General McChrystal; the other side.

Of course General McChrystal used poor judgment in what he said and the President had to fire him. But he is hardly the pure villain; a diary writer at Daily Kos points that out. I recommend it.

Afternoon quickies

Workout notes I got in a 51 minute 4 mile walk on the treadmill prior to going out to our fallen cherry tree and hacking at it. Now only a tall-ish stump remains standing; I now have to gather the sticks, etc.

Altruistic Behavior in Animals

Education: Talk about grade inflation:

One day next month every student at Loyola Law School Los Angeles will awake to a higher grade point average.
But it’s not because they are all working harder.

The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.

In the last two years, at least 10 law schools have deliberately changed their grading systems to make them more lenient. These include law schools like New York University and Georgetown, as well as Golden Gate University and Tulane University, which just announced the change this month. Some recruiters at law firms keep track of these changes and consider them when interviewing, and some do not.

Law schools seem to view higher grades as one way to rescue their students from the tough economic climate — and perhaps more to the point, to protect their own reputations and rankings. Once able to practically guarantee gainful employment to thousands of students every year, the schools are now fielding complaints from more and more unemployed graduates, frequently drowning in student debt.

I’d be surprised if some undergraduate institutions didn’t start doing this.

I understand; people want to compare grades at one institution versus another. I think that the University of Chicago Law School has a good solution:

One notable school has managed to maintain the integrity of its grades through an idiosyncratic grading rubric. The University of Chicago Law School grades its students on a scale of 155-186, a system so bizarre that employers are unlikely to try to match it against the 4.0 scale or letter grades used almost everywhere else.

I’d vote for that: let each school grade on some wacky scale.

Current Events If you are a general, you still can’t openly disrespect the Commander in Chief.

Thunderstorms…aging, cheating, etc.

and our cherry tree bit the dust. That means more yard work this week…yuck.

Workout notes yoga, then weights. Weights: seated military presses with dumbbells: 20 x 40, 15 x 45, 15 x 45, pull ups (varied hands: 10, 10, 10, 6, 5, 5, 4, 1 (yes, I can’t count. ), rows (dumbbell: 3 sets, machine, 3 sets), incline press (two sets), pull downs (3 sets), rotator cuff exercises.

I’ll walk over lunch (probably on the treadmill).

Age I was belly aching over aging. Then I read this about one of my Naval Academy classmates:

In today’s tight middleweight division competition at the unsanctioned Raw Unity Meet, 50-year-old David Ricks (198) came out on top.

Ricks defeated a strong performance by fellow 198, Arnold Coleman, when Ricks made and Coleman missed their final attempt deadlifts of 716 pounds. Ricks totaled 1,818 to Coleman’s 1,796 pounds.

Ricks’ total breaks the all-time record (without wraps) held by Ryan Celli of 1,807 pounds.

Canadian Jeremy Hamilton dominated the 220 class on his way to placing third overall. Hamilton totaled 1,813 pounds.

198
1. David Ricks (USAPL) – 655/446/716 – 1,818

This is a “no drugs, no special suits” meet. He still squats 665, benches 446 and deadlifts 716 at 50 years old.
So much for my excuses. Ok, this guy was our starting fullback and had one of the best physiques I’ve ever seen on a drug free male even while at Annapolis. He was just cut as if chiseled from marble.

Speaking of sports

So, what do I do post surgery? I’ve got some conflicting thoughts.
1. Judged racewalking. The cons: meets are so far to get to (6 hours of driving!), and I don’t know if my knee will straighten post surgery.

2. ultra walks: I like these but these take up lots of time and

3. running: I sure miss it at times. But will my knee tolerate it?

4. Just staying healthy and mixing 2 with 3: that is, do a few 5ks and a few marathon/50K walks with maybe a 24 hour to challenge me once in a while.

I’ll continue to swim as my primary “second” activity as I enjoy it.

Anyway, none of the above really matters until I find out what my knee will be like post-surgery.

Posts
I found this comment interesting:

I think it shows far more respect for the faithful to engage their arguments honestly and openly than to pat them on the back and say, “There, there—even though I don’t share your beliefs I won’t risk upsetting you by questioning them.”

