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KITP: how neutron stars get their kicks

intense and dense afternoon as we get the current state of the art about neutron star natal kicks, theory and observational constraints Chevy supernova! Vicky - on NS-NS constraints (video and podcast) need >~ 2.1-2.3 solar mass He cores to get to iron and classic type II SNe stable mass transfer may lower this limit electron capture supernovae, in binaries, may limit on core masses right before SNe town to ~ 1.45 solar masses or more evidence other than presence in globulars for subpopulation of neutron stars having low kick speeds: high mass x-ray binaries with e < 0.2 and…

mispricing risk

in which I ponder further a physicist's amateur perspective on the stupidities my ex-colleagues perpetrated I have ranted before on the current aspects of the fiscal crisis, including the credit default swaps (CDS) now, I don't pretent to be an expert, but I am somewhat numerate and the basic theory of CDS makes for interesting reading. There are two root problems: one is the basic toy model assumes default probabilities are independent events (exponential in time, really? come on lads you can do better than that...) and uncorrelated; but, the other problem is that the amplitude of the…

99 Herberts

Krugman worried that any prospects for the US avoiding depression would be scuppered by the collective action of the "fifty Herbert Hoovers" - the individual state governors acting to cut spending as the federal government tried to boost spending. If the states deflate faster than the feds can inflate, then depression comes. Apparently that is not the threat, but the 99 Herberts in the upper house of congress. Some of the states are cutting brutally - my proximate indicator is from the cuts I hear passed down, planned for or rumoured in the university systems. Pay freezes and hiring…

Gay Flamingos Raise Born-Again Chick

tags: ornithology, birds, flamingo, gay An orphaned Greater Flamingo chick is carefully placed into a used eggshell in preparation to hatch a second time -- in its foster parents' nest. A pair of flamingos have become proud foster parents after they took an abandoned chick under their wings at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, Great Britain. But this probably doesn't sound unusual, until you know that the birds, Carlos and Fernando, are two male Greater Flamingos. Despite both being male, they had resorted to stealing eggs from other pairs as they sought to…

Scientists Plan to Make Bald Heads Hairy Once Again

tags: hair, baldness, hair regeneration, wound healing, Wnt protein A group of American scientists have discovered how to make the skin of laboratory mice grow new hair follicles, complete with hair, by using a protein that stimulates follicle generating genes in skin cells under wound conditions. They hope this discovery may one day lead to treatments for baldness and abnormal hair growth. George Cotsarelis and his colleagues from the Department of Dermatology, Kligman Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, found that when skin is wounded, the cells of…

DonorsChoose Challenge Classroom Proposal Focus, Owl Diets

tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education Today's featured project is below the fold. This is a rural high-poverty school in North Carolina. The teacher is a bird watcher who also lives with pet birds, and she seeks to instill this love for birds into her students. In this proposal, she and her students will learn about the diets of owls by dissecting owl pellets and examining the remains of insects and bones from small animals that the owls cannot digest. "Whooo's in the Forest?" Part II I teach a…

The CreoZerg commences today!

I'm currently at Edwin and Helen Kagin's house, 15 minutes from the Creation "Museum" — we'll be heading off to the event around 9am, but first we have to be fed, and the Kagins are infamous for stuffing their guests. I may have to waddle through the theme park. We have 285 people signed up so far. There is some concern that we'll strain their parking, especially if mobs of creationists try to tie up spots early. If there is a problem, people can legally park along the county road leading to Ham's Folly, as long as you don't block access. We also have an agreement with a local farm 2 miles…

Oda a la Tristeza

tags: Oda a la Tristeza, Pablo Neruda, poetry, National Poetry Month April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). My poetry suggestions are starting to run dry, which means I can start posting my own favorites (but you've seen many of those already) or you can send me your favorite poems, which I probably haven't read before! Today's poem was suggested by a reader, Dave; Oda a la Tristeza Tirsteza, escarabajo de siete patas rotas, huevo de telaraña, rata…

The Manhattan to Manhattan Connection

I am very excited because one of my friends, a professor of ornithology at Kansas State University, has invited me to visit him and his female companion in Kansas! Specifically, I will be staying for one week in "the Little Apple" as the city is apparently known. I will bring my binoculars, camera and laptop, so I will be posting updates and pictures whenever possible. My hosts have wifi, so I will be able to easily stay in touch on my blog. So this is my tenative itinerary, for those who are interested, and for those who might be in the area and wish to meet; Tuesday (25 March): arrive at…

