My walls are empty again. The last time they were empty it was my first week in Durham, I didn't know what I was getting into and I wondered if I'd made a big mistake. Turns out I was wrong.

For your viewing enjoyment

"I PRAY THAT I CAN HELP PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN OF MODERN TIMES AS THE PRESIDENT WHO BROUGHT PEACE TO THE WORLD BY PREVENTING A WORLD CIVIL WAR"

Dr. Jack Shepard (reprinted in all caps as presented for even greater comic effect)

Another quality candidate brought to you by the moral clarity party (gotta love fringe candidates):

"PROSECUTOR LOCATES INTERNATIONAL FUGITIVE ... ON CONGRESSIONAL BALLOT. In 2002, little-known candidate Jack E. Shepard lost to Norm Coleman in Minnesota's GOP primary for US Senate by a lopsided 94% to 6% vote. In fact, few people paid any attention to Shepard then. This year -- filing again from an address in Italy -- Shepard is running for Congress in CD-4. He even posted a website with lots of old pictures (including one from his old USAF identification card), his birth date, full name, and more. That's when his troubles began. Based upon the info on his site, Hennepin County Prosecutor Amy Klobuchar now says her office believes that candidate Shepard is the same Jack E. Shepard who fled 22 years ago to avoid trial on a felony arson charge. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Klobuchar said that Shepard is a former dentist who was previously convicted of criminal sexual conduct and drug possession. "We will only be certain after he is located and fingerprints can be taken. But, based on the pictures and other evidence we have, we believe he is the person," she said. Hennepin County District Court records show Shepard was also charged with making terrorist threats and illegally possessing a gun after a felony conviction, but these were not resolved at the time he fled. Klobuchar's office has since asked the FBI to locate Shepard in Italy so he can he arrested and extradited to the US for trial. In response to an email inquiry from the newspaper, Shepard provided some strange answer that " Jack Shepard is his legal name, but not his real name" and that "it is a felony to expose the identity of a clandestine CIA agent." Klobuchar said she wants to arrest and extradite Shepard because his two candidacies were an "in-your-face" challenge to the legal system."

From politics1

Perhaps the funniest thing I've seen since the hey days of "The Cow Bell". Man Will Ferrel is awesome!

For more fun clips check this out.

Also the last couple days have made for some interesting revelations about the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth".

Check out the Times article here which tracks the development of this group (if you need a login try username:bugsmack password:bugsmack)

And the Post article here.

Hardcore Sports Action

I love being in Britian. While watching the olympics during lunch I saw perhaps the most hilarious thing I've ever seen in my life. Anyone who's ever watched a major sporting evens is probably familiar with the Ultra-cool intros that networks show before a match. We see our sports heros in various poses and performing a variety of astounding feats of grace and athleticism that most of us could only dream of accomplishing, all to the background music of the lastest rock, rap, or pop anthem. Now picture one of these for...Olympic Badminton. Seriously though, gotta love the British patriotism.

If I were President...

well at dinner last night Ed asked me, "So what would you do differently if you were elected President in November" I came up with a few ideas, but here a few more of some of the more important policy initiatives I'd look at representing the issues most important to me personally...this is by no means exhaustive and may be added to or changed later...

Job One

Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Bush and his administration for the unconstitutional and illegal detainment of US and foreign citizens, widespread inhumane abuse of US detainees and corruption in dealing with corporate leaders

Foreign Relations

Mend bridges with strategic allies

-Prosecute all currently held enemy combatants and terror suspects either in the International Court of Justice or US courts

-Reconvene a conference on controlling carbon emissions world-wide (Kyoto II)
and come to some sort of agreement.

Embark on a ?Mission for Peace? in which I would invite the leaders of strategic allied nations (G8) or their surrogates to personally join me in:

-investigating the situation in East Darfur, meet with the leaders of Sudan and decide what further action is needed

-meeting with Saddam Hussein wherever he?s being held

-meeting with the leaders of Iran

-meeting with Ariel Sharon of Isreal and various Palestinian leaders

-meeting with Kim Jong Il of North Korea

Propose gradual increases in Foreign Aid spending to meet the US commitment to Foreign Aid (0.7% of GDP) by the end of my first term

Forgive all debts of ?developing? nations

Increase financial support towards the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, tuberculosis, and other epidemic diseases in the third world.

Anything else needed to help further the UN Millennium Development Goals

Education

Meet with the National Governor?s Association to implement education reform focusing on more equitable distribution of educational resources within a state and the development of resources in rural and urban areas (this is essential a State issue so real reform has to start there)

Implement the John Edwards ?College for Everyone Plan? (increasing federal aid grants for college and paying for tuition in exchange for community service by students amongst other things)

Environment

New Kyoto Agreement (see above)

Federal Gas tax to be put towards developing alternative fuels

Increase fines and liability of corporations who pollute

Reassess clean air and water standards

Economy and Trade

Balance the Budget:

-Roll back tax cuts for the Wealthiest 2% of Americans.

