Daily Kos: Jon Stewart again takes on Chris Wallace’s excuses for Fox News

Conservatives: poor widdle victims!

Daily Kos: Jon Stewart again takes on Chris Wal…, posted with vodpod

Scott McCellan: What Happened

This is the book

Basic take: I found this to be a heart-felt, honest critique of not only the Bush administration but also of the current political culture.

The idea: whereas the “moderate liberal” view of the pre-TARP Bush administration is basically correct (e. g., the Bush administration bungled Katrina and used exaggerated interpretations of shaky intelligence to get us into the Iraq war; a war that President Bush basically wanted on “bring democracy to the Middle East” grounds and searched for an excuse to launch), the players in the administration were NOT inherently evil people, though some did some immoral things (e. g. lie)

Rather they were people who were caught up in a political system that has gotten so out of control that the political players are highly discouraged from having the candid policy debates with those who have different viewpoints; conceding that someone else might have a good point puts one at a big disadvantage in an atmosphere which is a constant campaign of “trying to win”.

One quibble: I think that part of our current partisan atmosphere comes from the fact that the two sides really don’t have that much that they agree on; the differences are stark and real.

I can recommend the book, though it is my guess that some conservatives will see Mr. McCelellan as some sort of “kiss and tell” traitor. After all, he talks about how disappointed that President Bush didn’t operate the way that he did when he was governor of Texas.

Those who grew up around the University of Texas and the Austin area will enjoy some of his recollections; I remember voting for his mother’s opponent in the US Congressional election when Jake Pickle was running.

The book is dated as it is pre-TARP. Still, I can recommend it.

28 June 2011 AM: Back to Barton Springs

Workout notes 1 mile swim in 38:15 (relaxed; very slow for me). Water was 68 F (20 C) and that slows you down some. But mostly my shoulder was oh-so-slightly sore from the long drive and so I had to protect it; hence I swam easily. I got there at 6 am and didn’t have much trouble with crowding; when it gets light the triathletes show up. When I was there it was mostly me, a couple of dedicated lap swimmers and old hippies. One fast swimmer did blow past me though.

My butt-piriformis is starting to feel ok; I should be able to resume walking and running next week.

Posts There will be a little of everything today.

Computer/phone passwords: people really don’t do a good job setting these up. Here is an easy to understand article:

Naturally, 1234 is the most common passcode: mimicking the most common internet passwords. To put this into perspective, these 10 codes represent 15% of all passcodes in use. Most of the top passcodes follow typical formulas, such as four identical digits, moving in a line up/down the pad, repetition. 5683 is the passcode with the least obvious pattern, but it turns out that it is the number representation of LOVE (5683), once again mimicking a very common internet password: “iloveyou.”

Interestingly, 1990-2000 are all in the top 50, and 1980-1989 are all in the top 100. I would interpret this occurrence as a subset of users that set their passcodes to the year of their birth or graduation. [...]

Formulaic passwords are never a good idea, yet 15% of all passcode sets were represented by only 10 different passcodes (out of a possible 10,000). The implication? A thief (or just a prankster) could safely try 10 different passcodes on your iPhone without initiating the data wipe. With a 15% success rate, about 1 in 7 iPhones would easily unlock–even more if the intruder knows the users’ years of birth, relationship status, etc.

(hat tip: Schneier)

So, what should one do when one has trouble remembering a password? Personally, I take a mathematical concept that is easy to remember (for me), take an invariant from that concept (a number or string of numbers and letters) and then apply an easy to remember cipher algorithm to it. That way I can easily remember the password (combination) but it isn’t one of the “obvious” ones.

Sure, a professional could crack it, but …why would they want to? Mine is designed to send the casual hacker off to something a bit more accessible.

Politics Mano Singham is more cynical than I am. But I see his prediction for the 2012 election as largely correct; the tea-party will torpedo the Republican candidate and big money is actually ok with President Obama. Jon Huntsman? He is probably going to position himself as the “adult” GOP candidate for 2016.

