Big Sur International Marathon, April 29

The Big Sur International Marathon is advertised as the “most scenic marathon”. Yes, it is spectacular as it winds along the rugged California coast from the pseudo-town of Big Sur northwards for 26 miles to the art gallery mecca of Carmel. Viewing the coast and the spectacular homes and occasional beaches in slow motion for better than three hours one gains a splendid appreciation its beauty. Though I’ve now run 83 marathons, the marathon distance is still daunting and though it was as close to sea level as one will ever get the repetitive rolling hills took its toll… I ran the entire distance, but the final six miles were in excess of 7 minutes each with at least one poking above 8 minutes. There was one overly long uphill that took us from about mile 11 to the halfway point on the famous Bixby Bridge. To add to the fun we ran into a stiff headwind on this 2-mile uphill. Fortunately I found someone willing to trade drafting advantages up this long slog. I had bought a $25 pair of sunglasses in the expo which is about the high end of what I will willingly pay for sunglasses because they were advertised as “anti-fog”. Well, let me tell you in the fog and low clouds we ran through on this Sunday they fogged up and I had to stash them in my back pocket.

Rebekka and I rounded out our “mini-vacation” with a wonderful two days with miles of walking in San Francisco, including up and over Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill (Coit Tower) and along the Embarcadero and China Town then back to Cathedral Hill.

Talkingpointsmemo.com 's Josh Marshall explains the rash of Republican scandals coming out recently and how it ties in to the Attorney General scandal.

Check out Veracifier.com too.

DailyKos: Holocaust Jokes at the US Air Force Academy.

There is hunger for IMPEACHMENT. Will we feed it?

Though I am generally "anti war on drugs" when it comes to crystal meth it is a different story. This shit is downright life ruining. Denver's Westword has this 72 hour party.

Coming to PBS May 4th: A Brief History of Disbelief: "Less an advocacy of atheism than a kind of post-atheism, a historical and philosophical review of this strange, dying idea of "religion" that reveals the progressive growth of atheistic thought. It's wonderfully dismissive. The real question isn't how people can disbelieve, but how faith can survive and still linger on."

If you didn't get the chance to see Bill Moyer's Journal last night on "Buying the War" you can watch it online.

I just added the Sundance Channel on my cable TV lineup. Here's their Treehugger Blog on lowering your footprint with "Tiny Houses".

Must Read: The Free Press: Are Rove's missing e-mails the smoking guns of the stolen 2004 election?

Greg Palast says "Don't Fire Gonzales" Rove is the reason...

Roger Ebert is attending a film festival in Urbana Illinois after his surgery for cancer of the salivary gland. He was told not to do this because of unflattering portraits by the paparazzi. His response: "I ain't a Pretty Boy no more": We spend too much time hiding illnesses.

Orion Mag: The Ecology of Work

The GOP's cyber election hit squad
by Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
April 22, 2007

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

John and I in a seldom visited spot on the slopes of Pikes Peak. Can you identify where?

Battle For The Land of Khan: A Self-Taught Yak Herdsman From Mongolia Who Forced The Closure of polluting Mines On The Onggi River Is Today Awarded The World’s Biggest Environmental Prize: the Goldman Environtmenal Prize.

I have an affinity for Mongolia and intend to visit again. I have fond memories of a week I spent there in 2003 when I ran (and won) the Mongolia Marathon...

Vanity Fair: Rush to Judgment by James Wolcott

Attacking environmentalists as hippie-dip "wackos" who care more about spotted owls than people and use polar bears for propaganda, Rush Limbaugh has blinded millions of Americans to the climate crisis.

The Daily Galaxy: News ffrom Planet Earth and Beyond

The Sundance Channel's Treehugger Blog

Treehugger.com with lots of green celebs and what they are doing for environmentalism

fiftyrx3.blogspot.com : perusing the crossroads of style and sustainability

Juan Cole is brilliant. Here he explains how cable news is distracting us from what we should be paying attention to: The Buzz Reason, The Real Reason

Niklas Zenström and Janus Friis, the creators of Skype and Kazaa, financed The Venice Project with the development of a peer-to-peer video distribution system now called 'Joost': it will revolutionize TV.

Speaker Pelosi received a letter anonymously from DOJ employees: There is a lot more politicization going on than we've been led to believe. Whatever happened to the Department of Justice? I thought it was supposed to be justice for all, not just Republicans...

Listening to Pandora.com again... It's great! I have my personalized Duke Ellington channel on... listening to Count Basie and "What am I here for?"

