Environment 9 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Unblogged Bits (Tue. 12-Apr-11 1730)

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Newly-released FBI memo from 1950 confirms “flying saucers” crashing in New Mexico [Mysteries] – Well, the memo confirms something — now, who’s confirming the memo (and its writer, and his sources)?
Rand And The Conservatism Of Doubt – Ah, Ayn Rand — is there anything more you can get wrong with your crazy philosophy?
Stop Being The “Annoying Phone Guy” During Meetings With BusyMe for Android – Seriously checking this out.
Senator To Propose New Internet Sales Tax – Certainly people (cough) are more likely in many circumstances to purchase something tax-free through Amazon than taxed from their local bricks-and-mortar store (unless they want it in their hands RIGHT NOW). On the other hand, the taxpayer “impact” of Amazon, vs. Best Buy, is much lower. So the only issue is the “fairness” of states getting or not getting money for what I buy. Let’s not make it any more noble than that.
150 Years Later, Tea Partiers Still Aren’t Over The Civil War: Travis Waldron
Religious Right Ramps Up Attacks on Judicial Nominee Goodwin Liu – Thanks goodness — we’d almost forgotten all about the GOP zaniness in the Senate …
Fischer Likens Boehner To Pontius Pilate Over Planned Parenthood Compromise – Dolt.
Liberty U Blocks Access To Local Paper – Liberty? You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means …
Robertson On Burqa Ban: Don’t Like It? Go Back To Africa – Religious freedom for me, but not for thee.
Scientist accidentally experiments on himself, wife – Not now, honey — you’re not out of quarantine yet!
Kindle now available for $114 — with on-screen ads – And now we know why Kindle hasn’t offered folks (since very early days) the easy ability to load their own screen savers. Ugh.
$39bn budget cuts also target safe drinking water and heating subsidies. So where are cuts to GOP programs? – What did the Republicans want that got cut? The amount of budget money they (eventually) said wanted cut. “We really wanted $100B!” they claim, “And that got cut to only $40B! So, see? We’re cutting, too!” Yeesh.
Huckabee/Trump 2012? Former Gov. Open To Sharing Ticket With Birther Mogul – I’m trying to figure out if Huckabee is following the McCain “I’ll say anything to get a vote” course, or if he’s always been as flaky as he’s seemed of late.
Why Does it Take so Much Less Milk to Lighten Iced Coffee? [Giz Explains] – And knowing’s half the battle!
Private Records of 3.5 Million Texans Were Mistakenly Leaked by the State [Wtf] – Okay, let’s just assume, from now on, that any record kept about you, whether governmental or private, can and will, eventually, be leaked. How do we, as a society, mitigate that?
If a Byte Were a Gram a Floppy Disk Would Weigh 10 Cats [Factoid] – A pint’s a pound the world around!
Meet the Man Who Invented the Digital Camera [Video] – It’s amazing to think of how much photography has changed with the advent of digital — for the vast part the better, I think.
Why Everyone Loves Yuri Gagarin, the First Human to Reach Space [Video] – “The Earth is blue. How wonderful. It is amazing.” Lovely. There are times when I wish spending time in orbit was a requirement for every one of our Congresscritters.
Peter Jackson Explains Why He’s Shooting ‘The Hobbit’ at 48 Frames Per Second – An interesting technological push — and, to my mind, probably a bigger difference than 3D (though it goes hand-in-hand with it).

The false dichotomy

Business interests have framed the environmental debate in terms of a false dichotomy:

Prosperity vs. Stagnation.

Jobs vs. Environment.

Regulation vs. Freedom.

But the fact is that preserving and protecting nature is not just about tree-hugging and Gaia-worshiping and hippies capering about. Ecologically sound practices are an economic factor we must consider. Protecting nature is not just about sacrificing construction jobs, but about looking at what natural environments do for us, as an biospheric infrastructure. You wouldn’t build a factory in the middle of an water treatment plant … why would you do it in the middle of a water treatment plant that happens to be a wetland?

There are reasons to appreciate and preserve nature beyond purely economic ones. But, too often, economic arguments are the ones that win the day, and excluding the economic aspects of ecology is a fool’s game.

The Majestic Plastic Bag

This is awesomely brilliant.

First off, I love a fabulous parody. Richard Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau would both be proud, if they weren’t both dead.

Second, yes — plastic bags are a problem. It’s increasingly difficult to get paper bags at the store. At a minimum, try keeping a few cloth bags in your car for doing grocery shopping. If you do end up with plastic bags, most grocery stores have boxes for recycling them when you return.

This is one majestic species that deserves to be endangered.

(via DOF)

Unblogged Bits (Wed. 30-Jun-10 0202)

