The United States….

How are we divided?
This NPR post has a couple of maps. One is of cell phone usage and the other is of money circulation.

First the money circulation map (Dirk Brockman of Northwestern University)

This measures the circulation of actual paper money; you can see that these marked bills tend to stay in regions.

The second is from MIT and covers cell phone conversations (who talks to who):

I live in the central Illinois/Chicago/East Wisconsin region. Note: that blue band..ironically, is where I do the vast majority of my running and walking!

Now for today’s weather: note the line of storms. This covers almost exactly my usual Illinois to Texas driving route. I’d have been cursing up a blue streak had I been travelling today.

And yes, we got a LOT of rain:

(photographer: Bill Cinnamon via Facebook) This is about 30 miles north of where I live (Toulon, Illinois)

2012 Elections by Congressional District

The data is here

For example, you can see that President Obama won 11 Texas Congressional Districts in 2012. I haven’t ground through the numbers to see how a CD decided election would have gone (Romney, but I don’t know the final score). One note: there were fewer “voted for a Congressional D but voted for President Obama” districts. However my district went for a Democrat (Bustos) by 6-7 points but went for President O by 17.

Note: if you are wondering how Democrats keep getting more votes but Republicans keep getting more House seats: part of that is gerrymandering and part of it is that Democrats tend to run up huge margins in their districts (mostly urban) whereas the Republicans win more districts but by somewhat closer margins. So the Democrats have more people behind them, but we tend to live clumped together.

Legs, Throwing Weight Around and Kudos to an Illinois Senator

Senator Mark Kirk: Republican Illinois: just came out in favor of gay marriage.

Thank you Senator Kirk. I sent him a “thank you”.

Throwing Their Weight Around Samoan Air decides to charge passengers by their weight:

Samoa Air, flying small jumpers to places like the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, is now charging passengers by weight instead. Online bookings now include weight guesstimates, but that weight is confirmed by scale at the airport when you arrive for your flight.

Link

From the article:

Not that the idea hasn’t been floated — several times — in the past. In fact, ABC News reported just last week a Norwegian economist was the latest to float the idea of an airline “fat tax.”
The Samoa Air homepage reads “We at Samoa Air are keeping airfares fair, by charging our passengers only for what they weigh. You are the master of your Air’fair’, you decide how much (or little) your ticket will cost. No more exorbitant excess baggage fee’s [sic], or being charged for baggage you may not carry. Your weight plus your baggage items, is what you pay for. Simple.”
“Airplanes don’t run on seats, they run on weight,” Samoa Air’s Chief Executive, Chris Langton, told Radio Australia.
If any airline were to try a pay-what-you-weigh policy, Samoa Air would make perfect sense. Obesity is a major problem in the Pacific islands. The World Health Organization reported in 2010 that 80 percent of women in American Samoa were obese.

There are not currently details on whether or not a particular weight gains you an extra seat for the expense, or whether you’d get a refund if you were lighter than you entered in on the reservation.

Hmmm, will we see people acting like non-heavyweight wrestlers, jogging around in rubber suits prior to flying?

Blogs
Click the photo too see the blog:

I’m not exactly sure what that blog is about, but I am FOR it!

(actually, it is about Salt Lake City restaurants and who has the best eggs benedict)

Bad Ass Mice
Yes, some mice actually hunt scorpions!

Species: Onychomys torridus

Habitat: The arid badlands of south-western US and adjacent regions of Mexico, in burrows stolen from other rodents

In the dark expanses of the Sonoran desert in the US, a terrifying creature stalks the night, searching for fresh meat. Anything will do: crickets, rodents, tarantulas – the nastier the better.

Even the poisonous scorpion cannot escape the savage monster’s little pink paws. It fights bravely, stinging its attacker on the nose. To no avail. The mouse ignores the painful venom and cruelly breaks the scorpion’s tail by pummelling it into the ground, then bites its head and feasts on its flesh. Throwing its head back, the murderous animal howls at the moon.

