I’m leaving on a business trip to Dubai on Saturday, which will be my first real adventure outside of the United States (except for the 51st state, aka Canada)*.  I hope to have some cool pictures and stories to share from the UAE next week, so stay tuned.

* Just kidding, ay? I love you, Canucks.

“Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.”
                                            -President Barack Obama

The address was also masterful political theater, clearly crafted to assert the President’s authority before the assembled chambers of Congress on the issue which may define his presidency.  Even reform opponents played their part in the spectacle: at a moment in his speech when Obama clearly asserted that his health care proposals would explicitly exclude coverage for undocumented immigrants, the traditionally quiet decorum of the event was punctuated by South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, who loudly shouted “You lie!” at the president. President Obama could not have illustrated the vapid thoughtlessness of health care reform’s enemies any better than that.

Now, while I certainly found much to commend in the president’s speech, it wasn’t all rainbows and whiskey.  As a progressive who favors a single-payer health care system, I can’t say that I agree with all of President Obama’s proposals.  In particular, I feel that private, for-profit health insurance companies represent a fundamental conflict of interest between investors’ expectation of profit and patients’ need for medical care.  Obama is pushing for new laws that will limit insurance companies’ strategies to maximize their profit, which appears to be a nuanced, measured compromise — but in practice, it will be the federal government that bears the burden of enforcing these laws, and that means it will take time for insurance companies to comply with the new laws. We can nearly rest assured that their compliance will be grudging and constantly in search of loopholes. Put simply, the new laws Obama proposed would not fully resolve that fundamental conflict of interest.  I realize that Obama’s proposals are a political and practical solution rather than an ideal one, and I encourage everyone to support any legislation that accomplishes the goals he set.  My criticism is only meant to serve as a reminder that the fight for equity, fairness, compassion, and justice in the U.S. health system will not end with the passage of health care reform. I think that Bad Astronomer Phil Plait expressed a similar point regarding Obama’s education speech on Tuesday very well, and with all due tribute, I will repost the image here that he used to do so:

Swine flu: Having very recently mutated to allow human/human transmission, it has already spread around the globe, leading to fears of a global pandemic.  To be fair, I think the mainstream news media have been doing more to fan the flames of fear (while sanctimoniously denying any intent to do so) than the flu itself.  As of this evening early Tuesday morning, only 40 50 cases had been reported inside the United States, and not a single fatality. CDC laboratory tests thus far indicates that the infection responds well to antiviral drugs such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza), which are being stockpiled in a number of states.  Maryland has already opened a swine flu command center right in my home city of Baltimore, in anticipation of likely infections occurring in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.  CDC lab tests have also indicated that the other two FDA-approved antiviral drugs for flu, amantadine (Symmetrel) and rimantadine (Flumadine), are ineffective against the swine flu.  Both oseltamivir and zanamivir are neuraminidase inhibitors, which work by blocking the action of the viral neuraminidase protein.  This is the protein on the surface of influenza viruses that allows it to be released from the host cell in the process known as “budding.”  Amantadine and rimantadine are both M2 protein inhibitors, drugs whose mechanism of action involves blocking the ion channel that removes a virion’s coating and releases its genetic content into the cytoplasm of the host cell.  It is worth noting that poultry farmers in China used amantadine to guard againt the H5N1 avian flu in chickens, an ill-advised practice (H. sapiens as an agent of natural selection!) that has led to the abundance of influenza strains resistant to amantadine.

It’s too early yet to tell whether the swine-flu fatalities in Mexico will be seen here in the United States or elsewhere around the world, but we probably won’t have to wait very long to find out.  As the eccentric chaotician Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, “life finds a way” – we had better work hard to ensure that it’s human life that finds a way this time.  If you’re wondering what you can do, look at this guide on the US Department of Health and Human Services’ PandemicFlu.gov website.  And, of course, you can follow the CDC’s swine flu updates on Twitter.

In that vein, I lastly want to commend President Barack Obama, who, speaking today before the National Academy of Sciences, made a remarkable (and badly needed) commitment to the advancement of American science. After describing how the current swine flu emergency should remind us of the necessity of science, and among many breaks for applause, Obama said:

I believe it is not in our character, the American character, to follow.  It’s our character to lead.  And it is time for us to lead once again.  So I’m here today to set this goal:  We will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development.  We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science.

That’s why I campaigned for this guy. Let’s all make sure we hold him to this promise.

Edit: It turns out that the one person stunned by a police taser gun at the Charles Village celebration was actually a McCain supporter who was just trying to get back to his apartment. Way to go, Baltimore City Police Department!

