancer blows a huge practical hole in Genesis Creationism, or the 'Orchard Model' of several special creations. If everything was created separately, why are they so similar? And if they were intelligently made similar enough to be studied, why not make them identical?

If you just want to ignite the culture wars, any attack on science will do, but an attack on the fruit fly covers so many more bases.

Why I don't care about Sarah Palin's clothes

2008-10-22T22:25:00.002-05:00

A few months ago, I was trying to mock John McCain's $520 loafers, and a friend pointed out that as a politician, he can probably write off his suits as a business expense, which means we get to pay for them (sort of).

If the RNC wants to spend that money on Sarah Palin, more power to them, it's money they can't spend on ads or turnout. As a non-RNC donor, I don't care. If I were an RNC donor, I would think I got my money's worth. Other than isolated comments about one Tarkin-esque outfit, Palin's atire has never been a source of embarrasment, which compares quite favorably to Hillary Clinton's Sisterhood of the Travelling Pantsuits.

Ballot folding: Official reply

2008-10-22T19:19:00.001-05:00

Dear p.e.
Thank you for your questions...and no these are not dumb questions although my answer may seem a bit...never mind. We prefer as you stated that the ballot be folded as received. We would like them in the order received, i.e.., page with President first but any order you send (folded any way that allows you to put them back in the envelope) will suffice. We request they are in order to make our lives easier at tabulation where they must be in the correct order and sequence to tabulate properly. We have a team of assistant that will review all ballots prior to scanning to insure proper order and tabulation with minimal interruptions and thereby deflect any problems to sort. We are pleased at the interest in this year's election and I am grateful for your query. If you have other questions, please contact me personally. Thanks again for your questions.

Small Town Values and Real America

2008-10-22T08:57:00.003-05:00

One reads about the idea of "Real America" - small town, rural. This is explicitly Republican leaning. Because it is also implicitly not black, it has been interpreted as racist. But, this kind of appeal is not solely directed against blacks, but also against Catholics - Irish(1)/Italians, recent immigrants, Jews, asians, Hispanics... A little something to convince your touchy, fence-sitting Irish friends.

Arguing for small town values seems like a loser - just over 20% of the population lives there. Insofar as arguing for small town values is a dig at city- and suburb-slickers, it seems likely to piss off big parts of the electorate.

It doesn't seem that most people take my zero sum urban/rural view. Perhaps urbanites just see it as part of the dumb pander that politicians have to do, a source of cynicism, but not outrage. Since every state has both urban and rural areas, urban voters will have been conditioned by a lifetime of watching big city politicians pitchforking hay.

The 20% also misses a large group. One aspect of modern small towns is that the young are constantly moving away. There will always be a cohort, then, which can be guilted into voting for the party identified with the values of the parents they 'abandoned.'

So, no negatives, diffuse positives, pander me up!

1. I think there was one Irish kid in my high school class

The youth vote

2008-10-20T20:16:00.003-05:00

From an interview by Ken Silverstein of Tom Edmonds in Harper's

The other big thing is the youth vote. There’s been a lot of hype about it, but it’s not going to materialize on Election Day. Roughly 33 million people voted in the 2004 primaries, and 58 million people voted in this year’s primaries. The youth vote was up, but not nearly as much as voting by middle-aged people and old fogies. The polls are capturing the enthusiasm for Obama, but college students are not going to turn out.

There are two possible arguments that this piece is actually making:
A. A technical argument, about whether polls are properly projecting turnout. Note that all polls weight their numbers for turnout based on their model. The appropriate thing to do, then, would be to weight polls based on their previous ability to do this and average them. See here.

B. A pre-game Mad Libs style of prognostication along the lines of:
If (local sports team) can (active verb) (vague accomplishment), (conjunction) (preventing / avoiding / derailing / keeping ) (opposing team) from (another vague accomplishment) they will (statement of probability) (synonym for win).

e.g. "If the Panthers can effectively deploy Riggins, while shutting down Arnette Mead's running game, Coach Taylor's gettin' some free ribblets at the Applebee's on Saturday- if you know what I mean"

Often self satirizing as in: "If the Tigers can get at least 14 points, while holding the Browns below 14 points, they very well may win this ballgame."

The self satirization makes a point - of necessity, the only prognostication that is always true is also trivial - If Barack Obama can ammass majorities in states, the District of Columbia, or the congressional districts of Maine or Nebraska sufficient to give him a majority in the electoral college, or if neither he, nor anyone else can reach a majority, and he receives a majority of votes on a state-delegation bases in the House of Representatives, he will almost certainly be the next president of the United States.1

Consider a statement such as "If Barack Obama cannot connect with white, working class males, he cannot win this election." It is meaningless. First: white, working class males are not modems. They cannot be connected with. Second: Every white, working class male could vote against Barack Obama and he could still win, since wwcm's do not make up a majority of voters in states, the District of Columbia, or the congressional districts of... Third, if Barack Obama wins 35% of the wwcm vote and becomes the next president, he will have connected sufficiently. If Barack Obama wins 35% of the wwcm vote and does not become president, he will have connected insufficiently, even if he has received the same number of votes. The wwcm vote is not only part of a larger system, it is interconnected with, say, the wwcw vote, or the bwcch vote.2,3

The short of what I'm saying is that Barack Obama won the nomination of his party primarily due to votes from the young, the middle aged and old fogies. If he continues to do well in these age groups, he could be getting a very good night's sleep this November 4th.

1. And that statement still requires caveats!
2. black working class cracker hatin' vote
3. This is a variant of Matt Yglesias's 'these people's votes don't count' argument.

Ballot update

2008-10-20T19:11:00.001-05:00

I called the Obama office in Boulder, and they said just fold it up so it fits and send it in.

Sent to the Boulder County Clerk's Office

2008-10-18T21:41:00.001-05:00

From: p.e.
Subject: Ballot folding

Let me begin by apologizing. I know this is a really, really dumb question, and if you want to pass this around and make fun of me, I understand. The voting instructions say "refold ballot exactly as you received it." Now, does that mean "we sent you your ballot folded in quarters, you should send it back folded in quarters," or is it more precise? If it's just the folded in quarters (along the folds that it came with), don't read the next paragraph and just send back o.k.. Otherwise, I'm sorry.

Here's what I've done:
I have two pages. Page 1 has the U.S. presidential election on the top left of the front side. Page 2 has amendment 57 on the top left of the front side. I have put the pages in order. Next, I folded the two pages together along the short fold, giving me something with the dimensions of a piece of paper, still with the U.S. presidential election on the top left of the front page. Next I folded that along its long fold. This gave me something eight pieces of paper thick, and of the right dimensions to fit perfectly in the secrecy sleeve. I oriented the secrecy sleeve so that I could read the instructions, and the opening was on the right. I then held open the sleeve and inserted my folded ballot, again with the U.S. presidential election on the top left. I then inserted the secrecy sleeve into the return envelope closed edge down, with the instructions facing the front (addressed) side of the envelope.

Again, I apologize for the question, but this election seems rather important, and I'd rather people didn't start to think of us as the Florida of 2008.

Epic Fail

2008-10-16T07:19:00.002-05:00

An article on Slate asks, "When did fail become a noun?" It then talks about the emergence of fail in modern culture, along with epic fail. Then the author attributes it to the proliferation of Engrish (bad translations from Japanese).

It's from D&D. I've been saying fail and crit fail (critical) since third edition, and from critical, the next logical step is Epic.

Sorry slate.

Liveblogging II

2008-10-15T20:25:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure I can go any further.
8:25 Schieffer - take the shot.
8:25 Mc - lack of town halls made me so angry! Mc regrets that John Lewis said he was a bad person. Mc "every time a republican has said something out of bounds" O manages not to smirk. Mc goes after O for opting out of public financing.
8:28 O - dirty campaigning doesn't matter, issues matter.
8:31 O - 'kill him' 'that's out of line'
8:32 major mc snort
8:33 - mccain repeatedly tries to interrupt. obama keeps going over him. finally with s' help, mc cuts in. mc says that obama is getting fake offended at mil vets going to palin rallys
8:34 is Schieffer napping, or what?
8:35 O keeps trying to move on, but can't help but take a shot. would have done better if he skipped off.
8:36 Mc - "AYERS." equates Ayers with ACORN O keeps chucking and shaking his head
8:38 O gets a long time to rebut the charge
8:39 Mc gets the foundation name wrong
8:39 Mc "my campaign is about getting hte country on track" O giggles
8:40 TOO MUCH LIVE BLOGGING
8:41 Obama has a red tie. McCain has a blue tie. Discuss
8:44 Mom despises Palin's exploitation/mistreatment of her autistic kid, so she's probably hopping right now.
8:44 Obama punts on Palin's qualification, pivots to go after spending freeze.
8:45 Mc - Biden is wrong about national security. "Why do we always have to spend more?" All those Federal employees shoudl work for fluffernutter!
8:46 Mc corrects Shieffer.
8:47 Mc - canadian oil is fine
8:47 Mc thinks he's gonna get 47 nuke plants built in 4 years. Oh, no, 7-8 10 years. Well, why not manhattan project if we're looking at that much.
8:48 Obama goes after the 10 year number. Gore's number.

Screw it, I'm going for the highlights.

Third debate liveblog 1

2008-10-15T20:01:00.002-05:00

8:02 Schieffer's tie is awesome. I love the reading of the opening rules. All debate sets small, easy to replicate on SNL. They were so close to hugging!

8:07 S. "would you like to ask him a question?" Mc. "no" then attacks O.

8:09 O's new economic plan sounds a lot like a package oh his old position.

8:10 How long are we gonna argue about Joe the plummer? Seriously.

8:12 I reiterate my question as to why small businesses cannot be taxed under their own rate.

8:13 McCain did not just interrupt Obama. OH YES HE DID.

8:14 Deficit questions. beware neo-hooverism. I note that FDR attacked hoover for an unbalanced budget, then started the new deal.

8:18 McCain just lost the corn vote. And the boeing vote. And the astronomy vote.

8:19 Unbelievably painful. I could have written this by mashing up debates #1 and #2.

8:21 Mc: If senator Obama wanted to run against President Bush, he should have fun four years ago. - oh snap.

8:24 long long long list of disagreements.

re: The bailout

2008-10-05T18:41:00.002-05:00

"Something must be done.
This is something,
therefore we must do it." - Bernard Woolley, Yes Prime Minister

Old Joke

2008-09-29T13:18:00.002-05:00

FDR used to tell a joke about a Wall Street plutocrat. Everyday, this fellow would go up to a newsstand, buy a copy of the paper, look at the front page, then throw it away in disgust. Finally, the newsboy gets up the courage and says, "Hey mister, what are you lookin' for?"
The plutocrat says, "an obituary."
"But the obituaries are in the back" the newsboy says.
And the plutocrat says, "Not the obituary that I'm looking for!"

Unless we can update this joke to be about Bush or Paulson, or Henry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, they're not doing their jobs.

Bailout with me oh yeah

2008-09-29T08:15:00.002-05:00

It seems that from a practical standpoint, the two people that most need to approve of the bailout are Barack Obama and John McCain because one of them will end up implementing most of it. Of course that makes it hard to dodge responsibility. Perhaps it's best to just hope the Bushies don't spend all the 'blank check' money before you get your mits on it.

If I overpay you for the box, then that makes the sawdust inside taste better!

2008-09-24T16:08:00.002-05:00

In the most truthful and honest and non-snide way, I don't understand how buying assets backed by mortgages makes the mortgages less likely to foreclose. I can't get my head wrapped around it.

This came up in the comments I last posted about. One of the other commenters posted this link to a Jim Cramer column. Cramer says,
It doesn’t address the real problems of people losing their homes.
Wrong. Declining home prices are the reason owners are either walking away or being forced out. Paulson’s plan puts a stop to the root cause of this: foreclosures. Other housing-related problems, from making mortgage money available to shrinking inventories, are being solved. This plan takes care of the last one.
I just don't see the linkage. It seems like the value of the mortgage should be driving the value of the security, not the other way around.

The p.e. bailout:

2008-09-24T08:51:00.003-05:00

At heart, the problem is that people can't pay their mortgages, and no one can be found to come in and buy the houses when they foreclose, which means the securities can't get paid off.

One of the problems with buying those securities as a market stablization strategy is that no one knows what they're worth or what the risk involved in them is. Indeed, that's how we got to where we are right now.

My solution: Buy foreclosed or foreclosing houses. Houses are still being sold, so you can calculate a price, and there's a concrete asset that you get. The banks get some of their money, so that should get the securities moving.

The best part: you can remortgage the house to the previous owner on a different set of terms (i.e. the fixed rate, long term, variable payment model I saw and can't find the link to).

Note that my plan is basically ripped-off from the Center for American Progress's plan, except that they call for the financial companies to undo the securitization and put the mortgages back together before the government will buy them. I think that step will be 1. Hard and 2. Invites manipulations because it is hard. Also, houses are easier to price than mortgages (i think).
Paraphrased as a comment at mDubious

The theodicy of the Paulson Bailout

2008-09-24T07:47:00.003-05:00

A. You must give us our money by Friday
B. We didn't know before last Friday that we needed the money this Friday.
C. You can trust* us.

One of these premises is false.

*: in the sense of both wise and honest.
theodicy: the philosophy of why G-d is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, yet bad things still happen.

Stop the presses

2008-09-21T22:15:00.002-05:00

"Half the teens that died in car crashes in 2005 were killed between 3 p.m. and midnight. Check your local teen driving curfews."

So, half the people were killed in a third of the day, and another third of the day is when everyone is asleep. Wow.

This is from one of those Allstate adds trying to get the driving age raised. Blech.

Why I don't read National Review

2008-09-14T21:21:00.004-05:00

National Review is one of the key intellectual havens of the right, founded by William F. Buckley. Their group blog, The Corner, is a good place to go if you want to know what The Right is up to (insofar as it is monolithically 'up to' anything).

National Review is the kind of place where you would hear the intriguingly counter-logical, yet somehow plausible facts that can really change how you view things. e.g.:

House Democrats on June 11 blocked Rep. John E. Peterson’s (R., Penn.) legislation to allow oil drilling 50 miles from America’s shores. Obstructionist Democrats could not fathom such activity, even 38 miles past where the horizon gobbles everything. Nor is the Just Say No crowd impressed that Hurricane Katrina slammed Gulf oil platforms with nary a spill.

Of course, then we read things like this, from a Reuters article on Hurricane Ike:

Ike plowed a destructive path through the state after slamming into the Texas coast early on Saturday and moving inland to Houston, the heart of the U.S. oil industry, forcing many refineries to shut down as a precaution.
President George W. Bush, who will visit his home state on Tuesday, said it was too early to determine the damage to U.S. energy infrastructure. The storm also halted crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, representing a quarter of U.S. output.

The U.S. Coast Guard said the storm damaged some offshore oil production facilities but did not yet know the extent.

But, just because an oil facility is destroyed, will it necessarily leak? This answer comes from a Guardian (UK) article in the aftermath of Katrina.

Initial aerial reconnaissance by the environmental protection agency suggests no serious chemical damage but has revealed several large oil spills.
About 85,000 barrels of crude is now known to have escaped from a Murphy Oil plant in Chalmette, Louisiana, and a further 68,000 barrels were spilled by a damaged storage tank at the Bass Enterprises site in Venice.

So, why don't I read National Review? I'm too logical. Bad facts have a way of overcoming my innate emotional sympathies and giving me bad, yet persuasive views. See: We should invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein tried to buy some high-speed switches.

Charlie....

2008-09-13T21:13:00.002-05:00

I know I should be pointing out that JOHN MCCAIN WANTS TO RAISE YOUR TAXES AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CUT OFF YOUR EMPLOYER HEALTHCARE but I can't stop looking at the shiny distraction.

In her first serious interview, Sarah Palin talked to Charlie Gibson. Someone pointed out that she said his name instead of "um," to some ridicule.

Personally, I couldn't stop thinking of the absolutely awesome "Charlie the Unicorn" series. So, watch the interview, watch Charlie the Unicorn, and then watch the Mashup. Go web go.

The Kerry Error

2008-09-12T20:16:00.004-05:00

It turns out, the SURGE is not over. If the 8000 troops that Bush promised to pull out of Iraq do leave (an if, considering he won't be Commander in Chief anymore), we will still have more troops in Iraq than we did before the SURGE started.

