January 10, 2013
We shall not be moved. ..."
Fifty five of us jammed in a bus designed to hold fourty people plus a driver, rolling down Highway 90 from Upstate New York to Chicago. As a teenager (just turned 15), I was thrilled to be going to Chicago to attend the Fight Back Conference, a thinly disguised…
January 9, 2013
The Best Argument to Eliminate the Tenure System comes from Atlantic University, Florida, where Professor James Tracy has asserted that the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut either did not happen or were staged. Asking if the deaths, if they happened, were part of a training session, he further…
January 9, 2013
The Hobbit is a book by JRR Tolkien, a just released blockbuster movie, and a hominid from Indonesia. Here, we are speaking about the hominid from Indonesia.
A while back I wrote a review of a book by Dean Falk, for American Scientist. You can find that review here, and you can find a different…
January 9, 2013
Looking just at the contiguous 48 states of the US, NOAA has determined that 2012 was the warmest year on record. It was also ranked second in "extreme" weather events including fires, major storms, and drought. Tornado activity was less than average.
The report came out yesterday and states:
In…
January 9, 2013
Climate change science denialism has pretty much run its course. We've been experiencing a large number of climate change related events (see this list for a brief summary) lately. It may well be that the number per year of such alarming events will go down and up over time. It may be that we…
January 8, 2013
Alfred Russel Wallace was born on this day in 1823 (he died in 1913). You know of him as the other guy who invented a theory of Natural Selection which was very like Darwin's; they published the theory together. He also spent considerable time traveling around on boats in the tropics, like…
January 8, 2013
First, a word about the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's position on climate change, heat, and fires. It has been suggested (by a commenter here) that the BoM is claiming that the current heat wave is not related to climate change, but rather, a matter of natural variability and a late arriving…
January 7, 2013
Australia is experiencing a heat spell. The Climate Information Services of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has issued a special statement (I'll provide some details below). This is not unexpected, since over the last few years global warming due to the human release of large amounts of…
January 7, 2013
Until a few minutes ago, I didn't even know what the heck Vocal Fry is. Apparently some people have gotten really annoyed about it, as it is a speech mannerism that has emerged among young folks, who are always annoying, and especially females, who are always annoying. Apparently. (I also did not…
January 7, 2013
Summer is coming on strong south of the Equator, and in Australia this has meant unprecedented record high temperatures, and in the state of Tasmania, severe brush fires that have destroyed numerous homes, adding to the bad news from fires in the southeastern mainland. Prime Minister Julia Gillard…
January 6, 2013
People who do a lot of field work end up with interesting stories to tell, especially if the fieldwork is diverse and the conditions are adverse. Often, the sort of thing people want to know about is very different from the repertoire of available stories, but as long as the expectations of the…
January 6, 2013
You know about Albedo. No not Libido, Albedo. Sunlight is to varying degrees reflected off the surface of the earth more or less back into space. That is Albedo. The vast regions of snow and ice covered glacial surfaces in the northern and southern Polar regions contributes to a good amount of…
January 6, 2013
I just want to say that Huxley is pretty bad at swimming.
I quickly add, for a 3 year old human, he's pretty darn good at it. Amanda's family is very aquatic, as tends to happen when everyone spends several weeks per year (or longer) on the edge of a lake. They can all ski really well, they can all…
January 5, 2013
Following on discussion arising from this post, here is a revised discussion of throwing in human evolution.
The question of diversity in science, and more specifically, success for women, is often discussed in relation to bench or lab oriented fields. If you read the blogs that cover this sort…
January 4, 2013
The evidence from palaeoanthropology suggests that in the past humans were about the stature they are now, with more sexual dimporphism than now, with similar or larger brains than they have now, and used technology at the same level of sophistication as many later humans. Scientists argue over…
January 1, 2013
A collection of videos ... that you will enjoy.
BBC Wonders of Life Trailer:
Climate 2013: Perspectives of 8 Scientists:
Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed:
Kathleen Dean Moore at Nobel Conference 48 on the greatest violation of human rights ever seen:
With all due…
December 31, 2012
This is the time of year when we list the “top ten” stories or events of the year. That we do this in late December is not totally arbitrary. A year, unfortunately (given it’s odd number of days and uncomfortable near-synchronization with lunar cycles), is not arbitrary, but rather, imposed on us…
December 30, 2012
From What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us:
December 30, 2012
I made a "page" on this blog, HERE, pointing to posts that teachers might find interesting or useful. So far most of the items linked to relate to Creationism and that sort of thing, but I'll soon be adding subject area content posts as well.
If you are a teacher, have fun. If you know a teacher…
December 30, 2012
A colleague sent this to me, I'm passing it on to you. Looks important and interesting:
Wildfire, increasing with climate change, deposits increasing amounts of light-absorbing black carbon [soot] on the cryosphere [snow and ice], multiplying the existing heat-driven ice-reflectivity feedback [a.k…
December 28, 2012
Apropos this, and this, we have this:
December 28, 2012
And by "Prestigious" I mean .... well, see for yourself in this story from Media Matters for America (Reposted with permission):
Climate Change Misinformer Of The Year: Marc Morano
ClimateDepot.com founder Marc Morano has been called "the Matt Drudge of climate denial," the "king of the skeptics,"…
December 28, 2012
... Twice. The story is here. Basically, the sign was first spay painted, the burned. Run of the mill anti-atheist vandalism. But, if you are not already tapped out from the Happy Holiday Season of Buying Stuff, you might want to go to this web page and make a small donation to WASH, who…
December 28, 2012
Top “Ten” Recent Books (focusing on 2012 but including the last few years) on Climate, Science denialism, Energy, and Science Policy are (including one Post Warming novel) are:
Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Climate Change…
December 28, 2012
A group of us, all interested in climate science, put together a list of the most notable, often, most worrying, climate-related stories of the year, along with a few links that will allow you to explore the stories in more detail. We did not try to make this a “top ten” list, because it is rather…
December 27, 2012
What about a picture of Charles Darwin burning in hell to teach kids about flames?
I don't think so. Although I personally am not like some of my fellow secularists in reacting viscerally to any and all stylistic or symbolic references to Judeo-Christian religious themes, I am aware that there are…
December 26, 2012
"Dr. who?" you might ask. And that would be funny.
I am not an expert on the old Dr Who's by any means, but it has come to my attention that a lot of people are unaware of the recent addition of Dr. Who shows on Netflix, even though I did post something about this on my facebook page. Try to keep…
December 24, 2012
As you know, as part of a fund raiser for the Secular Student Alliance, I wrote a novella called Sungodogo, which I've since made available on Amazon for the Kindle (and in other formats ... I'll have a print version in January some time). The book is about a handful of people who travel across the…
December 23, 2012
I've been lucky. Becoming a secularist and atheist and, to some extent, activist in those areas (though I quickly add my activisms is mostly in other areas) was not to hard. Hey, this very morning Minnesota Atheists had a show on what you do for Christmas and other holidays as a non-believer, and…
