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Some Sites Show Cooling

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic. Objection: Some stations, in the US for example, show cooling trends. If there really were global warming, it would be warming everywhere. Answer: Global Warming refers to the long term increase in globally and seasonally averaged surface temperatures. It is not the case, nor is it expected, that all regions, let alone all weather stations, on the globe will show the same changes in temperature or rainfall patterns. There are in fact many stations…

Weird Dembski Post

Dembski has a completely substanceless post on his blog about Chris Mooney, where all he does is quote from a brief bio of Mooney prior to one of his appearances. He writes, "Yes, this is the same Chris Mooney who attacks ID and has written THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE" and proceeds to quote the following: Chris Mooney '99 recently spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Campus Freethought Alliance (CFA). Mooney, who is copresident and a founding member of the Yale College Society for Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics, addressed the issue of discrimination…

Left Wing Thugs Shut Down Speech

A speech at Columbia University by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, was overrun by students who objected to his views on illegal immigration in a planned attack to shut down the event. The speech, sponsored by the College Republicans at the school, never took place. And the students who did it are proud of it: "We were aware that there was going to be a sign and we were going to occupy the stage," said a protestor who was on stage and asked to remain anonymous. "I don't feel like we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech. ... The Minutemen…

Rowe, Babka and Frazer

There is a fascinating exchange going on over at Positive Liberty between Jon Rowe, Jim Babka and Gregg Frazer. There are two questions under consideration - to what extent is Calvinism opposed to revolution and to the notion of political rights in general; and on a larger level, does the Bible support the notion of political liberty? You couldn't ask for three more interesting people to debate the issue. Jon Rowe and Jim Babka are both libertarians, but one is a non-believer (for lack of a more specific phrase) and the other a devout Christian. And Frazer is a professor of history at a…

Bush and the First Amendment

If there was any doubt that Bush envisions himself to have unlimited authority that cannot be challenged, this article should put that to rest. The ACLU, representing several citizens, has filed suit against the NSA's call tracking system and the government is arguing not only that they cannot challenge that program, but that no citizen has any right to challenge any allegedly anti-terrorist policy in court at all: The Bush administration has urged a judge to dismiss a similar case, saying it threatens to divulge state secrets and jeopardize national security. The government argued in briefs…

Gull Lake Lawsuit: To Be or Not To Be

In the wake of the Dover trial, we here in Michigan have been waiting to see whether the next major ID trial will take place here in reaction to the battle in Gull Lake (for all my previous posts on that situation, click here). In Gull Lake, two science teachers had been teaching ID in their classes for a couple years, including using the same book as in Dover, Of Pandas and People. My group was involved and we won the battle when the school board voted to prohibit the teachers from using creationist materials in their classes. Even after losing so badly in Dover, the Thomas More Law Center…

La Bandera de Estrellas

Okay, this tempest in a teapot over the national anthem being sung in English is absolutely killing me. A Spanish language version of the national anthem was released a few days ago by a British music producer. That sparks protests by right wing bloggers, for some bizarre reason. Seeking desperately to win the jingo vote back, President Bush bravely stands up and says that he is opposed to singing the national anthem in Spanish because, he says, "One of the important things here is that we not lose our national soul." Then it comes out that, during his campaign for the presidency in 2000,…

Kirk Cameron in the "Evolution Zone"

Holy cow, someone posted a link to this video in a comment and you just have to see it. It's Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort "debunking" evolution in the most hilariously ridiculous thing you may have ever seen. Funniest of all is that they start it out by saying that they're going to be interviewing people about evolution and you're supposed to notice how they use words like "possibly" and "we think" and then finally "I'm not an expert". Why is that funny? Because the people they're interviewing aren't experts, they're just random people they found somewhere, most of whom are as ignorant of…

National Debate Tournament

As a follow up to all the Liberty University nonsense, I thought I'd mention that this weekend is the NDT championships. They're being held at Northwestern. Tonight is the opening ceremonies, where they give away the Copeland Award to the top team during the regular season. This award is voted on and this year the top three are teams from Harvard, Berkeley and Michigan State. I just got off the phone with Will Repko, the MSU coach and a friend for nearly 20 years, who was on the road with his team on their way to the tournament and I wished them luck. MSU probably has 2, maybe 3, teams in the…

