Various: walking, science, quackery, Obama, Clinton and the Peril of eary voting.

(Barbara, Olivia (behind me), Froggy (in my hand) and I in Austin, Thanksgiving 2007.

Obama’s victory speech after the victory in South Carolina. Yes, the crowd is chanting “race doesn’t matter” in the background during the first part of the speech. It takes 17 minutes to see.

Workout notes Only 14 miles instead of the planned 20; I woke up too late. I did 80 laps of lane 2 of the Riverplex track (77 laps is 10 miles; hit that in 2:09) and got dehydrated. I managed 4 more miles outside and saw lots of geese. The footing was reasonably good though part of the goose loop is still underwater.

Local, Personal Thoughts

Handicapped Parking Spots

My wife is still recovering from foot surgery; hence we have a handicapped parking sticker. Still, when she parks the car in a handicapped space, and I go to get the car to drive to her (she wanted to walk a bit), well, I feel very awkward getting into the car. Today, I got some not so nice looks when I did that; I can understand the looks given I was wearing a marathon long sleeved t-shirt and well worn hiking boots! Yes, Barbara was with me; she walked from the space to the store, and I went to the car to drive it to the front of the store.

Lesson to me: don’t give dirty looks to those who park in handicapped spots; I don’t know the whole story.

Mormons at my door Yesterday, a couple of LDS (Mormon) missionaries came to my door. These were a couple of very attractive young women; had I been single and lonely (and 25 years younger) I would have certainly invited them in!

But they were stunned when I told them that I was an atheist (and I mentioned that I shared an office with someone who did his LDS missionary work in Korea). I was polite, and shook their hands. But I did tell them that I saw their Book of Mormon in the way they would see the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Basically, I see it as a bad attempt to tell a story by trying to imitated Elizabethan English; they claim it was given to Joseph Smith on golden plates by an angel and that he decoded it by using seer stones.

Sure, I see this as utter nonsense, but no more nonsensical than stone tablets, a parted sea, walking on water, or resurrected human bodies.

But the point was that few people really understand atheists: they think that we are defying god, mad at god, or just want to live a rule-free life. What they don’t get is that we really, truly don’t see any credible evidence for any god, much less their simple anthropomorphic one.

The Perils of Early Voting: now I find out that a candidate I voted for has some serious ethical issues. First a misstatement about her graduating from college in a radio ad. Then a shoplifting conviction, as an adult. Then she paid the fine 8 years later, and now has a 3 year old moving violation that she has just paid. Oh boy. That sign is not staying up in our front yard. I am sorry that I voted the way that I did.

Going Door to Door. My experience has been good; I’ve blogged about that before. But there are perils as one blogger describes:

I was canvassing in Chciago’s 11th Ward (Northern-most edge of IL-3 Congressional District) as part of Northside DFA’s work on behalf of grassroots/netroots candidate Mark Pera today (Saturday). According to my “walk sheet” the house I was approaching had an elderly Democratic voter. As is often the case, this voter no longer lived there. I began to deliver my pitch to the new occupant, but the woman who answered the door stopped me when I talked about electing a Congressman with REAL Democratic values.

She told me she was a Republican because “I want the niggers to have to get up for work every morning just like I do.” [...]

And yes, there are people like that out there. Sometimes, you get stuck sitting next to a-holes like this on airplanes, though sometimes the other passengers fight back. Hat tip to imported beer for this story:

What do you tell a man who tells you..”You are not Mexican? I guess that means you came here legally” and bursts into laughter, eagerly echoed by his buddy? What if the same man also claims that the upcoming general elections will be between an American Hero and a Lesbo nut cracker? Oh and what if he adds that a “Niggerlite” might be her VP? Oh and Edwards being the Queer Eye candidate? There have been diary after diary about how divided we are about our choices for candidates in the primary, but perhaps this diary will illustrate what it is to be a Democrat in a Red State, and why despite my support for a candidate, I’d never demean another. [...]

I was seated between two men. They looked ordinary enough. Mike the guy to my left was short, stocky, blonde. Jake, the guy to my right was very thin, and fidgety. It was not like they were wearing white hoods, or brandishing Ann Coulter books. They seemed like ordinary guys. [...]

