The Substantially Similar Weblog

Via Steve (new domain name, otherwise as usual), this inspiring little PowerPoint-ish presentation from Dr. Steven Chu, Obama’s choice for Secretary of Energy:

This video features about as many charts per minute as did An Inconvenient Truth, but left me far more hopeful about our long-term prospects on Earth. It is reassuring to see so many powerful positions being filled by people with domain expertise, rather than partisan hacks. If this administration doesn’t get us back on course, we might as well stop having children.

Technorati Tags: Steven Chu, Obama, Climate Change, Energy, Environment

Via Steve: I had never seen this ad, but apparently it was a classic:

The remake:

Same actors?

Technorati Tags: Wassup, Budweiser, Obama, Election

The only plausible result from this RNC mailing, I think, is increased fundraising for Obama over the next few days:

"Terrorists Don't Care Who They Hurt"

For the nearsighted, the front of the mailing says “Terrorists Don’t Care Who They Hurt” and inside: “Why Should We Care What They Have to Say? … Barack Obama. Not Who You Think He Is.”

I would be surprised if the Obama campaign doesn’t get a measurable bump in donations for every mailing like this.

What I really wonder is how intelligent Republican party members tolerate this sort of thing. Aside from Colin Powell, are other high-IQ Republicans voting against their party because of these tactics? Or do they just believe any means justify the ends?

My pet theory as to why these attacks are useless (at best) to the GOP is that they don’t resonate with anything the voters are seeing. The GOP implies Obama is a muslim terrorist who is inexperienced and risky and also an extreme liberal/socialist left-winger (I haven’t heard “communist” yet from the mainstream), while what the electorate sees in the debates, ads, and campaign appearances is an uncannily steady, balanced, articulate individual who comes across as a moderate on most issues (note Obama’s theme of returning to Reagan-era taxation levels!)  At least with the “flip-flopper” attacks (and maybe even the Swift-Boat attacks) on John Kerry, there was something people could see that somewhat corresponded with the attacks, even if the underlying facts didn’t actually pan out. Here, the chasm between the nature of the attacks and the visible target is so great, they could only help energize those who are already hard-core partisans. The lesson here is that if you want to launch misleading, baseless attacks against your opponent, at least find some kernel of truth to base them on.

On a similar note, I agree with Aaron Swartz that ACORN deserves our financial support.

Finally, I predict a bunch of astroturf comments to this blog entry. I won’t bother to respond if the comments fail to say anything intelligible.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Election, Obama, McCain, Terrorism, ACORN

I haven’t been blogging this election at all recently — there are enough folks out there saying just about everything that should be said (and lots that shouldn’t), but I couldn’t let this little tidbit slip by without mention.Via the TaxProf blog:

• Politico and Bloomberg report that the State of Ohio has a $1,182.92 tax lien against Joe the Plumber for back income taxes.
• The Associated Press reports that Joe the Plumber lacks a plumbing license.

Also, the Trademark Blog notes the flurry of related domain name registrations.

Technorati Tags: Joe the Plumber, Obama, McCain, Politics, Election

(and disregards the rest)

Jonah Lehrer reports the result of a depressing but unsurprising experiment: The Facts Don’t Matter.

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar “backfire effect” also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might “argue back” against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same “backfire effect” when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration’s stance on stem cell research.

It’s particularly interesting that the backfire effect is more pronounced with Republicans; this certainly resonates with my admittedly biased view. Better information doesn’t seem to fix the problem, either:

During the first term of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the budget deficit declined by more than 90 percent. However, when Republican voters were asked in 1996 what happened to the deficit under Clinton, more than 55 percent said that it had increased. What’s interesting about this data is that so-called “high-information” voters - these are the Republicans who read the newspaper, watch cable news and can identify their representatives in Congress - weren’t better informed than “low-information” voters.

Anyone have a better solution? Or should we just throw in the towel on democracy?

A sure sign of the long road ahead of us to pull together in this election:

Can’t we all just join forces?

Technorati Tags: Obama, Biden, Facebook

Via Steve — this is nearly perfect. It is immensely satisfying to see a Democratic presidential candidate  gracefully obliterate frivolous attacks rather than cower under them.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Obama, Energy

The Frontal Cortex provides an astute explanation as to why he shies away from political blogging in this election season:

My hypothesis is that political judgments are like moral judgments. When you see a candidate, you experience a visceral, instinctive, inexplicable response. Your brain generates an emotion - Obama is uplifting, Hillary is commanding, McCain is honorable, etc. - and then the rest of your brain goes about explaining your emotion. The inner interpreter gathers together bits of evidence, post hoc justifications, and pithy rhetoric in order to make our automatic reaction seem reasonable. But this reasonableness is just a façade, an elaborate self-delusion.

