Obama v. McCain?

Well my political hopes for Mike Huckabee have been dashed, Mitt "Mitty" Romney sounds depressed and is pulling adds after his loss in FL, Giuliani realized that no one likes him once they get to know him and quit, I think Fred Thompson fell asleep and was disqualified, and Ron Paul will never get above 3%. So that leaves the once improbable John McCain as the clear leader for the republican race. He has problems though. For one, the far right hates him. Rush Limbaugh is dead set against him, Michelle Malken wouldn't vote for him even if it is v. Hillary! (Yet...) There is even a new phrase for it, McCain Derangement Syndrome. Here is the video version:



So for the Democrats? Since John Edwards surprise exit yesterday it is all Obama v Hillary, Obama v Hillary. Now my last prediction fell flat on its face so I am going to go only a few inches onto a limb this time.

My view of it is that Obama does have the edge, but not by much. I think Hillary made a mistake by bringing Bill out so hard this late in the race. No mater what she says, he is not just her husband. Bill Clinton is the defacto head of the party and its elder statesman and by having him campaign so hard it has the effect of shrinking Hillary to a sort of co-president when the entire campaign has been built on her and her experience. Second - I am personally very annoyed at her decision to go back on her word not to campaign in MI and FL whos delegates have been stripped and where every one agreed not to campaign. Well she did campaign, and she won, and now she is looking to get those delegates back after the fact! It is political Calvin Ball and would be an awfully backdoor way to get the nomination. I am hoping she backs off on both fronts.

Also, Obama is coming to the Target center this Saturday at 1:30 and I will be attending with my friend and co-political junkie David. It should be fun!

I am very distrustful of the cult of personality that has been built up around Obama. Any comparison to JFK makes me cringe. No politician can ever be a savior, and I worry that like other populist leaders riding a wave of change he could hit a wall in about six months and crash and burn. But, I do see that he clearly has the power to motivate people and then use that power to further his politics. People focus all the time on the former, but enough value has been been placed on the latter.

I feel with Hillary, like John Kerry, we are doomed to keep fighting the Vietnam war politically (Especially if John McCain is in it). Hillary has been fighting that fight all her life and she is good at it, and passionate about it as well. But I believe we really need a new start, especially after the past eight years that has left the country broken on all fronts. We need a fixer more than an operator, and I think that is the choice between Obama and Hillary. Obama supporters see him as a motivator for change in a broken country, Hillary supporters see her as a skillful political operator in messy world. And I think they are both right. But we need change above all else. That is why I am supporting Barack Obama for president.

But looking ahead, say it is Obama v. McCain. Lets just take their fundrasing as one metric of how strong they are at this moment. In the month of January alone, Obama raised $32 Million. McCain has raised $29 Million - total. Thats since the start of the campaign. Ouch. Hillary has raised $90 Million total, Obama $80 Million. Ouch.

Lucky 3?

So far in the past two weeks the car,
1: Froze
2: I locked the keys in the car.
3: Got a flat tire.

The tire was today. I put air in the tire last night and the little pin that holds the air in apparently never went back in, causing it to lose it all over night. I threw on the spare on the -2˚ morning and drove the flat down the street and left it with a shop, who found the problem and didn't charge me. But that left me with a fixed tire off the car and it was now 3 in the afternoon and -9˚. Since I certainly did not want to experience my hands being frozen off after they had just warmed up again (6 hours later) I decided to get my over due oil change in and have them put the tire back on! Over all, it was a good deal.

So I think those are the main three inexpensive-yet-stupid things that can go wrong with a car and the fix for all three was $0. Lets hope three is the lucky number!

Ecuador

Every January, I get a little nostalgic for Ecuador, where I spent January of 2005. So, here's a little photo tribute...

Our first stop was the lovely Bellavista Reserve in the cloud forest. Bellavista is famous for being the place with the highest hummingbird diversity in the world, and is a sort of mecca for birders.

A typical view of the cloud forest

Hummingbird!

Orchid

I loved this guy's fluffy white pantaloons.

After a week in the cloud forest, we took a plane to the Galapagos. The Galapagos are the one place that we went that I definitely aim to get back to at some point in my life. Aside from being one of those places that all good biologists should go to pay homage to Darwin and evolution, you will never see another wild place where the animals simply have no fear of you.

No Galapagos photo album is complete without a blue-footed booby.

Frigatebird following our yachtAwwwwww...

The famous Galapagos tortoises! The tortoise on the left got caught in a lava flow... Ouch.

We left the Galapagos for Quito, then took a plane to a bus to a boat to another bus to another boat to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, a working field station where people are busy studying primates and spiders and... well, biodiversity.

