I did not know that about al Qaeda

The 'duh' award of the weekend goes to:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23869026/

What's going on in Iraq

Ever since President Bush mischaracterized the renewed fighting in Iraq as "the enemy trying to fill the TV screens with violence," I've wanted to say something about what's going on. But the situation seems so chaotic and ambiguous that it's hard to know what exactly. I've already been clear that I think it's time for us to pull out.

Fred Kaplan summarizes the Shiite infighting well in this piece over at The Slate.

Bailouts

Ezra Klein's post yesterday about a Robert Reich commentary reminds me of something I was thinking about at the gym yesterday. Through most of the mortgage crisis, I've argued to friends that people who took on "silly" mortgages--e.g. paying interest only for five years--were just plain crazy and shouldn't be bailed out.

But then the Fed rescued Bear Stearns and became increasingly generous in loaning money to banks that got themselves into trouble by lending too generously and creating investment vehicles that were difficult if not impossible to value.

This re-framed the problem for me. I think everyone--homeowners, lenders, regulators--have responsibility for the current mess. But keep in mind this fact: the financial industry created the "silly" investment products that consumers subsequently got into so much trouble with. And so far, it's the financial industry and not homeowners who are getting assistance from the government. (Sure, we all benefit when our entire financial system doesn't disintegrate around us, but there has to be a more balanced way to protect those most vulnerable... and I'm feeling a lot more sympathy these days for homeowners than the financial giants who took on so much risk that they risked destabilizing our entire economy.)

People are responsible for the choices they make, and consumers should know what they are getting into when they sign a mortgage. But you also have to look at the fact that banks and other mortgage lenders were serving up these non-traditional mortgages like there was no tomorrow (some proof of their complicity). In the arcane world of mortgage loans, the guy writing the loan always has the upper hand.

UPDATE: Looks like real assistance for homeowners may be a little closer... let's wait and see what happens. And when.

Obama's economic speech

Robert Kuttner, co-editor at The American Prospect, critiques Obama's economic speech from earlier in the week:

... He connected all the dots--between the complete dismantling of financial regulation, the declining economic opportunity and security for ordinary people, the current financial meltdown, and the political influence of Wall Street as the driver of these changes.... It is this kind of leadership and truth-telling that is the predicate for the shift in public opinion required to produce legislative change. A radical, appropriately nuanced, and deeply public-minded description of what has occurred, the speech was Roosevelt quality: the president as teacher-in-chief.

He's not really that frightening...

but I've always thought Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's child catcher was just plain creepy:

The escalating cost of ethanol

It's measured not just in the price of ethanol but also in the rising prices of the food crops that corn is replacing on America's farms. And our government continues to subsidize this insanity. (OMG I think I sounded like Lou Dobbs for a second there!)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23847301/

The Big Island gets bigger

Damn, Victor and I were just there a couple of weeks ago; we missed some of the best volcanic eruption viewing in decades...

http://mobile.latimes.com/news.jsp?key=151712&rc=top

Professor Obama

The University of Chicago Law School confirms that, despite the Clinton campaign's claims, Obama was a professor for several years there. Indeed, they offered him a full-time tenure-track position on multiple occasions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/28/university-of-chicago-ob_n_93896.html

Senator Leahy weighs in

I like the way he phrased this: 'Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason,' for remaining in the Democratic race. Read more.

They didn't get the memo

Despite the real estate mess and slowing economy, a large new development has broken ground a quarter mile from our house.

Pennsylvania's Senator Casey endorses Obama

And is going on a six day bus tour through the state with Barack.

Video here.

Mental and spiritual muscles

Mental capacities can be strengthened just as physical ones can. The Dalai Lama chooses to be compassionate and follows a path--including meditation--that cultivates that state of being.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23829470/

The nose knows

I love this sort of research that suggests evolutionary explanations for biological discoveries.

Personally I believe that our sense of smell plays a huge role in human mate selection. Those irresistable attractions that defy all logic. :-)

In 2003 I took Landmark Education's Transforming Yesterday's Strategies course. I had a hypothetical conversation with several fellow attendees about whether we could have a relationship with someone whose smell was a turnoff. I strongly argued the affirmative case; a subsequent experience proved me wrong.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23831260/

A multitude of challenges

I have an idea: instead of positioning it as an 'either/or' choice, why don't we try to tackle global warming AND existing problems like malaria and hunger?

Just saying...

http://mobile.latimes.com/news.jsp?key=151215&rc=sci

Pearls

I'm lying here in bed, not quite ready to drift off. So I pick up my phone to check the news and find this story about the soaring price of rice.

And by chance, my favorite Sade song is playing on my iPod, "Pearls":

There is a woman in Somalia
Scraping for pearls on the roadside
There's a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive

There is an ill wind blowing in the world today...

SADE lyrics

Obama's first ad in Indiana

Video here.

Despite losing California...

Obama polls there better than Hillary in match-ups against McCain. So what does that say about her big state or electability arguments? The latest California poll here.

Resilient knees?

I'm trusting the NY Times on this one and going for a run. It's 80 degrees and suuny in Vegas!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=151251&f=26

Mental and spiritual muscles

Mental capacities can be strengthened just as physical ones can. The Dalai Lama chooses to be compassionate and follows a path--including meditation--that cultivates that state of being.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23829470/

Nader... don't say that word

We can't stand another four years on our current path because of a spoiler...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=151389&f=28

Just say 'no' to farmed salmon?

Disease, overuse of antibiotics, pollution, and negative impacts to wild salmon stocks all plague salmon farms in Chile. And eating these salmon may have health consequences for us as well.

I have to wonder if it is truly possible to make fish farming a sustainable practice.

More on Hillary's trip to Bosnia

From CBS News:

After a rough week or so for Obama and Hillary, here's the latest poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal. The percentage of respondents with positive views of Obama dropped 2 points to 49%, but Hillary's positive rating hit its lowest level since March 2001: 37%.

AND ON AN UNRELATED NOTE, Victor and I finally found a song he's been searching for since our New Year's Eve trip to Los Angeles. Here's "Alright" by Red Carpet:

Oracle revenues up, stock down

When I left Oracle 8 years ago, I sold my final stock options at around $35. Today, many acquisitions later, it's trading at $18.