This despite widespread support for getting the hell out. When Rachel Maddow asked Matthew Continetti which presidential candidate was going to get the troops out and he said, more or less, both of them, then proceeded to equate Obama's reactionl force idea with McCain's slow, milestone based withdrawl. The quote is about 2:30 in.

Coincidentally, Continetti happens to have changed his assesment in the last 12 days.*

More significantly, people understand (by which I mean I'm trying to persuade you, people) that Obama and the Dems very much want to get troops out of Iraq, and that McCain and Bush don't so much want to get troops out of Iraq. What that wanting leads to is that in a case where Iraq is a mixed bag of good and not so good news, Barack Obama is going to be more likely to withdraw troops, and McCain will be more likely to not withdraw troops, or even to add more troops.*2

The reason I call this the Kerry Error is that in 2004, Kerry tried to sound exactly as hawkish as George W. Bush on Iraq. Because Kerry had previously been critical of the war, people didn't believe him.*3

I guess this means character counts, but not in the way that you think.

*: Washington Post, August 31, 2008 Sounds Nice, But Will It Get Votes?
BYLINE: Matthew Continetti
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. B01

Relevant quote in context, bold italics mine:

The converts whom Obama has attracted to his cause? He has been endorsed by Jim Leach, a former liberal Republican congressman from Iowa; Lincoln Chafee, a former liberal Republican senator from Rhode Island; and Jim Whitaker, the mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska. Not exactly the Rat Pack.

But that doesn't matter. Postpartisanship makes for good headlines. It heightens the self-esteem of goo-goo sophisticates who want to be above disagreement. But the truth is that you can't have democratic politics without disagreement. The sharp differences between the two parties are there for a reason. Folks think differently about how much income you should take home, what sort of judges should sit on the bench, what type of light bulb you ought to use, how and when the troops should come home from Iraq, how great a role religion ought to play in public life, who was the greatest Beatle, etc. In this evenly divided nation, political success depends on motivating the groups that agree with you to go to the polls in greater numbers than the groups that don't.

And that is the postpartisan's dilemma. Partisans will happily pull the lever for one of their own. But how many will turn out for a maverick?

*2: Add more troops? Why not? The Army is constantly cycling brigades in and cycling them out. It would be simple to keep the cycling-out brigades a few weeks longer and bring in the cycling-in brigades a few weeks earlier. After all - that's how they pulled off the surge. And who would notice? When was the last time you checked the number of U.S. troops in Iraq?

*3: And with good reason. Would Kerry have done the SURGE, or would he have followed the Iraq Study Group recommendations? Obviously the latter, which is less hawkish, but arguably would have been better for the country.

Palintology

2008-09-08T22:09:00.002-05:00

Obviously the 'skeletons' being 'dug up' by the media in Alaska were put there by Satan to fool those with weak beliefs.

Bananapoint: Sarah Palin is a young earth creationist who thinks creationism should be taught in schools.

Vogelstein is smarter than I thought

2008-09-07T16:24:00.002-05:00

A.K.A. an argument for reading the actual article.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about whole genome studies of human tumours. My post whined about the difficulty of digging anything out of such studies, and used the popular press reports to back that up.
As promised, I went back and read one of the original articles - the one about pancreatic cancer. These articles are significantly more successful than advertised. Methodologically, they didn't just look at the less than 1% of the genome that directly codes genes, they also looked at expression levels of those genes, which gets at mutations in the other 99%.
Aggregating those two pieces of information gave them the ~60 mutations in each of the pancreatic cancers. As expected, few genes came up consistently. At this point, the authors took advantage of what we know about cell biology: few genes act independently, they work in networks, or pathways.
Consider how I'm typing this paragraph now - ideas enter my mind, I pass the signal to my fingers to type, the keyboard converts the mechanical movement of the keys into electricity, the computer reads the signal from the keyboard, the wireless card transmits the data to the internet, a server stores the data, etc. etc. You might simplify it as:

Brain->Fingers->CPU->Network card->Server->Your Network Card->Your CPU->Your Monitor->Your Eye->Your Brain

Two things to notice. 1: A breakdown at any step of the process will cause the same end effect - you perceive nothing. 2: The exact physical thing is not being transmitted. Now, consider a molecular pathway, the Insulin-like Growth Factor pathway:

IGF-1->IGFR->Grb2->SOS->Ras->Raf->Mek->Erk->Elk

Pure poetry, I know. It's known that Ras is mutated in about 25% of cancers. Perhaps Ras is particularly succeptible to mutation, but there's little reason why Ras has to be the point of mutation. And, indeed, while Vogelstein's group failed to find specific genes that were universally mutated, they found several pathways that were very frequently or always mutated.

This brings us to why this is good news. 100% of patients with pancreatic cancer had a mutation in this pathway (they refer to it as KRAS). This means A: You don't need to alter specific members of the pathway, you just need to change the output toward normal and B: If you find something that does affect the IGF pathway, you can give it to all your pancreatic cancer patients.

C: Read the actual article before you go off.

More evidence that Sarah ain't ready

2008-09-06T17:12:00.002-05:00

email sent to AndrewSullivan

Sarah Palin (literally) not ready for prime time.
Or Sunday morning, or late night, or the View

Questions and answers

2008-09-06T11:13:00.002-05:00

In re: Palin not taking interviews

Isn't not being ready to answer questions on day 7 an admission that you're won't have answers on day 1?

Genetic Map of Cancer Reveals Unexpected Complexity

2008-09-05T13:59:00.003-05:00

The Vogelstein group sequenced the coding portions of 20,000 human genes for 22 brain cancer patients and 24 pancreatic cancer patients. Patients had a mutation in, on average, 60 genes. None of them overlapped completely.

How is any of this surprising?

Vogelstein is famous (in science, at least) for identifying the stereotypical steps undergone as a colon polyp becomes larger and more aggressive before finally graduating to full cancer-hood.

Large numbers of polyps and easy access to pre-clinical tumors made that story possible. Also helping were patients with Adenomatous polyposis, who quickly develop large numbers of polyps because every cell of their body already carries the first mutation in Vogelstein's series.

Consider if they had done this classical study not by grabbing polyps, but by looking at full-on cancers. The sequence of mutations would be impossible to determine. By the time that colon cancer is symptomatic, it will have acquired mutations in DNA repair genes, which means mutations will occur much more frequently, not just in areas where they are evolutionarily advantageous, but also in completely random places.

Basically, you would expect to get a mess, which is exactly what Vogelstein found. Now to read the paper and see if we've learned anyting.

John McCain: The unknown

2008-09-04T08:03:00.003-05:00

Nate has a post up, arguing that people aren't going to trust Sarah Palin's take on Barack Obama because 63% already have a strongly entrenched positive or negative perception of him while she is relatively unknown, only 45%. He provides this data:

Percentage viewing as Very Favorable OR Very Unfavorable
Obama 63
B. Clinton 63
Gore 61
H. Clinton 60
Bush 60
Cheney 59
Pelosi 51
T. Kennedy 48
Palin 45
Kerry 45
McCain 43
Romney 38
Biden 33

I think he's burying lede. Look more closely:

Percentage viewing as Very Favorable OR Very Unfavorable
Obama 63
...
Palin 45
...
McCain 43

More people have a strong opinion about Palin than McCain! Talk about the man from nowhere.

crossposted as a comment at 538

Sarah Palin is a Petro-Dictator

2008-09-03T21:27:00.002-05:00

Let's send Brian Schweitzer after her!

Seriously, Alaska is a frozen emirate / welfare state. Seriously, $243 million for a bridge to be used by 7500 people?

Guiliani just made my least favorite mistake

2008-09-03T21:07:00.001-05:00

Guiliani: Barack Obama was a community organizer
RNC: hahahahaahahahahaah!

see my comments below

Following Bin Laden to the gates of Waziristan

2008-09-03T08:54:00.002-05:00

William Safire wrote an op-ed about the Obama acceptance speech. Quote:

Then came a strange one: “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell — but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.” What’s that supposed to mean — that McCain is a coward, unwilling to lead a charge into the hills of Pakistan?

Wow, that's so confusing. How can I figure out what that possibly means? Perhaps I'll go to the Barack Obama article on Wikipedia and Ctrl+f 'find' any reference to Pakistan. Serendipity!

Obama said "it was a terrible mistake to fail to act" against a 2005 meeting of al-Qaeda leaders that U.S. intelligence had confirmed to be taking place in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. He said that as president he would not miss a similar opportunity, even without the support of the Pakistani government.

Whew, that research was really hard! John McCain opposes strikes without the permission of the Pakistani government. Hmmm... Maybe Safire did do his research, and is just counting on you not knowing? In that case, he wouldn't have to tell you that Barack Obama is to John McCain's RIGHT on going after bin Laden.

Coincidentally, the U.S. struck into Pakistan today without getting permission first. So, once again, we see Barack Obama propose a policy, get laughed at for six months, then Bush finally follows the policy, and John McCain (eventually) praises Bush. Makes you feel sorry for John McCain. Where's he gonna get all 'his' great ideas from once Barack stops running?

The atmospherics of diversity

2008-09-02T12:28:00.002-05:00

Mdubious:

One way in which McCain and Bush really do seem different is that McCain isn’t committed to the atmospherics of diversity in the way Bush was.

Then what do you call Sarah Palin? It turns out that the window dressers of America aren't finished yet!

Mdubious is, of course a reference to this

The NPR Accent

2008-09-01T10:33:00.002-05:00

Listening to Wait Wait... Don't tell me from the NPR site. The voice in the ad for NPR CDs had that strange, stereotypical accent of NPR announcers.

Since I'm reading George Orwell's diaries, it reminded me of his hatred of the BBC accent, which isn't used by any actual English people and just has the virtue of carrying well on the radio. Is there an NPR accent that marks one as a liberal American?

"Leadership"

2008-09-01T08:32:00.002-05:00

From NYT:

The selection [of Palin] was the culmination of a five-month process, described by Mr. McCain’s inner circle and outside advisers in interviews this past weekend, and offers a glimpse into how Mr. McCain might make high-stakes decisions as president.

At the very least, the process reflects Mr. McCain’s history of making fast, instinctive and sometimes risky decisions. “I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For.” “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”

McCain made his decision slower than the other fellow. Much slower if you consider he had 3+ months to do it while the Clinton/Obama show was going on. Note his refusal to make a decision until the very last moment, and when he couldn't get who he wanted (Lieberman) he picked someone out of right field "Oh,you say you want a conservative? Well I'll show you."

If you like a politics based on overreaction to perceived insults, McCain is your guy. If you think chest thumping is leadership...

It's not about experience, it's about judgement

2008-08-31T14:33:00.004-05:00

I'm listening to Tim Pawlenty trying not to sound sore he wasn't picked. When Tom Brokaw asks him about Palin's experience, he points out that Barack has about the same amount and that Palin's experience is Executive (TM). Experience is the wrong question. As the man said, it's not about experience, it's about judgement.

When Barack Obama was a state senator (district size 30x larger than Wasila, AK, 1/3 the size of Alaska) he opposed the Iraq war, predicting we would be bogged down and distracted from the real war against the people the attacked us.

Focus Group of Two

2008-08-31T09:46:00.003-05:00

Punkideas and the Cavendish have both recommended the DailyKos list of things wrong with Sarah Palin. I resist digging up too much dirt on her for the simple reason that under fair questioning, she will fold like Ted Stevens's reasoning.

Cav wonders whether we shouldn't see more of a convention / Palin bounce. The tracking polls released Saturday are a three-day composition of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and show a two point improvement for Obama compared to T-W-R. I would say that's a big bounce from the Obama speech. My guess would be that most people reacted to the Palin pick with curiousity and a slight "thank G-d he didn't pick Romney," so that effect is muted. It my high-information-Feiler- Faster self over 24 hours to get into panic mode (for the country, not the campaign), so the public level backlash could take until next Thursday (i.e. after VP talk nite in St. Paul). Becasue of the overlapping convention bounces, we may never see a specific 'Palin effect' in the polls.

Evidence of McCain buyer's remorse? It will appear in the form of shrinking Palins on the campaign literature. Thus, the real 'Palin Effect' may occur when people step into the voting booth, are reminded in evenly sized type that if McCain doesn't make it, she'll be vice president, and then punch for the other guy.

What are the odds of an OMGWTFBBQ moment, i.e. a Meiers switch, wherin we spend all week criticizing an obviously unqualified token, saying, "gosh I wish McCain would select someone qualified," and then when he does we're forced to accept them, no matter how conservative, like Alito? I think those odds are good.* I would welcome a switch, because no matter how whackadoodle a vice president he picks, John McCain has about a 50% chance of being the next president. If you're politically opposed to McCain, then you say A: What does it say about him if he thinks she's qualified? B: If he switches, how trustworthy can he be?

*: McCain is steadfast on some primciples, like staying in Iraq forever, but he has switched some principles, like offshore drilling. He picked Palin for political reasons, he'll ditch her for political reasons.

But what does the platform say?

2008-08-30T21:46:00.002-05:00

For the last post, I tried to look up the RNC platform for 2008. Can't be found. There are select quotes from it, but I cannot find the document itself.

John McCain (2008 version) wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and send it back to the states.

John McCain (2000 version) wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion illegal, except in case of rape, incest, or safety of the mother.

Is John McCain against contraception?

John McCain voted against requiring insurance companies to cover contraception.*

NARAL says the McCain voted against federal funding for contraception.

So, it looks like John McCain won't take away your condoms, but he won't make sure you get them either. This increases the spread of HIV and other STDs, and causes increased unwanted pregnancies, likely increasing the number of abortions. It 'heightens the contrast' as it were.

*: If I were an insurance company, I'd cover birth control because covering hospital expenses for a birth, or an abortion, is going to be much more expensive. I guess I could just be one of those insurance companies that doesn't cover anything...

Tell you friends, tell your parents, tell your parakeets

2008-08-30T21:39:00.002-05:00

John McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. It's a position he's held consistently from 2000 onward, so it's not faux conservatism. It's real conservatism.

Sarah Palin just had a kid at 43. Why? Because she doesn't believe in contraception. Not for her, and not for you. Or your friends. Or your parakeets.

Let's watch it again

2008-08-30T19:58:00.002-05:00

It's not just that I want to get to one post per day, and that I feel bad about 10 posts on Sarah Palin. The Obama speech was very very good. The last five minutes are classic, tear-of-pride jerking Obama. The middle attacks on McCain were very reassuring.

That's exactly what we needed.

Alaska Fun fact V

2008-08-30T19:49:00.000-05:00

in re: yglesias
Population of Wasilla, AK: 8471
Population of Alaska: 683,000

Average Illinois state senate district: 218,000

Palin - are we going to need her?

2008-08-30T19:22:00.002-05:00

Via AnnaMarieCox
Charlie Black: She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long.

O.K. - let's get it out on the table. What is the probability that John McCain is going to die in office? What does it mean if 'most doctors' think he'll be around that long? And what evidence are they basing it on?

I refuse to make a guess about McCain's health. I don't have enough data. Here's what I do know:

Died in office

William Henry Harrison (1841)
Zachary Taylor (1850)
Abraham Lincoln (1865, assassinated)
James Garfield (1881, assassinated)
William McKinley (1901, assassinated)
Warren G. Harding (1923)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1945)
John F. Kennedy (1963, assassinated)

WAIT WAIT! You say, what makes you think the death rate for presidents will stay the same? Not much. Harding's pneumonia or heart attack would be treatable today. FDR's cerebral hemorrhage... maybe, maybe not. Again, we don't know enough about McCain's medical condition. We might think we've upped security around the president, but then it's not like other presidents felt insecure. Let's agree that the odds of presidential death might be 10 times higher or lower than the historical average, but let's calculate it first:

8/44 = 18.2%

I guess it can't be 10 times higher. But even if the risk of death in office is 1.82%, that's still very high. If we're good Republicans, then we believe Dick Cheney's 1% doctrine:

Cheney observed that the US had to confront a new type of threat, a "low-probability, high-impact event" as he described it, "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response."

Is there a 1% chance that John McCain will die in office? Yes. Then Republicans should treat it as a certainty. And get Sarah Palin off the ticket.

