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)

Grayson blasts GOP and the bipartisan fetish in brilliant floor speech – Daily Kos TV (beta)

more about "Grayson blasts GOP and the bipartisan…", posted with vodpod

10 October afternoon-Part II

Surf here to see a “snarked” version of a photo that originally appeared on a right-wing fundie-Christian site (see the original here)

I got the link from The Legal Satyricon, which received a rather unusual recommendation:

Blog Hell: can’t decide which is more amusing.
Marc Randazza’s legal blog is snappy and fun to read.
But auto-fellatio.org has a guy stuffing his balls up his ass.
Lawyers, balls up the ass, what’s the difference?

10 October 09 (afternoon)

Workout notes McNaughton loop (3:10 in hiking boots); 1:00 at Lick Creek, 1:11 at Golf Hill, 1:30 at the very slick bridge (that I butt-kissed!). The right lower hamstring ached a bit but wasn’t a definitive “no” to next week. The trail was somewhat “surface slick…in a “mossy” sort of way” in spots.

I was hoping for either “zero pain” or “no-way” level pain…but this was neither. Injury recovery seems to work that way.

Later I went to buy Richard Dawkins’ book: The Greatest Show on Earth and have read a bit of it already.

While I was in line, I noticed a magazine titled Glutes (it is an off-shoot of Oxygen Magazine)

Rachel Maddow Nails It, Dawkins on O’Reilly, Astronomy at the White HouseMa

First, the President’s weekly address:

Maddow puts it in perspective

White House: Night of Astronomy

More on the Nobel: Senator McCain reacts with class.

n a statement, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) congratulated President Obama on his Nobel Peace Prize:

I congratulate President Obama on receiving this prestigious award. I join my fellow Americans in expressing pride in our President on this occasion.

And in an interview to air on CNN on Sunday, McCain said, “I think part of their decision-making was expectations. And I’m sure the president understands that he now has even more to live up to. But as Americans, we’re proud when our president receives an award of that prestigious category.”

Obama’s Peace Prize: between you and me (liberals only)

PSST: yes, I am aware that the Nobel Committee sometimes awards the Peace Prize on “direction” rather than by accomplishment (in an effort to make up for the prize awarded to Kissinger?)

Yes, I still think that the award was, well, premature and I can understand why non-Americans might not agree with it being awarded and that this award might actually cause President Obama some problems.

But I’ve had a ton of fun watching the loony right throw a massive tantrum (note; the author of this blog post is NOT the primary blog owner). Maybe they’ll hold their collective breath?

Update:

Nobel Prize Committee Gives American Wingnuts the Bird!

The rest of the world hates disapproves of the US conservatives as much as I do.

In other words, America wasn’t “hated for her freedoms”. America was hated because the wingnuts were in charge.

They aren’t any longer.

Thousands and Thousands of Conservative Heads Exploding at Once….

Workout notes 3 miles on the Precor gizmo (34:30), rotator cuff exercises, then 2000 yards of swimming:

10 x (25 free, 25 back) 10:40, 5 x (50 side, 50 careful free) in about 2 each (10:04), 3 x 200 fins, 100 drill/swim (3:11, 08, :11, being very careful), 100 drill, more rotator cuff stuff.

Barack Obama That’s right:

OSLO — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided not to inform Obama before the announcement because it didn’t want to wake him up, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said.

“Waking up a president in the middle of the night, this isn’t really something you do,” Jagland said.

The Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” Jagland said.

In short, the world was hungry for a US President who wasn’t a complete jackass!

Even better: I can’t wait to hear the howls of outrage from the Republicans!

As a bonus: more from Rep. Grayson:

More of the transcript here.