Sarah Palin Movie…

Sarah Palin: Balloon Juice has a thread which is calling for readers to suggest titles for the upcoming Sarah Palin film. Some of the suggestions are hilarious.

Mine: “Amadoofus”.

25 May 2011(noon)

Workout notes
Over lunch: swim, 2 mile run, 2 mile walk, sit ups and PT (rotator cuff, hip hikes)

Swim: 10 x (25 front, 25 side, 25 side, 25 free), 2 x (25 3g, 25 free), 2 x (25 fist, 25 free).
My shoulder started slightly sore then got better and felt pretty good by the end of the 1000 yard “75 kick, 25 swim” set.

Run: 2 miles on the treadmill (10:35, 9:37), 2 mile walk on the track (13:35, 12:22). Idea: quit before it became a workout; I am still recovering from this weekend’s festivities. I talked to other runners who told me the same thing.

The knee felt fine.

Posts
Remember the “junk science” article about black women being less attractive than other women? Yes, the statistics were shoddy all the way through; no doubt about that. But now we are seeing calls for this guy to be fired…

The row has prompted the University of London Union Senate, the union’s legislative body, which represents more than 120,000 students, to vote unanimously for the dismissal of Kanazawa, and to condemn his research.

Sherelle Davids, anti-racism officer-elect of the LSE students’ union, said: “Kanazawa deliberately manipulates findings that justify racist ideology. As a black woman I feel his conclusions are a direct attack on black women everywhere who are not included in social ideas of beauty.”

Amena Amer, incoming LSE students’ union education officer, added: “We support free speech and academic freedom, but Kanazawa’s research fuels hate against ethnic and religious minorities promoted by neo-Nazi groups. Not only does he use the LSE’s credentials to legitimise his ‘research’ but this jeopardises the academic credibility of the LSE.”

(emphasis mine). In other words, “free speech is fine so long as we don’t hate it too much”.

Ok, I have no problem with firing someone for incompetence. For example, were I to go around claiming that, say, then yeah, I ought to be fired as I would be incompetent. But note that incompetence is NOT the complaint being highlighted here.

My guess: the right wing will rally around this guy, call him “courageous” and say that these calls are an example of European PC-ness run amok and that we need the Republicans to protect the United States from that. They’ll talk about how THEY favor free speech…until the next Ward Churchill says something that they don’t like….

Economy Paul Krugman thinks that we are going to have another downturn…

Last year I warned that we seemed to be heading into the “Third Depression” — by which I meant a prolonged period of economic weakness:

Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

Brad DeLong points us to Macro Advisers, which has now downgraded its estimates for second-quarter growth. As Brad says, these estimates now suggest that we have now gone through a year and a half of “recovery” that has failed to make any progress toward closing the gap between what the economy should be producing and what it’s actually producing.

Oh boy; I sure hope that he is wrong….

But I’ll tell you who was wrong: the Republicans (via Robert Reich):

Republican House Budget chief Paul Ryan still doesn’t get it. He blames Tuesday’s upset victory of Democrat Kathy Hochul over Republican Jane Corwin to represent New York’s 26th congressional district on Democratic scare tactics.

Hochul had focused like a laser on the Republican plan to turn Medicare into vouchers that would funnel the money to private health insurers. Republicans didn’t exactly take it lying down. The National Republican Congressional Committee poured over $400,000 into the race, and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads provided Corwin an additional $700,000 of support. But the money didn’t work. Even in this traditionally Republican district – represented in the past by such GOP notables as Jack Kemp and William Miller, both of whom would become vice presidential candidates – Hochul’s message hit home.

Ryan calls it “demagoguery,” accusing Hochul and her fellow Democrats of trying to “scare seniors into thinking that their current benefits are being affected.”

Scare tactics? Seniors have every right to be scared. His plan would eviscerate Medicare by privatizing it with vouchers that would fall further and further behind the rising cost of health insurance. And Ryan and the Republicans offer no means of slowing rising health-care costs. To the contrary, they want to repeal every cost-containment measure enacted in last year’s health-reform legislation. The inevitable result: More and more seniors would be priced out of the market for health care.

