That David Brooks Column on Obama is the sort of column written by a man whose candidate is loosing by almost 20 points in every primary since super tuesday.

(dailykos numbers)

Louisiana: +21 Nebraska: +36 Washington: +37 Maine: +19 Virgin Islands: +82 DC: +51 Maryland: +23 Virginia: +29 Wisconsin: +17 Hawaii: +52

I prefer Glenn Greenwald ya know, since sources his material, even in Opinion Pieces.

Here Brooks, if you think Obama only makes Preeeety speeaaches like spinning plates (Radiohead outbreak, sorry) read this

RE: Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory | Cosmic Variance

"....it seems worth spelling out in detail the claim that parapsychological phenomena are inconsistent with the known laws of physics."

Short and sweet rebuttal:

"Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it." -X Files

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

Great article by Glenn Greenwald Magnolia EC!

His column today also mentions David Brooks

Just this morning alone, Howie Kurtz's entire column is filled with quoting the likes of The Weekly Standard, Captain Ed, Kathryn Jean Lopez and David Brooks in order mindlessly to re-circulate every slimy, small-minded attack from this week on Obama. None of them is going to change in the slightest, because slothful, empty, small-minded chatter, driven by their Matt Drudge overlords, is all they are told to do, all they're capable of doing, and all they want to do. No matter who the nominees are, the behavior of our media stars won't change, because it can't.

The real question is whether Obama, as he did this week, will be able to render these attacks impotent, even cause them to backfire, because they and their propagators will appear to be so ugly and small and irrelevant in light of the type of candidate he is, the rhetoric he produces, the vision to which he aspires.

I generally agree with MarkCC (Good Math Bad Math) but occasionally he comes out with some analysis that betrays his lack of mathematical background.A case in point was his assertion that accurate computer modeling of problems in aerodynamics implied that computer models of global warming were of similar accuracy. In truth the comparative difficulty of those two problems is more closely approximated in scale by comparing tic-tac-toe and chess. In his current diatribe Prof. DeTurk is an idiot because he thinks fractions are a poorly taught. As a volunteer tutor for the mathematically challenged I would say that the professor has this exactly right. Most math teachers, for whom math was always their best subject,have no patience for those with less skill and assume that what came so easily to them shows a lack of application in lesser mortals. Teaching a sense of scale, which is what this amounts to, is much easier when one restricts oneself to a single base. Beyond that it is only necessary to teach the magic of sixty to bring these students up to reasonable expectations.If MarkCC's arguments were true then we would naturally have adopted base sixty as many ancient societies have done.

Thanks to Magnolia EC and JoAnn for the Glenn Greenwald links.

Obama seems to get it from both ends, making a number of criticisms aimed at him simply incoherent. For instance, on the one hand, we keep being told he is "naive" and won't be able to stand up to right-wing hate-mongering, substanceless attacks. On the other hand, he is to be criticized for not following through on the public funding pledge--even before he knows whether or not he will be the nominee--and so is somehow dishonest and hypocritical. This is just a smear. What he said, aside from the fact that he is not yet the nominee, is quoted here from todays NYTs:

Mr. McCain, who was the only other presidential candidate to sign on to the pledge, was responding to a column by Mr. Obama in USA Today on Wednesday in which the candidate wrote that he remained open to public financing but that he was concerned about the spending of outside groups on behalf of candidates and that he wanted to reach a “meaningful agreement” with whoever is the Republican nominee. But he did not expect, he wrote, “that a workable, effective agreement will be reached overnight.”

As conditions for such an agreement, Mr. Obama wrote that candidates “will have to commit to discouraging cheating by their supporters; to refusing fundraising help by outside groups; and to limiting their own parties to legal forms of involvement.”

(Full link is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/us/politics/20cnd-politics.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

That is, not only has he raised an historic level of funding, and so would be giving up an enormous advantage. If outside involvement and advertising are not strictly limited or controlled in such an agreement, he would be shooting himself in the foot: it would simply be foolhardy of him not to use all the means available to defend himself against what will predictably be outright lies, distortion, and mendacity we've grown accustomed to from the radical right wing.

Clinton Campaign Sets Up Website to Push to Change the Rules.

http://www.delegatehub.com/

This is just infuriating.

