Staying Alive
Staying Alive

Staying Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

I have to say it was one great game to come home to after putting in almost 50 miles on the bike. First Joe ties up the game and then Joe, with a pass that only Forsberg could ever pull off, scores in OT.

Peter Forsberg had no need to look. He knew Joe Sakic would be in position for his blind backhand pass - and he knew the Colorado captain would keep the Avalanche in the playoffs.

When asked, Sakic said simply: "Peter knew"

Something to think about:
the Avs rallied from a 3-2 deficit against the Sharks two years ago.

FYI:
David Aebischer has allowed one goal — Vincent Damphousse scored on a five-on-three power play Saturday with 7.9 seconds left in the first period — on 52 shots over the past 138:10 since Damphousse banked the puck off his back in the third period of Monday's 1-0 Sharks victory in Denver.

Sakics first goal

Paul Sakuna © AP

AP / Paul Sakuma
Teammates mob Joe Sakic after his second goal Saturday. The captain is now tied with the legendary Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens for the most ever playoff overtime goals, 6.

Other notable achievements by Sakic:

• Has scored 12 goals in his past 15 playoff games.
• Colorado is 42-11 in playoff games when Sakic scores, including winning each of the past six.
• Leads all Avalanche scorers in playoff games against San Jose with 10 goals and 17 assists in 18 games.
• Is 10th in all-time playoff goals with 78.
• Is tied for 26th in all-time playoff assists with 90.
• Is 14th in all-time playoff points with 168.

The Avs season came to a dissappointing close last night with a loss to the Sharks and an end to the semifinal series. The Avs where eliminated in a 3-1 loss. Colorado's dream of becoming the third team to rally from a 3-0 series deficit ended after San Jose scored three second-period goals.

This may be the last of us seeing Peter Forsberg for a while, perhaps forever. Forsberg, who will undergo surgery to repair an abdominal injury that has plagued him all season, might return to his hometown in Sweden to play for MoDo, which is coached by his father, Kent.

On top of that, you have to wonder if teams of this caliber will ever be assembled again with the CBA and a lockout looming in the future. The owners are looking to put in place a salary cap that will not enable teams like the Avalanche to carry $60 million payrolls. Not that it took us much farther than last year.

It is a wait and see situation for the Avalanche fans now.


Rodolfo Gonzalez © News

Avalanche forward Peter Forsberg acknowledges goalie David Aebischer as teammates Paul Kariya, Teemu Selanne and Darby Hendrickson join in.

I came across this interesting project today.

Image a camera placed in one spot and taking pictures every hour. Add some sound and make it into a Flash movie. Then enable the viewer to view these scenes as slow or as fast as they wish. You can see the day in its quick robustness or in slow, detail catching snapshots. You also get the sounds that go with the changing pictures to put you more in the particular scene.

It's a cool place to go an visit another world. It might even make you appreciate yours just a little bit more.

http://www.theircircularlife.it/

Check out this page which shows the average IQ for a state and how it voted in the 2004 election.

http://americanassembler.com/features/iq_state_averages.htm

An interesting, though long, article in the NYT's about the prisoner abuse in Iraq. Find the time to read it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/international/middleeast/09PRIS.html

"This is a fundamental question of free speech in our society," said Senator Lautenberg (D - New Jersey). "As our troops are overseas fighting to give the Iraqi people the very freedoms we enjoy, we see some of this country's largest media conglomerates undermining our freedoms here."

Lautenberg's letter to Senator McCain calling for censorship hearings after Disney refuses to release cocumentary because of fear of political retribution.

May 5, 2004

Honorable John McCain
Chairman
Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman McCain:

I am writing to request that the Committee hold a hearing on the disturbing pattern of politically based corporate censorship of the news media and the entertainment industry in recent weeks. While corporate leaders rarely exercise discretion over gross indecency or violence, we have seen a number of corporate conglomerates censor material recently based on political viewpoint.

The most recent episode involves the Disney Company. Disney, which is currently distributing "Kill Bill" - one of the most violent movies in history, is refusing to distribute the new film by Michael Moore because it is critical of President Bush. Also, Sinclair Broadcast Group preempted the April 30th edition of ABC News' Nightline, because Sinclair believed that the edition would be critical of the Iraq War. CBS, which aired a notoriously indecent Superbowl halftime show, refused to air an advertisement by MoveOn.org during the same Superbowl broadcast because of its political content. In addition, CBS censored an entire mini-series, "The Reagans," after complaints from conservative political activists.

