Bring the pain

Yes, indeed--I have registered for my first (maybe only) ultramarathon. It's a 50K trail race in the DC area. That's about 31 miles--5 miles farther than a marathon.

This is on the short end of races classified as "ultras," which range from 50K to as far as 150 miles and beyond.

The fact that it's a trail race mitigates the extra distance somewhat because it lessens the impact on legs as compared to asphalt. However, the trails and location (somewhere around Great Falls Park) mean it also has potential to be a pretty hilly course. It's also at noon on September 6, so high temps and humidity could become a problem.

We shall see!

Blood on their hands

Abstinence groups continue to oppose the HPV vaccine...even with new evidence that HPV infection is linked not only with cervical cancer, but lung cancer as well. (ABC News)

Their objections continue to blow my mind.

"We don't need to be vaccinating children against something that can be prevented with a behavior change," said Kimberly Martinez, executive director of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, a nonprofit group that advocates teaching children not to have sex rather than to have safe sex.

"We have to teach kids values and boundaries," she said. "If you give kids the vaccine, you're giving them a license to go have sex. It's like if you teach a kid to use a condom, you know what they're going to do with it," she said.

Listen, lady, if threats like unwanted pregnancy, AIDS, and the many other STDs with very nasty symptoms aren't stopping your kids from having unprotected sex...I seriously doubt the future risk of cervical cancer is going to stop them. Assuming they even learned what a cervix is or that they have one in their abstinence-based sex ed curriculum. What a bogus argument.

Not to mention the valid and often-repeated counterargument: even if you could ensure your kid never had sex before marriage, you couldn't ensure the same regarding his or her spouse.

Maybe these folks also oppose teens wearing seatbelts on the grounds that they encourage speeding and unsafe driving.

When in doubt, don't emit it

You'd think by now we would have figured it out.

Human beings pumping lots of anything into the atmosphere? Usually a bad idea. Acid rain, thinning ozone layer, global warming--we don't have a great track record.

So it's not too surprising that this idea of counteracting global warming by injecting sulfur in the atmosphere is getting the kibosh. (AP)

Also a bad idea? Pumping lots of anything into the ocean. See, for example, the dead-in-the-water plan to purposely spawn ocean plankton blooms to sequester carbon. (Fortune)

Estimated new DC cab fares

With metered cab fares coming soon in DC, the Washington Post provides a neat little calculator to compare the current, zone based fare for a given route with the estimated metered fare.

Honestly, I don't have an intimate understanding of taxicab economics, so I don't know whether this is a bad deal for cabbies (as they claim) or a victimless boon for cab riders (as is my hope). But the cabbies' professed reason for opposing the change is counterintuitive:

[Taxi drivers' association president Nathan] Price said many of the District's 6,500 to 7,000 cabbies worry that fares based on time and distance will be higher than the current flat rates based on geographic zones and that a price increase would cause a drop in ridership and force many independent owner-operators out of business.

Basing the metering partly on time does seem to be a recipe for high fares in traffic-plagued downtown DC. But then again, the time is most likely to add up during morning and evening hours--when cabbies are already adding a rush hour surcharge under the zone system.

Whatever. The slam dunk is the confusing and easily-cheated nature of the zone system, which I have discussed before. Welcome to the rest of the world, DC. I want to see little numbers tick by in my cabs as they do in more civilized places like New York and, like, Knoxville.

New X-Files movie coming out in July...

Excellent! Just last night I was at the new, scary Best Buy in Columbia Heights slobbering over the full X-Files DVD collector's edition ($275; my birthday is May 21 in case you were wondering). It has been way too long since the end of the series and the first X-Files movie.

"It has struck me over the last several years talking to college-age kids that a lot of them really don't know the show or haven't seen it," [show creator Chris] Carter said. "If you're 20 years old now, the show started when you were 4.... "

Holy crap, is that true? I guess it is.

What I really wonder is: will X-Files themes resonate with people in the Aughts the way they did in the pre-millenial late '90s? I wonder if anyone wants to see fiction about conspiracy theories any more, or paranoid speculations about the consolidation of political and economic power. "Trust no one" still holds, not so sure about "the truth is out there."

Market segmentation creeps me out

Apparently our presidential candidate preferences fall along Fig Newton/chewy chocolate chip/crunchy chocolate chip lines. That's right--marketing researchers have correlated food choices with political choices. Read more here and here about how Obama has "the arugula vote," McCain voters seem to prefer margarine, and my love for Kashi GoLean inaccurately points to a preference for Clinton.

Those crunchy chocolate chip cookie people...weird, no surprise they are voting for McCain. I have nothing in common with those people. Chewy all the way.

My 2 cents on Bittergate

Sigh. When will candidates ever learn? What you say to your bosom buddies and supporters in public at fundraisers has got to be ready for prime time America as well. How many macacas must be uttered before this simple fact hits home? Everything you do is tracked and recorded. If I were running for president, I would not sing in the shower without first running the lyrics through my messaging people. 'Cause that shit could well end up on YouTube.

Do you ever wonder why sociology professors rarely get elected president? You have your answer, Mr. Obama!

Well played, Brazil

The Brazilian government has a plan for fighting Amazon deforestation and AIDS simultaneously: manufacturing condoms from native Amazonian tree-rubber. (Reuters)

The scheme is hoped to "cut dependence on imported contraceptives" (the Brazilian government is the world's biggest buyer of condoms, used in AIDS prevention programs) while generating income for Amazon residents from harvesting rubber rather than cutting down trees.

Meanwhile, campus environmental groups everywhere now have a great idea for an Earth Day giveaway, if they can get their hands on some tropical tree-condoms.

King Coal not such a merry old soul

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship to ABC reporter: "If you're going to start taking pictures of me, you're liable to get shot." (ABC News)

One of the chief architects of the destruction of Appalachian mountains and waterways through mountaintop removal coal mining, Blankenship apparently sheds the "good ol' boy" persona when pressed.

Can't. Frakkin. Wait.

OMG, OMG, only 2 hours until the Battlestar Galactica season 4 premiere! Please, don't let it suck.
I was talking with some friends about The Wire the other day (I know, rare occurrence) when we decided that premium TV dramas are the narrative art form of this era. Think about The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under...they speak to us in ways only great novels and cycles of novels used to. And thanks to DVDs and other forms of digital storage, we can visit and re-visit them just like we would our favorite literary trilogies.