Florida’s free marketeer Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp neutral in Crist v. Rubio Senate primary

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As a state legislator Jeff Kottkamp had warm relations with Florida's free market community, including the libertarian-oriented James Madison Institute, and various tax fighting groups on the Space Coast. The Palm Beach Post even labeled Kottkamp a "libertarian free marketeer." In 2004 he was tapped to be Charlie Crist's running mate on the Republican ticket.

Now, a rather surprising move on his part.

From NewsMax:

He wouldn’t indicate who he supports in the Republican primary for Senate between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.

“They’re two very dynamic people. It will be a very fun race to watch,” Kottkamp said. “They both have strengths and weaknesses.”

Kottkamp is currently seeking the Attorney General's office.

In the same interview he reiterated his support for Constitionalist principles:

"[Obama] continues to look for government solutions when we all know … that private sector free mark solutions are what’s going to work."

As for healthcare, Kottkamp agrees with current Attorney General Bill McCollum’s plan to sue if the Democrats’ reform plan passes.

"It’s clearly a violation of the 10th amendment," Kottkamp said. "If the federal government can force you to buy healthcare, they can force you to do anything."

Libertarian Financial Forecaster Andy Beal: State Gov. lay-offs coming, unemployment to skyrocket

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Noted financial expert and celebrity high stakes poker player Andy Beal sees a very bleak future ahead for the US economy, this year and next.

In a recent article in Forbes, writer Nathan Vardi described him as:

a self-described libertarian kind of guy... very critical of the government’s intervention in the economy.

Beal predicts: a downturn in the market with a "drop" in stock values; and says, "Commercial real estate is headed for trouble"; finally, "failed banks," and a "credit bubble due to the Fed and easy money."

But it's in the area of employment where Beal sees the dreariest news.

From Forbes:

Unemployment will remain at current levels for several years. This, Beal reasons, is partly because the states have not even started laying people off. “I see all the governments having to tighten their belts, which is going to feed this snowball effect. I don’t think we have felt the impact yet of governmental staff reductions,” says Beal.

Maryland Politics: Republican Dr. Eric Wargotz gaining libertarian support for challenge to Barbara Mikulski

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From Eric Dondero:

A recent poll showed entrenched Democrat incumbent Senator Barbara Mikulski with an increasing vulnerbility. By Rasmussen, against a generic Republican she only polls 54% support to 36% who would vote GOP. Mikulski has never before had favorables below the 60% mark.

She also faces a number of health concerns. The 74-year old fell last year and broke her ankle. Additionally, she's had an ongoing struggle with obesity. (There are recurring rumors that she's actually planning to step aside and not run for reelection.)

Three Republicans and one Independent have recently announced against her. One of them is being supported by libertarians in the State.

From the Baltimore Sun, "This Md Republican thinks Mikulski is vulnerable" Feb. 28:

Although Michael S. Steele, the Republican national party chairman and a former Maryland lieutenant governor, was beaten by veteran congressman Benjamin L. Cardin in the 2006 Maryland Senate election, Republicans say that was a Democratic year. Now voter sentiment has shifted, they believe, and the recent string of Republican victories in other states seem to prove it.

The leading candidate so far appears to be a Medical Doctor.

Dr. Eric S. Wargotz explained why he thinks 2010 will be so kind to Republicans that he's got a chance to replace four- term U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, arguably Maryland's most popular Democrat.

"I'm running because I believe I can do it," said Wargotz, 53, a first-term Queen Anne's County commissioner. "I see an opening here. Look at Scott Brown," he said... Wargotz said he went to Massachusetts to help in the Brown campaign's final days.

His libertarian Republican supporters include Don Murphy an outspoken leader of "Republicans for Marijuana Reform," and a twice attendee to National Conventions of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Howard County's Republican County Councilman Greg Fox did the initial introductions at Wargotz's fundraiser last weekend at the home of Rob and Carroll Cohen, and former Howard Del. Don Murphy also attended...

