Adventures in Onionism

Obama, killing US citizens [NYT editorial]. (But don't be concerned! He's so progressive, he's come around to the Dick Cheney position on gay marriage.)  Ashcroft: "“How will he be different? The main difference is going to be that he spells his name ‘O-b-a-m-a,’ not ‘B-u-s-h.’ ” [ from the New Yorker in 2009 ]

Trees reduce crime. I love trees, but I'm not sure I buy it. http://grist.org/cities/in-baltimore-the-gods-will-not-save-you-but-the-trees-will/ OK, maybe I should actually read this paper before calling it out, but just because you control for SES, doesn't mean you fix the problem. Unless you've got a convincing identification strategy, you've still just got an interesting partial correlation.

A friend told me we were watching a secret movie last weekend. The only clues were "1970's" and "Mustache." My first thought was John Cazale, Dog Day Afternoon . "I was only in five movies, but they were all awesome." She told me that was wrong. My next thought was Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit . OK, I actually thought Deliverance , but then I googled it, and saw that Burt was clean shaven. Will someone please buy me a vest like that already? She told me Smokey and the Bandit was wrong.  She also told me Sally Field was not a total looker in Smokey and the Bandit . Clearly, she was wrong, but this post is about mustaches, so you'll have to look that one up yourself. Sally Field was hot. Believe it. Tom Selleck is 80's. There was one Cheech movie in the 70's, so that could technically count. But then I got really excited when I thought my friend told me the movie was going to feature this: Why do more people not ...

George in the Window Chameleon I discovered a pottery collective nearby. Car wheel as throwing wheel. My haul from the collective. Naps Sugar Cane Kids Field Work Breakfast spread at Martha's Guest House outside Butere Farewell visit to my buddy S; he happened to have three adorable puppies. Blurry, but I like how this one turned out. Licking Looking Holding two of them Please do not appear at my house having driven this rig from South Africa. The jealousy cannot be contained. Synchronized grooming Synchronized sleeping How Kenyans fuel their sports; I'm giving it a try. It is dirt cheap, and, you know, tastes like sugar. The Obama Villa, one of the themed rooms at Martha's Guest House. I went for the Princess Margaret room instead. Holding all three of them Goodbye Well, I've been working like crazy on some grant proposals. After George was hit by a car I bailed on Mfanga...

http://www.aeaweb.org/aea_journals/AEA_Disclosure_Policy.pdf Perhaps thanks to Inside Job and Charles Ferguson are in order?

" He was a free spirit who survived on cornmeal, beans, and wild dreams " I inserted the Oxford comma myself. I believe in them in general, and especially in this case.

NYT: The Beginning of the End of the Census? “We’re spending $70 per person to fill this out. That’s just not cost effective,” he continued, “especially since in the end this is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey.” In fact, the randomness of the survey is precisely what makes the survey scientific, statistical experts say. Ha ha ha ha! When your idiotic ideology fails you, just eliminate the empirical evidence. Free platitudes for everyone!

We got a blender a few weeks ago. Hummus and lara bars from scratch. Mung beans in the background. Energy bars next. Lentil loaf tomorrow. George is running around (albeit on three legs) and licking my face like normal.

George got hit by a car last night. He'll survive but might have a broken leg. Miles and I were having a great run with George off-leash as normal, but we were out late so it was getting dark. It was only the second time I'd gone to this area so I didn't know the trails and we ended up hitting the main tarmac road much further south than I wanted. It didn't have much of a shoulder, and he went out into the road and got hit. The matatu saw him and slowed down a bunch, so it could have been worse. The vet is on his way, but I'm not sure what he'll be able to do. It's not a compound fracture or very bloody, but it's badly swollen. Dammit. Obviously could have been avoided if any of a dozen things had been different, but he pulls like a sled dog when he's on a leash and is under pretty good voice control when off (hasn't killed a single chicken) and we took the left turn sending us out to the paved road, and it was getting dark... Dammit. [UPDAT...

Pretty basic (do two-a-days or back-to-backs, etc.) advice from Jurek on how to train well when you don't have the time . (Which is me.) Mfangano Island this weekend with the gang. I'm hoping to ride my motorcycle via Homa Bay, but the rains might make that too difficult, in which case I'll just get in the car with friends and take the northern ferry via Bondo. View Larger Map

I am with the complainers on this one: http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=34548 Dropbox acts just like a folder on your computer, so if you drag and drop, stuff is moved, not copied. Only in your mind you know it's not on your computer, it's on a server somewhere, so you expect it to copy. So basically, for shared folders, you end up stealing files from your whole team. Is there a workaround? Is Google Drive better? How about Amazon? My project only needs a few gigs, but it needs to be very simple yet hard to accidentally delete shared files. And it has to sync easily with crappy Internet access, and work on PC's. Please don't suggest Microsoft SharePoint, since it is a flaming pile of feces. [UPDATE: In a related vein, Google drastically increased their storage prices when they unveiled Drive. Thankfully, old plans are grandfathered in .]

Winning the battle to keep top profs . Why Shachar stayed. Bob Anderson's speech to LGBT grads . "UC Berkeley enrolls more Pell Grant recipients than the entire Ivy League combined."

