Republicans commited a Hit and Run. (video)

This is a new DSCC ad. It is an excellent ad that you should spend 30 seconds on.

Strength

Today on my commute I was noticing how I use higher gears on the climbs to work. I get to the top and feel better and more in control as well. I am very pleased as climbing is the only real obstacle to long distances. As I gain strength for climbing I can take longer rides, see more scenery and go to more interesting places. I want to ride over some of the nearby mountain passes and go to Eastern Washington this year. I think it will be beautiful as well as an accomplishment.

All in all I am feeling very happy about my training. I will log 300 miles this month and have broken the 100 miles per week boundary as well. I am feeling great and shedding pounds as well. STP here I come!

90 Mile Weekend

I rode 90 miles this weekend. This is a new milestone for me as I rode both Saturday and Sunday. I am feeling good about the rides and my condition afterword. Neither Saturday or Sunday wiped me out.

Saturday I rode 50 miles with Russell. We did the Lake Washington Loop; it was 40 degrees F and raining the entire time. Even with the crappy weather and trying to stay warm in it, the ride was great. I was on the bike four hours and 12 minutes or so, which isn't bad at all. Russell is a pleasure to ride with and we had fun. Sunday I had plans to meet some co-workers at Marymoor to ride the West Sammamish River trail. The weather was perfect, 50 degrees (F) and sunny. David joined me though our other co-worker canceled. Still the ride was excellent, we did 38 miles in under three hours.

Both days were nice, I always indulge in the sights and people watch while riding. The scenery is great in both cases and we passed more people than passed us. Especially on Sunday, because on Saturday we didn't see many people to pass or be passed by. In both cases I was happy, riding makes me smile and I love to do it. Seeing all the diversity of Seattle and enjoying the sights and smells of Lake Washington is very enjoyable. I am very glad that I let cycling take such a large part of my life again, because it has made me happier. When I was playing computer games to pass the time, I was not happy. The contrast is huge, and I am glad to be healthier and happier now.

Letterman on Teleprompter

Letterman is pretty darn funny.

Fun

Vacation

My wife is on Vacation in Hawaii without me. One might think that this gives me more free time but actually Kristin does so much that I have much much less time. So posting on this blog will be decidedly light until she returns.

Quote of the day

From: Kung Fu Monkey

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Raptobike update - shipped

Arnold emailed me, the Raptobike started on its way to me Saturday, I suspect a delivery date of April 1st -> April 3rd.

216

I finally got past my plateau and dropped 5 pounds this last week. I think the changes in my diet coupled with riding 100 miles last week pushed me past this boundary. Additionally I am feeling faster and more capable on the bike. Saturday's ride showed me that I can do decent road miles and not fear hills. This is a good thing, I have a history of fearing hills that limits my training. I need to get over it and ride hilly routes more often. The more I do them the easier they are. In fact none of the hills on Saturday made me cry, I was able to spin my way up them all, and in some cases I sprinted to hit them hard and rolled over the little ones.

I am working on my diet more this week since I want to keep my mileage roughly the same during the work week. The weekend will most likely be used as two 30 mile routes, one each day. I want to start riding distances on both Saturday and Sunday to get ready for the STP. Not every weekend but I think this weekend will be a good start for it.

Elevation Profile - Lake Washington Loop

Elevation Profile - Lake Washington Loop, originally uploaded by Watson House.

This is the Elevation Profile from the Lake Washington Loop ride I did Saturday. After looking at it, I feel even better about the ride.

Training Thoughts

I feel like I finally have the Corsa dialed in. I rode 54 miles yesterday and 100 miles for the week. I had no problems with pain or numbness the whole week. The only issue I had was some muscle tightness and that is all an issue of stretching and fitness not fit. No joint agony, no tendons pain, no foot cramps, this is good news. I can now focus on my pedal stroke, on distance and on speed.

