Archive for the ‘It’s Only Rocket Science’ Category
Doilies & Chaos Theory
Kriston, at Grammar.police posted a fantastic picture of a crocheted sculpture in yarn: "Crocheted Model of Hyperbolic Plane" (1970s) by Daina Taimina. (He references this original article: "Crocheting the Hyperbolic Plane: An Interview with David Henderson and Daina Taimina") His reaction: When I saw the images of Taimina's crocheted hyperbolic figures, I was immediately struck […]
In: All, Hermeneutics, It's Only Rocket Science
Illegal but Very Cheap
Here's another for the innumeracy files. I heard on the radio today news that the Feds had "slapped" Wal-Mart with a fine of $11 Million to settle claims that Wal-Mart had illegally hired undocumented aliens. The spokesman for the Feds was deliriously happy with this result, evidently because it was the largest fine in the […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Rock into Rocket Scientist
My new motto: I evolved from a rock into a rocket scientist. Evolutionists may need billions of years to make people believe a rock can turn into a rocket scientist, but that time just isn’t available. [Dr. Kent Hovind, aka "Dr. Dino", from Universe Is Not "Billions of Years" Old, to be found on his […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Scientific Truth
Mark, the "Moderate Liberal", wrote a good piece called "The War Against Evolution", trying to understand, as I do with very little success, the anti-science forces at work in the USA today. It's all very trying (the anti-scientism, not Mark's essay). He and I, who both have degrees in Physics and are therefore part of […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Notes to Richard
Most are Average
From "Framing The GOP", by Parker Blackman (which I read at TomPaine.com), this stunning tautology: Most Americans are moderate in their views; extremism on either side of the political spectrum makes them uncomfortable. I've known for some time that most people don't have any sort of feeling for statistical concepts, and few of them seem […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Identity Theft
The problem of identity theft, a topic newly current after revelations about ChoicePoint and a "breach of security", was the subject of dueling opinion pieces today in USA Today. First, a few excerpts from the editorial piece that sets the context and says something that I think is a little more complicated than the editors […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Quartos
Exactly How Many?
From The Los Angeles Times story U.S. to Overhaul Training of Iraqi Forces, reporting on the confirmation hearings of Condi Rice as Secretary of State, comes this extraordinary statement: The Pentagon wants to train about 135,000 police officers, 62,000 national guardsmen, 24,000 army troops and others for a security force totaling 271,041. What is extraordinary […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Quartos, Splenetics
The Top 1%
Indulge me in just a couple more quotations from Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. First, for later use in writing about epidemic innumeracy and its threat to the public, this alarming but illustrative statistic (p. 302): Are you in the top 1% of earners? 19% of Americans say "yes"! (This […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Splenetics
The Value of Stocks
I've been toying lately with the idea of becoming an economist. It doesn't seem all that hard from what I can tell, and it seems the easiest route to winning a Nobel prize–much easier than, say, physics–since they seem to give them to economists who do the best job of pretending to be a scientist. […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Notes to Richard
Faux Facts
An editorial in The Charlotte [NC] Observer (Oct. 17, 2004), while detailing very good reasons why these former supporters [i.e., the newspaper] of Bush will support Kerry in this election, makes the following statement: The president's tax cuts, combined with increased federal spending, did help the economic recovery. Stop press! I know that newspapers like […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science