John Kerry: hits back hard!

Ok, I admit this: John Kerry said something that was truthful, but is very easy to spin as something negative:



Ok. Kerry didn't say that everyone who is serving in Iraq is an idiot, but rather he implies that many who are in Iraq "got stuck there"; that is they had no other place to go.

Remember that Kerry is a combat veteran, unlike many in this Republican administration.

But this wasn't a poltically wise comment to make; the morons will see it as a put down of the troops, and the more savy right wingers will see that there are political points to be made here.

"Senator Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who've given their lives in this," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "This is an absolute insult."

(and yes, had it been a Republican making his comment, the Democrats would have put out the hit squads)

But this is not the John Kerry of 2004: he hit back, HARD.

http://www.johnkerry.com/news/releases/release.html?id=33

Statement of John Kerry Responding to Republican Distortions, Pathetic Tony Snow Diversions and Distractions

Washington – Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:

“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”

Woo Hoo!!!!!! Where in the hell was this in 2004???????

Cell Phones in class and other topics

I've always wanted to do this:


But in all honesty, the only time I've had a problem is when I was substituting for someone else.

Teaching college has its ups and downs. One of the downs now-a-days is the parents. Yes, they foot the bills. But many are clueless.

Witness the following exchange of e-mail messages. A student who was doing reasonably well in my second semester calculus class wanted to drop: she mentioned that she was taking a heavy course load (18 hours). She was doing reasonably well in the class and had only 5 weeks to go:

Hi,
I am considering dropping Calculus II for this semester. I already have 18 credit hours and I am struggling to get everything done. I was hoping that I would be able to talk to you either after class or during your office hours on Wednesday. Can you let me know when would be best to talk to you and how to go about dropping a class?

Thanks!

XXX XXXX

I resonded:

MX. XXXX, I wouldn't drop if I were you.

There are going to be semesters when it is a struggle to get done, and this class isn't going to be any easier the second time around.

You've got only 5 weeks left. But it is up to you.

You don't need my input to drop the class; you can ask your department secretary if you don't know how.

But in your case, I think that dropping would be a mistake.

You can talk to me after class tomorrow if you'd like.

Regards

She e-mailed my response to her dad, who e-mailed her back. Evidently, he didn't know that he had e-mailed me as well:

XXXX,

Typical response from a prof. He sees no problem because ALL he sees is a B+ student. From the teacher's point of view, why would this student drop? You mentioned the 18 hrs, but he doesn't understand the whole picture. He's not feeling the pressure of 18 hrs, trying to do an additional minor, 1st semester adapting to college, the stress we perceive at home, and the individuality of you not being happy with this grade in a class you kind of consider your 'specialty.' As for "isn't going to get any easier," it has to get easier because you will be seeing the material a 2nd time. Kate, mainly for the stress it will reduce, along with the extra time it will give you to spend elsewhere, I say do it. And don't feel guilty over it . . . and if you already are, then quit feeling guilty about feeling guilty . . .

Time to get some peace back in your life for the last 5 weeks. As he said, you don't need any input to drop. Do it and breathe a sigh of relief.

Love,

Dad

What an enabling jerk! Hmmm, let's see, I went to Annapolis and took loads in excess of 20 hours there, in addition to having to do all of the military duties and put up with boot camp type stuff. I passed Navy Nuclear Power school, served as a submarine officer, then went and got a Ph. D., but I don't understand stress and academic disappointment?

Ever hear of MENTAL TOUGHNESS, or TOUGHING IT OUT???? Guess not.

Dueling Ads:

Previously, I commented on an attack ad aimed at Harold Ford, who is running for the U. S. Senate seat in Tennessee:




Where part of the ad is fair (e. g., it is ok to talk about different positions on gun control, estate taxes and the like) there is part of it that is racist; that is, note that there is a white woman who is talking about a sexual encounter with him. Northerners might s
hrug and say "so what", but these things are not-too-subtle signals to southerners.

A nice discussion of this ad can be found here:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/10/post_55.html

Ad echoes GOP's 'Southern strategy'

By DeWayne Wickham

Last year, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman apologized for the race-baiting tactics that members of his party used for decades to court white voters in Southern states.

Last week, he started backsliding.

(“Call me”: An ad against Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn / Republican National Committee)

"I just think those criticisms of it are wrong," Mehlman said of a television ad that was produced with money from his treasury and aired in Tennessee. In the 30-second spot, a scantily clad white woman appears to suggest that she and Harold Ford Jr., a black Democrat, have had an intimate relationship.

"I met Harold at the Playboy party," the woman coos into the camera. That's a reference to Ford's admission that he attended a party that Playboy hosted during the 2005 Super Bowl. As the commercial closes, the woman says with a salacious wink, "Harold, call me."

The commercial plays to the fears of whites who think interracial relationships are taboo. It also conjures up memories of the awful fate that befell the Scottsboro Boys, Matt Ingram and Emmett Till — blacks who were victimized for simply being accused of getting too close to white women.

Ford, a five-term U.S. House member, is in a tight race with Republican Bob Corker for the Senate seat being vacated by the retirement of Majority Leader Bill Frist. The suggestion that Ford partied with a white woman at a Playboy soiree could make racial bias a big factor in this election.

Of course, Ford has a small statistically insignificant lead in this election (as of today). But remember the so-called "black tax": African American politicians tend to poll 3-5 points higher than the support that they acutally get. Unfortunately I can't find a reference from a controlled study; I'll have to keep searching.

Now, for a tounge-in-cheek spoof on the Corker ad:

Local Elections, the Iraq war and Dick Cheney, "winning"

Local Election: Schock vs. Spears

I honestly don't have a clue as to is winning the Schock vs. Spears election in the Illinois 92'nd State House race. I do know that the Journal Star says that the Illinois Democratic Party has seen the polls and is "pulling up stakes" so to speak, and that a local pro-Spears blogger thinks that the Journal Star might be reading too much into things:

Molly Parker of the Journal Star did get around to reporting on the Carla Grube/Freedom House controversy in the Aaron Schock campaign. That story is at the bottom of today’s Word on the Street column I’ve written about it after having read about it at Willy Nilly’s site. I don’t believe for one second that they found out about this from the Bureau County Republican.

I have several thoughts:

The article ran below a segment discussing the departure of Eric Lane, who is described as Bill Spears campaign manager and whose salary is paid by the Illinois Democratic Party. Spears says Lane was never his campaign manager and I’m fairly certain from earlier conversations that the party organization wasn’t paying his salary. If so, his movement from one campaign to another says nothing about how the party feels about Spears’ chances of defeating Schock.

This isn't the main point of the argument; the author of the above piece is complaining that the more important story is listed second and that this was done because Schock is the darling of the Peoria Journal Star.

But this does say that some feel that Schock is in command of this race. I honestly don't know. I do know that Schock's campaign has been very organized for a very long time and very well funded.

And, Schock appears to be appealing to groups that Republicans don't normally appeal to.

Anyway, I am still going to get a walk list and hoof it a bit this coming weekend and or on election morning.

Can Iraq really be won?

Here is a nice article by Paul Schroder from the American Conservative which argues:

It is idle to discuss the administration’s refusal to recognize failure in Iraq and its insistence on the goal of victory as if this represented a serious military strategy or foreign-policy plan. “Victory” is not really defined and cannot be. Virtually all the concrete goals of the original Bright Promise of Victory in Iraq propaganda have already been tacitly abandoned and are no longer mentioned. The “success” talked about is not merely indefinable and unattainable but incoherent as a concept. The ends sought are self-contradictory and incompatible with the means used to attain them. All this could be demonstrated at length, accomplishing nothing but to further the administration’s purposes of distraction and obfuscation. For the denial of failure and insistence on pursuing victory, insofar as it is a product of something more than pure fantasy, is not designed for military and foreign-policy purposes but for domestic politics, especially the 2006 elections. There the strategy could succeed by limiting the Republican losses just enough to keep control of both houses, avoid the congressional investigations the administration dreads, and delay the final collapse in Iraq until after 2008, when the presumably victorious Democrats could be blamed for it.

The possibility of such a success rests on more than Rovian electoral wizardry. It exploits roots deep in the American heritage and character—the special difficulty many Americans have in coming to terms with limits in international politics, the feeling that admitting failure and wrong choices especially in wartime is un-American. Add to this the portrait the administration and a largely compliant press paint of what failure in Iraq would bring—civil war, chaos and radical Islam dominating the region, terrorism triumphant, Iran emboldened, Israel threatened, the oil supply imperiled or cut off, America humiliated, isolated, and impotent, and (the most dishonest but politically effective claim of all) the brave Americans killed or wounded in the fight for Iraqi freedom and American security betrayed. Against this lurid background Bush & Co. challenge the Democrats: if you are serious, show us your plan for meeting these dangers, solving these problems, and avoiding these disasters while getting us out of Iraq.

It is easy to show how absurd in logic and fact this demand is. It is like insisting that a man who shows you that your $100 bill is counterfeit owes you a real one, or—to use Molly Ivins’s illustration—to argue that those who warned against hitting a hornet’s nest with a stick must now, after the administration has done so and caused the hornets to swarm and attack everywhere, either propose a concrete plan for getting the hornets back into the nest or else join in efforts to kill them with the stick. Worst of all, the demand calls on others to solve the problem the Bush administration created while rejecting the fundamental condition for any solution, a recognition that wrong policy and failed leadership created the problem and that both must first be changed.

In short: not every foreign policy problem has a military solution. Read the rest of the article; it is outstanding.

Finally, Dick Cheney is getting desperate. He claims that the increasing level of violence in Iraq is due to the upcoming U. S. elections:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/30/164535/00

Outrage: Cheney says Iraq violence linked to US Elections

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Mon Oct 30, 2006 at 01:45:35 PM PST

Just when I think that the Republican Party couldn't sink any lower, Dick Cheney came out and said that the rising levels of violence in Iraq are linked to the United States elections...

more below the fold

• onanyes's diary :: ::
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http://news.yahoo.com/...

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday insurgents had stepped up attacks in Iraq to try to sway next week's U.S. elections and they were constantly surfing the Web to keep tabs on American public opinion.

"Whether it's al Qaeda or the other elements that are active in Iraq, they are betting on the proposition they can break the will of the American people," Cheney told Fox News. ."..They're very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled."

Cheney, a driving force in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, spoke eight days before congressional elections with polls showing Bush's Republican party at risk of losing control of Congress to the Democrats.

Voter disaffection over Iraq, where the U.S. military death toll for October has reached 100, is seen as a critical factor that could hurt Republican chances in the November 7 ballot.

Cheney said America's enemies in Iraq possessed the Internet savvy to monitor U.S. developments, helping them to time attacks aimed in part at influencing the elections. But he cited no evidence to back the theory.

Get it: this is a not-so-subtle message of "the insurgents back the Democrats, therefore you should vote Republican".

Completely shameless!

I suppose that if the Republicans somehow remained in control of both chambers that the violence would then die down? How believable is that?

Light Day

Last night I watched the Texas-Texas Tech track meet, er football game. Texas came from 21-0 down to win 35-31 in Lubbock. Texas had cut the lead to 31-21 at half time and then pitched a shutout in the second half.

The Texas quarterback is a much better runner than I had realized, and the Texas defense made good adjustments at halftime. Still the Red Raiders finished with over 500 yards (all by passing), but failed to capatalize on several Texas fumbles.



From the Peoria Journal Star: on the LaHood-Waterworth race. Waterworth has raised about $5,000, LaHood: over $1,000,000.



I am going to have to try this at home?



Sad commentary. By the way, our electronic voting machines leaves a paper trail that the voter themselves can check.

Central Illinois in the political news: Republican political sophisticates in Chilicothe, Illinois? (a small town north of Peoria) Peggy Noonan thinks so:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/27/164354/68

Peggy Noonan predicts (and hopes for) GOP loss

by MKS [Subscribe]

Fri Oct 27, 2006 at 01:43:54 PM PDT

Peggy Noonan is one of the most influential and well-read conservative writers around. She wrote the "evil empire" speech for Ronald Reagan. Conservatives just flock to her. But why is she not on T.V. touting conservatives this cycle? Answer: She wants the GOP to lose.

Why? Bush is too arrogant and doesn't listen, she reasons. I saw the beginnings of her rupture with Bush when he gave the "burning fires" of democracy 2004 inaugural speech. Too much God, Noonan reasoned. Now her new Wall Street Journal Article dumps big-time on Bush.

• MKS's diary :: ::
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Here is Noonan's article

Check out these quotes:

This is two weeks ago, from a Bush appointee: "I hope they lose the House." And one week ago, from a veteran of two GOP White Houses: "I hope they lose Congress." Republicans this year don't say "we" so much.

What is behind this? A lot of things, but here's a central one: They want to fire Congress because they can't fire President Bush.

And this:

Republican political veterans go easy on ideology, but they're tough on incompetence. They see Mr. Bush through the eyes of experience and maturity. They hate a lack of care. They see Mr. Bush as careless, and on more than Iraq--careless with old alliances, disrespectful of the opinion of mankind. "He never listens," an elected official who is a Bush supporter said with a shrug some months ago. Along the way the president's men and women confused the necessary and legitimate disciplining of a coalition with weird and excessive attempts to silence Republican critics. They have lived in a closed system. They now want to open it but don't know how. Listening is a habit; theirs has long been to suppress.

More:

The administration tries to get around this, to quiet the unease, with things like the Republican National Committee ad in which Islamic terrorists plot to kill America.

They do want to kill America, and all the grownups know it. But this is a nation of sophisticates, and every Republican sipping a Bud at a bar in Chilicothe, Ill., who looks up and sees that ad thinks: They're trying to scare the base to increase turnout. Turnout's the key.

Here's a thing about American politics. Nobody sees himself as the base. They see themselves as individuals. And they're not dumb. They get it all. They know when you're trying to manipulate. They'll even tell you, with a lovely detachment, if you're doing a good job. (An unreported story this year is the lack of imagination, seriousness and respect in the work of political consultants on both sides. They have got to catch up with American brightness.)

Notre Dame 24-14 at the half

Interesting game. I had predicted a Notre Dame win (28-13) but it is already 24-14 at the half.

Why? Well, Navy missed a field goal, and Navy can't cover the taller Notre Dame receivers. On the other hand, Notre Dame can't yet deal with Navy's misdirection option; Navy has over 200 yards rushing in the first half and only punted once: with 30 seconds left in the half.

The Navy backup quarterback is playing very well.

On another note, Illinois leads Wisconsin 24-10 at the half. My guess is that Illinois won't hold on, but it is becoming clear that Illinois is no longer a complete joke of a team; gone are the 63-0 type losses. Illinois is not a good team, but they are no longer among the worst in the nation either.

Update: Notre Dame won going away 38-14. Navy didn't quit though; they had one good goal line stand. But Notre Dame was too much. And I give coach Weis credit for putting in substitutes and running out the clock toward the end of the game.

Still, I see Navy going 9-3 (or 8-4 at worst) and going to a bowl.

5K race: first in months.

Ok, I went ahead and raced the Tippett "5K" (actual distance was about 3 miles).

http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=84190

My time: 22:56 (an "honest" 3 mile time); the splits were about 7:35, 7:20 (short?) , 8:00 (long). Realistically, 7:35, 7:35, 7:45 were about right. I'd say that this would be the equivalent of a 23:40-23:50 5K.

I don't know my overall place, but I took first in the "old, fat and slow" division (aka: "faculty division").

Given that I've run so little recently (no running since early August until two weeks ago; I've had three 1 mile runs and three 2 milers), this is ok. The Thursday workout of 10 minutes easy, 40 minutes hard, 10 minutes easy on the indoor bike has helped.

Tracy, my running buddy, won the female faculty division with a time of 32:36.

They day was cool, dry and breezy; it was about 40 F at the start. I strarted back and tried to keep things under control as I am not in running shape.

I followed a group and moved up steadily as we went through the neighborhoods. I hit mile 1 in 7:35 and still felt ok.

For a while I followed this woman who wore very highly cropped grey spandex shorts; there was just a tiny bit of butt cheek peeking right below the shorts. Unfortunately she wasn't faster and I moved past her.

I kept going after the people in front of me and mile 2 came 7:20 later; I wonder how accurate that split was.

I more or less just tried to hold on; I had a bit more strength than I thought.

Toward the end a young woman passed me (we were in the circle near Bradley Hall) and she came to an abrupt stop a few meters from the finish line. I made a move but she started up again and held me off; she then puked! Her dad had run a bit with her and then sped up the last mile and had passed me a few minutes earlier.

I cooled down, went back for Tracy and then ran her in.

She seemed to have a bit of a kick as well.

Yes, I "won" an award; this was my first one in a long time. The question is whether or not I can improve on this in another 5-6 weeks.

And yes, I've fun half marathons at a faster pace than this in the past. But given how little I've run lately, I am ok with it.

This and That: first 5K in a while

In a bit less than an hour, I am going to sign up and attempt to run my first 5K in a long, long time. This is going to be ugly; I'll be fortunate to break 25 minutes.

But one has to start somewhere. Later in the day, I'll get a few miles on the indoor bike (maybe an hour?) and then do some partner yoga with Ms. Vickie.

Also, the Navy-Notre Dame football game will be played. Navy doesn't have its starting quarterback and that hurts our (already slim) chances of breaking that losing streak which has lasted since 1963.

What is on my mind:

Athlete runs a 3:04 marathon, with a prosthesis!

A 3:04 marathon is an excellent athletic achievement for anyone; that means running 26.2 miles at about 7:00 minutes per mile (or about 21:45 for each 5K). This sort of time would be a typical women's winning time at a small marathon.

But this lady ran this time while wearing a prosthesis!

Understand that there are many club runners who are considered "fast" who have never ran this sort of time, even with two good legs.

For the record, my lifetime best is 3:33, and my best master's marathon is 3:38, which got me 9X'th place out of 4XX runners.

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/10/emw454439.htm

On a chilly windy day at the Chicago Marathon on Sunday October 22, Amy Palmerio-Winters, of Meadville, PA shattered another marathon record for female amputee runners. Running on two broken toes not completely healed on her non-amputated leg, and spending Thursday and Friday in the hospital due to anaphylactic shock, Ms. Palmerio-Winters finished the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon in a time of 3 hours 4 minutes and 16 seconds placing 34th in her age group and 148th in the entire field of able-bodied female marathoners.

Hicksville, NY (PRWEB) October 24, 2006 -- On a chilly windy day at the Chicago Marathon on Sunday October 22, Amy Palmerio-Winters, of Meadville, PA shattered another marathon record for female amputee runners. Running on two broken toes not completely healed on her non amputated leg, and spending Thursday and Friday in the hospital due to anaphylactic shock, Ms. Palmerio-Winters finished the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon in a time of 3 hours 4 minutes and 16 seconds placing 34th in her age group and 148th in the entire field of able-bodied female marathoners.

Palmerio-Winters previous best marathon time with her new running prosthesis was 3:26 at the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon this past May. Prior to that, the best marathon time for a female amputee was 3:52. What is noteworthy is that the time of 3:04 broke her best marathon time of 3:16 at the Boston Marathon which she achieved prior to her limb loss from a motorcycle accident.

Palmerio-Winters, a 34-year-old welder and mother of two, lost her left leg below the knee following a 1994 motorcycle accident. Three years and twenty-five surgeries later, her left leg was amputated below the knee. Following the amputation, it took three years before Palmerio-Winters could even try to run again.

"I was told in 1994 I wouldn't run again," Palmerio-Winters said. "That lit a spark in me; I got a second chance in life with this special prosthesis.”