Yes, I know, the Ryan plan to end Medicare (keeps the name, but ends the current program and replaces it with inadequate vouchers) really doesn’t affect the CURRENT senior citizens….but…well, these are the same folks who voted for Republicans who wanted to “keep the government hands off of their Medicare”. It cuts both ways…and these amoral a-hole Republicans benefited from their confusion and fear in 2010. Now it is coming back to haunt them.

Caveat: I admit to being ignorant to the “facts on the ground” in this particular New York district; this result could have well been affected by some local party breakdown just as the Scott Brown Senate upset was (in Massachusetts).

Paul Krugman could be right here:

The obvious point is that Republicans, having run in 2010 largely by scaring seniors with tales of death panels, are now horsed on their own pet aardvark, or something.

The difference is that whereas Democrats were not, in fact, trying to impose death panels, Republicans really do want to dismantle Medicare – and that’s the truth no matter how many times Very Serious People reach for their smelling salts when Democrats say that. And you would think that would make Medicare an even more potent weapon for the Dems than it was for the Rs (unless they go out of their way to ignore what the electorate is really concerned about.)

It’s now starting to look like a real possibility that we will have had three electoral waves in a row – a Democratic sweep in 2006-2008, a Republican countersweep in 2010, and a countercountersweep in 2012 as voters realize that the GOP is the same as it always was, only more so.

But we shall see. 2012 is a long way off…in terms of politics.

25 May 2011 (am)

We’ve had some strong thunderstorms in the area; fortunately nothing like Joplin had.

Workout notes Nothing yet, though I’ll probably swim and jog during lunch. The right shoulder: oh so sore so I’ll have to take it very easy in the pool (mostly kick-swim; no 50′s or 100′s)

Posts
Tornadoes present a huge challenge for engineers; more so than earthquakes:

This afternoon, All Things Considered host Robert Siegel put the question to John W. van de Lindt, a civil engineering professor at the University of Alabama (in Tuscaloosa), who has extensively studied the effects of tornadoes on structures.

Looking at the damage in Tuscaloosa, van de Lindt said it was apparent that buildings constructed with a “continuous load path” (in which structures are bolted to their foundation and metal hardware goes all the way up and connects to the roof) fared better. But the most powerful tornadoes, with winds up to 200 mph, will rip off almost any wooden home’s roof, he said. Once that happens, “the building is no longer stable and it blows the walls down.” [...]

As for the forces that tornadoes can bring to bear on a building, van de Lindt said “it’s definitely easier to engineer for an earthquake.”

“A tornado works from the top down,” he said. And it’s especially difficult to keep a roof attached to a typical house if a major tornado hits it. An earthquake works from the bottom up, and a foundation can be built to withstand great force.

There is more at the link, including audio.

Education
Teachers can make a difference, but they can’t make up for all of the effects of poverty. Here is one teacher’s take.
Here a video interview at the site (UT professor)

Politics
Tim Pawlenty is fact-checked by AP. His “honest” claims aren’t so accurate:

PAWLENTY: “The truth is, people getting paid by the taxpayers shouldn’t get a better deal than the taxpayers themselves. That means freezing federal salaries, transitioning federal employee benefits, and downsizing the federal work force as it retires.” — Campaign announcement.

THE FACTS: A federal pay freeze is already in effect. Obama proposed and Congress approved a two-year freeze on the pay of federal employees, exempting the armed forces, Congress and federal courts.

___

PAWLENTY: “ObamaCare is unconstitutional.” — USA Today column.

THE FACTS: Obama’s health care overhaul might be unconstitutional in Pawlenty’s opinion, but it is not in fact unless the Supreme Court says so. Lower court rulings have been split.

___

PAWLENTY: “Barack Obama has consistently stood for higher taxes.” — Campaign announcement.

