swimming freestyle

Thriller ala Bollywood

2009-07-10T16:45:12-07:00

A Bollywood take on Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Uh, I'll take the Michael Jackson version please.

Noonan v. Palin

2009-07-10T16:29:42-07:00

Peggy Noonan is kinda hit and miss for me. Sometimes she seems she just can't figure out how to say what she wants to say and there have been a couple times when she's just been furiously vacant, as when she recently suggested we should all just ignore U.S. use of torture because it was just too unseemly.

But Ms. Noonan nailed her column today on Sarah Palin, taking the Palinphiles talking points and unraveling them:

"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.

"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.

"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!

"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.

Ouch.

New Pew poll on science

2009-07-10T09:52:07-07:00

It seems fair to say the most economically powerful nations in the world are those that develop a strong technology base. And those capabilities require a culture that appreciates and understands the science that supports their technologies.

The new Pew Research poll on Americans view of science paints a pretty bleak portrait for a long term technology leadership role for the U.S.

Science is complicated stuff, so it's not surprising to see inconsistencies in the poll results. But what's most obvious from the poll is a general decline in Americans respect for the value of science, and a strong tendency for Americans to decide sciences worth based on whether it conflicts with their religious beliefs.

While 84% of the respondents believe science has a positive effect on society, only 27% (compared to 47% in 1999) felt that science, medicine and technology were America's "greatest achievement" of the last 50 years. I suspect the reason for the decline in respect has to do with another result from the poll: When scientists were asked about the big problems facing science, 85% identified the public's lack of knowledge as a "major problem".

Anecdotally, this sounds right. There's very little science covered in the media and, when there is, the media seems to feel compelled to produce an opposing viewpoint. More often than not, this opposing view is from a religious perspective that's all about faith and not at all about science. The argument becomes apples/oranges. Add on top of that what seems a public lack of interest in science and you end up with only 27% of Americans valuing the technologies that have afforded them the quality of life they so readily take for granted.

I also found the ideological and political party breakdown of scientists interesting. 52% of the scientists surveyed considered themselves liberal. 35% called themselves moderates and only 9% considered themselves conservative. Of the scientists surveyed, 55% were Democrats, 32% Independents and 6% Republican.

The poll has enough to scare and depress everyone. For most of America, the poll demonstrates an increasing disinterest and disregard for the value of science. That doesn't bode well for a long term technological dominance for the United States that can only result in a declining standard of living.

And if I was one of the few sane Republicans out there, those statistics on ideology and party identification would scare the shit out of me.

Focus groups allow pundits to "fine tune" their positions

2009-07-09T10:23:26-07:00

Ever wonder how all those cable news pundits form their positions? From the Onion:

New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time

Some perspective on that Rasmussen poll

2009-07-09T09:13:57-07:00

Polls are fun and sometimes enlightening. And sometimes they appear to be more than they are.

A couple days ago, I wrote a post on the new Rasmussen poll of Republican voters and their choices for the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. Here's one of the questions Rasmussen posed to those Republican voters:

1* I know it’s a long way off, but suppose the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary were held in your state today. If you had a choice between Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty, for whom would you vote?

25% Romney
24% Palin
22% Huckabee
14% Gingrich
1% Barbour
1% Pawlenty
6% Some other candidate
6% Not sure

Sarah Palin supporters were quick to jump on the poll results as confirmation the governor was still a big player in GOP politics and stunts like bailing from her responsibilities as governor were no big deal to the "true believers". But before those Palinphiles break out the champagne, they ought to think back to their elementary school math class when they learned (or, perhaps, didn't learn) about decimals.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll in April showed about 21% of Americans identifying themselves as Republicans. The Rasmussen poll surveyed Republicans only and found 24% of them claiming they would vote for Sarah Palin in 2012.

OK, getting the calculator here....0.21 x 0.24 = 0.05. If your math is a little rusty, that 5% of Americans who would vote for Sarah Palin in 2012.

To be fair, Ms. Palin would undoubtedly get some Independent voters and perhaps even some Democratic votes as well. But to suggest that Sarah Palin, at least at this point, is a big time formidable force in the 2012 presidential race is nonsense.

Panetta admits CIA misled Congress

2009-07-09T08:18:03-07:00

A couple months ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, asserted the Central Intelligence Agency misled Congressional members when it came to disclosing details about its use of torture during the interrogation of war on terror detainees.

The Speaker received some support and corroboration from a number of other members, both Republicans and Democrats. But the GOP leadership cynically thought it was an opportunity to make some political points with fake outrage that Ms. Pelosi would dare question the CIA.

"I think her accusations against our terror-fighters are irresponsible and, according to the CIA's record, Speaker Pelosi was briefed on what had been done," said Sen. Kit Bond, the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It's outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars." (Link)

Guess what?

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed "significant actions" from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had "misled members" of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. "This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods," said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers. (Link)

It's not likely the GOP will make much noise about this as it exposes Sen. Kit Bond and his co-conspirators as petty liars.

The tragedy, of course, is that the real story will be lost; that the CIA deliberately acted independently and illegally without oversight.