That may be true, but it really depends on who you are talking to. Frankly, there are many who simply don’t enjoy thinking about ideas. That is why I think it is important to hang around like-minded individuals; not like minded in “having the same opinion” but like minded in that “thinking and honestly discussing ideas is good” type people.

Superstition: Yes, this sounds ridiculous:

“God said a curse would fall on a land which turned its back on him, and one consequence would be more tragic deaths at the hands of predatory animals.” – thus spake evangelist Bryan Fischer, referring to a recent deadly bear attack on a 70-year old man in Yellowstone National Forest. Earlier this year, Fischer made waves with his claim that a trainer at SeaWorld in Florida died from a Killer Whale attack because SeaWorld didn’t pay proper attention to Biblical scripture. Fischer is a confirmed scheduled speaker at the upcoming Family Research Council’s Voter Values Summit. Other confirmed speakers for the event are Mike Huckabee, and Republican Congressional Representatives Michelle Bachmann, and Mike Pence.

Though this might seem a bit over the edge to those unfamiliar with the contemporary Christian right it’s arguably the predominant belief, from the Christian Reconstructionist wing of the movement over through the more numerous charismatic evangelical camp, that all manner of disasters, from hurricanes and earthquakes, tornadoes and floods, murder and crime, economic downturns and stock market crashes, sickness and even death itself are divine vengeance, predictable outcomes of America’s failure to follow every last jot and tittle of Old Testament law.

But this is entirely consistent with Biblical beliefs (2 Kings, 2:23-24):

23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 25 And he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

Yes, many educated Christians and Jews just see this as folklore or perhaps a story to prove some point. But remember that, at least in the United States, there are millions who see this story as actual history!

(as an aside, the Annotated Skeptics Bible is a fun reference for stories like these)

Anyway, those who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible are really being as ridiculous as these people:

Nature Can an animal do immoral things or commit crimes?

University of Michigan primate behavioral ecologist John Mitani’s findings are published in the June 22 issue of Current Biology.

During a decade of study, the researchers witnessed 18 fatal attacks and found signs of three others perpetrated by members of a large community of about 150 chimps at Ngogo, Kibale National Park.

Then in the summer of 2009, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use the area where two-thirds of these events occurred, expanding their territory by 22 percent. They traveled, socialized and fed on their favorite fruits in the new region.

“When they started to move into this area, it didn’t take much time to realize that they had killed a lot of other chimpanzees there,” Mitani said. “Our observations help to resolve long-standing questions about the function of lethal intergroup aggression in chimpanzees.”

Mitani is the James N. Spuhler Collegiate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. His co-authors are David Watts, an anthropology professor at Yale University, and Sylvia Amsler, a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Amsler worked on this project as a graduate student at U-M.

Chimpanzees (along with bonobos) are humans’ closest living relatives. Anthropologists have long known that they kill their neighbors, and they suspected that they did so to seize their land.

“Although some previous observations appear to support that hypothesis, until now, we have lacked clear-cut evidence,” Mitani said. [...]

The bouts occurred when the primates were on routine, stealth “boundary patrols” into neighboring territory. Amsler, who conducted field work on this project described one of the attacks she witnessed far to the northwest of the Ngogo territory. She and a colleague were following 27 adult and adolescent males and one adult female.

“They had been on patrol outside of their territory for more than two hours when they surprised a small group of females from the community to the northwest,” Amsler said. “Almost immediately upon making contact, the adult males in the patrol party began attacking the unknown females, two of whom were carrying dependent infants.”

The Ngogo patrollers seized and killed one of the infants fairly quickly. They fought for 30 minutes to wrestle the other from its mother, but unsuccessfully. The Ngogo chimpanzees then rested for an hour, holding the female and her infant captive. Then they resumed their attack. [...]

Surf to the link to read more. Now of course, my little lead in was somewhat tongue in cheek; of course “crime” is a human term. But it does lead one to think “where does the concept of crime start to make sense in our past?”

Education Sure, educators should be held accountable. But how? After all, how well students do on standardized exams depends on many things, including the student’s home lives, innate abilities, etc. The quality of teaching is only one variable.