Russell said that I seem stronger than 2 weeks ago after our trip around Lake Washington yesterday. I know that I felt stronger, I have been taking most hills in gears above my granny gear and am slowly increasing my climbing speed. Climbing is a recumbents weak spot as well as my own. Like most weak spots, improvements in it come fast for comparatively little investments. I feel that if I get my climbing ability to the point that I don't fear 10,000 ft climbs on a 125 mile route than the entire US will open up to me. So by working on climbs I can expand the territory that I ride in quite a bit. Considering how amazing the views around Lake Washington are, I have been limiting my enjoyment by repeating the same rides over and over. I want to explore more. Russell did me a huge favor by suggesting the Lake Washington loop.

Lake Washington Loop

Today I rode the Lake Washington Loop with Russell. He started in Gas Works Park and rode around to Kirkland and I joined him there. Russell had a bit of an incident with his Lightning Phantom so he was riding his Salsa today. The ride was great for me, Russell did 21 miles before reaching me and about 1200 ft of climbing, this had the nice effect of putting me in the lead for most of the ride. This was both of our first time riding the Lake Washington Loop, so there was a bit of navigating and exploration. The ride itself is not too hilly, probably the worst part is Juanita Dr and I got to ride that alone. It is a very nice route for a 40 degree day in the sun. The views are excellent, the traffic light and there were quite a few cyclists out there. One of the high points for me was running into an group ride of novices on the SW side of the lake. There were about 15 or so of them struggling up a hill. I had the distinct pleasure of passing the entire group while climbing up this hill. Quite the ego boost though they were obviously novices. Recumbents don't get to pass uprights (normal) bikes on hills very often. It was about a 6% grade if my Garmin is to be trusted. The ride was a great experience and I felt great throughout, my left leg was a little tight but I had no problems completing the ride. Overall 54 miles, 2600 ft of climbing and my heartrate stayed in Zone 3 almost the entire ride.

silly cartoon

As a recumbent rider this Dilbert is quite amusing. I much prefer the solution below for my needs.

Proposed Saturday Ride

Lake Washington Loop

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

The classic Lake Washington loop is something I have never attempted but looking at the bikely version I see that it is only 2250 ft of climbing. I can do that, my 26 mile commute route is 2000 ft of climbing, so 2250 over 54 miles shouldn't be too horrible. Russell suggested this route so I will meet him as it passes my Condo and accompany him on a little over half the route, he will leave me to slog up Queen Anne hill and I will then ride the rest of the way around the BG trail to slog up Finn Hill on Juanita Dr.

This will probably take 5 hours of riding but I won't need the car so I don't have to strand Kristin. I will need to pack a lunch and snacks. Lets see how this goes.

Morning Commute

Today I rode my normal 3 mile morning commute, it was a nice ride as my legs stiffened up a bit after yesterdays 26 mile version. I need to learn to stretch and cool down properly to prevent that. I pushed up 7th Ave which is the hardest part of my commute, after that the 14% grade drops down to 4-6% as I head up 112th. I normally recover a bit on the 112th section as I push over the RR tracks at 6mph which is the steepest part of the climb.

My normal residential encounters were nice, saying "Good Morning" to walkers and dog walkers, waving at commuters, etc. After I crossed I405, as I reached 124th Ave, I saw a cycle commuter cross me. Perfect! A rabbit for the last 1/2 mile ride. I pushed up to 20mph and closed the gap a bit on the nice -1% grade but he still was about 200 ft out, I kept him at that distance through the mild rolling hill (15mph) and managed to build up a pleasant burn in my legs for my turn-off to work at 90th St. I haven't seen this particular cyclist before but he was perfectly positioned to get me to work hard on my final 1/2 mile.

Errors with this blog

I have been told that sometimes when closing my blog people receive javascript errors. I am investigating this issue and have removed some widgets that have been slowing the blog down anyway. Please let me know if you experience any problems

Critical Thinking

Bad Astronomy linked to a Cracked piece on 5 Ways 'Common Sense' Lies to You Everyday. This is a bit NSFW but a very good read. It does point out that Common Sense is often a guide to how to get it wrong. Check it out.

