Totally safe for work (in that way), but you may want to turn down your sound, unless you work with a lot of Hendrix fans.
Hey, I’ve used weird things for picks, too.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes.
Finch meets guitar
March 17, 2010
Leave a Comment » | 
Art, Humor, Music, Video and film | Tagged: Art, Guitars, Humor, Music, video, Zebra Finches | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Happy Madison’s birthday! Nation expresses revulsion at Texas education follies, Part 1
March 17, 2010Tuesday, March 16 was the 259th anniversary of the birth of James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, the sponsor of the Bill of Rights, the life-long campaigner for good government based on knowledge of the errors of history, especially in the area of religious freedom.
Under social studies standards proposed by the Texas State Board of Education, Texas students will never study Madison’s views, or Madison’s Constitution, without intervention by their parents or good teachers who run some risk to teach the glories of American history to students.
Newspaper stories across the nation concentrated on Madison’s birthday expressed revulsion and rejection of the crabbed and cramped views of the Texas SBOE, and the cup of revulsion runneth over.
For example, the attempted evisceration and hobbling of science standards occurred last year, but the editorial cartoon in USA Today reached back to remind us just what is going on in Austin.
By Scott Stantis, Chicago Tribune, for USA TODAY, March 16, 2010
More comment to come.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Christina Castillo Comer.
2 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, American Revolution, Economics, Education, Education quality, Evolution, History, Science, Social Studies, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: Economics, Education, education standards, Evolution, History, Science, Social Studies, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Jerry Coyne in San Marcos: Why evolution is true, even if some Texans don’t think so
March 17, 2010Steve Schafersman sends along a press release; Texas college biology departments continue to advance science and education despite foggings from the State Board of Education. Odd thought: You can be relatively certain that you can avoid Don McLeroy, David Bradley or Cynthia Dunbar, by being at the Alkek Library Teaching Theatre on the evening of March 23; learning will be occurring there at that time, and so it is a cinch that the leaders of the Austin Soviet will not be there:
Evolution expert to deliver lecture at Texas State
SAN MARCOS — Jerry A. Coyne, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, will present an evening talk and book signing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 23, at the Alkek Library Teaching Theatre on the campus of Texas State University-San Marcos.
Jerry Coyne and friend (image stolen from Larry Moran's Sandwalk; pretty sure he won't mind)
Coyne’s presentation is titled Why Evolution is True (and why many think that it’s not) and is based on his latest similarly-titled book.
Admission is free and doors will open at 6:30 p.m. A book signing with light refreshments will take place following the lecture.
Coyne is an evolutionary biologist whose work focuses on understanding the origin of species. He has written more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject.
In addition, he is a regular contributor to The New Republic, the Times Literary Supplement, and other periodicals. He runs the popular Why Evolution is True blog, and is an internationally known defender of evolution and critic of creationism and intelligent design.
The book Why Evolution is True has received widespread praise for providing a clear explanation of evolution, while succinctly summarizing the facts supporting this revolutionary theory.
Coyne’s lecture is sponsored by the Department of Biology and the Philosophy Dialogue Series at Texas State. Contact Noland Martin (512) 245-3317 for more information. For more information about Coyne and his book, please visit his blog: http://www.jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu. [and Why Evolution is True]
This lecture is part of a larger series on philosophy and science, featuring a few lectures that appear designed solely to irritate P. Z. Myers:
Philosophy dialogue to take up evolution, identity
Texas State philosopher Jeffrey Gordon will be among the speakers at the university’s Philosophy Dialogue Series in the next two weeks. Texas State photograph.
STAFF REPORT
The Philosophy Dialogue Series at Texas State will present evolution and identity as its discussion topic for the next two weeks in Room 132 of the Psychology Building on campus.
Following is the schedule of events, giving the discussion titles, followed by the speakers.
March 16: 12:30 p.m. – Evolution and the Culture Wars, Victor Holk and Paul Valle (Dialogue students). 3:30 p.m. – Arabic Culture 101: What You Need to Know, Amjad Mohammad (Arabic Language Coordinator).
March 17: 2 p.m. – Phenomenology of Humor, Jeffrey Gordon (Philosophy)
March 18: 12:30 p.m. – Stayin’ Alive: Does the Self Survive? Blaze Bulla and Sky Rudd (Dialogue students).
March 19: 10 a.m. – Sustainability group, topic be announced, Laura Stroup (Geography). 12:30 p.m. – Talk of the Times, open forum.
March 23: 12:30 p.m. – Evolution: An Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion, Harvey Ginsberg (Psychology), Peter Hutcheson (Philosophy), Kerrie Lewis (Anthropology), Rebecca Raphael (Philosophy & Religious Studies). Special guest panelist, Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago (Evolutionary Biology). Evening lecture – Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago, time and place to be announced.
March 25: 12:30 p.m. – Constructing a Masculine Christian Identity: Sex, Gender, and the Female, and Martyrs of Early Christianity, L. Stephanie Cobb, Hofstra University (Religion and Women’s Studies).
