A snootful of e-mails

The climate noosphere is in an uproar about a bunch of e-mails there were hacked from a global climate site. The e-mails are allegedly from prominent climate scientists and date from the late 1990's. According to this article in the NY Times at least some of the e-mails don't show climate scientists in a very favorable light. For instance one e-mail talks about using a statistical trick, another e-mail calls global warming skeptics "idiots".

Of course skeptics are chortling over what they see as proof that global warming is a hoax and that climate scientists are trying to hide stuff, while the climate scientists involved in the e-mail exchanges seem to view the exchanges as normal give and take between scientists.

I have actually looked at some of the e-mails and quite frankly a lot of it really does look like the kind of give and take that people taking a particular position might have. Somehow I doubt that a similar hack of climate skeptic e-mails would be any different.

It is clear that the scientists involved are aware of the skeptics and how skeptics might react if certain data sets are not properly explained:

"Otherwise, the skeptics have an field day casting
doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates
and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates. I don't think that
doubt is scientifically justified, and I'd hate to be the one to have
to give it fodder!"

Well at any rate, I think this is typical scientific e-mail give and take in a highly politicized arena (been there myself) and I don't think that global warming skeptics should make too much of this stuff. Besides if they are crying foul because some one who disagrees with them in a private e-mail refers to them as idiots then maybe they ought to get thicker skins.

Don't take my word for it. You too can sleuth evil climate scientists e-mail by going to the following site and enter your favorite search term!

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/index.php

Of course I would love to have an equivalent set of e-mails between global warming skeptics - maybe working for a large oil company or perhaps a certain large business group that will go unnamed -and I just bet a little judicious browsing would yield lots of choice quotes. But of course hacking e-mails is wrong, a minor point seems to have been lost in this whole tea pot tempest.

For full disclosure, I have used the word idiot at least 27 times in my e-mail career, all of them of course quite justified.

Why do peope repeat falsehoods?

A few months ago I saw a claim that if theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking were in Britain with its socialized medicine he would have been dead by now. I blew it off as another stupid comment but apparently this comment has gotten repeated all over the web. The problem of course is the it is not true as Larry Krauss reminds us in this article in Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=war-is-peace

So why do people repeat that sort of tripe?

Krauss asks

"What makes people so susceptible to nonsense in public discourse? Is it because we do such a miserable job in schools teaching what science is all about—that it is not a collection of facts or stories but a process for weeding out nonsense to get closer to the underlying beautiful reality of nature? Perhaps not."

My thought is that whether we are dealing with health care, global warming or various sorts of social issues, we get an emotional high from thinking we are going to win, pull the wool over our opponent's head. Or maybe repetition of simple nostrums and unexamined falsehoods provides us with a sense of security when dealing with the unknown. Maybe such behavior was at one point adaptive maintaining some sort of group cohesion.

Krauss phrases his arguments with examples from the right, but I don't think people of any ideology are immune to this. As I commented in a post to one of my readers it is if we are stuck in a strange attractor or the sort of cycling that a person's brain might get into when they are depressed and can't get out.

As Krauss so ably observes, quoting apparently from an earlier Krauss commentary:

“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.”

Click Fox Off?

I am no fan of FOX News but I think MoveOn.org's latest campaign to get Democratic Party leaders to stay off that network maybe counter productive. MoveOn.org's e-mail to its members including yours truly says in part:

"All year, FOX has worked 24/7 to block President Obama's agenda—repeating lies about "death panels," promoting Tea Party protests, and whipping up fake political scandals.1

Now, President Obama is fighting back. The White House communications director said FOX is a "wing of the Republican Party...let's not pretend they're a news network."2 To draw attention to its biased coverage, President Obama will not appear on FOX for the rest of this year.3


It's about time Democrats stood up to FOX! Can you sign this petition asking Democrats to support President Obama's stance by staying off FOX as long as he does? "

Sometimes a boycott can be effective but this one seems likely to promote more FOX network distortions and maybe further unmoore FOX and its supporters from reality. I suggest a two pronged approach if people really feel the urge to boycott FOX. First get MORE Democrats on FOX news and make sure that they are schooled in how to defuse FOX commentator rhetorical tricks.