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

New financial unit of measure: the “TDJ” – Big, inspirational art, cathedrals, stuff like that, do serve a purpose, so I can’t immediately hop on DOF’s bandwagon here (since obviously SOME Philistines out there were inspired by TDJ). But I’d suggest that before investing a quarter mil into rebuilding this eye-sore (and handwaving away any suggestion that, well, MAYBE THEY SHOULD CATCH A CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE ALMIGHTY THINKS ABOUT THIS MONSTROSITY), the church in question ought to very, very seriously think about what Jesus would actually suggest in this circumstance, and how much of this is to glorify themselves, not to do God’s work (whited sepulchres can be Jesus-shaped, too).
Gohmert Cracks the Case [Dispatches from the Culture Wars] – Next up, Gohmert claims that Obama was a dry run … or was he simply the FIRST OF MANY??!!
Do not apply for jobs with “TTJ Property Management” as it’s just a scam. – Bravo, Les. Great research. I suspect others will find it useful, too.
London cops enforce imaginary law against brave, principled teenaged photographer – For people we trust to go armed and use physical force against miscreants, way too many police seem to be shy of public oversight.
Four Great Reasons Your Facebook Profile Should NEVER Be Public | Facebook blog and news
YouTube – NASA Satellite Time Lapse Images of Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill – Amazing, and disturbing.
Gorilla psychologists: Weird stuff in plain sight – opinion – 28 June 2010 – New Scientist – We can only focus on so much at a time. Which is one reason why “multi-tasking” is not nearly as effective as folks deceive themselves in to thinking it is.
YouTube – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 & 2 Official Teaser (2010) – Okay, some of the screen text is a weeeee hyperbolic — but, damn, that does look exciting.
Do we play Farmville because we’re polite? – Boing Boing – I very much suspect this is true. And, yes, it’s a reason I never accept those sorts of invites (nor do I often get onto FB).
Bumpology: Fed up of the booze and cigs police – health – 29 June 2010 – New Scientist
Kirkman’s ‘Walking Dead’ conquers comics. Is TV next? – USATODAY.com – If played true to the comics, this could be a real hit.
Tor.com / Johnny Depp Starring in Big Screen Doctor Who Adaptation? – Um … I really hope this turns out to be about 98.6% Not True.
YouTube – Bistro Bordeaux – No Need For A Corkscrew – Not quite as funny as the guy on the street in an earlier video, but interesting to see. I would not do this with a good bottle, for a variety of reasons.

Unblogged Bits (Sun. 13-Jun-10 0201)

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

BP outsourced spill payout payments to business focused on cost savings – If you are trying to save money while giving out money, you will inevitably end up giving out less money. Yes, some of that may represent actually fraudulent claims, but inevitably (even with the best intentions, itself a dubious premise) some of it will be shorting people with just claims.
Has a cure been found for Dutch Elm Disease? – Nature, Environment – The Independent – If not a cure, then a much more resistent strain of elms. Cool.
“That’s A Wrap!” – Filming of the Harry Potter Series Ends Today – End of an era … Kay is very much into these books and movies right now, and so I’ve seen them all recently multiple times. It’s remarkable looking at this photo and comparing it to how they originally looked a decade ago. It will be interesting to see what the actors involved move on to.
New York Times bans the word “tweet” – Holy Kaw! – I have to agree that “tweet” is very platform-centric; from a newspaper standpoint, it’s probably best to use a more common, less-jargony term. Still, below the veneer of reasonableness here from Mr Corbett there’s more than a hint of contempt for Twitter and its users.

BP Coffee Spills

Yes. Yes I am the last person on Earth to link to this. Still worth doing.

Warming’s bogus, this I know, ’cause the Bible tells me so

Most preachers get understandably ticked off when people use science to “prove” that faith, God, religion, and all that is bunkum, delusion, biochemical tricks and psychological folderol. What makes them think, then, that using religion (for example, the Bible) to “prove” anything about science is going to be any more welcome, fitting, accurate, or accepted?

Especially when it’s so darned silly.

Meet the Answers Research Journal, a very scientific-sounding publication … produced by a group called “Answers in Genesis,” which basically says that …

… well …

… the Bible is literally true, and not only is it the answer (in unmistakable black and white! (except for Red Letter editions)) to every moral question, but to every scientific question, too. Or, as they put it:

Answers Research Journal (ARJ) is a professional, peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework.

It’s professional! (As opposed to amateur.) It’s peer-reviewed! (Other people who believe the same thing read it.) It’s technical! (They use long words.) It’s interdisciplinary! (They apply the Bible to every subject.) It’s scientific! (They talk about science.) It’s relevant! (They relate the Bible to every subject.) It has a framework! (And everything is neatly framed within it.)

The relevant part here, of course, is “the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood.” Everything the ARJ publishes is based on the idea that (a) the world was created about 6000 years ago, and a few thousand years after that, there was a big Flood. With Noah. And an Ark.

And, today’s topic of interdisciplinary Young Earth / Old Testament interdisciplinary science? A Proposed Bible-Science Perspective on Global Warming by Rod J. Martin, an “Independent Researcher” who lives in Santa Clarita, CA (ironically, a damned hot place) — wherein we learn how Al Gore makes Baby Jesus cry.

Official citation: Answers Research Journal 3 (2010): 91-106, ISSN: 1937-9056 (darned professional-looking that, ain’t it?)

(Yeah, I know I shouldn’t devote this much time to something this trivial, but … these guys just irk the bloody hell out of me.) Continue reading “Warming’s bogus, this I know, ’cause the Bible tells me so”

Unblogged Bits (Tue. 11-May-10 2000)

