Happy Darwin and Lincoln Day!

Today is the 200th birthday of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. On this day, we should remember both of these great men and the contributions they made to science and society. Here are a few links for your pleasure and enlightenment.

http://www.darwin200.org/

http://www.darwinfacts.com/

At 200, Darwin Evolves Beyond Evolution

http://www.abrahamlincoln200.org/

200 Years Later, A More Complex View of Lincoln

Lincoln, Darwin at 200

Darwin and Lincoln Still Evolving at 200 Years

Not Arizona's Year

First, Arizona's Senator, John McCain gets his ass kcked by Barack Obama. Now, tonight, the Arizona Cardinals got their asses kicked in the Superbowl by the Pittsburgh Steelers! Sorry, Arizona. It's's just not your year!

Who pays for all of this Inaugural Hoopla?

Well, the Inauguration Day Parade has finally ended, and now the night filled with glitzy galas truly begins. But here is a question: who pays for this shit?

The Shame Beneath Inaugural Hoopla via Truthdig

Ah, the gowns and the glitter. The spectacular opening concert featuring everyone from Beyoncé to The Boss. The historical drama of watching the first African-American take the oath as president of the United States.

The quadrennial conundrum over how to pay for it all.

Sorry to rain on the inaugural parade, but we need to find a better way. The financing of President-elect Barack Obama’s big day is just as much of an embarrassment to the country as the financing of inaugurations past.

First we force financially strapped municipal and state governments—particularly the District of Columbia—to pay enormous costs for security, transportation and emergency preparedness that simply shouldn’t be their responsibility. Then, because we want to stage an extravaganza that is as big and as bountiful as the day seems to require, we have the president-elect tap the same deep-pocketed donors who finance political campaigns.

Obama’s inaugural committee stresses that it has imposed unprecedented limits on donations, banning direct contributions from corporations, lobbyists and unions and limiting individual contributions to $50,000. “This is not business as usual,” inaugural spokeswoman Linda Douglass says.

Still, the committee has allowed “bundlers”—the well-heeled political fundraisers who tap their well-heeled friends and colleagues for donations—to get credited for raising up to $300,000 a piece. Substantively, what is the difference between an individual who writes a $300,000 check and a “bundler” who raises that amount and gets noted in the books for providing this service?

“I don’t think it’s all that different,” says Alexander Cohen, senior researcher for the watchdog group Public Citizen. “I think it’s a way to get around the donor limits—why have bundling if you have donor limits? The answer is, of course, to get around those limits.”

Cohen, who analyzes the inaugural committee’s disclosures as they are made public, says that as of Tuesday, 78 percent of disclosed donations have come from bundlers or contributors who have given $25,000 or more. An analysis he provided to The Wall Street Journal last week showed that as a group, employees and executives of Wall Street financial-services firms, including companies that have received billions in federal bailout funds, are among the heaviest contributors. “I don’t see a lot of priests on the lists,” Cohen told me.

Obama’s intentions may well be better than those of George W. Bush, who set a limit of $250,000 on individual donations in 2004 and allowed corporations and lobbyists to contribute. But the financing apparatus still bears an unseemly resemblance to our unacceptable campaign-finance system.

A part of inaugural financing that almost certainly will be worse this year is the portion that comes from the District of Columbia government and, because next week’s swearing-in is expected to draw a record crowd of about 2 million, is set to be the costliest in history. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, whose city already faces a budget shortfall due to the weak economy (and which already cut funds for housing, health care and transportation to close last year’s budget gap), has told Congress that municipal inaugural costs are expected to balloon to $47 million. That’s about triple Washington’s cost four years ago.

Because of the enormous crowds and the strain on regional transportation and emergency systems, the governors of Maryland and Virginia also have complained. The three jurisdictions estimate a total expenditure of about $75 million—yet Congress has so far allocated just $15 million to the District of Columbia government to defray its expense. At Fenty’s request, Bush has declared the inauguration to be a federal “emergency” so that additional federal funds can be made available, but it is unclear how much extra money will result.

