Sometimes I don’t get e-mail from crazies. Sometimes I get e-mail from people who make perfect sense.
Like this one I got today, from Hillary Clinton’s mom:
Dear Ed,
I’ve been so proud watching my daughter over the past few days as she begins a new step in a life so full of accomplishment. And I know she’ll continue to do great things for our country.
Now I have to ask you — for the very last time — to give her your help. This is our last chance to help Hillary pay down the debt from her history-making campaign.
I know how much it would mean to her to have your help this one last time. Please take this opportunity to show Hillary your support by making a contribution today.
Thank you for everything you’ve done for Hillary — I know you make a difference for her every day.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Rodham
Hey, PUMAs! Are you paying attention?
Hillary Clinton’s campaign still has a debt of several million dollars. The PUMA blogs complain that President-elect Obama isn’t doing anything to help her retire the debt. Of course, there is a law that prohibits a president-elect from doing much of anything — he can’t transfer more than $2,500 from his campaign account, he can’t attend fund-raisers or sign letters.
So it’s up to Hillary Clinton to make her own campaign funds appeals. And sometime early next week, the law will close off her opportunities — a Secretary of State can’t do much to raise funds.
Fans of Hillary Clinton can contribute small stuff — a million contributions of $5.00 will help a lot, for example.
Are PUMAs really fans of Hillary Clinton as they claim? Now is the time for them to step up to the plate and knock one out of the park, if they are.
It’s time for all other fans of Hillary Clinton to step up, too.
Don’t you think she’ll make a great Secretary of State?
Joint project of the Clergy Project and the Center for Inquiry, Teach Them Science debuted on-line just a few weeks before the next round of science curriculum decisions by the State Board of Education.
Science education is at risk in Texas and across the country. If you are a parent, educator, or concerned citizen, the information on these pages will help you understand the importance of a 21st Century science education. Particularly important in the 21st Century is a scientific understanding of evolution. These pages will also show you how you can help in Texas.
Center for Inquiry and The Clergy Letter Project are secular and religious communities who have come together to protect our children’s future in science. We call on you to help defend science education.
There is much, much more to Singh’s chronicle. Did you know, for example, that helium was discovered in the sun before it was found on earth? Most terrestrial helium had long since drifted into space—hence the name, derived from “helios,” Greek for the sun. Then there is story of George Gamow’s first scientific experiment, when he took home the communion wafer in his cheek and put it under the microscope. He found no evidence of the Transubstantiation. “I think this was the experiment that made me a scientist,” he later wrote.
The report on Singh’s presentation is itself a good, concise history of Big Bang theory development, accompanied by this long list of top-notch, on-line resources about Big Bang.
Resources
Books:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn. 1996. University of Chicago Press. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe, by Simon Singh. 2005. Harper Collins, New York. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Fermat’s Enigma, by Simon Singh. 1998. Anchor, New York. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Web Sites:
The Astronomy Cafe
Subtitled “The website for the astronomically disadvantaged,” Sten Odenwald’s site includes answers to many frequently asked questions about the universe and its origins and describes a number of books and articles he has written on the subject.
“Big Bang” on Wikipedia
An encyclopedic overview of the subject, including the history of the theory, problems it has faced, and questions remaining to be investigated. The essay includes extensive hyperlinks to other related topics.
Curious About Astronomy? Ask an Astronomer
This Web site for laypeople provides an archive of questions and answers about the Big Bang, and allows visitors to pose their own questions on the subject.
The First Three Minutes
Review of Steven Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes, a book about the very early development of the universe.
Sir Fred Hoyle
Extensive biography of astronomer, mathematician, and novelist Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001).
Great Debates in Astronomy
A series of debates held at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History among leaders in the astronomical community. Features background information, educational material, and published proceedings for each debate.
