The Foxes of Madison

It snowed yesterday night. An inch or two of heavy wet snow, perfect for snowballs, and for preserving the signs of a shy nocturnal visitor. When I went outside to shovel, our street was criss-crossed with animal tracks. There were squirrel tracks and rabbit tracks, but as usual the most numerous and obvious were those of a red fox. Although we very rarely see it, every night a fox patrols our neighborhood in the southwest side of Madison looking for mice and rabbits, and occasionally raiding a trash bag or stealing pet food that's been left outside.

Watching for tracks is the easiest way to know if red foxes live in your neighborhood. Fox tracks are easy to spot if you know what to look for. Although a fox's footprint is similar to a small dog's, foxes have a distinctive gait. A fox usually places its rear feet directly in the track made by its front feet, so fox tracks are an almost straight series of footprints. The pictures below show a fox track and a close up of a couple of individual footprints. They're a little under two inches, about the length of a typical door key.

(Click on pictures for larger versions)

Red foxes have adapted quite well to suburban and urban areas, and are far more common in Madison than most people realize. They live in much of the city, although they're usually nocturnal and very cautious. Although the red fox is native to northern North America, the ones here are likely descendants of English foxes that were brought to the American colonies three hundred years ago for fox hunting.

Although their lanky build and bushy tails tend to make them look larger, red foxes are actually quite small, roughly the weight of a house cat. They prefer small prey, such as insects, earthworms, and mice, and rarely kill anything larger than a rabbit. They also eat fruit and will scavenge carrion, garbage, and almost anything else edible. They aren't aggressive towards humans, and unlike coyotes, which also live in parts of Madison, foxes don't prey on pet cats and dogs, although if you keep chickens you have to be careful.

My love for foxes goes way back. I did quite a bit of wildlife rehabilitation in my youth, and one of the animals I worked with was a hand-raised red fox names Rufus. Rufus was exceptionally tame and trusting for a fox, and would actually come out of his den when called and take food from your hand. He loved grapes and mice! Sadly, Rufus' trust of humans was his downfall. One night someone climbed the eight foot fence into his pen, and when Rufus came out to see who it was he was beaten to death.

It's sad that so many people fear and dislike red foxes. They're beautiful and generally beneficial, and one of the few truly wild things left in this wonderful city.

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The picture at the top of this post is from the Pennsylvania Game Commission. They have lots of great wildlife pics, well worth a look.

Can You See the Problem?

Take a look at the chart below (click on it for a bigger version) and see if you can spot the problem with the American prison system. This is from a new report called "One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008" from the Pew Center on the States.

If I find the time I'll make some charts to show how the Wisconsin prison system compares to other states. We rank roughly in the middle in terms of inmates per capita, but some of the other numbers are rather interesting.

Conservative Academicians: An Oxymoron?

You gotta love this! For years conservatives have been whining about liberal bias in higher education. They've created organizations like David Horowitz's Students for Academic Freedom, which is anything but, in order to root out and destroy faculty members they deem too leftist or insufficiently loyal to the neo-con agenda. So the American Enterprise Institute decided to commission a study, lead by a conservative professor, to prove that there really is a problem and figure out how to fix it.

Except the study didn't exactly support the standard right-wing worldview. It shows that, while the majority of American professors are indeed left-leaning, the main reason there aren't more conservatives in academia is that ... conservatives are greedy! Getting a PhD takes years, academic pay generally sucks, and it's hard to balance family life against academic work demands. Most conservatives simply aren't willing to make the material and lifestyle sacrifices necessary to succeed in academia.

How does the report propose to fix the problem? Socialism, affirmative action, and political correctness for conservatives! Subsidized housing and more health benefits. Special concessions to PhD students and professors with families. And last, but not least, making academic institutions and professors be extra nice to conservative students who feel they're discriminated against, even though all the data shows they aren't.

Not that any of these are necessarily bad things, but it sure is funny to see conservatives advocating for such "liberal" ideas.

Of course I've simplified (my conservative friends might say oversimplified) the findings of the AEI report, so I encourage you to read it for yourself. If you're not up for pushing through the paper, the Chronicle of Higher Education just did an interesting and entertaining article covering both the paper and the professors who wrote it.