I guess it's been an eventful ride for a lot of us!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=151231&f=23

Shush now

I always find it interesting when someone expresses the opinion that someone else should keep their own opinion quiet. :-)

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thecaucus/4633/single

Kritter karesansui

I can't wait to see what these little guys can do with those desktop Japanese rock gardens. :-)

Schools for Humanity

My good friend Kim (whom I recently realized I've known for 19 years!) passed this link on to me from her good friend Sally.

Most likely you are familiar with Habitat for Humanity. Former President Carter has done a lot of work with them, which is how I first learned about their projects to build homes for people in need of housing, both here in the U.S. and internationally.

Dave Brown, a colleague of Sally's, volunteered with Habitat several years ago. What he observed in Ethiopia was that the children living in the new homes they built now had roofs over their heads but no school to go to. And rather than simply talk about the problem, he founded Schools for Humanity. The organization's first project was to build a school that now serves 160 children!

From their website:

While visiting the town of Shashemene, Ethiopia in July 2006, I was saddened to learn that the children of the community had little or no access to formal education. These wonderful kids, who had become my friends, were a small part of the 6 million other children in Ethiopia who did not go to school. They were destined to start work at a very young age and be caught up in a cycle of hard work and poverty their whole lives.

At the end of my trip, I vowed to build these children a school. Not a grand facility that would lead these children away from their families in search of higher education - but a local neighborhood school open to boys and girls regardless of clan, caste or religion....

We plan to increase the number of children we educate, and take on other projects in places of need. Schools for Humanity is an effective and efficiently run organization: we are all volunteers; no one draws a salary and when we travel to work on our projects, we pay our own way.

We are committed to providing formal education to children in the poorer areas of the world. We are also committed to ensure that every dollar donated to us has the maximum impact on the lives of the children.

We believe that education is key to the success of a child and a community.

Check out their website. Consider making a contribution. And dare to think a little bigger this week.

Dave did... and for those kids he's made all the difference in the world.

It's getting hotter

Two new studies find that climate change may be taking place at a faster rate than current models predict.

The first find that soot plays a greater role than previously thought in heating the atmosphere.

More alarmingly, the second finds that not only does more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contribute to global warming, but higher atmospheric temperatures increases the amount of free carbon dioxide, resulting in a potentially devastating feedback loop:

"There seems to be a change of about 40 parts per million (ppm) in CO2 levels for every 1 °C change in temperature," says Cox, who has revisited the Little Ice Age data. Since further global warming is inevitable in the near future, it means we're heading for big natural increases in CO2 on top of human-made emissions.

This extra increase will boost global warming in the coming century to about 50 per cent above mainstream climate projections, says Cox, because they only include the effect of CO2 on temperature, and not temperature's effect on CO2.

"The system turns out to be more sensitive than we thought. If we get 4 °C of warming in the coming century, that by itself will raise CO2 levels by an extra 160 ppm. And that may be rather conservative." Current levels are 380 ppm, compared with pre-industrial levels of 270 ppm. Many scientists believe anything above 450 ppm will create a devastating global climate.

Wilkins ice shelf near collapse

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23797247/

Ouch... home prices down 19% in Vegas

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23500987/

2-dijoyfulexamane

Oh, my, got an A on my second organic chemistry exam. Sho' is a happy day!

Not knowing

A reminder that in medicine--as in life in general--certainty often remains elusive. Learning to live with not knowing lies on the path to peace.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=150816&f=26

Miles apart

I've been reading comments left by readers on various news websites in response to articles about the presidential campaign. As of late, the chasm between Obama and Hillary supporters seems as wide as the more familiar one between Democrats and Republicans. No doubt my readers feel the same way about my blog!

This is the challenge we face: coming together by seeing our commonalities as being more profound than our differences. I am as guilty as the next, it seems.

The following article explores the divide in Dover, Pennsylvania, the recent battleground in the evolution-intelligent design debate.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=150840&f=77

The new smartest guys in the room

This article about the Wall Street mess reminds me of the Enron fiasco.

Bathing John Malkovich

This is the strangest thing I've seen since Frank Jordan posed nude in the shower during his San Francisco mayoral re-election campaign in 1995.

Bill and gay marriage

MTVU questions Bill Clinton about DOMA and his current position on gay marriage:

More of the interview here, and a link to video of Melissa Etheridge's original comments here (scroll down to the second video).

Bill makes the claim that Hillary supports repealing DOMA, but she's on the record as recently as last month as only wanting to repeal section 3, leaving intact the portion that allows states to ignore gay marriages performed in other states.

Here are my earlier comments on the topic.

Obama's foreign policy vision

A great article on Obama's vision for America's role in the world.

More robots

Apparently The Onion shares my concerns... :-)

Dinner with Obama

An opportunity for dinner with Obama... sign me up! :-)

Stonehenge... try this at home

Some easy ways to move 2000 pound stones and whole buildings around in your backyard. How they built Stonehenge? Who knows.

Thanks, Andrew.

Spring break is over

Alas, my spring break ended yesterday, and it was back to class today. Got an A on my biology exam from the week before, so at least school started on an up note. :-) And truth be told, I was finding myself with a little too much time on my hands, and it was good to get back to my routine.

I had a nice time off, though, and got to enjoy some time with my sister Molly and her friend Julie. We did a little clubbing, a fair amount of eating, and hit the rides at the Stratosphere and a nice sunny happy hour at Kona Grill (just voted top singles bar in Vegas, lol).

Victor and I ended my break with a great weekend. Drinks with friends on Friday, a romantic dinner at Bouchon on Saturday, and a full Easter schedule which ended with a long beer bust at Charlie's and a late night breakfast at the Hard Rock.

Next stop: Puerto Vallarta next month for my friend April's 40th, can't wait!

Photos from Obama's campaign stop in Portland

My friend Jack forwarded this link of a fellow Reedie's pics from last Friday's campaign event

Michigan and Florida

My friend Sue originally hails from Michigan and has strong and valid feelings about it being represented in the Democratic nominating process. She brought a couple of items to my attention recently. The first shows how the total vote counts for Hillary and Obama vary depending on which states are counted, and the second reports on a Florida poll which shows a significant number of Democrats would vote for McCain if their primary votes aren't counted.