It is time to admit that

The French were right: February 14, 2003, A Warning on Iraq from France: Make War the Last Option

By JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE
French Ambassador to the United States

Cryptome.org has photos of the Va Tech shooting victims.


This clown is president?

Rove: 'I wish the Iraq War never existed. It was Osama bin Laden's idea.'

Daniel Schorr: When the public turns on public figures: Gonzales, Wolfowitz, Imus, and Nifong have something in common.

Amy Goodman: Patriot's Day, Stop the Violence



If you aren't watching PBS' America at a Crossroads, you should be....

Rep. Jack Murtha on Who Is Fighting the War

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) responds passionately on the House floor to comments by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) that "we" are fighting the war in Iraq.

"It is interesting to here the gentleman say 'we,' we fight, we aren't going to give up," he said. "Let me tell you something, we aren't fighting this war. It's the troops overseas, and when I talk to the families, when I go to the hospitals, I see the results of this war."

Murtha grew more heated as his went on, wagging his finger as he concluded, "Don't tell me we're fighting in this air conditioned office, we're not fighting this war, they're fighting it! And I'm proud of every single one of them!"

Murtha renewed his call for a draft, saying that if we are truly fighting the war we should spread the burden around the population.

Last week: Doonesbury in Vermont

1931 Minnie the Moocher: Banned Betty Boop clip

The Heat is on: Domenici is feeling it: probe over U.S. Attorney firings

The Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) the second in a planned series of three, focuses on realistic ways that all of us can break out of our “mad romance with fossil fuel” and save both energy and money.

Kucinich to file articles of impeachment against Cheney

Are you watching America at a Crossroads on PBS? If not, you should...

Amazing Photos from China

New Yorker Short Story: The Stolen Pigeons

Grist: The Warm on Terror

Chimps more evolved than humans?

Design your own Darwin Fish

10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer

10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer: Video: God is Imaginary

GWB's Going Away Party

01.20.09: The end of an Error

American Theocracy, ad nauseum

$1.5B Later: Abstinence Training has no effect. In typical fashion the Bushevic Administration dumped this news on Friday afternoon after the news cycle.

“After 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions,” said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth.

“The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control. We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that’s not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics”.

Bees are dieing: Part II

They aren't Christians, they're Dominionists. Long article, but well worth reading:
The Despoiling of America : How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State

Politics US: Breaking the Army

NYT: Hillary Clinton's Wellesley classmates speak out.

NYT: Maureen Dowd: Wolfowitz "More Con than Neo"

Bill Maher New Rule - From Elites to Jesus

Bill Maher on how the wacko religious right have taken over our government. 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's University populate the administration!!

Do the research, draw your own conclusions

WTC7: The Smoking Gun of 9/11

9/11 and the Left

Google Video: 9/11 Mysteries: 1.5 hour full version

Anti-War Radio Check the archives. Lots of listening available!

Media Matters chronicles a whole host of right-wing talk jock's bigotry: It's not just Imus

The New Yorker: John Colapinto reports on his visit to the Pirahã tribe in the rain forest of northwestern Brazil. Slide show

NetTrends '08: The online race for the Whitehouse

ProgressNowAction: 1 in 5 soldiers returning to Fort Carson has "brain trauma"

Blogs that make you think:

wood s lot "the fitful tracing of a portal"
No Blood for Hubris
Blognonymous
Welcome to Pottersville
Jesus' General

Here is the next scandal. And it promises to be a doozy! Maybe Cheney will take the fall.

White House Stonewalls Waxman’s Inquiry Into Cheney-Linked MZM Contracts

On March 26, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote a letter to White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten demanding “all contracts, subcontracts, and task orders between MZM, Inc. and the Executive Office of the President.”

As ThinkProgress has reported, there is good reason to believe fired U.S. attorney Carol Lam was targeting the White House’s connections to MZM contractor Mitchell Wade, who pled guilty to paying more than $1 million in bribes to former Rep. Duke Cunningham. Despite no record of having ever received a federal contract, Wade’s firm received a $140,000 contract in 2002 to provide a system to screen the President’s mail.

Jesus Camp

Watch the full movie here if you want to understand the mind of the Religious Right. It is downright scary!

Google Earth Maps out Darfur Atrocities

Mark Fiore: MC Rove animation

DailyKos: Breaking! --- The Earth (VIII) (Roundup up Environmental Stories)

"Karl Rove, Voter Suppression and the Cashiered U.S. Attorneys" by Scott Horton

Robert Novak says a bipartisan deal on the supplemental appropriations bill to finance the Iraq war appears to be in the books, with less talk now of a presidential veto and a subsequent crisis over funding the troops in the field. The final version probably will contain the benchmarks opposed by President George W. Bush, but with no cutoff of funding.

