Blustery day …in more ways that one

Workout notes: yoga, and a slow 6 mile (?) run (1:07). I had to remind myself to bend my knees and to keep a somewhat decent turnover rate.

It was in the 40′s (maybe 4-5 C) and the wind was strong….but 2-3 months from now I’ll see this as a warm day. Winter is on the way…

Posts
No, President Obama has NOT received kid-gloves treatment from the media. In fact, he gets considerably more negative press than any of the main Republican candidates. Of course, much of that is because he is a President during hard economic times, and being critiqued (accurately or not) comes with the job.

Mitt Romney’s anti-Perry ads
He put this one up and then took it down:

Why he took it down? My guess: if Romney wins the nomination (Intrade has him at 65 percent) he’ll need Perry supporters, and this type of ad will infuriate them.

He has this one up instead:

Yes, he attacks Obama on the economy and shows a clip of President Obama responding accurately to a jobs report. Yes, President Obama underestimated the recession that he inherited. But jobs DID go up under him, AFTER the stimulus kicked in. But the job creation was way too small to account for those who had lost their jobs previous and for new job seekers.

Religion
Richard Dawkins will not debate a certain noisy “theologian”. Basically he says that he won’t share the stage with someone who says that the mass murders in the Bible (mostly in the book of Joshua) were ok because “God said to do it”. Jerry Coyne has some nice commentary on this. Bottom line: doing the “will” of your imaginary sky-daddy is NOT associated with morality!

If what you are doing is good, then it is moral because the act is good. If what you are doing is bad, then it is bad, not matter what you think that your sky-daddy says.

On the same line, Friendly Atheist has an interesting take on the COEXIST bumper stickers:

(click for larger)

Note: I think that this might be a spoof on a Christian “response” to the original COEXIST poster.
Frankly, I prefer the one on my sidebar.

Some Dumb Republicans

Some Dumb Republicans, posted with vodpod

From Facebook:

Uh, Paul Krugman: PRO OBAMA?????

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Some of the more vocal Republicans just aren’t very bright.

Yes, he is a liberal and makes no attempt to hide that. But he is careful to not cross the line into becoming an activist:

Some readers have been asking me to go make a speech at one of the OWS demonstrations. If you think about it, however, you’ll see why I can’t.

I’ve been granted the enormous privilege of expounding my own views twice a week in the world’s greatest newspaper. I try to make the best use of that privilege, doing all I can to get the truth across and also advocating for what I believe to be the right policies. There are, however, some restrictions that come with the privilege; one of them is not crossing the line between advocate and activist. And there are good reasons for drawing that line.

Just in case you were wondering.

From the debate

Mr. Grayson was over the top while in office. But his commentary is just fine.

Beaver Damns, Electric Fences, Pesky Statistics and Romney’s Main Competition

Evolution
Though Jerry Coyne is attacking a newspaper columnist here (which is ok, though he is punching way below his intellectual weight class here), this post is worth reading as it explains one aspect of evolution: the type of evolution that selects for the organisms that changes its environment for its own good. Think: “beaver dams”.

Economics
There is some tension in some economic departments which is affecting both the research and teaching missions:

OK, several correspondents have weighed in on the story I’d heard about the economics department that abandoned econometrics because it was rejecting its models. It wasn’t quite as alleged, but close enough.

The department in question was the University of Minnesota. For those readers new to this discussion, “freshwater-saltwater” was a distinction originally due to Bob Hall, who noted that the economics departments that had rejected Keynes and anything reminiscent of Keynes were inland schools like Minnesota, Chicago, and Rochester, whereas the places that retained a belief in the usefulness of monetary and fiscal policy were places like MIT, Princeton, and Berkeley.

So the story as I now have it was that there was harsh conflict between the macroeconomic theorists at UMinn, especially Prescott, and the econometricians who had the nasty habit of showing that those models didn’t work. And for at least some period econometrics was dropped as a required course for the Ph.D. — I don’t know whether it has been restored.

He goes on to use a quote from one of the most recent Nobel Prize winners to make a good dig.

Guess who Mitt Romney sees as his strongest competition?
Click here to go to a Romney for President funded site to find out.

