Doug

xkcd comic for Monday, March 23rd


And even if we weren't talking about less than 0.1% of the bailout money the company received, the contracts which entitle those folks to bonuses, while eye catching, are legal obligations. Now if our hard working government officials had taken a little more time to consider the bail out ten maybe those bonuses could have been changed, but this bit of legislation is just plain wrong. Swallow your pride and admit you screwed up law makers. Nobody pulled wool over your eyes, nobody tricked you. you screwed up. Now learn from your mistake and do things right in the future instead of being vindictive jerks just because your constituents are calling you idiots for not seeing this ahead of time.

We actually *want* folks who know what they are doing to keep working at these firms. Even the one's who swept up in the derivative frenzy. So having a brain drain occur because the smart folks go work for companies that can pay them bonuses is a bad idea. I think we need a way to provide incentive for the smart folks at those companies to stay there and to work hard at setting things right. (Now if we could come up with a way to make the dumb folks leave.... )

My suggestion is this.

In order to receive government bail out money, a company must get agreement from all employees who are contracted to receive bonuses greater than $50,000 must agree to the following renegotiation of that bonus:

Bonuses will not be paid in cash, they will be paid in company stock, the number of shares being equal to the number of shares that could be purchased at the companies HIGHEST stock value in the last 2 years with that bonus dollar amount.

For example, if this had been part of the AIG bailout:

• March 02, 2008, AIG had a high stock price of 49.50 per share.
• A one million dollar bonus would buy 20,202 shares at this price.
• The current share price is $1.26, so their bonuses current value is $25,454.55
• That gives them a perfect incentive to help that stock price recover, and with it, the US economy.

Geek Humor, LJ post.. and now Internet Phenomena.. 18 pages of comments and still going.

The presidential campaign as an AD&D campaign

I've gotten this link from 3 sources just today so I thought I would share the love.

I don't know that my Spore creations are all that much to write home about at this point. They can be kind of fun to put together but I'm often just wanting to move forward and USE the creation so I don't put as much time/effort into making it.

If you do play Spore and want to be buddies (which seems to increase how often our creations cross pollinate) then let me know.

My Creations widget:

Back in September of 2000, Slate ran an article titled: "Why Bush Is Toast" discussing exactly why the race was over.

Yes, in principle, Bush could win. The stock market could crash. Gore could be caught shagging an intern. Bush could electrify the country with the greatest performance in the history of presidential debates. But barring such a grossly unlikely event, there is no reason to think Bush will recover. Ultimately, reasons drive elections. For months, pundits yapped about Bush's lead in the polls without scrutinizing the basis of that lead. Now they're doing the same to Gore. But look closely at the trends beneath the horse-race numbers, and you'll realize why it's practically impossible to turn those numbers around. Gore doesn't just have the lead. On each underlying factor, he has the upside as well.

Yet, as history tells us, the race wasn't over and thanks to the closest election in my memory and action by the Supreme Court, Vice President Gore remains stuck with "Vice" in front of his title.

This could indeed happen again. The only thing that will prevent it from happening is really simple.. more people who want Barack Obama to be president get their butts to the polling place and vote for him (in sufficient states) than people who want John McCain to be president show up to cast their votes.

Unless there is a change in the current trends, this is the Democrat's election to lose. One month from now we'll already be done with the election and the news cycle will have moved on (well mostly, if it's an interesting finish they'll still be talking about it.)

That's all the longer you've got to go before you can be done hearing about these stupid attack ads.

Please keep yourself from burn out.. if you need to take a couple weeks off from listening to politics to avoid burn out, by all means take the time out.. turn off the television, stick with the Current for your radio time or listen to your favorite podcasts. If you're not yet registered to vote in your current residence, please get that taken care of now, or make sure you know exactly what documentation to bring with you on voting day (assuming your state allows same day registration)

But 4 weeks from today, make the time to visit your polling place and cast your vote.

Me, I'll be in that polling place all day because I volunteered to be an election judge again. I may or may not set myself up with a twitter account to record the day.. Or maybe I'll just take notes and post at the end of the day. Most likely the second since I don't know that I would use a twitter account otherwise.

I strongly recommend going straight to google and entering "sample ballot" then your state and county. Some states already have a sample ballot available that you can look over and familiarize yourself with. Other states will give you a date when they will be available. (Fellow Minnesota, hennepin county residents.. they suggest coming back the week of October 27th)

Here in Minnesota we've got an amendment to the state constitution to vote on this November so if you haven't heard about it or researched it, now is a good time.