Queen Nefertiti, Whistler's Mother, Greta Garbo and Brownie

tags: raccoon, Procyon lotor, mammals, NYC, Central Park, Image of the Day Female raccoon, Procyon lotor, named "Brownie", who lives in Central Park, NYC. Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George. [wallpaper size]. Two viewers of my images let me know that they do not share my enthusiasm for raccoons. Gee. Some folks have had bad experiences that have shaped their strong opinions. One, for example, went so far to suggest that blazing flame-throwers should be pointed in their direction. The other shares a similar though less overtly hostile sentiment. I sympathize and understand the motives…

Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica

tags: Antarctica, music, Terra Nova, Sinfonia Antarctica, photography, streaming video This video is the trailer for DJ Spooky/Paul D. Miller's next large scale multimedia performance work: an acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent. Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica is a seventy minute performance featuring music combined with visual material from Getty Images' vast collection, creating a unique and powerful moment around man's relationship with nature [5:36] Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. Their goals are to have this person…

Calling All Science Filmmakers: ISFF is Seeking Your Submissions for their 2009 NYC Film Screening

Are you an amateur filmmaker? Are you a scientist, or do you enjoy filming scientists? If so, then the Imagine Science Film Festival 2009 is looking for you! ISFF 2009 seeks narrative films with a scientific or technological theme and story line, or films that have a scientist, engineeer or mathematician as a leading character. All submitted films are competing for the right to be publicly screened between in NYC between August 1st and November 30th, 2009. All screened films will also be competing for a $2,500 Scientific Merit Award and a $2,500 People's Choice Award. I am so excited…

How will USDA respond to environmental justice concerns for poultry plant workers?

It's one thing to say your agency is committed to environmental justice, but actions speak louder than words.  That's why I'm eager to see how USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and his Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) respond to the environmental justice concerns raised about the agency's proposed regulation to "modernize the poultry slaughter inspection system" (77 Fed Reg 4408.) A disproportionate share of workers employed in poultry slaughter and production are Latinos and women.  Many earn poverty-level wages.  Their work environment----which is already associated with adverse health…

APHA meets in DC: Not where we used to be, but not where we need to be

The American Public Health Association is having its annual meeting in DC this week, and the theme is "Healthy Communities Promote Healthy Minds & Bodies." The APHA YouTube channel features several clips from yesterday's opening session, including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who spoke about the Affordable Care Act, and APHA President Dr. Linda Rae Murray, who noted "we are not where we used to be - but we are not where we need to be." Kim Krisberg, whose name you may recognize from her monthly posts here, describes some of the opening session highlights at the APHA Annual…

Does asbestos mean something different in Quebec than it does everywhere else?

That's the question posed by Jon Stewart's Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi in his "Ored to Death" segment broadcast on May 12. Mandvi interviews G. Bernard Coulombe, the general manager of the proposed Jeffrey asbestos mine in Quebec, Canada, who reports the mine will produce 200 TONS annually of chrysotile fibers. In the segment, Mandvi really asks: "does asbestos mean something different in French than it does in English?? Because in English it means it means a SLOW, HACKING DEATH." The fact that this five minute "news" segment appears on Comedy Central doesn't take away from the…

Occupational Health News Roundup

The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University's School of Medicine has announced that former NFL player Dave Duerson, who committed suicide at the age of 50 and left a request that his brain go to CSTE, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The disorder is linked to repeated brain trauma, and Duerson's family reports that he had at least 10 concussions during his NFL career. The New York Times' Alan Schwarz, who's been covering the issue of brain damage among football players since 2007, reports that 14 of the 15 brains of football players tested by CSTE have…

