12 December 09

Workout notes Forrest Park Nature Center: three 3.5 mile loops: 1:07, 1:11, 1:14. Mostly snow covered; some ice; a few brief dry patches.
During the second lap I had some calf pain; the slippery parts probably aggravated it. I also had two interesting slips (once on ice); in each case I caught myself with one arm behind me and never hit the ground.

I saw three HUGE wild turkeys and three younger deer; the deer here are far less afraid of people than the McNaughton deer.

Ultras: this one in mid May looks interesting: they feature a 48, 24, 12 and 6 hour. It is in New Jersey.

Humor You are a heterosexual male and you open a classroom door to see two “hot” females “going at it”. What do you do? Not this.

Posts

Mathematics The New York Times reviews a book on Grigori Perelman:

In 1904 the French mathematician Henri Poincaré made a conjecture about three-­dimensional space that may help to explain the shape of the universe. Although it was crucial to the growth of the field of topology, Poincaré’s conjecture resisted proof for a century. When a Boston philanthropist announced a million-dollar prize for its solution in 2000 it was unclear whether he would ever have to pay.

Then, in 2002, a Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman posted a terse paper to an online archive. In the course of tackling a broader problem, Perelman seemed to have miraculously swept away the remaining obstacles to proving the Poincaré conjecture. Soon the mathematical rumor mill was buzzing. The proof seemed genuine, but word was that Perelman had no plans to publish it.

This was only the beginning of the weirdness. After a brief trip to the United States with his mother in tow, Perelman retreated to St. Petersburg and ceased communication with all but a few colleagues vetting his work. He declined the Fields Medal, a gesture equivalent to snubbing the Nobel committee. He then resigned from the Steklov Institute in 2005 with a letter that read, “I have been disappointed in mathematics and I want to try something else.”

The book is PERFECT RIGOR: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century by Masha Gessen. I know what I’ll ask Santa for.

Higher Dimensional Mathematics

Yes, there is another toy for math geeks:

String theorists say we may live in a 10-dimensional universe, with six of those dimensions rolled up so tightly that we can never see them. So how can you possibly visualize six-dimensional space? This year’s top gift for science geeks can help.

The 2009 geek-gift competition resulted in a repeat (geek-peat?) of last year’s outcome: Andrew Meeusen of Mesa, Ariz., received the most votes once again, this time for suggesting the Calabi-Yau manifold crystal.

Bathsheba Grossman creates the crystals from glass and offers them on her Web site for $72. They’re also available for $89.95 from Edmund Scientific.

So… what the heck is a Calabi-Yau manifold?

Surf to the link to find out. Note: by “manifold” mathematicians mean a space that “looks like” ; that is, an extremely nearsighted creature living in that space wouldn’t be able to distinguish it (in terms of topology) from regular n-space by a local experiment. Example: a sphere and a torus are examples of two dimensional manifolds; the local structure is indistinguishable from the local structure of a plane. It is possible to do two dimensional calculus on them (e. g., a flux integral is an example of such a calculus operation).

More Science: here is an article about “triple zero” German houses: the house leaks very little energy (“zero waste of energy”), is made from recycled materials (“zero waste of resources”) and actually creates more energy than it consumes (“zero energy consumption”).

Even More Science There is no “climate change scandal”, no matter how much the crackpots wish that there were:

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don’t undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

True, some of the emails show many of the scientists to be cantankerous, overly political, slightly mysterious, or in some cases, downright childish. Nevertheless, the theory that man-made activities are causing Global Warming remains intact, despite the whining of Conservatives.

In the past three weeks since the e-mails were posted, longtime opponents of mainstream climate science have repeatedly quoted excerpts of about a dozen e-mails. Republican congressmen and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have called for either independent investigations, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases or outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks. They cited a “culture of corruption” that the e-mails appeared to show.

That is not what the AP found. There were signs of trying to present the data as convincingly as possible. (bold mine, not the article’s)

One of the main emails that the Conservatives have pointed to as evidence of a cover-up involves one scientist discussing a way to circumvent data gathered from studying tree rings. The Deniers have said this is some sort of “smoking gun” that proves definitively that Global Warming is just a hoax and that scientists are lying about their data.

When one looks closer though, the only hoax that’s being perpetrated on the American public is the idea that the scientists are actively trying to mislead people. An examination of this so-called “smoking gun” email bears this out.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: “I’ve just completed Mike’s (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren’t as warm as scientists had determined.

The “trick” that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.

