Bush “Most Fit” President in History

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

Bush Exercises 6X a Week; “Most-Fit” President in History (Drudge)

President Bush turned 59 years old this month and his health is in the “superior” fitness category for men his age — greater than 99% percentile for 55-59 year-old men!

The latest health results make Bush the “most-fit” president in modern history.

He has not had a sick day in the past year — and he works out 6 days a week: Workouts include bicycling (15-20 miles, 15-18mph), treadmill (low impact “hill-work”), elliptical trainer, free weight resistance training, and stretching.

The President takes a daily multi-vitamin, low-dose aspirin, glucosamine/chondroitin, and an omega 3 supplement.

Bush Weight: 191 pounds(last year 199)

Body Composition: Body fat 15.79% (last year 18.25%; normal for age 16.5-20.5%)

Damn, my numbers are nowhere near his and I haven’t hit 40 yet. Perhaps Budweiser isn’t the panacea I thought it was.

Tags | Health, Leopold Stotch

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Is it Just Me?

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

Question: is it just me or is Lawrence O’Donnell one seriously arrogant SOB?

Tags | Leopold Stotch, Media

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US Soldiers: “Over There” is Bogus

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

These Soldiers Say “Over There” is “Bogus” (Seattle PI)

“Bogus” was the preferred adjective among the eight soldiers — most of them Iraq vets — viewing the series pilot last week at Camp Murray, headquarters of the Washington State National Guard in Tacoma.

“Thank God that’s over,” said a master sergeant as the credits rolled.

The uniformed skeptics dissected the series pilot scene by scene, beginning with the roadside bombing and panicked soldiers. Who, they asked, was pulling security? And what kind of idiot pulls off his helmet after a bombing attack? “In real life, training takes over. Not in Hollywood,” said Sgt. Dan Purcell.

[...]

The Camp Murray soldiers dismissed the military firefights as “bull—- ” (”Where is the air support? Where is the armor support?”), the dialogue as contrived (”It sucked”) and plot drivers as pure Hollywood.

In the script, characters are thrown together for the first time. They constantly ask each other to explain nicknames. In real life, soldiers are sent to Iraq in units. “They don’t have to ask each other’s nicknames. They all know each other.”

After one week in-country, the soldier-actors mull life and death and war in eloquent speeches home to loved ones, talking about how war unmasks the monster within. “Nobody is that reflective after one week in-country. It’s more like, “Ohmigod, we’re in Iraq. Hi. What the hell am I doing here?”

I didn’t catch the show, but it’s being marketed as a tool for understanding the human side of the war. It sounds like more Hollywood melodrama instead.

Tags | Entertainment, Iraq Conflict, Leopold Stotch

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Howard Dean’s Right Turn

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

From lawblogger Patterico comes this gem:

“The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is ‘okay’ to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,” Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.

Dean’s reference to the “right-wing” court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court – Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the fourth dissenter.

The court’s liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.

The full story can be found here.

Tags | Law and the Courts, Leopold Stotch, US Politics

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More Potential Space Shuttle Problems

Rodney Dill | Sunday, July 31, 2005

NASA Scrambling to Determine Whether Drooping Material on Discovery’s Belly Poses Danger – Marica Dunn – Associated Press

A couple of short strips of material dangling from Discovery’s belly had NASA scrambling Sunday to determine whether the protrusions might endanger the shuttle during next week’s descent and whether the astronauts might need to attempt a repair.

The potential trouble has nothing to do with foam or other launch debris – for a change – but rather the accidental slippage of material used to fill the thin gaps between thermal tiles.

Outside of the possibility of real risk to the Astronauts, the real problem is that we are taking measurements and assessments now that were never taken, so we don’t know what really is a potential problem and what was there all along.

Tags | Rodney Dill, Science & Technology

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Muslim Group in Britain Decries “Hate”

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

Muslim Group in Britain Decries “Hate” (Washington Times)

LONDON — Leaders of a key Muslim organization in Britain, angered by the deadly terror attacks in London, yesterday told tens of thousands of followers that “enough is enough” and urged all Muslims to turn away from “harbingers of hate.”

