McCain's Choice of Sarah Palin

I remember telling my parents a few weeks ago to watch for a darkhorse Republican veep choice of one Sarah Palin of Alaska. The reason for this was that, if Barack Obama had a lead and a good showing at the Democratic National Convention, which I think he did in a big way (and had an estimated record 42 million people watch his speech, when you include the PBS audience to the reported 38 million estimate), John McCain would try to solidify his base and do something that would not necessarily be possible with any other Republican choice - have someone on the ticket who had a middle class upbringing that would connect with middle class America. Sarah Palin has an "American Dream" type story, which can also be said about Obama and his veep choice, Joe Biden. These three came from average families and reached the top levels of government through hard work. In addition, McCain would be able to cause a stir with this "maverick" type choice, as he tries desperately to get back his preferred status amongst voters. The Dems effectively showed how, with the exception of a few instances he broke from his party, McCain is someone who is a loyal Bush Republican, voting over 90+% of the time with the White House, and who has flip-flopped his way to a more right-wing position solely to get elected. A previous post addresses how he has flipped his stance on countless issues over the years, which provides a record of doing whatever it takes to get a gig and being unprincipled, which runs contrary to the image he has somehow been able to build.

It is becoming clear McCain cannot win a debate on issues. The one issue he had placed an emphasis on, an argument that Obama does not have the experience to be commander in chief, now is off the table entirely because of his selection of Palin. Can anyone truly say with a straight face that she has credentials to be commander in chief? I don't think McCain will be able to attract very many disgruntled Hillary Clinton female supporters once Palin's record and stances on issues becomes clear. In fact, I wonder how many will follow through with threats of voting for McCain as they realize that would be the ultimate slap in the face of the woman they love, since McCain's stance on issues runs contrary to what Clinton believes. Pro-choice women won't vote for McCain-Palin. And, if anyone can let me know if this is correct, a stance of Palin that worries me is she is a creationist. (I had heard a report that claimed she supports teaching creationism in high school science classes...need to find out if this is indeed true)

Palin is a major supporter of Big Oil, who supports drilling just about anywhere they can. Perhaps many Americans are tired of Big Oil having direct influence in the White House. And with one of her very few noteworthy political accomplishments, where she gained a 'maverick' label, taxed oil company profits in Alaska, McCain loses one more attack on Obama's plan to have some version of a windfall profits tax on oil profits, which will be used to help fund his $150 billion Manhattan-type Project for energy development over a ten year period. (Obama wants this generation to follow the lead of the previous two generations with a massive scientific push - the Manhattan Project of my grandparents' generation to develop nuclear technology, and my parents' generation that developed the space age technology - where we develop an widely varied energy technology portfolio that puts us on a path where we greatly reduce oil and gas dependency and completely revamp our energy infrastructure and outdated power grid) As a side note, I think Obama's energy plan is the correct path to take, since it addresses numerous, intertwined issues at once: the economy (including manufacturing base), national security (reducing dependence on oil, most of which comes from foreign sources), the lack of a robust energy policy and strategy (let's face it, we have never really had one), our science and technology foundation and infrastructure, and job production. The McCain-Palin energy plan will be primarily to drill more offshore, and have massive investments in nuclear power plants. I do think we will need to build some more nuclear plants, and that nuclear power is grossly over-feared by the public, but construction of such plants takes an enormous amount of time and is publicly, and therefore politically, resisted, meaning there will be great resistance in a Democratic Congress...nuclear power expansion is simply not a realistic solution in the current political environment. I still believe someone at some point needs to publicly mention that offshore drilling, which has gained some popularity in the electorate, is not a preferred choice for a completely overlooked reason - we are going to reach a point where we will need ocean water as a primary drinking source, and will need to one day build desalination plants to address looming a fresh water crisis that is developing in many locations around the country and already is a major crisis in many parts of the world. It would take one drilling accident to disrupt that future source of drinking water. The McCain-Palin energy strategy is not, in my mind, a viable choice in the short-term, nor the long-term with offshore drilling.

The selection of Palin is obviously a purely political one. It does not follow a mold of being a responsible selection, which would be one where the candidate has a primary responsibility to put country first and have someone who can effectively take over the job should something happen to McCain. This includes having someone where the average American citizen has confidence the veep can immediately step into the job - I don't think most Americans will have such confidence with Palin, who truly has no national or international political experience. And this is, in the case of McCain, more important than ever, for he would be the oldest person to become President if he wins (and has already had several medical issues, including skin cancer). This is a case of McCain being perhaps a little desperate, and wanting to do anything he can to get the job, whether it is in the best interest of the country or not. He is counting on getting in better with the GOP evangelical base (which will like this selection), and trying to get a few more women to vote for him. He will rely on right-wing fringe groups (e.g. swift boat groups) to unleash numerous attacks on Obama (even though McCain was entirely against this type of politics when it happened to him in the South Carolina primary in the 2000 race against George W. Bush, and more recently promised a purely issues based campaign, which has fallen by the wayside already). The McCain strategy now rests on a hope, and an all-out fear and smear campaign.