March 26: 10 a.m. – Sustainability Group: Civic Ecology, and The Human Rights of Sustainability, Vince Lopes (Biology), Catherine Hawkins (Social Work). 12:30 p.m. – Talk of the Times, open forum.
Sponsors of the Philosophy Dialogue Series include: the American Democracy Project, the College of Liberal Arts, Common Experience, the Gina Weatherhead Dialogue Fund, the New York Times, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Phi Sigma Tau, University Seminar, the University Honors Program, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Vice President for Student Affairs.
For more information about this topic, contact Beverly Pairett in the Department of Philosophy at (512) 245-2285, or email philosophy@txstate.edu. A complete schedule of discussion topics and presentations can be found at http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/dialogue-series/Dialogue-Schedule.html.
Probably can’t make it to San Marcos from Dallas on a school night. San Marcos biology and social studies students, and teachers, should plan to be there.
2 Comments | Biology, Books, Education, Evolution, Science, Science and faith, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science | Tagged: Biology, Books, Education, Evolution, Jerry Coyne, Philosophy, Science, Texas, Texas State University - San Marcos, Why Evolution Is True | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Is this a hoax? Sarah Palin works to make Alan Grayson a legend
March 16, 2010Here in Texas we haven’t gotten over the loss of Charlie Wilson. Wilson’s exploits fairly told themselves — you didn’t even need Molly Ivins to write it up for you to make it clear just how funny it was. And patriotic.
Sarah Palin visited Florida recently, and to hear this account, she’s doing her best to make Alan Grayson, the genuinely-sometimes-rogue Democratic Member of Congress, a legend.
Whose side is she on, again?
Of course, according to this account in Buzz, the blog of the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald, the chief author of Grayson’s legend status is Grayson himself. Do you think Grayson actually wrote this? Can this account possibly be accurate?
March 14, 2010Ever outlandish, Alan Grayson tops himself with Sarah Palin rant
Actual campaign e-mail from U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando.
Subject: Palin Attacks Grayson; Grayson Applies Calamine Lotion to the Resulting Reddish Skin
On Friday night, Sarah Palin came to Orlando, and attacked Rep. Alan Grayson. This is what she said:
“I got to meet quite a few candidates who are lining up in a contested primary who want to take out Alan Grayson. And I think Alan Grayson — what can you say about Alan Grayson? Piper is with me tonight, so I won’t say anything about Alan Grayson that can’t be said around children. [Good one, Sarah!] But thank you, Florida, for allowing candidates in a contested primary to duke it out over ideas and principles and values, all with the same goal, and that is unseating those who have such a disconnect from the people of America. That’s what the goal is here in this race against Alan Grayson. Please fight hard, and do this for the rest of the country. Fight hard, and send a conservative to Washington, DC.”
Palin, the former half-term Governor, current-nothing and future-even-less, charmed the all-Republican audience with her folksy folksiness and her homespun homespunnery. Atypically, Palin was wearing clothes that she had paid for herself. At the end of the event, she shared her recipe for mooseface pie.In response to Palin’s attack on Rep Grayson, Grayson actually complimented Palin. Grayson praised Palin for having a hand large enough to fit Grayson’s entire name on it. He thanked Palin for alleviating the growing shortage of platitudes in Central Florida.
Grayson added that Palin deserved credit for getting through the entire hour-long program without quitting. Grayson also said that Palin really had mastered Palin’s imitation of Tina Fey imitating Palin. Grayson observed that Palin is the most-intelligent leader that the Republican Party has produced since George W. Bush.
When asked to comment about what effect Palin’s criticism might have, Grayson pointed out, “As the Knave’s horse says in Alice in Wonderland, ‘dogs will believe anything.'” Earlier, as the Orlando Sentinel reported, Grayson said, “I’m sure Palin knows all about politics in Central Florida, since from her porch she can see Winter Park,” which is part of Grayson’s district.
Grayson said that the Alaskan chillbilly was welcome to return to Central Florida anytime, as long as she brings lots of money with her, and spends it. “I look forward to an honest debate with Governor Palin on the issues, in the unlikely event that she ever learns anything about them,” Grayson added, alluding to Politifact’s “liar, liar, pants on fire” evaluation of much of what Palin has said.
Scientists are studying Sarah Palin’s travel between Alaska and Florida carefully. They hope to learn more about the flight patterns of that elusive migratory species, the wild Alaskan dingbat.
Posted by Alex Leary at 07:27:56 PM on March 14, 2010
Dick Tuck’s ghost rubs his hands with glee (and Tuck isn’t even dead yet). Thousands of Americans outside of Florida wish they could vote for him, or someone very much like him.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Sarah Ann Maxwell.
7 Comments | Accuracy, Humor, Politics | Tagged: Alan Grayson, Charlie Wilson, Dick Tuck, Humor, Politics, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Boulder and Fort Collins: Wise city action prevents global warming? WUWT misreports the story
March 15, 2010This is a story of two cities located within 100 miles of each other in Colorado, in that paradise created by close mountain recreation, clean and clear western vistas, and local, great universities. The question is, does this story tell a tale of urban growth that mistakenly shows up as global warming, or is it a story of wise planning that avoids the harms of global warming — or something else in between, or completely different?