“The word ‘Islam’ means peace,” said Rafiq Hayat, national president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association U.K., “but we have to live by it in order to grow.”

Mr. Hayat’s call for Muslims to quit listening to fanatics who stir terrorists to action came in the wake of a new opinion survey showing that one in four Muslims in Britain sympathizes with the motives of the suicide bombers who killed 52 commuters in the British capital on July 7.

[...]

Mr. Hayat told 30,000 Ahmadi Muslims at the start of their 39th convention at Aldershot, England, near London, that “it’s time for all Muslims to say ‘enough is enough’ ” and that “we wish to practice Islam as exemplified by our founder, Prophet Muhammad.”

“We call for a grass-roots revolution in mosques across the U.K., where ordinary people wish to make a future in the U.K., [and] for the sake of themselves and their children and for the sake of humanity, turn away from the harbingers of hate and root out fanaticism.”

Muslims, Mr. Hayat said, should honor the “true meaning of Islam — peace, tolerance, respect and humanity.”

Obviously a welcomed statement, but the article makes me wonder: if 25 percent of Muslims in Britain are Islamist sympathizers, what is the corresponding figure among Middle Easterners?

Tags | Leopold Stotch, Terrorism

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Income Gap Grows in U.S.

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

Income Gap Grows in U.S. (Washington Times)

Incomes are growing smartly for the first time in years, spurring unexpectedly robust spending by consumers. The revival, however, is mainly among top earners who receive stocks, bonuses and other income in addition to wages.

The nearly 80 percent of Americans who rely mostly on hourly wages barely maintained their purchasing power, according to the Labor Department. Raises have been meager, averaging about 2.7 percent in the past year — a tad above the 2.5 percent inflation rate.

Incomes are up a more robust 7.5 percent when bonuses, stock compensation, commissions and other wage supplements are added, according to the Commerce Department.

Most of the boost, though, is felt by those at the top end of the income scale.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed concern in testimony earlier this month about the disparity between wage-earners and high-income executives and professionals, which by some measures is the biggest in the United States since the Roaring ’20s

[...]

“I’m concerned about this. It’s a major issue in this country,” said Mr. Greenspan, who has announced he will retire in January.

“A free-market, democratic society is ill-served by an economy in which the rewards are distributed in a way” that leaves out the majority, he said. “Too many of our population … don’t feel the advantages and benefits coming from the system.”

Indeed. For anyone living near or below the median income of $28,654 the American Dream is increasingly out of reach.

Tags | Economics and Business, Leopold Stotch

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Spamalot Review

James Joyner | Saturday, July 30, 2005

Kim and I just saw “Monty Python’s Spamalot” at the Sam S. Shubert Theater. It was easy to see why the play won the Tony as it was extremely clever and entertaining. Despite the absence of the show’s biggest star, Tim Curry, and a very obstructed view of the stage, we had a good time.

Two of the show’s three well known actors–Tim Curry, David Hyde-Pierce, and Hank Azaria–were gone, with Curry temporarily (and unexpectedly) replaced by his very able understudy John Bolton* and Azaria off filming for some other obligation. There was quite a bit of grumbling by those who had paid inflated prices for the show well in advance only to find Curry, who had the lead role of King Arthur, missing. As good as Curry has been in everything in which I’ve seen him, though, it would have been hard for him to top Bolton’s performance.

The seats we had were advertised as “the worst in the house” and did not disappoint. We had the leftmost two seats in the top row of the mezzanine. Ordinarily, that would only be slightly awkward. This particular production, though, is quite vertical, with a substantial part of the action taking place on a second level, most of which was obstructed from our vantage. Fortunately, most of the action was easy to follow from the dialogue even without visual aid.

Overall, I was amused at Eric Idle’s musical interpretation of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” While several of the best bits from the movie were incorporated verbatim, there were numerous scenes written especially for the play, many of which were a satire of Broadway musicals. Even though I am not a devotee of musicals and thus did not fully appreciate the “inside” nature of the jokes, the parodies of familiar Andrew Lloyd Weber songs were hilarious.