All of this seems to be falling right in line with a quote in the movie "The American President," where the Republican candidate "is concerned about two things, and two things only - making you afraid of it, and telling you who is to blame for it - that, ladies and gentlemen, is how they win elections." This falls perfectly in line with the Rovian campaigns over the past couple decades...can the country afford it to work this time?

How will Rove spin this one?

With the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, how will Karl Rove spin this one? Here is what he predicted Obama would do before the Democratic convention (he was on Face the Nation):

"I think Obama's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice," Rove said. "He's going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he's going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president."
Rove singled out Virginia governor Tim Kaine, also a Face The Nation guest, as an example of such a pick.
"With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished," Rove said. "I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America."

Rove went further, stating that he was solely interested in winning Virginia’s electoral votes, rather than choose someone with the long-term interests of the U.S., should something happen to him as President, which is having someone with experience who would be capable to carry on as President. No one can argue with the selection of Joe Biden when it comes to experience and being capable of taking over…the right will disagree with where he stands, which is what is supposed to happen, but to a person Republicans at least respect the choice and cannot complain that Obama politicized the selection of Biden (Delaware won’t make or break the election).

Again, I am waiting to see how the spin comes out on this one, from the top political strategist the GOP has.

"Get Back to Work!" Plea from McCain

Sen. John McCain was at a campaign rally, yelling for Congress, including Sen. Obama, to get back to work to solve the energy crisis. Fair enough...although on closer inspection, it is amusing that McCain has, by a decent margin, the worst attendance and voting record of any senator. He has missed nearly 2 out of every 3 votes in the 110th Congress, including the latest votes on alternative energy funding and stopping tax breaks for oil companies. Once again, he wants everyone to ignore facts and only listen to his non-stop negative attacks on Obama. His arguments and complains normally don't hold much substance, which is why I felt the need to point this latest amusing fact out. The full voting list for the Senate can be found here. For the record, Obama has missed just under 45% of all votes while on the campaign trail.

Inflating Tires and Tuning Up Cars Not Such a Bad Idea

John McCain is once again mocking Barack Obama for Obama's comment to a voter that keeping tires properly inflated and tuned up, with regular oil changes, can end up collectively saving almost as much oil as one might expect to get from offshore drilling. ABC News asked an expert about this savings, and the estimate is some 800,000 barrels of oil per day could be saved if we all kept our cars maintained as recommended. This value should be fairly reliable since we understand cars and their efficiencies. However, how much oil we would get from new drilling is quite speculative, and it will take time to get full production. If we want something we can do now to help reduce the amount of oil required to fuel out nation, I personally do not agree with mocking the savings that Obama is suggesting. New drilling is the heart and soul of McCain's energy plan, but it truly is not a quick fix for our energy needs. Americans need to understand this, and that an actual plan with new technologies and new infrastructure must be part of, ultimately, a longer-term energy solution. Much of the technology already exists, or is at a point where serious investment will almost certainly accelerate results and benefits. I'll be writing more about some energy possibilities, and why I believe the Obama plan is much more beneficial, better thought-out based on policy priorities in multiple areas of concern (including energy, the economy, jobs, national security, the environment, and manufacturing; all of these are related) and more realistic than many think based on the present science and technology. With a Manhattan Project type investment and challenge, it is very likely that a good portion of what Obama outlined today will be realized within a decade.

Is there anything left McCain has not flipped on?

In this day and age of non-stop news does a man running for President get away with accusing his opponent of everything under the sun while staying relatively clean, even though his views on most major issues have changed? I have not been able to figure it out, but I feel I must point out some of the issues John McCain, the self-proclaimed "straight talker," has flipped on, mostly over the past couple years, as he has changed his political persona to fit whatever wind happens to be blowing. But somehow, many people still see him as a "maverick" who "sticks to his deep, rock solid beliefs." Nothing could be further from the truth, and I suspect the Democrats will begin to point these out more and more as the right and McCain's campaign have all but thrown issues into the garbage disposal as they have begun the big attack campaign we have seen the last two elections (Rovian politics at its finest this past week).

McCain has flipped on his constant urging of a issues campaign...this past week has proved he will endorse just about any ad they think will work, regardless if it is true or not. Case in point, how low is the statement that Obama "is willing to lose a war in order to win an election" because he is for a timetable? A despicable statement, in my mind (for what it is worth, the Iraqi Prime Minister essentially endorsed the Obama plan). Or that they used comments from one of the Marines in Iraq who said Obama did not spend any time with troops, but only went for photo-ops...the Marine's letter was recanted, but the ad still ran. And then there is the one about the Obama celebrity. Yes, Obama draws large crowds, as he is a relative newcomer who is a curiosity for many people. But what about the real TV and movie star in the campaign...let's not forget McCain hosted "Saturday Night Live," appeared on "24" and made an appearance in the movie "The Wedding Crashers." His sudden lack of memory of these jaunts into Hollywood is almost laughable.

