March 10, 2010
A couple of months can make a big difference. Can.
A difference which way?
Two months ago the Texas State Board of Education suspended its revamping of social studies standards — the efforts to grind the standards into a right-wing crutch were so controversial that hearings, discussion and amending proposed standards took up more time than allotted. SBOE delayed final votes until March 10.
Today.
Last week Texas voted in primary elections. Several board members’ terms are up. Two incumbents lost primary challenges, Don McLeroy, the Boss Tweed of the right wing cultural war ring, and Geraldine Miller, a long-term veteran from Dallas, whose very conservative views cast her as a moderate among SBOE members. Both are Republicans.
How will those primary losses affect them and their work on the board?
In addition, other members of the culture war ring are retiring, including Cynthia Dunbar. Will the lame ducks be content to vote up the changes urged by history and economic professionals and professional educators, or will they do as McLeroy suggested they need to do earlier, and fight against the recommendations of experts?
How will the lame ducks walk and quack?
Stakes are high. New York Times Magazine featured the culture wars on the cover on Valentine’s Day (you should read the article). Texas Monthly weighed in against the culture wars, too — a surprise to many Texans.
Cynicism is difficult to swim against. I expect McLeroy to try as best he can to make social studies standards a monument to right wing bigotry and craziness. We’ve already seen SBOE vote to delete a wonderful children’s book from even being mentioned because the text author shares a name with a guy who wrote a book on socialism earlier.
Most of us watching from outside of Austin (somebody has to stay back and grade the papers and teach to the test . . .) expect embarrassments. On English and science standards before, the culture war ring tactics were to make a flurry of last-minute, unprinted and undiscussed, unannounced amendments apparently conspired to gut the standards of accuracy (which would not make the right wing political statements they want) and, too often, rigor. Moderates on the board have not had the support mechanisms to combat these tactics successfully — secret e-mail and telephone-available friends standing by to lend advice and language on amendments. In at least two votes opponents of the culture war voted with the ring, not knowing that innocent-sounding amendments came loaded.
In a test of the No True Scotsman argument, religious people will be praying for Texas kids and Texas education. Meanwhile, culture warriors at SBOE will work to frustrate those prayers.
Oy.
Thomas Jefferson toyed with the idea of amendment the U.S. Constitution to provide a formal role for the federal government in guaranteeing education, which he regarded as the cornerstone of freedom and a free, democratic-style republic. Instead, American primary and secondary education are governed by more than 15,000 locally-elected school boards with no guidance from the national government on what should be taught. Alone among the industrial and free nations of the world, the U.S. has no mechanism for rigorous national standards on what should be taught.
For well over a century a combined commitment to educating kids better than their parents helped keep standards high and achievement rising. Public education got the nation through two world wars, and created a workforce that could perform without peer on Earth in producing a vibrant and strong economy.
That shared commitment to quality education now appears lost. Instead we have culture warriors hammering teachers and administrators, insisting that inaccurate views of Jefferson and history be taught to children, perhaps to prevent them from ever understanding what the drive for education meant to freedom, but surely to end Jeffersonian-style influences in the future.
Texas’s SBOE may make the case today that states cannot be trusted with our children’s future, and that we need a national body to create academic rigor to preserve our freedom. Or they will do the right thing.
Voters last week expressed their views that SBOE can’t be trusted to do the right thing. We’re only waiting to see how hard McLeroy is willing to work to put his thumb in the eye of Big Tex.
More:
- Steve Schafersman will live blog the meeting today at http://www.texasobserver.org/stevenschafersman/ . Social studies agenda doesn’t start until 11:00 a.m. Central
- Curricublog from Tony Whitson discusses Texas’s sorry standards, and how the right spins them. Watch this blog generally for good and incisive comments from the meeting; Tony often follows the webcasts, and his writings are always, always informative.
