A couple of good “facepalms”

1. A policeman in Washington DC pulled his gun….to control….a snowball fight.

(hat tip: Legal Satyricon)

2. From a facebook post (in St. Louis):

Last Spring, stopped at a red light, I saw a pretty young thing in a red Honda blow through and get hit by a jeep that had the green. As her car came to a stop pointed the wrong way, I could see she was STILL texting! Then I got the green and left; I am not sure if reality intruded on its own, or if someone had to text her that she had been in an accident.

Hmmm, if this lass isn’t one of our students, our university is probably actively recruiting her.

NFL Note 20 December 09

Right now I am watching an exciting Miami-Tennessee game. It is 24-24 with 1:09 to play and will probably go into overtime as a Titian punt was downed at the Dolphin 2 yard line.

But here was an interesting thing from the announcer: Tennessee was up 24-6 and Miami had a 4′th and 3 at the Tennessee 27. So the Dolphins lined up for a field goal and the announcers said that was a questionable decision. They made the kick.

Well, come the 4′th quarter when the Dolphins had closed to 24-16 and were driving…I’ll bet that they were glad that they had that 3 points!

On another note, my wife and I had entertained the idea of driving to St. Louis to see the Rams (aka Lambs) play but decided against it when it appeared that she would have a meeting associated with her play. Well, it appears that there is no meeting and the Rams played the Texans to a 16-13 loss, and even lead at the half.

(photos from yahoo)

Back to the game. We are in overtime and Tennessee just intercepted Miami at the 42 (Miami’s), and now they got 15 more yards on a personal foul. I don’t agree with the call; basically a Dolphin made sure that the defensive back was down. They now have it at the 27 so unless they fumble, the Titans should win the game; though they lost 2 yards. So the kick is from 46 yards, but the kicker has a monster leg. Good..game over. Relief for the Titans, heartbreak for the Dolphins.

A note on the Bears-Ravens
It only took 1:26 for the Bears to turn it over; this time just past midfield.
It took the Ravens only 4-5 plays to cash in with a touchdown.
Bears drive into the red zone, throw interception number 2…all in under 10 minutes of game time.
Groan.
No problem; Baltimore drives it 81 yards; 14-0, Ravens. This looks like one of those games in which a SEC school plays “northernmost southwest boot-hill state” type of teams.

Update The Bears mount a good drive lead by their running attack. But on 4′th and goal for the 1, they try a pass and fail. BUT, the defense pins the Ravens and force a punt, which is run back 50 yards for a TD. It is now 14-7 Ravens, though it appears that the Ravens are about to kick a field goal.

Wow…bad snap and the Ravens miss a field goal. The punt/kick snappers have a very important job.
But the Bears went out of bounds twice and gave it back with 1:30 left in the half. This was poor clock management by the Bears.

Second Half: same as the first. The Ravens score after only 1:30 into the second half to go up 21-7, and then the Bears fumble the kickoff and the Ravens recover.

Ravens drive it 50 yards; 28-7, Ravens.

The Bears fumble it AGAIN…on the 8 yard line, but a Raven personal foul puts them back; the Bear defense holds the Ravens to a field goal…”only” 31-7 right now.

DemConWatch:: Netroots vs. “Grown-Up Democrats”

more about "DemConWatch:: Netroots vs. “Grown-Up …", posted with vodpod

I agree somewhat. Here is what I disagree with: the Iraq war was a bit more cut and dried (did we really “know” that Iraq had WMD? How easy or difficult would it be?). But getting HCR passed does involve some messy compromise; my guess is that those Obama town halls in states where he lost (and lost big time, in the case of Arkansas) wouldn’t be all that effective (the one in Connecticut might be).

But Mr. Moulitsas is right on about many (if not most) of us having donated money, worked on campaigns, etc. Many of us have graduate or professional degrees, positions of responsibility and many of us (including Mr. Moulitsas) have served in the military (myself included).

But yeah, what Chris Matthews says appears to be the old “if you were mature and wise, you would have been wrong about the Iraq war” (and many other things) canard.

