Watching Chargers-Jets, Hoping for a close game!

Well, I can say right now that my picks have been a bust. I am 0-3 against the spread (after going 3-1 last week) and 2-1 straight up. One key mistake: I failed to take into account that the Saints and the Vikings tended to play better at home than on the road this year.

The first Cardinal play was a 70 yard touchdown. It stayed close until the Saints opened it to 28-14 on a flea-flicker. Though the Cardinals had 359 total yards to the Saints 419, the Saints also scored on a big Reggie Bush punt return.

Overall the 45-14 score reflected the one-sidedness of the game.

This was probably the closest of the first 3 games; basically the Colts scored two touchdowns in the last 2 minutes of the first half; the last one coming on a play that started with 8 seconds to go; Manning signaled to the sideline that they had time for one more play prior to a field goal attempt.

The Ravens killed themselves on penalties and mistakes; they turned it over 4 times including a fumble on a promising interception return. This reminded me a bit of their game against Pittsburgh. Total yards were actually close.

Frankly, I was fooled by looking at the results of the last few games; basically Dallas had one strong road performance (17-0 against the Redskins) and Minnesota had a few poor road performances. The Vikings are different at home.

The Dallas defense played reasonably well; the offense turned it over 3 times and gave the Vikings a short field on two different occasions on failed 4′th downs; they also missed field goals of 48 and 49 yards.

The story was the Vikings defense, which limited Dallas to 248 total yards.
The last score of the 34-3 rout was set up when the Cowboys, down 27-3 with 5:26 left, went for it on 4′th and 3 at their own 37. The Vikings got the ball, and threw a pass on 4′th down and 1:55 to go.

Overall, the Vikings just beat the Cowboys up physically.

Now next week: yes, the Vikings have struggled on the road even when the games were meaningful (Carolina, Chicago). But was this due to being outdoors, or due to being on the road? My guess it is the former, in which case their defense would give them a shot against the Saints.

The Chargers-Jets are 7-0 at the half; at least the game is competitive.

Update: the Jets kicked a field goal off a drive, then exploited an interception to take a 10-7 lead in the 4′th quarter.

Now they got the ball back on a defensive stop and broke a long run and lead 17-7. But the Chargers have a good quarterback and 7:15 to go.

Note: the Jets made a very interesting interception to kill a drive; the ball bounced off the receiver’s hands, rolled up his body and was snatched by the defender.

Update Chargers miss a 40 yard field goal. They get the ball back and go 66 yards for a touchdown, but didn’t get the onside kick. So now the Chargers have one time out and the two minute warning. A first down ices the game for the Jets.

They got the first down; Jets win 17-14. I won against the spread but lost straight up.

My picks: 2-2 head to head, 1-3 against the spread. So my play-off record: 5-3 straight up, 4-4 against the spread. I won’t win money that way.

(photos: yahoo)

17 January 2010 (II)

I’ll comment on the NFL games later. Let’s just say that my picks are doing poorly and that I really expected each of these games to be better than this. I have picked the winner in 2 of the previous 3 games, but went 0-3 against the spread.

Please: let the Chargers-Jets game be close!!!!

Other stuff Massachusetts special Senate election (to replace Senator Kennedy)
I am a Democrat and am very distressed by the direction this election is taking. Nate Silver looks back at similar elections and finds out that in traditionally partisan states, if the polls are close, the candidate from the dominant party tends to do better than the polling suggests (e. g., Republican candidates in red states do better than the polling suggests and Democrats do better in the blue states than the polling suggests.

Ok, I am reaching. Frankly, I think that we’ll probably lose this seat. Of course, some are suggesting that our losing this seat is the direct result of our party caving in to conservative demands (that is, we are losing because we aren’t liberal enough). In Massachusetts, that might be true given the fact that President Obama remains popular there, but this sort of smacks of the “the Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 because they weren’t conservative enough”.

I simply don’t know enough about local politics to reach an informed conclusion.

I will do my part and post this clip of Mr. Brown:

Watch him here: it is clear that this guy is no moderate; he is a Limbaugh type Republican.

Haiti and Superstition
Christopher Hitchens: I love the headline:

It’s idiotic to blame anything other than geology for the Haitian earthquake.
By Christopher Hitchens
[...]
Robertson is stupidly trying to channel an event that may have occurred on the night of Aug. 14, 1791, when a large voodoo ceremony is said to have been held by the rebellious slaves of Haiti. After an animal sacrifice (of a black pig) to the maternal spirit of Ezili Danto, all present at Bois Caiman swore to slay their white masters. This is sometimes taken as the signal for the revolt that, under the charismatic leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture, drove French troops and slaveholders from Haiti and established the world’s first black republic. (The essential book here is The Black Jacobins, by Trinidadian author C.L.R. James.) Americans have good reason to be thankful for that outcome, because it was the vanquishing of Napoleon that enabled celebrated agnostic Thomas Jefferson to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase and double the size of the United States.

