Video Sunday….then off to pay bills. :-)

Yes, I know, the mail doesn’t go out tomorrow, but I may as well get the bill paying over with.

(hat tip to Peoria Pundit)

Note: this guy does NOT live in the United States.

Oh yes, the McCain attack ad:

and the real life rebuttals:

Gee, doesn’t McCain give you a sense of security???

About McCain’s pick, here are some Palin videos:

(she comes across ok in this one)

Now she talks about Hillary Clinton whining:

Ironically I have no trouble with what she is saying but I wonder about how HRC supporters would react.

Some homemade video ads:

As far as the claims: here is the “mother in law” claim.

As for you, disgruntled HRC supporters, Palin got booed when she praised Hillary Clinton.

The phrase “more of the same” applies not only to McCain-Palin, but also to the rank and file Republicans. Are you sure that you want to join them?

Back to Politics

I am not good at altering photographs (e. g., “photoshoping”).

Someone who is ought to have fun with this photo:

Turn Governor Palin’s button upside down and you’ll have the 2008 election in a nutshell.

This photo was taken from this Daily Kos frontpage article, as was this one:

John Kerry: states what is going on

A funny line: Earlier in the interview Kerry also said Palin “is back with the Flat Earth Society, she “doesn’t believe climate change is man-made.”

He goes on to point out that McCain-Palin has made this race into one between Obama-Biden and Bush-Cheney.

My buddy Postsimian has had enough with non-virtual Republican pests.

That is really sad; after all, it was nearly 4 years ago that I had dinner with Dr. Andy in Chicago. It was the Saturday prior to the 2004 election disaster, and Dr. Andy is an outspoken Republican (who is for gay rights, the teaching of evolution, separation of church and state…….???).

Science Avenger: I like this blogger’s opinion pieces. Here is his latest:

One thing this election has really exposed, and to our national embarrassment, is our anti-intellectualism, and the nomination of Sarah Palin as VP is just the latest incarnation. Sadly, this has been going on for far longer.

Start off with the king of the anti-intellectuals, George W. Bush. He was elected because he was the guy everyone wanted to have a beer with. You know, I’ve drunk a lot of beers with a lot of guys, and there is no damned way I’d let most of them near the Oval Office. Yet that was the standard America used, and we got a president that didn’t know what the major religious factions of the country he invaded was, can’t say “nuclear”, and thinks “These people want to kill us” is a sophisticated argument. Everything that followed was inevitable. It was just a matter of time.

Now along comes an intelligent, Harvard-educated black man to run for president, and some of the major attacks on him concern his supposed elitism. He’s arrogant. He eats/drinks arugula (I confess to being insufficiently elitist to even know what that is). He’s not like us.

Let’s cut through the crap. What they really mean is that he’s not a dumb fuck like us, he’s not an idiot, he actually knows things. “Elitist” is just code language for “someone smarter than me”, and in America that’s bad, bad, bad. Only in America could a Harvard education work AGAINST you in an election. Only in America could the fact that you can draw far larger crowds than your opponent be used as a negative against you. It’s ignorance, and it’s envy, and it’s fucking absurd. Who needs to watch Idiocracy when we are living in it? [...]

Later he mentions Joe Biden and points out that, while Biden is intelligent, he has the charm of making off the cuff remarks, some of which are, well, stupid.

But I’ll tell you why I find that “charming”: it isn’t that I value stupidity (if I valued stupidity, I’d be supporting McCain-Palin). It is because I think “well, this is one politician who isn’t a slave to focus groups and polls; on occasion he’ll just blurt out what he feels”. And there is another factor: many of us think that John Kerry and John Edwards were just too nice in 2004; they allowed themselves to be used as punching bags. Biden fights back.

Yes, I know that Hillary Clinton fights back and that is why I wanted her to be VP; sadly my women friends told me that having a black and a woman on the same ticket would be “too much” for the country to take.

This was after the Chicago Ultra were he ran a very impressive 50 miler (8:2X, if I remember correctly), whereas I walked the 50K in 6:20 (and this started 2 hours later…perfect timing!) I wore my Kerry-Edwards long sleeved t-shirt, and yes, he and I discussed the election over some good Chinese food.

Neither of us backed down from our views and yet we parted still liking each other (I think )

Back to Social Issues: Irrational Thinking

Education One of the interesting issues in higher education today is how colleges market themselves to parents. Well, parents hear about shootings in Northern Illinois and in Virginia Tech and immediately wonder what programs there are to keep their offspring safe.