Second Democrats should boycott FOX and let their cable companies know what they think about FOX. Viewers are after all is what FOX needs to survive. Democrats might also consider avoiding other FOX assets such as Myspace. Here is a list for instance internet assets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation#Internet

The MoveOne.org petition link is at http://www.civic.moveon.org/foxobama/

I know, herding liberals and Democrats is like herding cats, but using the channel changer, and your mouse to Click FOX off is probably the best thing to do here. Liberals and moderates are a big enough group that clicking FOX off ought to be a more effective mass strategy.

Oh Good Grief!

Just when I think anti-evolutionists can't get any sillier some politician comes along to demonstrate that I am wrong. Seems that a mayoral candidate in Tulsa feels the zoo doesn't properly honor Christianity and needs an exhibit on the first book of Genesis.

"Today we are announcing that God will be glorified in this city. He shall not be shunned. Upon our election, we hereby commit to honoring Him in all ways that He has been dishonored," said Anna Falling.

OK...check it out for yourself at:
http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10888260

Gasp!

Now that Sonia Sotomayor's papers have been released, conservatives have been ransacking them for juicy incriminating tidbits. For example,David Brody over at the Christian Broadcasting Network has uncovered a letter she cosigned in condemning the ransacking of a dorm room of two gay activists back in 1976.

The letter says in part:

"No matter how much one may disagree with the Gay Alliance or the policies they are advocating, no matter how repugnant one may find homosexuality, the manner of expressing this opposition should be intellectual. At this university we are dedicated to persuasion by reason, not by brute force"

Conservative Brody felt his CBN readers should read this letter. He's right especially since academic freedom has co-opted by conservative Christian groups who feel "oppressed" when they think their rights are being trampled on. But I suspect his conservative readers will cluck and see the letter as confirmation of Sotomayor's radical leftist leaning and not see the hypocrisy in their own position!

A tip of the antennae to GayNewsBlog for calling Brody's discovery to our attention.

Conservatives try the reverse racism ploy again...

I really should write more about conservative rhetorical tricks because they are the current masters. Take their offensive about Judge Sotomayor where conservative bloggers and pundits have been virally quoting this line from one of Judge Sotomayor's speeches:

"First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Now on the surface it sounds like some of those insufferable comments that people on the left used to make in the late 60's when they would romanticize people of color but the problem is that the comment is taken completely out of context-sort of like what's done by the left and right with the Bible.

And as so often the case, the whole point of the narrative is missed and often close by in the narrative a key paragraph is missed, either intentionally or because of some sort of filtering going on in the reader's brain. Here for example is the very next paragraph of the the Judge's speech:

"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown."

Clearly she is talking about something else entirely than racism, something closer to an appreciation of diversity than FOX's news commentators and Newt Gingrich care to recognize.

Here is the complete speech.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html

Maybe conservatives ought to read the whole thing rather than look for little snippits. They might even find something to like about the judge. But hey maybe they have gotten so hooked on phonics that they have forgotten that reading rquires more than pronouncing the words.

Diversity Conservative Style

Some conservative religious groups complain about the alleged "oppression" of their point of view in secular universities. Well it seems they don't mind suppressing view points on their campuses that don't match their own. First we had the flap about Notre Dame giving Obama an honorary degree and now we have a flap over campus Democratic club at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Seems that the University's Student Democratic Club cannot be recognised any more by the school because of the Democratic party's alleged support of positions antithetical to the religious teachings endorsed by the private University.

Reverend Falwell is quoted here as saying:

“They are good, Christian kids who sit with me at ball games. I just hope they find a pro-life family organization to affiliate with so they can be endorsed by Liberty again.“

An e-mail to the leaders of the University's Democratic club allegedly explaining the reasoning for the ban says:

“The Democratic Party platform is contrary to the mission of Liberty University and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the “LGBT” agenda, hate crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc.)”

As a private school, the University may well be within its rights to do this, but it strikes me as a bit extreme. After all Democrats are hardly uniform about the above issues, and the student leaders claim to have views in line with the University's. Plus this is a bad strategy on the part of the University-after all if Falwell wants to change the Democratic party and insure representation of conservative religious tenets, then what better way to do so than to promote conservative Democrats.