I share her concerns about Michigan's voters and feel the same for Florida's. Both are relatively big states, but that's not really the issue. This is an important election that's generated more interest and energy than we've seen in a generation, and voters in both of those states want to take part and have their voices matter.

But here's my problem: having Florida and Michigan be part of the process has to be for those reasons and not for political ones that advantage one candidate.

The time to have spoken up about the problem was last fall. That's when the Democratic candidates were asked to sign a pledge stating that they would not "campaign or participate" in states that held their primaries before February 5th (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina were excepted).

Now you can argue about the merits of the pledge, but again, the time to do that is before you sign it. Yet Hillary, like Obama and the other Democratic candidates, signed the pledge months before either Florida or Michigan voters went to the polls.

The time to have spoken up about Florida and Michigan being represented in this process was back when they moved up the dates of their primaries and when the Democratic National Committee sanctioned them for doing so. Instead, Hillary made it an issue after she lost Iowa and suddenly realized that she had a campaign ahead of her that was more difficult than she had planned on.

Some have argued that in Florida it was a Republican legislature that moved up the date of the primary, and it's therefore unfair to penalize Democrats in that state. But that logic is out of step with how our society works. I don't have the luxury of not paying taxes passed by a legislature when the "other" party is in the majority. I can't opt out of a law that was passed when my guys weren't in power. My recourse is to petition my representatives to get the law changed, and failing that, to get someone else elected or to move so that I'm not impacted again.

None of what happened was a surprise. The DNC published the rules and warned states that they would be penalized if they were violated. To let the states--and Hillary's campaign--game the system now simply trains people to keep doing the same thing in the future: namely to do whatever they think is in their best interest even if it means not playing by the rules. It reinforces a mentality of believing that the rules can be changed after the fact when they become inconvenient. And it's particularly nauseating when someone claims disingenuously to be standing up for someone else's rights when they are really trying to save their own ass.

Michigan and Florida represent real problems. I'm disappointed that the Obama campaign didn't propose a compromise (like mine) that would offer some sort of solution, as doing so would have demonstrated his ability to move beyond this kind of stalemate.

But I'm even more disappointed in Hillary for arguing that Michigan's primary should count when her opponent's name didn't even appear on the ballot or for making an issue of both states only when her own political future depended on their votes.

Breaking the fast, avoiding the flab

An article from the New York Times on another reason why breakfast is the most imporant meal of the day.

Hillary 'misspoke' about her Bosnia trip

Maybe I was too quick to give her the benefit of the doubt... Hillary is now admitting that her description of her 1996 trip to Bosnia doesn't square with the facts.

Alarming uranium facts

I read a frightening article in the latest Scientific American today. "Detecting Nuclear Smuggling" highlights not only the difficulty of detecting nuclear materials, such as highly enriched uranium (HEU), in the 42 million shipping containers arriving at U.S. ports each year, but also this bombshell:

The "quality" of nuclear material since then [1945] has continued to improve.... Our modeling showed that, for an explosive-gun assembly, the minimum quantity that was required to obtain a one-kiloton explosive yield would be subtantially less than the amount of HEU in Little Boy [the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima]. Most disturbingly, with larger quantities, a one-kiloton yield could be achieved with a probability greater than 50 percent by dropping a single piece of HEU onto another.... Designing an HEU bomb seems shockingly simple.

Given the low probability of detecting HEU--when shielded it emits less radioactivity than is normally present in background radiation--the Scientific American article's authors recommend tackling the problem at the source. Obama has highlighted the need to do more in securing nuclear materials worldwide and passed legislation last year to aid in doing so.

Not all commodities are heading up

Check out the graph in this article about the long term trend of cocaine prices.

The shifting landscape of our memories

So while most people sharing this video on their blogs are probably doing so to highlight their belief that Hillary is lying, I feature it here more as evidence for the fallibility of human memory.

My guess is she really does remember it the way she describes. Maybe she is confusing one event with another. Or perhaps she has told the story so many times that it has become gradually more and more embellished until the story bears only superficial similarities to the original. That's something that we all do... studies I have read about have found that the part of a memory that is most easily confused is its source. Did it really happen? Did we dream it? Am I remembering something I have said in the past?

The mind is remarkably adept at filling in the blanks, whether they are due to the design of our eyes or vague recollections of long past events. Optical illusions arise as a result. And so do illusions of past events.

More from the Washington Post's FactChecker.

Frontline documents Bush's war

Next Monday and Tuesday on PBS.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23745370/

Salmon sanctuary on the Snake

A call to transform the Snake River into a sanctuary for endangered salmon by removing the dams on it:

http://mobile.latimes.com/news.jsp?key=150484&rc=op

10,000 B.C., digitally enhanced

I saw 10,000 B.C. in a digital projection theater last night (sort of funny to mingle those two in one sentence:-).

Not much of a movie, just some fluff in The Scorpion King vein (though with smaller but still quite nice pecs, lol). The clarity of the image was amazing, sometimes too amazing. Human vision doesn't normally provide such a clear view of the mountainscapes that filled the movie, things tending to get hazier in the distance.

Still, I'm sure digital movies will get better with time... and not having lint and hair littering the frames is great.

On the topic of movies, I saw The Game Plan (with The Rock huge pecs) and Ratatouille on the way to and from Hawai'i. Enjoyed both... and embarassed to admit that I cried during the former! I'm always a sucker for kids getting re-united with their parents.

And I re-watched Crimes and Misdemeanors and Drugstore Cowboy on DVD over the past few days. The former is one of my favorite Woody Allen movies and has long been something of a moral touchstone for me.

And I thought Drugstore was one of the scarier "too many drugs" movies until I saw Requiem for a Dream. But it was a kick to recognize various Portland locales in the film, including an old warehouse (the Chown Pella) that was turned into high end condos in The Pearl district. I almost bought one but ended up picking another building... and a unit right across the hallway from Gus Van Sant, Jr. himself!

The argument against withdrawal in 2005...