Sure a Republican could win in 2012, but Intrade has Obama at 57 percent and I see that as about right. He was at 61 percent a couple of weeks after killing Bin Laden.

Social/Political I showed a map of life expectancy by region of the country:

Teacherken at Daily Kos talks about this; here is a key point:

The Deep South and Appalachia – the former still the base of many Blacks, the latter a part of America that has never fully caught up.

The Washington U researchers determined that if the health risk factors of smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes could be brought under control, life expectancy could be improved by five years for men and four for women.

I see all of those factors in Appalachia each time I volunteer. I know they are also paralleled in many of our inner cities. It may seem counter-intuitive, but obesity is very common among those of lower income, as they fill their bellies with cheap starchy and fatty foods. Hypertension and diabetes are also quite common. In Appalachia many still smoke, and many of those who don’t chew tobacco.

But if you surf to the diary you’ll see the title: “Proof we do NOT have the world’s best health care system”.

This is where one gets into an argument with many conservatives. Conservatives would argue that we do have the best health care system because its upper bound is high; that is, if you take care of yourself (stay at a healthy weight, don’t smoke and get regular exercise) AND if you have a job that has health insurance, then you do have an excellent health care system.

And yes, we have great doctors, medical technology and research.

Our argument is that the health care system isn’t a good one since so many don’t have non-emergency access to it and healthy lifestyles don’t extend to most who are in poverty (though the conservative would say “whose fault is that?”).
I say: it costs money to eat in a healthy manner, and it is easier to practice a healthy life-style if you have a bit of money. For example: I eat lots of fresh fruit (relatively expensive, at least in most places), juice (expensive). I also live close enough to work to walk (higher tax area) and close enough to a park to have easy access to exercise (higher tax area). I have health insurance that pays for a wellness check-up and my employer provides a low cost gym and pool. Not everyone has these advantages, though our local park district provides gym scholarships for the poor (to a gym that I frequently use; yes, I belong to two gyms )

Climate What is causing our crazy weather? Answer: a very naughty jet-stream, which isn’t being contained by La nina or El nino (La nada? ).

Philosophy/atheism Jerry Coyne talks Mano Singham’s article about the meaning of the word “atheist” and “agnostic”. I like this:

Singham’s solution: deep-six the term “agnostic,” and redefine “atheist” to eliminate these ambiguities:

atheist: One for whom god is an unnecessary explanatory concept.

He explains the advantages:

This definition leaves little room for agnostics because they will have to answer the question as to whether they think God is necessary as an explanatory concept for anything. If they say “no”, they are in the same camp as atheists. If they say “yes”, they are effectively religious and would be required to show where the necessity arises.

Although this sounds like a rhetorical strategy to force people to admit they’re atheists, I actually like it. It subsumes in a logical way both people like P.Z., who don’t think there can be evidence for a god because the very concept is incoherent, and people like me, who think that in principle there could be evidence for a god, but none has appeared.

Coyne goes on to say that this leaves out the deists who don’t believe in an intervening deity but believe that one is there anyway.

Me: “who cares”? If a deity doesn’t intervene in the events of this universe, why is its existence an important question anyway?

My view: “I see no evidence that would lead me to consider the existence of a deity that intervenes in our universe.”
That’s really it. I reject all of the deities that I have heard of, but it MIGHT be possible that there is some deity that I haven’t heard of that does exist, though if this deity is believed, it might be the deity of some other sentient being in some other galaxy for all I know.

I see things like prayer, meditation and yoga as things that could be useful for the individual that uses them but I don’t see them as having an effect beyond those doing the action and those who know about the prayers (e. g. it might make someone else feel good to hear “I am praying for you” in the same manner that “I am thinking of you” helps).

Good Point/Other Point – Ted Nugent vs. Millennials – The Colbert Report – 6/27/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central

ColbertNation.com video – Tea Party darling and 70s rock ‘n’ roll participant Ted Nugent finds today’s youth ‘terminally stoned on apathy,’ which is a gateway drug.

Good Point/Other Point – Ted Nugent vs. Millenn…, posted with vodpod