A Conservative Contradiction

According to Think Progress, Mike Huckabee and other conservatives has come up with an intriguing argument against gay marriage. It seems that Gays haven't suffered enough! Huckabee is quoted as claiming that he is all for gay rights but gay marriage would redefine an institution.

Here's the exchange between Huckabee and Joy Behar ABC's show "The View"

"People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.

BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.

HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge."

Watch it here:

Now the argument does make an odd sort of sense until you remember that these very conservatives are the ones who have exploited Southern White fears about race, support states rights as opposed to civil rights, and basically have dragged their feet on every major piece of civil rights legislation. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment?

Besides, some people deserve more civil rights because they have suffered more? That doesn't sound to me like a good conservative position. But, hey, what do I know? I'm a liberal.

Grokking the Election Results

I am somewhat of a political junkie and I stayed up way too late Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. What really kept me up was not the speeches, which were great but the New York Times online. The NYTimes has a great interative map feature where you can look not only state by state, but also county by county as to which candidate Obama or McCain won. You can also see whether or not the county became more or less Democratic or Republican and zoom out to get a sense of what happened nationwide.

The map is at http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html.

For instance, here is the Kansas results for 2008. Not very interesting since Kansas is typically a red state. The two main blue counties were Douglas home to the University of Kansas (and yours truly) and Wyanodotte County where Kansas City Kansas is. The third county that Obama carried-Crawford is very rural but home to Pittsburgh State University.












But you can get a sense of what happened this election compared to 2004 when you look at the change in voting pattern between 2004-2008.



The blue regions on this map are counties that have gone more Democratic in 2008 compared to 2004. So even in many heavily Repubican regions of the state Democrats improved their margins compared to 2004. This suggests either that Obama's strategy of running a nationwide campaign was over all what he needed to win or that the country's economic condition really turned people off to the Republicans. By the way the Republican margin statewide was 56% 41% for the Republicans this year compared to 62-46 in 2004.





Let's step back and look at the whole nation in terms of county results.

Here blue represents those counties that went Democratic, red those counties that went Republican. Clearly Obama and the Democrats did really well in the traditional urban areas. In fact Obama and the Democrats swept New England so completely that there are no Republicans in the House any where in the whole New England region. That is quite a change from the days when New England was a center for the moderate wing of the Republican party.







Looking at the change map, we see a very interesting pattern:


The deeper the blue the more Democratic the county became since 2004. Notice that country as a whole became more Democratic except for parts of the South East- loosely within what we might call Appalachia. These are probably the least racially diverse areas in the country. At least when I was in Georgia, some some of these counties had no or few non-white families.

But you can say the same for lots of other areas in the country as well...for instance Idaho and Utah, and yet those areas also tended to go more Democratic.

I know some commentators have argued that there are long term demographic trends coming into play; perhaps the populations in these areas are older- the young people that Obama tended to attract may have left these areas. But younger people have also left Western Kansas as well so I don't think that can be the whole explanation for what I call the Appalachian effect.

Now some commentators (often the same ones talking about demograpics) are talking about the coming dominance of the Democratic party. I say not so fast. First of all we have been through this before. For example, the 1964 election was the first election that I engaged in even though I was 13. Since my parents were Republican I supported Goldwater. And after he got trounced by Johnson, the press was full of articles writing the Republican Party off.

Also look at this county by county map from 2000:

It is really only different from the 2008 map in small details. The conclusion I draw is that our country is still deeply divided politically. That should give both parties pause.











Also if you look at the change map between 2008 the 1992 election when Bill Clinton won, the county map suggests that most counties have become more Republican than they were in in 1992! Granted this may be to an aging and less racially diverse population in these counties. The Democrats are really going to have to deliver in order to win over the country as a whole. Do they really want to leave 9/10ths of the land area in this country red?

