perfidy

The results from the Iowa Caucus were surprising to me. Not that Dean faded, because for several days his strength has been flagging. What surprised me was the sudden Edwards surge - to second place, no less. I am sure Johno will agree with me that Kerry's win is not exactly a good thing, but then I don't think any of them winning is a good thing.

Speaking of good things, it looks like Gephardt will, unlike Quixote, stop tilting at windmills and withdraw from the race. Three down, seven to go.

Over at Common Sense and Wonder, Max reports that the has been a realignment in the election markets.

Last week I mentioned that I was tempted to short the Dean-NH Contract at Tradesports.com. At the time it was pricing in a 85% chance of a Dean NH victory. And since I could see that Dean would probably lose Iowa, I figured the price of that contract would plummet. Now the Dean contract is only trading at 40. Oh well.

FYI, here are the latest from the political markets:

Iowa Electronic Market probabilities for candidates to win the Democratic nomination:

Kerry - 34.5%
Dean - 24%
Clark - 17%
Hillary - 2%
Lieberman - 1%
Gephardt - 0%
Field (Edwards and the rest) - 22%

(There's a lot of other good stuff there, check it out.)

With Gephardt knocked out, even with his strong labor support, I agree with Max that it looks like Kerry v. Dean for the big nomination. However, Edwards is showing strong and he can't be ruled out. For one thing, even though his positions are almost identical to Kerry's, it's a major plus for him that he isn't Kerry. It will be interesting to see when the Rev. Al either leaves the race, or makes whatever move he had in mind when he got in, because he surely didn't think he was going to win. I predict that Dean, Kerry, and Edwards will be in until the convention, at least nominally. I further predict that the other candidates will leave in this order: Lieberman, Clark, Kucinich, Sharpton.

Lieberman, despite his appeal to the middle, can't crack 5%, and will realize this soon enough. Unless Clark does a lot better in New Hampshire than most people think, he will drop, because I don't think he's getting the funding he needs to persevere. Kucinich is just too crazy to quit early. Sharpton might stay until the convention, just to try to pull some kind of kingmaker move with his support in the black population. Who knows.

[wik] James at Outside the Beltway has a good roundup of the the Caucuses.

[alsø wik] Greg over at Begging to Differ has an interesting thought about the Edwards rise and Dean fall:

Edwards seems to be positioning himself as the Pollyanna of the campaign, someone capable of giving voters positive messages they can feel good about. In Iowa, it seems to have paid off, big time. For Edwards to pull in over thirty percent of the vote is remarkable. It also makes one wonder if Dean's appeal doesn't translate into votes. (Possibly, Democrats feel the same way about Dean that many conservatives feel about Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly: they get a cathartic buzz from listening to their schtick, but they'd never choose either to be their leader.)

This seems to me to be a good take. The calm, cornfed midwesterners of Iowa are not as likely to respond to the Dean anger as some flinty New Englanders or flame hungry internet supporters. I have a hard time believing that Edwards is anything more than a set of carefully crafted policy points with no soul, but hey! I could be wrong.

According to the Blog Ecosystem, somtime over the weekend, the Ministry has moved out of the water and onto dry land. We are now Crawly Amphibians. We kick ass. Seriously.

Phil Dennison points to the news that producer Danger Mouse is planning to lay vocals from Jay-Z's "The Black Album" over the Beatles' "The White Album" to create "The Gray Album." Very reasonably, he asks, "Does anyone think that this will make either of these recordings objectively better? Has the world of commercial hip-hop become so creatively bankrupt and moribund that this is considered groundbreaking, or something? . . . This is creativity?"

Fair point. But while I agree that remixes tend to be bland and flabby affairs that add little of merit to the original, I think Phil is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

For example, the Flaming Lips recently remixed Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head," slowing down the original dance pap to a crawl, underlining an obsessive creepiness almost totally absent from the original except to the imaginative listener. Although this is only one example out of a mediocre ten thousand, it's great and revelatory stuff within the context of pop music.

Also, Phil conflates "remixes" with the more recent phenomenon of "vs. recordings." Although long-established in the reggae world (check out King Tubby vs. Sly & Robbie sometime-- magic!), where remixes are common, this is new to the pop world. Dropping Jay-Z onto a Beatles cut is a prime example of this practice.

I own a bootleg "vs." recording that truly does amplify the originals-- the vocals from Eminem's "Without Me" over the music bed from Led Zeppelin's instrumental, "The Crunge." Beyond just being funny or novel, Eminem's phrasing and particular flow, when slowed down to LZ's tempo, happen to complement and groove on the Zep track perfectly. I find the results mind-alteringly enjoyable.

Though I doubt the Jay-Z and Beatles matchup will rise to this level, I'm actually anxious to hear what Jay-Z's laconic, Joe-Frazier-like style will do over top of Across the Universe.