Fla*ed protocol *eakens brain study

There's an obvious design fla* in this experiment reported in the LA Times. The researchers ran a simple experiment *here the subjects *ere sho*n a series of letters, and they *ere supposed to tap a key *hen they sa* one, but not the another. The subjects *ere classified by their political vie*s, from left-*ing to right-*ing, and a correlation *as discovered: students *ith liberal vie*s had more brain activity and made fe*er mistakes than conservatives. This fits *ell *ith my biases, but I *ouldn't *ant to s*ear to the trust*orthiness of the *ork. There *as a very poor choice in the design.…

What Students Want

Inside Higher Ed takes a look today at a new survey about how students choose colleges. They make an effort to make the results sound surprising, but it's really about what I'd expect: A survey of 600 students who scored over 1100 on the SAT, half of whom scored at least 1300, found that campus visits, parents -- moms more than dads -- word of mouth, and college Web sites are more influential information sources for college-bound students than rankings, guidance counselors, and teachers. The report, conducted by Lipman Hearne, a marketing firm with many colleges as clients, found that the…

On happiness

James Hansen says: I was lucky to grow up in the era of rapidly rising expectations and opportunities. I was born on a small farm, the son of an itinerant tenant farmer. None of the farms that my five sisters and I lived on had electricity. Daylight was extended by kerosene lamps. I barely remember the use of kerosene lamps, because, when I was four years old, we moved a small house to the outskirts of town and by the time my brother was born, when I was 5 years old, we had electricity. And so on. Which is, at first sight, weird: he claims to have been lucky to grow up in an era so…

Craig Loehle is sad

You can read about his sadness at great length in Scientist's rebuttal of Michael Mann's "denier"and other unsavory labels in his book (note how CL, like "Dr" Roy Spencer, wears his PhD on his sleeve). CL is sad because Mann has been cwuel to him, or about him, in his book. Though this seems to have been more exciting for CL than Mann, since he doesn't make it in until p 187, and its just about CL's rubbish temperature reconstruction (see-also Tamino on the "vindication" version). But the centerpiece of CL's recent post, which conclusively demonstrates how Mann is wrong and... well, you get…

How to be wrong

From the department for shooting fish in a barrel, David Appell has a nice post pointing out that Singer has been a bozo for years, predicting (in 1981) massive future declines in fossil oil use. This may be a good place to link to another of DA's posts, US Emissions to Stay Below Pre-Recession Peak Until 2028 which makes an interesting combination with Early Warning on US vehicle miles. More Singer-is-a-bozo stuff This is, as I said, shooting fish in a barrel. So I'll just make it an update to this post rather than a new one. DA went to a talk by Singer that was riddled with errors. One bit…

Flat earth - and Piers too!

We interrupt your schedule of cats and rowing for a brief snark at the denialists: courtesy of mt, who clearly ventures where angels fear to tread, we have Newsletter: NZCLIMATE TRUTH NO 244 by Vincent Gray: THE FLAT EARTH... The attached graph is in all of the Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, and it is fundamental to all their activities. It assumes that the earth can be considered to be flat, that the sun shines all day and all night with equal intensity, and that the temperature of the earth's surface is constant. This is abysmal stupidity and ignorance at its…

Cold and Dark again

So I was coming upstairs after talking to the digits about the things you talk to digits about, when a little beep came from my mobile receiving a text message and I just knew it was going to be the outing coming On. 4pm on a cold dark monday with only 4 people signed up: I thought there was a fair chance of it being cancelled and me getting a chance to work late (oooh how I love a chance to work late). But no, thanks to James (the one how lives on a boat, except that isn't specific enough, the one who lives on a boat and has a cat not a dog, that will do) we were out in the Four of Death (…

Revisionism with Romm

The color of solar cells -- and their short energy payback -- are trivial factors when considering the huge climate benefit they provide in avoiding the release of CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels. That was a central point I made when I broke the story on the error-riddled book Superfreakonomics... Really? No: what JR actually said was: "Here are the howlers in that paragraph for the record:: 1. they aren't bloack, they are blue, 2. their efficiency may be higher than 12%, 3. The biggest howler... What was the absorbtivity or emissivity of the material that the panel covered up, 4.…