Live the dream in Barcelona - Europe's most vibrant city

TomDispatch: Six Crises in Search of an Author How the Bush Administration Destabilized the "Arc of Instability" By Tom Engelhardt


The Independent: Robert Fisk: The American Plan for Iraq: Divide and Rule Revealed: a new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq?

Kurt Vonnegut dead at 84. What a great soul. He was very popular in my high school in the early 70's. I loved him then. Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five...

Mayor of Salt Lake City: Tell it Rocky!

Colbert Report: Katrina van den Heuvel defends the Nation's coverage of the Iraq debacle, "We never lost our head -- while too much of the media gave head".

Spike Lee Talks of War, Gangsta Rap, Making Films and Setting Goals

Brad Blog: Reporting on the Voter Fraud scandal at the heart of the U.S. Attorney purge

I caught this last night on C-Span's Run for the White House: Romney and the NRA Guy... He is toast. Just like McCain is toast... Political Death watch

David Corn: Jeane Kirkpatrick, Neocon Godmother Considered Iraq War a Mistake

Each year, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression gives out Jefferson Muzzle awards to “the most egregious First Amendment violators.” This year’s winners: the Bush administration (for censoring scientists on climate change) and the Defense Department (for its “investigations of organizations that conducted peaceful anti-war protests”).

This Morning's Run

Try copying the below text (select and Ctrl C) and pasting (Ctrl V) in address bar.

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

SB and JC last Summer at Barr Camp -- training on Pikes Peak

Pikes Peak Cog Railway Terminal, Manitou Springs, Colorada

My house is just up the canyon from here hidden in the white mist.

Old Sam outside my house this last winter. I miss you old boy...

William Rivers Pitt: The American Tragedy of John McCain (He once was my favorite Republican)

Vanity Fair: Texas Chainsaw Management

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"The verdict of history sometimes takes centuries. The verdict on George W. Bush as the nation's environmental steward has already been written in stone. No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation's environment."

Christophe Glibert Photo Art

War in Iraq: The Media's Fault?

Oil Quiz -- Test Your Knowledge

Fox News Reporting on April Fools in America

Funniest double indictment of Fox News and GWB ever!!!

Rocky Mountain Ranger, Rick Tosches on the new Grand Canyon Skywalk: Tired Tribe takes grandeur out of canyon Skywalk. Thanks Rick. I think I'll pass after hearing that less than rave review... I would rather do a rim-to-rim run of the canyon anyway... now that is definitely on my list of someday must do's...

I thought these things might be clues

Daily Show: John Kerry talks to Jon Stewart about the important work that RFK Jr's Waterkeepers is doing to combat the Bush Administration polluters and his new book: This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future

London Review of Books: The General in his Labyrinth (Musharaf's last days ruling Pakistan...apres moi le deluge)

Important for the revival of Mongolian Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition.

Watching John Edwards on C-Span's "Road to the White House"... I am gravitating towards him as my candidate... I like Dennis Kucinich and Wes Clark, but they probably don't have much of a chance... John Edwards is a decent man and he has put forth detailed plans for health care and energy.

High Country News: Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields

If you don’t have a college degree, it’s the best job in the West. Unless you die, unnoticed.

Researchers using nanotechnology have taken a step toward creating an "optical cloaking" device that could render objects invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside this "cloak."

Grieving Couple commit suicide after pet dog dies

Chernobyl: "There is only one healing force, and that is nature." Arthur Schopenhauer

Good advice: Getting Rid of your debt without worrying about the "Latte Factore"

Tom Waits- Chocolate Jesus

What better response to this:

NYC Chocolate Jesus Exhibit Canceled After Outrage

than Tom Waits singing Chocolate Jesus...

Habeaus Corpus, R.I.P.

Andrew Sullivan cites the views of Winston Churchill -- whom Bush followers love to trot out (manipulatively) as their prop to symbolize endless warfare -- expressed when Churchill was, as Sullivan puts it, "fighting a war against the greatest evil imaginable, when the very survival of Britain as an independent and free country was in the balance":

The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgement by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments whether Nazi or Communist.


The extent to which this current version of the Republican Party is hostile to our most basic constitutional traditions and defining political principles really cannot be overstated. They simply do not believe in them.