In the course of this election cycle, Obama’s critics have frequently e-mailed this article about Ayers’ memoir, which coincidentally was published in the New York Times on September 11, 2001. Read it, but be sure also to read Ayer’s letter to the New York Times of September 15, 2001, in which he corrects the record on his disposition toward explosives and terrorism—and repudiates the 9/11 attacks for the depraved acts of intolerance and hatred that they were. And if you’re not familiar with the Weather Underground, the Wikipedia entry about it is a good place to start.

Without belaboring the point, I’d just like to say that I believe the actions of the Weather Underground were called for by the urgency of their era, and that Bill Ayers should be recognized as a courageous activist who took extensive personal risks to make a stand against terror and genocide. He is neither a murderer nor a terrorist, but he is a great American.

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The debate is underway – some good questions from Jim Lehrer, and the candidates’ responses have been rather low key thus far. Lehrer is trying to inject a note of levity and get the candidates to address each other directly. Obama has been directing his responses toward McCain. McCain on the other hand, seems like he’s not willing to look Obama in the eye even while addressing him. He keeps looking at Jim Lehrer. So far it’s all been about the economy. No real foreign policy questions yet. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when it goes there…

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We’re on to actual foreign policy so far. And, at this point, we’re all very pleased with how well Obama is doing. He’s scoring some direct hits and coming off as passionate, clear-headed, and perceptive. He just threw a really good punch directly at McCain, referencing the “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” song that McCain once sang (paraphrasing the Beach Boys). Awesome. Now McCain is on to some sad war stories. Oh, brother – cry me a river.

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Wrap-up: I didn’t post any more updates to this live blog during the actual debate, but now that the party’s wrapped up and I’ve had time to clean my apartment, I can say this much: Obama won the debate. And that’s more than just my opinon. Now I’m looking forward to Thursday night’s debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, which is sure to be a circus of laughs. And don’t fret, Survival Machine readers, because I intend to get back to making relatively regular posts this week, and I’ll lay off the politics (unless something spectacular happens). Stay tuned…

Seriously, this is not the sort of reputation the military should want, given that non-religious Americans are the largest (non) religious group after Christians.  They have enough trouble recruiting as it is!  This is just another example, sadly, of Christians thinking the world revolves around them.  It’s bad enough that brave men and women who are devoted to the service of their country were blithely thrown into harm’s way in Iraq by a callous and evangelically-motivated administration… but non-religious soldiers’ lives are threatened by their loving, Christian comrades-in-arms as well?  What a disgusting blemish on our armed forces.  I hope Spc. Hall wins his lawsuit and the DoD cracks down on prosyletizing by officers.

I haven’t posted anything in a while, have I?  Still, life marches on.  I got some paperwork done that’s been taking forever (to put it mildly).  I also was inspired by the news I wrote about in my previous post, and decided to read Robert Axelrod’s The Evolution of Compassion.  This book tells the story of his experiment: a computer tournament in the early 1980s that pitted programs submitted by game theorists from various academic disciplines (as well as an 11 year old computer prodigy) in the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game (a classic thought experiment).  It’s quite interesting, and you can expect me to write a more in-depth review when I’ve finished it.

P.S. – I would love to get some comments on my posts.  If you’re reading this, any feedback will be appreciated.  It’s hard to talk myself into posting when it feels like no one is reading! I’d really like to get this blog fired up.

The bill puts new emphasis on disparity research by reporting health care data by race and ethnicity, as well as socioeconomic status and health literacy. The legislation outlines mechanisms to conduct educational outreach to minorities, increase diversity among health care professionals, and improve the delivery of health care to minorities.

If we’re going to have national health care, this sort of thing is critical and taxpayers should actually be demanding it! Preventative medicine is always cheaper than treating ailments and disease, and the potential benefits of a healthy population go far beyond the lower cost of health care (increased economic productivity, decreased poverty, decreased crime, decreased drug abuse, the list is endless).

What really turns me on the most about Obama’s priorities, though, was this part of the document:

Improve and Prioritize Science Assessments: Assessments should reflect the range of knowledge and skills students should acquire. Science assessments need to do more than test facts and concepts. They need to use a range of measures to test inquiry and higher order thinking skills including inference, logic, data analysis and interpretation, forming questions, and communication. High-performing states like Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, use an assessment that calls for students to design and conduct investigations, analyze and present data, write up and defend results. Barack Obama will work with governors and educators to ensure that state assessments measure these skills.

