7 April 2009

On the agenda today: easy 3-4 mile run, stretching, voting and getting caught up at work.

Update: 4.2 miles in 37:36 (sunny, cold), voted: Van Aucken, Shadid (treasurer), Build the Block: Yes.

Health Care: E. J. Dionne points out that this isn’t the early 1990s when the Clinton administration failed in its plan to get national health care. This isn’t a criticism of President Clinton but they admit that they made mistakes and didn’t anticipate the built in resistance to this type of change. (as an aside, Hillary Clinton is very frank about this in her book Living History).

Things are different now and there has been some behind the scenes progress since then:

Getting there won’t be pretty. But for the first time since the passage of Medicare in the 1960s, the forces favoring action on health-care reform are stronger than the forces of cynicism and obstruction.

Feel free to be skeptical. Since Bill and Hillary Clinton’s reform efforts foundered in 1994, predicting the death of any comparable venture has been the safest bet in Washington.

But this conclusion misses almost everything that has been happening. It’s not just that the public (including business) is frustrated with the status quo. And it has little to do with the details that policy wonks are necessarily hashing over.

What matters is that members of Congress have quietly been preparing the ground for reform since the Democrats took over two years ago. And the competing interest groups seem more inclined to get what they can out of reform than to stop the enterprise altogether. [...]

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), one of the House’s resident health-care mavens, has been working closely with two other committee chairs, Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

One largely unheralded change is that health-care reformers have made peace with each other. In the past, groups advocating competing proposals were more interested in establishing their dominance than in passing a bill.

“People who advocated health coverage for all Americans wanted it their way, and the second choice was nothing,” Waxman told me. This time, he said, reformers want to get to universal coverage by whatever route is open.

Indeed, the reformers are broadly focused on the same set of ideas, a mixture of subsidies for those who can’t afford insurance, reform of insurance markets so sick people can’t be denied coverage, and serious efforts at cost containment and efficiency.

I recommend reading the whole article; it perked me up a bit.

Personal Comment

Many conservatives are very upset that President Obama admitted that we (as a country) have been arrogant and belligerent at times. Why is that so bad?

I’m drawn to the conclusion that many conservatives are socially immature; they can dish out criticism by the truckload but can’t accept any themselves.

Fortunately, most Americans are ok with this sort of approach:

PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama — currently on his first multi-stop trip abroad since he took office — is enjoying a 61% job approval rating at home for handling foreign affairs, up seven points since February. His job approval rating for handling the economy — 56% — is down by the slight margin of three points, but is higher than his rating for handling the federal budget deficit.

Note: there is an excellent summary of the trip (with tons of short videos) here.

Here is Rachel Maddow’s coverage:

Persident Obama: we aren’t a Christian Nation. Climate Change Crock: Wingnuts get it wrong…AGAIN

Notice how the wingnut commentator gets it completely wrong. Guess what? We get our values from the same origin that we get our science, medicine, engineering, literature, poetry, etc.

There is no need to invoke some sort of deity.

Conservatives: Glen Beck in his own words

more about "Beck: Daily Kos, C&L blame me for cop…", posted with vodpod

Shuster, Blow slam revolutionary right-wing rhetoric – Daily Kos TV (beta)

more about "Shuster, Blow slam revolutionary righ…", posted with vodpod

6 April 2009

Workout notes 1800 yard swim; not much of anything.

Peoria: It snowed again; though most of it didn’t stick on the roads, there were some ice patches on the walk over. I am so sick of the cold weather.

Humor:

see more pwn and owned pictures

This is called “Lion Fail”.

Wooishness from the left:

“Reprograms your cellular DNA”. Oooooookkkkkkaaaaayyyyy….

Now to be honest, her pose sequences are pretty good; they are worth watching (for many reasons).

But when one takes a yoga class, one has to filter out lots of bull *hit.

5 April 2009

Workout notes 10.5 mile course (Broadway, Boredom to Glen Oak) in 2:14:28; there was some wind. This is about 6-10 minutes faster than normal and faster than I’ve done before; then again I am lighter and well rested. The new back-fanny pack (double bottle) worked great.

Society A Newsweek article about American becoming a “post Christian” nation appeared. A thoughtful analysis of this and other information can be found here (Dan K is back at Daily Kos).

Personally, I see this meaning that the United States is becoming more pluralistic rather than less superstitious.

I should explain what I mean by “superstition”: someone who thinks that things like magic, prayer, supplication, etc. can physically cause something to happen or not happen (e. g., that prayer can stop a hurricane, keep a bridge from falling down, cause a loved one to recover from an illness) is superstitious. Someone who thinks that prayer might make them become stronger emotionally, more tolerant, loving, etc. isn’t being superstitious.