Herman Cain and the rank and file Republican
He blames the unemployed for their plight; the Republican audience cheers.

Cain gets cheers for his electric fence that can kill:

October 18 GOP Debate through Republican Eyes

I have to agree with him about Mr. Perry. But about Ms. Bachmann: she comes across as hopelessly stupid, although she might not appear that way to Republicans. And yes, Mr. Romney did come across as a bit school-marmish…

Jon Stewart Hits Republicans on their Hyprocrisy

The Republican battle cry awakens the people — just not the people Republicans had in mind. Airdate – 10/18/11

Jon Stewart Hits Republicans on their Hypocrisy , posted with vodpod

Mr. Romney’s faulty memory…

Brainwashed Cults?

Workout notes 4 mile walk on the track: 13:48 first mile (to warm up), then 2 miles of 3 laps on, 1 lap off (11:51, 11:17) then 1 mile in 10:41 for 47:39 total. Not my fastest, but I was ok with it.

Then I did some rotator cuff stuff and went to the pool; it opened 20 minutes late.
So I swam 4 x (100 free, 100 pull) and then did 1000 free in 17:57 (fairly steady pace). This wasn’t my fastest but I was ok with this too.

Piriformis: tingled somewhat afterward (need to do hip hikes AND lunges) and the shoulder was oh-so-slightly sore this morning.

Cults Our university’s ROTC group does their physical training in the morning; they break up into groups and all wear a “uniform” of black shorts and a grey Army t-shirt. When they do there group exercises, they line up in formation. The leader announces the exercise (example: “The One Legged Push Up”) and the group repeats that in unison. Then the group leader says “In cadence” and the group repeats that too. Then the leader says “exercise” and then they do it…often counting.

I had to smile; while I never did exactly that, I still remember drills, parades and other military group exercises and activities.
I have many memories of our PEP (Plebe Exercise Program, though some say the middle “E” stood for “extermination”). We’d line up on the dewy astroturf and be lead by various people, and Heintz Lenz (sp) was the person running the show. We’d do exercises, then run back and forth on the field (NINETY SECOND QUARTER PACE) and then we’d sometimes sprint all out; I got absolutely KILLED on those.

But I digress; I wonder if we looked like some sort of brainwashed cult? Probably.

Where I am now
I am beginning to believe that I will never train again. I still work out:
Monday: weights plus 1.25 mile swim
Tuesday: 6-8 mile run and a yoga class
Wednesday: 4 mile walk (faster), 1-1.25 mile swim
Thursday: 4-6 mile run and a yoga class
Friday: weights plus 1.25 mile swim
Saturday: 4-6 mile run or a local running race (5K to 10K)
Sunday: longer walk (8 to 16 miles) or an 8 mile run (NOT both!)

So it isn’t as if I’ve retired to the couch, but I am not in a position to try to maximize an athletic performance.
I’ll keep this up until I am healthy enough to train again, IF that time comes.

Arkansas State, Florida International Football and GOP debate fireworks

I admit that I did not watch the debate; I watched the Arkansas State vs. Florida International football game instead.

The game ended 34-16 in favor of Arkansas State, but it was 16-13 in favor of Florida International going into the fourth quarter. Arkansas State out gained FIU 385-289; most of the damage was done by the ASU quarterback running the ball off of quarterback draws and zone reads (164 yards of rushing just by the quarterback!). The huge offensive line blocked well.

Also, FIU had to settle for field goal attempts (4, made 3) too many times. Still, the game was very close (20-16) until late when FIU took risks to try to win the game and made mistakes leading to late ASU scores.

(photos via Yahoo)

So, what did I miss as far as the debate?

Quick highlights:

A Lesson in Republican Geography:

In Tuesday night’s debate, each Republican candidate had strong moments and weak ones.

Vegas Debate: A Game of Seven-Candidate Draw? -…, posted with vodpod

Nate Silver’s take

Washington Post

New York Times

Aw. This NEVER Happens to Me. :-(

Then again, if my wife and I tried this (or any of my current lady friends), we’d end up pulling a muscle or throwing something out of joint.