Jane Condon in CNN commentaries:

What's great about the campaign now is that I don't have a dog in the fight.

SNL Weekend Update catch phrase, often uttered by Dan Aykroyd that seems appropriate in response:

Jane, you ignorant slut.

and yes, Ms. Condon is welcome to call me a pompous ass in reply. I don't have a lot of problem with the rest of her editorial, but that particular sentence and the rationale behind it I have a great problem with.

If you are an American citizen and you are eligible to vote, you surely do have a dog in this fight. This is not American Idol where, when Sanjaya is voted off, you can just sit back and pout because the eventual outcome no longer has meaning for you.

I do not believe that there is anyone in this country that can honestly say their life has not been impacted by George W. Bush's presidency. Whether positively or negatively, or a mixed bag, your life is effected by who sits in the Oval Office and every 4 years those eligible to vote get to effect who sits in that chair.

For a more extreme opposing viewpoint, check out interdictor's post from January which includes the gem:

If you vote, you have no justification to complain when you get screwed. You're complicit in this sinister and corrupt enterprise called government.

I repeat.. silence doesn't communicate anything, and not voting is silence.

Then of course there's a lot more rational approach in this BBC Article Ron Paul urges third-party vote. And even to this milder and more rational approach, I say, don't do it. I can fully understand the thought behind:

Dr Paul said the majority of Americans were unhappy with the choice on offer from the mainstream parties and urged the third-party candidates to bring their supporters together to vote against the "establishment candidates".

But if that is where your mind is, then I strongly suggest you vote for one of the major party candidates in this election and put every bit of volunteer effort you can behind getting runoff voting implemented in your state. The only way to have a viable multi-party system beyond two parties is if you can actually vote for the candidate you want *and* the candidate you think is electable. I'm fairly fond of instant-runoff.

Many states are already bringing gerrymandering under control by having a non-partisan group define the boundaries, so there is a greater chance that your voting district will actually be defined for your benefit instead of the benefit of the political party in power. If that's not true in your state, that's another item you need to push for if you want a viable third/fourth/etc party.

I keep seeing news stories about this poll and that poll showing Obama in the lead, McCain ii the lead, the lead widening, the lead narrowing, blah, blah, blah.

Daily Kos put up this article explaining the basic fallacy of polling, and forgets one of the most basic points.

The young voters out there today? The people who haven't voted before? Many of them do not have land line telephones. They have cell phones. Unless something has changed that I am not aware of, not a single poll calls people's cell phones.

So.. of those people out there with just cell phones, who are they more likely to vote for? Are they likely to get out an vote in greater numbers than they have in the past?

My hopes say "Obama" and "Yes", but both answers are far from certain.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you are eligible to vote and you do not get off your butt and do so, you have, in my opinion, absolutely no right to bitch about who gets elected. Silence (not voting) says nothing.

For those on my friends list who don't watch the Snopes feed, I found this e-mail forward making it's way around the net.. apparently not as quite as fast.. because it happens to actually have been truely authored by the lady it's attributed to.

As usual there's fact and there's opinion but I think this actually provides a little basis for talking about Gov. Palin's politics, not just her family.

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the
residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later — to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT

• "Hockey mom": true for a few years
• "PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
• "NRA supporter": absolutely true
• social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
• pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
• "Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.
• "Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.
• No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
• political maverick: not at all
• gutsy: absolutely!
• open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
• has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
• "a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
• fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
• pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
• pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents.
• pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
• pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall — they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.


Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008

One positive thing that came from candidate Palin's nomination, and even a positive from the kerfuffle about her daughter being pregnant. It brought back the topic of sexual education in schools, and something caught my eye in this CNN article.

Abstinence-only programs, which received a boost in federal funding during the last decade, have been shown not to be effective at keeping teens from having sex, according to a congressional study supervised by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. Released last year, the study tracked 2,000 children from elementary and middle school through high school and found children who were in abstinence-only programs were no more or less likely to engage in sex than their counterparts who had received more comprehensive sexual education.

They key phrase that caught my eye is "no more or less", i.e. according to this study, comprehensive education about sex is no more effective. Then please notice the key phrase "likely to engage in sex" later in that sentence.

The implication I take from this is that the author of the article or at least the author(s) of the study believe that the point of sexual education is to not have sex.