So what happens? We get overreactions like this one. Other places try to make faculty members keep their cell phones on during class (so they can receive cell phone text message in case of emergency)

The fact is that 37 students have been killed by the high publicity massacre events (32 at Virginia Tech, 5 at Northern Illinois); the likelihood of students getting injured or killed as the result of more mundane things like alcohol abuse or fires is far, far greater.

But, as usual, it is the more spectacular (but rare) event that gets more attention:

Everyone had a reaction to the horrific events of the Virginia Tech shootings. Some of those reactions were rational. Others were not.

A high school student was suspended for customizing a first-person shooter game with a map of his school. A contractor was fired from his government job for talking about a gun, and then visited by the FBI when he created a comic about the incident. A dean at Yale banned realistic stage weapons from the university theaters — a policy that was reversed within a day. And some teachers terrorized a sixth-grade class by staging a fake gunman attack, without telling them that it was a drill.

These things all happened, even though shootings like this are incredibly rare; even though — for all the press — less than one percent (.pdf) of homicides and suicides of children ages 5 to 19 occur in schools. In fact, these overreactions occurred, not despite these facts, but because of them.

The Virginia Tech massacre is precisely the sort of event we humans tend to overreact to. Our brains aren’t very good at probability and risk analysis, especially when it comes to rare occurrences. We tend to exaggerate spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary, familiar and common ones. There’s a lot of research in the psychological community about how the brain responds to risk — some of it I have already written about — but the gist is this: Our brains are much better at processing the simple risks we’ve had to deal with throughout most of our species’ existence, and much poorer at evaluating the complex risks society forces us face today.

Novelty plus dread equals overreaction.

We can see the effects of this all the time. We fear being murdered, kidnapped, raped and assaulted by strangers, when it’s far more likely that the perpetrator of such offenses is a relative or a friend. We worry about airplane crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes and domestic violence — both far more common.

[...]

I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of “news” is “something that hardly ever happens.” It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news — car crashes, domestic violence — that you should start worrying.

But that’s not the way we think. Psychologist Scott Plous said it well in The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making: “In very general terms: (1) The more available an event is, the more frequent or probable it will seem; (2) the more vivid a piece of information is, the more easily recalled and convincing it will be; and (3) the more salient something is, the more likely it will be to appear causal.”

So, when faced with a very available and highly vivid event like 9/11 or the Virginia Tech shootings, we overreact. And when faced with all the salient related events, we assume causality. We pass the Patriot Act. We think if we give guns out to students, or maybe make it harder for students to get guns, we’ll have solved the problem. We don’t let our children go to playgrounds unsupervised. We stay out of the ocean because we read about a shark attack somewhere.

It’s our brains again. We need to “do something,” even if that something doesn’t make sense; even if it is ineffective.

In short, the monkeys really are controlling the zoo.

Speaking of Irrational Thinking: enjoy!

(from 3-quarks daily)

Who was Noah? The Bible tells us little. He was the flood hero of course, but what else? A drunken viniculturist who lived to the age of 950; who was 600 at the time of the flood and 500 when he fathered Shem, Ham and Japheth. His wrinkled bottom was ogled by his 100-year-old sons when he passed out from drunkeness in his tent one night. But was he not also an ‘upright man’ and a man who ‘walked with God’?

Each year hundreds of pilgrims, known as ‘Arkeologists’ make their way to Mount Ararat (where the Turkish, Armenian and Iranian borders meet) hoping to find clues and relics. Some return home with splints of wood, others only with soft memories of mystic vision. [...]

It would be funny, but the Americans who take part in things like this actually vote.

I suck, even at 49 years old (no politics)

Well today, I “ran” our local version of the Nike Human Race 10K. Since the race was free and ran past my front door twice, how could I not?

I warmed up by walking to the start, doing some yoga, and then walk-jogging for 12 more minutes. I lined up way in the back and we were off.

I made a conscious effort to bend my knees when I ran; I understand that I was still very “bent forward from the waist” (wife’s observation).

Mile one felt easy and it should have been: 9:09. Mile two felt ok 9:03 and mile three was a bit of a strain 9:03 again. By then I was all but whipped (no, it wasn’t that warm) and so I started to walk. No, I wasn’t aerobically challenged; my legs just ran out of energy. And so I walked the next two miles: 11:28 and 11:16.

Dang, I can’t walk either. So, I “ran” it in; by then my legs had recovered a bit and the last 1.2 miles took 10:38 (8:52 pace). I tried to catch those who had passed me during the walking phase but couldn’t.

Final time: 1:00:39, or just under 9:50 a mile.

I then walked it back home (another mile) to record 9 miles for the day.