Anti Science Here is an article about a Pew Report on woo-woos and people who create their own theology.

Of course, this nonsense is not more nonsensical than believing that eating the flesh of a resurrected Jew will somehow grant one “eternal life” and that those who reject your superstitions will somehow be eternally tormented.

Again, I am NOT talking about holding the possibility of something beyond our universe and I am NOT talking about seeing religious myths as precious metaphors for life.

Justice Yes, women sometimes lie about being raped and sometimes men go to jail sans evidence.

Racists: The Southern Policy Law Center blog is following the trial of a neo-Nazi:

Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts told the jury this afternoon that his “blood ran cold” when he received an E-mail from white supremacist Bill White with his home address, telephone number and a reference to his wife.

When he clicked a link in the E-mail and saw that White had also published the information on the Internet, he realized it was now available to anyone who accessed White’s website, including potentially violent extremists who share White’s ideology. “It’s terrifying because it makes you vulnerable in a way you haven’t been before,” he said.

Pitts, who spoke with little emotion, spent nearly three hours on the stand during the second day of testimony at White’s federal trial. The former neo-Nazi leader is charged with threatening various people with whom he disagreed, including Pitts, a writer for The Miami Herald whose column is syndicated in some 250 newspapers. White was infuriated by a June 3 Pitts column taking white supremacists to task for their propaganda about a black-on-white murder case.

I should point out that I became aware when Bill White surfed to this blog and left a “form message” about this exchange with the Miami Herald editor.

Hence my interest in following this case.

2 December 09 (am): Afghanistan

The text of the speech is here.

Here is what Dick Morris has to say:

Dick Morris:

Watching President Obama address the nation, the right probably recognized the incongruity of sending additional troops on a difficult mission and setting, at the same time, a very short timetable for their withdrawal. The right doubtless wondered why the Taliban won’t just wait Obama out and move in after he leaves.

But the political cost of this speech will not come on the right. Obama will get the support of everyone who won’t ever vote for him. But it is with his base on the left that he will be in trouble.

His volunteers, his backers, his donors have to have watched that speech and asked themselves “why did we win the election?” Obama sounded just like Bush. More articulate, perhaps, but substantively precisely the same.

His decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, an odd move for a peace candidate, his failure to close Guantanamo, our continued military presence in Iraq, and his failure to act on liberal priorities like gays in the military and immigration reform, are all sapping his support from those who voted for him. [....]

Mr. Morris is right about the split among the left. To be sure, many are opposed, including MoveOn.org and Senator Russ Feingold (whose letter I reproduce below). There are some who are giving grudging support while being weary; check out these recommended diaries on Daily Kos:

President Obama is willing to suffer politically; he is doing the right thing (in his view) even if it costs him reelection.

President Obama is keeping us from leaving prior to fixing what we broke.

Maybe we don’t like the decision, but really, we are between a rock and a hard place. Either we get out completely or we go in with a force that is large enough to pacify.

Dr. Gourley’s data show we have exactly the wrong force size in Afghanistan, and have had since 2003. Our current force allows insurgent groups to be too powerful to control with law enforcement techniques, yet too numerous to agree with us or each other on a negotiated peace. The data are clear: maintaining the current force size guaranteed a perpetual, slow bleed. President Obama was factually correct in saying we cannot maintain the status quo.

That left two options: “get out and damn the consequences,” or “get big enough to change the mathematics of the conflict.” A larger force compels the insurgencies to respond in one of two ways:

1. Fragment into more-but-smaller groups who can better hide from a military force, but who can better be controlled using law enforcement techniques. If that happens, we start bringing our troops home in 2011.

2. Coalesce into fewer-but-larger groups who can better fight it out with larger military units, but who then have fewer leaders with whom we and the Afghan government need negotiate a political solution. Again, if that happens and we negotiate sensibly, we can start bringing our troops home in 2011.

President Obama decided “get out and damn the consequences” was the worse of those two options. I’m not certain I agree with him, but neither am I certain I disagree. I don’t have enough specific information to agree or disagree with the certainty that many here have expressed. I wish I did, one way or the other.

Here is the 7:20 TED talk:

Now back to Mr. Morris: he writes the following:

All polls have Obama below 50 and some, like Harris, have him all the way down to 43% in job approval. These surveys mean that Obama, who won 52% of the vote, is now losing between one in ten and one in five of his voters.