Commute on Corsa and thoughts (Map)

View Larger Map
Today I rode in using my longer training route that goes up Juanita Drive. This route is 23 miles and I was using it last year. After the winter break I built up the difficulty of this route in my head. Other times I have used this I had difficulties with foot pain, after I adjusted my seat I find that I have zero foot pain, just gradual numbness after 30 or so miles. That is easily handled by moving my toes a bit and brief breaks when it gets too much. Today's morning ride was great, my moving average was up, my cadence was up, my time on bike was improved. I had no issues with the hills and didn't stay in my lowest gear the entire climb either. It was nice to have more lower gears in reserve.

I believe the seat and positioning changes have helped, as well as the fact that I had a decent breakfast before heading out. I had a nutragrain bar, a bottle of vitamin water and a banana for breakfast and I think it made a huge difference. I had no energy concerns at all, at 18 miles into the ride I was at the bottom of Old Redmond Way and felt great, the climb ahead of me was of no concern and I was on schedule.

My odometer on the Corsa rolled over to 500 miles on this ride as well which is a good time to feel that the bike is dialed in. All in all a good ride and very pleasant.

Daily Show: The war on Science (Video)

This is hilarious. The topic is fun but the interaction between John Oliver and Jon Stewart is what really sells this clip.

AIG

The AIG insanity is really starting to piss me off. AIG has released a list of counterparties to the CDS, GIA and Securities Lending Transactions. As expected Goldman Sachs was the largest single counterparty closely followed by three European banks - France’s Société Générale, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and the UK’s Barclays. Isn't it nice of the US to bail out the rest of the worlds banks? We pay their pharmaceutical bills too.

Then we get the exciting news that the bonuses being paid out at AIG don't total $170,000,000 but instead $1,200,000,000 (nearly 10 times the original value), and $450,000,000 (3 times the original quoute) of it to the financial products division that got AIG into this mess. Isn't it interesting how the Treasury Department forced the UAW to take a haircut as a condition to bailing out the auto companies but the contracts can't be broken to AIG employees. No wonder the White House is worried about backlash. Here is a disgusting Larry Summers quote:

We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system.

As Glenn Greenwald says:

Apparently, the supreme sanctity of employment contracts applies only to some types of employees but not others. Either way, the Obama administration’s claim that nothing could be done about the AIG bonuses because AIG has solid, sacred contractual commitments to pay them is, for so many reasons, absurd on its face.

Then you read a story in the NY Times, the Wall Street crowd in NY is still splurging on 5 figure afternoon dance parties with $750 magnums of champagne. An interesting quote from that article is here:

As for how he and his fellow Wall Streeters could still afford such afternoons, he said: "We all made so much money in the past five years, it doesn’t matter."

A 29-year-old man who works for a large investment management firm and was at Bagatelle’s brunch one recent Saturday and at Merkato 55’s the next, put it another way: "If you’d asked me in October, I’d say it’d be a different situation, and I don’t think I’d be here. Then the government gave us $10 billion."

To top it all off you read about how Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) is going to lead his band of Senate "moderates" in an effort to kill the mortgage cramdown bill and give the finger to regular homeowners facing foreclosure and eviction, because it might "reward" someone who was "irresponsible."

I guess AIG and Wall Street were really really responsible. Responsible that is for the mess we are in.

Cramer vs Stewart - KO Blow

John Stewart ran an amazing interview last night. It is the KO Blow in the Cramer vs Stewart series and needs to be seen. I will embed the three unedited not show on TV versions of the interview. Additionally I will put up the CBS Evening News summary and coverage of the interview. I won't be able to show any MSNBC coverage since the producers of MSNBC were told not to mention it today. Quite sad considering GE owns CNBC, NBC and MSNBC. For shame NBC, but it is a good illustration how ownership of multiple radio stations, TV stations and newspapers should be limited as it was in the 1980s. This mass ownership creates censorship rules favorable to their corporate master.

Part One - John Stewart vs Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Part Two

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Part Three

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

CBS Evening News coverage

Watch CBS Videos Online

Just a quick note. I was very impressed with Jon Stewart, he was obviously in command of the materials and research. Play clip 202, play clip 212, etc, in response to Cramer's answers to various questions. Jon Stewart is what journalism should be and it is sad that he outshines those who make it their chosen profession. I do wish for real journalism on shows such as Meet the Press, but it is rarely evident.