- Texas Freedom Network gives you the background; watch TFN’s blog, TFN Insider, for more timely updates (heck, head over there now and learn a lot about today’s meeting). When you read the New York Times piece, you noted incisive comments by Kathy Miller — she’s the director of TFN. TFN is the tape that has held together the good parts of education standards so far, against the swords of the culture warriors. TFN’s blog will probably be updated through the meeting.
- National Center for Science Education is the always stalwart, working-for-the-good organization on Texas education standards — alas, we’re talking social studies now
- Paul Burka’s story on the culture war, at Texas Monthly
- Fox News’s Shannon Bream cites Jay Sekulow of the Pat Robertson forces urging more cultural war before the will of Texas voters can change things.
- McLeroy won the first annual UpChucky Award from NCSE
- The new, online newspaper, Texas Tribune, covers SBOE very well; watch that space
- Kelly Shackleford’s religious issues group will live blog at their site
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | 
Cargo Cults, Economics, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Government, History, History Revisionism, Rampant stupidity, Social Studies, State school boards, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education | Tagged: Culture Wars, Don McLeroy, Economics, Education, Education reform, Government, History, Rampant stupidity, Social Studies, Texas, Texas State Board of Education, War on Education | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 9, 2010
Sage grouse don’t vote. If they did vote, they’d have a difficult time picking between Democrats and Republicans on their own life and death issues.
Of course, there aren’t enough sage grouse to make much of a difference on election day. That’s the problem.
Courting sage grouse - Photo from Gail Patricelli, University of California - Davis
Last week the U.S. Department of the Interior released a decision on the fate of the sage grouse: Near enough to extinction to merit protection under the Endangered Species Act, but too far down the list of endangered plants and animals to merit action on anything at the moment.
That means that the vanishing habitats of the little, magnificent bird, can be crushed by trucks making tracks across westerns prairies, deserts and mountains searching for oil.
Exxon-Mobil 1, Sage Grouse 0. One might must hope that’s an early game score, and not the population counts.
Jim Tankersly explained the situation, more dispassionately, in The Los Angeles Times:
Reporting from Washington — The Interior Department declared Friday that an iconic Western bird deserves federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, but declined to offer that protection immediately — a split decision that will allow oil and gas drilling to continue across large swaths of the mountainous West.
The department issued a so-called “warranted but precluded” designation for the greater sage grouse, meaning that the bird merits protection but won’t receive it for now because other species are a higher priority.
My childhood was marked by rapidly plummeting bird populations all around us. Stopping the use of DDT benefited some of them, the Endangered Species Act benefited others. Conservation efforts of groups like Ducks Unlimited and the Audubon Society saved others, and helped all of them. While I lived near a great river, a view of a heron, egret or crane is not what I recall from my childhood. Our children know the birds well.
Land birds, like turkeys, are even more rare. Turkeys, mostly in eastern forested areas, at least well out of the Mountain West, made dramatic recoveries with massive aid from state game commissions. I recall one column from the Washington Post’s recently retired hunting and outdoors columnist, Angus Phillips, in which he confessed that with the aid of professional guides paid from the paper’s expense accounts, in more than 15 years of hunting he had heard, but never seen, a wild turkey. This was two weeks after we had come upon a flock just off the side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the first I’d ever seen.
I remembered Phillips’ confession a few months later as I sat in the cold, at dawn, in a field at the Land Between the Lakes preserve of the Tennessee Valley Authority with other staff and members of the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors, when a guide summoned seven magnificent, lustful wild turkey toms to race across a field toward the lustful hen sounds the guide made with a part of a birth control diaphragm as a calling device.
In my years tramping the west for fun, in the months camping with the Scouts, in the professional tramping with the Air Pollution Lab and the Senate and the Utah Wilderness Commission, and just for fun, I’ve never seen a sage grouse.
Whether my children get such an opportunity, and their children, is a decision for the moment left to private interests, especially private groups with a financial stake in trampling out the nestings where the youth of grouse are grown.
Exxon-Mobil, will you and your colleagues go easy on the grouse, please?
