Science Guide

Here's what I wrote while I was watching the US Open quarterfinal match between Djokovic and Roddick and when I flipped to the RNC:

The Republicans are a really big propaganda machine.  They've got all these cheesy images behind the speakers.  They also shout USA at inappropriate and awkward times.  McCain (something like this): "I know many of you are going through hard times and you're worried about your job or finding your job.  Crowd:  "USA!  USA!  USA!"

McCain says "Warshington."

Why is McCain complaining about pork barrel spending?  The war costs way more money than any pork barrel spending.  And no one is dying with the domestic spending.

McCain is still going on about big spending.  Hypocrite.  Just threw in a "culture of life" so that he could be an even bigger hypocrite.  If you want a culture of life, you can't go starting wars and invading countries and putting your armed forces in danger and allowing tens? hundreds? of thousands of civilians to be killed.  And you can't support the death penalty.

And why are the Republicans so against judges who legislate from the bench?  When the judges legislate in their favor, they have no problems with that.

Again, reason has been thrown out the door.

McCain looks really nervous.  According to http://twitter.com/Slate, it's sprawling and disjointed.  It looks sprawling and disjointed to me because I'm only checking in occasionally and mostly watching the tennis match.  But apparently, even when you watch the whole thing, it's sprawling and disjointed.

Ouch... "Let's help bad teachers find another line of work."  Unfortunately, many good teachers look bad by the measures they use.  Mark says: And isn't there a teacher shortage?

McCain can't read from a teleprompter.  I'm only tuning in occasionally and he keeps flubbing his reading.

Uh oh, now Roddick is hitting a lot of double faults.  Two in a row and now Djokovic has a break point to save the 4th set.  Djokovic just broke back.  Djokovic is really good at lobbing.

Huh?  He's saying that he wants to keep US families from getting involved in wars so that they don't have to endure the suffering and loss that his family and friends have.  That makes no sense.  And no, it's not because it's Djokovic or Roddick saying it.  That's what McCain says.  We're in a war now.  And McCain wants it to go on.

The crowd (US Open) is excited.  The 4th set is going into a tiebreaker.  I'm rooting for Roddick here and once they get to the 5th set, all bets are off.  Still on serve in the tiebreaker.

Wow, Djokovic is a wall with his defense.  It's now 6-5 in the tie breaker, match point for Djokovic.  Djokovic serving.  That's it, that's the match.  Djokovic moves on.

Crowd (RNC) is still yelling USA back at the convention.

Oops.  Apparently Djokovic said something controversial and the crowd booed and I don't know what he said.  I didn't get anything good at the convention - only USA!  USA!  Stupid!  And I missed what Djokovic said.  It might be that he's bitter that the crowd isn't supporting him.

And that's the end of the excitement of the evening.

Here's some other assorted stuff:

• "Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans."  For more info, here's the full article.
• I didn't see it, but apparently during Giuliani's speech, the crowd at the RNC started chanting "Drill, baby, Drill!"  I will cry myself to sleep tonight.
• I love twin studies.  Sometimes I hope I can have twins of my own so that I can run my own twin studies.  (Not seriously, but it's still interesting to think about it.)  Now there are "virtual twin" studies. These are genetically unrelated children that are raised like twins (through multiple adoptions, adoption + pregancy).  So they're the opposite of twins raised separately - same nurture, different nature.  It's not exactly a clean situation - the parents aren't exactly "blind" in these case s- they know the kids are genetically different, and the parents may be related to one but not the other.  But still, it's interesting.
• Last but not least, the thesis is submitted!  I feel an odd mix of elation and anti-climacticness.  Maybe because it has taken over 3 months between walking and getting hooded, giving my thesis seminar, and finally finishing the dissertation.  Yay?  Again?
• I did a good job working during the day and only checking blogs after dinner.

[caption id="attachment_382" align="aligncenter" width="351" caption="When I read blogs as of 7/24/08, pre-thesis"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_383" align="aligncenter" width="348" caption="When I read blogs as of 9/4/08, post-thesis"][/caption]