Awesome Video

Sarah Palin is taking on Republicans

Sean Hannity’s softball interview with Sarah Palin was devastating (1 2). If she can’t give substantive answers to leading questions from one of the biggest hacks on FOXNews, she will die under any real scrutiny. Worst?

HANNITY: Explain when you were governor and, as governor of Alaska, how you took on your own party.

PALIN: Yes.

HANNITY: There’s this — you know, you still have a very high approval rating, but there are people that still weren’t happy about it. How did you take on your own party, specifically? And do you think you’d be able to do that, as well, in Washington?

PALIN: Well, I just recognized that there — as John McCain talked about on the campaign trail, also — it doesn’t matter which party it is that is just kind of creating the good-old-boy network and the cronyism and allowing obsessive partisanship to get in the way of just doing what’s right for the people who are to be served. And I just recognized that it’s not just the other party. Sometimes it’s our own party that just starts taking advantage of the people.

And I felt compelled to do something about it, decided to run for office, got in there and with that mandate that I believe the people had just given me, via their vote, they expected the changes to take place, that reform. And we’re living up to that. And as we do, we are ruffling feathers.

She was asked twice to explain specifically what she had done to “take on [her] own party” and she answered with “Yes” (meh?) and some vague generalities. Hannity wasn’t even trying to trip her up, he was genuinely interested and sympathetic. The most demeaning thing about it is that a lot of her supporters aren’t even expecting much out of her.

Republicans and Racism

According to a poll published by Gallup on August 4, Republicans think that racism against whites is more widespread than racism against blacks. I thought this was a pretty interesting result. About as interesting as the poll that shows that most people are at their best in the morning.

Holy Sh*t

Over at National Review‘s Corner blog, Mona Charen publishes this email on John McCain’s VP pick, assuming that it represents a person stating their actual viewpoint.

Sarah is real!!! What a fabulous contrast with Obama, who is not real. Sarah is from America. Obama is not.

Sarah gives me hope for America, because of who she is, not because of any group she “represents.”

More valuable than pearls is a woman who likes to fish and hunt.

Personally, I thought it was a pretty good joke. … On the other hand, maybe it is real. The joke interpretation is the gracious one, I’m afraid.

A Hang of a Cackle

Every day I get the Oxford English Dictionary‘s Word of the Day. Some are interesting, others are boring, still others are funny. The Word of the Day for August 6 was boet. Under the first definition, “A brother. Also prefixed to a man’s first name as an informal title,” is this example:

1974 ‘BLOSSOM’ in Darling (Durban) 8 May 91 ‘What you mean ouma?’ My boet gives out a hang of a cackle.

Silver Nanowires

I was reading an article in C&EN about a cell phone that Nokia wants to produce that is made out of protein and stumbled on something really cool. Some proteins, in high enough concentrations, can spontaneously form long fibers (called amyloid fibrils) that are ultra thin. In humans, when this happens it often causes diseases like Alzheimer’s, but there are other uses too (spider webs are an example).

The article mentioned an Israeli scientist, Ehud Gazit, who used this process to construct the thinnest piece of wire ever. He made a hollow tube out of the proteins and then added a solution of silver. A wire formed inside of the tube, and then he digested the protein with an enzyme. Incredible.

Koala Bears and Eucalyptus

Apparently, increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere causes the eucalyptus tree to form tannins and other antinutrients at an increased ratio relative to the proteins that the koala bear needs to support itself.

New research shows that the level of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rises, and their nutrient content falls, when they are exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide.

“What currently may be good koala habitat may well become, over a period of not so many years at the rate that carbon dioxide concentrations are rising, very marginal habitat,” said Ian Hume, Emeritus Professor of Biology at Sydney University, who carried out the research.

…

The animals would be unable to adapt to the greater toxicity of gum tree leaves, Prof Hume said after presenting his findings at an Academy of Science conference in Canberra. “I don’t think they’ve got enough time to do that, nowhere near enough time to do that,” he said.