What if Pujols walks?

Jayson Stark reminds us that, per Prince Albert's own deadline, if spring training is the start of the season, the Cards have 10 weeks left to resign Albert Pujols.

I know Albert well enough that once he gets into spring training, he doesn't like distractions," (Cardinals manager Tony) La Russa said Wednesday. "I just know where the heart and heads of both the team and the player [are]. They want it to work out. They'll work at it, and we'll see what happens. Once we get ready officially for 2011, Albert's the strongest between the ears that you can find, and nothing's going to get in his way."

Period.

If not, he's gone. Because he has 10 years overall and 5 in St. Louis, he would have veto rights over any midseason deal, even if he would recognize it as a rent-a-player situation.

I see something in the neighborhood of 7 years, $200 million. And, except for some fielding decline in 2010, most his value numbers have held steady for 4-5 years and, I expect, these numbers will not significantly decline for the next 5, or the next 4 years into a new contract:

                                                 
Year       Tm Rfield Rrep RAR  WAR oRAR oWAR dWAR
2001      STL      6   19  69  6.9   63  6.4  0.5
2002      STL     -4   18  56  5.8   60  6.2 -0.4
2003      STL     14   18 107 10.9   93  9.5  1.4
2004      STL     15   18  93  9.4   78  7.9  1.5
2005      STL      9   19  79  8.2   70  7.2  1.0
2006      STL     14   16  83  8.3   69  7.0  1.3
2007      STL     25   18  82  8.3   57  5.8  2.5
2008      STL     18   17  94  9.6   76  7.8  1.8
2009      STL     12   18  88  9.2   76  7.8  1.4
2010      STL     -2   19  72  7.2   74  7.4 -0.2
10 Seasons       107  180 823 83.8  716 73.0 10.8

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/29/2010.

That said, who's got the money AND a location acceptable to Prince Albert if Mozeliak and DeWitt aren't going to cough up $200 million?

1. Chicago. And, a definite 1B opening. And, a fan base that after initial ooginess, would certainly welcome him. That one-year Carlos Pena contract is nothing.
2. Houston, if it wants to immediately vault to NL Central relevance. (Would probably piss off Brett Wallace to be stuck behind Pujols again.)
3. Atlanta? Definitely. With an aging Phillies team, a still-struggling Mets, and a who-knows Nats, a strong move.
4. The Dodgers - IF the McCourt fiasco gets wrapped up quickly enough. But, not sure that's a team Pujols would visit.
4. Mets - See Braves and Astros.
6. Baltimore badly needs a 1B, but not sure it wants to spend like that.
7. The Angels? If they thought they could move Kendry Morales, sure. Especially now that they lost the Crawford sweepstakes this year. But, that's kind of a big if.
8. The Giants. Hmm ... they've got new money, and Huff ain't getting younger.

My guess on Pujols' preferences? Chicago, then Houston. Just a hunch he might have some revenge factor. Folks at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are thinking coastal only; a poll offers neither of those top options I suggest.

Meanwhile, via an excellent blog on team salaries, here's further assessment of the top contenders' chances.

The Cubs have a good financial setup for chasing Pujols.

Ramirez, Silva, Fukodome all come off after 2011; Dempster, Zambrano after 2012. Fukodome is out; Ramriez is out if not club friendly and ditto for Silva. Like the same on the 2012s.

Astros? Smaller payroll, but no big contracts end in 2011, and just Carlos Lee in 2012.

Braves? No big contracts end after 2011, but both Derek Lowe and Chipper Jones after 2012. They could take a big jump for one year for Pujols and then be better off.

Mets? Beltran's contract ends in 2011; so does Francisco Rodriguez and Oliver Perez.

Angels? Pineiro and Abreu end after this year, but neither has a huge contract and both could be resigned.

So, the Cubs will have a fair amount of free money and in a big market. Astros? It depends on their mentality. Mets will have plenty of money, but doesn't strike me as a Pujols top option. Braves would have to eat a one-year spike, but from 2013 on, would be better set.

So, with that in mind, I'll move Braves up to No. 2 in the running, drop the Astros to No. 3, put the Mets at 4 and Angels at 5.

As for the ridiculousness, seemingly, of paying Lance Berkman $8 million to play either LF or RF? Let's not forget that Fat Elvis can also play 1B, just in case the Cards are able to pull the trigger finger on a trade of Pujols.

And, John Mozeliak is an idiot for not working on a new contract for him at the same time the Phillies did for Howard.

The team as a whole still has the "huh?" factor. Owner Bill DeWitt says talks may not start until January.

That said, the odds that he is gone at or before the start of 2012? 50-50, in my book.

Meanwhile, if the management decides to pull the trigger on a trade, it's not trying to right now. That would be all over the rumor mills.

