Obama being taken to school and other topics

Ultras: if you want to read about someone who does ultras well, read Julie Berg’s McNaughton 100 mile report.

Politics

Ok, I am not on the Obama bashing bandwagon; he still has my vote and support. I’ve given him my time and money and will give more of it. I think that he will be good for the country.

But he is far from perfect; he still makes mistakes.

So, in the spirit of showing the uncommitted (and ok, I still care what HRC supporters think, though I don’t usually admit this in public ) that Obama supporters are not start struck cool-aid drinkers, here goes.

I’ve said that I have heard people who have worked with him say that he is a “what you see is what you get” kind of a guy; he is in private what you see in public. That is true. But sometimes what you see in public is, well, a rather egotistical guy. Yes, those who have worked with him told me that too.

This latest “bitterness” shows something else. Sometimes, Obama gets into his professor mode, where he will talk about stuff in public that ought to be best be discussed behind closed doors. He did that in the “Reagan was transformational” and “Republicans had the ideas” statements; example:

This of course, gives political opponents an opening to slam him use such thoughts completely out of context. Also, most people simply don’t get logical nuances.

Don’t get me wrong; Obama was quick to use this against John McCain when he made the remark that “Americans don’t care if we are in Iraq for 100 years”:

This is, of course, not the same thing as his saying that 100 years of war is ok; he was merely talking about having a military presence (e. g., I was born in Japan on an Air Force base). Whether that is a good idea or not certainly merits debate, but that is NOT 100 years of war. But I digress.

Now, Obama’s “bitterness remark“: what he said was demonstrably true, but of course his opponents are going to make political hay out of it.

and of course, John McCain:

Dear Friends,

We’ve all said things that we’ve regretted. Sometimes they result from a mere slip of the tongue and sometimes they reveal deeply held beliefs that you’d rather not communicate to the world.

A few days ago, at a San Francisco fundraiser, Barack Obama described Americans who live in small towns or other areas that have experienced a loss of jobs as “bitter” people, adding that it didn’t surprise him that they, “..cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

These words are revealing on a number of levels, and expose the out-of-touch beliefs to which John McCain offers stark contrast. Today, John McCain offered a different account of small town America:

“During the Great Depression, with many millions of Americans out of work and the country suffering the worst economic crisis in our history, there rose from small towns, rural communities, inner cities, a generation of Americans who fought to save the world from despotism and mass murder, and came home to build the wealthiest, strongest and most generous nation on earth.

They suffered the worst during the Depression, but it did not shake their faith in, and fidelity to, America. They did not turn to their religious faith and cultural traditions out of resentment and a feeling of powerlessness to affect the course of government or pursue prosperity. On the contrary, their faith had given generations of their families’ purpose and meaning, as it does today.”

These hard working men and women aren’t “bitter”. They love their country, their faith, their family and their traditions. They are the heart and soul of this country, the foundation of our strength and the primary authors of its essential goodness – Barack Obama should get to know them.

If Barack Obama is the Democrat nominee in the general election, the American people will have a clear choice between two different visions – Senator Obama’s liberal, elitist philosophy and John McCain’s faith in the small town values that continue to make America great. John McCain will not forget them or write them off. Neither should Barack Obama.

We are up against a large fundraising hurdle if Barack Obama is the nominee and we need your help now. Even before the general election begins, the differences are clear, we must do everything we can to make sure these beliefs don’t make it into the White House.

I hope you will make a contribution today.

Sincerely,

Rick Davis

Rick Davis
Campaign Manager

P.S. – Barack Obama’s belief that small town Americans are “bitter” exemplifies the differences in this election. We cannot allow this elitist philosophy to make its way into the White House. Please contribute today.

This is not to say that we aren’t fighting back. Hey, maybe he was “sleep deprived” and “under sniper fire”?

But nevertheless, we are taking our lumps. Yes, some criticisms are indeed fair such as these:

At the same time, the comments were not a total departure: On the campaign trail, Obama can reveal moments of aloofness or tone deaf reactions that belie his image as the epitome of polished.

At 46, Obama carries a political persona that draws on many origins. He is the son of a single mother who grew up middle class in Hawaii and worked as a community organizer in the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago. But he is also the Harvard Law Review president who knows well – occasionally too well – that he is smart and successful.

Part of the appeal to many Democrats is an intellect that allows him to discuss difficult issues with sophistication and candor, as he did in Philadelphia with his speech on race. But his remarks at a private San Francisco fundraiser amplified the flip side of his personal manner, a sort of freestyle rhetorical approach sometimes better suited for a dorm room bull session.[...]

The article goes on to list several instances.

Obama attempted to respond in the so called “compassion” forum:

He’ll probably lose Pennsylvania though I don’t put much stock in the ARG poll (which had HRC winning Iowa by 10 points!).

More on Obama. Yeah, I was saddened (but not surprised) when Obama declined to participate in the Science Debate but did participate in the last Compassion/Religion forum. Sorry, but how well a candidate understands the top science issues (energy, climate change, food production, medicine, the role of evolution) is far more important than holding a particular religious superstition, but sadly most of the country doesn’t recognize this. And, the first rule is to get elected to begin with.

Still, at least Obama wants science taught in the science classroom.

Statistics Here is an interesting article on p-values and experimental science. Ok, that is what the article purports to be about. In fact, there is nothing wrong with p-values or what they represent; the issue this blog article writer has is with the framing of what it means to reject the null hypothesis.

Often the alternative hypothesis doesn’t logically follow from rejection of the null hypothesis!

I have a skepticism about such studies that I think many scientists share: the idea that a questionable idea can suddenly become scientific by being thrown in the same room with gene sequencing, MRIs, power-law fits, or other high-tech gimmicks. I’m not completely skeptical–after all, I did my Ph.D. thesis on medical imaging–but I do have this generalized discomfort with these approaches.

Consider, for example, the notorious implicit assocation test, famous for being able to “assess your conscious and unconscious preferences” and tell if you’re a racist. Or consider the notorious “baby-faced politicians lose” study.

From a statistical point of view, I think the problem is with the idea that science is all about rejecting the null hypothesis. This is what researchers in psychology learn, and I think it can hinder scientific understanding. In the “implicit association test” scenario, the null hypothesis is that people perceive blacks and whites identically; differences from the null hypothesis can be interpreted as racial bias. The problem, though, is that the null hypothesis can be wrong in so many different ways.

Note for the unfamiliar: here is how a typical science test works: suppose we wish to test if drinking orange juice in the morning helps a typical calculus student do better on an exam. We set up the null hypothesis: “orange juice makes no difference” and run the experiment. If there is strong evidence that drinking orange juice helps someone do better, we reject the null hypothesis. Think of the null hypothesis as the “presumption of innocence” at a criminal trial.

Typically, we’d like evidence so overwhelming that there is only a 5% chance that such an amount of evidence will appear by pure chance.