My point, I guess, is that the good name of the remix has been dragged so thoroughly through the mud that it's difficult to see the good in it. But the revolution is over: the studio is now a musical instrument in its own right, as are recordings. Not everyone has to agree that that way lies genius; reasonable people may differ. But I happen to think so, and if you want evidence, I urge you to get a copy of the Eminem/Led Zep and the Flaming Lips/Kylie Minogue as proof.

Brad DeLong highlights a Tom Friedman column that advocates immediately moving into the Israeli-Palestinian situation and forcing Israel's withdrawl.

Let's put a few facts down: First, we spend around $200 Billion and 500 soldier's lives so we can capture Saddam Hussein (there doesn't seem to be any other reason for the war, that was given before the war, that's held up).

Second, we spend aroun $4 Billion a year on aid for Israel, mostly in the form of military aid.

Third, the burn rate for cash in Iraq is around $4 Billion a month.

Fourth, building a Palestinian economy from the ground up would probably cost less than $10 Billion, and it might be a lot less than that. And that's presuming we'd see no long term assets or returns.

Fifth, the primary reason that Palestinians object to the fence is that their economy would be destroyed.

Sixth, the single most significant justification given for Islamic hatred of the US is its support of Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people.

If you add all that up, you realize that instead of throwing all that cash away in Iraq blowing shit up so we can have a theocracy there, we could have forced the creation of the wall between Palestine and Israel, made our aid to Israel contingent on acceptance of our designation of the line's path, and then rebuilt the Palestinian economy by investing an amount equal to the Israeli aid directly behind the wall.

Taking a page from Irshad Manji, we could have used micro-loans to jumpstart the businesses, and we could have specified that fully 50% of those loans must be made to women.

What does all this achieve? It puts significant economic power in the hands of women, which directly counters the stupidest and most pathetically mysoginistic parts of what purports to be Islam in the Palestinian territorires. It gives both sides peace and security. It gives the Palestinians something to do, and a way to feed their families. It will also significantly improve America's standing around the globe, and particularly in Islamic countries.

It strikes me that Bush's Administration has done a magnificently bad job of managing government spending. Republicans can crow all they like about tax rates and so forth; yes, there are a few Americans who are paying significantly less federal tax under this President. Most people's tax burdens are pretty much unchanged. What has changed, dramatically, are the outlays.

Bush's war of choice in Iraq is costing every American taxpayer thousands of dollars, personally. That's right, boys and girls -- what does your chunk of $200 Billion come out to? With around 130 million taxpayers, that adds up to over $1500 each. So while Bush giveth a $300 tax cut to the common man (under duress -- Bush didn't want the $300 credit; he wanted a tax cut for the wealthy), he taketh $1500 for this stupid war. That's what you're going to be paying.

The winner of MoveOn's video contest shows children working in factories to pay off the deficit. It's dead on. Interest payments on the debt currently run around $175 Billion per year. That's going to escalate dramatically over the next ten years. While all this debt is accruing, interest rates are going to begin to rise, making that debt dramatically more expensive to service.

Compound interest is a wonderful thing if you're an investor. If you're a debtor, it really, really sucks.

Remember that Chi-Chi's in Western Pennsylvania that gave all those folks Hepatitis-A a while back, and killed three of 'em? Well, it's open for business once again. With "larger than expected crowds."

Wha?

Tell 'em, Freda!

"'There cannot be a safer place to eat right now. I'm sure you could drag your tongue across the floor, it's so clean,' said Freda Gennaro, a 59-year-old medical sales representative as she sipped on a berry margarita with her husband Lou, 66."

Human beings are the only animals who would return to the location of a food source known to be lethal, and then rationalize about it. Idiots. I'm not a betting man, but if I was I'd wager that Western Pennsylvania's gene pool is going to get a leetle more hepatitisey in the weeks to come.

[wik] On second thought, I've changed my mind. Live dangerously if you want to. Prove Darwin right. But for the love of God, don't order the human poo burrito.

For once, the headline does not give you the hole story. Apparently, someone in Montana never heard the joke whose punchline is, "No, we ride the horse into town!"

Nekkidness. Hand Lotion Fu. No Breasts. Joe Bobb says check it out.

[wik] hat tip to Rocket Jones.

The first two parts of this series are here and here.

In the first post, I discussed how we could quickly and relatively cheaply develop the means to launch people and large cargos into orbit. That is the necessary precursor to any significant endeavor in space. While the methods I outlined would reduce costs to orbit, they would not make them exactly cheap. But they would give us a ladder while others could work on building an escalator. The second post discusses, in broad outline, one idea for developing the life support technology that the Mars mission would require.