THE FACTS: Obama’s record shows more tax cutting than tax raising. The stimulus plan early in his presidency cut taxes broadly for the middle class and business, and more recently he won a substantial cut in Social Security taxes for a year. He also campaigned in support of extending the Bush-era tax cuts for all except the wealthy, whose taxes he wanted to raise. In office, he accepted a deal from Republicans extending the tax cuts for all. As for tax increases, Obama won congressional approval to raise them on tobacco and tanning salons. The penalty for those who don’t buy health insurance, once coverage is mandatory, is a form of taxation.

___

PAWLENTY: “For decades before I was elected, governors tried and failed to get Minnesota out of the top 10 highest-taxed states in the country. I actually did it.” — Campaign announcement.

THE FACTS: Minnesota remains among the 10 worst states in its overall tax climate, according to the Tax Foundation. In its 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index, the anti-tax organization ranks Minnesota 43rd, making it the eighth worst state. The ranking slipped from 41st two years earlier. The index considers corporate, individual, sales, unemployment insurance and property taxes.

___

Honest Mr. Pawlenty…gets basic facts wrong.

24 May 2011 noon

Workout notes Lynn and I went to a yoga class; Jill lead.
Noon: 1200 yard swim followed by an easy 4 mile walk; the day was too pretty to not get out there.

Swim: 4 x (25 drill, 25 free) to warm up. Then 1000 in 18:25: 9:18, 9:07.
Oh well, you have to start somewhere. In the days of old, I’d restart swimming at 17:45 or so; but I’ve been out of the water for so long. It will get better. I hope. The good news is that I wasn’t aerobically taxed; then again I shouldn’t have been.

Posts
Blogs and science: Jerry Coyne is having too much fun with mathematics and how incomprehensible it is to outsiders…even to non-specialists. The bottom line: for most mathematical disciplines, you have to be well versed to even understand why a question might be interesting to begin with. It is a strange and often frustrating discipline.

Political and social satire
I don’t want a track-back so if you want to read some satire, surf here:

http://baptistsforbrown2008.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/do-you-know-someone-who-is-suffering-the-shame-and-sin-of-being-a-homo/

You’ve heard about gay people being “made straight” by prayer? Well now, you can “pay your way” to not be gay! Yes, the blog is satire; the character who wrote this post plays a lower middle class con-artist (claims to be a “prophetess”.. )

Economics The Ryan plan is a joke, even though the polyester pants set attempted to play it as some sort of serious, noble attempt. Paul Krugman reminds his readers to not fall for the BS:

I suspect that there’s a legend in the making — one that will come to dominate the conventional wisdom if the GOP does badly next year — which goes like this: Republicans were too noble. They committed themselves to a serious, well-crafted policy plan, but were oblivious to the political realities.

What I hope regular readers of this blog understand by now is that the Ryan plan is, in fact, a self-serving piece of junk. It doesn’t add up — in fact, it would probably make the deficit bigger not smaller. And far from representing some kind of sacrifice of political interests in the service of the greater good, it’s a right-wing wish-list on steroids: sharp tax cuts for corporations and the rich, savage cuts in aid to the poor, and a gratuitous privatization of Medicare. And again, it’s technically incompetent along the way.

So nobility and seriousness had nothing to do with it.

But living in an alternative universe is nothing new for the Republicans(via Jacob Weisberg):

At a press conference last week, someone asked Chris Christie for his views on evolution vs. creationism. “That’s none of your business,” the New Jersey governor barked in response.

This minor incident, which barely rated as news for a few political blogs, offers a glimpse of Christie’s personality, which seems increasingly grumpy and snappish. But it says even more about the current state of the national Republican Party, where magical thinking trumps rationality, and even to acknowledge basic realities about the world we live in runs the risk of damaging one’s political future.

Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He’s an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone’s running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.

Moments like this point to a growing asymmetry in our politics. One party, the Democrats, suffers from the usual range of institutional blind spots, historical foibles, and constituency-driven evasions. The other, the Republicans, has moved to a mental Shangri-La, where unwanted problems (climate change, the need to pay the costs of running the government) can be wished away, prejudice trumps fact (Obama might just be Kenyan-born or a Muslim), expertise is evidence of error, and reality itself comes to be regarded as some kind of elitist plot.