This would have been quite a useful pact with the devil, but voodoo or santería and their related religious fusions are not Satanistic. They are, rather, a localized and Africanized form of Catholic superstition, based on much the same calendar and communion of saints that was being celebrated in Lisbon on that day in 1755. And if any single thing explains the abject misery of Haiti in the years between independence and today, it is the prevalence of religious cultism in its various aspects. Voodoo keeps people afraid and makes them cowed into apathy by the nearness of the spirit world. It was exploited by the horrible Tonton Macoute regime of “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his gruesome son, who for decades kept the country as their own rack-rented fief. But please do not forget that Mother Teresa came to Port-au-Prince in 1981 to receive the Haitian Légion d’honneur from “Baby Doc,” as well as to accept stolen money from him, and that the Vatican protected the foul system for as long as it was able. In September 1992, exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide denounced the Vatican from the podium of the United Nations, correctly pointing out that it maintained the only embassy that still recognized the continuing post-Duvalier dictatorship. Unfortunately, Aristide’s own brand of religious populism was a failure. Still, one cannot believe that the Almighty has recently slaughtered so many Haitians because of the unbelievable squalidness of their competing priesthoods. [...]

Read the whole post.

Humor
I suppose this is called “feeling comfortable with your body”?

see more Epic Fails

The rear view would be even more interesting.

This other FAIL is funny too:

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17 January 2010 (am)

Convergent evolution: Roughly speaking, convergent evolution occurs when two different species evolve to fill a “niche” (e. g., horses and zebras, or say, Florida and Chinese Alligators, or regular wolves and marsupial wolves. So we get species that act and similar ways and look similar. However, scientist have discovered two different species of frogs which have evolved identical toxins (to make predators sick) via different genes. Via Jerry Coyne’s blog: (Matthew Cobb’s post) Identical toxins were evolved from two different genes which diverged hundreds of millions of years ago:

However, most examples of convergent adaptation remain at the level of form or function, rather than the genes involved. It’s possible that the same genes are involved in shaping a dolphin and an icthyosaur, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever know. An exception is the recent discovery of convergent mutations in species of sand lizards with white skins, all of which affect the melacortonin-1 receptor. But in a way, that isn’t too surprising – the melacortonin-1 receptor controls skin colour in these animals, and only a restricted number of molecular changes would give rise to an advantageous white form.

Even more striking is the announcement, shortly to appear in the pages of Current Biology, of identical skin toxins produced in two lineages of frogs, but on the basis of two different genes that diverged during the Cambrian, between 488 and 557 MY ago!

Both lineages of frogs – the Australian Litoria species and the Pipidae (which includes the model species Xenopus laevis) – secrete caerulein, a powerful toxin that induces vomiting, diarrhea and pancreatitis, amongst other things. Strikingly, the two sets of amphibians have very different ecologies and are separated by massive distances – the Australian/Papuan Litoria frogs tend to be terrestrial, whereas Xenopus and its African relatives are strictly aquatic. This means that their toxins are used to ward off very different predators, although the assumption is that in all cases the predators are vertebrates, which are all vulnerable to these toxins.

A Member of the Pipidae Species Frogs

A A Member of the Litoria Species Frogs

Pat Robertson’s Remark. I had talked about the background for it here. The “poe” blog The Good Kentuckian points out that Robertson’s remarks are entirely consistent with “Biblical Christianity”.

Celeste Hale points this out too, and provides supporting evidence.

In short, too many people who call themselves “Bible Believing Christians” cherry pick the good stuff and either ignore or rationalize away the bad stuff.

I hasten to point out that it is a good idea to “take the good” from things (e. .g, use good passages from the Jewish Bible, New Testament, Koran, Hindu scriptures, etc) to help yourself live a better life. Hey, wisdom is wisdom where ever you find it. But please don’t claim to be a follower of that religion. If you wish to follow a modified religion, fine, but please admit that is what you are doing.

Update: The Devil writes back to Mr. Roberston. Here is part of it:

[...] Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. [...]

PB for the 5K Swim: 17 January 2010

I don’t understand the human body or human performance. I had set the alarm for 5 am so I could eat a light breakfast and make the 7 am swim at the Riverplex. But when the alarm went off, I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep….but my wife wanted to turn the radio on.

So I grumbled, got out of bed and did what I had planned to do. Ironically, I still felt full from my “friend” rice dinner the night before (inside joke with a facebook friend) and didn’t feel that good until I actually started to swim. I felt slightly bloated and not “empty”.
I told myself: “swim steadily until you get tired of it, then throw in enough intervals to get 5K”

I was alone during the first 1000 and then a young woman entered the next lane; though she is fitter than I am she swims as if she hates the water and wants to beat it up; hence I lapped her every 9 laps or so. When I saw that I was going to average under 17 minutes per 1000 for the next 3000 yards or so, I knew that I’d keep going until I got 5K. (5500 yards)

My first 500 was my slowest (4:31) and I started to warm up; my 1000 yard splits were as follows:
17:40, 16:56, 16:53, 17:00, 17:18 (got content and lazy), 8:40 for the final 500.
Time: 1:34:29, which is a 2:05 PB.

Note: my first 4250 yard (Ironman distance) split was 1:12:49 and my 1000 to 5250 split was 1:12:26, which is just 14 seconds slower than my PB for this (set in April, 1999, back when I ran a 1:34 half marathon and a 20:40 5K)

I then added some backstroke (with fins) and sidestroke to stretch out; I ended up with 6000 yards total.

What I don’t understand:

1. Why does one sometimes perform well when one isn’t feeling their best?

2. Why is my swimming much better than my running? Last year, I couldn’t break 24 minutes for the 5K when I used to run under 20 minutes 10-11 years ago, yet this was my best 5K swim ever? Even if we compare the longer distance runs, in 1999 my half marathon was 1:34; I can’t even keep that pace up for 2 miles now-a-days.
Others have told me that they have slowed down less in distance swimming than in distance running.