More:
- You will enjoy Phillips’ last column, even if you are not a lover of the outdoors. I was happy to see that he no longer complains of never having seen a turkey. He’s also hunted grouse, successfully — though, perhaps not sage grouse. One of the things that makes a great newspaper like the Washington Post a great newspaper, is the assignment of fine and curious writers like Phillips to beats that may appear to be backwaters to too many. Who succeeded him at the Post?
- Western Watersheds, a Wyoming-based group that advocates protection of mountain watersheds in the west, filed a supplement to their 2006 federal suit in Boise, Idaho, to contest part of the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Story from the San Jose Mercury-News. More from the Idaho Statesman.
- Rocky Mountain oil explorers aren’t happy with the decision, either — if it means they still have to be careful, according to the Colorado Independent.
- Nevada wildlife and ranching poobahs are unhappy with the ruling, too – San Francisco Chronicle.
- Christopher Smart writes about the decision in the Salt Lake Tribune (news, not commentary)
- Press release from Western Watersheds at Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife News; commentary on Nevada grousing about the grouse decision, too; Jon Marvel’s comments on the USFWS decision
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
4 Comments | endangered species, Environmental protection, History, Natural history, Research, Science, Wildlife | Tagged: Endangered Species Act, Environmental protection, Government, Natural history, Research, Sage Grouse, Wildlife | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 6, 2010
Three earthquakes in a week do not make a swarm. Interesting that the last post on an earthquake in Oklahoma drew earthquake conspiratorialists and “skeptics.” Too many people distrust all science and sources of information these days.
Here’s the dirt on Oklahoma’s shaking in the last week, from the U.S. Geological Service site:
Earthquake List for Map Centered at 36°N, 97°W
Update time = Sat Mar 6 18:00:02 UTC 2010
Here are the earthquakes in the Map Centered at 36°N, 97°W area, most recent at the top.
(Some early events may be obscured by later ones.)
Click on the underlined portion of an earthquake record in the list below for more information.
This isn’t unusual at all, of course. I think many people just don’t understand that earthquakes happen all the time, but they usually get crowded out of the newspaper because no one really cares.
For contrast, take a look at this animated map of a strip a little wider than Utah, covering from north of the Yellowstone Caldera to Arizona. Run the animation. Generally on any day there will have been at least two dozen earthquakes in the previous week, several magnitude 3, occasionally a magnitude 4 thrown in.
Almost none of those quakes make any news.
Maybe it’s the Earth, laughing. We can hope.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
(Excerpted from “Solitude,” 1917, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919))
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | earthquakes, Geography - Physical, geology, History, Journalism, Natural history, News, Newspapers, Poetry, Science | Tagged: denialism, earthquakes, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, geography, geology, History, Journalism, Oklahoma, Science, Skepticism, Solitude | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 4, 2010
Alexander Stephens, Portage Publications image
Elektratig found the most delightful thing, and wrote about it on his blog — Georgia politician and future vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens wondering about this new guy on the hustings, Abraham Lincoln, and comparing him to Millard Fillmore, in a letter from July 1860. You gotta read it there.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. Real history is always better than fiction. There’s a delightful surprise around every bend of the river.
Also:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Abraham Lincoln, Historic documents, History, Millard Fillmore | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, History, Millard Fillmore, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 4, 2010
Here’s another point of science that will give rational people concern, and which cannot in any way be explained as “no problem” by stolen e-mails: Methane releases from the floor of the East Siberian Arctic are much larger than predicted.
Underwater methane gas plumes, Photo: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013
Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Frozen forms of methane dot the bottoms of our oceans. Warming of the oceans might be able to trigger an explosive thawing of the methane hydrates, as the frozen forms are known, seriously adding to our worldwide greenhouse gas problems.
Story here at Global Change. Science article on which that post is based, here.
Cool SONAR pictures of methane bubbling up from the floor of the Arctic Ocean, but scary once you realize what they are, at this vintage post at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.
