Having been on a few flights in recent weeks where we landed, not to mention took off, in heavy crosswinds — and lived to tell the tale — I thought I would post this video (I haven’t posted a video du jour in a long while). There’s something a bit unsettling to me as you look through the windshield during the approach and see the plane you’re in not remotely parallel to the runway as you are about to touch down. Our pilots didn’t seem too concerned however… This last flight I swore the next time I’m taking the train. The folks in the plane landing in Hamburg in this video though had a rougher time of it, their landing was much more scary, their pilot really did a great job avoiding disaster.

Booze can alter the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, in the WSJ article:

“I don’t ordinarily ever drink alcohol during a race,” he said yesterday. But earlier that day, during Stage 16, Mr. Landis had faded in the Alps, surrendering the leader’s yellow jersey and falling more than eight minutes behind. Afterward, he was all but convinced that the race was over for him. “What would you have done?” he asked. “Until yesterday, that was the worst day of my life.”
…
Last week, after he completed Stage 16, Mr. Landis told reporters his first priority was to have a cold beer. He said yesterday he went to an outdoor veranda with a bar near his hotel and drank two draft beers. After a crowd began to gather, he retired to the hotel with about five other people, including Phonak teammates Axel Merckx and Robert Hunter. Someone produced a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, he said, and he had “at least four shots” before going to bed before 11:30 p.m.

Methinks there could a bit of weak science in the testing methodology. Of course I could be wrong, but the average-ish 2:1 ratio can get out of whack for numerous reasons not involving doping. Though not sure re the booze argument.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation‘s website:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications.

In December of 2005, the press revealed that the government had instituted a comprehensive and warrantless electronic surveillance program that ignored the careful safeguards set forth by Congress. This surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President at least as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

In the largest “fishing expedition” ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to “data-mine” the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be “linked” to “suspicious activities,” suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,’ he said. ‘The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?

Here is a mirrored copy of the mp3 of the WWL radio interview with Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. Warning, strong language and reality check. Don’t believe everything you hear on CNN. [edit: Now uncensored version, starts earlier.]

From Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: “‘The good news is – and it’s hard for some to see it now – that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house – there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.’ (Laughter).” – president George W. Bush, today. Just think of that quote for a minute; and the laughter that followed. The poor and the black are dying, dead, drowned and desperate in New Orleans and elsewhere. But the president manages to talk about the future “fantastic” porch of a rich, powerful white man who only recently resigned his position because he regretted the failure of Strom Thurmond to hold back the tide of racial desegregation.

“We regret when any patient suffers,” Duke said, adding that there is “always some risk of an undesirable outcome in any procedure.”