Barack Obama
Yes, race constantly comes up. Yes, the right wing makes an issue of it….all of the time (via Colbert King):

Diane Fedele, a California local Republican leader, displayed her own meanness in 2008 when she included in her party’s newsletter a picture that showed the face of Obama surrounded by watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken. The photo, which was shaped as a currency note, had the inscription “Obama Bucks” under his picture.

Associating black people with poverty programs is a shopworn tactic of bigots. The same year Fedele produced her pictorial, a joke circulated on the Internet that listed American presidents and the currency denominations that bore their faces. It read: “Washington, $1 dollar bill,” “Jefferson, $2 dollar bill,” “Lincoln, $5 dollar bill,” “Hamilton, $10 dollar bill,” “Jackson, $20 dollar bill.” Then it said, “Obama, Food Stamps.”

So it should have come as no surprise when Newt Gingrich, well known for his slurs, took to the podium before a Republican crowd in Georgia last week and described President Obama as “the food stamp president.” Gingrich was trumpeting an old, bigoted line.

Yes, I know, Mr. Gingrich could claim “hey, I was merely saying that Obama was hurting the economy…this is a bit like the term “Hoovervilles” for the shanty towns that the homeless lived in before President Roosevelt was elected”. But why the specific term “food stamps”?

On the other hand, liberals attempt to make something out of President Obama being black:

[Cornell] West, on the other hand, finds Obama’s blackness wanting. He charged that Obama is “most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart . . . and very effective in getting what they want.” Not stopping there, West looked inside the president’s head and declared that Obama “has a certain fear of free black men.” Continuing his analysis, West opined that Obama grew up in “a white context” and “he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white.”

Au contraire, say those on the other side. They look at that caramel-colored president and see the incarnation of all that they fear and loathe.

Bottom line: too much attention is paid to the President’s skin color and not enough to his policies and the policies of those who merely say “no” to everything.

msnbc video: Dropping out of the race

msnbc video: Dropping out of the race, posted with vodpod

23 May 2011 (midday)

Workout notes 1200 yards of swimming followed by PT and weights:

swim: 10 x (25 sfs, 25 front, 50 free) on the 2:30, 200 in 3:34 . The latter 200, while not good, is significant progress.
weights: incline presses: 10 x 115, 5 x 135, 5 x 135, 5 x 135, 4 x 135 (got tired)
dumbbell curls: 4 sets of 10 x 25 lbs.
pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 140
rows (Hammer machine): 10 x 200, 10 x 200 (medium grip), 10 x 220 (narrow grip)
sit ups: 100 (4 x 25)
then rotator cuff, hip hikes (sets of 30 and 20 each leg), stretches.

Overall, I feel ok.

Race: the results are in; I finished 34 out of 43 overall; sad but not the worst. But now I know to work on my quads!
I really wanted 4.5 more miles.

Speaking of athletic things, one of the featured WordPress posts is one about getting youself out for a run. And just what do they use for a photo?

M O T I V A T I O N

Click on the thumbnail to get to the post with the photo. Yeah, I get it: even getting out there for a short easy run is better than not running at all……UNLESS one is supposed to be resting (say, resting an injury). I’ll take it a bit further: even getting out for a brisk walk helps some. But yeah, remember that when you go for your 6-8 miler, you are getting MOST of the benefits in the first 2 or 3 or so; the remaining 3-6 miles is to help your race performance.

Now, what will motivate you to “keep your eyes on your own workout”, so to speak? Getting caught looking?

(click on the thumbnail to see the photo at Girls in Yoga Pants)

Politics
Tim Pawlenty is formally running. Yes, he is a conservative:

Here’s what Tim Pawlenty, aka Guv TBag, said, after getting spanked by Judge Gearin after TBag’s unilateral (and so far, unconstitutional) use of Executive Power:

“I was in the Legislature for 10 years, and I’ve been governor for going on eight years, which is 18 years in which my positions on these matters have not changed.” –Tim Pawlenty, 31 Dec 2009 (PoliticsInMinnesota.com)

OK, so Gov. TBag wants to pretend he doesn’t own a set or twelve pairs o’ flip-flops. Fine. Let’s take him at his word, and look at a quote from way back when TBag was Majority Leader, before he took the corner office at the State Capital:

“Children who are victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem for our government.” — Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty, April 2001 – as quoted in the Aitkin Independent Newspaper (entire column below the fold)

In TBag’s world, nothing is his problem – from at-risk kids, to falling down bridges, to skyrocketing property taxes, to his misuse of executive power.

