Sarah Palin, Tea Party and other Entertainment…

Tea party in Peoria. Yeah, it is 18 minutes of your life that you won’t get back; pretty boring. My first reaction to this: “I hope someone that had a defibrillator”.

Sure, a new poll came out about the tea party demographics. I had to chuckle at the oft repeated claim that they are “more educated” than most Americans: in fact 37 percent have a college degree (25 percent for all Americans) and 14 percent have a post-graduate degree (10 percent of all Americans). Meh. Someone with an ACT of 22 who cobbles together a business degree and perhaps a MBA from a degree mill would be “more educated” than the average American and also have an inflated opinion of what they know about the world, the Constitution, etc.

(video: hat tip to Billy Dennis)

Sarah Palin: if you didn’t get tickets to hear her speak near Peoria (Washington, near East Peoria), you can get your own quotes right here! Yeah, I am a bit depressed that I live in such a hick-village that a visit from Gov. Palin is front page news.

Humor
Some people should NOT be parents:

15 April 2010: Late Afternoon

This will mostly be a bunch of interesting links:

Peoria: Peoria Pundit points us to one of those “how good is your city surveys” which ranks Peoria 69 out of 200 cities in terms of “best places for business and careers”. The survey is from Forbes.com. Billy notes that these surveys are often dismissed, unless the rankings are favorable.

Science
A large fireball was seen in the sky over some midwestern cities. Follow the link to see the video and to read the article; meteor shower perhaps? Hat tip: Dude Spellings.

In the field of medicine (via 3-quarks daily): scientists are now able to transplant the genetic material in the nucleus of a fertilized human egg into another fertilized egg, without carrying over mitochondria. This is good news for those who might be prone to diseases caused my mutation of the mitochondria DNA. Source article: here (Nature).

Scientists have also made a recent advance in cancer research:

Researchers say they have discovered a new molecular player in determining whether breast cancer cells will spread through the body: long strands of RNA known as lincRNAs that turn off tumor suppressor genes. The finding may lead to a test for predicting metastasis as well as drugs for preventing it.

(via: 3-quarks daily)

Dr. Andy has also contributed a couple of interesting links, one of which is here (the other will get it’s own post):

One of these links talks about a type of bacteria found in the gut of Japanese people: it helps them digest foods like seaweed. But this bacteria is not generated from the human body itself; rather it came from what Japanese people ate and, yes, it can be passed from a mother to her infant. The whole article is interesting; here is a part of it:

Hehemann began with Zobellia, whose genome had been recently sequenced. This bacterium turned out to be the proud owner of no fewer than five porphyran-breaking enzymes. This group was entirely new to science, they are all closely related and they clearly originated in marine bacteria. Their unique ability earned them the name of ‘porphyranases’ and the genes that encode them were named PorA, PorB, PorC and so on.

They are clearly not alone. Using his quintet as a guide, Hehemann found six more genes with similar abilities. Five of them hailed from the genomes of other marine bacteria – that was hardly surprising. But the sixth source was a far bigger shock: the human gut bacterium Bacteroides plebeius. What was an oceanic gene doing in such an unlikely species? Previous studies provided a massive clue. Until then, six strains of B.plebeius had been discovered, and all of them came from the bowels of Japanese people.

Nori is, by far, the most likely source of bacteria with porphyran-digesting genes. It’s the only food that humans eat that contains any porphyrans and until recently, Japanese chefs didn’t cook nori before eating it. Any bacteria that lingered on the green fronds weren’t killed before they could mingle with gut bacteria like B.plebius. Ruth Ley, who works on microbiomes, says, “People have been saying that gut microbes can pick up genes from environmental microbes but it’s never been demonstrated as beautifully as in this paper.”

In fact, B.plebeius seems to have a habit of scrounging genes from marine bacteria. Its genome is rife with genes that are more closely related to their counterparts in marine species like Zobellia than to those in other gut microbes. All of these borrowed genes do the same thing – they break down the complex carbohydrates of marine algae.

To see whether this was a common event, Hehemann screened the gut bacteria of 13 Japanese volunteers for signs of porphyranases. These “gut metagenomes” yielded at least seven potential enzymes that fitted the bill, along with six others from another group with a similar role. On the other hand, Hehemann couldn’t find a single such gene among 18 North Americans. “We were trying at lunch to think about where you might see patterns this clean,” says Ley. “You’d have to find another group of people with a very specialised diet. Because this involved seaweed and marine bacteria, it might be one of the cleanest demonstrations you’d get.”