To me, Biden, Edwards and Obama gave answers that didn’t strike me as being superstitious.

Here is why I am not encouraged by the trends pointed out by Newsweek: large segments of the population continue to reject basic science; for example a poll taken in 2009 shows that only 39 percent of Americans accept evolution; 25 percent reject it and 36 percent have no opinion. Of course, these numbers vary by educational level.

When these numbers go up, I will start to be encouraged.

Society part II We are seeing hate groups like the KKK make a bit of a comeback; there are more groups though the groups tend to be smaller in size than before.

Note: this KKK a-hole doesn’t sound all that different than Pat Buchanan; check it out at about 7-7:15 into it:

Note: Pat Buchanan isn’t all wrong until he starts babbling about there being “too many Hispanics”.

If the 2008 Presidential Election were scored by Congressional District

As an exercise, I decided to score the 2008 Presidential Election as if it were scored by Congressional District (the way that Maine and Nebraska allot their electoral votes). I granted each state 2 Electoral votes for winning the state and 1 vote for each Congressional district (plus Washington DC, which got 3 Electoral votes)

The Congressional district data came from Swing State Project.

The final tally: Obama 300, McCain 238.

Update:

I found some interesting tidbits of information:

1. In some states that went blue, Senator McCain actually won more Congressional Districts than President Obama. The difference is that President Obama won his districts by much wider margins than Senator McCain won his.

This happened in: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

2. There were many blue states in which Senator McCain won districts that are represented by Democrats in the House. In fact

Blue States: 22
CT-3, CT-4, FL-2, FL-24, IN-8, IN-9, MD-1, MN-7, NC-7, NC-11, NM-2, NY-13, NY-29, OH-6, OH-16, OH-18, PA-3, PA-10, PA-12, PA-17, VA-5, VA-9

Red States: 25
AL-2, AL-5, AR-1, AR-2, AR-4, AZ-1, AZ-5, AZ-8, GA-8, ID-1, KY-6, MO-4, MS-1, MS-4, ND, OK-2, SC-5, SD, TN-4, TN-6, TN-8, TX-17, UT-2, WV-1, WV-3

This may well explain the behavior of many “blue dog” Democrats.

The data:

state	CD-Obama	CD-McCain	Sen-O	Sen-M	total-O	total-M
Alaska	0	1	0	2	0	3
Alabama	1	6	0	2	1	8
Arkansas	0	4	0	2	0	6
Arizona	2	6	0	2	2	8
California	42	11	2	0	44	11
Colorado	3	4	2	0	5	4
Connecticut	5	0	2	0	7	0
Delaware	1	0	2	0	3	0
Florida	10	15	2	0	12	15
Georgia	5	8	0	2	5	10
Hawaii	2	0	2	0	4	0
Iowa	4	1	2	0	6	1
Idaho	0	2	0	2	0	4
Illinois	16	3	2	0	18	3
Indiana	3	6	2	0	5	6
Kansas	1	3	0	2	1	5
Kentucky	1	5	0	2	1	7
Louisiana	1	6	0	2	1	8
Massachusetts	10	0	2	0	12	0
Maryland	6	2	2	0	8	2
Maine	2	0	2	0	4	0
Michigan	12	3	2	0	14	3
Minnesota	5	3	2	0	7	3
Missouri	3	6	0	2	3	8
Mississippi	1	3	0	2	1	5
Montana	0	1	0	2	0	3
North Carolina	6	7	2	0	8	7
North Dakota	0	1	0	2	0	3
Nebraska	1	2	0	2	1	4
New Hampshire	2	0	2	0	4	0
New Jersey	10	3	2	0	12	3
New Mexico	2	1	2	0	4	1
Nevada	2	1	2	0	4	1
New York	25	4	2	0	27	4
Ohio	8	10	2	0	10	10
Oklahoma	0	5	0	2	0	7
Oregon	4	1	2	0	6	1
Pennsylvania	8	11	2	0	10	11
Rhode Island	2	0	2	0	4	0
South Carolina	1	5	0	2	1	7
South Dakota	0	1	0	2	0	3
Tennessee	2	7	0	2	2	9
Texas	11	21	0	2	11	23
Utah	0	3	0	2	0	5
Vermont	1	0	2	0	3	0
Virginia	6	5	2	0	8	5
Washington	7	2	2	0	9	2
Wisconsin	7	1	2	0	9	1
West Virginia	0	3	0	2	0	5
Wyoming	0	1	0	2	0	3
DC	1	0	2	0	3	0
				totals	300	238

Sean Hannity is a Lying Sack of Dung

Via Media Matters:

On the April 3 edition of his Fox News television program, Sean Hannity played a clip of President Obama saying in an April 3 speech in Strasbourg, France: “In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America’s shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” Hannity then said: “And the liberal tradition of blame America first, well, that’s still alive.” Hannity later asked: “Why is there this anti-Americanism in Europe?” In fact, immediately after the part of the speech Hannity played, Obama criticized anti-Americanism in Europe as well as Europeans who “choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.”