As you know, the Supreme Court has stated that censorship of news media and political expression are the most dangerous forms of suppression of speech in our society. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270 (1964). I am concerned that Americans are facing an emerging threat of political censorship - not from the government - but from some of our nation's largest corporations.

Thank you for consideration of this request.

Sincerely,
U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg

The Bush administration is considering counting fish raised in hatcheries when determining if species are going extinct.

SEATTLE, May 8 — Three years ago, Mark C. Rutzick was the timber industry's top lawyer trying to overturn fish and wildlife protections that loggers viewed as overly restrictive. Back then, he outlined to his clients a new strategy for dealing with diminishing salmon runs. By counting hatchery fish along with wild salmon, the government would help the timber industry by getting salmon off the endangered species list, Mr. Rutzick wrote.

Now, as a high-ranking political appointee in the Bush administration who is a legal adviser to the National Marine Fisheries Service, Mr. Rutzick is helping to shape government policy on endangered Pacific salmon. And in an abrupt change, the Bush administration has decided for the first time to consider counting fish raised in hatcheries when determining if some species are going extinct.

The new plan, which officials have said is expected to be formally announced at the end of the month, closely follows the position that Mr. Rutzick advocated when he represented the timber industry.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/national/09SALM.html?hp

I have changed the xml feed. If anyone out there is subscribed to it, please re-subscribe, if you wish.

While perusing my local computer store, I picked up the current ComputorEdge and found this article. It definitely hit a cord with me and all those "Big Brother" types out there trying to control my world. What is suppose to be a free world where I can make my own decisions.

You’re a child, unable to protect yourself. Unable to make your own decisions about your privacy, not allowed to negotiate on your own behalf. Apparently unable to venture online without Big Brother holding your hand.

That, at least, seems to be the opinion of the European Union, a California legislator and the self-proclaimed “privacy rights” movement.

All three of the above-mentioned players are scrambling to try either to force Google to change the basic economic model for its pending free e-mail service, or, failing that, simply to ban it.

In the name of freedom, of course.

http://www.computoredge.com/colorado/Editorial/hotonweb.htm

Yes I am 40, and maybe the first paragraph does not apply to me (depending on who you ask!), but I remember a day in age when we didn't have shootings in schools, there where no seat belts in the family station wagon - in fact the back seat was left down and we just scambled all over the place!. No it was not a simpler time! The problems that our parents faced and we as children faced are just the same as today. How are we going to making ends meet, what click are we in, what am I doing with my life, I want that bike. Now they are pushed harder into our faces my the media that is just trying to make money. I blame it on a dysfunctonal country (Don't blame the family, they have always been dysfunctional) where money is more important the the human. Where the media has made it more important to have a bigger SUV that your neighbor than being conscience of what this does to our environment. Hell, I don't know, maybe I am being narrow minded, but I think this fixation on media is what is bring this country down. And, yes, I do believe that US of A is on a downward spiral. We no longer appriciate the simple things.

No We Don't!

When was the last time you went to your local ice cream store, bought an ice cream cone and walked around the neighborhood saying good evening to the people you saw?

How often do you say hello to people you walk by?

What would you do if you could not connect to the internet and read this of all things?

Life is as simple as we wish to make it. We just need to start needing to make it simple. Or maybe seeing it for what it really is, a brief travel through time. We really don't know what happens when we die! You can't do anything about tomorrow and yesterday is already gone. In fact if you think about it, tomorrow never comes, it is always today!

But that is just my humple opinion and I feel better having expressed this jumble of thoughts!

- Mark O'Hare - 03/09/1996

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
News Release: 2004-126

On June 19, NASA will launch Aura, a next generation Earth-observing satellite. Aura will supply the best information yet about the health of Earth's atmosphere.

Aura will help scientists understand how atmospheric composition affects and responds to Earth's changing climate. The satellite will help reveal the processes that connect local and global air quality. It will also track the extent to which Earth's protective ozone layer is recovering.