This convoluted jumble of private fundraising and public demands on the budgets of squeezed local governments—not to mention the bureaucratically necessary but inane designation of “emergency” for an event that occurs every four years—is shameful. The inauguration of a president is a nonpartisan event and a national day of celebration, as well as a constitutional requirement.

We need to rid inaugurations of both the tawdriness of campaign-style fundraising and the terrible inequity of forcing local governments to pay for them. The only way to do that is full public financing.

Or, here is a thought: just end the damn hoopla! Who needs it? Who needs a parade that goes on for several hours? Who needs an entire weekend filled with glamorous parties while so many people around the country are struggling just to make ends meet? I understand that so many people are so excited about Obama becoming president. I am one of them. But I don't need to see this. I would be more impressed by him if he eschewed the Hollywood glitz and glamor and accepted his position with a quiet dignity, then got to work! But that is just me.

The Requisite Inauguration Day Post

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th US President today. Rick Warren gave the opening invocation, and said with a straight face that we are all created equal, and he didn't even exclude homosexuals, although you know he was thinking it! Then Joe Biden took his oath of office with no problems. Obama began by fucking up his oath of office (a sign of things to come?), but recovered gracefully to deliver a powerful inauguration speech. Truthout has the full transcript of the speech here.

Here is the video of Obama's oath and the speech:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here are some pics taken by a friend of mine who was at the inauguration. The sea of people is quite breathtaking.






Obama being sworn in was certainly the highlight of the day. But a close second would be the sight of Bush and Cheney flying away in a military helicopter, no longer Air Force One because those fuckers are no longer in charge!

The Inauguration Day Parade is currently on-going. Apparently Obama has done something I am pretty sure Bush never did: leave the safety of his armored car and walk along the street, greeting cheering fans!

A Wake-Up Call for Science Education

A Wake-Up Call for Science Education via truthout

President-elect Barack Obama has named Harvard and Woods Hole physicist John P. Holdren to serve as assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Three other renowned scientists - Jane Lubchenco, Eric Lander, and Harold Varmus - also were tapped by Obama to fill key roles.

Holdren's appointment, announced weeks before the inauguration, took place earlier than that of any other science adviser in modern times. Even so, the reinvigoration of US science advice cannot happen soon enough.

The latest alarm bell just rang and it's official. The United States is once again missing from the list of top-10 science and math education countries. A new Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study confirmed that America lags behind many other industrialized countries at the task of preparing tomorrow's labor force. Long-term economic growth depends on a fully competent talent pool, including workers who can excel in a technology-based economy. But young people in many less-developed countries now outperform their American counterparts in both science and math.

Interestingly, eighth-graders in Massachusetts actually tied for first place worldwide in science, while the state's fourth-graders ranked second among nearly 60 other nations. Clearly, the United States is capable of sustaining high-quality K-12 science and math programs. We simply are not providing equal educational opportunities for all of America's children. Now is the time to tackle the science education problem if we want long-term, stable improvements in our national economy and quality of life.

We learned about US students' stagnant science scores while also, not coincidentally, confronting the largest number of job losses since 1945.

Science and technology have been powerful engines of prosperity since World War II, but, sadly, science education and the versatility of the American workforce are both in decline. In 2006, the respected Programme for International Student Assessment reported that 15-year-olds in the United States ranked 17th on science tests and 24th on math tests, compared with teens from 29 other wealthy nations. The United States is failing to address the problems of science education for tomorrow's workforce.

The problem demands a multifaceted response. Competitive pay for teachers should be our top priority. If we want to recruit and retain the best teachers, we need to reward them. Obama has proposed providing scholarships for those who teach in schools with the greatest needs, while training thousands of science and math teachers and boosting early-childhood education. He also has said he wants to help "ensure that state assessments measure higher-order thinking skills."