But when people are measured this way…well, this is going to happen:

The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary School outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850.

But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 24 in a scandal over test tampering.

The district said the educators had distributed a detailed study guide after stealing a look at the state science test by “tubing” it — squeezing a test booklet, without breaking its paper seal, to form an open tube so that questions inside could be seen and used in the guide. The district invalidated students’ scores.

Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.

Colorado passed a sweeping law last month making teachers’ tenure dependent on test results, and nearly a dozen other states have introduced plans to evaluate teachers partly on scores. Many school districts already link teachers’ bonuses to student improvement on state assessments. Houston decided this year to use the data to identify experienced teachers for dismissal, and New York City will use it to make tenure decisions on novice teachers.

No, I am NOT justifying cheating. (hat tip: Schneier’s security blog)

21 June 2010

Workout notes 11-1: 2000 yard swim; 5 x 100 on 2 warm up, 10 x (25 3g/25 free) on 1:10, 1000 in 17:32 (4:19/8:44/13:08), 200 back.
The shoulder was fine.
Then rotator cuff exercises, squats on the Smith Machine (2 x 10 with 135; 20 toe raises after each set), then 2 circuits of: vertical leg lifts, leg extensions, leg curls,, toe raises, butt push backs, vertical crunches, twists.

Then 3 mile walk on the treadmill in 37:55; 14 minute warm up mile.

Posts
Personal/Mathematics

I am in the frustrating part of my write up; the ideas are there, but as I write I find better ways to say things. Hence I have to do it again and again…until I am sick of the unforced revisions.

I am almost at that stage now.

Of course, when I work at home, my idiot neighbor is hammering away. At the office, there is major construction next door. I swear; there isn’t a quiet place on earth anywhere.

Football: Here is a list of the 10 worst NFL teams of all time. I’ve seen two of them play in person (1989 Cowboys, 2009 Rams); ironically, each game I saw was against the eventual Super Bowl Champion (49′ers and Saints respectively)

Humor

Korea: abnormal levels of radiation have been detected at the DMZ in Korea. No one knows for sure what caused it, but this is consistent with a nuclear accident at a reactor.

Driving: turn off your cell phone, please. As far as studies go:

Finally, empirical proof you can blame chatty 20-somethings for stop-and-go traffic on the way to work.

A new study confirms that the reaction time of cell phone users slows dramatically, increasing the risk of accidents and tying up traffic in general, and when young adults use cell phones while driving, they’re as bad as sleepy septuagenarians.

“If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone,” said University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer. “It’s like instantly aging a large number of drivers.”

The study was announced today and is detailed in winter issue of the quarterly journal Human Factors.

Cell phone distraction causes 2,600 deaths and 330,000 injuries in the United States every year, according to the journal’s publisher, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

The article goes on to say why this happens.

Official Pearls Before Swine Widget

George Carlin on today’s parents (NSFW)

This weekend I went to a 50′th wedding anniversary celebration with my wife. Part of the “entertainment” was listening to the grandkids screech…er…sing, much to the delight of the adoring parents. That is why I found this to be so funny…

20 June 2010 (am)

Workout notes I was just going to “grab bag” it; maybe walk a little, swim, lift. But when I got to the East Peoria trail and started strolling at 15 mpm I thought “I am enjoying this…why not” so I just kept it up. So total: 2:25 for 10 easy miles (1:14 out, 1:11 back) and it warmed up to 80 F, 67 percent humidity by the time I finished.

The knee hurt a little but not enough to detract from my enjoyment; and I saw a small garden snake on the path. It curled up in defense when I passed by it. My posture was better; the downside is that more people greet me when my head is up, and frankly I go to the trail to zone out. I prefer the coolness of the Chicago paths.

My technique was much better than yesterday; basically my “not trying to keep my knees straight” walking is really what counts for running (sans impact) and my slower, straighter (but realistically still not legal) walking is my current walking.

Sports Humor: this is a sight that I’ll never see during a race if I look over my shoulder, unless it is a multi loop course and I am getting lapped.

Posts

I love the Rat character.

This isn’t much of a “sale”, is it?

Mind Here is an interesting example at how people can miss details when they are focused on something else. This is why.

