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gregladen | February 15, 2017Everybody is all upset about Trump and his Republicans, but in truth, that seems to matter little. Here in Minnesota we had a local house district open, there was a special election, and the Democrats didn't even try to win it, apparently. So they lost it. It was probably winnable.
Same with GA-06. This is one of four seats opening up because of Trump appointments. Will the Democrats try to win these seats?
Of course not. The Democratic Party does not seem to care that the Republicans are in charge, and will not fight them vigorously. The official word from the DCCC is "... we have to…
gregladen | February 15, 2017I am reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom you may know from her occasional and always informative appearances on various TV news shows as a ranking Presidential Historian.
I started reading it because I wanted to see in some detail what was going on in American politics during the decade or so prior to the start of the Civil War. What I did know about it indicated that there would be interesting parallels, and important differences, between then and right now. It turns out that this suspicion was well founded, and I am probably…
gregladen | February 15, 2017It Can't Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.
Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the…
jdupuis | February 12, 2017Is the March for Science (and all it's satellite marches) too political or not political enough?
The text on their website gives a sense of where the organizers are coming from:
SCIENCE, NOT SILENCE
The March for Science is a celebration of our passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists, and the incredible and immediate outpouring of support has made clear that these concerns are also shared by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The mischaracterization of science as a…
gregladen | February 11, 2017The March for Science, in April, may be a June to September romance between academia and and political activists, but prior experience in Canada suggests we are in it for the cold hard winter.
A conservative government in the land of the maple leaf took wide ranging action to shut down and control science and science communication. The populace became outraged, and the politicians were put on ice. The fight continues, and it looks like the position of science in Canada will end up more secure than it ever was before. Don't mess with Canadian scientists and the citizens that respect them.…
gregladen | February 10, 2017The most recent polling indicates that Donald Trump has a 43% approval and 53% disapproval rating. So he is not exactly loved by the American people, which is odd because he seems so lovable. And, he has told us that the American people love him. And his victory in the November election was unbelievably big league. But, that's how it is, according the scientific polling.
Approval and favorability are apparently slightly different, but the pattern holds. The same polling tells us that the American people have a 45% favorable attitude about the president, which would be tremendous for any…
gregladen | February 7, 2017It is like that stabby lady in the bath tub in that movie.
Here, I'll give you a more readable version of the graphic from NOAA:
The chance of an the Pacific ENSO system being neutral, meaning, not adding extra heat to the atmosphere and not removing extra heat form the atmosphere, is about 50% from now through mid 2017.
But, the chance of a la Nina is pretty darn low, and the chance of an El Nino, which would add more heat to the atmosphere than the average year, is not only approaching 40% but it has been growing.
A second El Nino this close on the last one, which was a very severe El…
denialism | February 6, 2017Inevitably, with the announcement of The March for Science on Earth Day, April 22nd of this year, come the inevitable naysayers decrying the politicization of science. Astroturf groups such as ACSH (diversity excludes white dudes and scientists from industry!), have of course decried the effort as a liberal conspiracy, but I was sad to see even the New York Times found a scientist to rain on our parade.
A march by scientists, while well intentioned, will serve only to trivialize and politicize the science we care so much about, turn scientists into another group caught up in the culture…
gregladen | February 2, 2017Correction: Apparently, the part about Gorsuch creating a "Fascism Forever Club" is a falsehood! Well, that's what we get for using the Daily Mail. (In my defense, I originally rejected this story when sent to me because of the source, but then USA Today picked it up. Even thought USA Today was still citing the Mail, the truth is, the Mail is not always wrong, so I assumed USA Today journalists had some verification. Silly me.)
Gorsuch is still to the right of Scalia, but he apparently didn't have this club.
I quickly add that the source I have that this is a falsehood is not necessarily…
jdupuis | January 30, 2017How bad could it be? On so may fronts, the first week or so of the Donald Trump administration was the shit show to end all shit shows.
But we're only going to talk about the science stuff here.
As the more astute observers among my readership will observe, I still haven't updated the Pre-Inauguration Edition of this post. Nor should this post really be considered a true beginning to tracking the post-inauguration devastation that the Trump administration will wreck on science, technology, the environment and public health. I'm hitting the high lights here with a more complete accounting to…
jdupuis | January 27, 2017It's been a very bizarre week for those of us interested in science policy and the interface between government research and the public interest.