After receiving her customized running prosthesis in February of this year from Erik Schaffer C.P., President of A Step Ahead Prosthetics & Orthotics in Long Island, NY, Palmerio-Winters was provided extensive professional coaching and training as a member of Team A Step Ahead. This multidisciplinary approach to her training regimen involves a team of prosthetists, physical therapists, Phil Kreuter and Dave Balsley, who have expertise in training elite athletes with disabilities and support from many accomplished amputee athletes who also are Team A Step Ahead members.

Having qualified for the 2007 Boston Marathon where she set her pre-amputation best time, Ms. Palmerio-Winters plans on breaking the 3 hour mark in the Marathon and hopes to achieve the fastest time for all amputees, male and female.

"I eventually plan to also do the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii," said Palmerio-Winters, who lists being the first female amputee to run a 100-mile ultra marathon as another future goal. Palmerio-Winters is also an accomplished triathelte, where she is highly competitive against able-bodied triathletes. She has won the last two Olympic distance triathlon world championships.

Politics

Obviously this is political ad season, and both the Democrats and the Republicans are going at it. A good way to check out what is going on is to visit Factcheck.org from time to time.

This year, the following appears to be happening:

Democratic ads: they basically go after Republicans on their records and on their association with President Bush.

How they mislead: they do the old: "candidate X voted N times against body armor for our troops". Where this claim is facutally true, it is often misleading; what usually happened is that candidate X indeed voted N times against bills that funded body armor, but these were votes against a Democratic sponsored bill. They also voted N times in favor of a Republican sponsored bill which provided funds for body armor.

Example: http://www.factcheck.org/article438.html

Yes, both sides have done this in a past; witness the old "Kerry voted to raise taxes umpteen times" ads in the 2004 elections.

Some of the attacks are fair, like this one:
http://blueollie.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-now-who-is-flip-flopper.html

Republican ads: these ads often leave off the fact that the candidate that is running is, in fact, a republican. They often tout the fact that their candidate is an "independent person who will..." and so on.

Their attack ads often go after the candidates character, often in grossly misleading ways:

http://www.factcheck.org/article460.html

Summary

Both political parties are functioning in the 2006 House races as factories for attack ads, but the National Republican Campaign Committee's work stands out this year for the sheer volume of assaults on the personal character of Democratic House challengers.

The ads being aired by both the NRCC and its rival, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, are overwhelmingly negative. However, the DCCC ads generally attack Republican candidates on policy issues or their performance in office – accusing them of casting votes favorable to drug or oil companies, or of supporting President Bush's unpopular policies in Iraq or on Social Security. We've recently criticized factual inaccuracies we've seen in some of those, and we'll have more to say in a later article. Here we focus on the NRCC's ads, which are much more likely to demean an opponent's character. That's the very definition of political mudslinging.

The Republican ads variously accuse Democratic candidates of such things as charging an "adult fantasy" phone call to taxpayers, of being a "hypocrite," of being a "greedy trial lawyer," of being a "millionaire know-it-all," or of failing to pay local business taxes on time. One ad describes a Democrat's "ethical judgments" as "bad to bizarre" and claims he favored use of 50,000-volt Taser weapons on seven-year-olds.

A derogatory ad can be accurate, and when supported by facts can give voters information about a candidate that they may well find relevant. For example, one NRCC ad correctly states that a Democratic candidate wrote a letter asking a judge to go easy when sentencing a felon convicted of bank fraud in a scandal that bilked hundreds of homeowners. However, several of the NRCC's ads are smears that twist facts or ignore them. A sheriff running for the House is accused of having "fixed" a speeding ticket for his daughter, for example, when in fact the ticket was paid and the daughter got no special treatment. We found repeated examples of this sort of thing, and we detail them here.

I've listed a couple of these on my blog, including the horrible attack ad aimed at Harold Ford in the Tennessee Senate race, as well as Ford's response. here is factcheck.org's take on them:

New York Democrat Michael Acuri has learned that in spades. One of the NRCC's spots attacking him accuses him of billing taxpayers for a call to a "fantasy hotline." In fact, the evidence shows someone using the phone in Arcuri's hotel room misdialed and hung up in seconds, and the total charge to taxpayers was $1.25.

The ad is laden with sexual innuendo. A woman's voice says "Hi sexy, you've reached the live one on one fantasy line." Arcuri is pictured appearing to leer as the silhouette of a woman undulates suggestively in the background.

"The phone number to an adult fantasy hotline appeared on Michael Arcuri's New York City hotel room bill while he was there on official business," the announcer says. "Who calls a fantasy hotline and then bills taxpayers? Michael Arcuri."

The facts of this case paint a much different picture. The phone records indeed show a call to the number of an adult fantasy talk service at 3:26 p.m. on Jan. 28, 2004, but the very next minute – 3:27 p.m. – the records show another number was dialed. The second number was identical except for the three-digit area code, and was the number of the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services. It was Sean Byrne, executive director of the New York Prosecutors Training Institute, who made both calls, according to Arcuri and Byrne. Both were attending a meeting of the New York State District Attorneys Association. The hotel's charge for the misdialed "fantasy" line call was $1.25.

Unindicted rapist

Another NRCC-produced ad hammers Arcuri with a claim that an accused rapist was freed after Arcuri's office "failed to indict him in time." Why? According to the local newspaper, the scheduled indictment hearing couldn't go forward because the 13-year-old victim didn't appear and a key witness had been admitted to a psychiatric facility. The ad doesn't mention that the accused man was indicted several days later. His freedom lasted eight days. Eventually he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge (Arcuri's case was weakened because the young victim was reluctant to cooperate) and was sentenced to 18 months to 3 years behind bars. The same ad says the "percentage of felony convictions" in Oneida County, where Arcuri is district attorney, "has fallen dramatically since 1998." That's false, according to our calculations from statistics available from New York State's Division of Criminal Justice Services. In 1998, 88.1 percent of felonies prosecuted in the county resulted in convictions. In 2005, it was 90.3. That's an increase of 2.2 percentage points, not a decrease, much less a dramatic one.

Name-calling

The NRCC ads show a tendency to turn policy differences into name-calling attacks on personal character. An NRCC ad in Arizona called Democratic candidate Gabrielle Giffords “a hypocrite on taxes.” The ad misrepresents her actual position on federal taxes, however. It says she falsely claims to favor tax cuts, when in fact she supports repealing some of the tax cuts Republicans gave to corporations and wealthy individuals. She does favor extending “middle class” tax breaks such as a deduction for college tuition.

In Iowa, another name-calling ad characterizes Democratic candidate Bruce Braley as a "greedy trial lawyer ." The ad complains that he "supported the suit for a woman spilling hot coffee on her lap." But the famous lawsuit against McDonald's was actually more substantial than late-night comics made it out to be. Stella Leibeck, the 79-year-old plaintiff, suffered third-degree burns over 6 per cent of her body, spent eight days in the hospital and required skin grafts, and McDonald's served its coffee at a scalding 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit, much hotter than coffee served at home.

Still more name-calling NRCC ads refer to Wisconsin Democrat Steve Kagen as "Dr. Millionaire," and one even calls him "Dr. Millionaire Know-It-All ." Kagen is certainly a prosperous physician. But if being a millionaire disqualifies somebody from serving in the House of Representatives a slew of members will have to resign – 136, to be precise, or almost one-third, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Eighty-seven of them are Republicans, versus 49 Democrats. The "know-it-all" line refers to Kagen's desire to scrap President Bush's Medicare prescription drug benefit for one of his own design.

Julie Larson visits Peoria (Dinette Set Creator)

Last night, I went to hear Julie Larson talk. She is the creator of the cartoon The Dinette Set, which is one of my favorite strips.


Click to see a larger image; go to the Dinette Set Link to see many more samples.



http://www.pjstar.com/stories/102706/TRI_BBBUL6EA.050.shtml

By CLARE JELLICK

OF THE JOURNAL STAR
PEORIA -

Larson paid a visit to her local fans (about 150) Thursday at the Downtown Peoria Public Library. Her comic strip, which satirizes the life of middle-class Midwesterners, runs in about 70 newspapers, including the Journal Star. The Lincoln native has been poking fun at this segment of society for more than 15 years.

"My characters are the center of the universe. They don't pay attention to the actual world around them, only the small world they live in," Larson said before the event.

[...]

Larson finds her inspiration by observing behavior at restaurants and stores, but the mother lode of comic fodder is always Wal-Mart.

"Wal-Mart is just filled with a lot of uniqueness," she said.

She recounted a real-life conversation she overheard there that she incorporated into a comic. In the comic, Burl and Joy interrupt an employee who's getting something off a shelf because they want a price check on an item.

"(The employee) goes 'Well, I just have to get this one thing' and Burl says, 'Well, we've only got one thing.' That's a verbatim conversation. They expect so much," Larson said.

The comic strip was inspired by her introduction to suburban life when she and her family moved from inner-city Chicago to the suburbs in 1989. Larson was "bowled over" by the dull, repetitive, stagnant lifestyle that existed there and was intrigued by people's contentment in belonging to the masses.

"You live in a suburb and you feel as though you're anonymous," Larson said.

Regular reader Jim Grebe says Larson's portrayal of society "hits the nail on the head."

"I see a lot of myself and other people in it. It's just laughing at yourself and society. She's got great insight and expresses it well," he said.

Larson said she's trying to convince studio executives to turn the comic strip into a TV show.[...]

The next entry has nothing to do with the Dinette Set. It is a photo from a female Sumo match.

Olivia with her Bass Violin

They say that musical talent skips generations; hence it is Olivia's turn. This was at her concert last evening.



Keep in mind it is an elementary school/junior high school band!
But hey, she is my daughter and so I love it!

Thanks to my sister who sent this to me; by the way she made the junior Austin City Orchestra when she was young; she played the cello.

Bush: Now WHO is a flip-flopper?

Response to Republicans!

In my previous post, I showed a nasty Coker attack ad aimed at the Democratic challenger Ford.

Ford responds:



Awesome!

Ok, just who supports the troops? Well, a non-partisan veterans group, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, rated the Senators on how they voted on their issues.

Click to make this a bit more readable. Bottom line: Democrats at the top, Republicans at the bottom. Surprised?

How about this ad by Michael J. Fox for the Missouri Senate race?


Of course the vile Rush Limbaugh suggested that he went off of his medication to do this ad, or was acting.

Slimeballs.

Here is James Webb's brilliant ad for his race with George "Macaca" Allen.




Now Bob Geiger has some good stuff on his blog; here he reports on how one Democratic candidate isn't going to let himself be swiftboated:

Joe Sestak is a highly-decorated, former 3-Star Admiral, running for Congress in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional district. Republican Curt Weldon's pathetic campaign against Democrat Sestak has gone into the usual bag of GOP Swiftboating tricks and here's a television ad that typifies Sestak's response.

So, what is going to happen? Who knows; the Democrats seem to be ahead in the key polls, but one wingnut site correctly points out that there are better indicators than the polls: the amount of money that is on hand, and there, things look good for the Republicans. They site a Baron's magazine study:

Barron's: GOP Holds on to Congress

According to Barron's, the GOP is expected to hold onto both houses of Congress come November 7. From the Drudge Report:

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers, BARRON's claims in their next edition. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years -- and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don't see it.

Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three. [...]

Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years. Look at House races back to 1972 and you'll find the candidate with the most money has won about 93% of the time. And that's closer to 98% in more recent years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Polls can be far less reliable. Remember, they all but declared John Kerry president on Election Day 2004.

Give the devil its due: they have a point. But the key difference is the Bush approval rating; it was much higher at 2002 and even in 2004.

Take a look at the Harris Interactive Poll, for instance, Bush's approval ratings:

October 2004: 51% (and that is what he got in the election!)
October 2002: 64%
Recently, the Harris Poll shows Bush at under 50% on each of 11 of the biggest issues that are facing voters. A survey of Bush job approval polls that ended in October, 2006 show him between 33-41%, with 36-39% being the most common rating.
Hence the Republican candidates have something to surmount that they didn't have before. We shall see.

I think that David Corn of The Nation said it best:

The bottom-line: out of five key indicators of the national politicalmood, four are significantly worse for the Republicans in 2006 compared to the Democrats in 1994. As Cook put it, the 2006 political wave (at this moment) is bigger than that of 1994. But that does not mean the Dems are going to win as many seats as the GOPers did twelve years ago. Gephardt cautioned that congressional districts are far more gerrymandered these days than they were in 1994 (which means fewer are in play) and that Republicans have had a year to prepare for this election and build a wall to hold back the coming storm. In 1994, he said, the Democrats were taken by complete surprise. And Dunn--perhaps trying to convince herself--maintained that her party had plenty of money to dump into the limited number of House contests up for grab and would be able to prevent the Democrats from picking up more than a dozen House seats. The Democrats need 15 seats to obtain control of the House.

Still, Cook, who attributes 70 percent of the electorate's sour mood to Bush's war in Iraq, was predicting a Democratic gain in the House of at least 20 seats and perhaps 35. As for the Senate, Cook described it as a toss-up, with control of that body resting on what will happen in Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, and New Jersey. The Democrats, according to Cook, probably will need three of these four races to win the Senate. He warned that there is a fair bit of "volatility" within the electorate and that it is nearly impossible to predict what will happen by adding up outcomes in individual House races. In 1994, he recalled, he and other trackers foresaw a GOP gain of 20 to 30 House seats--but nothing like what happened. "When there is a wave," Cook said, "they always go bigger than you expect."

Democrats, who have not done much to shape the current political dynamic, can hope so. For nail-biters, the immediate questions are obvious. Can Bush and Karl Rove do anything in the last two weeks of the campaign to change the weather? There's not much time left for an October Surprise. Can they pull off a November Surprise? If not and the forecast doesn't shift, can the Republicans construct fortifications to beat back the wave in just enough spots to keep their majority afloat in Congress? Cook thinks not. I'm not going to be as gutsy and make any predictions except this: Rove is either about to meet his Waterloo or to confirm his reputation as an odds-defying political genius.

I too have a hard time making predictions; many of the big name races will be close. I say that the Democrats make big gains, but don't take control of either chamber. I sure hope that I am wrong.

Peoria Pundit: Fun stuff...and IL-18

First, I'll point to some fun stuff at the Peoria Pundit. Then, I'll post one of my Daily Kos diaries.

The Peoria Pundit is a fun, information packed blog about the going's on in the Peoria area. The author is a former reporter and a libertarian; needless to say I often don't agree with his political views. But sometimes I do. For example, both of us back Bill Spears in the IL-92'nd house race.

His blog is a good place to keep track of some of the local races, especially the 92'nd House race. He also puts out some of Rich Whitney's stuff (he is the Green Party candidate for governor).

And he often posts some "fun" stuff.

Here are a couple of examples:

One is the Libertarian candidate for the Alabama governor's race. Her name is Loretta Nall and platform is the legalization of marijuana. One of the things that she is known for his her unusual fundraising tatitcs; if you giver her campaign money, you can see the dollar bills being stuffed into her bra. Go to the link and view the comments to see what I am talking about.

Photo:


Next, go to Bill's site to see the following:

A funny attack ad (Tennessee United States Senate Race)

Update: I am embarrased to say this, but I plain missed the point. Note that the candidate (Ford) is black and all of the women are white. That isn't by accident; that is by design. But because I am not a white southerner, I missed that completely. I am sure that those in Tennessee did not.

By the way, this ad could well be illegal to begin with:

And what the GOP is doing is not only slimey, it's illegal. As Bob Corker admitted on CNN, it's illegal for his campaign to coordinate with the RNC. Yet the RNC spokesperson who has publicly refused to pull the ad, Camille Anderson, travels with Corker around the state every day. It's obvious that there is coordination going on.

Why haven't you heard about this story before? Why hasn't there been a segment on Olbermann? Or Hardball? Why haven't the Republicans been asked whether they denounce this ad on Meet the Press? Why isn't Bob Corker being asked about his coordination with Camille Anderson?

Because the Republicans are slipping this under the radar. The MSM hates to report on racism in campaigns, and they're giving the GOP (and Corker) a free pass.

We can't let them do that. It's time to get our asses in gear. Control of the Senate is at stake. And something greater is at stake too ... the ability of African-Americans to be elected to the highest offices in our land. With tactics like this, it's no wonder only 1 out of 100 U.S. Senators is African-American.

Let's get the word out. No excuses. At the very least, if you do nothing else, send an email to Olbermann and start blogging this story. It deserves attention, has legs, and is too important to ignore.

UPDATE:

The latest from RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, on this ad: "I don't have the authority to take it down or put it up. It's called an independent expenditure." (from Hotline On Call)

He is the fucking CHAIR of the RNC and he doesn't have authority to pull an RNC ad? We need to hold his feet to the fire.

And if that wasn't enough, here's more from Mehlman:

"I think it's a fair ad. ... I just think those criticisms of it are wrong" (RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, "Decision 2006," MSNBC, 10/24).

I think a lot of people can see this ad is wrong. We need to make sure they see it.

SECOND UPDATE:

Think Progress has video of former Republican senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen on CNN calling the ad racist. This is just the beginning ... this story has legs. If Cohen can see that this ad is racist, why can't Ken Mehlman? And Bob Corker has never answered the question -- are the ads being run by his party on his behalf racist?

THIRD UPDATE:

In a great article in today's L.A. Times, the RNC claims that the ad was produced by an "independent arm" of the party and that Mehlman and the rest of the RNC hasn't seen or approved of the ad! What a crock of shit. We can't let them get away with that.

In the article, RNC spokesman Danny Diaz says that he "won't even entertain the premise" that the ad is racist. That notion is "not fair and not serious and not accurate." But even though the ad supposedly isn't racist and states that it was approved by the RNC, Danny claims that it's not really an RNC ad: "Diaz said the ad was an 'independent expenditure' produced by an arm of the Republican National Committee that is legally prohibited from coordinating with Mehlman. Because of this, Diaz said, Mehlman did not see or approve the ad before its release." In other words, not only is Bob Corker not responsible for this ad, but neither is the RNC or Ken Mehlman. Then who IS responsible? We need to force the GOP to answer that question.

By the way, the Peoria Pundit has spoken against the sexual parts of that ads.

A funny third party ad (Green Libertarian Nazi Hemp Party)


Now, for one of my diaries (Daily Kos) which is, in part, inspired by what I read in the Peoria Pundit.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/24/91159/133

IL-18: Waterworth works hard; LaHood shames his district

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 06:11:59 AM PDT

This week, the local paper (Peoria Journal Star) ran a feature on Steve Waterworth http://www.waterworthforcongress.com/ and talke about the uphill fight he has for the congressional seat in the Illinois 18'th district.

On the other hand, Ray LaHood continues to make an ass of himself on a national level, this time punishing a innocent Democratic staffer to gain political retaliation against his boss.

Hat tip to the Peoria Pundit, a local blogger (and libertarian) who brought attention to this story.
http://www.peoriapundit.com/...

more below the fold...

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

First, the feature on Steve Waterworth:
http://www.pjstar.com/...

BY ELIOT BROWN

oF THE JOURNAL STAR
PEORIA - Steve Waterworth's campaign is no political machine - that much is certain.

The Havana resident's house and campaign headquarters are one and the same; he writes his own brochures, simple fliers complete with minor typos; and his campaign committee, Friends for Steve Waterworth, has but one staffer: Steve Waterworth.

And this is the campaign organization of a man running for U.S. Congress.

With less than $5,000 in the bank, Waterworth is running on the Democratic ticket against six-term incumbent Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, in an area that hasn't seen a Democratic congressman preside since 1917.

The 59-year-old Air Force veteran is in for a tough struggle, to say the least. LaHood has more name recognition, more money (he's raised more than $1 million), a staff, a list of federal projects he's helped bring to the area and experience running against Waterworth (LaHood defeated him with about 70 percent of the vote in 2004).