Strategy memo to the Roves of the left

2008-08-30T18:57:00.002-05:00

Listening to David Bender on the Rachel Maddow show. He says, "We don't need to attack her. We should dismiss her."

He's half right - no need to attack her. But don't dismiss her. Simply insist that expectations not be lowered for her. Talking points, "Osama bin Laden doesn't grade on a curve." "Putin doesn't grade on a curve." "Ahmadinejad doesn't grade on a curve." "The global economy doesn't grade on a curve."

...

The 90 second policy test

2008-08-30T15:40:00.002-05:00

From James Fallows:

Quick, without pausing in the next ninety seconds, tell me what you think about: the balance of relations between Taiwan and mainland China, and exactly what signals we're sending to Hamas, and what we think about Russia's role in the G-8 and potentially in NATO, and where North Korea stands on its nuclear pledges -- plus Iran while we're at it, plus the EU after the Irish vote, plus cap-and-trade as applied to India and China, and what's the right future for South Ossetia; and let's not even start on domestic issues.

Leaders set the tenor and tempo, we keep it peaceful; need to show they can run a nation, not just an insurgency; Stay in, but add PRC; can't have people in the club attacking one another; trust but verify; trade sanctions for inspectors; Great progress in the European Project in keeping Europe safe, Ireland is an internal matter; cap'n trade is a market-based spur for innovation in the U.S. that we will sell to India and China when they get sick of pollution; A matter for Russia and Georgia with the proviso of no bullying; o.k. don't start.

TIME! How'd I do?

Election vs. Selection

2008-08-30T14:27:00.002-05:00

Something's been bothering me about the Palin selection, beyond out great policy disagreements or my dismay at her stepping on Obama's speech story.

Where could I find a bright, clean, articulate person to help me express this?

I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

Pedigree... pedigree... When I think about Pedigree, I don't just think about the races of your parents, I think of how you got a seat at the table - your professional pedigree. That was part of my trouble with Hillary Clinton. She got to be a figure of national prominence not as her own person, but as a piece in the make-up of her husband. People might disapprove of her, but still vote for Bill, just as they might disapprove of his tax policy and still vote for him. Thus, if she were to become the first woman president there would always be an asterisk by her name. She would always be a Christina Fernandez, not a Margaret Thatcher.

Unlike Fernandez, who immediately succeeded her husband, Nestor, when he was termed out, Hillary actually started to make a place for herself as a separate force. To a significant extent, this campaign has done that, as has her time in the senate. And time in the senate will slowly convert that asterisk to a plus, then a dash, then a dot...*

Of course, just because a Gore, or a Bush, or a Clinton, or a Kennedy is thrust at as a figure of automatic prominence, it doesn't mean they automatically get a position of power. We can elect them. Or not. Our hands are tied in only two situations - who the president chooses to marry, and who the president selects as their running mate. It's one thing for Hillary Clinton to put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, it's quite another thing for Sarah Palin to slipstream into the 'white males only' door behind John McCain.+

*: And, no, 68 is not too old to run for President, especially as women tend to live longer than men

+: Second thoughts - what if McCain selected someone like Colin Powell - a significant person in his own right, a real asset (at least before W. ruined him), etc. etc.? I still don't think it means much. It's not nothing, but it's small ball, like the first black governor of New York.

The vice president, like the first lady, has as much governing power as the president lends them. If you select a Ferraro / Quayle / Palin chew toy, then they won't have much impact on the governing philosophy.

The Four Day Infomercial

2008-08-30T10:55:00.003-05:00

That's exactly what low information voters need.

Maybe McCain even surprised himself...

2008-08-29T18:27:00.003-05:00

People were suspicious when John McCain claimed he hadn't decided on his running mate yet. But the Palin selection makes sense in that context.

A Pawlenty trial balloon went up... and got BB'd. A Romney trial balloon was met by an eerie silence. The Barack Speech went fabulously, and all of a sudden John McCain finds that the only card he has to play might not be enough to get people to stop talking about his speech.

So he called the only person that could possibly capture everyone's attention as strongly as Barack. Colin Powell demurred - he said he had to wash his hair today. Yes, all day. So McCain called Palin. That's why it doesn't seem like he's spent much time with Palin. That's why she seems a little un-vetted.

Now we know:

2008-08-29T08:14:00.003-05:00

Why the Obama people took all the gas out of Brian Schweitzer's speech.

Why John McCain spent real money to put a soft ad on TV last night.

Am I paranoid?

2008-08-28T15:51:00.002-05:00

Or is this a cynical attempt to make Obama look mean-spirited if he attacks McCain in his speech tonight?

I wouldn't spend the money airing this ad (as Ambinder reports McCain is doing) simply because I was a nice guy. Perhaps in the spirit of congratulation, Barack will congratulate McCain on making it to 72?
If someone spots Barack furiously rewriting his speech...

Memo to Nate Silver

2008-08-28T08:40:00.002-05:00

FiveThirtyEight.com is awesome, my go to place for polling. I have a question for its proprietor, Nate Silver:

Will high gas prices would decrease turnout? And will rural and exurban (read: red) precincts would show the largest drop? If these rural voters are trying to save gas, they would also be more likely to be home when a pollster calls. Rural districts are also the part of the state where driving people to the polls and other Get Out The Vote is least efficient. Since most states are a 'plum pudding' mixture of red rural pudding and urban blue raisins, I would expect this to produce a small but significant 'blue shift' on election day.

Evidence against would be that people who drive a lot tend not to mind driving a lot - witness that among my friends in Chicago, gas prices are a frequent topic of conversation, but when I was in Colorado during $4 gas season, I didn't hear a word.

Progress

2008-08-28T08:38:00.000-05:00

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

The trouble with creationism

2008-08-26T18:56:00.002-05:00

Unlike Megan, I'm not ok with parents pulling their kids out of biology class. A stronger knowledge of biology would behoove the general public, and bio class in high school is where they will get it. Incidentally it's also where future scientists come from. For that reason, it does matter how Megan's friends feel about evolution, because it will influence whether their children go to biology class.

It would be better still if those friends could master the evidence and scientific reasoning that support evolution. Unfortunately, evolution is a singularly bad subject to teach the scientific method because most experiments are ridiculously long. Many non-long experiments, like Tracking the evolution of multidrug resistance in Staphylococcus aureus are both grizzly and the rhetorical equivalent of threatening non-believers with eternal damnation.

This means that saying we should teach the controversy is, in fact, punting.

Crossposted to: Bloggingheads!

DNCDG: Tuesday Nite

2008-08-26T17:03:00.004-05:00

Speakers: Finish your drink if...
Your rep, senator, or governor speaks - and you can identify them.
The announcer mentions whistfully how good a non-picked VP hopeful would have been.
Jennifer Granholm gets floated as a good VP opportunity Obama missed
Rahm Emanuel earns his nickname "Rahmbo"
Janet Napolitano reveals that the people of Arizona actually hate John McCain, but every time an election gets close, Cindy threatens to choke off the beer supply.
Kathleen Sebelius appears highly caffeinated
The camera spends more time on Dennis Kucinich's wife than on him
You think Barack Obama is speaking and it turns out it's just Deval Patrick
Bob Casey and Ed Rendell talk about Scranton

Keynote Speakers:
Have a shot of Crown Royal when Hillary comes on (there's just no way to make this funny)
If Mark Warner's videoconference with Barack gets interrupted by Warner's kids saying "I love you daddy!" finish your drink.

Progam notes:
When the pundits cut out an entire speaker to hold a navel gazing session on why the convention message, "isn't being heard in the heartland" - take a drink (having you finish one each time this happens just wouldn't be fair)
When a clean coal ad comes on, do five shots of Svedka (distilled five times)
If the graphics on the podium make you seasick - you need another drink.

Note also another drinking game, written by a professional comedian. I think mine is funnier.

Update: Ed Rendell talked about Scranton as a futuristic transit city. drink drink! I have to say, I didn't think Rendell's speech was very good - he was just running through it as fast as possible, and didn't seem to be really enjoying himself.

Now for something light and refreshing

2008-08-26T13:24:00.003-05:00

Wow. It strikes me as fantastic, tongue and cheek, and provocative. Not exactly kid friendly,* but certainly not obscene. Disney really sets the ground here.

*:Should it be? Orangina might claim to be 'aimed at kids,' but if so, it's clearly aimed at parents looking for an alternative to orange pop. I never drank it as a kid, but I will drink it now, which sort of makes me think 'hey, it's for everyone!'

In Hyde Park, there's only one class--upper! And middle! And lower

2008-08-25T08:55:00.002-05:00

In my (overlong) response to "Mr. Obama's Neighborhood" (below), I despaired of replying to the idea that in Hyde Park, upper class whites and blacks united together to force out the poor. Somehow I forgot to mention that Hyde Park is chock full of biology graduate students who are getting paid $26,000 this year (woo-hoo, top 70%!). It's also chock full of post graduate fellows pulling down $40,000 - almost all the way to the national median, $44k. And junior faculty really rake it in with ~$80,000 (actually in the top quarter).

So I guess I'm upper class. (obligitory 'McCain thinks you're only rich if you make $5mil a year' joke) Or I don't count (although the hit piece uses the students as a cultural marker...), or I'm pre-rich, salivating wildly when I put my one leaf of arugula on my sloppy joes.

anecdote
anecdote
anecdote

OMG DATA: Median household income $44,142 That's below the median! O NOES!

What's the matter with Hyde Park?*

2008-08-24T22:10:00.005-05:00

Obama has been taking flak for his neighborhood, and seeing as how I actually know a bit about that subject, I thought I'd muddle through.

The linchpin*1 piece seems to be Mr. Obama's Neighborhood by Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard, so I'll use quotes from that as my skeleton.

Hyde Park, Chicago

Note the explicit claim that the author has actually been to Hyde Park.

When Barack Obama was briefly embarrassed earlier this year by his association with the onetime bomb-builder and wannabe bomb-exploder William Ayers, he blamed his neighborhood, sort of. "He's a guy who lives in my neighborhood," Obama said with a shrug... Obama's casual dismissal led people all across America, people who live in all kinds of communities without bombers, to look at each other and say: "Wow, what kind of neighborhood does Barack live in?"

Confession: I don't know a blessed thing about the Weathermen, or Weathermolls or whether their activities demand the withering condemnation recently applied. It occurs to 'all kinds of communities' have ex-cons in them. Furthermore if Chicago or Illinois or the Federal Government felt that Bill Ayers hadn't paid his debt to society they could have prosecuted him more vigorously or sentenced him more harshly. As it is, we should welcome ex-cons that have returned to the straight and narrow - no?*8

It's not a trifling question. Like a gabby relative or a crooked business associate, a membership in a restrictive golf club or a long-forgotten bisexual fling, a neighborhood can be a problem for a candidate. Voters often feel that incidentals like these reveal something essential about a potential president.

Because when I pick a place to live that's close to my job, that says deep things about who I am. By the way, that thing in college, where I "experimented," that was a long time ago. In my youth. I'm a new man. And I didn't realize it was white's only.

Just as important, political consultants often go to great lengths to make voters feel that way.

This is one of those trifling little incidentals that tell you you're not reading an honest piece about the HP, you've reading a strategy paper for Republican operatives.

Recall poor Michael Dukakis, the hapless Democratic presidential nominee in 1988.

Yes my little Roveies, it worked so well that time, we should try it again!

He lived in the Boston suburb of Brookline--a "progressive" village where the townsfolk congratulate themselves for riding mass transit, eating fibrous bread, holding Winter Festivals in place of Christmas parties, joining committees, attending meetings that last many hours and result in the appointment of more committees, growing organic Chinese vegetables in sideyards, and hanging potted plants in macramé hammocks on the front porch.

This sentence (yes it's only one) is a Mortgage Backed Security of policies and lifestyles. There's grade AAAA conservative canards, like you can't trust anyone that eats whole wheat toast (Real Americans get heart attacks!). Mixed in is the BBB stuff - mass transit. Fast, safe mass transit that goes where people want to is nothing to sneeze at. It'll keep home prices in HP from going the way of Prince William County, and while I can't stand the people that turn up their noses and say 'oh, I don't drive' any more than you can, with gas prices stuck in the $3.50-4.00 range, mass transit is looking for an upgrade. Finally, the Junk Bonds like committees which, rather than being a liberal prerogative, are the spinach and lima beans of any organization - church, corporation, or condo association. Did you know they have taxes in Brookline? Did you know there are lines at the grocery store?

Brookline was an eddy of American life, a pocket of preciosity set apart from the world that most Americans struggle through, and Republican operatives made it a symbol of Dukakis's disconnection from the common man. Maybe this was a low blow (you listening Rovies? -p.e.), but the Republicans had a point. Anyone who knew Brookline would not have been surprised to learn that Dukakis, as one of its favorite sons, liked to take books about Swedish land-use planning with him to the beach, thus disqualifying himself from the presidency.

Did you know that Penicillin was discovered in Scotland, and that other key antibiotics were discovered in Germany? Hope you've never had strep throat, or Andy Ferguson doesn't think you can be president.

As Republicans felt about Brookline, so Obama supporters feel about Obama's neighborhood: It's a measure of the man.

I had to read that a couple of times. Obviously Republicans felt that Brookline was a club to beat Dukakis about the head with and feel the same way about the HP and BHO. So, no, I don't think supporters agree. I would say that Democrats should try to beat John McCain about the head with his adopted neighborhood, but we'd have trouble figuring out which of the 7 McCain-Hensley houses to use as a starting point (did you see that coming? Of course you did).

"What better way to define what you're all about than where you choose to live and bring up your family?" said Obama's friend, neighbor, and campaign adviser John Rogers in USA Today. Obama's neighborhood, Hyde Park, is on the South Side of Chicago, about seven miles from the Loop.

I hope you know more about Chicago's physical and social geography than I did when I accepted here, or that statement won't do you much good. Chicago sits along Lake Michigan, which forms the eastern border of the city, and spreads west. The loop is centered on the North-South axis and sits at the waterfront. It's (approximately) where the Sears Tower, Hancock Building, Millenium and Grant Parks, Trump Tower, Twizzler etc. etc. are. It's also the center of the mass transit system, the El. North of there is Wrigly Field, Lincoln Park, Northwestern Medical center, and great piles of yuppies.

The loop runs to 600 S. (3/4 mi south of the Chicago River). Tourist maps cut the city off at 1200 S. (1.5 mi). Hyde Park is 5.5 mi south of that at 5100-5900 S. It is surrounded on three sides by ghetto (and on one by water). High crime, high poverty - the kind of place where if you get off the train and try to walk around, the best outcome is that someone will quickly suggest you get back on the train. Massive meddling by the university and the second largest police force in Illinois make Hyde Park relatively safe. This is no leafy green college town. Reality is not an abstraction. And it would like your money. And your iPod.

Not counting time spent in college and law school, plus part of a year working for a consulting firm in Manhattan, Hyde Park is the only place Barack Obama has lived as an adult.

I hope this will be the last of those attempts to describe Barack Obama as rootless.

He first moved there in 1984, when he came to Chicago as a community organizer, and he returned after graduating from Harvard Law School. Here he courted his future wife, who grew up in the nearby neighborhood of South Shore, and here his children were born and now attend (private) school. Here, too, is the mansion he bought in 2005, with the proceeds from his two bestselling books in which he speaks fondly of the life he has built here.

Congratulations on finishing page one! Watch Barack Obama marry! Watch Barack Obama buy a house!*2 Watch Barack Obama procreate! There's really nothing here to critique, except the old "you would expect a conservative to be happy about someone privatizing their child's education" / "it's just a commentary on our failure to better educate the least of us."

The affection is mutual. The Hyde Park Herald printed a gala issue when Obama announced his candidacy, in February 2007. "Despite national fame, Barack Obama remains a Hyde Parker to the core," read the banner headline. Inside were display ads from local businesses, full of good wishes and exclamation points: "Good luck, neighbor!"; "Wish Hyde Park's very own Barack Obama and family all the best!"; "Congratulations to Barack, our hometown hero!" There were pages of testimonials from neighbors, shopkeepers, political activists, and his barber, too. All agreed he's "down to earth." One local mother recalled standing next to him at a Halloween parade. "He greeted me with a friendly 'hello,' " she testified. A waitress at his favorite restaurant: "No matter what might be on his mind, he always asks how I'm doing." "He was always one of my quietest customers," said the owner of the local video store. "But when he did have something to say it was always soothing and stimulating at the same time. When he walked away he would leave that thought in your mind. It made you wonder." America has been having the same reaction, but Hyde Parkers experienced it first.

