April 14, 2016
A while back Vox produced a tax modeler that would tell you how your taxes would change with Sanders plan. It raised most people's taxes by a few thousand dollars. But the modeling was misleading because the same plan would probably reduce health care costs for those same individuals.
I pointed…
April 13, 2016
Only kidding! Here's the argument for disdaining, or at least, laughing at, Ted Cruz:
April 13, 2016
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there are 143 species of bovids. The Animal Diversity Web is a bit less precise, indicating that there are "more than 140 extant and 300 extinct species." That second number is highly questionable because today there exist sister species that are so…
April 13, 2016
Everybody loves Joe Biden, and the main thing you've got to love about him is that he has stuff in his head and then says it out loud, like a normal person.
And here is one of those moments.
And, as you can see, some of Joe has rubbed off on Barack.
April 13, 2016
... and why we never got the Equal Rights Amendment.
Donald Trump is a very good Republican candidate. In terms of both style and substance, Trump does a good job of representing that part of the Republican Party that has been in charge of that party for several years, the Tea Party. The…
April 12, 2016
There is some discussion about Bernie Sanders' strategy for winning the nomination despite being significantly behind in the pledged delegate count. Most of this discussion is nearly worthless because those engaged in it (talking and listening) are, or seem, poorly informed about how the system…
April 11, 2016
The important thing first.
I predicted who would win the Wisconsin primary, although my prediction suggested that Sanders would do better than he did. (He underperformed.) I predicted the outcome of the Wyoming primary exactly.
These are the most recent two in a long series of mostly correct…
April 9, 2016
Calling U.S. K-12 Science Education Professionals!
GHF Online science instructor Madeline Goodwin is doing her Master’s thesis research on climate science in the classroom, and she needs your help! She is doing a survey of science education professionals to find the answer to the following question…
April 6, 2016
There is a new study out in Nature that is liable to be misinterpreted, or that may be flawed in a way that lends itself to misuse, in the context of climate science driven policy.
The study is "Northern Hemisphere hydroclimate variability over the past twelve centuries" by Fredrik Charpentier…
April 5, 2016
I'll post the results when they are available, after 8 or 9 PM central, below.
Meanwhile, as of 6PM Central time, early info from Wisconsin suggests that Sanders will do very well in today's primary.
The good news for Sanders: My prediction of 55 delegates for Sanders and 31 delegates for Clinton…
April 4, 2016
I just got my new Semogue 1305 Superior Boar Bristle Shaving Brush. It is the one on the left.
I like it. I prefer boar because I don't want to kill badgers and because the bristles are stiff and it basically works better.
I got the old one decades ago, and it was decades old when I got it. I…
April 4, 2016
Photographer Jesse Cancelmo was struck by the general lack of understanding of the sea life and ecology of the Gulf of Mexico that became apparent with the big oil spill in 2010, and this inspired him to carry out a major photographic project in the Gulf.
He felt many had written off the Gulf as…
April 3, 2016
President Barack Obama said Donald Trump "doesn't know much about foreign policy...or the world generally" in response to Trump saying Japan and South Korea should obtain nuclear weapons.
April 2, 2016
We are in the Primary Doldrums. For the last several days and the next several days, there is not too much happening, big gaps between the action. Wisconsin is important, and it is Tuesday, Then Wyoming by itself, then New York by itself, then a sort of Super Tuesday with several states.
As you…
March 29, 2016
A new poll (March 24th) by Monmouth University says, "Among Democrats who support Bernie Sanders for their party’s nomination, 78% say they would vote for Clinton over Trump in November, while 12% would actually vote for Trump and 7% would not vote at all."
The Republicans have a similar problem,…
March 26, 2016
You all know this happened.
But there is some controversy over what kind of bird it is.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the bird was a finch. However, what kind? Most likely a house finch, because they are common, and the most likely to live in a big auditorium thingie and not be fearful of…
March 26, 2016
This discussion is a little ambiguous about "winning the nomination" vs. "winning the general election" but it is fun to see Keith Olbermann again. He states here that he is coming out of retirement.
Olbermann correctly points out something I think a lot of people don't know or understand. A…
March 26, 2016
Everybody knows about the little bird, a House Finch, I believe, that flew up to Bernie Sanders at a recent event.
However, the YouTube Video that is circulating has lousy sound quality and cuts off some of the context.
So, here I give you a better version.
March 26, 2016
Today and tomorrow we have the Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington Democratic primaries.
According to the model I developed prior to the last primary, which predicts future primaries using information about primaries to date (which I've not updated from last Tuesday), Sanders will win all three…
March 25, 2016
I'm trying to figure out how many Senate seats, and which ones, will switch from Republican to Democratic in November 2016.
At present, 54 Senator caucus with the Republicans, and 46 caucus with the Democrats (two of those are Independant).
We should be shooting for a good majority of 61, just…
March 25, 2016
I met a student, I was on his examining committee, who had been a civil engineer for years (he was getting his undergraduate degree late in life). He was politically conservative and cynical about academia. He needed the degree in order to get a major promotion, hated the idea of going back to…
March 23, 2016
Bernie Sanders has either stated or implied two features that make up his strategy to win the Democratic nomination to be the party's candidate for President this November.
Implied, sort of stated: Convince so-called "Superdelegates" (properly called "uncommitted delegates") in states where he has…
March 23, 2016
You know about Boatie McBoatface, so I won't bother telling you about it.
Did you know, though, that the guy who originally suggested, on Twitter, this name for the polar research vessel actually voted for the RRS David Attenborough?
I love the name Boatie McBoatface, as does everyone, but I…
March 22, 2016
This post was written in two parts, pre-primary and post-primary. To see the result and a discussion of what they mean, skip down to the last part of the post, where I'll discuss why Tuesday's results may mean that Sanders could win the primary.
Pre-Primary
As already discussed, Clinton is likely…
March 21, 2016
Remember that movie, The Day After Tomorrow? Check out this (not too new but still very current) video by Greenman3610, with Stefan Rahmstorf">Stefan Rahmstorf, Jason Box, and Michael Mann, looking at the real life version of that phenomenon.
March 18, 2016
There are three kinds of books that count as animal (usually bird) guides.
1) A pocket field guide of the critters of a reasonably circumscribed geographical area, like the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America. This is a small book that can fit in a big pocket, and a…
March 18, 2016
Though not enough. And for the wrong reasons. But this is still good news.
Somewhere around 1990, but you could justify an earlier date if you like, science knew enough about global warming, the increase in the planet's surface temperatures caused by human release of greenhouse gas pollution and…
March 18, 2016
The US NOAA has this video summarizing what they expect for weather in the US as the result of the current, winding down, El Nino:
2016 Spring Climate and Flood Outlook
As a near-record El Niño begins to wind down, NOAA issued its spring seasonal outlooks for flooding, drought, precipitation…
March 17, 2016
UPDATED: The graphic above is updated from the original post to show the delegate counts this year through the New York Primary. I've also added the projected delegate counts based on my model, as dashed lines, through the end of the primary.
A while back I posted an item comparing the current,…