There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama (Video)

This is well done, you have to see it to believe it. Great music video.

Bicycle Race

Today's antidote - Queen's Bicycle Race

Rachel Maddow on Employee Free Choice Act

Rachel Maddow explains the EFCA in this clip. She does it very well and just concentrates on the most common and easily disputable lie of Republican opponents. The so-called banishing of the secret ballot, which of course is not banished and is still available. She doesn't mention how most votes to unionize are rife with illegal employer acts designed to stop the unionization. Typical actions include union supporters being illegally fired, inquisitions being held to determine who is and isn't a union supporter, locations are closed or threatened to close based on the outcome of the vote.

I know that I trust corporations soooo much to keep my interests at heart and wouldn't wish for any contractual obligation on my employers part. I so much prefer "at will employment"... right? or NOT.

Raptobike and TNT Post

I found an interesting site while waiting for my Raptobike. Raptobike has been great, they matched their posted time to process an order, any issues and delays have been on my part. None the less, I was looking around to see what the shipping time might be to assuage my impatience. I found that TNT Post has a nice page that can tell you anticipated transit times for packages. You just put in the weight, source and destination, add in the pickup time and bam, out pops an estimated delivery time. Check out this page here. Select the transit times widget and soon you will have another thing to wait for.

This means that my estimated delivery date is March 24th. Which is perfect, everything will have arrived by then and my LBS can get it built up by April.

Datamining my own site for feedback

One of the things I do is see what kinds of statistics I get this blog. I see what search strings people use to find it, how many page loads I get, what promotion methods work, etc. One nice thing about this is that my traffic is steadily increasing. More and more users find my site every week. Another result is that my blog is most definitely a bike blog with a side of politics rather than the other way around. Almost all of my hits come from people interested in cyclists, though there are a number of political readers.

Recumbent cyclists are a core readership group for me. I see lots of raptobike, lowracer and velomobile hits on my site. One interesting thing I noticed is that I had a number of people hit my site where were searching for "Raptobike Weight". That makes sense but it floated near the top of my statistics yesterday so I wanted to answer it directly.

What does a Raptobike weigh?

• Stock a raptobike weighs about 29.5 lbs or 13.4 kg.
  Weight savings can easily be found in a carbon seat, a lighter set of wheels, and lighter tires.


• My Raptobike hasn't yet been built up as it is in the process of shipping but I choose all of the above areas to focus on as well as brakes, chainrings, pedals, and the chain. I will be weighing it when the build is complete. I did add weight by choosing a Rohloff hub but I expect to come in around 26-27 lbs (12 kg)

Other interests I see seem to be bicycle hacks and homebuilt accessories. As I do more in this area I will document each step and the cost of my projects. I will also document the trip I make to the OHPV Human Powered Challenge in May. That should have a lot of velomobile, lowracer and homebuilts. There will be a lot of electric powered bikes and vehicles there as well so I should have a lot of material to write about in May.

I will continue to cover politics since it is fun and interesting as well. If there are any topics you want to see me cover, let me know. I may listen.

Wheel Cover Video

Pretty cool wheel cover video. He really shows how simple making your own wheel covers can be.

MoveOn starts the Health Insurance battle

Moveon doesn't want the insurance companies to shape this battle with a couple on rocking chairs this time. So the battle for minds and wills begins. I do appreciate the naked truth in this case. Insurance companies are NOT to be trusted, you would be a fool to think otherwise. I hope that Congress and the Senate take note of this.

CNBC vs Stewart, continues

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish '09

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

Cramer, the Today Show, and Morning Joe continue the excitement so Jon Stewart calls on his peeps. Just too funny.

