Morning Joe Health Care Discussion

The first 75 seconds of this are almost accurate. Note that 60 votes is required to end a filibuster and there is nothing in our history that says it is appropriate to filibuster everything (as the Republicans have). Also note that the House Republicans have used the “deemed passed” rule too.

Oh yes, the CBO score on this bill is pretty good.

Barbara in Vagina Monologues

I’ve written about the play here; this is the second time Barbara has played the Down There lady.

And of course, my wife is a natural ham; she really gets into her acting and in my (highly biased) opinion she did an excellent job.

The previous time, she played the “Down There Lady” as being southern. This time, she was a bit more region neutral. The idea was this: her character was haunted by an experience on an early date: she got some unexpected sexual arousal vaginal discharge when she was kissed; this lead to her shutting down her sexuality for the rest of her life.

I enjoyed the production; the only part that made me uncomfortable is that, while they (correctly) stood against the sexual abuse of women, they glorified it (or seemed to) in the “cootchie-snortcher” girl segment in which a 16 year old girl spent the weekend with a 24 year old lesbian who “introduced” (initiated?) her to lesbian sex and self gratification. This reminded me of the Man/Boy Love Association type of thing.

Of course, this may have been “reporting” but it sure seemed to come across as “approval”. Here is a take on it:

One particularly questionable monologue deals with a 16-year-old girl who learns to love her genitals and, by extension, herself after a sexual encounter with a 24-year-old woman. In the original version of the play, the girl was 13 and the monologue included the statement, “If it was rape, it was a good rape.” This segment has repeatedly caused controversy, and Ensler has toned it down in response to criticism.

Yet even with the changes, we are talking about a 24-year-old seducing a 16-year-old after plying her with alcohol. This would most likely be a crime under Massachusetts state law (though the law is somewhat confusing, variously setting the age of consent at 16 or 18 depending on the circumstances). Does anyone think that a high school or a college would produce such a play, or that feminist groups would endorse it, if it condoned a 24-year-old man having sex with a 16-year-old girl?

But there was a good deal that was positive; the story of comfort women was told (though the story was dated; the women said that they were in their 70′s to 90′s and now all of them would be at least in the mid 80′s) and the brutality against women in some of the African wars (e. g., the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo) was denounced.

Of course, our stuffed frogs had to get in on the act; I made a small stage for them (the smaller frogs are female). Barbara then cut out some “scripts” for them:

Dick Morris Versus Intrade

Dick Morris says that we don’t have the votes:

From a top level source in the House comes the news that the Democrats are still short of the 216 votes they need to pass Obamacare. They have decided, however, to go for broke on Sunday and attempt to pass it whether or not they have enough support. They feel that only by forcing a vote can the force members off the fence. They hope that by employing all means at their disposal, they can round up enough votes for passage. But, if they don’t have the votes, they will allow the measure to be defeated. One source called it a “suicide run.”

What does INTRADE say?

We’ll see who is right.

Note: I got a call that said that there is a rally in Peoria at 5:30 at Rep. Schock’s office. We won’t be able to flip him but this might put indirect pressure on some blue-dog holdouts.

What Does this Say about Me?

Workout notes 2200 yards swimming. 1000 warm up: (250 splits): 4:27, 4:13, 4:08, 4:07 (16:55). Guess when a lady in another lane decided to swim “with” me?
Then 10 x 50 (25 free, 25 back) on 1:10, 4 x 25 fly, 400 IM in 8:06, 200 drills (fins).

This is the last day of spring break; so I’ll get back to work this afternoon and grade a bit.

What does this say about me?
I follow several blogs and I’ve discussed my favorite ones. These are my favorite blogs which have offended many people at one time or another! No…none of them are racist, sexist or anything else; nevertheless they draw the ire of others.