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

USDA Tightens Chicken Rules – Damn bunch of socialists, interfering with the consumer’s right to buy tainted chicken! What would the Founding Fathers say?
Humble Indie Bundle hits $1m, goes open-source, gets 4 day extension – I made a donation — worthy causes and some cool games.
Going to Mars—sort of – I will definitely be keeping an eye out for information on contacting these people.
Heavy rain may flood Front Range with 1.8 inches of precipitation tonight – The Denver Post – Thar’s a storm a-brewin’, boys!
Perversely stupid (cont’d.) – “Constantly arguing in bad faith leads to thinking in bad faith and to living in bad faith, until bad faith is all you’ve got left. Calculation becomes habit, that habit supplants thought and one winds up in the perverse circumstance of earnestly arguing for the goodness of oil spills.”
Palestinian Official: I Call Palestine ‘The New Philippines’ – Without disputing the damage that the Palestinians have done to their own cause, there’s little doubt that the Israeli government, through its support of ever-expanding settlements, is dealing in extremely bad faith (so to speak).
Republicans And Right-Wing Media Push Myth That Kagan ‘Banned’ Military Recruiters From Harvard Law School – Let’s not let the truth get in the way of our talking points!
Telecoms’ Secret Plan To Attack Net Neutrality: Target Video Gamers And Stoke Fear Of Chinese Censorship – Isn’t claiming that Net Neutrality is a government takeover of the Internet sort of like claiming the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a government takeover of the hotel industry?
Kagan and military recruiters, redux – “The problem, of course, is that the criticism is factually wrong, a detail her detractors either don’t realize or choose to ignore.”
Pew pew! For science! Lasers map ancient Mayan temples – Very cool.
The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook – But heaven help you if you try to pull data out of Facebook.
Cool collection of optical illusions – Flipper? I hardly know’er!
You’re an asshole, not a genius – Queue jumpers are among the lowest forms of life. Turning your signal on doesn’t change that.
Alabama, evolution, and the 21st century – Alabama is pretty far down on the list of places I’d be willing to visit, let alone live.
Ending the ‘war on drugs’ – There’s certainly a role for law enforcement regarding drugs, but treating it as a “war” — complete with getting overly involved in military exploits overseas as well as spending zillions at home with little effect and filling our prisons without actually much impacting drug use or profits … well, that’s been a war we weren’t winning and can’t afford to keep fighting. If you can’t impact the supply, though, you can certainly try to impact the demand.
Lowest taxes in more than a half-century – Money graf: “Looking ahead, tax rates more in line with the recent norm — say, tax rates of the 1990s, when the economy was strong and the budget was balanced — would do wonders to reduce the deficit the right pretends to care about.”
King: If Gays Don’t Want To Be Discriminated Against, They Should Stay In the Closet – People only keep quiet about things they feel ashamed or fearful about. While I don’t expect my gay acquaintances to be going into graphic detail about their sexual escapades (I don’t expect my straight acquaintances to do so, either), I also don’t think they should have to hide the fact of their personal relationships.
Schlafly: Obama Must Apologize to America For His “Poor Moral Tone” – As soon as she apologizes for being a pushing, judgmental, blithering ignoramus.

The Power is Yours!

We’ve been on a recycling kick at home.

For quite some time, we were mostly recycling aluminum cans and wine bottles, but I finally looked up our garbage company’s site and found out that, in fact, they did a single-stream recycling where they took pretty much anything with a plastic recycle symbol, glass, paper, corrugated cardboard …

So over the past month, I’ve been making an explicit effort to throw everything into the recycle bin except for that which simply cannot. Most of the paper from the mail (I shred sensitive stuff), cardboard boxes from Amazon, rinsed out glass and cans and plastic from meal prep …

The bottom line is that we’re recycling at least as much as we’re throwing away. And that’s awfully cool.

At the office, we also have a new single-stream recycling program. In the break room, there’s now a large recycle can, and then another can next to it marked “LANDFILL.” A great reminder of what you’re doing with that other trash.

This is the "correct" form of the recycle logo. Do you know why?

The amount is so balanced that I’ve gotten rid of the small trash can I was using for recycle, and repurposed one of our two large trash cans for that. And, so far, I haven’t had any problem with the regular garbage getting too full. Indeed, I often have additional cardboard and a small trash can from the kitchen with recycle in it to put down with the big recycling bin.

It does fill me with a bit of self-righteous pleasure (which I try to keep from turning into smugness) how we’ve changed the proportions of what we’re tossing. It’s not the only thing I can or should be doing to save the world, but it’s a part.

(Which reminds me of this related post on the origin of the recycling symbol.)

Unblogged Bits (Tue. 4-May-10 1400)