National Public Health Week: Injury Prevention

It's National Public Health Week, and this year's theme is "Safety is No Accident: Live Injury Free." The American Public Health Association notes that in the US each year, nearly 150,000 people die from injuries, and almost 30 million people visit emergency rooms for injuries. They offer safety tips for home, work, play, transportation, and communities. CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control provides detailed information on what kinds of injuries kill people of different age groups. Here are a few statistics (2007): Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Earlier this month, a bill that would have provided medical benefits and compensation for 9/11 first responders passed the House but couldn't overcome a Republican filibuster. (Remember the old days of majority rule in the Senate, when 51 votes was enough to pass most legislation? We're in a different era now.) Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York have now made alterations to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and hope it will now be able to attract enough Republican votes. The overall cost of the bill has dropped from $7.4 billion to $6.2 billion as a…

145 days and counting, still no revision to OSHA's injury surveillance system

As I've previously written, a minor revision to the form on which some U.S. employers are required to record work-related injuries remains stuck in the office of the White House's regulatory czar. His review has now extended for 145 days. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects a sample of these forms annually to estimate national rates of work-related injuries. The change proposed by OSHA involves adding a column to the form so that work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) would be distinguished from other conditions like amputations, burns, fractures, etc. After soliciting…

I guess ‘eponymous’ wasn't on the LSAT

Nick Matzke, one of the world's leading experts in detecting absurdities in creationist texts, has discovered a real howler from Casey Luskin. Luskin is complaining that he, Junior Woodchuck lawyer for an intellectually bankrupt propaganda mill, can't find the wrist bones in Tiktaalik when Neil Shubin, world-class paleontologist, is directly describing them. This is, admittedly, a fairly high-level discussion by Shubin, but it's amusing that Luskin isn't tripped up by the science — it's his command of the English language that lets him down. When discussing Tiktaalik's "wrist," Shubin says he…

Roughneck’s serious injury: “It changes everything”

The Casper Star-Tribune’s Heather Richards profiles the struggle of Malco Bielefeld, 53, a roughneck who was seriously injured on the job. “Once, he viewed the world from the top of a 70-foot oil derrick. …He would use his whole body to keep balance, attaching solid steel piping that weighed thousands of pounds. Now, he struggles to walk to the mailbox.” Richards explains that Bielefeld, who worked for 13 years in oil and gas fields, suffered an injury in 2015. “[He] was struck by blocks that fell from a workover rig in the Salt Creek Oil field. … The heavy pulley equipment crushed Bielefeld’…

Trial of Mining CEO Blankenship: Quotes from Week 2

The second week of the criminal trial against former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship continued in Charleston, WV. The US attorneys called eight former employees to the witness stand. They included Blankenship’s executive assistant and five miners who worked at the Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine just prior to the April 2010 coal dust explosion that killed 29 workers. Transcripts of the trial are not publicly available, but the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. is providing daily recaps direct from the courtroom. Ward reports, for example, on the testimony of one of the former UBB miners, Brent…

Not an “accident”: Jeffrey Shannon, 49, suffers fatal work-related injury in Marcus Hook, PA

Jeffrey Shannon, 49 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, March 30, 2015 while working at Sunoco’s Marcus Hook Industrial Complex in Delaware County, PA. 6ABC reports: ”It happened around 2:15 p.m. at Blue Ball Avenue and Post Road on the grounds of the refinery.” NPR’s State Impact Pennsylvania reports: "The worker died from multiple blunt force injuries after a 1200 foot pylon fell on him." Mr. Shannon was a contractor at the site and he worked for the engineering firm AECOM. The facility is being converted from an oil refinery to a natural gas storage and processing plant. "In…

February Pieces Of My Mind #1

Listened to this guy on In Our Time who had a particularly unattractive verbal tick that I've come across now and then. When other people get a question and need to think before replying, they will go "errr", "well" etc. This guy sighed in a pained and exasperated way every time. I guess this really meant "It pains me that I don't have a very good answer to that question, I wish I knew better." But it came off as "It pains me that you ask me these stupid questions, you silly twat." Jrette asks her mother what the film Nymphomaniac is about. "It's about... a woman who is very fond of men."…

Urban Decay in Istanbul

Last winter I was amazed by the poor upkeep afforded to buildings in central Marrakech. I spent part of last week in fascinating Istanbul, and there it was again: plentiful ruins of recent buildings in the middle of busy shopping and hotel districts. Istanbul is in even worse shape than Marrakech. Many older houses are only maintained on the ground floor. There may be eight ruinous floors on top, eroding steadily and falling piecemeal into the street. Many property owners in Istanbul fit their buildings with horizontal metal-grille shelves sticking out from the facade above the first floor.…