I cannot overemphasize how crucial that is! American science education is fast becoming a joke on the international level. With rare exceptions, I was not taught how to use inference, logic, or data analysis in the public high school system, and I went to a half-decent public high school—ten years ago! Most inner-city and some rural schools are far worse. Prioritizing how to think over what to think is the key to producing bright, engaged, and enthusiastic students who actually get what science is all about and are well prepared to hit the ground running when they find the field of science that really inspires them. After I finish graduate school, to the extent possible, I’d like to be involved in changing American science education. One dream I have is to work for Eugenie Scott and the National Center For Science Education, which does great work defending public school curricula against religious zealots who try to force intelligent design into the science classroom. I donated $10 to them to offset the damage done when I bought a ticket to Ben Stein’s disgusting crock-umentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. If you ever doubt the sniveling academic dishonesty of I.D. proponents, watch that film (download a pirated copy off the internet, please) and read how well the good people who made ExpelledExposed.com eviscerate just about every claim the film makes.

So, having veered just a bit off topic for a moment there, I’ll try to bring this back to the Obama science plan and wrap it up. From what I’ve read, I am cautiously optimistic that a Barack Obama administration would be a very science-friendly one. I think he doesn’t go quite far enough in emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary physical, chemical, and biological systems research. He also needs to use that generic science document better to tie into other large issues that are addressed elsewhere on the campaign website, and which I haven’t yet had time to peruse. I hope to post in the near future my thoughts on Obama’s proposed energy and environmental policies, and his position on NASA (as well as contrasting these with those of John McCain). For the rest of tonight, though, I would be glad just to get enough sleep so as not to be a total zombie at work tomorrow. I haven’t quit my day job yet; the blogging doesn’t have me rolling in benjamins yet like I hoped it would

For now, I’ll leave you with this video from a few weeks ago when my favorite artist and role model Dr. Greg Graffin was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy. It’s got him playing a few acoustic Bad Religion songs as well as talking about the award and why he prefers the label “naturalist” versus “atheist.” Wish I could have been there for this!

First, the astonishing. The Chaitén volcano in the Andes in southern Chile erupted on May 2 for the first time in about nine millenia! You can read about it in National Geographic News. The powerful eruption is dramatic enough by itself, but the next day a huge dirty thunderstorm gave us this show. Sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, I wish I were there to witness it (click on the picture for a slightly larger version)!

Second, the bizzarre. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomy blogger, drew my attention to this article: Magic trick costs teacher job. If you aren’t going to read it, here’s the short version: a substitute middle school teacher at a Florida public school was fired for… wait for it… wizardry. The guy did a 30 second magic trick in front of his class, making a toothpick disappear and then reappear, and then was dismissed for wizardry. In an attempt to cover his ignorant ass, a school official tacked on a few other accusations (e.g. “not following lesson plans”), and then claimed, “it wasn’t just the wizardry” — I can’t make this stuff up, folks. Anyone from Land’O'Lakes, Florida should be sobbing with shame right now.

And third, I finished my astronomy class! Unfortunately, buying a telescope is on hold until I finish paying for the class itself, but I learned some really cool stuff and have reinvigorated interests in things like the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is the world’s largest and highest-powered particle accelerator/collider. It was just completed and will begin operating this month to search for things like the Higgs boson, the only particle theorized by the Standard Model of physics that has not yet been observed. Confirmation of the Higgs boson and other new subatomic particles could lead toward the development of a Theory of Everything (also known as the Grand Unified Theory) of physics, incorporating the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitation forces. Creationists everywhere, hold your breath: will we discover proof of god? Literally, hold your breath.

Finally, tonight was a big one for Barack Obama. I don’t see how Clinton can continue her campaign beyond the next day or two without being ridiculed by the press. That’s pretty great news. I find it fishy that cable news (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) led in calling the race “too close to call” into early this morning when the Obama campaign had conceded earlier, and when CBS news (with no late-night cable news program ratings to worry about) had called it for Clinton earlier as well. I think the numbers were there to call the race, and they lied about it to keep viewers in suspense and thus glued to their tvs. Seems like a pretty simple scam for a news director to justify with mere plausible deniability about the race’s outcome.

That’s it for now, I’m sleepy. But I’ll say more, and say it more coherently, soon.

There have also been some science topics I’ve wanted to ponder aloud in this blog, some of which were raised by the astronomy course I’m taking, which has proved to be very interesting so far. I effin love special relativity.

In other news, yesterday I became the proud new owner of a 2008 Toyota Prius. It has neat gadgets like bluetooth connectivity for hands-free phone calls with voice activated dialing. It is super-duper cool. You can expect a giddy post with pretty pictures soon. And all it cost me was five years of financial servitude to SunTrust bank!

For the record, I am adamantly opposed to any combat occurring in space. If you can shoot at a satellite, it won’t be long before the satellites can shoot back.

