gregladen | March 22, 2012Do you hear that loud, repeated smashing sound coming from the general direction of the Upper Midwest and Plains? That's us. Here in Minnesota, we have been breaking high temperature records left and right. Most of the TV weather reporters are wearing slings, eye patches, and bandages around their heads, it's been so intense. And, on Monday night, we had the second earliest tornado recorded in the state. It was a baby; it messed up some trees and damaged some sheds down in Elysian, in farm country.
I remember taking a stroll a few years back with a distant relative in the Ozarks, Arkansas…
gregladen | March 22, 2012Posted without further comment because the biggest Tattoo is really your brain anyway:
gregladen | March 21, 2012NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data highlight the diversity of Vesta's surface and reveal unusual geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on asteroids.
These results were discussed today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, Texas.
... Dawn has found that some areas on Vesta can be nearly twice as bright as others, revealing clues about the asteroid's history.
"Our analysis finds this bright material originates from Vesta and has undergone little change since the…
gregladen | March 21, 2012On January 29th, 2010, I wrote:
I do not appreciate the fact that the New Orleans Saints defense, when playing the superior Minnesota Vikings, clearly designed, practiced, and successfully implemented a strategy that if adopted by other teams and not stopped by new rules, will change the way the sport is played forever. During the playoff game with the Vikings, the Saints' defense got through the Vikings' defensive line and knocked down the quarterback something like 19 times. Not sacked. They knocked him down after he had thrown or passed off the ball. One time there was a penalty, and the…
gregladen | March 21, 2012There is an interesting development in the area of Aids Denialism (and by extention climate change denialism and the rest of it) in Italy:
The University of Florence has launched an inquiry into the teaching activities of an academic who assisted on a course that denies the causal link between HIV and AIDS, and supervised students with dissertations on the same topic.
The Italian university's internal 'special commission' will examine the "teaching behaviour and responsibility" of molecular biologist Marco Ruggiero, a university spokesman told Nature.
Details and more here.
gregladen | March 21, 2012These are not the same thing, and the distinction is important. Please have a look at: The real impact of gun laws, and what that means
gregladen | March 20, 2012In discussing the relevance of archeology to anything, there is an easy answer provided by my friend Peter Wells, a specialist in Culture Contact and the Central European Iron Age. Peter tells his students on the first day of class that "Archaeology is the study of everything that happened anywhere, any time, with any human beings that ever existed or exist now." And if you think that he is exaggerating, you don't know much about Archaeology.
Recently, my friend Elizabeth Reetz has asked a more narrowly defined question: "What are the benefits of environmental education through…
gregladen | March 20, 2012The Walter Cronkite of the Twin Cities, Emmy Award Winning news anchor Don Shelby, retired a couple of years ago and started writing for the excellent local news blog MinnPost. Shelby's articles were always excellent and on point, and he often wrote about climate change related issues that I know are important to people who read this blog. He has also supported the cause of science in public policy in other ways.
Here are three examples of my earlier posts pertaining to Don: Minnesota AGW Denialist Jungbauer Disembowled by Respected News Anchor Don Shelby; Shawn Otto's Book Launch Talk (…
gregladen | March 20, 2012It's the Scopes Trial all over again!
"The Senate approved a bill Monday evening that deals with teaching of evolution and other scientific theories," the Knoxville News-Sentinel (March 19, 2012) reported, adding, "Critics call it a 'monkey bill' that promotes creationism in classrooms." The bill in question is Senate Bill 893, which, if enacted, would encourage teachers to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of "controversial" topics such as "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."
Among those expressing opposition to…
gregladen | March 20, 2012The 7.6 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck 120 miles east of Acapulco. There are no details yet.
UPDATE: With a bit of time passing, it is starting to look like a lot of stuff got shook-up, but there was not a lot of significant damage anywhere.
gregladen | March 20, 2012Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow (signed by the author!) and I'm reading it with great interest, even though I'm totally swamped with other things. Damn you Rachel Maddow for writing such an engaging book!
I'm just starting it but wanted to share a couple of observations.
The nature of war in (well, 'by') America--and the nature of the military and government's relationship to it--evolved over time from the days of the Founding Fathers to the end of the Viet Nam era, as described in Rachel Maddow's new book, in very interesting ways. In particular, Maddow…
gregladen | March 20, 2012There's an app for that!
A free, new iPhone app from NASA literally puts the whole world in the palm of your hands. "Earth Now" immerses cyber explorers in dazzling visualizations of near-real-time global climate data from NASA's fleet of Earth science satellites.
Available at the iTunes Store or by visiting http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/apps , Earth Now displays data on many of the key vital signs of our planet that NASA satellites track. Whether your interest is current surface air temperatures over Australia, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide levels over Canada, ozone over Oman, water vapor…
gregladen | March 19, 2012And they are! Just yesterday I was hanging around with a bunch off atheists and they were all pretty angry. They were even getting angry with each other. I could hear "get off my lawn" as a more or less constant droning sound in the background.
People who are not atheists, or who may be indifferent to religion but never thought about it much, might want to know what this is all about. One way to do this is to read a book that just came out, literally about five minutes ago, for the Kindle. This book is by my friend Greta Christina, and it is called Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Thing…
gregladen | March 19, 2012Of the first dozen times or so that I ever saw Joel, my then future brother in law, I think we were in a restaurant a good four or five times. This was probably just a chance event, but there were a number of dinners and one lunch with the family that Joel and Alyssa (Amanda's sister) attended. And I noticed something. Joel and Alyssa seemed to be very keen on the idea of consulting over what to eat. Many couples do this, including Amanda and me. For example, if there are two items on the menu that I know I'd be happy with, and Amanda is pretty sure about one but not the other yet wants…
gregladen | March 19, 2012It slows my system way down, it breaks my desktop, it makes the browser work very poorly, and it requires me to force the computer to shut down and reboot now and then.
It also appears to boot quickly but it is mostly faking it.
gregladen | March 19, 2012On Sunday, Google Chrome surpassed Microsoft Internet Explorer in browser market share.
I would now like to welcome our new Internety Overlords!
(Please don't hurt me.)
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