BradBlog: "Evidence Suggests U.S. Attorney Firings May Have Been Part of White House Scheme to Help Game 2008 Election"
Why would Rove put his boy into the Arkansas seat? To reopen investigations on Hillary? Do you think? We know from the New Jersey election that Chris Christie, the former Bush ''Pioneer'' who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued subpoenas for corruption charges on Bob Menendez two months before the 2006 election -- and news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media. The charges were bogus and later dropped.

The other attorney replacements are all Rove boys, who are charged with investigating the canard of voter fraud, which really means the Repug tactic of voter suppression.

George: The Intervention

Roves Powerpoint slides targeting Dems for defeat in 2008 (at taxpayer's expense) Why are we paying his salary?

Goodle: Good News

George Orwell: Politics and the English Language

A Musical Nudist Colony

JibJab: What we call the news


The Girl from Ipinema

Goat: A High Country News Blog: Confirmation of yet more Bush administration meddling: Julie MacDonald, a political appointee in the Interior Department, routinely overruled decisions made by Fish and Wildlife Service scientists, according to a just-released report from the Department’s inspector general

NYT: Across the Universe Blog

Student punished for Spaghetti Monster beliefs

How to live on $12000 a year

Intelligence test

Incredible first ski descent of Thunder Pyramid, Elk Range

Hats off to Iskibc for the first winter ski descent of a seldom climbed high 13er: Thunder Pyramid.

Why do I hate Republicans? Let me count the ways...

....at least until they regain their equilibrium and reject Bushevism...


Politicizing the GSA

Salon uncovered the details of a secret Interior Department plan to gut the Endangered Species Act without consulting Congress, by implementing a set of drastic new regulations which would:

* Eliminate the basic goal of the act: recovery of endangered species;
* Allow projects to proceed that have been determined to threaten species with extinction;
* Allow destruction of all restored habitat within critical habitat areas;
* Prevent critical habitat areas protecting species against disturbance, pesticides, exotic species, and disease;
* Severely limit the listing of new endangered species;
* Allow states to veto endangered species introductions.

Tom Englehardt: The Other Surge

AG Gonzales: It get worse

The AG covers up pedophelia

I thought he was staying on the job to "protect the children".

Peanut Butter: The Atheist's Nightmare

You Tube: Religious nuts seek to ban Fahrenheit 451

The End of the World: Exploring Greenland, the blankest spot on the map--and not a moment too soon

KurzweilAI.net: Will machines become conscious?

Conservationists will fight to overturn Grizzly Bear Decision.

NBC NEWS: Gonzales: Firings were not improper... Liar

Happy Birthday Richard Dawkins: Voice of Sanity

Daily Kos: Meteor Blades: Wonderful piece on High Country News

Scott Ritter: Calling Out Idiot America

What is killing the bees?

High Country News: The Silence of the Bees

Der Spiegel: Are GM Crops Killing Bees?


Denver Post: Hives Holding a Secret: Colorado Beekeepers Stung by mysteriously vanishing colonies

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Albert Einstein

Huffington Post: Jane Smiley: Conservatives Cost a Lot of Money

NY Review of Books: George Soros: Bush's latest blunder

New Species of Leopard found

New Species of Leopard found in Borneo and Sumatra

Solo Winter 1-day ascent of Capitol Peak

In Memory of Sam the Wolfdog, R.I.P. click picture for trip report

Fox News at its Finest

Beyond Quagmire

Retired Air Force General and former Chief of Staff of the Air Force Tony McPeak:

"This is a dark chapter in our history. Whatever else happens, our country's international standing has been frittered away by people who don't have the foggiest understanding of how the hell the world works. America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment [laughs]. If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference."

And retired Army Maj General Paul Eaton:

"Republicans Are ‘Absolutely The Worst Thing That’s Happened’ To The U.S. Military"

Sam the Wolfdog, R.I.P.

Sam during an attempt on Capitol Peak in 2001.

Sam climbed 52 of Colorado's 54 14,000 foot peaks during the course of his ten years on this planet. I will take his ashes to the summit of the two peaks he didn't make it up and scatter them there.

Noble friend, loyal companion.

Department of Injustice

DailyKos: Krugman: The Real Scandal is the U.S. Attorneys who WERE NOT fired.

Link to Krugman's editorial.

Peak Oil

Why the decline in Saudi oil production is not voluntary.

Back from Barcelona

Back from Barcelona.

