16 June 2011 noon

Hmmm, some “Second Amendment Remedies” are still frowned on:

A Kentucky man has been charged with attempted murder after he shot a 12-year-old boy in the back for ringing his doorbell during a game of Ding Dong Ditch.

Jason Eberle of Louisville, was playing the game, which involves someone ringing a doorbell and running away, on Monday night with friends. The New York Post reports that after the kids rang 56-year-old Michael Bishop’s bell he came out onto his porch armed with a shotgun and opened fire, hitting Eberle in the back and shoulder.

Bishop was arrested and has been charged with attempted murder. The Louisville Courier Journal reports that he was released Tuesday night after posting $10,000 bail.

Eberle was hit in the shoulder and the back and suffered two collapsed lungs in the incident. He is currently being treated in hospital where his condition is described as “improving”.

If you want to be amused (horrified?) surf to the article and read the “the brat had it coming” comments. No, I am not kidding; yeah the kid was acting like a brat and perhaps some sort of correction/punishment was appropriate. But maybe this guy went a wee bit overboard?

This reminds me of this scene from The Shining:

But hey, this guy was just using Biblical values to “correct” bratty kids:

The Bible says: Deuteronomy 21:18-21

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And if the little brats make fun of a balding man:

2 Kings 2:23-25:

23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 25 And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

Speaking of attitude:

Ok, so her butt has a misspelling (it is “silicone”):

(click the thumbnail to see the full sized photos at GIYP).

Thin white spandex, attitude and dumb as a rock…I love it!

16 June 2011 (am)

Workout notes Yoga with Ms. Vickie; I went to class with Lynn and lined up next to her; I should have worn ear plugs to muffle all of the whining.

Then I ran my 4.2 mile course in 44 minutes or so; the weather was too pretty to not get out there. I felt ok during the run (some mild tingles) and then lifted weights.

Weights: incline: 10 x 115, 10 x 130, 4 x 135, 4 x 135
curls (dumbbell) 4 sets of 10 x 25
pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 140
rows: 3 sets of 10 x 200 (medium grip; Hammer machine)
sit ups: 40, 40, 20 (1, 2, 3 incline)
stretches, PT, hip hikes, rotator cuff stuff

Injury: the piriformis has been acting up; this started in April when I stubbornly started to do some longer walks. I am not ready for that; I don’t think that I have to go to zero miles but I’ll see where doing some gentle 3-4 mile run/walks gets me. Yes, I’ll have to stretch, do the pressure stuff, etc.

Good news: the shoulder feels ok.

What I never see on my runs:

(click on the thumbnail to see at the source; you might have to sign in)

It is a pretty photo….:)

Science
It was known that a spider can spin something like a “diving bell” for it to be able to go underwater. But:

But scientists didn’t know if the diving bell spiders’ diving bells, which the crawlers can leave behind while they go grab food or find a mate, were anything but scuba tanks, holding a one-time supply of air.

It turns out that, like plastrons, the diving bells behave like gills too. Roger Seymour of the University of Adelaide in Australia and Stefan Hetz from Humboldt University of Berlin discovered. At least five times the original supply of oxygen can diffuse into an occupied bell throughout the bell’s lifetime, Seymour says. Using tiny oxygen probes, the team discovered that the oxygen coming into the bell may, at times, match a resting spider’s consumption. By estimating the oxygen needs of a spider resting in an average-sized bell, “we showed that the spider was quite happy for more than a day,” Seymour says. In fact, the bells’ endurance seems to be largely limited by nitrogen rather than oxygen, he adds. Nitrogen gas slowly leaks out of the bubbles like helium from a helium balloon, leading to collapse.

Diving spiders may have to visit the surface more than daily, however, since they do more than rest. In this study, the team observed that before dining on insects captured in underwater webs — an energy-intensive feat — spiders paddled to the surface to squirrel away more air.

Fascinating, no?

Politics
Dick Morris talks about the Republican debate and the “state of the race” as he sees it. Remember that his initial call was “Huckabee, Gingrich and Bachmann” as the top 3.

Back to his analysis: yes I agree that Tim Pawlenty looked terrible; he appeared to be intimidated by Mitt Romney; it is almost as if he is salivating after the VP slot. But check out what Mr. Morris says about Ms. Bachmann:

Iowa will resolve the remaining question: Who will oppose Mitt? The first question is whether Newt Gingrich can survive. His debate performance was stunning. He showed an intellectual breadth and depth that the others did not have. Only Michele Bachmann could rival his real-time knowledge about what was happening in Congress. And the creativity of his thinking was evident to all. But politics is pragmatic. Someday the Internet will replace television and we won’t have to buy TV ads and fundraising will no longer be the deciding factor. But we aren’t there yet. And Newt cannot hope to prevail without grinding it out. You wonder if he’s got it in him.