Church of Sweden Ineptly Tries to Smear Humanist Association

There's a parliamentary election in Sweden on the 19th, and everybody's hoping that the country's little right-wing populist party won't get over the 4% threshold needed to grab any seats. The "Swedish Democrat" party mainly offers a We Hate Foreigners ticket, with some Law & Order and Respect Your Elders thrown in to attract voters in the early stages of Alzheimer's. The SD is generally despised among mainstream political parties and the media. So I was surprised but entertained when I found the ailing Swedish Church trying to smear the Swedish Humanist Association by means of a far-…

Recent Archaeomags

Skalk's February issue was not up to the Danish pop-arch journal's usual excellent standard. I am always keen to read interesting news from Jelling and Lejre, the country's proto-historic centres. But in this case the editors have devoted 17 of the issue's 30 pages to articles about Harold Bluetooth's Jelling despite the fact that nothing of interest has come up there recently. One reports on humdrum trial excavations and the other on the state of erosion on the hamlet's rune stones. Denmark's archaeology is extremely rich and there's no reason to go on and on about early royal sites just…

11th Nordic Bronze Age Symposium, Day 1

Helsinki isn't far from Stockholm. It took me a bit more than four hours from home to my hotel here, and I could have shaved more than an hour off of that if I had taken the bullet train to the airport and a cab to the hotel instead of going by bus. I'm at the 11th Nordic Bronze Age symposium, which for the first time includes a bunch of Baltic colleagues as wall. Everybody's very friendly and the atmosphere is informal. It's a pretty sizeable conference as these things go in my discipline: about 60 registered participants, of which I have made the acquaintance of at least half by now. For…

#exxonlied

Pah, another el-cheapo clickbait post, spawned by Twitter. The conversation went something like this: mt: Exxon knew, of course. Every decent geophysicist has known about climate problem for decades. How could they not know? All oil majors know. me: Errm, this is what I've been saying for some time. I didn't get traction, though. All govts knew, too, of course. Gavin: I am too sexy for this conversation The issue is not that #ExxonKnew, but that #Exxonknewthenliedaboutit (possibly in contravention of securities law). At some point, Exxon went from standard industry bias to funding &…

All quiet on the climate front

Whether its post-IPCC-AR4 fatigue, or a foolish Michaelson-like assumption that we just about know whats going on, but things seem to be rather quiet on the climate front, in terms of real news and results. Which leaves people footling around for something to talk about, and temperature trends over the past decade, or since 2001 seem to have become a favourite. Climate refuses to behave itself, and insists on having natural variability imposing on longer term trends, which means you can get almost any result you like if you pick your time period. Atmoz has looked at this a bit, but if you…

Ingrid is born; Humberto and Felix--a sign of climate change?

A reader writes... I trust you will critique Ingrid is born; Humberto and Felix--a sign of climate change?. Naturally I'm stupid enough to fall for that sort of a challenge. On the issue of cat5 records I think he misses the obvious point (stoat passim): cat5 numbers are low, their statistics are unstable, and you can't tell much from the record. He does say "We've now had six Cat 5's in the past three years, and eight in the past five years. Is this an indication climate change is at work? Well, we did have back-to-back years with two Cat 5's each (1960 and 1961), so one can still argue that…

A sad end

I've been looking for a suitable title to note the end of RP Sr's blog. I quite liked FB's, though I was going to go with "another one bites the dust" (QS, RP Jr, then Sr) but now RP has solved the problem for me. For a blog that had a lot of interesting science, its a shame to end like this. After a series of failed attempts at picking holes in the IPCC reports, he has another go. The fundamental problem asserted is conflict of interest. To this complaint I do have some sympathy, but RP loses that by ranting. In fact what his post is really complaining about is his failure to get his point…

Survey: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory?

