Close enough for government work

To give you an idea of the kind of people with whom I work (not directly, but in the same building), check out this exchange between two unidentified employees overheard this morning in the hall.

Unidentified employee #1: What time is it?
Unidentified employee #2: About 9:30.
Unidentified employee #1: 9:30? Oh! I forgot to set my clock back. I thought it was 10:30. Wow, I actually got to work on time for once.

Your tax dollars at work. Well, sort of. "At work" might not be the best description.

(And for the record, I'm on my lunch break. No tax dollars going to waste here.)

Sheer brilliance

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. It's something the whole family can enjoy -- provided that family roots for an SEC team that hasn't made a pact with Satan himself. (Tennessee tried, but as it turns out, Phi| Fu|muer has no soul to sell.)



Thanks to Brett, via WDH, via DawgRun.

We evil Republicans want you to suffer

Some of you might be aware of the political ads featuring Michae| J. F0x and his support for stem cell research. In each instance, he endorses the Democrat candidate over the Republican because, he claims, that the Republicans oppose stem cell research. These ads have generated quite a bit of controversy, mostly because they're wildly inaccurate and misleading.

First of all, there is no Republican that I know of that opposes stem cell research on the whole. There are, however, different forms of stem cell research. I'm certainly no expert on the practice, but as I understand it there are three main forms. One involving the stem cells from adults, another involving the stem cells found in umbilical cords and another involving stem cells harvested from human embryos, i.e. fertilized human eggs.

The point of contention is in the last form of research in which human embryos are destroyed in order to obtain the stem cells. This gets into a rather questionable area of ethics, given the debate over when life begins, what constitutes life, etc. Most, if not all, opponents of embryonic stem cell research do so on the grounds of their belief that the destruction of the human embryo constitutes the destruction of a human life. To my knowledge, there are no credible opponents to the other forms of stem cell research.

Thus, characterizing opponents of embryonic stem cell research as opponents of stem cell research in general is incredibly unfair and inaccurate -- especially given the implication that opponents of embryonic stem cell research would rather have people suffer from diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer’s, etc.

Moreover, some Democrats have been grossly irresponsible in characterizing the debate over embryonic stem cell research. First of all, such research is not illegal, nor is there any talk of such. There are, however, limitations on federal funding for such research. But the research can still be pursued with private and, presumably, state funds.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Vice presidentia| candidate John Edw@rds claimed that "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." That statement is/was so outrageously inaccurate that it defies description. First of all, medical science is not even close to curing spinal cord injuries, with or without stem cells, embryonic or otherwise. Secondly, to imply that the Bush administration's policy on stem cells was somehow responsible for the continued paralysis of people like Christopher Reeve borders on slanderous.

There also seems to be emerging conventional wisdom that stem cells will lead to cures for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. At least in the case of Alzheimer's, this does not seem to be the case. This is not to say, however, that there will never be a cure -- simply that it will not likely come from stem cells. There have, in fact, been remarkable advancements in the treatment of this disease that have nothing to do with stem cells.

I haven't seen any data on embryonic stem cell use in treating Parkinson's disease, but I can't imagine the prognosis is much different.

I understand as well as anyone the desperate hope for a miracle cure for the world's most debilitating diseases. But I'm afraid that, in some cases, such desperate hope can cloud the judgment of those affected. People want so desperately to believe that stem cells will lead to a cure to whatever affliction they may have that they will ignore the ethical questions of such a cure -- and even ignore the medical evidence that such a cure is unlikely.

Many supporters of embryonic stem cell research point to Nancy Reagan's support as evidence that it is a cause that conservatives can join. Politicization aside, Nancy Reagan deeply loved her husband. I would imagine that she would have supported any measure possible to cure his disease. (For those of you living under a rock for the last 15 years, or maybe just disgustingly uniformed, Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s.)

The same is true for Michae| J. Fox. He so desperately wants to be cured of his disease that he will grasp onto whatever hope he can find, regardless of its medical validity.

All in all, to mischaracterize such an emotional, ethical issue is the dirtiest of all the dirty politics. It really is a shame that one of the few issues that enjoys broad bi-partisan support has to be politicized in such a manner. People like Michae| J. Fox would do well to take a cue from L@nce Arms+rong, who remains diligently non-partisan in his lobbying for medical research.

Good riddance to bad rubbish

Two and a half weeks out of the election, conventional wisdom says that things aren’t looking good for the Republicans. Actually, conventional wisdom says that Democrats should be picking up in the neighborhood of 40 seats, given that it’s the midterm election of a president’s second term. But there are no credible sources predicting that.

