Rainy May Morning

My sinuses are killing me and my eyes are watering, but I feel great!

Workout notes 10 mile house to gooseloop course; 1:08 out (which included one gooseloop lap) and 1:00:51 back (which didn’t have the lap) for 2:09:43; the fast time I’ve done this course in years. My last uphill 2.5 miles was done in under 32 minutes. On the way out I did a few 400 m pick ups between the markers; it was rainy and the course was slightly slick.

Note: I saw rabbits, woodchucks (ground hogs) squirrels, geese, ducks and blue herons.

Election reaction Friendly Atheist said it well.

An African American at the Daily Kos (Entrwriter) says that Obama’s wins have made all of the bigotry that he endured “worth it”.

Of course, some of the Clinton surrogates (official ones) were less than gracious; Obama supporters were dismissed as being a bunch of blacks and eggheads.

BEGALA: The challenge now for Barack, both the key to the primary and the general election for Barack will now be white, working class voters. At the very, very beginning, of this entire election season, Lou, you and I and a bunch of us all got together in New York and talked about what the election will be about and I said then and I say it again tonight. My advice to Barack Obama is put the jam on the lower shelf where the little folk can reach it. In other words, talk more about those blue collar, economic populist issues that John Edwards first raised and now Hillary Clinton is raising so effectively. If he can do that, he’ll hold this wonderful base built but he needs to reach out now to the white working-class voters and means a different message than he generally talks about. He’s got to stop with all the arguments for the Volvo drivin’, NPR totebag totin’ liberals, he needs to talk to middle class working people.

You know, this is really an insult to many of Clinton’s own supporters.

So, just a word to the Clinton supporters: my anger is NOT directed at you; it is to jerks like this one. They are doing their best to divide us.

I am not saying to give up: heck, if you live in West Virgina, Kentucky, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana or Puerto Rico, by all means campaign. Campaign your behinds off! You’ll be glad that you did, no matter the result. Just remember that your fellow rank and file Democrats who have a different candidate preference are not the enemy.

Obama’s speech

Fat: where it is matters. Hat tip to 3-quarks daily. From Science Magazine:

For most overweight people, excess fat sits in one of two areas: deep inside the abdomen (visceral fat) or around the hips and legs (subcutaneous fat). Researchers have recognized for some time that visceral fat is the greater evil. People with lots of it are much more prone to diabetes, heart disease, and other problems than people with excess subcutaneous fat. But it’s not clear exactly why. Is the fat itself different, or does its location in the body matter?

To probe this question, C. Ronald Kahn, director of obesity research at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, and his colleagues devised a relatively simple experiment. They transplanted fat in 42 naturally plump, healthy mice. The mice were divided into four groups that underwent different types of operations. In some, the researchers added visceral or subcutaneous fat to the abdomen. In others, they tucked visceral fat or subcutaneous fat under the animals’ flanks, the rough equivalent to the hips. Thirteen other animals formed a control group; they were operated on but didn’t receive extra fat. [...]

Kahn’s team found some surprising benefits to subcutaneous fat. Mice with subcutaneous fat transplanted into their abdomen gained only about 60% of the weight packed on by the control group, which, like most mice, continued to expand. These transplant recipients also had better glucose and insulin levels. The mice that got extra subcutaneous fat in subcutaneous areas also fared better than controls, although not as well as the first group. Those that had visceral fat added to their visceral cavity were the worst off, the group reports today in Cell Metabolism. Autopsies on the mice confirmed that the transplanted fat was still in place.

The finding suggests that subcutaneous fat can benefit health, says Kahn. “That’s the surprise twist in the story.”

The implications are “that subcutaneous fat produces something that’s good for you, and that visceral fat produces something that’s bad for you,” says Richard Bergman, a diabetes and obesity researcher at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.