Blogito, Ergo Sum

The final primary day, as we see the anonymous quoted with one of the stupidest reasons yet:

Mrs. Clinton has no public traveling schedule through the weekend, other than to Washington, reflecting what is, for all practical purposes, a campaign in suspension. Her associates said that no one in her campaign saw any way she could win the nomination, and that the only question now was when Mr. Obama could claim victory. The associates requested anonymity in deference to Mrs. Clinton’s request for privacy.

Anyone see how that request was honored? Wasn't it the leaker who requested privacy? Clearly, journalists have no standards at all when it comes to the excuses they will honor. You ate onions at lunchtime? Good enough.

“Senator Clinton has run an outstanding race; she is an outstanding public servant,” Mr. Obama told voters at a forum in Troy, Mich. He added, “She and I will be working together in November.”

To that, the crowd of Democrats cheered.

Michelle Obama's spokesperson explained that the look on Michelle's face was caused by a stray cosmic ray which hit a nerve and made it contract just at that moment. What nearby people thought they overheard was actually that she "ATE (indistinguishable) that made her ITCH!"

If you think there are things about politics which are difficult to understand, try being a scientist:

Mario Livio tossed his car keys in the air.

They rose ever more slowly, paused, shining, at the top of their arc, and then in accordance with everything our Galilean ape brains have ever learned to expect, crashed back down into his hand.

That was the whole problem, explained Dr. Livio, a theorist at the Space Telescope Science Institute here on the Johns Hopkins campus.

A decade ago, astronomers discovered that what is true for your car keys is not true for the galaxies. Having been impelled apart by the force of the Big Bang, the galaxies, in defiance of cosmic gravity, are picking up speed on a dash toward eternity. If they were keys, they would be shooting for the ceiling.

“That is how shocking this was,” Dr. Livio said.

Galileo moaned and tossed and turned in his grave. For this, he muttered, I suffered house arrest the last years of my life?

It is still shocking. Although cosmologists have adopted a cute name, dark energy, for whatever is driving this apparently antigravitational behavior on the part of the universe, nobody claims to understand why it is happening, or its implications for the future of the universe and of the life within it, despite thousands of learned papers, scores of conferences and millions of dollars’ worth of telescope time. It has led some cosmologists to the verge of abandoning their fondest dream: a theory that can account for the universe and everything about it in a single breath.

Theologists smiled, since they know a three-letter word which works for them.

Actually, they didn't so much "discover" dark energy as they did decide to invent the concept in order to explain things they couldn't explain otherwise.

“Dark energy has the somewhat unusual property that it was embarrassing before it was discovered,” he said.

In 1917, Einstein invented a fudge factor known as the cosmological constant, a sort of cosmic repulsion to balance gravity and keep the universe in balance. He abandoned his constant when the universe was discovered to be expanding, but quantum physics resurrected it by showing that empty space should be foaming with energy that had the properties of Einstein’s constant.

Alas, all attempts to calculate the amount of this energy come up with an unrealistically huge number, enough energy to blow away the contents of the cosmos like leaves in a storm before stars or galaxies could form. Nothing could live there.

Dr. Witten and other physicists used to think this conundrum “would somehow go away.” Something was missing in physicists’ understanding of physics, the logic went. The constant was really zero for deep reasons that, when revealed, would lead physicists closer to an understanding of what they call “the vacuum,” that is to say, the structure of reality.

“It seems now that the answer is not really zero,” Dr. Witten said.

This, you understand is science at its most refined level. People who sit around imagining some kind of Intelligent Design behind it all are definitely not scientists, because...

I find it rather interesting to watch the amount of hostility the concept generates in some people, especially people who can read the above and nod thoughtfully.

Through myriad techniques and observations, cosmologists have recently arrived, after decades of strife, at a robust but dark consensus regarding a cosmos in which stars and galaxies, as well as the humans who gawk at them, amount to barely more than a disputatious froth. It was born 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang.

The problem is that if all of the energy were somehow confined within that point, the force of the "explosion" would be all that there was in the entire universe and everything would fly away at a constant rate until the forces of gravitational attraction started to slow things down. Instead, the expansion is not only continuing, but accelerating.

Simple questions are scoffed at as being too simple. If all of the matter in the universe was contained in a single infinitesimal point, what was surrounding that point? If the universe is expanding, where is it expanding into if nothing exists besides the universe?

Not even allowing these questions to be considered, done by merely defining them as too simple and made by people who "just don't understand", is why scientists now find themselves where they do.