I should point out that Waterworth managed 36 percent of the vote in the City of Peoria (Kerry got 52%)), but LaHood's district includes large swaths of rural area that is pro-Republican and includes parts of Springfield. Bush got in the high 50's (can't remember if it was 57 or 59%) of the vote in LaHood's district.

Waterworth, an energetic, retired master sergeant with the Illinois Air National Guard, is hardly tapped into the Democratic cash stores of the 18th Congressional District. He gets donations from occasional mailings and county Democratic parties, but lacks both the startup money to hold expensive fundraisers and the desire to go around with his hand out.

"The money goes to the people where there's an open seat," Waterworth said. "The rest of us are left with not very much."

And while Waterworth can speak out against the war in Iraq and for stem cell research in a similar manner, the national party committees are generally reserving their tens of millions of dollars for competitive races, which make up about 40 to 60 of the 435 House seats.

Waterworth said he was bothered by the two times LaHood has gone unopposed since he first won in 1994, adding to the reasons he is running.
[...]

As for Waterworth, win or lose, he says he'll be back in 2008.

Now for LaHood: I noted in an earlier diary that he was involved in a political retaliation scheme.
http://www.dailykos.com/...

Now he is catching national heat for it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

REP. JANE HARMAN (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, took a step last week that she knew would be thermonuclear: Without the assent of the panel's chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), and in contravention of a previous understanding, she released an unclassified summary of a report about former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.). Later that day, in barely disguised retaliation, Mr. Hoekstra suspended a Democratic committee staff member's access to classified documents, ostensibly based on the flimsiest of suspicions that the aide had been involved in the leak of a separate, classified document.

Ms. Harman's unilateral strike violated the bipartisan basis on which the intelligence committees are meant, at least in theory, to operate. But that cannot justify Mr. Hoekstra's malicious and misdirected response, which tarnished a staff member's reputation and was not supported by any evidence. The issue involves the leak of the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism. [...]

Mr. Hoekstra's real motive -- striking back at Ms. Harman -- was made clear later in the letter, when he linked the two releases of information. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), the committee vice chairman who had lodged a complaint about Mr. Hanauer weeks before, said he made his letter public to retaliate against Ms. Harman. "If the ranking member wants to play politics," he told Fox News, "there are some of us on the other side that can play politics, and I'm not afraid to do it."

So you see how arrogant a virtually unopposed incumbent can be. We have to take him down a couple of notches.

IL-92: what I did to help us win!

Personal note: 23 mile ride on an out and back course; it was so windy that the ride out took 1:00! The back took 53 minutes, which is more reasonable.

Later, I walked for about 3 hours on a political campaign; my butt spasmed a bit, but the spasms eventually subsided.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/22/212447/93

IL-18 (U. S. House), IL-92 (State House): What I did to win today

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 06:24:47 PM PDT

Today was chilly, windy and blustery; the election is just a few weeks away!

This diary will discuss exactly what I did. Ok, what I did was not that exciting, but hopefully it was effective. And I have a couple of things to say about one Republican Representative, Ray LaHood.

I have an earlier diary about this race:
http://www.dailykos.com/...

More below the fold.

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

I had called the office of Bill Spears, our candidate who is attempting to unseat Freshman incumbent Aaron Schock. Our district has been historically Democratic, but our last Democratic incumbent got a bit cocky and ended up losing to a slick, well funded candidate by a very narrow margin:

http://www.elections.state.il.us/...
SCHOCK (Republican) 19719, Slone (Democratic) 19484

So I wanted to get to work! Today, I went to our local county Democrat office to get a couple of walk sheets and to go door to door. I also picked up three yard signs to add to the two we already have: one is for

for an Appellate Judge candidate, Vickie Wright http://www.judgevickiwright.com/

one is for our

Attorney General Lisa Madigan,
http://www.lisamadigan.org/ ,

and one is for our U. S. House candidate,
Steve Waterworth
http://www.waterworthforcongress.com/.

But back to the race that I am working. I am working for
Bill Spears, a current city councilman
http://www.peoriademocrats.org/...

In this race, the contrast is clear. We have the incumbent who is mostly funded by big money interest groups and who is running an outside consultant driven campaign. And then there is Bill Spears, the person who is running at the grass roots level.

Our utility company, which is currently wildly profitable, wants a 55% rate hike when the current rate freeze is over. I wonder who is more likely to come to bat for us: the fat cat financed Republican incumbent, or the Democratic challenger?

Anyway, today I spent about 3.5 hours going door to door and leaving flyers. It saves on postage, and I did get a chance to talk briefly to a few folks. Since I have done this a few times, I've learned to recognize the good spots to leave the flyers (leaving them in the mail box is illegal).

IL-18 Race:

Mr. Ray LaHood, the Republican incumbent, has made the news again. I've diaried as to how he has made a fool of himself time and time again in the recent past in his attempts to shield Dennis Hastert from criticism:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Now, he has attracted attention to himself for making public a letter in which he sought to have the security clearance of Democratic staff members revoked in retaliation for unfavorable "leaks" on an unclassified document about the disgraced Republican Duke Cunningham:

http://peoriapundit.com/...

My apologies. I thought the Journal Star would pretty much ignore the story of how U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood's unleashed an investigation on a congressional staffer in retaliation for the suspected release of an unclassified report on a dirty Republican congressman. But the JS did run an article on this breaking national news story that involves a local congressman. They ran it on the bottom right hand corner of page B-1.

http://pjstar.com/...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Ray LaHood's call for an investigation into the leaking of a secret intelligence report has led to the suspension of a Democratic staff member and sparked the latest partisan squabble to divide the normally cooperative panel.

LaHood was asked about this on Fox News; he responded
source: http://peoriapundit.com/...

Today on Fox News, LaHood said, "I'll tell you why I did it. The reason I did it was because Jane Harman released the Duke Cunningham -- who sat on our Intelligence committee -- report." That report, which detailed the misconduct of Cunningham, who is now serving a jail term, was not classified.

A Fox anchor asked, "So, it's payback?" LaHood responded, "There are some of us on the other side who can equally play politics, and I'm not afraid to do it."

What a jerk! Mind you, this jackass is the one who tries to play the "straight and narrow" card.

Tags: IL-92 State House, IL-18, winning elections, campaign work, Ray LaHood, Steve Waterworth (all tags)

Full Saturday

Personal: Athletics

I've reintroduced running into my program; over the past three days I've run one mile on the treadmill each day. Today, that one mile run followed a 40-41 mile bike ride that took me through parts of Pottstown, Edwards, Kramm and Hanna City.

I have new bicycle shoes and had to adjust my toe cages to accept these.

One thing: my mile runs have been 10 minutes, 9:30 and now 9:11, and they have gotten easier each time. But I note that doing 100% walking training gave me better preperation to run than cycling did.

Conclusion: if you can't run but want to keep your running fitness up, walking fast (if you can do that) works better than using the bicycle.

Of course, it might be a differnt story if one is running and wants to add another activity; I am talking about cross training for running when one cannot run at all.

I've also made some progress in my quest to get more comfortable in the Warrior III pose in yoga; a friend watched me try it and noticed that my hips were not parallel to the ground; I was attempting a "long" version.


He suggested that I switch to a more compact, "hips aligned with the ground" version, like this:

I seem steadier that way.

On another yoga note, I note with eager anticipation that the cartoon strip Get Fuzzy is about to do a rerun on an episode where Satchel takes yoga (click to see a larger version):

Football: NCAA

On my football picks, I went 12 for 20 against the spread this Saturday in Yahoo's Pick'em game (assuming that LSU doesn't recover to blow out Fresno State; if they do I'll be 13 for 20). That puts me at 80 of 142 against the point spread for the year, and 92 of 154 among the picks (which included 12 "off of the betting line; i. e., no point spread games). I don't count these as it isn't that hard to, say, pick Texas to beat Sam Houston State.

Now the games themselves were incredible. I watched most of the Texas-Nebraska game and thought that UT was doomed when UT was down to zero timeouts and Nebraska completed a pass for what looked like to be a first down with 2:17 to go; Nebraska was up 20-19.

But Nebraska fumbled the ball and UT got it back just ouside of the Nebraska 40 yard line, and drove it to win 22-20 with a field goal with a bit over 30 seconds to go.



Then I watched the Notre Dame-UCLA game (I have a TV which can give a split screen) and watched Notre Dame drive the ball 80 yards with 1 minute left and no time outs to win 20-17.

In both of these games, I picked the losing team to cover the spread, which indeed they did.
Analysis: Texas had some lucky bounces with fumbles, but also shot themselves in the foot with a blocked extra point, field goal and a missed field goal. Texas is a solid top 10 team, whereas Nebraska deserves their top 20 rating.

On the other hand, the Notre Dame-UCLA game was a hard fought game between teams of more or less equal ability; both belong in the second ten somewhere. Notre Dame's liabilites are its offensive line play (they allowed a 3 man UCLA rush to sack their quarterback) and lack of speed in the defensive backfield.

Notre Dame's strenghts are its sure handed recievers and it's front 6-7 on defense, as well as its punting game.

I am sorry that I missed Michigan State coming back from 38-3 down to win 41-38 against Northwestern; perhaps this will stop their skid. Truth be told, I can't fault MSU for losing to Ohio State and Notre Dame, but losing to Illinois?

Politics

Senate Debates

I watched the Clinton-Spencer debate (for the New York representative in the United States Senate) and if this were a boxing match, it would have been called off one third of the way through. Spencer came across as being way over his head; Hillary Clinton handled him easily.

The replay of the Chaffee-Whitehouse debate in Rhode Island was good too; Whitehouse won but I got the sense that there were two good candidates up on the stage.

John Kerry

John Kerry appears to have learned lessons from his losing 2004 Presidential campaign. He now speaks and writes more clearly and appears to stay "on message."

Consider this report from beachmom at the Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/18/163939/66

John Kerry is touting this great group The Patriot Project, who is researching the front groups that attack veterans (mostly Democrats) running for Congress. He sent an e-mail out yesterday, and then put this post up at The Huffington Post. It starts off innocently enough:

Anyone who comes to Huffington Post has seen that the bloggers here have been the first to stand up and defend veterans from Admiral Sestak to Tammy Duckworth when they've been slandered. It should be a source of pride and testimony to how the blogosphere can get the truth out and deny lies a sliver of daylight.

That's nice of him to say about the liberal blogosphere, but fairly standard stuff. He goes on to talk about The Patriot Project and the kind of work they've been doing to defend veterans "whose patriotism is questioned simply because they exercise their rights as Americans." And then the fireworks start:

"That's pretty damn fundamental in itself to who we are. But there's a human face behind it. The fight is intensely personal to me. Veterans are running for office all over our country. A lot of them got interested in politics as part of my campaign, and some got involved in Wes Clark's race. Some of us had disagreements for thirty five years -- like me and Jim Webb, we didn't see eye to eye over the war we fought in. But no matter where we came from, something much bigger now brings us together -- we're all a band of brothers now. When I got off the phone with Patrick Murphy after the chickenshit attacks on his military record, something felt awfully familiar and it got me pissed off. I care about these men and women. They've got guts and they've got brains and they've got heart and I'm telling you they will change the character of this pathetic Congress, and I'm boiling mad watching people who didn't serve attack those who did because they can't win a debate on the merits."

Perhaps, Senator, you could say that with a little more feeling, being that you're all aloof* and all.

* MSM owns that word.

He brings it home for why The Patriot Project is so important for this election:

"It's up to all of us to say enough is enough. Stop the swift-boating. Stop the push-polling. Stop the front groups that are created with single $5,000,000 donations from Texas tycoons."

I just loved it! Of course, I know that many of you are going to say, why didn't he do that in 2004? Why didn't he fight the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth the way he's fighting for the likes of Patrick Murphy, John Murtha, and Jim Webb? I would come up with a list of responses to those questions, but it looks like the good Senator anticipated your questions, and has pre-emptively answered them:

"Nitpick the campaign I ran all you want, question the tactics, I can take it -- but above all the small criticisms, I know that I lost to two lies backed up by big money: a lie about Iraq and a lie about my military record. Pundits can feast on the little details, I'm busy this year making sure that no veteran loses to a lie in 2006."

Wow. Keep it up!

Make no mistake about it; the current Republican political leadership is infested by scumbags. Here are a couple of examples of their latest dirty tricks:



Sounds bad, doesn't it? But read the whole story:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/21/214311/23

NY-24: Another false libelous ad NRCC refuses to pull

by kos

Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 06:43:11 PM PDT

Republicans are truly bad, bad people.

Democrat Michael Arcuri is vying with Republican, Ray Meier, to replace longtime GOP Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, who is retiring. The race is very close and may help decide if the Democrats take the House.

The national GOP campaign office started airing an ad Friday that showed Arcuri leering at the silhouette of a dancing woman who says, ''Hi, sexy. You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line.'' He supposedly dialed the service two years ago from a New York City hotel room and billed taxpayers - for all of $1.25 for a one-minute call. He is the district attorney in Oneida County.

Now the Utica Observer-Dispatch today notes that Arcuri's campaign has released records to the paper showing the call to the 800 sex line was followed the very next minute by a call to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services - and the last seven digits of the two numbers are the same.

Arcuri now says the ad was ''clearly libelous'' and threatens to file a lawsuit. At least seven television stations in Syracuse, Utica and Binghamton refused to run the ad.

The ad's sponsor, the National Republican Congressional Committee, stands by the 30-second message.

Slimebags.

----------------------

Of course, our local hack, Ray LaHood, isn't above being a slimeball when it suits him.

The Peoria Pundit Reports:

http://peoriapundit.com/blogpeoria/2006/10/20/ray-lahood-admits-to-playing-dirty-at-capitol-staffers-expense/#more-6721

Ray LaHood admits to playing dirty at Capitol staffer’s expense

The Peoria area media really don’t do a great job of reporting on the politicians’ activities once we send them to Washington or Springfield. That’s my most Peorians won’t learn about this news development unless thay happen to have been watching FOXNews at the exact time they had U.S. Rep. RayLaHood (R-18th) on the phone. Basically, LaHood admitted he had a Congressional staffer suspended and and subjected to a possible criminal investigation more out of spite and political payback than because there’s any real evidence the staffer leaked a classified National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times.

Of course, the Journal Star really did run an article about this the day after the above post appeared, and the Peoria Pundit acknowledged as such.

http://pjstar.com/stories/102106/REG_BBA47UMR.060.shtml

By Paul M. Krawzak and Marcus Stern

of Copley News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Ray LaHood's call for an investigation into the leaking of a secret intelligence report has led to the suspension of a Democratic staff member and sparked the latest partisan squabble to divide the normally cooperative panel.

Top Republicans and Democrats hurled charges back and forth on Friday, accusing each other of jockeying for political advantage and abusing their authority with less than three weeks to go before the Nov. 7 election.

The brouhaha arose from a letter the Peoria Republican, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, made public this week. In it, he asked for an investigation into what he said was a "politically motivated" leak of portions of a secret National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to the New York Times.

The Times published a story on the report Sept. 23, touching off a partisan firestorm. The April 2006 report, later partially released by President Bush, said the war in Iraq had the unintended consequence of helping terrorist groups recruit fighters. It also said a victory over terrorists would discourage their recruitment efforts.

"I stand by what I said in my letter," LaHood said Friday. "People are fed up with these leaks and we need to find out if somebody on the committee, from the committee staff or someone else leaked this information to the New York Times."

LaHood wrote that while he did not have "credible information" that intelligence was leaked from the committee, "the implications of such would be dramatic."

"This may, in fact, be only coincidence, and simply 'look bad,"' he wrote. "But coincidence, in this town, is rare."

Hoekstra defended his action in a letter to Harman, saying that while it was uncertain that wrongdoing had occurred, it was "necessary to act swiftly" on a potential unauthorized disclosure.

LaHood said leaks have increased during the eight years he has served on the committee, compromising the nation's security.

"When information is leaked it hurts the ability of the - CIA and other intelligence-gathering agencies of our government to have credibility with sources," he said.

Earlier this week, LaHood asked for permission to make his Sept. 29 letter public when he became angry after Harman released an unclassified summary of the panel's inquiry into the corruption scandal of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.
[...]

Other articles of interest:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/1988

I Got Your God, Right Here

by Ben Tripp | Oct 19 2006 - 9:26am | permalink
article tools: email | print | read more Ben Tripp | add new comment

I am an atheist.

As occasionally happens, someone has noticed that some people 1) don't believe in god, and 2) some people buy books on the subject. This is, in the current hysterical climate of ultra-religious fervor that has swept the nation, newsworthy.

This article proposes to have a quick, inoffensive glance at a little ripple of atheism that seems to have stirred the surface of America's great lake of faith. I promise you, if atheists weren't so terrified of getting killed by zealots, that ripple would stand about fifteen feet high and would sweep the lakeshore clear into town, swamping half of Main Street.

There are two kinds of non-believers: agnostics, who state that nobody can know if there is a god or not; and atheists, who say there is bloody little likelihood of any god or gods. Except that people hedge their bets, because you never know, god might really be the nasty old prick from the Bible, the ranks of agnostics would probably swell to outnumber people of any faith. But nobody gives the mattter much thought. Why not? Because it doesn't matter. Sure, I believe in god, why not? Nothing has changed. If by some tiny chance there is a god floating around somewhere, he'll be mollified to hear I tipped my hat to him; if not, no harm done.

But it does matter. Think about it. Think long and hard about whether you believe in god, or if in fact you're just afraid of the possibility of god. Because the stakes are getting frighteningly high. It's time to think it over and speak your position, because the religious loonies are speaking for you, and what they're saying is extremely weird. I'm tridecaphobic, for example. The number 13. Why? Not because I really fear the number thirteen, but because over the years I've marveled at people being afraid of the number thirteen, until finally it's entered my mind as a kind of sick superstitious fascination. No 13th floor on a hotel? No seat 13, row 13 on an airplane?

But now it makes me nervous, even though I don't actually have any idea why 13 would be a worse number than, say, 534 or .8-- and what about 13.13? or 1313? Still, if somebody were to ask me, 'are you afraid of the number 13', I would say, 'no, that is superstitious rubbish'. Because the rational part of my mind is running things, not the part that thinks about magic. So do I believe in a creator of all things that set up the universe, listens to prayers, and doles out eternal punishment? No, I do not. I mean, come on, it doesn't take a great deal of analysis to realize the whole premise is silly. It reeks of very human-generated propaganda. [...]

Along the same lines, here is an interview with Richard Dawkins. I loved his book, "The Selfish Gene" Hat tip to my sister, Rosematuse, who sent me this video:

University of Miami Football Brawl: What it has to tell us about Politics

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/18/184151/24

Case study in Wingnut reaction: the U. of Miami Football Brawling incident

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Wed Oct 18, 2006 at 03:41:51 PM PDT

In case you aren't a college football fan, last weekend there was a nasty brawl (that is, violence outside of the established rules of the game) at the University of Miami vs. Florida International game.

You can see a clip of the incident here:
http://sports.yahoo.com/...

Of course, a bunch of unruly young men in pads getting into a brawl isn't a big issue of national importance; no one got killed, no countries got invaded, no one was denied health care, etc. But I did find something of interest to diary about...

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

Disclaimer: I am NOT justifying the fight, arguing that the sanctions meted out by the universities were too harsh, too easy or whatever. I am going to comment on the reactions of many to this incident.

First some background: Miami's football program has a less than stellar reputation among football fans in terms of player behavior.

The ironic thing is that, in terms of things that are actually measurable in an objective manner, the program actually ranks above average in many measures:

http://sports.yahoo.com/...