Perspective: yes, kids sometimes choke on hotdogs but it is still safe for them. After all, the kids are in far more danger when they take a car ride.

Superstition Ok, you have a massive oil spill doing lots of damage. So what do you do? Seek divine intervention?

While cleanup crews and technical teams continue efforts to stop crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana lawmakers are proposing a different approach: prayer.

State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to ask for God’s help dealing with the oil disaster.

“Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail,” state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week’s unanimous vote for the day of prayer. “It is clearly time for a miracle for us.”

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast “to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood.”

They don’t seem to be talking about prayer in the sense of “ok, let me center myself and see how I can help”. They seem to be asking for the suspension of the laws of nature on their behalf. That is nothing more than superstition, period.

More on the spill
Here is Senator Whitehouse’s floor speech. Notice how he takes regulators to task and points out how some of the regulations were “cut and paste” from other regions.

Speaking of regulators, this opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal talks about “regulatory capture”; this is the situation in which the regulators get so close to the industry that they are supposed to be regulating, they stop being hard on the industry and start tyring to make things easier on them rather than protecting the public:

The reason why those who see economic regulations as akin to tyranny often win policy debates is because they have a fiery argument with visceral appeal. Those who try to sell the virtues of the supervisory state tend to favor the passive voice. They don’t do fire. They do law review.

The situation ought to be the reverse today. We have just come through the most wrenching financial disaster in decades, brought about in no small part by either the absence of federal regulation or the amazing indifference of the regulators.

This is the moment for a ringing reclamation of the regulatory project. President Barack Obama is clearly the sort of man who could do it. But in a white paper his administration released on the subject last week, the bureaucratic mindset prevails.

The report uses bland, impersonal explanations for the current crisis. Regulatory agencies were ill-designed, we are told. Their jurisdictions overlapped. They had blind spots. They had been obsolete for years.

All of which is true enough.

What the report leaves largely unaddressed, however, is the political problem.

It was not merely structural problems that led certain regulators to nap through the crisis. The people who filled regulatory jobs in the past administration were asleep at the switch because they were supposed to be. It was as though they had been hired for their extraordinary powers of drowsiness.

The reason for that is simple: There are powerful institutions that don’t like being regulated. Regulation sometimes cuts into their profits and interferes with their business. So they have used the political process to sabotage, redirect, defund, undo or hijack the regulatory state since the regulatory state was first invented.

Surf to the link to read some more background.

International. Yes, we are still “accidentally” killing civilians. I can’t even imagine how furious I’d be if this were happening in my society to my friends and neighbors.

Civil liberties Yes, it really is against the law to film the police in some states (including mine!)

Fox News: another outrageous lie to fire up the yokels:

FOX accuses Obama of giving land back to Mexico Hotlist
by Dante Atkins
Digg this! Share this on Twitter – FOX accuses Obama of giving land back to MexicoTweet this submit to reddit Share This
Sat Jun 19, 2010 at 02:00:05 PM PDT

I was about to say that you can’t make this stuff up. But if you’re Fox News, you can make up absolutely anything that you like. Check out this glaring headline from the Website The Fox Nation:

So what is the real story?

I’ll let Media Matters take it from here. Ari Rabin-Havt, Vice-President for Research and Communications, sent a letter to Fox News demanding a correction of the record:

Dear Mr. Clemente:

I am writing to you to demand that you correct a glaring error made both on Fox News and on Fox’s website The Fox Nation.

The Fox Nation used the preposterous headline “Obama Gives Back Major Strip of AZ to Mexico” to trumpet a report about a closure of land in a national wildlife refuge in Arizona. During that America Live report, guest host Shannon Bream stated: “A massive stretch of Arizona now off limits to Americans. Critics say the administration is, in effect, giving a major strip of the Southwest back to Mexico.”

But according to Bonnie Swarbrick, who is the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, the “massive stretch” of land is about five miles square, it’s been closed since 2006, and it obviously hasn’t been given back to Mexico.