The Republicans are going to have to figure out how to recast their message and maybe go through some realignment to gain back lost ground in the middle of the political spectrum. Does it make sense for them to play to their base and ignore the middle? Do they really want the country to be so divided geographically? Granted, rural states do have proportionally more clout than urban states and that allowed the election of President Bush, but unless they come to the middle they will be struck with an ever shrinking base as demographic trends toward racial and ethnic diversity become even more pronounced.

The Republicans will have do some soul searching and figure out how to get their message to the middle. Barry Goldwater said something to the effect that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and I think some conservatives today interpret liberty in a very odd sense way out of whack with what Goldwater really meant. Extremism after all does not win elections in this country whether from the left or the right.

Oh No! Karl Rove and I Agree????

Well at least on that Obama is heading for a landslide. We both came up with the prediction for the electoral college and which states each candidate is going to win.

338 Obama and 200 McCain.

See this report from CNN about Rove:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/04/rove-predicts-obama-landslide/

Of course we both used the same highly sophisticated stochastic jack knife enriched estimating procedures on huge arrays of linked Apple iPods to arrive at our projections.


Rove would probably also agree with me here when I say:

"Vote! Vote early and often..unless your voting for the other guy. Then only vote once.

The Ultimate Weapon Against War...

Watch...

This shouldn't come up, but it has.

You would think that today in America a person's sexual orientation wouldn't be an issue in an election any more than whether or not a person is married, single or divorced. But in one Kansas Board of Education race apparently partisans have not gotten the message. Seems that Kathy Martin and her supporters are trying to make an issue of the fact that her opponent, Christopher Renner is openly gay.

According to this article in the Hutchinson News Online, Martin's supporters argue that this is a valid issue, as voters have the right to know everything about a candidate. Carolyn Simms, a Martin supporter says

"...that voters should also be given all the information possible about the candidates they'll be choosing from."

Really, now. Maybe I should hire a private detective to see what juicy non election related things are in Mrs. Martin's background. Of course I really don't have to do that since Mrs. Martin has embarrassed herself enough as one of the gang of six that spent thousands of dollars on sham evolution hearings a couple of years ago and was a supporter of a completely unqualified Board of Education Commissioner who ended up resigning.

So hello Mrs. Martin! This is the 21st century. We don't fight about whether the Earth is only 6,000 years old or so anymore and we don't care about a person's sexual orientation as a job issue. How laughable this would seem except that there are still folks out there who are blissfully unaware that time has moved on. Mrs. Martin you are so 19th century!

Obama...

Colin Powell says why the best:

"...And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president."

Watch the video:

Fox News is Whining again...

The folks over at Fox News are carrying on about a supposed injustice done to Sara Palin by Newsweek Magazine. Seems that the latest cover shows a close up of the Governor's face. Exposure on the Cover of Time or Newsweek is usually considered to be a good thing. But the commentators over at Fox report that the photo is unflattering allegedly because it was not touched up. See  Cover Girl. 

Of course the Republican News Network..I mean Fox ought to know all about retouching photos. According to Media Matters, Fox has done a little retouching of it's own on several of it's opponents with very unflattering results. Well as Fox might say: "you decide":

Actual and Fox Retouched photos from Media Matters:

Somehow I don't think this is the type of touch up job Fox had in mind for Governor Palin. 

See also this article from the NYTimes.

I can't find a good image of Newsweek's cover but here is a link to Newsweek's coverstory about Palin.

Reading the article leads me to wonder if all the whining about the cover is designed to distract people from reading the article which asks:

Are there many politically attuned people in America now who can honestly say the same thing of Sarah Palin? That they can effortlessly envision President Palin in the Oval Office, ready on day one to manage a market meltdown or a terror attack? Whether one agrees or disagrees with his politics, there is no arguing that McCain is qualified to be president of the United States. But there is plenty of argument about Palin's qualifications. Why should we apply a different standard to the vice president who would stand to succeed him?

Why indeed. Personally while I am a registered Democrat and a liberal, I confess that I was actually willing to "kick the tires" and give Senator McCain a chance to convince me-and this in spite of the the fact that he seems to have abandoned his natural pragmatic non-ideological approach to politics. But his choice of the glib, naive Palin-a book censoring creationist to boot- closed out McCaine as a serious candidate in my mind. Too bad because I really do sympathize with McCain's professed desire to shake things up. Palin was just the wrong way to do it.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has proven an able campaigner-clearly quite capable of doing the top job. And while Biden doesn't have Palin's energy he is a scrapper and far and away more qualified than Palin.