Back to the septic tripe I fear (thanks Fergus). From dailytech.com, whatever that is, we have someone "updating Oreskes". And the work has been submitted to... yes you guessed it, E+E. Bit of a hint there re quality. Does this come under be careful what you wish for? Oreskes said The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting…

Boardgame Review: Place

Place is a new Swedish boardgame, the first offering from Spelmakarna i Sverige Ltd who are based near my home. After reading about their product in the local paper, I asked them for a review copy, which they kindly delivered to my doorstep. (No, we're not acquainted.) It's a geographical trivia game with five main parameters contributing to who wins. 1. The ability to recognise scenic places worldwide from pictures 2. The ability to place them correctly on the world map 3. The ability to answer trivia questions about the places 4. The ability to remember the answers to the questions 5. Blind…

Recent Archaeomags

Current Archaeology #260 (November) has a piece on the Roman baby burials at Yewden villa in England. Excavated in the 1910s, they have long been suspected to represent infanticide. Now Simon Mays has been able to prove that this is indeed the case by means of new osteological methods and comparison with other burial sites. People have wondered if the site was a military brothel. Since it's a rural high-status habitation, this seems rather unlikely. But Mays suggests that if the child murders were spread out over three centuries, what sets Yewden apart is mainly the tenacity of the custom.…

Classification Presupposes Type Definitions

Andreas Oldeberg (1892-1980) is rumoured to have had some pretty ugly political leanings. But just because you like cheese, you needn't socialise with cows. If you're into Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age metalwork from Sweden, there is absolutely no getting around Oldeberg's huge illustrated catalogue from 1974. I'm currently grabbing data out of the catalogue for my sacrificial sites project. And I've come across a funny detail that shows that old Oldeberg was not up to speed with his day's archaeological methodology. Whenever Oldeberg describes a spearhead, he classifies it according to…

Carbon offsets

The question is... are carbon offsets OK? Can you throw away your guilt/sins about a jet-setting lifestyle by spending a few extra dollars on carbon offsetting? The answer is, I don't know (refernces: my review of AIT (which was intended to be ab out science but got a bit sidetracked) and BS's defence of Gore. I find myself concerned about how well/honestly these offsets work. BS says I expect the market for voluntary purchases of emission credits will be driven by quality, and chintzy frauds will find themselves exposed by their competitors which I don't find too convincing. Are there really…

Boring old climate sensitivity

JA is bored with climate sensitivity - because he knows the answer, 3 oC, and he may well be right. But other people don't seem to have realised. And (via James again, I think) I ran across Tung and Camp on climate sensitivity, and Knutti et al.. They too think its 3 oC (well 2.8 +/- 0.9; and about 3). K et al. are doing this via CP.Net in J Climate; T&C via ERBE data in, they hope, Nature. K et al. use the plausible idea that there could well be a relationship between the size of the seasonal cycle and the climate sensitivity of the model. And so they use 2500 perturbed-physics ensembles…

Evolution and School Shootings

After yesterday's shooting at a school in Pennsylvania, CBS News gave Brian Rohrbough, father of one of the kids shot at Columbine in 1999, a forum to blame it all on evolution: When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting. Since that day, I've tried to answer the question, "Why did this happen?" This country is in a moral free-fall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where…

10,000 Fictional Studies on Gay Parenting

Media Matters has an excellent entry about the latest false claim from the anti-gay crowd - the notion that there are 10,000 studies that show that gay parents are bad for children. This is the equivalent of so many fake quotes from the founding fathers, or false creationist claims, in that the claim just gets passed around and repeated blindly without anyone ever bothering to ask for any actual evidence for it. In a recent NPR interview, Arkansas state senator Jim Holt, a particularly nasty bigot, made the claim: The [lower-court] judge had said that there are no studies that show that the…

Wallace Goes to the Bulls

And Piston fans lament. This is very bad for the Pistons and very good for the Bulls. I can't blame Ben for taking the deal. The Bulls were offering an additional $12 million over what the Pistons were willing to pay him. In the long run, that may end up being a wise move for Dumars to make, but for next year at least it moves the Pistons from a serious contender to a playoff team that no one thinks can win it all. Losing Big Ben means losing more than just his 12 rebounds and 3 blocks a game; it means losing his locker room presence, his leadership, his attitude and his work ethic. The rest…

Creationist Speciation: A Case Study

To those who claim that we've never seen one species turn into another, I give you the Oklahoma University IDEA Club. It used to be known as the Creation Science Society. In fact, their webpage initially said: Welcome to the University of Oklahoma IDEA Club website! We are no longer the Creation Science Society. Our new name is Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness Club. That's IDEA Club for short! Voila, a perfect example of sympatric speciation that happened right before our eyes. The actual speciation event took place sometime between August 18, 2003 and October 5, 2003. Here is…