Ergathon

In training for Boston, I did a 1 hour erg cos the ladies were doing them, and sort of enjoyed it. And then we did Boston which was 50 km, but we weren''t really racing. And so I wondered how long an actual marathon (42.195 km) would take. And the answer is 3:20:58.4 (almost. I confess that I set the erg to 42125 because I forgot the true distance; I've re-scaled my time linearly which I think is fair). My split was down to a contemptible 2:25 towards the end before I "sprinted" for the finish at 2:05. I beat some of the folk at the concept2 sponsored marathon but I like to think that that is…

We're not Kings

At least not Kings I. But we did have a really quite decent outing tonight (rather more fun than the ladies on sunday; we rowed in the Champs head on sunday, which was an experience but not really fun. James H's take on it is here). We weren't exactly solidly balanced, but the wobble was small, not dramatic, controllable, and didn't get in the way of a decent stroke. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I was rowing strokeside, which is not my native side. We met up with CS at the head of the reach with his Kings crew and challenged them to a side-by-side race down to the railway bridge.…

What we should do

Since I seem to be stating my position perhaps its time to clarify my position on CO2 taxes. I hear Obama is waiting to hear what I have to say on this burning issue :-) When I said that heavy, extremely painful carbon taxes weren't going to happen, some people seem to have misinterpreted it to mean that I thought CO2 taxes were a bad idea. Far from it. But I also don't think that we should be aiming at any particular number just yet (yes I agree we would need large cuts to stabalise CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but they just aren't going to happen in the near (next decade or so) future, so…

We are ruled by monsters

This is an unbelievable statement from one of our top medical advisors. Heroin overdoses kill many people; there is a cheap rescue option, though, kits called Narcan that cost a mere $9.50 and allow people to save lives. The Bush administration opposes their distribution. Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, opposes the use of Narcan in overdose-rescue programs. "First of all, I don't agree with giving an opioid antidote to non-medical professionals. That's No. 1," she says. "I just don't think that's good public health policy." Madras…

Kramnik Defeated

Vladimir Kramnik lost the sixth game of his match against the computer prgoram Deep Fritz today. He thereby lost the match by a score of 4-2. The finla game saw the super sharp Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense. This was in stark contrast to the careful positional play of the earlier games. The computer managed to prove, once again, it's general superiority in tactical positions. The machine played the opening in somewhat bizarre fashion, and did not appear to have much advantage out of the opening. But it was able to keep up the pressure, and seized on a few sloppy moves by…

Darwin and Hitler

Anyone familiar with D. James Kennedy, leader of Coral Ridge Ministries, knows that he is one of the vilest ignorance peddlers in the business. When I lived in Kansas I listened frequently to his sermons on the local Christian radio station. He managed to stand out even on a station where lies and ignorance were the norm. So it is no surprise that they would put together a documentary called “Darwin's Deadly Legacy,” alledging among other things that Hitler was an evolutionist, and that this in some way shaped his political views. Of course, the idea is ridiculous on its face. It's not as…

Ingram Gets it Right

I'm a bit pressed for time today, so why not just have a look at this insightful op-ed by Jay Ingram in The Toronto Star. He begins: Scientists are absolutely correct to argue that intelligent design -- the claim that a designer, not evolution, created life on Earth -- is not science and does not belong in science classrooms. But it might come as a surprise to many of them that simply saying so isn't enough. First, to understand why intelligent design isn't science, you do have to know something about what science is. Scientists constantly test their theories, trying to poke holes in them…

Kid Art Update

Our big home renovation has added a level of chaos to everything that's gotten in the way of my doing more regular cute-kid updates. And even more routine tasks, like photographing the giant pile of kid art that we had to move out of the dining room. Clearing stuff up for the next big stage of the renovation-- cabinets arrive tomorrow-- led me to this stuff, though, so I finally took pictures of a whole bunch of good stuff. (On the spiffy new tile floor in the kitchen, because the light was good there...) The kids's school sends home portfolios of what they've done in art class for the year,…