"God bless Eric for putting himself out," Murphy said, noting that Wargotz is giving up his local office to run for the senate. "Eric is an incumbent elected official. He understands what it is to govern," and as a medical doctor, he has expertise on health care... Cohen, 53, who said his politics are close to libertarian, runs Alliance Benefits and Compensation, an employee-benefits firm. He said... he liked the pathologist's medical background and views.

I put it down once to wipe off the sweat | Cosmic Variance

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It’s generally easy to write a damning book review. It’s much harder to write a positive and enthusiastic one. So how about a review that includes this paragraph?:

I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.

That’s Dwight Garner reviewing the book for the New York Times. What’s more, this is a nonfiction book revolving around science! Henrietta Lacks died at age 31 of cervical cancer. She was relatively poor, and completely unknown. No tombstone marks her grave. Without any sort of consent or awareness, some of her cells were “stolen” during her treatment. It turned out that the cells could be cultured, and they rapidly became a key tool in biomedicine. Salk used her cells to develop a vaccine for polio. The cells are ubiquitous, living on and thriving half a century after Henrietta Lacks’ death. Although this was all news to me, apparently any self-respecting biologist has heard of HeLa. Her full story has plenty of moral and philosophical implications, as well as basic science. Henrietta Lacks has had a profound, and completely unwitting, impact on our lives. Wired magazine has a chart:

HeLa (chart from Wired magazine)

Garner ends his review with:

This is the place in a review where critics tend to wedge in the sentence that says, in so many words, “This isn’t a perfect book.” And “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” surely isn’t. But there isn’t much about it I’d want to change. It has brains and pacing and nerve and heart, and it is uncommonly endearing. You might put it down only to wipe off the sweat.

I think he liked the book. Other reviews have been similarly enthusiastic (see Skloot’s blog for links). “Immortal Life” is definitely heading to my bedside table. But apparently one of my co-bloggers has recently published a book, and I should probably read that one first. If only I could find time.


The Porn Detection Stick Is Like the Hot Tub Time Machine for Smut [Peripherals]

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We have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the Porn Detection Stick, a simple USB dongle, will legitimately, automatically scan your hard drive for pornography. The good news is, well, times have changed.

The Porn Detection Stick, by Paraben, is a $100 thumb drive stuffed with Windows-compatible image detection software. Give it an hour and a half, and the device can scan 70,000 images—even deleted ones—with algorithms that analyze "facial features, flesh tone colors, image back grounds, body part shapes, and more."

The system promises less than 1% false positives.

Of course, what the software can't analyze are any videos that may be saved to your hard drive or pretty much anything in the web. In fact, the Porn Detection Stick seems designed for a whole other era of pornographic distribution, one when the discerning man might have scanned the latest Playboy to his 386 for posterity before pulling down his Zubaz pants to masturbate to it. Then again, maybe that's a good thing. [Porn Detection Stick via 69gagdet via ChipChick]


Female Dung Beetles Evolved Elaborate Horns to Fight for the Choicest Poop | 80beats

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DungBeetlesMale animals often use their horns to fight over females, but at least one species’ females use their horns to fight over excrement.

The species, no surprise, is the dung beetle. Unlike many of the animals we usually associate with elaborate horns, antlers, or other head weaponry—in which the male has the most impressive set—dung beetle females have horns that put the male version to shame. The reason, says a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is that females must battle one another for that precious manure. Nicola Watson and Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia, Perth, pitted female dung beetles (Onthophagus sagittarius) against each other in a race for dung – a valuable resource that provides nutrients for their eggs. Matched for body size, females with bigger horns managed to collect more dung and so provide better for their offspring [New Scientist].

Dung beetles aren’t the only species whose females grow horns: Small antelopes called duikers, for instance, have them for self-defense or territorial struggles. But the beetle horns are special, Stankowich says. Female duiker horns generally look like the males’, but female dung beetles grow another type of horn altogether [Science News]. Thus, the researchers argue, the female beetle horns (on the right in the image) aren’t some kind of crossover from the kind of horns that the males grow (left), but rather an independently evolved feature. And, they say, finding out that a feature like this evolved for female reproductive competition rather than defense against predators is exceedingly rare.