You might not believe this -- you might not want to believe this -- but over the past decade, Miami has had fewer player arrests or NCAA-related incidents than almost any other major program in the country. Miami has not had 20-plus incidents involving shoplifting, assault, gun charges and failed drug tests over the past two years, as Tennessee has. Miami has not had to dismiss a star player for earning money through a phony job, as Oklahoma has. Miami has not had a star linebacker accused of sexual assault on the eve of its bowl game as Florida State did last year. And Miami's most recent Academic Progress Rate (956) placed it in the top 20 to 30 percent of all Division I football programs.

Where did this reputation come from? Stewart Mandel has a hypothesis:

To the Miami lynch mob, however, none of this seems nearly as relevant as, say, its tawdry sportsmanship in a Cotton Bowl played 15 years ago, or the fact that the 'Canes showed up to a Fiesta Bowl two decades ago wearing army fatigues, or an NCAA Pell grant scandal that occurred more than a decade ago. As one major newspaper put it this week: "Miami has been a dysfunctional program for over two decades with only slight detours into decorum. All the talk of a cleaned-up program, of a sharper image, is just hot air. The brawl illustrates that."

What I've learned more than anything this week is that there is a deep, deep cultural divide between Miami and mainstream college football. Miami's program is not like everybody else's. Whereas schools like Alabama and Michigan pride themselves on traditions built over 100 or more years, Miami's "tradition" sprouted up virtually overnight. When I go to a game at a Florida or an Auburn, I see gray-haired boosters in sweaters and women in sundresses tailgating on a picturesque patch of campus. When I go to a Miami game, I see guys in jerseys and girls in tank tops tailgating on a muddy grass field next to a decrepit stadium in one of the worst neighborhoods in Miami. Is it any wonder the former is so adamantly unaccepting of the latter?

The fact is, a large part of "The U's" identity derives from its "street" roots under Howard Schnellenberger, who built a powerhouse by not only recruiting the kind of athletes who grew up with little to no discipline but also, along with successors Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson, encouraged their brash, often over-the-top showmanship that marked so many of Miami's great teams in the '80s and early '90s. While the type of individuals Miami recruits has changed, that freewheeling style has remained, annoying and offending college football's more buttoned-down establishment. For the most part, however, it's been fairly harmless stuff -- touchdown dances, taunting, stomping on the Louisville logo, etc.

So, when these facts are known, the "lynch mob" will come around, right? Well, wrong.

This "issue" was brought up at a local web site (in Peoria, IL,)

http://peoriapundit.com/...

The blog owner seemed to have some perspective on the matter:

Yeah, this brawl was dramatic, because of the number of people involved. But baseball has several memorable brawls ever year and no one wrings their hands in despair over the decline in civilization. Good God, people. All the participants were wearing body armor. Get over it.

But go to the comments and see the anger!

Here is but a sample:

They don't call them the Miami CrackcoCanes for nothing. It pisses me off that these guys get a free ride to an extremely good school that costs Florida residents $50,000 a year last time I checked. It could very well be more now.

...I grew up about an hour and a half north of UM, and I can tell you for a fact that 90% of their scholarship football and basketball players are pieces of (forgive the language, Billy) shit. You take a poor kid out of the ghetto, give him a free place to live and all the money he/she wants in the party capital of the US, and they turn into a thug 10 times worse than the thug they were before. Not to mention, they WASTE SPACE AND TIME at UM, because they're not there for an education. They're at UM because they can't read or write, but they can run fast, or hit hard, or throw a ball 60 yards. It's not just UM. It's pretty much every big football/basketball school in the country.

Yes, they are dumbshits. All they do is play football and get injured. They also get offered an education, that they don't take it seriously enough. The ones from the ghetto do become trash, most of them...act out the ghetto-uneducated-thug-lifestyle. They should be expelled for good, and be forced to repay the free education they recieved, so that money can be better spent on someone that wants to learn.

Those guys are turds.

In other words, "reason" doesn't work with wingnuts.

This is merely a football game, and just look at the anger.

On election day, these attitudes are, in part, what we are up against.

Training and Education: How do we Measure Success?

Personal: I spent some time grading last night, but I got my midterm grades in. I learned some things from grading an exam which I will have to think about.

But one of the things I've been thinking about is "what do we mean when we say a "program" is successful"? Obviously, it depends on the program and its purpose.

But what got me thinking was what my yoga teacher said; she was claiming that she had success in her classes because she has had only 1 injury in class in 9 years. I admit that my thinking went along these lines "well, if we had people sit on a couch during class, we'd probably have zero injuries" and thought that her measure of success was a bad one.

What I went by is that my flexibility improved greatly from taking her class and my injury rate in my other sports went down, while my training level remained relatively high (by my usual standards).

So I came across the following articles about other areas in life: mathematics education and military training.

This first study surveys mathematics achievement versus enjoyment in 8'th graders and finds out that students countries in which students had less confidence and less enjoyment in mathematics tend to score higher in mathematics achievement tests.

Why? I'll offer up a couple of guesses:

1. The more you know about the subject, the more that you realize that you don't know. For example, I didn't fully realize how ignorant I was in mathematics until I went to graduate school.
2. Learning difficult stuff is seldom easy; if students are always having fun, then they are probably not being pushed and therefore not learning up to their genetic abilities.
   

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061018/ap_on_re_us/unhappy_achievers_1

Happy, confident students do worse in math

By BEN FELLER, AP Education WriterWed Oct 18, 3:38 AM ET

Kids who are turned off by math often say they don't enjoy it, they aren't good at it and they see little point in it. Who knew that could be a formula for success?

The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy.

Countries reporting higher levels of enjoyment and confidence among math students don't do as well in the subject, the study suggests. The results for the United States hover around the middle of the pack, both in terms of enjoyment and in test scores.

In essence, happiness is overrated, says study author Tom Loveless.

"We might want to focus on the math that kids are learning and just be a little less obsessed with the fact that they have to enjoy every minute of it," said Loveless, who directs the Brown center and serves on a presidential advisory panel on math.

"The implication is not 'Let's go make kids unhappy,'" he said. "It's 'Let's give kids better signals as to how they're performing, relative to the rest of the world.'"

Other countries do better than the United States because they seem to expect more from students, he said. That could also explain why high performers in other nations express less confidence and enjoyment in math. They consider their peer group to be star achievers.

Even efforts to make math relevant may be irrelevant, says the study, released Wednesday.

Nations that try to teach math in terms of daily life have the lowest test scores.

All this is not easy to compute. Math teachers typically don't avoid enjoyment, confidence and relevance in their math lessons. They strive for those things.

Speaking on behalf of those teachers, one educator took exception to the study's conclusions.

"If I'm a math student and I don't perceive myself as confident, you think I'm going to major in it? The answer is no," said Francis "Skip" Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and another member of the federal math panel.

"Is enjoyment important? You bet it is. Is confidence important? You bet it is," Fennell said. "If we don't have those variables, we can't compete."

Yet Loveless says pleasing kids has comes at the expense of mastering skills.

His findings come from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a test of fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the globe. Along with answering math questions, students were asked whether they enjoyed math and whether they usually did well in it.

The eighth-grade results reflected a common pattern: The 10 nations whose students enjoyed math the most all scored below average. The bottom 10 nations on the enjoyment scale all excelled.

Japan, Hong Kong and the Netherlands were among those with high scores and lower enjoyment or confidence among students.

Within a given nation, the high-confidence kids did better than their peers. But that changed when students were compared with a different peer group. Even the least confident students in Singapore outscored the most confident Americans.

Loveless is not suggesting it makes sense to undermine kids' confidence or make math revolting. But he says the U.S. should rethink "the happiness factor," as he puts it.

Math textbooks in the United States, for example, tend to have colorful photos, charts and stories to please kids, he noted. In other nations, the texts strictly have math.

Fennell said engaging, relevant lessons are important. But he agreed with Loveless that every lesson should be about teaching math, not simply providing a fun class activity.

Now, what about military boot camps? Ok here is a question: if a medical school training program bragged about its "success" by pointing out that its training produced fewer drop outs, would you have confidence in it?

Wouldn't you measures the success of such a program by how well prepared its graduates were?

But now, even our militaries are measuring success by having a fewer number of drop outs?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101000716.html

Army Tones Down Drill Sergeants

By PAULINE JELINEK
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; 8:52 PM

WASHINGTON -- Hollywood may have to tone down its portrayal of the military's screaming, in-your-face boot camp drill sergeant. In today's Army, shouting is out and a calmer approach to molding young minds is in, says the head of Pentagon personnel. The Army says it has reduced by nearly 7 percent the number of recruits who wash out in the first six to 12 months of military life.

"Part of it is changing the nature of how it treats people in basic training," David S. Chu, undersecretary for personnel and readiness, said Tuesday.

That means "less shouting at everyone, in essence, which some of you may remember from an earlier generation as being the modus operandi," he said.

The changes started about a year ago, as defense officials looked for ways to make drillmasters more effective, said Lt. Col. Mike Jones, head of Army National Guard recruiting.

He said the old way was to "talk loud, talk often, get their attention" _ shock treatment to teach discipline and mold the newly recruited civilian into a soldier.

But trainers found today's generation responded better to instructors who took "a more counseling" type role, Jones said, using strong tactics when needed but keeping them the exception instead of the rule.

The approach has had two positive results, he said: It has lowered attrition among those who go through training each year and has eased one of the greatest fears of recruits _ their fear over whether they can make it through basic training.

Other changes aimed at improving graduation rates include such things as letting recruits with injuries or minor medical problems remain in the service, heal, and then go back to training. Before, an injury would have meant discharge, training officials said.

Numbers differ from service to service and depend on what the recruit is being trained for. Those training to be Navy SEALS or other special forces may wash out at the rate of 70 percent. Those training to be truck drivers may have an 80 percent graduation rate.

But Chu said that across all services, generally, some two-thirds of recruits finish their enlistment period _ typically three or four years.

Of the third who don't make it, half bomb out in the first six to 12 months, Chu said, adding that the attrition rate is better than most private sector firms.

Keeping a balance in the number flushed out of the service is important. Too many dropouts and you lose people you really want to keep. Too few dropouts, and you are keeping people you should have let go, Chu said.

Both the military and police academies are moving away from harder-edged approaches to training, he said.

"However much it may be satisfying from the shouter's perspective, it really isn't the best way to shape young people for the future," Chu said.

He made the comments as he announced that all active duty services had met their recruiting goals for the budget year ended Sept. 30. The Marine Corps Reserve met its goal and the Air Force Reserve exceeded its goal, but they were exceptions among guard and reserve forces, some of which have seen "heavy use" due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chu said.

Some fun...my sister strikes back and boobgate, part ii.

My Sister Strikes Back

I haven't been shy about posting photos of women I find attractive, and so my sister evidently wanted me to know that it works both ways:

She is also has some artistic ability; she has some photos and some of her drawings on her blog:
http://journals.aol.com/rosematuse/Bupkiss/#Entry1484

and

http://journals.aol.com/rosematuse/Bupkiss/#Entry1485

Boobgate

I've talked about this nonsense here. Evidently discussion continues; go to
http://feministing.com/archives/005869.html

to see what is going on.

Well, I've decided to do some more research. I've noticed that Katherine Harris is trailing badly in the polls and that President Bush is doing nothing to help her:

Harris trails incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson by at least 18 points in recent polls.

And Republican leaders fear she's squandered a golden opportunity to gain a vulnerable Democratic seat.

"There's been issues regarding campaign contributions," says Jim Kane, president of The Florida Voter newsletter. "There have been issues about her staff and personal behavior."

Recently, Harris also drew fire for saying to not elect Christians is to "legislate sin."

Neither President Bush, nor Gov. Bush, have campaigned for Harris.

When the president recently stumped for two other Florida candidates, he briefly shook her hand, and only mentioned her in the audience.

"I, too, encourage you to vote for Katherine Harris for United States Senate," Bush said on Sept. 21 at an event in Orlando. "Welcome, Katherine."

The irony is that for many Republicans, Katherine Harris is a hero for her role in the controversial 2000 presidential election.

As Florida's secretary of state, Harris made history during the hotly contested ballot recount.

"I hereby declare Governor George W. Bush the winner," she said on Nov. 26, 2000.

Harris claims GOP leaders don't support her now, because they're afraid of her independence.

"I'm going to fight for Florida, and they don't feel they can control me," she says.

Harris also claims she's gaining ground and doesn't need the GOP brass.

Ok. But I think that there is another reason that President Bush isn't supporting her:


She has boobs! (that probably makes her a closet Clinton supporter...)

Finally:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/15/192728/21

IL-18 (Peoria, Northern Springfield): Less than Ringing Endorsement of LaHood by local paper

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Sun Oct 15, 2006 at 04:27:28 PM PDT

Today's Peoria Journal Star paper had its endorsement for the Illinois 18'th district.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the paper endorsed Ray LaHood, the Republican incumbent.

The endorsement was less than enthusiastic.

More below the fold

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

Ray LaHood, if known for anything, is known for chairing the Impeachement proceedings in the House against Bill Clinton, and for disgracing himself on national television by defending Dennis Hastert.

In "Face the Nation", he was openly laughed at by the host!
http://blueollie.blogspot.com/...

And he was given a public spanking by Representative Robert Wexler on CNN. (Youtube appears to be having trouble at this time; the link is here:
http://blueollie.blogspot.com/...

Now to the endorsement:
http://www.pjstar.com/...

Republican Congressman Ray LaHood has a virtual lock on the 18th District seat he's held since 1994.

It has been more than two decades since a Republican has had a serious, well-financed Democratic challenge for the seat that once belonged to House Minority Leader Bob Michel, and before that to Everett Dirksen. The last time a Democrat won here was 1917 - Claude Stone - and he later joined the GOP, too.

Little has changed. The current campaign pits LaHood against Democrat Steve Waterworth, 59, of rural Havana, who'll spend $10,000, if that. You won't see any Waterworth TV commercials.

Yet he may garner more than the 30 percent he received in 2004, to the degree that this election is a referendum on George W. Bush or disgraced GOP ex-Congressman Mark Foley. Given the president's dismal approval ratings and Foley's scandal, the 60-year-old LaHood recognizes it's in his interest that it not be, which helps explains why he likens his job to being "mayor of your district." The description fits LaHood as well as anyone in the 435-member U.S. House.

Indeed, LaHood is uncommonly parochial and attentive to his hometown for a congressman, simultaneously his best and his worst trait.

So, LaHood is running on a "bring home the bacon" message

You won't get the party line from the mild-mannered Waterworth. He'd resurrect the draft. He acknowledges "we're stuck" in Iraq and believes withdrawal now would make it worse. "If Bill Clinton had violated civil liberties like the Bush administration has done, Ray LaHood would be crying for his impeachment," he says. On Gitmo and allegations of torture in secret CIA prisons, "we have to have rules or we'll be as bad as they are." He'd fund universal health care with a national sales tax, pitching it as a pro-business position in a global economy. He'd rescind tax breaks for the nation's wealthiest. He'd be very assertive on finding alternatives to oil and says "farmers need to see themselves as producers of energy, not corn."

Waterworth argues that he has more "real world experience" than the incumbent. Perhaps. But in the "real world" of politics, a guy who can only raise $10,000 isn't a serious candidate. Ray LaHood is the clear choice on the strength of his local work and his experience on Capitol Hill, which on balance is good for central Illinois.

[...] The current Congress is unproductive and has allowed itself to be co-opted by the executive branch; LaHood acknowledges as much.

Republicans may not lose control of the House in this election. But unless the above begins to change, under the leadership of veterans like LaHood in safe seats, Republicans are all but giving Congress back to the Democrats, sooner rather than later. And LaHood will be a less effective congressman if and when that happens.

In other words, they say "vote for LaHood because the other guy doesn't have any money and the Democrats might not win back the house, which means that he might keep bringing his share of pork to the region."

I'd say that is a lukewarm of an endorsement as I'd ever seen.

If you live in IL-18, vote for Steve Waterworth!
http://www.waterworthforcongress.com/

Tags: Waterworth, Ray LaHood, IL-18 (all tags)

Humility on the bike, Working an ultra and football.

Saturday: Working the Farmdale Trail Runs

This weekend I started by working Dave Tapp's Farmdale Trail Runs race. Ordinarily, I would have run or walked this 33 mile (53 km) ultramarathon, but I am still nursing my piriformis/hip injury.

So I volunteered. I enjoyed the experience; below is a photo of Beth Haynes and her bike. (out of focus as I had the lens set to "close up") . I suppose I am destined to NOT have a good photo of her and her bike.

Dave, who is himself an ultramarathon runner, really put on a good show. The course was a hit with the runners and he received many well deserved complements.

A well deserved "congratulations" to all finishers!

Football

I got home in time to see the Texas-Baylor game on TBS. The final score (63-31) didn't reflect how entertaining the game was. The Bears gained 389 total yards of offense and scored the first 10 points of the game as well as the first touchdown of the second half. However, the Bears had to use a high risk offense and the hard-hitting, hustling Texas defense (and special teams) forced 5 turnovers and converted them into 28 points; one fumble was run in for a touchdown, and still another fumble was recovered to set up the Longhorns last touchdown.

True, the last Bayor touchdown was a bit of a gift as replays showed the Baylor runner's knee hit prior to the ball going across the goal line, but the game was already out of hand and only a few seconds remained.
Of course, my beloved Midshipmen were overwhelmed by the 24'th ranked Scarlet Knights of Rutgers 34-0. We were hurt when our starting quarterback went down with a knee injury in the first quarter.

But this contrasts programs like ours with that of a genuine BCS school. We are so thin that an untimely injury can make the difference between our being able to compete and being completely blown out of the water. And this year, Rutgers really does have a good team; there is a reason they are winning all of these games.
And speaking of one of Rutger's victims, Illinois fell to Ohio University 20-17. Evidently the win against Michigan State really was a fluke.

Cycling: Humility

My goal was to cycle 40 miles this morning. Things went ok until I got a flat (about 15 miles away from the house). It took time, but I thought that I had properly changed my inner tube. But, I didn't do it right; I put the tube on first and then attempted to put the tire around it. The tire went on, but my tire would hold air and it flattened right away.

The result is that I gave myself a "pinch flat" as the folks at Bellevue Bicycle Shop told me. So, I got to watch the proper way to change a tire and I got a new tire to boot.

So, I need to review "how to change a flat".

Spears vs. Schock: I called a Republican an Idiot

Local Politics: I called a Republican an idiot.

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Fri Oct 13, 2006 at 06:38:54 PM PDT

In my section of Peoria, we have a Republican Freshman (Aaron Schock) who is being challenged by a long time city councilman, Bill Spears.

Basically, Spears is backed by grass roots and labor; Schock is being backed by big business and money.

Spear's campaign is grass roots; hence our political flyers are sometimes "neighbor to neighbor" letters.

One of the issues we have is with ease of voting; in particular House Bill 1968, which Schock (the Republican) voted against. More below the fold...

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

HB 1968 has lots of good things in it; it allows for "no excuse" early voting, for election judges to have to be excused by their employer, for women who have been recently divorced to be able to vote with their madien names, given that they have proper ID. It was passed; it was voted on straight party lines (61-55) and signed into law by Governor Blagojevich.

For more:
http://www.news-gazette.com/...

Since I took early voting in 2004, I was chosen to sign a letter, which went out on my behalf (and yes, the disclaimer had an embarrasing typo):

Date

First Last
Address
City State Zip

Dear Fellow Early Voter:

As a fellow absentee voter, I am writing you today with disturbing news about efforts to suppress our voting rights.

Last year, the state enacted a new early voting law allowing local voters, like you and I, who have a difficult time making it to the polls on Election Day, to vote during a two-week period prior to Election Day. This is now known as the early voting period.

Early voting is expected to increase voter turnout and allow thousands of local voters the opportunity to let their voice be heard. Unfortunately, Aaron Schock tried to muffle our voices when he opposed the legislation creating early voting. In 2004, 23 states had some form of early voting and 26 states had an absentee ballot program that didn't require someone to have an excuse to vote in this way.

