I participated in the Dan Harris Challenge today. The weather was beautiful and the turnout for the race was great. I placed 2nd in my boat class, 1X-R1 (Rec 1, length less than 21 feet).
The race course is advertised as 9-miles. My route today was 9.9 miles. We had a 9 mph wind from the southeast, so half of the race was into the wind and 1 foot chop it was whiping up. And what a difference the wind makes. My GPS data shows my average speed against the wind was between 4 and 5 mph. My average speed with the wind was about 6 mph.
The wind effect is also clearly illustrated in the graph below showing the time and distance distribution. The wind was particularly gruesome at the halfway point in Chuckanut Bay, where I averaged less than 4 mph until I rounded Chuckanut Island. After that I had the wind in my face, which is perfect for rowers! I let the wind help me along and worked on timing my strokes with the chop, which when done right can produce some fun surfing action.
This was my second year to participate and I think I’ll consider it an annual event for me from now on.
The pendulum continues to swing in Russia. Its back to the old ways with Putin at the helm.
Putin has threatened to withdraw from the arms control treaty that dismantled the Cold War in response to US plans to install missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.
[…]
This amounts to an objective alliance between Moscow and Teheran. A new Cold War has started with a new lineup. Perhaps it had already begun earlier had the West but the wit to sense it. With the mood in Congress being what it is, it is entirely possible that the Democrats will urge the President to abandon the plans for the missile defense of Europe, effectively giving Iran the power of blackmail over an already terrified and cowed Continent.
[…]
Russia was always a player in Southwest Asia, and until recently the dominant patron of the Arab states. Moscow historically used the Arab states as stooges to advance their interests. Russia is not proscribed from creating its own missile defense and besides, Iran probably knows that any use of nuclear weapons against Russia would mean an Iranian holocaust. The Eastern Europeans have neither a nuclear strike capability nor a defense. The reason they joined NATO was to snuggle under its defense shield. If Putin succeeds in entering into a secret arrangement with Iran he would have a powerful weapon with which to intimidate Eastern Europe. If he forces America to leave them in the lurch he would discredit America even more. Not only would the Iraqis realize that the US guarantee was worthless, but so would the Poles.
The new cold war is fueling a very hot war.
Now, with a seemingly successful tactical combination in hand to compel a long war in any given place, radical Islamism’s prospects of a strategic victory have never been brighter. Everything that has happened in Iraq can be replicated in Afghanistan — the sanctuaries, the campaign of terror, the cunning public relations offensive in the Western press — and in any other battlefield which radical Islam wishes to contest.
I got out for a jog during the lunch hour today.
Within hours of the news about the mass shootings at Virginia Tech there were calls for more gun control laws.
Criminals, by definition, do not obey laws. The theory behind making areas gun free is that it will make them safer. However, the opposite occurs because criminals simply don’t obey gun free zone laws. Therefore, creating gun free zones and failing to proactively enforce them with searches and armed law enforcement officers just creates a kill zone, not a safety zone.
Update:
Wretchard has a more exstensive post along the same line, In Loco Parentis, that also draws in the anti-terror security implications of this incident.
I had a great ride today on Galbraith Mountain with some friends I know through The Hub Community Bike Cooperative.
international community - a group of nations having common interests; “they hoped to join the NATO community”
Anything but Mugabe
Last month, the battered face of the leader of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, was beamed around the world after President Mugabe’s thugs tortured the former trade unionist and shattered his skull. Western governments condemned the action, editorial pages disapproved of it, and the world quickly moved on.
But the past two weeks have seen a further deterioration in the situation. Reports are scarce because of a ban on foreign press entering Zimbabwe. Suspected opponents of Mugabe have been abducted and tortured, and a cameraman suspected of smuggling out video of the violent crackdowns has been murdered. This state-sanctioned violence has been only a piece of a new defiance emerging from the Mugabe regime; last week the state-controlled newspaper, the Herald, warned the British political attaché in Zimbabwe, Gillian Dare, that she risked “going home in a body bag.”
It has become de riguer among the press to call on South Africa, the regional power and, at present, Zimbabwe’s lifeline, to act. Newspapers ranging from the Los Angeles Times to the Wall Street Journal have reprimanded South Africa for its silence and complicity in Mr. Mugabe’s crimes. These remonstrations are necessary and right, but no matter how much international outrage there is over the horrors of Zimbabwe, there is little hope that South Africa will ever do anything close to what the West wants it to do.
Communities, society at large, do not collapse and fail as a result of bad actors. There will always be those who prey on the weak and less priviledged. There will always be those who take advantage of their positions of power. Communities and society at large collapse and fail because of the inaction of the good actors who fail to take prudent action against those who do wrong.
I spent Saturday morning on Galbraith Mountain. The weather and trail conditions were fantastic.
Glenn Reynolds commenting on Pelosi’s efforts to subvert US foreign policy:
If Bush and Cheney were really evil, they’d both resign and stick the Democrats with a Pelosi Presidency for the next two years. The Democratic Party would never recover. Alas, neither would the country.