Once we have the first step under control, we can begin thinking about the precursors for a Mars mission: the ability to live, unsupported, in space for long periods; a ship that can get us to Mars; and the technology to live and explore on the Martian surface.

How do we get around?

There is much more research to be done on propulsion systems for a future Mars mission. Right now, the two best possibilities are Bob Zubrin's Mars Direct concept and nuclear fission rockets. Zubrin suggests that we send, in advance of the human crewed flight, unmanned gas stations to Mars. These automated facilities would land in a likely spot, and then use solar or nuclear-thermal energy to suck in Martian air and refine it into oxygen and rocket fuel. Only when the gas station signals that its tanks are full will the crewed mission depart. This is a very clever idea, because it does not require that we take every last ounce of food, fuel, water and air needed for the return journey all the way around. There is every indication that Zubrin's idea is feasible, but it would require some solid engineering effort to bring it into being.

The second idea is to use nuclear rockets. In this concept, instead of using the traditional chemical rockets we're all familiar with, hydrogen fuel is passed through an extremely hot, Uranium reactor core. The as the hydrogen passes through the reactor, it is heated and the expansion of the hydrogen gas provides the thrust. This type of rocket is more effective than typical chemical rockets for two reasons: 1, the reactor can operate at a higher temperature, yielding greater thrust; and 2, since only very light hydrogen is used, we need far less mass to get the same thrust compared to burning hydrogen and much heavier oxygen. The first experimental nuclear rocket, called the Kiwi, achieved a specific impulse of over 850 seconds. (Specific impulse is a measure of a rocket's efficiency.) The Shuttle Main Engine is among the most sophisticated and efficient chemical rockets ever built, and has a specific impulse of around 450. With a little effort, there is no question that we could develop nuclear rockets with twice the efficiency of the best chemical rockets.

Either way, the effect is to cut the fuel requirements for a trip to Mars, which makes the whole thing significantly easier to manage. While we research both methods, we can begin planning our first mission beyond the moon. To prepare for the Mars mission, we should have some experience with long duration flights. We can do a dress rehearsal of the Mars mission by mounting an expedition to one of the Near Earth Asteroids. These asteroids are small bodies of rock or metal that have orbits that cross Earth's. Some of these asteroids are very close to Earth, at least in terms of how much fuel we need to burn to get to them. Rather than a three-year mission to Mars, we can plan a one-year mission to an asteroid.

There are several advantages to an NEA mission. First, we get to test much of the hardware for a Mars mission on a shorter mission. Second, we can test the propulsion, guidance, system integration, and construction of our space ship without being held up by delays in either the life sciences or surface exploration programs. A shorter mission means that if need be, we could do the whole thing on canned air and food in toothpaste tubes if necessary - though obviously we would want to test whatever life support technologies have emerged from the lab described in the previous post. Also, we won't need to worry about complicated tasks like refueling on Mars' surface, aero-braking, etc., that a full Mars mission would require. Third, it will provide good science - asteroids are remnants from the formation of the solar system, and will tell us much about that history. Further, geological assays will tell us how easy it might be to mine or otherwise develop asteroids for commercial uses. All in all, it would be a good work up to prepare us for our ultimate goal of reaching Mars.

Whichever method - chemical or nuclear - the NEA mission will be both a useful test of Mars mission technology and skills and valuable in its own right for prestige and scientific gain. 

Buckethead, yesterday you said about the Bush/Hitler moveon.org flap:

Imagine that the situation was reversed. Some conservative group sponsors an ad contest. Someone enters something equally offensive, something with racist or religious overtones that sends the left over the edge. That group, and anyone associated with it would be crucified. It wouldn't be a minor story on the news, largely talked about in the blog world. People would be forced to resign in disgrace. It wouldn't matter if the offensive ad didn't win.

Now we have a similar situation to serve as a test of that assertion. The Rev. Sun Myong Moon, owner of Conservative newspaper The Washington Times posted the following to his website this week (courtesy blogcritics): "There will be a purge on God's orders, and evil will be eliminated like shadows. Gays will be eliminated, the 3 Israels will unite. If not then they will be burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring but this is what happens. It will be greater than the communist purge but at God's orders." To review, Moon just called for the murder of at least 40 million gay people, on God's orders. 

Blogger John Gorenfeld has some past gems from Moon, such as "Homosexuals and fornicators are like dirty dung eating dogs."

The New York Press also has an editorial on the matter, which includes this moderate and thoughtful statement: "So much crazy-talk and hate (over a period of years, even) yet no outcry."

Film star Ron O'Neal succumbed to cancer on Wednesday.

A moment of silence for Superfly. As Curtis Mayfield said, "a terrible blow, but that's how it goes." I hope they let him drive that huge black Cadillac through the Pearly Gates.