Obama stated: “But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.” Obama continued: “On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.” At no point during the show did Hannity acknowledge that Obama had made these comments.

Hours before Hannity aired, Fox News’ newly launched website, The Fox Nation, similarly truncated Obama’s speech when it linked to an April 3 U.K. Telegraph article about the speech and omitted Obama’s comments about anti-Americanism, even though the Telegraph article quoted those comments.

Fox News: liars. Fox News followers: Retards.

3 April 2009 stuff (late)

Science and society

Science education in Texas: another black eye:

The Board of Education’s decision is seen as a “backdoor entrance for creationists and fans of intelligent design” to circumvent basic science standards. From io9:

How old is the universe? Scientists agree that the answer is somewhere around 14 billion years (give or take a few million)… unless you happen to be a student in the state of Texas.

. . .

The decision was only one of many made on Friday, and sadly, only one of many that suggested an anti-science agenda (Other decisions included specific language requiring scientific explanations on evolution to be “evaluated” by students and teachers, ominously enough). Chair of the Board Don McLeroy testified to the reason why that may be the case at the meeting:

I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts.

That’s right! Standing up to experts and facts is exactly what the chair of an educational board’s job is supposed to be! Well, at least there’s always the internet to fill in gaps in these kids’ education…

Unbelievable. But that is one sure sign of a woo: they know more than the experts.

Teaching of evolution Of course, evolution is a primary principle of biology. It baffles me but there are those who honestly don’t see what evolution has to do with modern medicine. The blog whyevolutionistrue provides a brief list. Here is one that is very easy to understand: do you know why vaccines have to be continually updated? The reason: the viruses and bacteria that cause diseases continue to mutate into new forms…that’s right…they evolve.

I wonder what creationism and/or intelligent design has to say about this: that their deity is one sadistic bastard?

Stem Cell Research Mano Singham has a nice two part series which outlines the scientific and ethical issues of embryonic stem cell research. Part one (science). Part two (ethics).

Higher Education

Will the internet replace universities? Here is a discussion at Cosmic Variance. Larry Moran (at sandwalk) points out that universities are more than places to listen to lectures.

Free Speech
The Legal Satyricon gives an example of a well intentioned law that backfired; one almost always goes wrong when one attempts to limit free speech.

Economy
Robert Reich: points out that the current economic conditions can properly be labeled “a depression”.

Politics
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that Iowa’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

Of course, the moronic right wing is feeling that it’s liberties are being infringed upon. Funny, but the right wing seems to equate “liberty” with “we want to be able to control YOUR personal life”.

More moronic right wingers

The Burnt Orange Report lampoons the rift between Senator Kay Hutchinson (R-Tx) and Governor Sarah Palin . Hutchinson is clearly conservative, but at least she lives in the existing universe.

Video treats:

From Daily Kos TV: Rep. Boehner’s podium pounding.

A Quip on Mathematics Education

I am not going to name names nor will I name the specific meeting I attended.

But this weekend, I was reminded of the vast, vast, vast chasm that lies between:

1. Masters level students at small “directional” level universities and Ph. D. students at research universities
2. Faculty who have mathematics Ph. D. degrees from research level universities and those who have “education oriented” level doctorates
3. Faculty who still attempt to publish mathematical research and those who have never have or those who have given up a long time ago.

Today’s talks weren’t a complete waste; the last talk was a winner (it talked about the basics of group cohomology).

But as for the others….

Well, I’ll give but one example.

There was a talk about the education of mathematics teachers. The following problem was brought up:

Farmer Green has harvested a total of 30,000 bushels of a crop over the past 10 years. He wants to show that he is a good farmer and so wants to make a table of his yearly harvest so that the crop harvest increased by the same amount each year.

She asked for comments about the problem and I pointed out that we needed initial conditions. She asked “is that necessary” and many of those in attendance sang out “no”. I just looked at my colleague with disbelief…of course the answer is “yes”.

Here is why:

If is the harvest in the first year and is the change from year to year, we have:

Which yields

(note: I used the formula to obtain the term.)

Hence you have two unknowns: and one equation; hence an infinite number of solutions. I was completely disgusted that so many “math teachers” couldn’t see this.

So if you want to see one of the things that is wrong about mathematics education, well….judge for yourself.

Note: the presenter understood the issue (I think); I am ragging on those in the audience.