-Aggressively attack tax loopholes especially those for corporations.

-Propose a constitutional amendment for a line-item veto. Alternately give the Cabinet Secretaries greater budgetary control over ?pork? spending items.

Pursue Free and Fair Trade, tie human rights conditionality to future trade agreements and unilaterally lower US tariffs on foreign commodities

Increase the oversight of corporate taxes including increasing audits and double the staff of the DOJ antitrust division

Defense

Rename the Department and Secretary of Homeland Security the Department and Secretary of Defense respectively

Rename the Department and Secretary of Defense the Department and Secretary of War respectively

Give greater power to the Director of the CIA and the Secretary of State on intelligence budgeting

Expand defense spending in areas of intelligence, special ops, and research & development.

Expand and/or retrain US forces to place greater emphasis on military police and civil affairs to help with peacekeeping in Iraq, work towards a gradual disengagement from Iraq and increasing the support of international allies

Investigate instances of reported torture and sexual abuse by military personnel against both prisoners and fellow personnel and put in place reforms to the military to ensure that it is intolerable in the future

Domestic Issues

Reform Social Security, introducing a graduated system over the next 25 years or so increasing the age of retirement and lower the amount received

Introduce a Healthcare plan to ensure every American has health insurance or reasonable access to healthcare, starting with children and ensuring that they all have coverage within my first year in office

Reform the Welfare system to fully fund the job-training and education requirements of the new system

Reform the Patriot Act to increase oversight of the DOJ

Introduce ?Pro-Life? initiatives: increase assistance available to single women who are pregnant and single parents, give tax incentives for mothers to keep their children or choose adoption over abortion, and other such initiatives. It's a woman's right to her privacy but the decision to choose life should be made infinately easier

Tort reform to make suing attorney responsible for accused individuals legal expenses if they are found not-guilty

Reform of the AMA to decrease their discretion of medical standards, increase their oversight of doctors, and encourage reform and innovation in medical education in the US

Constitutional amendment banning capital punishment, or some other way of getting rid of it

Yesterday was really good in a strange way...

I Met with my supervisor yesterday which was a boost of confidence about my dissertation. I'm slightly behind where I wanted to be but he didn't seem to think that was a big deal and I'm way ahead of where most people from my program I've talked to seem to be. He said my structure sounds good but suggested a couple changes (which I won't really go into since its kinda boring if you're not me) and said that I sound like I know what I'm talking about when we talk and that I'm not one of the supervisees he's worried about. I also looked over an old disertation of one of his former supervisees and it was structuraly very similar to mine which was a boost but it had like twice as many sources and citations as mine which inspried me to go to the library to boost my research a bit. Before the Library I stopped by The Picnic Basket for the first time since I've returned to Durham, man was it great!

At the Library I bumped into (well actually they ran and yelled my name) Paul and Finn and we sat and had a chat for a while and later Amy who was also randomly coming to the library stopped by too (I always like when I unexpectedly bump into people I like, it just makes a day that much better). After we finshed brainstorming songs for Paul's upcoming (this weekend) wedding we got on with what we all were doing. I tried to check out some books but found out one is in the other library (which was closed by that point besides my being scared of it) and that I also have more than five pounds in fines and so could not check out books until that was paid (I was over by 30p), which I couldn't do until today because it was after five. I soldiered on and made it to the College House Committee meeting where I explained my resignation as Treasurer (because I'm coming home til January), and talked to the new guy filling my place. After that Ed and I grabbed a bite at the City Inn where we talked about the upcoming election which was interesting as Ed is a "Liberal Republican" and I had Pepsi for the first time in forever. Then I came back, bugged Ed with questions about Arabic for which he's studying for an exam tomorrow and chatted online a bit, did some reading, and called it a night. I don't know why it seemed like such a good day, I guess I just felt productive and busy (breaking the eat, read, swim, read, eat, write, eat, walk, write, watch tv/ read, sleep, repeat cycle is always good).

Today I went swimming much later than normal and found out that at 12:30 its adult swim only. They put in lane lines and stuff and there was a couple people there that were doing a pretty serious workout which made me pick up my pace a bit and not having to dodge kids made me stay longer (not that I don't love kids its just hard to get into a workout when you gotta worry about dodging them all the time, sometime I just do butterfly and scare them out of the way, but I can only do so much butterfly), now I feely achy but all muscly so I might change up my schedule a bit, the fact that there was a couple cute chicks one of whom I overheard say she comes at that time most days makes the decision that much easier.

