New York Election to Replace Mr. Weiner…

This will not go well for us.

Republican Debate through Republican eyes

Note: Perry sounded good to Latinos on those issues. Bachmann: she is going nowhere. Gingrich? sure.

Ad:

Mr. Romney wants this???

13 September 2011

Workout notes Yoga with Ms. Vickie (Theresa was there) and then 6 miles of running. Jogged from the parking lot to the gooseloop and did 9 laps; 4 x .5 (1/4 to 3/4) with .22 mile recoveries (to the 1/4 mark) then one .36 mile loop. 29:18 was my time (9:33, 10:13, 9:32) the middle 1.08 mile was slow because it contained .64 miles of harder running; the other two 1.08 mile segments contained .86 miles of harder running). Last week it took 29:24 to do this but that was 7 x .36 = 2.52 miles of harder running; this time it was 4 x .5 + .36 = 2.36 miles of “on”. Rough calculation: 8:58 mpm for the “faster” segments, 10:10 for the slower. the spread felt greater.

Post
From yesterday’s Republican debate:

“Let me say I helped balance the budget for four straight years, so this is not a theory”

— Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.)

Gingrich at least indicates there was a president — Bill Clinton — when the nation briefly began to run budget surpluses. And certainly the Republican Congress led by Gingrich prodded Clinton to move to the right and embrace such conservative notions as a balanced budget.

But the budget was balanced in part because of a gusher of tax revenues from Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction package, which raised taxes on the wealthy and which Gingrich vehemently opposed. The budget was also balanced because the Democratic White House and Republican Congress were in absolute legislative stalemate, so neither side could implement grand plans to increase spending or cut taxes.

Gingrich is wrong to suggest there were four years of balanced budgets when he was speaker. He left in January 1999; the budget ran a surplus in the fiscal years 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. So he can at best claim two years.

During the surplus years, moreover, the gross debt (including bonds issued to Social Security and Medicare) rose by $400 billion. Gross debt is the figure that conservatives tend to use. During Gingrich’s time as speaker, the public debt was essentially flat and the gross debt rose $700 billion.

Obama “had $800 billion worth of stimulus in the first round of stimulus. It created zero jobs.”

— Perry

Perry is wrong. The surplus created jobs; it also saved jobs. But there has not been a net gain in jobs because so many jobs were lost early in Obama’s presidency. Since the stimulus bill was signed, the number of overall jobs in the United has declined by about 1.9 million.

Economists differ on the effectiveness of the stimulus, but most say it has at least some effect (ie, created at least some jobs.) A recent review of nine different studies on the stimulus bill found that six studies concluded the stimulus had “a significant, positive effect on employment and growth,” and three said the effect was “either quite small or impossible to detect.”

There is more there including Bachmann’s false claim that Obamacare hurt Medicare.

Rick Perry Suffers Lasting Damage On Vaccination Mandate During His Second GOP 2012 Debate

WASHINGTON — The frontrunner status is starting to smart. If Rick Perry felt like a piñata during his first debate last week, the second debate on Monday night might have left the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate feeling like the bashed-in fax machine in the movie “Office Space.”

Rick Perry Suffers Lasting Damage On Vaccinatio…, posted with vodpod

13 September quickies

Robert Reich calls out the conservative zombie lies: they parrot the same things over and over again, but provide no evidence.
Note: the audience cheers…when things like “health care for all” are mentioned.
That is a huge difference isn’t it: Republicans cheer when people are killed or left to die; Democrats cheer when we are encouraged to act more humanely.

Rumsfeld gets his feelings hurt by Paul Krugman.

(our Republicans sure are sooooo sensitive!!!)

Science more exoplantes are discovered; some are more earth like.

Fireworks at the Tea Party Debate

Bachmann went after Perry for the vaccine (making a drug company rich), Santorum went after Perry on the policy; Perry suffered damage.

This is the first bit of fireworks; the tea party types are fighting for the Tea Party slot. More are fighting Perry than fighting Romney.

I’m sure that the video will be available soon.

Note: Romeny and Gingrich got booed at times.

Romney: be real; if one has a heart attack one isn’t going to search for the cheapest heart procedure.

Ron Paul is asked a question: what happens when an irresponsible person who doesn’t buy health insurance gets very sick…do we let him die?

Audience: YEAH!!
Paul: charities, etc.

Bachmann: Romney thinking that the Massachusetts plan is good is wrong; we need to ELECT HER IN 2012 to REPEAL IT; “executive order” won’t do it, blah, etc.

This is a contest between two conservatives, one eccentric and morons who are fighting for the moron vote. What a bunch of ignorant people!

Immigration: Perry gets booed for admitting that a long fence is impractical.

Santorum: attacks Perry cynically (gets cheered for English only remark)

Perry: getting attacked for being too humane and too practical.