Now I'm not a parent, but I'm fairly sure that nothing short of locking children up will prevent children from elementary and middle school through high school having sex at some point.

I've always thought the point of sexual education was to make sure children know where babies come from, and how, if you are going to have sex, to have sex without making babies.

Now the actual study of which there are 5 reports.. I'm looking at the most recent two, abstinence-only and Heritage Keepers studies. And unless I'm totally missing something here, i am not seeing anything about a comprehensive sexual education.. just various forms of abstinence and the control group. Nothing indicates what education the control group gets other than it's not abstinence-only.

Compare that to this study actually does compare abstinence-only to comprehensive sex education and unlike the study above...

After adjustment for other significant predictors of engaging in vaginal intercourse (age, race, gender, and family intactness), abstinence-only education was not significantly associated with an adolescent ever engaging vaginal intercourse, whereas comprehensive sex education was marginally associated with reduced reports of engaging in vaginal intercourse.

_{statistical parentheticals removed as they didn't translate well}
So there's at least a tiny bit of indication that comprehensive is better than abstinence only when it comes to asking kids not to have sex. Now how about the important stuff. Does knowing more ways to be safe make kids safer?

Finally, when comparing adolescents who reported receiving a comprehensive sex education with those who received an abstinence-only education, comprehensive sex education was associated with a 50% lower risk of teen pregnancy.

_{statistical parentheticals removed as they didn't translate well}
Ok, even I can see that 50 percent is pretty darn statistically significant.

Maybe it's just me, but this study at least seems to say.. if you don't want babies having babies.. give them a comprehensive sexual education.

It's nice to know Dr. John Santelli, Professor and Chairman, Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University told the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform some very similar information. Check out the references section on that puppy for some real illuminating reading.

Somehow I think that researchers are overthinking this one.social ties bolster a waning memory

Could it simply be that repeating the events of your life a half dozen times sets those events more firmly in memory and thus slows the decline? Or just maybe the fact when you're coming up with conversational topics you're using those same memory skills and like other studies have shown, using memory skills helps slow their decline.

How many times have you had something major happen in your life and then by the umteenth person asking you about it, you don't even want to recount the story ever again?

So.. the AP ran this story about a priest organizing a beauty contest for nuns.

The "Miss Sister 2008" contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

"Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life," Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. "This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible."

Now aside from the whole "there are much better ways to make Nun's contributions more visible" thing, I noticed something. I wanted to go to Rev. Rungi's blog and see if there was something more to this.

There's a problem.. None of the stories I have found link to the nice Priest's blog. Zip.. Zilch.. Nada.

And the Googles? They do nothing...

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,310 for Reverend Antonio Rungi Blog Sister 2008

News story after news story, blog after blog discussing this as though it's real. Yet from Rev. Antonio Rungi? Nothing.

I'm going to get a good chuckle out of this if it shows up on Snopes as a hoax soon.

Post Edit 08/25/2008.. From this version of the AP article, it appears clear that the Priest's blog does not even exist yet, so this buzz is definitely all about smoke and mirrors.

Further Edit 08/26/2008 the boss said no contest.. From this article

"My superiors were not happy. The local bishop was not happy, but they did not understand me either," Father Antonio Rungi told Reuters by telephone from his convent in southern Italy on Tuesday.

"It was not at all my intention to put nuns on the catwalk," said Rungi, a priest of the Passionists religious order, speaking from his convent in the town of Mondragone.

In a blindly idiotic statement of the obvious..

...a new study by the University of Copenhagen which revealed that organic foods contained no more nutrients than non-organic foods grown with the use of pesticides.

The page on the study itself seems to give consumers little credit..

Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals.

The article goes on to point out one of the other benefits of consuming organically grown products is that organic farming methods are kinder to the environment so they bring up another Manchester Business School study which concluded

9.Despite all the deficiencies in the data and the qualifications that are needed in applying it to specific foods and food types in the UK, some general conclusions emerge:

‘Organic’ vs.‘conventionally-grown’foods: There is no doubt that,for many foods,the environmental impacts of organic agriculture are lower than for the equivalent conventionally-grown food.This would be especially the case if those impacts not well handled by LCA methods (e.g. biodiversity or landscape aesthetics) were to be taken into consideration. However,it is not true for all foods and appears seldom to be true for all classes of environmental impact.There is insufficient evidence available to state that organic agriculture overall would have less of an environmental impact than conventionalagriculture. In particular,from the data we have identified, organic agriculture poses its own environmental problems in the production of some foods,either in terms of nutrient release to water or in terms of climate-change burdens. There is no clear-cut answer to the question: which ‘trolley’has a lower environmental impact- the organic one or the conventional one?

