July’s Critical Mass got a bit nasty in a couple cities last month. In Seattle, a driver who was “corked in” (ie, blocked) by bikers as the Critical Mass streamed past, got frustrated and drove forward plowing into several cyclists. One cyclist got his leg run over and another ended up on the hood of the car as the driver attempted to drive off. Thankfully, no serious injuries seem to have occurred. The news reports up there seem to be getting the facts wrong which isn’t a surprise.

During the NY Critical Mass a rookie cop charged a biker on foot, slamming the cyclist off the bike and onto the sidewalk — this incident was caught on video. It is unclear if there was any previous provocation for the action, but it certainly seemed in the very least to be excessive use of force, if not downright assault. There is a bit of justice in this instance: as of this writing, the cop has been stripped of his badge and gun and is doing desk work while the action undergoes investigation.

Peddlya Haters

The blogging of both of these incidents on Checksum Arcanius, Gothamist, and Boing Boing has brought out the Critical Mass and cyclist haters:

• “Like many (most?) urban pedestrians, I have little sympathy for Critical Mass thugs.”
• “this mob is out of control”
• “I say it again (as ignorant as it sounds), the cop should get a medal. Good for him.”
• “As an avid road cyclist I have big problems with things like ‘Critical Mass.’ What they do is extremely unsafe and gives responsible cyclist a bad name.”

The last quote makes me recall the June Critical Mass here in SF, where there was one corked in car with two fancy carbon road bikes on the roof rack. The passenger of said vehicle, who obviously was driving somewhere outside the city to ride their bike, proceeded to furiously yell insults out the window at all the Critical Mass cyclists — massive cyclist culture difference.

Of course, some of these commenters are just semi-professional trolls, and there was also a decent share of people who support the rides. I see these supporters on the comment threads and out during the Critical Mass events themselves, happily waving at us as they remain stuck in their cars. However there are also a good number of people who hate the rides and hate any cyclist who “breaks the law.”

Who’s Breaking the Law Now?

Car drivers break the law all the time, as do pedestrians, but they do it in different ways: drivers speed, drive recklessly, roll through stop signs and more; pedestrians jay walk. Everyone breaks the rules here and there when they feel that the risk is lower than the reward; and for cyclists going through red lights and stop signs is less of a risk than it is for cars. The WashCycle blog wrote an excellent article called The Myth of the Scofflaw Cyclist, which does an excellent job discussing this very topic, so I won’t be going into it more myself.

Reclaiming Streets For Fun

Culturally, Critical Mass is an interesting issue. As much as many Critical Mass riders claim it’s a pro-city-cyclist political act, it is also frankly just a way for a whole lot of cyclists to get together and have fun once a month. In many ways, it shares a relationship to the Running of the Bulls, Carnival, New Orleans Running of the Roller Girls, Songkran, and any other traditional or nontraditional roaming street festival. Like Critical Mass, all these events are all reclaiming the city streets for fun and enjoyment rather than the hoo hum of business and the daily grind.

I’m sure that many of the same people who bash Critical Mass in the Boing Boing comment thread would call other moving street festivals “AWESOME!” It’s all a matter of perspective: for them, as long as your fun doesn’t get in their way it’s great. In reality, most of these drivers stuck corked in have lost maybe 10-15 minutes of their day.

For all of the above reasons, whenever I am talking to a frustrated stuck driver in the middle of the CriticalMass, I don’t tell them “we are traffic” or get abrasive. I just tell them to think of it as a parade; a bicycle parade that happens on the last Friday of every month. Frankly, I think it’s a better way for Critical Mass riders to frame it for themselves as well. When your out there, don’t think of yourselves as political rabble-rousers, but as a leaderless parade celebrating the joy that these city streets can bring.

So Hillary has endeavored to continue on in her quest for the presidency even though it’s turned from an up hill battle to a up cliff battle. Frankly, I’m alright with that as long as she quiets the negative rhetoric and “he’ll only get the black voters” bullshit. She does still speak for some people: mostly people over 65 and anyone who’s looking for a more hardline version of universal healthcare.

Also, her continuing on does have some benefit for Obama. Even if she were to bow out now, West Virginia and Kentucky would probably be a win for her due to:

• Graying population (WV: 15.3% are over 65; National Avg: 12.4%)
• A lot of “I remember the good old days of good unionized factory jobs” type democrats with lower education levels (WV: 14.8% have a bachelors degree or higher ; National Avg: 24.4%)
• She has Methodist roots (WV 10% of the population) and does well with Catholics (WV 8% of the population)
• And lastly there’s also the potential issue of racism

In any case, if he lost those states to someone who was out of the race, it won’t look good for Obama from a publicity standpoint. With Clinton still in the race it’s less of an publicity issue, and even with those loses the math is strongly tilted in his favor, and he’s strongly lined up to win Oregon anyway.

