Walter Cronkite, last of the Decepticons

I was listening to On Point with Tom Ashbrook on WBUR for the drive home today and the story was about Walter Cronkite.

The first guest was Lee Thornton and she ably described the news media at a time when one of them could be rightly called the most trusted man in America. Tom asked her how it is that now it is inconceivable for a news man to even be trusted, let alone to the extent Cronkite was. Professor Thornton blamed this on talk radio and the Internet for politicising the news. Before they came along there was just the media and it was trusted for being professional and unbiased. Good Jupiter! does this woman have a blind spot! People stopped trusting the media when they lost their monopoly. You could hear an alternative take on things and to the extent that this take made sense, one lost trust in the main stream media.

It's not like the MSM just suddenly became 90% Democrat, it is that the public became aware of this. This is not a bad thing. We as a nation should never have trusted Walter Cronkite. He wasn't a bad man so far as I know, but he was a man with a liberal outlook and we as a nation made poor choices because we thought of him as objective when he wasn't. Further guests decried that had someone like that been in place before the Iraq war, then the war could have been averted. What a bizzaro world: The truth is, had the Internet existed during Vietnam we would have known what a victory Tet was for our side and we wouldn't have let the North enslave the South. The same liberals who wish a cronkite could have kept us from Iraq seem to forget that they and the current President all claimed with utmost confidence two years ago how Iraq was unwinnable.

A record that wasn't quite what I hoped for and perfect 10's that didn't lead to victory.

I did my Sunday long run early in the day because later we planned to go to the CS&T "Family Fun Day", plus it looked to be a warm day so best to run while it is cool.

Last time I did this 13.1 miler, I started out fast and had a pretty good time going for 5 miles, but then I got a pain in my calf and ended up with a pretty slow pace. This time I decided to go out a little slower and build speed as I went and this seemed to work well. I had misremembered my last time as 1:55 and change and so I thought I was well ahead of that. As it turned out, the last time I did it in 1:51:33 and so my 1:50:54 ended up only being only slightly better.

One nice thing was that I had the energy to finish strong instead of dragging myself the last few miles. The final couple of miles runs from the town center to the swim and tennis club along the new bike path. I passed a man of about my age at the start of the path and said "hi, nice day" as I passed. Then I saw another runner about 1/4 mile ahead of me, so I set-about catching him and this took about a mile. Once I caught-up, we ran together chatting the rest of the way. It was nice: He too has noticed that there are not as many fast runners now as there were in the past. The guy, Joey B. set a good pace even though 10 years older than me, hopefully we will run into each other again--much more pleasant to train with company.

Later at the swim club...

The day was filled with egg tosses, potato sack races and that kind of thing. The one event I participated in was the adult cannon-ball contest. I am at a bit of a disadvantage in this because most of the men weigh more than me and that is one of the key factors in the event. To some extent I can make up for this by being more athletic than average: So I get a bit more height out of the spring board and am able to curl-up into a compact ball before hitting the water.

I had seen from the kid's belly-flop contest that the judges really like a commitment to the dive: Kids that chicken-out at the end didn't score nearly as high as kids who held the flop right into the water. So, on my initial dive I just tried to get as high as I could, form into a tight ball and then (the hard part) hold that position until under water. This worked. Four other men and I made the second round (two women had been in the first round). I was the second diver in the second round. The first guy did a serviceable dive with a huge splash and got all 9 and 9.5's. Here, I figured you have to go beyond just a good cannonball--you have to add a little showmanship. I did a straight jump and then as I curled-up I rotated 90 degrees backwards so that I landed (more-or-less) on my head. I got all 10's! The only problem was that one of the final 3 did some crazy double back flip cannonball and also got all 10's. They had done a sudden-death dive-off for the kids when they tied, but this time they awarded the other guy the crown (he has been winning every year as it turns out). That was fine, I didn't have anything that could have beat that last dive he did anyway. I did have something in mind though--in case I had to have made another attempt. I was going to do a swan-dive and then curl-up right at the end. It might have turned into a front flip, which still wouldn't have won, but you've got to offer something if called upon.

In any case, it was a lot of fun and I got a lot of compliments afterwards. The kid's favorite event was where a bunch of coins are thrown into the pool and then they all scramble to get what they can. They all got a good haul and were happy.

Oh yes, almost forgot! The guy I passed right at the start of the bike path was sitting next to us by the pool and he recognized me. He seemed a little shocked that when I passed him I was at the tail-end of a 13 mile run at the time.