Schock voted against House Bill 1968, landmark legislation that made it easier for Illinoisans to stand up and be counted. For someone like me, who has voted by absentee ballot, early voting provides a new opportunity to cast my ballot in the voting booth. It's so disappointing to know that Aaron Schock tried to stand in our way when he should have made voting more accessible for all of us.

To strike back and let Aaron Schock know we don't approve of his actions, vote in protest during the early voting period at a designated early voting center between October 16 and November 2. I've enclosed a little bit more information regarding early voting for your use.

Remember, as you cast your vote on Election Day or during the early voting period, that Aaron Schock wasn't willing to stand up for your right to vote and he probably won't stand up for you in the future.

Sincerely,

Paid for William R. Spears. Printed in-house.

Well, a local Republican official (low level) got the letter and called me up.

She wanted to confront me.

Things went on; I pointed out that I got stuff from the other campaign all of the time.

Anyway, I made a mistake. She asked what I did for a living : I was honest and told her that I was a university professor.

She said "it figures; you don't have to say anything more" and went on about how I taught the kids that hard work wasn't necessary; I didn't work hard,etc.

I responeded: "Mamm, this proves to me that you are an idiot! Unlike your political leadership, I actually served in the Navy prior to becoming a professor."

She was upset and actually had the nerve to ask me if I really wasn't glad that Kerry lost the election; how he "had given himself ribbons", etc.

In other words, I was talking to one of those who actually believes what comes out of the mouths of people like Couter, Hannity, etc.

Anyhow, I shouldn't have lost my temper and called her an idiot (even though she is) and I reported to the Spears campaign what had happened.

I'll be more ready this time.

My mistake is that I did my homework by merely studying the facts of the bill and wasn't prepared for such total ignorance.

Now I am; and when someone says something stupid I'll respond: "now, why do you think that?"

Sigh...

Republican Election tatic: call your opponent a Fatty.

They guy with the microphone is Mike Smith, IL-91'st representative. He is talking to Senator Barack Obama.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/12/152922/15

Illinois Republican calls Democratic incumbent a fatty (IL State 91)

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Thu Oct 12, 2006 at 12:29:22 PM PDT

Civility in Politics huh? Pot calling the Kettle Black?

In Illinois, we have several close state house races; my district is the 92'nd where we are working to help Bill Spears unseat Republican freshman Aaron Schock.

Neighboring us is the 91'st district where Mike Smith is trying to hold on to his seat. There are many issues, including a potential massive utility rate hike by a local company which holds a monopoly on providing power.

But what do the Republicans make an issue of?

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

Source:

http://www.pjstar.com/...
By Molly Parker of the Peoria Journal Star

Ms. Parker talks about a commercial run by the Republican challenger:

The commercial - paid for by the House Republican Organization on behalf of opponent Daryl Dagit - criticizes the Canton Democrat, among other things, for approving a pay raise for lawmakers and driving jobs out of the state.

Ok, a member of congress should be held accountable for his record, and the incumbent can either refute the criticism or ignore it. His record is fair game but...

At the end of the commercial, a picture flashes of Smith from 1995 when he first went to Springfield, followed by a more recent picture of him.

A voice states, "Mike Smith said he'd change Springfield. Looks like Springfield changed Mike Smith."

Yes, Mike Smith is obese and he wasn't back in 1995.

So why the contrasting photos?

Dagit said the commercial had nothing to do with Smith's weight; he's just pointing out votes Smith has taken that he doesn't agree with and making the point that Smith has changed during his decade of service in the General Assembly.

"He came out in August saying he was overweight and wanted to live a healthy lifestyle. I applauded him for that," Dagit said, adding, "We're not making fun of his weight. We're just going through the facts."

But Smith said, "I think it's clear what the implication is." The first picture shows a much slimmer Smith.

Smith has been open about his weight-loss challenge. In August, he announced plans to join the "Losers are Winners" program offered through Methodist Medical Center and the Journal Star. Smith says he's lost 38 pounds.

Still, Smith said that doesn't make his weight fair game for the campaign season.

"What I'm shocked about is that some candidates will say or do anything to get elected," Smith said.

And this is by an Illinois Republican!!!!

Does the name Dennis Hastert ring a bell????

Anyway, my guess is that this sort of tatic is going to backfire; when I look around here I don't see tons of folks that look like marathon runners.

Spot the Dork!

Ok. One of these photos is of someone who ran a 2:57:07 marathon at 52 years old. The other three photos of are a dork who can't stay on his bike. Can you figure out who is who?

This is Jerry, now at 63 years old. He can still turn it over; this was at the 2006 Zoo Run Run (5K) in Peoria, IL. We've done some training runs together and did a 4'th of July Firecracker race together in 2005. Well, he finished several mintues ahead of me, but we drove down together.
I am in the yellow jacket, black sweat pants and orange New Balance Cascadia trail shoes. I rode my bike to the start line.
After an unhappy encounter with gravel on the next day.
Here is my hip/butt 9 days later. Funny, but it didn't look that bruised the first few days after the crash. The upper part of the bruise is right where the piriformis injury is (which I was fighting for months prior to this little crash).

One more day of rest

Still feeling weak, so one more day of rest prior to easing into my workout routine.

First from Fox News: it appars that they have made a second "innocent" mistake:

Yes, Whitehouse is the Democrat and Chafee a moderate Republican. These people lie all of the time!

Here are a couple of articles from the Daily Kos; one good and one....well, he gets posted here because he has connections.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/9/221835/861

VA, MT Senate Debates: Democrats Make it a Clean Sweep!

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 07:18:35 PM PDT

Being home with a cold on Columbus day had one big advantage: I didn't do much, so I got a chance to watch Jon Tester take on Conrad Burns in one debate, as well as James Webb take on George "Macaca" Allen in the other.

The results were encouraging!

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

In the Virginia debate, Allen used the desperation tatic of contantly bring up Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. And his rhetoric was the same ol' same ol' "stay the course" stuff with Iraq, taxes, the economy and just about everything else.

For the record, he was slippery when asked about his previous use of the "n-word"; he didn't deny using it but rather said that "he didn't remember using it".

Webb kept his cool and consistently reminded folks of the fact that many are in fact being left behind in this so called "economic expansion". He took a bold stand against the war in Iraq and noted that those in power were not willing to sacrifice their own loved ones.

And in closing, he asked Allen point blank about what he would do about the Senkaku Island crisis (an oil rich region claimed by both China and Japan; see
http://www.globalsecurity.org/...
for details.

Allen didn't have a clue as to what Webb was talking about!

In the nightcap, Tester let Burns look stupid. Burns gave unqualified support to the Patriot Act, saying that no freedom of any American would be threatened unless the goverment suspected that one was or alligned with a terrorist; that brought huge guffaws from the crowd.

If the Montana debate were a boxing match, the referees would have stopped it.

The libertarian guy was a bit of a whack job, but provided some nice entertainment. And at least he wanted Bush to be impeached.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/9/234642/154

Lieberman Survival Shows Difficulty of Using Party toTopple Government

by State Rep Mark Cohen Dem PA [Subscribe]

Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 08:46:42 PM PDT

One of the least widely known facts of government throughout the world is the tension between elected and appointed officials and the party leaders of their own parties. This tension comes down to the questions of: Who is in charge? Who controls whom? Who is responsible for what? Who can can get rid of whom?

The answers to these questions are never settled for all time, and are always in play. Generally they are muted because party officials and elected officials try to make the necessary mutual accomodations to get along with each other. They recognize that different roles inherently create different perspectives and they realize that they have more to gain by cooperating with each other than fighting each other.

And then there are hard issues and difficult personalities, a perfect storm which creates conflicts that must be resolved. Such a situation exists in Connecticut, where a tone-deaf Joe Lieberman did such an effective job appealing to Republicans that he convinced many Democrats HE WAS REALLY A REPUBLICAN and famously lost the Democratic primary to blogosphere favorite Ned Lamont.

• State Rep Mark Cohen Dem PA's diary :: ::
• 
  

Many people hoped and expected that Lieberman would be humiliated and banished to the world of Fox television which he so enjoyed. However, Lieberman re-discovered what many public officials have discovered: in a conflict between party and government, government usually wins in the short run. The party actions seem erroneous and inexplicable to those who not identify with the party.

Examples of public officials who have fought their party organizations and triumphed include Philadelphia Mayors James H. J. Tate and Frank Rizzo; New York Mayors Robert Wagner, John Lindsay,and Ed Koch; Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, and various others. This is a list of people that party organizations tried unsuccessfully to remove from power, and it does not include the far larger group of people who gained power over the objections of party organizations.

The triumphs of the elected officials were short-lived, as they paid a price for party opposition in a much more difficult political situation that led to an earlier than expected political retirement.

A key reason for the short-term triumph of government over party is that government deals with people every single day of the year, while the party efforts are focused on one, two or occasionally three days a year. Governments perform many functions intimately affecting peoples lives with large paid staffs, while parties are dependent on volunteers and fundraising to have any paid staff at all.

For a party organization to defeat a governmental official requires demonstrating greater competence at the business of government. Ned Lamont, for instance, has to demonstrate how his life experience better empowers him to deal with the minutia--vitally important minutia for those who depend on it--of Social Security, tax policies, enviromnental policies, immigration reform, welfare, education, etc. This is a tough task, and Lamont so far does not seem to have accomplished it.

The greatest spark of hope left for a Lamont victory is Republican nominee Alan Schlesinger, stuck around 4% in public opinion polls. It defies logic that a Republican could do so poorly in such an affluent state. The more votes that Schlesinger gets, the greater the Lamont chances of victory.

As a college student, I campaigned for Mayor Tate (1967) and Mayor Lindsay (1969) and I remember well how relatively easy beating the party organizations turned out to be. The great irony the Lamont campaign now faces is that the spirit of voter independence that fueled his primary candidacy is now spreading to the general electorate, where it it is torpedoing his candidacy.

An interesting example of the difficulty of pinning down a general election is the saga of Pittsburgh City Councilman Richard Caliguiri, who campaigned for support as Acting Mayor upon the resignation of Mayor Pete Flaherty to serve as Deputy Attorney General in the Carter Administration. Caliguiri won the vote of his fellow councilmen with a pledge not to enter the Democratic mayoral primary.

The the day after the primary was over, Mayor Caliguiri announced his third party candidacy. "I never said I would not run for Mayor; I just said I wouldn't enter the Democratic Primary," he explained to infuriated party officials.

Armed with the incumbency he had rather deviously obtained, Caliguiri was elected mayor decisively, and re-elected more than once. He died in office, and his statue now graces the building that houses Pittsburgh's city government. Many Pittsburghers think he was a great mayor.

But an unimpressed Pennsylvania legislature, in a move the Connecticut legislature may wish to emulate, banned anyone from running as a third party candidate who was a registered party member at the time of the previous primary.

Whatever happens in November in Connecticut, the message has been sent that large numbers of Democrats want an end to the war in Iraq. Connecticut Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are sending a counter message that they are loyal to their Democratic friends. But as the deaths in Iraq continue to mount up daily, I tend to doubt it will do them much good.

Obviously misguided policy is still obviously misguided policy even if someone can cobble together a victory in its name with a $20 million media campaign.

LaHood continues to Embarrass Peoria and Central Illinois

Great. Our congressman gets featured in Crooks and Liars:

I don't think I've ever seen a talk show host like Bob Schieffer try to contain himself and not laugh at his guest. Rep. Lahood, who was on to deflect criticism for Hastert's handling of the Foley scandal, listed three other Republican scandals as a defense that Denny is doing a heck of a job.

Video-WMP Video-QT

Lahood: Look at, I give Speaker Hastert high marks for strong leadership. He took care of Tom DeLay, his best friend. When Tom was having ethical problems, the speaker went to him and asked him to leave. When he appointed Duck Cunningham to the intelligence committee, he went to Duke and made sure he wasn't on the intelligence committee after it was disclosed he took 2.3 million dollars. And when Bob Ney was appointed chairman of the House administration committee, he was appointed by Speaker Hastert. Speaker Hastert went to him and told him to step down from that committee after the Abramoff disclosures. Hastert has the ability to take on these big ethical challenges that our party has faced…

Bob: But, but…"chuckle"..what you're saying when you list all that Congressman is that he did appoint some of these people who turned out to be crooks. So doesn't he have something to answer for there?

I mean have you ever heard of a defense like this in your life? I rolled off my couch in laughter listening to this list of criminals in Hastert's midst. Tom Delay did not just leave because Hastert said so by the way. They tried to change the rules to keep him on. Now that's great leadership for sure. Delay went kicking and screaming,,,

Hat tip to Mahkno who posted a link to this from Peoria Pundit.

A couple of comments worth reading

Comment from Edwin Eisendrath
Democratic Candidate for Governor

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/100906/OTH_BB2QS6SD.059.shtml

Monday, October 9, 2006

Day after day, story after story, the evidence of corruption in Illinois grows. Soon voters will have had enough and Democrats in Illinois will be swept away, the good with the bad. When that happens, our core values will be mocked as nothing more than monied politics. The opportunity of a generation will have been squandered.

The GOP was in firm control of this state for many years before its immolation on the altar of greed. Good Republicans, and there are many, vowed never to look the other way again. But it was too late. Good Democrats now appear either to have missed the message or are too afraid to speak up.

Government corruption undermines our democracy. It turns political discourse into nonsensical slogans and leaves citizens with the impression they don't matter. The result is that our democracy is now being protected by federal prosecutors rather than by voters.

I do not know whether Governor Rod Blagojevich traded jobs or legislation for campaign contributions or personal gifts in violation of state and federal laws. Even in the heat of the primary I said that was for the prosecutors to determine. I do know he should stop taking the money so all of us can stop worrying about it and start focusing on our future. It is past time for him to start abiding by the rules he himself proposed.

It is also time to aim up, not down. "Innocent until proven guilty" is not a high enough standard for elected leaders in a great democracy. Recently the governor defended a gift to his daughter from a job seeker by claiming the gift was disclosed. That's not a defense, it's a slogan. Disclosure is not an end in itself. It simply allows voters to determine whether there are conflicts. Taking a page out of the Bush administration's handbook and attacking reporters who ask tough questions about potential conflicts is a race to the bottom.

It is good politics to remember that there are more important values than winning. I earned nearly a third of the primary vote despite being vastly outspent and relatively unknown. I accomplished that by campaigning across the state about the best values of our party - building an economy that works for everyone, educating for the future, reformist good government.

Democrats in Illinois need to pay attention to our better angels or we will find our party in the same purgatory as the state GOP.

Edwin Eisendrath

Candidate for governor, 2006 Democratic primary

Chicago

On Iraq (via The American Conservative)

I've reproduced some sample paragraphs. This is a long article, but is well worth reading. Dr. Schroeder is a professor of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_10_09/cover.html

Failure to achieve the easy victory the hawks promised in Iraq doesn’t mean that we must continue to lose.

by Paul W. Schroeder

The Bush administration originally sold the Iraq War to the public, Congress, and the world with two propaganda packages appealing respectively to fear and hope. One drew a horrifying picture of The Disastrous Consequences of Inaction in Iraq; the other depicted The Bright Promise of Victory in Iraq. Everyone remembers the absurd predictions, false promises, and outright lies these packages contained.

Today both have been totally discredited by events. The president, administration officials, and loyal supporters in the Congress and media spin the ongoing disaster in Iraq and looming one in Iran as signs of coming victory, but only true believers are convinced. With rebellion rising even among Republicans and control of Congress in jeopardy, the president is touring the country with a series of speeches designed to refurbish the old propaganda of fear. This newest package, The Disastrous Consequences of Failure in Iraq, seeks to terrify the public, mobilize the base, and vilify the opposition by portraying worse disasters sure to arise should cowardly, cut-and-run Democrats cause America to fail.

It should be easy for opponents of the war to refute this fear-mongering campaign with The Disastrous Consequences of Staying the Course. Though any such exertion comes hard to a divided party with its so-called moderates pulling in the opposite direction, the evidence showing the current campaign to be as illegitimate and self-deluding as the original pro-war campaign is overwhelming. But such a counterattack, though necessary, will not defeat the White House’s strategy by itself and could even play into its hands.

The reasons are simple. Like other Bush-Cheney ploys, this one is not designed to educate or persuade rationally but to arouse and exploit patriotic emotion. Any counterargument, however solidly grounded in logic and evidence, will be politically and emotionally distasteful to many voters. Moreover, Americans want not merely to be warned of impending disaster but also to be told how it can be averted. To Republican true believers, “Stay the course” still represents the answer, simplistic and delusional though it is, while the majority skeptical about this answer demand something positive in its place.

The Republican electoral strategy thus rests on two pillars: on Bush’s reported private quip during the 2004 campaign, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you have to concentrate on,” while keeping the rest distracted, divided, and on the defensive; and on the opposition party’s tearing itself apart trying to devise a positive alternative policy, with some leaders, including Hillary Clinton, still endorsing John Kerry’s message in 2004, The Bright Promise of Letting Us Handle Iraq Better. This approach, now even more than in 2004, will divide the Democrats, confuse the public, and fail to rally supporters. Worse still, it would continue to obscure the central point and the first critical requirement for any solution in Iraq or progress toward one: that the current American venture has decisively failed, cannot be rescued or reformed, and must be abandoned.

This essay proposes an answer to this problem—not to the tactical electoral dilemma faced by the Democratic Party but to the policy dilemma faced by the country, an answer not offered by either party and almost certain to be denounced and repudiated by both. By frankly acknowledging failure in Iraq and acting quickly, decisively, and prudently on that recognition, the U.S. not only could avoid further disasters there but might also achieve a kind of success. Call it The Bright Promise of Accepting Failure in Iraq.

[...]

The argument starts with two generalizations from history, obvious and familiar but often ignored. The first, that the worst disasters in history arise from a refusal to recognize and admit failure and deal with it, needs no proof. History is full of striking instances. Here is just one: the causes and factors that drove Germany deliberately to launch World War II and inflict unspeakable crimes on the world and on Germany itself were diverse and complicated, but one was basic—a refusal to admit that Germany had really lost World War I and must accept the consequences of defeat. Essentially, the German decision for war in 1939 was a decision to stay the course —to resume in a radical new form the effort of 1914-18 to make Germany dominant in Europe through military power. Similar instances from history could be cited almost ad infinitum.

The second generalization is also easy to document from history. Often—not always—a timely recognition of failure and the willingness to abandon or alter a wrong course leads in unexpected ways to success. Sometimes the change in course enables one to achieve the original aims by a different route; more often it leads to the discovery that the original goals were not that great or cost too much and that the country was actually better off with a different outcome—that sometimes one could win by losing.

American parochialism and the privileged, triumphant course of American history make this point hard for Americans to grasp. Yet in at least four major instances during the Cold War, the U.S. had to come to terms with failure, accept the consequences, and change course, sometimes by 180 degrees: Korea and the Korean War, China and the recognition of the Communist regime, Vietnam, and strategic parity with the USSR. In every case, accepting failure served to avoid further losses and potential disasters and led to an outcome different from what the U.S. was originally trying to achieve, but better. America would be worse off now had it won any of those contests in the way it originally tried to.

[...]

One requirement for reaping any profit from accepting failure in Iraq, then, is a clear anti-utopian sense of history, a willingness to recognize and respect limits and reject self-delusion—something any reasonably educated, sensible person can develop. It also helps if we avoid some natural but erroneous assumptions about what accepting failure in foreign policy involves. It is not simply a first preliminary step, a matter of seeing that you are in a hole and should stop digging. It involves a rigorous, active search for the deeper causes of failure and thus becomes a strategic maneuver, a way of seeking and creating conditions needed for climbing out of the hole.