This is where “moral conservatism” goes completely wrong. Yes, there is accountability for the individual. But there is a limit to that. Example, suppose a kid is in a car that is being driven by a drunk parent and there is a crash and the kid is trapped. Do we just let the kid die? Or, say a parent drinks themselves out of a job and the kid gets cancer which is expensive to treat. Do we, as a society, say “sorry….but your parent is an idiot”?

Sorry, but that is NOT the kind of society that I want and I am willing to fight the conservatives on that.
This reminds me of a story I read (Robert Reich)

One day while sitting on a beach last summer I overheard a father tussle with his young son about whether the child was old enough to take out a small sailboat. The father finally relented. “Go ahead, but I’m not gonna save you,” he said, picking up his newspaper. A while later, the sailboat tipped over and the child began yelling for help, but father didn’t budge. When the kid sounded desperate I put down my book, walked over to the man, and delicately told him his son was in trouble. “That’s okay,” he said. “That boy’s gonna learn a lesson he’ll never forget.” I walked down the beach to notify a lifeguard, who promptly went into action.

Letting children bear the consequences of their risky behavior — what some parents call “tough love” — is equally applicable adults, and conservatives have made something of a fetish out of it. A few weeks ago, as George W. announced a paltry plan to help out a few of the millions of homeowners who got caught in the sub-prime loan mess, he reiterated the credo: “It’s not government’s job to bail out … those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could not afford.”

It’s true that people tend to be less cautious when they know they’ll be bailed out. Economists call this “moral hazard.” But even when they’re being reasonably careful, people cannot always assess risks accurately.

And Mr. Pawlenty’s statement takes it further than that.

This isn’t the only thing in Gov. Pawlenty’s past. When he was governor, he gave a man who, at 19 years of age, had sex with a 14 year old girl (raped, really, if you go by the law) a pardon….so he and his wife could open a child care center in their home.

Guess what? This guy turns out to be a pedophile who has raped his own daughter.

Why did this guy get the pardon? Well, it was because he ended up marrying the 14 year old girl.

So this person who is attracted to underage females gets clearance to have a child care center at his home?

Yes, I’ve seen cases similar to this one before.
Caveat: IF research into pedophilia shows that someone who has sex with a girl who is underage and 5 years his junior doesn’t indicate a greater than average chance of pedophilia, I’ll stand corrected….let’s just say that I am skeptical.
Remember, this guy wasn’t trying to open a burger joint or a hardware store…it was to have a child care center in his home.

But this is ammunition for those running against him.

Science
Sloths have a peculiar habit of defecating…not in the trees that they live in but rather at the base of the tree that they live in (they go down).

I’m sure that this means something, but I am not sure what it means.

23 May 2011 (am)

Workout notes
Nothing yet; I am planning to swim and lift over lunch.

Politics
This is Dick Morris: this is his take on Michelle Bachmann and with Tim Pawlenty.

You see, in their world, Ms. Bachmann isn’t the clown that everyone else sees. I sure hope that she is the next GOP nominee; this would be a 400 electoral vote landslide for Barack Obama. Remember this is who we are talking about:

1. “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009

2. “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?” -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, calling for a new McCarthyism, Oct. 2008

3. “Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I’m not saying that that’s what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, June 2009

4. “During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed … The government spent its wad by April 26.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, accusing the Obama administration of premature fiscal ejaculation, May 2009

5. “That’s why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a pro-lifer who completely missed the irony of using the same slogan as the pro-choice movement in arguing against health care reform

6. “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009

7. “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, Oct. 2006

8. “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.” -Rep. Rep. Michele Bachmann, March 2009

More:

Now think about what Dick Morris said about her. I sure HOPE that she wins he GOP nomination.