No, it’s not the mythical Chupacabra. It’s the southern grasshopper mouse (Onychomys torridus), the only carnivorous mouse in North America. Its unique biology and resistance to scorpion venom may one day help researchers treat human pain disorders.

Note: this type of mouse has something that keeps the scorpion’s venom from being debilitating or too painful; that is an evolved defense.

Drones, religious vandalism

Illinois
No, we haven’t had much snow, mostly because temperatures in January caused it to rain instead. But yes, January has been wet.

Ok, many people don’t like that President Obama has increased the drone attacks; Bill Moyers (a well intentioned individual) is one of his critics.

Yes, any time one attacks a terrorist, one has to be careful of who is around. But the way I see it, ultimately, if we are operating in an area that doesn’t have bona-fide, functioning law enforcement we have the following options:

1. Leave the terrorist alone, allowing him (or her) to kill again.
2. Attack with conventional ground forces; that means a firefight and probably lots of deaths, including civilian deaths.
3. Attack with an air strike; lots of deaths including civilian deaths.
4. Use the drones; I haven’t seen evidence that they kill at a higher rate that 2 and 3.

So, what is the solution?

Irony
If you think that the “Muslim world” is reasonable: much of it isn’t. One aspect (among many): some of the more radical Muslims are destroying ancient artifacts:

They have destroyed the iconic Buddhas of Bamiyan, smashed down the fabled “end of the world” gate in the ancient city of Timbuktu and even called for the destruction of Egypt’s ancient pyramids and the Sphinx.
Extreme Islamist movements across the world have developed a reputation for the destruction of historic artifacts, monuments and buildings.
This week, officials confirmed that up to 2,000 manuscripts at Mali’s Ahmed Baba Institute had been destroyed or looted during a 10-month occupation of Timbuktu by Islamist fighters. Some experts have compared the texts to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
To many in the West, such actions are simply wanton vandalism. However, experts say the thinking behind it is actually part of a wider tradition of rooting out idol-worship and superstition found in Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam.

Watch for the irony:

Usama Hasan — an Islamist for about 20 years, who now works to counter extremism at the U.K.’s Quilliam Foundation — said most Muslims had “a kind of tolerant attitude” and a “live-and-let-live” approach toward such things.
“Mainstream Muslim thinking tends to tolerate these historic artifacts,” he said. “Even if they don’t agree with the superstitions, they don’t want to provoke the community and don’t see it as a big deal.”
But Hasan said he understood the mindset of those condemned as cultural vandals “very well” as he “used to subscribe to it.”

Superstitions? Pot, meet Kettle!!!!

Economy
Yes, Paul Krugman repeats himself a lot, because, well, the Very Serious People keep bringing up the same issues.

And, despite what the Very Serious People say, President Obama has NOT been a big spender:

Mostly a note to myself. Not long ago, the usual suspects were going on and on about how government spending had soared under Obama, pointing to spending as a share of GDP. Some of us tried to point out that this bump represented two temporary factors: 1. GDP was depressed thanks to the crisis, so the spending share was correspondingly elevated 2. Emergency aid programs, notably unemployment benefits, were up because of the crisis. The implication of this argument was that the government spending share would decline as the economy recovered.

Conservatives were, of course, having none of it — Obama was permanently enlarging the government to European size. So, how’s it going?

In the figure below the blue line shows government spending at all levels as a share of GDP; the red line shows the share of potential GDP — what we’d be producing at normal employment — as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office; it’s lower than the first line because the economy is still operating well below capacity.

Come together? Not in this lifetime…

Workout notes Since I won’t be running on Saturday, I figured out that I needed a medium/long run today and one on Sunday (weights and medium walking tomorrow).

So I went to the university gym (local roads still have icy patches) and decided to run somewhere between 8 and 10 miles, split between our “8 laps to the mile” indoor track and the treadmill.