That said, I’ve never been much for conventional wisdom. So I don’t think it’s as bad for Republicans and people would have you believe. Don’t get me wrong – times certainly aren’t good for the Republicans. But I’m not buying into the whole doomsday theory. Of course, I could very well be wrong and the Democrats could pick up both the house and the senate. I guess we’ll see.

There are a couple of races in which Republicans are at a disadvantage that I just can’t be too upset about. One is more of an active dislike, the other is more of a passive discomfort.

The first race is that of Linco|n Ch@fee, Senator from Rhode Is|and. I’ve never much liked him as a senator. His credentials as a Republican have long been in question, and beyond that, he’s simply inconsistent (or, perhaps more accurately, unreliability). And if there’s one thing that absolutely irritates me it’s inconsistency. So, my reasoning is, if he doesn’t normally vote like a Republican and his support for the party is unreliable, I see no point in keeping him in the senate. So if he ends up losing, which is looking more and more likely, I hope the door doesn’t hit him in – well, I just hope to the door doesn’t hit him.

The other race is that of Pennsy|vania senator Rick S@ntorum. Now, I probably agree with Rick S@ntorum on most things. But there is just something about him that makes me uncomfortable. I can’t explain it any other way than he has a certain “creepy factor.” There are certain ways of presenting the Republican opinion so as to not be creepy and off-putting, and it just seems to me that he doesn’t do this effectively. I don’t actively want him to lose, but if can’t advance the cause without being divisive, his liability outweighs his contributions.

Having said that, I don’t consider myself to be a member of the disaffected conservatives who wish to see the Republicans lose power simply to “teach them a lesson.” Granted, the current Republican administration has done plenty of things that disagree with. But I agree with the Democrats even less and on more important issues.

It’s somewhat to nature of the American political beast that the choice is always between the better of two crappy options – a giant douche and a turd sandwich, if you will. But until the system changes, which is highly unlikely, we have to work with what we’ve got. The Republicans are wrong on plenty, but at least the majority of them understand the conflict we’re in. Democrats have offered no viable alternative (the operative word being “viable”) to the current situation, and thus have nothing for me.

I will say, however, that if the Democrats blow this election, they might as well pack it in. If they can’t beat the Republicans when they insist on beating themselves, they’re obviously not resonating with the American people and need to seriously reconsider their platform.

Also, in the event that the Democrats do win the House and or Senate, they won’t have much to celebrate. Their majorities will like be so narrow that they will not be able to enforce what little legislative agenda they have. And in the Senate, the Republicans will likely just filibuster anything the Democrats propose. Payback’s a bitch. Also, they will be nowhere near the 3/4 majority to override a presidential veto. Sure, they might be able to call for investigations on the administration, but we saw how well that worked last time.

There will, however, be much more political maneuvering for 2008. So I guess we have THAT to look forward to.

You can't win 'em all (trust me on this one)

Wow. Just wow. I wish that was all I could say, but brevity never has been my strong suit, so allow me to elaborate.

I never really had high hopes for the Georgi@ football team this year. We just couldn't seem to get it together. We kept barely squeaking by against opponents we should've been absolutely destroying. It was only a matter of time before it caught up with us. It just so happened that it caught up with us against Tennessee.

I also think we had a serious lack of confidence which lead to some, shall we say, uninspired performances. I think the loss to V@nderbilt will only compound this. I hate to say I've already written of our season, but at this point we're only playing for pride and I don't really like our chances. Granted, with our luck we'll win out, beat Florida and Auburn, and it won't matter because of the loss to Vandy. Though I have to say, if we keep playing like we have been, we'll be lucky to win two more games. I really hate to say things like that, and I'm probably committing some sort of blasphemy, but that's how I see it.

I will say that I don't think the blame for our failures can fall at the feet of one person. There's been a recent swell in ridership on the "Fire Wi||ie Martinez" band wagon, but I haven't yet bought my ticket. As I see it, our main weakness on defense is our safety corps. Our pass rushers are great, our linebackers and corners get the job done, but our safeties are young and inexperienced, and have a tendency to get burned. They just can't stop passes yet.

We also aren't clicking on offense, but that'll come in time as well. The problem we have there is the quarterback(s) with the most talent don't have the experience, and the quarterback with the most experience doesn't have the talent. This will hopefully be resolved next year.

