End of March, 2008

Workout Notes 2650 swim. Last night, my legs just “glowed” with heat. I enjoyed my long walk, but I am not ultra ready. Yet.

My swim today was rather ugly (2650 yards); ok, not really ugly but very slow. Afterward I stretched a bit in the hot tub and, much to my delight, Beth Haynes got in there with me. Beth helped drag me through miles 80-90 when I rode my only Century ride (in 2006) and is training for Ironman Brazil. She is the type that gets upset if her Ironman finish is slower than she had hoped for. Oh yes, she looks great in a swimsuit too!

Injury wise, my left hip tingled a bit. I need to be serious about stretching.

Today’s topics: McCain, Clinton-Obama (embellishments) and finally, the mathematics of traffic jams.

Elections: Former Navy Commander Philip Butler, Vietnam veteran and POW explains why he isn’t voting for John McCain. Note that is is NOT a “Swift Boat” attack; he openly honors McCain’s service.

As some of you might know, John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I will not vote for him for President of the United States.

When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58, I was assigned to the 17th Company for my four years there. In those days we had about 3,600 midshipmen spread among 24 companies, thus about 150 midshipmen to a company. As fortune would have it, John, a First Classman (senior) and his room mate lived directly across the hall from me and my two room mates. Believe me when I say that back then I would never in a million or more years have dreamed that the crazy guy across the hall would someday be a Senator and candidate for President! [...]

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always “No – John McCain was a POW with me.” The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

John’s treatment as a POW:

1) Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965 so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years. President Ho Chi Minh died on September 9, 1969, and the new regime that replaced him and his policies was more pragmatic. They realized we were worth a lot as bargaining chips if we were alive. And they were right because eventually Americans gave up on the war and agreed to trade our POW’s for their country. A damn good trade in my opinion! But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

2) John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately this was often the case – new POW’s arriving with broken bones and serious combat injuries. Many died from their wounds. Medical care was non-existent to rudimentary. Relief from pain was almost never given and often the wounds were used as an available way to torture the POW. Because John’s father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW’s suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda.

3) John was offered, and refused, “early release.” Many of us were given this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to “admit” that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was “lenient and humane.” So I, like numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service regulations, Geneva Conventions and loyalties to refuse early release until all the POW’s were released, with the sick and wounded going first.

4) John was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for heroism and wounds in combat. This heroism has been played up in the press and in his various political campaigns. But it should be known that there were approximately 600 military POW’s in Vietnam. Among all of us, decorations awarded have recently been totaled to the following: Medals of Honor – 8, Service Crosses – 42, Silver Stars – 590, Bronze Stars – 958 and Purple Hearts – 1,249. John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many – not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.

John McCain served his time as a POW with great courage, loyalty and tenacity. More that 600 of us did the same. After our repatriation a census showed that 95% of us had been tortured at least once. [...]

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60′s and 70′s. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush’s war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John’s views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.

I’m disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right. I fear for his nominations to our Supreme Court, and the consequent continuing loss of individual freedoms, especially regarding moral and religious issues. John is not a religious person, but he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately. I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man. He disingenuously and famously put his arm around the guy, even after Bush had intensely disrespected him with lies and slander. [...]

Again note how “non-swift-boatish” this letter is. There is no accusations of McCain lying or misrepresenting his record.

And, this is how I see it: McCain is a genuine war hero who should not be President.

Obama and Clinton

Leonard Pitts has an interesting take on Hillary Clinton’s repeated embellishments:

In a way, its unfair to single out Hillary Clinton for lying.

They all do it, after all. Eight years ago, John McCain, conductor on the Straight Talk Express, swore he saw nothing wrong with South Carolina flying the Confederate battle flag atop its statehouse. He later admitted this was a lie. Last week, Saint Barack Obama called for passage of legislation ”I put forward with my colleague Chris Dodd” to help homeowners threatened by foreclosure. The Washington Post says Obama’s co-authorship of the bill came as news to Sen. Dodd.

Ok, I’ll break here to explain what is going on with the Obama-Dodd situation (note: Dodd formally endorsed Obama)

After weeks of arduous negotiations, on April 6, 2006, a bipartisan group of senators burst out of the “President’s Room,” just off the Senate chamber, with a deal on new immigration policy.

As the half-dozen senators — including John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) — headed to announce their plan, they met Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who made a request common when Capitol Hill news conferences are in the offing: “Hey, guys, can I come along?” And when Obama went before the microphones, he was generous with his list of senators to congratulate — a list that included himself.

“I want to cite Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez, Ken Salazar, myself, Dick Durbin, Joe Lieberman . . . who’ve actually had to wake up early to try to hammer this stuff out,” he said.

To Senate staff members, who had been arriving for 7 a.m. negotiating sessions for weeks, it was a galling moment. Those morning sessions had attracted just three to four senators a side, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) recalled, each deeply involved in the issue. Obama was not one of them. But in a presidential contest involving three sitting senators, embellishment of legislative records may be an inevitability, Specter said with a shrug.

