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Something completely different

Sunday, February 27, 2011

My RSS feeder is clogged with feeds, to the point where I am “fed” about 2000 new articles a day, of which I can only read a fraction. Nonetheless, I keep adding to them, and I would plug the newest addition.

By way of background, I enjoy science blogs, particularly those devoted to evolution. One is them is Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne, author of a book of the same name. Yesterday he posted about a leading “Intelligent Design” advocate named William Dembski, who claimed to have refuted evolution by pointing out that it was impossible for ants to have developed one of their behaviors: the fact that they tend to take the shortest path between two points. This from Dembski:

Now here’s an interesting twist: Colonies of ants, when they make tracks from one colony to another minimize path-length and thereby also solve the Steiner Problem (see “Ants Build Cheapest Network“). So what does this mean in evolutionary terms? In ID terms, there’s no problem — ants were designed with various capacities, and this either happens to be one of them or is one acquired through other programmed/designed capacities. On Darwinian evolutionary grounds, however, one would have to say something like the following: ants are the result of a Darwinian evolutionary process that programmed the ants with, presumably, a genetic algorithm that enables them, when put in separate colonies, to trace out paths that resolve the Steiner Problem. In other words, evolution, by some weird self-similarity, embedded an evolutionary program into the neurophysiology of the ants that enables them to solve the Steiner problem (which, presumably, gives these ants a selective advantage).

I should pause here to say that it is never a problem to explain anything from an ID perspective, since one explanation (God did it) fits all, although I’ve never seen an explanation for why so many things in nature aren’t terribly well designed from any common sense perspective, like the giraffe’s laryngeal nerve.

Coyne links to Myrmecos, which is, of all things, a blog devoted to ants and other such creatures, where Alex Wild explains the behavior quite simply, and guess what, Jesus didn’t do it. In a nutshell, ants lay down a scent, which their compatriots follow. The scent is strongest along the shortest path:

When two points (say, two nests, or a nest and a food source) need to be connected, ants may start out tracing several winding pheromone paths among them. As ants zing back and forth down trails, pheromone levels build up. Long trails take more time to travel, so long-trail ants makes fewer overall circuits, more pheromone dissipates between passes, and the trails end up poorly marked. Short trails enable ants to make more trips, less time elapses between passes, so these trails end up marked more strongly. The shortest trail emerges.

Apparently, this phenomenon is well known, and Dembski could have discovered it with a bit of googling before Wild addressed it. But that would have ruined his narrative. This tactic of simply ignoring established evidence is typical of the right, across the board. It works in the short term, in politics as well as religion, to play on people’s ignorance to push your own agenda. It even works in the long term, if you can constantly distract people today, and get them to forget that you were wrong yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that.

But, I rant, when I mean to plug. Wild is a photographer, and his blog is chock full of some great insect photography as well as fascinating information about ants, wasps, etc. Check it out.


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As expected

Sunday, February 27, 2011

A brief I told you so. So far as the New York Times is concerned, yesterday’s demonstrations didn’t happen. Not a mention, so far as I could find. Maybe we should bring guns to our rallies, but of course if we did, we wouldn’t be justifiably angry Americans like the tea partiers, we’d be arrested.

Meanwhile the networks are certainly discussing the Wisconsin situation-but only with Republicans.
UPDATE: Following a link from a MoveOn email, I find that the Times did cover the story. It was not in the early edition that I get delivered to my home. The web article, to which I’ve linked, is followed by the following: “A version of this article appeared in print on February 27, 2011, on page A4 of the New York edition.” It would be interesting to see if the entire web article made the print edition, or whether it was heavily edited. It was definitely not on page A4 of the paper we got.


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Pictures from the Capitol

Saturday, February 26, 2011

My wife and I went to the rally in Hartford at the State Capitol, seen below gloriously distorted by my new super wide angle lens.

I mostly busied myself taking pictures of signs. A few choice ones below, and, if you’re interested, another page of them, complete with slideshow, at my MobileMe gallery, at this link.


These rallies, nationwide, were every bit as big, if not far bigger than the tea party rallies that have gotten so much attention, but of course these will be ignored. At the end of the day, however, we vote too, and we also get angry. Just as the Koch brother’s money and the right’s propaganda got the deluded tea partiers motivated to vote in 2010, the Koch brother’s money and the Republican party’s overreach will get us motivated in 2012. What our choices will be that year is another question. There was a teeny (maybe 5 people) tea party counter-demonstration at the Capitol. If the rally is covered at all, I assume they will get at least equal coverage, if not more.


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Friday Night Video

Friday, February 25, 2011

Dedicated to John Stewart. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate to maintain your ironic distance and push the faux equivalency bullshit.

Natalie:

Pete

Speaking of choosing sides, why aren’t there any big name Democrats standing with the people of Wisconsin? They’ll raise money off this situation, no doubt, but when it comes to actually standing up for what they purportedly believe, they all seem to have other things to do.


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Grandstanding in Wisconsin

Friday, February 25, 2011

Scott Walker is engaged in even more nonsense:

Today, Governor Scott Walker signed Special Session Assembly Bill 5 which requires a 2/3s vote to pass tax rate increases on the income, sales or franchise taxes.