Such plans demonstrate a commendable vision. We hope that US policy-makers, guided by Holdren and colleagues, also can find a way to send a clear signal that science generally and science education specifically are highly valued, respected, and essential for all children, not just those in magnet schools or in Massachusetts. That means increasing funding for science education at all levels, as well as federal research and development more broadly. Federal research and development has declined, in real terms, for the past four years.

Uniform national science-learning standards will be critical, too. Currently, students' science-learning goals vary from state to state, and thus a child who excels in one region may fail elsewhere. This disparity across the country can create unacceptable inequalities in the opportunities provided to the next generation of Americans.

Sputnik, the world's first satellite, ignited America's will to win the innovation race with the Soviet Union. Congress and President Dwight Eisenhower responded in 1957 by quadrupling funds for the National Science Foundation and launching the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. That decision triggered decades of breathtaking achievements, from the first man on the moon to the information superhighway and the decoding of life's genetic blueprint - the human genome.

Today's economic crisis should similarly ignite America's will to ensure that our children's future is at least as good as our own. New jobs and prosperity require investment in science, technology, and science education now.

These Trying Times

2009 Harper's Index

Number of news stories from 1998 to Election Day 2000 containing “George W. Bush” and “aura of inevitability”: 206

Amount for which Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999: $2,500

Year in which a political candidate first sued Palm Beach County over problems with hanging chads: 1984

Total amount the Bush campaign paid Enron and Halliburton for use of corporate jets during the 2000 recount: $15,400

Percentage of Bush’s first 189 appointees who also served in his father’s administration: 42

Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 98

Years before becoming energy secretary that Spencer Abraham cosponsored a bill to abolish the Department of Energy: 2

Number of Chevron oil tankers named after Condoleezza Rice, at the time she became foreign policy adviser: 1

Date on which the GAO sued Dick Cheney to force the release of documents related to current U.S. energy policy: 2/22/02

Number of other officials the GAO has sued over access to federal records: 0

Months before September 11, 2001, that Cheney’s Energy Task Force investigated Iraq’s oil resources: 6

Hours after the 9/11 attacks that an Alaska congressman speculated they may have been committed by “eco-terrorists”: 9

Date on which the first contract for a book about September 11 was signed: 9/13/01

Number of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and North African men detained in the U.S. in the eight weeks after 9/11: 1,182

Number of them ever charged with a terrorism-related crime: 0

Number charged with an immigration violation: 762

Days since the federal government first placed the nation under an “elevated terror alert” that the level has been relaxed: 0

Minimum number of calls the FBI received in fall 2001 from Utah residents claiming to have seen Osama bin Laden: 20

Number of box cutters taken from U.S. airline passengers since January 2002: 105,075

Percentage of Americans in 2006 who believed that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special I.D.: 39

Chances an American in 2002 believed the government should regulate comedy routines that make light of terrorism: 2 in 5

Rank of Mom, Dad, and Rudolph Giuliani among those whom 2002 college graduates said they most wished to emulate: 1, 2, 3

Number of members of the rock band Anthrax who said they hoarded Cipro so as to avoid an “ironic death”: 1

Estimated total calories members of Congress burned giving Bush’s 2002 State of the Union standing ovations: 22,000

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50

Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069

Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on information from a single defector: 100

Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents: 0

Date on which Bush said of Osama bin Laden, “I truly am not that concerned about him”: 3/13/02

Days after the U.S. invaded Iraq that Sony trademarked “Shock & Awe” for video games: 1

Days later that the company gave up the trademark, citing “regrettable bad judgment”: 25

Number of books by Henry Kissinger found in Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz’s mansion: 2

Number by then–New York Times reporter Judith Miller: 1

Factor by which an Iraqi in 2006 was more likely to die than in the last year of the Saddam regime: 3.6

Factor by which the cause of death was more likely to be violence: 120

Chance that an Iraqi has fled his or her home since the beginning of the war: 1 in 6

Portion of Baghdad residents in 2007 who had a family member or friend wounded or killed since 2003: 3/4

Percentage of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have filed for disability with the VA: 35