Boulder, Colorado at twilight, at the foot of the Rockies – Wikipedia Image by Phil Armitage
Anthony Watts complained that I don’t read his blog closely enough, or often enough. He may rue the day he made that complaint.
Browsing over there I found a post hidden under a headline, “A UHI Tale of Two Cities.” I say “hidden” because Watts once again falls victim to the Dunning-Kruger syndrome of using an acronym, UHI, which sounds sciency but is in fact confusing to anyone not following the debate closely. I’m science literate, I’ve done research, I’ve done air pollution research, I’ve served state, federal and local governmental bodies working on environmental issues, and “UHI” didn’t ring any bells with me. It’s a MEGO phrase, in other words: My Eyes Glaze Over.
It took five clicks, but I discovered UHI is “urban heat island,” the well-worried-over effect of cities, with all their concrete, asphalt and steel, holding heat longer than surrounding countryside. In some cases, it is hypothesized that these urban heat islands affect or create their own weather. In the airline industry we worried about late afternoon thunderstorms that continued well past historical evening limits (and I suspect airline meteorologists and flight schedulers still worry about the issue, but I’ve been out of it for well over a decade).
For the study of global warming, the issues are simple but important: Do temperature measures made in or near big cities inaccurately show warming that is wholly local, and mislead scientists into thinking there is global warming? Or is some of the supposed heat island effect instead due to global warming? And, if it the urban heat island effect is mostly local, should we worry about it when developing policies to combat global warming and preserve our forests, wildlands and wildlife, wildernesses. oceans, rivers, farmlands and urban areas, and modern life?
Southwest quadrant of Boulder Colorado, showing greenbelt and trails – image from city website with information on greenbelt use and open space regulations, and maps. Boulder’s greenbelt open space and wild lands may get more visitors than nearby Rocky Mountain National Park.
In the post at Watts’s site, this is stated (from Watts? from someone else? Who can tell?):
Conclusion:
We have two weather stations in similarly sited urban environments. Until 1965 they tracked each other very closely. Since then, Fort Collins has seen a relative increase in temperature which tracks the relative increase in population. UHI is clearly not dead.
Watts misses much of the story.
In the middle 1960s and into the early 1970s Boulder, Colorado, made conscious and careful attempts to preserve its environmental quality. In 1967 Boulder created a greenbelt plan that started the processes to preserve an open space belt around the city, to preserve wild lands and to provide a sink for air pollutants and other effects of the city. In the early 1970s the city limited city growth to assure environmental quality.
Alternatives to Growth Oregon (AGO) featured an excerpt from a book detailing several growth-controlling actions by American cities as well and succinctly as anything else I’ve found (excerpted from Better Not Bigger by Eben Fodor)
In 1967, Boulder voters approved one of the nation’s first locally funded greenbelt systems. They used a local sales tax increase of 0.4 percent to finance open space land acquisitions. As of 1998, Boulder had raised $116 million and acquired 33,000 acres of greenways and mountain parks. The greenbelt system serves as a natural growth boundary, defining the limits of the city with open space and parkland. This natural boundary helps to block urban sprawl and “leapfrog” development. The greenbelt has also helped protect the quality of life in Boulder as the city has grown. It is said that more people use the greenbelt system each year than visit nearby Rocky Mountain National Park. As an added measure, Boulder established a building height limitation of 55 feet in 1971 to preserve the view of the Rockies. The city and surrounding county have cooperated on planning and growth-management policies and jointly adopted the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. A city-county study in 1970 showed the area’s population doubling in 20 years to 140,000. This projection alarmed many residents and prompted discussions about optimum population size. A public opinion survey found that more than 70 percent of respondents favored population stabilization near the 100,000 level.
In November, 1971 Boulder citizens set another first when they placed an initiative on the ballot to create a charter amendment setting a maximum population limit for the city. Voters narrowly defeated the initiative. The defeat may have been partly due to an alternative referendum placed on the same ballot by the city council. This second referendum was approved by 70 percent of voters and directed local government to “take steps necessary to hold the rate of growth in the Boulder Valley to a level substantially below that experiences in the 1960’s.” This important decision has led to a number of experimental growth-management policies that are still being fine-tuned today.
More information on greenbelts, how they work and why they are such a great idea, can be found from the Trust for Public Lands (also here), among other sources.
Fort Collins is a college town, like Boulder, and loaded with people interested in preserving the environment. Colorado State is the state’s Land Grant College (Morrill Act), the official repository of studies of protecting and wisely using the lands of Colorado. But Fort Collins did not create a green belt. Development in Fort Collins follows rules, but rules set by more traditional zoning and protection regulations than Boulder’s green belt.