This is just plain wrong:

(from here)

Appendix: here is Senator Feingold’s letter:

Ollie,

I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on President Obama’s plan for Afghanistan with you. I do not support the president’s decision to send additional troops to fight a war in Afghanistan that is no longer in our national security interest. It’s an expensive gamble to undertake armed nation-building on behalf of a corrupt government of questionable legitimacy. Sending more troops could further destabilize Afghanistan and, more importantly, Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state where al Qaeda is headquartered. While I appreciate that the president made clear we won’t be in Afghanistan forever, I am disappointed by his decision not to offer a timetable for ending our military presence there. I will work with members of both parties and both houses of Congress to push for a flexible timetable to reduce our troop levels in Afghanistan, as part of a comprehensive strategy to combat al Qaeda in the region and around the world.

I will continue to speak out in favor of a flexible timetable for withdrawal, and I’m counting on you to help spread the word. If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment and sign my petition supporting a flexible timetable for withdrawal. I’ll keep you updated on the next steps, and what you can do to make sure our message is heard.

Sincerely,

Russ Signature

Russ Feingold
United States Senator

Here is MoveOn’s letter:

Dear MoveOn member,

Last night, President Obama announced that he will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan—on top of the 68,000 who are already there.

MoveOn is its members, so after the speech, we asked thousands of members what they think of the president’s plan. While some support his decision to send more troops, a significant majority think escalating the war is wrong. Where all of us agree is that we need to begin bringing our troops home as quickly and safely as possible. (You can see more detailed results below.)

As Sandy M. in Oregon put it, “Millions of lives will be tragically altered. Innocent people, by the thousands, will lose their lives. We have plenty of nation building to do, and it’s in our country, not others.”

While the president acknowledged that our commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended, we have to act now to make sure our representatives and senators hold him to that. President Obama said he’ll begin withdrawing troops in July, 2011, but news reports are already suggesting that withdrawal could be very limited, so pressure from Congress will be key.1

Congress could take up legislation related to the war this month, so we need to get the message to them quickly. Can you sign our emergency petition calling on Congress to end the war as quickly as possible? Clicking below will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/afghan_timeline/?id=18131-9090174-32mL0hx&t=3

The petition says, “Congress must push the Obama administration to outline firm benchmarks and a binding timeline to bring all of our troops home from Afghanistan as soon as possible.”

When we asked MoveOn members what they think about the situation in Afghanistan, they acknowledged the mess that George W. Bush left for President Obama. Still, nearly all MoveOn members agree that we must have a clear military exit strategy with a firm timeline so we can end the war quickly.
But right-wing hawks like Sen. John McCain are already pushing the President to continue the war indefinitely.2 In the face of this pressure, the majority of Americans, who oppose the war, must speak up.

The costs of this war are enormous—for the men and women of our armed forces who face injury or death, for Afghans who will suffer increased violence and civilian casualties, and for American citizens who are spending billions of dollars without being any safer. The administration and Congress have to hear from those of us who want to see the war come to an end.

Can you sign our emergency petition now telling Congress to work to bring our troops home? Clicking below will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/afghan_timeline/?id=18131-9090174-32mL0hx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Peter, Lenore, Kat, and the rest of the team

P.S. We’ve been hearing from MoveOn members about Afghanistan for months now, so we wanted to get a sense of what people were thinking in the wake of President Obama’s speech. So, since last night’s speech, we’ve asked more than 50,000 randomly selected MoveOn members to let us know what they think about the President’s plan.

There’s no question the situation in Afghanistan is difficult, and MoveOn members, like all Americans, are wrestling with the lack of good options. But right now, a significant majority of us oppose escalating the war. We’ve posted the results of the surveys we ran at:

http://pol.moveon.org/afghanistan/post_speech_surveys.html?id=18131-9090174-32mL0hx&t=5

Farewell to November, 2009

Workout notes 1 mile on the AMT, then 3 on the stair master. On the latter, I tried to touch the support bars minimally. Then, 2200 yards of swimming: 500 warm up, 5 x (25 free, 25 back, 25 fly, 25 free) on 2, 5 x (25 3g, 75 free) on 2, 500 drill/swim (fins), 200 in 3:13. I swam next to the lady who is fast and wears a nice orange with black design suit. (yes, I like it). When I got out, we exchanged smiles and nods.

Injury: not noticeable during the workout, but I had some calf tightness later in the day.

Football Notre Dame fired its coach. I admit that I was underwhelmed when they hired him, but was impressed during their first season. Coach Weis hit his high point at the start of his second year, where they whipped Georgia Tech in Atlanta and then but a 41-17 beating on a Penn State team that was to finished ranked; it was 41-3 when PSU got two late scores. Then his team got blown out by Michigan and then the season went downhill; though they did pick up exciting come from behind wins against Michigan State and UCLA.

