Ray LaHood (IL-18 US House) for Transportation: NO!!!!!!!!!!

Cross Posted at Prairie State Blue:

From the New York Times

As President-elect Barack Obama works to fill the final positions in his Cabinet, officials familiar with the decision said that a leading contender for Secretary of Transportation is Representative Ray LaHood, who would become a second Republican to join Mr. Obama’s team.

One of the tasks awaiting the transportation secretary is helping to implement the vast public works projects that Mr. Obama has proposed to jumpstart the economy. A member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. LaHood has experience overseeing – and spending money on – such projects.

Mr. LaHood, who is retiring this year after seven terms in Congress, has represented Peoria and the surrounding area in downstate Illinois. Known for moderate views, Mr. LaHood belonged to the Republican Main Street Partnership, but first rose to prominence when he presided over the House impeachment vote against President Bill Clinton.

Yes, I am in IL-18, LaHood’s district. Yes, he is a moderate Republican. But, well, lets face it: when it comes to intelligence and imagination he isn’t even in the same galaxy as Obama’s pick for Secretary of Energy: Steven Chu (Nobel Laureate in physics)

Yes, LaHood has a reputation for being honest, non corrupt, and at times he has broken with the Republican party (Freedom to Read act, voted against one of Bush’s tax cuts, against the first versions of the Patriot Act, etc.)

But he represents mediocrity rather than out of this world excellence; I don’t see him as being someone who comes up with fresh, imaginative solutions to complex problems.

I sure hope that this is a rumor.

Or, am I being too harsh?

Onward: one Final Exam to Go.

Workout notes am: easy 3 mile treadmill run (33:30; yes it was a “run”…sort of).

PM: 4000 yard swim; 5 x 100 on the 2 (warm up; ranged from 1:50 to 1:45), 5 x 100 fist on the 2 (1:42-1:45), 1000 in 16:20 (4:04, 8:09, 12:14; last 200 was 3:17), 100’s with fins (back, side, back, side, kick), 10 x 100 (25 fly, 75 free, no fins) on the 1:50 (mostly 1:45, a couple 0f 46, one :49), cool down with paddle/free.

Note: my 1000 was done at a faster pace (3:16) than the last few 5 x 200 on the 3:30 sets that I’ve done; evidently my “in the water start” slows me down.

Personal: since the truck won’t start, I drove the 2001 Saturn (L-series); it needs a new catalytic converter and many other things. Though I don’t like the $2100 bill, it is still cheaper than buying a “new used” car and this upgraded car should last me for several years and be safe to drive long distances. The mileage (30’s) isn’t bad either.

But still I wonder: what does a poor person do?

Speaking of poverty, this is poverty:

Caritas Internationalis is warning that the crisis in Zimbabwe is so grave that people facing crushing food shortages are mixing cow dung with their food.

With pressure continuing to mount on President Mugabe to relinquish his hold on power, Zimbabweans are suffering the consequences of his government’s policies.

Besides the lack of food, people are also suffering a cholera epidemic and crippling hyperinflation.

Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Lesley-Anne Knight reports that “people in Zimbabwe are dropping dead on the streets from Cholera. They’ve witnessed people mixing cow dung with what’s left of their food to make it go further. This is poverty at its most dehumanizing.”

Caritas plans to ramp up its aid operations across the country with hunger likely to increase after poor harvests.

Caritas can be found here

Of course, we have our own poor, many of which face power shut-offs in this cold season.

Politics
My yoga teacher sent me this:

For a thoughtful essay on corruption and Illinois politics, see this post by bored now at Prairie State Blue.

While Illinois’ extreme tolerance of corruption — a tolerance made more obvious by the slow motion movement towards possible impeachment — baffles the rest of the country, I return to an almost constant refrain: Illinois is not a reform state. Illinois did not go through the monumental Progressive reforms of the early 20th century. In fact, just the opposite. Most of Illinois’ politicians are proud that we are the last (political) machine state. “It works.”

Actually, the inference that Illinois’ machine politics has a pragmatic value is a myth. The machine politics here hasn’t made Illinois more efficient, or given us better government service, or “made the trains run on time.” Just the opposite. Illinois’ governments are extremely inefficient, designed to produce political favors not public service. If you live in the wrong part of the 50th ward (in Chicago), for example, good luck in getting your streets plowed or your curbs fixed. Illinois’ political corruption isn’t efficient, it is corrosive. Ask anyone who’s sat on the tracks of the Brown line for half an hour or so. Illinois’ political corruption costs every single Illinois resident money, time and patience. State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias just announced that this particular corruption scandal has already cost us 20 million dollars. It hadn’t even been a week yet. (We are all hoping that the costs of the current scandal isn’t $20M a week.) [...]

The political reformers, like Barack Obama, are a reaction to — not an outgrowth of — Illinois’ corrupt political system.

The best way to understand the difference between the machine Democrats like Blagojevich, the Madigans and Strogers (among others) and the political reformers like Barack Obama, Alexi Giannoulias, Forrest Claypool, John Fritchey and Debra Shore (among others) is that the reformers are forced to network outside the traditional political circles in Illinois. IOW, Illinois’ political reformers have to build it themselves. If you want to understand Barack Obama’s intuitive understanding of technology, strategy and tactics — an understanding that allowed him to outmaneuver the vaunted political skills of the Clintons — you have to realize that he’s been doing this (outmaneuvering the political elites) from the beginning more than a dozen years ago. Obama didn’t suddenly appear with these skills, he’s been developing them all along. [...]

Ray LaHood: Secretary of Transportation? My goodness, I hope not. Sure, he is moderate by Republican standards and he is relatively principled, but this guy is an intellectual lightweight if there ever was one. Gheeze…I sure hope this is just a rumor.

Then again his pick for Secretary of the Interior isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer either. What I am hoping for is more picks like this one (Secretary of State) or this one (Energy).

A bit of science: modern brains have evolved in many ways. Just a bit from the Scientific American Article:

Clayton and her students were able to use this naturally occurring behavior to show that Florida scrub jays can recall specific episodes in their past. The birds were provided with perishable worms and nonperishable nuts, which they cached in the individual compartments of sand-filled ice cube trays. They cached in different trays on different days and were then denied access to the trays for a specified period. If the birds could not access the trays for a short time, they should have tried to retrieve the worms, which are their preferred food, from the appropriate compartments of the appropriate trays. On the other hand, if the birds were denied access to the trays for a longer time, the worms no longer would have been fresh, and the jays should have tried to retrieve the nuts. To solve this problem, the birds needed to recall what they cached, where they cached it and when they did so. The birds successfully performed this complex task. Such an ability has yet to be demonstrated in a nonhuman mammal.

Even more amazingly, Clayton showed that the birds can anticipate unique future events. She allowed jays to observe others of their kind cache food and then permitted them to pilfer the caches. Later these birds cached their own food, either alone or in the presence of another jay. Birds that had acted as thieves took great precautions to conceal their food-caching activities when in the presence of another jay. Although the jays had experienced food theft only in the role of thief, they nonetheless were able to imagine themselves in the role of victim. The ability to recall specific episodes in the past and to predict future occurrences is known as mental time travel [see “Intelligence Evolved,” by Ursula Dicke and Gerhard Roth; Scientific American Mind, August/September 2008]. Before Clayton’s work, this cognitive ability was thought to be unique to humans.

Speaking of Scientific American: yeah, I let my subscription lapse. But I want to buy this issue for my plane trip home this coming Monday.