President Obama’s Main Weakness

Yes, Republicans are reptiles and Democrats actually care about others; the Republicans use this fact to “play political chicken” with the President. Yes, President Obama should be tough on them….but he won’t. “That wouldn’t be nice”.

Then again, he ran on a platform of “getting along”.

Note: the Republicans don’t have anything like a mandate for their policies such as “repealing the HCR bill”.

From the past

I think that this was from San Diego back in 1984

Tight jeans, granny panty lines…it is all good.

9 November Posts (2010)

Statistics Education
We’ve just gone through linear regression in class and I stumbled on the Anscombe’s quartet example: basically it is canned data that “games” the regression algorithm. The regression coefficients and “r” value agree up to 2 to 3 decimal places even though the data sets themselves, when plotted, do not resemble each other:

Obviously the outliers cause problems in a couple of cases. But the lesson: look at a plot!

Philosophically, a regression line is a type of projection and when one does a projection, one loses information. And in pathological projections, one can lose a LOT of information.

Politics Surprise, Dick Morris wildly overestimated how many seats the Republicans would pick up. But in his defense (and I hate defending Dick Morris), he saw the possibilities of this sort of thing happening back when Intrade saw it unlikely and he aimed the Republicans to aim high.

Trivia: a Naval Academy classmate (1981) took a “safe” Democratic seat (MN-08).

Sarah Palin: she reads the newspapers, but doesn’t understand what she reads:

In remarks delivered at a Phoenix convention, and first leaked by the The National Review, Palin criticized the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy, in which the bank will purchase up to $600 billion of new U.S. government debt (as part of a plan that could reach $900 billion), and urged Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to “cease and desist.”

As HuffPost’s Shahien Nasiripour noted Monday, the Federal Reserve operates independently of any other government body, and so political criticism of it is unusual.

Even more unusual were the specifics of Palin’s critique: As WSJ’s Sudeep Reddy pointed out Monday, she doesn’t get all of her facts right. In response to Palin’s assertion that “everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so,” Reddy wrote Monday that “Grocery prices haven’t risen all that significantly, in fact.” He notes that prices have actually increased only 0.6 percent over the past year. It’s the lowest rate on record — so low that it inspired a high-profile Twitter fight late last month.

But Palin would have none of it. She wrote in her Facebook note, “That’s odd, because just last Thursday, November 4, I read an article in Mr. Reddy’s own Wall Street Journal titled ‘Food Sellers Grit Teeth, Raise Prices: Packagers and Supermarkets Pressured to Pass Along Rising Costs, Even as Consumers Pinch Pennies.’ She continued:

Now I realize I’m just a former governor and current housewife from Alaska, but even humble folks like me can read the newspaper. I’m surprised a prestigious reporter for the Wall Street Journal doesn’t.

Those arrogant elitists! Oh wait:

Reddy has responded to Palin on Twitter, pointing out that she has actually misread the WSJ article she refers to. As Reddy notes, the article’s first sentence discusses “the tamest year of food pricing in nearly two decades.”

The source of confusion comes in the next paragraph. The article says the cost of goods has risen, a burden that food sellers must decide whether to pass on to customers via prices. The rise in prices hasn’t actually happened yet. Palin omits this key fact.

Damn…maybe Gov. Palin needs a Cliff-notes version of those “harder” newspapers.

Anyway, remember that she is a leading candidate to head the Republican 2012. But hey, we are talking about representative democracy and she well represents most Republicans.

Speaking of “teh stupid”, I sure miss Christine O’Donnell. So I had to read this to get my “fix”. Ok, it is a routine article that answers the question: “could she have won had those Republican meanies given her more money? Guess at the answer.

More on this:

9 November 2010: finally an end to physical therapy?

My first appointment with IPMR was on April 1 of this year. After a whole lot of sessions where I got ultra sound treatments, I was advised to see a knee specialist. I was also advised to stop swimming (no kicks nor push offs) so I switched to a pull buoy.

