Obama's Speeches

Some time back in the fall of 2004 I downloaded Barack Obama's keynote address from the Democratic Convention. I don't even remember how I got it. But here it is for you to enjoy. Keynote 2004.

And to have things come full circle, here is his victory speech from Tuesday. Victory 2008.

I do have the acceptance speech from this year's convention, but weighing in at 42 minutes and 39 mb, (even after I edited out him being introduced and about five minutes of "Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.") I don't know where anyone would host it for free. If you want it (cause you're a huge nerd like me) let me know.

My day at the Polls

I got up before dawn on election day and drove a half hour in the dark to a north east suburb of the Twin Cities. I was a DFL "challenger" though the DFL didn't want us challenging anyone (besides, the law says I would have to have personal knowledge that the person couldn't vote, hard to do when you don't live there). Really I was there to be the eyes and ears of the party and to report back any problems.

I sat myself down in a corner and got ready to spend the day people watching. I sat behind the same-day-registration tables and watched people register and reregister to vote. There were two major themes; the problem with the same-day-registration law, and the wonderful people that came and really really wanted to vote.

First, the problem with the current law. I'm not sure when the law was written, or when it was last updated, but there are some obvious problems. To register a voter has to bring a form of photo ID to prove that they are who they say they are, and a bill with their name and current address. Or they can get a voter registered in that precinct to vouch for them, a staff member of a group home will also work.

So the problem is that only specific bills are accepted and some things that logically should work, don't. Signed leases? Nope. Car payment? No. Medicare payment? Try again. Paystubs? Nope. There were even two different people who thought maybe an alcohol citation would work. They didn't. (Quote of the day: "I was in an accident I wasn't aware I was in.")

The other problem I saw could be addressed if a signed lease could be used; there were at least three couples that had moved on the first of the month. All they had were leases, no bills had come yet.

But here is where I start to feel better about democracy. ALL of the people that had moved came back with someone to vouch for them, or a receipt for a new drivers license. One couple was turned away twice and the second time the guy was talking like he wasn't going to come back. But they did, separately, and both voted. Even the woman who was probably 6 months pregnant. A young man that was registered with his wife earlier in the day, was brought back with a friend to vouch for him and they brought another woman with them. More than that, he realized that he lived down the hall from the couple at the other end of the table and could have vouched for them too.

But the most heart warming thing I saw was a older woman, blind and deaf, with an aid who registered and voted. It must have taken the better part of an hour for them to fingerspell the entire registration form, the entire ballot and her vote.

This woman is from my state.

Bat.Shit.Crazy.

She's long been known to be rather nuts, but this takes the cake. Now, when you look at Congresswoman Bachmann's record of being a right wing nut, and the current beautiful shade of blue that the state is polling on the presidential election, you might wonder what the heck is going on. Bachmann is from the 6th district which is primarily the northern suburbs, from the Wisconsin border, up over the Twin Cities and west out past St. Cloud. A blend of rural and suburban that leans a little red. Bachmann was elected in 2006 and her reelection seemed well inside possible despite being, well, bat shit crazy. But apparently this little outpouring of McCarthyism has lead to a small surge in donations to her opponent. This might get interesting.

But there is something more here. When you look Bachmann's apparently sincere belief that Democrats and Democratic party's nominee for president might be anti-american, and put it in the same context as the vile things said about Obama at Republican rallies, there is an obvious theme. These are the equivalent of a Freudian slip. The party officials can only talk about "palling around with terrorists" for so long before their supporters make the logical connections and start saying the things the party officials could never get away with. Its one thing when supporters with only the power of the vote and their voice scream things at rallies. But you know the meme has grown bigger when an elected official, up for reelection no less!, thinks she can get away with saying this on a national cable channel.

One more thing, even the most liberal, left wing, progressive elected Democrat in the federal government believes in our democracy enough to try to change it from the inside. That faith that our government can be fixed, and is not fundamentally flawed, is proof enough for me of their pride in America and the American system of governance.

Addendum: I made that lol, what luck that Bachmann used Impact as her campaign font!

DEBATE!

The last debate is tonight and McCain has been saying he will utter the name William Ayers at some point, which is probably a guarantee that he wont.

I'm not a drinker, but if McCain says "that one" again, I think we can all agree that you have to finish your drink and blame the person to your right.

This will take years

Judge postpones hearings for RNC 8

The court cases stemming from the RNC protests are starting to wind their way through the courts. Many people arrested and charged with felonies at the time have had their charges reduced to misdemeanors. Which is good for them, but it hints that the original charges were more for intimidation than anything else.

There were eight people arrested on the Friday before the RNC. Because they were arrested after the close of business before a three day weekend, they were held until the last day of the convention. They had their hearings postponed today at the request of their lawyers.

