December 27, 2019 – Life of an old goat

I found this thread on the Steele dossier to be useful:

Before we head into #impeachment, here's a quick revisiting of the Steele Dossier. None of you will like it. And remember, I was among those who said it should not have been public. (I am leaving aside whether the FBI should have relied on any it. That's Horowitz's call.) /1

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 26, 2019

The TL;DR: this was raw intelligence, which included stuff that is unlikely to be true for many reasons, and extracting information from it requires competent analysis, and by “competent” I mean “skilled in this type of intelligence”. Being smart and having “common sense” is insufficient.

OF COURSE, the author was attacked to supporting Trump, not going by Rachel Maddow’s “connect the dots” analysis because she is a woman, etc.

Now, this is technical, but RadiofreeTom was attempting to explain the situation to non-experts. Good luck with that.

Other stuff:

It is common to try for success in your dream field/profession and to come up shorter than you had hoped you would. That leaves this interesting question:

What’s more sympathetic: the view that your failures are from a lack of effort or that they are from limited abilities? Oddly, many appear to believe the former. I’m still waiting for the rise of a viable hereditarian left. It would inject needed ideas into political disputes.

— Bo Winegard (@EPoe187) December 27, 2019

Yes, aptitude matters. I’ve seen people fail out of stem programs because they lacked the sufficient aptitude to attain the level of success that they wanted. You might even said that was true of me; after all, I am not full professor at MIT (and shouldn’t be). And I certainly failed spectacularly at sports.

Now, of course, one can get into this whole aptitude thing: are we talking about genetic aptitude (yes, it exists), or aptitude due to environmental factors (e.g. fetal alcohol syndrome people, or some sort of physically or mentally debilitating injury, or lack of development due to illness, poor early nutrition, or perhaps retarded development due to early environmental factors…) Yes, it is very complicated.

Still…interesting issue, and no, I have zero desire to discuss this with a woke.

Football
The Big Ten and SEC teams are starting play and let the excuses and rationalizations begin:

Good morning. Now that the Big Ten and SEC are going to start playing their bowl games, remember the narrative: If the SEC loses a bowl game or the B1G wins, it's a meaningless exhibition. If the SEC wins they are superior. If the B1G loses, they suck.

— Ted Glover (@purplebuckeye) December 27, 2019

Workout notes: yesterday, a routine 4 mile hike at Forest Park Nature Center. There I ran into the very lovely Lori Lindo; she was a runner from the “old school” back in the 1996-2001 era. She worked down to a 3:12 marathon, and we were reasonably well matched in the 5K (though she left me almost 30 minutes behind in the marathon).

Today: weights only. No, I did not weigh myself though I suspect I am up. I wore sweats.
Rotator cuff
pull ups: 10-10-10-5-5, (5-5), then 10 later (60 in total); sort of a challenge.
dead lifts: 6 x 135, 1 x 185, 1 x 225 (missed once too), 3 minute rest, 1 x 235 (easier than the 225), 6 x 205, then did a set of 6 x 135 going from a shallow step.
bench press: 10 x 135, 3 x 185 (strong), 10 x 160
military: 9 x 50 standing, 10 x 45, 10 x 45
rows: 3 sets of 10 x 100 machine
goblet squats: 6 x 30, 6 x 50, then 6 x 70 (too high of a bench for this last one)
2:30 plank, headstand

I should have gotten my hair cut prior to lifting? (LOL)

I feel better about the deadlift; a change of technique is enabling me to practice this without hurting myself. Maybe I’ll get better; I have to remember that back in 2010 even a 115 lb. incline lift was difficult as was a 30 lb. shoulder press (which is what I do instead of a true military press) Right now, my pull ups and bench press ..and even my shoulder press is far, far better (not that these are good).

Personal: we had a bat in the house. It was easy to capture with a soft laundry basket.

Message to readers

I intend to use this blog as a type of open diary to talk about what is on my mind. I will post workouts, my thoughts on political, social and news issues of the day, outings with family and friends and games that I attended. I’ll also talk about footraces (runs and walks).

Discussion is fine, even if your views are contrary to mine. Fact checking me or pointing out what you think are holes in my arguments is fine. “Shouting slogans” or name calling is not.

Encore posts are posts that I’ve taken from my previous blog, which I’ve decided to shut down for a while, for personal reasons.

Note: I will avoid using my name on this blog, though I will have photos of myself here. Reason: I do not want to be found by someone putting my name into a search engine. Therefore, anyone who comes to this blog must have either had a link (available to Facebook friends), came for a given post OR must have done at least a little work to get here deliberately. I have reasons for that.

Day: December 27, 2019

Dead ending or Dead lifting?