4 December 2010 (AM)

Whine: it is snowing; the first real snow of the year. Yuck.

I slept reasonably late due to being up at the Bill Maher event followed by watching the last 3 quarters of the Illinois-Fresno State football game. Illinois lost 25-23; basically they fell behind 16-0 at the end of the first and couldn’t quite catch up even though they ran the ball well.

Currently I am watching the second half of Oregon-Oregon State
The silver and white scheme looks reasonably sharp, but it has nothing to do with yellow and green. Oregon State’s uniforms look bit like Halloween costumes.
The Ducks just broke a huge fake punt right up the middle for 68 yards even if they are only up 16-7.
(photo from here)

Workout notes
Rotator cuff routine (bands then home dumbbells) then 1:05 on the treadmill (6 miles)
10 minutes of walking, 40 minutes of run 1 minute, walk one minute, then 2-1, 2-1, 1-1-1-1, then 1 walk, 1 run, 1 walk, 1 run.

Then snow shoveling. Yuck.

Shoulder: I am almost at relapse stage; the night pain isn’t what it once was but it has gotten worse though I’ve done no lifting since Monday. My guess is that I got off of the anti inflammatory pills a bit too soon, did too much overhead lifting and used too much weight (5 pounds) for the rotator cuff exercises.

Posts

Economy
The job situation is grim:

(total jobs)

(private sector jobs)

Yes, this is way better than it was under President Bush, but not good enough to make up with those looking for work (people entering the work force and currently unemployed looking for work).

I think that Robert Reich has it right:

Let’s be clear about this. The problem is lack of sufficient demand for workers.

There are only four sources of demand. The biggest source is American consumers, who comprise about 70 percent of economic activity.

But the vast American middle and working class can’t and won’t buy enough to get people back to work. They’re still under a huge debt load.

Even if and when they pay it off, their buying days are gone. The Great Recession took away their last means of coping with years of stagnant wages — going deeper into debt by using their homes as collateral. The housing bubble burst, and home prices continue to drop.

The second source of domestic demand is business. But businesses won’t hire more workers without more customers.

(Republican supply-siders say businesses are not hiring because they’re uncertain about the effects of the new health care law and don’t know how much taxes they’ll have to pay. This is political claptrap. Supply-siders also say businesses would start hiring if their taxes were lower. But businesses are sitting on almost a trillion dollars of cash. They don’t need lower taxes in order to hire more Americans. They need more American customers.)

The third source of domestic demand is net exports. But they’re going nowhere. Although China, India, and Brazil are buying goods and services from American companies — and thereby boosting US profits — those US companies are making most of what they sell there in those countries. GM is selling more cars in China than in the US now, and manufacturing them in China.

That leaves the fourth source of domestic demand — government. But it’s not nearly filling the gap. To the contrary, state and local governments are broke, and are cutting spending and raising taxes to the tune of over $110 billion this year. The federal government’s much-maligned stimulus is about gone (almost all economists believe it saved over 3 million jobs).

The Fed is pumping $600 billion into the economy, but without an expansive fiscal policy this is only fueling speculation.

Instead, austerity and deficit reduction are the new buzz-words in Washington, as well as in Europe — which is absurd given what’s happening to the economy.

Republicans won’t even vote to extend unemployment benefits for the record number of Americans — almost half the unemployed — who have been out of work for six months or more. Starting today, 800,000 of the long-term unemployed lose their benefits. Unless Congress moves quickly, by the end of December, 2 million more will lose them.

Reich goes on to recommend a WPA like agency and to create a organization to rebuild infrastructure. He recommends no payroll tax on the first 20,000 dollars of income and tax breaks for those making up to 80,000. He helps pay for this with increased taxes on the very wealthy (1 million dollars and up) and a financial transaction tax.

Good luck with that given that the Republicans (with a few Democrats) managed to filibuster the “extend tax cuts only for the first 250,000 dollars of income for all Americans” and the “extend tax cuts for only the first 1,000,000 dollars of income for all Americans”.

Our Republicans have managed to turn selfishness and greed into virtues. And as Senator Harkin said: our side is really looking weak.

Outgoing Alan Grayson (D-Florida) got it right:

Sure, he got blistered in his reelection bid; his district (FL-8) barely went for Obama in 2008 and went for Bush in 2000 and 2004. In such a district, things that make people like me cheer will not be well received by most.

Here, Vice President Biden fills in for the President:

Jerry Coyne and I share a similar fear.

Religion
Oh noes! Atheists are advertising!

