Archive for the ‘All’ Category
On Reading The Little Ice Age
Earlier this year I read the book Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age : How Climate Made History 1300 – 1850, by Brian Fagan (New York : Basic Books, 2000; 246 pages). He takes a close look at the relatively cool period between the "Medieval Warm Period" and the current warming period, and considers in […]
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week LXXIV: A Pious Father
This week's pious beard belongs to St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. He was given the name Francesco at his baptism the day after his birth on 25 May 1887. Continuing with his official Vatican biography On 6 January 1903, at the age of sixteen, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Friars at Morcone, where […]
Reich on Reaganomics: Thoroughly Tested, Thoroughly Wrong
The basic idea of Reaganomics was that the economy grows from the top down. Lower taxes on the wealthy make them work harder and invest more, and the benefits trickle down to everyone else. Rarely in economic history has a theory been more tested in the real world and proven so wrong. In point of […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Who Opposes Marriage Equality?
It is clear from the polls that the vast majority of those who oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions do so for religious reasons, and freely admit to this explanation. Indeed, the groups most vehemently opposed to civil unions are white Evangelicals (29% to 67%) and those who claim that they attend church every week […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week LXXIII: Neo-Classical Painting
This week's precisely styled beard belongs to Victorian artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912). This image I've cropped from his famous "Self-Portrait" of 1896. (visible, e.g., here.) I like the short biography at "Olga's Gallery", but perhaps the quick introductory summary from the longer Wikipedia article on Alma-Tadema will serve us here: Born in Dronrijp, the […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
"Too Big to Fail", et al.
Specious elements of the current financial crisis I'd like to see laid to rest: We have to pay high bonus to retain the top talent–but that talent is by now clearly untalented since that "top talent" precipitated the current crisis We give the money to the financial institutions ("nationalize the risk") and let the experts, […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Common-Place Book
Meet Grant
This handsome gentleman is Grant, my first glimpse of him and likewise his first glimpse of us. (He's looking at Isaac, whom you can see reflected in the car's window just to the right of his nose.) As you can see he's a dark brindle color. There's a touch of white on his muzzle and […]
Carol on Porn vs. Religion
…a lifetime of sexual repression can really screw you up. There's no evidence whatsoever that anyone, of any age, has ever been harmed by seeing porn, but there's ample evidence that a repressive religious upbringing is instrumental in turning children into sexually violent adults. I don't care if your kid turns into someone who likes […]
Park's "Physics Plan" Diet
Conservation of Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics are probably the two most important concepts in physics that have thwarted the aspirations and claims of inventors and charlatans for decades. Someday we hope that the public will understand this. WEIGHT-LOSS: SCIENCE CONFIRMS THE “PHYSICS PLAN“. Atkins, Pritikin, Jennie Craig, South Beach, NutriSystem . . […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Pretty Sky Alert
A special notice from Spaceweather.com: PRETTY SKY ALERT: When the sun goes down tonight (Friday, Feb. 27th) step outside and look west. Venus and the crescent Moon are having a beautiful close encounter in the sunset sky. If you point a small telescope at the pair, you will see that Venus, like the Moon, is […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Reich on Income Distribution
The incomes of the top 1 percent have soared for thirty years while median wages have slowed or declined in real terms. As economists Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez have shown, in the 1970s the top-earning 1 percent of Americans took home 8 percent of total income; as recently as 1980 they took home 9 […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Wall-Street Gall: Handy Summary
Making such pronouncements particularly galling is the fact that many of the banks summarily raising interest rates [on credit-card debt] and piling on the penalties have received billions in bailout money. Our money. We gave Citi $45 billion, Bank of America $45 billion, JPMorgan $25 billion, AmEx $3.4 billion, Capital One $3.6 billion, and Discover […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Common-Place Book
Beard of the Week LXXII: Mardi Gras
"Mardis Gras 2002" photo by highstrungloner Today's beard belongs to the attractive gentleman in the leather coat enjoying street festivities during Mardi Gras, 2002, in the Latin Quarter of New Orleans. I might add that the Fu Manchu mustache his companion wears is certainly not chopped liver.* I'm particularly enchanted by the sign for […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Reflections
Penn on Equality and Shame
I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone. –Sean Penn, accepting his Oscar for […]
Beard of the Week LXXI: The Power of Words
This week's iconic beard belongs to Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), 16th President of the United States. As many have noted in this, his bicentennial year, it is also Charles Darwin's bicentennial year: Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same date in the same year.* Last week we looked at […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Reflections
Meteoroids, not Space Debris
SpaceWeather.com (operated by NOAA) reports that people all over the US are seeing meteors and are concerned that it's space debris from that dramatic orbital collision between Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251. Apparently there was also a large meteor seen over Italy that led to similar thoughts. I've also seen reports that the FAA has […]
In: All, Current Events, It's Only Rocket Science
Carol on "State Secrets Protection"
There's not much evidence that "protecting state secrets" ever gets invoked for any purpose other than to prevent embarrassment to officials who have behaved incompetently, irresponsibly, or illegally, but it's a dead cert that it's a source of injustice and erodes freedom. [Avedon Carol, "Let the sun shine", The Sideshow, 12 February 2009]
25 Things About Me
I kept getting tagged to do this meme,* so I thought I'd get it over with and just link to it again in the future as necessary. Unless I keep thinking of things to add to the list, of course. This is not, strictly speaking, a random list of things about me; I don't know […]
Decorative Arts, Spectral
Still in operation, NASA's SOHO (Solar and Heliophysical Observatory) spacecraft orbits the sun (not the Earth) in step with the Earth, by slowly orbiting around the First Lagrangian Point (L1), where the combined gravity of the Earth and Sun keep SOHO in an orbit locked to the Earth-Sun line. The L1 point is approximately 1.5 […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXX: "Disproving" Darwin
This week's beard belongs to birthday boy Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), born 200 years ago on 12 February 1809. This photograph (which I have cropped) was taken in 1882 by the photographic company of Ernest Edwards, London.* Many people call Darwin's great idea, common descent through evolution by means of natural selection, the greatest scientific […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science, Reflections