(hat tip: DefConWatch)

On the other hand, this bill, however imperfect, is not only a step in the right direction (albeit an imperfect one), but also a huge defeat for the Republicans.:

The United States is on the doorstep of comprehensive health care reform. It’s a staggering achievement, about which I’ll have more to say later. but the under-appreciated thing that strikes me at the moment is that it never would have happened if the Republican Party had played its cards right.

At the outset of this debate, moderate Democrats were desperate for a bipartisan bill. They were willing to do almost anything to get it, including negotiate fruitlessly for months on end. We can’t know for sure, but Democrats appeared willing to make enormous substantive concessions to win the assent of even a few Republicans. A few GOP defectors could have lured a chunk of Democrats to sign something far more limited than what President Obama is going to sign. And remember, it would have taken only one Democrat to agree to partial reform in order to kill comprehensive reform. I can easily imagine a scenario where Ben Nelson refused to vote for anything larger than, say, a $400 billion bill that Chuck Grassley and a couple other Republicans were offering.

But Republicans wouldn’t make that deal. The GOP leadership put immense pressure on all its members to withhold consent from any health care bill. The strategy had some logic to it: If all 40 Republicans voted no, then Democrats would need 60 votes to succeed, a monumentally difficult task. And if they did succeed, the bill would be seen as partisan and therefore too liberal, too big government. The spasm of anti-government activism over the summer helped lock the GOP into this strategy — no Republican could afford to risk the wrath of Tea Partiers convinced that any reform signed by Obama equaled socialism and death panels.

The rest of this New Republic article talks about some specifics, including Senator Snowe.

So, could progressives have done substantially better, or could we do better by reconciliation? Nate Silver analyzes this.

I tend to agree; the reconciliation process causes problems and would be better used for stuff that has widespread public support.

Saints: 13-1

Ok, you knew it, didn’t you? The Cowboys played a great first half and lead 17-3 at the break. Then in the third, they pushed the lead to 24-3….

Then the Saints came back; two drives and now it is 24-17.

But the Cowboys drive, convert a key 3′rd and 7 and get it deep into New Orleans territory. So no time outs left, 2:20 left in the game and the Cowboys try a short field goal which will ice the game; they miss the 24 yard field goal.

Sound familiar? That’s right, the Redskins were in a very similar position and…yes…missed a 23 yard field goal.

So the Saints had life. But this time the Cowboy defense held and eventually sacked Brees and made him fumble.

The defense came up with the big stop at the end.

So the Saints are 13-1 and the Cowboys move to 9-5 and lead the wild card teams. But if they win next week at Washington (a huge IF) then they’ll play Philadelphia for the division title.

(photos from yahoo)

19 December 09

Workout notes weights (squats: 45, 95, 135, 235) on the Smith machine; tried to get depth. Then I did 2 sets of curls, military press, bench press with weights: 25, MP: 35, BP 50, 55, lat pulls.

Then I did some yoga, then 1 mile of “running” on the track, 4 miles on the elliptical.
The 1 mile “run”: no real pain; some faint tightness that I wouldn’t have ordinarily noticed toward the end.

Liberals: We are prone to forming circular firing squads.
Alan Grayson: many liberals love his outspokenness. But it turns out that a Republican PAC to oppose him. (fine, so far). But the PAC violated the established rules:

Grayson claims that Langley falsely reported to the Federal Election Commission that her PAC supports or opposes more than one candidate. Grayson’s factual assertion seems to be completely meritorious. It seems clear that Langley’s website is solely devoted to getting rid of Grayson. Grayson also claims that Langley falsely represents that she is one of Grayson’s constituents. She doesn’t live in his district. That seems to be a meritorious claim too. Grayson claims that Langley could not have simply made an innocent mistake about which congressional district she lives in — as she is the head of the Lake County Republican Party. Meh, I think that Grayson presumes way too much here. If you can run for Vice President and you can’t name a single newspaper, you can be the head of the Republican Party in a district where the average IQ is about at the level of an alligator with downs syndrome that got hit by a pickup truck after drinking too much moonshine.