Matt Gonzalez released an op-ed yesterday in BeyondChron. He points out some decent points. But I’m confused why he targeted Obama rather than Hillary (or maybe both). According to the National Journal, Obama has a more liberal record.

Obama’s not the perfect progressive liberal candidate, but Gonzalez himself is an example of the fact that a progressive liberal can’t even win — even in the San Francisco mayoral race. Frankly, my first choice in this race was for Edwards, but I’m happy with my vote for Obama.

Now with him announced as the VP running mate for Nader, his rational for this whole article makes a whole lot more sense. Nader’s campaign for president has never been about winning isn’t been about yelling “your not liberal enough!” which basically sums up Gonzalez’s article about Obama.

As a progressive liberal myself, I think these things should be said, and I applaud everyone who critiques the records of all the candidates. I’m happy to see anyone write good criticism of Obama or Clinton. However in a presidential race that looks to be close, running as an unwinnable leftist third party just to say these things is irresponsible. Nader himself proved this in 2000. As much as Gore was a pandering sycophant to the center during his campaign, Bush has turned out to be a tragedy for the interests of liberals.

The Nader candidacy may be fairly irrelevant in this upcoming election, but if getting out of Iraq is in any way important to your liberal values then every vote god damn counts against John “100 years” McCain.

Critiquing the Diatribe

Seeing now Gonzalez’s motivation for writing the article it should be obvious that it probably contains some hyperbole. I don’t have time to deconstruct it completely but I’ll take a crack at some of it.

1. The War in Iraq – Obama’s public stance here leans more towards a quick exit, but his votes have been less hardline. It would be great if he was otherwise, but the political climate has not been flavorful for hardline tactics like cutting off funds to the troops. Still he’s better than Clinton on this issue and obviously better than McCain.
2. Connection with Joe Lieberman – As much as I can’t stand Joe, Obama’s connection with him doesn’t worry me too much. Lieberman was his mentor when Obama became a Senator. I’ve heard that as a junior senator you’re basically assigned a mentor. Anyways, it’s not a surprise that he campaigned for his mentor.
3. Class Action Reform – I don’t have a lot to say here. Gonzalez may have a point but I’d like to see more of Obama’s voting recond on this issue.
4. Credit Card Interest Rates – Obama had a problem with this bill and I don’t know what it was, but neither does Gonzalez. Voting against it may or may not have not been a good vote but I believe Obama is in support of credit card customer considering his promotion of the Credit Card Safety Star Act and his policy of a Credit Card Bill of Rights. The fact the Gonzalos ignored these other measures is disingenuous.
5. Limiting Non-Economic Damages – Again Gonzalez may have a point here, but considering that this article already has a few holes I’d like to review Obama’s other votes on this issue.
6. Reform of Mining Law of 1872 – As this One Good Move commenter mentioned While Obama has stated his stance against the bill it hasn’t come up to vote yet. Still it seems like a decent bill that Obama should vote for so Gonzalez has a bit of point here.
7. Regulating Nuclear Industry – I’ve read about this issue before and it seems like the classic example of a bill getting weakened to death in the legislative process. The fact that Obama used this as a example of accomplishment is disingenuous. Point to Gonzalez here, though this topic isn’t a big issue for me.
8. Energy Policy – Another point to Gonzalez, ethanol is a waste and whomever is scientifically advising Obama on this is ignorant.
9. Single Payer Health Care – I am more supportive of a single payer system like Edward’s plan. I kinda doubt we could ever get there, and I bet Obama does too which is why he’s offered his compromise plan. I kinda don’t like that Obama has compromised this early in the game, before even getting elected, but I understand his reasoning. Also, again his plan is better than McCain’s which is basically just deregulation and tax credits. A good review of the different stances can be found in this NPR Report.
10. NAFTA – Again I don’t know Obama’s complete voting record details on this issue. I don’t completely trust Gonzalez’s summary. Obama has to be better than McCain on this issue.
11. Gonzalez’s other examples – most of his other points are decent though I never really supported the impeachment issue. I may want Bush and Cheney out but I never saw a concrete impeachable offense. The lists of reasons to impeach read more like reasons to despise them and vote them out. The war was sold using using propaganda and lies, it was wrong, unjust and possibly against international law, but none of those are impeachable offenses. The Plame scandal was the closest we got to an impeachment level offense, but there never was good enough evidence.