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Maybe Aang Was the Second-to-Last Airbender – Holy … wow. I don’t know whether to be appalled, or ecstatic. A lot depends on who the underlying creative team is.
Rest in Peas: The Unrecognized Death of Speech Recognition: Miss Cellania
Conservatives Want To Deny U.S. Citizen Faisal Shahzad Miranda Rights, Ensuring He Won’t Be Convicted – Oh, Good Lord — I actually agree with something Glenn Beck had to say? Yeesh.
LU Cancels Classes for Lynchburg City Council Election – Have to wonder what the Right would say if it were, say, a union calling a work stoppage to bus everyone to the local polls.
Quote of the Day – I realize the “law & order” types have never been fond of the Miranda ruling (rubber hoses and the third degree, anyone?), but the current harping that nobody accused of terror — or at least nobody “foreign” (even if a US citizen) — should be Mirandized because it’s more important to just beat the truth out of ’em and then shove ’em before a firing squad, rather than shilly-shally about with “rights” and “trials” seems particularly despicable (and, may I say, anti-American).
DORK TOWER, Monday, May 3, 2010 – Oh, Lord — how this describes so many games I have been in. (It’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re looking to actually get gaming done ….)
AFA’s Fischer: Any Muslim Unwilling to Renounce Islam Ought to be Denied Entry to the US – I think a look at crime statistics in the US, as well as a review of Western history, will indicate that Christians are guilty of most murders. I think we should force all Christians to renounce their religion or face deportation. (Just kidding, of course, but, yeesh.)
The United and Continental Airline Mashup – What I note most about the (ugly) logo change is that it finally drops any of the “United [States]” red-white-and-blue imagery. Which may well make sense from a global standpoint, but is still sort of sad. As well as (as noted) ugly.
Captcha Advertising – I’m appalled, but I have to applaud the guy who came up with the concept.
Cuccinelli ditches censored lapel pins, blames the media for making them a ‘distraction.’: Amanda Terkel
SBOE dare not say his name: “Obama” – Yeesh.
Right on cue, McCain starts complaining – So is McCain’s standard now that folks who are likely to face capital crimes should not be Mirandized until they’ve been compelled to state everything they know. Is he actually listening to his own words? Jeez — what lessons did he really learn from the North Vietnamese?
The GOP’s emergency-room argument lives – Money graf: “Sue Lowden’s campaign and its Republican brethren oppose health care reform, but they’ve endorsed the most inefficient system of socialized medicine ever devised.”
Report: FBI Opens Criminal Probe Of Massey Energy | TPMMuckraker – Good. Nice to see some investigation into (if not, yet, accountability for) this sort of tragedy.
Wash. Nuns Investigated By Vatican – Investigated for sexual abuse? Nah. Investigated for “feminism and activism.” Glad the Vatican has its priorities straight.
US citizen from Pakistan nabbed on Dubai-bound plane in Times Square case, to appear in court – chicagotribune.com – Okay, now we’re in a relatively informed place to start talking about this case (on the presumption that the Feds have the right guy).
The American Family’s Financial Turmoil | – Scary Infographic. And, yes, I’m doing better than “average,” but it worries me a lot, as a society and an economy, that this is what the “average” is.
Is Walt Disney World feeling nervous about the arrival of Harry Potter? – I agree. While it may impact some folks going exclusively to WDW, if it draws additional visitors to Orlando it’s likely to add some attendees to WDW, too.
AT&T asks government to create national censorwall and system for disconnecting accused infringers – Oh, that pesky “civil trial” stuff — I mean, if we can bypass it for terrorists, why not bypass it for important stuff, like people who download a song they don’t actually own?

Unblogged Bits for Fri, 2 Apr 2010, 8:00PM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

5 Ways The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading [Publishing]: Annalee Newitz
Preacher Compares Attacks on Pope to Anti – Semitism – NYTimes.com – The more the Vatican criticizes the attacks being made — painting itself as victim instead of the children who were abused — the more credibility and sympathy it loses. And, on another note, hiding behind what your aide did on your behalf is hardly a substantive defense. “The buck stops here,” as Truman put it.
Michele Bachmann: Nancy Pelosi Tried To Incite Something By The Way She Crossed The Street – “And if she’d been raped it would have been her fault, too.”
KFC’s Bacon Sandwich On Fried Chicken “Bread” Starts Killing People Nationwide April 12 – The O.R. one is the same calories and fat as a Big Mac (but twice the sodium). Maybe too much of a good thing.
Star Trek Re-Watch: “What Men Dare Do” – One of the lengthiest and most nicely done April Fool bits I saw all day: part of Tor’s ST:TOS retrospective, in this case a fake TOS episode review. Brilliant.
Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music – I would rather eat broken glass than fill the coffers of the RIAA … unless, of course, if it were at the expense of ClearChannel. Hrm. While this will likely hurt small broadcast stations (and public radio) more than Big Broadcasting, it’s also clearly a case where something needs to be done to rationalize both the domestic and international markets.
Wes Anderson Is the Hipstery Lord of the Rings – Amazing what a different sound track and some clever cuts will do to a trailer. Amusing.
Topless Robot – The 8 Most Common Ways D&D Characters Die – That’s pretty much the gamut all right.
Improved comment collapsing for Google Buzz posts – Nice. I’m still not settled in my use of Buzz, as it falls sort of between GReader and Twitter without really replacing either. But for what I do use it for, this will be helpful.
Pineberry to Make Debut in U.K. Stores – Hmmmm … need to keep my eyes open for these here in the States. Though I’m generally not a big fan of fresh fruit.
RNC’s Filings Reveal Creative Definitions Of ‘Office Supplies’ – Okay, okay, it’s probably (maybe) just expenses entered under the wrong account code (as someone who both does expense reports and tries to reconcile departmental expenses vs. budgets, I’ve seen this happen a zillion times). That said, it’s still damned funny.
Palin’s 20 House Dem Targets Use Her As A Fundraising Ploy – I suspect her involvement will get more traction from Democrats than Republicans.
Indiana Threatened By Giant Poop Bubbles, For Realsies
Northeast Hit With Devastating Floods, As Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction – Well played, GOP! Let’s all remember this next fall!
Erickson: I’ll ‘pull out my wife’s shotgun’ if someone comes to my door for the American Community Survey. – To summarize: “I’m not advocating killing census workers. I’m advocating threatening to kill them with a shotgun if they come onto my property.” That’s a remarkably nuanced approach for a Erickson.
Scott Roeder gets Hard 50 in murder of abortion provider George Tiller | Featured Story | Wichita Eagle
Can Animals Be Gay? – NYTimes.com – An interesting (and long) article on same-sex mating and social behavior in a remarkably lengthy list of species. That complicates the “‘Tain’t Natural!” argument (though it can still be noted that it’s less usual than male-female activity), but, then, that’s never been the point, to me, of why we should (or shouldn’t) accept homosexual behavior in humans, which boils down to, “Why the heck shouldn’t we? Where’s the harm?” (Note: “I think it’s icky” is not an actual harm.)

Scoping out the BPA in my cupboard

So there’s been increasing concerns over BPA (bisphenol A) over the past few years, especially in its use for food containers. Though some of this takes on the hysteria of the anti-vax crowd, I’m also not swayed by calm assurances by manufacturers or lack of action from the FDA (esp. since the manufacturers generally say, “We are always interested in customer health, but the FDA says it’s okay, so it must be okay”).