McCain is the "foreign policy expert," with decades of experience. How many times has he confused Sunni and Shia clans, or Iraq and Iran, in press conferences, or forgotten that the country my grandfather came from in the 1920s, Czechoslovakia, is no longer a country?

But now for the list. Here are some of the issues voters need to take into consideration when voting for President, and may be confused as to where McCain stands (since he has been on both sides of all these issues):

- the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy
- the status of Roe v Wade
- gay marriage
- finance reform (and, by the way, had over 50 current lobbyists working with his campaign)
- ethanol
- drilling for offshore oil
- torture (was against, but voted to allow Bush to use certain methods he opposed)
- certain members of the Christian right being "agents of intolerance;" suddenly they are good guys (eg Jerry Falwell)
- will run an issues, clean campaign
- confederate flag in South Carolina (first thought it was offensive and thought they should not fly it, now doesn't have a problem with it)
- immigration amnesty
- English as the national language
- at a primary debate on Nov 28, 2007, said "voters do not trust us (GOP) because of our failure with Katrina and failure in Iraq." Now claims Iraq is won.
- claimed he would not raise taxes to bail out Social Security, then said everything, including raising taxes, would be on the table when trying to fix it, then came out and said "No new taxes." This all happened in the past month. What's it going to be, John?
- blasted Obama for his view that if we had hard, solid intelligence of where someone such as bin Laden is in Pakistan we would hit it militarily even if the Pakistanis were against the action, but then praised a Predator strike which killed an upper level leader of al Qaeda in the Pakistan mountains
- the use of medical marijuana
- the estate tax (or death tax as the GOP calls it); he was for the continuation of the tax, and is now against it
- stand on Cuba (he said in 2000 he would want to normalize relations with Cuba, now does not want to talk with Cuban leaders, but keep embargo)

There are many YouTube videos showing the endless stream of flips and flops. The point is, McCain is the one who is doing and saying anything that will get him elected. He is no maverick, he is an old-time politician who is recreating himself at will to get the job. Certainly Obama has changed positions on some issues as well, but I suspect that list is not nearly as impressive as McCain's. I do fear that if history holds true, two things will happen: the allegations that Obama flips on 'everything' will get a grip with voters just as they did against Kerry (when Bush flipped on countless issues himself), and that negative campaigning will also work with the average American voter. John McCain is NOT the kind of politician he likes to claim, and his experience is not a saving grace. Look where the enormous amount of experience in the Bush foreign policy and national security team has gotten us...botched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a team that ignored the Israeli-Palestinian talks for years when so much progress was made under Clinton, North Korea developed the bomb, continued civil war and genocide in Africa, and Iran had an all but free reign for several years as all U.S. attention focused on Iraq, leading to the present status of issues with Iran. McCain went along with all this, showing how his judgment is as flawed as the Bush judgment when it comes to foreign policy. I simply cannot buy into his experience argument, and lo and behold what Obama has been talking about is looking like the better approach, where talking with leaders and nations makes some sense (the latest round of diplmacy with Iran, engaging recently with North Korea, etc). But I do not know if this time around the average voter will be fooled once again. We will see.

There is Something to Learning by Doing

The Drs. Eide linked to a paper from a study where there are significant differences between children who were taught via thinking/listening and those who were taught by doing, as well as a third group that was told how to do a task and also had hands on learning for the task. Those students who learned by just doing and those who learned by both listening and doing scored nearly twice as high on assessments as those who just were taught through listening. This is something I think many teachers have experienced at some point, but there is some research to support one's instincts in the classroom. This is the type of result that should be placed on all teachers' radar screens, where regardless of the subject one teaches, lessons need to have a physical component, whether it is experimentation in science, manipulatives or collection of data in math, or role playing or acting out something from a topic in history or language arts. One of the present key phrases in education circles is active participation, and the evidence suggests this is to be emphasized since physical involvement in a lesson literally turns on portions of the brain necessary for memory.

Emergence of Spacetime

One of the more intriguing ideas I have seen in some time is summarized at Scientific American, in an article entitled "Using Causality to Solve the Puzzle of Quantum Spacetime." The concept is this:

"To put it differently, if we think of empty spacetime as some immaterial substance, consisting of a very large number of minute, structureless pieces, and if we then let these microscopic building blocks interact with one another according to simple rules dictated by gravity and quantum theory, they will spontaneously arrange themselves into a whole that in many ways looks like the observed universe. It is similar to the way that molecules assemble themselves into crystalline or amorphous solids."