What happened: 10K (50 laps) on the track in 1:01, 5K (3.11 miles) on the treadmill in 29:04. The track: 19:55 (2 miles), 9:49, 9:35, 9:40, 9:37 (58:38) then the treadmill went 9:50, 19:05, 28:12, 29:04 (slight variation of the incline). That is 1:30:04 or 9:40 mpm for 15K. That is far from stellar but better than my usual post-blood donation week workouts.

Note: I decided to leave the track as it is a “some rubber on concrete” type of operation; it is probably just a tiny bit softer than pavement but I could feel the pounding a bit. The whole time: first 58 minutes: one walker (a guy); last two minutes: two guys got on. It was very, very empty.

Posts
I like the Field Museum in Chicago, but there is trouble afoot. Evidently, there is some movement to cut back on the science research being sponsored/performed there. As Jerry Coyne points out: that is really the heart of a top caliber museum, even if the cutting edge research is hidden from view. Yeah, I’ve noticed the “dumbing down” of the displays, but the reality appears to be this: (opinion only)
the more expensive a museum is, the more patrons it needs. The more patrons it draws, the more “regression to the mean” effects occur which leads to the museum playing lighter demands on the visitors.

I still remember my trip to the Los Alamos science museum. It was small, and I spent 4 hours there! But you should have seen many of the other visitors; it was a “come in…give a blank glance and leave” all within 15-20 minutes time.

This was one of the exhibits: they explained why the Tokomak had to be in the shape of a torus: the only two smooth surfaces that have nowhere vanishing vector fields are the torus and the klein bottle, and only the former embeds in 3-space (this is a consequence of the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem).

They gave a display of the “hairy ball” theorem, etc. The museum worked for me, but I wonder how popular it was with the public in general.

Speaking of education Randazza’s blog takes another swing at campus speech codes. The argument here appears to be: if you don’t let students discuss emotionally charged topics, then the dialogue becomes sterile and students with differing views might tend to withdraw into like minded groups.

I don’t know; one thing is that student with student speech is different from faculty to student speech. Here is why: when I am in the front of the class room, my job is to teach mathematics and NOT to have a captive audience for my social opinons. And were I to say something like: “well, Mexicans are too stupid to ever learn math”, I would probably damage my credibility to teach mathematics to this student population, thereby harming my ability to do my job.

On the other hand, being too PC might also harm our ability to educate. Example: yes, the earth is about 4 billion years old, modern animals did evolve by a process that shows ZERO signs of being designed and the current animal kingdom shares common ancestry. Those are FACTS.

Other facts: certain racial groups in the United States commit certain crimes at a higher rate than other groups (African Americans are more likely to commit homicide (and be victims too, especially males), white people are more likely to drive while intoxicated, etc.) Statistically speaking, women are not as physically strong as men (though a female Olympic weight lifter is stronger than all but a tiny percentage of males). Certain groups score higher on IQ tests than other groups. Countries with higher religiosity commit homicide at higher rates than countries with lower religiosity, and the same applies to states in the United States.

These are all facts and all of these make one group or another uncomfortable. But part of education is learning to confront uncomfortable reality and make sense of it.

So, I understand the need to, say, keep a skinhead group from burning crosses on the quad lawn. But controversial topics SHOULD be discussed on a college campus!

Politics
This is tough to remember: politically speaking, one person’s obstructionism is someone else’s “stand up and fight for us”. Our House of Representatives consists of people from wildly differing districts and while Congress has a low approval rating on the whole, people, in general, disapprove of OTHERS in Congress and not their own Representative. Example: my friends (and I!) might think that John Shimkus is a delusional idiot but he is reasonably popular in his district.

I admit that I live in a place that made things worse. For the longest time I was in a Republican US House District (IL-18) but, thanks to redistricting, put into a Democratic leaning one (IL-17). So for the first time since 1990 (when I lived in Austin, Texas), I voted for the winner in a contested US House race. I did vote for Ray LaHood a couple of times, but that is when he had zero or crackpot opposition.