Sprints with Miles by the Onion at Garmin Connect - Details I doubt many of you think this is interesting, but I'm a big fan of my Forerunner. I like looking at the lines my routes make on an aerial map, and I like the accurate pace recording. The pace for short laps doesn't quite show up on the watch face while running as accurately as I'd like, but it does come out well in the data uploads after the fact. The link is my first real attempt at speed in a long time. My housemate Miles destroyed me.  They're letting me teach here for a couple years. The campus was so beautiful it was a little uncomfortable.  Coming from Kenya, I was more used to the stuff I saw in downtown Philly.  Bugs.  Friends drafted for trailwork. 8 hours done. Wasatch, we are a go.

Baseball is a really great game. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding that's great; I don't know. I was led to believe that Chad Harbach's debut novel would lead me to JD Salinger, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, or even Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce-levels of man-adoration. I unfortunately ended up with perhaps not even Cormac McCarthy or Philip Roth-levels of likeage. It did have its moments of brilliance. The accounts of actual baseball games, single at-bats, even practice sessions, made me long to run stadiums, do one more pull-up, and own a glove I really like, fill a 5-gallon bucket with balls, go out to the field with my buddy Rutman, pull out first base, put in a broom stick, and practice taking grounders at shortstop (despite my having played second), trying to nail the stick with my throws. I remember the lead of an ESPN.com article last year saying during some crazy last-day-of-t...

To anyone remotely interested in economics of any sort, this past weekend's NYT Mag was awesome. Adam Davidson's ability to explain econ to lay people is exceptional. For example, Mitt Romney's business partner is a delusional douchebag . (What a surprise!) Inequality is good because it inspires people to take risks and try to innovate. (Never mind Volcker's spot-on ATM quote, or any of the issues that Davidson raises.) McDonald's is still horrible . Couponers . Or, people who eat only processed food-like things and don't understand the monetary value of their time. Jeff Sachs, Bill Easterly, Andrei Schleifer, and a bunch of other economists have weighed in on how to help other countries develop, so Paul Romer thought he'd join the party. Best of luck. And unrelated, but cool: NYT held an essay contest to justify why eating meat is ethical. The winner? " Basically, it's not ." Because seriously, it's not. Global warming is real, ...

Did another good run today, 14.87 miles with all sorts of creek exploration. Brought George along and he did great. Off leash the whole time, I think he might be getting more chill around chickens and goats and stuff. I love having a running partner who is more than willing to go any time I want, and ready in a split second. Two decent runs this weekend. Finally ran enough to chafe and lose a toenail. Good to be (partway) back. Even if it means I can't do much else on the weekend.

May 5 Saturday run, river and gold mine by the Onion at Garmin Connect - Details Here's today's run. Shorter because I had to get back for a work meeting before a PI left. Fun new exploring, and great views from the gold mine--finally something that might deserve to be called a hill. I really enjoy having the Garmin to draw a little line map of where I've been and how to get home. I was hoping to go ride my motorcycle and check out an off the beaten track hotel about an hour from here, but the rain is starting, so I think it might have to wait. But next weekend I hope to do my trailwork for Wasatch. I'm trying to arrange something with KWS in nearby Kakamega National Forest.

From the NYT , a girl hiking the PCT to heal her mind after being raped.

Especially since all I have time and daylight for on weekdays is an hour before work and an hour after, at most. http://trailrunnermag.com/training/speed/article/121-trade-lsd-for-speed

This time at Runner's World on his vegan diet. I don't know that I buy the causality about better performance and fewer injuries, but I definitely believe he's right that it's perfectly healthy, and that athletes can absolutely get enough vegan protein. Just eat real food.

10 years ago today, I headed north from Springer Mountain. And yes, I get a little teary-eyed thinking about it. To be honest, I actually headed south for a mile first, because I took a cab to the Forest Service road crossing that's a mile from the summit of Springer. I'd planned to maybe hike the 8-mile approach trail from Amicalola Falls SP, but I was a day behind schedule already, so I skipped it. I rode the dog (i.e., took Greyhound) from Oceanside, California to Atlanta, Georgia. Traffic was bad so I missed my first (of 11) transfers in San Bernardino, and nearly every connection after that was off, so the trip lasted half a day longer than it was supposed to. When I got to Atlanta I had missed the only bus of the day to Gainesville, the town nearest to the state park and the start of the trail. So instead of waiting around, I took a taxi, first to cash a traveler's check (that's how long ago this was/how naive I was) at a check-cashing place, then to th...

There's this (mediocre) NYT article about Iten, Kenya's running town: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/sports/iten-a-kenyan-town-made-for-marathoners.html?_r=1&src=recg And there's this doc about Bekoji, Ethiopia's analog: http://www.townofrunners.com/ [h/t Em] I found the Iten article's quotes about Kenyans running because they want money pretty interesting. It's exactly the opposite of why I run, but of course my parents weren't subsistence farmers, and I didn't go hungry during dry seasons as a kid. Nor was I a poor urban minority in the US playing basketball for a way out, if that's a fair comparison. I wonder if any of those circumstances make the sport more or less fun. Fun probably isn't the right word, because to be seriously good at a sport you have to work hard, which I haven't done for sports in quite a while, possibly ever. Maybe emotionally fulfilling or rewarding is the right word.

The writing's not amazing, but the sentiments are. An excerpt from Scott Jurek's forthcoming book .