For a number of years, string theory (which evolved into superstring theory, then M-theory...) has been a leading candidate for Einstein's dream of unifying quantum mechanics with relativity, the two pillars of modern physics. However, despite an enormous intellectual effort from hundreds of theoreticians, no testable predictions have been produced. It is mathematically advanced, to say the least, and very difficult to comprehend conceptually with the 11 dimensions it now resides in. Coming from an experimental background, I have always had doubts of such a cumbersome theory which cannot produce physical tests. I would like to think there is something a bit more simple, which does a better job of being able to produce results consistent with quantum mechancs and general relativity, both being well-tested and investigated theories over the past century. This emergent model is 'simple' and has so far, in computer simulated 'experiments' at least, produced interesting results. One of these results is that the number of dimensions being N = 4 naturally arises from the emergence of spacetime (in a nonperturbative model, no less). Adding matter to space leads to naturally warped geometries, consistent with solutions to Einstein's field equations is another result. And yet another result is that at small size scales, spacetime takes on a fractal nature. See the latest technical article if interested. It will be interesting to see where this type of model leads in the next year or two, as work continues to probe the subtleties of the model and find out if actual testable predictions arise from the model.

The 5 Grand Challenges in Basic Energy Sciences

Today, Al Gore gave a major speech where he offered a national challenge similar to that posed by President Kennedy back in the 1960s, where he called for the U.S. to put a man on the moon within a decade, even though there was no infrastructure and limited knowledge as to how to complete such a task in place. Gore called for America to get itself to an energy budget completely reliant on renewable energy sources within a decade. This is a tall order, and whether or not U.S. policymakers take up this or any similar challenge to lift our dependence on foreign oil, solving our energy problems will require innovation and our science and technology base's best efforts. Coincidentally, Gore's challenge is made just after a report from the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) of the Department of Energy's Office of Science was released. The BESAC report identified five 'grand challenges' for the scientific establishment to take on in order to develop energy independence.

The five grand challenges revolve around the quantum world, and are listed as:
1) control material processes at the level of electrons;
2) design and perfect atom-and energy-efficient syntheses of new forms of matter with tailored properties;
3) understand and control the remarkable properties of matter that emerge from complex correlations of atomic and electronic constituents;
4) master energy and information on the nanoscale to create new technologies with capabilities rivaling those of living things;
5) characterize and control matter away - especially far away - from equilibrium.

In a future post, I will expand on what these challenges focus on.

Time to Think About Impending Fresh Water Crisis

Of the 6+ billion people on the planet, it is estimated that around 1 billion do not have access to clean, fresh water on a daily basis. In the U.S., there are signs of shortages in numerous locations around the country, where combinations of drought, agricultural irrigation, insisting on having golf courses in the middle of deserts, and rising populations are draining water supplies to the point where there needs to be restrictions during good portions of the year. I fear we have already fallen into a pattern of not anticipating severe trouble both nationally and internationally and thinking about long-term solutions. Such a pattern has already put us in near crises with social security, the health care system, long-term debt issues, energy sources, climate change, and so on, where we have known of issues and problems for decades but refused to do the necessary work to find solutions to those problems. Now they are all upon us with, apparently, not too many policymakers who are willing to take on the leadership roles we need to get us through these problems. Water supplies should, in my opinion, be next on this list of 'MUST ADDRESS NOW' issues.

There is a fine article in the August issue of Scientific American dealing with this water issue. The numbers are impressive, but one that stands out is that the minimum amount of water a person needs for one year is 1000 cubic meters, which is one-fifth of an Olympic-sized pool. Multiply this by the 6 billion people on the planet, and just the shear volume of water necessary for every person is staggering. Obviously, as rivers and freshwater lakes dry up, potential disasters await. Besides the health issues associated with dehydration and lost crops, the potential for future outbreaks of war are real. The U.S. military, for instance, has begun to develop response scenarios to military conflict in anticipated regions around the world, including in the Mideast and sections of Asia that depend on the water runoff from mountainous glaciers for their drinking water; some of those glaciers are either melted or may be gone in just a few years as climate change picks up its pace.

Technologies exist that allow for the desalination of sea water, and some larger plants have been built overseas. It is likely a matter of time before the U.S. will build such plants along the national coastlines. Perhaps it is prudent to consider this future use of the coastal waters before we try more offshore oil drilling. I don't think today's policymakers who are pushing for such drilling have ever considered such a possibility because rarely do you hear anyone in Washington ever mention anything about water shortages, but imagine what a major accident or spill would do if we rely on seawater as drinking water. I believe water is a priority over oil. But water and energy relationships do not stop here. Many of the rivers where there are hydroelectric plants run the risk of dropping in water level, and may one day cease producing energy at their capacity. This is a potential problem in the western portion of the country, and new energy sources will need to be added to that portion of the power grid. Wind and solar sources are obvious candidates. Another option may be fuel cells, where one of the byproducts is in fact pure water. This is how NASA vessels, for example, combine energy sources and fresh water needs.