Aura will carry four instruments designed to survey different aspects of Earth's atmosphere. The instruments will provide an unprecedented and complete picture of the composition of the atmosphere. Aura will survey the atmosphere from the troposphere, where mankind lives, through the stratosphere, where the ozone layer resides and protects life on Earth.

Aura's space-based view of the atmosphere and its chemistry will complete the first series of NASA's Earth Observing System satellites. The other satellites are Terra, which monitors land; and Aqua, which observes Earth's water cycle.

"Gaining this global view of Earth will certainly reap new scientific discoveries that will serve as essential stepping stones to our further exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond, the basis of the Vision for Space Exploration," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said.

Aura will help answer key scientific questions, including whether the ozone layer is recovering. Aura data may prove useful in determining the effectiveness of international agreements that banned ozone-depleting chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Aura will accurately detect global levels of CFCs and their byproducts, chlorine and bromine, which destroy ozone. Aura will also track the sources and processes controlling global and regional air quality. It will help distinguish between natural and human-caused sources of these gases. When ozone exists in the troposphere, it acts as an air pollutant. Tropospheric ozone is linked to high levels of precursors such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and volatile hydrocarbons. Aura will help scientists follow the sources of tropospheric ozone and its precursors.

"Aura, the first comprehensive laboratory in space to help us better understand the chemistry and composition of the Earth's atmosphere, is fundamentally a mission to understand and protect the very air we breathe, " said NASA Associate Administrator for Earth Science Dr. Ghassem Asrar. "It is also a perfect complement to our other Earth Observing System satellites that, together, will aid our nation and our neighbors by determining the extent, causes, and regional consequences of global change."

As the composition of Earth's atmosphere changes, so does its ability to absorb, reflect and retain solar energy. Greenhouse gases, including water vapor, trap heat in the atmosphere. Airborne aerosols from human and natural sources absorb or reflect solar energy based on color, shape, size and substance. The impact of aerosols, tropospheric ozone and upper tropospheric water vapor on Earth's climate remains largely unquantified. Aura's ability to monitor these agents will help unravel some of their mystery.

Aura's four instruments, the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder; the Microwave Limb Sounder; the Ozone Monitoring Instrument; and the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer will work together to provide measurements in the troposphere and stratosphere to help answer important climate questions.

The High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder was built by the United Kingdom and the United States. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument was built by the Netherlands and Finland in collaboration with NASA. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., constructed the Tropospheric Emission Spectromer and Microwave Limb Sounder. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the Aura mission.

NASA's Earth Science Enterprise is dedicated to understanding the Earth as an integrated system and applying Earth System Science to improve prediction of climate, weather, and natural hazards using the unique vantage point of space.

For Aura information and images on the Internet, visit http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0517aura.html or http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .

From Carnegie Endownment for International Peace:

The American position in Iraq is untenable. The United States has enough raw military power to flatten Falluja and Najaf, but has recognized that this power cannot be used without dooming not only the U.S. venture in Iraq, but the entire U.S. position in the Middle East.

To this military defeat has been added the moral defeat of Abu Ghraib prison, which - domestic repercussions aside - has further inflamed Muslim anger from Morroco to Malaysia. In 1974, President Richard Nixon at the nadir of his popularity sought relief in a visit to Egypt where he was welcomed and feted. There is not an Arab capital in the world that President George W. Bush could visit today.

As a result of both defeats, it is obvious that American threats to use military force against other Muslim states are mostly empty. Power that evidently cannot be used is not true power. This revelation of actual American military weakness makes imperative a fundamental rethinking of U.S. strategy, not only in Iraq but also toward the Middle East as a whole.

If the United States is to put together a regional coalition to stabilize Iraq and allow eventual U.S. withdrawal, one first step is essential. Washington should categorically renounce any intention to use Iraq as a long-term U.S. military base. It should commit to withdraw U.S. forces as soon as an effective international peacekeeping force is established.

This should be matched by a dramatic reduction in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, now set to become the largest in the world, with 2,000 employees. Ambassador John Negroponte should not be set up to run U.S. Middle East counter-regime operations from Baghdad as he ran U.S. Central American counterinsurgency programs from the embassy in Honduras in the 1980s.