Why Evolution is True: evidently poor attempts at science writing disgusts many scientists. But this article discusses epigenetics which now is taken to mean (roughly speaking) “change that is not encoded in DNA that is passed on to offspring.” (example)

Mano Singham: has a nice series on the Big Bang; yes he has been told that his writing offends.

Paul Krugman: his articles draw ire as well; however he pretty much says what he thinks, whether critical of the Obama administration or not.

Legal Satyricon: it is easy to see why this blog offends others (but I love it). Yes, at times, he attacks people that I approve of, even when he mostly agrees with their policies and they are following the rules.

Hey, there is a place for purity trolls.

Then I recently started following this blog, which offends many because it regards “unbelief” as a good thing. The author has an interesting selection of topics and writes well.

Then again, I happen to like Richard Dawkins.

19 March 2010

Workout notes Perhaps an easy swim after this. I hope to lift hard tomorrow and swim long on Sunday.
Injury note: no pain last night; I wonder if this is because of the gentle walking I did yesterday at the airport.

Politics
Joe Biden at the RTCA dinner. Zingers: on Dick Morris: “When Dick Morris is quick to point our every time I put my foot in my mouth, well, Dick, at least it’s my foot. “

(hat tip: Ministry of Truth at Daily Kos)

Education I can’t believe that Randazza fell for this. Yes, private schools can get away with lower spending per pupil rates but there are many reasons for this. For example, if you allowed for the public schools to cherry pick who they let in, their rates per pupil would drop. Surf to the comments; there are some excellent responses.

But Randazza also points us toward other articles, such as this one about the recent ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance, which, in its current form, contains the phrase “One Nation Under God”; the original one did not:

Here is a bit from the “Not a Potted Plant” post on this court decision:

First, they said that the words “under God” were not intended by Congress to be religious, but rather to be patriotic. Really? Consider the Pledge as it was first enacted into law in 1892:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Now, consider the Pledge after its modification in 1954:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Does the modified Pledge contain any more patriotic content than the original Pledge? I submit that it does not. Indeed, after 1954, the loyalty of the Pledger is split between America and God, and ultimately, God prevails and not America.

Second, the majority in the Newdow case claimed that no one is forced to recite the Pledge. Bullshit. As I’ve demonstrated above with my personal anecdote, adults feel pressure to recite the Pledge even when it is obviously not mandatory upon them to do so. When an authority figure and all your peers are reciting the pledge, it takes a truly exceptional child to resist and not conform.

Third, the modified Pledge obviously endorses religion over nonreligion. By explicitly acknowledging God’s sovereignty over the United States, it tells everyone that to be American is to submit to the will of God. To be American is to believe in God. Indeed, the dissent in Newdow makes very explicit that the historical context of the modification to the Pledge — which was affirmed in 2004 by Congress — was that to be American was to be religious; the two were inextricably intertwined such that the phrase “atheist American” was thought to be a contradiction in terms.

There are seven more points there. To me, point three really drives it home.

Speaking of faith, deities and the like:
Daniel Dennett talks about the number of clergy who are, at most, agnostic. This really isn’t a surprise; in fact, many of the priests I’ve spoken with are all but agnostic. The common joke is “the believers are in the pews and the agnostics are at the pulpit.”

Is the Bible more violent than the Koran? In this NPR article, scholars debate this:

Violence in the Quran, he and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

“By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane,” he says. “Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide.”

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: “And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them,” God says through the prophet Samuel. “But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

“In other words,” Jenkins says, “Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God’s law if you do not.”

But here is the “money quote”:

El-Ansary says we are seeing more religious violence from Muslims now because the Islamic world is far more religious than is the West. Still, Jenkins says Judeo-Christian cultures shouldn’t be smug. The Bible has plenty of violence.

“The scriptures are still there, dormant, but not dead,” he says, “and they can be resurrected at any time. Witness the white supremacists who cite the murderous Phineas when calling for racial purity, or an anti-abortion activist when shooting a doctor who performs abortions.

Superstition is simply no good.

