News and Views

Gisele’s sister Angela fell last week and broke her arm. Gisele flew up to San Francisco today to spend a week with her, helping out until she is feeling better. So I’m a bachelor/single father/dog sitter this week.

I think Gisele is glad to have an excuse to visit her sister anyway!

Tom Bradley ran for governor of California in 1982. Bradley, a black man, was leading in the polls by over 10%. However, he lost the election.

The so-called Bradley Effect was named after this event. In several other elections in the US the actual votes received by African Americans was significantly less than polls predicted.

There are some theories on why this happens, with the most popular being that voters might be embarrassed to sound racist and so lie to pollsters. When they get in the voting booth, inner bias takes over.

Polls show that Obama has a 3% – 7% advantage (depending on the poll). If the Bradley effect affects this race, that may not be enough.

Nature magazine recently published an article that analyzed the position on and approach towards science of the two major party presidential candidates.

As one excerpt, it’s interesting to compare Obama’s Science and Technology team of advisers with McCain’s:

Obama’s:
Dan Kammen, University of California, Berkeley
Don Lamb, University of Chicago
Gil Omenn, University of Michigan
Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists
Sharon Long, Stanford University
Jason Grumet, Bipartisan Policy Center
Harold Varmus, (Nobel) Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

McCain’s:
James Schlesinger, Former secretary of defense
James Woolsey, Former Central Intelligence Agency director
Robert McFarlane, Former national security adviser
Carly Fiorina, Former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard
Meg Whitman, Former chief executive of eBay

On the one hand we have real scientists. On the other hand, former CIA agents and former CEOs.

Benjamin Bates is the son of my old and good friend Don Bates (since our days together at Flowing Wells High School), who are both also my colleagues in the creation of the aznb.com websites.

Benjamin has a degree in (I think) Theater Arts, and has dabbled in making a couple of short films. He recently submitted his first full-length movie script “Walrus Eating Baloney” to the IFP (Independent Film Producers?) contest in New York City.

A few weeks ago he was told that he was one of 5 finalists for the grand prize, so last week he flew back to New York for the Filmmaker Awards Ceremony. Amazingly enough, he won the $10,000 Grand Prize — first place!

He made the Variety Magazine website.

An industry insider’s blog said:

What was interesting is that the one guy who had never made a film at all (Benjamin Bates, “Walrus Eating Baloney”) brought the most arresting visual presentation – a sort of portfolio of pics, sketchings, writings and perhaps more that had a strong visceral appeal and displayed some real creative ambition.
and
And, guess what? Benjamin Bates, the filmmaker who’d never made a film, but impressed us with his visual homework, won the Screenwriting Award for “Walrus Eating Baloney”.

Among the shoulder-rubbers and award presenters were actress Ally Sheedy (“Wargames”, “The Breakfast Club”, “Short Circuit”…), actor Kevin Corrigan (“Pineapple Express”, “Definitely, Maybe”, “Superbad”…) and other actors, directors and producers.

Major congratulations to Benjamin! He hopes to start filming sometime next spring, but with all the new contacts and the overload of info from New York he is going to take some time to sort things out and decide the best way to take the next step.

By the way, the script is about an old man with Alzheimer’s and two deaf-mutes who life throws together on a trip to Miami.

Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked why they won’t let Sarah Palin talk with the press? What could a Vice Presidential candidate possibly say that could hurt them?

Then he cut to Joe Biden telling about how Franklin Roosevelt got on television after the stock market crash to calm the nation.

Ouch! Two mistakes in one statement. Roosevelt wasn’t in office when the stock market crashed, and there was really no television until well after he was gone.

But I bet Sarah could match that if they would give her a chance.

In an editorial published today, arch-conservative George Will said:

“It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?”

The article is focused specifically on McCain’s reaction to the financial crisis, but calls it a “harbinger” of a McCain presidency: “For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are “corrupt” or “betray the public’s trust,” two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people.”

To be fair, Will as recently as August 24 talked about “Obama’s Economic Fairytale“, so he hasn’t developed a “crush on Obama”. He’s clearly still in the conservative camp, but it’s refreshing to hear anybody on either side criticizing their own candidate.

Who knows, maybe next we’ll hear Jon Stewart or Maureen Dowd belittling Obama! (Don’t wait up for it!)

This is a bi-partisan plea. Both Obama’s and McCain’s campaign’s continue to release ads with lies and half-truths.

McCain keeps insisting that Obama plans to raise taxes on the middle class, which is untrue.

Obama says that McCain wants to cut Social Security benefits in half, which is not true.

McCain runs an ad stating that Obama was being disrespectful of Palin, calling her a “pig”, dismissing her as “good looking”, and just “doing what she was told”. All false and based on statements totally out of context.

Obama keeps referring to McCain’s joke that making $5 million was the definition of “rich”, as if it were a policy statement.

McCain claims that Obama wants to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners, when the bill actually focused on teaching them how to avoid sex predators.

An Obama ad running in Michigan says that McCain refused to support loan guarantees for the auto industry, which had been true, but McCain changed his position long before this ad came out.

Come on, guys! I don’t expect you to always say nice things about each other, but let’s try to keep a little closer to the truth! It makes you both look bad.

Devon’s Toyota Prius is a hybrid car, using both electricity and gas to drive the wheels. As revolutionary as that is, GM is planning to push the technology envelope even further with the Chevy Volt, due out in 2010.

Lithium Ion batteries will drive the car for up to about 40 miles. As the batteries get too low, a small gas engine will start up. The purpose of the gas engine is solely to recharge the batteries; it doesn’t drive the wheels at all.

If you plug the car in each night, and commute less than 40 miles a day, round trip, you will never have to buy gas. If your employer lets you plug in at the office, you could commute up to 80 miles round trip and never buy gas. But even if your commute is longer, or if you want to take a long trip, the gas engine will extend the range to 300 – 400 miles.

At the current price of electricity and gasoline, your driving cost will drop from around 12 cents/mile to around 2 cents/mile (YMMV). The increased demand on the power network isn’t expected to be a problem as most people would recharge at night when demand is much lower. Maintenance on your car should decrease too, as electric motors require much less maintenance than gas engines.

It’s a very promising, intriguing technology. Initially they will likely be expensive (up to $40K), but as both presidential candidates are proposing tax breaks to encourage the development of such technology, it’s likely your net cost would be much lower.

Toyota and other companies are working on similar cars, but it looks like GM is in the lead, with the most radical approach.

There have been half-hearted attempts at electric cars in the past (GM’s EV1), and there are projects trying to develop hydrogen fuel cells. These may have potential in 10 or 15 years, but for now some kind of plug-in hybrid seems like the best next step in automobile technology, and it looks like they are finally going to happen.

More here.

Might be a little expensive…

We had an extreme wind storm last night, about 9:00. Trees are blown down and branches broken all over the neighborhood. Fortunately the only damage at my house was one roof tile and a few small branches (and lots of twigs). Here are some pictures.

That’s my bicycle and garage door. Fortunately the tree missed anything breakable. I don’t think the wall is hurt either, though it’s hard to tell.

This is by the community lake. This large tree fell on the park bench. Good thing no one was sitting there! The man in the picture is part of a clean-up crew.

Here’s another tree that fell partially into the lake.

This was just around the corner from our house. Most of the top of this tree came down.

This tree’s roots were under the sidewalk, and when it fell it ripped up a couple of slabs of concrete.