It's not like it's hard

When I was in 8th grade, our substitue math teacher, who had once fought in WWII, taught us all how to build an atomic bomb. Yup, that's right. It took about 45 minutes, and he drew it on the chalkboard.

At the time, you could find the theoretical instructions in textbooks. When I was a freshman in college, you could look it up online - and I did (for a class). By the time senior year rolled around, I again needed to write up a discussion (historical) about different types of nuclear material, what is used for weapons, what for fuel, etc. To my surprise, all the websites (generally from other universities) had been pulled off the web.

Now, I'm not arguing in favor of nuclear proliferation. But seriously? Once information is in the public domain, we do no one any favors by removing it. Being able to understand the makeup and consequences of dangerous substances allows us to make better decisions about when, how, and why to use them. These websites don't show you where to buy nuclear material, or how to finance such a project, or even the mechanics of making it work. They articulate the science and theory behind a very politically sensitive source of energy. Limiting information limits the effectiveness of democracy, and lowers the tone of political debate. And we all know how I hate that.

In the meantime, as a corollary to some interesting constitutional musings, Japan's foreign minister noted that Japan "has the technological know-how to produce a nuclear weapon but has no immediate plans to do so." Um, ya think? Who's surprised that a nation so focused on science, mechanics, etc, has the ability to make a bomb? I think it'd be a pretty fair assumption that Japan probably figured it out a while ago.

What's interesting is their choice not to build one. There is history there, and politics, and a whole host of other factors. I just hope they don't let North Korean belligerence and American incompetence change their minds.

In any event, here's the WashPost article about it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112901641.html

This has the best title of any article I've read recently:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111401228.html

Cupid or DaVinci?

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the onslaught of world events (20 women and children killed in Beit Hanoun, 150 Iraqi civilians kidnapped by "police," Japan's PM aiming to redraft their constitution, etc.), and thought I'd escape with another episode of quirky science. In the Washington Post today, there is an article about what makes humans see each other as beautiful.

Interestingly, Stephen Marquardt posits that beauty, like so many other neat things in nature, such as the spiral, and I think the organization of the spines on a pinecone, is determined by the golden ratio. In mathematical terms, this is expressed as: (a+b)/a = a/b = 1.618, where 1.618 is the only positive solution to the equation. This is also called the golden section or the golden mean, depending on who is talking about it. Wikipedia has a good explanation of the math: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio.

The article even manages to give us a bit of poetry:
I thought Cupid aimed his dart
Deep into my fevered heart;
Instead, the arrow's lusty path
Was predetermined by . . . math.

I can't find a citation for the verse, but I know I've heard it somewhere before... Meanwhile, here's the link to the article - enjoy!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110801477.html

A New Broom Sweeps Clean(er)

Yeah, yeah. I'm still a cynic. I'm not going to claim moral victory for the Democrats, but I AM going to claim electoral victory. And we all know that's what really matters. But I was going to title this post "Suck it, Santorum" so at least I'm being polite about our SWEEPING victory in the house. Not that my politics were much of a secret, but now my true-blue roots are showing through.

Now, if the Virginia election officials can get their act together and do a quick recount, let's hope Webb triumphs over Allen in that race. I'd even give 'em Burns in Montana if we can just get Allen out of VA. He's just the epitome of eveything I hate.

And now, since I'm in the best mood I've been in (politically) since 2000, here's my 2006 Midterm Election Roundup:

Serves 'em Right - I disagree with these three on pretty much everything they stand for, and I'd be lying if I said I was sorry to see them go:
Santorum (R-PA)
De Lay (R-TX)
Hostettler (R-IN)

The Times They Are A-Changin' - Can't say I'm too sorry to creep closer to a majority in the Senate, but it's a shame it had to come at the expense of Lincoln Chaffee. I think his loss is a loss for the legislature.

Welcome to the Club! Here's a list of some new arrivals I find interesting:
Deval Patrick - Governor of Massachusetts
Bob Casey - Senator, D-PA
Bernie Sanders - Senator, I-VT (our only Socialist, I believe)
Bill Nelson - Senator, D-FL

You Can't Win 'Em All - Someday, these guys will get ousted from office:
John Doolittle - Rep, R-CA (this one's for you, Dad)
Bob Corker - Senator, R-TN
Dennis Hastert - Rep, R-IL

And, on a final note, the race with the best name? The incumbent, now re-elected in Texas' 9th District is... Al Green. Gotta love it.

