Parker and I were surprised last week to come home after work and discover this in the yard:

In sum: Cubs still in first place, Cardinals slip farther into third, and the White Sox fall—or perhaps, saunter vaguely downwards—into last place.

What a great way to wake up. The Cubs have moved into first place. Only by half a game...but still, it's a nice way to wake up.

Old rug, old sock, sunbeam. Dog is happy:

Yesterday I posted about a bike that hadn't been ridden in a while. This morning the bike had gone:

The Chicago Tribune on one of the worst divisional contests in recent memory:

It could be the worst divisional race in recent memory, but someone has to win the National League Central. The Brewers blew an 8 1/2-game lead, the Cardinals are coming out of their midsummer funk and the Cubs are turning into the Cubs with another mini-meltdown after two straight months of winning baseball. What's in store for the Not-So-Big Three the rest of the month that Lou Piniella said would separate the boys from the men?

It's really kind of sad, actually.

Someone appears to have slacked off from his exercise program:

Via Bruce Schneier, a really good article about security theater:

At the time, it seemed reasonable. Richard Reid tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoe while aboard a December 2001 flight from Paris, so Congress banned butane lighters on planes.

But in retrospect, the costs of the ban outweighed the benefits. Airport retailers had to stop selling lighters. Lighter vendor Zippo Manufacturing Co. laid off more than 100 workers in part because of the prohibition. Transportation Security Administration screeners at one point had to confiscate 30,000 lighters every day, quadrupling the amount of garbage the agency had to dispose of. TSA even had to hire a contractor to help with all the extra trash.

Welcome to homeland security, where everyone has an incentive to exaggerate threats. A Congress member whose district includes a port has little to lose and much to gain by playing up the potential for container-borne terrorism. A city with a dam talks up the need to protect critical infrastructure. A company selling weapons-detection technology stresses the vulnerability of commercial aviation. A civil servant evaluating homeland security grant applications has an interest in over-estimating dangers that might be addressed by grantees rather than denying funding and risk blame in the event of a disaster.

I think winds affect my biking regardless of what direction they're coming from. This morning, for example, in calm winds, I set three personal records on a 60 km ride: best distance over 1 hour (30.9 km); best time for 40 km (1:18:14, beating my previous PR by 4:01); and best time for 60 km (1:58:28, beating my previous by 3:22).

Next week I'm planning to ride 110—120 km as part of my North Shore Century training. Maybe another PR or two?

Newsweek just published an article laying out how oil, gas, and other similar industries have bamboozled the American public for close to 20 years about climate change:

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."

Just last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change; only one third thought planetary warming was "mainly caused by things people do."

For the record: there is no dispute among climatologists that planetary warming is mostly caused by human activities.

I'm glad Newsweek published the story, even though it's old news to people who have followed the administration's (528 days to go!) assault on science and reason. Maybe more people will realize they're being hoodwinked.