15 April 2010: Mid Day Humor

No, I am not talking about the local Tea Party rally nor about Sarah Palin’s upcoming visit to a nearby town. I am talking about really funny videos:

(hat tip: Randazza)

Given the recent “butt slapping” flap at Ball State (and my love of seeing a big butted woman bending over):

15 April 2010

I will go to the gym (university) in a few moments and do ab work and the hand bike; I’d like to rest the shoulder from swimming today as it is oh-so-slightly sore. Since swimming is all that is left to me, I am being ultra conservative.

Injury: last night, no real pain though there was “almost” the onset of it.

Update: rotator cuff exercises (boring), 40 minutes on the arm bike (10 mile intervals), then an easy 1 mile walk; I slowed down when I started to get the slightest whiff of a “tug” behind the knee. 16 minutes of bliss!

Alas, I still have a 50K mind but only “1 slow mile” knees…at this time.

Posts:
Check out this collection of political cartoons. Here is a sample:

Other posts
Yes, though some are desperately trying to claim otherwise, American scientists are more atheistic (as a group) than the public in general. We see this at the very elite levels (National Academy) and at a high levels (though slightly less elite). They are also more Democratic than the public and far less Republican; more liberal and far less conservative.

Senator Coburn I can’t believe that I am defending him here. But yes, when he complained about Fox News talking about the government hauling people to jail for non-compliance with the health care mandate, he was right and Bill O’Reilly was wrong.

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14 April 2010: Science and Religion

Frogs
See this cute little frog?

He and his friends may well be extinct:

Meet Atelopus coynei, a “harlequin frog” from the Andean rainforests of Ecuador. And yes, it’s named after me. [...]

Sadly, A. coynei may be no more. It is on the IUCN’s red list of species, and is listed as “critically endangered.” It hasn’t been seen since 1984 and, given the pace of deforestation in western Ecuador and the spread of the amphibian-killing fungal disease chytridiomycosis, may well be extinct.

Too sad…it is so adorable.

Medicine:

Stress: makes it easier for cancer to take hold!

A little stress can do us good—it pushes us to compete and innovate. But chronic stress can increase the risk of diseases such as depression, heart disease and even cancer. Studies have shown that stress might promote cancer indirectly by weakening the immune system’s anti-tumor defense or by encouraging new tumor-feeding blood vessels to form. But a new study published April 12 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation shows that stress hormones, such as adrenaline, can directly support tumor growth and spread.

For normal cells to thrive in the body, “they need to be attached to their neighbors and their surroundings,” says the study’s lead author Anil Sood from The University of Texas M. D, Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Cells that detach from their environment undergo a form of programmed cell death called anoikis. “But cancer cells have come up with way to bypass this effect—they avoid anoikis,” Sood says. This allows cancer cells to break off from tumors, spread throughout the body (in blood or other fluid) and form new tumors at distant sites—a process called metastasis. So Sood wondered: Could stress affect anoikis? “It surprised us that this biology hadn’t been studied before,” he notes. “Stress influences so many normal physiological processes. Why wouldn’t it be involved in tumor progression?”

Sood and his team first studied the effects of stress hormones on human ovarian cancer cell anoikis in culture. Cells that were exposed to stress hormones were protected from self destruction—meaning they could survive without being anchored to their surroundings. The stress hormone treatment activated a protein called FAK (focal adhesion kinase), which is known to protect cells from anoikis. Inhibiting FAK reversed the effects.

But real tumors behave differently than cancer cells in vitro, so Sood and his team extended their exciting findings into a mouse model of cancer. After receiving a transplant of ovarian cancer cells, mice were restrained to cause stress. As such, their tumors grow more quickly. Isoproterenol (a drug similar to adrenaline) had the same accelerative effect. The tumor-feeding effects of behaviorally and pharmacologically induced stress, both of which were mediated by FAK, were inhibited by the adrenaline-blocking drug propranolol.
[...]

(hat tip: 3-quarks daily)

Religion
Can one be good “without god”? I think so as do most atheists. In fact, if you are being good just to avoid the “wrath of god”, are you really “being good”?

(hat tip: Proud Atheists)

Christians who talk religion with us: some have gotten discouraged; here is one Christian’s take as to why:

[...]

4. Atheists have no interest in nuance. They don’t pay any regard to context.

Nathan calls us out for “quote-mining” the Bible, among other things. That’s just ridiculous. We quote Bible passages — in context and out of it — as much as pastors do. If you want to call us out for taking a passage out of context, I want to see you calling out pastors for doing the same thing because they do it all the time.

You have a problem with us taking something literally? Tell that to the approximately 100,000,000 Christians who believe the same thing. Are they good Christians or foolish ones? What do you say to them?

