Seth in CA (for the summer)

“If only gay sex caused global warming”

Oh my. How did I miss this? And when is Prof. Gilbert going to get a blog? The Freakonomics guys did it to promote their book, and he’s going after the same audience with Stumbling on Happiness, right? (Ooh, looks like Levitt and Dubner are still at it. Cool.)

Go read the whole thing:

If only gay sex caused global warming

Why we’re more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than a much deadlier threat.

NO ONE seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site. Why? Because it won’t involve villains with box cutters. Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium.

The odds of this happening in the next few decades are better than the odds that a disgruntled Saudi will sneak onto an airplane and detonate a shoe bomb. And yet our government will spend billions of dollars this year to prevent global terrorism and … well, essentially nothing to prevent global warming.

Why are we less worried about the more likely disaster? Because the human brain evolved to respond to threats that have four features — features that terrorism has and that global warming lacks.

Freshman year I e-mailed Prof. Horwitz to encourage him to blog. No answer yet. Maybe Gilbert will be more responsive.

Real life Seth in CA

This is today at 7:30 PM [Map].

For readers in the area, come to the Democratic Club of Claremont meeting:

Do not miss our June 26th meeting!

“The environmental impact of the food we eat”

Global Warming is getting a lot of press these days. The new documentary movie with Al Gore’s slide show, An Inconvenient Truth has won praise from a wide variety of scientists, not just those involved specifically with the environment. (It is now showing locally in Ontario.)

Because of this, Bonnie Yelverton, our June 26th speaker, will be focusing on a different issue of our environment. She will instead talk about the environmental impact of our food production. This involves topics like energy, water, pollution, land use and sprawl, transportation, nutrition – and just plain good taste.

Bonnie Yelverton has long been involved with improving our impact on the environment. In the early 90’s she ran a diaper service in Denmark. Later she studied environmental management for businesses, in particular methods of motivating people to act sustainably. Since moving to California in 2000, she has worked for a windmill company, she drives a hybrid (but commutes by bus) and attempts organic farming in her condo courtyard. She is a member and frequent contributor to many environmental action-based organizations, such as Environmental Defense, the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club. She considers herself an enlightened layperson who reads a lot of books about the environment. If you’d like to read more, download her list of suggested readings on environmental issues.

Bonnie has provided us with a four-page reading list on environment issues. General topics covered are Global Warming, Food, Ecology, Oceans and Fish, and Sustainable design. You can (click on &) check it out at her environmental reading list.

Club business will include a vote on whether the Club will endorse Cynthia Matthews, who won the primary election for the Democratic nomination in the 26th Congressional district. She will oppose David Dreier, the Republican incumbent, in the November general election.

Map of 660 Avery Rd, Claremont, CA 91711

Google Maps – Yahoo! Maps – MapQuest

“Connecticut Local Politics: Senate 1970″

Fascinating account of the 1970 Connecticut Senate race:

Liberal Democrats began rallying around the Rev. Joe Duffey, a supporter of Eugene McCarthy’s failed presidential bid and head of the antiwar group Americans for Democratic Action. Duffey also led the progressive, antiwar Caucus of Connecticut Democrats, of which a young attorney named Joe Lieberman was a founding member (Lieberman, 167). Senate Majority Leader Ed Marcus and the more conservative Stamford lawyer Al Donahue, who was backed by the state Democratic machine (Lieberman, 169), were the other Democrats in the race. Secretary of the State Ella Grasso and Mayor Richard Lee of New Haven were also mentioned as possible candidates, but Grasso decided to seek the 6th District Congressional seat and Lee retired from public life (”Dodd”).

(Hat tip: TPMCafe.)

Go John

Run Edwards, run!

Prologue: Adventures in Santa Monica

I’ve got a bunch of LA pictures to post later. Consider this a prologue.

I met this guy in Santa Monica but forgot to take his picture. Thanks to Google and Flickr, here’s someone else’s picture of Jerry Rubin, selling his peace stickers.

Photo Credit: scurvesahead.

Jerry “Peace Activist” Rubin legally changed his name so it would show up that way on the ballot when he ran for some office (or maybe it was so he wouldn’t be confused with the other Jerry Rubin).

I was wearing Eric’s Harvard Dems shirt and he asked me about it; I expected him to yell at me for being a Democrat but instead he said “good for you” and then proceeded to launch into a tirade against Ralph Nader. Apparently Rubin launched a hunger strike in 2004 to protest Nader’s candidacy. In his mind, Nader should have been helping elect President Kerry — then giving him hell once he was in office. Sounds good to me.

Activist Goes on Anti-Nader Hunger Strike:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A peace activist who once fasted for 63 days to protest movie violence and war toys is launching another hunger strike to persuade Ralph Nader to abandon his presidential bid.

Jerry Rubin, 60, said he plans to consume only liquids from Saturday until Nov. 2 if Nader doesn’t take a meeting with him.

“I know Ralph Nader and I don’t think he’s doing the right thing,” Rubin said Saturday. He said the consumer advocate’s campaign is dividing the progressive political movement.