Training for this week

misc run 10.6 1:30:57 0:08:35 12-Jul-09 sun

Affy Loop 5.2 39:23:00 7:34:25 13-Jul-09 mon

local 3.5 3.5 27:00:00 7:42:51 14-Jul-09 tue

Half marathon 13.1 1:51:33 0:08:31 15-Jul-09 wed

Affy Loop 5.2 38:50:00 7:28:05 16-Jul-09 thu

Didn't get to run on Friday because I got invited out to lunch--usually run at lunchtime. Guessing I won't go running on Saturday because I normally do a long run on Sunday and want to be fresh for that, plus it is nice to get stuff done on Saturday.

So in conclusion, I can post this now because I know that there will be no more running this week.

One small problem with this study...

There have been a number of articles about the recent IntelliChoice.com report on the cost of ownership between conventional cars and hybrids or diesels.

The best deal was the Volkswagon Jetta TDI v. the conventional gasoline Jetta, but right behind that was the Toyota Prius v. the Camry.

Left unexplored is why they chose to compare the Prius with the Camry instead of the smaller and cheaper Corolla. Car size is determined by weight and the Prius is considered mid-sized like the Camry. The problem here is that the extra weight is not going into the size or power of the vehicle, it is going into the stuff that improves the mileage. In terms of power and size, the Prius is much closer to the Corolla than the Camry.

Prius.................Corolla............Camry

98HP...................132HP...............169HP

3042lbs................2723lbs.............3263lbs

94 PV...................92 PV...............101 PV

$22,750.................$16,100.............19,588

PV= passenger volume. Price and other data are from carsdirect price of 2009 base models

Internal volume is slightly less in the Corolla than the Prius, but the Corolla has a lot more power, so the overall utility is pretty much the same for the two cars. This contrasts to the Camry, which is just a bigger car in all ways than the Prius. 

 The cost comparison gives a savings of $4,930 in 5 years. My bet is that the savings would be zero (or less) had they compared with the Corolla. Even comparing to the Camry, it is $3,400 cheaper right off the blocks and that leaves only $1,500 of savings. But the Corolla gets better mileage than the Camry and saves another $3,000, so that will eat-away the rest of the savings.

This is not to say that the Prius is a bad deal--It is just not reasonable to compare it to the Camry. Our in-laws have one and they love it. It gets great mileage and allows them to drive in restricted lanes, plus there may have been a tax savings as well.

I for one, welcome our new climate.

The Boston area is usually not so fun in mid-Summer: It will be in the high 80's with a lot of humidity and the only way to survive is to run the AC. This Summer it rained most of June and now July is reasonably clear. But the clear days are in the 70's and with low humidity. It is pretty nice.

It is pretty typical of what one might normally see in Maine or Northern Vermont. That is fine for the Summer, but I hope things turn-around by Winter. Theirs are brutal, they can keep-em.

Meanwhile, enjoying the absence of AC drone and lower electric bills too.

iowahawk for car czar

iowahawk

Interestingly TZAR can mean Car or Supreme Leader, depending on the transliteration.

Let's Play a game of what-if

Chart from michaelscomments

President Obama sold the stimulus bill as one which would keep the unemployment rate down under 8%, but it is now around 9.5%. Now, let us pose a hypothetical question: Suppose the bill had failed and the unemployment rate was exactly what it now is. What do you want to bet that Obama would be claiming that today's 9.5% is all the fault of those who blocked his plan? Republicans would claim (correctly), that the rate would have been 9.5% even with the plan. The press would ridicule them for it.

I never put much stock in a plan that only spends around 1/4 of the total amount in 2009 (and it will be lucky if it even makes that target). When an economy needs stimulus, it needs it NOW! Not spread-out over several years. If I were doing it, it would have been something fast--like a one year Holiday on FICA or slash corporate income tax to 10%. But then it never was a stimulus plan except in name. It was a spend money on Democratic Party wish-list bill. Understood in that light, it totally made sense.

Last Week's Training

Affy Loop 5.2 38:00:00 7:18:28 6-Jul-09

Glad Valley 4.38 33:53:00 7:44:09 7-Jul-09

Landing Strip 020 11.8 1:30:09 0:07:38 8-Jul-09

nutting lake 3.5 untimed 9-Jul-09

Faun Lake 5.5 42:54:00 7:48:00 10-Jul-09

Are they for it because they know it won't do anything?

So, I was reading an unusual comment thread about the climate change bill the House just passed. It was unusual because most of the people commenting thought the whole issue is a scam. It has all the appearances of a scam, but most people don't seem to notice this.

One commenter pointed out that if the level of CO2 is too high, then shouldn't the most rational approach be how to reduce the level in the least expensive way? The current plan calls for reductions in the output by the industrialized world and increases by the developing world. So what this all means is that there won't be any reduction in CO2 already in the air! Even the rate at which it is added will increase, but a little slower than without the plan. It is known that there are ways to directly take CO2 out of the atmosphere, like seeding the tropical oceans with iron for instance. Other ideas ignore the CO2 and go directly to its supposed problem: Warming. Why not produce a multitude of mirrored glass or plastic balls that can float around in the oceans reflecting light out into space?