Science & the Arts
A program organized by the City University of New York New Media Lab that bridges the two worlds. Expert speakers and performers—including recent participants like Laurie Anderson, Wallace Shawn, Michel Gondry, Brian Eno, and Todd Haynes, as well as Mighton and Greene—present examples of the interplay of science and the arts in dance, art, and theater. A calendar of upcoming events is available, as well as information about past offerings.
Faber, S. M. The Big Bang as Scientific Fact. 2001. Annals Online 950: 39-53 abstract | full text
Guth, A. H. Eternal Inflation. 2001. Annals Online 950: 66-82 abstract | full text
Russell, R. J. Did God Create Our Universe? Theological Reflections on the Big Bang, Inflation, and Quantum Cosmologies. 2001. Annals Online 950: 108-127 abstract | full text
George Gamow
Encyclopedia entry on the life of physicist George Gamow (1904-1968).
AstronomyLINKS
A small collection of annotated links on the big bang theory.
A chastened 111th Congress might give President Obama a chance to make things right, very soon; the House of Representatives already approved the bill:
I apologize — I do not have a citation for this next chunk of material (I’m looking):
First Victory for Women and Working Families in the 111th Congress!
“It’s a one-two punch for women, that could knock out many pay inequities,” said NOW President Kim Gandy as the U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills today that would advance fair pay for women. In a vote of 247-171 the House passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (HR 11) to address the setback delivered by the U.S. Supreme Court last year for women victims of pay discrimination, and in a 256-163 vote they passed the Paycheck Fairness Act (HR 12).Thanks to the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), these bills were on the schedule for the opening days of the 111th Congress and serve as an encouraging sign for things to come. Women voted overwhelmingly to elect President-electBarack Obama, who said during his presidential campaign that he would make pay equity a priority in his administration. Women voters also helped to elect a Congress that is more women-friendly than it has been in over a decade. We have worked for and have been waiting for this day in the House.
The Ledbetter legislation, which was blocked in the Republican-led Senate last year, will essentially reverse the Supreme Court decision that requires workers to file charges on a pay discrimination claim within the first six months of receiving their first discriminatory paycheck. The Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear gave employers the go-ahead to discriminate as long as they weren’t caught in the first six months after the onset of their illegal actions.
The companion bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which did not even make it to the Senate floor last year, closes loopholes that allow employers to pay men and women discriminatorily and provides consequences.
“NOW has been working since our founding over 40 years ago to end wage discrimination against women. We celebrate this day and look forward to the Senate’s upcoming vote on both bills,” said Gandy. The bills will go as a package to the Senate and Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised that “pay equity” legislation is at the top of his to-do list.
One more time, I gotta say that the lesson plans from the Bill of Rights Institute on inauguration is top notch. I’ve shared it around our department, and several people are downloading it, planning to put the stuff to use. It’s a good, solid lesson plan, it looks like something that will engage students nicely, and it’s on a topic that could not possibly be more timely.
But I’m an even bigger cheapskate, and I want this stuff to be ready to use on January 21, when our kids start the next semester. The hours are ticking away.
Here’s a map that should be more viewed in America, but a map which has been much overlooked in the post-election euphoria, or post-election gloom. It’s the map of electoral college results, still showing Republicans in a Soviet/Maoist red, and Democrats in blue:
Electoral College results from the 2008 presidential election - American Presidency Project
Note especially the blue dot in Nebraska, around Omaha. Nebraska splits its electoral college votes, giving each congressional district’s vote to the elector for the candidate who actually won in that district. Obama won Omaha’s district; Nebraska is officially a red and blue state. Maine also allows a split in electors, but this year did not see a split among the electorate.
America is not so red as some claim, even in the electoral college. More states are surrounded by blue states than surrounded by red states.
Perhaps it’s time to find other ways to color these maps, so that we cannot so easily speak of a red state/blue state split that does not reflect politics, economics, or much of anything else in America.
Dallas students are out on inauguration day. We can hope our government and history students will glue themselves to the television to watch the ceremony, but we know better than to expect it.