For the record I was a Richardson supporter.

Obama and McCain on Science

Several people have asked for my take on the two Presidential tickets with respect to their attitudes toward science. So here goes.

From my perspective, there are good things and bad things about both candidates and science. Looking at the official web sites, Obama appears to have the better fleshed out positions and there are some important differences.

McCain seems more supportive of the idea that we need to consider nuclear power as part of our new energy mix, a stand I actually support given the new safer reactor designs that are available. Obama’s position on nuclear power is less clear.

McCain’s position on the space program is more similar to mine since I believe that a strong space program including a manned component along with robotics is vital to our long-term security and technological innovation.

Obama has been openly skeptical of NASA’s current direction and it is not clear to me that he has the same enthusiasm for the Space program that McCain has.

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/obamas_nasa_plan_gets_little_p.php

But see this article from SpaceRef:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=28880

where the Obama campaign has fleshed out a detailed set of proposals. So maybe my initial impression is misplaced.

Obama seems more committed to increasing government support for science and science education than does McCain at least according to this article:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93539298

Of course what will happen when campaign promises meet economic and political reality is not at all clear.

The article has a good comparison between the two candidates stand on other science related issues.

With respect to global warming (I mean climate change) their positions are similar on the surface. However Obama seems less willing to rely just on free market forces to respond without targeted government investment in development of new technologies.

Both candidates support a so called cap and trade system for trading carbon credits but Obama seems to be arguing that if we are not careful the system will end up benefiting oil and coal producers.

Obama is more enamored with use of biofuels such as ethanol than I might like. Indeed he has the endorsement of the American Corn Grower's Association:

http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/08/25/american-corn-growers-association-endorses-obama/

McCain sometimes seems to be positioning himself as a bit like William Proxmire whose “Golden Fleece” awards were meant to expose government boondoggles but from time to time merely exposed Proxmire’s ignorance or unwillingness to find out why scientists do some of the seemingly crazy studies they do.

This McCain tendency was highlighted when he poked fun a study of DNA in bears, not understanding that these sorts of genetic studies are useful for understanding the biology of bears and managing bear populations. Maybe this is just be an expression of McCain’s maverick streak, but it could play out in bad science policy.

See:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=mccains-beef-with-bears

My unease about McCain is heightened now that we have the VP choices. Biden is known as a strong science advocate who supports embryonic stem cell research.

See these links from The Scientists and Engineer’s For America (SEA) web site about Biden:

http://sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/joseph-biden-presidential-candidate/

http://sefora.org/2008/08/22/obama-picks-biden-for-vp-how-is-he-on-science/

See also this analysis from Scientific American:

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=biden-brings-focus-on-energy-policy-2008-08-25

According to the Scientific American analysis, Biden is less enamored with clean coal technology than Obama saying we ought to export it to China given that countries rapid building of coal fired plants.

Biden’s attitude toward the space program is hard to assess. One tidbit from the blog Science Politics is Obama's plan to resurrect the National Space council which is chaired by the Vice President. This could raise the visibility of science in an Obama administration.

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2008/08/23/biden-on-space/

Palin’s views on science are less clear but she supports teaching creationism or at least letting it come up in discussions about evolution.

http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html

At least she seems to recognize that climate change is real and we need to respond to it. Of course she’s from Alaska where the effects of human activity on climate are pretty hard to deny. I suspect that she would not support embryonic stem cell research given her anti choice stance.

Biden has made his feeling about intelligent design and creationism quite clear. According to the SEA article Biden is quoted as saying about intelligent design and creationism:

“"This is reversible, man. This is reversible. We don't have to go down this road. I refuse to believe the majority of people believe this malarkey!”

By the way McCain believes in evolution:

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/mccain_and_crea.html

He is quoted as saying:

“'I think Americans should be exposed to every point of view,' he said. 'I happen to believe in evolution. ... I respect those who think the world was created in seven days. Should it be taught as a science class? Probably not.”