OMG we like having a national celebrity. It sounds like Fergie wishes we would trash him, but that's just typical Rovie stuff - find the guy at the Med Bakery that Barack told off that one time.

If you think this sounds improbably quaint and Norman Rockwellish, like Anytown, USA, Hyde Parkers think so too. They often refer to their neighborhood as a "small town."

Not that I'm a 'Comprehension Stickler,'*3 but if Hyde Parkers think saying Hyde Park is quaint is improbably quaint, they're unlikely to refer to it as a small town, the USMLE Buzz Word for "quaint."

Hyde Park isn't a town (it used to be before being incorporated into Chicago in the late 1800's -p.e.) but, with a population of roughly 35,000, depending on who's counting and how, it is pretty small: 15 city blocks from north to south, another 15 or so from Washington Park on the west to its eastern boundary at the shore of Lake Michigan.

wrongo. Hyde Park proper is 8 blocks N->S, 51st St to 59th St. and 8 blocks E->W, Cottage Grove (800 E) to Lake Michicagn (circa 1600 E). Technically, Barack Obama doesn't live in HP, he lives in Kenwood. I can't speak to the population numbers, but if Fergie wants to keep characterizing the HP as small town America, I'm happy to ignore him while he shoots his left foot and angrily claims it's the right.

Its sense of urban intimacy is reinforced by its isolation. It is the most racially integrated neighborhood in the nation's most racially segregated city.

I note that racial integration is not a characteristic of presciosity, but rather of precociousness. We want America to be integrated, as witnessed by the shameless tokenism of the Republican't convention schedule, and the fact that they don't even complain about how shamelessly they tokenize.

On three sides it is closed in by some of the most hellish slums in the country, miles of littered streets, acres of abandoned lots, block after block of shuttered storefronts and empty apartment buildings left over from the 19th century.

While I thought the previous characterization was woefully short, this one again misses the point. The neighborhoods surrounding Hyde Park are economically depressed, racially unintegrated, and not particularly safe, but they are not dead zones. A casual drive from the highway would have revealed many many open storefronts and people going about their lives. Some appartment buildings are shuttered, others are being rehabbed, others are still inhabited. That's why it's not incongruous for a community organizer to live in Hyde Park and work in the larger South Side. HP is not Grinnell, Iowa teleported alongside Lake Michigan. It is the nice part of the area, but it is of the area. I note that Barack Obama's "mansion" is also a "building left over from the 19th century."

These terminate abruptly at the edge of Hyde Park and give way to shade trees and lawns and stately brick mansions and huge, tidied-up apartment houses.

Again with the not knowing the borders of Hyde Park. Kenwood to the north is very nice. Woodlawn has a lot of freshly rehabbed appartment buildings, and the Washington Park neighborhood abruptly terminates at Washington Park, the park.*4 Again with the 'casual drive from I-90/94 would have found trees in Washington Park.' Again, I note that a Hyde Park mansion is a Washington Park shuttered brick house.

Surrounded, Hyde Park is different from any neighborhood in Chicago--different from anywhere in America, for that matter.

Finally, Premise A. Marks off for not underlining it. Marks off for burying it on the second page. Others might not have noticed it, but I trained in the Kaus/Althouse school of argument! A: Hyde Park is not like America. B: Barack Obama is of Hyde Park. Therefore, Barack Obama is not of America. However, my Etherised/Isofluranised style will defeat your Kaus/Althouse style since my argument against Premise A has the advantage of being true. In the trivial snowflake sense, Hyde Park is different from anywhere in America, but is Fergie really saying there's nowhere else in America where a nice neighborhood abuts a not-so-nice neighborhood? Is Fergie saying there are no other communities where everyone is all up in everyone else's business?

Perhaps it's just that I grew up one mile from a massive IBM printer plant, but Hyde Park reminds me of nothing so much as a white collar factory town. Our Applebee's says "Medici" out front, but it's got the same random stuff on the walls and the same waitresses that have been there forever. We park along our streets, rather than in our driveways, but you still see kids whizzing by on their bikes and playing ball in the park. It's 5 miles to the nearest Target, and 7 to the nearest movie theater. The goals of my circle of acquaintances are to have fun, to get married and have kids, to get ahead by working hard and to own their own homes. We have our liberal blowhards, and our conservative blowhards.

Some people call it a college town (REMEMBER THIS BIT), since its largest inhabitant, the institution that defines the neighborhood's character, is the University of Chicago, one of the world's most prestigious universities.

Coincidentally, some of our blowhards actually know what they're talking about (others are the tin-foil hat email forwarders... just like anywhere else, I suppose)

A friend once described Hyde Park as "Berkeley with snow,"

And the bag of Ramen in my cabinet once described Fergie as "A douchebag, except larger."*5

and it does indeed have the same graduate-student flavor,

What is a graduate student flavor? Chicken? Tears and hard work? How many years of eating it does it take to taste like Cobb lentil soup? Seriously. The grad students I know are alarmingly hard working 20 somethings on the lowest rung of an extremely important profession.

the same political activism and boho intellectualism, the same alarmingly high number of men wandering about looking like NPR announcers--the wispy beards and wire rims, the pressed jeans and unscuffed sneakers, the backpacks and the bikes.

Hey, another Collateralized Debt Obligation! Except it's almost pure junk. Every political activist I've seen was an undergrad, and there were very few - no demonstrations, no marches, no sit ins, no flower children, no bombings (doubtless to Fergie's disappointment). Again, Boho intellectualism, by which I guess he means the sort of big think fostered in undergraduates by classical college education seems to be largely an undergraduate pasttime. Sadly, I don't know what an NPR announcer looks like, but on my typical walks on the quad, I see distressingly few wispy beards, wire rims, pressed jeans or unscuffed sneakers. The backpacks and bikes are the BBB bonds of this example. I must confess, I see a lot of college students CARRYING THINGS ON THEIR BACKS. And travelling TO AND FRO USING NEITHER THEIR FEET NOR THEIR CARS. Quelle f'ing horror my friends.

(This is a pretty good description of William Ayers, by the way.)

Wow, he sounds just like Ted Kaczynski. Let's rend him, extraordinarily. Good job tying the article together, though. Fergie makes no mention of the women though... presumably they're not afflicted by "NPR announce disease," or at least if they are, they look more like Michele Norris than Carl Kasell Come to think about it... Carl Kasell: wispy beard - uncheck; wire-rim glasses - uncheck; pressed jeans - presumably uncheck; unscuffed sneakers - presumably uncheck; backpack - uncheck; bicycle - uncheck. Perhaps it's because I spend a lot of time in the hospital (like many many other Hyde Parkers, but apparently unlike our correspondent), but I see an 'alarmingly high number' of people that look like Carl Kasell.

But the similarities can be overdone. "Not 'Berkeley with snow,' " a U. of C. professor said, when I mentioned my friend's comment to him. "It's the snow that keeps us from being Berkeley. The snow and the cold keep the street people away. (actually, it doesn't - I suppose that is one way HP differs from the 'burbs -p.e.) It drives everyone inside. (unlike the parts of America that don't get cold, or where it gets cold but people don't go inside? -p.e.)You don't have all the students who dropped out of school or graduated and refused to leave. If they stay, they do something. If not, they get out of town. It's too cold just to hang around."

I actually have several alternative theories for why 'they' don't just hang around - they've just graduated and they're ready to start their lives; they have big piles of debt to pay off; they don't have ultra-rich parents to support a few extra years of partying; they want to see other parts of the country; their friends are leaving... One wonders what department this professor is in.

This contributes to the neighborhood's relatively low crime rate

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA compared to what? Seriously, relative compared to what. If he means "relative compared to your average (read: suburban, white, upper middle class - more on that later) neighborhood," I think the value of my condo just shot up 25%. If he means relative to the surrounding areas, he's just dead wrong. Maybe it's dropouts and post-grad losers that do the crime at Berkely, but in the HP it's bad actors from the neighboring neighborhoods, and the 'relatively low crime rate' is due entirely to the UofC police department (God bless 'em). If you needed evidence the dateline is just a line, look no further.

and, in part, to the university's reputation as a home for squares and nerds,

So the wispy bearded NPR announcers are actually squares and nerds?

a buttoned-down "bastion of conservatism," in the phrase of one magazine writer. And the conservatism, by popular account, infects the neighborhood at large, tempers its politics, and adds to its diversity. But the reputation for right-wingery is based on a simple if imprecise bit of data that shocks the delicate sensibilities of college professors: Of the tens of thousands of faculty who have taught at the University of Chicago over the past half-century, perhaps as many as 65 have, at some point in their lives, voted for a Republican.

Data? Seriously. There are more than 65 business professors right now, and don't tell me the lawschool is all Stevens and no Scalia. As for the med school, one of my professors (yes that's an ironic use of authority) said of a group of med students "there go a gaggle of democrats on their way to being republicans." Fergie may be surprised to find that the hospital contains more than a few doctors.

On a deeper level, there's a shift going on - throughout the piece you've been getting impressions and reputation, with little hard data. Now, we're shown a piece of reputation and told not to believe it. Again, the audience for this piece is the Rovies, we just happened to Google it.

Many of these insurgents were either disciples of the university's most famous faculty member, the free-market economist Milton Friedman, or were drawn to the school because of him; others came under the influence of Allan Bloom, the Straussian philosopher, who ran the university's Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy, along with a few classically minded scholars. Bloom is dead. So is Friedman. The Olin Center closed its doors in 2005. Their disciples and colleagues who remain at the university aren't getting any younger. It's unlikely that the school's wobbly reputation for conservatism, and the neighborhood's, will survive them.

The "classically minded scholars" are still in the driver's seat for the undergrad curriculum if my sources are to be believed. Friendman is dead, but the Milton Friedman Institute lives. Strauss's Committee on Social Thought continues as well. The free market centric reality of the business school and economics departments can be seen in the excitement for Obama among fans of Prof. Austen Goolsbee. The nature of the Academy (boo hiss!) guarantees Friedman's disciples will have disciples.

Pause for a second to wonder why it matters if there are 65 or 600 conservatives on the UofC faculty. If the question is - does Barack Obama come from a very liberal neighborhood, the answer doesn't depend on Milton Friedman's continued life. If the question is - were Barack Obama's ideas challenged on a daily basis by people he disagreed with, then you cast aspersions on the authenticity of every Republican that doesn't live in a college town.

As a matter of fact, I do belive it was good for Barack Obama to have his ideas questioned from right and left, from black and white, and latino and asian, from Catholic and Jewish and Muslim - oh darn I started channeling again. And I think it hurts Republican politicians when they don't have a chance to have their posiitons really challenged in a thoughtful way before they make those positions official and are forced to defend them no matter how ridiculous the situation becomes.

The reputation for diversity, though, probably will survive (Fergie admits it's true*6 -p.e.). It's not often noted that the neighborhood's diversity has its limits. "In Hyde Park," a resident told me, " 'integration' means white people and black people (those are the people from the surrounding neighborhoods - p.e.)." The nation's fastest growing ethnic group, Hispanics, is scarcely represented at all; same for Asians (HAHA. FAIL. Obviously didn't walk around -p.e.). The neighborhood is better known as a haven for the black upper class, especially those who don't want to move to an all-white suburb but also don't want the crime risks and miserable schools associated with the neighborhoods to the immediate south, west, and north ("Better known as"? weasel words! -p.e.). Some of these people are famous--Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, lived in an apartment by the lake, and Muhammad Ali lived down the block from Louis Farrakhan, who lives in Elijah Muhammad's old digs, around the corner from the house of Joe Louis's widow. Most are lawyers and business executives from the Loop, doctors and technicians from the university hospital center, administrators and professors from the university--united to the white upper class through shared politics and aspirations, and delighting in, congratulating one another on, their unique neighborhood.

O.K. Muhammed Ali, Farrakhan and Louis live in Kenwood. Kenwood. Kenwood. I check Wikipedia before I write my hit pieces, o.k.? Anyway, Fergie says the neighborhood isn't all professors, but then says it doesn't matter because everyone is happy about their little town. And it's well known that enjoying where you live makes you a liberal bastion incapable of producing real leaders. The attempt to say that the black professionals aren't really black seems part of the old line questionign whether Obama was black enough. I have to tell Fergie he's out of date and the new line is questioning whether Obama isn't too black. Too black. Not to mention the negative effects of assuming that education and a salary prevent someone from being authentically black.

Hyde Park has always been relatively affluent, but the neighborhood's character was changed forever beginning in the mid-1950s, when university officials orchestrated an ambitious scheme of urban renewal, paid for by the city and federal governments. The project was the first of its kind in Chicago, and one of the first in the country, and it served for a generation as a model for other cities, for better or worse--usually worse. But in Hyde Park urban renewal worked like a Swiss watch.

Throwaway (thank G-d, my computer's getting tired)

"You have to understand the mindset," a neighborhood preservationist, Jack Spicer, told me. "In the middle of the 1950s, the university thought they were in the middle of an emergency. Alarms were going off everywhere." All around Hyde Park, white flight was transforming Chicago, goosed by racial panic and the sleazy importunities of "blockbusters"--real estate speculators who bought the houses of fleeing whites at fire-sale prices, then flipped them at a high profit to incoming blacks. "The university figured Hyde Park was next," Spicer said. The school was having trouble attracting students and faculty. Administrators considered moving the campus to Arizona or New Mexico--anywhere pleasant--but balked at the expense. At last they decided that if they couldn't move to a nice neighborhood, they would make their neighborhood nice.

The aim of urban renewal in Hyde Park, according to the university's president, was "to buy, control, and rebuild our neighborhood" until it was a "community of similar tastes and interests." The program lasted a decade. By the end of it the neighborhood had been reconfigured physically and redefined socially. Vast stretches of the old Hyde Park were bulldozed, including the main shopping and entertainment (that is, honky-tonk) district along 55th Street. Planners clear-cut an entire subneighborhood of wooden bungalows that housed workers from the nearby slaughterhouses and the Indiana steel mills, scattering the residents to parts unknown. From these razed blocks sprung parking garages, dormitories, classroom buildings, parks, and rows of townhouses suitable for students and faculty.

What survived the wrecking ball was equally desirable: the mansions built during the neighborhood's day as the city's Gold Coast, in the 1890s, when it drew Armours, Swifts, and other monied families looking for a lakeside home. Just to the south, turn-of-the-century apartment houses were saved, refurbished, and offered as housing for the administrators and faculty at U. of C. Having uprooted most neighborhood businesses, the plan concentrated all commercial activity into three small shopping centers, from which most of the old shop owners were excluded. A single saloon survived. Notably absent from the scheme was any public housing for the poor. After ten years of urban renewal, the neighborhood's population had dropped by 40 percent.

More throwaway (i.e. irrelevant to stuff after 1960). The one thing I would say is that many urban medical centers - Yale, Cleveland Clinic, Pitt, are like spaceships. People drive in, move form building to building on elevated walkways, and their feet never touch the ground. One can fault the university for a lot in its management of Hyde Park, but the result is something everyone can hold hands and sing kumbaya about.

Hyde Park's isolation was by design. At its boundaries, the university bought and leveled city blocks that could serve as a buffer, or moat, from the surrounding South Side as it filled with impoverished blacks.

I would love to know what he thinks they blew up. Not the Midway, it was there for the Columbian Exposition in 1893. Not Washington Park, as it was also part of the Columbian Exposition. And Not Hyde Park Boulevard, since it didn't get blown up, or if it did, it's not a moat since they built stuff on it.