Is there any chance this research will merit a mention at the climate denialist blogs?
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11 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Geography - Physical, Global warming, Globalization, Green Politics, oceans, Science | Tagged: Climate change, geography, Global warming, Methane, Methane Hydrates, Ocean Acidification, Oceanography, oceans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 4, 2010
Quake rankings of states
Which states shake the most? Here are the top 20.
Surprised that Maine makes the list?
Much more from the US Geological Survey here, “Top Earthquake States.”
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5 Comments | earthquakes, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, geology, History, Science | Tagged: earthquakes, geography, geology, Top 20 Earthquake States, U.S. history, US Geological Survey | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 4, 2010
Were I to advise Diane Ravitch right now, I’d tell her to change all her computer passwords and redouble the security on her servers. Why? After what happened to the scientists who study global warming, I expect many of the same wackoes are working right now to get her e-mails, knowing that the mere act of stealing them will be enough to indict her change of heart on education in America.
It’s much the same mob crowd in both cases. [I’m hopeful it’s not a mob.]
Dr. Ravitch thinks big thoughts about education. She stands in the vanguard of those people who are both academically astute in education, and who can make a case that appeals to policy makers. Working under Checker Finn at the old Office of Educational Research and Improvement, we quickly got familiar with Ravitch’s works and views. Finn and Ravitch, good friends and like-minded in education issues, were the running backs and sticky-handed receivers for any conservative education quarterback, back in the Day.
Finn was Assistant Secretary of Education for Research under Bill Bennett. Ravitch succeeded Finn, under Lamar Alexander. While Bennett and Alexander took troubling turns to the right, and Finn stayed much where he was, Ravitch has been looking hard at what’s working in schools today.
Ravitch doesn’t like the conservative revolution’s results in education. She’s changed her views. Says one of the better stories about her changing views, in The New York Times:
Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.
“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview.
This is big stuff, and good news to teachers who, since I was at Education in 1987, have been telling policy makers the same things Ravitch is saying now.
David Gardner and Milton Goldberg wrote in the report of the Excellence in Education Commission in 1983 that America faces a “rising tide of mediocrity” because of bad decisions. That’s true of much education reform today, too.
Gardner and Goldberg also said that, had a foreign nation done that damage to us, we’d regard it as an act of war.
Maybe Ravitch’s turn can help mediate an end to the Right’s War on Education and pogroms against teachers.
Here in Texas the conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education didn’t like Ravitch’s views when she was in the conservative camp, so Texas has started, finally, to vote out commissioners who don’t get it, who prefer a state of war on Texas’s children to promoting public education
Let’s hope more people listen to Ravitch now.
More:
Be sure to listen to the NPR interview from Morning Edition, yesterday (you can read it, too).
And, in next Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, a story about how to build a better teacher; do you know the difference between testing and teaching?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, History, No Child Left Behind Act, Teachers, Teaching, TEKS, Testing | Tagged: Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, History, NCLB, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 3, 2010
Two earthquakes ravage American nations, tsunamis, freakishly large snowstorms, still trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran in turmoil and ruled by some sort of crazy, North Koreans still starve so the nation can make a nuclear sabre to rattle.
Good news?
Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy lost a primary election challenge to attorney Tom Ratliff, representing the area around Beaumont, Texas. The news is that McLeroy is out — notice that the Texas Tribune doesn’t name the winner until the seventh paragraph.
Another prominent, but much more reasonable Republican member of the SBOE also lost: Geraldine “Tincy” Miller, in Dallas. Miller was so expected to win that race that almost no one was watching, and little is in public about the winner of the race.
Election results from Tuesday’s primary election in Texas mean that the State Board of Education will change dramatically. It would be almost impossible for any of the changes to be bad ones. McLeroy led the anti-evolution force on the board. McLeroy was the ringleader to gut and racialize English standards earlier, and he’s been the point man in the attempt to gut and de-secularize social studies standards.
