16 March 2010 (pm)

They think that you aren’t paying attention:

Tom DeLay? Duke Cunningham?

Ok, the shots at Rangel and Massa were fine.

The President and CSPAN? Yes, the committee meetings were the various bills were hashed out WERE carried on CSPAN and the big give-aways will be fixed via reconciliation.

Much better.

Science and Religion Unseen and Unknowable..by Eric Michael Johnson:

Allow me to lay it out as simply as I can. It is my view that religion and science are incompatible in a very specific and important way. I say this as someone who previously drank the Kool-Aid and spent countless hours studying what was described to me as the Holy Spirit. I have been confirmed in the Lutheran tradition and have recited the Nicene Creed so often throughout my life that, as an adult, I no longer paid any attention to what the words were saying. They came out of me as rote, like a wind-up monkey who clapped his symbols at the turn of a crank.

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth.
of all that is, seen and unseen.

[...]

Faith, as Gary Whittenberger discusses in Skeptic magazine, has multiple common uses.

“Faith” may refer to a religion or worldview, as in “My faith is Islam.” It may refer to an attitude of trust or confidence, as in “I have faith in my physician.” Or it may refer to believing propositions without evidence or out of proportion to the available evidence.

It is this latter use of faith that is incompatible with science. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (which has 140 Hare Krishna centers in Europe and North America alone), has been up front that he denies the evidence of evolution. Why? He didn’t argue that the methods employed may have biased the results and that he’ll reserve judgment until the studies are replicated. He didn’t dispute the sample size or suggest a separate interpretation of the observable facts. He completely disregarded the entire pursuit of such knowledge because it contradicted his faith in a prime mover. His faith told him that he is correct, regardless of what the facts may be. There is a word for that, when you prefer your own private fantasy to the real world. I think Richard Dawkins used it as part of the title to one of his more popular books.

Time to Open Up the NCAA Basketball Tournament to ALL Teams!

You know, it is just so sad when a team doesn’t make the NCAA tournament. Why, there are only 65 NCAA tournament teams, 64 NIT teams and two other 16 team post season tournaments.

That means that only 161 teams get into post-season play! That is so, well, elitist!

I say:

1. Let every team into the NCAA tournament.
2. Don’t eliminate any team after a game; after all a team that got more points really isn’t “better”; it is “different”. Elimination hurts the feelings of the players and fans.
3. National Championship trophies for each team! It is only “fair”.

We can call it: “self esteem madness”.

16 March 2010 (am)

Workout notes Yoga with Ms. Vickie. Then, 4000 yard swim: 1000 warm up in 17:44; 5 x 100 (25 front kick, 75 free) on the 2:10. 5 x 100 (25 sfs, 75 free) on the 2:10. 5 x 100 (25 3g, 75 free) on the 2, 5 x 100 (25 catch-up, 75 free) on the 2, 10 x 50 fist on 1, 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on the 1:10.

At no time did I use my “toys” (paddles or zoomers).

I was somewhat sore.

Injury: last night the pain returned though once again it went away quickly with movement.

Science Scientists continue to find life in strange places:

In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That’s why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera’s cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish. [...]

The video is likely to inspire experts to rethink what they know about life in harsh environments. And it has scientists musing that if shrimp-like creatures can frolic below 600 feet of Antarctic ice in subfreezing dark water, what about other hostile places? What about Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter?

Note that it is highly unlikely that these creatures swam from other places just to get at the camera.

Health care reform
Here is a summary of what is in the bill:

1. IMMEDIATE CHANGES

Uninsured people with medical problems will have a workable alternative. The bill pumps $5 billion into high-risk insurance pools run by the states to provide coverage to those in frail health. Taxpayer-backed insurance won’t be free, but premiums should be much lower than what’s charged by private insurers willing to take those in poor health.

For people with private health insurance – about two-thirds of Americans – there would be some new safeguards. For example, insurers would be barred from placing lifetime dollar limits on coverage and from canceling policies except in cases of fraud. Children could stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26. [...]

2. THE SELF-EMPLOYED

Starting in 2014, self-employed people and those whose employers don’t offer coverage would be able to pick a plan through a health insurance exchange, like a supermarket. It’s modeled on the federal employee health program available to members of Congress, with a range of private plans. Small businesses could also join.