I decided I wanted to see if we had any easy sources of BPA in our house that we could get rid of. We have a lot of plastic containers that we both store and microwave food in, and I decided that if we had any that have BPA, I’d get rid of them; if they all had BPA, we’d go back to the old Corning/ceramic days.

Here’s what I found:

Glad:

Do GladWare® Containers contain BPA (Bisphenol A)?
NO. Glad food containers, wraps, and storage bags and other food contact products are not made of Polycarbonate nor is Bisphenol A (BPA) used as a raw material in their production. For more information, you can read our official statement here.

Rubbermaid:

BPA has been used safely in the manufacture of thousands of products for years and its use fully complies with U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other historically stringent public health regulators in the European Union and Japan.
Even though only a fraction of Rubbermaid-branded food storage containers and water bottles contain BPA, we believe strongly in helping consumers make informed choices. It’s all part of Rubbermaid’s focus on listening to, and responding to, our valued customers.
Rubbermaid food storage & beverage products that contain BPA
Rubbermaid food storage & beverage products that DO NOT contain BPA

They include pictures of all their products and what does/doesn’t have BPA (nothing we have from them does). There’s also this interesting note, which may apply to other manufacturers:

Recent news coverage has suggested that plastic containers and bottles labeled with the number “7” material identification code on the bottom contain BPA. While all polycarbonate plastics containing BPA are labeled with the number “7” identification code, not all plastics labeled with the number “7” contain BPA. The number “7” code is assigned to the “Other” category, which includes all plastics not otherwise assigned to categories #1-6. The majority of Rubbermaid food and beverage containers are assigned to category number “5”, although some non-BPA containing products are assigned to category”7” due to their unique combination of plastic types.

Unblogged Bits for Wednesday, 02 December 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Time in nature makes us more caring – Interesting. I wonder if “nature” (not necessarily “outdoors”) expands our sense of connection with the rest of the world. Or perhaps it makes us feel less pressured, therefore less defensively insular.
Preventive Task Force Chairman Undermines Republican ‘Rationing’ Rhetoric On Mammograms: Igor
Shahid Buttar: The Failure of the Federalist, No. 10: Shahid Buttar
Obama Spock Comparison ‘A Compliment To Him And To The Character’: Leonard Nimoy: The Huffington Post News Team
Former Fox News Host Calls Fox A ‘Right-Wing Partial-News-But-Mostly-Opinion Network’: Matt Corley
Step-by-Step Math – Cool. Wonder if this will be useful for teaching, or a problem for homework cheating.
Study suggests people attribute their own views to God. – Voltaire said it: “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”
Low-carbon future: We can afford to go green – science-in-society – 02 December 2009 – New Scientist – If it inconveniences me at all, it’s evil and socialistic and un-American. So there.
The problem with ‘No Problem.’ – I’m a “No Problem” guy myself, and always mean it sincerely, as in, “[For you, it’s] no problem [for me to have done that thing you just thanked me for].” Really, it’s no more meaningless than “You’re welcome [to impose on me any time you like.]”
For The Record – “I was for an exit strategy before I was against one.”
Federal Judge Says NYPD Plagued by “Widespread Falsification by Arresting Officers” – With great power has to come great responsibility. Remember this next time you hear about some slam-dunk criminal case (not to mention the next time someone blames the problems with the criminal justice system on lawyers and “liberal judges”).
Ethics of E-Mail Misfires and Facebook Complications – Gadgetwise Blog – NYTimes.com – I’d say this is a good “Golden Rule” moment — how would you want your email of the same nature handled if you inadvertently sent it to the wrong address? Then do likewise. (Also note that a reply now may forestall similar erroneous sends in the future.)
The CIA Manual Of Trickery And Deception: Pics, Videos, Links, News
After ripping Democrats for hiding ‘behind closed doors,’ GOP objects to more transparency in health care debate. – “Transparency for thee, but not for me.”
Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday – Nothing much good can come from this, save for investor profit at the cost of Comcast (and NBC) customers.
Major conservative blog, Little Green Footballs, takes on the hate in the Republican party – Remarkable. I am no great fan of LGF, but that Johnson can see the difference between classical conservatism and what’s spouted by the GOP and the Right these days is telling. And should have the Republican leadership really wondering what the hell they’re doing.
Harlan Ellison Wants to Return to Star Trek – Ellison is a genius, and anything original he came up with would be startling and stunning — and I wouldn’t let him get within spitting distance of my commercial franchise.
Despite Proposing $1.3 Trillion In Medicare Cuts Last Year, McCain Condemns Much Smaller Cuts In Senate Bill – “Medicare cuts for me, but not for thee.”

The. Mind. Boggles.

Okay, so you have to watch this first, and realize that this guy is a Representative, a member of Congress, from the Great State of Illinois.

My, oh, my.

Well, let’s start off with the bad theology. I mean, I won’t even raise the dubious basis for policy writing based on the assertion, through Scripture, that God will not destroy man through Global Warming because, well, God promised He wouldn’t after the Great Flood, and that, in fact, the world will be destroyed when Gabriel blows the Last Trump and all that Apocalypse Jazz.*

“There is a theological debate that this is a carbon-starved planet, not too much carbon.” Because the halls of Congress are where we should be having a theological debate. That always ends well.

