California Prop 8 and Public Health

California's proposition 8 passed, outlawing same sex marriage.

This passing will have negative public health implications. Allowing male homosexuals to marry could (should?) spread monogamy into the gay community and could therefore substantially reduce HIV transmission among men who have sex with men. Married & monogamous homosexuals in turn can act as role models for younger homosexuals.

In California, the primary mode of transmission of HIV is gay sex. In Africa, it is heterosexual sex, and in Russia, as I understand it, it is needle sharing in the intravenous drug community. HIV has several ways of spreading, it is not just a homosexual disease.

Removing stigma against homosexuality will allow older homosexuals to find a path to happiness and health (lots of sex with lots of different partners is not a path to health, and I would guess it is not a path to happiness either). In turn, having older homosexuals as positive role models for younger homosexuals will allow positive health behaviors to take root in the homosexual community.

Ayers the Education Professor on the Election

We'll be seeing more careful interviews of, and comments from, William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright in the coming days and months. After the abuse heaped upon them by the McCain campaign and independent organizations hostile to Barack Obama's candidacy, it will be time to straighten out the record.

The Washington Post published a small interview with Ayers. Some selections:Asked Tuesday if he wishes he had set more bombs, Ayers answered, "Never." He also said he had regrets.

"I wish I'd been wiser," he said. "I wish I'd been more effective. I wish I'd been more unifying. I wish I'd been more principled."

History has shown of the Vietnam War that "those who opposed it were on the right side," Ayers said. But he said some of his early rhetoric was "juvenile."

This certainly contradicts the NY Times quote.

Ayers blames the "liberal media" for failing to dismiss the Republican assaults. He called the media's performance "kind of shameful" and likened the situation to the 2004 episode when Swift Boat Veterans for Truth created a narrative that helped doom the candidacy of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

"The dishonest narrative," Ayers said, "is that guilt by association has some validity."

This calls out the media and all those claiming that the media has a liberal bias (O'Reilly? Drudge? Coulter? Limbaugh?). A fair and unbiased media that had some spine might have fact-checked the Ayers meme a little more accurately. Most of what I saw, on supposedly liberal media replayed Republican ads with little in the way of discussion.

William Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader who became an issue in the 2008 campaign, said Tuesday that he is not close to Sen. Barack Obama and that Obama's opponents had turned him into "a cartoon character."

Worse things than being a cartoon character...

Beep Beep!

4 Senate seats and 10000 votes

There are 4 senate seats without a currently declared victor: Minnesota, Alaska, Oregon and Georgia. In MN, AK and OR, the currently leader is ahead by 690, 6187, and 3353 votes. In Georgia, the leader requires 50% of the votes to win outright without a run-off election, and Chambliss is 6250 (or 6251, who knows) votes short of the 50% mark.

In all four races, the Republican is ahead. Chambliss, without major interference, is likely to win the run-off election, as the Libertarian candidate votes will likely go to him. In Alaska, incumbent and current convict Ted Stevens is beating Begich. In Minnesota, currently Norm Coleman is ahead of comedian Al Franken, while in Oregon, Smith is edging out Merkley.

That's a total of 690+6187+3353+6250 = 16480 votes. This is somewhat of a reprise but in the Republican direction of the 2006 senate elections. There, 10078 votes was the total winning margin for the Democrats in the Montana and Virginia senate elections.

A lot of close elections: it's important to vote, you never know when your vote is needed.

Update. I thought CNN was reporting 99% or 100% in those races when I took the data. Several people I talked to did try to correct my reading of the data. Oh well. Currently I hear there are possibly 50-100 thousand additional votes in Alaska. Also, margins have changed. Minnesota: 477, Oregon:3932, Alaska unchanged at 3353 and Georgia is also unchanged needing 6250 votes. A total now of 14012 vote differential.

Update 2. Even as I wrote that, CNN updated data for Oregon and the democrat is now ahead by 6129 votes! Quite a reverse from being down 3932. That's based on 78% precincts reporting. I give. up. No more updates. Point still holds, but illustration would keep changing.

Barack Obama sent me an email!

I personally got the following email From Barack Obama

Subject: How this happened
XXXXXX --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

I appreciate the thought and the email. Even if it did go out to me and 3 million of Barack's closest personal friends. This is like the old FOB (friends of Bill) from the Clinton presidency, but on steroids.

The "I'll be in touch soon about what comes next" is disturbing, unsettled and vaguely ominous.

Interesting note 1: A DONATE button at the bottom of the email. Count on requests for money for the next 4 years.

Interesting note 2: I can't quite interpret all the header information regarding the dates, but there are four time stamps (I edited out most all other info) on the email:

From Barack Obama Wed Nov 5 04:34:13 2008
Received: from with SMTP; Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:36:57 -0800
Received: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 23:34:13 -0500 (EST)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 23:34:13 -0500

I don't know where that Wed date came from, because I got the email Tuesday evening. But these guys are fast.

Fortune Cookie Fortunes

Work on ideas that are creative and can bring fine results.

Good advice for an academic statistician.

Your courage will reap rewards for you.

Sensible direction for an academic statistician.

You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy.

Useful prodding for an academic statistician.

Your lucky number for this week is the number three.

Huh?

How did they know that I would get that fortune cookie?
And get it yesterday in particular?
And what is it about this week that it is lucky?
Does the week begin yesterday when I got the fortune, or on Sunday as is tradition, or is this referring to the work week, starting Monday and ending Friday?
And just how shall I make use of this information?
Betting on craps?

Bill Kristol and the underendowed

Neo-conservative Bill Kristol, former chief of staff to Dan Quayle, was quite taken with Sarah Palin and was an early promoter of hers. He seems to have an affection for under-intellectualized politicians.

Yes He Did

And Yes, We Did Too.