Without such commitments, the U.S. presence and plans in Iraq will go on being seen as an immense danger both by many Iraqis and by neighboring states, Iran and Syria in particular. It will be extremely difficult for these governments to be seen to side with the United States in stabilizing Iraq. Muslim public opinion will continue to see the U.S. campaign in Iraq as part of a strategy of imperial domination of Iraq and the region, and Muslim states that give assistance as American lackeys.

Moreover, as long as U.S. bases are present, it will be much more difficult for any Iraqi regime to portray itself as truly sovereign and not an American puppet. Radical factions will seek support by attacking the bases. The U.S. in turn will be forced to support factions that defend the bases, however unsavory and unpopular they may be. The bases will fuel internecine conflicts, and U.S. troops will be repeatedly drawn out of their bases and into direct involvement in these conflicts.

Scaling back U.S. plans for Iraq would be seen by some in Washington as a military defeat. But we believe that it is essential if the United States is to salvage the current situation. With such commitments, Iraqis who now demand America's departure may welcome America's staying long enough to ensure a stable transition. A U.S. commitment to withdraw would therefore fundamentally change the political dynamics not only in Iraq but in the region.

A new strategy for the region should be modeled on the last two decades of the cold war, when the United States sought to contain threats from the Soviet Union by aligning with Communist China. In combating Al Qaeda and Baath Party remnants, the United States must reach out to states like Syria and Iran, which it has hitherto treated as enemies.

For the past two years, the Bush administration has replicated the failure of the U.S. elites before the Vietnam War to recognize and exploit the splits already developing in the Communist camp. In the late 1960s, the result was the tragic and absurd situation where American soldiers were dying by the thousands in Vietnam in battle against a supposed global Communist threat, even as Soviet and Chinese soldiers were fighting each other along their common border.

America cannot make the same mistake again. The support and participation of Iraq's neighbors is essential if that country is to be stabilized and America to be able to withdraw without humiliation. Without their help, it is highly unlikely that the United Nations will be able to play a successful role. Given the chaos America has created, few European or other states will wish to become involved. Without the strong support of the Muslim world, the United Nations will be seen by Iraqis as simply an American tool.

Iraq's neighbors have different agendas but all fear civil war and instability in Iraq. By relinquishing fantasies of a new imperial base in Iraq, by pledging and planning to withdraw as quickly and as completely as possible, the United States may yet be able to snatch political victory from the jaws of defeat.

This work originally appeared in the International Herald Tribune on May 17, 2004. Joseph Cirincione and Anatol Lieven are senior associates at the Carnegie Endowment.

I am finding it is getting harder to sit down at the computer and take the time to go through emails, post to the blog or wander the internet. As the weather has become nicer I find myself wanting to spend more and more time outside. It is good because I am reading books more and just spending time with nature. It is bad because I find I am not keeping up with current events as much as I wish.

It is a catch-22 that I wish to figure out a solution for. The time I do spend going through emails, it is to delete newsletters from such places as BBC, Washington Post and NYT because there are so many that I haven't read. I usually read them in the morning before I ride to work, but as I do more during the day I find myself sleeping in later and not getting up in time to read them.

Overall, this is not a bad place to be. There are many people out there who never make it outside during the day. I just feel I am out of touch with what is happening in the world and that kind of makes me uneasy.

NYT Editorial, published May 21, 2004:

After more than three years of steady criticism for its regressive policies on air pollution, the Bush administration is enjoying well-deserved praise for a new regulatory initiative that will greatly reduce harmful emissions from diesel-powered construction equipment and other off-road machinery. The rule will apply to engines in more than six million pieces of equipment, everything from bulldozers to tractors and airport baggage trucks. Off-road diesel engines account for a quarter of the smog-producing pollutants and more than half of the soot from mobile sources. They are believed to be responsible for 12,000 premature deaths annually as well as hundreds of thousands of respiratory illnesses.

The rule is the most important clean air initiative to originate in and be brought to fruition by the Bush administration. An earlier regulation limiting trucks' and buses' diesel emissions was formulated under President Bill Clinton and upheld by Mr. Bush. The new rule builds on the old, first requiring cleaner fuels — without that, advanced pollution control equipment cannot work — then requiring cleaner engines, which are expected to be about 90 percent cleaner than current models.