In the end, this is a major problem that will continue to grow not only in other parts of the world, but in the U.S. as well. Action needs to be taken, but our track record for attacking major problems has thus far been depressingly poor. It will take public pressure and demands for action to get policymakers to step up, and I encourage everyone to contact their congressional representatives and demand that they begin addressing big issues both in the near and long terms. It will take some amount of time to plan, design, and build the infrastructure needed for clean water (as well as new energy sources), and decisions need to be made now.

Children Get More Sluggish with Age

American children have been found to become much more inactive with age, concluded a 6-year study published in the July 16 Journal of the American Medical Association. While in this day and age this is to be expected, the extent of the sluggishness is eye-opening. The study tracked 1000 children from 2000 to 2006, and measured the amount of activity this cohort engaged in. About 90% of the children got a couple hours of exercise on most days when they were 9-years old. By the time this same group of children were 15-years old, only 3% got this same level of exercise on a regular basis. Fewer than one-third of 15-year old children got the minimum amount of exercise recommended by the government, which is one hour of moderate to vigorous activity.

Physical inactivity is linked with greater risks for many health problems, including heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. It is well publicized how there is a near epidemic of child obesity for American children, and the dramatic results of this study seems to suggest why we see so many children with more mature health problems. Because of this, it is so important that state Boards of Education maintain physical education requirements at all levels of public education, and that local school boards and administrations insist on maintaining quality health and physical education programs. I know some districts have reduced their PE programs in order to free funds and time for test prep required by No Child Left Behind, but this is another example of the importance of providing a 'well-rounded' education and set of experiences that will help develop good life skills and habits, and requires us to get out of a 'all test all the time' mentality in the public school system. It is also a time when parents need to step up and get their children physically active. In my mind, there is no good reason for 5 and 7 year olds to have televisions in their bedrooms, or allow whole summer vacations spent playing the latest video games, which many children effectively do. Schools cannot replace parents for something like this, especially during the summers. But this is an important issue, which can also help with new efforts in preventative health care; a little physical activity and common sense today with young children leads to fewer long-term health issues, and may in fact reduce health care costs for everyone years from now. We'll see how seriously Americans take these threats.

More Differences between how boys and girls process same information

Another thank you to the Drs. Eide at Eide Neurolearning Blog. A recent post shows how smart girls and smart boys, as defined by matched scores on IQ and performance on a verbal comprehension task, process the same verbal information differently. They show some nice functional MRI (fMRI) images from a girl and a boy, where girls use connections between their left superior temporal gyrus connection to left hemispheric language areas, whereas boys relied more on the connections between the right superior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus to connect to left hemispheric language areas.

Without knowing much at all about the neurobiology of all this, I suspect this fits with other data and studies I have read, which all seem to suggest a common conclusion: boys take longer than girls to process and learn the same material. Some have suggested that one factor of boys performing more poorly in classes (in terms of grades) when compared to girls is that, because they take longer to process and learn material, boys are more likely to not complete homework. If they miss an assignment, or turn one in incomplete, most teachers are likely to either not accept it or give it a lower grade. What would happen if boys had a longer time to complete homework? Or take tests and other assessments? Would the gender achievement gap seen in some areas of studies and age groups begin to diminish? This would be an interesting question to answer. It is time more educators at all levels look long and hard at cognitive science and research, so we can best work the brains of individual students to maximize learning for everyone.

A Really Nice Example of Socratic Questioning

One of the oldest formal teaching techniques is from Socrates, where he taught others by answering questions with more questions. This 'Socratic questioning' is one of my personal favorites techniques simply because it works. Students tend to be very responsive because it is a naturally engaging and active type of learning, and it keeps a student's interest because it typically starts with that student's original question, so he/she already has some level of interest or curiosity because it has already sparked a question.

To demonstrate how this works, check the transcript from Rick Garlikov. He did an experiment where he wanted to teach a 3rd grade class how to do binary arithmetic, but he could only answer questions with more questions. It is a very well-done lesson, and I can understand his excitement when students began to master the arithmetic because I have been in this situation before...it is what teachers dream about every day when something 'clicks' with students.

Obama: Fight the Smears Against Him

In my mind, these are sorry times when the future of the country and which path Americans decide to take are disrupted by those who want to win at any cost. The Right's well-known smear campaign has now begun since we now know Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. Although he has been committed to promoting the idea of one America and unifying all groups and interests, the need for a dedicated website to confront the various lies about Obama (including the usual faulty claims that he is a Muslim, he does not say the Pledge or put his hand on his heart, that he has racist statements in his books, and so on) that have been on the Web for some time has been initiated. Check out http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/.