Board member Cynthia Dunbar, another “social conservative,” did not run for re-election.
In the governor’s race, anti-education, anti-science Gov. Rick Perry won big over the state’s popular Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Hutchison. Third place in that race went to the Teabagger candidate.
No Teabagger won any race in Texas.
It’s not that Texas has suddenly gained reason. The dissension on the SBOE, demonstrated by the Texas Senate’s rejection of McLeroy’s renomination to be chairman of the body, just got to be too much. Texans like their crazies to be sane enough to get things done, and not so noisily crazy as to attract attention to the state’s shared insanity.
Sunlight cast on the actions of the board, especially by groups like the Texas Freedom Network, informed Texans. And now the people of Texas have spoken.
More:
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5 Comments | Education, Education quality, Evolution, literacy, Literature, State school boards, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Texas history | Tagged: Biology, Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Science, Social Studies, Texas Freedom Network, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 3, 2010
Are the ice fields of Antarctica increasing or decreasing? How do we know?
U.S. Geological Survey released a study of the change in glaciation in Antarctica between 1947 and 2009. Serious student of climate change will heed what the maps show — better bookmark the site. The study and publication were done in a joint effort of USGS, the British Antarctic Survey, the Scott Polar Research Institute, and the Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (same page, in English, here).
Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947—2009
By Jane G. Ferrigno,1 Alison J. Cook,2 Amy M. Mathie,3 Richard S. Williams, Jr.,4 Charles Swithinbank,5 Kevin M. Foley,1 Adrian J. Fox,2 Janet W. Thomson,6 and Jörn Sievers
Introduction
Cover of USGS publication, Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947—2009
Reduction in the area and volume of the two polar ice sheets is intricately linked to changes in global climate, and the resulting rise in sea level could severely impact the densely populated coastal regions on Earth. Antarctica is Earth’s largest reservoir of glacial ice. Melting of the West Antarctic part alone of the Antarctic ice sheet would cause a sea-level rise of approximately 6 meters (m), and the potential sea-level rise after melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet is estimated to be 65 m (Lythe and others, 2001) to 73 m (Williams and Hall, 1993). The mass balance (the net volumetric gain or loss) of the Antarctic ice sheet is highly complex, responding differently to different climatic and other conditions in each region (Vaughan, 2005). In a review paper, Rignot and Thomas (2002) concluded that the West Antarctic ice sheet is probably becoming thinner overall; although it is known to be thickening in the west, it is thinning in the north. The mass balance of the East Antarctic ice sheet is thought by Davis and others (2005) to be positive on the basis of the change in satellite-altimetry measurements made between 1992 and 2003.
Measurement of changes in area and mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet was given a very high priority in recommendations by the Polar Research Board of the National Research Council (1986), in subsequent recommendations by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) (1989, 1993), and by the National Science Foundation’s (1990) Division of Polar Programs. On the basis of these recommendations, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) decided that the archive of early 1970s Landsat 1, 2, and 3 Multispectral Scanner (MSS) images of Antarctica and the subsequent repeat coverage made possible with Landsat and other satellite images provided an excellent means of documenting changes in the cryospheric coastline of Antarctica (Ferrigno and Gould, 1987). The availability of this information provided the impetus for carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the glaciological features of the coastal regions and changes in ice fronts of Antarctica (Swithinbank, 1988; Williams and Ferrigno, 1988). The project was later modified to include Landsat 4 and 5 MSS and Thematic Mapper (TM) images (and in some areas Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images), RADARSAT images, aerial photography, and other data where available, to compare changes that occurred during a 20- to 25- or 30-year time interval (or longer where data were available, as in the Antarctic Peninsula). The results of the analysis are being used to produce a digital database and a series of USGS Geologic Investigations Series Maps (I-2600) (Williams and others, 1995; Swithinbank and others, 2003a,b, 2004; Ferrigno and others, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and in press; and Williams and Ferrigno, 2005) (available online at http://www.glaciers.er.usgs.gov).