They ended that year by getting slaughtered by USC and LSU.

Speaking of football, I am enjoying the Saints-Patriots game; it is now 10-7 Saints in the second quarter.

(from yahoo)

Posts
Academia Professors who teach large numbers of undergraduates frequently get “snowflakey” e-mail messages from students who have blown off the course for most of the semester and now want special attention. Here is a sample.
Science: Climate Change

Paul Krugman points out that those who use the recent e-mail exchanges between scientists as evidence that climate change is some cooked up conspiracy just don’t know academic research.

Here is a Scientific American article that rebuts common crackpot arguments.

Human behavior Here is an interesting post on how people get scammed and what human behaviors scammers take advantage of.

How people respond to injustice When there is a campaign to stop an injustice (say, like the bus boycott from the civil rights era), sometimes groups pick their “public victims” carefully. For example Rosa Parks was not the first one to refuse to give up a seat to a white person.

Frankly, I have no problem with this; being right doesn’t mean that one will win. I wish that those activists pushing to keep same-sex marriage on the books understood that.

Yes, in principle, these rights should be guaranteed in a liberal democracy, but all too often, they do have to be fought for.

Religion

Not offensive at all, right? Well, of course, religious conservatives (some of them) are belly-aching.

Politics

Here it is claimed that women are more onto Sarah Palin; the idea is that women are better at spotting phonies.

Actually, many women approve of Sarah Palin (as I’ve talked about before).

But yes, there is a gap:

Note that the approval gap between young and old is greater than the approval gap between men and women! (or statistically similar)

Oh yes, don’t fall for this false comparison between Governor Palin’s favorability rating and President Obama’s job approval rating:

According to the latest poll numbers, Sarah Palin is nearly as popular as Barack Obama. Or maybe it’s that Barack Obama is nearly as unpopular as Sarah Palin. At least that’s how some commentators see it: As the Los Angeles Times’ Andrew Malcolm noted Monday, “Sarah Palin’s poll numbers are strengthening. And President Obama’s are sliding.” In Tuesday’s Washington Post, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd wrote that “Palin’s favorability numbers are a mirror image of those of Obama.”

he problem is, they’re comparing apples to oranges. Both columns refer to polls that show Palin’s favorability rating at around 43 percent—mere points away from Obama’s job-approval rating of 49 percent. But as Media Matters has pointed out, favorability and job approval aren’t the same thing. A politician’s favorability rating is a general sense of the public’s feeling about him. His job-approval rating is an evaluation of the work he’s doing.

When you compare favorability ratings—apples to apples—Obama still leads Palin by a distance. The latest Gallup poll puts Obama’s favorability 16 points ahead of Palin’s, ABC puts his lead at 18 points, and CNN says it’s 18 points higher. (Only Fox has the gap in single digits, with a seven-point spread.) It’s impossible to compare their job-approval numbers because, well, Palin doesn’t have a job.

(hat tip for this topic: Science Avenger)

Political Predictions
Paul Krugman doesn’t see massive improvements in the economy, but doesn’t see Obama losing in 2012.
As far as Congressional elections, I admit that I don’t care if blue dogs lose seats; Nate Silver points out that if one judges members of Congress by the votes that they cast on big issues rather than by self-identification of “progressive/conservative”, the anticipated D losses will be smeared out over the spectrum.

McNaughton 30 miler

I finished the McNaughton 30 mile race today; due to my injury I was not prepared to cover the distance; at least not hard.

For photos of the course, go here (for a tour of the race course). Note; it is fall here so most of the trails were leaf covered and the trees were either bare or multi-colored.

But given the 11 hour cut-off, I figured I would slow walk it.

The first couple of 10 mile loops went fine; 2:38 and 2:49. But the third got downright ugly (3:27); most of the extra time came in the last 3 miles of the loop; I got sick (threw up my water/succeed tablet stuff) with just over 1 mile to go in the loop and was nauseated afterward. IMHO, this was just my being over-taxed for my training. At the time I was gaining on someone in front of me; it turns out that I got passed with .25 miles left in the race.

It had rained for much of the week (top 5 wettest October here) but the course was in reasonably good shape; there were a couple of muddy places.

