5 August 09 (pm)

Workout notes 2 mile warm up, 1 mile in 7:19, cool down (4 total): 1:38, 3:25, 5:12 and then DIED on the last mile; I had nothing left.

Other posts

A very touching tribute to those who know that they are near death.

Bill Maher: scorches the “birthers” and other right wing nutbags.

Security: Too many security measures can lead to less security (e. g. scaring people into never clicking on pop-ups keeps them from needed updates, doors get barred open, etc. ) Note: the same thing happens with safety measures at the workplace: sometimes safety devices make it too hard for them to do their jobs so they defeat them.

Health Care Robert Reich says that the President should forge ahead on health care reform and roll over the faux populist anti-health care reform “astroturf movement”:

The Republicans’ goal isn’t ideological. It’s power. Republicans smell 1994 all over again. That’s when they defeated Clinton’s healthcare plan — and in doing so convinced large numbers of Americans that Clinton and the Democrats couldn’t be trusted. This enabled the Republicans to retake control of Congress. From then on, they blocked Clinton’s agenda. They even gave themselves a shot at the presidency in 1996.

Who can blame them for wanting to recreate 1994? Republicans have no other strategy. They can’t attack Obama personally because he’s just too popular. They’ve been incapable of coming up with their own plan for healthcare reform. The biggest healthcare interest groups — the AMA, private insurers, and Big Pharma — have publicly backed the major healthcare initiatives coming from congressional Democrats (although, I suspect, are quietly supporting the Republicans’ Astroturf blitz). Their “tea parties” in April were a flop. Their poll numbers are awful. Their major loudmouths — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannnity, and Dick Cheney — are not exactly attractive to most Americans. Their biggest nightmare, Sarah Pallin, is already on the campaign trail for 2012.

But this Republican strategy will fail. 2010 will not be 1994. There’s too much momentum behind universal health care right now to stop it. Yet the Republicans’ fake grass-roots campaign may cause some Democratic lawmakers to become even more nervous about universal health care than they already are, or at least give them an excuse to duck when it comes time to vote in September. The result will be a watered-down set of reforms that still leave millions of Americans uninsured and don’t slow healthcare costs. This is why Obama has to fight for this so hard over the August recess, why he has to be far more specific about what he wants in the bill, and why he can’t afford any more diversions — like the beer summit, or economic advisors who seem to open the door to middle-class tax increases.

Shooting in Pittsburgh

They guy who did the shooting hated women for rejecting him:

George Sodini seethed with anger and frustration toward women. He couldn’t understand why they ignored him, despite his best efforts to look nice. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since 1984, hadn’t slept with a woman in 19 years.

“Women just don’t like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one. Not one of them finds me attractive,” the 48-year-old computer programmer lamented in a chilling diary he posted on the Internet.

For months, he also wrote vaguely about using guns to carry out his “exit plan” at his health club, where lots of young women worked out.

On Tuesday, Sodini put his plan into action.

He went to the sprawling L.A. Fitness Club in this Pittsburgh suburb, turned out the lights on a dance-aerobics class filled with women, and opened fire with three guns, letting loose with a fusillade of at least 36 bullets.

He killed three women and wounded nine others before committing suicide.

Groan. Yeah, I know: rejection sucks and yeah, I’ve felt it. But you know what? There is a kind of woman who likes nerds and it is better for all involved for us nerds to just accept it and go after that type.

But there is more:

Interestingly, at this afternoon’s press conference, the local police chief was asked about any racial aspect to the shooting. He denied it but some may have wondered why the question even arose (the shooter and all victims were white).

In addition, I have located, with some digging, a March 13, 1994 Web posting by Sodini at a Whitewater news group which reads in full:

I got a bumper sticker that reads: “Stop Socialism Impeach Clinton” from an ad in National Review magazine. There are many neat buttons and stickers and things advertised in those conservative magazines. George

Two weeks later after posting at an “alt.clinton.politics” forum he signed off with another pro-impeachment message: “Gore in ’94.”

And on Sept. 9, 1995, he posted on a “activism.militia” newsgroup the following:

I am convinced that more drastic action is required to bring the country back to the Constitutional order that it was 200 years ago. I don’t think any group of political leaders will achieve this for us.

Here was the first entry, which explains his early desire to “exit” and take a few people with him, but deciding to stick around until past last November’s election — and his sarcastic remarks about Obama. Later in the diary he complains about the ‘Obama economy.’

Planned to do this in the summer but figure to stick around to see the election outcome. This particular one got so much attention and I was just curious. Not like I give a flying fuck who won, since this exit plan was already planned. Good luck to Obama! He will be successful. The liberal media LOVES him.

Amerika has chosen The Black Man. Good! In light of this I got ideas outside of Obama’s plans for the economy and such. Here it is: Every black man should get a young white girl hoe to hone up on. Kinda a reverse indentured servitude thing. Long ago, many a older white male landowner had a young Negro wench girl for his desires. Bout’ time tables are turned on that shit. Besides, dem young white hoez dig da bruthrs! LOL. More so than they dig the white dudes!

Every daddy know when he sends his little girl to college, she be bangin a bruthr real good. I saw it. “Not my little girl”, daddy says! (Yeah right!!) Black dudes have thier choice of best white hoez. You do the math, there are enough young white so all the brothers can each have one for 3 or 6 months or so.

He sounds like a quintessential current day Republican (of the Glenn Beck/Sean Hannity/Rush Limbaugh variety).