Archives for May, 2011
Please turn off your cell phone
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 Or else there will be … consequences.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’ll write you a Rapture-check
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 It didn’t really occur to me that anyone actually believed that the world was going to end the other day. Honestly. I had assumed that some crazy preacher made the claim, that it was being used to scam the gullible here and there, but that almost no one was really taking it seriously. But, in…
Minneapolis Tornado Update: Info, Sad News, and the Politics of Race
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 Two pieces of sad news, some useful information, and a personal note (well, more of a political note). First, the useful information. For those of you affected or busy passing information to those who are, the City of Minneapolis has set up this web page with information: Resources available for North Side residents affected by…
Bruce Aylward: How we’ll stop polio for good
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 Polio is almost completely eradicated. But as Bruce Aylward says: Almost isn’t good enough with a disease this terrifying. Aylward lays out the plan to continue the scientific miracle that ended polio in most of the world — and to snuff it out everywhere, forever.
Tim Pawlenty Lied
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 As documented by Dana Milbank, Tim Pawlenty has been telling us that he will be the one who “looks the American people in they eye and tells them the truth” and furthermore that Barak Obama can’t do to that.
How Birds Migrate
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2011 As part of Migration Week (inspired by this post), I’m covering migration related books (mainly having to do with birds). How Birds Migrate by Paul Kerlinger (with Illustrations by Pat Archer), Second Edition, is an affordable, up to date (2009 publication) comprehensive and intelligently written book. It is written for the general public but is…
Why don’t we replace these ugly mugs with some pretty female faces?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 23, 2011 I have a theory as to why atheism and skeptcisim tend to be old-white-guy activities (even when they are not) which might explain this picture: But I’ll tell you this theory only if certain conditions pertain: 1) You are someone I trust and 2) I’m slightly drunk.
Summer Reading Suggestions: Science
Posted by Greg Laden on May 23, 2011 Here is a short list of what you should read this summer in science and science related topics. Some are old, some are new. There is a lot missing from this list, I’m sure, but the summer is short here in Minnesota and we’ll be busy with the corn, so there is not much time.…
Extinction rates have NOT been over-estimated
Posted by Greg Laden on May 23, 2011 There are several things that cause extinction, but ultimately it is always the same: The last individual (or small number of individuals) of a species die. That may sound like a trivial explanation for extinction but consider what happens when you work backwards from that tragic moment in time. Well, you have more individuals in…
The Marvelous Migrating Whooping Crane
Posted by Greg Laden on May 23, 2011 They used to hunt whooping cranes. Between that and habitat loss, the number dropped from nearly 20,0000 to a mere 1,400 during the first half of the 19th century, and continued to drop to an all time low of 15 birds in 1941. Fifteen birds, in 1941, represented the entire species. All those birds were…
Leaves from the sky (Minneapolis Tornado)
Posted by Greg Laden on May 22, 2011 Have a look at this picture (click to enlarge):
Live blogging a tornado
Posted by Greg Laden on May 22, 2011 Well, that was interesting. We are having turbulent weather here in Minnesota. The current low pressure system passing across the US is sitting on us like a bullet on a bull’s eye. Almost every line of storm activity is breaking into small blobs which in turn are spinning up wall clouds and twisters, mostly small,…
The Apocalypse really is happening and the Rapture went off without a hitch
Posted by Greg Laden on May 22, 2011 It’s all just a matter of calibration. Let me ‘splain.