Excuse me? If there isn't sufficient data to conclude that organic agriculture has lower environmental impact than the equivalent conventionally-grown food, then there also is not sufficient data to conclude that it does not. You don't get to say "there isn't sufficient proof, so it must not be true." when you're short of data, all you get to say is 'there is not enough data to draw conclusions.'

I don't buy organic foods because I think they are better for me. I do find it interesting that the CNN article mentions

It should be noted that the study does not make conclusions about the comparative levels of pesticides or chemicals in conventionally and organically grown food or the health effects of consuming such chemicals.

which is one of the reasons some people buy organic foods for. I think it's a pretty obvious conclusion that foods grown with fewer pesticides will contain fewer pesticides. It'd be nice to have some studies to quote proving that, but it does logically follow.

The main reason I prefer to buy organic foods? It would be to cut down on this problem. Yes, I like that organic farming can and does sequester some carbon, but I'm more interested in not using our watersheds as toilets for all that excess fertilizer. I'm sort of fond of sea food, and I would rather not have fisherman put out of business because they can't afford to travel out of the dead zone to catch their fish.

I am just plain missing something here..

At MIT, Dr. Daniel Nocera has apparently come up with

..a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source..

OK, this is great, I'm always happy to learn about revolutionary leaps forward and you know we've had this problem with storing energy for a very long time. So what's this leap?

..an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

something that sounds remarkably like something I remember doing in 8th grade "Earth Science" class. The "revolutionary" part of this appears to be

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'cause you know it's really cool to not have to add an electrolyte in order to get the conductivity up far enough that the process is efficient.

Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

That's revolutionary?? I mean.. breaking apart water using Radio waves that was pretty revolutionary. Inefficient, but revolutionary.

This? Sounds pretty freakin awesome, but I'm just seeing it as a derivative of what we've been doing for a very long time. I'm not seeing anything in the article comparing how efficient this process is compared to other methods.

Anyone with a greater amount of science knowledge want to help me understand why this is wonderfully revolutionary and a Great Leap forward?

Does someone have a really nice safe way to store the hydrogen and oxygen produced by this process so that home owners aren't blowing themselves and their neighbors up?

This article just gets my blood boiling.

Overweight women have to work out twice as hard to get long-term results
The study involved 201 overweight and obese women who were told to consume no more than 1,500 calories a day and assigned to one of four exercise regimens over a two-year period. Members of all four groups lost 10 percent of their original body weight within six months. But only the women who reported exercising for at least 55 minutes, five days a week, had kept the weight off after two years.

First, why is it we're picking on just women in this study? Are their husbands all svelte and healthy?

201 study participants, four regimens means about 50 folks per exercise regimen. That seems like a fairly small sample size to be drawing any real conclusions from.

The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol 168, No. 14., pp. 1482-1592, July 28, 2008.

I didn't feel like paying 15 bucks for the full article, but the abstract is free.

The Abstract also links to the longer description at the government clinical trials web site

They also have an invited commentary.. I didn't feel like poping for the $15 bucks for the full article of this either, I got the free first 150 words.. including

In this issue of the Archives, Jakicic et al report 2-year results from a study designed to determine the duration and intensity of physical activity necessary to maintain weight loss. They conclude that 2000 kcal/wk of exercise is needed to sustain weight loss.

Of 196 women in this study, 47 were able to sustain a weight loss of 10% of their initial . . .

Which all in all leads to a lot of reading that results in one resounding Duh from me. The basic summary I get out of this is: Change of diet alone does not maintain weight loss. You must also increase physical activity and maintain that increased physical activity. Also, the current '30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity on most days of the week' might be a little low. Current recommendation of 150 minutes a week, study said 275 minutes a week was better, so 40 minutes a day (7 days a week) instead of 22 minutes a day (7 days a week)

More exercise helps maintain weight loss.. I repeat Duh

What I would like to point out here.. The Blog title: "Overweight women have to work out twice as hard to get long-term results" translates quite well to.. "you're a fattie, you don't deserve to be thin, you have to work twice as hard as anybody else to get thin"

When that is not what the study says at all. What I get from the study is that the current recommendations on physical activity might be a bit low, and we only studied women so we can only conclude that women should exercise more though it is likely true that overweight men would have similar results. So why translate that into wording that implies being a fat woman makes you in some way bad/different?

