17 November 2010 PM

Workout notes I was tired from staying up too late for the game (which I enjoyed).
Still, I lifted weights (upper body) and ran 2 miles on the treadmill.

dumbbell curls: 20 x 15 lb, 10 x 20 lb, 10 x 20 lb.
dumbbell seated military: 30 x 30 lb., 25 x 35 lb.
dumbbell bench press: 30 x 35 lb.
Pull downs: 3 sets of 15 x 120
Rows: 3 sets of 10 x 180 (90 each arm)
incline bench press: 10 x 45, 10 x 95 (wimpy I know; I am getting the arms used to the motion)
Sit ups: 100 (4 x 25)
Run: 2 miles in 19:04 (10:24, 8:40). Started with 5.5 mph and increased the speed by .1 mph every minute starting at 3 minutes.
Incline: minute 1 at 0, then set it at 1.

Shoulder/knee: knee was somewhat achy last night due to sitting with the knees bent at the game. I’ll have to stretch.

More Stuff

Health care: yes, end of life decisions can be tough. If one is very old and dying, how much treatment should one take and at what cost?
This is not an easy question.

Science/Frogs If nothing else, check out this adorable little frog.

Evolution yes, even our gut bacteria are influenced by evolution; the conjecture is that evolution determines what sort of bacteria can find a haven in our gut.

Video/Free Speech
Yes, an advertiser can refuse a sign due to complaints. But as to those idiots who claim that religion is persecuted in this country:

And some get upset when you listen and critique what they have to say:

Republicans
I don’t care about reality shows. But Sarah Palin remains a very shallow thinker. Watch the clip:

Wow, those grizzly cubs are taught to be SELF-RELIANT!!! But….what if some other more powerful animal prevented certain grizzly cubs from fishing in the best streams? What if that mean-old-government got out of the way and allowed industry to pollute those streams and lace the waters with harmful chemicals? What if acid rain destroyed the environment and killed the fish? Self-reliance indeed…….

Wingnut crazies

Just read:

But, just like nearly everything else this President does…trust someone to have a problem with it.

We have feminized the Medal of Honor.

According to Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, every Medal of Honor awarded during these two conflicts has been awarded for saving life. Not one has been awarded for inflicting casualties on the enemy. Not one.

Gen. George Patton once famously said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.”

When we think of heroism in battle, we used the think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe do Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements.

That kind of heroism has apparently become passe when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them.

So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?

Uh…in this day and age, we can kill millions with a push of a button. That is hardly…uh…brave and macho.
These people are idiots.

Liberals At Daily Kos, it almost takes guts to defend the President. This diary author captures how I feel:

First, “left puritans.” What do I mean by that? I’ll explain in a second, but first and foremost, it does not mean the entire political left or the progressive movement. I am a progressive, and as far as ideology is concerned, a liberal that would like single payer health care, a carbon tax, universally available and fully funded reproductive choice, marriage equality, and so on. I am also a pragmatist. I know that one need not agree with me on everything, or even fully on a single issue for us to work together and make progress. [...]

The public option debate was a perfect example. We can have another whole conversation disintegrate into whether or not it could have passed if the President did this or did that. The health reform bill represented a paradigm shift in both the government’s responsibility for health insurance for individuals, as well as in holding insurance companies accountable, with or without the public option (at least as it was constructed in the House passed version or subsequent versions). But simply pushing for a public option did not make that action a left puritan action. In fact, I’d say it was courageous. But the action became left puritan as soon as one started opposing the passage of health reform without a public option. The action became left puritan when Jane Hamsher went on Fox News, breaking her own vow, to try to stop this law. The thought process behind it: damned be the 32 million Americans who would get insurance, damned be the community health center expansion, damned be the Medicaid expansion, damned be the closing of the donut hole in Medicare Part D, damn it all; we didn’t get a public option, so tear down the whole thing. That’s left puritanism.

When we lose perspective of how something could affect the lives of people, and say it’s not good enough on items A, B, or C, so reject it, that is not sound public policy. Public policy is not about what “you gave” or what “they took” in the writing of a bill. It’s about whether progress is made at the end of the day. If it is, progressive pragmatists will support it. That is our way of showing our commitment to our values and principles: by making some progress, and continuing to push for more at the same time.

Yes, I get frustrated with President Obama; at times it appears that he caves into every Republican whim and tantrum….but in the end we got stuff done though we paid a political price. But isn’t that what we want our politicians to do?

Tina Fey Censored on PBS

If this gets nuked by the Sarah Palin trolls on youtube, you can see the remarks here.