Three Academic Books on Bird Migration
Posted by Greg Laden on May 22, 2011 These are the kinds of books you get if you are either a scientists studying bird migration and related issues, or a very serious bird geek. The first two can be obtained at very low prices used, but the third will set you back at least 50 bucks US$ if you want a used copy.…
Ark Park Gets State Funding
Posted by Greg Laden on May 22, 2011 The separation of church and state is dead in Kentucky Governor Beshear says he would welcome a “Mecca Theme Park” as well. He also says the Ark Park will be required to not discriminate in hiring. We’ll see. From the Courier-Journal: A state contractor concluded that the proposed Ark Encounter biblical theme park will draw…
I shall build it and I shall call it gregBook
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2011 Both my desktop and my laptop started working more slowly a few weeks ago. This indicated that something about the operating system (some version of Ubuntu Linux) changed in a bad way. Or, perhaps, since the slowness was mostly noticed in the web browser, the newer version of Firefox was somehow borked. It turns out…
The Rapture is Today
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2011 Happy Rapture Day! It’s a bummer that it’s raining here, because the rapture BBQ at Kammy’s might be rained out. In the meantime I’ve got lots of stuff to get done … finish cleaning the garage, get the wood for a new book shelf, write a few more posts for Migration Week, update the Fukushima…
On the Wing: American Birds in Migration
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2011 On the Wing: American Birds in Migration is a children’s book suitable for up to Middle School or thereabouts. Remarkably, this ten year old volume is actually fairly accurate and comprehensible, covering most of the major aspects of bird migration, discussion ecological patterns, mechanisms, and methods used to study the phenomenon. It is written and…
Outrageous and shameful: Anti-Gay Preacher in the Minnesota Legislature
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2011 Bradlee Dean (photo source) is the infamous Minnesota preacher who has called for the execution of gay and lesbian people. Today the Republican controlled Minnesota house planned to take up legislation that would call for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and Bradlee Dean was called on to provide the opening prayer for the session.…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 24: Reactor 1 did melt down, fission and cooling remain issues, worker dies, sarcophagi in Fukushima’s future.
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on May 20, 2011 The worker’s death was probably unrelated to the nuclear disaster, but it can’t help moral much at the crippled site. Fission and cooling still remain issues at the Fukushima plant. Although fission is not happening to any large degree, or possibly at all, there has been fission more recently than many expected, and there is…
On the Move
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2011 On the Move: How and Why Animals Travel in Groups, edited by Sue Boinski and Paul Garber is a compendium of academic research on … well, on how and why animals travel in groups. Notice of this book is a fitting start to a series of reviews of migration-related books that is part of Migration…
Bird Migration
Posted by Greg Laden on May 19, 2011 Bird migration is a huge topic. Super-Big. Vast. Overwhelming. So, starting today, it is Bird Migration Week (running from Thursday to Thursday) on this blog. I’ll be posting a number of quick reviews of bird-migration related books and a few other items, but for starters, I’ll send you over to 10,000 Birds for a post…
Convergences
Posted by Greg Laden on May 19, 2011 Everything is connected to everything else. Sometimes, the connections are non-trivial. Often they are fundamental, sometimes exploitable, and now and then very potent sources of debate and discussion. I’ve come to think that a measure of sanity is the degree to which one limits a sense of connection when taking in new information. For instance,…
Disabled American Veteran War Hero Votes Against MN Gay Marriage Ban
Posted by Greg Laden on May 19, 2011 … He’s a Republican. That’s what makes it interesting. Actually, this is interesting at two levels. First, he’s a Republican not voting to take away someone’s rights. That is very very rare. Second, he’s a Republican not doing what the Central Control of Congressional Politics (CCCP) of the Republican Party is telling him to do.…
Thrust Fault
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2011 The law of superimposition says that stuff found on top is younger than stuff found lower down, in a geological or archaeological column. This is generally true, but there are exceptions, mostly trivial and easily understood. If a cave forms in a rock formation, the stuff that later ends up in that cave is younger…
The hunt for planets circling other stars
Posted by Greg Laden on May 15, 2011 on Skeptically Speaking, recording live today.
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 23: Exposures exposed, the hole in Reactor #1, and the sea around us …
Posted by Greg Laden on May 14, 2011 There is a lot happening in Japan, and the situation at Fukushima remains pretty much out of human control. There is a nuclear incident at a reactor site other than Fukushima. There is still quite a bit of radioactive material leaking into the sea. The radiation levels in the crippled Fukushima plants is still high…
Which is right: ‘In your face’ or staid professionalism?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 14, 2011 I’m looking forward to the moment in a few weeks from now when Desiree Schell and I sit down and have a serious public conversation about approaches to promoting skepticism and science-based reasoning and policy. We’ll also discuss New Atheism and Accommodationism, I assume. As you know, Desiree hosts the highly popular radio program and…
How to make espresso at home
Posted by Greg Laden on May 14, 2011 You can’t. But you can do something similar, enjoy a rewarding experience, and have access to a tasty brew at a reasonable price and only a moderate level of fiddling. A while ago I bought a Cuisinox Milano 4 Cup Espresso Stovetop Coffeemaker|COFM4. It is a modernized version of the early 20th century “moka pot,”…
Flight 447 and the ITCZ
Posted by Greg Laden on May 12, 2011 I had never felt airsick before, or since. But now I was a nauseated rag doll flopping around in the middle row of a six seater prop plane and I was ready to hurl at any moment.
, which is now available for the 