Now that's just the thing I believe should happen on my birthday.. National Orgasm Day .. women across Britain working out their pevlic muscles and having orgasms.

Now since it's a PR article rather than, you know, a government declared holiday we should point out... Many women have reported success at improving their pelvic floor muscles without the use of an artificial device.

I can't say I have heard from many women who have in fact used anything like the Pelvic Toner (TM) (Possibly TMI?) to increase their vaginal (pubococcygeal) muscle fitness.

Synergy..

a 100 x 100 mile block of solar plants (Thermal solar plants in my current thought process) are said to be able to generate as much electric power as all the current power plants online. I like the idea of Thermal Solar plants because they can actually provide power when there's no sunlight. They do this through stored heat. Current technology is a lot better at storing heat than it is at storing electricity.

There's a lot said about this.. Googled including lots of misstatements that the needed area is just 100 square miles (i.e a square 10 miles on a side) but I'm fairly sure those are wrong.

Now.. just to give those solar thermal plants a bit more ommph.. if you look at some of the links in this search you'll read lots of articles about scientists who've created the blackest black yet. So focus all that sunlight onto a pipe covered in a sleeve of the blackest black yet and you ought to up the efficiency at least a little.

That's a little synergy, but one of the main arguments I read about this is that there isn't a strong energy infrastructure to transport all that generated electricity from the desert southwest to the rest of the country.

So lets see if we can't add that into the mix. We might have some trouble convincing someone to just lay out the grid for this, lots of hassle about through ways, maintaining the miles and miles of wire, getting to all those miles and miles of wire, etc.

So, lets see about solving another problem that will continue to vex us even if we get cleaner electricity online.. And that's the gas cost of transporting things from point a to point b.

High Speed electric powered trains or the full search

You need to move power from the solar power plants to the people? Build a train track.. 10-20 feet up in the air, three tracks wide (both directions and a stopping track) and you've got all the room you need to run huge cables (Power, Fiber Optic, etc) underneath those tracks. Easily accessible, just send your repair team out in their own specialized maglev car.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say we'd need nearly a full second 10,000 square miles of solar plant to power a maglev train network across the country, but I think it's highly feasible.

The ROI on this could be near immediate with the first links made. (i.e. you don't have to connect coast to coast before you see return) There is already a proposed maglev from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. How much of the ground they are going to cover with that train is desert that could have thermal solar plants parked on it?

Is the idea cheap? Nope.. a normal Maglev train lists its cost at around $35.7 million per track mile in 2005 dollars. And I'm guessing my idea of elevated tracks, and bundling an upgrade to the electric grid into the maglev tracks is going to increase that cost.

But it's also an idea that should employ a whole lot of people to build. It should employ a fair number of people to maintain, and it is based completely on renewable energy that will not run out while the sun still shines.

I see a lot of things written about maglev for moving people, but I really think that the system would need to be designed for cargo as well. In particular those wonderfully predictably sized containers that currently travel on diesel rail road, semi trucks and of course container ships. As the cost of trucking materials across the country goes up, the attraction to moving it by rail goes up. And the cost of moving materials by maglev should stay level or go down as the price of moving materials even by diesel train has to go up with the cost of fuel.

I've been playing with this cute little tool for a while.

I really think Sen. Hillary Clinton needs to give the American Public a break and give it up. It's time to be talking Obama v. McCain, not Obama v. Clinton.

Extreme Scenario 1: Slide that master slider all the way over to 100 percent Clinton. She'd have 1903 delegates. Passing Obama's 1842, but not in itself winning the nomination. She would still need 122 super delegates to cast their support for her to achieve the nomination.

Extreme Scenario 2: Now reset the delegates and slide the master slider over to just 84 percent Obama. He gets to 2025, and Clinton follows along with a very respectable 1720. No super delegates needed.

Middle ground: Make it a 50/50 draw on the state delegates. That means Obama still has a popular vote lead, and allocated delegate lead. He would only need 74 of the uncommitted 274 superdeledates to secure the nomination.

Find me any likely scenario of outcomes that results in Sen. Hillary Clinton winning the nomination without a large, large number of super delegates completely going against the popular vote and obvious majority of state delegates that have been allocated. I cannot come up with one.