Some choice excerpts from the conversation that followed:

“I like McCain.” Mike said. “I like a no nonsense approach to Iran. We can’t trust the UN to do anything.”
“Anyone of these guys can take the Democrats.”
“Except Huckabee. I don’t want some crazy wingnut running the party, scaring the moderates.”
“I’d love to see McCain take on the Bitch Queen of LESBOS.”
“Yes, and Hussein Mohammed her VP.”
“Nigger Lite”
“Hahahahahahaha”
“I prefer Halfrican American.”
“HAAAHAHHAHAHHA”
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“What about that other fag running? Edward”
“Edward? Queer Eye called. They’d like their beauty expert back”
“Hahahhahahhaaa”
“Hahahahahahhhaaaaa”
“They have a nutcracker. And we have an American Hero.”
“Even her own husband prefered a fat jew over her.” [...]

The men asked the guy across the aisle who he was going to vote for. The man was white and middle aged, had a cowboy hat and boots, a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate and a big mustache. I cringed, expecting more Democratic Hate.

“Well, my first choice is Obama, then pretty much any Democratic candidate including Ms. “Nutcracker”, then if I don’t have a Democrat choice, I’ll vote for a pile of dung, lung cancer, and a can of paint. If none of these choices are available, I am staying home.”

“Same here.” I echoed.

Jake rolled his eyes.

Mike turned to the window.

They were silent for the rest of the entire flight. The plane landed. As I removed my bag, Jake couldn’t resist a parting shot to the man across the aisle.

“No patriot will vote for Obama HUSSEIN” he snarked.

“I am.” a voice said. It was a young man in uniform. He nodded pleasantly to us and walked out of the plane.[...]

Science: can genes “act at a distance”? Evidently so.

Genes have the ability to recognise similarities in each other from a distance, without any proteins or other biological molecules aiding the process, according to new research. This discovery could explain how similar genes find each other and group together in order to perform key processes involved in the evolution of species.

This new study shows that genes — which are parts of double-stranded DNA with a double-helix structure containing a pattern of chemical bases – can recognise other genes with a similar pattern of chemical bases.

This ability to seek each other out could be the key to how genes identify one another and align with each other in order to begin the process of ‘homologous recombination’ — whereby two double-helix DNA molecules come together, break open, swap a section of genetic information, and then close themselves up again.

Recombination is an important process which plays a key role in evolution and natural selection, and is also central to the body’s ability to repair damaged DNA. Before now, scientists have not known exactly how suitable pairs of genes find each other in order for this process to begin.

The authors of the new study carried out a series of experiments in order to test the theory, first developed in 2001 by two members of this team, that long pieces of identical double-stranded DNA could identify each other merely as a result of complementary patterns of electrical charges which they both carry. They wanted to verify that this could indeed occur without physical contact between the two molecules, or the facilitating presence of proteins.

Previous studies have suggested that proteins are involved in the recognition process when it occurs between short strands of DNA which only have about 10 pairs of chemical bases. This new research shows that much longer strands of DNA with hundreds of pairs of chemical bases seem able to recognise each other as a whole without protein involvement. According to the theory, this recognition mechanism is stronger the longer the genes are.

The researchers observed the behaviour of fluorescently tagged DNA molecules in a pure solution. They found that DNA molecules with identical patterns of chemical bases were approximately twice as likely to gather together than DNA molecules with different sequences.

Professor Alexei Kornyshev from Imperial College London, one of the study’s authors, explains the significance of the team’s results: “Seeing these identical DNA molecules seeking each other out in a crowd, without any external help, is very exciting indeed. This could provide a driving force for similar genes to begin the complex process of recombination without the help of proteins or other biological factors. Our team’s experimental results seem to support these expectations.”[...]

Evolutionary Programming Science Avenger points us to a nice article about this; basically programs can be “evolved” to solve problems by a sort of a natural selection process:

First, check out this article on the astonishing progress and insights being made with robots fitted with evolutionary decision algorithms, and “bred” to simulate evolutionary processes. Surprisingly, many counter intuitive behavior patterns form, including cheater robots and altruism:

“By the 50th generation, the robots had learned to communicate—lighting up, in three out of four colonies, to alert the others when they’d found food or poison. The fourth colony sometimes evolved “cheater” robots instead, which would light up to tell the others that the poison was food, while they themselves rolled over to the food source and chowed down without emitting so much as a blink.