Unlike governors, business leaders or vice presidents, senators — the last to win the presidency was John F. Kennedy in 1960 — are not executives. They cannot be held to account for the state of their states, their companies or their administrations. What they do have is the mark they leave on the nation’s laws — and in Obama’s brief three-year tenure, as well as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s seven-year hitch, those marks are far from indelible.

“It’s not an unusual matter for senators to take a little extra credit,” Specter said. [...]

With colleagues in Congress quick to claim credit where it is due, word moves quickly when undue credit is claimed.

“If it happens once or twice, you let it go,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter. “If it becomes the mantra, then you go, ‘Wait a minute.’ “

Immigration is a case in point for Obama, but not the only one. In 2007, after the first comprehensive immigration bill had died, the senators were back at it, and again, Obama was notably absent, staffers and senators said. At one meeting, three key negotiators recalled, he entered late and raised a number of questions about the bill’s employment verification system. Kennedy and Specter both rebuked him, saying that the issue had already been resolved and that he was coming late to the discussion. Kennedy dressed him down, according to witnesses, and Obama left shortly thereafter.

“Senator Obama came in late, brought up issues that had been hashed and rehashed,” Specter recalled. “He didn’t stay long.”

Just this week, as the financial markets were roiling in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse, Obama made another claim that was greeted with disbelief in some corners of Capitol Hill. On March 13, Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, unveiled legislative proposals to allow the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee new loans from banks willing to help homeowners in or approaching foreclosure. Obama and Clinton were in Washington for a day-long round of budget voting, but neither appeared at the housing news conference.

Yet Obama on Monday appeared to seek top billing on Dodd’s proposal.

“At this moment, we must come together and act to address the housing crisis that set this downturn in motion and continues to eat away at the public’s confidence in the market,” Obama said. “We should pass the legislation I put forward with my colleague Chris Dodd to create meaningful incentives for lenders to buy or refinance existing mortgages so that Americans facing foreclosure can keep their homes.”

Dodd did say that Obama supported the bill, as does Clinton. But he could not offer pride of authorship to the candidate he wants to see in the White House next year.

“I’ve talked to him about it at some length,” Dodd said. “When Senator Obama was there for that full day of voting, we had long conversations about it. He had excellent questions and decided to support it.”

So there: I acknowledge that Obama is not perfect.

Back to Leonard Pitts’ article:

Most of us, I suspect, consider such fibs the political equivalent of white lies: unavoidable, but of no lasting significance. Besides, if you disqualified liars from the presidency, you’d have to do without a president for awhile.

But even by that forgiving standard, Clinton’s lie stands out. If you missed it: She has been telling audiences, as a way of burnishing her foreign-policy credentials, how she had to dodge bullets when she went to Bosnia as first lady in 1996. ”I remember landing under sniper fire,” she said. “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

It’s a story that’s thrilling, hair-raising . . . everything but true. The comedian Sinbad, who was with Clinton on that trip, disputed her account, but she — incredibly — stuck with it. She did not stop telling the untruth until reporters who were on the trip called her on it and produced video showing Clinton and daughter Chelsea stepping calmly off a military transport and accepting a little girl’s greeting. No gunfire, no running for her life.

She now says she ”misspoke.” It’s a benign characterization of a troubling fact: The gap between Clinton and truth has become suddenly vast. And that raises manifold questions. [...]

So bald and bold is the lie that it leaves me wondering if maybe she honestly remembers it that way. Science has shown we’re all susceptible to false memory; it’s not unheard of for a person to believe she’s had an experience she has not, especially after years of telling and embellishing a story. As it happens, the events that Clinton recalls did occur — just not to her. The Post reminds us that Sen. Olympia Snowe came under fire on a visit to Bosnia six months before Clinton got there. So perhaps Clinton has transferred the memory?

I know I’m reaching. Granted, someone might innocently misappropriate someone else’s memory of something trivial, even something relatively important. But it requires a 6-year-old’s credulity to believe a woman would not accurately recall whether she and her daughter came under sniper fire.

Speaking of false memories, someone else brought that up!

Tidbit from Karl Rove If there is anyone that I am the polar opposite of, it is Karl Rove. But he knows politics and has a nice article about what may (or should) happen in the Democratic convention, especially if we don’t have a candidate selected as yet. Hat tip to Election 2008 (or Electoral Vote) who pointed us there.

Mathematics of Traffic Jams

Science Avenger blogs about an interesting article on traffic jams. The mathematics of it is basically works like this:
say you drive for 5 miles at 60 miles per hour and then get in a long line of traffic where it takes you 10 minutes to cover the next mile. That means it took you 15 minutes to cover 6 miles, or you have averaged 24 miles per hour for that 15 minute period.

Now had you just slowed down to 24 miles per hour at the beginning of that 15 minute period, you would reach your destination at exactly the same time, but there would be no line of stopped cars behind you. In other words, the jam would be gone!

Now that is a bit fanciful as one can’t anticipate jams that far in advance (most of the time) but that explains how the math works. The linked article talks about merging, leaving spaces ahead of you and the like.

In short, only those behind the traffic jam can help break it up.