Another natural assumption would be that harvesting success from failure requires a clear policy delineating the principles and steps that will lead from failure to success. Most Americans and a majority of observers worldwide recognize that staying the course to victory in Iraq is not a real policy and that recent proposals by neoconservatives to up the ante by attacking Syria and/or Iran and having the president declare that America is in World War III are certifiably insane. But thoughtful persons looking for a way out are confronted with at least four alternative lines of policy, each strongly advocated and all at least sane and intellectually defensible. These approaches can be broadly characterized as semi-isolationist/libertarian, realist balance-of-power, leftist-reformist, and internationalist or (misleadingly) Wilsonian. The differences between them are not trivial, and the debate over which is best is not inappropriate—except at this time when the critical issue is whether the country will face the fact of decisive failure in Iraq at all. On that score their differences make no real difference; advocates of all four of these approaches today agree on rejecting the current course and taking some initial steps for recovery and ultimate success. Disputes over the merits of these approaches at this point only confuse the public and help the administration and its neocon prophets to propose their nostrums as no-nonsense remedies.

[...]

This belief that the United States is now genuinely in a state of war against terrorism, still the president’s greatest electoral asset, represents at best massive misconception and confusion. The United States, along with many other major governments and advanced, orderly societies, is engaged in a struggle to defend the rule of law, order, and security at home and to sustain a decent international system abroad against irregular attacks and crimes by individuals, groups, and factions within various countries. This is therefore essentially a struggle of governments against a diverse assortment of criminal anti-government groups. Those who oppose terrorism and terrorist groups have a prime interest in promoting this view and in keeping as many governments as possible united and engaged in the struggle against terrorists as a legal international campaign against criminal enemies of all regular states and governments.

Proclaiming this a war and waging the struggle primarily by military means works concretely against this purpose and helps terrorists. The fact that terrorist leaders and groups may have declared war on the United States and other countries and carried out attacks against them makes no difference. They have a major interest in making this a war. It legitimizes them, ennobles their cause and their actions in the eyes of followers and sympathizers, gives them international stature, and lures opponents into the kinds of overreactions that delegitimize them, alienate their natural allies and the neutrals, and split the anti-terrorist governmental front.

The article is long, but is well worth reading.

Columbus Day, 2006: Blogging with a cold

My wife and I were to go to Starved Rock Park today, but both of us are down with a bug of some sort. I was in denial about having "allergies"; that is why yesterday's (slow) 50 mile ride was so tough.

So, it is blogging for me; I hope to be back to some sort of light working out in a couple of days.

Football

I watched the end of the Bears game; they are playing the best football in the NFL at this point. Whether or not they can keep it up for the entire season is a different story. But for now, I don't see anyone nearly as good.


I also watched much of the Cowboy-Eagle game and was reminded of how final scores can be deceptive. The final was 38-24 Eagles. And yes, the Eagles were the better team. But, what the score doesn't say is that Dallas was down 31-24 and had the ball on the Eagle 7 yard line with 38 seconds left; after an incomplete pass the Eagles intercepted a pass in their own end zone and ran it back for a touchdown.



Of course, Dallas got a similar touchdown earlier in the game; the point is that Dallas had a bona fide chance to tie or win the game with well less than a minute to go.

In college ball, I am still giddy over how Texas dominated Oklahoma. The Texas-Oklahoma game is played in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas; the stadium is divided at the 50 yard lines with one half being Texas, the other being Oklahoma.

If the game is one sided (as it was two years ago), it is fairly easy to see who is winning. Look a the end zone, and look at the stands. I've been to a couple of these (one UT win, one UT loss) and they are lots of fun.

Fun with Yoga

On the yoga.com message boards, Mish (one of the frequent yogi posters) was running some ideas for long sleeved t-shirts past us.

Bruce, our resident voyeur, suggested that the pretty female yogis ought to wear something less distracting:



By the way, Bruce employs this lass as a yoga teacher:



Oh well. I suppose that I should be grateful that I have mostly out of shape middle aged folks in my yoga classes; concentration on my poses is seldom a problem. Though, once I did get startled when one of the fitter women was right ahead of me in "child" and was wearing very tight spandex. I looked up to see her labium staring me in the face. I kind of just put my head down...

Articles of Interest: National

Tucker Carlson states the obvious: the national Republican leadership has a great deal of contempt for its evangelical base.

Tucker Carlson says it aloud. The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals.
by Margie Burns

The Sunday morning talk shows today, October 8, 2006, included some refreshingly frank or realistic discourse, for a rarity.

Probably most attention tomorrow will be devoted to Bob Woodward narrating how Vice President Cheney used the bullshit word and hung up on him. Possibly some attention will go to the congressional tin ear from Illinois, GOP Congressman Ray LaHood, talking about the Foley scandal: “The real disservice was done to the speaker.”

But for my money, the real jaw dropper this morning was Tucker Carlson finally saying publicly what millions of us have known for years: “The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals.”

The commentary centered around the Mark Foley scandal and attendant ironies, that a member of Congress who for years ostentatiously paraded his concern for children and for youth has solicited, also for years, the sexual attentions of teenagers, and not just any teenagers, but teenaged pages specifically under the protection of Congress. Furthermore, all signs indicate that the entire top GOP leadership of Congress, even while campaigning aggressively in some bogus morality posture, either covered up for Foley or at best deliberately avoided knowing enough of his activities to do anything about them.

To call this hypocrisy is just an insult to hypocrites.

As I have said before, this is not hypocrisy. It is deliberate imposture. It is analogous to the current White House policy of pouring gasoline on the flames in geopolitics, under the guise of fighting terrorism, when as it well knows, its policies ignite terrorism, from which it profits. In the ratios of the Miller Analogy Test, Mark Foley is to protecting children what George W. Bush is to protecting Americans. If they really wanted less terrorism, they would eliminate cluster bombs and land mines.

But of all the commentators on all three major television networks, none to my knowledge has made the basic connection, until today. Carlson made the basic, direct statement that for years has needed making. “Everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals,” he continued under questioning. When asked, “How do you know?” in response to his initial claim about the GOP, he gave the unequivocal answer: “Because I see them.” As Carlson said, he works with them, meaning members of the power elite or the opinion makers. He has moved among them for years. “They live on my street.”

Following up the statements that “The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals,” and “Everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals,” he continued, “and “everybody knows that. The evangelicals are beginning to figure it out.”

What came home for this viewer is that on a more modest scale I have seen the same thing. Certainly not all Republican women, or all women who sometimes vote Republican, feel the same way on social issues. And some of the most rockribbed longtime Republican women voters, at least those of my acquaintance, who also tend to be economically well off or affluent, are exactly the individuals most dismissive of the party line on social issues. They let the men talk, but if a woman or girl they care about or to whom they are related wants an abortion, they are highly unlikely to let the men stand in the way. Or even to let the men know, if that’s the way to play it.

As for the public pronouncements of their party, and the most prominent of their professional religious spokesmen, they roll their eyes. I have seen them do it. You do not get more eyerolling about the Reverend Mr. Pat Robertson or about the unreverend Ralph Reed anywhere than in the nearest lunch of Republican women at the local country club, and the only people who seem not to know it are the people whose faithful votes keep the corporate hogs in office. So the GOP agenda accomplishes its real objectives such as keeping plaintiffs out of court, letting insurance companies off the hook on large claims, raiding or undermining pension funds, bailing out the top management of mismanaged industries, and preventing any progressive taxation whatever for billionaires. Meanwhile, the rare genuine voter of rightwing conscience who gets into office, like GOP Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, could not be more sidelined if he were a high schooler trying to play in the NFL. I have said it before. The only real purpose regarding abortion for this administration is to splinter what would otherwise have been moral opposition to its policies, domestic and foreign.

Go ahead and read the whole article; it is quite good. Even better are the comments. You'll see: "oh, but the Democrats have contempt for the evangelicals as well." Funny, but any honest analysis will show that this society is badly tilted toward "the believers" and NOT toward the agnostic/atheist/secular crowd. To see that, ask yourself what chance any openly atheistic person would have in, say, a governor's, Congressional, or a Senate election.

On another note, a Kossak (nyceve) wrote a nice diary on healthcare: she gives real life examples that people have e-mailed to her.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/8/82417/8697

We're spending an awful lot of time to scrutinize in appalling detail the sordid emails and titillating instant messages between Mark Foley and underage boys. Wouldn't it be amazing if the media focused with equal intensity on another shame: the healthcare nightmares of the American people?

Since the media, pundits, and the political class don't give a rat's ass about much of anything but sex scandals, maybe you'd like to take a few moments to read about the grief fellow Kossacks write to me about day in and day out.

I regularly receive emails from Kossacks in response to my healthcare diaries. They are unfailingly honest, bleak, and heartbreaking.

These voices are crying into the black void. They are a window into the world of hurt and suffering that is afflicting ordinary Americans across the country.

I don't think I'm violating the privacy of anyone by sharing these anonymous testimonials about our depraved and broken healthcare system, to keep them private would be a disservice to all Americans.

Local Politics

We have some interesing races going on. One is for state Representative: this pits incumbent Republican Aaron Schock vs. challenger Bill Spears. The local paper puts it this way:

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/100806/TRI_BB59EDOG.029.shtml

Sunday, October 8, 2006

Two years ago, at age 23, Aaron Schock toppled an eight-year incumbent to earn his seat in the Illinois House. The district had been a Democratic stronghold for years, and the loss took the party by surprise.

Then-Rep. Ricca Slone had achieved her own upset against longtime Democratic Rep. Donald Saltsman in the 1996 Democratic primary.

Both Slone and Schock spent heavily on the Illinois House race, pumping about $1.7 million combined into their campaigns.

The Democrats - local and statewide - were not happy to lose that seat and vowed to get it back. After Chicago House Speaker Michael Madigan interviewed several prospective candidates, the field was cleared for 4th District City Councilman Bill Spears.

Spears has been canvassing neighborhoods for nearly a year now, asking constituents for their support, including many Democrats who had supported Schock over Slone in 2004.

This race is shaping up to be expensive and combative. Spears rolled out his first negative radio and mail attack ads late last month and then spent thousands on television commercials. Schock has been on the airwaves for several weeks.

While the money rolls, this campaign, in the end, is being fought on the streets, door-to-door, face-to-face with voters.

Frankly, Spears is being outspent; there are Schock signs everywherer and his ads are frequenly on television. Schock is much more telegenic. But Spears' mailings might prove effective; he is painting Schock as a typical pro-business Republican and is pointing out that he (Spears) will fight the upcoming massive utility bill increase. This message has a great deal of appeal to those who are currently struggling to make ends meet.

Of course, some of the responses are arrogant beyond belief:

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/100806/TER_BB5ISE3R.009.shtml

And Nichole Handy, a certified credit counselor at Central Illinois Debt Management and Credit Education, offers more specific suggestions along that line: Unplug electrical equipment when you aren't using it. Line-dry clothes. Hand-wash dishes or make sure you run a full load in the dishwasher. Use energy-saving light bulbs. Take shorter showers. Maintain your heating and cooling equipment.

But Handy also acknowledges that many people already do those things. They still don't have the money. While it may be tempting to stave off the rate hike as long as possible, adding another 6.5 percent to your bill makes no budget sense. She suggests you start tracking small expenses you can cut, and do it now.

"It's called the "latte effect," she said of our tendency to spend a lot of money on small luxuries. "I've done it myself. You spend $5 a day. It doesn't seem like much, but over the course of a month it adds up."

You might not want to steer away from Starbucks, cut your cable TV or silence your cell phone. But you may not have a choice.

See? People are completely clueless as to how a great many of our fellows live.

Anyway, getting back to the Spears-Schock race: who would you trust more to stand up to the utility companies: the Republican pro-business Schock, or Spears? Easy choice.

The Peoria Pundit points out that the local paper is giving much more favorable coverage to Schock and is overlooking some things, such as Schock's inconsistencies over tax policies or his trying to campaign at taxpayer expense.

Illlinois Governor's Race

This is jaw-dropping. The rabidly anti-Blagojevich columnist Doug Finke said that Blagojevich looked gubernatorial when compared to Topinka. It must have really been bad.

Doug Finke
Statehouse Insider

Sunday, October 8, 2006

After listening to last Monday's debate between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, there's only one conclusion to draw: Blagojevich should schedule a lot more debates.

It's not that Blagojevich rose to the occasion; he didn't. It was that Topinka was so unfocused, she managed to do the near-impossible. She made Blagojevich look gubernatorial.

Throughout the debate, Topinka seldom stayed on one thought long enough to finish before launching into something else. If you follow state government news very closely, you might have been able to figure out what she was getting at, but even we had trouble keeping up at times.

Case in point: the controversy over the property tax assessment on Blagojevich's Chicago house. The story had only recently broken in two Chicago-area newspapers and hadn't yet made its way into the downstate media.

Yet Topinka launched into the topic as though the story and its complicated details were common knowledge to the radio debate's listeners. She went on about how Blagojevich is taxed at 1 percent while everyone else is taxed at 30 percent, something confusing to any property owner who knows that neither figure is true. In fact, the controversy had to do with the assessed value of Blagojevich's house going up 1 percent while his neighbors got hit with 30 percent hikes. But good luck figuring that out from what Topinka said.

IL-18 Congressional Race

Ray LaHood continues to make an ass out of himself, but this time on a national stage:

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/100906/WOR_BB6GF8R9.045.shtml

U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood agrees that not since he presided over the impeachment hearings of former President Bill Clinton has he received as much media attention as he did last week.

And he didn't even do anything.

Well, nothing bad, not like former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who resigned after it became public that he sent lurid e-mails and instant messages to teenage House pages. All LaHood did was be willing to offer his opinion on the scandal - something a lot of Republicans weren't so eager to do.

The result was a flood of press inquiries - from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, CNN, National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times and so on. He was even on Larry King Live, a first for the Peoria Republican.

"I probably did 25-30 interviews," LaHood said, with a call from Time Magazine still pending. "I didn't initiate any calls to the media or put out a written statement or press release."

Instead, LaHood believes the attention came because it's well known that he and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have been good friends for 20 years.

"People know I'm close to the speaker. (Also) there weren't a lot of Republicans who were willing to do interviews. I came out pretty strong and pretty early."

Despite the heat he's taken for saying the page program should be halted, LaHood has no regrets.

"I think I said the right thing, that there's a flaw in the system." (J.D.)

Mr. LaHood is in denial and is embarrasing his district. It turns out that Foley had been attracting attention due to his behavior since 2000: (and of course, note that our dear Mr. LaHood has been quoted)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061009/ap_on_go_co/congress_pages

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 18 minutes ago

A Republican member of Congress confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000, according to a newspaper report.

The report in the Washington Post pushes back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress acknowledges learning of the Florida Republican's questionable behavior toward pages.

It came as the Republican leadership attempted to present a united front on the congressional page scandal that has rocked the GOP a month before midterm elections and put House Speaker Dennis Hastert on shaky ground.

Though Rep. Adam Putnam (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla., insisted Sunday that "the dirty laundry in our conference is gone," that claim appeared to be premature.

The Washington Post reported Sunday night that Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., confronted Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000.

The Post said that a former page showed Kolbe some Internet messages from Foley that had made the page uncomfortable. Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna Cline, told the Post that a Kolbe staff member advised the page last week to discuss the matter with the clerk of the House.

Hastert and his aides have been criticized for failing to act promptly after receiving warnings about Foley's questionable electronic communications with pages.

Hastert since has insisted he was not aware of the communications until recently. But on the day after Foley resigned, New York Rep. Tom Reynolds said he had told Hastert months ago about concerns that Foley had sent inappropriate messages. Reynolds now says he cannot remember exactly when he learned of Foley's e-mails or when he told Hastert about them.
[...]
One Republican lawmaker said Sunday that those who participated in a cover-up would have to resign.

"Anybody that hindered this in any kind of way, tried to step in the way of hiding this, covering it up, is going to have to step down. Whoever that is," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.

The House ethics committee is investigating the matter. If it finds evidence of a cover-up, the punishment could range from a mild rebuke in a committee report to a House vote of censure or expulsion.
[...]
Hastert, R-Ill., last week tried to blame the Democrats and the news media for leaking the story but then accepted responsibility. He's resisted pressure to resign his speaker's post over his handling of the scandal.

"There's been a lot of ducking and dodging and diving and weaving," said Rep. Ray LaHood (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill. "There is a lot of fingerpointing that had gone on earlier in the week, but I do think people are behind the speaker now."

Touring the Rock Island Trail

Today I went for a ride on the Rock Island trail. I figured to catch some of the Bears game when I got back, but they were up 30-0! The won 40-7; if there is a better team in the NFC this year I don't know who they are. But it is still early...

Touring ride of the Rock Island Trail.

Getting there: I usually take the Allen road exit off of IL-6 (the Peoria bypass that hooks up with 24 and I-474. Go north on Allen road (away from Peoria) a mile or so. Click here for a map.

Distance: 24.7 miles each way (25 if you ride from the parking lot to the "0" sign and back.

Surface: crushed limestone. "Soft" in spots; a few scattered gopher holes.

Challenges: soft surface, can get wet, wind (remember, this is Illinois, and the wind usually kicks up between 10 and noon). On occasion, you might get a family or two (or just kids) on the trail who aren't paying attention.

Time to complete: for the whole out and back, take your road century ride time, divide by two, and add a few minutes (10-30) depending on wind, wetness, etc. My two times have been 4:06 (hard) and 4:35 (easier). For runners and walkers: take a few seconds per mile off of your road pace; runners won't slow that much; faster walkers will "slip" just a bit.

If you've done a road 50, add about 1/6'th to 1/5'th to your road time (e. g., 3 hour road person can add 30-35 minutes or more.)

Aid: there is a Casey's in Princeville (10 miles from 0) right off of the marked bike bath and another one about 200 meters off of the path in Wyoming (20 miles). The Princeville Casey's store has free air as well.
For those who don't know: Casey's is one of those "marts" that sells gas, soft drinks, snacks, fast food pizza, etc.

Course: it starts at Alta (just north of Peoria off of Allen road). There is a 2.4 mile spur (mostly paved) that runs south to Pioneer Parkway. The gravel part (starting at mile 0) runs north and west, through Dunlap (4.5 miles away), Princeville (10-11 miles), Wyoming (20 miles) and into Toulon (24.7 miles).

Notes for hikers, cyclists and runners: cyclists: I found that 1 1/4 inch tires (32 cm) (the kind you see on touring road bikes) eat into the gravel path a bit. The 35 cm (1.4 inch; the kind found on my Trek 7200 hybrid) does a bit better.

For runners, walkers and hikers: if you are a "shuffler" or a faster walker, I'd wear trail gaiters to keep the rocks out of your shoes. Runners with a high knee action might not notice this as much.

Both groups: carry water. Opprotunities to buy water (without an excursion off of the trail a bit) are scarce; the two best places are 10 miles apart.


Today: I had a slight cough going in and so had to take it easier than I'd like.

Photos
(click to see a larger image)
Map is at the end

Here is my trail hybrid at mile 0. The entrace to the trail is actually up ahead.
Just past mile 3 you come to this bridge. In between, you pass farm fields and McMansion neighborhoods.
At Princeville, you cross tracks (this is where the No Baloney ride enters Princeville). Today, I had to wait for trains going in both directions (this is a triple track crossings); that has never happened before.
Here is the trail as you leave Princeville on the way back. You are about 10 miles away from the 0 mile sign.
This is the entrance into Wyoming at mile 20.
This is what it looks like to the other side.
Somewhere between miles 22 and 23 you come to this bridge.
This is what it looks like coming into the bridge. The leaves hide walnuts and gopher holes.
You are entering Toulon here and the trail is about to terminate. Under the yellow sign is another sign saying "24.7 miles."