This benign sign has some fundies up in arms and talking about a boycott.

This sign really got under their skin:

Look: Churches and religions advertise year ’round. There is nothing wrong with that. But freedom of expression to us too and there is nothing wrong with saying “gee, believing that a human was born from a non-sexual process, died, but was resurrected and your swallowing this tale somehow imputes some virtue is ridiculous.” Note: I am NOT saying that it is bad to get some meaning and comfort from a religious story nor is it bad to extract good moral teaching from religious texts or to extract techniques to calm the mind (e. g., prayer, meditation, yoga); what I find absurd is viewing it as literal history.

The Blitzkrieg On Grinchitude – Atheist Billboard & Capitol Christmas Tree

ColbertNation.com video – Atheists attack religion outside the Lincoln Tunnel, and the official Capitol Christmas tree has a Twitter account.

The Blitzkrieg On Grinchitude – Atheist Billboa…, posted with vodpod

Where are these sort of Republicans?

3 December 2010 early am

Body: sleep was not restful last night; I had a combination of aches and pains. Yep, the shoulder is one of them though this wasn’t the intense pain from some time ago. I think that it was “doing rotator cuff exercises with too much weight” pain.

I already do three of these (1, 3, and 4); I need to do the second one shown in this video:

It mimics the swimming motion; when that is painless I should be ready to swim!

Update: 2 mile AMT, 2 mile treadmill run (10:10, 8:57), 1 mile walking on the track. The local ROTC was doing a running workout so I sped up to catch the struggling runners (6:30 first 800 meters, 6:00 for the second). Then I did the rotator cuff stuff with the red band and 3 pound dumbbells.

Posts
President Obama is taking a beating from disgruntled liberals.
Paul Krugman: calls him weak:

After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?

On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking — successfully, it seems — to destroy him.

So I guess we are, in fact, seeing what Mr. Obama is made of.

About that pay freeze: the president likes to talk about “teachable moments.” Well, in this case he seems eager to teach Americans something false.

The truth is that America’s long-run deficit problem has nothing at all to do with overpaid federal workers. For one thing, those workers aren’t overpaid. Federal salaries are, on average, somewhat less than those of private-sector workers with equivalent qualifications. And, anyway, employee pay is only a small fraction of federal expenses; even cutting the payroll in half would reduce total spending less than 3 percent.

So freezing federal pay is cynical deficit-reduction theater. It’s a (literally) cheap trick that only sounds impressive to people who don’t know anything about budget realities. The actual savings, about $5 billion over two years, are chump change given the scale of the deficit. [...]

There were no comparable gestures from the other side. Instead, Senate Republicans declared that none of the rest of the legislation on the table — legislation that includes such things as a strategic arms treaty that’s vital to national security — would be acted on until the tax-cut issue was resolved, presumably on their terms.

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?

What’s even more puzzling is the apparent indifference of the Obama team to the effect of such gestures on their supporters. One would have expected a candidate who rode the enthusiasm of activists to an upset victory in the Democratic primary to realize that this enthusiasm was an important asset. Instead, however, Mr. Obama almost seems as if he’s trying, systematically, to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake.

Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.

Krugman goes on to call on Congressional Democrats to strike out on their own. Good luck with that in the Senate.

The rank and file are disgusted too; see here and here. It appears to many that the President doesn’t understand that the Republicans have no agenda other than “win back the White House at all costs” agenda; they care nothing about governing effectively.

BUT the other side: we got a lot done in 2 years; there is no denying that either.

We’ll have to see what happens in the next 2.

And, well, my liberal friends are complaining a whole lot. But his approval ratings are still at 59 percent with those who have graduate degrees, 81 percent among Democrats, 81 percent among ALL liberal Democrats, and 45 percent overall. If that lower number seems alarming, it is right in line with where President Reagan and President Clinton were at this stage of their terms.

And yes, count me in as one of the “approves”.

My real issue: jobs. How will this situation improve? It isn’t pretty for some.

2 December 2010 PM

Yes, the Democrats will cave in on the tax cuts for the rich; the Republicans will filibuster in the Senate until they get their way.

That isn’t a surprise; I sure hope that Mano Singham is wrong.

Science
Possibly there are more stars and more planets capable of sustaining life. And yes, life can take different forms; possibly even here on earth.

Again, this is just “interesting conjecture” and NOT proven results. Update: this isn’t life that is arsenic based but rather life that has adjusted to not be killed by it.

Humor
Here is one way to get through the TSA screening.