Matthew Yglesias argues that the worst case scenario used to justify keeping troops in Iraq after their January 2005 elections came to pass even though we stayed!

In short, people said if we left Iraq would become more violent and chaotic if we left. But we stayed... and the situation there became worse in 2005... and worse in 2006... and far worse still in 2007.

Hmm.

The early states pledge

Here is the pledge that the candidates--including both Hillary and Obama--signed stating that they would not "campaign or participate" in states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina that held primaries or caucuses before February 5th.

Last week I weighed in on the issue of Michigan's delegates and Hillary's assertion that it was Obama's "choice" to remove his name from the ballot. Given the pledge that they both signed, it seems to me that a reasonable observer would think that taking one's name off the ballot was more consistent with "not participating" than leaving one's name on.

State of the race

Links to articles assessing Hillary's chances of catching Obama in either the popular vote (low) or delegates (even lower) and a website tracking the superdelegate tallies (with Obama now within 35 delegates of Hillary). Note that he now has more governors and U.S. Senators backing him, and only two fewer U.S. Representatives. Hillary's shrinking superdelegate lead is entirely composed of Democratic National Committee members.

There are 566 delegates left to be allocated in the remaining ten contests. If Obama simply won 50% of those, he'd only need around a third (124) of the remaining 337 uncommitted superdelegates to secure the nomination.

But hey, the GOP and the media (both the reporters and the ad revenue-hungry networks they serve) are enjoying the mudslinging, so let's keep it going, by all means!

Not.

McCain's fundraising

Apparently his campaign reported bringing in less money in February than they did in January...

Tomorrow is World Water Day

And NPR's Talk of the Nation "Science Friday" discusses the issue of fresh water becoming increasingly scarce around the world.

One item I found particularly fascinating: approximately 80% of water around the world is used for agriculture, with most of that going for irrigation. Consequently, transporting food crops--especially grains--around the world can be considered a method of moving fresh water around the world. Since it takes 1000 tons of water to grow one ton of grain, importing the grain is clearly more feasible and efficient than importing the water.

"In effect, world grain markets are now, in some sense, world water markets. This is how water moves from surplus to deficit areas."

(This discussion takes place from 26:00 to 30:00 of the 48 minute broadcast.)

Al Gore wants you

I received this from Al Gore today, and he asked me to pass it on:

Climate change is an urgent issue that requires immediate solutions. That's why I've joined with Al Gore and others across the country and around the world who want to halt global warming.

We're on the verge of being over one million strong and I'm asking you to join us. Please click here today to become part of the solutions to global warming:

http://wecansolveit.org/onemillion

If leaders in business and government are going to make stopping climate change a priority, we need to send a loud message that we want action now. That's why I'm asking you to get involved today:

http://wecansolveit.org/onemillion

Together, we can stop global warming.

Now in return, I'd like Al to endorse Obama. :-)

LOL... Hillary's 3 a.m. girl speaks

Video here.

Bill Richardson endorses Obama

In Portland... wish I had been there, miss it and all my buddies there so much! And it's so beautiful this time of year with everything in bloom!

Here's the announcement and video (if you watch nothing else, don't miss the bit that begins at 9:00):

Kudos to Chris Wallace

For a change, a truly "fair and balanced" voice over at Fox News.

This is just marvelous

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias over at The Atlantic: a cartoon explanation of the mortgage crisis.

Hillary's White House records released

Hillary's White House records have finally been released, and The Guardian's initial review finds little evidence that she participated in key foreign policy events during Bill Clinton's two terms.

What I learned today

I submitted my "what I've been doing the past 20 years" page for my college 20th reunion today. I listed running as something that I missed from those long ago days. And I claimed to have gained some wisdom along the way but admitted to still carrying some of my oldest fears.

Apparently I set myself up for an insight, because I went for a run, and on my way home I made some sense of what I had been experiencing all morning.

I had been feeling sad about a missed opportunity, but it wasn't the sadness which had left me so distraught. It was how I felt alone in my sadness, and how I resisted Victor's efforts to suggest solutions.

What I saw is that I don't doubt my ability to solve my problems... and in writing that I see something else: that if I have a problem that I don't think I can solve, I don't think anyone can solve it.

But what I can't do is comfort myself, and so I look to someone else to do that. And when I say "comfort," I'm talking about being comforted the way Mom comforted me: being held, whether literally or figuratively.

Over the years most people have responded to me in this situation, logically enough, by trying to help me resolve the issue I'm confronting. And when they try to help me solve the problem, I find myself misunderstood and, yes, even sadder.

So... thank you, Victor, for trying to help. And thank you, Stanford, for reminding me that I have a choice about how I live my life.

Twenty years

My twenty year college reunion will be held this fall, and yesterday I received a reminder that my page for the Class of '88 book was due today.


This is what I shared with my classmates:

FAVORITE STANFORD MEMORY

I remember walking back to Mirlo one Sunday night after Flicks at MemAud. It was the fall of ’85, and I think the movie was The Big Chill. In any case, I remember telling my group that for the first time in my life I felt like I had made “Big Chill” friends.

Those words were more true than I could know, for mostly happy reasons. Alas, for one reason, so sad.

WHAT I MISS THE MOST

Walking everywhere. My midnight runs. The Dish with Randi.

CURRENT LIFE MOTTO

There is no way that things are supposed to be; there's only how they are. And don't worry, it only seems kinky at first. ;-)

LIFE AFTER STANFORD

Stanford to Palo Alto to Sunnyvale to San Mateo to San Francisco to Portland (Oregon) to San Francisco to Las Vegas… Oracle to nCUBE to C-COR… Software to life coaching to healthcare (back in school now, working on my pre-reqs before applying to Physician’s Assistant programs)... Making movies to quiet times to love to the dance floor to dog walks to heartbreak to starting fresh to looking deep inside to finding possibility to disappointing myself to rediscovery

It’s been a wonderful journey, shaped somewhat by external events like politics of the late 80s/early 90s and the dotcom era but mostly by finding out what it means to love, grow up, and make a contribution. I’ve made and lost money, found and discarded friends, been hurt in relationships but caused pain, too.

