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

7 November 2010

Workout notes 6 mile hike (somewhat sore) with Lynn at Jubilee. We wandered all over the place and basically diagnosed and solved all of the problems facing the United States. Ok, almost all of them.

Actually, the hike was lovely and the trails were in superb shape and I was still sore and stiff at the start. Last night I had a post nasal drip type cough but a pill took care of that. I am not 100 percent well and yes, still drained by that 30 mile walk that I wasn’t fully prepared for.

Knee: I still am not working on my full leg extension; I still have trouble straightening my knee fully and I haven’t worked at it diligently. I’ve GOT to make time to do that if I am to ever run or walk at full speed.

Posts

More on this: famous public intellectual and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens is dying of cancer. But he remains as spirited as ever:

Politics So where do we go from now? I think that Paul Krugman makes some good points: we should NOT try to act like Republicans:

I felt a sense of despair during Mr. Obama’s first State of the Union address, in which he declared that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Not only was this bad economics — right now the government must spend, because the private sector can’t or won’t — it was almost a verbatim repeat of what John Boehner, the soon-to-be House speaker, said when attacking the original stimulus. If the president won’t speak up for his own economic philosophy, who will?

So where, in this story, does “focus” come in? Lack of nerve? Yes. Lack of courage in one’s own convictions? Definitely. Lack of focus? No.

And why would failing to tackle health care have produced a better outcome? The focus people never explain.

Of course, there’s a subtext to the whole line that health reform was a mistake: namely, that Democrats should stop acting like Democrats and go back to being Republicans-lite. Parse what people like Mr. Bayh are saying, and it amounts to demanding that Mr. Obama spend the next two years cringing and admitting that conservatives were right.

There is an alternative: Mr. Obama can take a stand.

For one thing, he still has the ability to engineer significant relief to homeowners, one area where his administration completely dropped the ball during its first two years. Beyond that, Plan B is still available. He can propose real measures to create jobs and aid the unemployed and put Republicans on the spot for standing in the way of the help Americans need.

Would taking such a stand be politically risky? Yes, of course. But Mr. Obama’s economic policy ended up being a political disaster precisely because he tried to play it safe. It’s time for him to try something different.

So while I think it is fine to support blue dogs in conservative districts, I see no reason to let them set our national policy.

Point/Counter Point: is getting rid of the blue dogs good for Liberals?

In this video, Lawrence O’Donnell argues that liberals should remember that the rest of the country isn’t like them (don’t I know that!) and that the loss of conservative Democrats in “red to purple” congressional districts is nothing for liberals to cheer:

Morning Joe: Glenn Greenwald and Lawrence ODonn…, posted with vodpod

On the other hand, this liberal says “good riddance” to the blue dogs:

Did we all miss the news flash? PROGRESSIVES WON! A significant exception is of course the tragic loss of Sen. Russ Feingold (WI) and the sad loss of prinicpled Representative Alan Grayson (FL). But, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus in the House Democratic Caucus at over 80 members, emerged virtually unscathed, losing only three members.

By constrast, the conservative Blue Dog Democratic caucus was more than sliced in half from 54 members to only 26. Further, of the 34 conservative Dems who voted against Obama’s Healthcare Reform, a mere 12 won re-election.

Dead weight gone. Good Riddance. The blame for the stalemate to come can now fall squarely where it belongs… on the anti-progressive, anti-democratic, anti-populist Republican members of Congress.

Our work is now finally beginning. The veil of a happy Democratic governing majority is finally lifted. We didn’t have it then; we don’t have it now. But what we do have now is a more solidly progressive bunch of Dems and a President presumably less-encumbered by the false illusion that playing nice will get him a date with the other team.

Let’s thank Grayson, Hall and Hare for their principled time in office. Let’s get Feingold on the ticket as VP in 2012, let’s throw our support unabashedly behind the Congressional Progressive Caucus and let’s push Obama to finally do the right thing through as many Executive Orders as we can present to him.

I think that the latter view, while appealing to me emotionally, is short sighted. After all, executive orders can be easily changed; Congressional legislation is longer lasting. And then Senator Obama campaigned on change via laws from Congress rather than by orders via fiat.

And many of these losses, while they were from conservative districts, represented us moving away from the best we can do. Having a blue dog adds numbers; if we have a majority we run the sessions, set the agenda and dominate the committee assignments. Besides, someone who agrees with us 40 percent of the time is better than someone who agrees with us 0 percent of the time.

The Real Lesson of 2010: The R’s won their tantrum but

We influenced public policy forever:

The big picture isn’t about winning or keeping power. It’s about using it. I’ve made this argument before, but David Frum, the former speechwriter to President Bush, has made it better. In March, when Democrats secured enough votes to pass the bill, he castigated fellow conservatives who looked forward to punishing Pelosi and President Obama “with a big win in the November 2010 elections.” Frum observed:

Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now. … No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage?

