Are we neandertal?

John Hawks has numerous posts on a recent paper suggesting that a key gene regulating human brain development might have originated in neandertals living in what is now europe. John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : 2006 11 is one example.

Hawks says to expect quite a bit of Neandertal news this week. I think most laypersons, like myself, had come to believe there was no sapiens-neandertal interbreeding. Surprises indeed.

I'll be reading Hawks' blog closely this week.

Can it be?

I still do not believe the senate will go Democrat. That is so far outside the envelope of the possible. Could I have been that wrong in my pre-election expecations?

On the other hand, I was right about the October surprise. Sure, it wasn't Bush with an executive order impacting Roe v. Wade, but surely Mark Foley was a surprise? What, that doesn't count?

DeLong has pointed out that the Dems appear to have won by an enormous percentage of the popular vote (by modern standards). Now Bob Harris puts the results in a different context:

This Modern World: An historic blow-out

An historic blow-out

The good guys’ win is even more one-sided than it looks at first glance.

If the numbers stay as they are, here’s the final scoreboard, assuming I haven’t missed something:

• Not one Democratic incumbent lost in the Senate.
• Not one Democratic incumbent lost in the House of Representatives.
• Not one Democratic incumbent lost in any state Governorship.

All told, 504 major offices were at stake tonight.

Not one changed hands going Democrat to Republican.

I’ve looked, and while several past elections saw a greater number of seats changing hands, I can’t find a more one-sided repudiation of a ruling party in U.S. history. (Although I fully expect someone out there reading this will, about five seconds after I hit the “publish” button.)

I still think something will happen to take the Senate away. In fact, even to have written this has probably ensured that the GOP will pull out an upset in Virginia ...

It is too early to say that bleeding has stopped. Wait, Rumsfeld is gone?! Next you'll tell me Bush voted Democrat ...

Update 11/8: Still don't believe it ...

Udell recommends: Seminars on Longterm Thinking

Jon Udell likes the SALT talks. Sigh. Between 'In Our Time' and all the management podcasts Andrew wants me to listen to, not to mention all my audio CME, I need a way to fork my audio inputs. Poor NPR, it's being crushed. I hardly ever listen to the radio any more.

Something good: the Ramsey County Precinct Finder

I doubt I'll be happy with the election results (the Senate will stay Republican), but despite the grim political landscape there is a bright spot. I am very impressed with my home county's Ramsey County Elections Precinct Finder. All in one spot - sample ballot, the number of my city council representative, county commissioner, etc.

Now if I can only figure out who the soil and water commissioners are (no way should this be an elected office ...). I guess I'll vote for the ones who can put together a plausible web site.

Also, how the heck did a constitutional amendment to build highways get on the ballot? A constitutional amendment?!! This state is going downhill ...

Update: I found my instructions from the Kremli.... errr the DFL. Renstorf and Carlile for Soil and Water. There, that was easy ...

Judges are more problematic (another post that probably should not be elected), but this MN Bar Association plebiscite is very helpful.

I do have to vote for the school levy. A Republican governor means that public schools are increasingly funded through local taxes (aka, them that has gets), a criminal practice that, in a decent world, would be grounds for public pillory.

Amazon: ominous problems

I was one of Amazon's earliest customers -- back when they gave out coffee mugs to every customer. I've tracked their ups and downs, including when their customer service was in the basement (now it's excellent). I can smell when they're in trouble.

They're in trouble.

They're increasingly trying to be a broker for other vendors, a kind of meta-catalog. This gets them out of the nasty business of stocking inventory and managing customers and lets them cover the entire net. That would be fine - if there were a search option to limit all views and searches to only items Amazon stocks and distributes. There isn't.

Nowadays, when I search for things there, I'm weeding through junk from no-name vendors. I might as well be on eBay.

I don't have the time to mess with no-name vendors. I want a vendor I trust. I trust Amazon, I don't trust these guys. I don't want to deal with all the oddball shipping charges.

Amazon is making a bad strategic move. They need to pull out of this dive before then make ground contact.

