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gregladen | July 3, 2017Here is that famous documentary on the Koch Brothers. I'll just put it here for you to watch and comment on.
gregladen | June 27, 2017These books are one or two books in kindle form right now, get 'em while they're still cheap:
Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World
Blind Ambition: The White House Years
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 6
gregladen | June 23, 2017I know some of you cheapskates will want to pick up these books ... well, not really pick them up, but rather, instantiate them on your eReader. These are all 2 bucks or less for the Kindle version, at the moment, price presumably subject to change at any moment.
How the mind might or might not work
This is a collection of writings by various experts on how the mind works. They are not all right, but they are all intertesting. Includes Pinker, Lakoff, etc. Personally, I think there is a bit of a bias in the listing of authors towards a certain school of thought that I don't personally…
gregladen | June 23, 2017... or do the sheep lie?!?!?
Anyway, I need the brilliant and well informed people who read this blog to have a gander at this college transcript and interpret it. Place your comments below.
gregladen | June 14, 2017Short answer: No, we do not shoot them. But the argument that we don’t shoot them is not as simple as it seems.
Rand Paul: Shoot the CongressmanRight Wing: The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow us to be armed, so we can shoot at the government when we need to. (This section has been heavily modified at the request of Senator Paul)
The purpose of the second amendment, and the reason to stay heavily armed and to be prepared to use the firearms the Constitution guarantees we can keep, is to lift tyranny should it befall the land. An increasing number of people now realize that a president…
gregladen | June 14, 2017This is interesting.
It is a letter from Hachette Livre, a major international publisher, to Resolute Forest Products, the group that is trying to sue a number of environmental groups into submission. (See these posts: Taking The Axe To The Environmental Movement: Resolute v. Greenpeace and Freedom of Speech, Resolute Forestry, Stand.Earth, Greenpeace: New Developments) Hachette Livre uses Resolute, and seems to be a significant customer of the tree cutting pulp giant. And, they are giving Resolute a little what for:
HACHETTE LIVRE’S COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Richard Garneau…
gregladen | June 14, 2017No, this is not about that.
I believe it is true that for decades, shooters and politically violent people (two overlapping categories) in the US were right wingers, almost always. Case in point: the white supremacists who have now all been handed (a little bit of) jail time for emptying a pistol into a crowd of protesters at a #BLM rally outside a police station in Minneapolis (and yes, they were white supremacists).
I've also always believed that one of the reasons the right wing has the privileged luxury of hating any kind of sensible gun law and regulation reform is because they know…
gregladen | June 11, 2017... for the science literate or geek. It is hard to think up gifts at the last minute, so I'm passing on a few suggestions that have been mentioned lately in my presence.
Some Amazon Kindle e-readers are $20 off
A second monitor (or a third). I like this one.
A Darth Vader Pen Holder
Virtual Reality: Google Cardboad Kit, Magicoo 3D VR Video Glasses, VR Headset for Movies and Games, Compatible with All The 3.5"-6.0" Smartphones (Black)
Dune for Kindle for 1.99
A stick made out of metal designed to poke at meat on the BBQ
gregladen | June 9, 2017ADDED, ANOTHER CHEAP BOOK YOU MIGHT WANT:Dune
The following random thought will eventually become a more carefully written blog post, but I want to get this out there sooner than later.
Mention electric cars, or solar panels, or any other kind of thing a person might buy and deploy to reduce their Carbon footprint.
Mention that to enough people and some wise ass will eventually come along and tell you how wrong you are. About how electric cars are worse for the environment than gas cars because bla bla bla, or how solar panels are worse for the environment than burning natural gas because of…
gregladen | June 6, 2017Screw the so-called Federal Government, once part of a great democracy, now a great joke run by an insane clown and his posse.
Most of the hard work in the energy transition needs to be done at the levels of the state and the individual anyway. So, with Trump taking the so-called Federal Government, which most of us now recognize as illegitimate and an annoyance at best as is slowly disappears bit by bit and becomes nothing other than a way to transfer tax money to rich people (until we stop paying our taxes), let's just get on with saving civilization, the planet, our children, and all that…
gregladen | June 6, 2017I know you all loved Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow, but perhaps some of you have not read it yet or, like me, Rachel gave you a physically real copy of it so you don't have the Kindle version. Now is your chance, since the Kindle version is $1.99 right now. I have no idea how long this is going to last.
gregladen | June 5, 2017State Auditor Rebecca Otto is running for Governor of Minnesota. She will seek the DFL (Democratic Party) Endorsement. There are several other candidates either declared or likely to run, but Otto stands head and shoulders above all the others, especially in three areas:
1) Honesty and integrity in government.