If you are going to be in New York, I’d certainly recommend the show to you if you can somehow find reasonably priced tickets. Even on eBay, good seats are going for outrageous prices. If the timing of your trip is flexible, I would recommend you just get tickets from the box office for the earliest available showing–likely not until April 2006 or later–rather than pay hundreds for good seats or settling for partial view seats. Also, the production is going to be touring the country–presumably not with the Broadway cast–next year, with shows in D.C. and Las Vegas that I’m aware of. While there’s something to be said for seeing the big name stars in person, the script is good enough that the “names” are only a bonus.

*No, not the embattled UN Ambassador nominee.

Tags | General, James Joyner, OTB History, Popular Culture

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Open Thread on Free Trade

Leopold Stotch | Saturday, July 30, 2005

The recent House passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) got me thinking: where is there any evidence that free trade agreements are good for America?

Obviously a loaded question, its answer based on what you believe America needs. Clearly in the 25 or so years since Keynesian (state-led) development was replaced by what is best defined as global neoliberalism, the United States has seen steady economic growth and increased GDP per capita. But these are aggregate numbers; in this same period of time, real wages have either been stagnant or have declined — meaning that the rich have gotten richer while everyone else has been running in place.

Also, when NAFTA was rushed through Congress in the early 1990s, we were promised that our exports to Mexico would increase while illegal immigration would virtually cease. Neither promise became reality. All that NAFTA seemed to do was to put Americans out of work, or shift them from well-paying jobs to lower pay working in the service sector. Perhaps more Mexicans now have work, but I’m more concerned with the plight of my unemployed neighbor than I am about them.

It is true that we now have $49 DVD players and 99 cent hamburgers, but the price of big-ticket items — houses and cars for example — continue to climb out of the reach of anyone making median wages.

Globally, the issue is the same; it is undeniable that real incomes in developing nations have increased, but relative to local elites they have declined, just as they have in the United States. And every single study of civil violence acknowledges that absolute gains mean nothing when there is a relative loss — meaning that current development programs are actually contributing to instability in the Third World.

I don’t pretend to know the answer here, but it seems to me that the theory of free trade is one thing and the reality is another. I understand Ricardo’s comparative advantage and Schumpeter’s creative destruction, and they look great on paper. The evidence, however, suggests that such theories have not led to appreciable gains for the average American. Globalization can’t be stopped, but do we necessarily want to speed up the process? Are the flaws of the Keynesian state really solved by unfettered transnational capital? Is the purpose of our economy to simply increase GDP, or are questions of equity something to be considered?

Chime in with your thoughts.

Tags | Economics and Business, Leopold Stotch

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OTB Caption Jam^TM

Rodney Dill | Saturday, July 30, 2005

Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest:

• Rodney is playing Iraq, Paper, Scissors with the big boys.
• Wizbang wants to know whose is larger.
• Gazernet is telling fishing stories
• Willisms is going to the dogs.
• It’s just not Cricket at a Limey in Bermuda
• sgtfluffy finally has one up on the Trunk Monkey concept
• Villainous Company beats Wizbang in the space race, (must be due to their special formula rocket fuel technician)
• The Man is giving the ‘other’ Powell something to think about.
• Commonwealth Conservative has voted Ted Kennedy off the island.
• Assumption of Command is ready for some football.
• John Roberts is looking In The Right Place(s)

To join in, start a Caption Contest at your blog, edit it to add a link to this post, and then send a TrackBack. If your blog doesn’t automatically generate one, use the Send TrackBack feature below. For more information, see this post.

Tags | Contests, Rodney Dill

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U.S. Closing 11 Bases in Germany

James Joyner | Saturday, July 30, 2005

By the end of 2007, a mere 18 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States will withdraw from some of the smaller bases in Germany.