A cheater's confession

Unbeknownst to most of you, I have been involved in a long-term, serious, yet on-again-off-again relationship for most of the time I've been in college. I may have even flaunted my clandestine affair right in front of your eyes and you were none the wiser. While I knew this person for a while before we began our romance it wasn't until the summer after my first year of college after I went through major surgury and they were there to help me in months following that anything truly blossomed. I have even been "involved" with this affair at the same time I was involved with another. No one is more disappointed than I that I could be so weak, so cruel, and so unfair to someone that thought me true. Recently while home I recommitted to my romance, after close to a year out of touch. However as they say, "Once a cheater, always a cheater" and now that I'm back in the UK I have once again been drawn to another. As much joy as I get out my new relationship, I feel guilty to both parties. To my love here I feel guilty because if I'm honest with myself I was only initially attracted to them because they are so similar to my love back home, and furthermore I have every intention of continuing that relationship when I get back in a month. To my love back home I feel guilty because again, if I'm honest with myself, while they have been there for me longer, I enjoy my new love even more. So there it is, my confession. I hope that "Quaker instant oatmeal with maple syrup and brown sugar" can forgive me for being untrue with "Quaker Oatsosimple with Golden Syrup" which was honestly the closest thing I could find and I truly do enjoy it more. I guess first I'll have to learn to forgive myself. Oh and if you thought I was talking about a woman, thanks for the vote of confidence that I could be that interesting.Ok, so this is what happens when I read the news BEFORE eating breakfast, I have to come up with something else to do to kill twenty minutes before I can go swimming, and this was the most interesting way I could think of to tell you about my breakfast which is good...milk is better here too I think.

Yes, THE DAN GILLIGAN

The most entertaining exchange of my trip home.

While working at the Edwards' homestead, having just helped a up-to-now-nameless-to-me fellow worker do something;

Me (extending hand): I'm Dan by the way.
Him (taking said hand): I'm Lee, Dan what?
Me: Dan Gilligan
Fellow worker now known as Lee (in shocked recognition): THE DAN GILLIGAN?!?
Me: uhh...(thinking goodness what's this guy heard about me)
Lee: Danielgilligan.com Dan Gilligan?
Me: Yeah (thinking yes, my site is just that popular and I don't even realize)
Lee: [Girl who will remain anonymous]'s Dan Gilligan?
TheDANGILLIGAN: I guess so...
Lee: Oh, ok.

Apparently I'm not as famous as I'd feared.

One of the many things that's always bothered me in news media is reporting on polling. Yeah I'm not going to try and be someone who claims I don't like keeping up on who's up and who's down and how events change public opinion, however it does bother me when this is all the reporting that's going on or the only thing that people read at the expense of issue oriented material. That aside what really bothers me about reporting on polls is that people, both readers and reporters/pundits, nearly universally misinterpret "margin of error", I'll admit I only took a few statistics classes and they are hazy at best but even I recall that a "margin of error" does not mean that say two candidates in a poll could be plus or minus the margin of error points of where the poll says they are.

However I'm not a Statistician so I find it difficult to explain to people what it does mean, however here (scroll down to Correspondents? Corner) is someone that teaches statistics explanation:

"Todd Gitlin's statement that given the +/-4 % margin of error in the Time poll, Bush and Kerry could be in a virtual tie, shows how little the concept is understood even by media literate folks. Margin of error is another term for 'confidence limits' which are the bounds that one is 95% certain (the most common benchmark) that the estimated value lies. So the Times pollsters are 95% certain that Kerry's actual figure is between 44% and 52%, while Bush's 95% likely to be between 39% and 47%.

This is similar to an exercise I used to give to my statistics class: given these figures, what is the probability that the two men are tied? You need a table of z scores to solve this, but in this case +/-4% implies a z-score of 1.65, so there is a SD of 2.42%. So for Kerry and Bush to be tied at say 45.5% (halfway between the two) that would be equivalent to a z-score of 1.03 for each, which corresponds to a probability (in the tails) for EACH man of 0.152 (15%).

Now, of course joint probabilities are multiplicative (still with me?) so the probability that Bush and Kerry are tied at 45.5% is 0.023 (2.3%). And that's actually the best case scenario for Bush. The probability that they are both tied at either 44% (worst Kerry scenario) or 47% (best Bush scenario) is 0.016 (1.6%). Now you know why most people in the media never bother to discuss this (because most don't understand it), and instead pretend that there still could be a horse race. " -Brian Gygi, Oakland, CA

So there, next time someone talks about a polls margin of error and tries to claim that it could still be a tie because the candidates could be plus or minus four points of where the poll says: LAUGH IN THEIR FACE!