You might think there’d be enough poop to go around, and that fighting over it wouldn’t be necessary. However, there’s a distinct advantage toward getting the very best dung to make the balls in which the beetles lay their eggs. “Dung loses its usability quickly, so they have to seize it fast,” says Watson. Female beetles have been found to steal dung, raid other brood balls, and replace existing eggs with their own [New Scientist].

Related Content:
Discoblog: A Literally Crappy House Protects Beetle Larvae from Predators
Discoblog: Enough of This S#%t! Dung Beetles Morph into Millipede-Eaters
The Loom: An Inordinate Fondness For Beetle Horns

Image: Sean Stankowski


The iPad Could Make Emergency Calls…So Will It? [Unconfirmed]

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Hunting around in the iPhone/iPad SDK, one developer spotted this option to make an emergency call.

The above was easily achieved by enabled a passcode lock, and then entering it incorrectly about 5 times. You can then slide for a emergency call.

So does this mean the iPad will make emergency calls?

Possibly. There are two schools of thought here, and they both hold some validity.

The skeptic's response is simple, "that's leftover from the iPhone SDK, on which the iPad SDK is based!" It could be.

But, what I might call the more reasoned response, is that the iPads with 3G chips, speakers and mics could (technically) make such calls just fine. Plus, as 9To5Mac points out, FCC regulations mandate that all cellphones must be able to place emergency calls, even when not under subscription.

By offering iPad owners the option to make emergency calls, Apple could be sidestepping any FCC issues while also being generally cool about their device assisting those in emergencies.

Besides, I always knew the iPad was just a big iPhone! [Gumball Tech via 9To5Mac]


Three iPhone science apps | Bad Astronomy

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Three iPhone apps recently came out that pertain to some favorite topics on this blog, so here’s a quick roundup of them.

iphoneapp_skepticalscience

1) John Cook, like me, got tired of hearing the same old long-debunked claims from global warming deniers being used over and over again, so he created an app debunking these claims. Called Skeptical Science, it divides the claims into three categories: It’s not happening, It’s not us, and It’s not bad. Under each heading are quite a few claims I’ve seen made repeatedly by the deniers, and Cook includes detailed rebuttals.

Overall I like this app, and it’s bound to be handy if you find yourself in a situation where someone is using these same claims (it’s the Sun, the hockey stick graph is flawed, Al Gore is boring, and so on). I might quibble with some of the details — for example, it talks about 1934 being the warmest year on record, but doesn’t mention that 1998, the second warmest, trails behind by a statistically insignificant 0.02 degrees. There’s more like that, but this is such a small detail it really comes down to a matter of style; an "I woulda done it different" kind of thing. The content is good and links are provided for further info.

I recommend having this one handy, so here’s the direct download link.

iphoneapp_3dsun2) Next up is a NASA app called 3D Sun. And not to trick you or anything, but it’s an app that displays the Sun in 3D. Put out by the folks behind the STEREO probes, it’s a pretty cool gizmo that reports new sunspots and aurorae, lets you look at movies of solar events like plumes, filaments, and coronal mass ejections, and gives you the latest solar news.

The best thing is the 3D Sun itself. It displays the current solar disk, and you can look at it in different wavelengths (UV shows more violent activity) and from different solar observatories. You can zoom in, out, rotate the view, and pretend you’re on a spaceship roaring past our nearby star.

Now that the Sun is finally starting to show some life again, this app is pretty useful so you know what’s the latest. Here’s the direct download link.

iphoneapp_lunarrover

3) The third app is called Lunar Electric Rover, and it’s also put out by NASA. Of the three, I think this is the weakest. It’s essentially a game where you command a lunar rover to traverse the Moon to get to different goals. Now, to be fair, I’m not really partial to these kinds of games, so if they’re your thing, you may love this. I found it to be a bit slow and tedious, and the narration was stilted and difficult to hear over the background sound effects. But again, I’m not a big fan of the "go over here and do this" kinds of games. I’ll note that after I took my own notes on the app, I went to the iTunes listings and the ratings are not all that great; out of 102 ratings, 130 scored it as average or below and 62 above average or great. Lots of folks thought the same things I did.

