Jaffe

Congratulations America

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 6:47 AM 0 comments

Still undecided?

It's hard to believe that anyone is still undecided... but maybe this will help those who are...

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 11:25 PM 3 comments

Thank you Colin!

Colin Powell this morning on Meet the Press:

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 11:11 AM 1 comments

Just one heartbeat away...

This was forwarded to me earlier today by C Lo. Although I know this is meant as a parody, but how close is this to the truth? Let's hope we never find out:

Palin as president

Labels: politics, social commentary

posted by Aron @ 8:32 PM 0 comments

Election 2008

I think I speak for everyone when I say that I'm tired of the US presidential campaign. The economy is a disaster, we're in a war that's costing a fortune in both lives and money, and there's no end in sight.

This election should be a no-brainer. When an administration presides over (or is responsible for) the worst 8-year stretch in our country since I've been alive, the opposing party should be able to put up anyone who meets the requirements for becoming a US president. This is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry about the President of the United States.

Article Two of the Constitution sets the principal qualifications to be eligible for election as President. A Presidential candidate must:

* be a natural-born citizen of the United States;
* be at least thirty-five years old;
* have been a permanent resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.

Natural-born citizen of the U.S.... check
At least thirty-five years old... check
Have been a permanent resident in the United States for at least fourteen years... check

I'm in!

My candidacy has already caused a groundswell of support. Check out the news coverage here.

Labels: politics, social commentary

posted by Aron @ 8:44 PM 5 comments

Living the dream

I love The Colbert Report. Last year, the host of the show, Stephen Colbert, tried to make a run for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination in his home state of South Carolina, but was denied a place on the ballot.

You can't keep a good man down. How many US Presidents have had their own flavor of ice cream?

Labels: food, ice cream, politics

posted by Aron @ 4:57 PM 0 comments

Barack

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 7:32 PM 2 comments

Congratulations Dan!

For the second time in a row, Dan Seals has won the Democratic nomination for the 10th Congressional District of Illinois. You can read more about it here, or check out some of my previous posts from Dan's last campaign.

Congratulations Dan!
Next stop, Washington, D.C.!

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 10:55 AM 0 comments

The World According to FEMA

Yesterday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) held a press conference to brief the everyone about their response to the wildfires that have been affecting southern California for the past week.



It turns out that the 'press' at this press conference were FEMA employees. The press conference was announced only 15 minutes before it began, so the real press didn't have enough time to attend. FEMA's solution was to have their own staff ask questions, rather than wait for the actual press to show up.

This isn't the first time FEMA has been in the news for behaving badly. Their handling of Hurricane Katrina has been widely criticized. Last August, on the anniversary of Katrina, I posted this entry about a guy who drove a replica FEMA trailer to D.C. to thank President Bush for the "millions of FEMA trailers", which smelled terribly like a publicity stunt.

It's clear that FEMA is aware of their shortcomings, but rather than address them, they seem to prefer setting up smokescreens to make it seem like they're doing a great job. Unfortunately, we're not judged by the one guy who thinks we're doing great, and we can't ask our friends to be our straight-men in professional situations.

But wouldn't it be great if we could do just that? I wonder what the reviews for my next paper would look like in The World According to FEMA...

The manuscript by Jaffe et al., addresses the role of Rho GTPase signaling pathways in epithelial morphogenesis, a fundamental biological process. This paper reports the establishment of a novel model of epithelial morphogenesis, and provides data defining the role of specific Rho GTPase signaling pathways in distinct aspects of this process.

Overall, this paper was written extremely clearly and logically. There are many unique and revolutionary aspects of this study. The originality of the approaches used by Jaffe et al., are only superseded by the clarity of the data.

Major Concerns:

1) Figure 1 has too much data and should be either separated into 2 figures, or 50% of it should be 'data not shown' (although it would be a shame to leave such beautiful images to the imagination of the reader).

2) The Methods section should be expanded so everyone will be able to produce the quality of data presented in this manuscript.

3) Although this paper is clearly suitable for publication, this reviewer is left worrying that the Journal won't be setting the bar too high for other groups attempting to publish their work.

What a wonderful world that would be!

Labels: politics, social commentary

posted by Aron @ 6:02 PM 0 comments

Clinton-Gore v Gore-Clinton

With today's announcement of Al Gore as one of the recipients of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (the other half of the prize was awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), there is renewed discussion of another run at the White House for the former Vice President.

Why not? There are already several websites dedicated to raising money and building support for the Gore campaign, which hasn't officially been launched. The Nobel Peace Prize comes a few months after winning the Academy Award for Documentary Feature for An Inconvenient Truth, and his popularity has never been greater. On the news this morning, former President (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) Jimmy Carter repeated his support for Al Gore as a Presidential candidate, support that he made clear at least as early as February of this year:



So what do you think? Gore-Clinton? Gore-Obama?

How about Gore-Carter?

Labels: politics, social commentary

posted by Aron @ 8:43 AM 0 comments

Election 2006

Unless you've been living under a rock, you already know that the Democrats gained enough seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to have control of the full Congress. What does this mean for the (near) future of the U.S.? Here's one take on it:



I'm only sorry Dan won't be one of the 'tax and spend Democrats who take all your hard-earned money and use it to ... teach evolution to illegal immigrants'.