Let me just say (taking his premise that, in fact, we should use theology to drive public policy) that:

No scientist actually thinks that Climate Change will “destroy” the world. Lots of animals and plants will survive. Some won’t, sure, but who needs pandas and coral and, pretty much, everything that’s currently endangered and barely surviving in its current marginal ecological niche? Indeed, even humanity will likely survive, as a species.
Yes, there was (I will take his word) a lot more CO2 in the air during the Age of the Dinosaurs. But what is a good, Bible-thumping man doing talking about the age of the dinosaurs. We all know the world was created 6000 years ago, right? All those CO2 readings based on fossils and ice corings and all that sort of thing are all cleverly-placed ruses by God to fool the ungodly. Right?
Massive climate change, on the order of what is talked about, will wildly disrupt the agricultural and ecological balance of the world, not to mention not a “flood” but a still disastrous inundation of coastal regions. God perhaps won’t let mankind be destroyed, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be happy, fed, or even be able to maintain our national integrity. After all, God allows natural disasters that kill many and cause great hardship, but still leaves survivors. Why would something like that not be allowed to happen on a global scale? I certainly don’t read anything in Genesis that says otherwise. Does Rep. Shimkus think that’s an okay thing?
And, going back to those dinosaurs, do we want to live in Jurassic swamps? How much wheat are you going to be growing there, do you think?

Of course, he also goes on to lament the Clean Air Act for causing job losses due to mine closures. Never mind those losses and the CAA amendments in question don’t actually have anything to do (at the time) with Global Warming worries, but general air pollution issues. I don’t recall anything in the Bible that indicates that air pollution is, in fact, holy or sacrosanct. Indeed, to the extent that humanity is appointed the steward of Creation (Genesis

Yeesh. As Bugs would say, “What a maroon.” Yet one who evidently has been elected to Congress.

(via DOF)

*”Last Trump and the Apocalypse Jazz” is an awesome name for a group.

Unblogged Bits for 03/11/09

Links that caught my eye …

Say hello to your future Light Bulb.
Yes. This is, in fact, the future, unless something triffically better comes along. In fact, the biggest problem with these is the reluctance to replace incandescents with CFLs *now* for fear they won’t be burnt out by the time LEDs take top billing.
this isn’t a book; it’s a time machine
I got into D&D in some earlier incarnations than this — but I cannot forget my first gameplay and characters or their adventures. Cool.

“Don’t don’t drink the water, and don’t breathe the air”

In the waning days of the Bush Administration (stop me if you’ve heard this one), all stops are being pulled to push through sundry rules and regulation changes, stuff that…

In the waning days of the Bush Administration (stop me if you’ve heard this one), all stops are being pulled to push through sundry rules and regulation changes, stuff that Bush has wanted for a long time, but for whatever reason (like, maybe, it would hurt the GOP further in elections) didn’t get around to.

Take regulation of perchlorates …

Critics accuse the EPA of ignoring expert advice and basing their decision on an abstract model of perchlorate exposure, rather than existing human data.
“We know that breast milk is widely contaminated with perchlorate, and we know that young children are especially vulnerable. We have really good human data. So why are they putting a model front-and-center?” said Anila Jacobs at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. “And they used a model that hasn’t yet gone through the peer-review process.”

Silly! It’s because the model gives the result they wanted!

Perchlorate [is] a chemical found mostly in jet rocket fuel and detected in 35 states and 153 water public water systems. It is known to lower thyroid hormone levels in women; it poses a particular threat to pregnant women and breast-feeding children, whose long-term neurological development can be stunted by youthful hormone imbalances.
As many as 40 million Americans may now be exposed to unsafe levels of perchlorate, and the EPA’s own analysis puts the number at 16 million. The most comprehensive human exposure study, which measured unexpectedly high perchlorate levels and correlated them with thyroid hormone drops, was concluded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007.
Environmental health advocates saw the study as supporting tightened restrictions on perchlorate levels in drinking water — something the EPA had been loath to do under the Bush administration. The study was not considered in the anticipated ruling, which could effectively end federal monitoring of perchlorate in drinking water.
“If you used the human studies from the CDC, then you would be forced to regulate it, because we know there are health effects at current levels of exposure,” said Jacobs.

And, there, you see? Those studies say the things they don’t want them to say, so they have to be ignored.

The EPA declined to comment on why they used a model rather than the CDC’s data in deciding that regulating perchlorate would not provide “a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems.”
In a November letter to EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, the EPA’s own Science Advisory Board questioned the model. “Its soundness will not be publicly vetted,” they wrote. Only one of two peer reviews invited by the agency has been received, and that was announced only today on the EPA’s website.
“The Science Advisory Board believes that more time is needed for the decision process and for scientific input,” said Joan Rose, a Michigan State University water researcher and chair of the Board’s Drinking Water Committee.
Even Michael Dourson, a researcher at the nonprofit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment project who accepts the EPA’s model, doesn’t understand why the EPA favored it over human studies.
“The data is on pregnant women and babies, and these studies are quite powerful,” he said. “If they could spend more time to make their decision, I’d recommend looking at it.”

But they can’t spend more time, because at the end of January a new adminstration comes in and will stop them from doing it.

And, beyond that, it’s not a quick thing to reverse. See, regulatory decisions take time (when done by the rules), and reversing regulatory decisions isn’t a trivial process, and will doubtless be fought by every foot-dragging legal action the industry can think of. Ditto for a legislative approach.

Gosh, remember when all people had to complain about in an existing administration was stealing typewriter keys?

Standard Time

If Barack Obama accomplishes nothing else in his presidency but this, he will be a hero for generations to come. President-elect Obama wants to get rid of daylight saving time…

If Barack Obama accomplishes nothing else in his presidency but this, he will be a hero for generations to come.

