Snow on the way; yuck!

Workout notes 3 mile run 9:39, 8:51, 8:47 (lane 4 of 200 meter track), 1 mile walk 13:50, then yoga with Ms. Vickie. Gadzooks, I am slow. I’ll stick with the treadmill and indoor track until my body adjusts to running.

Other stuff

Science Education: Shalini points us toward this video (and has the colorful title “How much Cretin Stupidity can you cram into 5 minutes” as a title! :

Dr. Atheist

Of course, the fundies will think that this is a great video. But I am addressing science types here: my early introduction to evolution was really this bad. We were told “it happened”; no whys or mechanisms were discussed. It wasn’t until I had my first college astronomy class did things start to make sense.

So, it is possible that some people honestly see science in this way because that is what they were exposed to.

More science What happens when the brain ages.

Comparisons of the brains of young and old people have revealed that normal aging may cause cognitive decline due to deterioration of the connections among large-scale brain systems. The researchers linked the deterioration to a decrease in the integrity of the brain’s “white matter,” the tissue containing nerve cells that carry information. The researchers found that the disruption occurred even in the absence of pathology associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Randy Buckner and his colleagues reported their findings in the December 6, 2007, issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press.

The researchers assessed brain function in a sample of adults ranging in age from 18 to 93 and comprising 38 young adults and 55 older adults. They did so using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which uses harmless radio waves and magnetic fields to measure blood flow in brain regions, which in turn reflects activity. [...]

Mitt Romney’s attempt to make a Kennedy like speech

Cosmic Variance weighs in

In Kennedy’s famous original version (it’s worth reading) his intention was to make faith irrelevant, since it was to be seen as a personal issue that should play no role whatsoever in governing the country. Although I find any such religious faith bizarre, it is true that there have been presidents whose beliefs do not seem to have been driving their decisions, and I can certainly live with that. But in Romney’s case, the situation is starkly different. As Andrew O’Hehir writes in Salon, beginning by quoting the speech

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Kennedy told the Houston ministers, “where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference … I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.” [...]

O’Hehir then goes on to discuss some of the aspects of Mormomism that will make achieving this difficult for Romney. But the most important part of all this seems to me that Romney should be losing the votes of rational Americans by having brought these issues to the fore himself. That he is one of the many Americans – the religious – who believe in a particular set of supernatural fairy tales should be a strike against him. But that he explicitly seeks to make these irrational beliefs part of his governing philosophy and thereby impose them on others is far, far worse, and should make them fair game. I’d love to see journalists stepping up and doing their part to interrogate Romney and any other candidate on their superstitions whenever one of them decides that those beliefs have a place in the political sphere. Right now that group includes Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Obama, Clinton, Edwards, and almost everyone else I can think of.

But I think that Jonah Goldberg (yes, THAT one; the conservative) has some interesting things to say as well:

Well, now the former Massachusetts governor is going to talk about “faith in America,” and in Texas no less. We don’t know what he’ll say, but it’s easy to guess why he’s saying it: Mike Huckabee. The Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor is leading in Iowa polls, scuttling Romney’s plan to use a victory there as a springboard to the nomination. Huckabee’s charm, skill and socially conservative record explain much of his success. And Romney’s Olympian hair, hypnotic teeth, squishy record and yacht-salesman demeanor are all important factors in why he can’t seal the deal with some Iowa voters.

But there’s another factor: Romney’s heresy. I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense, though others do. Mormonism is seen as a non-Christian cult by many conservative Christians, and a Romney nomination or presidency, they fear (I don’t), would serve to advance the mainstreaming of Mormonism. In fairness, the Christian right is no monolith, and Romney has many religious conservatives in his corner. If Huckabee weren’t in the race, he’d have more.

Still, Romney is marching into a theological headwind the other candidates aren’t. It’s not a question of “Mormon public policy.” Some of the most effective conservatives in Washington are Mormons. What rankles is the widespread characterization – mischaracterization in their eyes – of Mormonism as merely another denomination of Christianity. [...]

How can Romney address this concern? It’s not like he could – or should – say he’s no Mormon role model. And talking theology at all is only likely to exacerbate his problem with the voters who care about it, i.e. the voters he needs.