As far as Republicans go, read this “mainstream” article from Town Hall:

As a candidate for president of the United States, it is incumbent on me to make a statement regarding the Sandy Hook massacre and to explain how my policies would help prevent other such massacres should I become president. As I discuss this sensitive topic, it is also incumbent on me to sound more rational and articulate than the incumbent. That will not be difficult.

[...]

First and foremost, concealed weapons permits decrease violence. The rationale is simple if we consider that crime only happens when a motivated offender encounters a suitable target in the absence of a capable guardian. Everyone knows that the gunless are suitable targets for violent crime. This is particularly the case when there is no one around to guard them.

So my plan will turn these teachers into capable guardians. I really think everyone will benefit when teachers stop taking “social justice in the classroom” and other silly education classes in order to be certified to teach our kids. Simply put, there can be no social justice when children are being slaughtered in the schoolhouse.

2. More male teachers (and fewer metrosexual students). Some have suggested that most female teachers would not feel comfortable around guns. So they might be deterred from teaching if they have to go through weapons certification, which requires firing a weapon. This is not a problem as far as I am concerned.

For far too long, men have been grossly underrepresented in the teaching profession. This has had a profound impact on young men. From kindergarten to high school graduation, they are too often in the position of trying to please a female authority figure. This lack of balance affects their relationships with both women and men. A constant concern with pleasing women eventually turns a man into a woman. That is why we have so many young adult metrosexual males talking about their feelings.

Simply put, having gun toting male role models in the classroom will be good. Having your student taught by Ted Nugent just might keep him from becoming Ted Baxter.

3. Fewer liberals in the teaching profession. For years, conservatives have been looking for a cure to the problem of liberal indoctrination in our schools. [...]

Ok, on the flip side of this: what would I find appealing? This Slate article is about how a candidate can appeal to the “no specified religion” voter (different from an atheist voter; the atheist voter would be a proper subset of this block).

I’ll highlight a couple of points:

2. Even if you’re religious, don’t gratuitously bash or exclude those who aren’t. For the most part, the nonreligious are politically realistic. We know that in a society as religious as the United States, some amount of pandering is an electoral necessity. But just because you speak to churches doesn’t mean you can’t also speak to the unchurched. In March 2012, for example, the Reason Rally brought together tens of thousands of American nonbelievers on the National Mall in Washington, DC. One of the speakers at that event was Iowa senator Tom Harkin, and despite some grumbling over his support of non-evidence-based medicine, we recognized that it took political courage for him to address us. The next time he’s in a tight race, it’s very possible that a few Iowa nonbelievers will remember that, and will be willing to do just a little bit more to support him.

[...]

6. Stand up for science. The nonreligious have no use for religious dogmas being passed off as science. We want candidates who take a firm line against creationism or abstinence-only sex ed, who affirm that these are religious ideas that can be taught at home or in church, but which have no place in our secular public schools. But it doesn’t end with opposing religiously motivated pseudoscience: we also want to see good science promoted and supported. We want candidates who’ll support generous funding for fundamental scientific research, and not just those branches of science that have military applications. We want to see candidates who accept, and are willing to act on, the overwhelming scientific consensus about the reality of human-caused climate change (as compared to the conservatives who deny it for explicitly religious reasons). We want investment in alternative energy, in next-generation infrastructure and mass transit, and in making higher education as widely available and affordable as possible. Since it’s a well-known fact that greater education correlates with less religious extremism, this is not only good policy, it’s good politics, and it benefits both progressive Americans and America as a whole.

Yes, Sen. Harkin’s support for quack/woo “medicine” irritated me too. But no one is perfect.

Election Turnout, Retirement Age and Southern Secession

Workout notes It was 23 F (-5 C) and sunny when I left for my 8.1 mile (13 km) run; I cut it to 8 because I haven’t fully recovered from Saturday’s 15K race. 1:22:50 via 40:52/41:56. I started off ok (new shoes) and just couldn’t make myself care about running fast; right knee was “oh-so-slightly” achy (within normal bounds); the left foot felt great.