Finally, you have to give the folks at AEI credit for publishing the study even though the results probably weren't at all to their liking. AEI may be an organization of ideological nutcases, but they see themselves as scholars and in this instance actually acted the part.

Cuba's Future

"Observers say Castro will either be replaced by his brother Raul, or by his idiot son, Fidel W. Castro." - Letterman

UPDATE: Star Wars BS - FEMA to the Rescue!

The good news is that we managed to blow that falling spy satellite into lots of little pieces. The bad news is that those little pieces are now falling down anyway.

FEMA to the rescue! With remarkable alacrity, FEMA has produced the "First Responder Guide for Space Object Re-Entry", the definitive document on what first responders should do if the sky falls. Literally.

Here's a summary of the more important points:

General Rules:
1. Space junk is really bad.
2. Don't pick it up.
3. Don't even get close to it.

Hydrazine:
1. Hydrazine is flammable, explosive, poisonous, and may react violently with water.
2. If there's a hydrazine fire use water to put it out.

Beryllium:

1. Contact with Beryllium may cause severe injury or death.
2. Molten beryllium metal can burn you.

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The Guide is so poorly written that I thought it was a joke at first, but it's for real. Don't you feel better knowing that Bush's brilliant FEMA appointees are on the case?

UPDATED UPDATE: FEMA has released a revised version of the "First Responder Guide for Space Object Re-Entry". It's better than the first version, and has a lot more info on hydrazine, but the entire section on beryllium is gone. Maybe beryllium isn't poisonous anymore...

'08 WI Democratic Presidential Primary Results Map

This map shows the margins of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary for each Wisconsin county. Usually I do an analysis when I create these sorts of maps, but I'm kind of stumped. The county results show little correlation with past general election results, recent state primary results, media markets, or anything else I've previously looked at. The exit polls aren't much help either, nothing jumps out at me that could really explain the county patterns.

So I'm just going to throw this back to you all. Leave a comment if you have a theory, and if the time involved isn't too great I'll check it out and post the results. Maybe you'll see something obvious that I'm missing. Thanks!

Hillary Attacks!

I received the flyer below in the mail yesterday. Click on the images to see larger versions. It's a classic attack piece on Obama from the Clinton campaign , and actually quite well done, although the fact that Obama crushed Clinton here in Wisconsin shows it didn't exactly have much impact.

One reason it was probably less effective than Clinton had hoped was that it arrived on election day, so most people didn't see it before they voted. Attack pieces are usually timed to arrive immediately before the election so the opposition doesn't have time to respond, but election day is just too late. A properly targeted and executed attack piece can be very powerful, but it sure looks like somebody in the Clinton camp screwed this one up, maybe because they forgot that Monday was a federal holiday with no mail delivery.

I'm an Obama supporter but I actually think Clinton's health care plan is better, so I agree with some of the points in the flyer, although obviously not with the way they're expressed. To Clinton's credit, health care is one of the few issues she can attack Obama on mercilessly without doing much damage to his chances in the general election. It's not like many people who care about universal health care are likely to vote for McCain...

Star Wars BS

Bush has decided that we need to shoot down a big military spy satellite that's falling from orbit. He claims that it's to reduce the risk to folks on the ground from a beryllium-lined tank of hydrazine (N2H4) in the satellite that might survive reentry. That's a load of crap.

Anybody who's even slightly familiar with the technical stuff understands that while there's a tiny risk from the satellite, smashing it into pieces that will still mostly fall down doesn't necessarily eliminate that risk, and may actually increase it, while also creating a whole new set of risks to astronauts and other satellites.

I'm not trying to minimize the dangers of large objects falling out of the sky, but I'd much rather have to dodge one big chunk than a bunch of smaller yet still substantial pieces. And hydrazine is indeed nasty stuff. I worked with a guy who had large areas of his face and hands bleached completely white from hydrazine burns. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when there was a fuel leak in a research rocket. But it's extraordinarily unlikely that the hydrazine tank will survive reentry intact, and once breached the hydrazine will dissipate rapidly. Beryllium? Also really nasty, but it's a metal and only a problem if you get it in your lungs, which can only happen when it's oxidized and powdered. Hard to say if smashing the satellite will reduce or increase that risk.