Huntsman: teases Perry by calling his comment on the fences: “treasonous”

Oh crap, Romney is suggesting an Arizona type law to get “illegals” out. Perry and Huntsman are sounding like adults on this issue.

Perry (and to a lesser degree Huntsman) are sounding reasonable on immigration issues….I NEVER thought that I’d be praising Perry.

Cain: put foxes in charge of the henhouse (EPA: let the polluters control EPA).

Paul: making sense on our militarism.
Seriously, Paul, Romney, Huntsman and Perry (and even Gingrich, once) made good points on different issues.

Santorum: attacking Paul for something on his website for his criticism of US policy. Santorum criticism for theocracy is ironic….very ironic. Paul is making sense again and is getting booed.

Upshot: the audience scares me more than the candidates.

“society should just let him die”

12 September 2011

I am watching the imbeciles Republicans debate on CNN as I type this. Why is anyone but Romney and Perry even there?

Workout notes
Weights plus swimming.
Swimming: 500 of fist/swim, 500 of 3g/swim (fins), 1000 of 100 free, 100 pull (18:2x) 200 cool down (back, with fins)
Weights (prior to swimming)
rotator cuff, lunges (lunges with slightly heavier weights)
Hammer rows: 3 sets of 10 x 200
Pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 145
curls (dumbbell): 3 sets of 10 x 25
Bench press: 10 x 135, 7 x 155, 6 x 155
Incline press: 10 x 115, 10 x 125
dumbbell military: 2 sets of 15 x 40
standing military: 10 x 75 (barbell)
adduction: 3 sets of 10 x 180
abduction: 3 sets of 10 x 180
sit ups: 2 sets of 50 (vary incline)

Posts

Debate: Huntsman: reduce corporate welfare (good), says that corporations need certainty (no, they need customers)
Perry: lying (and no, you can’t do math).
Bachmann: see Perry.
Tea Party: I am appalled that there so many morons there.

Posts
A note about terrorism, via Mano Singham:

Via Progressive Review, I learn that the chance of:

Being killed by a terrorist is 1 in 20 million
Being struck by lightning is 1 in 6 million
Being executed in Texas is 1 in 1 million
Dying in a bathtub is 1 in 800,000
Dying in a building fire is 1 in 99,000
Dying in a car accident is 1 in 19,000

Until the terrorism threat approaches that of a car accident, I don’t see any point in worrying. So let’s shut down the national security state and bring back civil liberties and the rule of law.

Science
The evolutionary tree: sea jelly gives us more clues about the evolutionary tree:

A 580-million-year-old fossil is casting doubt on the established tree of animal life. The invertebrate, named Eoandromeda octobrachiata because its body plan resembles the spiral galaxy Andromeda, suggests that the earliest branches in the tree need to be reordered, say the authors of study in Evolution and Development.

The researchers, led by paleontologist Feng Tang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing, believe that Eoandromeda is the ancient ancestor of modern ocean dwellers known as comb jellies — gelatinous creatures similar to jellyfish, but rounder and with eight rows of iridescent paddles along their sides. If they are right, it would be the oldest known fossil of a comb jelly. And that would support a rewrite of the animal tree.

Comb jellies sit alongside two other major groups near the base of the tree, but their relative positions remain contentious. Normally, sponges are identified as the first to evolve, followed by the cnidaria — jellyfish, sea anemones and their kin — and then by the comb jellies.

” Eoandromeda puts a little piece of weight in favour of a more basal position for comb jellies,” says Stefan Bengtson, a palaeontologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History and a co-author on the paper.[...]

If Eoandromeda appeared after the cnidarians, the authors argue, bilateral symmetry would have to have evolved twice — once for the cnidarians and again for the bilateral organisms that came after Eoandromeda . Far simpler is the idea that Eoandromeda evolved first. “This model of animal relationships calls for the least number of origins of bilateral symmetry,” says Bengtson.

Cancer research: Some new cancer drugs attack the tumor and leave the healthy cells alone:

Chemotherapy breakthrough could dramatically reduce side-effects

Scientists have developed ‘smart-bomb chemotherapy’ which can isolate and destroy tumours without damaging healthy cells:
Cancer researchers have developed a “smart bomb” treatment that can target tumours with drugs while leaving healthy body cells intact. The technique means that patients will suffer fewer side-effects from the toxic drugs used in chemotherapy.

The side-effects of cancer therapy – including hair loss, nausea and suppression of the immune system – can be debilitating. In many cases, the effects of the drugs can contribute to the ultimate cause of death.

In experiments on mice, Laurence Patterson of the University of Bradford found that he could localise a cancer drug to the site of tumours and thereby limit its toxic impact in the body. All the animals, which had been implanted with human cancer cells responded to the targeted treatment and saw their tumours shrink. In half the animals, the tumours disappeared altogether. Professor Patterson will present his work at the British Science Festival in Bradford on Monday.