However, I do think some younger kids will enjoy this. The graphics are quite good, and there is real information displayed and used in the game that provide lots of teachable moments. Here’s the download link.

So, do you agree, disagree? All three apps are free, so I encourage readers to grab ‘em, play with ‘em, and leave your own comments below!


The Wheel of Stars

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Now here is a great way to relax after a busy day; a music box made using the stars to determine what musical note is played.  The software was created by Jim Bumgardner, and he calls it The Wheel of Stars.

Jim Bumgardner, Wheel of Stars

What Mr. Bumbardner did was map the position of the brightest stars from the data provided by ESA’s satellite Hipparcos, and set them to slowly revolve around Polaris… just as we’d see them from the Earth.  It takes almost 24 hours to complete a full rotation.  As the stars cross 0′ and 180′ (marked by a straight line), a musical note or chime is sounded based on each individual star.  BV measurement determines pitch, magnitude determines volume, and the position on the screen is what the stereo panning is based on.

As each star passes the center line, it flashes – or sparkles, if you will.

The sound is very soothing, and it’s possible to pick out familiar stars, constellations, and asterisms.

Here is Jim’s Wheel of Stars website. It’s lovely, and well worth giving it a listen.

5 Top Places to Travel & Photograph (e-book review)

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post thumbnail

Mountain women transporting goods
Mountain women transporting goods, Photo by Dave

Recently, I was asked to review 5 Top Places to Travel & Photograph by the author. I was exceptionally pleased with what I saw at first glance. But, with each additional page… Well, keeping reading to find out.

About the Author:

This e-book is the work of Dave from The Longest Way Home. It is his creation and one in which he can take great pride. For the past five years, Dave has been the “guy traveling the world in search of home”. Though he hasn’t found “home” quite yet – he has found some amazing places to visit.

For the past five years, Dave has been the “guy traveling the world in search of home”.

5 Top Places to Travel & Photograph
5 Top Places to Travel & Photograph

Special Features:

· All color photographs

· Beautiful full page pullouts

· Designed to be printed out

· Every chapter has a tips page on travel & photography related to that country

· A fully interactive menu for easy navigation

The Review:

I am someone who loves color and B&W photographs equally. I also want things to “pop” off the page at me. The images of this e-book, laid out upon the black background do just that. My eyes were drawn to the content rather than white space. Each photograph also carries a description along with it. Visually, 5 Top Places to Travel & Photograph will stimulate and captivate you with each new page.

One particular aspect I appreciated – the photos a given after the first glance – were the “tip” pages. Not only did they cover photography-related items, but also those for the particular country. As an example: “The Tibet Permit does not cover all of Tibet, so again, research the area you want to travel first!” Each section also has an introduction to the country being featured.

“The Tibet Permit does not cover all of Tibet, so again, research the area you want to travel first!”

This is definitely an e-book for everyone – amateur to professional photographer and those in between who just love traveling.

The Details:

This e-book is available as a free download through The Longest Way Home. Subscribe to the website for the e-book link. The download is ~16.4MB in size.

*Of special note: This e-book is available for A LIMITED TIME ONLY so don’t take too long to check it out.

Editor’s note: This article contains affiliate links.

Mike Mann On Point of Inquiry: “Dishonesty, Dirtiness, and Cynicism” | The Intersection

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There are now over 60 comments at the Point of Inquiry forums on the latest show. So this one has clearly produced a lot of dialogue.

I want to continue to blog about some of the most memorable content–and in this respect, there was nothing like the show’s closing. I asked for Mann’s final words, and boy did I get them. He pointed out that the strength of climate science alone was clearly insufficient to stop the denial movement, and said that we probably should have expected a revival of that movement in the past three months–although even he didn’t expect how low it would go:

Despite all the talk a few years ago about ‘the debate being over’…the forces of anti-scientific disinformation were just lying dormant. But they would be back. And so this didn’t surprise me at all, and in fact, I fully expected that, in advance of the Copenhagen summit, that we would see an increased number of in attacks.

