May Day…

Workout notes 2100 yards of swimming. I felt as if my blood were sludge when I warmed up; I just couldn’t get going. After 5 x 100 (alt fist/free) I did 5 x 100 on the 2; 1:42, 39, 39, 38, 39. Then 10 x 100 on the 1:45: 1:36, 36, 36, 36, 35, 35, 35, 35, 36, 36.

As far as the pool: lately it had been nearly empty and I had been luck as far as lanes went. Either I had one to myself or shared one with a babe, or had a babe next to me.

Today was the “revenge of the dog-paddlers”; the pool filled up quickly with most of the overflow being fat, hairy guys in huge boxer trunks.

Oh well, my luck had to end sometime.

Then yoga with Ms. Vickie; the class was ok but I was terrible; I didn’t focus at all. Then I walked 3.7 miles with her (she ran; this included a 1.5 mile stretch of 11:40 mpm walking plus a few pick ups) then I walked another 4.3 on my own and enjoyed seeing the geese.

Commentary:
There are sure a whole bunch of fat people at the Riverplex. On the other hand, as I said a couple of days ago, almost every hiker I see is slender (a few, rare exceptions, including myself 20 years ago). This begs the question: do activities like hiking help people more than joining a health club, or do those activities attract more slender people to begin with? (example: you see lots of tall people playing basketball, but no one says that playing basketball makes you taller!)

Politics

I obtained these articles from a blog.

• Obama sucks
• Bill Richardson sucks.
• The Clintons suck (including Hillary)
• Edwards sucks.

So, where did I find such articles? Redstate.org? Townhall.com? NewsMax? Nope: The Daily Kos. Admittedly, it is easy to find “Hillary Clinton sucks” stuff there, and harder to find Edwards sucks stuff (but it is there). I swear, as a group, we absolutely hate anyone who actually has a chance of winning an election; if a candidate makes themselves electable they are a sell-out.

(grumble, grumble….)

Edwards seems to be popular; Obama somewhat less so (though he does have many supporters there), Clinton supporters are there too but they are in the minority; many are holding out hope that Al Gore runs (I hope that he doesn’t).

There are some positive articles too, like this one which points out that Obama and Clinton are getting funded by folks who backed Bush in 2004. As droogie6655321 writes:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both netted contributions from donors who formerly backed George W. Bush, as this article from the NY Sun shows.

FEC data obtained by the paper and the Center for Responsive Politics showed that some of those first-quarter donors for Clinton and Obama were former Bush donors — some of them were even “Pioneer” ($100,000 or more) donors.

Some of these big-money donors may just be backing the pony they believe will win, so I wouldn’t say that 100 percent of these donors are really our kind of people, but there are those who are sincere in their regret of their past mistakes (IE: helping Bush into office).

An investment banker from Chicago who gave thousands to Bush in 2004 had this to say:

“It’s not an isolated trend. It appears to be a significant wave,” he said. “I know lots of my friends in this business are disenchanted and are definitely looking for something different.”

So are we, sir. So are we.

In 2004, Mr. Canning was a Bush Pioneer, meaning he pledged to raise $100,000 for the president’s re-election. However, he told the Sun that his support for Mr. Bush was already fading at that time. “I was probably unenthusiastic, but not as strongly as I am now,” Mr. Canning said. He said he ended up not voting at all. “It wasn’t like I thought Kerry was a good deal.”

At least one such defection was over the Terri Schiavo fiasco, stem cell research and a good old-fashioned preference for diplomacy with some of those countries that Bush thinks we need to “talk tough” with.

The former Bush supporter recognizes what we all have known for some time:

“A lot of these issues didn’t exist when Bush first ran,” the banker said. “How do you support a guy when he shows the door to everything you believe in?”

Senator Gravel: this blog article shows that Senator Mike Gravel (pronounced Gra-vale, rather than like the stuff used for road surfaces)is making noise, getting noticed.

Here is what he said to get noticed:

Of course not everyone is a big fan of his; check out this comment from this article at the Smirking Chimp

A few of us Alaskans are old enough to remember Mike from his time up here.

In 1968, Mike undertook a heavily-financed campaign and unseated our first Senator, Ernest Gruening, in the Democratic primary. Gruening, you may recall, was one of only two U.S. Senators to defy Johnson and 98 of his colleagues to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 (Wayne Morse of Oregon was the other). Gruening was a giant for peace. Gravel savaged him for his Gulf of Tonkin vote and narrowly won the primary, and then the general election (Gruening’s supporters ran a write-in campaign that fell short).