The isolation brings a whiff of unreality to the neighborhood. The place seems unrooted. It's neither one thing nor the other. Hyde Park lacks the freewheeling energy of a college town (Oh, really? See above, and below -p.e.), and it lacks the surprises and variety of a healthy city neighborhood (as opposed to the authentically 'bombed out' surrounding ones? or the lily white ones up north? -p.e.). Strolling the quiet streets on a morning in May you'll admire the lilacs spilling over the low stone fences, the mansions with the squares of lawn marching to the edge of the boulevards, the funky, vine-covered apartment buildings shaded by overarching oak and poplar. Only after a day or so do you notice what's not here. There are no movie theaters, for example, and not much commerce generally. There's nowhere to buy a pair of pants or shoes. There aren't many restaurants, and only a single overpriced restaurant catering to the culinary affectations of the yuppie trade--strange for a neighborhood with so many wealthy residents. Only in the last few months did the neighborhood get a reliable, clean, and well-stocked grocery store.

I note that my subdivision in Colorado didn't have any commerce either. It was a mile to the grocery store (same as Hyde Park), Target and theatres we already covered. Hyde Park does have two liquor stores, six bars, four bookstores, a hardware store, two banks, two drug stores, a Fedex/Kinkos, and very many non-yuppie restaraunts. People seem to grossly overestimate an average professors salary, which is perhaps where the idea that profs are elitist comes from. The Banana was appalled when I informed her that somehow 'elitist' had shifted from 'plutocrat' to 'educated person.' Somehow, Fergie thinks that UofC profs fit both definitions... of that professors count as Yuppies. Alas, the Med is much more fitting than La Petit Folie.

And both of these, the fancy restaurant and the new grocery store, are creatures of the university's paternalism. The university has long been aware that the neighborhood it created lacks the amenities that urban dwellers demand as compensation for the discomforts of city living. So when the neighborhood's only large grocery store failed recently--it was a customer-owned cooperative, whose empty shelves and accumulated gunk attested to its Soviet-like disdain for market forces--the university subsidized a new outlet from a "gourmet" grocery chain (This is a complete muck up. There were three slots for grocery stores in the neighborhood and the Co-Op rented all three to preserve its monopoly, going deeply into debt to the univeristy. The university finally killed it. Treasure Island is the replacement at one slot, and it's no Whole Foods. The selection is slightly broader in foreign goods, but otherwise very comparable to a Dominicks-p.e.). Now everybody's happy. The fancy restaurant, too, was encouraged by the university as something its cultured faculty would like, and as a place where parents might take their student children on campus visits; the university keeps the restaurant owners afloat by providing business for their catering service (OMG, large local business encourages development in its neighborhood -p.e.). And, having obliterated the neighborhood's entertainment district 50 years ago, it is now trying to draw bars and clubs back to Hyde Park, either through subsidy or outright purchase. U. of C. recently bought and moved the South Side landmark Checkerboard Lounge close to campus, to restore the nightlife that the 1950s urban planners hoped to kill (and did).
Hyde Parkers sometimes seem strangely unaware of how completely their neighborhood's uniqueness is a product of the university's noblesse oblige (Really? On what basis? I'm painfully aware of where the call boxes are on my way home, and I wave at every police I see -p.e.). An outsider sees it most clearly in the university police cars that patrol Hyde Park around the clock, and in the emergency call boxes spaced throughout the entire neighborhood, far beyond the campus proper, that anyone can use at any time to summon campus cops. (The university police force is the second largest police force in Illinois.) The paternalism is less obvious because it has never been racial. Urban renewal drove out as many poor whites as poor blacks; for university officials in the 1950s, enlightened liberals all, the panic was over a decline in social and economic class. "They wanted a comfortable place for the upper class to live," said Spicer, the preservationist. "They didn't want only black families, or all black families, but black families of the right sort were welcomed." The neighborhood's famous racial harmony is the result. The comedian (and later movie director) Mike Nichols, who got his start in a club on the old 55th Street, defined Hyde Park liberalism for all time: "Black and white, marching arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder against the poor."

Wasn't it the tough-on-crime Nixons and Reagans that told us it's not that they disliked the poor, they were just fighting crime? And if the suggestion is that Barack Obama is against the poor (like that tax increase nonsense) then you're dashed by his community organizing and professing as opposed to selling out for megabucks and poor-screwing (unless you think this is all some secret plot to get powerful enough to screw all the poor at once).

Right out of college, Barack Obama placed himself in the middle of this curious legacy. Culturally he's never been a "South Sider," because no one on the south side thinks of Hyde Park as a South Side neighborhood (despite, you know, all the professionals that live in Hyde Park and work outside - see authentically black above -p.e.). It's an anomaly that the writer and cultural critic Andrew Patner, a native Hyde Parker, tried to explain to me as we drove around the neighborhood one day (apparently while wearing blinders -p.e.).

"There's a certain wariness toward Hyde Park among South Side blacks, most of whom are poor," he said. "If you're from another neighborhood, you might go to Hyde Park on the weekends. But there's a word, sadiddy. It means you think maybe you're better than you are. Pretentious. That's sort of the view of Hyde Park. It's too weird, too far outside what most of Chicago knows."

This had consequences for Obama's political future. Most successful African-American politicians in Chicago come up through the Democratic big-city political machine--either the old machine of Richard J. Daley or the gentler version overseen by his son, the current mayor, Richard M. Daley. Even Harold Washington, now canonized as the greatest of Chicago reformers, was machine-made. By contrast, politicians from Hyde Park, white or black, actively opposed the machine and the headlock it had on the city's politics. "Politically," wrote the Chicago political analyst David Fremon, "Hyde Park has never joined the city." Obama is a politician of Hyde Park pedigree, outside the normal bloodlines of Chicago's black politics.

So Obama is NOT from a corrupt political machine, therefore he's suspect!

"When Barack announced for president," Patner told me, "it was a total ho-hum in the black community"--beyond Hyde Park, that is (I thought Patner was a Hyde Parker and "real" South Siders dont' talk to Hyde Parkers? -p.e.). "It just wasn't that big a deal."

A political rival, State Senator Donne Trotter, put it this way in an interview with the Chicago Reader: "Barack is viewed in part to be the white man in blackface in our community. You just have to look at his supporters. Who pushed him to get where he is so fast? It's these individuals in Hyde Park, who don't always have the best interests of the community in mind."

"That's one of the downsides to his background, coming up outside normal channels," Patner went on. "He's always had to prove himself with the black community. He never had that seal of approval. But there are upsides, too."

One upside is that Obama, the Hyde Parker, was automatically more appealing--less threatening--to white liberals, in Hyde Park and beyond. The other upside, said Patner, is that "because he came up through Hyde Park instead of the machine, he stayed clear of all the corruption that's involved with that."

So one of Barack's rivals trashes him and points out he had low black support outside his immediate community when he started running. A perusal of the south side now would show a very different perspective. Still I'll rehearse the classical explanation of why he wasn't supported in the begining - the widespread perception that Hillary had it locked up, so why throw your vote away? Once Obama showed his viability in Iowa (darn those white liberals anyway!) black enthusiasm exploded.

By Chicago standards, Obama's sweetheart real estate deal with the convicted fixer (real estate developer -p.e.) Tony Rezko--who purchasd the lot next to the house Obama was buying, effectively giving him a bigger yard for free (with the stated purpose of developing it -p.e.)--is almost beneath comment: a cost of doing business or a small professional benefit, typical of machine-backed pols and reformers alike. None of the progressive politicos I spoke with in Hyde Park considered it dismaying--"disappointing," as one oldtimer said, but hardly disqualifying. Most found in Obama instead a mint-perfect expression of their particular brand of politics.

"Barack is perfect for the neighborhood!" Rabbi Arnold Wolf told me, when I stopped by his Hyde Park house one afternoon for a talk. He's as round and white-bearded as Santa, with the same twinkle. He came to Hyde Park before urban renewal and saw its effects firsthand. For 25 years he led the congregation at KAM Isaiah Israel, a synagogue across the street from Obama's mansion. (Recently, the Secret Service contingent has been using its bathrooms.)

"You can't say Barack's a product of Hyde Park. He's not really from here. But everybody saw the potential early on. We had a party for him at our house when he was just starting, back in the Nineties. I said right away: 'Here's a guy who could sell our product, and sell it with splendor!' "

I asked him what the Hyde Park product was.

"People think we're radicals here, wild-eyed!" he said. "Bill Ayers--I know Bill Ayers very well. Bill Ayers is an aging, toothless radical. A pussycat. And his wife, too. I sat on a commission with his wife a few years ago. My god, she was more critical of the left than I was! The two of them, they're utterly conventional people. They had a violent streak at one time. But now--they're thoroughly conventional, just very nice, well-educated people from the neighborhood."

As it happened, I'd spent the evening before reading Ayers's blog, and lingered over a manifesto he posted in early April, after his friendship with Obama became national news. "I've never advocated terrorism," Ayers wrote, "never participated in it, never defended it. The U.S. government, by contrast, does it routinely and defends the use of it in its own cause consistently." Capitalism, he went on, "is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution--a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love" and so on.

Just another guy in the neighborhood (What did I mention about blowhards? -p.e.).

But back to the product Obama could sell?

"The thing is, it's not what you might think," Rabbi Wolf said. "It's not radical. It's not extreme. It's a rational, progressive philosophy based on experience. You see it here. This neighborhood is genuinely integrated. We did it here, we really did it! Not just talk about it. Look around. And Barack and his family fit right in. This is their neighborhood."

As he walked me to the door he mused about the urban renewal that created the new Hyde Park. He said he'd always been ambivalent about it.

"Even at the time, you could see the university was saving us, and it was destroying us," he said. "It was keeping us afloat, but it was also taking away the old characteristics, the old buildings, the old trees, the old roots. But it made the neighborhood different, unique. You notice there's no class conflict here."

He twinkled.

"That's because there's only one class--upper!"

I been to services from Wolf. He's a good guy. But it's hard to look at this and see anything other than someone not used to giving hostile interviews being used to stab a friend in the back. It's also 'interesting' to see suburbanites go after Hyde Park for being island-ish, unintegrated, mono-cultural and single-classed.

The irony would be funny if it weren't so jarring: Black America, after 400 years of enforced second-class status, offers the country a plausible presidential candidate, and what's the charge made against him? He's an elitist. (Write that down Rovies: Doesn't matter how much he makes, or whether he cares about Americans, he's an elitist - p.e.)

Hyde Park may be partly responsible. Obama does show signs of having imbibed its view of the America beyond the moat. David Mendell, in his indispensable biography Obama: From Promise to Power, quotes a co-worker of Obama: "[Obama] always talked about the New Rochelle train, the trains that took commuters to and from New York City, and he didn't want to be on one of those trains every day. The image of a life, not a dynamic life, of going through the motions. . . . That was scary to him." In his own memoir, Obama depicts his mother fleeing the "smugness and hypocrisy" of her small Midwestern town--a town that Obama visited for the first time this year, campaigning. Only a lack of familiarity with the benign flow of middle-class American life could inspire clichés like these.

Smugness - check. Hypocrisy - check. Shall we dump on Leo Bloom because he doesn't want to be an accountant all his life? Shall I roll through the Ferguson oevre looking for derisive references to Des Moines?*7 Obama is getting the Democratic nomination for president. Win or lose, he will be a major figure in the United States for decades to come. By attacking his broad vision and talent for inspiration, his detractors admit he has a broad vision and a talent for inspiration. Barack Obama will be a major figure in the United States for decades. If you don't like his politics, it's no wonder you wish he would have gone to New Rochelle, but if I ever get to bed tonight I might have that same nightmare - Barack Obama trapped in the daily grind, reduced to a clock-watching, solitare playing grey flannel suit man.

"I never had roots growing up," Obama has often said. It's the theme of his life, as he himself tells the story. He even wrote a book, a small masterpiece, about his tortured attempts to locate himself in the larger world. From Hawaii to Indonesia and back to Hawaii, then to Los Angeles and Manhattan and Cambridge, Mass., and finally to Hyde Park: He's never lived in a part of the country that's like 90 percent of the rest of the country.

This looks like the key line of the piece, yet it actually means dog-all. Is there an archetype that describes 90% of the country? I don't think so. Do Barack's experiences in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Cambridge and Hyde Park only cover 10% of the 'likeness' of the country? In that case, we've so finely sliced it that to have covered 10% is a pretty good achievement. It's not geographical diversity, as he's lived on both coasts, the midwest and outside the continental 48. It's not that he's only lived in urban areas as the U.S. is much more than 10% urban. This is the line of attack - he's not like us - he's weird and elite and comes from a crazy neighborhood! But there's nothing to it, the 10% looks like a throwaway... Except, there's one small sliver. No, couldn't be that... Maybe it's a dog whistle? There is that one statistic that's about 10%, but...

This struck me one afternoon when I drove from Obama's house to Trinity United Church of Christ, the now-controversial church where he worshipped for nearly 20 years. It's a long drive, 30 minutes or more (Don't say that, he can't really be faithful, it's just convenience, get on message! -p.e.). Whether you take the freeway or the surface streets, the route jolts you from the manicured quiet of Hyde Park through one bombed-out neighborhood after another (not bombed out, people going about their lives, getting by -p.e.). Then you arrive at Trinity, hard against the roaring freeway, at the edge of a district of blond-brick bungalows, some tidy and trim, others obscured by weeds, the shutters off their hinges. After services, Obama would get the family in the car and go home (as opposed to staring off into space walking in circles for half an hour like all the authentic blacks -p.e.).

Hyde Park's the neighborhood he returned to, the place he'd chosen to live, and its roots were torn out 50 years ago (and what have we got now, astroturf?-p.e.). A college town, it has all the churning and transience the phrase implies (oh really? see above, and farther above -p.e.). Everyone seems from somewhere else. The Armours, Swifts, and the other first families of Chicago left long ago. The working men and their families, who replaced them, were driven out by the university. The poor were secured at a safe distance. Inside, harmony reigned between white and black residents, but the whites drawn by the university were often here only temporarily (except for the lifers -p.e.), and the blacks who moved here have the same sense of displacement, even if they arrived from another neighborhood nearby (evidence?-p.e.).

This is the perfect place for a man without an identity to make one of his own choosing.

I'm glad we agree on the need for Presidential Candidates to be Self-Made Men

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

You shouldda seen the crap the junior editor turned in. Recitation tomorrow.

P.S. There was a phenomenon in Colorado, probably much less common now, where you'd go down a road you hadn't been down in a month and there would be a new development up, like it had been ka-chunk'd into place by some giant development-making machine. The important thing about a place like that, with its paper-thin walls and white carpet and no grocery store and no La Petit Folie, is that when a family moves into there, it becomes a home. And their lives put meaning and roots and decency into those walls. A guy like Barack Obama settles down, gets a condo and puts down roots, that's meaningful. You can't deny that he chose the neighborhood and it shaped him. Maybe if we're lucky, he'll shape it as well.

Coincidentally, Barack Obama will work a hell of a lot harder to keep that family in their new home than John McCain will.

*: Others have addressed this question. 1. 2.

1: By which I mean Checka (they did love their guilt by association)

2: Side note on the house: It's nicely appointed, about the size of my parents four-bedroom suburban home. The (one) million dollar price tag comes from being detached - no neighbors, no condo assn.

3: Not that I find "grammar Nazi" offensive per se, just that I don't think Adolf would let you off with an angrily sharpied "that's not where the apostraphie goes, jude."

4: Which reminds me of the UofC economics study of prostitution in Chicago which is of a part with the considerable field work also reported in Freakonomics and Gang Leader for a Day. Ivory Tower it ain't (neither is the UofC emergency room, for that matter).

5: Goodbye credibility. Too bad it was so unresistable. Hey Nature, can I cite my friends? No?

6: Rovie definition of true: Incapable of reversing this perception prior to the election.

7: On the other hand, its goo-goo tradition is partly what makes Iowa atypical, hence almost worthless as a national temperature-taker. It is the fourth whitest state in the union -- fewer than 5 percent of its population is black, Hispanic, or Asian. Voter participation is much higher than the national average. Those who do vote are on average whiter, richer, older, and better educated than voters elsewhere, and those who participate in the caucuses are even more so. The large number of farmers guarantee that issues of absolutely no importance to the rest of the country -- ethanol subsidies, for instance -- preoccupy the candidates. The large oldster contingent has the same effect: As the journalist Walter Shapiro points out, the issue-fad of "notch babies," which gripped several presidential contenders in the 1980s, was purely a pander to Iowa's hefty cohort of senior citizens. - Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard Aug. 16, 1999. IOWA GOTHIC; The Thrill of Being Ground Zero of Campaign 2000, p21. Well, I guess nowhere is 'like America' - darn that diversity! Also, gotcha. Also, I love Lexis-Nexis, go UofC! Also, how can I get into the gig of doing hit pieces on places?