It was chilly at the start and yes, there was lots of SPANDEX. I actually saw some on the first loop; I was chasing a pack of women who, well, didn’t seem to know what they were getting themselves into. The one poor young woman in the bees-wings was complete toast just prior to the end of the series of hills that started with golf hill. At that point I only saw a couple of guys on the course and in the last 6 miles of the second loop I got lapped 4 times.

I felt really good on the first couple of loops but then the body started to shut down; the hills got longer and I was feeling inclines that I didn’t even notice on the first couple of loops. That was just simple fatigue talking (from being undertrained). I was walking adequately until three miles to go; those 3 miles took 1:10 to do (normally 50 minutes).

Injury: I did take two Advil in the morning (5 am) but no NSAIDS (or any other pain killer) during the race. I felt it mildly.

My training up to now:

My “on foot” Miles:
7-13 September 17 miles
14-20 September 6 miles
21-27 September 31 miles (26 at the Quad Cities Marathon)
28 S-4 October 14 miles
5 – 11 October 21 miles 6 were on the stair master, 10 at McNaughton
12-18 October 14 miles (all on the Stair master)
19-25 October 26 miles (12 on the Stair Master, 10 McNaughton, 4 Wildlife park)
Week of race: 3 stair master workouts (40 minutes each)

Of course I swam 3-5 times a week too. But I had only 1 really adequate workout in the last 5 weeks.

Ok, here is a collection of photos that others have taken.

Me: finishing one loop

Leaving he water crossing:

The water crossing:

More photos: here (Greg) and here (Klopenstein).

26 October 09 (pm)

Science and frogs Scientists are making progress toward determining what is causing the deadly “frog fungus” which is killing them. They have noted that part of the deadliness comes from the frogs becoming dehydrated; hence a “frog sports drink” has been made. Hat tip: bupkiss.

Religion: Richard Dawkins talks about the Roman Catholic Church’s attempt to convert Anglicans who are disappointed with their church ordaining gays and women:

Give us your misogynists and bigots

Poaching? Of course it is poaching. What else could you call it? Maybe it will succeed. If estimates are right that 1,000 Anglican clergymen will take the bait (no women, of course: they will swiftly be shown the door), what could be their motive? For some it will be a deep-seated misogyny (although they’ll re-label it with a mendacious euphemism of some kind, which they’ll call ‘an important point of theological principle’). They just can’t stomach the idea of women priests. One wonders how their wives can stomach a husband whose contempt for women is so visceral that he considers them incapable even of the humble and unexacting duties of a priest.

For some, the motive will be homophobic bigotry, and a consequent dislike of the efforts of decent church leaders such as the Archbishop of Canterbury to accept those whose sexual orientation happens to deviate from majority taste. Never mind that they will be joining an institution where buggering altar boys pervades the culture. [...]

Archbishop Rowan Williams is too nice for his own good. Instead of meekly sharing that ignominious platform with the poachers, he should have issued a counter-challenge: “Send us your women, yearning to be priests, who could make a strong case for being the better-qualified fifty percent of humanity; send us your decent priests, sick of trying to defend the indefensible; send them all, in exchange for our woman-haters and gay-bashers.” Sounds like a good trade to me.

More religious bigotry: Marriage equality will end the human race?

Secular Life:

Effective Atheist Group Advertisement?

Note: the choice of location is probably good. Also note the intent: this isn’t designed to convert “believers” but rather to let non-believers that there is a place for them, if they want it. Personally, I don’t feel such a pressure as science/mathematics Ph. D.s tend to be atheistic; I see the “like minded” when I go to work and interact with colleagues (though not so much with students). Hence I don’t feel isolated; that isn’t the case with everyone.

Politics Yes, a public option is being presented to the Senate. Harry Reid mentioned that today (here and here)

That is, individual states would have the right to opt out of the “public option” (e. g., those in the red states can screw themselves all that they want to). Senator Reid seems to think that the Democrats can get 60 votes for “cloture” (e. g., a vote to NOT filibuster); then only 50 votes would be needed to actually pass the bill.

Don’t believe the fake tears from the insurance industry; then they whine about low profits, remember that the CEO salaries are NOT counted as profit but rather as “expense”.

Racist Republicans: they can’t seem to help themselves, can they? Oh sure, these were not official RNC photos but they were left up and evidently other Republicans didn’t complain about them; not that I would expect them to.

U. S. Now the Most Admired Country!

This is great!

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll.

It climbed from seventh place last year, ahead of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan which completed the top five nations in the Nation Brand Index (NBI).

