(With apologies to Stephen Stills)

Short story: McCain got booed at tonight when he tried to reassure some Minnesotans that we need not fear the spectre of an Obama presidency, and that Obama is actually a decent human being whose accomplishments he admires. Booed. Congrats you backwoods Lakeville assholes, I'm embarrassed to live in "your" state tonight.

Long story: What the hell happened to politics in this country? It's not enough that you love the one you vote for, you have to HATE the one you vote against? There's a great argument for a multiparty system: it takes a lot more energy (probably more than it's worth) to hate on a whole bunch of different people for a whole bunch of different reasons all the time.

So I was listening to NPR on the way to the airport tonight, and one of our fine Minnesotan Palin sound-alikes was venting her frustration at the McCain rally in Lakeville. In particular she seemed to think that McCain should be busting heads a lot harder than he has been, and that Minnesotan's want to see a fight. WTF? Really? The McCain-Palin rallies the last couple of weeks are getting downright medieval--one dude shouted "off with his head!"

My point is that McCain and Palin have been letting some shit go unchallenged from their supporters mouths that I *know* those slick willies don't believe. What happened? This was a guy who was once so principled and heartfelt. I would have gladly voted for the McCain who was running during the 2000 primary. He called the fundies "agents of intolerance" and generally told the GOP hate machine to go screw itself. Oh how things have changed!

Anyone who heard a single word out of Limbaugh, Coulter, or Hannity during the GOP primary knows the extreme right had no use for him--Coulter told Hannity that she'd campaign for Hillary if Johnny Mac won the nomination for crying out loud. Since he won it, every lefty who paid any attention in 2000 has been talking about how McCain has gone on the attack in ways he always promised never to do. I think we can all see what happened. Personally, I think McCain is a decent guy who sold his ass to the GOP hate machine so they'd give him a real shot at the presidency. What that means is that he sowed the boos he's reaping right now. I still say good luck to him, but putting this particular hateful toothpaste back in the tube will only surely lose him the election at this point.

What's worse, Norm Coleman wouldn't appear with him tonight because of all the negativity and announced that he's unilaterally disarming--stopping all attack ads. Based on the boos and Obama's sudden lead in Minnesota, it was probably a really smart political decision. If a career non-maverick like Coleman is disarming, then "change we can believe in" really must be in the air ;)

This little gem from the end of the Yahoo article sums up what's going on pretty well:

But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words from the stage.

"Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and 'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate," she said.

McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd - Yahoo! News

Interesting correlation: when drug and alcohol offenses are high, burglaries are down, when drug and alcohol offenses are low, burglaries skyrocket. I guess you just can't win. Actually though, burglaries were either at a historic low in 2005, or at historic highs in 2006/2007--these offenses more than quadrupled in a single year (2006) and remained high in 2007. Next time I get a chance, I'm going to ask a UMPD officer their thoughts on that one...

UM Police Department, Public Safety, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Today's report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Now, one might read this and then begin to thing that the Bush administration is contemplating an end to marijuana prohibition. I mean, we still sentence people to life for marijuana in this country, so the "anachronistic" remark could go either way, right? He continued:

"Marijuana potency has grown steeply over the past decade, with serious implications in particular for young people," Walters said. He cited the risk of psychological, cognitive and respiratory problems, and the potential for users to become dependent on drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

FYI, that non-sequitur into heroinville is a resounding "No!"

Study: Marijuana potency increases in 2007 - Yahoo! News

Genius! A quote from a related posting on Wired's Autopia blog: "Even so, the program's proponents argue that it makes streets safer for everyone while reducing emissions."

LOL about the emissions angle. I do not see this working out. This whole issues is about us being pissy that we can't afford to utilize our bajillion dollar agriculture infrastructure without exploiting illegal labor. We still do it, but we hate all the other "issues" that come along with it, like having to treat migrants like humans. Since it's economically impractical to hate on them properly by, like, rounding them up and throwing them out, we just dream up awesome schemes like making it really hard for them to get to work. Wait..what? Anyhow, read Eric Schlosser's excellent Reefer Madness for a great essay on our addiction to illegal labor.

My personal feelings are not that we should give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, but that we should do something to make it so we don't have so many illegal immigrants by...what is it called again? Oh yeah, granting more of them citizenship. If someone is here for 10 years working their asses off making my food, obviously we needed them or they wouldn't have stayed employed. Granting citizenship recognizes this fact. All this other crap like van pools is reads like strapping a prisoner to a lay-Z-boy instead of a metal table before administering the lethal injection. Their still condemned, right?