Swarbrick told Media Matters that the area in the refuge bordering Mexico was “closed in 2006 during the construction of a vehicle barrier.” Work on the vehicle barrier progressed into the construction of a 12-foot fence along the part of the refuge that borders Mexico, which is about seven miles long. The area has been kept closed “to allow the Border Patrol to do their work,” she said. Swarbrick added that the small strip of land that is closed makes up “less than 0.03 percent” of the refuge and said that the rest of the reserve is still open to the public.

So let’s recap. In 2006, the Bush Administration closed off a five-square-mile stretch of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge to the public to allow the Border Patrol to improve security. Owing to mission creep of sorts, this section stayed closed. And how does Fox interpret this? That President Obama is giving vast stretches of land back to Mexico.

Daily Kos: Bachmann update: horrible Bill O’Reilly media tragedy…

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Bill O’Reilly being right????

19 June 2010 posts

Wingnut Representatives: they just don’t get it.

Rep. Grayson’s ad:

DNC BP ad

Economics: Paul Krugman makes a very interesting point about conservatives:

There are many things to say about Alan Greenspan’s op-ed yesterday, none of them complimentary. But what struck me is the passage highlighted by Tim Fernholz:

Despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months—to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion—inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued. This is regrettable, because it is fostering a sense of complacency that can have dire consequences.

You know, some people might take the fact that what’s actually happening is exactly what people like me were saying would happen — namely, that deficits in the face of a liquidity trap don’t drive up interest rates and don’t cause inflation — lends credence to the Keynesian view. But no: Greenspan KNOWS that deficits do these terrible things, and finds it “regrettable” that they aren’t actually happening.

The triumph of prejudices over the evidence is a wondrous thing to behold. Unfortunately, millions of workers will pay the price for that triumph.

(emphasis mine)

Fox News: Watch Jon Stewart from at least 4 minutes onward. First, Fox News gets upset that the President invoked the standard deity toward the end of his BP speech (yes, I saw it as lame but necessary pandering to a superstitious public). But then, watch what they said the day before…they wanted him to PRAY FOR DIVINE INTERVENTION.

Bizarre: I agree with Sarah Palin on something policy related! Really!

Rep. Aaron Schock, IL-18. His attire in this photo is making waves; the photo has “gone viral”.

Education: to be blunt, when I assign grades, I pull out a spread sheet, look at the numbers, and I make it a point to hide the student names. I don’t see the names until I’ve assigned the grades. That isn’t true for every professor.

News of the bizarre:
A woman sues an airline because her silicone enhanced breasts didn’t have enough room on an airliner; during turbulence they crashed into the seat in front of her. Yes, there is a photo with the article. Hat tip: Randazza.

Bizarre: some educator evidently can’t count to six.

Crappy Neighbor: ok, merely an “annoying at times” neighbor. He saws, grinds and pounds nails all day long, almost every day. Yep, he is a retired blue collar guy. I’d love to have a neighborhood of retired librarians or book lovers; I doubt that this guy reads much.

Why do some hate President Obama?

A few days ago, I was in a discussion with a Republican on facebook about national issues; of course this guy doesn’t approve of the President’s job performance. That in and of itself isn’t the topic for this post; I understand that a conservative won’t like his policies. But another conservative jumped into the conversation and said this:

Obama is a disgrace. He is unqualified to be president as he and his clowns in the white house have shown for nearly 1 1/2 years. absolute embarrasment to the democratic part (or what is left of it anymore!)

I responded:

do you care to explain why you think that? This is an honest question; I am not going to argue with you, call you names, etc. If you’d like, you can send me a private message explaining why you think that.

I really wanted to know what this individual thought; exactly what was the President doing that he hated so much.
It turns out: not much. Read his response:

he is a community organizer (ala ACORN). he has shown through his track record the most liberal senetor while in chicago. he has quadrupled the debt in only one year. he has went against his campaign promise to be open book and non-partisan. within each of these there are 100 examples. i guess those who drink the obama, pelosi. reid cool aid never will get it. The rest of the nation does!

So let’s see. The first thing that he mentions is that he “is a community organizer” and mentions “ACORN”. Sure, ACORN had some internal corruption problems (mismanagement of funds, embezzlement by some members) though some stuff was overblown, exaggerated or just made up. But what I find baffling is that this person seemed to think that if ACORN had problems then “community organizing” is somehow bad.
That’s a bit like saying “charity X had corruption problems therefore all charities are bad”.