Rick Santorum probably will not have the grassroots enthusiasm surrounding a Herman Cain or a Bachmann candidacy, and Romney will foreclose his ability to raise big money. Santorum is not going anywhere.

So it will be between Cain and Bachmann for the nod to oppose Romney down the stretch. In the debate, Bachmann showed how strong she is rhetorically and substantively. She has Palin’s zest and instinct for a killer zinger but Newt’s knowledge of substance.

Hmmm, I had to reread that; at first I thought that he was praising her knowledge of substance. Then I remembered this:

Ok, it was Smoot-Hawley and not Hoot-Smalley, but that isn’t what is important: these were Republican Senators and it was signed into law by President Hoover in 1930…a Republican. Remember this is a prepared floor speech and not an off-the-cuff gaffe; the latter is excusable from time to time.

Here is more of her “knowledge”:

Most ridiculous was her “carbon dioxide” gaffe. The problem is that too much of it in the atmosphere means that the atmosphere doesn’t permit enough heat to escape away from the earth. That is roughly how glass works in a greenhouse. Besides, if she doesn’t see the danger of too much carbon dioxide, let her put a plastic bag over her head and seal the opening. Hey, there will be a lot of CO2 in the bag! It isn’t dangerous, right?

(for more of her quotes, go here)

I suppose that is what passes for intelligence in Republican circles!

All you need to know about the Republian Debate

They basically said THAT plus “Obama sucks”. Remember they were playing to those who can write big campaign checks.

15 June 2011 midday

Workout notes Walking: 4 miles on the Bradley track:
14:19, 12:28, 12:02, 11:53; I focused on posture, then turn over then push-off…repeat. I really have to make myself “walk tall”; I just naturally want to bend forward from the waist.

Rotator cuff, stretches, hip hikes (my butt got a bit achy)

Swimming: 1500 yards. 5 x 100 (25 3g, 25 swim, 25 fist, 25 swim) on the 2:15
Then 10 x 100 on the 2: 1:47, 47, 45, 42, 43, 41, 41, 39, 40, 39 or 1:42.4 average.
Compare that to 1:44.6 on 1 June and 1:49.7 on 29 May. Little by little, I am sucking just a bit less.

Piriformis: it ached afterward. But when I got home, the basement was flooded. I did a sort of awkward stiff legged stoop/bend to get the water from out from under the bench (one leg straight, the other bent) and that position seemed to stretch it and make it feel better! The position was something between these two positions:

Maybe I invented a new stretch.

Elephants in the Room – The Colbert Report – 6/14/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central

ColbertNation.com video – Michele Bachmann announces her candidacy at the second Republican debate, and Tim Pawlenty runs for Mitt Romney’s vice president.

Elephants in the Room – The Colbert Report – 6/…, posted with vodpod

15 June 2011 early morning

Oh well…I am in the final “proof reading of the papers” stage (not fun) and “learning something new” (fun).
I’ll get to that after my post…though the skies might clear enough to get in a short walk outside. I really don’t like the treadmill.

Posts
Here is one reason I love scientists: Jerry Coyne speaks honestly about the good and bad aspects of Stephen Jay Gould. I admit that I was uncomfortable with aspects of Dr. Gould’s book Mismeasure of Man. While I agreed with Dr. Gould’s point of view, I didn’t get the sense that he was being even handed. I much prefer Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (which I am almost finished with) which, while different in scope (he doesn’t deal with the “race science” arguments that Gould attacked) reaches roughly the same conclusions (that no racial group of humans has been proven to be superior to any other racial group) by being far more careful and attacking the very hypothesis at its root; he shows why saying “gee, you know that the Europeans developed technology much more quickly than the Africans so why shouldn’t we assume that they are smarter” is an unreasonable leap to be begin with.

Parenthetical comment: Diamond argues that many things affect technological development: the wild plants and animals that inhabit the region to begin with, communication routes with other societies, and yes, the very geometry of the region! Large land masses whose axis extend East-West means that more people live on the same latitude, hence agricultural techniques that work in one region might also work in regions a great distance away, hence the agricultural experiment of seeing what works has many more people working on it.