Exploring Old Town Fort Collins by bicycle – City of Fort Collins photo
Watts’s blog lays the differences in temperatures between Boulder and Fort Collins since 1965 entirely at the feet of rising population, and an assumption that rising population means more concrete, asphalt and steel (Watts writing, or someone else?). Analysis of population growth from any serious statistical viewpoint, comparing Fort Collins-Loveland SMSA against the Boulder MSA (or Denver-Boulder SMSA) is lacking. This is probably more a reminder that Watts’s blog is not engaged in serious scientific analysis global warming from a global view — nor even a national, state or regional view. The comparison is simple, on population and temperature, and probably not sustainable to the point Watts suggests he wants to take it.
The population of the City of Boulder grew less than the population of the City of Fort Collins grew. That appears to be enough for Watts.
Check with the public officials of Boulder, especially those in charge of development and zoning. They’ll let you know in a hurry that Boulder’s slower-than-Fort-Collins growth is intentional. While the Boulder plan technically has no upper limit, it slows growth so that environmental quality can be maintained, especially the greenbelt, with its manifold recreation opportunities.
Fort Collins has a lot of good recreation, too. The Cache de Poudre River offers great river running within 40 minutes of downtown in the summer, and the local National Forests and other public lands offer camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, and I imagine, snowmobiling in winter. There are bike paths through Fort Collins — but not the green, automobile-free style of trails available all around Boulder.
Scouts climbing at Camp Ben DelaTour, outside of Fort Collins – Longs Peak Council BSA photo
Perhaps most important, Fort Collins experiences “leapfrog” development that Boulder specifically spurned 40 years ago. New businesses cluster along roads into town, frequently just out of the city limits and beyond the zoning rules of the city, at least until the city annexes the land and its problems. This is the traditional growth model for American cities. What it ensures is urban sprawl and suburban growth. It also virtually guarantees that there will be no preserved greenlands around the city. Green land, rural or more wild, get developed in sprawl.
Here’s the question Watts and his collaborators don’t deal with: How much of Boulder’s cooler climate is due to the greenbelt, and how much due to the striving for wise development instead of sprawl? Considering Boulder’s proximity to Denver and explosive growth there, the fact that Boulder’s climate is cooler than Fort Collins’s, according to Watts, suggests even more strongly that tough protection of the environment can work wonders, if not near-miracles.
Who is Anthony Watts to claim that Boulder’s cooler climate is not the result of careful planning to preserve the environment, initiated by Boulder’s visionaries 50 years ago?
Perhaps more critically: Doesn’t Boulder demonstrate that planning that stops global warming, is feasible, practical, economical, and perhaps, preferable? Doesn’t the greenbelt, and lower temperatures, suggest that we can kill the urban heat island effect, to the betterment of local living standards?
There is a moral to the story of development in Fort Collins and Boulder, Colorado. That moral has very little, if anything, to do with heat islands. It is instead a model to tell us that planning to avoid environmental disaster is the wise thing to do. Anthony Watts has the charts to prove it.
Notes:
- A serious study of the effects of the greenbelt, or effects of population growth, on local climate, or on global warming, in the area along the Front Range in Colorado and Wyoming would probably be strengthened with analysis of Greeley and Denver thrown in. Denver is big enough to contain a couple of universities; Greeley is home to Northern Colorado University (as Fort Collins and Boulder are homes to Colorado State and the University of Colorado, respectively). Growth in Greeley, a prairie, farming and beef ranching town (and former utopian destination of easterners headed west), differs markedly from Fort Collins, founded as a military outpost to protect the Overland Trail and other commerce routes through the Rockies, and Boulder, largely a mining town. Similarities and differences between the cities could be instructive, especially considering the proximity of each to the others.
- Boulder gets its water from a glacier, a point that shouldn’t be lost in discussions of global warming
- City of Boulder’s officials and advisors, and Copenhagen 15 — the city took what it regarded as an active role to combat warming
- Watts visited Boulder to check out its weather stations; his photos show the station, near the NOAA headquarters, close to the green belt. “Sometimes people smack into the truth, and then pick themselves up and walk off as if nothing had happened.” Watts said construction near the site demonstrated “expansion pressures.”
- From Boulder, it’s 38 miles to Fort Collins, and 38 miles to Greeley. Greeley and Fort Collins are 19 miles apart. From Denver it’s 26 miles to Boulder, 47 to Greeley and 55 to Fort Collins.
- Two-needled ponderosa pines live outside of Fort Collins, to the northwest. Most pines have odd numbers of needles, and ponderosa typically have five needles.
Update, James Madison Day (3-16-2010): Watts still doesn’t get it. In a post today he wrote:
My last few posts have described a new method for quantifying the average Urban Heat Island (UHI) warming effect as a function of population density, using thousands of pairs of temperature measuring stations within 150 km of each other. The results supported previous work which had shown that UHI warming increases logarithmically with population, with the greatest rate of warming occurring at the lowest population densities as population density increases.
Comparing Fort Collins with Boulder, and noting that Fort Collins grew faster, is an inadequate explanation for more warming in Fort Collins, about 40 miles north of Boulder. Boulder has a greenbelt designed to frustrate global warming, locally and globally. To fail to account for the effect of a massive green belt of 33,000 acres — more than double the size of the city’s 16,000 acres — is a failure of science. If Watts’s methodology misses such factors that slap an unbiased viewer in the face, you’ve gotta wonder what else he’s missing. If he can’t see a greenbelt twice the size of the city, surrounding the city, what else has he overlooked?