The CNBC and Stewart fight continue

This feud has been a popcorn fest and will continue to be one. Cramer and the CNBC crowd are too stupid not to keep picking at their scabs from the wounds that Jon Stewart inflicts. That just eggs Stewart on.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

Here is the link the Jim Cramer clips where he disses Jon Stewart. I didn't bother to dissect the comments. This feud will be fun and provide entertainment for all.

Cold Commute and Raptobike stuff

It was cold today on the way in to work. The temperature gauge read 23 degrees F during my ride in. I had to switch to my winter commuting setup, I added the solstice fleece layer and a base layer. Overall it worked well and my little commute was comfortable though there was some ice on the bridge I cross.

The work day has been going well and the weather turned sunny. It is now 46 degrees F and very nice. My commute home will be a very different ride then the one to work. I also received some very welcome news, my Raptobike will ship out on Friday, March 13th. Incidentally that happens to be my Mother's birthday, she would have been 67 this year. I think that is very appropriate, the bike feels like a gift from my Mother for my 40th birthday this way as it is shipping on her birthday.

Enough of these maudlin thoughts, it is a good day and I am happy. Even though Haddayr has been revealed to be much tougher than I, she likes riding in 0 degree F weather and I was cringing from the thought of 23 degree weather.

Raptobike Update and Wheel Cover thoughts

I recently received a few emails from other people who ordered Raptobike frame kits. So I figured I would update my blog with the progress of my Raptobike order. Everything is ready and should ship soon but there was a delay with the Carbon seats. The last batch that was manufactured came out too heavy and so we are waiting for the next batch. I am expecting news soon and the Raptobike team has been very nice about keeping me in the loop. It is just hard for myself and some others as we are all eager to get our new toy. The Raptobike just inspires so much excitement and lust that it is hard to contain it.

To occupy that part of my brain I have been working on designs for my wheelcovers. I am going with 4mm Coroplast split down the middle for my covers. I emailed a few local sign makers to see if I can get Coroplast sheets from them. Hopefully I will hear from them soon. I have also been thinking about the details of how to attach the covers to the wheels. My current plan is to use fishing line to attach the covers to the spokes. In this way the second cover per wheel is doable with a curved needle similar to the one on the left. This way I can hook around each spoke as long as I know where they are. I will leave a section unlaced near the valve of my tube. That section will be held with tape only so I can peel it back to fill up the tire and deal with flats.

Late update: This article from recumbents.com should be required reading for anyone working on wheel disks.

Jon Stewart keeps up the pressure on CNBC

I mentioned Letterman's attack on McCain after McCain failed to show in my previous post on the Jon Stewart vs CNBC battle. Well Jon heard me and so appeared on Letterman and continued the onslaught.

His takedown is short and brutal, behold.

"The thing that upsets me the most, honesty, there are three 24-hour financial networks," Stewart complained. "All their slogans are like, 'We know what's going on on Wall Street.' But then you turn it on during the crisis, and they're like, 'We don't know what's going on!' It'd be like turning on The Weather Channel in a hurricane, and they're just doing this: 'Why am I wet? What's happening to me? And it's so windy! What's going on, I'm scared!' How do you not know?

Power Meter vs Heart Rate Monitor

Bike Hugger has reported on an interesting study on training with a HRM or a Power Meter. The short version of that article is that the HRM came out favorably in the study beating those who trained with a Power Meter. Now there are limits to this study and Power Meters have some really nifty features but at least this keeps those of us who use heart rate monitors from feeling like we are in the stone age.

Tailbox art

I was speaking to my wife Kristin and she told me that I was silly to limit the colors on the Raptobike to just white and black. Not being an idiot, I listened, and thought I could use orange coroplast for the tailbox. Of course then I needed to think about what kind of art I would put on the tailbox. Given my limited artistic skills I thought a sunburst in yellow would look good and I could use reflective tape for the sun rays, or even reflective tape for the entire sun motif.

I still need to decide what to put on the wheel covers but I can work that out later. The simple paint drawing above is not to scale and really is just a concept drawing.

Raptobike Pr0n

The Raptobike build is coming along. I heard from Arnold at Raptobike and the carbon seat is almost ready and then it will ship this week if all goes well. I am going to get a Ventisit seat pad for the Raptobike, I found a good source here and am working on this now.

