Hillary Clinton cannot afford to lose Nevada

As if the presidential nominating contest was not complicated enough, for some reason Democrats and Republicans diverge for the next presidential contest although they are both held on the same day. Saturday, February 20 sees a Republican primary in South Carolina while the Democrats hold caucuses in Nevada. Republicans hold their Nevada caucuses on the 23rd while the Democrats go to South Carolina for their primary on the 27th. Meanwhile the state of Washington does its own weird thing. Their Republicans have caucuses on the 20th and a primary on May 24, while the Democrats have caucuses on March 26.
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What to expect at tonight’s Republican debate

The ninth Republican debate takes place tonight. The field is now reduced to ‘only’ six people, still large but reduced from the 17 who started. That makes the stakes higher as everyone seeks to avoid being the one who is eliminated next. As in musical chairs the aggressiveness is likely to be ramped up as the field gets smaller. I am in California right now and the early debate time may clash with a social commitment with family and friends and so I will likely miss what promises to be a bruising encounter.
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Some political clips from The Daily Show

I was traveling all days yesterday and so missed the Democratic debate and haven’t caught up on the news. But here are some segments of The Daily Show that deal with politics. In the first one, Republicans compete for the torture vote. As Alex Emmons writes, Ted Cruz’s definition of what he said is “generally recognized” as the definition of torture is anything but. It is an extreme definition that comes from a self-serving memo of the Bush-Cheney regime that has since been withdrawn. His claims that his own father was tortured in Cuba would be false under that definition.
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Gravitational waves detected for the first time

It has been announced that scientists have detected gravitational waves for the first time, after a long and arduous search that rivaled the search for the Higgs boson in the difficulty involved even though it did not match it in costs. The announcement came in the form of a paper published yesterday in the journal Physical Review Letters, based on results obtained on September 14, 2015. You can read the paper here.
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How long do things take to decompose?

In a moment of idle curiosity, I wondered what would happen if for some reason, human beings suddenly became extinct. Not a cheery thought but I was curious about how long it would be before all traces of our existence disappeared so that a new future intelligent species or maybe extra-terrestrial visitors to Earth would see no trace that intelligent life had ever existed because all the artifacts we created had simply decomposed away. It seems hard to imagine since humans have covered the Earth with our creations but surely all things must pass at some time?
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Stephen Colbert Feels the Bern

Bernie Sanders made an extended appearance on Colbert’s show last night. The crowd gave Sanders a rousing reception. It is really strange how Sanders has become the ‘cool’ candidate. I think that it is because of the authenticity that he emanates and that he speaks truths that others don’t. The ‘why’ questions he asks and his conviction that things could and should be much better than they are now is inspiring.
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