“What’s really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009,” said Simon Anholt, the founder of NBI, which measured the global image of 50 countries each year.

He believes that during the previous administration of George W. Bush the United States suffered in the world ranking with its unpopular foreign policies but since Obama was elected, and despite the recent economic turmoil, the country’s status has risen globally.

“There is no other explanation,” Anholt said in an interview, referring to the impact of Obama.

Of course the Republicans will find fault with this…they’ll whine and belly-ache that we aren’t hated.

Don’t worry Republicans: I hate and despise you, as does probably most of civilization. But, at last, the rest of the world isn’t conflating the conservatives with real Americans.

Wait: is my crack about “conservatives vs. real Americans” untrue and unfair? It sure is! But this is exactly what conservatives have done to us for years!

3 October College Football.

(photos by yahoo)

Game One: I watched most of the Purdue-Northwestern game. Northwestern won in the rain 27-21; they scored the go-ahead touchdown with 2:09 left, but had to hold on when a Purdue failed on a 4′th and goal pass from inside the Wildcat 5 with 2 seconds left.

Purdue killed themselves with 6 turnovers.

I then watched the end of the Michigan-Michigan State game; it went into over time when Michigan scored with less than 10 seconds to go but threw an interception on its first possession in overtime. Michigan State scored on a long run.

I saw a snippet of Iowa holding off a Arkansas State rally to win 24-21.

Right now I am watching Notre Dame versus Washington. ND has moved the ball well but only leads 9-7 due to good red-zone defense by the Huskies.

Update; 4′th quarter, 9:11 left; the Huskies lead 17-16 at the half thanks to a TD return on a botched screen pass that went backwards and was returned by an alert Husky defensive back.

The second half has it 24-22 Washington; ND got 2 field goals but held the Huskies on 4′th and goal at the 1. Nevertheless the Husky red zone defense has been solid; hence ND has 5 field goals.

They are now at the ND 6 with third and 2. First and goal at the half yard line.
Ooops, 4′th down at the 3; So the TD that was overturned on review has forced Washington into a field goal attempt. It is good but there is a penalty; roughing the snapper penalty so first and goal for Washington again! That is a huge mistake on NDs part.

Still again it is 3rd and goal, again. Oh my goodness, 4′th and goal. Remember Washington started first and goal at the ND half yard line. It is now 27-22 Washington, but ND’s goal line defense has kept them in it.

Update: a long TD drive plus an interesting 2 point conversion puts ND up 30-27 with 1:20 to go. But Washington has moved the ball well in the second half and their kicker is good. Washington’s ball at the 10 with 1:16 to go. Can Locker engineer yet another game winning drive?

Washington first down at the 25 yard line of ND with 33 seconds to go. Now there are 22 seconds left; Washington jumped offside and lost 5 yards. Tipped pass over the middle; the referees called an interception but replay will over turn this, I think. They did. 17 seconds left. Quarterback draw gets it closer so now the Huskies will try to tie it with 11 seconds to go. 37 yards, but it is wet. Time out ND.

The kick is good…..6 seconds left and this will go into overtime.

Overtime, ND got a touchdown but Washington came up short; their receiver made a game effort to pull in the 4′th down pass but was absolutely drilled by the ND defensive backfield; poor kid.

But it was one heck of a game. ND is not a great team but they are fun to watch.

Navy versus Air Force: Navy wins in overtime 16-13

In another game, Penn State whipped Illinois 35-17.

Quad Cities Marathon 2009

Background I’ve been dealing with a chronic “behind the knee/upper calf” problem; over the past three weeks I’ve walked only 4 workouts (and had two easy runs during that time). But I was signed up and decided to see if I could do it.

I did a 5:14 in Rockford this past May.

My last marathon finish on this in this race (slightly different course) was in 2005; the report is here.

Yes, I did take a couple of Naproxyen about 3 hours prior to the race.

Weather: cool at the start (spandex season! ) and it warmed up into the high 70’s toward the end; it was also somewhat windy/breezy.

Here is the quick and dirty from facebook:

Ok, I’ll admit it: the last “real” training walk I had was three weekends ago; I had a chronic “behind the knee/upper calf soreness” that was getting worse. Hence I did the racewalk clinic two weeks ago and three very short (3, 4, 5 mile) training walks otherwise over the last three weeks.

But I had signed up in advance and wanted to try the marathon.

For those who are unfamiliar: I walk these 100 percent of the way, though in this race I took a few breaks where I street walked (to protect my tender spot)

Note: I had walked a 5:14 at Rockford, but I was well prepared for that race.