No, 42 percent of people do NOT go to church

For decades, poll after poll has said somewhere from 40-43 percent of Americans go to church on the average Sunday. It's actually HALF that, about 20 percent.

Pollsters have long known that on some things, most notably on racial preference issues, people will, well, they'll lie to an anonymous pollster on an anonymity-guaranteeing poll, producing the answer they think they "should" give to society.

So, rather than ask, "did you go to church in the last week," pollsters instead did a more extensive time-use set of questions, starting with pollees' Saturday nights.

And, with that, a lot of people didn't remember a Sunday activity called church.

That said, the Slate author is right that the ultimate question is, WHY is religiosity so tied to American identity, so much that many people lie about it?

I'll start it with Jan. 20, 1981, and Ronald Wilson Reagan and the Religious Right.

If any man lied about his religiosity, it's him. And, the Religious Right abetted this for ultimately nefarious ends, of pushing the idea of America as a Christian nation.

CFI and organization — Kurtz maybe DID need to go

I didn’t carefully and thoroughly follow every step of the Council for Inquiry’s organizational issues up to the time Paul Kurtz was pushed out as executive director.

Since that time, I started paying more attention, for a number of reasons.

First is related to the reasons Kurtz was allegedly pushed out — the difference between “confrontationalists” (especially among “New Atheists”) and “accommodationalists” as far as how to deal with the nonatheist world in general and especially its more hostile elements. I lean toward the accommodationalist side but, per Ecclesiastes, know there is a time for everything.

Second is related to the organizational issues themselves, specifically, the loss of a $2 million a year donor, because of losing Kurtz. And, there are two subissues here.

No. 1? Orac (sorry, didn’t bookmark a link) is right: You do NOT use the money of one donor in your general fund when that donor’s contributions make up a full one-quarter of your total income. You put that in a trust and use the interest, after a couple of years. OR, as many environmental groups do, you try to set up a matching fund drive between small donors and this guy. You could then use that portion of his $2M a year donation in your general fund but bank the rest.

That one hangs totally on Kurtz’s shoulders. My impression is that he ran CFI too much like a ma-and-pa shop long after it had expanded beyond that point. He obviously needed a full-time director of development who would know this, know how to do this, and tell Kurtz that.

If Kurtz resisted any of this, then he needed to go.

Update, Dec. 28: I have more CFI governance and funding questions.

• For how long had this one major donor been contributing?
• Who besides Kurtz was involved with development/funraising, whether the actual work involved, or at least having a general idea of revenues? Did anybody even consider the matching fund drive idea?
• Who besides Kurtz and (I assume, but maybe I shouldn't) the board of directors) was involved with annual budgeting? Did any of them EVER think to ask the Orac question about why the organization was using all this person's money? Did anybody on the board wonder if, when it decided to escort Kurtz out the door, this donor might object? Did anybody on the board even know who this donor was?
• Again, if there's a lot of "blank spaces" answers for these questions, the problems they represent are still lurking within CFI as an organization.

No. 2? The donor dropoff has led to a number of other issues, one related to a CFI job for which I applied, the position of director of communications.

Now, this spring, Nathan Bupp was still listed as vice president of communications. I assume his position was cut in the financial turmoil, and now, the director of communications opening is a partial replacement, at lower salary.

That said, it’s been going on eight weeks now since the application deadline for that job. I have no idea of where Barry Karr of CFI is at in the process. My guess is that, based on the number of resumes he got early on, a CFI disorganizational disorder has overwhelmed him. I’m assuming that he, and any assistant(s) he has in the hiring process, did NOT start a “preliminary cull” of resumes after getting more than 120 in the first 36-48 hours after announcing the opening. Assuming they didn’t, that’s another organizational black mark.

If CFI doesn't have the money to hire more staffers to help organization, then it needs to focus solely on development issues (along with narrower PR issues in the sense of perception) before anything else.

If staff levels are semi-adequate, then Ron Lindsay needs to do a better job as new CEO, or hire an assistant, with appropriate title, who knows more about management and organizational issues.

Anyway, I have no idea of I will get the CFI position. I know I’m well-qualified for it.

But, in any case, CFI has issues it needs to address.

Beyond the organizational ones, it still needs to address the confrontationalist vs. accommodationalist issue. It also needs to address just what skepticism is and who a skeptic is. It also needs to address legitimate claims for the explanatory power of science vs. “scientism,” as my recent blog on a John Shook post shows.

And, that kind of reflects on why CFI needs a director of communications. Bloggers and online columnists there are kind of scattershot, and the thought quality isn't always that high. If you want to continue to be, and to be seen as, America's top secular humanist organization, well, you have at least some of your work cut out for you.