About 25 million people would buy coverage through state exchanges, and nearly 6 in 10 would be eligible for help with their premiums. The new tax credits would be computed according to income and other household characteristics. The money would go straight to the insurer. To consumers it would look like a discount – generous for lower-income families, less so for those solidly in the middle class.

For example, a family of four making $44,000 would pay $2,763 in premiums -about 6 percent of its income- for a policy worth $9,435.

But a similar family making $66,000 would have to pay $6,257 in premiums, close to 10 percent of its income. That may be less than a mortgage, but it’s more than a car payment.

Once the exchanges open, most Americans would be required to carry health insurance or pay a fine. Medicaid would be expanded to cover childless adults living near poverty, bringing the total who’d gain coverage to more than 30 million.

People with employer-provided insurance would not see major changes. But if they lost their job, they’d be able to get coverage through the exchange.

- SENIORS

Seniors have been understandably worried about the health care plan, much of it financed with Medicare cuts the government’s own experts say could be unsustainable.

In the crosshairs are subsidies to private Medicare Advantage insurance plans, which now enroll about one-quarter of seniors. The government overpays the plans when compared to the cost of care under traditional Medicare. That largesse translates to lower costs for seniors in the plans, and the overhaul could trigger an exodus from Medicare Advantage as insurers are forced to raise rates to stay in business.

But seniors stand to gain as well. Obama would gradually close the coverage gap in the middle of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. The so-called doughnut hole would start to shrink immediately, but it wouldn’t be fully closed until 2020. In the meantime, seniors in the gap would get a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs.

The plan also improves preventive benefits for seniors in traditional Medicare. [...]

Surf to read more.

The chances of it passing looks good:

Another good reason to not shop at Walmart

Walmart: fires patient with inoperable cancer because he used legally prescribed marijuana.

Rep. Grayson on Gov. Palin

More here. But this quote is a winner:

“I look forward to an honest debate with Governor Palin on the issues, in the unlikely event that she ever learns anything about them.”

15 March 2010 (noon)

Workout notes I got to the gym late (8:15-20) and swam: 500 easy, 5 x (75 drill, 25 swim with fins), 5 x 100 IM on the 2:20, 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on the 1:10 (about 15 seconds rest), 100 side (1:56), 100 paddle.

Then light weights: Bench press (barbell): 10 x 135, 10 x 155, dumbbell curls (2 sets with 30, 1 with 25), dumbbell military presses (10 x 25, 2 sets), pull downs (2 sets), pull ups (2 sets), dumbbell bench press (10 x 70), barbell military press (10 x 85), yoga leg lifts (set of 20, 30), head stand (3-4 minutes).

When I got home, Olivia was still asleep.

Health care reform: via Ray LaHood:

I’ve been a Republican all my life, when I served in the Illinois legislature, when I worked for members of Congress and when I served in Congress. During the 2008 presidential election, I supported Republican Sen. John McCain. I have always been — and still am — a fiscal conservative, an advocate for a smart, but restrained, government.

For those reasons and others, most people wouldn’t expect me to be an advocate for comprehensive health care reform. But the truth is, I believe there is no bigger issue to solve and no better chance to solve it than now.

If I were still a member of Congress, I would proudly vote for the bill that President Barack Obama is championing and I would urge my colleagues to do the same, not because I don’t believe in fiscal discipline, but because I do.

We do not need to look that far down the road to see the pain that failure to pass health care reform will cause. Americans of every background, class, race and political persuasion are suffering. We have the best health care system in the world, yet more than 40 million Americans lack access to it, a reality that is morally reprehensible. Health care is an essential, as important as food, water and shelter. Those who don’t have it are left without the tools to survive.

In the coming days, Congress has a chance to change that. The bill that will be voted on will reduce the deficit by about $1 trillion over the next two decades, and will reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system. It will slow the rate of growth in health care costs and put America back on the path toward fiscal sustainability.