We shouldn't laugh. That's the kind of spirit that was required of the generations who built Stonehenge, after all.

As usual, Howard Kurtz' Media Notes is full of good stuff, starting with comments about tonight's final two Democrat primaries!

Interesting comment on how he views the political process and the primaries, no? Clearly he seems to believe that it would be better if all that was required would be wins in Iowa and New Hampshire and after that everything would be decided without the rest of the nation voting at all. What a nightmare. And it's national, too, not merely confined to the Democrat party. No ego there.

I, for instance, have found it a hugely amusing comedy! And it isn't over with yet. Kurtz writes:

It seems to me that, despite what seems a foregone conclusion, there is no shortage of anger within the Democratic Party, particularly on Hillary's side. I saw that in some of the angry speeches and emotional protests at the DNC conclave on Saturday, and I see it in blogosphere arguments about Hilllary's creative attempt to claim the popular-vote lead (which, of course, means nothing except bragging rights at this point). So the notion that everyone is going to come together tomorrow and sing kumbaya seems a tad optimistic.

I particularly love the fact that here he has reduced Algore's claim to legitimacy to be mere bragging rights.

Personally, I'm hoping for the same ending as in 2000, with Hillary claiming the bragging rights and Obama claiming the nomination. This is because I view Obama as the weaker candidate whose cracks are only beginning to appear. I want him to have the nomination firmly in hand before they show plainly to all as real fissures, so I'd just as soon see the uncommitted superdelegates put him over the top tomorrow...or even tonight, after the polls close.

I want Obama to go to the convention the leader in the clubhouse, with the right-size green jacket already picked out for the ceremony.

"Meanwhile, NBC News reports Bill Clinton, 'acknowledging the campaign's likely fate,' said in South Dakota that 'this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind.' "

That does suggest he doesn't plan on campaigning for Hillary's reelection.

Or her reappearance in 2012, should (a) Obama lose to McCain, or (b) beat McCain but have a dismal four years as president. I figure she has the odds on her side in both possibilities. And who would stand a chance against her, in that case?

As for emotions running high, check out this Americablog post by John Aravosis:

"It's time to stop playing games. As someone who was a Republican until I came out in 1991, and then never went back, I know a thing or two about party loyalties. You don't get to switch back and forth, lest neither side trust you. You pretty much get to switch one time, and even then you'd better be able to prove you're for real."

Of course, his take would be a little different if he had switched twice, you understand.

"Hillary and her team have successfuly changed the national mood, of Hillary's supporters, at least, from one of disappointment that their candidate lost, to one of outright anger that her nomination was supposedly stolen away because she's a woman. That's ludicrous."

Now if only DNC chairman Howard Dean hadn't openly admitted the sexism problem on CNN...

A similar view, expressed on the Huffington Post by Kathleen Reardon:

"Why would a Hillary Clinton supporter vote for McCain? It does seem ludicrous. After all, he represents four to eight more years of George W. Bush. The country can't afford that. What would prompt a Hillary supporter, especially a Democrat, to even consider backing such a despicable outcome? Revenge? Not good enough. That feeling in the pit of the stomach women get when they know they've been dismissed, diminished or patronized? That's a tough one, but it still doesn't trump the future of the country. Being told it will only take a few months to convince them and most Hillary supporters to flip -- something in persuasion you never telegraph if you really plan to be persuasive? Still, can McCain be the answer? Hardly."

McCain's election would be "despicable"? This woman is a USC professor. Guess she must have tenure.

I've been out of college a long time, now, but times sure seem to have changed since then. Or perhaps I was just lucky being at the University of Utah, in fly-over country, or maybe just was lucky in the professors I drew.

In my day they wanted us to learn to think for ourselves, not slavishly bend to their own thoughts and opinions. I was taught that one of my jobs was to always question what they said whenever I had any doubts. As one of my professors told me, he'd either be able to answer my question to my satisfaction or else he wouldn't be, in which case I had proved the value of my question.

Let's look at some possibilities. Professor Reardon says she is trying to figure out why someone is doing something she doesn't understand, but she quits trying pretty easily, seems to me. What if...

Obama is really far more liberal than the average Hillary supporter, and Hillary herself, and he makes them uncomfortable as a result? Obama is, after all, rated as 100% liberal on the voting-record scale, and there aren't a whole lot of people even in the senate, let alone the general public, who feel that way. What if John McCain is not the stick-figure in their minds that Professor Reardon proclaims him to be, the "four more years of Bush" mantra which serves only the mindless? What if they feel that he's closer to the center, and their own positions, than Obama is?