The paper version of this map is available for purchase from the USGS Store.
What’s the condition of glaciers in Antarctica? Now you can look it up.
The pamphlet accompanying the maps says under “Discussion”:
The most noticeable and dramatic changes that can be seen on the Palmer Land area map are the retreat of George VI, Wilkins, Bach, and northern Stange Ice Shelves. The northern ice front of George VI Ice Shelf was at its farthest extent during our period of observation between 1966 and 1974. It retreated, losing 906 km2 between 1974 and 1992 and 87 km2 between 1992 and 1995. After 1995, it retreated an additional 1 km to more than 6 km by 2001. The southern George VI ice front retreated considerably from 1947 to the late 1960s. From the late 1960s to 1973, there was additional substantial retreat, the greatest during the period of measurements. From 1973 to 2001, there was overall noticeable retreat.
Wilkins Ice Shelf had four ice fronts up till 2009; all retreated during the time period of our study, but Wilkins “a” and “b” have had the most dramatic change, including extensive calving in 2009 that eliminated ice front “b” and threatened the future of the ice shelf. During the period of observation, the Bach Ice Shelf front maintained a fairly consistent profile, and advanced or retreated at the same time along the entire ice front. The overall trend of Bach Ice Shelf is retreat. On the northern Stange Ice Shelf during the period of observation, the 1947, 1965–66, 1973, and 1986 ice fronts were more advanced, and the 1997 and 2001 ice fronts were more in retreat. However, the earlier data are less accurate geographically, and it is difficult to quantitatively analyze them. The later satellite images are more accurate, and it is possible to measure overall advance from 1986 to 1989, then retreat from 1989 to 1997 and from1997 to 2001; the net result was retreat.
The three coastal-change and glaciological maps of the Antarctic Peninsula (I–2600–A, –B, and –C) portray one of the most rapidly changing areas on Earth. The changes exhibited in the region are widely regarded as among the most profound and unambiguous examples of the effects of global warming yet seen on the planet.
Resources:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Geography - Physical, geology, Glaciers, Global warming, History | Tagged: Antarctic, Climate change, geography, geology, Glaciers, Glaciology, Global warming, History, Meteorology, Oceanography, Politics, Science, Sea Ice | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 3, 2010
Need maps of Germany for geography or world history?
Germany’s geodetic and cartography agency, Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie, in Frankfurt, has three detailed maps available in .pdf form at it’s website.
These .pdfs are suitable for papers sizes roughtly 8.5 by 11 inches in the U.S. — but they probably would scale up nicely for poster-size maps, too. The maps are in color, and in German.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Europe, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, geology, Germany, Maps, World history | Tagged: Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie, geography, geology, Germany, Maps, World history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 1, 2010
RMS Titanic sank? No one alive today saw it sink. According to Salt's site, iIntercepted memoranda raise doubts about alleged boat's alleged sinking, and alleged engineering and design errors.
Alun Salt has the full story:
I don’t know about you but I’ve been absolutely riveted by the recent release of records from a break-in at the White Star line. No really, it’s not just a stream of bilge from people who may not be experts but reckon something. Frankly I can’t get enough of hearing about the same claim that one memo by one of the workers on the Titanic project clearly confirms the ship was ‘unsinkable’. This should finally put to rest the biggest hoax of the 20th century, that the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic. Still there’s always someone who isn’t going to find a bit of a memo quoted out-of-context convincing so it’s worth recapping the clear evidence that the ’sinking’ of the Titanic is a scam.
Specifics, with applause by Anthony Watts and Joanne Nova, at Archaeoastronomy. (Well, no, not really; neither Watts nor Nova would link to such a reasonable site as Salt’s.)
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10 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, Reason, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Environmental protection, Global warming, Hacked E-Mails, Hadley CRU, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 1, 2010
While attention was on Hawaii, wondering about the tsunami’s effects there, Oklahoma got hit with an earthquake of magnitude 4.1, a big one for such a flat, geologically inactive state (link goes to USGS site).