Update, Dec. 28: Also, in today's online world, with other atheist and secular humanist organizations, what does CFI stand for? What sets it apart from other such groups? With Kurtz now gone, does it have a mission? Until these questions are answered, its funding struggles are likely to continue

Does NASA 'new' life form signal multiple evolutionary tracks

Update, Dec. 28: Here's a lot more on how NASA had motive to fluff this bad science. Read the whole thing, to be sure, but this image ought to say it all:
Inside NASA, some employees have taken to wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the letters "WWED," which stands for "What Would Elon Do?" — a reference to SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk, the Internet tycoon who invested his own fortune in pursuit of his dream of sending humans into space.
That's an agency hugely afraid for its future, and probably thinking it needs all the fluffery it can get, or do.

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As reported in the New York Times and plenty of places elsewhere, NASA today unveiled the "discovery" of a new bacterium in which arsenic appears to substitute for phosphorus in both DNA and ATP.

First, before getting to the meat of the header, let's explain the scare quote first, then the italics.

The New York Times notes this bacterium was CULTIVATED to substitute arsenic for phosphorus; it wasn't "discovered."

The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.

OK, so that would leave us a bit skeptical about how relevant this is to multiple evolutionary tracks.

Second, also from the NYT ... the DNA claims haven't fully tested out yet, so this might also be rushed science:

By labeling the arsenic with radioactivity, the researchers were able to conclude that arsenic atoms had taken up position in the microbe’s DNA as well as in other molecules within it. Dr. Joyce, however, said that the experimenters had yet to provide a “smoking gun” that there was arsenic in the backbone of working DNA.

That addresses the appears to replace phosphorus.

Now, let's get to the meat of the header.

A notable sidebar to this story, as written up in detail by Greg Laden, is whether this doesn't open the window to multiple lines of evolution.

I think that's unlikely, even though theoretically possible. Here's why.

Per Nature News, the arsenic-based bacteria were just 60 percent as efficient in growth rate as their original kin. That's a pretty huge efficiency difference. Given that few places on earth, if any, have significantly higher arsenic concentrations than Mono Lake, it would be hard for such bacteria to find an extremophilic location that exempted them from phosphorus-based competition.

Nature News has more on that line of thought:

For example, if phosphate in ATP was exchanged for arsenate, would the energy-transfer reaction that powers a cell be as efficient? In metabolic processes in which arsenate would bind with glucose, would the bonds it forms — weaker than those of phosphate — be as effective? And phosphate groups bind to proteins modify their function, but would arsenate work as well?

All good questions.

And, there's yet more skepticism from Nature News.

First, exactly how is the arsenic working?

To be truly convincing, however, the researchers must show the presence of arsenic not just in the microbial cells, but in specific biomolecules within them, says Barry Rosen, a biochemist at Florida International University, Miami. "It would be good if they could demonstrate that the arsenic in the DNA is actually in the backbone," he said.

Also, he says, the picture is still missing an understanding of what exactly the arsenic–phosphorus switch means for a cell, says Rosen. "What we really need to know is which molecules in the cell have arsenic in them, and whether these molecules are active and functional," he says.

And, how do the arsenic compounds avoid breaking down?

"It remains to be established that this bacterium uses arsenate as a replacement for phosphate in its DNA or in any other biomolecule found in 'standard' terran biology," says Steven Benner, who studies origin-of-life chemistry at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Florida.

Arsenate forms much weaker bonds in water than phosphate, that break apart on the order of minutes, he says, and though there might be other molecules stabilizing these bonds, the researchers would need to explain this discrepancy for the hypothesis to stand. Still, the discovery is "just phenomenal" if it holds up after further chemical analysis, Benner adds. "It means that many, many things are wrong in terms of how we view molecules in the biological system."

That then said, per the specifics of how arsenic is poisonous to multicellular life, as (gasp, I'm referencing it again) Wikipedia's arsenic article notes, while this theoretically opens the door to multiple evolutionary pathways, in reality, I can't see that there's a great likelihood of it, at least this particular pathway.

So, this needs a LOT more research. It ain't Pons-Fleischmann trotting out cold fusion, no, but, it does seem ... sketchy, so far. (That said, I'll admit that Wikipedia's article on cold fusion is iffy itself.)

That said, I'm boosting part of my response to Greg into the body of the post here.

First, I am by no means the only person who has said he or she thought the paper, etc., was rushed. To analogize: Bite size chunks can be undercooked and, IMO, this chunk needed more time on the grill.

Second, per me, PZ Myers and many others, there's disagreement on how "spectacular" the trick is, especially given that this was a trick induced in a controlled environment. Again, I note: Mono Lake already has a high arsenic level, and (so far at least) no similar arsenophilic bacteria have been found in the natural environment of the lake. Add in the relative weakness of arsenic bond to phosphorus ones in water, and, at least on Earth, that leaves open the question of just how likely it is.