But do you want to know what is crazy? Back in 2001, I ran 10K in 44 minutes. I also swam the Barton Springs 3 mile (5k’ish) course in 1:52. This year I swam the same course in 1:49…3 minutes FASTER.

In short, I am swimming faster now than I was when I was running my 10Ks 16 minutes faster; that means something but I am not sure as to what.

Football:

Well, the Big Ten took in on the chin this weekend: Oh yeah, there was a rout of Coastal Carolina here, and a stirring comeback win over Northern Illinois there, and blowouts of Akron, Youngstown State, and Maine. But the scores that matter:

Utah 25, Michigan 23
California 38, Michigan State 31
Missouri 52, Illinois 42
Northwestern 30, Syracuse 10.

Let this sink in: NORTHWESTERN had the best Big Ten win of the week.
Oh don’t let the final score of Missouri-Illinois deceive you: it was Mizzou 31-13 at the half and they had built the lead to 45-20 in the third quarter.

As far as Illinois goes, be prepared for the following BS: they play two out of conference “directional schools”, then two overrated big name teams (Penn State, Michigan), then two conference doormats. After these games, look for screaming headlines on how the “Illini have “turned it around”, etc., etc. They go on to finish 9-3, thump their chests only to get blown out in another bowl game.

The dirty secret: the Big Ten sucks in football. Sure, the universities are top notch research universities, with world class scientists and mathematicians in their faculties. Scientific discoveries and cures for diseases abound!

But forget football.

Obama, Biden 60 Minutes Interview: Obama Explains Biden Pick, Reacts To Palin (VIDEO)

Barack Obama and Joe Biden on 60 minutes: Obama discusses the Vice Presidential picks.

more about "Obama, Biden 60 Minutes Interview: Ob…", posted with vodpod

John McCain: a Bush-Cheney Sockpuppet; nothing more

Folks, I am embarrassed to admit that I fell for the Sarah Palin diversion hook, line and sinker.

Despite what some might say, McCain’s pick of Palin was no maverick move. In fact, indications are that she isn’t even who he wanted. Think about it: McCain met Palin this February and only talked to her once after that.

John McCain first met Sarah Palin only six months ago and had just one conversation with the Alaska governor before offering her the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket, the Arizona senator’s campaign said Friday.

The move appears to be a marked departure for McCain — a man known for his tendency to surround himself with a close circle of advisers and politicians he has long felt comfortable with.

But according to the McCain campaign, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee first met Palin in Washington at a February 2008 National Governors Association meeting. He was immediately impressed with the 44-year-old rising GOP star, and decided to consider her for the vice presidential slot.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis had several conversations with Palin throughout the vetting process, but McCain himself didn’t speak with the Alaska governor until last Sunday — one day after Barack Obama named Joe Biden to his ticket. It was then McCain reached Palin by phone while she was at the Alaska State Fair to discuss the possibility of joining the ticket.

Remember, this by the McCain campaign’s admission. Heck, most of us take more care when choosing a car.

McCain probably wanted Lieberman

ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg reports: It wasn’t until Sunday night that John McCain, after meeting with his four top advisers, finally decided he could not tap independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to be his running mate. One adviser, tasked with taking the temperature of the conservative base, had strongly made the case to McCain that it would be a disaster for the party and that the base would revolt. McCain concluded he could not go that route.

(emphasis mine).

In short, McCain caved in to the extreme right wing of his party, as Robert Reich pointed out:

McCain’s choice of vice president is termed “bold” in today’s headlines but it is not at all bold, if we understand boldness to be the equivalent of courageous and appropriate to the times. To the contrary, the choice suggests that McCain caved to the religious right within the Republican Party, using his pick as a political ploy to
stir their enthusiasm while perhaps attracting a few women who are attracted to a female on a ticket regardless of her views.

Or as John Kerry pointed out the day prior to the Obama speech, before Palin was picked: this was Candidate McCain, not Senator McCain.

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years, but every day now I learn something new about Candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say let’s compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

Are you kidding me, folks?

(Laughter, cheers, applause.)

Talk about being for it before you’re against it!

(Cheers, applause.)

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself.

(Laughter, applause.)

And what’s more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target has morphed into Candidate McCain, who is using the same Rove tactics, the same Rove staff, the same old politics of fear and smear.

Well, not this year; not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

David Horsey got it right:

As did the Obama campaign, as they reacted so simply:

THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN MORE OF THE SAME. Bush-Cheney and company are still calling the shots, period.

And I was ready to fall for it, hook, line and sinker.