Dick Morris doesn’t like Tim Pawlenty:

Note on the Sharia law canard: as far as the loans go, I don’t like kow-towing to religion. But if that special “lease” program was available to everyone, regardless of religion, then I’d accept it. If not, I’d protest it.

As far as the United Kingdom: remember that country does NOT have separation of church and state; they have an official state church.

Economics
Paul Krugman talks about some reasonable people who want to embrace (as “serious”) something coming out of the Republican camp so as to appear to be fair:

Brad DeLong praises Jacob Weisberg for noticing, finally, that the GOP has gone off the deep end — then asks why Weisberg hasn’t written a piece about how he got snookered by Paul Ryan just 6 weeks ago.

And more important, what will happen when the next charlatan comes along?

John Quiggin is optimistic: he thinks that we may have reached a real turning point. I hope he’s right. But I doubt it. There’s a large cohort of people in the commentariat (and one in the White House, I fear) who are more or less liberal in sentiment, but desperately want to see themselves as men who transcend partisan differences; and to serve their self-image they keep looking for what Atrios calls “GOP daddies”, supposedly serious, sensible Republicans they can praise to show their open-mindedness.

So what happens when this intense desire to find sensible Republicans faces the reality of a GOP gone bonkers? The answer is a series of unrequited crushes.

Science and technology
Beyond Cool: check out this African frog;

Here is one from South America:

Medicine:
Do you want to see what science can do? Check this out: a paralyzed man is getting some limb function back, as well as some control of body functions:

Baseball champion Rob Summers was hit by a speeding car three years ago, and was told he would never walk again. But, despite being unable to use his brain to control his limbs, Summers has regained the ability to stand and walk.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Louisville used an electrode array to stimulate the spinal cord’s own neural network.

It appears that there’s enough control circuitry in the lower spinal cord – below the level of Summers’ injury – to control standing and stepping motions.

Through earlier research, the team had discovered that animals with spinal-cord injuries could stand and take coordinated steps while being stimulated epidurally — in the space above the dura, the outermost of the three membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. However, it was unclear whether the same would apply to human beings.

But, says Joel Burdick, a professor of mechanical engineering and bioengineering at Caltech, high-density epidural spinal stimulation, which uses sheet-like arrays of numerous electrodes to stimulate neurons, can “stimulate the native standing and stepping control circuitry in the lower spinal cord so as to coordinate sensory-motor activity and partially replace the missing signals from above, and shout ‘get going!’ to the nerves.”

Before being implanted with the array, Summers had hundreds of training sessions over more than two years, during which he was suspended in a harness over a moving treadmill while therapists manipulated his legs in a repetitive stepping motion. This had essentially no effect.

But after the device was implanted, Summers was able to push himself into a standing position and bear weight on his own. He can now remain standing, and bearing weight, for 20 minutes at a time. With the aid of a harness support and a little assistance, he can make repeated stepping motions on a treadmill, and can voluntarily move his toes, ankles, knees, and hips.

He also has some bowel control, bladder control and the ability to control the body temperature (involuntarily, as warm blooded animals do).

Of course, this is, in part, a testimony to his own grit and determination, but that determination can work because the science and engineering is there.

22 May 2011 pm

Workout notes Easy swim; 1200 yards:
5 x (25 sfs, 25 free), 5 x (25 front, 25 free), 4 x (25 3g, 25 free); this got me to 700 yards in 17:30.
Then 5 x 100 on the 2: mostly 1:50-1:53. Yes, these were slow, but I was a bit tired.
Yesterday’s festivities made me tired and sore; my thighs and butt are sore.

Lynn went with me to the Riverplex and walked the rapids while I swam; after my workout I walked a bit with her and the person she met there. She looked sharp in her shiny black ribbed swimsuit.

Other posts
Politics: I can’t get the video to embed, but this Bill Maher take on the current Republican presidential field is hilarious.