What I need is for one of my MILF friends to paint on some shiny spandex and set a 9:30 mpm pace and run right ahead of me.

Election News Right now it is Obama 62.3 to Romney 58.9 (51 to 48 percent). President Obama’s vote totals will climb past President Bush’s 2004 total as votes are coming in, and a few House races haven’t been decided as yet.

As far as turn out goes:

Initial accounts of last Tuesday’s presidential election contemplated what seemed to be a significant decline in turnout from 2008. Those reports may have been premature, at least in part. Some states, particularly those where much balloting is conducted by mail, have yet to finish counting their returns. It is likely that there are several million votes left to be counted in California, for example. Nonetheless, it seems probable that we will see something of a split in the number of people who turned out to vote in 2012.

In many of the states where the campaigns focused most of their attention, more people voted than in 2008. Turnout is likely to have declined in many non-battleground states, however.

In the table below, I’ve compared the number of people who voted in the 2008 presidential race against the number of ballots counted in the 2012 election as of early Monday morning.[...]

Based on the ballots counted so far, more people voted than in 2008 in Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Florida and Virginia, while turnout in New Hampshire was essentially unchanged from 2008.

Among the battleground states, only Ohio and Pennsylvania report a material decline in turnout.

Silly Season Some disgruntled Republicans have put “secession petitions” on the White House web site. I’ve signed the ones for Texas and Louisiana. Heck, I say that the blue states ought to go “full Bain” on these underperforming red states: give them educational and economic metrics to meet and if they fail, boot ‘em out!

Personally: for Texas, I’d want the Union to keep an IH-35 corridor from the north through Dallas (includes Dallas), Austin and San Antonio, along with an IH-10 corridor to Houston. Extend to the very Southern part of the state (Valley Region), and connect it to the Big Bend area and then through to El Paso. The rest of the state: good riddance!

And hey, if we kick the southern states out of the union, the Big Ten can start winning national championships again. (yes, it burns me to say it but the SEC plays the best football outside of the NFL, and I STILL think that Alabama will make it to the championship game, and win AGAIN. )

Ok, none of the above will happen.

So onward to more serious issues…

Upcoming fight on entitlements
Yes, life expectancy has gone up. Some of it is due to a decline in infant/childhood mortality. But some of it is due to wealthier people living longer (life expectancy from 65 onward) and only a tiny bit of it is from non-wealthy people living a long time past 65. So we might have to think about how we fund social security but we ought to be wary of where we set the universal retirement age.

That is a problem, isn’t it? It might be perfectly reasonable to expect me to work until 70-75, because my work is NOT physically demanding and I work in a climate controlled environment. It is very different for those who have to work outdoors in the summer in Texas or outdoors in the winter in Illinois. My achy knee (on occasion) or shoulder might inhibit my recreational activities, but not the performance of my work duties. That isn’t the case for those engaged in hard physical work.

Election Recap: Part I: my experience, Koehler and Bustos (IL-17 US House, IL-46, State Senate)

Workout notes Easy 4 mile walk over lunch.

Election Recap, Part I
I’ll probably keep a stream of these coming.

Personal Experiences

This election, I broke down my activities as follows:
National: mostly money to the Obama campaign.
Local: I attended fund raisers for the Koehler and Bustos campaign (several) and attended the Bustos-Schilling debate, and I spent money on each. I wrote a letter to the editor for Mr. Koehler. On election day, I did an “almost complete” walk route (had to double back to get rain gear) and part of another route. The idea: make sure our people got to the polls. Basically, I knocked on doors (about 80 total) and hung “please vote” door hangers on the door knobs.

Here is one of my routes (the morning one, with the “double back” to get rain gear:

Note: I did NOT count this as “training mileage” , though I get in a 5 mile run prior to starting this.

I probably put in another mile in the late afternoon, quitting when it got too dark to read the house numbers easily.