Now, tying that to exobiology. I don't know what difference, if any, Mars has from Earth in As/P ratios. Given the fact that wasn't mentioned in the presser, the answer is either "little difference" or else "oops, big NASA error." But, short of something like that, a talk of environmental differences, NASA erred again, or "fluffed/hyped," in making the exobiology link.

Oh, and a final note for Greg the commenter - possibly Greg Laden?

From a commenter at Pharyngula:

1) The best As:P ratio they got was 7.3:1 in dry cell weight. They are using media with phosphate contaminants (~3 uM). The extremely slow growth rate (20-fold in six days; compared to E. coli roughly 20-fold in 90 min) suggests limited growth that is occurring from phosphate salvage. ...

3) There is no evidence that As is incorporated into functional DNA or RNA and that such As-nucleotide is competent in replication/translation. They have evidence that As is incorporated into nucleic acids. That’s a major leap from there to functionally competent DNA/RNA.

4) Arsenate diesters are unstable in water. The hydrolysis rates for arsenate esters are 10,000 – 1,000,000 times faster than the corresponding phosphate esters. No stability; no genetic information. The notion that water is kept away is curious at best and the hallmark of pathological science at worst. ...

6) It’s been known that arseno-ADP, the ATP analog, is not stable in water. ... How do you get to arseno-DNA without arsenic analogs of ATP?

So, sorry, Greg, nice try but you're flogging a dead horse.

Update, Dec. 6: If shoddy research controls and mechanics make an experiment bad science, then this looks to pretty officially be bad science. Note to Greg Laden and other "fluffers" - why continue flogging this? Let's see some more posting at Science Blogs and Discover about how this baby ever saw the light of day, instead.

Update, Dec. 9:More yet on the NASA fluffery angle:

Here's proof of the fluffery - the hed on NASA's annoucement:
"Get Your Biology Textbook...and an Eraser!"

Fact is, as P.Z. Myers, Wikipedia and many other sites noted, arsenic replacing phosphorus in organic compounds, albeit much simpler ones than DNA, isn't even new. As for it actually doing so in DNA, well, the trumpeted NASA experiment doesn't necessarily prove that.

And, NASA's PR machine is still going, in this wire story that connects the iffy experiment to discovery of more habitable planets and more stares:

Meanwhile, more motive for NASA to trumpet itself? Perhaps worries about the successful orbital flight of SpaceX's Dragon. though NASA was kind enough to offer congratulations.

Remember, getting back to the budgetary motive angle, Obama has talked about leaning more on private services to head to the space station.

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Update, Dec. 20:Arsenic exobiology researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon is dismissive, and in a wrongly, fudging, sense, concerns about hydrolysis of the arsenic compounds in DNA. Seriously, this has gone beyond breathless; this is indeed bad science.

Per Wikipedia's article on alternative life chemistry, linked below, the hydrolysis issue caught y attention the day of the announcement. Obviously, it caught the attention of science professionals, too, and Ms. Wolfe-Simon is left without explanation, so she bloviates.

More on the Texas economic miracle mirage

The average sale price on a pre-existing home in Dallas-Fort Worth, the state's largest metropolitan area, declined for the fourth straight month after going up in the first half of the year. While not a California, Arizona, Nevada or Florida-level problem, nonetheless, prices are off almost 10 percent form 2007. And, while the October decline wasn't the worst in the nation, it was worse than the national average. That's why it's funny, almost laughable, to read major DFW real estate agents essentially whistle in the dark about 2011.

That said, most of them probably voted for the eternally lucky Tricky Ricky Perry, and therefore have no choice but to whistle in the dark.

More on NASA's motives to fluff ArsenicGate

When the story now deservedly known as ArsenicGate broke, with NASA "fluffing" a mid-level exobiology story into something it wasn't even close to being, I blogged both about the bad science involved and how NASA's fluffery didn't stack up to the reality of claims about things like multiple evolutionary pathways. In both posts, I said that NASA had "good" motive for such fluffery, including, above all, the success at that very time of the first privately-funded orbital space flight. Well, here's a lot more on how NASA had motive to fluff this bad science. Read the whole thing, to be sure, but this image ought to say it all:

Inside NASA, some employees have taken to wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the letters "WWED," which stands for "What Would Elon Do?" — a reference to SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk, the Internet tycoon who invested his own fortune in pursuit of his dream of sending humans into space.

That's an agency hugely afraid for its future, and probably thinking it needs all the fluffery it can get, or do. But, per the story, NASA can do all the fluffery it want; that doesn't guarantee results.