I suspect this is just the beginning. In the background of the campaign, I can easily imagine Carl Rove and some well-funded staff looking for anything to twist and throw out there to the public, regardless of its truth or any facts that get in the way. Heck, if the Rove gang could spin McCain not being a patriot in South Carolina in 2000 and have people believe that utter nonsense, anything is possible. It is despicable, and I encourage any voter out there to ignore the smears and name-calling from the Right (that will only heat up in the near future) and simply stick to the issues and policies put forth by the two candidates. Do not be fooled by the fringe groups on either side (I am sure groups on the Left and outside of the Obama campaign will respond in kind against McCain...that is just as wrong as what the Right traditionally does).

Entropy and the Direction of Time

Each year, I offer one million points of extra credit (or something along those lines!) to the first student who can define time to me so it makes sense. I have yet to award those points, as there is no good understanding of time and its 'direction' that people like to talk about. However, for a thoughtful and truly interesting article that tries to get to some of the present day thinking about the direction of time, check out a recent Scientific American article about the topic. In addition, it provides a few really good examples defining entropy, and why it is logical for the entropy of systems to increase, which then defines the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Here is one segment of the article and entropy:

"The Puzzle of Entropy
Physicists encapsulate the concept of time asymmetry in the celebrated second law of thermodynamics: entropy in a closed system never decreases. Roughly, entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. In the 19th century, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann explained entropy in terms of the distinction between the microstate of an object and its macrostate. If you were asked to describe a cup of coffee, you would most likely refer to its macrostate—its temperature, pressure and other overall features. The microstate, on the other hand, specifies the precise position and velocity of every single atom in the liquid. Many different microstates correspond to any one particular macrostate: we could move an atom here and there, and nobody looking at macroscopic scales would notice.

Entropy is the number of different microstates that correspond to the same macrostate. (Technically, it is the number of digits, or logarithm, of that number.) Thus, there are more ways to arrange a given number of atoms into a high-entropy configuration than into a low-entropy one. Imagine that you pour milk into your coffee. There are a great many ways to distribute the molecules so that the milk and coffee are completely mixed together but relatively few ways to arrange them so that the milk is segregated from the surrounding coffee. So the mixture has a higher entropy.

From this point of view, it is not surprising that entropy tends to increase with time. High-entropy states greatly outnumber low-entropy ones; almost any change to the system will land it in a higher-entropy state, simply by the luck of the draw. That is why milk mixes with coffee but never unmixes. Although it is physically possible for all the milk molecules to spontaneously conspire to arrange themselves next to one another, it is statistically very unlikely. If you waited for it to happen of its own accord as molecules randomly reshuffled, you would typically have to wait much longer than the current age of the observable universe. The arrow of time is simply the tendency of systems to evolve toward one of the numerous, natural, high-entropy states."

Another example would be an egg. There is one state for a perfectly uncracked egg. There are ways to put fractures and cracks in an egg, meaning more states for cracked eggs...this makes cracked eggs a higher entropy state. There are still many more ways for an egg to crack and break apart altogether, with collections of small pieces of shell all the way through large pieces of shell, meaning a broken, shattered egg is the highest entropy state for an egg. Cracked and broken eggs make up the states that eggs tend to go to.

Obama Making Progress in all Demographics

It is looking as if momentum is once again building for Barack Obama in this stretch drive to the Democratic nomination. Not only have there been daily endorsements of superdelegates, a record crowd of 75,000 at a Portland rally, but the latest Gallup poll suggests almost all demographic groups are beginning to come to the realization that he is to be the presidential nominee for Dems. Quoting from the CNN article:

"Sen. Barack Obama’s 16-point lead over Clinton in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters comes from even higher support among groups that have been supporting him throughout the primary race, and from newfound support among several groups that have backed Clinton.

Obama leads or ties Clinton among women, Easterners, whites, adults with no college education, and Hispanics, with the New York senator’s support now below 50 percent in each group, according to Gallup. Both are backed by 47 percent of white voters surveyed, and Obama is essentially tied with Clinton – 47 percent to 46 percent – among Democrats whose education level is a high school diploma or less.

Clinton’s advantage among women overall seems to have evaporated, with Obama now holding a lead within the survey’s three point margin of error, 49 percent to 46 percent. Hispanics favor Obama over Clinton by 7 percentage points, 51 percent to 44 percent. And Obama now leads among voters in Eastern states by 9 percentage points over Clinton – 52 percent to 43 percent.

Clinton’s standing with whites has fallen by five percentage points during the month of May. With Hispanics, Clinton has lost eight percentage points in the same time period. Clinton’s support with Easterners has fallen by seven percentage points and with women, Clinton has last four percentage points in May. Women age 50 or older is the only major demographic group where a majority, 52 percent, still support the New York senator.

Obama’s support among voters with postgraduate education, voters with monthly incomes of at least $5000, and men – has grown to the point that, he now leads Clinton by a margin of 2-to-1. Among voters 29 or younger, Obama leads Clinton by a margin of nearly 3-to-1."