I am very excited about the progress. I am planning on picking up some coroplast to make wheel covers and a tailbox in the meantime. I am still on the fence on the color of coroplast to use. At this point I am leaning toward black, so as to make my color scheme black and white. I can use 3M reflective tape to make it reflect silver at night. But black will be hot in the summer and my water will get warm faster. White also fits the color scheme but it will get dirty faster. Barney Harle made a nice white tailbox for his Raptobike here:

I like his total weight of 1.1kg and the shape is pretty nice as well. Adding a white wheel cover for the rear wheel wouldn't add much weight and it would still look pretty good. Maybe I will go with white. The dirt and grime should be easy enough to clean off if I am good about doing it. I would really like to have my tailbox made by the OHPV Human Powered Challenge in Portland, OR. That would put me in the super-stock category.

I think I could still use the black reflective tape to put nice designs on the tailbox, which would reflect nicely as well. I am still on the fence, but I think white with a black design on the tail-fairing will be nicely artistic and show up well.

Ventisit

Hostelshoppe now carries the ventisit seat pad (pictured left). I am pretty happy since their price is about $20 less than my other sources. I want to get one for my Raptobike build, but don't currently know the size of the seat. They offer three options, the Bacchetta euromesh size (which I can measure), the 86cm size and the 89cm size. I emailed Raptobike to find out the size of seat they make. Hopefully I will get a response in time to get everything here for my 40th birthday in April.

Seat positioning on my recumbent

I adjusted my seat last night as noted in my blog here. As always this becomes a bit finicky. I changed the recline by adjusting the length of the seat stays pictured above. Then I had to push the seat forward so I could still reach the pedals. This also raised the seat and increased the incline. After my commute today I realized I had the seat too far forward so I moved it back just a bit, which also lowers the seat and reduces the incline. Every change adjusts three parameters, I can't adjust one at a time. It gets tricky.

But my impression so far is good, I love the comfort of the new incline. I just need to dial in the pedal distance. I can see why some designers prefer a sliding boom to adjusting the seat back and forth. I know there are trade-offs there as well but both sliding seat mounts and sliding booms have issues. I will adjust my seat for the ride home and see how that works out.

John Stewart Destoys Rick Santelli and CNBC

This is priceless, it is as awesome as Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire. John Stewart takes down CNBC in a delightful way. Unfortunately Rick Santelli failed to appear on his show. I would think that after the way McCain got pummeled for not showing up on Letterman Rick would have been leery of crossing a professional comedian and news commentator. But as it happens he did "bail out" on John Stewart, I wonder if this bashing of CNBC will continue for weeks as McCain's suffering on Letterman did.

View and enjoy

Site Traffic

I have been looking at my traffic statistics of my blog. I am pretty happy that my readership is growing. I had a nice spike during the election but that didn't survive the transition to post-election coverage with more focus on bikes. Now I have a reasonable readership that seems to be sticking around. I am enjoying blogging, it is an excellent release.

Let me know what you like about this blog. I keep tweaking the site as time goes on.

Daily KOS TV

I strongly recommend looking at Daily KOS TV. This is the brainchild of Jed Lewison and the Daily KOS team. During the election cycle theJed Report was an excellent source of video mash ups that turn politicians own words against them. Jed and Daily KOS have teamed up to make the Daily KOS TV site an ongoing version of that. They also host their own video and provide the ability to embed it elsewhere. It is very impressive and an excellent site.

Here is another video from them.

It seems the GOP just can't get the facts straight.

The Red Lie Express

Jed Lewison put this video together illustrating the Fox News shameless repeating of GOP lies. The best part is how they can't even keep their own lies straight. Check out Jed's comments:

It all started when Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal falsely accused Democrats of inserting an earmark calling for an $8 billion rail line between Disneyland and Las Vegas. Now, the Fox News-GOP propaganda machine is claiming the nonexistent Disney-Vegas rail line goes straight from Disneyland to the door of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada.