But this is not, as Digby thinks, Wisconsin’s version of the California restrictions. In fact, it means nothing. Anything done legislatively can be undone legislatively. That’s not the case in California, which put itself into a constitutional strait jacket. As Walker knows so well, a simple “notwithstanding” will do the trick, as in this little bit of legislative gobbledygook that he was hoping to slip by the people of Wisconsin:

16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state?owned heating, cooling,
and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the
department may sell any state?owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may
contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without
solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best
interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or
certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to
purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is
considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification
of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

Translation: Scott Walker can sell the Koch Brothers any power plant now owned by the State of Wisconsin for any corrupt price he likes (and then buy the power back at exorbitant prices) notwithstanding a host of laws designed to prevent corrupt bargains. It’s a wonderful, word, notwithstanding, and can work wonders in a piece of legislation.


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My outrage is so fatigued, it’s asleep

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Nothing surprises me when it comes to Republicans, and frankly, I’ve lost my capacity for outrage. I listened to the “Koch”/Walker colloquy yesterday, and heard the bit that got the police chief of Madison upset, but frankly it never crossed my mind to be aghast at the idea of a state’s governor sending in goons to violently disrupt a demonstration. (He decided against it for political reasons, not because it was wrong, and just the fact that he considered it tells you all you need to know) It was only what I would expect from a Republican, so it really didn’t connect that he was admitting that he contemplated criminal behavior. After eight years of Bush and sundry other Republican outrages, hiring a few thugs seemed fairly tame.

The funny thing is, he may never have actually thought about hiring cheese eating storm troopers. He might have just been trying to tell his puppet-master what he thought he’d like to hear.

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True Colors

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Fairly incredible. A hoaxster from the Daily Beast poses as David Koch and calls Scott Walker. There are two parts.

The youtube is titled Koch Whore: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and that pretty much says it all.

The hoaxster, we must hope, did his research to get a Koch sounding voice and mannerisms, because otherwise it’s simply incredible that Walker didn’t see through this.

The fact, however, is that his no-negotiation strategy will work. He will get his way, just like Bush always got his. Not only that, he will have enough money and propaganda behind him to convince the people he’s screwing that he’s doing the right thing, enabled, as he points out, by the New York Times, which sent its reporters into Wisconsin with orders to find some union members that would trash talk the public employees.

Someday, before I die, there will be a Democratic President of the United States, blessed with large majorities in Congress, who will get into office and refuse to compromise on his or her progressive beliefs. Then, we will get some of the things we’ve been hoping for, like real health care reform, union rights, real financial regulation, and action on global warming. Someday that will happen.

No. I’m kidding. It won’t happen.

CORRECTION: My error. The faux Koch was from the Buffalo Beast, not the Daily Beast.


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Lincoln on Labor

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

More proof, in any be needed, that the Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln.

Full disclosure: the brilliant post to which I’ve linked was authored by my second son.


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Heads they win, tails we lose

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I understand that Jon Stewart has compared the Wisconsin situation to the Bizarro World in Superman, with the protestors being the Bizarro World equivalent of the tea party folks. Superficial, but ultimately wrong, beginning with the fact that the folks in Wisconsin have reality based grievances.

But there is a kernel of truth in his observation.

First let me pause and say that, when all is said and done, the governor of Wisconsin is likely to get what he is demanding. Even if it costs him his job, it will be worth it to him and his backers, as I’m sure the Koch brothers will richly reward him, and the harm will have been done and will not be reversed.

So, back to bizarro world. Let’s compare and contrast.

Obama won his election going away. He came in with large majorities in both the House and the Senate. Yet it was expected that he would and should be “bipartisan”. In fact, he fell right into the trap, trading any chance he had to effectively respond to the economic crisis by liberally smothering the asses of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins with kisses for the sole purpose of acquiring a phony patina of bipartisanship for his economic program. Result: a totally ineffective program, a lost opportunity to solidify Democratic gains, and, mysteriously enough, a permanent consensus among the press that Obama’s problem is that he is simply not bi-partisan enough.

Scott Walker wins an election, and acquires a large Republican majority. He immediately pushes through a tax cut for the corporations, without even trying to be “bi-partisan”. That tax cut causes a near term budget shortfall. He then uses that shortfall as an excuse to destroy the public employee unions, without even trying to be “bi-partisan”. But there’s no call in the press for him to be bi-partisan. Now we are told that elections have consequences, and instead of calls for bipartisanship we see this sort of thing:

But the dramatic strategy that has clogged the Capitol with thousands of protesters clashes with one essential truth: Republicans told everyone months ago that unions would be one of their targets, and the GOP now has more than enough votes to pass its plans once the legislature can convene.

The filibuster strategy clashed with the same essential truth, but somehow that never seemed to call it into question. So, you see, when they win elections it means they get what they want. When we win them, it means we should let them get what they want.

So Stewart’s right in a very real sense. It’s just difficult to decide which is the bizarro world. Or maybe they both are.


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Friday Night Music: Leningrad Cowboys & Russian Red Army Choir

Friday, February 18, 2011

Sometimes, in my quest to fill this slot, I stumble on stuff that just makes me feel good. I found this video several weeks ago, but the version I found had embedding disabled. This may be a different performance, but it’s the same song. A Finnish Rock band teams with the Russian Red Army Choir to sing a song penned by an American songwriter. One of my all time favorite tunes, which adds to the pleasure.

And here’s a bonus, same performers, doing a song by a couple of lads from Liverpool:


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