Physics Blogging Round-Up: June

To make up for last month's long delay in posting, I'll knock out this month's recap of Forbes blog posts really quickly. Also, I still have Vacation Brain, so writing anything really new isn't in the cards... -- What Should Non-Scientists Learn From Physics?: You probably won't be surprised to hear that, in my opinion, it's not a specific set of facts, but an attitude toward the world. -- Softball Physics: How Far Can You Run While The Ball Is In The Air?: In which SteelyKid learning softball's "tag up" rule the hard way leads to an interesting problem in physics. -- How Long Would A Fidget…

Physics Blogging Round-Up: May

Much delayed, but this works out well because it'll give you something to read while we're away in Mexico on a family vacation. Here's what I wrote for Forbes in the merry month of May: -- In Science, Probability Is More Certain Than You Think: Some thoughts on the common mistake people make in saying that science only predicts probabilities of future outcomes. -- A "Cosmic Controversy" Is Mostly A Distraction: A lament about the neglect of science we know to be true versus more speculative stuff. -- Why Do We Invent Historical Roots For Modern Science?: Claims of ancient origins for current…

Physics Blogging Round-Up: Mundane Space, Spectroscopy, Changing Constants, Rest Energy, Magnetic Sensing, Wiffle Balls, and Revolutions

Another few weeks of physics blogging at Forbes, collected here for your convenience. -- Commercialization Of Space: Three Cheers For The Mundane: Some belated but brief comments on the SpaceApps conference I went to down in NYC. -- How Studying Atoms On Earth Helps Us Learn About Other Planets: As a snobby grad student in cold-atom physics, I thought of old-school spectroscopy as boring and pointless, but a recent DAMOP session showed how those classic atomic physics studies still have a lot to offer for studies of astrophysics. -- Are The Constants Of Nature Changing, And How Can We Tell?:…

Physics Blogging Round-Up: Mostly March Meeting

I was at the APS March Meeting last week, because I needed tp give a talk reporting on the Schrödinger Sessions. But as long as I was going to be there anyway, I figured I should check out the huge range of talks on areas of physics that aren't my normal thing-- in fact, I deliberately avoided going to DAMOP-sponsored sessions. This also affected my blogging, so the last few weeks' worth of posts at Forbes have mostly been on March Meeting-related areas: -- How Cold Atoms Might Help Physicists Understand Superconductors: A post about the connection between ultra-cold atomic physics and…

The Pip's Spec Script

I feel a little bad sometimes that I don't really give the Pip his due on the blog. Back when SteelyKid was a toddler and pre-schooler, I had a lot more free time in which to transcribe the various conversations I had with her into super-cute blog posts. The Pip is in the same sort of stage now, and tells some amazing stories, but I have much less time, and by the time I do get free to get to the computer, I usually forget about it. However, while cleaning up and photographing the Giant Shelf of Kid Art, I ran across a book that he made with... One of his preschool teachers, I guess, because…

152/366: Fun With Motion Blur

This one was a whole bunch of work for one smallish shot... So, in past rounds of "science-y things with my fancy camera," I looked at the effect of ISO settings and apertures. This time out, I wanted to look at something moving, and the way that it blurs with increasing exposure time. My initial thought was to try to take pictures of a falling ball, but it's too hard to get that to work consistently without setting up some kind of electronic trigger, and I wasn't willing to do that. But, of course, a swinging pendulum will always be in a relatively narrow range of positions, making it a…

Weekend Diversion: We Have A Suggestion Box!

"I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act." -Orson Welles It's like that for all forms of storytelling, including the science I write about here. Some of the best conversations happen not because I know something amazing that I want to share with you, but because there's something you want to know about, and I know something that can help you get to where you want to be.…

(Long) Weekend Diversion: Northwest String Summit 2013

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." -Victor Hugo Well, they say that man cannot subsist on bread alone, nor should he want to, and I suppose I'm no different. You all know I'm a big fan of music, particularly live, and with outstanding musicianship. You don't get much more outstanding than David Grisman, who's been tearing it up for around 40 years, producing some amazing music, like Flatbush Waltz > Opus 57. I've never seen him live, and that's all about to change. Because this year, he's headlining Northwest String Summit. Image credit…

Hurricane Good News Bad News

First the bad news. Taiwan is going to get slammed with Typhoon Soudelor over the next day (landfall at about 8:00 AM local time). Soudelor was one of the strongest typhoons earlier during its development but weakened to a Category 1. However, very warm seas, lack of wind shear, and other factors may make Doudelor return to category 3 or even 4 strength before making landfall. Also, it is large. The storm is likely to hit Taiwan in about the middle, which along the east coast is not heavily populated. But it will bring heavy rains, likely causing landslides and floods, to the mountainous…

Which Verizon Smartphones Have Android Lollipop?