In between routes, I hung out at the Peoria Democrats headquarters and got to say “hi” to Ms. Bustos and Ms. Gordon (uncontested race) and the other volunteers. I spent part of the evening at the Democratic victory party for Senator Koehler.

About the canvass What was very different this time is that I canvassed in a neighborhood that I was familiar with; I actually knew many of the people whose houses I visited. Also, many recognized me because several of my regular running or walking training routes goes through that neighborhood. They “know” me as the old man who is always running or walking in the neighborhood.

I got encouragement and in one of the other neighborhoods, I got the “way to go” fist pump.

How the Dave Koeher race went
Many were worried as Pat Sullivan was well known and, up to the start of the race, reasonably well liked. He had success in small business and he resurrected some properties along the riverfront. Those accomplishments are genuine. He also had a lot of money backing him: the Republican party establishment, Aaron Schock (US House, IL-18) and my City Council Person Barbara Van Auken (who I worked for when she first ran).

He then ran some very negative ads; Koehler responded and then the Sullivan campaign screamed bloody murder. There were Sullivan signs all over the place, but ultimately, not enough votes. Note: Sullivan’s debate performances were very poor.

It ended 54-46 Koehler.

The Bustos race Bustos took on Tea Party Incumbent Bobby Schilling. Given that the IL-17 district was gerrymandered to make it more Democratic friendly, this was a tough sell for Mr. Schilling. He couldn’t be too antagonistic toward President Obama (who lead by 15 points in this district) but he could ill afford to lose what conservative support that he had.

Tactics: the NRCC ran some deceptive ads for him and he came out with a flier called The Illinois Democrat which featured him.

It didn’t work and Bustos won 53-47 (18,500 votes); she picked up her margins in Rock Island as well as in sections of Rockford and Peoria:

She won Fulton county by 200, Knox county (Galesburg) by 1200, Peoria County (part of it; the other part is in IL-18) by 8400, Rock Island by 6600, Tazewell by 200 (part of the county), Whiteside by 200 and Winnebago (part of Rockford) by 8700. Or put another way, her margin came from Rock Island plus parts of two larger cities.

Republican Dirty Tricks in IL-17, with video (and yes, I voted today!)

Workout notes Weights plus an untimed 5 mile walk. Weights: 5 sets of 10 pull ups, rotator cuff, 3 super sets of (rows: 10 x 200 Hammer machine, 10 x 160 pull downs, 10 x 52.5 curls (pulley)), bench press: 10 x 135, 8 x 165, 6 x 165, 5 x 165, incline: 2 sets of 7 x 135, 2 sets of 15 x 45 (dumbbell) military press (seated). I did vertical ab crunches as rest between sets.

Politics
IL-17 is a redistricted Congressional District in Illinois; it was redrawn after Illinois went from having 19 Congressional Districts to 18.

Historically: Lane Evans won it in 1982 and represented it until Phil Hare won it in 2006. But in 2010, Phil Hare was upset by a Tea Party Republican named Bobby Schilling.

However the district has been redrawn to be even more Democratic; currently Barack Obama leads by 15 points.

The Bustos-Schilling race has been close; by Election Projection:

CD-17
10/25/12 Stuart Rothenberg Pundit Change: Tilt DEM to Toss-up
10/15/12 Public Opinion (R) Schilling 51% – Bustos 44%
10/18/12 GBA Strategies (D) Bustos 49% – Schilling 45%
10/13/12 RATING CHANGE: Weak Schilling to Weak Bustos
10/09/12 WeAskAmerica Bustos 46% – Schilling 46%
10/10/12 RATING CHANGE: Weak Bustos to Weak Schilling
10/04/12 Anzalone Liszt Research (D) Bustos 45% – Schilling 44%

So, the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to hold this seat. So watch out for the dirty tricks!

We have this ad from the NRCC:

Wow! There are some problems here though. For one, Ms. Bustos isn’t a member of that country club and never was. Also, this improvement was for water main repair, and had started BEFORE she took her seat.

More here.