Ventura County Star article "State gives $3 million grant to help buy farmworker van fleet"

Further proof that my latest idea for a girl's name (Dontknockmeupormydadwillkillyou) is both GOOD and TIMELY:
Report: U.S. teen births rise

I'm really glad that insurgent violence is down in the recent months, but I'm not happy to read this: "'Hidden costs' have pushed the total to about $1.5 trillion - nearly twice the requested $804bn" after you factor in things like "Higher oil prices, treating wounded veterans, and the cost to the economy of pulling reservists away from their jobs". Unsurprisingly, the Whitehouse called the report "politically motivated"--although they didn't say it was wrong. I sure wish our troops could come home.

BBC NEWS | Americas | 'Hidden costs raise' US war price

What my mom tells me: "Did you hear about that super-strong, genetically-modified mouse who isn't afraid of cats? What if that thing gets out of the lab??"
What actually happened: Scientist modified a mouse so it couldn't smell anything.

Japanese researchers, while attempting to determine whether fear of predators in mice is a higher- or lower-order brain response, first attempted to disable lower-order brain function. After disabling the olfactory bulb, they discovered that mice are unable to smell--and thus unable to FEAR--their natural predators. This was a stunning find on their part, to associate fear with such deeply wired lower-ordered brain functions like smell is a real breakthrough. Anyhow, to answer mom's question: if they do manage to break out of the lab, they'll likely be fallen upon by the ancient cat/hawk/fox attack triad--a triad broken in ancient times once mice first learned to smell. My mom should really be worried about the recommencement of that most fearsome ancient pact: no child is safe while cat/hawk/fox attack squads run rampant in our streets!!

Every coalition government took turns taking giant shits on The Lancet for publishing the results of a study (I blogged about it here and here) showing that nearly 655,000 war-related Iraqi deaths have occurred since the beginning of the conflict. Now the BBC has learned that "[t]he British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war...the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were 'close to best practice' and the study design was 'robust'." Don't hold your breath waiting for the US government to make the same admission.

Link to BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'

This is troubling, in particular when you see the graphics which chart trends since 2001, and also considering that property crimes increased only 1.8% during the same period. The data and charts are courtesy of the State of Minnesota Department of Public Safety Minnesota Crime Information 2005 report (thanks to Dennis for the link), starting on numbered p. 11 with emphasis added by me. Here's an overview and definition of the crime index:

Crime Index (Serious Crimes)
The eight major criminal offenses [murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft/larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson] are referred to as the crime index and they are used to evaluate the changes and trends in amounts of crime over designated periods of time. Following is a summary of the crime index for 2005.

• The crime index in Minnesota totaled 173,960 offenses during 2005, which was an increase of 2.6 percent from the 169,575 offenses occurring in 2004.
• The crime rate* represented 3,410 per 100,000 in population for 2005, while in 2004 the crime rate was registered at 3,352 per 100,000 population, a 1.7 percent increase.
  * Minnesota crime rates per 100,000 are based on a 5,100,958 state population estimate from the F.B.I. for 2004.
• Of the total crime index offenses reported in 2005, 22 percent were cleared by arrest or exceptionally cleared. In 2004, 23 percent of the total offenses were cleared by arrest or exceptionally cleared.
• Larceny was the largest category of serious crime reported for Minnesota in 2005 with a total of 113,307 offenses reported. Larceny was also the largest category of serious crime reported for the state in 2004 with 113,433 total offenses reported.

So, crime going up, clearances going down. Not good. That last bullet is the only promising stat in this whole depressing document, but more on that later. Violent crime details:

Violent Crimes
Violent crime in Minnesota accounted for 9 percent of all crime index offenses reported in 2005. There were 15,536 murders, forcible rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults for the year. Compared with the 13,928 total violent crimes reported for 2004, the 2005 figure represents a 11.5 percent increase in violent crime for the state. This compares to a 2.5 percent increase in violent crime for the nation in 2005 based on preliminary figures released by the F.B.I. in June, 2006. The number of violent crimes for the state per 100,000 population for 2005 was 305, while in 2004 there were 275 per 100,000 population.

• Murder - Offenses involving murder totaled 125 in 2005 in Minnesota compared to 110 in 2004, an increase of 13.6 percent.
• Rape - Minnesota registered 2,442 rapes in 2005 and 2,373 in 2004, an increase of .4 percent.
• Robbery - There were 4714 robberies in Minnesota in 2005 compared to 4,049 offenses in 2004, an increase of 16.4
  percent.
• Aggravated Assault - Offenses involving aggravated assault numbered 8,255 in 2005 compared to 7,396 aggravated assaults in 2004, an increase of 11.6 percent.