Upshot: my first 5 miles was at my normal pace (56:36), I was slowing at mile 10 (1:55:36), slowed some more (mid way at 2:34:36), 2:57:15 at mile 15, slowed way down in the next 5 miles as my calves started to swell (4:01:21 at mile 20), and the next 6 were done in the just get it done with mode (5:10:45) at mile 25, and 5:28:36.

That was an ugly positive split (2:34:36, 2:54:00 for the second half). But I didn’t get passed that much during the second half; most people slowed.

More details:
I really didn’t notice all that much difference early on; though the few hills that there are come early (miles 1-5) I was maintaining my pace rather easily (low 11s); I did take one “cheat break” where I did some street walking. I was taking succeed tablets every 2 miles or so; that kept the nausea away. But today my body didn’t like Power Ade Zero; I often like this during less strenuous walking.

Again nothing seemed wrong until mile 10 (I was chasing a lady in pink shorts). But then my 11s turned into 12s; this happened as we passed from Davenport into Rock Island.

On Arsenal Island (where we were from miles 13-20) those 12’s migrated into 13s and there wasn’t much I could do about it. My calves just plain lost power and I started to walk very “stumpy”.

I did a mile with Beth (who was to finish 1 minute ahead of me) and was going back and forth with some walk-joggers who got away from me.

By the time we left Arsenal Island my legs were shot and I wasn’t able to push off or use my feet. I felt the effort but I’ve felt much worse in other marathons. But my pace migrated into the low 14s.

The out and back was oh-so-long (10 K) and I was in the “finish this” mode.

Spandex notes evidently one of the elite runners (female) missed the start; I saw her blow by us and weave in and out in the first mile; she had the little hiked-up spandex bun-hugger.

From mile 4 to 5, there was one of those “oh, can’t I give it just a little rub just this once” types (black half-tights and purple spandex top) I think that the most attractive marathon runners are the 4:30 to 5:30 finishers! The faster ones tend to be too skinny for my tastes.

Stats Geeks: Place: 673/746.

mile	time	cum time
1
2		22:35
3	11:32	34:07
4	11:29	45:36
5	10:59	56:36
6	11:31	1:08:08
7	11:36	1:19:44
8	11:45	1:31:30
9	11:47	1:43:18
10	12:18	1:55:36 (still ahead of Rockford)
11	12:00	2:07:37
12	12:26	2:20:04
13	12:19	2:32:24 (about 2:34:36 at half)
14	12:17	2:44:41
15	12:33	2:57:15
16	12:39	3:09:55 (Fell behind Rockford pace)
17	12:40	3:22:35
18	12:31	3:35:06
19	13:00	3:48:07
20	13:13	4:01:21
21	13:14	4:14:36
22	13:28	4:28:04
23	14:06	4:42:10
24	14:23	4:56:34
25	14:10	5:10:45
26	14:51	5:25:36
26.219	2:59	5:28:36

Other marathon reports:

Andy Payne Marathon (2008) 6:16

Quad Cities Marathon 2007 (DNF mile 23).

Quad Cities Half Marathon 2008.

20 September 09

Workout notes I finished my workout with some yoga and racewalking drills; nothing hurt though both calves were tight. I started it by doing 3100 yards of swimming: 10 x (25 free, 25 back), 10 x (25 drill, 25 swim) (no fins), 10 x (25 drill, 25 swim) (fins), 10 x 50 free on 1 (form; 46, then the rest were 47-48). I was going to try 1000 but wasn’t into it.

Then a swim babe was in the next lane and she made an effort to catch me on some of the 50s, so I thought “I’ll give her a head start and keep going until I lap her”. So I did; I caught up to her rather quickly; the 250s were 4:04, 8:08, and I lapped her 12 laps (600 yards into it). So I kept going: 12:15 and then 16:24 at 1000. I was tired and though I was gaining on her again I wasn’t quite in position to lap her a second time.

Then I cooled down, did some yoga on my own, etc.

This was my fastest 1000 since December 17, 2008.

Note: tug behind my knee wasn’t there, but both calves felt tight.

Other stuff
Science: this article about the sex areas of our brains were interesting. We humans are complicated animals.

The start of the article (on how a woman’s brain tumor was discovered; she was having strong sexual experiences that were mental in origin) is fascinating. They go on to describe an experiment where MRIs of brains were taken as people viewed others in swimsuits; if the person in the swimsuit was attractive the brain showed a different pattern.

