21 October 2010 (PM)

Science
A galaxy that is 13 billion light years away has been detected:

Alan Boyle writes: Astronomers have confirmed that an incredibly faint galaxy in the constellation Fornax is the most distant known object in the universe, shining more than 13 billion light-years away and reflecting an era when stars were just beginning to emerge from a cosmic fog.

The galaxy, known as UDFy-38135539, is one of several super-distant objects picked out from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the most sensitive snapshot ever taken of deep space. In time, astronomers may well spot objects that are even farther away, but this particular galaxy was the first of its type to go through the arduous process of having its measurements checked.

In fact, the astronomers behind the observations say they couldn’t have seen UDFy-38135539 unless there were other, fainter galaxies nearby to help clear out the space around it. “Without this additional help, the light from the galaxy, no matter how brilliant, would have been trapped in the surrounding hydrogen fog, and we would not have been able to detect it,” Durham University’s Mark Swinbank said in a news release from the European Southern Observatory.

The ESO researchers, led by Matt Lehnert of the Observatoire de Paris, published their findings in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. Those findings shed unprecedented light (so to speak) on a mysterious period in the development of the universe, about 600 million years after its big-bang origin, when the radiation of the first stars began clearing out the neutral hydrogen that filled the infant universe. That process, known as reionization, transformed the cosmos from an opaque haze to the mostly empty space we know today.[...]

Freedom of speech: yes, someone has the freedom to have racist Halloween displays. But I have the freedom to call him a racist idiot.

Politics

Polls and momentum: Yes, polls sometimes change and a candidate sometimes gains ground. But there is scant evidence of “poll momentum”; Nate Silver shows us the data.

Creationism and politics: yes, we have a candidate for the US House and a candidate for governor who are creationists. That is just shameful.

Unfortunately, being ignorant is in, especially on the Republican side. Maureen Dowd writes:

At least, unlike Paris Hilton and her ilk, the Dumb Blonde of ’50s cinema had a firm grasp on one thing: It was cool to be smart. She aspired to read good books and be friends with intellectuals, even going so far as to marry one. But now another famous beauty with glowing skin and a powerful current, Sarah Palin, has made ignorance fashionable.

You struggle to name Supreme Court cases, newspapers you read and even founding fathers you admire? No problem. You endorse a candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who is the nominee in West Virginia? Oh, well.

At least you’re not one of those “spineless” elites with an Ivy League education, like President Obama, who can’t feel anything. It’s news to Christine O’Donnell that the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. It’s news to Joe Miller, whose guards handcuffed a journalist, and to Carl Paladino, who threatened The New York Post’s Fred Dicker, that the First Amendment exists, even in Tea Party Land. Michele Bachmann calls Smoot-Hawley Hoot-Smalley.

Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas: “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”

As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama: “ ‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”

On Saturday, at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim, Calif., Palin mockingly noted that you won’t find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky. She says she believes in American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the people running the country, exceptionalism is suspect; leaders should be — as Palin, O’Donnell and Angle keep saying — just like you.

So THIS is why I have such contempt for Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Christine O’Donnell. It isn’t because they are conservative women, even if that is what Fox News says.

So, what is going to happen in mid terms?
President Obama and President Clinton are out campaigning, albeit in different ways:

Today they are allied in an increasingly urgent battle to prevent a Republican takeover of the House and the Senate. They are crisscrossing the country on behalf of embattled Democratic candidates and, in their own ways, trying to recall and recapture some of the glories of their own best days as politicians.

Obama’s venue is the big, iconic rally that became the signature of his presidential campaign. On Sunday night, he drew a crowd of 35,000 at Ohio State University. It was almost as if the troubles of the past 20 months had never occurred.

For a few hours, it was 2008 all over again, from the recorded music loop blaring out Brooks and Dunn and Jackie Wilson to the playful banter between the president and first lady Michelle Obama to the enthusiasm of the youthful attendees.

Only when the president started to speak was it clear how the hope-and-change message of 2008 has given way to a defense of his record and a defensiveness about the fall campaign. “This is a difficult election,” he said, something rarely heard two years ago. “This is hard. And it’s hard because we’ve been through an incredibly difficult time as a nation.” [...]

On Monday night, the former president appeared in Denver on behalf of Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), who is in a very competitive race against Republican Ken Buck. The evening rally, which did not end until 10, drew about 2,000 people, far more than the Bennet team had anticipated. Some in the audience came simply to see Clinton. It was like seeing Mick Jagger, said one Democrat as he awaited the former president’s arrival.

Clinton delivered not a rousing pep talk but a learned lecture on the economy, the competing positions of Bennet and Buck, why he thinks Republicans are wrong and, repeatedly, what went right when he was president. [...]

One thing: we are going to have to call out the Republicans who voted “no” on the stimulus bill but yet took credit for it or asked for it:

If the White House wanted to make a real fight of it, President Obama would spend the next two weeks reading aloud from the official correspondence of GOP congressional leaders. But has he got the necessary will?

Take Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, for example. Campaigning for reelection, the photogenic Tea Party heroine postures boldly against taxes and government spending. A bitter critic of the Obama administration’s efforts to improve the economy, she specifically and repeatedly derides “the failed Pelosi trillion-dollar stimulus.”

Somewhat less publicly, Bachmann has taken a different position. Researchers for the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity released a bunch of letters she wrote to various federal agencies seeking stimulus grants for her district. Perhaps the most telling is one she sent to the Transportation Department seeking money for a bridge over the St. Croix River. [...]

Advertisement