the välimäki experience

All points to Mr. Ahmadinejad. As reported, Iran’s president was invited to speak at Columbia University in New York. So how did the president of the university introduce the guest speaker – a president of a mightly foreign nation with which US foreign relations could be improved:

“Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” adding, “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”

Ok, one can not deny there are issues that should be debated, even with strong words, with Iran’s leader. Another thing is, whether a direct confrontation is a good strategy to start anything fruitful (not to speak about academic). He finalized:

“I doubt,” Mr. Bollinger concluded, “that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions.”

WTF?! Unbelievable intolerance. I think Mr. Bollinger just downgraded US-Iran relations as much as he could. I have nothing to add to Ahmadinejad’s calm response:

“In Iran, tradition requires when you invite a person to be a speaker, we actually respect our students enough to allow them to make their own judgment, and don’t think it’s necessary before the speech is even given to come in with a series of complaints to provide vaccination to the students and faculty.”

Last night an excellent 27K at sub 4.00/km pace. Route went through Munkkiniemi – Ruoholahti – Lauttasaari. Roughly half of it on asphalt. Just perfect. No problems with legs whatsoever, and the day-after looks normal.

Other runs of the week were one 18K, one 8K, and two-times 6K. One day off, today perhaps as well or just a short one. I’m not going to do any major speedsters or long-ones during the last two weeks before the marathon. Next week I aim to do pretty normal 60-80K, and the final week just a couple of easy 5-10K runs.

The long-awaited judgment in the Microsoft case came out an hour ago. It’s 160 pages on my printer. Quick analysis says this complex case was decided “according to what the prosecutor claims.” Among the highlights:

1. The mere holding of any type of intellectual property right or trade secret is not an “objective justification” to deny the provision of any information
2. Non-disclosure of interoperability information would cause negative effects on the incentives to innovate – Microsoft only presented “vague, general and theoretical arguments on that point” (para 698)
3. “…standardisation may effectively present certain advantages, it cannot be allowed to be imposed unilaterally by an undertaking in a dominant position…” (para 1152)
4. “Microsoft does not show that the integration of Windows Media Player in Windows creates technical efficiencies”(para 1159)

Helped Jari to do a massive 33.15 10K on inva. Myself I just tallied the first 5K in 16.40, then a 3 min break, and lead the next 3K in 10.00. With some running afterwards it was 14K total.

Adding the nice 6K yesterday, and the ultimate killer 30K+ in wed with Terho (c. 2.5 hours around Helsinki central park!), it was something like 70K total for the week.

Went to see Hanoi Rocks last night in Tavastia Club. There was something legendary in the event. The first time I went to see a concert there was in early 1997 and it was Andy’s act of the day – Briard revisited. That time Andy did a full bottle of Jack Daniels on stage. Last night it was just a few beers. If you add that the band played technically well and the stuff from the new album Street Poetry is pretty good (has been my iPod’s top playlist for a week now), it was overall a great show.

It looked very good and energetic…