Android Lollipop is the new Android OS, and it is a good one. If you want to get a new Android phone, you will probably be happier choosing a one with Lollipop already installed. This is not to say that phones with the older Android OS, KitKat, won't or can't be upgraded to Lollipop. Nor do I suggest they will be. It is a bit of a mystery. At some point, I assume, some older models will not be upgraded. One might assume that if you get a new model phone that still runs KitKat that you'll be upgraded eventually, but that is not 100% certain. We are looking into a new phone, we use Verizon…

The #FauxPause is Faux

The Earth's climate is warming. The upper oceans are warming, the sea surface temperatures are elevated, the air in the lower Troposphere, where we live, is warming. This warming is caused almost entirely by the increase in human generated greenhouse gasses and the positive (not positive in a good way) feedbacks caused by that. The effects that increase the global heat imbalance and the effects that decrease it (such as greenhouse gas increase and aerosols -- dust -- from volcanoes, respectively) vary over time in their effect, which causes some variation in the upward march of global…

Build a solar power plant to help run a water treatment plant!

RMU Announces Solar Plant Completion Rochelle Municipal Utilities, in Rochelle, Illinois, has. started operation of a large Photovoltaic Solar Plant providing power to their water treatment facility. This is a great example of a project that should be done in more places. In the Spring of 2014, RMU was awarded a $500,000 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation to fund construction of the Solar Plant. ICECF provides grants for up to $2/watt or 60% of the system and its installation costs, whichever is less. As a result of the competitive bidding process, Eagle Point Solar…

Steampunk LEGO

You know Guy Himber's work. He worked on special effects for Aien 3, Underworld, Independence Day, Edward Scissorhands, I, Robot, lots of other productions. And now, he is playing around with LEGO. Steampunk Lego by Guy Himber is subtitled "The illustrated researches of various fantastical devices by Dr. Herbert Jabson, with epistles to the Crown, Her Majesty Queen Victoria; A travelogue in 11 chapters." The book itself is all steampunky, in fact heavily steampunky, with brown colors, gears and wheels as background images, and victorian techno-objects decorating a faux photographic album…

Can Donald Trump Lock the Nomination?

EDITED AFTER NEW YORK PRIMARY NOTE: UPDATED AND IMPROVED VERSION OF THIS ANALYSIS IS HERE There is almost no way that Donald trump will get to the Republican National Convention with anything less than a fairly strong majority of pledged delegates. But can he get there with the 1237 delegates needed to lock the nomination on the first ballot? I made a list of upcoming contests and initially estimated Trump's delegate take using the oversimplified method of multiplying the percentage of available delegates with Trump's percentage according to the most recent available polls. This slightly…

Where did you go wrong, old chum?

Among the multitudes who have now seen Flock of Dodos was a woman who recognized one of the faces on the screen, and she wrote Randy Olson with a little anecdote that you might find amusing, and a little bit sweet and charming. Just watched the film, congratulations to Randy Olson for a well documented documentary of a topic that deserves greater coverage. Dr. Mike Behe was the first guy I ever dated, at the tender age of 13. We were bright kids, and Mike tutored me in math. My dad took us on our 'dates.' I ended up in technology, and he took the bio-science route. When my mom called me last…

California Levees In Trouble From Drought

What's worse than months or years without rain? Rain, after months or years, at least under some circumstances. For instance ... it gets try, plants become vulnerable to fire. Fires happen denuding the dry landscape. Then it rains, and you get more severe floods together with landslides. You know the story because for years this has been the pattern in California. But there is another roughly similar, or at least analogous, problem that is now being discussed. The levees that are mean to keep floodwaters contained in California were already in fairly bad shape. Prior to the drought, a…