I guess what we all underestimated was the degree, the depth of dishonesty, dirtiness, and cynicism to which the climate change denial movement would be willing to stoop to advance their agenda. That’s the only thing that I think surprised many of us.

You can catch it all at around minute 39-40. Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to listen to the Mike Mann interview here, and to subscribe to the Point of Inquiry podcast via iTunes.


Nokia and Alpine Team Up For Ovi Maps Integration In Cars [Navigation]

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Ovi Maps has been a focal point for Nokia in the last few weeks since they gave it all away for free, so it's not surprising a hardware company wants to use their turn-by-turn navigation for cars.

If you've got an Alpine car system with a dashboard or speakers, then you'll be able to connect your Nokia handset by either Bluetooth or USB, with navigation displayed by Ovi Maps on the dashboard. Navigation updates and music can come through your car's speakers rather than the Nokia's puny little speaker, and even information about the fuel levels and engine health can be integrated into Ovi Maps, so if you're in need of fuel for example, Ovi Maps will tell you where the next petrol station is.

No products have been shown off just yet, but this Terminal Mode will be available on Nokia phones soon apparently—and with well over 3m downloads of the free Ovi Maps, upgrading your car system could prove very tantalizing for some. [Alpine via Engadget via SlashGear]


Run out criterion

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In any rotating machine, let us say a gear box, what is the acceptance criterion on radial and axial run-out on output flange?

It is a low speed gearbox (1000 RPM / 40 RPM), quite large (power transmission 500KW-700KW)

There are good vibration acceptance levels - VDI, DIN.. have them.

Acupuncture for Depression

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One of the basic principles of science-based medicine is that a single study rarely tells us much about any complex topic. Reliable conclusions are derived from an assessment of basic science (i.e prior probability or plausibility) and a pattern of effects across multiple clinical trials. However the mainstream media generally report each study as if it is a breakthrough or the definitive answer to the question at hand. If the many e-mails I receive asking me about such studies are representative, the general public takes a similar approach, perhaps due in part to the media coverage.

I generally do not plan to report on each study that comes out as that would be an endless and ultimately pointless exercise. But occasionally focusing on a specific study is educational, especially if that study is garnering a significant amount of media attention. And so I turn my attention this week to a recent study looking at acupuncture in major depression during pregnancy. The study concludes:

The short acupuncture protocol demonstrated symptom reduction and a response rate comparable to those observed in standard depression treatments of similar length and could be a viable treatment option for depression during pregnancy.

Plausibility

The study compared acupuncture designed specifically to treat depression, and in fact tailored to the individual patient, according to principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This was compared to two control groups – a control acupuncture that was not specific to depression and massage. The comparison to massage was obviously not blinded and therefore, in my opinion, of very little value as depression is highly susceptible to non-specific therapeutic effects and both interventions – acupuncture and massage – would be likely to create such non-specific effects.

The interesting aspect of this study is the comparison between treatment acupuncture (targeted for depression) and control acupuncture (not targeted for depression). The purpose of the study was to control, as much as possible, for any other variables so as to determine if the underlying TCM principles have any validity – does it matter where the needles are placed?

We can really only put this study into context if we first consider the prior probability of this claim. I would argue that there is already a large body of acupuncture research that collectively shows needle placement as a variable has no effect on clinical outcome. This one study does little to alter the balance of that evidence.

Further, from a basic science point of view, the TCM principles have essentially no plausibility. The underlying theory is that there is an undetected life force (chi) that is partly responsible for health and illness, that acupuncture needles placed in specific acupuncture points alters the flow and strength of this energy, resulting in a clinical outcome. Chi has no existence in science, however. Vitalistic philosophies such as chi were discarded over a century ago as both unnecessary and without any empirical foundation.

Any modern attempts to explain acupuncture effects with known physiological phenomena might explain non-specific needling effects, but cannot explain any differences due to needle placement, and do not provide any explanation for the location of alleged acupuncture points.

Therefore, given the extremely low prior probability of the claims of this study, nothing short of a large rigorous and replicated study would alter our assessment of validity of acupuncture as a specific intervention.