The thing is, I am sure that Grayson’s allegations are true. I am sure that Langley isn’t just some innocent member of the public who is fed up with Grayson. I’m sure that the Republican Party put her up to this stunt.

So Rep. Grayson filed a complaint and the penalty for this type of fraud is up to 5 years in prison. But:

I truly admired Alan Grayson. I think that his policies are good for America. I think that his style is exactly what the liberals need. But, anyone who behaves with such dishonor and such disdain for First Amendment principles needs to be tossed out on his ass – no matter who it is that he’s going after.

So he attacks Grayson for Grayson asking the law to make the Republicans follow the established rules? Come on…this isn’t the case of some moronic teabagger setting up their own web page on their own. It isn’t a fair fight when only one side has to play by the rules.

Groan.

Then we have people going after Obama because he can’t….uh…make conservatives vote like liberals?

Things have gotten so bad at Daily Kos that some of the President’s supporters have actually left (not me).

Being a liberal is a lot like this:

But, in the end, it sure beats being on the other side:

(hat tip: Jerry Coyne)

And it beats hanging around people who write like this.

Health Care Reform
It appears that we have the 60 votes for cloture. True, things can still go wrong.

Liberal pressure probably made this a better bill than it might have been, even if it isn’t what liberals had hoped for. After all, the votes were never there for what we wanted. The people who failed were the moderates, who could have made it happen quicker.

Health Care Reform: The President’s Case, Republican pushback

The Republican push-back:

18 December 09

I have a headache; it sure feels like a caffeine headache. But I won’t take any as I need to sleep.

Workout notes Easy day: 2200 yard swim (lots of drill, mixed strokes, etc.) and that was it. I am planning on doing something prior tomorrow’s graduation exercises which I was roped into going to.

Posts
This will be more of a link dump than anything else;

Humor An adult lady actually throws a tantrum and throws herself on the ground, crying and screaming….over a traffic ticket.

Beer-Lambert law: Fail.

see more Epic Fails

Oh no…what if all we get out of addressing climate change is a…better world?

(from PZ Myers blog)
Note: this was an argument that even Senator McCain made. See about 3:20 into it:

Science
This underwater volcano footage is stunning:

More here.

Our place in the universe

(hat tip: Uniform Velocity)

Top 10 Astronomy photos of the year: here.

Health Care Reform
Confused by conflicting polls? Perhaps it is because they ask the wrong questions.

Paul Krugman Break the inertia and pass the bill.

Rants
Some liberals: launch a primary challenge against President Obama?
People like myself: you’ve got to be kidding me.

This guy hates the Mummer’s Parade, I think:

When every vapid, overweight decaying blob in South Philly, who spends the other 7/8 of their year voting Republican, bitching about gay marriage and enthusiastically buying pickup trucks they will never need gathers to stick peacock feathers up their ass and practice choreographed group dance moves to the smooth tunes of the Village People, the dramatic irony has surely not escaped my grasp. More stunning still, is that the the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and general stench of impending death is not only somehow higher than it was when I passed this crowd last year, but is also impressive by even American standards. Watching a crowd of XXL sweat suit clad percentage points chug bud light (it’s ok, it’s low carb now!) at 10:30 am on a Sunday morning while talking about their new Camaro is a humbling sight for even the strongest of resolves.

(hat tip: Recursivity)

I admit that I don’t know anything about this parade but I enjoy a good rant.

17 December 09 (pm: a bit of humor)

Touchdown Celebration Fail:

(from here)

Obviously, this is Canadian football (goalposts on the goal line)

see more Epic Fails

17 December 09 (pm)

Ok, I am behind on my blog reading due to final exams. But I’ve managed to read some blog stuff and here it is:

The petty:

(ok, I laughed out loud..but will admit in private that this is petty)

Facepalm of the day This is a classic example of people thinking that their opponents are stupid. It is well known that we are using unmanned military drones to target Al Qeada. It turns out that there is an unsecure, unencrypted link between the drone and ground control that can be read by cheap, over the counter software. Guess what? That’s right; the enemy is reading it. Guess what?