Personally, I haven’t done much (any?) such blogging lately for lack of time, but I also generally agree with his conclusions.  “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

Technorati Tags: Politics, Elections, Neuroscience

Up until recently, I’ve been supporting John Connolly as candidate for city council. In addition to the recent concerns about anonymous mailings, I’m now getting hammered by his auto-dialer. I’ve received four prerecorded phone calls today and yesterday reminding me to vote for Connolly. (By contrast, I got one real human phone call from a Michael Flaherty supporter.) Now with a few hours left to vote, I’m on the fence. I wish this guy would leave me alone.

In the meantime, a WBUR interview claims that Felix Arroyo is the most vulnerable candidate (something I’ve never heard elsewhere). If that’s the case, I’m tempted to just bullet-vote for Felix.

I hope this last-minute vacillation doesn’t make me an idgit voter.

5pm update: three more automated phone calls! One for Murphy from Consalvo; and two for Connolly (one from Tobin, the other I forget). They’re pulling out all the stops, only at the last minute. I wonder who the dismal weather (and poor turnout) favors.

7pm update: three or four more calls, now including real humans! My wife figured out part of the reason we’re getting so many — separate calls each for her and me, even though it’s all on the same phone number.

In any case, we’ve all voted now. I did end up including Connolly in my votes despite these over-the-top tactics. I guess it shows, at least, that he’s well organized.

Technorati Tags: Boston, City Council, Felix Arroyo, John Connolly

I was quoted in a recent Needham Times article regarding my complaints with the T:

But Adam Rosi-Kessel, a Roslindale resident who takes the Needham Line to his job in the financial district, said 15- to 20-minute delays have kept him from getting to work before 9 a.m. since May.

Now Rosi-Kessel, a lawyer who biked to work when he lived in Jamaica Plain, is thinking about trading in his Charlie Card again.

“It used to be, living here in Roslindale, the train was always the fastest way to get in,” he said. “Now, it’s slowed down to the point where it’s starting to get competitive with biking again.”

I’m glad they got my biking quote. Here’s the part I don’t understand (emphasis added):

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority spokeswoman Lydia Rivera said Needham Line delays have been caused by construction work and speed restrictions on tracks that don’t go anywhere near Needham.

In order to maximize train use, the T often transfers trains between tracks, rather than leaving underused trains empty in the MBTA yard. The method helps the T get trains where they’re needed most, but it also means a delay on one track can slow service on a seemingly unrelated track.

“It’s a Catch-22,” Rivera said.

I don’t think the T spokesperson knows what a “Catch-22″ is. I refer those interested to the Wikipedia article on the subject, but it is nicely summarized there as “heads I win, tails you lose.” The T’s problem is not a logical paradox, but some combination of inadequate resources and poor organization. Can someone please help them out?

Also on Boston local topics: I’ve received several unattributed mailings lately related to the city council election that do not facially promote any particular candidate. Today’s mailing attacked Stephen Murphy for repeatedly trying (and failing) to win some other office or get some other job than City Councilor. The return address was 31 Milk Street, which is the address of many different businesses.

A few days ago, I received another unattributed mailing bemoaning how long it has been since an at-large city councilor came from the Parkway Area (my neighborhood), but not mentioning any candidate in particular.

My guess is these mailings are all meant to support John Connolly, a West Roxbury resident, attorney, and ostensibly good guy. I was feeling pretty happy about the possibility of Connolly replacing Murphy on the Council (I have to admit some unfair prejudice in that the only house in our neighborhood I’ve ever seen prominently posting a sign in support of Bush also features a Murphy billboard). But these questionable campaign tactics are giving me pause. Does anyone know anything more about this?

In any case, here are my endorsements for next week’s election, notwithstanding the concern outlined above: (1) Felix Arroyo, (2) John Connolly, and (3) Sam Yoon. I have no pick for a fourth candidate. I’ll also throw in a vote for Matt Geary. I really wouldn’t want the socialists running the City, but a broader spectrum of political opinion within the council wouldn’t hurt. Incidentally, it is remarkably hard to find any information summarizing all of the candidates’ positions and records. It’s almost as if the election isn’t even happening. (A commenter properly points me to Brighton Centered as a good resource.)

11/3/07 Update: More discussion here.

Technorati Tags: Boston, City Council, Elections, Felix Arroyo, John Connolly, Sam Yoon, Stephen Murphy, Politics, MBTA, Transportation, Roslindale, Needham, Matt Geary