Ok, back to Professor Coyne’s article:

I always thought that among Steve Gould’s “real” (non-essay-collection) books, The Mismeasure of Man was the best. Yes, it was tendentious, written to show that scientists could be as biased and racist as anyone else, but it rang true. And the two-page epilogue, about the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck, a “feeble-minded” black woman, is one of the most eloquent bits of scientific writing I’ve ever seen.

How sad, then, to find that, in a new paper in PLoS Biology (access free), a group of scholars has reanalyzed a piece of Gould’s own analysis—his attack on Samuel Morton’s 1839 study of skull volumes of ethnic groups—and found Gould’s analysis even more flawed that Morton’s. If you’ve read Gould’s book, you’ll remember that a substantial chunk involved reanalyzing Morton’s study to show that Morton had finagled his data, making Native American skulls smaller than those of Caucasians, all to demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the latter. [....]

Gould was a man with an agenda. I knew him slightly: he was on my thesis committee at Harvard, and I crossed swords with him several times in the literature (when I was a graduate student, he once accused me of being a “hidebound gradualist”). I think his theory of punctuated equilibrium was pretty much bunk—except for his emphases on the often-jerky pattern of the fossil record. And I found him an unpleasant and arrogant man, but of course a smart and engaging one, too. He could be quite rude to those he considered his intellectual inferiors, and that was pretty much everyone.

Nevertheless, he made two great contributions to my field. [...]

He and Richard Dawkins are the two great popularizers of biology in our era, and it’s always fun to discuss their relative merits. (They disliked each other intensely, of course.)

Bottom line: people are package deals, even the ones who have achieved elite status in a field (especially? ). They have good traits and bad ones, and sometimes the traits that drives them to greatness can make them unpleasant to be around.

And yes, I admit that I sometimes overvalue strong intellects; I sometimes get like this around the intellectual stars:

I’d be the small yellow dog (Chester).

Intellect and Reason
This New York Times article suggests that, at least at times, reason is used to justify one’s current position rather than to seek the truth.

I know this all too well; one time I spent two years trying to prove something but could never “seal the deal” without additional hypothesis. Then I thought: “maybe I can’t do this because what I am trying to prove is false”. Then I published the counter-example.

Economy
Paul Krugman takes the President to task for selling out to the Republican “austerity” vision. Then Krugman goes after Paul Ryan again:

Rick Perlstein sends me to Sam Husseini asking Paul Ryan why, if he’s so concerned with government spending on health care, he doesn’t support single-payer. Ryan’s response is pure gobbledygook: he never answers the question, cites irrelevant facts (Medicare costs are rising! But what about private insurance, which is rising even faster?), and in general stonewalls and runs out the clock.

This is not a serious person, even if he’s a Serious Person.

Here is what is interesting: I noticed that many “serious” rank-and-file Republicans are like that. It isn’t as if they are stupid people; many have started and successfully ran businesses. That is a hard thing to do! But when you start talking about the economy as a whole, the descend into gibberish:

“I deserve it because I worked hard!” “The free market always works best!” “You just want to take from the hard workers and give it to the lazy” (ant-grasshopper fable…which I happen to like), etc.

It is tough to calm them down and remind them that you don’t want to destroy their businesses but rather ensure that they have customers and that perhaps rebuilding roads, bridges and upgrading education might be a way of doing what we need to do and ensuring that there is an educated middle class that can purchase their goods and services.

It isn’t as if we want to stand on the street corners and pass out hundred dollar bills to winos.
Then again they were just fine with electing a drunkard and coke head (with DUI convictions) as the President of the United States; you see only certain people deserve a second (and third and fourth) chance.

Civil Liberties

Rachel Maddow does a good job of explaining why some (well intentioned?) legislation that seeks to protect people from speech is a very bad idea.

msnbc video: Tennessee big government conservat…, posted with vodpod

Privacy: Those “fill in the bubbles” forms are anonymous, right? Well..no. Yes…people actually use different marks to fill in the bubbles! I wonder if this can be used to detect cheating.

Pair Up for Health Photos (a few)

Note: I finished 71 out of 148, though only 8 40+ year olds beat me, and only 1 50 year old (who finished in the top 5!!!)

Here are some photos, most of which are NOT flattering…:)

I am really wheezing here…

I am climbing the final wall about 100 meters from the finish (the run was just under 5K). I was actually ahead of the guy in black prior to the wall, but let him go around me as I knew that I’d need some time to get my fat creaky body over the wall…

Here Theresa encourages a friend to get over the wall.

Theresa (the attractive one) and I with our “award cookies”. She is in the same yoga class that Lynn and I attend.

Moral: if you are 50 years old or older, all you have to do is show up and finish and you might win a prize (at smaller races).