2 December mid morning

Workout notes Yoga, then weights for the legs:

squats: 10 x 45, 10 x 135, 10 x 135, 10 x 155 (focus on more depth)
leg press: 20 x 180, 20 x 270, 10 x 360
leg extensions: 1 set of 10
leg curls: 2 sets of 8
sit ups: 10 sets of 10 on various inclines (1 to 9)

Rotator cuff: used 2.5 pound dumbbells instead of 5 and the difference was noticeable; it was much, much better.
The 5 pounds were too much for these exercises; that is what was causing the soreness.

Then: 4.25 mile walk home (untimed).

Politics
The President is NOT a good negotiator. His main weakness (from my point of view) is that he gives in way too easily and ends up watering down legislation.

Then again he got a lot done in 2 years.

Weirdness of the body

Last night, I attempted to go to bed early. Most of my old injuries (right heel near the Achilles tendon, right knee, right shoulder, left hamstring) all whines and hurt a bit. I’m not sure if this means something or not; I’ve had this happen before when I’ve gotten food poisoning or when a cold/flu has come on.

I’d love to know the mechanism.

Today I’ll do yoga, lift and perhaps do a few elliptical miles; something gentle.

My guess: it has to do with my overall tightness and cold weather.

Some random posts

Religious beliefs
I understand someone agreeing with a philosophy of a religion (e. g., “just doing whatever I feel like doing at the moment is NOT a good way to live life”) but accepting some of the myths (e. g., “this snake talked” or “this person was born of a virgin”) make no sense to me at all:

Nerd Fun with Football
How will TCU fare in the Big East in the long term? Nate Silver (famous political statistician) takes on this question.

(note: this is really more of a “fun” post).

Politics
Many liberals (myself included) have expresses frustration with President Obama; we think that he has not been confrontational enough and is thereby hurting policy.
But when you look at it: yes, we took a political beating in 2010, but we have gotten many policy things done; he just hasn’t looked like a “fighter” while doing it.
So, there are no real worries about a primary challenge.

And yes, if the economy improves, no one will much care if he took time to shake his fist at the Republicans or not.

One Excellent Reason to Use “Happy Holidays” Instead of “Merry Christmas”

Sometimes doing this keeps idiots away:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Tuesday that he won’t participate in Tulsa’s Holiday Parade of Lights until organizers put “Christ” back in the event’s title.

“Last year, the forces of political correctness removed the word ‘Christmas’ and replaced it with ‘Holiday’ instead,” the Oklahoma Republican said. “I am deeply saddened and disappointed by this change.”

Inhofe, who was Tulsa’s mayor from 1978 to 1984, said he had participated in the parade annually, riding a horse as his children and grandchildren watched.

Jingle Bell 5K in Peoria; do I or don’t I?

Workout notes
4 mile walk (50:30), 1 mile run (9:30) on the treadmill. On the walk I warmed up, then sped up to 12 mpm, then did 1 mile at 13:20 over increasing hills (5 minutes at level 6), then did one faster mile (sped up to 11:00 mpm), then walked a mixed mile of hills/faster. My time at mile 3 was 38:30.

Then I “ran” 1 mile on the treadmill to keep in practice and did some rotator cuff with the stretch band. The shoulders are sore but this appears to be a “muscle soreness” from exertion rather than injury.

Local Run

Do I run the Jingle Bell 5k in Peoria this weekend or don’t I?

Downside: this is one of the worst organized races in the area. The RD is indifferent to the race distance. People show up in costume and “run” 4-5 abreast at a 12 mpm pace…and start near the front! Grade school teachers show up with their kids…AT THE FRONT. There are always speeches and a 15 minute rendition of the National Anthem sung by someone in a warm coat while everyone else shivers (ok, 15 minutes is an exaggeration )

The start line is a real zoo.

Upside: I am in such dreadfully bad shape that I know that my time is going to suck anyway and there will be a ton of cute spandex women.

I think that the prettiest shapes belong to those who “run” 8:30-12 minutes per mile (they have the bigger butts) and that would be my pace range. And sometimes it is fun just to show up, relax and jog through (or walk) an event.

Oh, decisions, decisions.

Welcome to December 2010

The winter holidays are coming, and that means billboard wars.

Politics/economy Yes, the President’s “let’s freeze federal worker pay” idea disgusted me; it is a rather symbolic gesture that won’t do much other than embolden the Republicans. I am not alone in feeling this way about it.

I admit that I am as pessimistic about what will happen in the lame duck session as Robert Reich is. And I am in agreement as to what should happen…but it wont.