“We’ve got a sort of smart bomb that will only be active in the tumour and will not cause damage to normal tissue,” he said. “It’s a new cancer treatment that could be effective against pretty much all types of tumour – we’ve looked at colon, prostate, breast, lung and sarcoma so far, and all have responded very well to this treatment.”

Science and Mathematics Education

But not everyone is encouraging people to be good in math and science.

Republicans
They are traitors stubborn obstructionists :

From a senior Republican in the legislature:

“Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?” said one senior House Republican aide who requested anonymity to discuss the matter freely. “I just don’t want to co-own the economy by having to tout that we passed a jobs bill that won’t work or at least won’t do enough.”

You need to think carefully about this quote. Implied in its logic is the idea that House Republicans can avoid any ownership of a bad economy if they continue to refuse to take any meaningful action to improve it. They can stonewall the president and the public will simply blame the president. The Republicans actually believe this. To see why, let’s go back to Mike Lofgren’s piece from two weeks ago. Remember that Mr. Lofgren is a career Republican staffer who resigned in disgust after the debt ceiling debacle. He explains the Republicans’ strategic thinking on obstruction:

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

It isn’t as if the Republicans have serious ideas that will work better:

It’s not just the 21st century they want to turn the clock back on — health-care reform, global warming and the financial regulations passed in the wake of the recent financial crises and accounting scandals.

These folks are actually talking about repealing the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, created in 1970s.

They’re talking about abolishing Medicare and Medicaid, which passed in the 1960s, and Social Security, created in the 1930s.

They reject as thoroughly discredited all of Keynesian economics, including the efficacy of fiscal stimulus, preferring the budget-balancing economic policies that turned the 1929 stock market crash into the Great Depression.

They also reject the efficacy of monetary stimulus to fight recession, and give the strong impression they wouldn’t mind abolishing the Federal Reserve and putting the country back on the gold standard.

They refuse to embrace Darwin’s theory of evolution, which has been widely accepted since the Scopes Trial of the 1920s.

One of them is even talking about repealing the 16th and 17th amendments to the Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax and the direct election of senators — landmarks of the Progressive Era.

What’s next — repeal of quantum physics?

Not every candidate embraces every one of these kooky ideas. But what’s striking is that when Rick Perry stands up and declares that “Keynesian policy and Keynesian theory is now done,” not one candidate is willing to speak up for the most important economic thinker of the 20th century. Or when Michele Bachmann declares that natural selection is just a theory, none of the other candidates is willing to risk the wrath of the religious right and call her on it. Leadership, it ain’t.

Sorry, but the people that are supporting these people are idiots. Period.

Back to the debate (such as it is; it appears to be a competition to obtain applause from the morons):
Huntsman and Romney are conservative, but they don’t scare me.
Perry: he’d be an unmitigated disaster. The others are a side show.

The people: MORONS!!!!!!!!!! It makes me sick to think that they are reproducing.

9-11, 10 years later

Yep. I agree with Paul Krugman. I’ll take it further: it allowed for a way for the Bush-Cheney administration to lead us to attacking a country that did not attack us. I won’t be taking part in ceremonies or remembrances.

11 September 2011: College Football

I powerwalked a half marathon this morning. I should have gotten to bed early, but I had the Texas-Brigham Young game and the Notre Dame-Michigan game on TV and the Navy-Western Kentucky game on the computer.

Photos: Notre Dame-Michigan and Navy-Western Kentucky: yahoo.
Texas-BYU: Austin American Statesman.

Navy-Western Kentucky: ended 40-14, with Navy declining another touchdown (ball inside the WKU five yard line at the end of the game).

Though Western Kentucky played SEC Kentucky to a 13-3 game the previous weekend, they had no answer to the Navy option attack.

But things get harder for the Mids; there is a trip to South Carolina next weekend.

Texas-BYU
UT won 17-16 in a slugfest; BYU went out to a 13-0 lead and lead 13-3 at the half. But BYU had to settle for field goals on their drives and that cost them.

Texas used three quarterbacks; Gilbert started; Ash did some running and McCoy (Case, Colt’s younger brother) passed to…yes, Shipley (Jaxon, younger brother of Jordan). But UT didn’t take the lead until 8 minutes left in the 4′th quarter; his is a game that they would have lost last year.

BYU is a big, physical team that will win a lot of games. Texas is better; note that Rice (UT’s first victim) beat Big Ten member Purdue this week.

Now Texas goes on the road to visit UCLA. The Bruins struggled against San Jose State, but they whipped UT soundly last year.

Then I watched the last 1.5 quarters of Notre Dame-Michigan (I had been keeping tabs during time outs, half time, etc.):

Most will probably talk about the last 1:20 which saw a Michigan touchdown to take the lead 28-24, then ND taking the lead with 36 seconds to go (31-28) or Michigan scoring with 2 seconds to go to win 35-31.