I swear; I thought that the fact that Barack Obama turned down the prospect of a well paying job to help people out was laudable. But not in the mind of this individual.

Next comment:

“he has shown through his track record the most liberal senetor while in chicago”

I am not sure if this person is referring to his State Senate record or his US Senate record, and I am not sure where the “most liberal” ranking came from. But I noticed that “Chicago” came up; that must be bad too. Sure, Illinois politics has had the reputation of being corrupt (well deserved) but again, there was no evidence of anything involving Barack Obama. But as you can see, some of what the President is hated for is more about what he is (community organizer from Chicago who is LIBERAL) than anything he has done).

“he has went against his campaign promise to be open book and non-partisan.”

Well, much of the negotiations for the major bills WERE on CPSAN as promised. He never said that he would be non-partisan but that he would reach out, and by any objective measure, he DID. Unfortunately, Republicans had the singular goal of breaking him. As far as other promises, here is a non-partisan look at how he is doing.

“he has quadrupled the debt in only one year.”

Of course, this is completely false. The National Debt is about 13 trillion dollars now and it was about 10.7 trillion dollars when he took office.

Of course, this individual may have been referring to some of the talk about the PROJECTIONS of what the national debt would be. But understand it isn’t that simple:

You remember Judd Gregg, the Republican senator from New Hampshire tapped by President Obama to be commerce secretary. He was one of Obama’s celebrated bipartisan Cabinet picks, but then withdrew his nomination in February, citing “irresolvable conflicts” with the Obama agenda.

Conflicts indeed.

This week, Gregg has appeared on several news programs lambasting Obama’s proposed 2010 budget, saying it runs up so much debt “it basically will bankrupt our children and our children’s children.”

In what has become a familiar talking point from Republican opponents, Gregg told Fox News on March 25 that Obama’s budget “doubles the (national) debt in five years, triples it in 10 years.”

To check the claim, we relied on an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, released on March 20. The CBO, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, projects that the national debt will go from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $11.8 trillion by the end of 2013; and to $17.3 trillion in 2019. By that count, Gregg’s claim of doubling the debt in five years, tripling it in 10 years, is correct. But we think that’s a little unfair.

In January, the CBO projected the one-year 2009 deficit at $1.2 trillion. Remember, that’s the 2009 fiscal year, which began in October 2008. That deficit was worse because of the recession, and grew because of a financial bailout plan in the fall. To be fair, we don’t think Obama’s record ought to be saddled with something that passed under President Bush.

In short, much of the growth to the national debt was due to things that happened before President Obama took office!

Note how this guy talks about “the rest of the country”. Here is the actual “poll of polls“. As I noted: his job approval numbers are in line with those of President Reagan and President Clinton at this stage of their administration.

But this person is hardly alone in having bizarre beliefs. This Daily Kos poll (Research 2000 did the polling) actually ASKED Republicans what they thought. The results were incredible:

Markos Moulitsas and Research 2000 have attempted to take it, and the results are up now. Among them:

- Only 24 percent of Republicans say that ACORN definitely did not “steal the 2008 election.” Twenty-one percent say the community group did; 55 percent are unsure.

- Thirty-one percent of Republicans say President Obama is “a racist who hates white people.” Thirty-six percent disagree; the rest aren’t sure.

- Twenty-three percent of Republicans want their states to secede from the union. In the South, it’s 33 percent.

- Only eight percent of Republicans say that “openly gay men and women [should] be allowed to teach in public schools.”

In every case, the more anti-Obama, conservative results come from Republicans in the South.

There were howls of outrage from the right wing media...but then similar results showed up in another poll:

Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here’s new data to prove it:
* 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
* 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
* 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
* 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
* Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

These numbers all come from a brand-new Harris poll, inspired in part by my new book Wingnuts. It demonstrates the cost of the campaign of fear and hate that has been pumped up in the service of hyper-partisanship over the past 15 months. We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country.

Evidently the “hate Obama” campaign by outlets such as Fox News is effective. And frankly, much of the Republican base consists of seriously deluded people.