I suppose one can infer that's acceptable to the new Republican Party.

World's biggest alarm clock

2009-07-09T07:30:52-07:00

An entry to the "world's biggest" contest:

Jeez, looks like it could give you whiplash.

FOX News celebrities ≠ smart either

2009-07-08T16:41:20-07:00

When the topic turned to recent Finnish and Swedish research that proposed married folks are less inclined to develop Alzheimer's Disease, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade must have thought it was the perfect moment to demonstrate that even knuckleheads have can score a gig on a major network television show.

Uh, other species? Like kangaroos or albacore tuna? And what's with the whole "pure genes" thing? Yuck.

Since I'm full of axioms today...

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Elected ≠ Smart

2009-07-08T14:16:10-07:00

I remember being a boy and having such reverence for elected officials. I was certain that they were the smartest of the smart, that they had the wisdom and judgment to debate the worlds most complicated issues.

Jeez, was I sooooo wrong. Here's Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen, after voting to open up uranium mining in the state and assuring Arizona citizens that all those fancy regulations are really kinda lame since the earth has "been here 6,000 years" without all that environmental nonsense.

(h/t TYWKIWDBI)

About that Gallup poll

2009-07-08T11:39:08-07:00

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet - Juliet in William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"

I read the recent Gallup poll on American's ideology the other day and chalked it up to another case of confusing labels with ideology. While polls have consistently shown Americans consider themselves "conservative", drilling a wee bit deeper reveals Americans have decidedly liberal views. And one not need look further back than the 2008 elections, when Americans overwhelmingly elected a Democratic president and Congress, to question the "depth" of American's conservatism.

Here's a chart from the poll:

It strikes me that simplified polling terms like "conservative" and "liberal" might be ultimately misleading and American's response to the rather simple question is invariably going to be influenced by political party marketing, the news of the day, and peer pressure.

I used Juliet's line at the beginning of the post to suggest what folks call their ideology is far less significant than how they end up voting. There's another famous saying that's equally apropos:

"Call me anything you want. Just don't call me late for dinner"

Wilhelm Sasnal

2009-07-08T08:40:22-07:00

Wilhelm Sasnal is a modern Polish painter with an new exhibition of his works in London. That prompted an article in today's Guardian.

Suicide bombers, mosh pits, anti-folk hero Daniel Johnston and communist propaganda: the paintings of Wilhelm Sasnal draw on many influences. His subject matter comes from the mass media, in particular music (his first love), but politics is never far behind.

Born in Poland in 1972, Sasnal paints in a variety of traditions, darting between pop art and photorealism, cubism and comics so variously that you could be forgiven for thinking they were by different people. Yet all of them focus on the artist's attempts to release, or even democratise, familiar images.

When critics wrote of the jazz great Miles Davis they often noted the economy of his music; that Davis could express so much emotion and passion with so little content. For me, that same kind of spareness is present in Wilhelm Sasnal's work.

Top Ten Messages On Sarah Palin's Answering Machine

2009-07-08T08:07:45-07:00

From last night's Letterman:

Republicans polled on their 2012 presidential nominees

2009-07-07T15:36:34-07:00

Rasmussen polls have become increasingly known as outliers and particularly slanted in favor of conservative positions. I have no idea whether that's purposeful, but it's well known that the design of questions can have a remarkable effect on the outcome of a poll.

But Rasmussen's new poll of Republican voters is interesting, nonetheless.

25% Romney
24% Palin
22% Huckabee
14% Gingrich
1% Barbour
1% Pawlenty
6% Some other candidate
6% Not sure

2* Okay…regardless of who you would vote for, which candidate would you least like to see win the Republican nomination in 2012…. Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour or Tim Pawlenty?

9% Romney
21% Palin
10% Huckabee
15% Gingrich
21% Barbour
15% Pawlenty
11% Not sure

A couple interesting things about the poll;

- As the survey was conducted subsequent to Sarah Palin's decision to bail on her responsiblities as governor, it's the first glimpse into how Ms. Palin's actions are being regarded by Republicans. While she's essentially tied with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as a frontrunner, she also leads the field in the ranking of candidates Republicans would least like to see emerge as the Party nominee. Some kind of bipolar condition for the Republicans.

- Given that all three of the frontrunners ran for the office (or Vice President in Palin's case) and were rejected by their own party, they pretty clearly have to play some serious catch up over the next couple years.

- What happened to Bobby Jindal? Already a goner for the Republicans?

The U.S.; a republic or a corporatocracy?

2009-07-07T15:14:45-07:00

"Corporatocracy" is the term Allison Kilkenny used in an essay today to describe our current state of federal governing. Dovetailing nicely with yesterday's post on health care lobbyists, Ms. Kilkenny notes that something on the order of $1.4M a day (yes, you read that correctly - that's 1.4 MILLION dollars PER DAY) is being spent by large health care companies to lobby Congress during these health care reform debates.

So, while poll after poll presents overwhelming evidence that Americans want a public option included in the reform, its reasonably safe to assume that the companies pouring all that money into Congress will get the health care reform that they prefer instead.