Speaking of science: Jerry Coyne goes off on someone who evidently doesn’t understand what scientists actually do with their time.

And then Wood adds a footnote:

We don’t read in order to benefit in this way from fiction. We read fiction because it pleases us, moves us, is beautiful, and so on — because it is alive and we are alive. It is amusing to watch evolutionary biology tie itself up in circularities when trying to answer the question, ‘why do humans spend so much time reading fiction when this yields no obvious evolutionary benefits?’ The answer tend either to be utilitarian — we read in order to find out about our fellow citizens, and this has a Darwinian utility — or circular: we read because fiction pushes certain ‘pleasure buttons.’

Well, the first part is fine, but really, Professor Wood, we evolutionary biologists hardly tie ourselves up in knots about this question. Although I’m a professional in the field, I have never encountered a discussion of the adaptive significance of reading fiction, even from those evolutionary psychologists who love to masticate ideas like this. No respectable evolutionist would bother with the question, “What was the adaptive value of ‘novel-reading’ genes?” In contrast, Wood implies that this kind of story-telling is a major preoccupation of our field. Perhaps he’ll supply us with an extensive list of evolutionary studies of fiction-reading.

Reading is a recent innovation: it appeared about 5000 years ago, 0.07% of the time since we branched off from the lineage that lead to our closest living relatives. Fiction is even younger: many regard the first novel as The Tale of Genji, written about a millenium ago.

That’s not enough time for a “fiction-reading module” to evolve.

Lesson to self: never, never “call out” smart people.

In all honesty, most of us make unwarranted assumptions about what other professionals do in their field; that is why I like having academic friends in many disciplines and why I enjoy reading their blogs. Also, if something sounds weird to me, I ASK before making an assumption.

Politics Rick Perry says that Texas isn’t in a recession.

Essay: Frank Rich made me think here:

Many of those Americans may hate Obama, but they don’t love the Republican establishment either. Michael Steele, who was declared persona non grata at one of the mad “tea parties” in April, was not invited to that right-wing 9/12 March on Washington last weekend. There were no public encomiums for McCain or Bush. No Senate leader spoke to the gathering, and perhaps only Palin and Ron Paul would have been welcome from the ranks of what passes for G.O.P. presidential timber. If there was a real hero to this crowd, it was the protest’s most prominent promoter, the radio and TV talker Glenn Beck.

Time put Beck on its cover this week. Man of the Year may not be far behind. Beck is not, as many liberals assume, merely the latest incarnation of Rush Limbaugh. He is something different. That’s why he is gaining on his antecedents — and gaining traction in the country’s angrier precincts. [...]

eck captures this crowd’s common emotional denominator — with appropriately overheated capital letters — in his best-selling book portraying himself as a latter-day Tom Paine, “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense.” Americans “know that SOMETHING JUST DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT,” he writes, “but they don’t know how to describe it or, more importantly, how to stop it.” This is right-wing populism in the classic American style, as inchoate and paranoid as that hawked by Father Coughlin during the Great Depression and George Wallace in the late 1960s. Wallace is most remembered for his racism, but he, like Beck, also played on the class and cultural resentment of those sharing his view that there wasn’t “a dime’s worth of difference” between the two parties.

Now, as then, a Dixie-oriented movement like this won’t remotely capture the White House. Now, unlike then, it is a catastrophe for the Republicans. The old G.O.P. Southern strategy is gone with the wind. The more the party is identified with nasty name-calling, freak-show protestors, immigrant-bashing (the proximate cause of Wilson’s outburst at Obama) and, yes, racism, the faster it will commit demographic suicide as America becomes ever younger and more diverse. But Democrats shouldn’t be cocky. Over the short term, the real economic grievances lurking beneath the extremism of the Beck brigades can do damage to both parties. A stopped clock is right twice a day. The recession-spawned anger that Beck has tapped into on the right could yet find a more mainstream outlet in a populist revolt from the left and center.

“Wall Street owns our government,” Beck declared in one rant this July. “Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.” He drew a chart to dramatize the revolving door between Washington and Goldman Sachs in both the Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner Treasury departments. A couple of weeks later, Beck mockingly replaced the stars on the American flag with the logos of corporate giants like G.E., General Motors, Wal-Mart and Citigroup (as well as the right’s usual nemesis, the Service Employees International Union). Little of it would be out of place in a Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone. Or, we can assume, in Michael Moore’s coming film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which reportedly takes on Goldman and the Obama economic team along with conservative targets.

Unassisted Triple Play