A Quick Look Back Home, and Thanks

"You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch.'" -Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut It was nearly 50 years ago that we left Earth for the first time. Image credit: B. Anders, Apollo 8, NASA, in 1968. We've walked on the Moon. Image credit: Voyager 1, NASA, in…

Weekend Diversion: What we don't know

"Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is; for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows." -Socrates This weekend, I'm pleased to bring you a song by Wizz Jones, a British singer-songwriter who's been at it for over 50 years, yet who most people have never heard of. Have a listen to one of my favorite songs of his, about a man who returns from World War II and never quite makes peace with what happened. Wizz Jones - Burma StarAnd one of the things that we need to make peace with, wherever any of us goes, is that…

An interesting new scifi-fantasy book: Evil Speaks

Evil Speaks: Warriors and Watchers Saga by S. Woffington is a new scifi/fantasy novel with an interesting twist. If there is a Bechdel Test for ableism, it would pass. This is an interesting story written for youthful readers (see publisher's summary below) that is well written and mostly devoid of the usual plot holes we find in this genre, but where the characters represent a range of non normative persona. Benny, fifteen, is solitary by circumstance more than choice: he counts each move to a new town as “a life.” He’s on Life Number Seven. His last! He plans to run away from his…

Why do you avoid using Trump's name? Stop that!

Everyone knows that you never say the name "Voldemort" because it gives him power. Like this: And perhaps for this reason, many non-deplorables wish to avoid using the name of Trump. I can understand their position, and I respect their point of view. Having said that, they are totally wrong, of course. Trump isn't just some guy's name. It is the name of a corporation, and it is a brand representing that corporation. If you really don't like Trump, say his name again and again, in association with your very criticism of him. Sully his brand. Link him to his own decisions and behavior. Don…

How to get a free dinner with President Donald Trump!

The fun raising letter that's gone around asks for 10 bucks to "enter to win." But, of course, it is legally required that any such contest not require a payment, so you can enter for free! But hurry, the contest ends in just a matter of hours! SPREAD THE WORD! Here's how: ...you may enter without contributing here. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN A PRIZE. No contribution or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win this Promotion. Making a contribution does not increase your chances of winning. ...Void where prohibited. The Promotion begins on Monday, February 27, 2017 at 12:…

Stand Up for Science Gathering in Boston

This is not the April 22 March for Science, but something more local and timed to occur with the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings in Boston. From the press release: Scientists Take to the Streets to “Stand up for Science” Scientists and impacted communities respond to attacks by anti-science forces and climate deniers in government BOSTON – On Sunday, February 19, scientists, science advocates, community members, and frontline communities will rally at Boston’s Copley Square to call for increased vigilance to defend science against the barrage of attacks mounted…

The Alberta/Fort McMurray Wild Fire (Update)

Remember that big wild fire that threatened, and damaged, Fort MacMurray, causing major evacuation in the oil sands mining region of Canada? Well, the fire never went out and has now changed directions to threaten settlements again. __________ Update (mid day Tuesday): The fire is now actually burning some homes/buildings in Ft. McMurray. One of them may have actually exploded. Maybe two. On the other hand, the oil sands camps to the north seem to be less threatened, or not threatened. The area around these sites are clear of major vegetation, and there are "industrial firefighters" on the…

Weekend Diversion: Road Trip time!

"Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned." -James A. Baldwin Sometimes, good things happen. And sometimes, you need to get out there, however down you're feeling, and make them happen. For me, a little bit of pump-up music always helps with that. While I'll usually pick something like Guns n' Roses, I like introducing you to music you may not know (or may have missed), so here's Long Way Down by the Goo Goo Dolls, a minor hit from when I was a teenager. Long Way DownTwo…

Weekend Diversion: Valentine's Day!

It says 'I Choo-choo-choose You,' and there's a picture of a train! -Ralph Wiggum Ahh, Valentine's Day. What do you think of when you think of it? Do you think of a sweet sentiment about someone dear to you? (Song credit: If I Could by Storyhill.) Do you maybe think of the vast commercialization of some very minor historical event? While that's the part of Valentine's Day that I like the least, I'll be celebrating it anyway, and I think it's a good idea. Why? It's pretty much the middle of winter across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and a good chunk of Asia. The days are short, the weather is…