Chance that an Iraq war veteran who has served two or more tours now has post-traumatic stress disorder: 1 in 4

Number of all U.S. war veterans who have been denied Veterans Administration health care since 2003: 452,677

Number of eligibility restrictions for admission into the Army that have been loosened since 2003: 9

Percentage change from 2004 to 2007 in the number of Army recruits admitted despite having been charged with a felony: +295

Date on which the White House announced it had stopped looking for WMDs in Iraq: 1/12/05

Years since his acquittal that O. J. Simpson has said he is still looking for his wife’s “real killers”: 13

Minimum number of close-up photographs of Bush’s hands owned by his current chief of staff, Josh Bolten: 4

Number of vehicles in the motorcade that transports Bush to his regular bike ride in Maryland: 6

Estimated total miles he has ridden his bike as president: 5,400

Portion of his presidency he has spent at or en route to vacation spots: 1/3

Minimum number of times that Frederick Douglass was beaten in what is now Donald Rumsfeld’s vacation home: 25

Estimated number of juveniles whom the United States has detained as enemy combatants since 2002: 2,500

Minimum number of detainees who were tortured to death in U.S. custody: 8

Minimum number of extraordinary renditions that the United States has made since 2006: 200

Date on which USA Today added Guantánamo to its weather map: 1/3/05

Number of incidents of torture on prime-time network TV shows from 2002 to 2007: 897

Number on shows during the previous seven years: 110

Percentage change since 2000 in U.S. emigration to Canada: +79

Number of the thirty-eight Iraq war veterans who have run for Congress who were Democrats: 21

Percentage of Republicans in 2005 who said they would vote for Bush over George Washington: 62

Seconds it took a Maryland consultant in 2004 to pick a Diebold voting machine’s lock and remove its memory card: 10

Number of states John Kerry would have won in 2004 if votes by poor Americans were the only ones counted: 40

Number if votes by rich Americans were the only ones counted: 4

Portion of all U.S. income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top 1 percent of earners: 3/4

Increase since 2000 in the number of Americans living at less than half the federal poverty level: 3,500,000

Percentage change since 2001 in the average amount U.S. workers spend on out-of-pocket medical expenses: +172

Estimated percentage by which Social Security benefits would have declined if Bush’s privatization plan had passed: –15

Percentage change since 2002 in the number of U.S. teens using illegal drugs: –9

Percentage change in the number of adults in their fifties doing so: +121

Number of times FDA officials met with consumer and patient groups as they revised drug-review policy in 2006: 5

Number of times they met with industry representatives: 113

Amount the Justice Department spent in 2001 installing curtains to cover two seminude statues of Justice: $8,650

Number of Republican officials who have been investigated by the Justice Department since 2001: 196

Number of Democratic officials who have been: 890

Number of White House officials in 2006 and 2007 authorized to discuss pending criminal cases with the DOJ: 711

Number of Clinton officials ever authorized to do so: 4

Years since a White House official as senior as I. Lewis Libby had been indicted while in office: 130

Number of U.S. cities and towns that have passed resolutions calling for the impeachment of President Bush: 92

Percentage change since 2001 in U.S. government spending on paper shredding: +466

Percentage of EPA scientists who say they have experienced political interference with their work since 2002: 60

Change since 2001 in the percentage of Americans who believe humans are causing climate change: –4

Number of total additions made to the U.S. endangered-species list under Bush: 61

Average number made yearly under Clinton: 65

Minimum number of pheasant hunts Dick Cheney has gone on since he shot a hunting companion in 2006: 5

Days after Hurricane Katrina hit that Cheney’s office ordered an electric company to restore power to two oil pipelines: 1

Days after the hurricane that the White House authorized sending federal troops into New Orleans: 4

Portion of the $3.3 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina relief spent by Mississippi that has benefited poor residents: 1/4

Percentage change in the number of Louisiana and Mississippi newborns named Katrina in the year after the storm: +153

Rank of Nevaeh, “heaven” spelled backward, among the fastest growing names given to American newborns since 2000: 1