By the way, I have a hard time taking belief in magic/miracles seriously. How do you see this story? That is how I see your miracles:

see more Epic Fails

For the Nerd in Me (18 March 2010)

Workout notes I took Olivia back to the airport today so I didn’t swim; instead I lifted weights when I got back; I also did some yoga. Highlights: bench press: 10 x 135, 10 x 155, 9 x 170, 3.5 x 185 (so close on rep 4).

Rick Stalling (retired psychology professor) remarked that I had “become a weakling”.

Science Link of the Day

This is from Why Evolution is True. It discusses the fact that some brown bear types are actually more closely related to polar bears (via DNA) than they are related to other brown bears. Coyne goes on to talk about this “classification problem” and what sort of DNA can be used for this classification purpose and which kind can lead to misleading results.

I admit that I don’t understand some of the basic terms; this is a good reason for me to learn some life science!

Speaking of descendants: the modern dog came from the Middle Eastern gray wolf (that is the theory):

Modern dogs are descended from wolves, but the question has been: which wolves? Now, scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles say they have the answer. By comparing the DNA from both dogs and wolves, the UCLA researchers say the first place that domesticated dogs called home was somewhere in the Middle East.

Robert Wayne, who led the research team, says he was somewhat surprised by the result. “Previous papers have suggested it was East Asia,” he says. But Wayne says those papers focused on a small subset of DNA called mitochondrial DNA, instead of looking across all 2.4 billion letters that make up the dog genome.

To come up with their results, Wayne and his colleagues studied DNA from more than 200 wild gray wolves. “We looked at wolf populations in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia and from China,” he says. In each case, they sought out and found genetic markers that were unique to these different wolf populations. So, for example, there were some markers that were only found in Chinese wolves, and others only found in Middle Eastern wolves.

Then they analyzed DNA from more than 900 dogs from 85 breeds, and looked to see which of the wolf markers dogs most closely resembled. It turns out that most dogs shared markers unique to Middle Eastern wolves, although there were some dog breeds that were closer to other wolf populations. [...]

Yes, this isn’t settled but it is progress.

More science a larger object is made to show “quantum effects”:

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Andrew Cleland at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team cooled a tiny metal paddle until it reached its quantum mechanical ‘ground state’ — the lowest-energy state permitted by quantum mechanics. They then used the weird rules of quantum mechanics to simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still. The experiment shows that the principles of quantum mechanics can apply to everyday objects as well as as atomic-scale particles.

The work is simultaneously being published online today in Nature and presented today at the American Physical Society’s meeting in Portland, Oregon1. [...]

Cleland and his team took a more direct measure of quantum weirdness at the large scale. They began with a a tiny mechanical paddle, or ‘quantum drum’, around 30 micrometres long that vibrates when set in motion at a particular range of frequencies. Next they connected the paddle to a superconducting electrical circuit that obeyed the laws of quantum mechanics. They then cooled the system down to temperatures below one-tenth of a kelvin.

At this temperature, the paddle slipped into its quantum mechanical ground state. Using the quantum circuit, Cleland and his team verified that the paddle had no vibrational energy whatsoever. They then used the circuit to give the paddle a push and saw it wiggle at a very specific energy.

Next, the researchers put the quantum circuit into a superposition of ‘push’ and ‘don’t push’, and connected it to the paddle. Through a series of careful measurements, they were able to show that the paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating simultaneously.

Dang, now I want to learn some quantum mechanics! Life is too short and my brain is too underpowered!

Math link of the day. Ok, this is from Sandwalk, but this is about a test for college undergraduates. Some of these questions are easy for me; others I’d have to think about just a bit. But math nerds will enjoy some of these; a few require some knowledge of calculus or advanced calculus.