A follow-up comment by a reasonable non-AGW sceptic was that the iron idea is good, but there could be unforeseen consequences. Well, isn't that a feature rather than a bug? If the CO2 capping will have any effect, won't it also be subject to possible unforeseen consequences?

Hasn't this occurred to anyone else?

If the current global cooling (since 2000 or 2002) continues and CO2 does actually warm things, then won't hard restrictions carry the risk of precipitating an ice age?

Update: Even a fanatic like James Hansen thinks the House bill is worthless.

Ghost Town

My wife and I stumbled upon Ghost Town last night, just because it happened to be on. We hadn't heard of it before but it has Ricky Gervais in it and that was enough.

The first thing that struck me was that there is a woman who finds out her husband is cheating on her the same day as he dies. I had come across a similar couple of stories in real life where this kind of thing happened too. There was football player Steve McNair whose wife only found out about his infidelity because of and soon after his murder. And then there was a New York Times piece on a woman who discovered multiple affairs by her husband after he died. She confronted the other women and eventually wrote a book about it, Perfection. So, it was an interesting coincidence seeing a movie with a similar plot device just now.

The movie was pretty funny. Ricky Gervais does what he does as usual and does it well. The side roles are really what put the movie over the top. Greg Kinnear does well as a slightly oily, but always charming schemer--the unfaithful husband. The widow is played by Téa Leoni. The thing about her is that every movie I see her in, I end up being surprised by how good she is. Maybe the fact that she is so pretty lowers the acting expectation, but the acting is first-rate. There were lots of other great bit parts: The doctor, the hospital lawyer, the dentist's receptionist and especially Ferris Bueller's best friend.

I instantly recognized Alan Ruck as someone I have seen before, but where? My wife was shaken: It can't be Cameron because that guy is middle-aged looking and if he is old...No! it is too horrible to contemplate.

An off-day in more than one way

I have Wednesdays off and so I like to get two things done on these days: Go for a long run and accomplish the kind of stuff normally done on weekends--like mow the lawn. Unfortunately our kid wrangler called-in sick, so I took them to swim team/lessons and tennis.

This ate up half the day, but I still managed to roast some coffee, go to the Post Office and apply for the kid's passports and go grocery shopping.

Later I did my Landing Strip 020 run 11.8 miles. Done in 1:30:09, which comes to 7:38/mile and I am happy with that.

One busy 4th

A long, fun, tiring day...

First thing, my wife dropped me off at the start of the John Carson 2-miler. There is an Einstein Bros. Bagel place there, so she picked-up breakfast to bring home to the kids.

While I ran the race, she went back home, fed the kids and came down to the town green to occupy our chairs so they wouldn't get moved again. The race is the first attraction for spectators of the parade.

The end of the race is very close to where they were sitting, so after the race I came over and made sure that they were all well-situated. I ate some snacks handed-out at the end of the race: Potato chips, watermelon, orange juice and a piece of watermelon thus composed my breakfast. After my snack, I decided to jog the two miles home and saw from my stopwatch that the race had only begun one hour earlier.

I got cleaned-up and changed, then just relaxed for a bit by checking out the internet tubes. To my pleasure, the results of the race were already posted to Cool Running! Sweet. Then I got the dog and walker her back to the town center. We got there just as the parade ended, but this was fine since Meenah got a needed walk and I was able to help bring stuff back to the car--parked nearby.

Once home, grandparents and in-laws soon showed-up and we had lunch. We had a simple lunch of watermelon, chicken salad, blondies, strawberries and chips. Then, off to the swim and tennis club. The kids swam and played with the toddler in the baby pool while a game of Scrabble was had by the adults. It was late in the afternoon by the time we left the pool.

Dinner prep was hectic even as many of the items were prepared ahead of time: We had potato salad and roasted potatoes since Aja cannot abide mayo. Grilled corn-on-the-cob, grilled shrimp, grilled flank-steak, Italian white beans in a ragout, green salad with home-made roasted garlic dressing and bread.

There was still time to go see fireworks! Every year Acton puts on a big show in their NARA park. It is a nice setting: There is an amphitheater and this year there was a band doing Rolling Stones covers. The park is hilly, but there are only small decorative trees and the places between and nestled by the hills are sloped only enough to prevent the ground from being soggy. One whole side of the park is a pond of several hundred yards in length. It is a very nice setting for a big event.