Otto has been recognized nationally by the auditors around the country, and this is for good reason. In fact, she's recognized internationally. The Minnesota Auditor's office, under Otto, is one of those places the US State Department sends people from other countries to figure out…
gregladen | June 3, 2017The amazing Betty Folliard, former school board member, Minnesota house representative, and the woman behind a number of important political campaign, has a radio show on AM950 The Progressive Voice of Minnesota (where I occassionally voice as well, but on a different show) called "A Woman's Place."
Today, Betty interviewed Minnesota State Auditor Rebecca Otto, who is running for Governor of Minnesota.
Here's the interview:
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/325200497" params="color=ff5500" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]
Rebecca explains why she is running, and…
gregladen | June 3, 2017This just came across my desk. These are not amazing deals, but they are pretty good deals. I'll put the list price and asking price down so you can decide if you want to ignore this.
A Global Warming Primer: Answering Your Questions About The Science, The Consequences, and The Solutions was $15 is now $10.20. (See this post for more info on this and related books)
The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far: Why Are We Here? by Krauss, was $27, now $14.16.
Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour by Neil deGrasse Tyson and others, was $39.95, now 26.74.
Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to…
gregladen | June 3, 2017For some reason, Facebook is not posting reliably and I will not abide writing paragraphs that the Internet sucks into oblivion!
So, I have a few thoughts I'll put here and try to link to.
Rebecca Otto for Governor
Let's start with Rebecca Otto, who just gave a great talk at the DFL (that's what we Minnesotans call "Democrats") Environmental Caucus meeting. Rebecca is running for Governor, and we need her to win.
I've written a bit about that (see: Rebecca Otto: by far the strongest and most progressive candidate for Minnesota Governor in 2018), and some time over the next week or so I'…
drorzel | May 25, 2017During my sabbatical last year, I decided to try to do a photo-a-day project, taking and sharing at least one good picture a day of something or another. The strict photo-a-day format fell victim to my general busy-ness and disorganization, but I did eventually complete the whole thing. In the final post of the series, I said I might have some wrap-up thoughts in a few days; that was several months ago.
Every time I need to clear some disk space, though, I'm reminded that I left that hanging, so I finally did something in the direction of a summative post, by uploading all the edited pictures…
gregladen | May 24, 2017A little while back I posted this: Taking The Axe To The Environmental Movement: Resolute v. Greenpeace.
Some of you complained because you don't like Greenpeace. But that is hardly the point. Greenpeace has a history of working towards important goals and sometimes even attaining them, and there are a lot of whales that want you to lay off and give them credit.
Anyway, the point of that post was to let you know about a SLAPP lawsuit Greenpeace had been slapped with by Resolute Forest Products.
The long and the short of it is this: Resolute, if they get legal traction and win, are setting…
gregladen | May 24, 2017The Congressional Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released their scoring of the Republitrump Health Insurance reform bill, passed recently by the House but not yet taken up by the Senate.
The OMB says the bill will leave 23 million more Americans uninsured by 2026, compared to sticking with Obamacare.
gregladen | May 23, 2017In The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction, Charles Lane describes the events -- several years of events including the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, though only briefly -- that led up to the Colfax Massacre. What happened was incredibly complex and only a very detailed description can do justice. But, I'll try to summarize it his way: A war was fought over slavery, and slave holders lost. A conflict then ensued between the new, victorious, anti-slavery government and the racist pigs of the Confederacy, who…
gregladen | May 23, 2017Roger Moore just died, and you will hear that he was the third, or second, or fourth, "James Bond." He wasn't. Here is the list of James Bond actors:
Barry Nelson, who played in "Casino Royale" in 1954. This was an episode in the "Climax!" TV anthology series, like they used to do a lot.
Sean Connery is often regarded as the "original" or "first" James Bond, and in a way he was, since he was the first to repeat the role in several movies. But he was actually the second actor to play the role in front of a camera. He did seven Jame Bonds.
David Niven, who played also in "Casino Royale," a…