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Hat tip: The Good Kentuckian.

22 April 2009

Workout notes 3000 yard swim; 500 warm up, 10 x 50 swim/drill (fins), 5 x 100 fist, 5 x (50 free, 50 paddle), 10 x (25 fly, 75 free) on the 2 (1:43-46 each; last was in 1:49).

No comment on this:

Beach volleyball could be heading back to school.

An NCAA committee voted this month to add sand volleyball to a list of women’s sports being considered for intercollegiate competition. The sport, known on the professional and Olympic levels as beach volleyball, could be under NCAA auspices as soon as 2009-10.

“It’s a very exciting development, and it’s certainly an acknowledgment that there’s substantial growth in popularity in beach volleyball,” said Leonard Armato, the commissioner of the domestic pro tour. “I think it’s going to be an easy transition for the schools, and there’s going to be lots of girls that want to play.”

Although it spun off from the indoor game almost a century ago, beach volleyball didn’t get competitive until after World War II, and it was first recognized as an Olympic sport in 1996. After the 2004 Games in Athens, when American women won the gold and bronze medals, the AVP recorded 48 percent growth in its fan base.

“I would imagine a similar spike, no pun intended, after the Beijing Games,” Armato said. “Especially since we have the two gold medal favorites.”

Good Sleep Again!

My sleep patterns have returned to normal. Yes! I am drinking coffee and will swim at 7 am.

I’ve been on facebook for a few weeks. Right now some LDS person (aka Mormon) is trying to convert me. It is interesting: what many don’t seem to get is that atheists (such as myself) find ALL magic (reading plates with seer stones, magic golden tablets, etc) to be incredible nonsense.

True, if someone already believes in resurrected bodies, burning bushes, miracles, etc. then they would be far easier to reach.

Politics
I’ve been reading The Nation magazine and I see that some are disappointed with President Obama.

All is not well in Obamafanland. It’s not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from Treasury’s latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama’s silence during Israel’s Gaza attack.

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.

I am not; far from it; I am thrilled with President Obama! Why the difference?

Well, I took then candidate Obama seriously when he said that good change would not be easy. But mostly, what I really wanted was to have a President who is smart and in touch with reality. I didn’t expect to have someone who agrees with me on every single issue or who was going to wave problems away with a magic wand.

I think that we HAVE that smart, capable president in charge right now.

Politics: torture memos This is an example of the honest conversation that I expect to see:

WASHINGTON – President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.

Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past,” he wrote, “but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.” [...]

Mr. Obama’s team has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the harsh interrogations, but in a visit to the C.I.A. this week, the president did not directly question that. Instead, he said, any disadvantage imposed by banning those tactics was worth it.

“I’m sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naïve,” he said. “I understand that. You know, I watch the cable shows once in a while.”

But he added: “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”

Emphasis mine.

Now for a different topic: small government: this is a link to a case study. Basically a village wanted to lower taxes at all costs. This was one consequence:

There’s only one problem in Crestwood! The municipal water is too cheap!

For more than two decades, the 11,000 or so residents in this working-class community unknowingly drank tap water contaminated with toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems, a Tribune investigation found.

As village officials were building a national reputation for pinching pennies, and sending out fliers proclaiming Crestwood water was “Good to taste but not to waste!,” state and village records obtained by the newspaper show they secretly were drawing water from a contaminated well, apparently to save money.

Twenty-two years ago, state environmental regulators told Crestwood’s that their cheap well water was contaminated. Likely by one of the “mom and pop” businesses the mayor extolled. But Crestwood kept using the contaminated well, and kept telling residents that the water was tested and safe.

Jon Stewart on Torture, Richard Dawkins, Earth Like Planets and Inhofe’s amazing stupidity

overcoming irrationality, religious and otherwise, one post at a time

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Science/Religion/Society

Here is an excellent hour long talk by Ricard Dawkins. He discusses origins, “faith”, underhanded theistic tactics and other topics.

Science Two earthlike planets discovered “nearby” (ok, 20 light years away) It turns out that one of these lies in a “life possible” zone:

It probably wouldn’t feel exactly like home. But the planet known as Gliese 581d has a lot more in common with Earth than astronomers first thought.