Plus there is this: Assume for a moment that he proves a heat island effect exists (a proposal unquestioned in meteorology and atmospheric sciences for a generation, by the way) — the question he’s seeking to prove is that urban heat islands skew official temperature readings enough to falsely indicate global warming. To skew measurements that include thousands of at-sea sensing devices, and rural areas around the world, there would have to be an massive effect that would be immediately obvious in the cities causing the effect: They would melt.
Flatirons rock formations, on Green Mountain, near Boulder, Colorado – Wikimedia photo by Jesse Varner
Help others find wisdom for their cities:
21 Comments | Clean Water Act, Climate change, climate_change, Environmental protection, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Natural history, Natural resources, Outdoor Recreation, Politics, Urbanization | Tagged: Boulder, Climate change, Colorado, Environmental protection, Fort Collins, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Politics, Research, UHI, Urban Heat Island, Urbanization | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Voice of America on Rachel Carson
March 14, 2010Broadcast from March 13, 2010; transcript and link to MP3 version of the broadcast, here.
A few minor errors, but overall a good history of Rachel Carson and DDT.
Leave a Comment » | DDT, Environmental protection, Government, Rachel Carson, Radio, Research, Science, Wildlife | Tagged: Biology, DDT, Environmental protection, Rachel Carson, Science, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Voice of America, Wildlife | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Great animation: “The Chesnut Tree”
March 14, 2010Wonderful film from 2007, by Hyun-min Lee. I found it on PBS World this weekend, and then found a YouTube version.
Watch it with your young children.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsS4Tk-lrxo]
Leave a Comment » | animation, Cartoons, children, Video and film | Tagged: animation, Cartoons, children, film, Hyun-min Lee, Mothers, The Chesnut Tree | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
How will you celebrate James Madison’s birthday? What happened to James Madison Week at JMU
March 14, 2010James Madison joined the world on March 16, 1751. Tuesday is the 259th anniversary of his birth.
James Madison University, appropriately, made hoopla during the whole week in 2009. What about this year?
Exhibit: Creating the United States”
David Edwin (1776–1841). James Madison, President of the United States. Engraving after painting by Thomas Sully. Philadelphia: W.H. Morgan, ca.1809–1817. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (107.01.00)
James Madison’s Orange County home offers free admission all day Tuesday in honor of the fourth president’s 259th birthday.
Born 1751 at Port Conway in King George while on a visit to his grandmother, Madison was raised at Montpelier, the oldest of 12 children. He is buried on the grounds of his lifelong home in the family cemetery, site of a special ceremony in honor of his birthday March 16 at 1:30 p.m.
Former Deputy Secretary of Education Eugene Hickock will deliver remarks at the cemetery along with Quantico Marine Corps Base Chief of Staff Col. Thompson Gerke, who will lay a wreath on the fourth president’s grave on behalf of President Barack Obama. Numerous other groups will also honor Madison by placing wreaths on his grave Tuesday.
The U.S. Marine Corps has a long-standing tradition of attending the annual birthday ceremony because of Madison’s connection to the naval force’s founding. As Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson, Madison recommended sending a squadron of naval ships to fight pirates off the coast of Africa, ultimately leading to their demise by 1805.
As president, Madison again called on the Marines to lead the nation during the War of 1812.
Nice of the Marines to show. Nice of President Obama to send a wreath. Maybe we can understand why Republicans wish to avoid any celebration of Madison.
Resources:
- Calendar of events from Montpelier
- Information about the celebration from the State of Virginia travel office; “Montpelier is the lifelong home of James Madison, Father of the Constitution, architect of the Bill of Rights, and president of the United States. Now that the home’s recent $25 million architectural restoration is complete, visitors can see the progress of “A Presidential Detective Story: Rediscovering the Furnishings and Décor of James and Dolley Madison” through daily guided tours. They can also participate in hands-on activities, and archaeology; stroll the grounds; and take in the many galleries and other attractions on the 2,650-acre estate. To learn more, visit http://www.montpelier.org. Date/Hours: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (9:00 AM-4:00 PM”
- Steven Waldman’s lament in the Wall Street Journal last year about the lack of respect Madison gets; Waldman overstates Madison’s role in religious freedom barely. Waldman’s right. We should pay more attention to Madison.
- Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub post from last year, featuring the National Guard’s poster honoring National Guardsman Col. James Madison of the Virginia Militia
- My essay on the importance of Madison in America’s founding, “James Madison: Go-to Guy”
- More from the Bathtub: “Meet James Madison”
- MFB post with links to Founders Online
- The Newseum and the First Amendment Center celebrate the 12th annual Freedom of Information Day on March 15, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.; seminar from 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.; “What has become of Freedom of Information?”