No Exit Polls? No Problem!

From "The Plank," a blog posted on the New Republic's website, this is almost as good as the idea of terrorism futures:

"For political junkies suffering from data deficit disorder because the exit poll folks are being kept in a locked room and will not be let out until 5 p.m. today--there is a source of relief: The political futures market. Three websites offer the chance to buy into or against virtually every contested Senate, House, and Governor race, and to bet on which party will control either branch of Congress, by what margin, and even to make longer-shot parlays, betting, for example, on the Democrats taking both (or neither) branch.

"The appeal of these websites is that they are constantly changing, so that statistics nuts who don't want to bet can still watch their favorite and hated candidates move up and down, just as if they were a stock or commodity.

"At this writing, 2:46 p.m., you can put $59 dollars on Claire McCaskill to beat incumbent Missouri Republican Senator Jim Talent with a chance to get back $100, or you can put $35 on Talent and get back $100 if he wins. In other words, the market on intrade.com clearly favors McCaskill. Political folks have recently described the Montana Senate race as neck and neck, but the people who put money on it disagree, clearly favoring Democrat Jon Tester over Sen. Conrad Burns by a $70-$25 margin. If you believe the experts' claim that the race is even, putting money on Burns is clearly worth the return."

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank (you'll need to scroll down the page)

In addition, this is just absurd, and it makes me actually thankful for the fact that voters have been so inundated with political ads that they can't possibly mistake candidates' parties:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110700740.html

Color-coded chaos

Gee, maybe my company should start judging our activities on color-coded sliding scales. Regardless of how you measure it, though, we're all doing better than the US Military:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01military.html?ex=1320037200&en=62235052af3eb067&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

And then, from the Washington Post, we have Tony Snow: "You can't say, I support the troops, but I hate the cause, because that's why they signed up. And you've got men and women who are risking their lives for what they consider a noble cause, which is not only defeating al-Qaeda and defeating terrorists abroad, but also creating conditions that are going to allow people in that part of the world to brush aside terror as an unnecessary distraction to building a better life through free and democratic society."

I'm barely going to give a moment's credence to the first half of that quote, because it's so blatantly ridiculous. You've got men and women who signed up years ago, are stuck in the military on a stop-loss order, and others who signed up because they needed work (thanks to the contraction of the economy), or help paying for tuition (due to the recent increases far in excess of inflation). There are some very noble soldiers out there, but arguing that a military fights only for the "cause" is naive and silly.

But let's get to the meat of the matter. In what world do we consider terrorism an "unnecessary distraction"? Is that what the military might of America has been deployed to do? Counter "unnecessary distractions"? I'd like to see certain members of the Administration "brush aside" an IED. Or maybe a landmine.

What will be the next "distraction" we go after? I shudder to think.

Also, this is unrelated, from the Washington Post today:

"In recent days, Bush has said Social Security remains one of the 'big items' he wants to tackle next year and he continues to 'believe that a worker, at his or her option, ought to be allowed to put some of their own money . . . in a private savings account, an account that they call their own.'"

Um, has anyone noticed that we already have a system like this? It's called banking.

Party on the Mason-Dixon Line?

An op-ed piece in the Washington Post today notes the departure of Northern Libertarian-leaning voters from the Republican Party, and the consolidation of the Republicans as the party of "Southern values." The traditional geographic dispersal of the Democrats began to shift northward when the party espoused the idea of civil rights in the 60s. Then, the parties began (continued? I don't know enough about US politics...) to align along social issues. In every region, you find people who don't want "big government," or who "support our troops," but does that really matter?

Could it be that the age-old question of North vs. South is still applicable? This is not to suggest that either bloc is, well, a bloc, but does pose the question of whether people vote on issues, or on cultural perception. Or do we just vote the way the people around us vote? Do we create the "popular" crowd in politics the same way we do it in middle school?

If the parties' support bases really have been shifting over the past 40 years, they've certainly supported a North-South divide. Just take a look at a red-state/blue-state map from the last Presidential election. Are our cultures really so different that we respond to starkly divergent political messages? Or do we just vote what we know?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103101312.html