Some robots, though, were veritable heroes. They signaled danger and died to save other robots.”

This shouldn’t be all that surprising to those of us who were paying attention to what happened to Dawkins’ “tree” program in The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins made a fairly simple program to evolve trees, but what he ended up with often looked nothing like trees (insects, furniture, etc.). It was clear then that a simple variation and selection can produce a very unanticipated result. Now we have solid evidence that they can produce many of the things the anti-evolution cranks have maintained were impossible: kin loyalty, altruism, cheating and self-sacrifice. [hat tip Panda's Thumb]
[...]

Professor Moran (of the blog Sandwalk) discusses a talk about pseudoscience and quackery in academia. it is fun reading.

Elections
Democratic Primary
Read the notes from the votemaster for just about everything you want to know about the South Carolina Democratic primary. I’d add a couple of comments to what is there: first, Obama pulled 32% (just under 1/3) among white college educated voters; in other words, he was not rejected by white college graduates. Also, he pulled 50% of the white voters under 30. So, it would be inaccurate to say that he was rejected by white voters, though his total among them was 24%. Also note that Edwards won the “white vote”; it was African Americans that propelled Hillary Clinton into second place.

The Edge of the American West argues that the Clintons are best when they are confronted directly by unreasonable right wing opponents; going toe to toe with Obama is a completely different matter.

[...]Looking back at the 90s, I remember Bill Clinton being at his best when he was on the defensive. And, more important than that, I think he was blessed with excellent enemies, a rogue’s gallery of rabid idealogues that included Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, Ken Starr, and a cast of thousands of wingnut extremists. Nearly every time one of them attacked, I recall Clinton getting the better of the exchange. Usually not with a knockout, but on points. He’d outlast his foe, who always ended up looking like a nutjob, a jerk, a buffoon, or some combination of the three.

Because they were. They were so obviously engaged in partisan witch-hunts that fair-minded observers couldn’t help but side with Clinton. Sure, he was an incorrigible cad and a serial liar. But he was also very good at running the country. And, compared to the ridiculous clowns trying to take him down, he was fantastic. [...]

Coming out of Iowa, the same was true for Hillary. With Chris Matthews bullying her, and John Edwards getting in touch with his inner misogynist, their attacks transformed Hillary into a sympathetic wonk, a technocrat with a heart of gold. She could play defense because the right enemies had made her look relatively good.

For the past two weeks, though, the Clintons have been going for the jugular. And it hasn’t been pretty. I’ve already explained repeatedly why I think they’re making a mistake. But now it seems like the voters in South Carolina shared my concerns. At the same time, the basic rationale for Obama’s campaign — he’s a transformative candidate, who’ll bring thousands of new voters to the polls — has been borne out in the results. And, there no longer seems to be any rationale for Hillary’s candidacy, which used to be predicated on her inevitability.[...]

I see it that way too, but like the author of this piece, I think that HRC remains the favorite. Obama has a huge uphill battle ahead of him.

The battle has gotten just a bit easier though as Senator Kennedy has endorsed Obama as has Governor Kathleen Sebelius (of Kansas). Currently Obama is closing a narrow gap in Kansas, but has more ground to cover in Massachusetts (where he has the endorsement of both Senators).

My thoughts about Clinton-Obama. Really, my negativity towards Hillary Clinton is based on this (I’ve already linked to this before):

But no candidate is perfect. So why was I so angry with her? Answer: because of Bill Clinton’s antics. Now one could argue that they are playing “good cop/bad cop” with us, but mostly I see Bill as being unable to stay out of the limelight. Frankly, I like her better when Bill just points out the good things that she did in his administration (such as helping to pick good people for the government; there were no “Brownies”, “Harriet Miers”, etc. and Hillary did help in that area).

So please Mr. President: let your wife run her campaign and be supportive of her. You’ve almost turned me totally against her. I don’t want to be that way!

So, if she wins (as expected) I’ll help out (phone banking, etc.), as I am not going to hold Bill’s antics against her.

But this is a danger: (hat tip to Dus 7)

Obama’s victory Speech after South Carolina (17 minutes)