Looking back, I wouldn’t want to do any of it over, not the good times or the bad. The last few years have been confusing, marked by a sense of being “in between”: in between being young and old, in between the old ways of finding success and what comes next, in between how I thought things were and having no clue. And as much as I used to like to say I didn’t have any regrets, I have to admit that I have a few.

All of it has made me who I am, and generally I am happy with myself. I’ve gained wisdom but still carry my oldest fears and faults. I am imperfect but still growing. I don’t always understand why but I have the love of many dear people: my family, my Stanford Big Chill circle, my SF and Portland buddies, and most of all, my Victor who loves me more than I thought possible.

If I had to name a single thing that I’ve learned that has mattered, it’s this: Remember each day to be a little more generous, a little more forgiving with people. Everyone just wants to be happy and to be loved, and it’s far easier to please them than we like to believe it is.

Who I am is the possibility of freedom and love. Namaste!

I included this picture with my submission; it was taken a week ago when Victor and I were in Hawai'i for my cousin Kim's birthday.

Obama speaks on race in America

Obama spoke this morning in Philadelphia on the issue of race in America, addressing the respective fears, resentments, anger, and resignation in the black and white communities. But he did so in the context of of our shared hopes and dreams and our common future.

He specifically spoke of his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor at Obama's church in Chicago for many years:

... We’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

The full text of the speech and video here as well as comments from Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias.

The Wright controversy has hurt Obama, I think. Let's see if the American people are open to his explanation of his own behavior and his vision for moving forward as a nation less divided by race. As he said in the speech, he is not so naive as to think that one presidential election--or one candidate--can rid the nation of lingering racial issues. Much rests on the openness and willingness of Americans to move beyond sound bites and look into their own hearts... and the hearts of others:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

Being led by the nose

McCain by al Qaeda, that is.

To reason, as McCain does, that because al-Qaeda will boast if we leave Iraq that we therefore most [sic] make an unlimited commitment to indefinite warfare there is crazy; we'd be letting a small group of fanatics pin down a huge swathe of the American military with nothing more than the threat to release a gloating videotape.

Read the whole post here.

Fun with a garden hose

This made me laugh. :-)

Though it's hard not to feel sorry for Mr. Carradine!

Interesting point about the mortgage crisis

From Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic:

Part of the rah-rah media atmosphere of the boom years was that price increases were defined as "good," which meant that anything that led to price increases, including a tightening supply of places where one could live and then swiftly get around to interesting spots, was also defined as good. In the real world, though, a shortage of desirably located dwellings is no more a good thing than is any other kind of shortage. The question is what can be done about it?

Coming up on five years...

Wednesday will make the five year anniversary of the war. McClatchy Newspapers takes a look at the strategic costs of the conflict. The New York Times looks at failures in execution.

(Thanks, Matthew Yglesias.)

The current financial mess

You have to wonder how bad things truly are...

It has seemed to me for sometime now that we've been on an unsustainable course, with our economy dependent on a huge daily influx of foreign capital to support the spending of both the American people and their government. A lot of smart people have agreed (or should I say that I've agreed with a lot of smart people? :-).

Bailouts of huge financial firms continue, with both the Federal Reserve and foreign investors stepping in to rescue companies who find their financial situations deterioriating overnight.

Who is responsible? Who should pay? How bad are things really? (Or in other words, are these bailouts of the financial elites really necessary to protect us all? Is the ship that close to foundering?)

Matthew Yglesias makes the excellent point that these types of bailouts (e.g. Bear Stearns) by the Federal government are a perfect justification as to why the rich (and, I submit, corporations) should pay higher taxes than the less well-off. If the government is essentially guaranteeing that you won't fail, then shouldn't you pay a price for that safety net?

The political dangers of wiretaps (UPDATED)

During all of the fuss last week about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's liasons with expensive prostitutes, I found myself wondering if there was a political side to the whole thing.

Sure, the Feds said that they had begun the investigation to follow up on unusual bank transactions to which they had been alerted, and that's certainly plausible.

But Spitzer had also clearly made many, many people in the financial industry unhappy... and most likely plenty of folks in the Federal government as well.

So I have no evidence that there was any political angle to the wiretaps that recorded his negotiations to hire "Kristen," but this Los Angeles Times editorial describes the history of political eavesdropping and the passage of the FISA bill to prevent it:

The original FISA law was passed in 1978 after a thorough congressional investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that for decades, intelligence analysts--and the presidents they served--had spied on the letters and phone conversations of union chiefs, civil rights leaders, journalists, antiwar activists, lobbyists, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices--even Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Church Committee reports painstakingly documented how the information obtained was often "collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action."

Wiretap abuses can have devastating impacts on individuals, but the far greater danger is the political one that arises when those in power will do anything to remain there.

UPDATED: Just ran across this commentary from Alan Dershowitz on "The Entrapment of Eliot."

The feminist case for Obama

As made by Adele Stan at the Washington Post.

At The Bank...

with my sister Molly and Victor at the Bellagio.

Commentary from a law professor

Cass Sunstein is a law professor and colleague of Obama at the University of Chicago School of Law. Here's his recent commentary, "The Obama I Know."

CORRECTION: My friend Sue corrected a recent post I made. Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich also left their names on the Michigan ballot, along with Hillary's. They took 4% and 1% respectively of the vote.

Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson removed their names after the DNC stripped Michigan of its delegates.

Ferraro's comments

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23617413/

For the record, Ferraro has stated that she wouldn't have been a VP nominee had she been a man.

Something else to worry about...

Wonder how long it will be before we have to start buying health insurance for our electronic 'livestock'? And which candidates' plan will cover all of them? :-)

http://mobile.cnn.com/wml.ne/en/p/a/main1/factory.installed.virus.ap/1.wml

Sad news for salmon and fishermen

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=147829&f=21

NYTimes on the role of race in politics

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=148052&f=19

SPRING BREAK BEGINS!!

No classes for ten days, woo hoo!

Michigan's delegates

This is what Hillary had to say on NPR about the delegates from Michigan:

"That was his choice," she says in an interview with Steve Inskeep. "There was no rule or requirement that he take his name off the ballot. His supporters ran a very aggressive campaign to try to get people to vote uncommitted."