Clinton Campaign is harassing Obama's Nevada Pledged Delegates to swap over to Clinton

Posts by b.dhwhirst RedSeven and Magnolia Electric Co just go to show that the Hillary Clinton campaign is desperate.

The Hillary Campaign website (delegatehub) begins with

As more voters

and then they end with:

The fact is: no automatic delegate is required to cast a vote on the basis of anything other than his or her best judgment about who is the most qualified to be president.

Both the Obama campaign and the Hillary Clinton are attempting to change the rules in the middle of the game, but the Clinton campaign looks the worst here. Obama wants to change the rules in the middle of the game re the Super Delegates in a way that reflects what the voters want. The Hillary Clinton campaign wants to change the rules in the middle of the game re Florida and Michigan in a way that reflects what the voters want.

When Florida and Michigan elected to move up their primary dates, they knew that their delegate votes wouldn't count. And because they did this, it calls into question the vote count. Hell, Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan and he didn't campaign in Florida. So do the votes truly represent what the voters want?

However, beyond the arguments of the Obama and Clinton campaigns is that this demonstrates how the way that we elect our president in the U.S. is really pathetic and is not all that "democratic". We have a general election in November in which whoever wins the popular vote might actually win the election!

b.dew: I've never been so angry at a democrat's campaign strategy! "Automatic Delegates" my ass. I can't tell you how angry I'd be if Hillary "I'm not pulling my name off the ballot in MI or FL" used those delegates or influenced superdelegates to secure the nomination. The fact that she's even floating those ideas is disgusting to me. Yes, I know that the Nomination Process isn't necessarily Democratic, but damnit, don't "politik" your way to the nomination.

Hillary Clinton can hardly say a 50 state strategy is important to her. Caucuses states aren't important, Red states aren't important. only high delegate count states are important, except for that pesky Illinois.

We have a general election in November in which whoever wins the popular vote might actually win the election!

oops! that should have read:

We have a general election in November in which whoever wins the popular vote might actually LOSE the election!

Just imagine Obama winning the popular vote, but we end up with McCain!

Hillary Clinton signed a pledge... hmmmm..

September 2, 2007

PORTSMOUTH, N.H., Sept. 1 — Three of the major Democratic presidential candidates on Saturday pledged not to campaign in Florida, Michigan and other states trying to leapfrog the 2008 primary calendar, a move that solidified the importance of the opening contests of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Hours after Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina agreed to sign a loyalty pledge put forward by party officials in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York followed suit.

This is truly disgusting.

JoAnn: ...the Hillary Clinton campaign is desperate

'Desperate' is too soft a word for what she's trying to do. It's disgraceful. Cornered rats fight more honorably.

BTW, let me mention that I'll be totally happy when the Primaries are over, because the rest of the links today are faaaantastic, and I completely missed them all day.

Both the Obama campaign and the Hillary Clinton are attempting to change the rules in the middle of the game

JoAnn, I don't think that's true. Clinton is trying to change the rules, Obama is pressuring Super delegates to abide by the vote. That's not a rule change, that's just lobbying.

RedSeven,

The rules say that the SuperDelegates can vote any way which they please. Actually, the rules say that even the so-called "pledged delegates" can end up voting any way that they want. The rules also say that the delegates from Florida and Michigan don't count.Those are the rules.

However, the most important thing here is abiding by what the voters want. And the Florida and Michigan votes don't represent what the voters want because of the pledge which affected the way that the candidates campaigned in Michigan and Florida and whose name was on the ballot.

BTW, let me mention that I'll be totally happy when the Primaries are over, because the rest of the links today are faaaantastic, and I completely missed them all day

Oh shit! Me too! I second this opinion! I have not even been painting lately and my art (and thus my income!) has suffered. However, the main reason that I'm so focused on all of this is that I truly believe that Barack Obama can defeat John McCain. I am afraid that Hillary Clinton would lose to McCain, and that is what most concerns me at the moment. I cannot stand the thought of four more years of a Republican! Perish the thought!