President-elect Obama wants to get rid of daylight saving time in the United States to conserve energy.
Turns out, according to two academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful, a bit annoying, and a lot of people, including Obama, want to get rid of it.
A study in Indiana, a state that recently started DST, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. So much for conserving energy.
I hate DST. It throws me and my kids out of whack for a couple of days. I hope Obama gets rid of it. too.

There’s just one problem — there’s nothing I could find that indicates that Obama is actually considering or supporting abolishment of DST. The article linked to at the NYT only says (after noting the debunking of DST saving energy):

Eliminating daylight time would thus accord with President-elect Barack Obama’s stated goals of conserving resources, saving money, promoting energy security and reducing climate change. At the very least, we should abandon the notion that we are saving energy while enjoying the extra hour of sunlight on hot summer evenings.

Which is very nice, but really says nothing about Obama actually wanting to eliminate DST, just that it is in accord with his conservation efforts.

That said … it’s a change I could believe in.

Rolling back the past four years, rolling toward the future

Thank God someone was taking notes. Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone…

Thank God someone was taking notes.

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.
A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

What kind of stuff? How about the global “gag rule”?

The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City policy, but Bush reimposed it.

Or giving California it’s head on anti-global warming efforts?

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. “Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer,” Obama said in January.
California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California’s rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation’s automobile market. Environmentalists cheered the California initiative because it would stoke innovation that would potentially benefit the entire country.
“An early move by the Obama administration to sign the California waiver would signal the seriousness of intent to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and build a future for the domestic auto market,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

And on stem cell research.

Obama himself has signaled, for example, that he intends to reverse Bush’s controversial limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a decision that scientists say has restrained research into some of the most promising avenues for defeating a wide array of diseases, such as Parkinson’s.
Bush’s August 2001 decision pleased religious conservatives who have moral objections to the use of cells from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.
But Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said that during Obama’s final swing through her state in October, she reminded him that because the restrictions were never included in legislation, Obama “can simply reverse them by executive order.” Obama, she said, “was very receptive to that.” Opponents of the restrictions have already drafted an executive order he could sign.

The Obama campaign has plenty to do to set its own vision. But a big part of what it got elected for is rolling back the goofiness of the last eight years of the Bush Administration. I look forward to it

Potpourri as the week crosses the half-way point

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SIGH 10/20/08 PHD comic: ‘Academic Salaries’: Yeah, the argument is that they drive alumni donations. Tough. If academia cannot be idealistic, who can be? Selling used…

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SIGH

10/20/08 PHD comic: ‘Academic Salaries’: Yeah, the argument is that they drive alumni donations. Tough. If academia cannot be idealistic, who can be?
Selling used CDs is still legal in America: But the Media Moguls keep hoping they’ll get a court ruling in their favor.
Is Dennis Kucinich the only person in Congress asking…: I often disagree with Kucinich, and I think his presidential run was quixotic at best, goofy at worst. But sometimes I dream of him as Speaker of the House, and how that might churn up some actual not-bound-by-electoral-considerations debate.
TSA didn’t keep track of ex-employees’ badges and…: I’m feeling more secure, aren’t you?
Amid Meltdown, N.Y. Prepares For Hard Times : NPR: As much as I have zero pity for all those brokers and such whose bubble-flogging got us to where we are, New York state is facing a serious financial impact from loss of income and capital gains taxes with the disaster in the financial industry.
Entire-paper plagiarism: We’re not talking about term papers here, but scientific journal papers. As the center of “scientific legitimacy” extends further than the US or the West, these sorts of things are much more prone to slip in.
In Soviet Russia, Lake Contaminates You: Rocky Flats, only an order of magnitude (or two or three) worse.
The Things He Carried – The Atlantic (November 2008): Yeah! Feeling much more secure!
Huzzah! – *Sigh* I actually liked (original formula) Zima. And it will always share a place in my heart (and my VHS collection) for its early Zany Zesty advertiZing on Babylon 5.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME THINK

Speed of eating ‘key to obesity’: And, yes, I am one to wolf down my food. Not sure where I got that habit, but it’s probably worth trying to counter.
Finding Hidden Tomb Of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Radar…: GK’s tomb was intentionally hidden, and has remained such. Modern technology may thwart that.
That’s What You Get When You Misuse What I Invent,…: (Democracy in Other Countries) .NE. (What Our Democracy Thinks is Correct). I’m a big believer, philosophically, in democracy (pragmatically as well as idealistically), but the idea that just because there’s a democracy somewhere (even if we installed it) they’ll agree with us is narcissistic.
Five Guantanamo Prisoners’ Charges Dropped By US: Which sounds like guardedly good news, except that (a) it doesn’t mean they’re actually being released, and (b) it resets the clock on their “speedy trials” as mandated by federal courts.
Joseph To Be First Black Doctor?: And why the hell not?
10 Best Mainstream Characters in Geeky Movies: What amazes me is how much those characters resonate with this particular geek.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SMILE

Photoshop Disasters on Marie Claire photo: Through a looking-glass, clearly. If you’re going to Photoshop your subjects to make them look younger and prettier, be sure and do the same to their reflections on the glass-top table in front of them.
New in Labs: Canned Responses: I’m not sure how I’d use this new GMail feature, but it’s kind of spiffy. I’m less sanguine about More changes to Gmail contact manager; what I really want is a push-button way to merge Contact entries.
The World of CthulhuTech Gets Weirder and Creepier…: Ancient Ones! Mecha! Fight!
Vicar of Dibley eases path for women clergy: Huzzah!
True nature of science fiction and fantasy books revealed…: The site is BoingBoinged (suspended due to traffic), but the BB page itself is worth the price of clicking.
The AT-ATs Look Lovely in This Light: So wrong, yet so right.
Insanely intricate pumpkin carvings: Too much work for me to do, but not too much for me to enjoy.
Snap! – Some insanely great high-speed photographs.