Criminal complaints allege the eight are members of an anarchist group that was attempting to disrupt the convention and assault police.

Oh, gosh, anarchists are SO scary. Yeah, uh did you see what those cops were wearing?

Photo credit: Zak Forde

I don't think anyone wearing anything less than the same really stood a chance at hurting these cops. (And there were literally hundreds more just like these three.) Wanting to do something, and actually having the ability are not the same thing. I've talked about this before. Plotting to do something is different than gathering information and writing violent poetry, but there's still that part where they didn't actually disrupt the business of the RNC.

Larry Leventhal said he and other defense attorneys working on the case can't mount good defenses until they see reports from various law enforcement agencies that provided security during the RNC.

"It's important to know what the charges are based on so we can prepare a proper defense," said Leventhal. "There are reports from the FBI -- we have nothing, and they were all over the place. These are reports from other jurisdictions -- we have nothing. All we have are materials from Ramsey County."

I have no doubt that the lawyers will get what they need. If there is nothing else I have learned while working as Queen of the Copy Machines at a law firm, its that lawyers are really good at getting what they want, and being a real pain in the other side's ass when they don't.

Enzymes vs. Metal Catalysts

Mushroom enzyme could strip pollutants from fuel cells

This had to come up sooner or later.

They have demonstrated that laccase, an enzyme produced by fungi that grow on rotting wood, can be used as a cheaper and more efficient catalyst. Fuel cells use chemical reactions — such as that between hydrogen and oxygen — to produce emissions-free electricity. But current technology is expensive and requires electrodes that contain rare metals such as platinum.

When we talk about sustainable technology, one of the things that often gets over looked is the metals. Especially the heavy, toxic, and rare ones. And especially the ones mined in terrible conditions in poorer nations. We really don't like to think about the way our lovely technologies are dependent upon plundering the natural resources of other nations.

Scientists and entrepreneurs have come up with ways to replace the oil used in energy and the oil used in making some plastics with other things. So this step of replacing metal catalysts with biological enzymes was bound to start happening.

Materials that can hold the enzymes, such as carbon, are cheap and plentiful. But the second problem could prove a more difficult problem to crack. "This has puzzled scientists for decades, why are enzymes so large?" said Fraser Armstrong, a professor of chemistry at Oxford University. "There are a lot of people trying to work out how to make small molecules do the same thing. If you could do that, you could put a thousand times more enzymes on a surface."

This is where it pays to try to figure out the shape of the enzyme and the way the active site works. There is probably a large portion of any given enzyme that goes towards putting it in it's proper place in the cell, and interacting with other proteins, that wouldn't be needed in a fuel cell. The key is to take away the parts you don't need, keep the parts you do and then get the cell to produce this new stripped down protein in high concentrations. That takes some serious protein analysis and genetic modification. This biotechnology is decades out. But its being thought about and worked on, that's the first step.

Hey there sweet stuff.

New Salvo in Splenda Skirmish

As you might guess by the name of this blog, I am skeptical of things that taste sweet, but are not sugar. Fake sugars are a good way to trick your body, but I'm really not sure that tricking your body is a good thing. Now there is more information out on the newest artificial sweetener that you knew would be out at some point.

The latest salvo comes from Duke University researchers, who have published a study that says Splenda — the grainy white crystals in the little yellow packets — contributes to obesity, destroys “good” intestinal bacteria and prevents prescription drugs from being absorbed.

Gosh, its bad for you. Splenda looks like sugar to your tastebuds, but enzymes that use the glucose and fructose are more discerning than that. All the regular hydrogens have been stripped off and replaced with chlorine atoms.

But wait a second, there is more to this article and this study than just the bad things about Splenda.

But the Duke study was financed by the Sugar Association, the lobbying group for the natural-sugar industry and a chief competitor to and legal adversary of Splenda.
......
One of the lead researchers of the study, Dr. Mohamed B. Abou-Donia, said Monday that the Sugar Association had “no input” into the study’s findings and conclusions.

Ah, hahaha. You knew it had to be something like that.

But really, I've never seen the point of artificial sweeteners. If you're trying to cut down on your intake of sugar, suck it up and stop eating it. Eating these things that taste sweet get your body ready to deal with sugar, but when nothing resembling sugar comes, things are bound to get a little (if not a lot) off kilter. If something tastes good that usually means that its okay to eat, but that only worked before society got around to inventing things that taste good and will kill you; lead acetate for one, ethylene glycol for two. Our bodies have evolved to eat glucose and fructose, and intentionally misleading our bodies on something this fundamental to our biology, just doesn't seem like a good idea.