Politics: a cool tool to compare presidential approval ratings:

A John McCain campaign ad:

What Newsmax and Dick Morris readers worry about:

Palin does particle physics…(satire: fun)

More Politics Yes, President Obama misspoke and said “3000 percent” instead of “3000 dollars”:

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don’t look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help millions of people who can’t afford the cost now.

Listening to Obama pitch his plan, you might not realize that’s how it works.

Visiting a Cleveland suburb this week, the president described how individuals and small businesses will be able to buy coverage in a new kind of health insurance marketplace, gaining the same strength in numbers that federal employees have.

“You’ll be able to buy in, or a small business will be able to buy into this pool,” Obama said. “And that will lower rates, it’s estimated, by up to 14 to 20 percent over what you’re currently getting. That’s money out of pocket.”

And that’s not all.

Obama asked his audience for a show of hands from people with employer-provided coverage, what most Americans have.

“Your employer, it’s estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent,” said the president, “which means they could give you a raise.”

A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.[...]

A report for the Business Roundtable, an association of big company CEOs, was the source for the claim that employers could save $3,000 per worker on health care costs, the White House said.

Issued in November, the report looked generally at proposals that Democrats were considering to curb health care costs, concluding they had the potential to significantly reduce future increases.

But the analysis didn’t consider specific legislation, much less the final language being tweaked this week. It’s unclear to what degree the bill that the House is expected to vote on within days would reduce costs for employers.

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of earlier Senate legislation suggested savings could be fairly modest.

It found that large employers would see premium savings of at most 3 percent in 2016, compared with what their costs would have been without the legislation. That would be more like a few hundred dollars instead of several thousand.

The claim that people buying coverage individually would save 14 percent to 20 percent comes from the same budget office report, prepared in November for Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. But the presidential sound bite fails to convey the full picture.

The budget office concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they’d reach without the legislation. That’s mainly because policies in the individual insurance market would provide more comprehensive benefits than they do today.

(psst: the Republicans did nothing on this issue when they controlled things)

Best Student Excuse Ever

Via Rate Your Students:

I have multiple personalities, and the personality who took the exam is not the one that sits in lecture.

On this condition: I’d agree to “start over” on health care reform

Workout notes 4000 yards: 1000 slow (18:06), 5 x 100 drill/swim (fins) on 2 (25 front, 25 free, 25 3g, 25 swim), 10 x 50 fist on 1 (50-53), 5 x (25 side, 25 free, 25 side, 25 free) on 2 (1:50-1:56), 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on 1:05, 5 x 100 IM on 2:15, 500 in 8:23 (100 paddle, 100 free, 100 paddle, 200 free); raced a woman who was swimming with zoomers

Injury: still cramping up at times.

Health care reform

Frogs to the Recuse: Artifical Photosynthesis

Really.

n natural photosynthesis, plants take in solar energy and carbon dioxide and then convert it to oxygen and sugars. The oxygen is released to the air and the sugars are dispersed throughout the plant — like that sweet corn we look for in the summer. Unfortunately, the allocation of light energy into products we use is not as efficient as we would like. Now engineering researchers at the University of Cincinnati are doing something about that.

Research Assistant Professor David Wendell, student Jacob Todd and College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Carlo Montemagno co-authored the paper, based on research in Montemagno’s lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Their work focused on making a new artificial photosynthetic material which uses plant, bacterial, frog and fungal enzymes, trapped within a foam housing, to produce sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide.

Foam was chosen because it can effectively concentrate the reactants but allow very good light and air penetration. The design was based on the foam nests of a semi-tropical frog called the Tungara frog, which creates very long-lived foams for its developing tadpoles.

“The advantage for our system compared to plants and algae is that all of the captured solar energy is converted to sugars, whereas these organisms must divert a great deal of energy to other functions to maintain life and reproduce,” says Wendell. “Our foam also uses no soil, so food production would not be interrupted, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments, like the exhaust from coal-burning power plants, unlike many natural photosynthetic systems.”

Violence: we are LESS violent now than in the earlier days! Really.