View of the sunrise from a birdwatching tower

The super pretty shiny ones are always dung beetles, for some reason.

Don't eat me!!!

Beware of groomer

I think I finally have a good hypothesis about why Winnie got so sick. With a little help from our dermatologist, we decided that Winnie probably experienced something called "post-grooming pyoderma", or "post-grooming furunculosis", defined by JAVMA as "a distinctive, acute, and fulminant subgroup of deep pyoderma precipitated by bathing or grooming". I had never heard of it, but now will never forget it (oh please let it show up on board exams!).

I never mentioned on the blog that while Win and I were waiting for her bloodwork to be run, I noticed a half dozen or so bumps on her head and behind her neck. Since I just happen to be in derm class right now, I can say that they were pustules (not papules or macules or any of those other skin thingys). They were full of pus and painful to the touch. Her vet didn't seem too concerned, and thought they were probably little injuries from playing with another dog or cat.

Over the next day, though, the pustules grew and spread down her back. She also started losing her long black guard hairs by the handful. It was totally unlike any shedding I've ever seen before.

Wondering if the pustules and shedding were connected with Winnie's fever, I had quick talk with my professor after derm class. She said it sounded like a classic presentation for post-grooming furunculosis- Winnie was groomed on Saturday, had a fever on Monday, and developed pustules on Tuesday. So what happened?

At groom shops that dilute concentrated shampoo in a separate bottle, that bottle can eventually get infected with bacteria (usually a strain of Staphylococcus or Pseudomonas). During the bath, the bacteria gets introduced to the dog's skin, and during brushing, tiny microtraumas caused by removing hair allows the bacteria access to hair follicles. The next day the dog comes down with a fever, and within a few days develops painful little zits along the back. Any hair follicles that get infected become damaged, which results in profuse shedding.

It sounds like Winnie got off easy, because thankfully the antibiotic that her vet picked is exactly the one that would be used to treat furunculosis. Dr. Torres said that she's seen dogs go to the ICU with it. Scary! We can't really definitively say that Winnie had post-grooming furunculosis, since we didn't culture the pustules (remember, pustules are precious- they only last hours!) and didn't culture the shampoo bottle. But, it's a good thing to be aware of in case your dog gets sick within a day or two of being groomed. So far it's only been reported in the literature in dogs that have thick, firm hair, like terriers (or corgis, apparently), not dogs with soft or fine hair like poodles.

I don't have any good suggestions on how to avoid this problem, except that it seems to occur in shops that dilute their concentrated shampoo, and in shops that have self-service bathtubs. Psuedomonas is a nasty bug that can survive not only in shampoo, but in antibacterial shampoo (yikes). I suggest bringing your own bottle of shampoo.

Other than Winnie's saga, my life is the same old same old. Next week is the start of our first "hell week" of the semester- Friday is our Neuropharm final, Tuesday is a derm exam, Wednesday is cardiopulmonary, Thursday is reproductive bio, Friday is a day off to attend the MVMA convention (yay), and Monday is clinical pathology. Eek. We had our obstetrics final on Wednesday, so we have one class down already...

More video

We had our first lecture for Surgery, Anesthesia, and Critical Care yesterday... Here's how the professor introduced the anesthesia portion:

great video

My favorite is the twelve-year-old :)

Edit: Chris - I also love the 15 year old (he never quite hits the drum) and the 59 year old who looks like Gandolf from Lord of the Rings. Also, I want to talk like that 89 year old when I am that age! Bonus - 87, "Stop banging!"

a sick corgi is a sad corgi

Winnie is still a pathetic excuse for a corgi, so she is off to the vet this afternoon... Will update everyone on her prognosis when we get home!


Update: After a thorough examination they have determined that Winnie is... sick. She has a high white blood cell count, indicating an infection somewhere. She doesn't want to eat, so she might have a tummy infection, but she's also peeing a lot, so she might have a urinary tract infection. She got sent home with some general antibiotics, easy-on-the-tummy food, and a lower fever than yesterday.

Car unfrozen

Many you know that this last cold spell froze my car to death but I can now report that it has been unfrozen and feels all better now. It sputtered to life tonight after I put some all purpose cleaner in the gas tank yesterday to try and get what ever was frozen unfrozen in the fuel line or filter. It was not a happy sound though, I think it was running on one cylinder for a little bit! But now its back to normal after I filled it up with premium gas and drove it around on the highway for a while.

Poor car, being outside in winter is hard on it. The only other time it has failed to start in the cold was at Megan's parents last winter when it was outside on a similar cold night. I am very happy to have it back!