Obviously, the Presidential election is 17 months away; that is an eon in politics. But, given that the wealthy are doing well and Bin Laden is dead, I really wonder how hard the top Republican leadership will try during this election. My guess is that unless the wealthy stop doing so well, the Republican effort will be, at best, token, at least at the top of the ticket. They might put their focus on Congress, especially holding the House. Senate: even if the R’s win a small majority, the D’s will end up filibustering everything and so not much will get done. Remember it only takes 41 votes to sustain a filibuster.

Now what about President Obama’s actual record? This is a handy guide to the typical right wing attacks. As far as the left wing attacks: I merely point to the make up of the Senate and point out how many “red state” Democrats were in the Senate from 2008 to 2010.

Science
Astronomy has had some exciting discoveries; first of all there are planets that lie far away from the gravitational pull of a star:

Ten planets that appear to be drifting in interstellar space have been spotted by an international team of astronomers. The planets are so far from any host stars that they may not orbit a star at all, and could be drifting unbound through space. The team believes that such rogue planets could outnumber normal stars almost 2:1 and their existence could confirm computer simulations of solar-system formation.

More than 550 planets have so far been found beyond our solar system. The vast majority of these extrasolar planets – or exoplanets – have revealed themselves by their gravitational influence on their host star, or by the dip in brightness that they cause as they pass in front of their star. However, a clutch of 12 worlds had previously been found by gravitational micro-lensing.

This technique relies on the object of interest passing directly between the observer and a more distant background object. The mass of the foreground object acts like a lens and magnifies the light from the object beyond. If the foreground object is a star, then any orbiting planet leaves its own tell-tale fingerprint in the shape of the magnification. However, due to the need for an exact alignment, fewer than one in a million stars in the central part of the Milky Way are micro-lensed at any given time. This is why the number of exoplanets detected this way is low. [...]

The more fleeting the duration of the event, the less massive the lensing object; a duration of less than two days implies the mass of the foreground object to be much less than that of a star. In fact, Sumi believes the culprits to be planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. What is more, no stars were observed within 10 astronomical units of the lensing objects – one astronomical unit is the distance between the Sun and the Earth and Saturn orbits at about 9 astronomical units. “There is a possibility that these planets do have a host star. However, direct imaging of exoplanets by other teams suggests that such distant planets are very rare,” Sumi explains. “This led us to conclude that the lensing objects are freely floating planets, unbound from any star,” he adds.

Scientists have used statistical interpolation to estimate that these planets are 1.8 times more numerous than the stars; of course this is just conjecture at this point.

Also, some planets (which have host stars) might be habitable. One candidate has been identified:

A planet 20 light years away is the first outside our solar system to be declared ‘habitable’ by scientists.

The rocky ‘exoplanet’ Gliese 581d meets key requirements for sustaining Earth-like life, including rainfall and possibly even watery oceans.

The planet orbits a red-dwarf star similarly called Gliese 581, on its outer fringes called the ‘Goldilocks zone’, where the temperature is not so hot that water boils away, nor so cold that water is perpetually frozen.

But even though it may be technically habitable, the Gliese 581d would not make a comfortable dwelling for humans.

Gravity is twice what is on Earth, doubling the weight of anyone standing on the surface, and the atmosphere is dense with carbon dioxide.

With a mass of at least 5.6 times that of Earth, Gliese 581d is classified as a ‘super-Earth’.

But again, this is still in the “reasonable conjecture with strong supporting evidence” stage.

Still, this would be cool. If there are other sentient beings, the first thing I’d want to know is: “do they have a mathematics? Is it like ours?”

Then I’d wonder if they have their religious fanatics too.

Colonoscopy: tips from an endurance athlete (wannabe). TMI

Note: this will definitely be a TMI type post (Too Much Information); so if you are revolted by discussion of lower gastrointestinal functions, don’t read this.

When to schedule this: off season probably works best, if possible. But don’t do it the week of your goal event!

A week prior: I recommend taking your “cleansing” prescription to your pharmacy then because your store might be out of it; this will give them time to order some.