Many believe the votes Nader received in Florida in 2000 would have gone to Democratic candidate Al Gore (search) had Nader sat out the election. Gore lost the state — and the national election — to George W. Bush (search) by 537 votes.

Rubin is often confused with now-deceased “Chicago Seven” defendant Jerry Rubin. He legally changed his name to Jerry Peace Activist Rubin to avoid confusion with the 60s radical.

The peace activist is no stranger to hunger strikes: In 1988, he broke a two-month fast with a bite from a giant pizza topped with a pepperoni peace sign that he then left for “Rambo” star Sylvester Stallone.

He again fasted in 1997 to persuade movie production company Dreamworks SKG to abandon plans to relocate its headquarters to wetlands. He collapsed after 26 days, but Dreamworks abandoned the idea, saying it could not reach a satisfactory financial agreement.

Damn kids

19-year-old Chris Jackson has been writing a blog called the Ford Report dedicated to electing Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. the next Senator from Tennessee for almost a year. On Tuesday, in a post entitled “Blogging For Bryant & NRSC Running Deficit Of Ideas; Resorts To Lying,” Jackson observed:

Once again, Blogging for Bryant and the NRSC are lying to Tennesseans by playing the liberal card on Congressman Harold Ford Jr.

However, the people of Tennessee are not going to bite. They know Harold Ford Jr. is a moderate Democrat who has it right when it comes to energy independence, balancing the budget, Iraq, securing our ports, family values, as well as many other pressing issues.

Instead of putting forth their own agenda and new ideas that will help the people of Tennessee and this nation move forward and get ahead in life, all the Republicans want to do is play the politics of destruction by continually attacking Harold Ford Jr.

They know they are running a deficit on ideas and know they can’t run on their own merits, so they go negative against the frontrunner.

…

On Wednesday, Republicans fired back, making ample use of scare apostrophes:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) issued the following statement in response to Harold Ford’s “unofficial” blog’s preposterous charge the NRSC is “lying” about Ford’s liberal record:

“Congressman Ford has realized his record is too liberal to win statewide in Tennessee and thus his minions have resorted to calling those who bring attention to it ‘liars.’ Whether he is proud of it or not, Mr. Ford’s record is what it is, one well suited for a Memphis congressional district or statewide in Massachusetts, just not for Tennessee,” said NRSC spokesman Dan Ronayne. “It is unlikely Tennesseans will be electing someone to the left of Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton no matter how loudly and falsely Ford and his allies object.”

Certainly a coup for a blogger to provoke that kind of response from the NRSC. (I should really be attacking Dreier more often, apparently!) Interestingly, the NRSC quotes the following as “evidence”:

Presidential Support

(Member Profile, “Harold Ford,” Congressional Quarterly Website, www.cq.com, Acessed Febraury 1, 2006)
Quite intriguing, actually. What’s the deal with Hillary and Ted? Unfortunately, the Congressional Quarterly (which was, incidentally, “Acessed Febraury 1, 2006″. Damn kids interning at the NRSC this summer can’t spell!) is subscription only. Quite elitist, I’d say. My guess is it has something to do with comparing Senators to Congressman; the House of Representatives passes crazy legislation by comfortable margins all the time, legislation that even the President opposes. The Senate is a little more reasonable.

Lacking CQ, I’ll have to settle for a nifty website called Progressive Punch instead. Here are their rankings:

• Harold Ford, Jr. – Progressive Score: 78.40; Rank: 149/433
• Hillary Clinton – Progressive Score: 91.73; Rank: 10/100
• Edward Kennedy – Progressive Score: 95.69; Rank 3/100

That means Harold Ford, Jr. is 149th out of about 200 Democrats. Sounds pretty moderate to me.

One final note of disappointment. My Congresswoman back home, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, got beat for the number one most liberal spot by someone named Raúl M. Grijalva from Arizona.

Update on who’s running

Alright, so the DCCC website doesn’t list Cynthia, but does list someone named Hoyt Hillsman. Is this person running? Doubtful.

I think I’ve found the definitive answer on who’s actually running, from opensecrets.org:

David Dreier (R) * Russell Warner (D) S. Sonny Sardo (R) Cynthia Matthews (D) Melvin C. (Mel) Milton (R) Elliot Graham (3) Hoyt Hillsman (D) Ted Brown (L)

$1,182,039 $169,825 $29,002 $516 $0 $0 $0 $0

In 2004, Cynthia Matthews raised $55,000, so already Russ Warner has tripled that. Dreier has already raised about the same as in 2004.

Finally, that page says the primary is Tuesday, June 6, 2006. And I’m going to be in Claremont by then. Cool!

Welcome

This summer I’ll be at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, participating in an NSF-funded computer science research program. If that provides bloggable material, expect to see that here. And if I have spare time, I hope to blog the Congressional race. Democratic candidate Russ Warner is challenging Republican incumbent David Dreier in CA-26, which includes Claremont.