Labels: politics, social commentary

posted by Aron @ 8:15 PM 0 comments

Dan Seals for Congress - 3 days to go!

Only three days before what will hopefully be the first step in getting the US on the road to recovery after 6 years with President Bush. The Democrats need to pick up seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, so every race counts. Dan Seals has made a race out of what was supposed to be a 'safe Republican' district in Illinois. Let's try to give him the support he needs during the final push to November 7.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 6:43 PM 0 comments

Dan Seals for Congress - 5 days to go!

I promise this won't turn into a full-time political blog, but with 5 days left until the mid-term elections, there's still time to show your support for an old high school friend of mine, Dan Seals, running for the US House of Representatives. Republican incumbent Mark Kirk has been representing the 10th Congressional District of Illinois since 2000, and was predicted to have a pretty easy time being re-elected when campaigning for the general election began. With less than a week to go, however, this race is being recognized as winnable for the Democrats, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has started showing their support for Dan's campaign, sending out a direct mailer to residents in the district. The Chicago media is also giving more attention to the race. Click here to see yesterday's story from the Chicago CBS affiliate.

In this final week of campaigning, supporting Dan is more important than ever. Pass this post along to your family and friends - whoever you think is interested in seeing change in Washington. Let's hope that change we all want will begin on November 7.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 8:46 AM 0 comments

Dan Seals for Congress - Candidate Free Time on PBS

The public television station in Chicago, WTTW Channel 11, airs Candidate Free Time, which is a series of unedited video clips supplied by the candidates. If you want to see a short clip of Dan describing why he's running for Congress, and how electing him will help change the direction currently pursued by the Bush administration, click on his picture.




It's not too late to contribute to Dan's campaign. Every contribution will help to ensure his television and radio ads are on the air through election day on November 7.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 8:31 PM 0 comments

Dan Seals for Congress - 1 week to go

Only 1 week to go until election day. A few days ago, Republican incumbent Mark Kirk and Democratic challenger Dan Seals had their one and only scheduled debate at Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. If there were any doubts that the race in the 10th congressional district of Illinois is tight, just listen to the audience response to the candidates' closing statements, which you can view here.

It's still not too late to support Dan. Please forward this post to your friends and family in the States. Contributing to Dan's campaign will help ensure that his television and radio ads will continue to play through election day. Let's hope that the changes we need in Washington start on November 7.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 8:11 AM 0 comments

Dan Seals on MSNBC Decision 2006

With less than two weeks until election day, the race for the 10th Congressional District of Illinois is heating up. A recent poll (click on Illinois 10), has Dan is in a statistical dead heat with the incumbent Republican Congressman Mark Kirk. When Dan first launched his campaign, most people said the 10th was 'safe Republican'. All of that has changed, and now the race is even grabbing the attention of people outside of the northern suburbs of Chicago:



If you're interested in supporting Dan's campaign, it's not too late. Financial contributions during the final push to election day will help keep his ads on the air. Forward this link to your family and friends. Spread the word. Let's hope that the change in leadership in Washington will begin on November 7.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 10:28 AM 0 comments

Dan Seals for Congress

The United States general elections will be held on November 7. One-third of the seats in the US Senate, and all of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, are up for election. One of the seats in the House is being contested by an old high school friend of mine, Dan Seals. At the end of August, I had post asking for support for Dan's campaign.

As a newcomer to the political scene, Dan wasn't given much of a chance at unseating an incumbent running for his third consecutive term. All of that has changed, and according to a recent poll (click on Illinois 10), Dan is in a statistical dead heat with the incumbent Mark Kirk. The local ABC affiliate in Chicago is now calling the 10th one of the "key races" in Illinois.

I'm asking again for your support for Dan. The best way to support Dan is with a financial contribution. Forward this link to your family and friends. Spread the word. The money will be used to keep ads like the one below on the air until election day.

A change of leadership in Congress means we can start repairing some of the damage the current administration has caused over the last 6 years.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 11:24 PM 0 comments

The end of a career?

Last week, an interview with Representative Katherine Harris, from the 13th Congressional District of Florida, appeared in the Florida Baptist Witness. Representative Harris, who is running for the US Senate, told Witness editors,"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

What?

"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended."

I don't know what God intended, but I'm pretty sure that is what the founding fathers intended. In Article VI of the US Constitution, our founding fathers wrote "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Sounds pretty clear to me.

I could go on about different parts of the interview, but you should really read the whole thing. Not surprisingly, politicians from both parties are distancing themselves from Representative Harris, who two days after Witness published the interview, was at a gun show in Orlando (apparently she can separate legislating 'sin' from showing her support for gun owners/collectors/users) and defended herself by saying that her "comments were specifically directed toward a Christian group."

I may be one of the many "average citizens who are not Christians" and who doesn't "know better" (couldn't help quoting her one more time), but I know when I see someone who doesn't represent me, or anyone I know. Representative Harris has no business in the federal government. I don't think she belongs in any local government either, at least not in a country that is supposed to be inclusive and tolerant.

Is this the end of Katherine Harris' political career? Let's hope so.

Labels: politics

posted by Aron @ 9:10 PM 0 comments