I discontinued therapy after improvement stalled; the doctor did an MRI, found the bucket-handle tears in my meniscus, operated in July and I had PT for that…and then my shoulder.

Well today I had my last PT appointment. Don’t worry; I was paying 30 dollars a visit so I felt I was benefiting from them.

Last night: some mild pain but not the wake up in the night pain; that was due, I think, to a hard workout.

This morning: 2 mile walk outside, 15 minute arm bike, 10:04 RUN on the treadmill, 1 mile on the AMT then my last PT visit.

How long had I been going to PT? Well, I exchanged phone numbers with my PT so we can go hiking together.

Oh yes, no NSAIDS though I did take Tylenol last night and on rare occasion.

The good: I no longer get woken up by pain at night; I actually look forward to going to bed again.

The bad: physically, I am in horrible shape in every phase; I am weak, I have no endurance and no speed.

Also, I will have to continue to work on stretching my right leg; the right knee only straightens with great difficulty.

So, now I begin the long, long, long gradual return to full blown training.
For the rest of the year, I’ll work at bringing back yoga and swimming and upping my walking mileage gradually and in January, I open training for the Potawatomi Trail 50 miler in April (on the McNaughton course). Goal: 15 hours if it is dry, 18 if it is muddy. I’ve done much better in the past, but that simply isn’t relevant at this time.

Then I’d like to see what I can do at the FANS 24 hour in June.

8 November 2010 Link Dump

Science Surf here to see a cool video of a comet spewing out cyanide gas.

Science and politics The Moronic Republican Know-Nothings elected to Congress (by moronic know-nothings) are talking about “investigating the climate-change “hoax”. Well, scientists are finally starting to fight back.

2010 Election I had pointed out that the 2010 House election was mostly a matter of Republicans “coming home” to vote for House Republicans. Nate Silver gives a more detailed analysis that says more or less the same thing.

Speaking of the new Congress: the Republicans are making a play for the West Virginia Senator elect. Though this guy probably IS a better fit with the Republicans I wonder how they can deliver what they promise. Even if he switches and Murkowski caucuses with the Republicans (as expected) and Ben Nelson switches parties, this puts things at 49-49. So even if Lieberman caucuses with the Republicans (not a surprise), Sanders will probably caucus with the Democrats so the best the Republicans could hope for is a 50-50 split. Then, the Democrats can surely find 40 with enough of a spine to filibuster everything the Republicans put forth.

So, Senator “take aim” from West Virginia: don’t let the door hit you on the butt on your way out.

Conservative Fareed Zakaria cautions us on trusting this new group of Republicans.

This administration folds way too easily:

We’ve already seen this happen with fiscal policy: fearing opposition in Congress, the Obama administration offered an inadequate plan, only to see the plan weakened further in the Senate. In the end, the small rise in federal spending was effectively offset by cuts at the state and local level, so that there was no real stimulus to the economy.

Now the same thing is happening to monetary policy.

The case for a more expansionary policy by the Fed is overwhelming. Unemployment is disastrously high, while U.S. inflation data over the past few years almost perfectly match the early stages of Japan’s relentless slide into corrosive deflation.

Unfortunately, conventional monetary policy is no longer available: the short-term interest rates the Fed normally targets are already close to zero. So the Fed is shifting from its usual policy of buying only short-term debt, and is now buying long-term debt — a policy generally referred to as “quantitative easing.” (Why? Don’t ask.)

There’s nothing outlandish about this action. As Mr. Bernanke tried to explain Saturday, “This is just monetary policy,” adding, “It will work or not work in much the same way that ordinary, more conventional, familiar monetary policy works.”

Yet the Pain Caucus — my term for those who have opposed every effort to break out of our economic trap — is going wild. [...]
The idea that higher inflation might help isn’t outlandish; it has been raised by many economists, some regional Fed presidents and the International Monetary Fund. But in the same remarks in which he defended his new policy, Mr. Bernanke — clearly trying to appease the inflationistas — vowed not to change the Fed’s price target: “I have rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy.”