Evolution at New York Academy of Sciences

Last week the New York Academy of Sciences held a conference on Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science, an event I wish I had been able to attend. Several friends and colleagues were speaking there, including Rob Pennock, Glenn Branch, and Ken Miller. Ars Technica has two reports on the conference. The first includes discussion of Pennock's presentation, including this: The first session was on the nature of science and biology, presented in part by Robert T. Pennock of Michigan State, who testified at the Dover trial. He suggested that teachers should present evolution as part of a…

What Would Jesus Do … with a cruise missile?

It's frightening to see religion poisoning our military, but it's happening. A group of generals is facing disciplinary action for promoting an evangelical religious organization, and they admit to being oblivious to the problem of a general declaring that his "first priority is his faith in god", or in supporting a fanatical Christian group that wants to target foreign diplomats, ambassadors, and other representatives for conversion to Christianity. These fellows lent the dignity and responsibility of their positions to a weird cult, and now they defend themselves with this particularly…

The Olbermann - O'Reilly Feud

Is the subject of an article in Slate. Count me squarely in Olbermann's corner on this one. There are few people on the planet I find as loathsome and ridiculous as Bill O'Reilly and I love watching Olbermann consistently taunt him into making an even bigger ass of himself. I think the Slate article nails the two competing personalities pretty well. I'll post it below the fold: So, if the dispute isn't political, why do they persist? Lemann's piece portrays O'Reilly as driven by class resentment, a sense of inferiority acquired as a byproduct of attending a minor college, and his failure to…

DI on Tiktaalik roseae

I mentioned a couple days ago the new fossil of a species dubbed Tiktaalik roseae, which beautifully fills a gap in the fossil record for the fish-amphibian transition. The response to this find from the ID creationists has been quite amusing. The DI media complaints division promptly posted a response that is deliciously inconsistent. On the one hand, it says that the find is "no threat" to ID because ID doesn't necessarily deny evolution or common descent (which depends on which ID advocate you ask, of course). On the other hand, it tries to argue that it's not an intermediate form anyway…

New kid on the block

Hello! I'm a student of Dr. Myers here at the lovely University of Minnesota Morris and will be blogging weekly for the next few months about whatever I find or dream up that relates to Neurobiology. This week I suppose the most interesting finding I have comes from 89.3 "The Current," an off-branch of the popular MPR radio station. There is a program called "Radio Lab," in which a couple show hosts review scientific work done in broad categories while they converse and explore the work of scientists who actually did the research. One of the categories for the week was on sleep; why do we…

World Cup Update

It was a lazy Sunday in Chateau Steelypips, what with the party Saturday afternoon, so I watched a fair amount of soccer. I saw nearly all of the England-Ecuador game, and the second half of the Portugal-Netherlands game. This has made something clear to me: The most difficult thing to find in international soccer is not a good goalie, or a great midfielder, or a skilled striker. The most difficult thing to find in international soccer is a good referee. Because otherwise, I can't explain why the idiot working the Portugal-Netherlands game was drawing a paycheck. Miscellaneous other…

Arctic collapse dramatically increases global warming?

Wosis then? Is it the sea ice? Ah, no. Someone else wants in on the limelight: "Parts of Arctic Siberia are releasing ten times more carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, a University of Manchester scientist and an international team of researchers have found." Its the usual stuff: much more greenhouse gas is being released into the atmosphere than previously calculated, from and ancient an large carbon pool held in a permafrost along the 7,000 km desolate coast of northernmost Siberian Arctic – dramatically increasing global warming. As the temperature climbs carbon, stored in…

Last day

[This post written in arrears and given an in-arrears date, so few people will see it. But I care.] So, day 4. Champs 1 again ahead of us, and we sort-of resolved to go for it rather harder this time, but in a slightly vague way. We mostly decided that we would aim to get them by the Plough; and if we didn't, we'd take the race from there. And we knew Champs 2 were fast off the start but we knew if we held them to first post they would fade from there. I'd watched the early divisions. Div 3 was notable for practice starts in bright sunshine followed by it pissing with rain on the division. Ah…