It's funny how all of the Democratic candidates removed their names from the Michigan ballot. Everyone except Hillary. They did so because the DNC had stripped Michigan of its delegates, and they all believed that removing their names was the right thing to do. And they would have done the same in Florida except election law there didn't allow them to do so.

Everyone did this. Everyone but Hillary. You've got to ask yourself why. Why did Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, and John Edwards--not to mention Obama--all believe removing their names from the ballot was the right and fair thing to do? Why didn't Hillary?

And given that all of those people did, what kind of candidate would want to seat delegates from a state where she was the only one on the ballot?

Not anyone I would want to vote for.

Debunking the "big state" spin

The Obama campaign has posted a memo from the governors of several states that Barack won. It comments on the fact that he has won most of the large states that were close in the 2004 presidential election:

Nine of the largest states that were decided by a margin of 8 points or less in 2004 have already held a caucus or a primary to select delegates to the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver. Obama has won seven of those nine contests – including four that Bush won.

State of the race

I received this email today from the Obama campaign:

Dear Michael,

When we won Iowa, the Clinton campaign said it's not the number of states you win, it's "a contest for delegates."

When we won a significant lead in delegates, they said it's really about which states you win.

When we won South Carolina, they discounted the votes of African-Americans.

When we won predominantly white, rural states like Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska, they said those didn't count because they won't be competitive in the general election.

When we won in Washington State, Wisconsin, and Missouri -- general election battlegrounds where polls show Barack is a stronger candidate against John McCain--the Clinton campaign attacked those voters as "latte-sipping" elitists.

And now that we've won more than twice as many states, the Clinton spin is that only certain states really count.

But the facts are clear. For all their attempts to discount, distract, and distort, we have won more delegates, more states, and more votes.

Meanwhile, more than half of the votes that Senator Clinton has won so far have come from just five states. And in four of these five states, polls show that Barack would be a stronger general election candidate against McCain than Clinton.

The Clinton campaign has certainly been successful at changing the media narrative on the Democratic race. But numbers don't lie... and right now the only way for Clinton to pull off an upset is to change the rules.

Is that the kind of "fighter" you want leading our nation? Seems like we've already had someone in the White House these past seven years who likes to change the rules...

Just saying.

Bad forecast for cellulosic ethanol?

A new study suggests that cellulosic ethanol will never take off because the subsidies necessary to get farmers to grow switchgrass rather than food crops would be prohibitively high. Wheat prices have already risen 83% in the past year to record highs, and biofuels are cited as one reason:

Demand for alternative energy sources has led farmers to sow less wheat and convert land to crops such as corn, sugarcane and rapeseed, that can be turned into biofuels.

Ethanol, diesel and other liquid fuels can be made from processing plant material.

But this means there is less land for growing food crops.

Wheat prices may come down as high prices convince farmers to devote more land to the crop, but this takes time.

And even if there wasn't a problem with competition for arable land, this approach still doesn't get around the basic problem of dwindling fossil fuel supplies: each year we use the equivalent of multiple years worth of sunlight reaching the Earth. And if that's the case, no crop is ever going to be able to replace a major portion of our energy use.

My guess is that cellulosic ethanol--or any other biofuel--will likely be only a small part of our energy future...

November is a long way off

And making firm predictions about who might win which states in the general election seems pretty dicey:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23591347/

Vegas in bloom

At least in the 24th Hour Fitness parking lot. :-)

Holding on to those caucus delegates

An update on the ongoing delegate courting in the caucus states:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23597178/

And about that foreign policy "experience"...

People are starting to look more closely at Hillary Clinton's self-proclaimed foreign policy experience... and coming up a little light on substance.

From a McClatchy Newspapers article that I read in today's Las Vegas Review Journal:

Clinton ... claims that she was a difference-maker in the Balkans. She said that she negotiated opening Macedonia's borders in 1999 to let in refugees fleeing violence in Kosovo....

Ivo Daalder, a former NSC official under President Clinton who was responsible for the Balkans, said that "there's the inconvenient fact that the agreement to open the borders happened the day before she got there."

And Greg Craig, a former State Department official in Bill's administration who now supports Obama, shared this:

Senator Clinton has pointed to a March 1996 trip to Bosnia as proof that her foreign travel involved a life-risking mission into a war zone. She has described dodging sniper fire. While she did travel to Bosnia in March 1996, the visit was not a high-stakes mission to a war zone. On March 26, 1996, the New York Times reported that “Hillary Rodham Clinton charmed American troops at a U.S.O. show here, but it didn’t hurt that the singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad were also on the stage.”

Sinbad had this to say about that trip (as reported in the McClatchy story):

"I think the only 'red phone' moment was: Do we eat here or at the next place?" Sinbad told The Washington Post on Monday. "I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank." Sinbad supports Obama.

So it seems that what really happened depends a lot on your point of view... not a terribly strong leg for Hillary's foreign policy credentials to stand on.

And couple that with the continuing slow release of documents related to the one substantive role that Hillary was known to have--her failed effort to reform health care in the 90s--and you have a picture of her campaign trying to have it both ways: making glowing but undocumented statements about her foreign policy experience while sharing few documents from her failure on domestic matters during Bill's administration.

M-I-S-S-I...

S-S-I-P-P-I :-)

I have gotten a little behind on my political news lately. I think the coverage favored Obama when he was on his post-Super Tuesday roll (12 wins in a row!). Inevitably it shifted and turned more negative toward him, more positive for Clinton. I predict that in about two to three weeks we'll see another shift.

MSNBC did notice how interesting it is that the media have discounted Wyoming and Mississippi (where Obama was expected to win) but plays up the importance of Pennsylvania (where Clinton is expected to maintain her double digit lead in the polls). But there's little talk of North Carolina which has almost as many delegates as Pennsylvania and favors Obama.

And I found a link on The Daily Dish to a piece about how the popular vote tallies that the press reports don't include numbers from the Iowa, Nevada, Washington, and Maine caucuses. Those states don't report official popular vote numbers, but Obama won three of them. And if estimates reflecting his and Clinton's delegate wins in those caucus states are added to the popular vote statistics being reported, Obama had a lead of over 700,000 in the popular vote even before Mississippi voted today. (That's 700,000 out of approximately 26 million Democratic votes cast.)