While waiting for the fireworks to begin, we looked at the stars come out. I noticed a satellite crossing the sky. The brightness was occillating as it tracked along. I couldn't decide if the cause was high level clouds or perhaps it was rotating space junk.

The park itself doesn't have much parking, but there is a path through some woods that leads to a huge office park. So, people can park there and then walk through the woods. The organizers make it easy by stringing-up lights along the path. Well, it is easy in theory, but try and keep track of kids, in the woods, with 10,000 other people all trying to go down a path 8-feet wide. It is fun for people who can kind of go-with-the-flow. For people who are panic-prone, I can only imagine the 1000 deaths they must go through.

We were home an hour after the last firework went off*. We gave the kids some cookies and milk and then they washed-up and hit the sack.

*As we walked through the woods, several times a rocket or two would go off. We don't know the cause, but suspect that officials discovered (a few at a time) of shells that didn't get fired. They probably figured it was best to just set them off. People along the path would make jokes like, "Hey, what does this button do"? and so forth.

4th of July 2-miler

I wore my old High School Cross Country shirt.

110 19/208 M4049 12:55 6:28 dbp 46 M Chelmsford MA

I am pleased with this: I figured that I could finish under 14 minutes if I put in a reasonable effort. As it was, I got a little overheated toward the end, but I really could have run a bit faster.

A girl I passed around the one mile mark--posted only as an encouragement for people thinking about taking-up running...

10/day

One year ago I installed a counter. I'd had one before, but it never worked right and somewhere around when it hit 3-4,000 it inexplicitly reset itself to zero. I deleted it with extreme predjustice and put in the one which is there now.

One year ago to the day it was put in and it comes out to just over ten visits per day. I appreciate my small but dedicated (or twisted-whatever) audience.

EPA report casts serious doubt on the need to regulate CO2

The Report, which was suppressed by the EPA--but came out anyway (they always do, eventually) brings-up serious doubts about the need for limitations on CO2 output.

Notice, if you will, how critics attack the author, the motives of his sources etc. but they never mention the substance of the report.

Interesting...

Rain Dance (in reverse)

Pretty much all of June was lousy with rain. Getting desperate for some sunshine, I put down grass seed in the bare patches of the yard.

If this doesn't cause the sun to come out, nothing I can do will. Also, now if it keeps raining I won't mind as much.

Update: Another day of rain.

Update: Yet another day of rain.

My brush with fame was 20 years ago

I have 20 or 30 different t-shirts that I regularly wear for jogging or lounging around in. Normally, I hardly notice what is printed on them--they range from ones that you get in a 10K run to such minor events as company picnics & etc. The other day I noticed this shirt because it had a date on it and it was 20 years old. I had not realized that clothes could last that long.

The funny thing is that it very nearly only lasted for one day. You see, this t-shirt was worn in a kind of 10K mud run from back when I was in the Marine Corps. The race involved wading through waist-deep mud, crawling under barbed wire and so forth. Had I torn it on the barbed wire, as I did my Cami trousers, I would have thrown it away. As well, when I finished the race I was more than half tempted to just toss the shirt since it had about a pound of mud caked into it. It may have taken a couple of washes to come clean, but it has served me well for two decades and counting.

Oh yes, the fame: The next month on my drill weekend some fellow Marines showed me the latest issue of Leatherneck and there I am. Of course my name isn't with the picture and I didn't even recognize myself at first, so a pretty tenuous claim to fame--but I will take it!

Oh Really?

President Obama:

"At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe,"

So you are saying that the electricity utilities that pay more to generate power won't pass this extra cost on to consumers? Okay, well then won't the shareholders (many of which are pension funds) realize a lower return on their investments?

The water we drink is "polluted" by carbon? You mean like Coke, sparkling water and champagne? I pay extra for that kind of water!

CO2 is not remotely harmful to breathe even at many times the current concentration. It is however essential for plant growth.

We have got to stop electing people so utterly ignorant of science to the most powerful position in the world.

White Peony

Running with the dog. Barefoot, kind of...

Last Summer I took the puppy for a 4-mile run most mornings. She would pull at the leash the whole way, so I knew she was not being over exerted. She is a breed built for comfort, not speed, so I wanted to be careful.

This Summer she is just not the same dog. She got run-over last fall and by late winter was recovered, but really out of shape. So on Tuesdays, when I work from home, I take her on a couple of miles slow jog.

In order that I get something out of it fitness-wise I wear these sort of foot gloves made by Vibram.  It feels like you are barefoot--without tearing-up your feet. They make you run like you're barefoot since they've no padding at all. You cannot land on your heel as you would in normal running shoes. The result is that you build-up strength in your foot and calf and this is supposed to ward-off injuries from distance training. I know my calves were very sore the first few times I ran in these things.