1 Comment | Bill of Rights, First Amendment, Heroes, History, Human Rights, Icons of history, James Madison, Presidents, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Father of the Constitution, First Amendment, founders, History, James Madison, James Madison's Birthday, March 16, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Warming and science denialists stuck with political egg on their predictions
March 14, 2010If they are honorable people, they wish they could take it back.
John Hinderaker at Powerline, November 23, 2009:
At the end of 2008, the scientists at East Anglia predicted that 2009 would be one of the warmest years on record:
On December 30, climate scientists from the UK Met Office and the University of East Anglia projected 2009 will be one of the top five warmest years on record. Average global temperatures for 2009 are predicted to be 0.4∞C above the 1961-1990 average of 14 ∫ C. A multiyear forecast using a Met Office climate model indicates a rapid return of global temperature to the long-term warming trend, with an increasing probability of record temperatures after 2009.
We know now that the alarmists’ prediction for 2009 didn’t come true. What’s interesting is that in January of this year, another climate alarmist named Mike MacCracken wrote to Phil Jones and another East Anglia climatologist, saying that their predicted warming may not occur . . .
Hinderaker quoting Anthony Watts’ chest thumping at Watts Up With That. In November, with cool weather in the local forecasts, they thought that 2009 would turn out to be a cold year, climate wise, and so they were demanding that climate scientists retract predictions and claims based on the data at hand. Watts was averaging his thermometer readings before they thermometers had been read.
Oops.
Here’s what actually happened:
NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2010
2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.
From NASA: "This map shows the 10-year average (2000-2009) temperature anomaly relative to the 1951-1980 mean. The largest temperature increases are in the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula. (Image credit: NASA/GISS)"
I’ve been hunting for retractions from Powerline and WUWT, but haven’t found them yet. Has anyone else seen the retractions from these guys, for accuracy’s sake, for the record? Hinderaker blogged the issue as recently as February 2, but mistook the continued warmness as a ‘lack of additional warming.’ Really. Hinderaker’s consistency in error is profound, with six or more posts on the issue since November 23, and not one noting his glaring error, each one assuming his error does not exist. It is a consistency striven for only by hobgoblins of no mind.
Hinderaker said in that November post:
Climate science is in its infancy, and every proposition is controversial. What climate scientists like those at East Anglia don’t know dwarfs what they do know. They can produce a model for every occasion, but are the models any good? If so, which one? One thing we know for sure is that they don’t generate reliable predictions. In every scientific field other than global warming, a scientific hypothesis that generates false predictions is considered disproved. When it comes to global warming, however, there is no such thing as falsification. Which is the ultimate evidence that the alarmist scientists are engaged in a political enterprise, not a scientific one.
Really? Political commentary on climate science is in its infancy, and every proposition is controversial, even those that should not be. What ill-informed and sometimes ignorant, belligerent pundits like those at Powerline and Watts Up don’t know dwarfs what they do know. They can’t produce a model for any occasion, but they will ask as if they had anything to add other than heckling, “are the models any good? If so, which one?” One thing we know for sure is that they don’t generate accuracy in reporting or trustworthy claims. In every scientific field other than global warming, a scientific hypothesis that generates false predictions is considered disproved. When it comes to global warming’s critics and outright denialists, however, there is no such thing as falsification. There is, so far, no such thing as an honorable confession of error, either. In political commentary, anyone who makes a prediction in late November that is exactly wrong when the numbers are tallied two months later, should have the grace to make a concession speech. These ravings, and failure to strive for accuracy when error is apparent, provide ultimate evidence that the contrarians and denialists are not scientists, and are engaged in a political enterprise, not a scientific one. Hinderaker and Watts give their readers voodoo science at its most voodoo. They could not fail to know what they post is hoax, even if they were sucked in at first.
Even if they read this and understand it’s true and accurate, I’ll wager you won’t see any errata notices from either Watts or Hinderaker.
More, I’ll wager no one would take such a wager, not even their defenders.
Do all climate contrarians all take their marching orders from the faxes and e-mails from the GOP National Committee?
Not one of the contrarian’s work could survive half the scrutiny Phil Jones or Michael Mann has had since their server was broken into.
P.S.: These guys at Powerline have a very twisted streak, you know?
“Steve [Hayward] is also the author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. The fourteenth edition of the Index was published in April by the Pacific Research Institute to coincide with Earth Day and Lenin’s birthday; it is accessible in PDF here.”
Why is the Pacific Research Institute timing a report to coincide with Lenin’s birthday? Why would Hinderaker even joke about it? No scientist is checking that date. No Democrat is. It’s like these guys study the old communists and fascists, not as a learning exercise to find mistakes to avoid as Santayana urged, but to steal the methods of the Stalinists and fascists. More snark than sense, more snark than science, at Powerline and the Pacific Research Institute.