The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn’t know how to exploit it, the officials said.

This reminds me a bit of our World War II folly in the fight against the Japanese:

Japan and Myths about her Navy
Prewar, many myths were propagated about Japanese Sailors, by both American and British observers, e g “The Japanese could not see in the dark.” “The Japanese were not good Night Fighters.”

These beliefs were laid to rest at “The Battle of Savo Island.” on the 9th. of August. 1942, when I was sunk in H M A.S “Canberra”.

Japanese lookouts visually sighted our Cruiser force of “Canberra,” “Chicago,” with Destroyer escorts “Patterson,” and “Bagley,” at a range of 12,500 yards, whilst the American Cruiser “Vincennes,” was first sighted visually at 18,000 yards.

The U S Navy paid the price that fatetul night when their heavy Cruisers, “Astoria,” “Quincy,” and ‘Vincernes,” were all sunk with heavy loss of life.

The converse to these myths of not having good night vision, or being poor night fighters was, in fact, the truth. Night fighting training was assiduously applied, and special lookout training was given to Sailors with superior night vision. The I. J. N. developed night binoculars which allowed Lookouts to sight ships up to 20,000 yards away.

(of course, the Japanese had similar, equally stupid beliefs; for example surf to the above link)

Science: huge breakthrough; some common cancer genomes have been sequenced. This is a big step in trying to fight this deadly set of diseases.

Health Care Reform
The battle wages on the progressive side. People that I respect disagree with each other. Some fear that all this bill does is impose a mandate for people to buy a lousy product that they can’t afford. Others point out that some who WANT to buy health insurance will finally be able to buy it.

I see this as an imperfect start to a good long term goal; Paul Krumgan agrees.

More Paul Krugman

And the truth is that health care reform was probably doomed to be deeply imperfect. As Ezra Klein pointed out a few weeks ago, we’re basically in a hostage situation: progressives really, really want to cover the uninsured, while centrists whose votes are needed can take it or leave it. So the centrists have a lot of power — which in the case of Joe Lieberman means the power to double-cross and indulge his pettiness.

Now, in a hostage situation there are times when you have to just say no — when giving in, by encouraging future hostage-takers, would be worse than letting the hostages perish. So the question has to be, is this one of those times? I don’t think so, given the history: as Kevin Drum points out, health reform has come back weaker after each defeat. I’d also point out that highly imperfect insurance reforms, like Social Security and Medicare in their initial incarnations, have gotten more comprehensive over time. This suggests that the priority is to get something passed. [...]

But what’s happening, I think, goes beyond health care; what we’re seeing is disillusionment with Obama among some of the people who were his most enthusiastic supporters. A lot of people seem shocked to find that he’s not the transformative figure of their imaginations. Can I say I told you so? If you paid attention to what he said, not how he said it, it was obvious from the beginning — and I’m talking about 2007 — that he was going to be much less aggressive about change than one could have hoped. And this has done a lot of damage: I believe he could have taken a tougher line on economic policy and the banks, and was tearing my hair out over his caution early this year. I also believe that if he had been tougher on those issues, he’d be better able to weather disappointment over his health care compromises.

So there’s a lot of bitterness out there. But please, keep your priorities straight.

By all means denounce Obama for his failed bipartisan gestures. By all means criticize the administration. But don’t take it out on the tens of millions of Americans who will have health insurance if this bill passes, but will be out of luck — and, in some cases, dead — if it doesn’t.

Note: there is still some sour grapes here as he backed Hillary Clinton who supported mandates from day one. President Obama opposed them in his plan. Of course, at the time, I said that I was neutral but I thought that Obama had a better shot of getting something passed. Unlike Dr. Krugman, I thought it was worthwhile for President Obama to at least reach out to Republicans so he could show that he tried. Sure, the Republicans were going to hate him anyway, but at least some centrists might have appreciated it.

But that is a digression.