New measurements of the planet’s orbit place it firmly in a region where conditions would be right for liquid water, and thus life as we know it, astronomer Michel Mayor, from Geneva University in Switzerland, announced today.

“It lies in the [life-supporting] habitable zone, and it could have an ocean at its surface,” Mayor said during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference, being held this week at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K.

First discovered in 2007, Gliese 581d was originally calculated to be too far away from its host star—and therefore too cold—to support an ocean.

But Mayor and colleagues now show that the extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, orbits its host in 66.8 days, putting it just inside the cool star’s habitable zone.

At the same time, Mayor and colleagues announced that they have spotted a fourth planet orbiting in the Gliese 581 star system—and it’s the lightest exoplanet found so far.

The planet, dubbed Gliese 581e, is only about twice the mass of Earth and is the closest planet to the star, completing its orbit in about 3.15 days.

Stupidity The epitome of Republican stupidity: Senator James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma:

Senator James Inhofe, the other batshit crazy, searingly stupid Senator from Oklahoma, took time out from his daily, fact-deprived denials of global warming to declare that he plans on filibustering the nomination of Judge David Hamilton of Indiana to the Seventh Circuit because . . . wait for it . . . he thinks Hamilton is an undercover Muslim.

Inhofe’s San Andreas-sized faulty logic, via the blog Overruled:

In his conclusion [of Hinrichs v. Bosmah], Hamilton wrote: “If the Speaker chooses to continue any form of legislative prayer, he shall advise persons offering such a prayer (a) that it must be nonsectarian and must not be used to proselytize or advance any one faith or belief or to disparage any other faith or belief, and (b) that they should refrain from using Christ’s name or title or any other denominational appeal.” Further, ruling on a postjudgment motion, Hamilton stated that invoking the name of “Allah” would not advance a particular religion or disparage another. So, praying to Allah would be perfectly acceptable.

Talk about a leap of faith. If Inhofe had the reading comprehension skills necessary to score higher than a 200 on the SATs, he’d understand that what Hamilton was actually stating was that according to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Marsh v. Chambers, opening a government proceeding with the generic term “God”, in any language, be it English, Urdu, or yes, even Arabic, is to be considered nonsectarian and thus, acceptable under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. However, specifying “Jesus Christ” is, ipso facto, Christian, and thus, sectarian and violates that silly document we use to create and monitor our laws.

Daily Kos: CNN Clip: Did Bush Keep Us Safe on 9/11?

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1. Note that the Republican spokesperson actually thinks it is bad that President Obama is fulfilling a campaign promise. Get it? Candidate Obama promised us stuff, we elected him, in part, because of his promises, and now the Republicans are calling his actions harmful to the country?

The Republicans can’t seem to accept that the public has rejected them.

2. Note also that she said that President Bush kept us safe for NINE years? Oh yes, 9-11 doesn’t count (I thought that his two terms were 8 years long anyway).

On another note, it is sad to see Senator John McCain making a political issue out of a correct report:

A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security is downright “insulting” to veterans, Arizona Sen. John McCain said Monday.

In an interview on FOX News, the Vietnam veteran and former Republican presidential candidate said the Obama administration owes veterans an apology after releasing a report last week suggesting that members of the military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could fall victim to “right-wing extremism.”

Specifically, the report — “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” — said right-wing extremist groups may be using the recession and the election of the nation’s first African-American president to recruit members.

“The last people on earth we need to worry about are our veterans,” McCain said. “And by the
way, after the Vietnam War, for years there was this portrayal of the Vietnam veteran as crazed and committing — having committed war crimes. There were all of these problems they were going to have. Studies years later have proven that it’s totally false.”

Of course, McCain is completely wrong about what the Homeland Security report said. Basically, the report notes that

1. Right wing extremists have been entering the military and
2. These people are dangerous, though they are a tiny part of the military.

Example: see the Southern Poverty Law Center report:

Under pressure to meet wartime manpower goals, the U.S. military has relaxed standards designed to weed out racist extremists. Large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the armed forces.

Department of Defense investigators estimate thousands of soldiers in the Army alone are involved in extremist or gang activity. “We’ve got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad,” said one investigator. “That’s a problem.”

Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen urged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to adopt a zero-tolerance policy regarding racist extremism among members of the U.S. military.

“Because hate group membership and extremist activity are antithetical to the values and mission of our armed forces, we urge you to adopt a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to white supremacy in the military and to take all necessary steps to ensure that the policy is rigorously enforced,” Cohen wrote in a letter to Rumsfeld.

Military extremists present an elevated threat both to their fellow soldiers and the general public. Today’s white supremacists become tomorrow’s domestic terrorists.

“Neo-Nazi groups and other extremists are joining the military in large numbers so they can get the best training in the world on weapons, combat tactics and explosives,” said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

“We should consider this a major security threat, because these people are motivated by an ideology that calls for race war and revolution. Any one of them could turn out to be the next Timothy McVeigh.”

21 April 2009

Workout notes yoga (my head was elsewhere), 5 mile run outdoors (one complete Rivertrail out and back and one gooseloop lap), 1 mile walk. Weather: 42 F, windy, rainy, miserable but invigorating. The run was ok, though I am still a bit tired.

NBA: still hungover from yesterday’s Celtics-Bulls game. That’s what it is all about: two teams with a ton of pride, giving all that they have. Paul Pierce is still my favorite NBA player, but I found myself pulling for the Bulls; Illinois pride I guess.

Science Climate Change Crock:

Health and Overeating Yes, some foods can indeed set you off, if your brain has the wrong configuration:

Food hijacked Dr. David Kessler’s brain. Not apples or carrots. The scientist who once led the government’s attack on addictive cigarettes can’t wander through part of San Francisco without craving a local shop’s chocolate-covered pretzels. Stop at one cookie? Rarely. It’s not an addiction but it’s similar, and he’s far from alone. Kessler’s research suggests millions share what he calls “conditioned hypereating” — a willpower-sapping drive to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods even when they’re not hungry.

In a book being published next week, the former Food and Drug Administration chief brings to consumers the disturbing conclusion of numerous brain studies: Some people really do have a harder time resisting bad foods. It’s a new way of looking at the obesity epidemic that could help spur fledgling movements to reveal calories on restaurant menus or rein in portion sizes.

“The food industry has figured out what works. They know what drives people to keep on eating,” Kessler tells The Associated Press. “It’s the next great public health campaign, of changing how we view food, and the food industry has to be part of it.”

He calls the culprits foods “layered and loaded” with combinations of fat, sugar and salt — and often so processed that you don’t even have to chew much.

Overeaters must take responsibility, too, and basically retrain their brains to resist the lure, he cautions.

“I have suits in every size,” Kessler writes in “The End of Overeating.” But, “once you know what’s driving your behavior, you can put steps into place” to change it.

At issue is how the brain becomes primed by different stimuli. Neuroscientists increasingly report that fat-and-sugar combinations in particular light up the brain’s dopamine pathway — its pleasure-sensing spot — the same pathway that conditions people to alcohol or drugs.

Politics

At long last: we have a President who refuses to kiss Republican ass:

The Plum LineGreg Sargent’s blog
Obama Begins Mocking GOP’s National Security Attacks

An interesting, if subtle, shift in Obama’s tone: He’s taken to openly mocking GOP criticism of his willingness to diplomatically engage hostile foreign leaders.

You saw the new tone on display over the weekend, where Obama was questioned by reporters about the widespread GOP criticism of a warm handshake moment he had with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. GOP Senator John Ensign, for instance, said it was “irresponsible” to be seen “laughing and joking” with him.

Obama replied, in part:

Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.

Obama, in short, ridiculed the very idea that we should see Chavez as a threatening figure, and threw in a bit of mockery of the reporters, to boot.

It’s worth recalling that there was a time when Dems would quake with fear about national security attacks coming from the right, let alone respond to them with outright mockery. In this sense, Obama’s tone underscores how much the political climate has shifted on such matters.

It’s also a sign of his confidence that the public is with him — and has little trust in the Republicans — even on questions of national security. He appears to feel on solid enough ground that he can respond to the basic ideas underlying Republican efforts to depict him as weak with little more than contempt and derision.

You don’t know how long I’ve wanted a liberal leader who would stand up to these idiots and call them out for being what they are.