Ask others to join the campaign for accurate science:
43 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, climate_change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, Climate change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Political Smears, Politics, Powerline, Research, Research Errors, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, What's Up With That | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Typewriter of the moment: Helen Keller
March 14, 2010Helen Keller at her typewriter, with Polly Thompson, 1933 - American Foundation for the Blind photo
Caption from the American Foundation for the Blind: “This photograph, taken in their home, shows Helen and Polly in front of two large windows. The light is bright outside, and the curtains on the windows are pulled back. Helen is sitting at her typewriter, describing something with her hands to Polly, who is leaning towards her, smiling. Helen has on a dark dress with small light flowers and white trim on the neck and cuffs. Polly is wearing a long black dress, with a white pearl necklace.”
Moral of the photo: “So don’t tell me you can’t do it.” “So don’t tell me you don’t have time to write.” “If Helen Keller could write books on a typewriter — she who could neither see nor hear — I don’t want any excuse from you that has the word ‘can’t’ in it.”
What moral, or other rant, would you propose?
5 Comments | History, Technology, Typewriters | Tagged: 1933, Helen Keller, History, Technology, typewriter | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Quote of the moment: Bertrand Russell, on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, 64 years prescient
March 14, 2010
Lord Bertrand Russell in a BBC Radio studio,circa 1940 – BBC Radio 4 image
The trouble with the world
is that the stupid are cocksure
and the intelligent
are full of doubt.
– Bertrand Russell, The Triumph of Stupidity in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell’s American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998), p. 28
With these words Russell stated, in 1935, a phenomenon observed and chronicled by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, in research at Cornell University, published in 1999 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments” reported on research they had conducted on subjects at Cornell. The effect they observed is generally called, after them, the Dunning-Kruger Effect. According to the abstract:
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of the participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)
In other words,
- Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
- Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
- Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
- If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
Thus, the Dunning-Kruger effect explains the existence and arguments of creationists, climate change denialists, Tea Baggers and birthers, and the actions of the right-wing historical revisionist faction of the Texas State Board of Education, and provides Monty Python’s Flying Circus with volumes of new material each month, should they ever care to revive the program.
More:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Mal Adapted, commenting at Open Mind.
Broadcast the news:
20 Comments | Dunning-Kruger Effect, History, psychology, Quotes, Rampant stupidity, Research | Tagged: Bertrand Russell, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Incompetence, Philosophy, Quotes, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
OK Go – copyright, industry change, culture and technology, and great music
March 13, 2010You’re internet and culture savvy — you probably already know all about this stuff.
OK Go’s music appeals to many. The appeal convinced a major record label, Capitol/EMI, to sign the band to a deal. OK Go worked hard to promote the music of the band, including videos. Capitol looked at the videos, intensely creative works of art on their own, and pulled in the reins. Okay to show the vids, the label said, but don’t allow downloads . . .
Minor twist on the old band meets label, band wins label story: OK Go got out of the contract. They lost the label.
Now they’ve got an astounding new video to go viral, one that simply delights younger viewers and brings in older viewers with whispers of “shades of Rube Goldberg!” (Who was Rube Goldberg? Younger readers go here.)
After the overwhelming success of the video for its 2006 song “Here It Goes Again,” in which its four band members execute a tightly choreographed dance routine built around a handful of treadmills, OK Go has lofty standards to live up to. With roughly 50 million views on YouTube, “Here It Goes Again” stands as one of the most popular music videos of the Internet era.
Not one to shy away from a challenge, the band set about constructing a painstakingly executed two-story Rube Goldberg machine, set to trigger in time to the music for its latest video, “This Too Shall Pass.” Although it starts out small, with a toy truck knocking over some dominoes, the contraptions that make up the machine rapidly get larger and much more complex — pianos are dropped, shopping carts come crashing down ramps, and one band member is launched headlong through a wall of boxes. After assembling a team of dozens of engineers to construct the set, more than 60 takes were needed to get everything working just right during filming.
Toughest part? EMI, parent of Capitol, didn’t want to allow downloads of the music or video.
The band’s label, EMI, didn’t see things the same way. In an effort to maintain some control over the dissemination of the music video, EMI denied listeners the ability to embed it on their own Web sites and blogs. After receiving a deluge of complaints, the band eventually persuaded EMI to enable embedding. Soon afterward, however, OK Go parted ways with EMI to start its own record label, Paracadute.
NPR’s audio story is six minutes of fun, and learning. Copyright, embedding and download issues — aren’t these the frontlines of new media legal discussion?
Personal quandary: I’m not sure that I don’t like this version of the song, with the Notre Dame marching band, better than the Rube Goldberg version. What do you think?
Personal confession: Problems of mishearing lyrics abound. I listened probably a dozen times thinking the refrain was “When the money comes.” It makes more sense, and is much less cynical and wooish, with the real lyric, “When the morning comes.”
More:
- OK Go’s website — with upcoming shows highlighted (Oh, to be in Salt Lake City on April 13, 2010, or St. Louis on April 18 . . .) (From the website: “PS… Oh, fine. More news now: If you can’t get to one of the thirty-plus shows on the upcoming tour, fear not: the boys will be on your TV. In the next month they’ll visit Carson Daly (4/16), David Letterman (4/28), Steven Colbert (4/29), and Jimmies Kimmel (4/1) and Fallon (5/4). They’ll also be at Bamboozle, Bonnaroo and Sasquatch. Some busy months ahead.”)