So why is Bush doing this, and who's he trying to fool? There are only two reasonable explanations, and they probably both play into his decision. First is that it provides a convenient excuse to get some good PR for our Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or Star Wars) program, and show those damn Chinese and Russians that we're serious! Conservatives are true believers in SDI, and all those huge SDI defense contracts, regardless of the problems with the underlying science and technology. Since SDI has had only marginal success hitting realistic targets, why not go for an easy score? The spy satellite is huge and in a nice predictable orbit. Much easier to hit than a nuclear warhead. Modern warheads are smaller than your hot water heater and offers only a tiny time window for a successful intercept.

The other reason is to prevent pieces of the satellite from falling into the wrong hands. This isn't any old spy satellite, it's a KH-13, our latest and greatest model. Big important chunks are going to survive reentry, and it would be mighty embarrassing if somebody we didn't like ended up with them.

So why is Bush lying about it? He isn't fooling the Russians or the Chinese. They know exactly what's going on. So does most of the foreign media. It seems the only people likely to be gullible and ill-informed enough to fall for his spin are ... us.

One thing worth mentioning, since you probably won't see it elsewhere, is that the primary mirror in a KH-13 spy satellite is probably made of beryllium or beryllium alloy. If so, it's likely that there's far more beryllium in the mirror than in the hydrazine tank. Of course, now that you know that particular secret I'll have to kill you...

Hillary: I'm Outta Here!

Looks like Hillary Clinton has written off Wisconsin. Obama hit the airwaves earlier and harder, and Clinton's internal polling presumably shows she's going to lose, so she's cutting her losses in order to put her somewhat limited resources into Texas and Ohio. She'll almost certainly win Ohio, but if she can't win Texas as well then it's probably the end of the road...

Wisconsin's delegates don't matter to Clinton nearly as much as the PR value of a win here. She desperately needs to slow Obama's momentum, and a win, no matter how slight the margin, would do that. All that counts is the media narrative on Wednesday morning, so from Clinton's point of view Wisconsin is either a victory or nothing.

Most polls show Obama with a modest lead, in Wisconsin, although the most recent poll from American Research Group has Clinton up by 6%. The ARG WI polls have tended to favor Clinton compared to other polls, so you do have to take them with a grain of salt. Kind of interesting that in Texas the ARG polls tilt the other way.

Full disclosure: With Edwards gone I'm now supporting Obama for two main reasons. The first is that Clinton is just too blatantly corporatist for me. She was chair of the DLC and sat on the Wal-Mart board. Not my cup of tea. Second is that I want American politics to change, and the first step towards change is always bringing new people into the process and convincing them that they can make a difference. Obama, like Howard Dean in '04, seems to have that gift, and Hillary Clinton just doesn't. Irrespective of their policy positions, and they're not really much different in my opinion, I think that in the long run Obama is far more likely to push our country in the right direction, strengthen the Democratic Party, and build a healthier progressive movement.

Complete WI Democratic Primary Polling Results

Pollster.com has finally started tracking Wisconsin polls, and their trend chart (below) shows Obama zooming ahead of Clinton as supporters of the other candidates and most undecideds break for him. The usual qualifications apply, but overall Wisconsin is looking good for Obama!

Obligate plug for Pollster.com: It's simply the best polling info on the web. Check it out.

Will.i.am vs. John.he.is

Fantastic pair of political videos! "Yes We Can", featuring Barack Obama, created by Will.i.am (James William of the Black Eyed Peas). "John.he.is" is a parody of "Yes We Can", featuring (if you can call it that) John McCain, and was created by Andy Cobb and the crazy folks at Election08. It doesn't get better than this!

Tammy Proves Me Wrong

A few weeks ago I was quoted in the Isthmus as saying "Her (Tammy Baldwin's) biggest weakness is she's not bold enough. She's not willing to stick her neck out for things that are important."

Well, it seems Tammy is proving me wrong by pushing for impeachment hearings. I hate to make mistakes, but in this case I couldn't be happier!