The expectation tonight is that Sen. Clinton will easily win Kentucky and Sen. Obama will easily win Oregon, meaning a virtual split in delegates once again. Next on the Obama agenda will likely be the continued fight against the endless barrage of complaints and accusations of 'poor foreign policy experience' from the McCain campaign, including the latest that hits Obama for suggesting he would be open to talks with the Cuban government, rather than continue the status quo embargo. I think a difference in this case is worth pointing out - is it good for progress and national security to continue a policy that has been an utter failure for 50 years? Or is it good for progress and national security to try and actually resolve a 50-year dispute with a country that sits tens of miles from the U.S. coastline? It will be interesting to see how the foreign policy debate plays put with the American public, since this is McCain's self-proclaimed strength and top reason for having him serve as President. I like Obama's chances of connecting with the public because of his ability and willingness to think outside the status quo box built by some of the most experienced officials in government, and point out the terrible flaws and failures that have resulted during the Bush years. Much more to come in the next couple of months, to be sure...

Is this the best a GOP leader can do?

Some unusual comments are made during the "silly season" of presidential politicking, but this one is simply poor taste. Baptist preacher and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was giving a speech at an NRA convention. Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor."

Fortunately, it appears almost no one laughed. At least law abiding gun owners don't have the same sense of humor as certain politicians. Assuming Obama is going to win the Democratic nomination, I can only begin to imagine some of the vulgar, off-the-wall comments some in the GOP are going to be using. There are some, both on the left and right (and I suspect more on the right), who are not ready for the first African American president, so perhaps all of us will need to have thick skin as the commentary, jokes, and blatantly stupid accusations (such as Obama being a Muslim, unpatriotic, un-American, elitist man) begin to fly at a more rapid pace.

What are the goals of a K-12 education?

As a teacher and as a school board member, I am forever forced to think about No Child Left Behind. As just about everyone is familiar with by now, this is the federal law that requires schools and their students to perform well on standardized tests. In my mind, and almost every other teacher and educator I know, this is a terrible way to gauge the education students are receiving, but that is another long story. For now, I am intrigued by a book of essays I have started reading called, "What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?" The essays are collected by Alfie Kohn.

I think the main point being made is that educators are not asking the right questions today about what we are doing and teaching in K-12 school systems. This is in large part because of NCLB and the mandates we are forced to follow and the goals that are set for schools (again, those goals are to get kids to score well on the exams). But the title of the book asks one of the questions we should be asking. Another question is: What are the goals of a K-12 education, as well as what should be the goals of a K-12 education? Is the point of mandatory schooling to promote and effect the continuation of a democracy? Is it to prepare students for college? For the workplace? Is it to build independent learners and thinkers? Is it to develop good problem solvers? Is it to develop students who can recall a series of facts about a given topic? Or should we develop good, decent, multicultural individuals who can fit into our melting pot society? Are the goals some combination of all of the above, and if so, what gets the most emphasis? In the end, who decides what the goals are and how a school goes about working with kids to meet those goals? Should it be federally mandated, as in NCLB, or purely local? Should the education one gets in urban districts the same as one should get in rural, southern farming districts?

It gets very complicated very quickly. This is the type of topic that will forever be debated, and almost certainly will never have a consensus answer. But it seems the entire country is up in arms about the state of American schools and the K-12 education system, and that reform is necessary. But what I am saying here is I don't hear these types of questions being asked. The conversation is always built around procedures of how to make the status quo work better. I am convinced standardized tests are not the answer to our education issues.

Here is something to leave with. Should a "good education" focus on the specific content of specific areas of study, or should content be used as a means of getting students to develop what Deborah Meier calls the five "habits of mind?" These are 1) the value of raising questions about evidence (how do we know what we know?), 2) recognizing the point of view (whose perspective does this represent?), 3) how is material connected to other material (how is this related to that?), 4) supposition (how might things have been otherwise?), and what I always try to emphasize, 5) relevance (why is this important to my life?).

In the end, how much specific content does a typical student remember, since most is never used in their life? How well do I remember how to diagram complicated sentences, or remember specific dates from events that occurred centuries ago? Does that mean my early education was a failure? Not at all, nor should we suddenly expect today's students to remember everything that is brought up in class by name...it is the higher-level thinking and problem solving skills that make a difference in life. It is knowing where and how to find information. It is knowing the right questions to ask when you don't know something. It is finding connections between theory and reality, and recognizing how to draw logical conclusions based on supporting evidence. It is about being able to use some limited information and building off of it, and perhaps making predictions that are sound in judgment. It is about finding good information from the growing, endless stream of nonsense that is on the Internet, by checking it with multiple sources.