Now what we need to do is to straighten out some clueless “blue dogs”.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Republicans are even less popular with the public than Venezuela!

Economy: Robert Reich: points out that President Obama should make a few symbolic concessions but NOT compromise stimulus spending and NOT compromise on health care:

But Obama would be mistaken to take more than symbolic steps at this point. The economy is still in a depression because consumers and businesses won’t or can’t spend, and exports are dead because the rest of the world is in even worse shape. Government spending on a large scale is necessary now, and will be next year as well. [...]

Obama should fast-track health care and stop trying to court Republicans. Every House Republican and all but three Senate Republicans voted against the stimulus; all Republicans in both houses voted against the budget. During the recess they hosted “tea parties” claiming that Americans are over-taxed. Over the weekend, House minority leader John Boehner called the idea of carbon-induced climate change “almost comical.”

Republicans are already off and running toward the midterm elections of 2010, even starting to run ads against House Democrats in close districts. They seem hell bent on on becoming a tiny, whacky minority — the party that denies evolution, denies global warming, denies Americans need a major overhaul of health care, and denies the economy needs anything more than a major tax cut to get it moving again.

Bottom line: we won the last election, and it wasn’t close. If the Republicans don’t want to go along and if they don’t want to offer honest, well thought out, good faith alternative ideas to consider, then screw them.

Celtics 118, Bulls 115. Wow!

Photos from yahoo.

This series has been outstanding. Bottom line: Bulls speed versus Celtic size. Allen had 30, Gordon hit 42.

Rondo started hot, turned an ankle but came back and toughed it out.

The Bulls blocked a ton of shots.

But in the end, Allen hit the big shot; a 3 pointer with the game tied and 2 seconds to go.

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

No one that I know claimed that CO2 causes cancer. What an idiot…oh wait, he is part of the Republican leadership, isn’t he?

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I Am Excited About This

President Obama talks about the proposed high speed rail program:

Yes!!!!! It will be great to be able to go long distances without these *(&^^ airlines!
(or at least be able to catch a train to fly on Southwest)

Can the Bulls go up 2-0?

Workout notes I slept very poorly last night; 3 hours, then 1 hour, then 1 hour. Still my 2650 yard swim wasn’t that bad (10 x 100 on the 1:45; 1:37-1:39 each; three 1:39). I am feeling better; I think that I had a low grade cold last week in addition to fatigue.

One other note from last week: only 10 of the 22 early starters for the 100 finished; I finished 7′th in this group.
Of course this would have been different had the other 54 starters in the 100 started early; 19 of these finished.

NBA basketball

It appears to me that the Celtics aren’t giving the Bulls much credit for their win in game 1. But the Bulls are staying humble, at least outwardly:

“I know what I did in the game,” Rose said. “I think about the days when I don’t have a good game, would I still look at TV? I know that I wouldn’t. So why would I look at it if I had a good game? That wouldn’t be right. That’s not me.”

Rose will leave the fancy adjectives and hero worship to others. He doesn’t care about coming-out parties or where his Game 1 performance ranks among the great playoff efforts. He doesn’t even bite on Monday being the 23rd anniversary of Michael Jordan dropping a playoff-record 63 points on the Celtics at the old Boston Garden.

And that’s not just because Rose, 20, wasn’t born then.

“I was just doing anything to win — diving, fouling people, whatever it takes,” Rose said.

That’s Rose’s only goal, which is why his Game 1 performance is old news and he’s already envisioning the defensive adjustments the Celtics will make for Game 2 on Monday night in this best-of-seven slugfest.

“Fouls are going to be harder, they’re going to know every play, crank up their defense,” Rose said. “They’re a real good defensive team.

“But it’s just going to be fun. There’s going to be a little more attention on me. But that’s what you want as a player. We have a lot of people who can push the ball up the floor, and then I can get the ball back and run the offense. I know my teammates and coaching staff will be ready. We’ll just battle.”

Yes, I know: if Paul Piece hit that second free throw in regulation, the Celtics would have won the game. Still, the Bulls outhustled them and beat them to the loose balls, rebounds, everything.

Still the Celtics are the defending champions and even without their big man, should be favored tonight.