The Bible’s full of good ideas and bad ideas (mostly bad ideas), true statements and untrue statements (mostly untrue statements). Don’t whine just because we happen to be the people who aren’t afraid to point them out.
[...]

7. You’ll almost never change anybody’s mind online.

Not if you make bad points, you won’t. And most Christian commenters make absurd claims that won’t win anyone over to their side.

However, people who have something intelligent to say, with the ability to back it up, can really make a big dent in someone’s preconceived notions.

I don’t know what the number is of people who have become atheists — or who have become more active about their atheism or who have come out of the closet for the first time — because they read atheist blogs online.

My guess, though, is that the number is not trivial.

8. Your best bet in these situations is just to bring everything back to a question of the historicity of Jesus and his resurrection, this, after all, is the lynchpin of our belief.

Many Christians have tried and failed. Books have been written and debunked. If that’s all you have to offer, then you have nothing.

Again, it goes back to the point that Mano Singham makes; if your deity affects this universe empirically, then present convincing evidence of this effect. Otherwise, I am not interested.

Sure, some theists object to subjecting the existence of supernatural effects to scientific study. But that is too bad:

Here’s the point. Virtually every religion that is practiced by real people (as opposed to that espoused by theologians like Karen Armstrong) makes claims that God interacts with the world. That is, most religions are theistic rather than deistic. And to the extent that a faith is theistic, it is amenable to empirical study and falsification—that is, it’s susceptible to science.

Here is a short (and very incomplete) list of all the ways that science already has tested the supernatural assertions of faith:

Surf to the link to see this partial list.

Here is another example: the evidence shows that evolution itself was directionless.

14 April 2010: Politics and President Obama

President Obama

How do you think that the President is doing? You can vote on this poll here.

If you are wondering: I gave him a B for environmental issues and the economy; yes the economy is still bad but he appears to have stopped the slide (admittedly, President Bush took the first necessary steps). He also got B’s from me on Iraq and Afghanistan and social issues (Ledbetter bill: I like that). I gave him an A for terrorism fighting and for health care reform. I gave him a “C” for bipartisanship as I felt he tried too hard to be bipartisan.

You hear people yapping about him. He still remains the most popular national politician.

And, like it or not, he leads every single Republican in a head to head vote, even when one factors in the fact that the Democrats will be weaker in 2012 than they are now. Still, 2 plus years is an eternity in politics; remember that President H. W. Bush was polling at 90+ percent after the first Iraq war; he ended up losing to someone who was polling in the 20 percent range at one time during the election, trailing not only him but also 3′rd party candidate Ross Perot!

Of course, some of the more unreasonable Republicans make all sorts of unreasonable remarks about him. I think that some conservatives just can’t wrap their brains around that the fact that the rest of the country isn’t like them.

Economics
You’ve heard the “fact” that 47 percent of Americans aren’t going to pay federal income tax. That is true; but there are other taxes including capital gains, payroll, state taxes, etc.

Yes, Republicans are attempting to sell their opposition to the Democrat’s financial reform bill as “taking up for main street against wall street.” Really. Of course, that is absurd:

So back to the issue at hand. When McConnell talks about “the tax payer,” at least for the first $50 billion, he means the banks. And when he says “let them fail,” he means don’t seize and dismantle. As far as “institutionalizing” bailouts, a more accurate characterization is probably that the bill establishes a protocol for rescue scenarios. But that doesn’t mean it incentivizes them.

(the 50 billion fund refers to a fund that the banks pay into; the Republicans are attempting to argue that the mere fact of having this fund means that the big banks will be more protected than the smaller ones; hence creditors would have more incentive to invest with them…)

Liberal versus conservative

Here is an article that discusses the differences. Note that at this time, conservatives are far more comfortable with open violence if they don’t get their way.

Note that some conservative states are thinking about forming a state militia to fight the overreaching federal government! When was the last time you saw a liberal state doing a similar thing when a conservative was in power?
(remember: I am talking about the United States)

14 April 2010: Education Posts

These posts make me appreciate the students that I now teach:

Here are some student e-mail messages sent to professors. Here is a sample:

i have been writing for the hole last 3 weeks and i started in a single line and when i double space,it become like 4 pages,so is that oky or i go over it once again, i wonder what i should do,bcouse the instraction is 2-3 page.