What if they really believe that, as Hillary obviously does, Obama would make a weak commander-in-chief compared to McCain, and the "future of the country" really includes that component?

If you open your mind to those possibilities, you can see why a Hillary Clinton supporter might vote for McCain. In fact, you might even find it plausible, if you open your mind to the possibilities of those questions being asked.

Despite the "four more years of Bush" chant, a lot of people recognize that it's really just a chant. For one thing, there has been simply too much conservative Republican complaining about McCain for all but the most-avid Kos-type Democrat partisans not to have noticed. And there are people like Lieberman, centrist Democrats, who are clearly happier with McCain than Obama. I feel certain that Professor Reardon would dismiss Lieberman out of hand if you mentioned his name to her, but that would be another indication of a closed mind, not an open one.

I see this kind of restricted thinking more and more, though, it seems to me. Two of my favorite subjects, "global warming" and "intelligent design", are most ardently supported by people who openly oppose debate on the subject, for instance. They have flatly declared the subjects to be closed, which is something none of my professors would have done, as I remember them. Even the Mormon Missionaries were happy to debate with you forever, if need be, listening intently to your questions and responding to them.

I got in trouble with my wife, a "lapsed" Mormon at the time, when I invited the missionaries in the first time. I liked talking to them and I enjoyed learning what they thought, and why. I enjoy religious and political debate when you can prevent it from becoming too heated, and I always found the Mormons to be calm and thoughtful.

In my ongoing battle for Tony's citizenship, my newest ally in the San Jose embassy is a Mormon, and I'm greatly encouraged over that fact. I'm not LDS, myself, but I went to high school in a rural Mormon community in remote (at that time) southern Utah, and I love their strong commitment to family values. "My guy", as I think of him, is going to fight for us above and beyond his embassy duties, I feel certain of that.

Maybe it's because I started reading science fiction at such an early age, but I'm willing to consider possibilities that others seem to think impossibilities. What I find most disconcerting is how hostile some people seem to be at that suggestion. One of the kindest put-downs sf readers faced back then (circa 1950, in my case) was that we read that "crazy Buck Rogers stuff!" This was considered to dismiss us out of hand, although many of us have survived to have the last laugh over that one.

Here's another oddity: the creator of Buck Rogers was Dick Calkins, which is my brother's name, although we are not related (as far as I know) to the artist. It comes to me, writing this, that our last name is unusual enough that perhaps we are distantly related.

A Google search doesn't turn up much. Dick Calkins was born in 1895 (my father was born in 1909) and he studied art in Chicago (my father was born in Pontiac). People didn't travel great distances away from home in those days, so chances are that the artist was also born in Illinois.

I liked a lot of things the young Kennedy brothers said, but Robert is the source for one of my favorites:

And I don't even know who this next person is, but I stumbled across this quote just now, completely out of the blue. It was present on a page that I was searching for another reason when it caught my eye:

Google tells me she was a science-fiction author back in the 1970s, but I don't recall hearing about her back then. How odd that I should stumble across this quote almost immediately after writing what I did, huh?

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians, for they are so unlike your Christ." -- Ghandi

"But then I sigh; and, with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ;
And seem a Saint when most I play the Devil."

Shakespeare's "Richard The Third"

Coming back from wherever we've been, I really appreciated this Media Notes discovery for me. Although I regularly read Power Line and occasionally Washington Post editorials, I missed this:

At Power Line, John Hinderaker uses a much-debated editorial to criticize Obama:

"The editorial board of the Washington Post, in my view the most respectable voice of the Democratic Party, acknowledged the surge's success and urged Obama to re-think his Iraq policy:

"If the positive trends continue, proponents of withdrawing most U.S. troops, such as Mr. Obama, might be able to responsibly carry out further pullouts next year. Still, the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable; Iraq's 2009 elections will be crucial. It also should mean providing enough troops and air power to continue backing up Iraqi army operations such as those in Basra and Sadr City. When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success.

"The Post's advice coincides with what looks like an attempt by Obama to walk back his pessimism, at least partially. His senior strategist, David Axelrod, denied that Obama had ever asserted that the surge would produce no good results. That denial was plainly false, as this video shows."

Amazing, when even the Washington Post tells Obama to change his tune. Interesting that Axelrod should lie so patently.

Richard Cohen continues to demonstrate why he is my favorite Liberal. Richard strikes me as an honest man, seemingly unaware of the internal contradictions which I describe as Liberal Logic:

I have come to loathe the campaign.

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance. Those voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening.

I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama -- his youth, his inexperience, his uber-liberalism and, of course, his willingness to abide his minister's admiration for a racist demagogue (Louis Farrakhan) until it was way, way too late. But for too many people, Obama is first and foremost a black man and is rejected for that reason alone. This is very sad.

But Hillary is finding herself lucky to get 60% of the white vote, whereas Obama gets 92% of the black vote and yet Richard sees no racism there, all of those people simply approve of Obama's politics. If he sees any racism there, at least he doesn't mention the fact. Not at all.

It seems to me that if we are ever going to have a truly honest discussion about race, one of the first requirements would be to honestly admit where it exists, including both sides of the color line.

I'll tell you this much from my own personal experience, not long before I left California. Rural Amador County was overwhelmingly white in population, and some of its inhabitants even liked to think of themselves as "rednecks", yet I feel certain that an ordinary African-American citizen (i.e., not a gang-banger) could be in any part of the county at any hour of the day or night without being in fear of harm to his person or his property. Nobody would have beaten him up, or robbed him, far less lynched him. In all probably he would have been addressed as "sir".

Yet in the African-American sections of nearby Sacramento, there were places it was not safe for a white person to go, especially at night. One night my wife and I were returning home from a late night in Sacramento and before I got completely out of the city I noticed I didn't have enough gas to get home. In those days, gas stations between Sacramento and Jackson were few and the few weren't open all night. So I took the very first off-ramp I came to and drove to the nearby 7-11 to fill up. When I went to pay the cashier, locked inside his glass bullet-proof cage, he looked at me in astonishment. He was an African-American, as was everyone else in sight, and he asked me, in so many words, what the hell I was doing there? I said I needed gas. He shook his head at me as he took my money, then advised me to get straight back into my car, don't talk to anyone, and get the hell back on the freeway and out of here.

I could tell by his manner that he wasn't being hostile towards me, either, only giving me some good advice I obviously badly needed. He probably didn't want cops coming, either, though.

I loathe also what Hillary Clinton has done to herself. The incessant exaggerations, the cheap shots, the flights into hallucinatory history -- that sniper fire in Bosnia, for instance -- have turned her into a caricature of what her caricaturists long claimed she already was.

Hmmm. Let's see, when something is expressed as a double-negative, the actual meaning is positive, right? Her previous caricaturists claimed she was something that she was not...only her self-caricature reveals that she really was, all along? I think that's what he said.

Richard sees her as managing to "come across as", where the rest of us see her "revealing herself as", since we knew it all the time what Richard thought we were only caricaturing. We weren't. If Richard is sad, now, it is the same sadness that Adam felt when he lost his innocence and knew for the first time what sin meant.

What is perhaps most surprising, and sad as well, is what can be seen in the rearview mirror. There, reduced to a speck, is the once-huge expectation that the next president would be a Democrat. The current president, after all, has started two wars and completed none...

In very best Liberal fashion, Richard quite forgets to mention that he, himself, approved of both wars back in the days when he thought they were going to be easily won. As far as I know, he still approves of the war in Afghanistan, the just war as they call it, because, as we all know, Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11 whereas Iraq did not.

Richard, of course, still hews to the "losing" line in Iraq, despite the recent cave by his Washington Post editors in the direction of reality. Poor Richard. As his editors warned Obama:

Alas for Richard to be faced with the unhappy prospect of success for his least-favorite of Mr. Bush's wars.

So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then.

I'm reminded of the Stanley Kubrick film with Tom Cruise, instead. Before these things happened, Richard insisted on going around with Eyes Wide Shut.

Remember his claim of the falsely-caricatured Hillary Clinton? Wait until he finally learns the truth about Obama.

The nice thing about Richard is that he usually does, at long last, finally manage to recognize the truth, even when he loathes doing so.

I suspect with the regional elections in Iraq this year followed by the regular elections in 2009, with both the Sunni militias, al-Qaeda and the al-Sadr militias considerably de-fanged, and about five times as much legislation passed as the U.S. Congress has managed in the same time period, Richard will once again see the benefit of Baghdad being in the hands of a government friendly to U.S. interests, our one bright island in the restless Arab and Persian seas as we try to figure out what to do with Iran.

One thing you can count on for sure: whatever happens vis-à-vis Iran, America will be better off with troops in Iraq than it will with all of them back home in the United States

Liberals love to bitch about Bush's rush to war in Iraq, but the truth is that it took months to get all of the men and weapons into place before combat could begin, and it will take more months to get them back over there again, if we even can, despite Obama's promise to return if necessary.