CNN is not counting Florida/Michigan delegates into Sen. Hillary Clinton's totals. The breakdown can be found in several spots, but I like Real Clear Politics because regardless of their agenda they have an awesome name.

If Michigan and Florida are counted into her totals at the Democratic convention, there will be a huge rift torn in the party. Equally, if Sen. Hillary Clinton does not bow out before the convention and those delegates are not counted into her totals.. there will be a huge rift torn in the party.

Including Florida and Michigan: 55 percent of Michigan would give Sen. Hillary Clinton 87 delegates., 50 percent of Florida would give her 106 delegates. Included her total would be 1897. Sen. Hillary Clinton could then win without super delegates if she got 128 state delegate votes, or an average of 59 percent wins in all remaining contests. Sen. Hillary Clinton couldn't reach as high as 59 percent in Oklahoma or New York. Yes, she got 70 percent in Arkansas, but at no other point I can find did she get above 59 percent. (Am I missing some? I thought she had.)

33 percent of Florida would give Sen. Barack Obama 70 delegates, and there's no fair way to give him Michigan delegates. Just adding Florida's delegates to his total, Obama is at 1912. If Sen. Barack Obama wins even 52 percent of the remaining delegates in this scenario, he wins the nomination with no additional super delegates taking sides. That seems entirely reasonable.

If the Presidential nomination is decided before the Democratic convention, seating Michigan and Florida becomes a non issue. (Well, maybe not a total non issue, but a lot smaller issue that will be important to political infighters, not so much to the public at large.)

Change, can Sen. Barack Obama really bring it? I can't say for sure, but I am a lot more willing to believe that than I am willing to believe that Sen. Hillary Clinton will.

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25-ish songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and song title correctly.
Step 4: For those who are guessing -- looking the lyrics up on a search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game post your own.

( longish list of lyrics. 8 down, 18 to go )

The Orlando Sentinel reported on a D.C. Rally by Florida Democrats. Reading that article just made me grumpy.

As I mentioned before the rules were determined before their votes were held. This isn't some arbitrary punishment that was inflicted after the fact. I was all in favor of a re-vote taking place and I could certainly see some of the issues people had with the cost and effort involved.

What I don't understand is why the disenfranchised voters are marching on DNC headquarters in D.C.^* People, they are not the source of your pain. If you want to march somewhere, you march to your state capitals, and you demand the resignation of the legislators, Democrat or Republican that took your vote and threw it into the trashcan for some political grandstanding.

You take care of that little bit of clean up, then you come talking to the national party about how your voice deserves to be heard.

I posted a comment on the article.. I might have been a little harsh, and for the first time in this discussion I actually feel a bit perturbed at the citizen voters of Florida instead of just their legislators.

Yes, the DNC certainly should disenfranchise Florida voters because the state Legislature decided to move the primary to Jan. 29. and not because Florida voters did anything wrong.

No, because that same state Legislature had plenty of notice that what they were doing would disenfranchise their constituents, and those constituents had plenty of notice that they would be disenfranchised.

And what'd you do about it? Wait till AFTER the vote is held to discover that the national DNC is actually going to stick to it's decision?

And NOW you want the rules changed?

Nope.. sorry, you elected those state officials through your action or inaction. You didn't push them hard enough to behave like rational adults. You made the bed, enjoy your nap.

I would be absolutely thrilled if someone couple point out any articles describing citizen efforts to get those dates moved when the state legislature made their decision and the national DNC reacted to it.

* Side note, at least one comment on the article indicates that the Clinton campaign sponsored that march. Which would make sense, but I have no information that substantiates that particular accusation.

Totally Worth it.

There is a post credits extra... yes, it's worth staying for.

One of the positive benefits of working at my current contract is thewellness benefits. they offer, even to contractors.

They have just been featured in Better Health and Living (a free magazine offered at some grocery stores, not sure of all the outlets. I don't take advantage of the workout center or martial arts studio on site, but I found the article fun because the guy getting a foot to the ribs in the photo? That'd be Bruce, who sits in the cube next to me.

He has actually been my inspiration to workout more and get healthier, just because for a guy who is a good number of years older than I am.. Bruce could kick my butt.

It is good to find that sort of inspiration in someone who's actually fairly close to your preoccupation as well as your occupation.. Younger computer geeks have already done much to dispel the myth of computer geeks being socially lacking and physically under developed because of excess concentration on cerebral activities. Bruce just goes to show.. it's not really a new trend, just one that's finally getting noticed.