And there goes the best hope that the Fed’s plan might actually work.

Think of it this way: Mr. Bernanke is getting the Obama treatment, and making the Obama response. He’s facing intense, knee-jerk opposition to his efforts to rescue the economy. In an effort to mute that criticism, he’s scaling back his plans in such a way as to guarantee that they’ll fail.

And the almost 15 million unemployed American workers, half of whom have been jobless for 21 weeks or more, will pay the price, as the slump goes on and on.

(sound of me banging my head on my desk…..)

Republicans
I am eager for the 2012 campaign to get started. The extremists are already bracing against Mitt Romney. This is music to my ears.

More Republican lunacy

No, no matter what you think, we don’t “fear” Sarah Palin, even if a certain Mr. Giles thinks so:

Here’s why I believe the dour democratic dames particularly dislike Palin. Check it out:

Please do. It is the old: “you feel threatened because Palin looks cute in spandex” bullshit. No, many women don’t like her for the same reason I do:

here, here, here, here and here.

But here is the howler:

They hate Sarah because she’s supposedly anti-intellectual. However, I’d love to see Tina Fey, Katie Couric or Joy Behag go mano a mano with her on any given topic and see who comes off looking like Snooki.

Uh, we’ve already seen how the Couric encounter turned out. As far as Tina Fey or Joy Behar (oooh….”Behag”…I am sure that was a side splitter among the paunchy losers): I didn’t know that Ms. Fey and Ms. Behar were running for President or other public office.

Anyway: Mr. Giles: thanks for confirming the stereotype of Republicans being simple minded idiots.

Speaking of fat Republican idiots: Rush Limbaugh talks about health insurance

Rush Limbaugh: “Pre-Existing Condition Coverage is Not Insurance; It’s Welfare”

Hmmm, most group plans have coverage for pre-existing conditions. Well, perhaps Mr. Limbaugh’s insurance company can deny his claims on any condition that is correlated with obesity and drug addiction.

Republican Morality: calling gays “fags” is a good thing. Really:

More lunacy Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub has a nice list of Republican know-nothingism at Redstate.org.

8 November 2010 Rehabilitation and Training

Commentary: while I was doing my rows (on this type of machine) I was struggling (with good form) to do 3 sets of 8 reps with 90 pounds on each arm (180 total).

I thought: “why aren’t I getting stronger?” Then I realized: I am now lifting not to get stronger but rather to slow the decline in my strength. Sigh…

But on a happier note, when I was searching for “rowing machine” I came across this:

I love it when they wear a thong under their spandex.

Back to the post:

No pain (leg or knee) last night. I’ve been off of NSAIDS too. The knees are feeling better; I have some shoulder (upper arm) soreness when I get the dumbbells into position.

Workout: One legged squats (10 x 45, 10 x 95) Smith
Squats: 2 sets of 10 x 135; no Smith machine
Leg press: 30 x 180, 30 x 270, 30 x 360
Arm curls: 20 x 15 pound dumbbells, 10 x 20 pound, 10 x 20 pound
Pull downs: 3 sets of 15 x 120
Rows (see above): 3 sets of 8 x 180 (90 each arm)
military press (dumbbells) 2 sets of 30 x 30 pounds
bench press (dumbbells) 2 sets of 30 x 35 pounds
Sit ups: 4 x 25 (incline 1, 2, 3, 4)
rotator cuff: 5 pound dumbbell lifts both arms; 3 sets of 10, pulley 2 sets of 15 bad arm
leg extensions: 3 sets of 10
leg curls: 3 sets of 10
toe: 3 sets of 30
back: 3 sets of 20
leg lifts: 3 sets of 20
Arm bike: 15 minutes (4.34 miles)
stretching