To say the least: Trump bans agencies from 'providing updates on social media or to reporters'. Which is, of course, very reminiscent of the Canadian Conservative government under Stephen Harper and how they muzzled government scientists.
Where Canadian scholarly and professional societies weren't really prepared for what happened and took a while to respond, in the US these societies have been quite a bit more pro-active in responding President…
jdupuis | January 26, 2017This one from Samantha Bee is so funny, I don't know whether to laugh to cry.
On second thought, mostly cry. Lots and lots of crying. The only thing that will save me is singing a rousing chorus of Bruce Springsteen's Badlands in honour of the crazy wonderful park rangers at Badlands National Park. It's not hard to imagine a recent meeting going down like that famous scene from Casablanca -- "Play La Marseillaise. Play it!"
Anyways, back to Samantha Bee and National Park Service Temporarily Ordered To Stop Tweeting: Reactions From Wildlife.
Rock Squirrel, Zion National Park
“This may just…
gregladen | January 25, 2017Mary Tyler Moore has always had a certain amount of grace, and just now, she had the grace to wait until a reasonable time after the spate of celebrity deaths that captivated the Internet for weeks to pass on to the great Newsroom In The Sky.
She played Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show, but we all know she was REALLY playing Jackie Kennedy if Jackie Kennedy was married to a Comedian in New Rochelle, NY, instead of a President.
Later, she played Mary Richards in the Mary Tyler Moore show, at a time when a lot of people were acting in TV shows named after the actor, not the character…
gregladen | January 25, 2017I'm only just digesting this, but it appears that Judith Curry, climate scientist turned anti-climate change activist (more or less) has joined the Koch Brothers front group "Cause of Action".
How do we know this? Because she has filed an Amicus Brief (2017.01.25 Mot. for Leave to File, Nos. 14-cv-101 14-cv-126 (D.C.))( on behalf of the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the case of Mann vs. Those Guys, with council at Cause of Action Institute.
Go read the brief. It is pretty nasty.
Also related, this: 2017.01.25 Br. of Amicus Dr. Judith A. Curry Nos. 14-cv-101 14…
gregladen | January 23, 2017April 2016, white house correspondents dinner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxFkEj7KPC0
gregladen | January 23, 2017I'm not sure this has happened before, and most people are unaware, so I thought a quick note was in order.
If you were previously following the President of the United States on Twitter, when it was Barack Obama, you followed @POTUS.
Twitter has created an account called @POTUS44, which is for President Obama. You are now automatically following that handle.
Twitter redesignated @POTUS to apply to President Trump, and left all of the President Obama followers on that account as well. So, you are now following President Trump at @POTUS.
The same applies, in parallel, to the First Lady and…
jdupuis | January 18, 2017As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,2014 and 2015.
And here we are in 2016!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, public health, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Since we're in mid-January, I'll probably…
gregladen | January 17, 2017My current phone, a Google Nexus made by Motorola, is still working fine. I'm much more worried about Amanda's Samsung, which is a nightmare. The storage on that phone is used up by Samsung proprietary gunk that can't be removed, and she can't insert a microSD card because the phone will not operate as an actual phone (reliably) when there is a microSD card in it. Her "deal" at Verizon is running out soon, and I'm personally hoping she goes with the Pixel. And, eventually, I'll be in the market for an upgrade as well.
One must make proper comparisons. So I did.
The bottom line:…
jdupuis | January 13, 2017Or "LOve!" Or "Scooped!"
One word peer review! A game you can play at home!
Sad!
Love!
Changes!
Scooped!
Redo!
Copied!
Not!
Even!
Wrong!
Cite!
Me!
One word peer review is going to be Huuuuugggggggeeeeee!
Trump To Require Reviewers To End All Reviews With the Word “Sad!”
Washington DC – President-Elect Mr. Donald Trump has tweeted that he will require all reviewers for all journals and grant agencies to end all reviews with the word “Sad!”
Trump tweeted that all reviewers should be required to select the wording for their reviews from an approved list of words.
The approved list of words…