Midweek blogging (16 July 2008)

Workout notes It was the best and worst. Ok, not the best, but close to the worst.

I started with a 3100 yard swim; 10 x 50 free on 1 to warm up, then a weird drill/swim set: 5 x 50 drill/swim with fins, 5 x 50 free, 6 x 50 drill/swim with fins, 4 x 50 drill/swim no fins, 5 x (50 paddle, 50 swim), 10 x 50 on the 1 (48-49 each, one 47, no flip turns), 500 strokes (100 back, 200 side, 8 x 25 fly), 100 cool down.

Then I went outside; 2 miles of jog 2 minutes, walk 1 minute (went well), but then my two mile run just blew up in my face. I was walking/jogging THAT! It was in the 80’s and humid, and yeah, I didn’t drink after my swim.

But still, I didn’t expect it to be this tough.

After that, I did two sets each with the leg weights.

Other topics

Rate Your Students: an undergraduate hits a bit too close to the truth: sometimes at “teaching related universities” we get unmotivated students taking classes from professors who don’t enjoy teaching unmotivated students. So perhaps some of us ought to be doing something else for a living and perhaps some professions ought to quit requiring college degrees.

Here is what I will say in “rebuttal”: what has happened is that undergraduate education has changed since I started teaching for a living. When I started, the average student was more motivated, at least in some respects. For one thing, they were better readers.

Example: in statistics classes (the calculus based kind),: a few years ago, the dummies couldn’t read the problem nor do the math. The smart ones could do both.

Now, even those who can do the math (e. g., figure out what joint density function to integrate, figure out the correct region and do the integral correctly) can’t read and understand the “word” problems.

On the other hand, the “good student” hasn’t changed all that much (save the difficulty with reading); we had them then and we have them now, and they are still a joy to teach.

I wonder if part of the problem is that too many students are doing what their parents want them to do instead of what they want to do.

Oh well; each era has its own challenges.

Humor Check out the atheist poster contest at Friendly Atheist.

Here are a couple:

More Obama Cartoons:

Sorry, I still find the New Yorker cover to be funny….in that it makes fun of the morons that believe stuff like this. I swear, if some of these wingnuts were any dumber, they’d be sprouting roots.

Other reports: Joe Biden “gives them hell”.

His Obama testimony now complete, Biden-the-surrogate turned to the other task at hand: ripping apart the foreign policy of Sen. John McCain. At times, his critique was scathing, accusing the presumptive Republican nominee of lacking the basic gravitas and intellectual capacity to navigate the choppy international waters.

“President Bush and Sen. McCain lump all the threats together,” said Biden. “Al Qaeda, the Shia militia, listen to them speak. Listen to my friend Joe Lieberman, and he really is a friend, listen to them speak. Find me a distinction that they make. As a consequence of this profound confusion they make profound mistakes. The idea that al Qaeda will cooperate with the philistine, a guy who in fact used to run the country in Iraq, the guy who did away with the caliphate… is completely contrary to anything that the now-dead leader of Iraq had in mind. It’s dangerous. How can we run a sound foreign policy without understanding these decisions? How can we talk about a Shiite-dominated nation cooperating with a Sunni dominated Wahabi sect of Islam as if they had anything in common? Yet listen to my friends, listen to the president, listen to Joe Lieberman, listen to John McCain. Ladies and gentlemen, if they can’t define the enemy we are fighting it is very difficult to define whether we have won or lost.” [...]

“I find it fascinating, the twisted logic of my friends on the other side talking about how this allows Iran to fight a proxy war against us in Iraq,” Biden roared. “Huh? Guess what. What more would Iran like than the continuation of a 140,000 to 160,000 Americans in Iraq, bogged down in Iraq, no end in sight. Tell me how much Ahmadinejad would like to inherit a fractured Iraq. Study history. The premises upon which they rationalize I find breathtaking. The idea that John [McCain] and Joe [Lieberman] are going to eliminate any vestige of Iranian influence in Iraq, bless me father for I have sinned. Are they unaware of a border that has existed there for millennium? Are they unaware of the fact that our guy, Maliki is inviting Ahmadinejad to Baghdad and kissing him on both cheeks, literally not figuratively. Are they unaware of the fact that this government in Iraq feels compelled to visit Tehran to explain what it is that they are attempting to do with a long-term security agreement?”

I’d hate to be on this guy’s bad side!

The Obama camp has also forcefully taken McCain to task.

The self-professed candidate of “straight talk” and “experience” spent today changing his position on gay adoption, adopting Senator Obama’s position that we need more troops in Afghanistan after having resisted taking that position, flip flopping on whether he’d send U.S. or NATO troops (he actually offered three different explanations on where those additional troops would come from), and referring to a country that hasn’t existed since 1992 for the second time in two days. [...]

Afghanistan

LAST WEEK: Christian Science Monitor Reported that McCain “Has Resisted Calls For More Troops In Afghanistan.” “McCain has resisted calls for more troops in Afghanistan and has rejected criticism that the Iraq war is detracting from efforts to secure Afghanistan. He labeled Barack Obama ‘naïve’ for saying he’d strike terrorist targets in Pakistan with or without the cooperation of President Pervez Musharraf. … Aides to the Arizona senator said Wednesday that he continued to view success in Iraq as the best chance for victory in the global war on terror. ‘As on many things, Senator Obama is not listening to our commanders, and Senator McCain is,’ says Kori Schake, a senior policy adviser to McCain. ‘General David Petraeus believes Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. Al Qaeda has even said it is.’ … Ms. Schake’s comments came about two hours after Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said additional troops were needed in Afghanistan but that too many were tied down in Iraq to send more.” [Christian Science Monitor, 7/7/08]

TODAY (MORNING): McCain Called for Sending Three Additional Brigades to Afghanistan and Suggests They Would Come From Iraq. According to a press release issued by the McCain campaign on Tuesday morning, McCain would announce in a speech that he now supports sending at least three additional brigades to Afghanistan: “The status quo in Afghanistan is unacceptable, and from the moment the next President walks into the Oval Office, he will face critical decisions about Afghanistan. … John McCain Supports Sending At Least Three Additional Brigades To Afghanistan. Our commanders on the ground say they need these troops, and thanks to the success of the surge, these forces are becoming available, and our commanders in Afghanistan must get them.” [McCain press release, 7/15/08]

TODAY (AFTERNOON): McCain Clarifies His Proposal On Increasing the Number of Troops, Saying They Could Come From NATO. “Speaking to reporters on his bus after today’s speech, McCain indicated that he’d be open to those additional troops coming from NATO.” [MSNBC, 7/15/08]

TODAY (EVEN LATER IN THE AFTERNOON): McCain Campaign Further Clarifies Proposal, Saying The Troop Increase Would Be Comprised Of Both NATO And US Forces. “McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace said later that U.S. troops will compose some of the additional brigades McCain would send to Afghanistan, but not all of them. ‘Will we contribute? Of course we will,’ she said.” [Washington Post, 5/15/08]