Here is Nate Silver’s “elevator pitch” (a pitch concise enough to make in an elevator ride…ok, I take the stairs), a response to his “20 questions of those who want to kill the bill” and his response to people answering his 20 questions.

Thereisnospoon points out that our side is badly outgunned in the propaganda department.

This about sums up my feelings: I am backing this bill as I want others to have the options that I currently have.

No, it isn’t great but as Robert Reich points out:

The political reality right now is that Harry Reid will do anything to get sixty votes — which means Lieberman, Nelson, and even Olympia Snowe are able to use extortion on behalf of Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the AMA, and abortion foes. The President, meanwhile, remains eerily above the fray. Having closed deals months ago with Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA — in order to get their support in exchange for guaranteeing them big profits — his only apparent interest is keeping the deals going while helping Reid corral sixty votes for just about anything. (The deals have caused some awkwardness for the White House. Drug importation would have cost Big Pharma far more than the $80 billion price tag it agreed to, forcing the White House to oppose importation even though the President had publicly supported it during his presidential campaign last year, and even though John McCain supported yesterday’s amendment.)

Is the effort worth still worth it? Yes, but just. Private insurers will have to take anyone, regardless of preconditions. And some 30 million people who don’t now have health insurance will get it. But because Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA will come out way ahead, the legislation will cost taxpayers and premium-payers far more than it would otherwise. Cost controls are inadequate; in fact, they barely exist. If Wall Street’s top brass are “fat cats,” as the President described them last weekend, the top brass of Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA are even fatter. While they don’t earn as much, they’re squeezing the public for even more.

We are slouching toward health-care reform that’s better than nothing but far worse than we had imagined it would be. Even those of us who have seen legislative sausage-making up close, even those of us who never make the perfect the enemy of the better, are concerned. That two or three senators are able to extort as much as they have is appalling. Why hasn’t Reid forced much of the bill into reconciliation, requiring only 51 votes? Why has the President been so cowed?

Of course, it is so hard to know what will happen if this bill is passed. But one thing really makes me think: the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail against it. If it were good for big business, they wouldn’t be doing that. For example, here is something I got from the Dick Morris e-mail loop:

Dear Friends,

The battle in the U.S. Senate has come down to one senator – Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. This conservative Democrat is standing courageously against his 59 colleagues and holding up passage of Obamacare. Nelson is insisting on fewer cuts in Medicare, a lower total cost, and provisions barring federal funding of abortions.

We want to run ads in the Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska, markets urging Nelson to stand firm.

Please CLICK HERE immediately to send us needed funds to run theses ads!

Thanks,

Dick Morris

Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick’s columns!

You can go to Dick Morris.com to read all about it if you like.

17 December 5K swim

Workout notes: I haven’t felt all that well this week and my right leg was a bit achy (same spot) so I decided a “long, gentle” swim was in order. I thought: “why don’t I do a nice, gently paced 5K swim? (110 laps, or 220 lengths of a 25 yard pool). The result:: 1:36:23, which is a personal best by 11 seconds. My 1000 splits:
17:42, 17:08, 17:14, 17:36, 17:43, 8:57

Ok, when I swam Big Shoulders 5K in September 2008, my time was only slightly slower. But it was a race, I was trained up, tapered, etc. And yes, the winner swam 55 minutes (Olympic/Olympic Trials caliber swimmer).

I was surprised (pleasantly) and I got the feeling that I really didn’t swim that well; my form kind of fell apart in the last 1500 or so. I did have my department chair in the next lane to challenge me during the 2n’d and 3r’d 1000.

You know that you’ve had a good swim when you’ve outlasted 2-3-4 different “shifts” of swimmers.

Notes: the Raynaud’s syndrome in my right foot flared up a bit and my right hand went slightly numb; the hand feeling went back to normal at the end of the swim and the foot recovered in the shower.

Past 5K time trials and efforts:

3 March 2007, 1:36:49

6 April 2007, 1:36:51

August 17, 2008, 1:37:11

Big Shoulders 2008, 1:36:34 (also previous reports from 2006 and 2001)