Months, beginning in 2001, that the federal government’s online condom fact sheet disappeared from its website : 17

Minimum amount that religious groups received in congressional earmarks from 2003 to 2006: $209,000,000

Amount such groups received during the previous fourteen years: $107,000,000

Percentage change from 2003 to 2007 in the amount of money invested in U.S. faith-based mutual funds: +88

Average annualized percentage return during that time in the Christian and Muslim funds, respectively: +11, +15

Number of feet the Ground Zero pit has been built up since the site was fully cleared in 2002: 30

Number of 980-foot-plus “Super Tall” towers built in the Arab world in the seven years since 9/11: 4

Year by which the third and final phase of the 2003 “road map” to a Palestinian state was to have been reached: 2005

Estimated number of the twenty-five provisions of the first phase that have yet to be completed: 12

Number of times in 2007 that U.S. media called General David Petraeus “King David”: 14

Percentage change during the first ten months of the Iraq war “surge” in the number of Iraqis detained in U.S.-run prisons: +63

Percentage change in the number of Iraqis aged nine to seventeen detained: +285

Ratio of the entire U.S. federal budget in 1957, adjusted for inflation, to the amount spent so far on the Iraq war: 1:1

Estimated amount Bush-era policies will cost the U.S. in new debt and accrued obligations: $10,350,000,000,000 (see page 31)

Percentage change in U.S. discretionary spending during Bush’s presidency: +31

Percentage change during Reagan’s and Clinton’s, respectively: +16, +0.3

Ratio in 1999 of the number of U.S. federal employees to the number of private employees on government contracts: 15:6

Ratio in 2006: 14:15

Total value of U.S. government contracts in 2000 that were awarded without competitive bidding: $73,000,000,000

Total in 2007: $146,000,000,000

Number of the five directors of the No Child Left Behind reading program with financial ties to a curriculum they developed: 4

Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000

Minimum number of copies sold, since it was released in 2006, of Flipping Houses for Dummies: 45,000

Chance that the buyer of a U.S. home in 2006 now has “negative equity,” i.e., the debt on the home exceeds its value: 1 in 5

Estimated value of Henry Paulson’s Goldman Sachs stock when he became Treasury Secretary and sold it: $575,000,000

Estimated value of that stock today: $238,000,000

Salary in 2006 of the White House’s newly created Director for Lessons Learned: $106,641

Minimum number of Bush-related books published since 2001: 606

Number of words in the first sentence of Bill Clinton’s memoir and in that of George W. Bush’s, respectively: 49, 5

Minimum number of nicknames Bush has given to associates during his presidency: 75

Number of associates with the last name Jackson he has dubbed “Action Jackson”: 2

Number of press conferences at which Bush has referred to a question as a “trick”: 14

Number of times he has declared an event or outcome not to be “acceptable”: 149

Rank of Bush among U.S. presidents with the highest disapproval rating: 1

Average percentage of Americans who approved of the job Bush was doing during his second term: 37

Percentage of Russians today who approve of the direction their country took under Stalin: 37

Save Money and the Environment

Lifehacker has an interesting article about a website, WattzOn, that allows users to measure personal energy consumption, compare consumption over time and with other users, and analyze data that may allow users to cut back on energy consumption, thereby saving money, and potentially the environment.

The United States is the world's largest energy consumer in terms of total usage, and is seventh in the world in per-capita consumption. Moreover, our energy usage is dramatically outpacing our population growth, suggesting that each one of us is using far more energy than we should be. Furthermore, our energy consumption is only expected to increase over the coming years. With this in mind, those of us who are environmentally-conscious should do everything in our power to cut back on our consumption.

WattzOn is an example of a free service that may allow us to do this, and if enough of us make small changes to our lifestyles, large results can be obtained. If doing a small part to save the environment is not enough to motivate you to monitor and alter your energy consumption, perhaps the current economic downturn will provide some additional motivation to cut back on usage and save some money each month.