Human Genome, Redemptive Recession, Blogging as Research and other topics

Civil Liberties and Privacy
Randazza brings up an interesting topic:

I think that I am the only member of the First Amendment Lawyers’ Association who thinks that the Stolen Valor Act should be upheld. The Act makes it unlawful to falsely claim that you were awarded a military medal.

Surf to the post to read his reasoning. He does point out (in his usual colorful way) that private citizens retain some power to make such a liar pay even if the act is not upheld.

Privacy
This Schneier blog post talks about what facebook knows about its users; it surprised me a bit. Note: other countries have laws that say that you are entitled to the data that a company might have on you.

Science: Human Genome
This article talks about human DNA research and how it can be used to trace even “genetically extinct” groups of people. What surprised me: the comments. Anytime someone talks about scientific research on human origins in public, people will complain…and this includes many who know nothing about the science involved. People were complaining about the claim that a certain “people” were extinct; in fact this claim was a technical one about genetics and NOT about culture.

Technology
Check out this camera: it consists of lenses in a ball; the ball is tossed upward and the acceleration is noted. When the ball is at its highest point (when the ball stops moving for a moment), the camera takes a panoramic photo.

(hat tip: Mano Singham)

Reason: suspension of it is never good
I mentioned this article in a previous blog post; I mentioned that when one opens one’s mind to accept nonsensical stuff, the logical extension of such acceptance is to shove reason aside in other areas. Jerry Coyne makes this point much more forcefully and elegantly than I do.

Academic Work: not just for the journals anymore?
There has been talk about getting ideas out into the public (and to other specialists). Paul Krugman discusses what is happening in economics:

Ryan Avent and I have been corresponding about the role of the economics blogosphere, for the Christmas issue of The Economist. I don’t know what parts of our conversation will actually show up there, but having assembled my thoughts I might as well put some of them up here.

The concern, or maybe just issue, is whether the rise of econoblogs is undermining the gatekeepers, whether any old Joe can now weigh in on economic debate, whereas in the good old days you had to publish in the journals, which meant getting through the refereeing process.

My take is that the system never worked like that — or at least not in my professional lifetime. And when you consider how economic discussion actually used to work, you see the blogs in a different and more favorable light.

First of all, policy-oriented research was never as centered on refereed journals as we liked to imagine. A lot of the discussion always took place via Federal Reserve and IMF working papers, and even reports from the research departments of investment banks. The rise and fall of Fed policy via targeting of aggregates, for example, was not a debate played out in the pages of the JPE and the QJE.

Second, even for more academic research, the journals ceased being a means of communication a long time ago – more than 20 years ago for sure. New research would be unveiled in seminars, circulated as NBER Working Papers, long before anything showed up in a journal. Whole literatures could flourish, mature, and grow decadent before the first article got properly published – this happened to me with target zones back in the late 1980s, where my original 1988 working paper had spawned a large derivative literature by the time it actually got published. The journals have long served as tombstones, certifications for tenure committees, rather than a forum in which ideas get argued.[...]

Surf to Krugman’s blog to see where he takes this. This reminds me a bit of Jerry Coyne’s article (he is an evolutionary biologist)

Coyne points out that the academic journals are very expensive and that those who produce the content and those who review the content do NOT get paid!

Republican Economics

Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan: yep, it raises taxes on the middle class and below, while, surprise, surprise, lowering them for the wealthy. Other Republican economic plans don’t fare much better. Paul Krugman points out that the “Real American Jobs Act” is based on crank assumptions from the Heritage Foundation:

Yep, the people who released an analysis claiming that the Ryan plan would drive unemployment down to 2.8, that’s right, 2.8 percent; and who then tried to flush that analysis down the memory hole, but weren’t quick enough to forestall others from keeping cached copies.

And the GOP is relying on Heritage not once but twice — for the claim that the Affordable Care Act has somehow cost vast numbers of jobs already, even though the thing hasn’t even gone into effect yet, and for the claim that the GOP bill would create 1.6 million jobs.

Here’s a suggestion for the GOP: why not rely instead on diviners who examine the entrails of sacrificed rams? It would improve your credibility.

Then there are the Republicans who think that this recession is “good for us”; you know, perhaps this will keep the peasants from wanting too much (a house? medical care? a job?), etc. I expected better from David Brooks (whose article is being critiqued by John Cassidy).