The bill will give families and small business owners greater control over their own health care. It will expand coverage to more than 31 million Americans and will include tax credits to individuals, families and small businesses, giving them the same choices that members of Congress have to purchase private coverage. It will create state-based exchanges that will bring competition and transparency to insurance markets. And it will put in place common-sense rules of the road to hold insurance companies accountable and end some of the most outrageous practices of the insurance industry.

Never again will people be denied coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Never again will insurance companies be able to raise rates unfairly — like the 60 percent hikes expected in Illinois.

While the ultimate vote on health care may not be bipartisan, the ultimate bill certainly is.

By the way, I supported the Healthy Americans Act, which had 10 Republican sponsors (or co-sponsors) in the Senate.

Science: evidently birds are getting smaller. Why?

One of the generalizations about biogeography that I teach my students is “Bergmann’s Rule,” the observation that within species of mammals and birds, populations from more northerly locations have larger body sizes than those from further south. This has classically been attributed to selection to conserve heat: if you’re twice as large (in terms of doubling every linear dimension), you increase your body volume by a factor of 23, or 8. Thus the amount of heat you generate, which is based on body mass, increases eightfold. Body surface area, however, is proportional to the square of linear dimension, and doubling that would increase surface area by 4. Thus, by doubling body size, the ratio of heat lost/heat produced would be halved (4/8). In other words, by getting bigger, you conserve heat more efficiently.

This, at least, is the explanation we give students when describing Bergmann’s rule.

But there’s a problem with this explanation. Bergmann’s rule holds not only for endotherms (warm-blooded animals like birds and mammals), but also for ectotherms—cold-blooded creatures like insects and amphibians, who don’t generate their own body heat. In one of my old papers, for instance, I that found Bergmann’s rule was scrupulously obeyed by fruit flies. [...]

Regardless of whether the birds’ change in body size reflects genetic change, developmental plasticity, or both, it does indicate that organisms have responded to a long-term increase in temperature.

Daily Kos has a diary on a similar topic.

15 March 2010 (am)

I slept late (until 6:22 am!) and will get to the public pool/weight room late.

Stuff: Atheists for Jesus? Yes; one can be an atheist and still like some of the moral teachings ascribed to the Jesus tradition; there is no need to believe in literal resurrections and the like.

Heath Care Reform: Paul Kurgman:

Republicans are still denouncing it as a vast, evil government takeover. But they have a problem: Obamacare is very much like the Massachusetts health reform, which was not only implemented by a Republican governor, but by a governor who is a serious contender for the 2012 presidential nomination.

So they insist that the two plans have nothing in common — but the only real difference they can point to is that Massachusetts didn’t fund its plan in part out of Medicare savings.

Of course, it couldn’t. But think about this a bit more: Republicans are saying that what makes Obamacare a socialist takeover, whereas Romneycare wasn’t, is the fact that unlike Romney’s plan, Obama’s plan cuts government spending.

How are the people reacting to it? It turns out: in predictable ways. There isn’t much discussion of “bending of the cost curve” but rather over the proper role of government in our lives. Remember that there is a reason that Republicans didn’t take this on when they held both branches of Congress and the Presidency.

Why I’d Never Make it as a Single Person…

If some woman used such atrocious grammar around me (“if me and Buster”), I’d dump her on the spot.

The Older I Get, the Stronger and Faster I Used to Be

If this self-examination has any practical use, it is to show that much of what we “remember” really isn’t so; it is as if we remember nuggets of truth and then embellish them by filling in the gaps by making stuff up. Of course, sometimes the consequences of this are serious but in my case, they really aren’t.

I’ll give a few examples:

Example one: when it comes to running, it is clear that I’ve slowed badly. Part of it is age, part of it is that I shifted from running to “fast” walking in 2002-2003; hence even when healthy I just don’t run as much. But there was a time when I was right about 19 minutes flat for the 5K (1982; yes I have the records to show for it) and I was at just under 20 minutes in 1998. But last year, my fastest time was 24:00. So that part is not false.

But here is what is: I remember that back in 1982, I had a glorious 8 x 400 meter workout at the Pensacola Junior College track; each of the 400 meters was done well under 80 seconds, most were in 75. That is what I remembered.