In 1960, Catholics numbered somewhere between a quarter and a third of the electorate, politically dominating some states. Today, Mormons amount to roughly 2 percent, and most are concentrated in or around Utah. In many primary contests, Kennedy’s Catholicism was an asset. In Wisconsin’s open primary, many GOP Catholics crossed party lines, securing Kennedy’s victory over Hubert Humphrey. Mormon Democrats for Romney are unlikely to have a similar impact.

Also, in 1960, Kennedy tackled his version of the “religion issue” head-on in the primaries but delivered “The Speech” only after securing the nomination. He pledged to uphold a severe separation of church and state.

So far, Romney’s stance has been much more akin to that of 1928 Democratic nominee Al Smith, who largely refused to discuss his faith. Smith’s loss was a complicated affair, with anti-Catholic bigotry part of the equation. But his defeat also owed to the fact that he opposed Prohibition (God bless him) – alleged proof Smith that was a pawn of the anti-Prohibition Catholic Church.

There’s nothing like that going on today. Indeed, the people Romney needs to win over believe that there should be more, not less, room for religion in public life. He won’t gain votes by calling them bigots – no matter how gently – either. And the last thing Romney can afford to do is backpedal on his religious faith. That would be a flip-flop too far. [...]

Emphasis mine.

A “hat tip” to the Clinton campaign for having integrity: (via Tennessee Guerilla Women)

And now the notorious email, which falsely claims that Obama is a secret Muslim who attended a madrassa as a child, was received and forwarded on by an Iowa county chair volunteer for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The Democratic primary is already nasty enough without going this low, but expect right-wingers to proclaim that Hillary herself was behind this despicable act.

The Clinton campaign has condemned the act and asked the volunteer to step down. After the story surfaced on Daily Kos, Peter Daou – who left his blog in order to work for Hillary’s campaign – responded:

There is no place in our campaign, or any campaign, for this kind of politics. A volunteer county coordinator made the mistake of forwarding an outrageous and offensive chain e-mail. This was wholly unauthorized and we were totally unaware of it. Let me be clear: No one should be engaging in this. We are asking this volunteer county coordinator to step down and are making it clear to every person involved in our campaign that this will not be tolerated.

Political humor

At least some Hillary Clinton supporters have a sense of humor. (Hat tip to the Tennessee Guerilla Women)

Last Wednesday Fall 2007 semester

Workout notes I did manage a yoga session before going out to dinner and held peacock feather for a few breaths; didn’t touch the wall going up or staying in it. I am not ready to break this out in class just yet; I also made progress in half-moon (better alignment in the shoulders) and in crane.

Politics I get amused when the wingnuts accuse us of being “haters”; to see an example of what they are like, consider this exchange between someone who writes (blogs) for the Washington Times and another blogger:

Remember Joe Curl? He’s the guy who didn’t just interview Karl Rove, but also adopted his math in an effort to fluff up his beloved President Bush in the Washington Times.

Well, a blogger emailed him challenging his math, and he got these responses (link is NOT safe for work):

So I fired off this email to Mr. Curl at his address at the Washington Times:

“You dishonest hack. How about getting the poll results that you quote right and when you compare them try comparing the apples with the apples.”

C. Scott Smith

Pithy, right?

I got this back almost immediately from Mr. Curl:

Get a life, pussy.

And if you ever want a piece of me, name the time and place. I’m sick of pussies
like you writing these sissy fucking messages. You can’t even write – what the
fuck are you talking about?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

jcurl@washingtontimes.com

I didn’t even have time to respond before I got this and clearly after he had read the link to the Kos piece that I sent him:

Just read your links. You think I can’t back up my story? Fuck you, hack. I do the work – Kos writes shit. Next time, dickhead, ask me nicely for my cites and I’ll be glad to tell you. I did the work – Kos is sucking off me. He’s a fucking hack. And youkre his bitch. Try thinking for yourself, pussy. And try doing the work.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I told Mr. Curl that by the tone of his emails he clearly had masculinity issues and that these were obviously behind his over the top reaction to my email. I gladly told him where I lived and said that I’d love to meet him for a little old style face to face Marine Corps re-education session anytime he was in town. And then I got this back:

Fuck you, pussy.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Then, unprompted by any further correspondence from me, Mr. Curl fired off the following:

And it was a news article, numbnuts. Rove said, I wrote. Get a clue. I’m a
reporter, dillhole.