Post Saturday blogging

Last night went well; my yoga teacher hosted a wiener roast out in a woody park. It was a good deal of fun.

I got in 41 miles of cycling, though I ran out of gas near the end. I have a case of the sniffles; not sure if it is allergies or something more.

Football

My picks went 11 out of 17 (against the spread) and I had 12 out of 17 the week prior to that; I have had a good couple of weeks.

I admit that I didn't see the Arkansas upset of Auburn coming.

Navy holding on to beat Air Force 24-17 was a very pleasant surprise to me; if Navy can beat Army (which is very quietly having a nice season) this will be the first class of seniors to not lose to any of the service academies. But Army won't be easy; they played Texas A& M to a 4 point game and just got through creaming VMI 62-7.

Hook 'em Horns! Texas came out and dominated Oklahoma in the second half. True, the 28-10 final score included a fumble return (on a play where a throw was on the borderline between a lateral and a pass) but nevertheless Texas dominated the hitting.
Illinois 1 game winning streak came to an end when they blew a 25-7 lead to Indiania. I suppose when the two worst teams in the Big Ten play that somone had to win.

Standford played hard but Notre Dame had too much and won 31-10. Notre Dame is a good but not elite team; their no. 12 ranking is about right.

Saturday pre-ride Blogging

Football

First, some frivilous issues: the following photo is from the Cotton Bowl toward the end of last year's Oklahoma-Texas football game.

This game is played on a neutral site (I went to it a couple of times); half of the stadium shows up in Oklahoma red; the other half in Texas burnt-orange.

I hope to see lots of this today:



Though I know that today's game will be a close one, unlike last year. Ok, unlike the few years prior to that as well, when OU kicked our butts.

Navy plays Air Force too; this should be a close one. Both teams have 1 point losses, though Air Forces lost theirs to the tough Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville whereas Navy lost to the solid but non-elite Tulsa Golden Hurricane. My heart says that Navy will win, but my mind says that the bookies, who have the Falcons favored by three, have got it right.

This photo shows the last second field goal that won it; with three minutes to go, Navy trailed by 7 and ended up winning by 27-24.

Bush Boobgate

I had mentioned that Clinton seemed to attract women with boobs. Well, this shows that Bush has lots of "Clinton evny." Hat tip, as usual, to the Dependable Renegade. And yes, DR, keep the Hastert Fat Jokes coming; he richly deserves it!

Republcians: No Accountability

And speaking of the Republicans: they continue to try to slither away from the Foley's conduct cover up scandal. They have taken several approaches which include:

attacking homosexuals as a whole (saying that they are more likely to be pedophiles, etc.)

and now attacking liberals. Examples: Rush Limbaugh postulates that Foley was set up,

LIMBAUGH: Folks, you don't know the Democrats like I do. Everybody is now comin' out of the closet, if you will, saying they knew Foley was gay. He's in a safe seat. Somebody knew this was going on. Go to one of the kids or go to a couple of pages and say: "Titillate the guy." "Why? Why? Why? I don't want to get in trouble." "You won't get in trouble. You'll be a hero. Nobody'll ever know it's you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." How do you get a kid to do this? You threaten 'em or you pay 'em. I don't know.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You know, how do these pages get into the page program? How does this happen? One way is through political connections, political patronage. So who are these pages and who sponsored these kids to become pages and, and for, for what reason? Is there a political party that would stoop this low? Yes, there is. We know that there is a political party that would stoop this low to set somebody up this way.

Now, I know you're saying: "What do you mean 'set him up?' Did it, Rush!" Yeah. I'm not -- again -- you're, you're missin' my point if you're thinking in that regard. I'm not saying that this didn't happen. What, what I'm suggesting here is that a lot of people knew of Foley's proclivities and arranged to amass evidence of it for this very reason, not the protection of the kids. Look how long this is goin' on and nobody did anything to protect the children. Everybody's out there saying: "Now, now we love the children of this country. We're gonna do everything we can to protect the page program. Why, why everything is for the children."

and David Brooks claims some sort of moral equivalence between Foley's real life actions and a fictional scene in the Vagina Monologues

LITERALLY. David Brooks says, oh yeah, you liberals think the Foley scandal is bad, well, there's an underage seduction in The Vagina Monologues but you liberals love that, don't you?

Stunned onlookers point out to Brooks that The Vagina Monologues is a play, whereas Mark Foley is a real person. Ann Althouse -- she takes pictures, you know! -- responds:

The third letter notes Brooks's omission of the "simple point" that what Mark Foley did was "real" and "The Vagina Monologues" is "make-believe." But, again, the enthusiasm for "The Vagina Monologues" is very real.

There are a lot of things you could say to this. You could try to explain to these people the concept of fictional characters. You could try to explain that not every character in every scene speaks for the author. You could try to explain that these cows are very small, while those cows are far away.

It would all be a waste of time. Some kinds of ignorance are so obviously the result of hard, patient work that all you can really do about them is marvel at God's creation and move on.

UPDATE. I just had to haul this comment on up to the front of the class: "Millions of people enjoyed Silence of the Lambs, and yet if a Republican were caught engaging in murder and cannibalism, you can only imagine how the hypocritical liberals would react."

(If you don't know what the Vagina Monologues are, I've blogged about this.)

. William Buckley wonders if what Foley did should really be illegal:

It is not unusual for a society derelict in affirming its own moral positions to leap, fiery sword in hand, to excommunicate a sinner. The Foley case is not going to lead to national concern over homosexual sex, or is not going to result in enforcing age codes (are they really expecting to stand guard at the movies to prevent 15-year-olds from seeing "Brokeback Mountain"?).

There is a mini-movement endorsed by a few congressmen that would rescind the congressional page program which put Mr. Foley in temptation's way. It might prove easier to rescind the laws that Foley violated.

Don't worry, there is much more; this was a George Soros plot, etc.

Yoga Butt

Some photos:

This one is awesome; you know someone's straddle forward bend is really good when you can see most of their butt (and this case, a very cute butt) from the front!
Here is what I want my dancer pose to look like. Again you can see her cute buns from the front. No, I am not even close to this yet, and probably never will be. But this shows that I can always improve.
Here these yogis are in up dog (cobra would have their pelvis' on the mat)

IL-18 Congressional Race

Finally: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/6/18116/7847

Hopefully, this diary will make the election round-up.

Support Steve Waterworth!

IL-18 (Peoria, Northern Springfield): Support Steve Waterworth against Ray LaHood!

by onanyes [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

Fri Oct 06, 2006 at 03:01:16 PM PDT

Our current United States Representative is the Republican Ray LaHood. He is somewhat more moderate than some in his party, but when push came to shove, he went for the party line hook, line and sinker.

Voters in Central Illinois do have a choice however: Steve Waterworth is running on the Democratic ticket.

• onanyes's diary :: ::
• 
  

From Waterworth's biography:

http://www.waterworthforcongress.com/...

Briefly I want you to know that I grew up on what would now be called a small farm in Mason county, near Easton, with my parents and my sister. As a boy I worked very hard on the farm at most of the things a farmer does. I was a member of 4-H and loved raising and showing cattle.

I graduated from Canton Junior College in 1967 and enlisted in the Air Force in 1968. I volunteered for duty in Southeast Asia in 1969 but instead was assigned to support the Vietnam War effort at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico for the remainder of my service.

After separating from the Air Force in 1972, I came back home to farm with my father. I married Barb Fisk of Havana in 1974. We are the parents of 3 wonderful daughters: Allison, Andrea, and Laura. Barb was killed in an accident with a semi-truck in 1994. She was a Registered Nurse at the time of her death.

In the same year (1976) that I graduated from Sangamon State University in Springfield with a Bachelors degree in Economics, I also enlisted in the Illinois Air National Guard in Peoria. I retired in 1995 at the rank of Master Sergeant.

Since retiring I've been a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Illinois Economic Development Corporation (CIEDC) of Lincoln. CIEDC is the umbrella corporation for Headstart and Community Action in 6 counties including Mason, Menard, and Logan counties in the 18th Congressional District. I'm also President of the Havana Area Prevention Team (HAPT). HAPT is a group of volunteers dedicated to helping children make positive decisions in their lives. I'm also President of the Easton Park District and Chairman of the Admin Board for the First United Methodist Church of Havana. Additionally I'm Vice-Chairman of the Mason County Democrats.

Steve ran in 2004 without any resources whatsoever and yet still managed 36% of the vote in the City of Peoria (though somewhat less in the entire district).

Ray LaHood has tried to cultivate the image of being a "straight arrow" and "moderate". You may have remembered him as the chair of the Impeachement proceedings agaisnt President Clinton.

But make no mistake about it: he is a tool for the current administration. He voted for the torture bill, for the corporate backed bankruptcy bill even though it hurt his constituents.

And his response on the Foley matter? He is calling for the Page system to be elminated!

As the Peoria Pundit writes (and he is a libertaian, not a Democrat)
http://peoriapundit.com/...

U.S. Rep Ray LaHood got himself quoted in The New York Times regarding the Mark Foley scandal. It's not a long quote, but it's an eye opener:

"This is a political problem, and we need to step up and do something dramatic," Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois said afterward, adding that he had proposed abolishing the Congressional page program.

Of course, this is all about protecting the children. Because there are so many perverts and pedophiles on Congress, apparently, there needs to be more protections put in place. It's for the kids.

Furthermore, Mr. LaHood went on CNN and completely embarrassed himself when he went one on one with Robert Wexler:

http://www.youtube.com/...

Yes, it will be tough to win this one, as Mr. LaHood has a huge advantage in money and name recognition.

But it is well worth the old college try!

On my own blog, I went on to discuss a state congressional race where a newly elected Republican (Aaron Schock) is trying to hold off Bill Spears (several time city councilman) in IL-91. This race is winnable; Kerry carried this district handily. Last time, Schock won by all of 200-250 votes.

http://blueollie.blogspot.com/...

Tags: IL-18, Waterworth, LaHood, 2006 Congressional Election (all tags)

Local Politics: IL-92 Spears, Schock, LaHood, and more

I stole the above photo from The Peoria Pundit. That is Barbara Van Auken (the city council candidate I worked for) with Senator Barack Obama.

Now about the IL-92 State Representative race between Bill Spears (Democratic challenger) and Aaron Schock (Republican incumbent).

A bit of background: Kerry won the IL-92 district easily. Schock pulled off a narrow win over the then incumbent Ricca Slone (roughly 250 vote margin) mainly because the popular perception was that Slone was aloof and out of touch with her district.

There may have well been truth to that perception; where I mostly agreed with Slone's political views, I was told that she didn't have the best people skills.

So today I went to watch a "debate" between Mr. Spears and Mr. Schock at the Peoria North Rotary Club.

The format was that each candidate got a three minute introductary statement and then were asked a series of questions, each of which they were given in advance. These questions came from members of the Rotary Club.

The first question was rather lame: it was about Illinois Wineries; mostly irrelevant to the not-so-wealthy constituents of district 92, though perhaps important to the upper middle class business people of Rotary North.

Then came the questions about the state budget.

The responses were interesting.

Schock was very polished and gave salesman caliber answers. His points seemed to be these:

• He would be a good choice since he doesn't belong to the majority party; hence he can stay indepedent and make the principled vote
• But people should vote against the current governor (Democrat Rod Blagojevich) and instead vote for the "more trustworthy" Topinka
• That the previous administration (Ryan's, yes, the Ryan who is headed for jail) was more effective and trustworthy?

He then criticised Blagojevich for spending too much but also not spending enough for capital improvements? He also said that he would oppose all new taxes and fees (though he told the teacher's groups something else entirely)

He used stats and figures but one has to wonder: for example, he mentioned that there were so many thousands of voters in his district during the last election, but also that there were so many thousand "on food stamps". That of course, is misleading information since not everyone on foodstamps is elgible to vote (minors, for example) and the poor tend to vote at lower rates than others.

Of course, Mr. Schock isn't that interested in a large turnout; here is part of a letter that I signed:

Early voting is expected to increase voter turnout and allow thousands of local voters the opportunity to let their voice be heard. Unfortunately, Aaron Schock tried to muffle our voices when he opposed the legislation creating early voting. In 2004, 23 states had some form of early voting and 26 states had an absentee ballot program that didn’t require someone to have an excuse to vote in this way.

Schock voted against House Bill 1968, landmark legislation that made it easier for Illinoisans to stand up and be counted. For someone like me, who has voted by absentee ballot, early voting provides a new opportunity to cast my ballot in the voting booth. It’s so disappointing to know that Aaron Schock tried to stand in our way when he should have made voting more accessible for all of us.

I note that he said that his criteria for each vote is if the bill would be good for his constituents. I wonder just how his constituents are served by this vote?

Ok, now about Bill Spears. His pitch was mostly this: he is an ordinary guy, a lifelong Peorian and a plumber by trade. He served several terms as a city councilman (14 years) and understands what it is like to live from paycheck to paychek. He has balanced budgets before and will do so again. He, like Shock, opposes raiding the pension funds to fund day to day operations of the state.

He seemed to stress very local issues (ethanol, bio-diesel fuel, ethanol-85), etc.

My honest assesment of this "debate": this was a polished young loud mouth salesman vs. a "white bread" colorless "regular guy."

In this debate, Schock was "playing at home" and would have easily won a "who won the debate survey" had this survey been taken at the Rotary Club. This election wouldn't be close if he were running in a predominatly middle to upper middle class white collar district or suburbia.

But given that this is the 92'nd district, Spears has a chance. He is sending out mailers which remind people of the impending utility increase (up to 55%!) and really goes after Ameren Cilco for seeking such a huge increase even though they are currently enjoying big profits.

He sent out another flier reminding the voters that Schock is a Republican through and through.

I think that he needs to keep that up.

LaHood: an Embarrassing Performance on CNN

On another local note, our congressman Ray LaHood was interviewed on CNN concerning the Mark Foley incident. Being interviewed at the same time was Democrat Robert Wexler. LaHood tried to maintain that the page system ought to be shut down and that Wexler was "reading the DNC talking points" and playing "the blame game".

See: every time a Republican is being held accountable for their actions (or lack thereof, as in Dennis Hastert's case), Democrats are playing "the blame game". Who is using talking points?

Here is the interview from You-Tube; agains thanks to the Peoria Pundit.

He makes us (those in Central Illinois) look like a bunch of ignorant idiots.

Vote for Steve Waterworth!

National Level

Kudos to 310helix for alterting us to an exellent commentary by Garrison Keillor:

http://www.sltrib.com/old/opinion/ci_4433433

Garrison Keillor
Syndicated columnist
Salt Lake TribuneI would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.

The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, has decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state" and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.

The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's OK to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants" and throws the poor schnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by Mr. Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.

It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964 - Goldwater, Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright - and you won't find more than 10 votes for it.

None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Idea. Mark their names.

Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor.

Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.

To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott: Mark their names and mark them well. For them, no minstrel raptures swell. High though their titles, proud their name, boundless their wealth as wish can claim, these wretched figures shall go down to the vile dust from whence they sprung, unwept, unhonored and unsung.

Three Republican senators made a show of opposing the bill and, after they'd collected all the praise they could get, they quickly folded. Why be a hero when you can be fairly sure that the Court will dispose of this piece of garbage.

If, however, the Court does not, then our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States of America as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.

I got some insight week before last into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for Homegrown Democrat, but they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, "I don't need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics - I'm a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service." And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We've got ours, and who cares?

The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise, so why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing just fine. If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?

Fox News and Republicans: Blatant Liars

What is wrong with this picture? Look at the caption. Mark Foley is a REPUBLICAN from a heavily REPUBLICAN district. But Fox News "just happened" to make this error.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars and to Dependable Renegade.

Moral: they lie all of the time.

Republicans Spin Foley Story into anti-Homosexuality

I should have known. Not too long ago, I got heartburn when a Kossack cautioned about our going after Foley as a pedophile; one of his main concerns is that this incident would be an invitation for folks to make the false link between homosexuality and pedophilia. Note: my source is from the University of California-Davis Psychology department, not from some advocacy group.

Boris Godunov was right.

Media Matters is carefully making a record of these attacks.

Media conservatives obsess over Foley's sexuality

Summary: In commenting on the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, several conservative media figures and outlets have taken special notice of Foley's reported homosexuality and even linked Foley's sexual orientation to pedophilia.

In commenting on the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), who resigned from Congress amid allegations that he sent sexually explicit messages to underage male former pages, NBC News correspondent Mike Viqueira, on the October 2 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, reported that part of Foley's "reputation" was that "in 2003 ... there were some questions raised about his sexual orientation as he was preparing to run for the Senate." Host Chris Matthews agreed that Foley's sexuality was a key component of the scandal, saying: "It is a tricky situation. It has to do with orientation. It has to do with age ... and adult relationships with kids." In making the connection between Foley's homosexuality and his alleged misconduct involving underage male pages, Matthews and Viqueira joined several conservative media figures and outlets that have taken special notice of Foley's reported homosexuality and even linked Foley's sexual orientation to pedophilia.

For example, an October 3 Wall Street Journal editorial attacked "today's politically correct culture" and suggested that "Democratic critics" of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) are being hypocritical for criticizing him over his handling of the Foley scandal because they aren't saying that "they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts [of America's] decision to ban gay scoutmasters."

See that? It makes sense to ban gay scoutmaseters because gays are pedophiles!

On the October 2 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN chief national correspondent John King interviewed Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council (FRC), who claimed that the House Republican leadership may not have aggressively investigated Foley's alleged misconduct when it was first brought to Republican leaders' attention months before because "there may have been some fear that they had, in pressing it forward, out of fear of being seen as gay bashing or homophobic because of the orientation of Congressman Foley." In prefacing his first question to Perkins, King said that "pro-family voters" looked to the FRC "for guidance and advice in moments like this" -- suggesting that "pro-family" is a synonym for "conservative."

Perkins's comments echoed those of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who, as Media Matters for America noted, said on the October 1 broadcast of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday that House Republicans would have "been accused of gay bashing" if they had "overly aggressively reacted" to Foley's alleged impropriety.

Also, on the October 2 edition of The Situation Room, conservative pundit Bay Buchanan, in faulting the House Republican leadership for not taking appropriate action, explicitly linked Foley's reported homosexuality to his contact with the underage former page. According to Buchanan:

BUCHANAN: John, that was all they needed to know.

I mean, I -- I will repeat myself. This is a known homosexual who's writing emails to the home of a 16-year-old boy, asking for pictures. There -- that's all you need to know. It's done.
[....]

On the October 2 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson wondered "how the Democrats ... are going to paint this as a scandal of the Republican Party" and asked Democratic strategist Steve McMahon: "So, the Republican Party is now the party of gay sex, or what exactly is the Democratic line going to be here?" When McMahon responded, noting that Foley was "hitting on teenage pages," Carlson again turned the conversation toward homosexuality:

CARLSON: I'm trying -- I'm trying to figure -- look, I am, as I think anybody who takes the time to read these instant messages from Congressman Foley -- whom I'll say up front I've always liked, you know, nice guy -- they're stomach-turning; they're disgusting; they're creepy as all hell, and he deserves whatever he's going to get. I just wonder, as a political matter, how the Democrats, though, are going to paint this as a scandal of the Republican Party? So, the Republican Party is now the party of gay sex, or what exactly is the Democratic line going to be here? [...]

See that? The Republicans are now using this indident to justify their prejudices.

New stuff for my bike; Hastert, Foley, et, all

My bike troubles this weekend reminded me of the following:


Hmm, perhaps I should run for President?

Today's ride was without mishap; 21 miles on the hybrid; there was a stiff crosswind most of the way. One thing that I noticed is that the auto traffic lights at the corner of Nebraska and Sterling don't work in the "going west" direction unless
1) one uses the crosswalk button or
2) weighs enough to set off the automobile sensor in the pavement.