In the meantime, I'm considering this a "rebuilding year." We're officially pulling a Tennessee 2005 -- starting the season in the Top 10 and just absolutely tanking.

Personally, I can't be too upset. We've played in three of the last four SEC championship games and won two of them. We've come within two points of a national championship. We've gone a combined 44-8 in that span. It's hard to keep that up year after year.

So I say we cut the Dawgs a little slack this year. I mean, we can't win all the time. This is the SEC. A real football conference.

All that said, however, if we suck like this next year I'll start getting annoyed.

Another U.N. failure

Well, is there anyone who DIDN'T see this coming? When are we going to stop referring to this organization as the "United" Nations? More importantly, when are we going to recognize the impotence of this organization? When North Korea tests another nuclear weapon? When Iran tests a nuclear weapon? When Tokyo, Tel Aviv or Los Angeles disappear under a mushroom cloud? Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

655,000? Really?

A new "study" was released today claiming that 655,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed since the start of the Iraq war. That sounded wildly inflated to me, so being the dork I am, I ran the math to see how many deaths that would be per day.

The study allegedly takes data from the start of the Iraq war through July. By my calculations, that is 1,229 days (March 20, 2003 -- the start of Oper@tion |raqi Freedom -- through July 31, 2006.) Thus averaging out to 533 deaths per day.

This, to me, sounds absolutely incredible. And not the good kind of incredible. I'm talking about incredible as in lacking credibility. An average of 533 deaths per day extrapolates out to nearly 4,000 deaths per week and nearly 16,000 deaths per month. And that's on average. Presumably there would be times with more than that. I just don't buy it. Say what you will about the Bush Administration's secrecy or the press' incompetence on covering the issue, but if 16,000 were really dying every month...it would be all over the news.

The survey method of the study also seems slightly, uh, less than reliable. Apparently to gather this information, the surveyors interviewed some 1,849 households. Gee, interviewing people instead of relying on a body count? How could that possibly leave room for error? Call me cynical, but I find it hard to believe that everyone interviewed was absolutely precise and, well, honest. Even if one person exaggerated by, say, one death, that would add more than 2,000 deaths to the total figure. Now say for the sake of argument that one percent of the households interviewed exaggerated by one death. That would add almost 38,000 "fake" deaths to the final figure. So you see how quickly the number can inflate and become completely inaccurate.

Granted, tens of thousands of civilians have verifiably died since the start of the war, and that's tragic. But it's also pretty tragic that such a number would be inflated and used as a political tool less than four weeks from an election.

Thoughts on the generic ballot

Before I start, just as an update on the whole Nor+h Kore@ thing: apparently we're still not sure if the weapon the Koreans tested was nuclear. In layman's terms, it just didn't have the power expected from a nuclear weapon. So I'm still skeptical about the whole thing. But even if they just 'pretended' to set off a nuke, they still deserve an unmitigated ass-kicking.

Anyway, on to what I was actually writing a post on.

Various media sources have been breathlessly reporting on the gap between Democrats and Republicans in the so-called "generic ballot" poll. For those of you that are slightly less dorky than I am, the generic ballot poll essentially asks the question: In the upcoming election, are you more likely to vote for a Democrat candidate or Republican candidate?

Historically, Republicans have never done well in this poll. In 1994, when they picked up 50+ house seats, they only lead in the poll by seven points. Currently, Democrats are leading in the various versions of the poll by an average of about 15 points.

Granted, things aren't good for Republicans right now, but I think that number is wildly inflated.

With the current scandal going on right now, the question might as well be "In the upcoming election, are you more likely to vote for Mark Fo|ey, or anyone but Mark Fo|ey?" Of course there's going to be a little backlash against the party of a politician mired in such a disgusting scandal.

If America had a parliamentary system, I'd be more worried. But seeing as how congressional elections are quite isolated (roughly 435,000 voters per district) I don't see the generic ballot being all that accurate.

Actually, when asked about their own Representatives, 60 percent of those polled approve of the job their representative is doing. So even if there's a 60 percent incumbent retention rate, Republicans would still have a 220-215 majority. At least by my math, which could definitely be wrong.

All that said, it's entirely possible for the Republicans to lose the house. At this point, I'd almost say it's probable. I just don't think it's going to be a rout. Granted, the election is still four weeks away, and a lot can happen in four weeks...i.e. North Korea.

So it's still up in the air. I just wouldn't get too excited/depressed (depending on your political persuasion) over the generic ballot.

Update: The world is still going to hell

Well, scratch everything I said before. Apparently we are now confirming that the North Koreans did test a nuclear weapon.