8: EDIT: Duplicate quoted paragraph removed here.

Joe Biden, American Hero

2008-08-23T11:00:00.003-05:00

I was skeptical of the Joe Biden selection, as I hadn't really heard of him and his biography would seem to make it easy to caricature him as another Washington Insider. However, something changed my mind...

My informed, yet distant Argentinian Christmas focus group said the election was going to be about Clinton vs. Giuliani, and that Giuliani would probably win. I suggested the Iowa Democrats might surprise them, but didn't think much on the Republican side.

Yet Giuliani dropped out, and Joe Biden just might have had somehthing to do with it.

Bravo.

Stop hurting small businesses!

2008-08-22T07:16:00.001-05:00

This might be a good time to bring up my perennial question:
Why is S-Corporation income taxed at the same rate as personal income while C-corp income is taxed at a different rate?

It seems if the problem with raising marginal income tax rates is that it hurts small businesses, you could just come up with a separate tax rate for small businesses - right?

crossposted to yglesias

DNCDG: Monday Night

2008-08-21T18:01:00.006-05:00

Finish your drink if:

Jimmy Carter....................................Threatens to bomb someone
Nancy Pelosi..............................Announces an impeachment vote
Jesse Jackson Jr...........Says he's going to cut someone's nuts off
You've heard of.........................................................Clint Borgen
John Hickenlooper.....................Puts "change" in a parking meter
Amy Klobuchar.........................................Tells an Al Franken joke
Manny Diaz.............................Apologizes for voting Pat Buchanan
Alexi Giannoulis, Dan Hynes, and Lisa Madigan............................
................................Designated bathroom break
Tom Balanoff....Demands a card check for the "delegates union"
Reg Weaver..................................................................................
...............Nominates Robert Byrd as he's had tenure the longest
Randi Weingarten............................................Vouches for Obama
Nancy Keenan.....Says Roberta McCain made the wrong 'choice'
Sen. Claire McCaskill........................Invites Obama to Mizz-er-E
Lee Hamilton..............Challenges James Baker to a death match
Miguel del Valle............................Gives everyone a parking ticket
Michelle Obama.........................................Does a terrorist fist jab
Craig Robinson.......................................Refers to doing time in HP
Maya Soetoro-Ng...............Refers to her and Barack as 'mullatos'
Jerry Kellman...............................................................................
............Explains to Ann Althouse what a community organizer is

If during the program...
The analysts don't analyze the speech..................Take a drink
There'a a "clean coal" ad..................Drink a non alcoholic beer
There's a McCain ad.......................................................2 drinks
A demonstration 'spontaneously' erupts...................................
................................................'Spontaneously' finish your drink
PUMAs attack..........................................................Find a cougar
.

Bob finally found a Mickey Replacement

2008-08-21T16:32:00.001-05:00

To my satisfaction, Bob finally found a conversation partner as irritating as Mickey.

Bob's mode of argument tends to be:
Wouldn't you agree that A?
And you have a previously stated the principle B.
So therefore you agree with me.

See the discussion of Clarence Thomas. Bob's implicit argument is: Wouldn't you agree that Clarence Thomas is not sufficiently brilliant to be a jurist? And you believe that SCOTUS judges should be the best legal minds. So therefore you agree that Barack Obama was right to say he wouldn't have voted for Thomas.

The Jonah Goldbergs of the world would go after premise B and say it's not enough to have a brilliant legal mind, you also have to have the right opinions (or judicial philosophy). Ann and Mickey, however, see where the argument is going, and attack premise A. Since premise A tends to be something widely believed but which is difficult to prove, this leaves Bob sputtering.

It is that Coffee/Tequilla/Tabsco taste that has been missing from the previous Kaus replacements. Bravo Ann!

Crossposted to BH.tv forum

The Democratic National Convention Drinking Game

2008-08-20T07:34:00.011-05:00

I'm a civic-minded fellow, which extends to involving my peers in civic events. Knowing the college student's love of drinking games, I introduced my friends to the State of the Unions via Melzer and Deutsch's always timely rules.

As further education, I recommend watching the conventions...

The Democratic National Convention will run 8/25-8/28. There are almost 60 speakers, so a SOTU-like precision is not possible. Instead, I propose the following general rules:

Whenever a speaker says..........................Take this many drinks
George W. Bush...................................................................1
Change..............................................................................small 1
Barack Obama....................................................................0
Barack Hussein Obama.......................................................3
God damn America.............damn your drink (into your stomach)
A euphemism for John McCain...........................................1

Specific Speakers to follow

Frat boys?

2008-08-19T22:17:00.002-05:00

Via Andrewsullivan:

A wise social scientist once commented to me that the most important task facing any society is the socialization of its young men.... The most powerful shaper of popular attitudes is the entertainment industry, and what is it doing?

This mentality can be summed up simply: Young men have no minds, souls, or characters worth bothering about; they care about nothing, respect nothing, and aspire to nothing. They are pure appetite and aggression, just waiting to be pandered to for money. So may the best panderer win.

Already I am tired of the fuss over Michael Phelps, who has won eight gold medals but seems to have less charisma than a carp. But at least he aspired to greatness and achieved it. Without sports -- and, of course, war -- what other challenges are presented to young men? Being the biggest gross-out on the block?

- Martha Bayles

Excelling academically, being published, being popular, getting laid, brewing beer, winning at trivia, buying a house before your friends, forming meaningful relationships, getting achievements in Team Fortress, maintaining your college weight, running a marathon, asking cute girls out, edward 40-hands, naming a gene, pattenting something, compiling your linux kernel, learning to drive stick, being financially independent of your parents, cooking well, getting to level 20.

Most of us are not constitutionally frat boys. We have appetites, fortunately, or else we should starve. And yet... Consider the psychological gambit de jure - participants in a psychological study will accept a penalty just for the avoid the loss of an option they wouldn't have taken anyway. Of course having read about the study, one can avoid the error described therein when given the same task, however strong the tendency may be in a naive subject.

The gross-out character in modern film is a focus of attention, which I crave, however he is also a character for the viewers scorn, and in most films ultimately mends its ways. A thoughtful young man might conclude it's best to skip the gross-out phase and steal a march on the less thoughtful...

The bin Laden Doctrine

2008-08-15T08:42:00.002-05:00

I just started watching Yes, Minister (Banana: It's really funny). "Open Government," the first episode, is about the co-opting of a new minister that comes in on a reformist platform.1

In one scene two permanent undersecretaries (the highest ranking civil servant) are educating one of the juniors:

PUS1: You can be open, or you can have government
Jr: But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know.
PUS2: No, they have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge only means complicity and guilt, ignorance has a certain dignity.

...

This reminded me of The bin Laden Doctrine:
p1) In wartime, the command and control of an enemy is a fair target.
p2) In a democracy, control of the government ultimately rests on the public.
c1) Therefore in wartime, the population of democracy is a fair target.

The only answer I can come up with is that the populace exercises weak control in the day-to-day functioning of the military, and only occasionally exerts real power, but this would seem to warrant attacks around election time, probably the worst time for them to happen. How shall I puzzle my way out of these dark thoughts?

1. It shows why Gov't departments should have a few ranks of political appointees loyal to the president at their top. The Goodling incident of late shows this can go too far, but one or two men thrown in a hostile department are already on the plane to Stockholm.

The most important thing about foreign aid

2008-08-14T12:30:00.002-05:00

Is making sure everyone knows where it comes from.
Source.

Raq Rabbit

2008-08-14T10:05:00.003-05:00

If Tom Clancy wanted to be really relevant, he could tell the semi-fictionalized story of how Jack Ryan and the British went to Iraq and recruited the head of Iraqi intelligence, then managed to get him out of Iraq without anyone noticing.

When Ryan and Clark ignore the Iraqi intelligence guy telling them there are no WMDs, then use him to fabricate evidence that Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence, we would all cheer that they beat back those irritating politicians and their 'peacetime' mindset.

This is opposed to the real world where we found out about Habbush and did nothing.

N. Things to know about scientists before passing judgement on Bruce Ivans

2008-08-11T21:33:00.004-05:00

The story that Bruce Ivins was the anthrax attacker came out with a bang, surprising, I think, everyone. I find the idea that the attacks were an inside job appealing, because they tie up the strings of how someone would get the equipment and expertise, and how they would smuggle the anthrax into the country if it were made overseas. The evidence is circumstantial, but of course the evidence in a case like this would be... Yet doubts remain.

Taking into account my never having worked in a biodefense lab, I think it might be worth noting some things about scientists in general that shed light on this case.

1. Scientists are really bad at security. Without compromising the security of my own lab, the only thing I can say is that passwords are routinely left lying around becuase people routinely log into one another's computers to get old data, DNA sequences, etc. etc. Getting scientists to lock up the lab is a major issue. Labs that routinely collaborate will exchange keys so that people can get into each other's freezers and borrow materials.

Depending on security at Detrick, either it was really hard to get into the anthrax wing, yet once inside one could move freely, or it was hard to get in and one needed different codes to get into different labs. Even if the latter case was true in theory, the more open case would likely pertain in fact with people moving between labs with impunity. Moral: Just because something is in your lab doesn't mean you're the only one with access.

2. Most scientists are disorganized. Most obviously in their lab notebooks, but also in keeping their vials of stuff arranged, whether they be flies, DNA vectors, or anthrax cultures. Did that culture get here 9 years ago, or did we get it as part of the forensic work 7 years ago? The poor hand-writing of most bench workers means that going through an old lab mate's notebook looking for details on some bit of DNA they constructed is a crapshoot. Many experiments will be completely ignored if they failed. Non-frost-free freezers fill with ice and tubes get lost in the permafrost. Material gets moved form project to project or from lab to lab depending on who thinks they might need it next, not on where it makes most sense. Moral: Just because something is in your lab, it doesn't mean you know about it.

3. Wet work looks like wet work. Which is to say, the guy at the next bench doesn't know whether the bacteria I'm working with are expressing delta sarcoglycan or botulinum toxin. If he sees me growing a large culture, he doesn't know if I'm preparing a lot of DNA to inject into mouse embryos, or to dry out and mail to my congressman. The label says Drosophila-dsg, and who are they to question it.

4. Scientific knowledge is a mile deep and an inch wide. This includes technique. Despite dozens of lab meetings from colleagues talking about cell culture, I couldn't even keep them alive without personal instruction. Even well written books will forget to convey the little things necessary for success (e.g. there is no "any" key). If my lab had a spore aerosolizer the odds of my not breaking it, much less successfully weaponizing anthrax would be very low. This also argues against the defense of a scientist being too clever to leave the clues the FBI relied on. Which will they find more believable - That you didn't recognize what the vial was and burned it, or that you lost it in the back of the freezer? A scientist wouldn't know. A cop would.

5. Living things have their own schedule. Mice are born on Thanksgiving, Taq only goes so fast, I just got back from putting on a primary antibody at 9 at night. So unless you're 2 out of 3 lucky, well organized, or not in a hurry, you'll show up at some strange hours.

6. Scientists are weird. Weird hobbies, weird ideas of the world, weird personnae. Maybe I read Watchtower and don't want anyone to know so I subscribed under an assumed name. Maybe the best Harold's Chicken is in by the DG house in Evanston. If you excluded weird people, all science would be brick laying science, and there would be a lot more intense baristas with 'theories.'

There's not much original here, but I hope it helps your understanding, or perhaps prompts the FBI to be a bit more open.

Any more oversimplifications to consider?

Goose-stepping morons like you should try reading books instead of burning them

2008-08-09T09:59:00.002-05:00

Saw the opening ceremony last night. Made me feel very warm about China in general and specifically Olympics. Some regret at cheering Olympic Torch relay protestors. Only jarring note was when 8 athletes run in the Olympic Flag (5 interlocking rings on white1), then hand if off to 8 Chinese Army soldiers who do a very robot / precision creepy goosestep (R. foot into air, swing arm, R. foot down, L. foot up, arm swing...) then walk it in. Couldn't decide whether to laugh, or get upset. Currently reading collection of Orwell essays. Orwell:

One rapid but fairly sure guide to the social atmosphere of a country is the parade-step of the army. A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life. The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power: contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face.* Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is "Yes, I am ugly, and you daren't laugh at me," like the bully who makes faces at his victim. Why is the goose-step not used in England? There are, heaven knows, plenty of army officers who would be only too glad to introduce some such thing. It is not used because the people in the street would laugh.

Emphasis, Orwell's.

1. Reminds me of when IOC sued "Legend of the Five Rings" for having five interlocking rings on the backs of cards for a trading card game (a la Magic).

*: A la 1984.

15 Seconds

2008-08-09T08:40:00.002-05:00

My Bob/Frum post got mentioned in the recent BhTV Bob/Eli diavlog. There was a rebuttal comment, so I figure I may as well have another bite at the apple. My BhTV response is below, the footnotes expand and defend.

The rebuttal by Namazu said:

Quote:

I think I can guess who does the finances in the Wright household (to be fair, David didn't really nail the issue either). You can blame Bush for running up the national debt, and for failing to adequately regulate mortgage originations and Wall Street. You can't blame him for high mortgage rates, for the simple reason that we've been enjoying record low rates for over a decade.

The credit crunch we're experiencing now is part of the inevitable unwind of the most massive credit bubble in history. Easy credit (i.e., Greenspan, with an assist from Chinese mercantilism) is responsible for the bookends of the problem: cheap money on the front end and yield-hungry suckers willing to buy the sausage (CMOs, etc.) on the back-end. In the middle (where you Adminstration bears responsibility, along with others) are lightly-regulated originations, corrupt bond rating and insurance industries, under-capitalized banks and brokers, and the Fannie/Freddie clusterf*ck.

Sub-prime is going to be a small fraction of the problem, whether measured as a fraction of household wealth destruction or losses to the financial system. Speculators were a significant part of run-up in select areas like South Florida and Vegas. It remains to be seen how many non-flippers who aren't under financial stress will engage in "jingle mail" because they're underwater on a bloated re-fi. What is certain is that US household wealth was vastly inflated by the run-up in housing prices and is now evaporating in amounts measured in the trillions. Regardless of how deep the recession is or how many jobs are lost, we will feel the effects for many years.

I think bhtv should have some people on who really understand this stuff, and will forward some names to the booking department.

I should probably admit that I'm not a Fed governor.1 Nonetheless, it seems to me that as long as the mortgage is getting paid, the sausage machine, loose agencies and cluster f*king aren't a problem for the consumer. Similarly, if you own your own home and are planning to stay there for at least five years, you have a good chance of coming out ahead of renting, so 'jingle mail' seems likely to remain all anecdote and no statistic (as it is right now).2

The problem, then, is mortgage holders paying the bills. By incurring a deficit, Bush puts Greenspan in a bind - he can either raise rates to prevent inflation, directly harming mortgage holders, or he can not raise rates, allowing inflation, which will raise mortgage holders' other bills.3 Coincidentally, a deficit will also depreciate the currency, raising the price of imports, like oil.

Can you lay all the mortgage woes at George Bush's feet - no. But the deficit does contribute to the mortgage problems, as do other other government failings Namazu implies.

We could stand to have some economists on, though. Is neo-con Friedman available?4

1. By which I mean I'm not obviously qualified, but that even most businesspeople and economists do not have sufficiently more understanding of economics to pull rank on me.

2. My understanding of mortgages is that speculators, whackadoodle 120% mortgages and things with giant balloon payments are a small minority, but that adjustable rate (i.e. affected by changing economic conditions) mortgages are quite common. This large group of people put, perhaps, 10% down and are making the minimum payment, so if the house goes down 15% in price, their mortgage is suddenly upside down.

But what does it mean for the price of your house to go down? It means you bought your house for $200,000 3 years ago, and your neighbor just sold his house for $150,000. But if you're not planning to move for a few years, the price right now doesn't matter, just the eventual sale price. Depending on how bad the downturn is, and how far into the exurbs your house is, it's quite reasonable for you to get back to the original purchase price, or at least flip your mortgage right-side up. Given that, and that a house is most people's biggest asset, and the fact that they don't want to move, I think voluntary foreclosure (jingle mail) is very unlikely. In addition, while I think being forced into foreclosure may kill your credit for 7 years, jingle mail could result in a permanent black mark, indicating that you just don't want to play ball with creditors.