Also: note that you’ll have to get off of aspirin and NSAIDS 5 days prior to your procedure. So if you are nursing an injury or other aches and pains, I’d recommend getting some ice packs and using them after your workout.

Two days prior I was able to train normally, but I ate a little bit less than normal as I wanted to have less to clean out. It is a good idea to pay attention to hydration.

The day before I’d recommend doing your workout in the early morning; note that you’ll be on a “clear liquid” diet. I used apple and white grape juice; next time I’ll add broth to the mix (for the salt).
Then at noon or after, you’ll start your “cleansing”

Note: I think that this stuff takes like crap (no pun intended). You have to drink a LOT of it; 3 liters worth over a 4 hour period. I recommend starting this as soon as possible (per your doctor’s instructions) as it is good to have this over for a few hours prior to sleeping.

You’ll get diarrhea which will be the usual “loose bowels” at first; eventually it will get clearer and clearer until you are basically peeing out of your butt. I recommend wearing some old underwear during this period. Don’t plan on doing anything that you need to concentrate on; and don’t be too far away from the bathroom!

Having some Tuck’s pads might be nice to have; you might get sore.

The morning of the procedure
You’ll probably have to finish yet another liter of your cleansing fluid 3 hours prior to your check in time. You might think: “why, I am already clear” but you probably aren’t; I started off “brownish” and eventually got clear again. You won’t be allowed to take anything else so coffee addicts (like myself) will suffer a bit.

Note: when I woke up in the morning, I was 5 pounds down.

Doctor’s office

That went very smoothly; I was given the “don’t remember anything” drugs. I woke up babbling.

That afternoon: forget working out; I was groggy and really didn’t want much except….coffee!!!! I ate about 50 percent of my usual intake at meals that day.

Note: you’ll go home and spend most of the time trying to pass gas. The problem is that it will be hard to tell what is gas and what isn’t; I recommend wearing old underwear; maybe two pairs.

I also “slept it off” for much of the afternoon.

Next day
Experiences vary here. I woke up almost in a hung over state with grogginess, slight body-aches and a mild headache. Coffee solved the latter but the grogginess and body aches persisted for a few hours after waking up. Still I was able to swim a normal workout, stretch, etc, and that actually made me feel a bit better. It was a bit like trying to recover from a very mild cold; the bowels were much improved but not 100 percent.

Eventually: 3 days later: I participated in an 8 hour trail race. While my performance was, well, pathetic, I wasn’t limited by the colonoscopy.
Still, I came in a bit dehydrated so I’d recommend not scheduling one the week of an important “goal” event.

22 May 2011 (early am)

I am getting ready to go swimming in a bit. Yes, I am very sore; those hills trashed my legs.
Lesson: I am going to have to hit the trails for at least one 10 miler every week, and perhaps again for a shorter trail run. My quads are weak.

Posts

This point will not be made with statistics, but this shows what can happen when someone is unemployed and doesn’t have insurance.

Paul Krugman Comments that cranky ideas are still cranky no matter how “serious” the media makes them out to be:

Politico writes that

In this Republican primary season, no economic or monetary policy is too unorthodox for an electorate hungry for change.

There’s not much new in the story, but it does remind us that Tim Pawlenty — who is supposed to be a non-crazy– has declared his opposition to fiat currencies — i.e., demanded a return to the gold standard (although he may not know that that’s what it means).

What Politico doesn’t include, but should, is the lemming-like rush to endorse the Ryan plan, which, although Very Serious, is also complete crank economics, with its insistence — in the teeth of all the evidence — that privatizing Medicare can somehow provide adequate health care at much lower cost. And then there’s the recent rise of default denialism — hey, let’s signal to everyone that we’re a banana republic, what harm can it do?

He goes on to slam Reagan’s “supply side” advisers.

He also talks about the subprime mortgage mess and points out that the non-government related subprime mortgages were far riskier than anything Freddie and Fanny put out:

Though I’d like to know what percentages of the mortgages are we walking about (e. g., it might be true that the non-governmental backed mortgages were far riskier, but what percentage of the defaulted mortgages did these comprise?). I’ll have to look this up.