Obama is more forthright:

"Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels."

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/barack_obama_i_inhaled_that_was_the_point_46068.asp

One refreshing thing is that both McCain and Obama have pledged to avoid the politicization of Science that has plagued the current administration. See this link for details:

http://evolvinginkansas.blogspot.com/2008/08/npr-mccain-obama-vow-to-keep-politics.html

See also

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93539298

So there you have it, my take on what the two tickets are saying about science and technology. Both tickets have to be an improvement over the current administration at least at the very top, though I am disturbed about what McCain’s VP choice suggests about his real attitudes toward science.

For more on the candidate’s science positions see these links fro the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

Obama:

http://election2008.aaas.org/comparisons/obama.shtml

McCain:

http://election2008.aaas.org/comparisons/mccain.shtml

and this link from Physics Today:

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/politics08/

On balance I believe Obama has the better fleshed out positions and seems more likely to support science aggressively. I am bothered by McCain's Proxmire like dismissal of science he doesn't understand as evidenced by his bear DNA comments, and his running mate's misconceptions about science are equally disturbing.

So just based on science policy, this admittedly liberal geek is giving Obama the nod.

Well there goes McCain...

I see that John McCain has picked Alaska's governor Palin as his running mate. Intriguing choice since McCain likes to position himself as a maverick. But science wise the choice is a bit flaky, Palin seems to have bought into the beguiling argument that schools should teach both creationism and evolution. She is quoted here in the Anchorage Daily News:

"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

Later on in the same interview she did back track a bit and qualified her remarks saying:

"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

Of course the state Republican platform according to the same article says that:

"We support giving Creation Science equal representation with other theories of the origin of life. If evolution is taught, it should be presented as only a theory."

And that merely echos the common misunderstanding people have about the meaning of the word theory in science.

Clearly though regardless of what she thinks about creationism and its cheap suit version intelligent design, she doesn't understand much about science. Too bad because I honestly felt this was an election where I could "kick the tires" to choose between two great tickets. But John McCain certainly hasn't helped himself here among moderates and certainly hasn't boosted my opinion of his science policy. If he wanted to go the conservative evangelical route he should picked Huckabee.

To give Palin her due she doesn't seem to have the sort of skepticsm about climate change that one might expect. But then again considering how rapidly Arctic climate regimes are being altered by global warming, she probably wouldn't be able to survive politically unless she supported programs to help her state cope with warming.

All right so it is Biden...

OK it's not Bayh but Joe Biden. Probably a good choice that complements Obama's perceived weaknesses in foreign policy. Oh yes I did get the text message but some smuck spoiled the surprise for most people by posting Obama's choice to the web.

A Strip Tease Act?

With all the hype about Obama's possible VP choice, some commentators are going a bit overboard. Consider this quote from Fred Barbash's Politico column on Yahoo:

"A weeks-long strip tease, ending with a naked Joe Biden or Evan Bayh—or some other safe but unsexy choice—might prove deflating."

um yes, deflating indeed.

P.S. and yes I am signed up to get the text message. Now do I keep my cell phone on all night so I can get the message even at 3AM? Do I risk...deflation?

Update! a local TV station is claiming to have seen Obama Bayh bumper stickers and is reporting this on on their news. http://www.kmbc.com/politics/17267009/detail.html#-

Some Petty Sniping

Tonight I was prowling around the web and stumbled across the American Council on Science and Health's website (http://www.acsh.org/) which is a non profit that describes itself as:

“...a consumer education consortium concerned with issues related to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the environment and health.”

Their basic viewpoint seems to be don't sweat the small stuff in terms of health risks but keep focused on the big stuff and that is reflected in their risk assessment website (http://riskometer.org/index.html) which indeed is lot's of fun.

What caught my eye is a bit of sniping going on in the science policy advocacy world. On the main ACSH page is a link CSPI vs ASCH (http://www.acsh.org/about/pageID.86/default.asp). CSPI is the Center for Science in the Public Interest (http://www.cspinet.org/new/index.html). It turns out that CSPI attacked the credibility of ACSH in a press release. The press release deals with a very important problem in evaluating credibility science reporting, especially alleged scientific information put out by advocacy groups- namely who do these groups really represent?