3. Do I blame Greenspan? Tough call. I had a wave last night that we have just been trying to hold off the 1997 'Asian Contagion' with succeeding asset bubbles, which would place the blame squarely on Greenspan. Also, I strongly believe that Greenspan's testimony about the Bush tax cuts was key KEY VITAL NECESSARY to getting them passed, so in a sense Greenspan put himself in the bind. btw. which U.S. presidential candidate said that if Greenspan died he would put sunglasses on him and prop him up 'weekend at Bernie's style' in order to keep him as fed chair.3a Bonus! Which U.S. presidential candidate is being advised by Paul Volker, the fed chairman that earned the fed its inflation busting cred in the first place?

3a. Actually the reference has him saying that about putting Greenspan on a tax reform comission, but he has said it before about the fed. Here's an original.

4. Alas, Friedman is dead. Long live Friedman.

Second best acting I have ever seen from Paris Hilton

2008-08-06T22:48:00.001-05:00

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/paris-hilton-re.html

Half caff skinny rabbit with no whip

2008-08-02T22:21:00.002-05:00

There is a further anachronism in Red Rabbit (set in 1984, published 2002) beyond everyone knowing that the Soviet Union is about to collapse.1 Jack Ryan loves the coffee of this little company in Seattle. Thinks they're going places. Wants to buy a lot of it and bring it over to England. Going to buy stock. Everyone's going to want to get into coffee. What's the chain? (hint: look at the title)... Starbucks.

I'm gagging again.

1. Apparently there's some controversy about this. The common belief is that the CIA and U.S. Sovietologists were completely surprised. The CIA defends itself, saying that its reports clearly showed the drop in Soviet GDP that caused the ultimate failure. As to resolving the situation, I quote one of the KGB officers in Red Rabbit, "The Americans have a saying which I have learned to respect, 'that is above my pay grade.'"2 But I'll go for it anyway... I look at America in 2008, I see political unrest against the ruling party, a draining war in central asia, and economic stagnation, emphasized by fluctuations in commodity prices. Yet, the ruling party has a decent chance to hang on to the presidency. On a rhetorical level, CIA protestations that they penciled in the dots are an admission that they failed to connect them. See, for instance, the CIA's failure to predict 9/11 (yes, I went there. If the CIA isn't for predicting 11/9 or 9/11, what is it for?).

2. Translation: lazy author. Note that later in the book an American does say just that.

Bob v. Frum

2008-07-31T17:15:00.002-05:00

Bob Wright and David Frum argue over who caused the housing meltdown.1 Bob argues that large deficits drove up interest rates + caused the credit crunch, Frum blames it on unqualified people getting houses. I'm going to bat for Bob here... Many people got adjustable rate mortgages, so an increase in interest rates could make a just-barely-affordable house go out of reach.

1. They call it the credit crunch, which from my bench refers to the troubles of banks / investment houses e.g. Bear Sterns, IndyMac., but they are clearly talking about the housing market (which in an economy of course interacts with the banking sector).

Dollars and Dollars

2008-07-31T16:35:00.002-05:00

In re: Megan McArdle's pondering about single payer spending.

Right now, just about half the healthcare dollars spent in America come out of government coffers. This is expected, in the not-too-distant future, to open up unsustainable holes in the budget. Single payer will patch those holes only if we can generate a dollar in reduced spending on the currently uncovered for every new dollar we want to spend on the sickly. The three general proposals to do so are:

Reduce administrative costs
Squeeze out pharma profits
Preventative care
With administrative costs only 15% of private spending, and pharma profits about 10% of the 10% of healthcare costs represented by drug spending, that had better be some amazing preventative care.

This strikes me as a weird comparison. Assume that the government does pay ~50% of medical costs, including medicare, medicaid, and the VA. If the government picks up the rest of the population, they get the other half of the funding.1 The 15% administrative costs is not just wrangling (which medicare doesn't do), but also profits. Medicare admin costs are frequently cited at 3%, which would mean that if you take the other 50% of revenue, 12% of that, i.e. 6% of total spending gets freed up to cover the currently uninsured. Sure, it's weak math, but then so is McArdle's.

1. Or whatever. The public will feel they are entitled to approximately what private insurers were getting before.

Red Rabbit! Red Rabbit!

2008-07-30T08:19:00.002-05:00

So, I just finished listening to Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit. I read a lot of Clancy in high school - they were large, adultish looking books, they were about war, and you could be sitting calmly in class reading a semi-decent sex scene. Clancy wrote a book in which an airliner is used by a terrorist to crash into the U.S. Capitol, so he got a lot of credit in the post 9/11 world.1

In the End of History, Clancy stories about a more dangerous world held a fascination. In an actually more dangerous world we see how Clancy has been refighting the last war, Thinking about a clash between a secret cadre pulling the strings in China/India/Japan/Iran and the U.S. in which Japan, India, and Iran try to distract the U.S. in various ways so China can seize a large chunk of Russia, completely ignoring how such a group would come together or possibly exercise power in a type of 'Risk Board Thinking.' The only non-state actors are a group of eco-terrorists based in the U.S. When Muslin terrorists set off a bomb in the U.S., the real problem is making sure the President doesn't launch nukes at Russia.

Red Rabbit (written 2002) is set during Tom Clancy's comfort period, the cold war. Unfortunately, it bears the marks of its time travel. The narrator lectures on how the CIA is much more competent than people think, if only we knew of their successes. Everyone knows the Soviet Union is about to collapse, despite it coming as a surprise in the real world.

This is the plot: The KGB decides to kill the Pope, a guy in the KGB decides to defect, Jack Ryan sits in the same truck with him as he is snuck out of the S.U., then Jack Ryan tries to stop the Pope getting shot, and basically fails.

But that's not what the book is about. The first quarter of the book is about Jack Ryan moving to England and talking about how Engly it is, and Ed and Mary Pat Foley moving to Moscow and talking about how Sovi it is. The next quarter is a bunch of Russians pushing paper to kill the Pope, with all (all!) of them pausing to briefly consider that Marxism-Leninism (always said by my narrator in a particularly haughty accent MARS SCHIZM LENA JISM). Then, the Russian Protagonist, Zeitsev (the Rabbit) decides that he doesn't want to kill the pope. He'd rather defect. Sorry, I just don't buy it. I live in a country where the largest single religious faction is the Catholics, so I've gotten plenty of Rah Rah Pope in my life, and if I were at CIA and they said 'the Pope is causing political trouble for us, let's whack him' I'd do it. Zeitsev was raised in a country that's actively anti-religious, he's not a secret Christian, and Mother Church in his country is the Orthodox, not the Catholic. So his motivation is a no go for me.

As the 'Jack Ryan series' has progressed, the U.S. government gets more competent - in Cardinal of the Kremlin, Jack Ryan is the only competent person in the government, In Clear and Present Danger, Clark appears as a guy that's super competent at killing people, and by the time we get to Rainbow Six, all the named characters (Robbie Jackson, Dan Murray, Clark, Ding, the Foleys) are in the top jobs, so the Gov't can do no wrong. Chronologically, Red Rabbit takes place before Hunt for Red October, but the 'super competence' juice has sunk in completely.

This causes serious plot problems. Before the Foleys can have sex in every room of their apartment (Clancy has them screw an unusual amount), Ed is contacted by the Rabbit and both Foleys proceed to have several conversations with him totally unobserved, apparently Golovko, the Clancified future KGB chief hasn't gotten his juice yet. The Rabbit tells the Americans that their communications are compromised, but that the British are not. He also tells them that there is a high level spy in Britain. He refuses to tell them about the Pope till they get him out of Russia. Since Ryan is in England, they send him to Romania to get the Rabbit on what is the most boring fetch quest ever. Ryan meets the Rabbit and his family, they take a truck to Yugoslavia and an airliner back go England. Because the Brits are super duper competant. The Russians don't realize the Rabbit is gone since the Americans subbed a bunch of burnt up corpses and started a fire in the Rabbit's hotel room. Because the CIA doesn't want people to know they have the Rabbit, they won't try to stop the Pope getting shot, so Ryan goes down there, has a gun in the back of the putative assasin, but the assasin has hired a flunky to take the shot, so the Pope still gets shot. The story ends with Ryan bitching about having a long plane flight from England to Virginia so he can drop off the Rabbit at CIA headquarters.

Oh, and it turns out that American communications aren't compromised, so there was no need to involve the Brits. Oh, and there's a bunch of Rah Rah Catholocism.

That's super boring. This is Patient Etherised's Red Rabbit:
Zeitsev is a secret Catholic, descended from Americans that came over during the '30s and reverted to Catholocism after they saw how bad it was. They're thoroughly back-crossed so he looks Russian. He approaches the chief of Moscow station that's NOT Ed Foley. The Chief of Station gets made because someone saw Zeitsev reverse pickpocketing him, but they didn't see that it was Zeitsev, and Ed Foley has to arrange a crash meeting with Zeitsev while Zeitsev is still under vague suspicion, the meeting taking place in front of the KGB headquarters as Foley pretends to bug Zeitsev for a story. Zeitsev tells Foley the Americans have a spy high up in their espionage community, so the Brits are involved, despite having a spy high up that passes on diplomatic and political intel. The Zeitsev family goes to Slovenia to do the escape, the bodies get switched, but when they try to cross the border to Yugoslavia, they are challenged by the Secret Police. The Rabbit has been sold out by the British Traitor, Ryan's officemate, Harding!!! Dan Murray plays a tense game of cat and mouse with the latter day Philby as he tries to make his way to an East Bloc embassy, finally throwing himself into the Thames. Ryan, the Rabbit et al. make a run for the Aegean Sea, bugging out to a backup spot on some rugged terrain. After a tense day of listening to their radio, they hear from a sub in the area and are picked up by Seals on boats (so it's a repeat of Cardinal in the Kremlin, so what?).

Zeitsev tells Ryan about the Pope Shoot (heh heh) and the probable identity of the assasin. CIA has no files on him, so Ryan takes Zeitsev to Rome for a visual ID. At the same time, the KGB has realized they got the wrong bodies! (This is not so much a missed opportunity as an actual hole). Despite being burnt, the bodies show very low blood carbon monoxide (it would diffuse out of the body in the week of transit and storage + since the bodies can't breathe they wouldn't re carbonate in the fire) also, the blood types don't match (blood is routinely typed, and the Americans didn't ask what Zeitsev's was). Dental records are checked and the discrepancy revealed.

The assasin is notified, but they decide to risk it anyway. In St. Peter's Square, as the Pope begins circulating and blessing the crowd, Zeitsev identifies the assasin to Ryan who puts a gun in his back. At that point, a second assasin emerges from the crowd, shoots Zeitsev and aims for Ryan. Ryan turns his gun on assasin #2, then assasin #1 shoots at the pope while the crowd closes in.

We close with Jack taking Zeitsev's widow and daughter to Disneyland.

1. Debt of Honor / Executive orders.

Petraeus: If Obama says out, we go out

2008-07-20T12:53:00.003-05:00

Charlie (paraphrased): Would you still order withdrawal if the commanders advised against it?
Obama: Because the commander-in-chief sets the mission, Charlie. That's not the role of the generals. (link)

[Petraeus] added that the feasibility of withdrawing U.S. troops in 16 months would depend on conditions that could not be forecast with much certainty.

“It depends on the conditions, depends on the mission set, depends on the — the enemy,” (link, emphasis mine.)

Get a life!

2008-07-13T20:32:00.003-05:00

Just watched the podcast snippet of Morning Joe in which Joe fails to apologize for saying "what's community organizer?" (link to original quote). Given that this is a major piece of Barack Obama's resume / essential to his worldview, you should know what that is.

Let me translate that: "What's a squadron leader? What's a squadron?"

It's not an offensiveness thing, it's a 'doing your homework' thing.

The end of my toenail

2008-07-10T00:10:00.003-05:00

I observed with fear the headline of Wired's "The end of theory." After all, theory is what distinguishes us from the apes, right? I couldn't bring myself to read it, but it popped up again on El Reg. Basically, the thesis is that by mass observation and correlation, no model (i.e. theory of causation) is necessary. Key quote from Reg:

"Would Anderson be willing to help test a drug that was based on a poorly understood correlation pulled out of a datamine?" Timmer challenges, apparently unembarrassed to be seen in flagrante putting an ad hominem argument. Of course not, which is why we test on guinea pigs. (And why should Anderson be first?)

But if anything, this is a reason Anderson could use. With sufficiently good correlations, it might finally be possible to spare guinea pigs, chimpanzees, or rats trial by laboratory testing.

Question: Where would those correlations come from? Sole Possible Answer: Mass observation of humans exposed to random doses of random chemicals.* It's not just Anderson that would be testing it. Note also that a good pharma shop will have thousands to millions of different drugs on the shelf.

Quote two:

Yet increasing computing power, both in hardware and statistical analysis algorithms, can still bring forth useful correlations, and new interesting discoveries. Anderson cites Craig Venter's DNA sequencing: having done with sequencing individuals, "in 2005 he started sequencing the air. In the process, he discovered thousands of previously unknown species of bacteria and other life-forms."

"The opportunity is great", he adds, because "correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all."

Well done Craig! Anyway, what's a species? How does DNA sequencing work? Why would DNA sequencing tell you that you've found a new species? What's DNA? Obviously, in order to know that you need to perform a ligation reaction on an air substrate, amplify with phiC31 rolling circle replication, and sequence via CV's secret method, your species must either: A. Have a theory as to how ligation, phiC31, and DNA sequencing work or B: Run around performing random chemical reactions on the atmosphere until something repeatable yet awesomely variable comes in.

Don't get me wrong, this mass observation stuff is great, but a theory provides so much more direction.

*: But, you say, couldn't you just test the blood/urine/semen of people that recover from or are immune from disease X and then correlate some common factor as the cure? 5-FU! Many drugs derive from naturally occuring compounds, but virtually no drugs are in the form / dose / route that could reasonably occur. Sure, some workers might be exposed to fluorine gas in an industrial accident, and some of them might have cancer, and some of those cancers might regress, but in order to get enough N, you'd have to engineer fluorine leaks all over town (and that stuff is NASTY).

OK, so you figure out that nucleoside analogues are great. But you find that only some of them work on cancer, while others work on HIV (you do subscribe to the germ theory of disease, right?). Is there some way to figure out which ones are more likely to work? Well, if you have a theory of DNA, and DNA polymerization, and recombinant DNA technology it just so happens that if you add the right fraction of some goo that kills bacteria to a mixture of factors that contain something significant for allowing human cells to grow [which you produced by heating human cells in a reaction well with some random chemical strains that you synthesized, then heated it, then cooled it, then heated it, then cooled it, and so on {in a chain} 30 times {a number you hit on randomly} ] with something that allows the bacteria to survive when you add that mold extract that a technician dropped the fertilizer in one day, then treat the bacteria with that one solution and fractionate them, you can try to use one of those fractions to do something similar to that heating/cooling thing (EXCEPT YOU MUSTN'T HEAT IT) in the presence of various nucleoside analogs, and perhaps so many mice won't have to die.

What is 538 trying to tell us?

2008-06-26T08:58:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or does this seem to suggest Virginia as the key state in the election?

Revenge of the Cavendish

2008-06-17T22:44:00.003-05:00

I was trying to decide whether to rename "The Banana" as "Pudding," so I checked on Google Trends:

Surprisingly, Pudding jumps up near the end of every year - Thanksgiving and Christmas presumably. The surprising this is that Banana tracks with it...

Celebration Guns

2008-06-03T12:25:00.003-05:00

There's no good way to come at this.

Reading Spencer Ackerman's blog, I come across a column in which gun rights people are upset with the Republican party. The pro-gun people are upset with the Justice Department because it argued in favor of continuing gun restrictions in the D.C. v. Heller case. In the column he references, one quote stuck out:

As the gun grabbing Brady Campaign acknowledges, such a finding by the Supreme Court could open the door to striking down as unconstitutional most, if not all, of the victim disarmament laws on the books.