But today's standardized tests largely focus on the specific content and recall of one's memory. It is driving teachers away from the life skills that really ultimately matter for individuals, so they can adapt to a changing world and workplace. It is taking the fun out of learning, which is now, out of necessity, a lifelong process if one wants to stay with the pack. We need to start asking the deeper questions that break away from content, and get to the meat of what will make a long-term difference for our children in this new, technical, globalized world. And for what it's worth, for some, this will not mean prepping for college.

I hope to get comments from anyone who would like to share...

Good Description of Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Many students and relatives have asked me about the new particle accelerator and experiments at CERN, just outside Geneva, Switzerland. Called the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is will soon exhibit the highest energy collisions in history, surpassing Fermilab's (outside Chicago) 2 trillion volts. Scientific American has a good summary article on the LHC, so check it out. The main prize scientists, including a good portion of the American high energy community, hope to find is the predicted Higgs Boson, which in the Standard Model is responsible for the mass of particles. Another potential prize are the hypothetical supersymmetric partcles, predicted in a variety of various particle and unified field theories. Some theorists think there are also possible signs of higher-order dimensions that should be within the reach of the LHC. We'll see in the next couple of years, as the first data runs are to begin within the next couple months. 'Tis a shame the U.S. will not be able to compete with the Europeans...

Play plays a role in Brain Development

There has been an unfortuante trend in many elementary and middle schools. In order to get some additional study and class time in for high stakes testing, some schools have adopted a 'no recess' policy. Perhaps as high as 30% of kindergarten classes no longer have recess. This is unfortunate, particularly for young children. Most kids likely find recess to be a positive part of the day, and it is also a chance for younger children to get some of their energy out, so they may actually focus better in class, rather than sit their fidgeting. But there is another reason why unregulated play is a positive experience during the school day: it leads to better brain development.

The Drs. Eide have a post about the benefits of play for the brain. Play helps increase blood flow to the dentate gyrus in the brain, which plays (no pun intended) a role in memory and feelings of happiness. Play also has an effect on physical development and the development of the cerebellum. The good news for older people is that there is evidence that play and exercise continue to be beneficial to brain development over a lifetime, where memory appears to be better for those who play and exercise, and that the chances of dimentia decrease. I hope school leaders and boards of education around the country become educated in studies such as these, for this is an easy thing to provide children every day.

One thing fueling Obama's amazing run

The Democratic primary campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been moving along at warp speed. Obama, of course, has produced an unexpected and most impressive run of decisive wins, and now has Clinton desperate to win both Texas and Ohio a week from Tuesday. In addition, Clinton's once expected dominance of the superdelegates is in question, as many have recently claimed suport for Obama; he has picked up 25 and Clinton has lost 2 just in the past two weeks. How could this be the case? Clinton, back in the fall, was the absolute favorite to win the nomination, as President Clinton is still seen by most Democrats to be the leader of the party. With his network, his command of the establishment, and the many Democrats who owe him their careers and favors, along with his pack of wealthy liberals who can raise great amounts of money, her nomination was inevitable.

To date, I would have to say that Obama has yet to stray off his campaign theme. He has been the most consistent major candidate among Democrats, to be sure. The experienced Clinton, on the other hand, has changed themes and personalities so frequently in the past two months, it seems difficult to anticipate what will be the theme of her latest stump speech. She has been forced to this state because she needs to find something that can break Obama's nearly overwhelming momentum. One of the latest tactics arose in Wisconsin. The Clinton campaign unleashed the "plagiarism" label on Obama, for using lines a national co-chair had given him to use. This came up in a big way in the recent Texas debate, where Clinton labeled Obama as a "xerox" candidate. But these negative attacks have not worked. I suspect this will once again back-fire on Clinton. In fact, just minutes after Clinton attacked Obama at the debate, she used two sets of lines, one from Bill Clinton and one from John Edwards, which were nearly word for word identical! Watch the video, as shown on Meet the Press this morning. Virtually all politicians use and borrow lines from each other, from friends and spouses, so using that to attack an opponent only hints at hypocrisy. This is something many Americans are very tired of, and what I feel is one more reason many have jumped behind Obama.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Texas and Ohio, as well as the smaller primaries in Rhode Island and Vermont. If Obama were to win even one of those states, it will be nearing the point where the delegate mathematics must be considered to see if Clinton even has a chance at the nomination. Even if Clinton wins both states, but only by small percentages, that is a virtual win for Obama, as the delegates will be more evenly split and he would maintain the lead in delegates. Keep in mind Clinton had strong double-digit leads in both states just a couple weeks ago, and now some polls have them even in Texas and almost halved in Ohio.

Now we just need to weed out the Right's attempts to spread complete false statements about Obama being a 'radical Muslim' and 'unpatriotic insurgent.' I can't imagine why so many qualified people stay out of politics, where blatant lies can be the norm. I do hope this year, unlike the many Rovian smear campaigns of 2000 and 2004, the electorate does not fall for the attempts at smearing candidates. This goes for the Left, as well.