The problem is, even if the fictitious Fox News-GOP rail line actually existed, it wouldn’t even get you halfway to the Bunny Ranch, which is located 422 miles from Las Vegas.

The whole thing is a complete lie, another example of how Fox News is really just a partisan news network with zero regard for truth and accuracy.

(ref: DailyKOS DKTV)

Corsa seat adjustment

I keep going back and forth on my seat adjustment. Today I reclined the seat more and pushed it forward. I need to push it forward to keep my distance to the cranks the same. Though I actually need to decrease it as I think my legs are too extended. One side effect of this is that the seat goes farther forward on the monotube and as a consequence gets higher off the ground. It also means my knees are closer to the handlebars. This gets to be a series of trade-offs but I do want to recline the seat more as during the Chilly Hilly and my ride with Russell, my not so dainty derriere completely compressed the foam near the edge of the seat. This resulted in some discomfort and I reason that having the seat farther forward and my position more reclined will move the point of contact farther back on the seat and spread the weight more evenly.

Tomorrow and this next week will be the test of this hypothesis.

Michael Steele on the Today Show

TPM media assembled this clip of Michael Steele on the Today Show. I love this clip. You can tell the Republicans hate this topic when Michael Steele says "this has been a great little distraction, that was yesterday's news, lets move forward". They really don't want anyone to consider this a legitimate topic. Unfortunately when Rush says that it is common sense that as a Conservative that he wants Barack Obama's policies to fail, that is important.

What do we glean from that statement? First, we see that it is more important for Rush that he is right than the nation to recover from this economic recession. Conservatism is more important to him then being an American. He is an ideologue. Secondly, it doesn't even matter to Rush what policies President Obama uses to succeed. He wants President Obama to fail regardless. Rush Limbaugh is now anti-American, he is certainly no patriot. That is the conclusion I reach from the available data. He wants America to fail since he doesn't share the party identification with its current leaders. Period.

This is all fine and dandy, but how does that matter to the Republican party as a whole? Well it wouldn't if Rush Limbaugh was just a member of the party. It would be one ideologue's viewpoint and though despicable, it wouldn't be something to blame Republicans as a whole for. But unfortunately the events of the last week or so show that Rush Limbaugh is the ideological leader of the Republican Party. RNC head Michael Steele, House Minority Whip- Rep. Eric Cantor, Sen. John Barrasso, Rep. Phil Gingrey, and Gov. Mark Stanford have all groveled at the feet of Rush Limbaugh. The Republican Party leadership is openly submissive to Rush. That is deeply unfortunate and ties the entire party to Rush Limbaugh's point of view. It means that the Conservative movement and the Republican party are now all anti-American.

Hopefully Republicans will grow a spine and cast off this cancer from their party. This situation does no one any good. How can Republicans even claim to attempt to govern when their leader is asking for the government to fail, so as to cast the worst possible light on President Barack Obama?

Update: For more Republicans agreeing with Rush, see this Think Progress article

Saturday Ride

View Larger Map
Russell from On A Clear Day and I went for a nice ride in Seattle's emerging spring weather. It was a good example of how plans are the first casualty of action, but it was also great fun. The map above has our route and I did take some pictures but neglected to post them yet.

The ride was very interesting for me. I almost never ride in Seattle, so it was all new to me and I got to explore. I enjoyed the decent cycle facilities that Seattle has, not up to Portland or Copenhagen standards but much better than Kirkland has. The views were nice and the drivers polite. The ride was about 25 miles with some stopping and decision making. The amount of climbing we did was approximately 1/2 of an STP, roughly 2000 ft.

Russell and I are planning a new training ride soon. Maybe we will ride over in West Seattle and go to Alki.

Great Line from TPM

This is awesome:

I just want to give props to the Democratic psyops operation that's paying off Michael Steele to get into a gonzo spat with Rush. Great work, guys.

TPM
(UPDATE: this just gets more amusing as it evolves)

Monday Dog shots

This is a fun picture of Casey. I like the movement and the way Casey looks like he is moving quite purposely.

Just a little Monday relief from the start of the work week.