Barbara, Lynn and other liberal women: It is your fault that I am a pervert!

From the June 13 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show…

Barbara, Lynn and other liberal women: It is y…, posted with vodpod

See??? This is for you Barbara, Lynn, Wild Celtic Rose, Tammy and any other somewhat progressive women!!!! IT IS YOUR FAULT!!!

More here:

Note: if it weren’t for you women, I’d be eating big fat hamburgers, french fries, etc.

Key passages: 5-8 minutes. Note: yes, macho athletes get caught in sex scandals all of the time (think: Bret Farve, etc.)

Update: The Ed Show edited version is here.

14 June 2011 (am)

Workout notes yoga in the morning followed by a 6.4 mile walk (10.4 km) (1:29:56)

I did a few “less slow” segments and focused on posture. It was drizzling and in the low 60′s F.

Note: I have some tingles in the calf/foot/side of the leg, but no sharp pain. I’ll just have to keep stretching this area as well as my back.

Posture: I am going to have to focus on this intensely.

Wildlife: in addition to the usual rabbits and squirrels, I saw a large raccoon on Cooper st. It walked away from me warily but appeared to be injured or ill; it’s back was arched.

Last night’s debate
One of the things that I had forgotten about was this: this is super early in the election cycle; hence the average voter has yet to pay attention. Hence the candidates were really focused on appealing to those who can write big campaign checks and those who have lots of friends who can write big campaign checks; hence the appeals to “get the government off of our backs”, “low taxes”, blah, blah, blah.

The people that they were talking to have money and aren’t worried about health insurance!

Nate Silver explains this well. He also says a couple of other things:

That is not to say that Ms. Palin will necessarily engage in such a careful analysis when she decides whether to run for president. But it’s possible that she’s missed her moment — whether or not she decides to run. Rather than being a proxy for Ms. Palin, Ms. Bachmann may instead be preferred to her in the eyes of Republican voters.

*-*

Besides Ms. Palin, the other candidate whose decision will have the most influence on the race is Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Mr. Perry — although he has some vulnerabilities — could potentially fulfill William F. Buckley’s commandment to Republicans: nominate the most conservative candidate who is electable.

I agree with Mr. Silver about Palin. But I disagree about Gov. Perry. For one, Gov. Perry has made too much secessionist noise.

Besides, his “Texas miracle” is a big sham and this is coming to light.
For one thing: states can always compete with each other as far as racing to the bottom; that is, a state can tell a business: “open up here; we have no environmental laws and we won’t tax you and you can fire workers whenever you like”. Hence national jobs don’t increase; they merely get shifted.

The other thing is that Texas is now paying the piper, so to speak:

So, to recap: Texas schools are in crisis, but the government’s response to a budget shortfall is to cut funding for education even further. It doesn’t take someone with good math SAT scores to figure out what’s going to happen next.

Once upon a time Texas prided itself on what it called the “Texas Miracle.” The state initially didn’t get hit as hard by the recession as other parts of the county, a fact that legislators claimed was due to its low-regulation, low-tax, business-friendly culture. During Rick Perry’s re-election campaign last year, the governor boasted that the state had “billions in surplus.” Less than two months later, however, the news of a gaping deficit made the miracle look a bit less wondrous, as Paul Krugman was quick to observe:

But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.

And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.

Krugman is not exaggerating. Texas ranks 49th out of all 50 states in per capita state tax burden. There is no fat left to cut. When revenue collapses because of an economic downturn, what little social services remain must be gutted. And it’s only going to get worse, because Texas’ population is growing, and the demands for services will continue to rise.

Debate Spin
The DNC made an interesting video of the debate:

In all honesty, they caught the candidates answering the questions that was asked of them. Mr. Cain was answering the “are you uncomfortable with Muslims” question, Mr. Romeny was answering the “are you going to repeal Obamacare” question, Mr. Gingrich was answering the “space program” question (his answer is that private enterprise would have advanced us further than NASA did) and Mr. Pawlenty was asked about the “gay marriage” situation (“how would you handle the fact that some states have made it legal”).

Still, it was a hard hitting, if a bit misleading, ad.

My winner: Romney (ok, it was really Obama but never mind that)

It appeared to me that Mitt Romney flat out intimidated Tim Pawlenty; no “Obaney care” remarks from him tonight. Ms. Bachmann appeared to be the strongest “non-Romney” though she wasn’t exactly an intellectual heavyweight.

Gingrich, Cain, Paul and Santorum are non-factors and won’t be around for long. It is almost time to put Pawlenty in that group.