Also John McCain agrees with me that the President should be condemning the "Swiftboat Veterans Against Kerry".

Now new "more free" Iraq! I guess due process and freedom of the press aren't the "big freedoms" anyways. As long as there's still freedom from corporate tax everything's ok.

And just another example of the right's strangle hold on the truth.

For someone who likes "simple yes or no answers" W sure does know down to use those simple statements to paint a very gray picutre.

And just for those of you who want to claim "This isn't GWB making these accusations its an independent group", that's fine. But if President Bush is to honestly make the statement,

"I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn't, is because there are a lot of really fine people who have served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq." -Pres Bush in an interview with Tim Russert of NBC

In regards to his own guard service for which there are conflicting reports, should he not now step forward and make the same statement about the US Navy and John Kerry's service in it?

I've always felt that honesty is central to being a moral person. I have to say that despite whatever else is said about President Bush, whenever it's mentioned that he has had the moral fortitude necessary to face our enemies in these troubled times I think back to President Bushs honesty.

So apparently the Bush crew is so desparate to scare the public into voting them that their convieniently timed "terror alerts" are outing moles in Al Queda...but really, "America is safer!".

How prepared are you?

It is perhaps the best case for why voting for GWB is such a horrible idea...of course those still voting for him live in happy lands where the truth, fact, and what's actually going on in the US and the world have no real bearing, but for those of you that live in the real world its an enjoyable read and a well put together column.

In response to Nats post from the other day I composed a list of 21 things I'm looking for in a future wife...

1.Political and progressive, will engage me and our children in discourse
2.Participates in something greater than herself
3.Has a varied and eclectic musical taste some of which will be new to me and I?ll love and some of which I will hate
4.Likes movies, by this I mean shuts up and watches them when were watching them and doesn?t have to have major plot points explained to her, and able to explain minor points that I miss would be a plus
5.Well read, whatever that means to her
6. Never would bother saying, "I'm a woman and that's just the way we are" or somesuch as a reason for something;
7. Believes in me even when I don't
8. Ambitious, whatever that ambition may be
9. Not always able to express herself well
10. Able to make me conversive
11. Loves children
12. Doesn?t mind my corniness, in fact if she reveled in it that would be perfect
13. Appreciates my ?particular sense of humor?
14. A British, Irish, Spanish, Italian or non-twangy southern accent wouldn?t hurt
15. Will challenge what I don?t like about me and indulge what I do
16. Knows how to drive
17. Likes swimming
18. Organized, and doesn't mind keeping me so
19. Wants to travel
20. Good cook
21.Spiritual without thinking she has all the answers; patriotic without thinking that means blind submission?blind submission in other situations would not be a bad thing though.

22 would be that she has a vast trivia knowledge that rivals and complements my own, I think Physical Sciences is my biggest weak point.

Ladies if you or any of your friends fit this bill you know how to reach me.

My recent slackness has inspired me to write a post about being a person of few words vs. people who talk for the sake of talking. However that's to come later. Over the last month I've been home in Cocoa/Raleigh and it went by so fast that its hard to believe how long its been since I posted. People who have asked me how it was back home already, I'll appologize as I will now post my stock response to that question. When I was home for Christmas I had only been gone a couple months, I was making new friends in Durham, and it was still all very new and exciting to be away from home. This time when I was home I realized there was a lot more to miss about Raleigh in particular. Mainly my family and friends, but things like being involved in a campaign, food with taste, not paying a fortune for everything, driving, and while there was less of them than I thought, some television shows. Mainly I just missed the familiarity of everything. It's like finding an old favorite shirt that you thought you'd lost in the back of your closet or a drawer you never use. Perhaps you had forgotten what you like about it or even that it was lost at all but when you put it on you remember, its comfortable and it fits a certain way and it just makes you feel good. That's Raleigh.

I had a nice couple days staying with my cousin Paul and his family, they are what I hope my future "domestic bliss" is like. I also decided I should recommit myself to working on my golf swing. On my return to Durham I found some people missing, not having the El-Dog on my hall is particuarly depressing as things are much quiter. I also will no longer be able to annoy Deirdre by calling her "Deeds" which I maintain she said I could when I first tried it. The Fishers are also gone to pursue other pastures. All in all things just weren't the same at the ole Swan last night although I'm just happy to get to see those that I have once again. My acceptance letter for my PhD was sitting in my mailbox when I returned. I thought it was a rent bill and almost didn't open it. After consulting with my supervisor though I think I'm going to delay my start till January so I can go home and work on the campaign, he aggreed its an oppurtunity I shouldn't pass up. If you talk to me and I don't seem all that excited about it, don't buy it, I'm not the most expressive person with my emotions and excitement is one I particuarly stuggle with. Usually if I mention something, it means I'm excited about it.