There's not much else to say at this point. But it's going to be interesting, to say the least, to see what happens in the morning. I'm not feeling very optimistic about the U.N.'s ability to handle this.

My advice: buckle up. And maybe get a helmet.

Breaking news: The world is going to hell

Not that any of you come to me for breaking news, but I get some weird joy out of doing stuff like this.

So the North Koreans are claiming they tested a nuclear weapon. As it stands now, I'm not sure I buy it. Here's why:

- The U.S. Geological Society is saying they haven't detected any seismic activity on the Korean Penninsula in the last 48 hours. As you might imagine, detonating a nuclear bomb underground tends to make seismographs wiggle a little bit. There are no reports of such wiggling.

- The North Koreans are claiming that no radiation leaked from the site. Riiiight. Nuclear bombs are designed to release radiation. That's their whole purpose. The fact that no radiation was released from the site seems a little fishy to me.

- The North Koreans aren't plastering video of the test all over the place. If they're so proud of this, as they say they are, I would think they'd be breathlessly parading out the proof. Since they aren't, I'm a little suspicious.

- No one can confirm the test as of yet. The only source we have that's saying the test went forward is the North Koreans. Normally things like this would race around the world. The longer this takes to confirm, the less likely it is to be true.

More on this as it happens, but those are just my initial reactions.

Ok ok, I'll post. Just stop hitting me.

I apologize for the distinct lack of bloginess lately. After the repeated “what the hell?” e-mails and my demotion by Brett, I figured I should get my act together.

In my own defense, my blogging remission is not because I don’t have anything to say, but rather that I have too much to say and not enough time to say it. Aaaanyway…in an effort to catch up, here’s what been going on lately:

Started my job at the Depar+ment of L@bor Tuesday. So far so good. They’ve got me working on an archiving project. I’ve now become a self-hating bureaucrat. I’ve got mixed feelings about this, but I’ll get to it later.

Something that’s been irking me lately has been the whole midterm election thing. I said before that it was going to get really low and dirty, and it has. I was watching the UGA/O|e Miss game with some of the DC Alumni, and a campaign ad for one of the Maryland candidates for Senate played during halftime (the fact that we were actually in Virginia notwithstanding). It just seemed utterly unnecessary. I know the political persuasion of very few of my alumni friends, and I’m fine with that. We’re there to watch football, drink alcohol, and make fun of each other. I’m perfectly content leaving politics out of it completely.

What’s been irritating me most, however, is the whole “George A||en is a racist” campaign. Granted, there was the whole “M@caca” incident, where he referred to an opposing political operative – who has Indian ancestry – as “M@caca.” Apparently, the word was used by European settlers to (negatively) refer to native populations in Africa.

Now, call me cynical, but I find it quite hard to believe that Senator A||en knew this and then used it in such a way – particularly when he knew he was being video taped. As I see it, it’s just an incredibly unfortunate coincidence. Of course, it probably wasn’t the best idea to make any remarks on the man’s ethnicity at all. But to think it was some roundabout racial slur, I think, is a bit of a stretch.

Then there are the accusations that Senator A||en used the “n-word” back in the 70’s, as well as stuffed a severed deer head into the mailbox of a black family.

Now, I don’t know if these things happened or didn’t happen. I have my doubts about the severed deer head. First of all, there’s no police report of any such thing ever happening. It would stand to reason that such an incident would at least be reported. I could be wrong. At any rate, there’s no proof that it actually happened.

As far as using the “n-word” in college, that at least seems plausible. It’s not that much of a stretch to think that some college kids from Virginia, particularly football players, may have said some politically incorrect things. But there’s a difference, at least in my opinion, between making racial jokes and being a racist. Hell, Rober+ Byrd, right next door in West Virginia, said the “n-word” – on television no less – in 2001. And he’s in his 30th term as senator. (Don’t look that up.)

Most importantly, why are these accusations just now coming out? George A||en has been a congressman, a governor, and a senator before. It just seems a little too politically convenient that this is just now coming out. What, did these people just all of a sudden remember that George A||en is a horrible racist? That’s like remembering a priest molested you once the Catholic Church starts settling lawsuits. It smacks of opportunism.

At any rate, thus far it looks like A||en will only win reelection by five points instead of 15. That’s a shame. He probably also spent a little more money than he hoped, putting him a little behind for his presidential bid. But, it could be worse.

More to come on the election as a whole. In the words of M@tt Drudge: “Developing…”