Sam the Wolfdog died. The nine wonderful days in Barcelona are now black. My world is black. My soul mate is gone. He was cremated this afternoon. I will scatter his ashes on the two 14er's he did not ascend -- Capitol and Eolus. Noble dog, you lived a full life.

My house is flooded after bursting water pipes. "Mitigators" have ripped out carpet and the humidifiers are blasting....

Life goes on...

Team CRUD on High Drive: Tony, Paul, Ted, Rick

Running High Drive this morning; Sunrise and Will Rogers Shrine over Co Springs

Barcelona!!

Fear grows over US Iran War mongering in Britain.

Mother Jones: The Iraq Effect: The War in Iraq and its effect on Terrorism.

The Nation: A Trial for Thousands denied Trial: The case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen held for over four years without charges being brought against him.

I fly to Barcelona tomorrow to run the Barcelona Maraton!

Earthship Links

Earthship Construction Tips

EarthenSun

Using Tire Bales in Earthship Construction

Blue Rock Station: Earthship construction testimonial

NYT: A Film Star in Kampala -- Forest Whitaker, star of The Last King of Scotland as Idi Amin, makes a big hit in Uganda. We watched the movie last Saturday in the theater. Powerful movie.

Barcelona here we come! This is where we're staying for nine days.

NPR: Is America too damn religious?

What Happens When a Country Gives Up Religion? as Spain Shows, Nothing Much

Science Mag: Meeting the Asteroid Threat

DailyKos: The Half Hour I will never get back: Fox News Half Hour for Nitwits

Pastor Ted Update

Microsoft 1978 (In 1982 as an employee of Bank and Office Furnitures of Bellevue, WA I delivered furniture to the fledgling company known as Microsoft)

Senator Bill Clinton?

10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich

Cherokee Moons

Green House

I love this little Green House that perches on the hillside above Memorial Park in Manitou Springs.

Rattlesnake Gulch

Rattlesnake Gulch, the start of the Ute Trail as it leaves Manitou Springs.

Williams Canyon

Williams Canyon and Manitou Springs from the vantage point of the Intemann Trail. The Cliff House is the large green building in the lower right hand corner.

Pikes, Incline, Manitou

Pikes Peak, The Incline, and some of the unique homes of Manitou Springs as seen from the Intemann Trail on this morning's run.

Rep Tim Ryan Iraq Debate

Congressman Tim Ryan calls out Repuglican hypocrits on who is really "supporting the troops".

The 111 Greatest Anglo-American Folk Artists

Running upper Crystal Park on "Palmer Trail Road" this morning. We tried to find the Palmer Trail without success. Our plan had been to run back down the trail and join up with the Section 16 trails. Instead, we turned around to run back down the Crystal Park Road. I made the mistake of deciding to slide down to the Cog Railway from the second big switchback. I thought the snow would be loose and easy to plunge step down the slopes. That turned out to be true. What I hadn't reckoned on was a solid sheet of ice beneath the new snow. That side of Eagle Mountain never sees the sun this time of year. I made it down, but the tips of my fingers are still somewhat numb -- three hours later.

I snapped this photo of my house through the tree at 6:45 A.M. as I left for this morning's run.

DailyKos: Good tour through the "radical left" of the last 50 years or so.

Playboy is doing some great reporting on PTSD.

Bill Maher on HuffPost has a New Rule:

Pinot Noir: An Introduction.

Graphing the importance of Religion by country to a nation's IQ

Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ): "history and fact will not be kind to the decision-makers and deciders of this war" You can watch his statement to Congress on his web site.

Swiss Erdhaus

Earthship Swiss-style

Fox News tries a right-wing comedy show. You judge. Are they funny?

Booman Tribune: Creeping Fascism or just a simple dictatorship?

Intelligence Leaks: Cheney's Call

Tony Snow: "I'm not sure anything went wrong in Iraq".

Please listen to tonight's session on Democracy Now! Greg Palast on Vulture Capitalists taking windfall gains from poor African nations, The Dixie Chicks, and more. It is a great program this evening.

Who is this man, Wes Clark?

From the 'Frontline' four-page series on the media Interviews: Carl Bernstein on Nixon vs. Bush Excerpt: It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, "This is a presidency of great dishonesty," that this is not a matter of opinion. This is demonstrable fact. If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what [counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know -- it's demonstrable.

Ted Haggard Update

Somebody is no longer a Repuglican.

Ken Silverstein of Harper’s is running a three-part series of discussions with experts on the likelihood of a U.S. attack on Iran. The first part is up here.

Hat tip to Tom Tomorrow and This Modern World.

41 has a heart to heart with 43