The rules say that the SuperDelegates can vote any way which they please. Actually, the rules say that even the so-called "pledged delegates" can end up voting any way that they want

Completely agree JoAnn, I would just stipulate that Obama is not suggesting there be a rules change that dictates that super delegates vote a certain way. He is just applying political pressure and pressure through the press.

Frankly, I wouldn't support any candidate that tried to change rules or pressured their super delegates to vote against they people that they are supposed to represent.

And a primary where not all candidates are on the ballot or not all candidates were allowed to campaign is not a primary democratic primary at all.

JoAnn: You've mentioned your art before, Do you have a website or flickr or anything like that to see some of it? You've probably linked it before, but I'd like to see some.

Magnolia,

I've been hesitant to link to my website because it's a kind of touchy feely website which most people here at 1gm would not at all relate to, and it's not a substantial kind of place, but it does have my artwork and I'm concerned about spam, but I'll go ahead and risk said contingencies. In case you might be otherwise confused, my name in my little bloggerville is Anajo/Anijo as well as JoAnn....

oops... sorry Magnolia... Here's the link to my art blog

Nice Eagle Anajo.

Like the paintings too.

Oh shit RedSeven! Thank you....

touchy-feely Obama supporter exposed! lol...

Nice Paintings Joann. If I were you I'd link the itty bitty paintings on the right of your blog to the larger versions, they look much better bigger. I had to go digging through old posts to see em. Your landscapes look so, fleshy, almost to the point of making me blush. Good work.

very, very nice, JoAnn. thanks for sharing. i wouldn't worry too much about the "touchy-feely" factor. i've seen much,much worse. :) you actually manage to squeeze in quite a bit of hard core politics for an art blog. and the paintings really are impressive.

Mathematics is amazing. I used to be extraordinarily mediocre at mathematics (throughout high school) to the point where I really didn't bother with it. I was one of those people who would say things like, "Well, this is neat, I guess, but I'm never going to use half of this stuff..." But no more! Now, after many grueling homework assignments (some of which took over twenty hours to complete...) throughout all of calculus and beyond, I am right there with John Allen Paulos when he says that it's a tragedy that Americans, the citizens of a technological society, are so poor at quantitative sciences. (By the way, someone here recommended that I read Innumeracy and Beyond Numeracy. I read both, so thanks to whoever recommended them.)

The idea of letting calculators simply give decimals is a horrid idea (many standard scientific calculators can convert decimals to fractions, anyway). Trigonometry, for example, makes much less sense when working with 1.570796... instead of pi/2. People need to familiarize themselves with exact answers as much as possible, not approximations. I'd take constructing a huge, accurate fraction with natural logs, exponents, radicals, and more over simply writing down its decimal approximation any day.

Of course, I'm only responding to what the guy at Good Math, Bad Math wrote. Perhaps there is another side to this story that I don't know about.

Ostensibly someone against teaching fractions universally is saying that spending less time teaching is a worthwhile trade-off to doing things half-assed. Unfortunately, even as soon as you get into algebra, being able to handle fractions starts to become very necessary, as you eventually have to manipulate algebraic equations in ways that leave you with fractions -- and you will no longer be able to just approximate when that happens. And without this kind of algebra, you can't do much higher-level math either, save for modular arithmetic... and that's a place where decimals are even more worthless.

Demical results have their place: for observations and, when exact answers are prohibitively elusive, numerical analysis. Even in these cases, algebraic manipulation still has its place, and that will still often require basic skill with fractions.

Math may benefit from some reform, but naturally there are people who abuse the sentiment to get attention while promoting crappy ideas.

JoAnn - Thanks so much for linking to your site. It was brave to expose yourself to this audience :) I love the painting of the Correze! Your site looks very interesting - I want to spend more time there. Why don't you put your blog in your signature so we can click over. Even if I put it in del.ici.ous, I end up forgetting where sites are...

I can't believe that about Hillary and the attempt to change the delegate rules. Do they actually think that will give them a healthy following? Everyone would be so resentful it would be destructive.

Cmmm. Thank you! and that is a good suggestion about linking the itty bitty images to a larger version.

Jonathan and Jill, Thank you so much for your compliments! And Jill, I took your advice. ;)

Do they actually think that will give them a healthy following?

I wondered about this too. It's not a very good strategy for improving their image.