11 October 09 (pm)

Rush Limbaugh: makes fun of uneducated, poor blacks; riles up his moronic listeners. He says that these poor, ignorant people are “Obama’s model citizens”. See what happens when you try to help someone?

Health care reform: your 9 month old breast fed baby might be “too fat” to be insured.

More Representative Grayson: “Republicans wish there would be a Nobel Prize for fear, a Nobel Prize for racism, a Nobel Prize for hatred; then they’d be in the running…”

If you think that this is divisive, remember the GOP members of Congress who compared the President to a fascist, who talked about death panels, social…ism and the like. What goes around comes around. I am conflicted, but then I was growing very tired of being a punching bag for conservatives and this man is definitely a change of pace.

Dog saves another dog…

Here is a link to the video with an English voice over; they say that both dogs were ok.

But what is the point? Clearly, this was altruistic behavior. Did the “heroic dog” believe in Jesus or belong to a church?

Altruistic behavior has nothing to do with deities.

NFL throwback uniforms

Game one: I didn’t see this, but Dallas pulled it out 26-20 against Kansas City. The Chiefs wore their old AFL “Texans” uniforms; they started off in Dallas but couldn’t compete with the Cowboys at first. Of course, they won their first Super Bowl (as the Chiefs) after the 1969 season, and the Cowboys didn’t win theirs until 2 years later.

I am currently watching the Broncos-Patriots game; it is in overtime tied at 17.

The hitting has been crisp even if the uniforms are horrific.

Quad Cities Marathon Photos

My report itself is here. My photos are here.

Just before the start:

At about mile 7

Close to mile 10

At about mile 12

Half way (about 2:34)

At about mile 20

About mile 24; I am hurting here.

Near the finish line

11 October 09; am

Workout notes Nothing yet; I should get out for a 2.5 hour walk in just a bit, after coffee has had a chance to do it’s work. I’ll probably walk on the roads today and use a “hiking” style.

Update: I got in about 5.5 miles; I wasn’t quite to the 3 mile mark when I knew that I would have to turn around. Yep; the pain was too great (upper calf is where I felt it this time). So, my lay-off starts a bit earlier than I had planned. But hey, it has been a good year, even if my performances were not great.

I have an internet friend who won the racewalking division of the Portland Marathon. You can read her story here. I also saw her photos; what I was impressed by is that her technique stayed solid the whole way. It can be done; if I want to do this I had better get to the track and practice (I plan on resting all of November)

Other stuff

Football: my picks were awful; I went 7-10 on my yahoo college football picks (vs. the spread mostly). it is a good thing that I don’t do this for money!

Yoga: this Hedge cartoon struck my funny bone:

Political:

Nobel Peace Prize committees (and others): don’t care about popular opinion.

The committee, are all professional politicians. The chairman, Jagland, has served as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of his country. In the terms of accomplishment that the pundits now give such import, he’s got them beaten by miles. (How many nations have you lead, Joe Scarborough?). Anyone who claims that they’re ignorant or politically naive in any way needs to back that up with some very solid merits, or take a slice of humble pie.

Which brings me to the main point I forgot:
The Nobel committees don’t give a flying f–k what you think.

Get the big picture: There are two reasons the Nobel prize has achieved the stature it has. The first is its rather unique nature, being essentially the first prize of its kind, and really, the only prize of its kind – given its stature.

The second is the absolute integrity and secrecy of the prize committees.

It’s their opinion that matters and their opinion only. It doesn’t matter what you say, or what the million talking heads say. The committee doesn’t care – it’s their job not to care. Their job is to make up their minds who they think the best candidate is and make that decision. With no outside influence.

When was a Nobel laureate announcement ever leaked? When did you hear that a Nobel was ‘bought’ or that they’d ‘given way to public pressure’? The answer is never, unless you count the inevitable weak rumors and sore losers.

It’s not because that pressure doesn’t exist. That pressure is massive. Businesses, universities, entire nations sometimes try to campaign for a Nobel. It doesn’t work and it’s never worked.

Gee, you mean they care neither about the opinions of those with money, those who watch Fox and those who watch MSNBC?

(yes, I am in one of those groups, and no, I don’t have money )

Here is a quick take by Gawker on those things that President Obama has made “un-American”.

Well, I am getting ready to get dressed. It is chilly out there, but not too bad…yet.

Texas versus Colorado, Ohio State versus Wisconsin

Right now, Colorado is trailing UT 24-14 in the third quarter. The difference? UT blocked a punt and returned it for one touchdown, and then returned an interception for a touchdown. The play from scrimmage has been very close.

But one quarter remains.

Update: UT just returned a punt for a touchdown; 31-14 UT. Speed kills!

In the earlier game, Ohio State beat Wisconsin 31-13. A blowout, right?

Well, two Ohio State TDs came via interception returns and a third was a kickoff return. In short, it was defense and special teams.

My point: overall team speed can just kill, even when the speed isn’t being used on offense. A slower team can hang in but a faster team can pounce right on a mistake and convert it.

On another note: I was very happy with Navy’s 63-14 win over Rice; too much Navy running for Rice to handle.

Refuting Bad Arguments: Climate Change Skepticism

We’ve seen articles like these being misused by climate change skeptics:

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth’s warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

But let’s focus on the argument that the recent years have been colder and that we’ve been cooling since 1998.

Let’s look at this argument applied to my blog visits by months.

Oh, we see a downward trend, right? It is true that August, September, October and November 2008 were my largest visitor months, by far. I’ve yet to get back to that level of readership (reason: I blogged about the Olympics and the US General Election).

But I’d argue (from the evidence) that, on the whole, my readership has gone up with time:

Note the steady uptrend (the last data point is for the first 9 days of October, 2009)

Real life data is messy and has local ups and downs. But one can usually detect a long term trend.

Now look at the overall trend; yes, you can see the lone spike in 1998, then a drop, then back up again (from New Scientist Magazine)