I don't weigh enough, but I can think of someone who is close:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/3/163254/398

Simply amazing. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, on Rush Limbaugh's show, says it's all the Democrats' and the kids' fault:

SPEAKER HASTERT: There were two pieces of paper out there, one that we knew about and we acted on; one that happened in 2003 we didn't know about, but somebody had it, and, you know, they're trying -- and they drop it the last day of the session, you know, before we adjourn on an election year. Now, we took care of Mr. Foley. We found out about it, asked him to resign. He did resign. He's gone. We asked for an investigation. We've done that. We're trying to build better protections for these page programs.

But, you know, this is a political issue in itself, too, and what we've tried to do as the Republican Party is make a better economy, protect this country against terrorism -- and we've worked at it ever since 9/11, worked with the president on it -- and there are some people that try to tear us down. We are the insulation to protect this country, and if they get to me it looks like they could affect our election as well.

In two thin, mean paragraphs, Hastert manages to say that it's all a conspiracy by Democrats and/or by Foley's victims, and he says the kids who dared report the child sex predator the GOP had been shielding in their ranks are trying to "tear down" efforts to protect this country against terrorism. He says he's the "insulation" to protect this country -- when all the press reports out there say America would be stupid to trust Dennis Hastert to protect a Boy Scout troop.

This guy is just sick.

He doesn't get it, even today -- he thinks having a sex predator in Congress, knowing about it for at least a year and doing flatly nothing to even investigate how bad it was, not after Alexander knew about it, not after Shimkus knew about it, not after Reynolds knew about it, not after Boehner knew about it, not after Hastert himself was told about it, not even informing the Republican or Democratic members of the Page Board itself, is just another political thing to be "handled" on the Rush Limbaugh Show. And so now he's attacking the victims who finally did come forward, after nothing else worked, and saying that exposing the predator is all a plot against him and Republicans.

Hastert needs to go. It's done. He has no compass for leadership -- or even for remaining in Washington.

• ::

"Insulation" is something Hastert should know something about; come to think of it, so should Limbaugh.

Yes, there are issues that impact many more people out there.
Here is one of them: Woodward exposes How Bush Deceived the Public on Iraq (in many ways)

here is a tiny part of that article

First we have:

“I’m the secretary of defense,” Rumsfeld insisted repeatedly in his first months in 2001. “I’m in the chain of command.” He—not the generals, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff—would deal with the White House and the president on operational matters. Rumsfeld micromanaged daily Pentagon life and rode roughshod over people.

Ok. Rumsfeld is the one in charge, right? Now take a look here; Woodward is interviewing Rumsfeld)

At the end of the second of two interviews, I quoted former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara: “Any military commander who is honest with you will say he’s made mistakes that have cost lives.”

“Um hmm,” Rumsfeld said.

“Is that correct?”

“I don’t know. I suppose that a military commander ...”

“Which you are,” I interrupted.

“No I’m not,” the secretary of defense said.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“No, no. Well … ”

“Yes. Yes,” I said, raising my hand in the air and ticking off the hierarchy. “It’s commander in chief, secretary of defense, combatant commander.”

“I can see a military commander in a uniform who is engaged in a conflict having to make decisions that result in people living or dying and that that would be a truth. And certainly if you go up the chain to the civilian side to the president and to me, you could by indirection, two or three steps removed, make the case.”

Indirection? Two or three steps removed? It was inexplicable. Rumsfeld had spent so much time insisting on the chain of command. He was in control—not the Joint Chiefs, not the uniformed military, not the National Security Council or the NSC staff, not the critics or the opiners. How could he not see his role and responsibility?

No accountability. Ever.

Finally, some wisdom from a commenter at the Peoria Pundit:

Knight in Dragonland:

Tony et al.
I’m not going to defend Clinton’s actions. They were reprehensible for a lot of the same reasons I use to criticize Foley. HOWEVER, I don’t think the public was well served by the witch hunt that pursued him when clearly the will of the majority was to censor Clinton and move on. Thus MoveOn.org, with all of its raging liberal madness that conservatives love to hate, is the love child of the rabid Republican orgy to impeach Clinton. Finally, I think it’s a sad commentary when Republicans spend twice as much pursuing a semen-stained dress (icon of the $7.2 million total cost for Ken Starr’s inquiry) than they will to investigate the missteps that led to the attacks of September 11 ($3 million to fund the 9/11 Commission).

Ok, Clinton's actions were NOT the same; ever hear of "age of consent"? But his other comments are mostly on point, though I don't know how much raging madness that MoveOn.org has. After all, for most MoveOn.org members, Clinton was too conservative. But the highlighted comments are right on.

Math Fun from an Old Friend

Math Fun From An Old Friend

One of my old graduate student buddies is a professor at Pittsburg State University in Kansas.
He calls himself The Okie in Exile.

His reasearch area is geometric topology; he has published in the area of non-compact three manifolds. He is one of the world's experts in Whitehead manifolds.

He has put out a couple of Youtube intervals in which he teaches math topics via folksy, funny stories.

The first of these deals with the Chinese Remainder Theorem in a clever way; the second one talks about Egyptian fractions. Enjoy!

My People Skills and Yoga; some math comments as well

I am taking a bit of extra time this morning; I am just not in the mood to fight for a lane in the local pool. So I'll lift weights first and then swim a shorter distance at our university's pool; given that there is a program in the pool from 6-7, I can count on the lifeguard showing up. I think.

Yoga and People Skills

I got in a bit of a fight with my yoga teacher over politics; basically she hates Governor Blagojevich and, well, I merely dislike him. In other words, she is mad that I have decided that most of the "corruption" charges against him is the result of Republican hype and I'll vote for him.

So this morning, I get up and see this thread on the yoga.com message board: one of the yogis found out that one of his fellow teachers has made the Playboy "sexy girl next door" list!

I am thinking of e-mailing her this photo and saying this is what a real yoga teacher looks like! I suppose that would help matters, would it?

But, let's just say that this teacher wouldn't have any problem holding the attention of her class. Now whether or not the class would focus on the yoga or on her....

But in my case, given that most of the rest of class is sort of like me (middle aged to old, mostly out of shape, untoned and flabby), focusing on the yoga hasn't been a problem for me!

Math and People Skills

It appears that the students consider me to be a bit more approachable this year. Hence, they ask more questions and therefore I can see what confuses them.

Of course, some of that startles me.

I am teaching differential equations and a current topic is linear second order differential equations.

For those who have had some calculus, a differential equation is an equation involving a function and its derivatives (possibly some of higher order).

Example: y' + y = 0 is an example of a differential equation; this reads: a function plus its derivative is always zero. A general solution is y = a*exp(-t) because
y' + y = -a*exp(-t) + a*exp(-t) = 0.

Now if we had instead: y' + y = cos(t) we would obtain:

y = a*exp(-t) + (1/2)(cos(t) + sin(t)) as a solution. The solution with the arbitrary constant is called the homogenous solution, and the one without is (the trig part, in this case) is called the particular solution.

There are many techniques for solving these; you know that you are done by the various existance and uniqueness theorems (e. g. differential equations meeting certain criteria have a unique solution, so if you get a solution by "any means necessary" (e. g. good guessing) then you have all of the solutions.)

So, we need to teach "good guessing" which is sometimes known as "the method of undetermined coefficients".

The basic principle is that

if yp(t) = exp(a*t) then all derivatives are of (something)*exp(a*t)
if yp(t) = (b*cos(r*t) + d* sin(r*t)) then all derivatives are sums of sin(r*t) and cos(r*t)
if yp(t) = polynomial, then all derivatives are polynomials.

That is, certain types of functions formed a closed class with respect to taking derivatives.

To see this, consider a function that does not fall into this category: y(t) = sec(t)
taking derivatives yields tan(t)sec(t), then sec^3(t) + tan^2(t)sec(t), etc., which are not of the form (some constant) * sec(t)

So the good guessing technique doesn't work with sec(t).

This is something I understood from day one as a student.

Most of my students (or at least many) don't have a natural understanding of this.

I never knew that.

I don't like gravel nor wind! And, let people think that Foley is a Pedophile.

This morning's ride went very well for the first 90 minutes or so (35 miles). Then, while turning on a country road, I hit one of those ubiquitous gravel patches. I figured that my bike handling skills were good enough for this gravel patch...WRONG!

I slid down and landed on my left side; I've enclosed a photo of the damage to my forearm. Fortunately, I was wearing sport hill pants under my shorts and a long sleeved shirt.



What a moron! I was just grateful that there were no cars in sight and no one around to observe my stupidity!

The rest of the ride: well, just about that time I turned around and, of course, the wind picked up. I looked at Weather Underground and saw that the wind started blowing at 9 am (I started at 9:20) and peaked (locally) at 11 am; right about the time I turned around.

I swear; the Flying Spaghetti Monster is out to get me! The cynic might point out that the wind has to do with the day starting off cool, and then heating up and that the wind is usually from the South, which is the direction I finish in. Had I started my ride earlier, it wouldn't have been a problem.

But all in all, it feels good to whine.

Still, I got 52+ miles though it took me 3:48 (running time; I keep the clock running through my rest stop, my wipeout, stop light stops (first 5 and last 5 miles), etc.

I rode out to Evans Mill Road (15 miles each way), did most of the No Baloney Princeville loop, and then took it back home.

But, cleaning this forearm prior to my shower isn't gonna be fun.

No Baloney Ride: Update

The 2006 course maps can be found here:

Morning 50 mile loop
Middle 25 mile loop (from about 15 miles into the Morning 50 loop starting and finishing at Hanna City)
Last 25 mile loop to Princeville and Back

Politics: Democrats Can't Leave Well Enough Alone!

This happens every time. The Republicans screw up royally (Republican Congressman Mark Foley solicits a 16 year old boy) and hands us an issue on a silver platter. Someone speaks inaccurately (Foley's conduct is linked to pedophilia; technically speaking, pedophilia refers to sexual urges toward childeren who haven't reached puberty. Hence Foley's conduct is not pedophilia). Then some liberal has to correct that someone on the nuances on what was said, thereby muddying up the issue and giving the Republicans an out.

Look, I know that male homosexuals have been unfairly suspected of being pedophiles. I know that is a bad common misconception.

But there is a time and place to "educate people" on your pet causes, and there is a time and place to run with a winning political issue.

I am not suggesting that we lie; I am merely suggesting that we don't have to point out every single inaccuracy that someone else makes.

At least one Kossak knows this, thank goodness.

Yoga for Cyclists, Morning Football plus a neat Political Rant

Yoga for Bicycle Riders

There is a nice article here:

http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/196_1.cfm

A yoga program can build a cyclist's strength and endurance and introduce flexibility to chronically tight muscles.

By Baron Baptiste and Kathleen Finn Mendola

Rudi Altig was a man before his time. In the 1960s, the German Tour de France bike racer known as the "yellow dwarf" was a yoga enthusiast. Before and after his arduous races he used yoga to relax his muscular body. Maybe he instinctively knew that yoga—with its ability to usher athletes though other dimensions and angles—is the perfect foil for bicycling, a one-dimensional sport.

As a bicyclist travels through one plane, he or she repeatedly overtaxes some muscles and underutilizes others. Watch a cyclist coming toward you, and you can read the imbalances. Rocking side to side signals that one hip is compensating for the other's weakness or inflexibility. Hips are the core of movement for the cyclist. If the core is weak, then the upper body has to work harder, and this can lead to back strain.

Likewise, if a thigh or knee flares out from the bicycle seat due to weakness or chronic tightness, that side of the body is doing less work. The hips, thighs, knees, and ankles should all be on one track—pointing straight ahead. If these body parts are off track, cyclists run the risk of wearing down ligaments and tendons, and developing imbalanced muscle groups. And in cyclists, the quadriceps are often overdeveloped. To compensate for this, the hamstrings shorten, tighten, and thus weaken.

The posture a cyclist conforms to astride a bike also contributes to muscle tension and imbalance: A bicyclist's spine is in a constant state of flexion, hunched over the handlebars. In order to achieve overall flexibility and balanced muscle groups, a biker needs to incorporate balancing, counteracting movements—for example, backbends, which stretch and elongate oft-used hip flexors and quadriceps. A yoga practice can help restore balance, first by taking the alignment principles of yoga and transferring them to how you sit on your bike.

Does Your Bike Fit?
Jon Bridenbaugh, a Portland, Oregon-based bike racer, took up yoga as part of his training as a bicyclist fitter. He attributes an improved sense of balance and endurance, and a subtle awareness of his center, to his weekly yoga classes.

Not only has Bridenbaugh seen improvement in his riding, he has also noticed a clear link between the tenets of yoga and bicycle positioning. A bicyclist's success and comfort level depend on how well he or she is fitted to his or her bicycle. Fitting specialists such as Bridenbaugh take the alignment principles of yoga and apply them to how a bicyclist relates to his bicycle.

After positioning a bicyclist on a stationary cycle, fitters take riders through a body alignment checklist:

Arms & Wrists. Your arms should be placed at right angles to your torso, in line with your shoulders. Your wrists should be in line with the shoulders or just slightly wider than them in order to distribute upper body weight evenly. If your arms are spread too wide, you can strain your shoulders. Too narrow a hold can collapse the chest, though for racers, a narrow stance improves handling when going downhill. To strive for this alignment, practice a modified Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana) with the arms bent, or a modified Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana), with the forearms flat on the floor, approximating the angle of your arms on your bike.

Torso. Your spine should be in a neutral position and your chest should be open so you can lean forward without strain. A strong, neutral spine allows the chest to open, which in turn facilitates oxygen intake. Tight hamstrings will limit how far the back will bend before forcing the chest to close. Try the standing forward bend Padahastasana or the seated forward bend Janu Sirsasana to achieve this neutral feeling in the spine.

Hips & Pelvis. The angle between the torso and the hips should not be hard or sharp—there should be adequate space for the hips to move freely. Warrior Pose (Virabhadrasana I, II, & III) can give you a sense of this open connection between the torso and the hips. Your saddle should be essentially flat-tilted slightly, to a maximum of three to five degrees. Just as the proper angle of your pelvis in Downward-Facing Dog allows you to distribute your weight evenly through your hands, arms, legs, and feet, a seat tilted too far forward tips the pelvis and adds undue pressure to the hands and wrists.

Finally, the entire body should be relaxed. A tension-free upper body is vital to a cyclist's comfort and endurance. Tension sucks up the power you can put into pedaling. French bike racer Bernard Hinault puts it this way, "You should feel like you can play piano while riding your bike." In other words, no death grips on the handlebars. Just let your arms hang loosely from the shoulders. For full body relaxation, think of how your body lets go of effort in Savasana (Corpse Pose) before getting aboard your bike.

Get into the Flow
Alignment will help you economize energy, allowing you to ride longer, more comfortably, but there are other yoga principles and practices that will also serve you well on a ride:

Flow. At the bottom of your pedal stroke, your knee should be straight and your foot parallel to the ground. Strive for the smooth strokes of professional cyclists, who are able to apply power throughout 360 degrees of the rotation instead of pedaling in squares, abruptly thrusting pedals up and down. Before your daily ride, try warming up with Sun Salutations to introduce the smoothness you're trying to achieve in your pedal stroke. This flowing series allows you to work out kinks in your movements, which over time translate to fluid transitions from one pose to another, the kind of continuous, flowing action you want in your pedal stroke.

Extension. Get as much extension as possible from your bike seat. A fitter will raise your seat until you have to rock side to side to reach pedals, then lower it until you don't have to rock anymore. You can practice the extension principle in any number of yoga poses. In particular, Padahastasana and Uttanasana, both forward bends, best approximate the feeling of extension you are striving for as you stretch from your pelvis.

Breath. Don't leave your breathwork at home when you ride. Even in intense effort, you want to connect the rhythm of your breath with your pedal strokes. As in yoga poses, breath is vital to reaching those tight, restricted muscles that are in need of oxygen. So transfer your pranayama practice and your awareness of the breath in postures to your biking, where muscles undergoing physical exertion are especially in need of oxygen.

Bicycling, like other linear sports such as running, hiking, and swimming, calls out for the counterbalancing benefits of yoga. Not only do poses aid in elongating and strengthening overtaxed muscles, but applying the finer nuances of yoga alignment will help you establish a new relationship with your bike, one of comfort and ease.

Baron Baptiste is a yoga teacher and athletic trainer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, known for his work with the Philadelphia Eagles and as the host of ESPN's "Cyberfit." Kathleen Finn Mendola is a health and wellness writer based in Portland, Oregon.

Ok, now for a little bit of football:

ND pulled it out 35-21 though the Irish got torched for 492 yards in total offense by the Boilermakers. The Irish are simply too slow on defense to be an elite team; they are a solid 10-15 team. Their current ranking is fair.

At yahoo college pick-em I am 57 for 98 which is good for a 78-82'nd percentile ranking in my respecitve fan groups. Our pools use the point spread which makes it more difficult. But many of the games (11 so far) were rated as "off" meaning that there was no line. These were of the Texas versus Sam Houston State variety (where UT lead 42-0 at the half and then coasted). So of the games where there was a spread, and deducting the three "push" games where one team won by exactly the spread, I am 46 out of 84 or 54.76 percent.

Now when one gambles, one usually has to bet 11 dollars to win 10. That is, if you lose, you are out your 11 dollars. If you win, you get your 11 back, plus 10 more. So in my case, I lost 38 times and won 46 times (ignoring ties). So I lost 418 dollars and won 460, so I'd be up 42 dollars, so far.

In terms of probability, the chances of my getting 46 or more correct choices by pure chance is 22%, so statistically speaking, one cannot concluded that my picks are doing better than a plain old coin flip.

(click for a larger version)

I am getting ready to go out for a moderate ride; I had better be careful as my left IT band is "oh so slightly sore" and that is how injuries start.

While skimming the Daily Kos, I came across this diary. Yes, it is a rant, but it is one of the best done rants I've seen in a long while. So here are its major points; treat yourself and read the whole thing.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/30/183728/244

Are you a Republican?

by L C Johnson [Subscribe]

Sat Sep 30, 2006 at 03:37:28 PM PDT

[...]

Meet Tammy Duckworth, Democratic candidate for Congress from Illinois and combat veteran. Tammy lost both legs in a helicopter crash. Hearing the charge that she wanted to cut and run, Tammy said:

"Well, I didn't cut and run, Mr. President. Like so many others, I proudly fought and sacrificed,; Duckworth said. "My helicopter was shot down long after you proclaimed 'mission accomplished."

Ask yourself the following questions and decide, "Are you a Republican?" (and my apologies to Jeff Foxworthy)

[...]

If you enjoy shoplifting while working at the White House, you might be a Republican.

If you enjoy soliciting teenagers and children for sex over the internet, you might be a Republican.

If you enjoy sending other people's children to war while your kids go to college and hang out in bars, you might be a Republican.

If you start a war in Iraq while lying to the American people that Saddam was tied to Osama Bin Laden, you might be a Republican.

If you failed to complete your own National Guard service and your Vice President received five deferments to avoid service in Vietnam, but accuse political opponents who challenge your failed foreign policy inIraq of being cowards, you might be a Republican.

If you call dark skinned people Macacas and Niggers, you might be a Republican.

If you ignore intelligence community warnings that Bin Laden is determined to strike inside the United States, you might be a Republican.

If you follow policies that squander a budget surplus and create an $8.5 trillion dollar budget deficit, you might be a Republican.

If you expose the identity of an undercover CIA officer in charge of tracking down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, you might be a Republican.

If you believe the President should be entitled to jail, without recourse to Habeus Corpus, anyone he decides is a threat, you might be a Republican.

After careful consideration, I realize that I lack the moral bankruptcy, cowardice, and fiscal recklessness to call my self a Republican. I've decided, I am an American.