gregladen | March 24, 2009... and related matters.
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gregladen | March 24, 2009... Cheney has been rather out of line. And now he's out of breath.
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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
gregladen | March 24, 2009Back before the election in November, Stephanie Zvan and I had dinner to discuss the idea of forming a community of like minded bloggers to exchange resources and information. Mike Haurbrich was part of that conversation as well, but not at dinner that particular evening, which was at The Blue Nile. During that conversation, and in subsequent email conversations and over a pizza here and a Martguerita there, two projects developed, neither one of which was the blogger community resource that we had envisioned.
One of those projects was our joint blog, Quiche Moraine, which has been goin…
gregladen | March 24, 2009In conversation with reporters earlier today Coleman noted that he does not anticipate this case going to the US Supreme Court, though he did apparently say this in his usual smarmy way so he can change his mind later. He did indicate that he DOES anticipate bringing the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court if the judicial panel now considering the case rules against his claim.
source
gregladen | March 24, 2009I live next to this crazy person's congressional district and I do not want the yahoos who live there pouring over the border of My Fair City with their guns and rabid dogs, mullets and swastika-bearing pickups. Michele Bachmann barely makes it to Winged Monkey level, and this is well demonstrated here:
More details here.
More details and important request below the fold:
Should Bachmann Be Censured for Her Recent Remarks?
Politico: Bachmann urges "armed" revolt over climate plan.
At Political Animal
I recommend writing your representative in congress and asking that Bachmann be…
gregladen | March 24, 2009This just in from the NCSE:
The future of science education in Texas is on the line. The Texas Board of Education, after two previous contentious public hearings on high school science standards (TEKS), meets March 25-27 for its final vote.
As you may recall, at the previous meeting (January 23rd), the board voted to remove "strengths and weaknesses" wording from the science standards. That was a win for science. However, the Board took a big step backwards by allowing creationists to insert bogus attacks on evolution in the Earth and Space Science standards and the Biology standards…
gregladen | March 24, 2009As long as we understand exactly what it really is...
Debbitage has an excellent post responding to a piece in Higher Ed about critique v. objectivity in the classroom. The comparison is between "Objectivist" teaching and "Criticism Based" teaching...
An important aspect of criticism-based teaching is that if done right, it is able to correct the teacher's own flaws. Objectivist teaching depends on the teacher to correctly draw the fact-opinion border, and to select the correct facts to teach. A criticism-based approach, done correctly, enables students (particularly those coming from a…
gregladen | March 23, 2009Macroblogging the microblog so you don't have to.
From BoraZ: Texting Your Catch: New Technology For Recreational Fishing Data
...
At nearly every fisheries management meeting he attends, Baker hears the same complaint: North Carolina's recreational fishermen don't have to account for their catch. Two years ago, during a regional meeting about snapper and grouper, Baker looked down at his hands and finally saw a possible answer: his mobile phone.
"I wondered if you could send a text message to a computer database somewhere instead of just texting from phone to phone," he says. "And if you…
gregladen | March 23, 2009So, my friend Phil was in the Air Force up near Grand forks (where the flooding is happening now). He told me today they use to use a super tall radio tower to spot weather, and this tower was something like 70 miles away. So it was in sight, but almost unbelievably so.
Similarly, there is an end in sight for the Minnesota Senate Recount...
The end has to happen at some point, of course, because these things only seem to go on forever. Here is what is supposed to happen:
1) The state judicial panel that is now in deliberation will make a couple of decisions regarding what to do about…
gregladen | March 23, 2009Or, perhaps, a garagable aircraft.
First Flight:
Landing and parking animation (video may load very slowly):
MIT press release.
gregladen | March 23, 2009Everybody knows the answer is almost always Linux, and one of the reasons for that is because Windows cheats. Mr. Exile has run a test in which he compares two laptops, one with four times the memory and about double the processor speed and a more advanced processor, with the hotter computer running XP and the older, less powered computer running Linux.
Since the valid test is not when the desktop pops up (because Windows is still busy booting when that happens), Mr. Exile instead timed how long it took for him to have a browser opened to his web based email page.
If you are a Windows…
gregladen | March 23, 2009We know where Dora's monkey is.... She's over at Fermi Lab throwing a wrench in Teh Physics:
... scientists have detected a new, completely untheorized particle that challenges what physicists thought they knew about how quarks combine to form matter. They're calling it Y(4140), reflecting its measured mass of 4140 Mega-electron volts.
"It must be trying to tell us something," said Jacobo Konigsberg of the University of Florida, a spokesman for Fermilab's collider detector team. "So far, we're not sure what that is, but rest assured we'll keep on listening."
gregladen | March 23, 2009Blogfish has an interesting writeup on what they call "New England's War on Science" ( might think of it as "Coastal New England's War on Science")
Fishing interests in New England have convinced politicians to launch a new war on science and common sense. They want to keep catching fish faster than they can reproduce.
New England's war on science might be dismissed as simple regional protectionism if it didn't include Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Snowe, Collins, Reed, Whitehouse and Shaheen. That's not just a few fishermen throwing elbows. Or is it?
Which is, of course, a mix of Democratic and…
gregladen | March 23, 2009... as usual ...
a legislator in Texas has introduced a bill to require open document formats in all state government business. The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as "open." The story is covered by the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which is careful to be even-handed, giving Microsoft's spokesman equal time. A ZDNet blogger notes that the bill, introduced by a Democrat in a state whose politics is dominated by Republicans, faces chances that "...fall somewhere east of slim and west of none."
from /.
gregladen | March 23, 2009In 1997, the sandbagging was not enough to save Grand Forks. The river rose higher than it had been since 1826. Downtown Grand Forks was destroyed by explosions and fire that added on to the damage caused by the water. ... The local TV stations carried stories of cattle stranded in flowing water, unable to reach higher ground. Some cattle were frozen standing in place as the floodwaters froze at night.
From A Simple Assignment . Go read it!
gregladen | March 23, 2009This picture, from a current (as of this writing) accuweather forecast page, is an excellent illustration of what happens here in the upper Midwest the spring.
The overall pattern of movement of air masses at the continental scale is west to east, with extra moist and extra warm air secondarily moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, and cool and usually dry air coming form the Northwest (not shown here but note the "blizzard" part) and with dry Pacific/Rocky Mountain air coming from the west. The main energy flow to keep an eye on is that coming from the Gulf.
There is a rule of thumb you…
gregladen | March 23, 2009Minnesotans: Don't forget about the Flying Spaghetti Monster Dinner Fund raiser on March 29th. Details here.
Dear readers: Go visit the Big White Gorilla and be nice to him. Or kick his pink ass. Whichever seems appropriate depending on your take on civility.
Build your own solar panel.
Upgrade to Gnome 2.26
Take Over the World! (Don't listen to Steve! He's a villain!)
Stop Telling sudo Your Password