US announces German base closures (BBC)

US troops will pull out of 11 bases in southern Germany in 2007 as part of a shake-up of US forces around the world. The bases, mainly in Bavaria, are home to the 1st Infantry Division which will return to the US in 2006, the defence department said in a statement. It will be replaced by smaller forces able to react rapidly to new threats. Up to 70,000 US troops currently in Europe and Asia are to be redeployed in accordance with plans announced by President George W Bush last year.

[...]

Five sites in Kitzingen in Bavaria will be handed back to German authorities, while three bases in Wuerzburg near Frankfurt in central Germany will be shut, said a statement by the US European command. The other bases are in Giebelstadt, a small town near Wuerzburg.

An end of an era. U.S. troops have been in Germany for over 60 years.

Tags | Europe, James Joyner, Military Affairs

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Another Scout Leader, Scout Killed by Lightning

James Joyner | Saturday, July 30, 2005

A horrible week for Scouting got worse last night as a Scout leader and a 13-year-old Scout were killed from by lightning while on a hike.

Lightning Strike Turns Scout Hike Tragic (AP)

What was supposed to be a challenging 70-mile hike culminating in a midnight climb up Mt. Whitney to watch the sunrise turned to horror with a simple summer storm. When a group of Boy Scouts from St. Helena Troop 7001 took shelter from the rain, lightning struck, killing the troop leader and a teenage scout.

Ryan Collins, 13, died Friday night at University Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Mary Lisa Russell said. The boy’s grandfather, Bill Collins, said Ryan was kept on a ventilator for a time so that his organs could be donated. Collins said Ryan had been a scout for three or four years and loved the outdoors: “He was a fabulous boy,” he said. “He was doing what he loved to do.” “We lost our son,” said Ryan’s mother, Sue Collins.

The troop’s assistant scoutmaster, Steven McCullagh, 29, was killed instantly when the bolt struck Thursday, the Tulare County coroner’s office said.

One injured troop member was under observation at the hospital and six others were treated and released from Kaweah Delta Hospital in Visalia, authorities said.

[...]

The tragedy comes just days after four men were electrocuted while putting up a tent at the National Scout Jamboree in Virginia. Dozens of Scouts were sickened by the stifling heat two days later at the event.

Tragic.

Tags | General, James Joyner

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British Army Launches Base Cutbacks

Leopold Stotch | Friday, July 29, 2005

British Army Launches Base Cutbacks (AP)

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – The British army began closing or demolishing military installations in the Irish Republican Army’s rural heartland Friday in a rapid response to the IRA’s declaration to renounce violence and disarm.

Soldiers started to dismantle or withdraw from three positions in South Armagh, a rebellious borderland nicknamed “bandit country,” where soldiers still travel by helicopter because of the risk of IRA dissidents’ roadside bombs.

The move came a day after IRA commanders promised to disarm fully, and directed to their units to dump their weapons and use “exclusively peaceful means” from now on.

This is exactly what is needed in this situation. The IRA moved first, as it should have, and for the British Army to do this is an incredible act of goodwill and trust.

Not everyone agrees:

… Protestant politicians condemned the British authorities’ rapid reward for the IRA words, noting that the police still aren’t able to operate without military backup in South Armagh.

“It’s criminally irresponsible of the government to do this, given what has gone on in those border areas,” said Arlene Foster, a negotiator for the Democratic Unionist Party, which represents most of the province’s British Protestant majority. “The government seems quite happy to act on words alone.”

But words have meaning, and the politically-savvy IRA must know that their day is over. Plus, they have always shown a certain “honor among thieves.” For the DUP to play the cynic here doesn’t help, but little more can be expected from a party led by the man who thought it appropriate to heckle the Pope when he addressed the European Parliament.

Tags | Leopold Stotch, Terrorism

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Beltway Traffic Jam

James Joyner | Friday, July 29, 2005

As you read this, I’m boarding a train for Manhattan, where the fiance and I are headed to celebrate her birthday.

Create your own linkfest below.

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Tags | Beltway Traffic Jam, General, James Joyner

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