Yellow Dog III: The Economist says "throw the bums out"

Shortly I diss the deteriorating Economist, I find they show signs of lingering intelligence. Like the NYTs they announce a blanket pox on the GOP:

Down with the Republicans | Democracy in America | Economist.com

... The Economist’s advice for the mid-term elections is this: throw the Republicans out. The Democrats may be “incoherent”, it says, but they can scarcely do worse than the Republicans have done already. A few “independent-minded” Republicans deserve to keep their seats, it says, but in general, “sometimes ruling parties become so addled and incompetent that they need to be punished”.

Yellow Dog II: The NYT has no GOP endorsements

It's like I wrote yesterday, the Yellow Dog is barking (emphases mine):

The Difference Two Years Made - New York Times

On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican Congressional candidates for the first time in our memory. Although Times editorials tend to agree with Democrats on national policy, we have proudly and consistently endorsed a long line of moderate Republicans, particularly for the House. Our only political loyalty is to making the two-party system as vital and responsible as possible.

That is why things are different this year.

To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Republican leaders, particularly in the House, have developed toxic symptoms of an overconfident majority that has been too long in power. They methodically shut the opposition — and even the more moderate members of their own party — out of any role in the legislative process. Their only mission seems to be self-perpetuation.

The current Republican majority managed to achieve that burned-out, brain-dead status in record time, and with a shocking disregard for the most minimal ethical standards. It was bad enough that a party that used to believe in fiscal austerity blew billions on pork-barrel projects. It is worse that many of the most expensive boondoggles were not even directed at their constituents, but at lobbyists who financed their campaigns and high-end lifestyles.

That was already the situation in 2004, and even then this page endorsed Republicans who had shown a high commitment to ethics reform and a willingness to buck their party on important issues like the environment, civil liberties and women’s rights.

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the Congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president’s ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don’t need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

An administration convinced of its own perpetual rightness and a partisan Congress determined to deflect all criticism of the chief executive has been the recipe for what we live with today.

Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Mr. Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.

After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen. On the eve of the election, and without even a pretense at debate in the House, Congress granted the White House permission to hold hundreds of noncitizens in jail forever, without due process, even though many of them were clearly sent there in error.

In the Senate, the path for this bill was cleared by a handful of Republicans who used their personal prestige and reputation for moderation to paper over the fact that the bill violates the Constitution in fundamental ways. Having acquiesced in the president’s campaign to dilute their own authority, lawmakers used this bill to further Mr. Bush’s goal of stripping the powers of the only remaining independent branch, the judiciary.

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the Congressional majority’s insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

The Economist 1986-2006. RIP.

I gave up on the Economist this year. I signed up in residency; it was fabulous back then. Smart, cool, analytic. It weakened in the early 90s, then it took a sudden dive around 1996. Maybe it had something to do with the color photos.

The year 2000 issue was a marvel, and there have been other moments of brilliance, but the US coverage has been generally abysmal. In retrospect when a "Liberal" (19th century version) magazine piled on Clinton for an extramarital affair the end was nigh. They even endorsed Bush the first time, though, mercifully, not the 2nd time. Over the past 8 years Lexington column came to read like a slighly less sloshed version of the WSJ OpEd page, and even their astounding African correspondents couldn't offset the craven and brainless US coverage.

Even now, when I've at last ended my subscription, it's still probably, on balance, better than the competition. It's just that I remember when it was truly great. The slow grinding decline in quality (even as revenues have risen!) has been demoralizing. Really, I might have held on -- but they made the writer of 'Lexington' their Editor. That was a foul blow.

I will miss it, but coincidentally to my departure they've put a lot more of the magazine online, and they've just added a blog. The blog is very good. So I'll read the online version, and the Atlantic and Scientific American, and I'll see if they can manage a recovery. I doubt it however, they've made tons of money since they became stupid.

Update: alas, I should have read a bit more of the blog. It's dumb. I just happened to catch a couple of good posts by chance. Scratch that one, their downward spiral just sped up a bit.

LiON batteries: don't leave them fully charged

A SciAm review of LiON batteries mentions that leaving them fully charged shortens their lifespan:

... batteries degrade, but lithium-ion cells erode faster when highly charged and warm; an average notebook battery kept at full charge at 25 degrees Celsius will irreversibly lose about 20 percent of its capacity a year...

So it's better to let them cycle completely before recharging. Leaving the device continuously plugged in (like our Nano) will shorten its lifespan.