So it's not only the delegate math that doesn't favor Hillary; overcoming her popular vote deficit doesn't appear likely either.

I have to admit to being dismayed by Obama's failure to win any of the really big states like California or Texas (though he won the delegate count there). It leaves the Clinton campaign with an argument that they can continue to wield.

BACK WHEN HILLARY HAD HER "MOMENT" at the end of the debate in Texas, I had the sense that the Democratic race would end on a up note, with both campaigns sticking to the high road. For the first time I looked at Hillary and could imagine her on the Democratic ticket.

But I also had this sense of foreboding, which I think I shared with Mom, that perhaps the "moment" was simply staged, and the Clinton campaign was preparing to pounce. In retrospect, that now seems to be the case, and the "moment" for me has become the moment when the race changed character. No matter who is the nominee now, the hope that so many people--on both sides--had felt about history in the making has been tainted by negative ads, negative characterizations, and just flat-out lies.

You could say that that was inevitable. Except that it wasn't. People do make choices. And with only two candidates left in the Democratic race, we now are finding ourselves more intimately acquainted with those choices than we may be comfortable with. I suspect that a lot of people who were excited about the political process for the first time may tune out. I'm even finding myself feeling the urge to do so.

Exotic places, exotic fruits

Victor and I returned from the big island of Hawai'i last night. Had a great time there celebrating my cousin Kim's birthday, but sadly missed a great show. The volcano there was erupting over the weekend, and lava was actually reaching the sea. Unfortunately the flows stopped the day before we drove to the Hilo side of the island... and they started again the day after we flew home.

More on the trip later, I've got a super busy week going on. Had two quizzes today and have biology and organic chemistry exams tomorrow and Thursday.

SPEAKING OF BIOLOGY, I'm writing a paper for my class on the effects of antioxidants on tumor progression. Seems antioxidants can cut both ways... I'll share what I learn once I complete the paper.

In the meantime, be wary of the claims made for the "superfruits." :-)

It's not easy being green...

Even biofuels have byproducts that negatively impact the environment.

Would you eat here?

After riding the rides at the Stratosphere (with white knuckles), I'm not sure I'd dine at this "restaurant" in Belgium. :-)

Happy 40th, Kimberly Jane!

Victor and I are headed to the big island of Hawai'i today for my cousin Kim's 40th birthday celebration tomorrow. Aloha!

'Trust me,' Bush likes to say

More evidence of why I don't:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23483287/

Down in the Democratic dumps

I'm feeling a bit down in the dumps this morning (it didn't help that I went all the way across town to try to go to a different physic lab section this morning, only to find out that it had been canceled!).

I'm not so much down because of Obama's losses last night as with the realization that the Democrats may blow it in November.

McCain is in a perfect position now, sitting back, consolidating his support in the Republican Party, gathering ample ammunition from the Hillary-Obama battle, and watching them spend their millions.

I fear that Hillary is damaging Obama in a way that will make it difficult for him to win in November. I am dismayed that so many whites in Ohio admitted that they wouldn't vote for a black man (as heard on NPR's "News and Notes" today). I also saw this piece on Obama's appearing blacker than normal in one of her ads. When I originally read it, I hesitated to post it because I wasn't sure what to think, but after reading of the reversal in white support for Obama, I decided to go ahead.

And on the flip side, I worry that if Hillary pulls ahead and wins the nomination, she'll energize the otherwise unenthusiastic Republican base, propelling McCain into the White House. Rush Limbaugh and other right wing commentators have been cheering her wins yesterday because they 1) prolong the race and 2) raise the odds that she'll be the nominee. And boy do they want to run against her.

I'm not the only one feeling this way. Read this post from James Fallows:

In a live CNN interview just now [3/5/08], Sen. Clinton repeated, twice, the "Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience, I have a lifetime of experience, Sen. Obama has one speech in 2002" line. By what logic, exactly, does a member of the Democratic party include the "Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience" part of that sentence?

Andrew Sullivan is feeling some of it, too, but holds on to hope.

Tax returns

She's been saying the same thing about her White House records for months now. Is she hiding something about how much money they have or where it's coming from?

The Texas blues

Sigh. I guess the "old politics" still has some staying power... meaning that negative campaigning and playing on people's fears still works.

The road ahead gets longer, but no one ever said this was going to be easy. Quite the opposite, actually.

It will be very interesting to see how the delegates from tonight's contests are allocated.

And that reminds me that they call it the "Texas two-step."

So I've felt the blues tonight. Now it's time to hope again.

Yes, we can!

From Obama's remarks tonight:

But in this election, we will offer two very different visions of the America we see in the twenty-first century. Because John McCain may claim long history of straight talk and independent-thinking, and I respect that. But in this campaign, he's fallen in line behind the very same policies that have ill-served America. He has seen where George Bush has taken our country, and he promises to keep us on the very same course....

Well we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in and this is not the future we want. We want a new course for this country. We want new leadership in Washington. We want change in America.

John McCain and Senator Clinton echo each other in dismissing this call for change. They say it is eloquent but empty; speeches and not solutions. And yet, they should know that it's a call that did not begin with my words. It began with words that were spoken on the floors of factories in Ohio and across the deep plains of Texas; words that came from classrooms in South Carolina and living rooms in the state of Iowa; from first-time voters and life-long cynics; from Democrats and Republicans alike....

I owe what I am to this country I love, and I will never forget it. Where else could a young man who grew up herding goats in Kenya get the chance to fulfill his dream of a college education? Where else could he marry a white girl from Kansas whose parents survived war and depression to find opportunity out west? Where else could they have a child who would one day have the chance to run for the highest office in the greatest nation the world has ever known? Where else, but in the United States of America?

The world is watching what we do here. The world is paying attention to how we conduct ourselves. What will we they see? What will we tell them? What will we show them?

Can we come together across party and region; race and religion to restore prosperity and opportunity as the birthright of every American?

Can we lead the community of nations in taking on the common threats of the 21st century – terrorism and climate change; genocide and disease?

Can we send a message to all those weary travelers beyond our shores who long to be free from fear and want that the United States of America is, and always will be, 'the last best, hope of Earth?'