Some will note that ND actually lead 24-7 going into the forth quarter (with Michigan first and goal at the ND 1).

Some will point out that for the second game in a row, ND rolled up over 500 yards of total offense but had 5 turn-overs (2 interceptions, 3 fumbles) to Michigan’s 3. Yes, Michigan fumbled at the 1 only to have their quarterback pick it up and run it in.

But the ND coach got it right:

“We’re not good enough,” Kelly said. “There’s not one individual in that locker room, including all the coaches, that are good enough right now.”

Why did he say this? Remember that young minds will allow themselves to have illogical thoughts. They might see the fumbles and mistakes as “bad luck”. The coach is reminding them: “work hard, and we’ll make fewer mistakes and therefore win the games”. The kids have to avoid the “we’re jinxed” mentality and accept the “we need to play better” mentality.

The Irish have no time to lick their wounds, with the Michigan State Spartans coming to town.

These last two games made up for the slaughter that I saw (in person) yesterday.

But…while Arkansas State (Illinois first victim 33-15) is not a great team, they clobbered Memphis 47-3 (ok, Memphis is not a good team). So that opening win looks even better.

But now the Arizona State Sun Devils come to town; they beat Missouri in overtime (after blowing a 30-16 lead). We’ll learn more.

Illinois Valley Striders Half Marathon 2011

I’ve worked this course many times; this is the first time I’ve “done” it.
Short version: Time: 2:40:53 (powerwalking); the course was two 6.55 mile loops. My splits:
1:19:45 1:21:10

Longer version: It was sunny; 64 F with 90 percent humidity at the start; 74 F with 61 percent at my finish.
I walked the whole way: I finished 186 out of 205. Of interest is that as I finished my first loop, the winner (Pat Arnold) was finishing at almost the same time. This makes me feel good as I see Pat in the gym all the time; we usually talk a bit.

Ok, I wish I would have been faster but…
In all honesty, I haven’t been walking much; most of my training has been runs from 4 to 8 miles with an occasional walk. I thought that the hilly course might be hard on my knee so I took two Naproxen when I woke up. I had no troubles; just a few minor twinges.

The course is very rolling and features 2 large hills (done twice) with several medium hills thrown in for good measure. It is “sort of” paved; some nice paved sections; a few crumbly pavement sections and a few gravel sections. It is in Springdale Cemetery.
Here are a few photos from 2007 (same course)

Video: (of the front runners)

I call this a power walk because there is no way in Hades my knees were straight; the steep hills and the gravel precluded that. One might think of this course as a transition between a smooth road and a groomed trail.

Mile splits
11:52, 11:52, 12:21, 12:29, 12:25 (1:01:02 at 5), 12:02, 12:07, 12:33, 13:15 (my mind wandered here), 12:13, 12:04, 12:20, 13:13 (last 1.1).

Given that this race mostly caters to grizzled club runners, I was mostly by myself for much of the second half. That, plus the hills plus the gravel plus (mostly) my lack of walking conditioning kept my pace slow; I knew that too fast of a start would doom me. Still the “out and back parts of the course (and there were several) enabled me to see many of the runners; there were frequent “good jobs” and greetings. Theresa high fived me a couple of times.

I’ll admit this: this year, there really isn’t much of an athletic agenda to my races; they are mostly “social” outings mixed with a hard workout. I choose whatever is there and whatever I can complete safely. I didn’t even think about trying to run this; the hills and my “long” run being only 8 miles precluded that. My knees would have been toast.

In fact, when this event first started, I might not have been able to finish. But given the influx of “social” runners, the time limits are now long enough for me to walk these at a “just beyond what is easy and comfortable” pace.

And I’d be remiss to not mention the eyestrain I got from all of the spandex; the one good thing about walking in the low 12 minute range is that the women with the larger asses then to shuffle at about this pace.

Commentary

Many different types of people show up at these events. Because I like to categorize things, I’ll divide race entrants into the following classes:

1. People who have this as a goal event with some athletic goal in mind (place, time, time for a given course, beating person X, etc.)
2. People who are NOT treating this as a stand alone “goal” event but are treating this as an event that is part of their “season” of running or walking.
3. People who are using this to train for some other goal event or for their “season”.
4. People who want a hard workout.
5. People who like to “do” events.

I admit that in the past, I’ve been mostly 1-3. Today, and frankly, ALL of the past 2 years, I’ve been in categories 4 and 5. I haven’t had a category 1 event since 2008 (Big Shoulders 5K swim) and I haven’t been in category 2 since 2009.

This year I’ve been getting to 5Ks to push myself (and today too) but I’ve also just wanted to walk or run with the crowd; that is what I did today, though I did push myself toward the end.

But now-a-days, we see more category 5 people (like me this year) and that is why I think that the time limits are so long.