At least as important as the rule itself is the process that produced it. For once, the administration sought the views of somebody other than its patrons in industry, including, in this instance, state and local governments and environmentalists. The result was a solution that everyone could support. It would be wonderful if the administration would apply the same open, collaborative model to other controversial and unresolved issues, chief among them mercury pollution

Never give up
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country is spent
Developing the mind instead of the heart.
Be compassionate not just to your friends but to everyone
Be compassionate.
Work for peace in your heart and in the world.
Work for peace and I say again
Never give up.
No matter what is happening,
No matter what is going on around you,
Never give up.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

© Gary Varvel - 05/25/2004

Stressed is desserts spelled backwards.

Coincidence?

I think not!

- Author Unknown

It's hard to fit cycling into your life. But it's absolutely necessary. Here's why.
By Joe Lindsey, Contributing Writer Bicycle Magazine

Mark Silberman knows this one is bad. He's watched the wooden double doors bang open hundreds of times, revealing a gutshot gang member, a suicidal insurance adjuster in anaphylactic shock from a drug overdose or a middle-aged woman with blunt-force trauma from a car accident. But this one's worse. Silberman is all alone in the emergency room of Community Hospital in Dobbs Ferry, New York, the only doc on duty in a normally sleepy ward with just four treatment rooms, and the pregnant woman lying in front of him, in labor at the end of her second trimester, doesn't speak English. Her husband stands nearby, frantically explaining in his few words of broken English that his wife has pain in her stomach. There's no obstetrician or gynecologist, and the critical-care transfer unit from nearby Westchester Medical Center is already in the helicopter on another trauma call. It's all on Silberman. He doesn't hesitate. Even as hisbody begins moving, his mind runs continuous scenarios, maps out plans of action, possible complications and responses, alternate solutions. The two lives in his hands are at the center of an intense mental focus that was once missing from Silberman's life. And that focus is the product of one thing, according to Silberman: He rode his bike that morning. When he rides, he says, "my head is clear." Silberman, 47, works an average of 50 hours a week, in a place where people live or die because of his decisions. Last year, he rode his bike 330 days.

A couple hundred miles away, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Andrea Cox has a different kind of baby problem. Connor, her first child, a few weeks old, has been crying for nearly eight hours. He's colicky. After countless visits to the doctor, she understands the only thing to do is to wait it out, but she's near her breaking point. In tears, she calls her husband at work. "Paul," she says, voice cracking. "I need you to come home right now." "I'm leaving right away," he says. "I'll be home as soon as I can." When he arrives, Andrea hands Connor to him and runs to the garage, searching for the same refuge that Mark Silberman uses to calm himself before each day in the ER. She gets on her bike and pedals down the driveway. Quiet. Peace. The rhythm of pedals turning over, of the chain snicking through gears, the whirr-fwip-fwip-whirr of tires crossing tar patches.

The benefits of riding are broad, and solidly proven in a multitude of medical studies: less fat, more muscle, lower blood pressure and less risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other illnesses. Other studies show that regular aerobic exercise does just as good a job strengthening mental and emotional fitness.

You don't need studies to understand that. During those magic periods in your life when you're riding as much as you want, you feel the benefits. You see the benefits: a well-turned calf, the freedom to go slightly nuts on the spread at the office party without gaining two pounds.

Yet even with firsthand proof, most of us have trouble fitting cycling into our lives. Like Silberman and Cox, we have jobs and families and commitments. Paradoxically, our culture seems to crunch our lives in terms of both work and leisure pursuits. The Economic Policy Institute's "State of Working America" report found that in 2000, American workers spent the equivalent of almost a full month more per year on the job than they did in 1967. But we also appear to have more leisure hours than we did 30 years ago, according to John Robinson, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who ran the 30-year Americans' Use of Time Project. Presumably, we're filling those hours with our culture's ever-expanding array of entertainment, communication, family and technological activities. How else to explain that in surveys bicycling has conducted among people who quit the sport, "can't find time to ride," ranks first or second as the key discouraging factor? But Silberman and Cox have discovered two irreducible truths: Getting on the bike isn't about finding time but about making time, and that's worth doing because regularly using some part of their day to ride makes them better people during all the hours they're off the saddle.

More: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,3253,8343,00.html?category_id=363

Saw Non Sequitur this morning and just had to share it.



- Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller - 05/28/2004