We say; we hope; we believe – yes we can.

Colon cancer news

As someone who had some pre-cancerous tissue discovered and removed by chance back in 2000, I pay attention to this kind of stuff.

Anyone who is going in for a colonoscopy anytime soon--or who knows someone who is--should read this article.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=145856&f=19

March 4th results

6:59pm - Obama is getting creamed in Rhode Island and Ohio. Texas is so close. And I have to go to my organic chemistry lab. Ugh.

6:51pm - Funny how everyone seems to have a word or phrase that they repeat endlessly. McCain's is "my friends." He looks happy to have finally won the nomination.

6:15pm - The folks on MSNBC were just discussing a statement that Hillary Clinton made yesterday.

I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he’d bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.

Here's the video. Given the odds against her winning the nomination, a truly wretched statement to make. McCain is already quoting her on his website.

MSNBC just called Rhode Island for Clinton.

6:08pm - Just reviewed the exit polls for Texas at CNN.com. Doesn't look good...

5:56pm - Just started watching the results... have been dreading them all day. As I said yesterday, I'm suffering from "primary fatigue" and hungry for some resolution. Given the delegate math, continuing the increasingly bitter and negative Democratic primary battle while McCain begins to consolidate the Republican party is hardly a good harbinger for November.

So I'm still hoping for a split decision tonight: Obama winning Vermont and Texas, Clinton Rhode Island and Ohio. I think that result will put enough pressure on Hillary to withdraw that this part of the campaign can come to an end. But I could be wrong. :-/

Okay, Vermont is in the Obama column. No surprise there, he's winning 60% of the vote with 38% of the precincts reporting.

Not sure how this is calculated, but the early returns seem odd to me in Texas. CNN is reporting that only 2% of the precincts are reporting with Obama receiving aproximately 513,000 votes, Hillary 425,000.

But that's almost a million votes, and if I multiple by 50, the result is roughly 50 million. And clearly that many people didn't vote in a state with a population of roughly 24 million. Guess the precincts must vary wildly in size. Hmm.

Kansas in play?

The Jayhawk state might go for Obama in the general election according to a new poll.

The "new politics" choice

Andrew Sullivan clarifies what a vote for Obama and his "new politics" represents.

On the attack

No, not the Clintons... the immune system! :-)

The Washington Post reports on the latest research that shows a dramatic increase in diseases such as asthma, food allergies, type 1 diabetes, and multiple schlerosis over the past 50 years. What all of these ailments have in common is an overreacting immune system. In the case of the first two, it shifts into overdrive against external substances; with the latter two, the body itself.

The leading theory to explain the phenomenon holds that as modern medicine beats back bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases that have long plagued humanity, immune systems may fail to learn how to differentiate between real threats and benign invaders, such as ragweed pollen or food. Or perhaps because they are not busy fighting real threats, they overreact or even turn on the body's own tissues.

Obama's final ad in Texas: "Leader"

This television ad was shown during the nightly news in Texas today (and I believe a similar one was broadcast in Ohio).

Primary election fatigue

Jack Cafferty at CNN's question for the day was, "How can you tell if you are suffering from primary election fatigue?"

My favorite response:

I know I have it! I am having nightmares of Hillary tripping around over Bill to get to that phone at 3:00 in the morning. The person calling asks to speak to Obama.

I know that I've got a bad case, too, because I'm paying far less attention than I was a week ago. Calgon, take me away! (But please oh please, let Texas vote for Obama! :-)

The side effects of spanking

Funny, I was just thinking about spanking the other day and then got this story from my friend Ryan in Canada.

And no, I wasn't thinking about being spanked as an adult. :-)

What I was contempating was whether or not I'd spank my kids if I had them; I had decided that I'd only do so if they did something life-threatening such as walking out into traffic.

Apparently studies that compare adult behavior of people who were and were not spanked as children is finding ample evidence that spanking has long-term effects.

No doubt someone will take these researchers to the woodshed, lol.

Clark County Democratic Convention follow-up

An email from Clark County Democratic Party Chairman John Hunt regarding our aborted convention a week ago:

My Fellow Clark County Democrats:

First of all I want to personally apologize for what happened on Saturday February 23. I will do a better job on the next go round. I apologize for not having the vision and not mobilizing the resources to successfully complete a job of that magnitude.

I also want to congratulate all the other Counties and especially the County leaders and volunteers. I know how hard your task was and you are all to be congratulated for a job well done.

I do want everyone to know some of the facts about our convention. We had over two hundred volunteers, including fifty registration stations with two volunteers working at each station. Registration was open Friday February 22 from 4:00 until approximately 10:00 PM, and on Saturday from 8:00 AM until Noon. The total number of delegates and alternates elected at the January 19th Caucus was just over 7000. The total number of delegates, alternates, and guests registered as of noon Saturday was approximately 6974.

Bally’s Event Center with chairs could seat 5000; without chairs it could hold 7500 plus. The room was too small and again for that I apologize.

According to Bally’s Security at one time there approximately 12,500 attendees in the hotel that were either in the Event Center or in line. During Saturday morning Interstate 15 was almost shut down. It took some attendees 45 minutes or more to exit I-15, and thousands could not find parking spaces. A fair estimate of the total number of Democrats who tried to attend the convention is probably between 20,000 and 25,000. Both campaigns did auto and personal calls to all their supporters who attended the January 19th Caucus and encouraged them to come to Bally’s in hopes of becoming an alternate if they were not elected as delegates. I understand why they did that. We just could not handle the response, and again I apologize.

Almost 25,000 Democrats showing support for their candidate must be counted as a positive sign of the energy and commitment permeating our Party. Truly the next person in the White House will be a Democrat!

For the past two days, I have met with the heads of each campaign, our State Chair and our Executive Director Travis Brock to develop a plan to get this job done right. Lastly, I want to thank each of you, who have offered your help and continued participation. It is greatly appreciated.

John A. Hunt, Chairman
Clark County Democratic Party
Friday, February 29, 2008

The turnout truly was amazing... hopefully people will remain committed and show up when the convention re-convenes to elect delegates to the state convention!