In her article, Ms. Kilkenny recalls that Canada took steps to curb lobbyists influence with their 2008 Federal Accountability Act. The act includes provisions for documenting arranged meetings between lobbyists and government officials, and imposes stiff monetary penalties for violations of the Act.

No such law exists here. As the chart yesterday indicated, health care companies know this is crunch time and are pulling out all the stops to guarantee an outcome that's favorable to them and their stockholders. And as the chart also made clear, this isn't a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It's a Congressional issue. It needs to be fixed.

Maybe there's something to be gained here by recalling the definition of republic: : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. (My emphasis and italics)

A picture for the day

2009-07-07T14:05:58-07:00

Supporters of former Nepalese King Gyanendra played traditional music to wish him a happy birthday at his private residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday. Nepal’s deposed king said he was “very perturbed” at the lack of progress in establishing peace and prosperity for the people of the Himalayan nation, a year after the end of the monarchy. (Gopal Chitrakar/Reuters )

Health care and a burden of proof

2009-07-07T11:30:12-07:00

Via Matthew Yglesias comes this chart of health care spending as a percentage of GDP.

Let's get real. This is just frickin' ridiculous. That the media allows folks like Sen. Richard Shelby go unchallenged when he asserts that America has "the best health care system in the world" is grossly irresponsible. Instead, Sen. Shelby et al. goes unchallenged and unburdened by facts.

There ought to be a burden of proof required for the defenders, as there should be the detractors, of the current health care system.

Is it unreasonable to ask folks like Richard Shelby why the U.S. pays nearly twice what most other nations spend, has the U.S. declining in the major health metrics, places the nation at an economic disadvantage, and leaves some 20% of its citizens without coverage?

In what universe does that system constitute the "best in the world"?

Wearing contact lenses so you don't have to wear contact lenses

2009-07-07T09:25:25-07:00

They don't work for everyone. But for many who have tried this new approach to contact lens technology, the results have been quite good.

Conventionally, contact lenses are worn during awake hours to correct vision, but this new technology (trademarked i-GO) has users wear the lenses while asleep. The lenses encourage the movement of cells in the epithelium to shift, creating a temporary correction to the users vision. The user wakes up, removes the lenses and many are able to go through the day without using eyeglasses, contact lenses or resort to laser surgery.

A journalist from the Guardian tried the lenses:

These lenses, I am told, do not usually work instantly. "We should achieve something like a 70% change within the first night of wear," says Minshull. In the early days, most users find their eyesight deteriorates by the end of the day. "You may notice a little bit of ghosting in the evening," he says. I am supplied with some -1.50 daily disposable contact lenses in case my eyesight becomes less than perfect.

After two nights in the lenses, I wake up and - hosanna! - I can see. Without lenses. Almost perfectly. The problem is at night: when it gets dark, I realise that while I can read car numberplates at a distance, my sight is distorted by electric lights, which are almost as blurry as if I had my normal vision. Street lights and car headlights are fuzzy.

The lenses only correct for up to moderate short sightedness and some astigmatism. But very cool nonetheless.

El Paso and Hispanic immigration

2009-07-06T18:13:23-07:00

In 2007, El Paso, Texas had over 27% of its citizens at or below the poverty level, more than twice the national average. With a median income of just over $35,000, El Paso ranks $13,000 below the national median. El Paso's population is three quarters Hispanic and more than a quarter are foreign born. El Paso is right across the Rio Grande river from Ciudad, Mexico; one of the most violent cities in North America. While no accurate numbers exist, it's fair to assume there's a large illegal immigrant population in El Paso.

Now, if one dined on a steady diet of Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, one would just know for sure that El Paso is a boiling cauldron of lawlessness.

But then there's those damn facts...

El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Health magazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent. (Link)

And this is really gonna freak the Dobbs, Hannity' and Beck fans:

Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso. (Link)

The Reason article noted a couple possible reasons. One is that immigrants, be they legal or illegal, come to the U.S. at a great cost. It's a relatively large expense, the immigrants are often separated from their family, and most consider their trek to the U.S. a high stakes gamble. And, given those sacrifices, these immigrants are generally pretty motivated to prosper.

As the article notes, while all the Dobbs et al fans may be freaking at the thought of cities with 95% Hispanic populations, the cities of South Texas have a whole different view of the situation.

El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us."

Sarah Palin commemorative souvenirs

2009-07-06T17:08:39-07:00

From driftglass

Health care lobbies and resulting health care reform

2009-07-06T14:12:53-07:00

Multiple studies and surveys have shown a public health care plan is the way to lower cost universal coverage and in keeping with what the public wants in terms of reform. If you've wondered why both Republicans and conservative Democrats seem hell bent on making sure the public doesn't get what they clearly want, this chart (via Ezra Klein) is enlightening.

The chart comes from a Washington Post survey. As it turns out, nearly half of all the lobbyists hired by major health care companies in the last year had previously worked for Congressional members of the committees responsible for health care reform.

What a coincidence, huh?

Here's a video to put the whole health care reform debate into perspective: