More About Noise

In my post about noise yesterday I added a rather inscrutable footnote about noise and power spectra. Thoughtfully, Mel asked:

I don't quite understand this, though: "Pink noise" has a power spectrum that rolls off as the inverse of the frequency. Could you explain what that would look like, for really elementary level brains like mine?

This is just one reason why I love my Canadian friends.

Let's look at a couple of graphs. It doesn't even matter that we can't read the numbers or anything written on the graphs. We don't have to understand them in any detail, although they're not very complicated. We get most of what we want to understand just from the shapes of the blue parts.

    

On the left is a power spectrum of white noise (Wikipedia source); on the right is a power spectrum of pink noise (Wikipedia source). Follow the links and click on the little graphs if you want to see the big versions.

The power spectrum graph plots acoustic power (loosely, how loud the component is) on the vertical axis and frequency on the horizontal axis. Frequency increases towards the right, and frequency is just what you expect: high frequencies are high pitches, low frequencies are low pitches.

If you were looking at the power spectrum of a single, pure tone (like the sounds we used to hear in the US for the emergency broadcasting system test signal, but in recent years they've switched to something buzzy), you would see one very narrow, tall blue spike located at the frequency of the pitch in question. If you were looking at the power spectrum of a musical instrument you would see a collection of individual, thick spikes at different frequencies that are part of that instrument's overtone series and identify its characteristic sound.

But these are power spectra of noise, so they have components at all frequencies, which is why the graphs show solid blue regions rather than a lot of spikes–that blue region is really a huge number of blue spikes at every frequency on the graph.

It's the shape of the top of the blue region that we want to focus on. In the spectrum on the left, the top is flat (and level), telling us that the loudness of each frequency component in the noise is equal to the loudness of every other component over the entire range we can measure.^* That's white noise: the power spectrum is flat and every frequency component is present with equal loudness.

With pink noise, there is a shape–a specific shape–to the spectrum, as shown on the right. The top of the blue region slants downward on the right side, meaning that the loudness of any given component of the noise decreases as the frequency increases. That's all I meant by "rolls off" really, that the curve goes down as the frequency goes up.

With the pink noise, as I said, the shape is specific. The top of the curve slants to the right but it is a flat slope^† and, for pink noise, it has a specific slope indicating that the loudness (actually the "power spectral density", but let's fudge it a bit and just say "loudness") is changing exactly as the inverse of the frequency (1/f).

You can guess there's a lot more mathematics one can delve into, but that's more than we needed anyway. Once you see the idea of loudness vs. frequency for the graphs ("power spectra"), you can see the difference between white noise (totally flat spectrum) and pink noise ("rolls off as 1/f").

You can hear the difference, too. Those two Wikipedia pages I linked to above have very short sound samples of synthesized white noise (approximate) and pink noise (approximate). If you listen you will notice that the white noise sounds very hissy (as I said, like TVs did in analog days when stations were off the air)–that's because of all the relatively loud, high-frequency components. On the other hand, the pink noise sounds kind of like hearing noise under water, because the lower frequencies predominate in pink noise (water tends to filter out high frequency sounds).
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^*This is where practicalities come into play. Theoretical white noise would have frequency components at every possible frequency, but in practice a sound like that cannot be produced, if for no other reason than that the sound could not have gone on forever, so there are low (very, very, very low) frequency components that could not be present because there wasn't time. Besides, audio equipment doesn't recreate all frequencies equally, etc., and that's why the graph of the white noise on the left isn't exactly level but tilts up slightly towards the right side. And, of course, the top edge is fuzzy and jaggy because this is noise, and noise is random. If you were watching this on a device that measured power spectra (a spectrum analyzer–nice, but very expensive), you'd see the jagginess dance around randomly but, on average, the top would remain flat and level.

^† The graphs have logarithmic vertical and horizontal axes, with power given in decibels. However, I don't think we need to complicate our understanding with that right now, just so long as we accept that in this kind of graph this particular straight-line slope down to the right represents the mathematical 1/f shape.

Hearing Things in Noise

There is a false rumor that snopes.com reported on recently ("Doll Talk", 14 October 2008): an email is circulating, claiming to be from a woman in the Texas panhandle (possibly true) who went to a Wal*Mart store where she listened to the (recorded) sounds made by a Fisher-Price "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo" doll.(what an ungainly name!). These dolls make wordless pre-baby-talk vocalizations, occasionally actually saying "mama".

However, this woman distinctly heard the dolls (she tried more than one) say "Islam is the Light" and "Satan is King". She demanded the immediate removal of the dolls and vowed to visit every Wal*Mart in the Texas panhandle with her demand.

I don't want to make any over hasty generalizations, but it would seem that the woman was a little keyed up about something. Perhaps she had finally worn out her vinyl recording of "Abbey Road" from playing it backwards. (I hope I have the correct album title. I was never a big Beatles fan and I never played one backwards — or was it Pink Floyd? Or both!) Perhaps the irate woman had just gone shopping after a Sarah Palin rally.

It can be freaky what one can hallucinate aurally from white–or pink^*–noise. Back when I was a graduate student I often worked late at night, partly because I was a night owl, and partly because I got much better data when the building was very quiet (people quiet and electromagnetically quiet — I would see glitches in my data when solenoids in the building's elevator switched).

Anyway, our low-temperature lab was a noisy place, mostly from all the vacuum pumps (of different sizes) that were running, which made for quite a bit of random noise. Late at night, when it was otherwise very quite, I'd hear the most unexpected things.

I kept a radio in my lab, but late at night there was nothing being broadcast. However, I would start to imagine that there was music coming from the radio! The only sound, of course, was that of the pumps and the other pings and pops of the lab, but I was convinced I heard music coming from the radio. Even odder, the music usually sounded like orchestral music by Debussy, very rich in color, melodic but rhythmically indistinct, rather like "La Mer". Sometimes the "piece" I was hearing could be quite clever in its musical development so that I wished I were better at taking musical dictation so that I could just write down all these fabulous pieces of music.

But never, not even once, did I ever hear someone saying "Islam is the light" or "Satan is king". My graduate-school career was clearly deprived.

———-
^*We need to be a little precise with the terms because "white noise" has a precise meaning to a scientist, namely, random noise whose power spectrum (the curve that shows how much of each frequency is present) is flat (on average) over all frequencies. It sounds like that fuzzy, hissing noise of a television tuned between stations, at least it did back when televisions received analog broadcast signals. In practice most noise is limited to some range, by our ears if nothing gets to it earlier, like equipment roll-off or bandwidth, so noise with a flat spectrum over some frequency range is usually called "white noise". "Pink noise" has a power spectrum that rolls off as the inverse of the frequency.

The Hidden Hand as Enabler

If Wall Street got drunk, it is the cult of the hidden hand that held the bottle.

[Marty Kaplan, "Alan Shrugged", Huffington Post, 13 October 2008.]

I liked the quotable witticism, but I also liked the article (and not only for its title). The subject is our current economic difficulty, free-market cultism, and the role of Alan Greenspan who, one notes, did not just win a Nobel prize in economics. (He can keep it next to the Nobel prize in literature that Ayn Rand did not win.)

Beard of the Week LIII: The National Portrait Gallery at 40

This week's somewhat stern beard (with eyebrows to match) belongs to Adolph Cluss (1825–1905), an architect born in Germany, who immigrated to America, working in Washington, DC. A few years ago the Washington Post described him as "without question the least known of Washington's most important architects."^* As used in the title of that article, Cluss was known as the "Red Architect": apparently he did know Karl Marx when he (Cluss) left Germany at the age of 23, but he was also notably fond of building with red brick. Some of his buildings still remain; perhaps the most familiar to area residents is the Smithsonian's "Arts and Industries Building". (The building, which was the Smithsonian's original museum building, is currently being renovated.)

I hate to admit it, but Mr. Cluss was really just a pretext, but a good pretext in this case, since I've learned another interesting little bit of forgotten history.

Originally, when I saw from a piece in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery blog that the NPG had just turned 40 years old (Deborah Sisum, "The National Portrait Gallery Turns 40!", FaceToFace, 8 October 2008), I thought that would be a great topic to write about and it could be a BoW entry — all I needed to do was find someone associated with the NPG who had a beard.

Yikes! That turned out to be something of a challenge. None of the directors ever had a beard so far as I could discern, for instance. I didn't want to make too tenuous a connection, but it took some digging before I found a mention of Mr. Cluss deep in the bowels of the NPG website.^†

The NPG is housed in what was the original home of the US Patent and Trademark Office. About the history of the building, they say this:

The National Historic Landmark building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is the third public building constructed in early Washington, D.C., (after the White House and the U.S. Capitol) and is considered one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the United States. Several important early American architects were involved in the original design of the building, including Robert Mills (1781–1855), Ithiel Town (1784–1844), Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892), Thomas U. Walter (1804–1887) and William Parker Elliot (1807–1854).

One notes that of the several "important early American architects" they list, there is no mention of "the least known of Washington's most important architects." Ah well, his role in this building was not of such great import. In 1877 there was a fire that "ravaged" the upper floors of the west and north wings, destroying nearly 87,000 patent models. From 1878 to 1881, Adolf Cluss and his partner, Paul Schulze, reconstructed the damaged west and north wings.

After that there were plenty of challenges to remaining a grand building — it almost became a parking lot in 1953 — but in 1958 the building was given to the Smithsonian, and the National Portrait Gallery moved in in 1968 after four years of renovation. In 2000 the building was again closed for major renovation, opening again on 1 July 2006. As it turned out Isaac and I visited in the first week that the NPG was open again, and it was a delight.

Of all the delightful and fascinating collections housed in buildings around the National Mall, I think the National Portrait Gallery is the one I most enjoy visiting over and over again. I certainly do like portraiture as a genre of art, and of course there's lots of that at the NPG on display. Celebrity doesn't excite me all that much, and seeing portraits of famous Americans is a big draw for some people, but I don't mind it either. The Gallery has a handful of works by John Singer Sargent, an artist at the top of my list of favorites. We have also seen some splendid transient exhibits there as well; I still remember seeing "Gilbert Stewart" (famous for his portraits of George Washington), among others whose names escape me at the moment.

Also, on the third floor, probably in the new display of the "Twentieth-Century Americans" collection, there is an exquisite small portrait, a drawing I think, of Amelia Earhart. I hesitate to mention it because I can't even remember who made the portrait, but the image lives vividly in my mind, full of vitality and adventuresome spirit. I need to go see it again and report back. Look for it if you happen to be there; it rewards minute scrutiny.

When we were there just after the reopening in 2006 we also saw the prize-winners and 100 or so finalists in the Biennial "Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition"; the online exhibition is here (that is, the competition in 2006 whose exhibition we saw). One goal of the competition is to explore and expose the remarkable diversity and creativity of American portraiture as being practiced today, and I found it very exciting, the sort of thing we couldn't have been happier to have chanced upon by accident. Take some time to look at some of the exhibit if you have the time.
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^* Benjamin Forgey, "'Red Architect' Adolf Cluss: A Study in Sturdy", Washington Post, 17 September 2005.

^† "Architectural Chronology of the Patent Office Building", Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, accessed 12 October 2008.

National Coming Out Day 2008

As I now tend to say every year in this space, today, October 11, is celebrated annually by more and more people as "National Coming Out Day"; despite its name, people in many countries celebrate NCOD. First observed in 1988, NCOD marks the anniversary of the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. The official NCOD logo (at right) was created by Keith Haring. This is the 20th anniversary of its first observance!

Today seems like a good day to celebrate a few things. Yesterday, Connecticut became the third state to recognize, legally, the right of same-sex couples to marry. By "marry", of course, they refer to the civil union, recognized by the state, that grants the couple making a life together the unquestioned legal right to share their life, rights, and responsibilities. Of course, it would be difficult to get "gay married" (it seems this is the fashionable new phrase) without coming out first, but I hope it's becoming evident that living out helps other people–LGBTQ&c. or not–recognize the value and importance of these steps towards civil equality.

With that in mind, I'd like to celebrate the bloggy kind of friendship I have with the people who read here and comment and help make this a gay safe-space, where we can discuss these issues with candor and humor. It benefits more than just us.

Years ago, when I was an active participant in the usenet group soc.motss, the best online social hangout for gay and lesbian people, we had statistics that told us that while maybe 200 people were active participants, some 20,000 people regularly read what was written.^* Anyway, my favorite metaphor for the group was a large and lively cocktail party: lots of noise and fun and laughter and people enjoying themselves, all looked in upon by others who would like to join the party but, for one reason or another, weren't quite ready yet. My thesis for years has been that the best way to encourage others to come out and live open is to do it oneself.

In the online world a few people speak while many, many others listen, and what they hear here can inspire self-acceptance and new-found confidence. Thanks, friends.
———
^*Whether I remember the statistics with any accuracy is beside my point, but perhaps Chris can help me get them correct anyway.

McCain's Dangerous Science Illiteracy

At the most recent presidential so-called "debate" (that would be debate #2, the "town hall meeting" format), John McCain, trying to score cheap points against rival Barack Obama, referred to earmark money Obama voted for that included "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois".

Of course, as many of us knew at the time, and as many, many more now know, that "overhead projector" was actually a sophisticated piece of optical equipment, a Zeiss Mark VI star projector, the programmable star projector that recreates a view of the heavens on the ceiling of planetariums. These instruments are slightly different from an "overhead projector".

The Adler Planetarium even felt the need to defend its honor with a press release commenting on the issues. From that press release:

To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere. The Adler’s Zeiss Mark VI projector – not an overhead projector – is the instrument that re-creates the night sky in a dome theater, the quintessential planetarium experience. The Adler’s projector is nearly 40 years old and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It is only the second planetarium projector in the Adler’s 78 years of operation.

Science literacy is an urgent issue in the United States. To remain competitive and ensure national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to pursue careers in science, echnology, engineering and math.

My bold, of course, to highlight why you should support Ars Hermeneutica's mission.

McCain's science illiteracy, as illustrated by this remarkably foolish gambit, is dangerous enough. (Either he didn't know, or he did know and willfully used this tasty sound-bite about the "overhead projector" to prey on the electorate's illiteracy.) However, I'm sure that he didn't come up with this earmark tidbit–someone on his staff did. Someone on McCain's staff should have been able to say "Wait a minute, John. That's not an overhead projector–that's one of those really expensive, complicated planetarium thingies!"

We can't afford scientifically illiterate leaders, nor can we afford scientific illiteracy among their staff.

As we are inclined to say at Ars: "C'mon, it's not as if it's rocket science we're talking about!"

Marriage Equality Arrives in Connecticut

Congratulations to Connecticut, one of the few states in the US I've lived in. I feel equality coming closer.

Same-sex couples won the right to marry in Connecticut in an historic ruling by the Supreme Court today.

Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory.

In a 4-3 decision released at 11:30 a.m., the majority wrote that the state's "understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection."

"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," the majority wrote. "To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others."

[Mark Spencer, "High Court Grants Gay Marriage Rights", Hartford [CT] Courant, 10 October 2008.]

That McCain-Palin Mob

Via virtually everyone comes links to these worthy videos at Blogger Interrupted that Tim Russo following a Sarah Palin rally:

1. The McCain-Palin mob in Strongsville, Ohio; and
2. McCain-Palin Mob Part 2 – Woman’s child says of Barack “you need gloves to touch him”

(I link to his page so that you can see his commentary as well as the videos.)

To be honest, I could only watch so much of each one because I find the politically idiotic and hate-filled too upsetting to endure for long. YMMV, of course.

Most of the commentary I've seen about these episodes talks about the stupidity of the yobs, their manipulability, their willingness to believe anything their Sarah tells them. Remember, these are the sort of people yelling "Kill Him!" at her rallies.

But what I think is most interesting, and most telling, is this. For most of the time on video, Russo asks everyone he films one question: "Is Obama a terrorist." What's interesting is that quite evidently all of these people think so — watch for yourself — but none of them will admit it while the camera is on. None of them want to say it aloud where other people not of their own ilk might like to hear it.

These are the children who steal candy bars from other children and say "the candy bar was stolen" in order to maintain their deniability, to avoid admitting having done something that they know was wrong. These are the Bush minions who smirk at "mistakes were made" and think otherwise. These are the parents of children who say "So you think he was better off eating that cookie himself?"

They know that what they are thinking is wrong, but they want to avoid admitting it to themselves. (Yes, as a gay lifestylist, I believe I'm somewhat adept at spotting the language people use to deny the truth about themselves without lying–exactly. This is all closeted language.)

These people are scary, but they're universally called the "salt of the Earth". Well, remember how receding conquerers used to foul fields with salt so that those remaining could not survive off their own fields.

McCain Pals with Felons

While [McCain's] telling the American people that he tried to protect them from the current financial crisis before it happened, the only person he's documented as ever trying to protect is convicted felon Charles Keating. He desperately tried to protect him from public accountability after Keating was responsible for the collapse of Lincoln Savings and Loan, under conditions identical to our current crisis. In that case, more than 21,000 investors, mostly elderly, lost their life's savings, totaling $285 million. And even after getting a pass on that as a result of his status as a "war hero," McCain continues to be one of the senate's most prolific deregulators.

[from Eric Wattree, "Barack Obama, Becoming the Next President", Huffington Post, 9 October 2008.]

One Voice Among Many

Fred wrote:

All is not well. You are conspicuous in not blogging about the rise of Islam worldwide, and its threat to the sort of liberal democracy you champion. I wonder what your thoughts are, and if you are willing to do anything about the threat.

To the extent that I see Islam as a threat to my gay lifestyle and my liberal democratic lifestyle (to the limited extent that it can be practiced under the current Republican administration), it's actually Islamic fundamentalism that I see as the threat, and I see little difference really between the threat from Islamic fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism in this country. Both as gay lifestylist and atheist, I find any sort of religious fundamentalism to be a grave threat.

In a broad way, then, I'm more inclined to speak out against religious fundamentalism in the US, usually by mocking it since snarky witticisms are my natural weapon. If we can't defend ourselves against religious fundamentalism in this country, I don't seem much hope (personally) in helping fellow gay lifestylists in Islamic strongholds, but I feel that raising my voice against injustice in the US adds my voice to those speaking out about injustice around the world. I'm disinclined to address myself specifically towards Islamic fundamentalism, because it tends to facilitate the agenda of Christian fundamentalists who believe that their dead messiah should have dominion over Islam's dead messiah. I think both groups use their religions as an excuse for the cruelty and oppression that they seem so much to enjoy regardless.

Besides, I cannot fight all fights. I may be conspicuously silent on some of these topics but there can be any number of reasons. One I've just mentioned. Another is that the horror is sometimes too great for me to look on directly — and remember, I'm talking about the brutal beliefs and actions of all religious fundamentalists. I think that ever since I had my heart attack in 2004, from which I evidently did not die, some horrors are just too visceral for me to tolerate contemplating and I am forced to leave them to others. For the last several years I have felt that my emotional dynamic range has been severely suppressed; I've had enough challenges of my own that I don't have a lot of empathic reserve to share with others. I don't like it but it's my current reality.

Besides, there is a near-infinity of things that I am conspicuously silent about, so I don't see why the horrible persecution of gay lifestylists in fundamentalist-Islamic states should attract my attention more than the horrible persecution of gay lifestylists in Gambia, or Nigeria, or Poland, or Russia, or Laramie, Wyoming. Sometimes my attention is drawn in those directions, usually when I feel that I might have something unique or interesting or enlightening to say, or when it's all just too much and I can't keep my anger in check, even though it's not good for me.

Shining light on these incidents is very, very important, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to. There are many blogs kept by bloggers who are much more adept at paying attention to current news on gay-related topics and commenting on it than I am; my attention wanders far too easily for me to make a commitment to being a "news blog".

These are the ones I read regularly these days (in alphabetical order). They do an excellent job of keeping me plugged in to the news of the gay lifestyle and happenings around the world.

Box Turtle Bulletin
Joe.My.God
Pam's House Blend
Tiny Frog
Towleroad

Silence on my part does not usually signal complicity or acceptance or even lack of interest. I don't think it really signifies anything, in most cases at least. There are rare occasions when I think silence on my part is preferable to the snark I'd just written and I whisk those posts quickly into the bit bucket, but usually it only means that whatever thing you can think of that I'm not writing about is simply another of the infinite number of things I'm not writing about.

And in a smaller way, I'm sure there are any number of additional reasons that might be interesting to write about but that escape me as sit here writing about these.^*
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^* I'd better stop there because my mind is starting to wander into thoughts about Jorge Luis Borges' "Library of Babel", which Daniel Dennett reused so effectively in Darwin's Dangerous Idea as the "Library of Mendel". Why? Oh, that's beyond the scope of this blog posting but you might glean some hints from reading my book note, if you feel so inclined. The Borges story, by the way, is very peculiar but worth reading for the idea, which incites all sorts of ideas. I've just started reading Greg Bear's City at the End of Time, and I'm hoping for some of the same stimulation–and I'll be really irritated if I don't get through it all before it has to return to the library.^†
==========
^†I'd say that that footnote amply demonstrates why it can be difficult for me, quite often, to keep just one idea in mind all the way to the end of a posting about it. Sheesh. Or maybe I should write "Good grief!", since we're barely a week away from our production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown". Did I mention already that I'm playing the part of Schroeder?^‡
~~~~~~~~~~
^‡ The song "Beethoven Day" is my big number. Although the tempo is a little on the slow side for my taste, I really like the way one Royce G. Garrison (not otherwise known to me) sings it in this version. If you're in a Charlie-Brown mood, you might also want to search YouTube for "Book Report" (Act I finale in current revised version) or "Happiness" (Act II finale).

Marriage Equality Diminishes No One

As you may be aware, at the next election Californians will be voting on "Proposition 8": "ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT" (from California's Official Voter Information Guide). I liked the beginning of this editorial opposing the proposition.

In one of the most famous American defenses of religious freedom, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "[I]t does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

We must say the same thing about same-sex marriage.

["Same-sex vows cause no harm to our families", Redding [CA] Record Searchlight, 9 October 2008.]

I first saw this at Box Turtle Bulletin (Timothy Kincaid, "Redding Record-Searchlight Opposes Proposition 8", 9 October). The same article updates their list of newspapers urging a vote against California Proposition 8.

Solvency Through Good Health

Two big birds, one big stone. Here is my plan to solve the current economic crisis and crisis in health care costs.

It's called "The Economic Bailout through Healthy Living Plan of 2008" (aka "Good Health Plan"). Beginning, say, on 4 November, all health care in America is free to everyone; costs are guaranteed by the US government.

There are many benefits of the Good Health Plan compared to the ill-considered (pun intended) Paulson Bailout Plan.

• Foremost, everyone–every single person–in the US benefits from the Good Health Plan.
• It's cheaper: Estimates put the annual cost of universal health care at about $900 per person. Call it $1,000 and note that this is still at least a 50% savings over the Paulson Bailout Plan.
• It reduces foreclosure: Some 46% of individuals filing for bankruptcy cited a cause related to the cost of medical treatment. End those bankruptcies and more people can pay their mortgages.
• It saves money: In 2007 the US spent $2 Trillion on health care ($7,439 per capita). Moving to a single-payer plan is expected to reduce administrative costs by nearly a third, or, coincidentally, about $700 Billion, the price of the Paulsen plan. NB: the Good Health Plan saves as much as the Paulson plan spends.
• It increases liquidity: Per the item above, the Good Health Plan releases $700 Billion annually into the economy, widely distributed throughout all sectors.
• It's taxpayer oriented, not designed to benefit the financial elite–it doesn't reward bad financial behavior.
• The political will is there and the time is ripe.
• Everyone will actually feel better.

These are just the talking points, of course, but the Good Health Plan is remarkably simple anyway and without the involvement of credit-default swaps or other financial derivatives.

Suppressing Votes

Despite McCain's being the old farts' candidate, I won't be voting for him.

McCain looks old and ill to me. He seems to have no circulation under his papery white skin. He always looks like he is suppressing a fart.

[Erica Jong:, "Is John McCain Really Our Friend?", Huffington Post, 8 October 2008.]

Qualified = Smart Enough

There is confusion, probably even intentional obfuscation, during this current election over whether Ms. Palin is "qualified" to be vice-president. Someone correctly pointed out, in the words of Wikipedia, that the constitutional "qualifications" are few.

The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." Thus, to serve as Vice President, an individual must:

• be a natural born U.S. citizen
• not be younger than 35
• have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years
• not have already served two terms as President of the United States

She's qualified.

But then the idea of "qualified" usually gets finessed by talking about "experience". However, there is no written exam for the highest political offices and no job description that details a certain level of necessary experience for the candidates. Instead, they are merely required to entertain the electorate enough to be voted for. Besides, we know from George W. Bush's success at being, more or less, elected: experience isn't really necessary to get one more-or-less elected (although it might help one in the job).

It seems that what people are really saying–but would rather not actually say–when they remark that Ms. Palin is not "qualified" is that she's simply not smart enough to be vice-president.

They're correct, of course, but "not smart enough" is, alas, merely a complaint and not a disqualification. That's another lesson the country (and the world) has learned from more-or-less electing George W. Bush, who was clearly not smart enough for the job before he got it, and has since done nothing except reinforce that fact.

At this point I had planned to write about how the not-smart-enough candidate, who is thereby generally seen to be easily manipulable, can come to be more-or-less elected through the agency of shadowy people who would really, really like to be the ones manipulating a more-or-less elected president. However, I can hear the distant thumping of the rotors of black helicopters, so I'm off to get my cloak of invisibility.

McCain Paling Around with Criminals

In the last day this video has had nearly 900,000 views, which means all five of you have probably seen it, but just in case you haven't, here is "KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis". Yep, it was produced by the Obama/Biden campaign but — alas — it relies on facts of record to describe McCain's efforts to suppress regulation enforcement for financial crook Charles Keating, ultimately leading to the $3 billion bail-out of Lincoln Savings & Loan in 1989. (More information.)

(Is it just me or does it seem somehow significant that Sarah Palin's big buzz-phrase uses the word "paling", which is her name but with the added 'g' that she habitually leaves off?)

[first seen at Boing-Boing]

Tina Fey on Sarah Palin on Same-Sex Rights

It's getting so hard to tell when it's life-imitating-art or art-imitating-life.

You know, I would be afraid of where that [i.e., extending same-sex rights to the rest of the country] would lead. I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers. But don't think I don't tolerate gay people, because I do! I tolerate them with all my heart! And I know quite a few, too. Not personally, but I know of them. I've seen "Ellen"–oh!–and there was this one girl on my college basketball team–she wasn't officially a gay, but we were pretty sure.

–Tin Fey as Sarah Palin, "Saturday Night Live", 4 October 2008

LHC: Certainly / Bailout: Maybe

In the last few days I was reading someone, speaking of the recent "$700 Billion Wall Street Bailout"^* who said "and we don't even know if it will work!"

This put me in mind of the Large Hadron Collider, because that's the way my mind works and because I know the laws of physics work quite well compared, say, to the pseudo-laws of the so-called "science" of economics–not to imply that The Bailout is in any way based on economic principles to begin with.

The Large Hadron Collider will end up costing about €6 billion, and we have a very, very good idea exactly how it will work and what we'll get out of it. There is still the uncertainty about whether the Higgs Boson exists, of course, but that's the excitement of discovery that is being paid for, and that excitement costs only about 1% of The Bailout. Good return on the Euro, I'd say.

You may recall that the US was once going to build its own version of the Large Hadron Collider, called the Superconducting Super-Collider, or SSC.^† It was to be built near Waxahachie, Texas for a projected cost of about $12 billion. The project was canceled in 1993; the Gingrich congress found it an unworthy expenditure.^% Now we're forced to sit idly by as we wait to see whether the Swiss and the French create the black hole that will eat the Earth.^#

I guess I don't have much of a point, here, except to express my wry, bitter amusement at the relativity of cost and value.
———
^*It seems now to have become more a title than a description, doesn't it? Rather like the recent spate of "Million X Marches" where the title is rarely a description of the number who actually show up, although in the case of The Bailout it seems likely that the titular figure in dollars is more likely to be an understatement of fact.

^†For what it's worth, I always found this a very unattractive name.

^&The Berlin Wall was down, Germany reunified, the USSR had collapsed, so we no longer felt the same urgency about demonstrating that the US had the bigger dick. Well, at least until the Bush II administration came along, and then it was all about over compensation for fear of penis inadequacy.

^#I jest, of course. Physicists are certain that any black holes created by the LHC will evaporate in fractions of a second and pose no Earth-eating threat. (We're less certain, however, about the $700 Billion Bailout.) Far more scary, I think, are the reports of conversations in Los Alamos just before the Trinity Test about whether detonating the bomb might ignite the atmosphere! Evidently, it did not.

Beard of the Week LII: The Crown Prince of Norway

This week's regal beard belongs to Norwegian Crown Prince Håkon Magnus (or, as frequently rendered, Haakon Magnus). Prince Håkon came to our attention thanks to Chris Ambidge, friend of this blog and BoW devotee; the photograph is originally by Sean Hayford O'Leary. Born in 1973, Håkon became crown prince when his father was crowned Harald V in 1991, King of Norway. When Håkon becomes king, he will be known as King Håkon VIII of Norway.

The Crown Prince created something of a sensation in 2001 when he married commoner Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, whom I've seen described as the "love of his life"; I've also seen her described as a "single mother and former waitress", but then, people do love royal personages and hints of scandal, but it seems that the crown princess (she was given the title sometime after the marriage) is pretty popular with the people of Norway. They were both 28 at the time of their wedding in Oslo cathedral, which is said to have been attended by half the population of that city. In 2005 the couple had their first child together, a boy to be known as Sverre Magnus.

The photograph of the Crown Prince was taken when he was at St. Olaf College, a small, liberal-arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. This was in 2005, when he attended an event (you can see the famous St. Olaf Choir standing behind him) and made a short speech in Boe Memorial Chapel. Here are a couple of paragraphs in which he coincidentally refers to President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who was last week's BoW.

Peace concerns us all, and it must be made real in the daily existence of every individual. Peace must be sought, because every member of the human family deserves to live a life of dignity and security. We all have a responsibility to bring about these ideas. As John F. Kennedy said, "There is no single, simple key to peace. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation".

Fighting poverty is undoubtedly one of the greatest global challenges today, if not the greatest. The profound gap between the rich and the poor is making the world insecure. In addition to that, of course it is an ethical question. We cannot sit patiently while we see people living in despair and poverty. President Lula da Silva of Brazil says: "The path to lasting peace must encompass a new political and economic international order, one that extends to all countries real opportunities for economic and social development".

I also turned up another speech which Crown Prince Håkon gave to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on June 3, 1999, called "Norway and the United States, an Enduring Relationship". It seems that he had been a student at UC Berkeley, which might explain the venue. His view on relations between Norway and the US I found interesting. One notes that his remarks came before the current US president moved into office.

For a video and audio glimpse of Crown Prince Håkon, in 2007, Tyler Brûlé of Monocle magazine did this interview of about 15 minutes, in English.

Biden on Same-Sex Equality

There was, in last night's Biden / Palin debate, a brief exchange on the topic of same-sex equality. As it has been ritualized and hones in several year's worth of national elections, most of it passed in coded language that most normal people will find totally inscrutable but mostly innocuous.

Palin's responses I found unsurprising and mostly without interest, although she wasn't able to make any sort of statement to appeal strongly to her right-wing fundamentalist fans. Oddly, she wanted us to know how very, very tolerant she is. Unfortunately, "tolerance" is so 80s.

Biden, on the other hand, moved into his emotional-rhetorical tone and managed to put together this statement, that came in two parts:

[I]n an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple…We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.
[…]
Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.

[quoted by Pam Spaulding, "Biden, Palin and that pesky marriage thing", Pam's House Blend, 3 October 2008.]

Absolute equality on constitutional rights, which are thought not to include marriage rights at the moment–federally. It may be progress, but it's hard to tell yet.

Pulman on Religion

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

— Philip Pullman ["The censor's dark materials", Guardian [UK], 25 September 2008]

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