The Current Study

This new study, published in the Obstetrics and Gynecology, is not of sufficient quality to justify the conclusions of the authors. The authors did do a decent job of trying to rigorously control the comparison between the two acupuncture groups. Subjects were blinded to which group they were in, as were those evaluating the outcome. Standard depressions scales were used. They even made a reasonable attempt to blind the acupuncturists, using a novel method (to my knowledge).

They had experienced acupuncturists design a treatment and control acupuncture regimen for each subject, and then had a “junior acupuncturist” (less than two years experience) perform the treatment without being told which one they were giving.

This, in my opinion, in the crux of the methodology – were the treating acupuncturists properly blinded. The study authors took the very useful step of assessing the degree of blinding of the acupuncturists and the subjects. Unfortunately for the validity of the study, they found that the treating acupuncturists were significantly more likely to have positive expectations for the treatment group than the control group – so their blinding methods failed with respect to the treating acupuncturists. The study was therefore, at best, single blinded. Test subjects did not have any significant difference in expectations.

Because depression is so amenable to non-specific therapeutic effects, the expectations of the treating acupuncturist can plausibly have had a significant effect on the final outcomes. This is the primary weakness of the study – but there are other worth mentioning.

The author also, for some reason, did not stratify the test subject according to race, and there turned out to be significantly more African Americans in the control acupuncture group than the treatment group. Cultural beliefs can have a significant effect on responses to different kinds of placebos, particularly needles. This is therefore a potential, if unknown, confounder.

The results were also not impressive. The study used the Hamilton Rating Scale for depression:

Interpretation of Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores is as follows: less than 7, nondepressed; 8–13, mild depression; 14–18, moderate depression; 19–22, severe depression; more than 23, very severe depression.

At 8 weeks the control acupuncture groups has about a 9 point drop in the scale, while the treatment acupuncture group dropped 11.5 points. On this scale that is a modest clinical effect. There was also no difference in remission rates among the three groups. In addition this was a relatively small study (141 treated in total, divided among the three groups) with a 23% drop out rate.

Conclusion

Therefore we have a small and improperly blinded and randomized study showing a modest clinical effect. This does not significantly alter the low prior probability of a treatment effect from needle placement.

This study should also be considered in the context of other trials looking at acupuncture and depression. This very recent Cochrane review concluded:

We found insufficient evidence to recommend the use of acupuncture for people with depression. The results are limited by the high risk of bias in the majority of trials meeting inclusion criteria.

Specifically – there was no difference between verum acupuncture and sham acupuncture in the clinical trials reviewed.

Given the low plausibility and overall negative character of the clinical evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that no further research into acupuncture for any indication is warranted. However, acupuncture is a modality with dedicated practitioners (acupuncturists) and proponents (by contrast, for example, there is no medical specialty dedicated to a particular drug – there are no penicillinists). And therefore it is likely that further research will be conducted.

In that event, given existing research, it would be useful to conduct only highly rigorous trials, using sham and/or placebo acupuncture (where the needle or fake needle does not penetrate the skin) with adequate blinding. Such trials would need to be large with consistent replicated positive results in order to have sufficient weight to overturn the current mass of basic and clinical evidence.


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Measurement Error

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This is a take-off from the discussions in the Weight Lifter Challenge blog, but I'd like to start a discussion devoted to a practical way to understand measurement error. I think I generally understand the subject, but I can't explain it clearly and sometimes I don't know which way to use it. So, l

Verizon Customers Are Amidst a Nationwide Data Blackout [Verizon]

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If you're a Verizon customer and your phone isn't connecting to data this morning, it's not just you. Verizon has confirmed that its data is down across the nation, though apparently NY is doing just fine. UPDATE

Your make/model of phone has nothing to do with the problem, as everything from Blackberries to Droids are equally affected by the outage. Those old fashioned phone calls, however, still work just fine. [Crackberry and DroidForums via Engadget]

UPDATE: According to Verizon, the outage is over. On their Twitter account, Verizon also clarified that, despite earlier reports, this was an issue in the eastern US.