TBL on why blogs are wonderful and the net is NOT all junk and danger

A day ago I read a very odd BBC article about a new initiative that Tim Berners-Lee was leading. The article claimed TBL (father of the web) was warning of the disastrous and anti-democratic perils of the unrestricted web.

Huh?! I didn't bother noting the article because it didn't fit with anything I knew about TBL. Either the great man had become demented or the journalist was cracked (hint, it was the latter).

Happily, TBL replied. Since he has a blog he can point out that both the Guardian and the BBC were utterly wrongheaded. TBL doesn't buy the garbage about 'blogs are junk' because, oddly enough, he understands how links work.

It works because reputable writers make links to things they consider reputable sources. So readers, when they find something distasteful or unreliable, don't just hit the back button once, they hit it twice. They remember not to follow links again through the page which took them there. One's chosen starting page, and a nurtured set of bookmarks, are the entrance points, then, to a selected subweb of information which one is generally inclined to trust and find valuable.

A great example of course is the blogging world. Blogs provide a gently evolving network of pointers of interest. As do FOAF files. I've always thought that FOAF could be extended to provide a trust infrastructure for (e.g.) spam filtering and OpenID-style single sign-on and its good to see things happening in that space.

TBL loves blogs. He is not demented. The Guardian and the BBC need a time-out.

The Yellow Dog barks: it wouldn't matter if they ran Mother Teresa

In the row ahead of me a declared lifelong Republican was explaining to his seatmate why he voted (by mail) for the Democratic slate. "We need a change".

That's what it's about. It doesn't matter if a GOP candidate is a cross between Mother Teresa and Albert Einstein and the Dem is an obnoxious idiot -- vote the Dem. Bush did not act alone. He had the full collusion of a political organization that's as corrupt and decadent as any American political party in living memory. The GOP needs an internal purge, and that won't happen while they hold complete control of power. True Republicans know this. I can even, barely, imagine Gingrich voting Libertarian this election.

Molly Ivins provides one list:

WorkingForChange-Keeping our eyes on the ball

... May I remind you what this election is about? Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, unprecedented presidential powers, unmatched incompetence, unparalleled corruption, unwarranted eavesdropping, Katrina, Enron, Halliburton, global warming, Cheney's secret energy task force, record oil company profits, $3 gasoline, FEMA, the Supreme Court, Diebold, Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, Terri Schiavo, stem cell research, golden parachutes, shrunken pensions, unavailable and expensive health care, habeas corpus, no weapons of mass destruction, sacrificed soldiers and Iraqi civilians, wasted billions, Taliban resurgence, expiration of the assault weapons ban, North Korea, Iran, intelligent design, swift boat hit squads, and on and on.

This election is about that, but much more -- it's about honor, dignity and comity in this country. It's about the Constitution, which gives us this great nation. Bush ran on a pledge of 'restoring honor and integrity' to the White House. Instead, he brought us Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, Katherine Harris, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, Richard Pombo, Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, David Safavian, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove and an illegal and immoral war in Iraq...

I don't agree with all of Molly's list (mine would be more like Blumenthal's or Krugman's), but even 1/10th of this indictment is more than enough reason to vote for a Yellow Dog over a Republican. If you're a Republican and swore a blood oath to never vote for a Dem, try the Libertarians.

The roots of the anti-gay marriage movement

Quebec, my home nation/province, has a logical approach to state-approved marriage. It is a legal process run by the state. The blessings of a church, cult, coven, commune, tribe, union, club or other entity are optional.

The domains are distinct. The cult may approve polygamy and the state approve gay marriage, and each may disagree with the other. The state, mercifully, is far more powerful than the cult.

It is worth pointing out that Quebec was, until about 30 years ago, a true theocratic state -- somewhat like Iran. There was nothing in North America* the US and Canada like Quebec in 1950. Things changed quickly.

In the US marriage is a mess. One root of the gay marriage wars is a battle between state and religion about relative roles and power. That's a big and ancient battle, and the growing number of areligious and non-christian voters suggests how this will turn out.

The other root is of a personal nature:

Another GOP Sex Scandal - Yahoo! News

... Haggard, like his fellow Christian soldier James Dobson, also happens to be a leading opponent of gay marriage and an ardent critic of an amendment on the Colorado ballot November 7 that would give same-sex couples equal rights under the law and a supporter of another amendment that would prohibit gay marriage in the state. He's called gay marriage a 'sin' and 'devastating for the children of our nation.'