And it was on our shoulders, tonight, that Barack Obama stepped ahead of Hillary Clinton in his rise to what might become the presidency of our generation.

Maryland, take a bow.

Barack Obama wins Maine caucus, defeating rival Hillary Clinton in 4 out of 4 weekend contests.

That is a phenomenal performance.  And, Clinton’s campaign manager stepped down today.  Big ups, Barack.  Tomorrow I’m volunteering at his “Stand For Change” rally at the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore.  The rally is free to the public, and the doors open at 2:45 PM.  With luck, I may get to have my picture taken with him.  Then a few years down the road, after he’s turned our country over to a North American Union police state, microchipped everyone, and invaded Iran, I can have something to be embarrassed by! Ha, ha, ha.  Anyway, keep an eye out for pictures and/or video from the rally tomorrow.

By the way,  my astronomy class has started.  It looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.  While browsing astronomy sites, I discovered that the Space Telescope Science Institute is practically in my backyard!  The STSI is, among other things, the public outreach program for the Hubble Space Telescope.  I will definitely pay them a visit sometime this semester.  I’m hoping they’ll have a really nice ’scope on site that I can peek through for free.

Either way, this is exciting.

Here are a few pictures from the “Stand for Change” rally today at Rodney Square in Wilmington, Delaware. My friend Emily was good enough to tag along despite her total lack of interest in politics, but I haven’t checked to see whether she minds my posting her picture yet. The weather could hardly have been better. It was a great day, and Obama gave (as usual) a great speech. I’m thinking that he might just be able to make like the Giants and pull off an upset in the “big game” on Tuesday. We’ll see!

Obama addresses his supporters.

Panoramic view of the crowd.

This shot seems really poignant to me, for some reason.

The crowd was very diverse, with many racial/ethnic/age/gender groups represented.

Statue of George Washington.

Me and one of several bizarre dinosaur statues I found in Wilmington.

Aerial view courtesy of some newspaper I stole it from and promptly forgot the name of.
The crowd was estimated to be 20,000+ strong.

Even in New Hampshire, a state where most residents haven’t seen a black man since Family Matters went off the air, Hillary Clinton only beat Obama by two measly percentage points. In Nevada, Clinton’s popular vote win still netted her one less delegate than Obama—and delegates are what matter. On top of all that, on Saturday, Obama completely pwn3d Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary. Yes, that sealed the deal, and inspired me to write this post. Let’s get ready for Super Tuesday.

So I just made my second contribution to his campaign. It was only $25, but hey. Every little bit helps. And if a politician (even a black man with a funny name) can convince a guy like me to donate to his campaign, he may just have a shot at winning this thing. I set up a personal fundraising goal on his website, so if you’re considering donating, I urge you to donate here.

In other news, I signed up for an astronomy class—just for fun. I’ll buy the telescope after I learn a thing or two!

The death penalty is an abomination, an obtuse expression of state power, hypocritical, institutionally racist, anachronistic, and utterly wrong. We live in an age where DNA evidence has exonerated prisoners who were mistakenly convicted and sentenced to die at the hands of the state. Even that, however, I feel is tangential to the more salient point: murdering people to punish them for the crime of murder makes no sense at all, and sends no reasonable message to society. The sanctimoniousness with which judges impose the death penalty and executioners carry it out belies its real nature. It is a monument to state authority and power, a relic of times when monarchs and emperors ruled by fear and intimidation.

The crime committed by the prisoner should not be a part of the ethical calculus here. Further, this debate over a method of execution is just a technical squabble. The fundamental question: is it ever acceptable to kill a human being against their will? I say no, with the only exception being an immediate act of self-defense (or defense of others under direct threat of serious harm). Because this exception could never apply to the state, and because the death penalty is carried out with malice aforethought, there seems to me little room for argument over whether it is “cruel or unusual punishment.” At least most murder victims are fortunate enough not to anticipate their untimely end for very long. State murder victims suffer the added torture of anticipating their death.

I hope that this Supreme Court case raises an outcry against capital punishment in the United States. As a society, we need to break the grasp that our prison-industrial complex has developed on our justice system. We also need to get off our fucking high horses, stop imprisoning drug users, and start concentrating on fixing our crumbling public education system. That’s a policy that would pay off in the long run. Instead of jailing and murdering the dregs of society, let’s stop raising so damn many of them.

As an aside, it also gets my goat that so many Christians support the death penalty. These wackos worship a mythological person who was allegedly crucified by the powers that be, and they can sleep at night knowing that their beloved republic carries on that barbaric tradition dozens of times a year. Suffer unto me…