Emphasis mine. I was tickled by that characterization of gun laws. It reminded me to write the rest of this post, which was originally hung on a gaffe that Mike Huckabee made at the NRA national convention a couple of weeks ago. A clatter was heard during Huckabee's speech, to which he joked:

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair and someone pointed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Barack's gun-phobia is presumably linked to the possibility of assassination, but it could be a more banal, if not benign fear. Michelle Obama (in response to a question about assassination):

I don't really lose sleep over it. Because the realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station...

She took a lot of flak for that. Reading the words on this page, I can see why. The flat invocation of blackness is weird.* But the invocation of gas station sends a tingle up my spine. I remember one night my first summer in Hyde Park, gassing up the van at the ill lit Mobil on 53rd. The station was flanked on both sides by dark apartment buildings. On the opposite side of the street was a park,** empty. A man riding by on a bicycle abruptly turned in and started calling to me. And I thought, "O.K. this is going to be my first time getting mugged." And I checked my pocket. "Hey," said the man, "are you ready for the anatomy test tomorrow?" It was SDS.***

So, when Michelle Obama talks about a black man pumping gas, I fill in the blank "on the South Side of Chicago," an area where you really could get shot while pumping gas.*4

Which brings me to my last meditation. Amadou Cisse. Cisse was a graduate student in Chemistry at the University of Chicago. I never met him, but his death is still a subject of discussion. Without sources or verification, this is how it went down: Two guys borrowed a car from their neighbor with the intention of going clubbing. However, they realized that they were short on money. No big deal, they figured, we'll just get some off those rich students at the UofC.*5 First they mugged two students coming out of the biology / med school lecture building, and netted a pen. Coming back south, they threatened a professor near 60th and Woodlawn, who ran away as they shot at him (and missed). They continued west, finally running into Cisse near 61st and Ellis. Cisse was coming back from lab, had no money, wasn't even carrying his wallet. They got frustrated, so they shot him.

No. Seriously.

This takes me back to the D.C. gun ban. Chicago also bans handguns, which the murderers used. A lot of people have said a lot of very intelligent things about guns. I have something not very intelligent to add:

If someone were mugging me, and God came down and said, "You can either have a gun in your pocket, or $40," I know that with one of those options, I'm guaranteed to walk away.

*: Is it? The murder rate and murderer rate are much higher in blacks than whites. Concurrently, black on black murder is way more common than black on white or the reverse. This isn't to say Barack is likely to get murdered at the BP in Gunbarrel...

**: A couple years later, gangs of malicious 12 year-olds would ambush students cutting through that park after school and steal their electronics.

***: SDS is a white guy, so, you see, I'm not racist. I'm afraid of everyone in the dark.

*4: A takeoff of the infamous survey question from Freakonomics "How does it feel to be poor and black on the South Side of Chicago."

*5: We don't think of ourselves as rich, of course, but as people with well-off parents (yup) or very few expenses (yup), we tend to walk around with iPods (nope) laptops (sometimes) or other saleables (yup).

60% Cancer, 20% Parkinson's Prevention, 20% Pure Pleasure*

2008-05-28T22:21:00.004-05:00

I was listening to Dan Carlin's podcast, Mad about Torture, and after the apparently controversial bit about hating torture** he talks about the idea that fat people are using all the oil to move their fat butts around and eating all the food, therefore increasing food prices for people abroad.***

I'm not going to talk about that.

I'm going to talk about cigarettes. In the '90s Phillip Morris did a study in the Czech republic indicating that cigarette smoking is a net positive for government revenue. I suppose there's a debate about healthcare costs, but if someone dies before the age of 65, they get no social security, whereas if they die at age 90, they suck up a lot.

This phenomenon is enhanced in the U.S. by private insurance. If someone dies before 65, they don't get Medicare at all, and private insurance pays for it.

So: Cigarettes = Gov't saves money. Private insurers hosed.

Now, the government introduces cigarette taxes, with the idea that they're going to recoup the added costs that smokers cause the government. Remember, those costs are illusory. But, the taxes will cause some people to stop smoking, which will increase government costs, which will be offset by cigarette taxes****

So: Cigarette taxes = Gov't increases spending and revenue (no idea which is greater). Private insurers save money.

It follows that: Smoking Ban = Gov't increases spending with no consummate increase in revenue. Private insurers go to the bank (increased tax revenue?).

Therefore, a cigarette tax is a win, win, win, win, lose situation (gov't, insurers, quitters, smokers, smokers).

*: via VKP, actually cigarettes are a mixture including emphysema, prevention of Crohn's
disease, various cancers, and asbestos, in addition to the ingredients presented above.

**: Apparently some people thought he was pro-torture 'cause he projects a very manly image. I don't know, I just started listening 'cause I wanted more podcasts. Anyway, one of my great formative experiences was reading The Gulag Archipelago. I swore when I read it that I would fight against any government that resurrected those principles. I have to say that an America in which citizenship and fair skin may or may not protect you from getting kidnapped, taken to a black site, disappeared and tortured to death deserves fighting.*****

***: It's the old mother's standby - how can you leave food on your plate when children in India are starving. As far as I can tell, the world food price increase is a result of more numerous meat eaters everywhere, thick and thin, combined with biofuels, and agricultural subsidies in the West.

****: Yes, I realize that cigarette taxes are local and medicare and social security are national. I'm assuming that since governments are always passing around responsibility / grants, it's fungible. Feel free to correct me.

*****: But, you say, It's just a few people. IT ALWAYS STARTS SMALL. Part II of The Gulag Archipelago talked about the establishment of the Gulag in the Solvetsky Islands in the 1920's, and how it started small, and now the original camps were replaced by voleyball courts. Sick stuff, kids.

Obama Must Name VP Nominee NOW!!!

2008-05-23T16:13:00.003-05:00

Via Matt Yglesias:

New HRC campaign rationale -- Obama might get shot and killed before formally securing the nomination, so she may as well stay in the race!

...
Specifically (from NY Post MY links to), "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

The thinking being that if Barack gets assasinated now, the Democrats would nominate Sen. Clinton. The only way to avoid this is if Obama names his VP nominee now. While I can't think of any examples of nominees being assassinated, surely the VP nominee would take the top slot?

Creativity = Synthesis

2008-05-22T09:27:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, I was worried that I wasn't creative. All I did was take two things that existed and put them together, sometimes in an unusual way. My friend Marc said "But, J, that is what creativity is."

Haha haha haha what?

2008-04-28T15:55:00.002-05:00

I just finished Flyboys. I would have thought a WW I period piece about fighter pilots had real potential. Perhaps it does...

I think I'm usually pretty generous to movies, and don't even notice many of the things that others gripe about. I noticed them in Flyboys. Let's start with the utterly inhuman portrayal of the Germans. Surely, after Downfall we can stand for all of our enemies to have more than 1 dimension. Not a single German word is translated and the 'honorable' German seems more random than deliberately noble. The SWAT-esque ransacking of a French house seems unlikely to impractical.

Move past the 'Real World' rainbow of American stereotypes that make up the protagonists. Forgive the magical learning of English by the female love interest. Pay no attention to the 'one of these guys is a spy' plot that unspools and wraps up, tensionless, in the space of 15 minutes. Feel relieved when the 'hero' American is supposed to get court martialed, and instead gets a medal. Accept the fact that the EXACT wound that kills 'gruff, experienced, but heart of gold' American pilot is not only survived by 'hero' American, but he is able to do aerobatic maneuvers, and shoot 'super-evil' German guy with a pistol at range while flying, and survive.

Whenever characters need to be interacting in the background, or chattering, or filling dead air, they laugh. They always laugh. Everyone in the movie is constantly laughing, but no one ever tells a joke. This 2:30 epic movie was done so cheaply that they couldn't even pay a guy to throw in chatter about the latest cinemas, or whores, or whatever.*

Of course, this happens in other shows as well. The episode of The Tudors I'm listening to right now, for instance. But it usually doesn't rise to my level of notice.

* In all fairness, it's not as bad as the soundtrack of On the Beach.
1. Waltzing Matilda Overture
2. Waltzing Matilda piano only
3. Waltzing Matilda sung by drunk guys
4. Waltzing Matilda flute only
5. Waltzing Matilda variations

One saving grace of OTB is that they seem to realize how annoying it is when the captain yells at the drunks singing WM.

Hardy Heron

2008-04-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

One of the things I love about running Ubuntu is that every 6 months I get a 'new' operating system. This time, it's the upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04, codenamed Hardy Heron.

I've done this once before (7.04->7.10) and the experience is the same - on the day of the release, you click the upgrade button, hang around while it downloads all the new files, and then reset to a new system.

Here's the thing - everything still works after the reset, and you get a couple of new features. Of course, this is considerably better than Windows.

Being a partial Linux fanboy, I trolled around for sites talking about the upgrade (there were several about new features as they were announced) and came across this piece on the Linux Format site. Other than it's blahblah writing style, I paused when I read:

...as an LTS (Long Term Service - pe) release... [Hardy Heron] will be supported for three years... to give corporate users the reassurance that they are getting something stable. However, having said that, the release cycle for this version was the normal six month cycle, so there's been no surface change to the work rate that has gone into the Hardy Heron ... To be honest, when the delay to Dapper was announced, it communicated that Ubuntu and Canonical were committed to delivering a quality release. Looking at it this way, Hardy feels like just another notch on the bed head of Ubuntu, which is a shame.

Are they saying that because the release was delivered on time, that means It wasn't significant? When a game company, or a filmmaker delays a release date, it usually means something's going wrong.* As a student, when I ask for an extension, the product is usually far from my best work. Would the author feel better if he knew the product wasn't available 'til 9 AM central time, a full 15 hours into the Grenwich mean time day? Also, see what I mean about the writing? Doughy, doughy, doughy (I admit this isn't often my best work, but I hope I'm not that bad)

Of course, that sentiment contrasts with:

The development of Ubuntu has not let up since 6.06 (the last LTS -pe) got out the door, with some impressive releases that have lead up to this point in time.

So they have been working on this LTS for more than six months... right? From my perspective, it seems like what makes an LTS and LTS isn't the work that's put into it before release, but whether it is Supported over the Long Term.

The Linux Format article also included a discussion of some theoretical interest

With the 6.06 release, Kubuntu (Ubuntu + the KDE environment**) was classed under the LTS banner; however, with the advent of 8.04, this is not the case due to the... recent release of KDE 4. ...KDE 4 was [considered] too new to be... stab[le]... for a[n] LTS release, [and it would be ] difficult to... support... KDE 3.5 over the next three years. This is... understandable, but...inconsistent as Ubuntu 8.04 ships with Firefox 3 Beta 5... with which we've had minor stability issues.

I invite you to read the tortured original. My opinion? Apples and Oranges. Firefox may be the most used program on my computer (and probably most others) but it is just a program. KDE is an environment, several programs that run in that environment, and the toolkit used to add programs to that environment. Instability there has much wider ramifications. A downgrade to Firefox 2.x*** is easy. A downgrade to KDE 3.5 may be impossible.

This also has something to do with the fact that Ubuntu releases occur 'like clockwork' not only 6 months after one another, but also 1 month after the most recent GNOME release. Since Ubuntu is coordinated with GNOME, that means it's not coordinated to KDE.

Presumably, the customer also matters. I'll probably upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 in October. A smaller number of critical users and servers will be the ones still using Hardy Heron in 2013. It makes sense to get them all on the same platform to decrease duplication.

Also, screw KDE. I did a test install on my laptop, and it ran slightly faster than Windows Vista. Even my tower stalled a bit. If Ubuntu is going to be the desktop Linux, it should, you know, run on computers people actually use.****

*: I'll make no mention of Windows since, as far as I can remember, no version has ever been released on time

**: KDE = K desktop environment**2, as opposed to the Gnome environment that comes standard with Ubuntu.

**2: Environment = does not translate into Windows world, but do you know how all windows, buttons, menus, icons, text fields etc. in Windows look the same? And how all the windows, buttons, menus, icons, text fields, etc. on a Mac look the same between programs, but always different from Windows? That look and feel is the 'environment.' Also part of that environment is a standard set of programs akin to Notepad, Windows Media Player, Paint, Calculator, Internet Explorer.

***: Firefox 2.x is probably the least stable program on my computer, a comment I have heard from other Ubuntu users.

****: Part of the age-old battle in the linux community. The desktop people have traditionally lost because most of the people paid to work on linux are using servers and other high-end machines.

Disambiguation page

2008-04-23T08:59:00.002-05:00

Hopefully you're not too focused on Aliza Shvarts. The Yale art student who claims to have repeatedly artificially inseminated herself and induced miscarriage and is using the resultant blood / products of conception in an art installation.*

via Andrew Sullivan, I see this quote:

It creates an ambiguity that isolates the locus of ontology to an act of readership. An intentional ambiguity pervades both the act and the objects I produced in relation to it. The performance exists only as I chose to represent it. For me, the most poignant aspect of this representation — the part most meaningful in terms of its political agenda (and, incidentally, the aspect that has not been discussed thus far) — is the impossibility of accurately identifying the resulting blood. Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether the there was ever a fertilized ovum or not. The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading.

First, I can think of several ways of accurately identifying the resulting blood, including whether or not there was a fertilized ovum, and whether Shvarts used 'abortifacient herbs.' Shvarts obviously isn't up on her PCR or mass spec.*** Furthermore, the ambiguity on my part exists because something has been artificially concealed from me, but it is not ambiguous to Shvarts. Therefore it is inappropriate to say "it remains ambiguous." IT is not ambiguous. IT is determined. Apparently, Shvarts did not determine whether she had conceived prior to inducing abortion, so that fact is ambiguous. But the cat and mouse over whether this is a prank, a Sokol affair against science, that's definitive.

*: Not related to the point of this post, but my opinion is:
1. Yuck
2. Moral revulsion, possibly tied to my aesthetic revulsion - if an human conceptus has one iota of rights derived from being human then it deserves not to be created for the sole purpose of being aborted for art.
3. Scientific skepticism - what is the success rate for DIY artificial insemination? What is the success rate for 'abortifacient herbs'? What are said herbs?
4. Puzzlement - Why use DIY artificial insemination instead of ordinary sex? Various explanations have been offered, usually based on the romantic preferences of Shvarts or her 'fabricators'** I speculate there is some sort of feminist message a la "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a needle-less syringe." But considering the 'message' which as far as my untrained mind can discern is about the arbitrary control of society over the body of its female members, I would think cruising for roofies would be more meaningful, though perhaps less reliable.
5. Side note that this is exactly what pro-choicers don't need.

**: WTF?

***: Polymerase chain reaction to genotype the blood. Conceptus-containing blood would include 'DNA fingerprints' that are not present in the... artist. Mass spec would identify foreign compounds in the blood. If it were me, I'd spring for sequencing the albumin gene, on the probability that it's actually chicken or cow blood.

I was wrong, sort of.

2008-04-23T08:45:00.002-05:00

The final polls had it 43% Obama, 49% Clinton. Of the 8 percent undecided, I figured all 8% would go to Obama. So 2% went to Obama and 6% went to Clinton - a neoclassical Bradley.

CNN has it at - Clinton 55%, Obama 45%

Since 10% is the magic over/under, get out/stay in number, it's worth going into further...

Clinton: 1,258,245 to Obama: 1,042,297... type type type... calc calc calc.... 9.4%

I'm so pithy.

Pennsylvania prediction

2008-04-21T23:17:00.002-05:00

I got a bad feeling in my stomach today. Not the rumble of too much 'better-living-through-chemistry' Kosher for Passover coffe cake, no. Barack Obama is going to lose Pennsylvania. Badly.

The voters of Pennsylvania aren't plugged into my narrative. They're going to vote for the candidate they think is best prepared. I can't decide whether to congratulate them for focusing so closely on what matters to them, or damn them for conducting their election in a vacuum, which is exactly the same thing.

RCP has Barack with 43% vs. Clinton's 49%. Consider the lesson of New Hampshire, where undecideds broke almost entirely for Clinton, giving her those extra 8000 votes. Consider Texas, where voters that made up their minds in the last 24 hours overwhelmingly went for Hillary. Those 8 percent of faux fence sitters will swing to Clinton.

Barack loses by 14.

See you in August.