I’ll drop you a line next time I’m in Seattle.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

And it went on and on from there. I verified it with Curl, who reacted in a similar fashion to me. It’s all funny, of course, and the guy is full of shit, obviously. And isn’t it conservative bloggers that get the vapors when they hear someone say the word “fuck”? And what’s with the “pussy” pejorative? Is the dude a neanderthal?

If you are curious about the facts of the dispute, they are basically these: Curl wanted to claim that Bush’s approval ratings are up. The facts: a previous Pew Poll and a Gallup poll had Bush at 29%; in the time in question these numbers had “risen” to 32 and 30 percent (within the margin of error, but never mind). When the first Pew and Gallup poll were taken, a Fox poll had Bush at 38%. The newer Fox poll had Bush at 37% (again, statistically no change). So Curl used the low Pew and Gallup numbers and compared them to the new Fox numbers.

But I digress. The point is that Curl, (who was called a “hack”) responded with some rather interesting language; heck, even I treat my visitors better than that.

And we liberals are the haters? What a joke. But you know, this could well explain the so called “mental health self-perception” gap between conservatives and liberals as at least some conservatives see the above exchange as acceptable behavior. (disclaimer: yes, this was snark; of course no conservative that I know at all well would behave in such a manner).

Unfortunately, this conservative is NOT joking:

Mike Huckabee claims that his god is his co-candidate. From the source:

There is so much about Christian evangelicals that coastal liberals don’t understand. Like how a man of obvious intelligence can attribute his rise in the polls to mass prayer and God’s will. [...]
Huckabee backtracked slightly after this appearance, adding, “I’m saying that when people pray, things happen…. I’m not saying that God wants me to be elected.”

Note: he says that his surge in the polls can’t be attributed to human causes! Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo….

(pssst: my deity has told me that Huckabee won’t even get the nomination much less win the Presidency)

Speaking of god and the wingnuts, note that Dinesh D’Souza thinks that the United States ought to tell radical Islamic types that our fundies actually have a great deal in common with them. You know, he is actually right about that.

Meanwhile, D’Souza dreams of halting democracy at home. He posits the depraved, atheistic values of the American left as the source of Muslim anger toward America and concludes that terrorism can’t be defeated abroad unless the left is defeated at home. To achieve this, D’Souza, seeing what he believes is an obvious alliance, ominously calls for the American right to “convince traditional Muslims that there are two Americas, and that one of these has a lot in common with them.”

D’Souza shares the Islamic radicals’ disgust with contemporary America, which he sees as a sewer of unutterable depravity. He respects the radicals for their commitment to a strict “traditional” moral code—none more so than Osama bin Laden, whom he dotes on in passages that suggest a schoolboy crush: “Just about everyone who has met bin Laden describes him as a quiet, well-mannered, thoughtful, eloquent, and deeply religious man . . . it is remarkable that a man born into a multimillion-dollar empire, a man who could be on a yacht in San Tropez with a blonde on one arm and a brunette on the other, has chosen to live in a cave in Afghanistan and risk his life for his beliefs.” [...]

So think about this the next time someone like Mike Huckabee comes across so wide eyed and nice looking with that big disarming smile: they want nothing less than to turn the United States into a theocracy where their narrow type of religion rules us all. They’ll send our science back to medieval times.

Too bad that these id…er, misguided people aren’t aware that 93 percent of our elite scientists are either atheist or agnostic.

Anyway, I’d like to point out stuff like this to some folks who wonder why we (those of us who are not religious) seem to come across as mocking and hostile. Geeeez…we are labeled immoral, un-American, decadent (ok, that is a fair charge against ME but not against others ), so when there is a small amount of blowback, they whine?

Science:

At Statistical Modeling, there is an interesting article on why some liberals struggle to accept evolution and its consequences and about the politicization of science findings in general.

Science Avenger talks about rat infested islands and points out that humans are not always the direct cause for local extinctions of species.

Yes, he acknowledges that the rats got there because of human activity (shipping) and wouldn’t have without it.