Like another commenter earlier, I've noticed that the people who attacked this article most heavily are the ones who didn't read it. They keep on attacking things that aren't there or ignoring things that are.

Meanwhile, the most intelligent and supportive commentary comes from -- surprise! -- fellow statisticians. Imagine that!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?ID=1792

Way back in 1971, right before he died, Saul Alinsky - a guy who actually knew how to organize lasting movements - talked in Rules for Radicals about how things like sit-ins had already been rendered useless by new corporate tactics. He exhorted his readership not to rely on the same tactics over and over again, and not to confuse tactics with strategy.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what most of these people did.

Instead of doing the hard, sweaty, boring work of door-knocking and planning and strategizing, they kept making papier-maché puppets and wearing face paint and tattoos and silly costumes and chanting the same chants they did back in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, et cetera.

Actually, have them read Dale Carnegie before letting them graduate to Saul Alinsky. They need help with both winning friends and influencing people.

RE: Showering -- Do it in the morning, before you ride to work. That's how many commuting cyclists, including my spouse, do it. The stink isn't from your sweat, it's from sweat plus dirt; no dirt, no sweat. If you're really worried about not being lemony-fresh, keep a supply of underarm deodorant at work.

RE: Winter riding -- Two words: Nokian Hakkapellitas. These studded tires will slow you down a gear, but they grip ice as if it were dry pavement. Any studded tires will do, but Nokians are the best in my opinion. That, and dressing sensibly (layers, especially of merino-wool, are the key), will get you through a Minnesotan or even an Alaskan winter.

What Karl Giberson's not telling you:

(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/karl_giberson_strikes_back.php)

Perhaps you remember Karl — I ripped into an interview he did a while back. Well, "ripped into" is probably the wrong phrase — I pointed out several things I thought were quite good, and then tore up his sectarian defense of Christianity, his blind obeisance before the Christian bible, and his mangling of what other scientists have said about religion. It must have rankled — he now gripes that "Myers doesn't seem to like me" and has slapped together a nice bit of hackwork that is the lead story on Salon. And clumsy hatchet job it is.

Myers then goes on to show how the revenge-bound Giberson somehow managed to leave all of the context out of the Cracker Incident -- especially the psychotic behavior of the Donohue Hordes and their fellow travelers. As he reminded us (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php), this all started because WCF student Webster Cook (http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2008/07/ucf-student-who.html) is going to get kicked out of his PUBLICLY-FUNDED, allegedly non-sectarian school and have his life destroyed for the horrible, HORRIBLE, no good very bad "crime" of walking out of a Mass with a communion cracker in his pocket.

But I guess that's OK with Karl Giberson, because apparently the destruction of Webster Cook's life is as nothing to the searing pain in Giberson's heart because PZ Myers wrote a critique of Giberson's work that wasn't 100% laudatory. Grow the F up.

I'm still not quite clear on whether or not the Communion wafer in question had been consecrated. If it had not (and I'm not sure how a consecrated Host could be smuggled out of a church), then this wasn't truly an act of desecration. Until consecration, it's just a wafer.

I'm sorry if someone has already mentioned this. I haven't had time to read all of the letters.

-- Jeanette D.

Jeanette D., Giberson's article -- which was apparently written as revenge for a Myers critique of his writing that wasn't 100% "OMG Gibby's the Best Writer EVAH!!!" -- leaves out a LOT of things, including the fact that Myers' actions were a reaction to the fact that the life of Webster Cook, a student at the University of Central Florida (a PUBLICLY-FUNDED school, by the way, not a sectarian institution) is in the process of being destroyed by angry Catholic activists because he pocketed the wafer he was given (http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2008/07/ucf-student-who.html). Yessir, they put a wafer over a human being (and anyone wanna bet they're "pro-life" too?).

Too late, Dave. Salon's crammed with what Saul Alinsky called "means and ends liberals". They're the sort of people whose laundry-list purity obsessions and refusal to evolve any new strategies beyond what was already co-opted by the Cons back in 1970, are one of the main reasons why the Cons have been allowed to shift this country ever rightward. (The takeover of our media by right-wing interests -- a takeover that started in the 1970s and which moneyed liberals ignored until a decade ago, and which they still have yet to figure out how to counter, is another.)

I wish I could tear these people away from their papier-mache puppets and tiara-crowned pink-gowned ego-trippings and make them study Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. But nooooo, doing what he suggests would, y'know, involve icky boring shoe-leather work. And connecting with - GASP - people who don't think, eat, and listen to the same bands they do! Some of them may even be black.

Since that'll never happen, I'll settle for telling people to Google the words "Obama Chicago organizer". But it still won't do any good.