Robbery and aggravated assault represent 30% and 53% of total violent crimes, respectively, and have increased 16.4% and 11.6%, respectively. It must be really awful when your combined statewide law enforcement best statistic is "only a .4% increase in rapes!" Don't know about any other Minnesotans reading this, but this is very shocking to me. Unfortunately, the report breaks down only murder by county, so there isn't any capability to spot other offense trends by location. More research is needed on my part. On to property crimes:

Property Crimes
Property crime in Minnesota in 2005 amounted to 91 percent of the crime index offenses for that year. There were a total of 158,424 burglaries, larcenies, motor vehicle thefts, and arsons actually reported in 2005. Compared with the 155,647 offenses reported in 2004, the 2005 figure represents a 1.8 percent increase in property crime for the state. Property crime for the nation in 2005 declined from the 2004 figure, showing a 1.6 percent decrease based on preliminary figures released by the F.B.I. in June, 2006. The number of property crimes for the state per 100,000 population for 2005 was 3,106 and in 2004 it was 3,076.

• Burglary - There were 29,564 burglaries in Minnesota in 2005 compared to 27,754 offenses in 2004, an increase of 6.5 percent.
• Theft/Larceny - Offenses involving larcenies in 2005 totaled 113,307 compared to 113,433 offenses in 2004, a decrease of .11 percent.
• Motor Vehicle Theft - In 2005 there were 14,249 offenses of motor vehicle theft in Minnesota, compared to the 13,410 offenses reported in 2004, an increase of 6.3 percent.
• Arson - In 2005 there were 1,304 offenses of arson in Minnesota, compared to the 1,050 offenses reported in 2004, an increase of 24 percent.

The 24% increase in arson isn't an unprecedented fluctuation, even over the previous four years (see next chart). Now there's that larceny highlight I mentioned above. As you can see, larceny has been on a steady decline since at least 2001:

Obviously the state of MN enforcement strategy and/or other factors are contributing to a decrease in larceny over time. This is a good thing. However, burglary and auto theft don't seem to be controlled at all, both showing fluctuations over time, and >6% increases in 2005. The charts on numbered pp. 40-42 show some interesting information on the amount of money at stake in the process of these crimes. Table 10 on p. 44 shows that burglary and auto theft have the two lowest clearance rates for any crimes in the index; 12% and 18%, respectively. However, the data in Table 11 on p. 45 shows that, when adjusted for the number of offenses, the profitability of both of these categories of crime are much higher for the offender than larceny is--burglary is nearly 2x more so, auto theft nearly 5x more so. This is especially salient considering the much higher statewide clearance rate for larceny (23%, Table 10), despite the fact that there are 4x more larceny offenses than burglary, and nearly 10x more larcenies than auto thefts. That was an eye-opener for me. From a purely statistical viewpoint, if you're going to commit a criminal property offense in Minnesota for the purpose of personal profit, best to be a car thief or a burglar. Note to criminals: I have a trained domestic shorthair attack cat protecting my home, and she will mess up your shit. You've been warned.

Seriously though, can't wait for the 2006 data to become available, but we'll probably have to wait until July. In the meantime, LA Times crime reporter Jill Leovy decided to put together a really interesting website that gives equal attention to every single homicide committed in LA County. Listen to an interview with her on NPR's On The Media here.

This sucks. In a related story, I was forced to diverge from my usual honey bee-related homemade valentine's day card for Molly. Incorporating "colony collapse syndrome" into the card while maintaining a romantic tone was a lot harder than you might think.

Link to NPR : Disease Hits Bees, and Vital Crops Suffer

This is a prototype for a...prototyping device. NewScientist has a decent article covering a couple of different efforts to bring prototyping out of the commercial/industrial setting and into the home for aspiring inventors and hobbyists. This particular box is slated to cost ~$2400 when it's finally released, which beats the pants off of up to $1mil for the kind of machines most tool and model shops invest in for prototyping commercial products and parts. The box also comes with software for programming/modeling. I predict that models for many, many copyrighted action figures, gaming minis, and many other things will appear on bittorrent as soon as this becomes available. Who wouldn't want to manufacture their own GI-Joes or Warhammer 40k minis? ;)

I think serious hobbyists will have a ball forging everything from their own RC airplane and car parts to precision-measured pieces for science projects or art pieces. One small step toward the matter compilers from The Diamond Age--Next week: a how-to for plugging it into Source Victoria. <rimshot>

In an article entitled The end of the American dream?, the BBC analyzes why the enormous economic growth in the US economy since 2001 (the great economy Bush keeps telling us about) hasn't translated into actual growth for average Americans. Highlights (my emphasis added):