Epicenter of Oklahoma earthquake, February 27, 2010
Most likely there is no connection between the Oklahoma quake and any other shaking on Earth in the past week or so.
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10 Comments | earthquakes, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, geology, Science | Tagged: Earthquake, geography, geology, Oklahoma, Oklahoma Earthquake, Science, USGS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 1, 2010
The New Mexico paralegal who claims to know more about the law than any federal judge including the Supreme Court has resurfaced here, at this post. He seems bent on making a case against President Obama’s eligibility for the presidency no matter how many fables he has to invent.
Don’t birthers eventually get a good night’s sleep and wake up and wonder why they waste their time on such a loser issue?
No, no, I guess not.
Previous posts at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
Special kind of birther crazy:
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12 Comments | Birth Certificate, Citizenship, Natural Born, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Presidents, Rampant stupidity, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Birthers, Citizenship, Eligibility, Natural Born, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 1, 2010
Today I discussed legislative craziness, and she was surprised to discover Utah’s wackoes like Rep. Chris Buttars are national, and perhaps international stars of legislative dysfunction. In my e-mail I get notes talking about a silly resolution from South Dakota’s legislature.
Then I stumbled into this: “Utah bill criminalizes miscarriage.”
From what I’ve read of the bill, I agree that’s what it would do. It’s sitting on the Utah governor’s desk right now, deserving a veto, but probably headed into the Utah Code.
If it becomes law, women might be well advised to avoid any activity while in Utah, certainly not skiing or snowmobiling, nor hiking or river running, nor even jogging. A woman who had a miscarriage within a week of skiing in Utah would be hard put to provide evidence exculpating her from a charge that her actions caused the miscarriage. The contest of expert testifiers could be tremendously expensive. Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, California and other states offer all of those activities, but without the specter of a murder charge to women who miscarry later.
No, there’s no excuse for a woman who doesn’t know she’s pregnant.
Yes, I know the bill was designed to punish the bizarre behavior of some people who attempt to induce abortion by physical activity early in a pregnancy. No, I don’t think this bill does that job well, either.
You legislative drafters, take a look at the bill. The language is bizarre, it seems to me — it backs into a law by defining what is not covered. I see some great ambiguities. The bill excuses medical abuse of the fetus — failing to get medical care for the mother, for example, which leads to death of the fetus — but calls into question any action a woman might take in seeking an abortion from a medical practitioner. It seems to me that the bill directly strives to outlaw all medical abortions, though one section says that seeking an abortion is not covered.
Debaters would have a field day with the enforceability problems of this bill.
Oy. From Chris Buttars, the craziness disease has spread to the entire Utah legislature.
Is there a quarantine law in Utah, for people who carry dangerous infections?
Resources:
- Best description and discussion I’ve seen on the bill, at the New York Times; it confronts head on the chief problem with this proposed law: It criminalizes the activities of a desperate young woman who needs counseling and other help, but does not need to be jailed, nor deserve it:
Lynn M. Paltrow, the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a nonprofit group based in New York, said the focus on the child obscured the bleak story of the teenager, who also deserves, she said, empathy from the world, and the law.
“Almost nobody is speaking for her,” Ms. Paltrow said. “Why would a young woman get to a point of such desperation that she would invite violence against herself? Anybody that desperate is not going to be deterred by this statute.”
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Bad Laws, Bill of Rights, Health care, Legislation, Legislatures, medicine, Rampant stupidity, Utah | Tagged: Abortion, Constitutional Rights, Criminalizing Miscarriage, Criminalizing Motherhood, Medical Care, Utah Legislature | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 28, 2010
Really?
Really sad thing: This photo’s comic explanation is deeper and more accurate than the average creationist or other denizen of the Discovery Institute.
Tip of the old scrub brush to 9Gag.com.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Evolution, Genetics, Humor, photography | Tagged: 9gag.com, Evolution, Genetics, Humor, photography | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 