Now there is this:

What you are seeing is a newspaper tabloid style mailer called “The Illinois Democrat” which is an extended ad for Bobby Schilling. You have to dig deep into the ad to find a mention that Mr. Schilling is the Republican candidate.

That isn’t a surprise; at the last Schilling-Bustos debate, Mr. Schilling failed to mention Mitt Romney once, but did have a few good words to say about President Obama.

Here is my (7 minute) video commentary.

Strong Performance by Cheri Bustos in the Peoria Debate (IL-17)

I just got back from a debate between candidates for the US House (IL-17): Cheri Bustos is the Democratic challenger whereas Bobby Schilling is the Tea Party Republican incumbent.

Note: the race is close: over the past few weeks there have been polls that showed (in chronological order) : Schilling by 2, Bustos by 1, Bustos by 4. Note: in this district, President Obama leads by 15 points.

So, it was clear: neither side could antagonize Obama supporters; in fact neither candidate mentioned Mitt Romney ONCE whereas both praised President Obama to at least a degree.

Of course, Mr. Schilling did so deceptively: he mentioned that President Obama didn’t want to “raise taxes on the job creators”. But when Mr. Schilling said that, he was responding to Ms. Bustos talking about the plan to let the upper income Bush tax cuts expire and President Obama was talking about the middle class. Mr. Obama did agree to some compromises in order to get some indirect stimulus passed (payroll tax holidays, extension of unemployment benefits, etc.)

Mr. Schilling also talked about President Obama signing some free trade agreements and tried to conflate these with earlier trade agreements (e. g. NAFTA), and he attempted to defend Mr. Ryan’s Medicare “Voucher” plan (which it indeed is), though he didn’t mention Mr. Ryan either.

Ms. Bustos kept pounding away at Mr. Schilling’s party line adherence to the Republican “trickle down economics” policies.

Note: Mr. Schilling fired at attack (on something that Ms. Bustos 401K plan invested in and has since divested in) and Ms. Bustos pointed out that a Republican ad, which Mr. Schilling “mostly” stood by, was fiction. Mr. Schilling did say that he “didn’t agree with all” of those Republican PAC attack ads though he didn’t mention what he didn’t agree with and he did call them “factual”

(they were “factual” in dollar amounts and in that they involved a road that ran by Ms. Bustos’ house and goes to a country club…which Ms. Bustos does NOT belong to…and the 625K project was approved BEFORE Ms. Bustos took office)

I think that Ms. Bustos better connected with her potential constituencies as, well, she genuinely holds their values.

Personal note: after the debate, Ms. Bustos told me that she could see me shaking my head when Mr. Schilling was repeating his RNC talking points.

My wife said that Ms. Bustos came off as more authentic.

But ultimately the voters will have to decide.

When a walk and a State Senate Race goes bad…

Well, today, I had intended to walk a little and then lift. But they day was too pretty; my planned 4 mile walk (leisurely 14:30 pace) became a 13.1 mile walk at the same pace; basically I walked to the end of Heading, walked back (8 miles plus) and then did a hilly 5 mile segment that included Cornstalk hill; 5 in total.

Local Politics
Pat Sullivan is running against Dave Koehler in the IL-46′th. At first Koehler’s ads were positive and Sullivan launched negative attack ads. Then, in the height of hypocrisy, Sullivan responded with ads that attacked Koehler for running negative ads!

As you can tell, Sullivan is a Republican. Even worse, Sullivan had Aaron Schock and Barbara Van Auken attacking Koehler for his counter attack! I am beyond disgusted.

Pat Sullivan: yes, he has had success with business development. But that is about it; he doesn’t even appear to be interested in the nuances and complexities of the issues that the state faces; his whole pitch (besides the disgusting attacks) is “vote for me; I’ll fix it!”; one of his famous appeals is that he’ll put Illinois on an “oatmeal diet”. What the hell does that mean: will we ignore our schools and our infrastructure? He is a disaster waiting to happen.

Fortunately Koehler still leads in the polls, though the polls are starting to tighten.