links for 2009-04-11

"What, exactly, does a hostage negotiator do?

Wear down the captors. Negotiating strategies vary depending on the demands, the time of day, the hostage-taker's sanity, and a million other factors. (For example, you might want to send in a SWAT team right away if nightfall is approaching or if the person starts randomly killing hostages.) But in general, the negotiator's job is to run down the clock. That gives the hostage-taker time to calm down, and it gives cops time to figure out the best way to make a "tactical entry." "

A remarkably incoherent press release for something to do with optical lattices. It manages to convey the impression that nobody has ever trapped atoms in an optical lattice, which will surely come as a surprise to hundreds of researchers in the AMO physics community.

"[T]here are probably a dozen climate related journalists, writers, and activists out there who, given a full-time salary of $ 134,000 with benefits, might not only become an intellectual warrior on the opposite of the issue from Morano, but could perhaps be as good at the game or better. Iâm not one of themâamong other reasons, I think this work, and this life, would grow intellectually dull very quickly.

But my point is that being a counter-Morano simply isnât there as a career path, for me or anyone else who actually wants to defend good science on global warming. "

"Adam made a claim (or statement) something about if the rocket car was going 100 mph into a stationary car, it would be equivalent to two 50 mph cars colliding. Actually, this is not true. I canât remember if Adam actually said this or if he really meant it, however it is still and interesting situation."