It's a routine that's won Haggard praise since as far back as 1993. 'During services at the New Life church,' the New York Times reported back then, 'Pastor Ted Haggard warns against the evils of homosexuality and adultery. His followers respond with exuberant clapping and shouts of 'Amen!' and 'That's right!''

In 2004, he led the push with Dobson and other religious right leaders for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Haggard's accuser, male escort Mike Jones, decided to finally speak up because 'I felt like I had to take a stand, and I cannot sit back anymore and hear [what] to me is an anti-gay message.'

Ted Haggard, like so many other homophobes, appears to have been battling his own personal "demon", namely homophilia. He's not the first to translate self-loathing into other-hatred. I wonder what the numbers are. My guess is that self-loathing, and in particular fear of one's own homophilia, is predominant among the virulent male opponents to gay marriage. Not every opponent mind you, mostly the ones who froth at the mouth.

* I caught this mistake myself. The land mass of NA currently includes, of course, the nations of the US, Canada, Mexico and a couple of French islands. Mexico in 1950 may have been like Quebec in 1950, I don't know much Mexican history.

Tangram: TIA by any other name

No surprise:

Schneier on Security: Total Information Awareness Is Back

None of us thought that meant the end of TIA, only that it would turn into a classified program and be renamed. Well, the program is now called Tangram, and it is classified...

Cool name. If I didn't have unlimited trust in the goodness of our Glorious Leaders I'd be worried ...

Aug 2008: Resveratrol increases cancer risk?

Yes, Red Wine Holds Answer. Check Dosage is a relatively sober summary of a study claiming a 20% increase in mouse longevity with megadoses of resveratrol - a substance found in Pinot Noir wine. I am reminded, however, of a recent study suggesting a genetic balancing act between cancer risk and aging rate. Humans that age more slowly seem more prone to cancer, humans that age more quickly are less prone. The two groups have about the same lifespan but die of different causes (cancer vs. heart disease perhaps).

So my suspicion would be that resveratrol tips the scales towards slower aging ... but leads to more cancer. Look for the headline in August 2008 ...

Update Jan 31, 2009: It's past August 2008 now, and I was wrong on this one. The academic literature is looking for anti-cancer benefits of resveratrol.

Larry Summers calls for smart populism

Larry Summers, formerly a treasury secretary and more recently of Harvard fame, now writes for the Financial times (emphasis mine):

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Columnists - The global middle cries out for reassurance

... Let us be frank. What the anxious global middle is told often feels like pretty thin gruel. The twin arguments that globalisation is inevitable and protectionism is counterproductive have the great virtue of being correct, but do not provide much consolation for the losers. Nor can they rally support for policies that maintain, let alone promote, international integration.

Economists rightly emphasise that trade, like other forms of progress, makes everyone richer by enabling them to buy goods at lower prices. But this offers small solace to those who fear their jobs will vanish.

Education is central to any economic strategy, but there is a limit to what it can do for workers in their 40s and beyond. Nor can education be a complete answer at a time when skilled computer programmers in India are paid less than $2,000 a month.

John Kenneth Galbraith was right when he observed: “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” Meeting the needs of the anxious global middle is the economic challenge of our time.

In the US, the political pendulum is swinging left. The best parts of the progressive tradition do not oppose the market system; they improve on the outcomes it naturally produces. That is what we need today.

There are no easy answers. The economic logic of free, globalised, technologically sophisticated capitalism may well be to shift more wealth to the very richest and some of the very poorest in the world, while squeezing people in the middle.

Just as the Federal Housing Administration’s effort to make owner-occupied housing more available after the second world war was a crucial part of the policy approach that permitted the Marshall Plan to go forward, so also our success in advancing international integration will depend on what can be done for the great global middle.

Our response will affect not just the livelihoods of millions of our fellow citizens but also the prospects for continuing global integration, with all the prosperity and stability it has the potential to bring.

Summers is effectively echoing Krugman's call for the "smart populist" -- the heir to Teddy and Franklin. I have no ability to predict how the US electorate will respond. I would not have favored a populist six years ago, but Bush has broken me. If populism is the only other option, bring it on.

PS. Kudos for Summers for pointing out the obvious. Education is not a complete solution -- or even much of a partial solution.