Well, eventually I found my own training logs from that period (the old Jim Fixx training log)

Sure enough, I found that magical workout: 8 x 400 with 400 jog recoveries. The times: mostly 82-83. I did get ONE in 76, after some 110′s. I also had some 200′s in 35-38 but these were 200′s and not 400′s. This was exactly what one would expect from someone with a 5:30 mile PR and a 39:50 10K pr (valid times).

I then remember that I had written that it was my GOAL to get to 8 of them at 75, since my goal was a sub-5 minute mile (unrealistic goal, I should add).

But in my mind, my “goal” became my memory.

Example two: swimming. Clearly, I swim faster now (at least over distance) than I did as a younger man. Why? Simple: my current technique is much, much better and I do it more often. But still, I have memories of a 3000-4000 yard swim in Pensacola. So again, I looked it up.

Yes, I did have a 54 minute swim, which would be about 3100-3200 yards at my current pace. But…at that time, I got 2500 yards according to my log. What I did here was take a reasonably accurate memory (“close to 1 hour”) and apply my current faster pace to it.

I also got 3000 yards in 1:14; that is not close to the 4250 I could get in the same amount of time now.

Example Three The Bench Press: my memories of my bench pressing 310 pounds are accurate (my best dead lift was 425). But I also had memories of 10 x 225 and 10 x 240 pounds in the bench press as well as 10 x 205 being routine.

Again, I looked these up. And here is the truth: when I was 195 pounds and 23 years old, I could get 7-8 x 200 (a weight that I can get ONCE right now) and in 1982 I once got 10 x 205 at 192. Yes, the 10 x 225 and 10 x 240 pounds did happen; when I weighed 230 pounds! (45 pounds heavier than now), and I did get 11 x 230 at a body weight of 228 in an intramural contest at the University of Texas. Of course, I weighed 230 or so when I got my 310 pounds.

So, the bottom line is that if I keep my weight in the 180′s (as I hope to), I won’t be working up to 10 x 205 in the bench press; I’ve never been able to do that unless I was at least 15 pounds heavier than I am now.

Implications for me right now: it is probably best that I not fantasize about reaching goals that I thought that I had reached before but instead focus on a series of incremental improvements from where I am now.

14 March 2010: Swim Progress Continues

Workout notes 7050 swim (4 miles) in 2:02:32; my 1000 to 6500 5K split was 1:35:08, about 40 seconds slower than my PB. I averaged 17:22 per 1000.

Here is my workout in table form:

14 March 2010	7 March 2010	17 Dec. 2009	1 Jan. 2010	17Jan. 2010	28 Feb. 2010
1:35:17 5k	1:37:01 (5k)	1:36:23	1:38:27	1:34:29	1:35:47
17:41 (+19)	17:39 (-1)	17:42 (+10)	17:52 (-2)	17:40 (+29)	17:33 (+8)
17:15 (-7)	17:35 (-5)	17:08 (-24)	17:36 (-18)	16:56 (-15)	17:11 (-14)
17:18 (-4)	17:36 (-4)	17:14 (-18)	17:45 (-9)	16:53 (-18)	17:14 (-11)
17:13 (-9)	17:41 (+1)	17:36 (+4)	17:48 (-6)	17:00 (-11)	17:26 (+1)
17:05 (-17)	17:38 (-2)	17:43 (+11)	18:02 (+8)	17:18 (+7)	17:32 (+7)
8:42	8:49	8:57 (+11)	9:22 (+25)	8:40 (+4)	8:49( +6)
17:27 (+5)	17:40 (0)	5k to 6k
17:35 (+13)	17:50 (+10)	6K to 7K
0:55	2:02:32	0:53	2:04:34

Past data: last week, previous distance swims.

I was aided by two guys jumping into the lanes on either side of me; one swam at roughly my pace and the other was much faster. This happened at about 3000-3500 into the swim.

Other factors: no lifting yesterday and last night, my injury did NOT wake me up. It was almost as if the gentle walking between airport gates (when I picked my daughter up) made it feel better last night.

Overall I feel good about the effort, though I am only about 63 percent of where I want to be. My goal is 11000 yards or 10000 meters and I have about 15 weeks to get there.