- Damian Kulash, Jr., (a member of OK Go) explained the legal issues in an opposite-editorial page piece in the New York Times, February 19, 2010. Critically, the bands understand the economics from the big labels’s side, maybe better than the labels do: “My band didn’t sign a contract with EMI because we believed labels magically created stars. We signed because no banker in his right mind would give a band the startup capital it needs.” Go read the rest.
- More about OK Go at NPR
- State Farm Insurance demonstrates some combination of stones and brains in sponsoring the video, don’t you think? BusinessWeek story here.
- Studio 360 Blog contributed a note saying some of the people working to make the machines in the video work are daylight employees of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4 Comments | Business, Business Ethics, Creativity, History, Internet, Law, Music | Tagged: computers, copyright, Downloads, Electronic Media, Entertainment, History, Internet, Music, Music Video, OK Go, This Too Shall Pass, Viral Marketing, Viral Videos | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Birthers claim Obama born in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub in 1853
March 12, 2010With Henry Louis Mencken as his father.
No, that’s not really what they claim (I think; sometimes it’s difficult to tell). But what happened, and how it spread virally through websites of birthers and Obama haters, should provide a moral to someone’s story.
To demonstrate how easy it is to create hoax claims about Obama and birth certificates, somebody created a false MySpace page, and a story of an office supply store employee who helped the Obama campaign generate a false birth certificate.
Birthers jumped on the story as proof that the Obama birth certificate is false. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up. Story at the aptly-named and fully entertaining Oh, For Goodness Sake! which seems dedicated to debunking all the birthers’ craziness (a mother lode of hoaxes and gullibility to be sure).
Santayana’s Ghost wags his finger, and Mencken’s Ghost has gone out in search of stronger beer. You tell ’em it’s voodoo history, you tell ’em it’s a hoax, they still suck it up. Dr. Kate, New Mexico Paralegal, Texas Darlin’, Free Republic, Orly Taitz, Tea Baggers, we know what you are and we don’t want to haggle about the price. We ain’t buyin’.
3 Comments | Accuracy, Birth Certificate, Historic documents, History, Hoaxes, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Presidents, Voodoo history | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Birthers, History, Hoaxes, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas standards for social studies — where to find them
March 11, 2010Texas Tribune quickly establishes itself as a Really Useful journal on Texas politics, especially with features like this summary of the proposed Texas social studies standards, with comments on changes and the history of the changes.
For example, explaining an insulting cut of Texas and African American heroes, Texas Tribune explains:
Tuskegee Airman Commander dumped: Board member McLeroy made the motion to pull Oveta Culp Hobby and Benjamin O. Davis from this standard. Hobby — a Houston newspaper publisher, the director the federal health department in the 1950s, and the wife of Texas Governor William P. Hobby — shows up elsewhere, in the 7th grade curriculum. Davis, however, does not. Davis was the first African-American general in the U.S. Air Force and the commander of the Tuskegee Airmen in the World War II. The board did insert a phrase on the “contributions of the Tuskegee Airman” in the next section.
Straightforward explanation. If it raises your ire, it’s not because the writing is inflammatory, but because the facts are so clearly presented.
Tip of the old scrub brush to the Texas Freedom Network and their e-mail alerts.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education Administration, Education quality, Historic documents, History, History Revisionism, Social Studies, State school boards, TEKS, Texas | Tagged: Benjamin O. Davis, Education, education standards, History, Oveta Culp Hobby, Social Studies, state board of education, Texas, Texas Tribune | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Science bloggers doing it wrong?
March 10, 2010A new paper in the Journal of Science Communication offers a critique of the workings and effectiveness of science bloggers.
Happily for us, the paper is open access, freely available.
The article appears to be from some research for a Ph.D.:
Inna Kouper is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University
Bloomington. Her current research interests lie broadly in the areas of language and information; the role
of science in society; and the evolution of information and communication technologies generally
described as social or participatory media (such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.).
Several bloggers say the paper gets wrong what science bloggers do, and what they should do.
Perhaps — you can read the paper yourself and compare it with the criticism.
I do want to call your attention to a very good feature of the paper. It analyzes postings on 11 of the top science blogs in the world.
1 Pure Pedantry scienceblogs.com/purepedantry
2 Synthesis http://www.synthesis.cc
3 MicrobiologyBytes http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog
4 Wired Science http://www.wired.com/wiredscienc
5 BioEthics blog.bioethics.net
6 DrugMonkey scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey
7 Scientific Activist scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist
8 Pharyngula scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
9 Panda’s Thumb http://www.pandasthumb.org
10 ScienceBlog scienceblog.com
11 Cosmic Variance blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance
How can you tell the paper’s serious? The 11 blogs analyzed do not include any of the junk science blogs, like Uncommon Descent or Watt’s Up With That?
If you listen carefully, you can hear Bill Dembski and Anthony Watts stewing.
3 Comments | History, Journalism, Science, Weblogs | Tagged: Accuracy, blogs, Journalism, Science, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 