Gonzalez ended his article with this:

“I remain impressed by the enthusiasm generated by Obama‚Äôs style and skill as an orator. But I remain more loyal to my values, and I‚Äôm glad to say that I want no part in the Obama craze sweeping our country.”

Gonzalez if you were loyal to your values, you and Nader would sit this one out and just yell from the sidelines. As a bee in the ring, you’ll do nothing more than make Obama falter and possibly give McCain the win. And if that happens you and all the others who share your progressive views lose.

Somebody with more programming chops and time than I have needs to create a real time twitter voting tracker!

Bryan Person smartly set up a ivoted twitter account. You don’t have to add him just twitter @ivoted (adding who you voted for is optional) and he’ll get the replies. Sadly he didn’t take it that one extra genius step and create a graphing tracker.

Ideally this graphing tracker would show @ivoted replies (and maybe “I voted” search totals) charted by time and with candidate totals for ivoted posts that mention a candidate.

Until some code monkey warrior takes up this challenge, you can watch the replies yourself in real time using a tweetscan search for ivoted or a tweetscan search for “i voted”.

Also Bryan has mentioned that he will publish the results on his blog, The Bryper Blog.

p.s. I also highly recommend Politweets, the well designed political twitter aggregator.

p.p.s. You can follow the actual results along with watch twitter feeds via the Google Super Tuesday Map or add the election results gadget to your blog, or read up on the news at Google’s Elections section. (tip thanks to Laughing Squid)

CatCubed, and by this I mean me, is officially endorsing Obama. I have a bunch of reasons for this, but really Andrew Sullivan says it better and more succulently than I can: Don‚Äôt screw up, Democrats, Barack Obama is your man. Yes Andrew Sullivan of all people. Like Hitchens and other pro-war libertarians, I sooooo don’t agree with him on a lot of issues, but he’s an excellent writer. And the article I links to is really good.

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Typically, I have a vote salon to go over the confusing CA and SF props with friends prior to the election — every year I learn to hate these props more and more. However, there are happily not that many of them this year, so it’s not as necessary. In any case, I’ve released my own endorsements for the props behind the cut, so if you’re interested click read more.

[...]

Recent stem cell advancements have been been exploding across the headlines. If you somehow missed these headlines, the bulk of it is “researchers have figured out how to reprogram adult cell into a state that is nearly indistinguishable from embryonic, pluripotent stem cells.”

Unlike some science stories in the news this isn’t pure hype; it is truly important and has been tested by multiple labs. However, like normal, the media reports are mostly lacking in details and full of loud pronouncements about how this tolls the end of the culture wars and how using embryonic stem cells is now “old-fashioned.”

Like always the truth is more complex. And of course the fabulous ScienceBlogs lays it all out where the media falls flat. PZ Myers, of Pharyngula offers an excellent explanation of the research and it’s implications entitled Stem Cell Breakthrough. Also, the Denialism Blog has a great post about it entitled, Reprogramming adult cells into pluripotent stem cells – what do these new results mean. The blog Framing Science wrote two posts detailing how this is going to effect the future of the stem cell debate: The Next Stage in the Stem Cell Debate Begins! and THE DISCOVERY: What It Means for Framing & News Coverage.

I highly recommend you read these excellent articles, but for those of you who are too busy I offer a few important bullet points:

• “Americans did not make this discovery; Japanese researchers did. It required understanding of gene expression in embryonic stem cells, an understanding that was hampered in our country. ” (PZ Myers)
• This discovery is truly important and has been tested by multiple labs.
• “What the investigators have accomplished is to discover the reset button for the cell, but the way they currently press it is by hitting it hard with a ball peen hammer.” (PZ Myers)
• This new method is still somewhat crude and this means that the cells cannot be used for theraputic purposes as these cells have a higher chance of becoming cancerous than embryonic stem cells.
• This does not spell the end of embryonic stem cells as in order to find a more eloquent way of switching the “reset button” more research using embryonic stem cells will be needed.

Sadly, I think science has already lost the (religiously polarized, scientifically illiterate) American public on this issue. The media has already spin this as a win for the Christian Right and is ignoring that fact that it is really a win for embryonic stem cell researchers — and more importantly that more embryonic stem cell research is needed.