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gregladen | May 14, 2013This came up the other day, so I figured I’d note the answer(s) down and share it with you so we don’t have to look this up in the internet again until 2013 is over. The, I think they get new richest people. Most of these answers come from Forbes, which appears to be in charge of knowing these things. Or even, perhaps, determining these things!
Who is the richest person in the world?
The richest person in the world is Carlos Slim Helu and his family, with a net wort of 73 billion dollars. He’s in Mexico, and in the telecom business. But since this includes “his family” we may want to note…
denialism | May 9, 2013In the wake of the dramatic events surrounding the discovery of three women including Amanda Berry, being held captive for a decade by a monster, it's important not to forget another sociopath played a role in this drama. That sociopath is the psychic who told Amanda Berry's mother that her daughter was dead:
Her mother, Louwana Miller, never gave up hope that the girl known as Mandy was still alive, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The case attracted national attention when Miller went on Montel Williams’s nationally syndicated television show in 2004 and consulted a psychic.
“She’s…
gregladen | May 8, 2013As you know, Genie Scott of the NCSE will retire this year. Here is her story.
gregladen | May 8, 2013This is interesting and important.
Hello Bethany, I've always been a huge fan.
gregladen | May 8, 2013Your morning caffeine fix is but a drop in the global bucket that makes coffee the number two most traded commodity in the world after petroleum. But with 100 million Americans like you drinking coffee every day, the bucket easily overflows to make the US the world’s top coffee consumer...
Courtesy of: Online Finance News by Financesonline.com
Click on the graphic to visit the source.
gregladen | May 8, 2013Stop lying to your fans. They are beginning to figure it out. Watch:
Here is some background.
gregladen | May 8, 2013In the united states, bee keepers lose a certain number of colonies over the winter. This is normal, but bee keepers maintain that losses of about 15 percent or less are "acceptable." I don't know what the logical or empirical basis for that number is, however.
Yesterday, the results of a report that surveys bee keepers in the US came out, and the total loss rate over the 2012/2013 winter was 31.1%. That's a lot more than last year's loss rate, but within the range of variation of loss over the last few years, as shown on this graph provided by "bee informed":
Honey bee colony loss rate…
gregladen | May 2, 2013Two young boys are having an argument while their fathers, resting in hammocks, look on. The argument is over something silly but escalates until the dads decide to intervene. They equip each boy with a small pole and position them face to face, explaining the rules of the game. Each child has the opportunity to whack the other with the stick, in turn. The boys can continue to carry out this ritualized but stingingly painful combat until one of them gives up, handing victory to his opponent. Eventually, these boys will grow into men, and this sort of combat, using either long poles borrowed…
gregladen | April 30, 2013Vonvo.com is a new thing. We had a conversation about the Boston Marathon Bombing.
I wish there had been a sound check, I could have had my mic up higher. Also, that notification beep you will repeatedly hear is not your computer (or mine) so just ignore it! Anyway, it is in two parts:
jdupuis | April 29, 2013What kind of place has Canada become?
The kind of place that closes world-class research facilities in the arctic and in lake country. (Thanks, Ontario!)
The kind of place where the government actively muzzles it's own scientists and librarians, the scientists for wanting to share their research and librarians who want to talk about the importance of preserving our heritage, scientific and cultural.
The kind of place where Environment Canada would take their own name off their weather service website. Really? Yeah, really.
The kind of place where the Federal Government slashes its own role…
gregladen | April 28, 2013This video by Media Matters on the Zany Denialists on Fox News .........
..... is nicely augmented by this blog post by Phil Plait: Climate Change or Global Warming? Both.
gregladen | April 27, 2013Almost a year ago, Edwina Rogers took over as the executive director of the Secular Coalition for America. It's been an ambitious, busy year for the Secular Coalition. This Sunday, Rogers joins us to talk with Scott Lohman about what they've accomplished and where they're going in the next year. They'll also discuss the formation of the Minnesota chapter of the Secular Coalition.
Listen to AM 950 KTNF on Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio: 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to radio@mnatheists.org during the…
jrosenhouse | April 26, 2013Since I always have time to let you know about developments in my life, I feel compelled to mention that today is my fortieth birthday. I'm even happier, though, that today is the last day of classes (not counting finals, of course).
gregladen | April 24, 2013... Or, Why Did Your Great-great-grandfather Marry His Cousin?
A talk I'm giving ....
Genealogy reveals the structure of family relationships among distant relatives. Why do certain families intermarry while others shun each other? For the young singles, how do you calculate your suaboyä, in order to find the ideal spouse?
Brookdale Library
Thursday, April 25, 7–8 p.m.
Details
gregladen | April 23, 2013Every disaster in the US has at least three Congressional representatives associated with it (2 Senators, one House rep). Those representatives have at least two roles: 1) Causing/avoiding the disaster or making it less/more bad, to begin with, by way of their efforts in congress; and 2) Helping or not helping once the disaster happens.
The three representatives for the West Texas disaster, in which scores (apparently) were killed, helped to make the disaster happen by, among them, failing to support OSHA or voting against OSHA funding. This is part of the reason that the plant has not been…
gregladen | April 21, 2013Well, not everybody. First lets talk about some losers. Someday a brave journalist will ask the FBI why they had one of the suspects in sight a couple of years ago but this still happened. Chances are there is a very good answer and we should not be mad at the FBI for this, but at the moment, even asking the question will get people screaming at you. Someday a brave journalist will work out the details of how the State and Boston Police managed to miss the guy hiding in the boat a short distance form their dragnet. Chances are there is a very good reason for this, and we should not be mad…
jrosenhouse | April 18, 2013Here's an interesting interview with Susan Jacoby on the subject of atheism. I don't agree with all of her points, but it's worth reading the whole thing. Here's an interesting excerpt:
Certainly one of the first things I thought about as a maturing child was “Why is there polio? Why are there diseases?” If there is a good God why are there these things? The answer of the religious person is “God has a plan we don’t understand.” That wasn’t enough for me. There are people who don’t know anything about science. One of the reasons I recommend Richard Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion, is that…
gregladen | April 18, 2013One of these days I'll tell you the story of when I was almost killed permanently by sink hole. I'll probably have to package that story with the time I was buried alive in a trench (for symmetry). These things happen to archaeologists. Not as often as getting pinned down by gunfire, or running out of beer, or other things much more important than the earth sucking you into itself, but they do happen. As a matter of fact, after years of training and a number of highly educational on-trial-learning type events, I'm always noticing sink holes. They are way, way more common than you would think…