Exactly. A party that loses a House seat can win it back two years later, as Republicans just proved. But a party that loses a legislative fight against a middle-class health care entitlement never restores the old order. Pretty soon, Republicans will be claiming the program as their own. Indeed, one of their favorite arguments against this year’s health care bill was that it would cut funding for Medicare. Now they’re pledging to rescind those cuts. In 30 years, they’ll be accusing Democrats of defunding Obamacare.

Most bills aren’t more important than elections. This one was. Take it from Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader. Yesterday, in his election victory speech at the Heritage Foundation, he declared, “Health care was the worst piece of legislation that’s passed during my time in the Senate.” McConnell has been in the Senate for 26 years. He understands the bill’s significance: It’s a huge structural change in the relationship between the public, the economy, and the government.

So laugh that you managed to convince the country to vote in your idiots. You still lost.

But the country won.

6 November PM (2010)

Some interesting election analysis stuff

There have been some simplistic conclusions about the recent midterm elections. Some are saying “this represents a rejection of Barack Obama”. Some point out the (true) fact that most of the losses came from “blue dog” districts. I’ve given some numbers here and here. My point is much of this was a case of Republicans “coming home”; think of this as a “regression to the mean” effect.

Yes, this isn’t a surprise. But when one tries to make finer conclusions such as “support for the health care bill hurt/didn’t hurt” one has to go beyond “who won” and “who lost” in as “X number of D’s voted against HCR and lost where as Y number voted for it and a much smaller percentage lost seats”. Those numbers are true but misleading; here is why.

I thank Dr. Andy for sending me this in the comments. I am puzzled as why he is so giddy given what this election means for science (example , more examples here) You’d think that someone who got a Ph. D. in biology and a M. D. would have more respect for science than that.
But get ready for 2012 where we’ll see Presidential candidates like this one:

or these:

Perhaps he should bone up on blood letting so he can help patients heal by bleeding out their “evil humors”?

More election/poll analysis
Here Nate Silver explains the difference between “house effect” (polling differently than the other pollsters on a candidate or perhaps on the candidates of a particular type) and “bias” (being off in your predictions).

Example (and I am making this up for demonstration): say you were looking at polls for the Illinois governor’s race. Say most polls showed Brady up by 4, but one poll showed Quinn up by 1. The single poll that consistently had a higher number for Quinn is said to have a “house effect”. However that poll would have proved to not be “biased” as that seemingly “pro-Quinn” poll turned out to be the only correct one.

On the other hand if one poll always had Democrats getting 4 points more than they actually got, that poll would be “biased”.

Political humor Now this is a close election: two candidates ended up getting exactly the same number of votes (though 18 votes are still out which could resolve the election). Look at how the law requires the election to be decided in the event that those votes go 9 apiece.

Hacking: most of the time, I disapprove of hacking or other “denial of service” schemes. But this computer “pranking” of Sarah Palin’s facebook page IS funny…and harmless.

Political Thoughts: What Now?
It is clear that income inequality is growing. In general, Republicans don’t have a problem with this as they tend to see life as a contest with “winners” and “losers” (e. g., at a marathon race, no one complains that the winner will finish in less than one third of the time of the slow pokes in the back of the pack). Remember that the Gilded Age is a type of Republican Utopia.

Yes, I know that I am well to the left of most of America; other liberals recognize this as well. Had we compromised just a tiny bit MORE in the Senate, we might have had a trigger-driven public option in the health insurance bill (Senator Olympia Snowe seemed to be interested in this). Yes, the Republicans were more interested in saying “no” rather than honestly engaging in policy formation.

With that in mind, I agree with Paul Krugman: I am for keeping Nancy Pelosi as minority leader; we’d look weak if we didn’t and she has shown skill.

And no, there is no “moral equivalence” between the two sides. None.

(text here)

6 November 2010 Rehabilitation

Update: shoulder: some discomfort during some of the night but nothing resembling the “loss of sleep” pain that I had before.
Knee: still slacking on the stretching. I did get one weight workout.

When I sit for any length of time, when I get up I have a pronounced limp for a while. My left knee sometimes hurts; the quads are tight.

Today’s workout: 10 mile loop at McNaughton…slow, slow, slow (3:30). It was leafy and I was in no mood to push the pace. There were deer everywhere! I saw a few bucks with lots of points. I took the steep downhills (leaf covered) very slowly.

I never felt loose nor fast; I just was tight and sore…nevertheless the weather was beyond beautiful. There was frost on the prairie when I started and a lot of sunshine; it varied from 25 F at the start to the high 30′s at the end.

At mile 2 iron-babe Beth Haynes yelled “hi”; she was part of a group that had left earlier. I regret not seeing her in her spandex.