Someone Needs God's Intervention

Sarah's "notes" for the teabagger convention. How many right-wingers need "notes" to remember tax cuts?

Oh Sarah!

"I think, kind of tougher to, um, put our arms around, but allowing America's spirit to rise again by not being afraid to kind of go back to some of our roots as a God fearing nation where we're not afraid to say, especially in times of potential trouble in the future here, where we're not afraid to say, you know, we don't have all the answers as fallible men and women so it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.

A one hundred word run-on sentence that says....well, I'm not too sure what it says.

Sen. Shelby (R-AL) Want Pork

Actually I have no problem with the opposition party putting "holds" on presidential appointments if they have specific concerns. But to put a hold on every appointment until you get the pork you want for your state seems more like a hostage situation. I can think of an easier way for Shelby to get his pork. In exchange for your airforce tanker contracts, be willing to vote for cloture on any healthcare reform bill that makes it back to the Senate (you can still vote against the Bill itself, a majority already support it).

Winter Fun

Republicans Forced to Vote on Preserving SS

Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI)has the Republican plan for balancing the budget in 50 years, seriously. The plan basically calls for cutting Medicare, you know, that program the Republicans have told us they love so much recently. And, we would also privatize social security. Ok, good enough. Let's vote on whether to privatize SS or cut medicare. See how many Republicans are willing to put their vote where their budget is.

Resolved, That the Congress should stand with the American people to reject severe changes to Social Security, including any and all attempts to privatize Social Security, and instead should commit to work bipartisanly to make common-sense adjustments to Social Security to strengthen it for future generations while preserving its guarantees of secure income and family protection in the event of a worker's death, retirement, or severe disability.


Finally, House Dems are seeing the light, using Republican tactics, and playing hardball. Let's see how Republicans vote on this resolution next week.

Senate Rule 22 and a Majority of 41

Due to Rule 22 and the election and appointment of Sen. Scott Brown (MA) the conservatives now hold a majority of 41 seats in the US Senate. In the US Senate there is no limit on debate. Once you get the floor you can speak to your heart's content. That is, unless 60 senators vote to shut you up by invoking "cloture", which ends debate.

To filibuster once meant gaining the floor and speaking until you dropped. Not anymore. Now, 41 Senators can end debate anytime they want on anything they want except for budget issues just by informing the majority leader that they want a filibuster, although the Majority Leader has the power to require a traditional filibuster. In other words, in the modern US Senate, the minority rules.



Filibusters, improperly used, can bring government to a halt and the use of the filibuster is becoming almost commonplace in the current Congress.

So what can be done to change Senate Rule XXII? Senate Rules are determined by the Committee on Rules and Administration chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). When Republicans held power, they didn't like filibusters either. They had plans to do away with or modify Rule XXII called the "nuclear option". There are a couple of ways to do this. The easiest and quickest would be to declare the Rule unconstitutional. In fact the Rule was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court back in 1892 in a case called "U.S. v. Ballin". The court found that the "filibuster rule" could be changed by a simple majority vote of the Senate. Current Senate rules call for 67 votes to change the filibuster rule.

Another method would be to change Rule XXII, by majority vote, on the first day of a new Congressional session (2011 is the next new Congress). The theory here is that an "old" Congress cannot set the rules for a "new" Congress.

I am all for protecting the rights of the minority members in Congress. But it doesn't seem logical that Senators from very small states, representing about 10% of the US population can, for all purposes, prevent the duly elected party in power from governing. Moreover, the filibuster rule in the Senate is also preventing the House of Representatives from governing.

Today We Will Learn About

One guess.

Informed Voters

Results of a Pew Poll: Only 26% of Americans know that it takes 60 votes to break a fillibuster.

Only 32% of Americans know that the Senate version of the health care bill was passed without a single Republican vote.

Speaking of Republican votes. Today, every Republican senator voted against re-establishing pay-as-go. These are the guys that are so concerned about deficit spending.

UPDATE: Concerning restablishing pay-go Steve Benen says: "Republican obstructionism has reached the level at which they oppose ideas they support."

Ode to My Path Students

Our lives are filled with joys and strife,
And what is death but part of life?
Will come the day that we must die,
And leave behind those learning why.

Education is hanging around until you've caught on.

-- Robert Frost

70% of Polled Share Pres. Obama's Priorities

An "instant poll" conducted right after President Obama's speech last night indicated that 70% said President Obama "shares their priorities for the country". This was "up from 57 percent before the speech."

This is good. Doesn't this mean that President Obama should have no problem moving forward on his priorities since 70% of the country supports him? I bet not. Having a majority of the votes in the U.S. Senate these days no longer guarantees passage of legislation. You need 60 votes to pass legislation now.

Colorful Dinos

This changes everything. All future movies that show dinosaurs will have to do away with grey-colored, lizard-skin look. Oh yeah, and we've got to add feather too. This should be great news to all you chicken-lovers. You are now the proud owners of the decendents of dinosaurs.

How do you determine the color of a dinosaur from fossil imprints? Well, it has do be done indirectly. Paleontologists have discovered fossils of feathered dinosaurs. When these feathers were examined microscopically, dark rod-shaped structures were seen that at first were thought to be bacteria. Turns out they are melanosomes, structures that contain the pigment melinin. The melanosomes are not only present in feathers but also in the skin. You can read more about this discovery here.

MA New Senator - Full Frontal Nudity?