Here is a case of blatant disrespect:

So, one semester I taught in a computer lab. Now, on the first day, I spotted the schedule outside the room and noticed that I was not the only instructor assigned to teach in that room. In fact, easily half of the schedule was populated by devoted classes, with the other half being open lab time. No problem, right? I mean, the very nice lab proctor even put a big sign outside the classroom door EVERY SINGLE PERIOD to warn everyone away.
[...]
Until the day I encountered Repellent Reggie. Reggie walked into my class just as it was starting. This was like in week 3, and I still didn’t know everyone (because, you know, some kids think the first few weeks are optional and shit), so I watched Reggi walk in, sit at a computer, and start happily typing away. I made my little pre-class announcement about logging off personal business, asking anyone not enrolled to leave, etc. and Reggie kept typing away. I was busy making announcements, and the regular flakes often took an extra 10 minutes to get into class mode, so I thought little of it. At least, I thought nothing of it until I started my little pre-assignment lecture. I started quizzing the students on the material they needed (you know, getting all Socratic on their asses) and Reggie didn’t look at me once as he typed away as if I wasn’t even there.

So, I called on him to answer a question I posed. He looked stunned. I asked again. He stammered that he wasn’t enrolled in the class. I rolled my eyes. The class erupted in laughter. Reggie looked pissed. Reggie made no move to leave so I told him this was a classroom, pointed to the board with the note that this was class time and not lab time, wondered aloud why he ignored me when I told all people not enrolled in the class to leave, and even pointed out that there was a sign and a time-table outside that he ignored. He had this look of utter disgust on his face that just pissed me off. And yet he still didn’t move! So I told him to gather his stuff and get out, that he couldn’t stay here. I then went back to lecturing as he SLOWLY gathered his shit.

As he left, he called me an asshole and slammed the door behind him.

I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that. But I wouldn’t have done this either:

Neo-Nazi Sentenced

Those who have known me for several years and have followed my blog probably remembered my run in with a neo-Nazi.

This guy has been convicted (of other incidents) and will be going to jail.

I should point out that he didn’t go to jail for this flier; that was in the realm of free speech. He went to jail for making threats to others.

Bill White was convicted of two counts of making threats to harm people and one count of intimidation.

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14 April 2010: Fails

Fails

I thought that my car was messy. Now, not so much.

One of the worse parenting fails: some people just shouldn’t be parents:

14 April 2010 Part I (athletic stuff)

Workout notes Due to a slightly sore right shoulder, I got to the gym at 6:30 and did my rotator cuff exercises. Yes, they eat up about 10 minutes and they are annoying. But I did them on both sides; these will be essential now that I changed up my swimming.

I’ll also have to pay more attention to my hand position when I lift; more dumbbell and less barbell (except for my first love: the bench press).

I did some abs and 5:30 worth of yoga head stand; that is getting easier and easier. I also did some pigeon to stretch my piriformis. Old age is a bear!

Swim: 2200 yards: 500 super easy, 5 x 100 fist on the 2, then 5 x 200 on the 3:30 (3:15, 13, 18, 15, 15), 200 back to cool down.
Yeah, the pull buoy and “come to a stop, turn around and start from a still position without a push off” is very annoying but it is better than not swimming at all.

Injury: I did have a rough spot during my sleep (11 pm; pain woke me up) but then it calmed down. That is still an improvement over last week.

Goals
I’ve had some time to think it over; so I’ll set some goals:

Trail racing
I haven’t decided if I want to start mixing in some running with my trail events but here are some goals:

short term: be able to finish two 50K events: Farmdale and Mc-Not-Again (October). I should be able to walk and meet the cut-offs.

long term: finish another 100 miler; I might have to work up to adding some running to make the cut-offs. Maybe McNaughton 2011?

Road running/walking:

walking 5:10 marathon walk.

running Break 24 for the 5K run. I know: pathetic. But this will be a challenge. The one confounding factor: I probably cannot train specifically for this goal if I am to meet my trail and marathon walk goals. I am willing to forgo this one.

Swimming
Break 16 minutes for the 1000 yard free. I hit 15:53 in 2008; I am not that far away (if I could push off of the wall).

Break 1:30 for the Big Shoulders 5K (back up goal: sub 1:30 for the 5500 yard pool swim)
I did 1:36 in 2008 when I wasn’t as strong as I am now. This will be a challenge and if I “fail” with, say, a 1:33, I won’t be too broken hearted.

Weight lifting
1. 225 x 1 for the bench press. I am 15 pounds away.
2. Bodyweight x 10 (say 185 x 10). Right now I am at 175 x 8. Now if I drop down to 175 and get it 10 times, that will be fine!

Note: my lifetime PB of 310 really isn’t in reach; I did that in 1985 at a body weight of 226. I am unwilling to gain enough weight to have a realistic shot at this.