"The unprecedented split between growth and living standards is the defining economic agenda of the day," says the EPI's [Economic Policy Institute's] senior economist, Jared Bernstein. During the five years from 2000 to 2005, the US economy grew in size from $9.8 trillion to $11.2 trillion, an increase in real terms of 14%. Productivity - the measure of the output of the economy per worker employed - grew even more strongly, by 16.6%. But over the same period, the median family's income slid by 2.9%, in contrast to the 11.3% gain registered in the second half of the 1990s. Average hourly real wages for both college and high school graduates actually fell between 2000 and 2005, and fewer of the jobs they found carried benefits such as health care or company pensions. One way to comprehend what is happening is to look at the split between how much of the economy is won by profits and how much by wages. The share allotted to corporate profits increased sharply, from 17.7% in 2000 to 20.9% in 2005, while the share going to wages has reached a record low. Overall job growth in the first half of the current decade has been just 1.3%. In the 1990s, job growth of some 12% goes some way towards explaining why prosperity in that earlier period spread down the income scale.

In other words, it's a great time to be a shareholder--as anyone with a 401k will be more than happy to tell you. Unfortunately, it's not the greatest time to enter the job market for either the first time or after a long break (gulp!).

Siberia ravaged by bootleg vodka - 900 people are in the hospital with liver failure because _industrial solvent_ is being sold as vodka by bootleggers. That's crazy. Down a little further: "It is an indication of the scale of Russia's drink problem that during an average month 3,500 people die after drinking such liquids." Meanwhile in the US, "Researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health estimated that trans fats contribute to 30,000 U.S. deaths a year," and the federal government is mulling over a national ban on hydrogenated oils and trans fats. I think if 42,000 people were dying in the US from being sold poison labeled as legitimate products that they'd declare a terrorist emergency. I'm not saying the US is alarmist, I'm saying that Russia is nuts for not being able to get that shit under control.

Pics from Cambodia tomorrow, I promise.

Reuters is covering further developments on the recently published Lancet study which shows 650,000 Iraqis have died due to war-related causes since the start of the US-led invasion in 2003. Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston, defends the methodology of the Lancet study and adds his own thoughts and estimates based on the sample size involved. See an earlier post on this blog for more details.

Link to Study: 655,000 Iraqis die because of war - Yahoo! News
And a link to the updated Lancet study (PDF).

Before you write this off as election bullshit, This American Life broadcast an amazing show back in 2005 which documented the methods and responses to the first version of this study. The show, entitled What's in a Number?, is available online here for your listening pleasure. From thisamericanlife.org:

What's In a Number?
10/28/05
Episode 300
About a year ago, a study estimated the number of Iraqi casualties since the war began. It came up with a number – 100,000 dead – that was higher than any other estimate, and was mostly ignored. This week, Alex Blumberg revisits that study to look at the reality behind it. In Act One he reports that not only is the study probably accurate, but it says that most of the deaths were caused by Coalition forces (despite concerted efforts to avoid civilian casualties). In Act Two, we hear U.S. forces trying to cope in the aftermath of some of those deaths.
Prologue. We're a nation at war, but it hardly feels like it. That contrast is especially jarring for people like Hannah Allam, who just returned home to Oklahoma after two years in Baghdad running the Knight-Ridder Newspapers bureau there. Ira talks with Hannah, and Army Captain Chuck Ziegenfuss about what it feels like to come home from a war that nobody's paying much attention to. (6 minutes)
Act One. Truth, Damn Truth, and Statistics. About a year ago, a John Hopkins University study in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. It came up with a number – 100,000 dead – that was higher than any other estimate, and was mostly ignored. This week, Producer Alex Blumberg tells the remarkable story of what it took to find that number, why we should find it credible and why almost no one believed it. (The original Lancet study is online; free registration is required). (36 minutes)
Act Two. Not Just a Number. Captain Ryan Gist was given a particularly tough assignment in Iraq: to build relationships with a town where U.S. bombs had killed twelve innocent people. But first he has to apologize to the families of those who were killed. We hear the apology, captured on tape by a journalist working in Iraq, and talk to Captain Gist about what things have been like since. (10 minutes)
Act Three. What do we do with these numbers anyway? So if in fact 100,000 Iraqis died because of the war, and that number's a year old ... what do we do with that number? It instantly brings you to all these imponderable questions about what's worth 100,000 dead. In a way, this doesn't seem like a helpful question to think about. So Ira turns to Nancy Sherman, who writes about the military and its values. She's a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and was the= Distinguished Chair of Ethics at the U.S. Navy Academy. She also wrote Stoic Warriors. (3 minutes)

The original study was finished and released shortly before the 2004 election, and the consequences of that purposeful decision are explored in detail on the show. I'm telling you this episode is extremely moving and totally wild--if this subject is interesting to you on any level, PLEASE listen.