Here is what CSPI says about ACSH in its news release(http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/press/200407071.html):

“...news accounts often fail to identify the funding sources of ostensibly independent nonprofit organizations that are quoted on health and medical issues. For instance, a real group called the American Council on Science and Health is largely funded by chemical, food, and agribusiness companies and is widely quoted downplaying various risks to public health or discrediting studies indicating risks to health. In the pages of The New York Times it is sometimes blandly cited as a "science advocacy group," a "private health education group," or a "group that describes itself as 400 doctors and scientists who release position statements on science and the environment." Elsewhere, the Times more helpfully has described the group as a "consumer foundation in Manhattan that is in part financed by industry," or as a group that is "financed in part by the food industry. “

Well ACSH of course fired back:

“ACSH has a long history of going where the science takes us, even when that science is counter to the interest of its funders.

For instance, ACSH regularly criticizes industries who are guilty of

· making unscientific and overstated health claims
· promoting dangerous natural supplements
· failing to tell the truth about scientific issues, as in the case of industry's failure to defend the safety of genetically modified foods.

Of course, we are known for pointing out the dangers of tobacco in all its forms: Smoking is the #1 public health threat in the world (you wouldn't know this from listening to CSPI). But it's not just tobacco. ACSH regularly criticizes all of those responsible for distorting the truth about important public health issues -- including those who demonize specific foods as causes of obesity, a favorite tactic of CSPI.”

Ouch.

And ACSH then goes on to note:

“We encourage reporters and the public to consider sources of bias beyond corporate funding alone. For instance, from which foundations does CSPI gets its money? Do reporters ask about their project-specific funding from left-wing foundations whose stated goals are to increase governmental regulation and take away choices from consumers?”

Of course if ASCH were so concerned about this maybe they ought to take the lead and be more transparent in how they report their funding sources on their web site. About all I can find in terms of funding from their annual report (http://www.acsh.org/docLib/20070313_2007AR_final.pdf) is that ASCH received about 2,879 million dollars in revenue, 2,470 of which comes from funders as opposed to memberships and sales. It might be nice to have a better idea who those funders are.

How about CSPI? CSPI has a full page devoted to its funding sources (http://www.cspinet.org/about/funding.html) and states:

“CSPI is primarily funded by the 900,000 subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter and individual donors. Private foundation grants make up approximately 5% to 10% of CSPI's annual revenue of $17 million. Nutrition Action Healthletter accepts no advertising, and CSPI accepts no corporate funds or government grants. CSPI's audited financial statements and its IRS Form 990, both of which conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, are available for inspection. CSPI also maintains a strict conflict of interest policy for its staff and board members. CSPI extends its sincere gratitude to those foundations and to the thousands of individuals who provide support for its advocacy programs. “

The list of foundations hardly seems to be left wing, so I wish ASCH would have been more specific about which organizations have a goal of increasing government regulation. Clearly these two organizations ASCH and CSPI have different political slants, different funding sources and play to very different audiences. I wish reporters ask more questions about funding sources, but advocacy groups of all stripes ought to take the lead and be open about where they get their funding. Personally I believe ASCH when it claims to be relatively independent of their funding sources, and CSPI implicitly makes the same claim, and they are probably correct in doing so.

But from my perspective neither organization ought to be engaged in the sort of over the top sniping of the other and stick to the important health issues at hand. So a pox on both their houses.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a real person who receives no funding from industry or wacko private foundations on the left or the right and I occasionally eat hot dogs, foods with trans fats and enjoy taking risks by eating genetically modified corn and using a cell phone though I rarely use pesticides and believe the case for global warming is pretty solid. Oh yes, I I'm pretty liberal and a registered Democrat.

Sex ed problem to be solved in Kansas!

It's easy according to Alan Detrich who is running for a spot on the State Board of Education:

"When you teach children that they are apes, they will reproduce like apes," he wrote in a questionnaire. "Stop teaching evolution, and the sex ed issue will take care of itself."

Right...

link:

http://cjonline.com/stories/073108/sta_311695380.shtml

Now do I file this under humor?