Gravel went to the Senate where he was held in low esteem by his colleagues (I am personally aware of Gaylord Nelson’s opinion). Among other things, he proposed building a domed city over Denali National Park (Mt. McKinley); to his credit, he “converted” to his anti-Vietnam war position, but trivialized the process by grandstanding (among other stunts, he nominated himself for Vice President at the Democratic National Convention). And, without perfect recall, I am sure he claims too much personal credit for eliminating the military draft. Later, he was personally responsible for killing legislation that was critically important for Alaska Natives because the bill was insuffiently development oriented.

After he was beat in the 1980 primary, he left Alaska (which Alaskans interpreted as an apt display of his commitment to this state). Most of us were not at all sad to see him go.

So some of us do not remember Mike with much fondness, nothwithstanding the “progressive” ideology he stoday.

Religion/Fundamentalism

I came across this website which had a link to an interesting recipe for how to act like a fundamentalist (aka “fundie”).

Some of the funnier parts:

First and foremost, the Bible is the absolute, literal word of God. Contrary to popular opinion, it contains none of the following:

* errors of any kind
* contradictions
* absurdities

When you understand this, dealing with those who claim to have found a contradiction is simplicity itself: there are no contradictions, so he cannot have found one! You see? Easy, isn’t it? If your opponent continues in his error after having this explained to him (nice and slowly), elaborate on your answer using an appropriate response from the following list:

* That translation is incorrect – in the original texts a different word is used, so it is not a contradiction.
* He is taking the verses out of context, so there is no contradiction.
* Satan has blinded him to the truth. There is no contradiction, and he should pray to be shown the correct meaning.
* This is only an apparent contradiction. That is not the same as an actual contradiction.
* If the verses are interpreted correctly, it is obvious that there is no contradiction.
* There are no contradictions in the Bible, so this is not a contradiction.
* The contradiction is caused by his anachronistic thinking. The word [insert word here] had a different meaning back then.

Having just demonstrated that the supposed contradictions do not exist, you have now proved that there are no contradictions in the Bible, reinforcing your claim that it is truly the unsullied Holy Word of God. [...]

There are many things which science cannot explain. However, you can explain these things instantly and simply by saying “God did it”. Perhaps the atheist will say “Well, we don’t yet know how the Big Bang happened, and maybe never will, but we’re working on it”. Easy solution – God did it. Problem solved. However, some atheists are stubborn in their evil ways and you may have to repeat this scientific explanation to them many times before they accept it. Of course, when scientists eventually do come up with an answers for such problems, be prepared to patiently explain to them that this is what your religion taught all along, if interpreted correctly.
[...]

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” you will be told. But just who is making the extraordinary claim here? You, who simply observe the Creator’s hand in all things, or the infidel who against all logic and reason denies the very same. Clearly, it is incumbent on the unbelievers to support their ludicrous assertions that there is no God. Ask them if they can prove God does not exist. Ask how they can be so arrogant to make this claim, when they have not searched the entire universe for God. They will come back and ask you to disprove the existence of Zeus, Vishnu and unicorns, but you should dismiss such childish nonsense – there is no comparison between the fairy-tale gods of other religions and the Truth of Christianity, Their inability to disprove God is evidence enough that He is real. If they cannot overturn your theory, they are clearly being unreasonable by refusing to accept it.

[...]

Whether you are talking about evolution, the origins of the universe, basic human anatomy, or the structure of the solar system, there is no need to concern yourself with learning anything at all about the issue. See “1 Inerrancy”. By definition, those who disagree with you are wrong, deluded and possibly perverts, so it is a bad idea to pollute your mind with their religious beliefs. All the evidence in the world is no match for a single grain of the True Faith.

If they say “But evolution doesn’t work like that! You are completely clueless!” remind them that evolution doesn’t actually work at all. Has a cow ever given birth to a dog? Do we see hydrogen turning into people around us? If we “evolved” from chimps, why are there still chimps? Why do we not see amoebae sprouting legs and talking? These harsh insights will cut through their dogma like a hot knife through butter. [...]

Read the whole thing; it is wonderful!

On a down note Watertiger (aka dependable renegade) has a sobering series of photos about the anniversary of “the end of major combat operations” in Iraq. Yep, that was 2003.

This is what happens in war.