Potpourri on a Rainy (!) Monday Evening

I DON’T LIKE THIS Running Out The Clock: Ah, unitary executive power — is there any law you cannot simply ignore. See, also, We Have One Week to Save the…

I DON’T LIKE THIS

Running Out The Clock: Ah, unitary executive power — is there any law you cannot simply ignore. See, also, We Have One Week to Save the Grand Canyon. Freaking idjits. Expect more last-second-orgy-of-executive-self-indulgence over the next few months. You thought Clinton’s flurry of pardons was bad?
Bush administration okays religious discrimination…: See above. “Law, shmaw … who’s gonna prosecute us?”
Financial Crisis: Who is going to bail out the euro?: A very dark schadenfreude courses through me.
AFA Declares Victory Over McDonald’s: Great, another reason not to eat at McDonald’s.
Homosexuals should carry warning tattoos, says London…: Not My Anglican Church.
Best Buy’s New Tag: How … uninspiring.
David Sirota: Treasury Blacks Out Key Parts of Private…: Transparency through obscurity?
WalMart now says they’ll keep the DRM servers on forever: Or at least until there are fewer people to bitch about it.
Nonviolent Activists Are Now Terrorists: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
TSA Agent Ripped Off Electronics, Sold Them On eBay: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now, where have I heard that before?
Artist Detained: Absolute power corrupts … hey …
NSA enjoys eavesdropping on US soldiers’ phone sex…: Absolute … oh, never mind.
EA boss on DRM protesters: Half are pirates and the…: Come watch the game industry self-destruct!
American Culture Derails Girl Math Whizzes, Study Finds: Actually it finds we don’t do well with Math Whizzes of either gender, but particularly with girls. Rrg.
Stupid QA tricks: Colossal testing oversights: Okay, no matter how smug I get, I always have to remember my own testing oversights.
The New Pepsi Challenge: Guess the Smile: Pepsi’s changing its logo and all its branding and labeling stuff so as to combat a loss of market share. As opposed to, um, improving their product?
GPS ‘Spoofing’ Could Threaten National Security : Yet another miracle technology ruined by black hats.
Firefox extension blocks dangerous Web attack: It also block all sorts of other useful things, like the Note in Reader linklette for Google Reader.
Airport security theater: I feel more secure, yes indeedy!
Grenades in your luggage? TSA says that’s A-OK!: Absolutely more secure than ever! You betcha!
Airport shoe-scanner device could prevent stupid shoe-removal…: Except we shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children!: People terrified by the “bride and bride” license in California. Yumpin’ Yimminy, give me a break.
Christian Morality and Hell: I confess that I am a Universalist in this instance — which would label me, ironically, as heading straight to the Fiery Furnace in some folks’ account.
How’s that novel coming along?: *SIGH*

I DON’T CARE ABOUT THIS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, BUT IT IS KIND OF INTERESTING

Fringe cancelled downunder after only 5 episodes: I’ve taken Fringe off my DVR rotation. I just wasn’t looking forward to the next episode.
ABC Develops New V: I was only a bit into the original. I suppose there’s room for improvement, though I suspect it will simply be grimmer and grittier.
Newly released British UFO files debunk some sightings,…: Of course, the real Torchwood kind of stuff wouldn’t be in files they’d release, would they?
Goodbye Little Penguin: Berke Breathed Retires Opus: Honestly, I haven’t cared much about Breathed or Opus since, oh, about two years into Bloom County.
‘Fingerprinting’ Method Tracks Mercury Emissions From…: … particular coal mines. Interesting.
Turbine to launch a LotRO-focused social networking…: I can see cases where this would be of value to some, though I am post-MMO-social-networking.
*HP classic calculator fans* might like the following…: Not that I’m an HP calculator fan, but I recognize a fellow geek tribe.

I DO LIKE THIS

RTD Sets New Ridership Record: That’s me! That’s me!
Full Terminator Season Ordered: Cool.
Watchmen Footage Sneaked: Sounds very cool, though Will America Watch Watchmen? makes one dubious about its success.
Associate Email Links With Gmail in Firefox (Natively): Excellent.
Gettyland: I so need to plan a trip to the “old” Getty Museum while out in SoCal over the holidays.
The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists: Look! Sane analysis of the terrorist threat! No wonder nobody’s listening to it.
The official name for Windows 7 will be: “Windows 7″…: Excellent. It’s about time.
Pirates, the Best Target Audience: Some very nice stuff here. I have at least one of these shirts on my wish list.
Star Wars A to Z: Way too cool.
Tim Burton could direct Johnny Depp in Pirates 4: Which might be the only thing that would make me go out of my way to see it.
Survival of the fittest Playboy Playmate: No, really, I read it for the scientific implications!
London tube map video: Haven’t watched the video yet, but I’ve read enough about the London Tube Map to know it’s a fascinating tale of design, informatics, and politics.
What are the Japanese up to right now?: It would be extremely cool to have something like this for the US.
Google Says Their Results Will Be RSS-Enabled: Everything is better in RSS.
Death by kisses, an unusual tombstone: And let that be a lesson to you!
Connecticut Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage: Huzzah!