Ok, you can debate the recent MA election for the US senate all day. But let's say the Democrats had a really powerful, electable female candidate (not Coakley in other words). Would this women still be electable if she had posed completely nude for a magazine? I don't think so. So now the "moral" conservatives have a senator that has a full frontal nudity centerfold available for viewing by those nice conservative moral women (and more likely the conservative men).

Having Your Pig & Eating It Too

Petri pork is almost here. Grow pork in a dish using pig stem cells. Cool!

Don't Forget the Bush II Federal Debt

With the constant chatter of how President Obama and the Democratic Congress is spending the US to death, it's good to be reminded every now from whence that debt came. Here's David Axelrod in today's Washington Post:

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

Axlerod also reminds us that Obama is proposing far more cuts in government than are the Republicans. Don't believe him? Then maybe an article in the conservative Washington Times might convince you. Unfortunately, many of President Obama's proposed cuts do not make it through Congress. Why? Well I suspect it's because constituents of congressional reps do not actually want government cuts as much as they proclaim they do.

Just ask conservative Doug Hoffman what government cuts he would make if elected to Congress. We want cuts that affect the other guy, not us.

Short History of DNA

 

The Census - What is it good for?

Yeah OK, the census asks some pretty personal questions. But what do they do with all that information? Robert J. Samuelson gives us an example in his Washington Post column today.

You may think that the last place to find a portrait of a nation is a book full of numbers. But turn to Page 673 of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, and you find these intriguing figures. About three-quarters of Americans (76.1 percent in 2007, to be exact) get to work by driving alone. Only 10.4 percent carpool, while 4.9 percent use public transportation and 2.8 percent walk. On average, Americans spend 25.3 minutes commuting each way. The state with the longest commuting time is New York, at 31.5 minutes; the states with the shortest are North and South Dakota, at about 16 minutes, followed closely by Montana and Nebraska, at 17.6.

In addition to the Libary of Congress, the U.S. Census Bureau provides a wealth of information. The 2010 Statistical Abstract can be found here.

I'm Back, but I Never Really Left

My winter sabatical is nearly over as I return to my office to order lab supplies, fill out workload and office hours schedules, prepare course syllabi, write new and rewrite old lectures etc. My first real big job is to work on a couple of presentations concerning fluid and electrolyte balance - a very complicated topic.

My annual New Year's trip to Washington, DC was another success. After living in the DC area for many years, there are still many places I've never visited or visited in a serious way. The Library of Congress is one of those places.

The LOC building itself is pretty spectacular and is located next to the Supreme Court on Capital Hill.

But it's what's inside that is really spectacular. It's probably one of the most beautiful buildings on the "Mall" and you really need a guided tour to appreciate the building's history. It's the largest library on Earth with 142 million items located on over 650 miles of shelves.

Above is a picture of the great hall (main entrance) taken from Wikipedia. The silver colored material around the ceiling is actually made of aluminum, a very difficult, expensive material to come by in those days. I have my own pictures but I haven't downloaded them off the camera yet.

The Library was destroyed by the British in 1814 but most of it's then 3000 books were replaced with over 6,000 books purchased from Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, another fire in 1851 destroyed about two-thirds of those books. One of the current exhibits at the LOC is the library of Thomas Jefferson which is being reconstituted either with the original books or replacement copies of the books. Some of the books will never be replaced because they are unavailable.

The reading room and the dome above it abound with architectural history.

Yes, you can actually use the library as a research library, but you must first become a registered reader. This is like applying for a library card that is good for two years.

But the primary reason I wanted to explore the LOC was to visit the exhibit on "Exploring the Early Americas". I wanted to see the first map ever drawn to use the word "America". This is the Martin Waldseemüller map of the world drawn in 1507 and given to the library by Germany.

The word "America" is printed on the continent of South America.

The LOC is a library but it is also a museum with changing exhibits. You really need to visit the library to appreciate the building and the exhibits. However, the LOC website is probably one of the most extensive and information filled sites ever published. And, don't forget...this is the Library of Congress, so you can find out what specifically is going on in Congress on a day-to-day basis using the "Thomas" portion of the website.

Run, Don't Walk to See Avatar in 3-D

Run, don't walk, to your nearest 3-D capable movie theater to see Avatar. Don't waste your money on the 2-D version. We went to the Cumberland 12 theaters in Plattsburgh to see Avatar in 3-D. Movies will never be the same. The best I can describe the experience is that it is like looking out a window at something happening, not looking at a screen. The "alien" planet is absolutely beautiful. The movies isn't full of 3-D "gimmicks", like things flying out at you (although sometimes....). There are instances where you want to reach out and touch cool little floating or flying alien animals. The movie has many messages that apply to the political situation today. The main message I took away from the movie is that it is much easier to reign destruction on a people if you can somehow convince yourself to hate them.....to make them seem less than yourself or just different. This movie is going to win awards if only for the new technology used in making an unforgetable experience. One technical question however. Many of the alien animals are hexapods rather than tetrapods, but the alien "humans" are tetrapods like us. I believe even the alien "monkeys" were heptapods. How did the alien "humans" end up evolved into tetrapods?

Science is Beautiful

Here is a good reason to visit Rochester, NY. An almost exact replica of a 1976 late Baroque pipe organ has been reconstructed in Christ Church Episcopal. It's a copy of a pipe organ built by Adam Gottlob Casparini of East Prussia and cost $3 million. There is nothing modern about this organ. It needs to be pumped by a human and has over 2200 pipes. It is handmade and even the cabinetry is made from 19th century wood. It is the nearest we have to being able to hear Bach's music as he himself heard it.

You can read more about the pipe organ here and even listen to it being played.

Happy Saturnalia