Will you discuss the inauguration in your classes, whatever the subject? Here are some sources you could use:
Until now, their existence was merely hypothetical – this is the first time that any have actually been found in a fossil. Other, more advanced stages in feather evolution have been described, so Beipaiosaurus provides the final piece in a series of structures that takes us from simple filaments to the more advanced feathers of other dinosaurs to the complex quills that keep modern birds aloft.
The simple feathers were discovered by Xu Xing, the famous Chinese palaeontologist who discovered such species as Microraptor and Dilong, among many others. The filaments are longer and broader than those possessed by other dinosaurs andXu calls them “elongated, broad, filamentous feathers” or EBFFs.
Each is about 10-15cm long and 2mm wide – not exactly thick, but still 10-20 times broader than the simple feathers of Sinosauropteryx. They are also unusually stiff, for despite the rigours of death and fossilisation, very few of them are curved or bent.
In other species of extinct dinosaur, simple feathers probably helped to insulate their bodies. But Beipaiosaurus’s feathers were too patchily distributed to have provided much in the way of insulation and they certainly weren’t complex enough for flight.
Instead, Xu thinks that the animal used them for display – their length and stiffness are well-suited for such a purpose, and they’re only found on parts of the body that bear display feathers in modern birds. They provide strong evidence that feathers were used for display long before they were co-opted for flight.
So, what’s that? 243,694 “missing links,” now found? 243,694 for science, 0 for creationism. Isn’t there a five-inning rule in science?
It will be interesting to watch the next round of hearings at the Texas State Board of Education, to see what sort of excuse creationists will invent for why this chunk of science isn’t exactly what it seems to be.
I suspect that we have entered a depression. There is no widely agreed definition of the word, but I would define it as a steep reduction in output that causes or threatens to cause deflation and creates widespread public anxiety and a sense of crisis.
He has some interesting, and puckering, things to say about Bernanke’s actions, and Obama’s plans, too. His blogging colleague, Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker, has more tentative, still-Friedmanian remarks about crowding out tendencies of government spending.
It’s fun to read good economists trying to make sense of all of this.
I attended a session at the Dallas Fed a few weeks ago. The VP who gave the main presentation talked about a meeting in which someone asked Bernanke, the great scholar of depressions, a highly technical, academic and potentially embarrassing question about the Fed’s work. Bernanke closed off with an eye-twinkling comment: “This would all be very interesting, if it were not happening to me.”
New lesson plans and other materials from the Bill of Rights Institute, on presidential inaugurations. Even better if you’re a cheapskate like me, you can download the inauguration lessons for free, but only on January 13 and 14, 2009.
Free-for a limited time only!
Bring the historic Presidential Inauguration of 2009 into your classroom! “Presidential Inauguration: History, Tradition, and the Constitution” helps your students learn more about Inauguration Day from constitutional, historical, and current perspectives.
Those of you who own Being an American: Exploring the Ideals that Unite Us, Second Edition can use your unique passwords to access the lesson at any time. If you do not own the curriculum, you can download the lesson for free for two days only: January 13-14, 2009. Download your lesson at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org/today!
To buy Being an American, Second Edition, which gives you a full week of lessons and access to all past and future Web-based materials, click here.
Best deal, especially for U.S. history, spend the $20 and buy the full set of plans.
I hope you will visit NYC.gov regularly as we continue to update the site with information about new happenings throughout New York City.
Sincerely,
Good teachers leave education every day. When I talk to them about it, these little insults boil up, and boil over. The small insults add up. These are the things that, left uncorrected, hammer away at the foundations of education. Does New York respect teachers, and want good schools? Let New York show it.
Oh, yeah, we expected a few religious nuts to claim it was the end times when an interesting, but so far harmless swarm of small earthquakes hit the Yellowstone Caldera again.
But who expected such nuttiness?
Legal action is being taken against a Web site operator who has misrepresented the U.S. Geological Survey in a warning that the area around Yellowstone National Park should be evacuated out of concern that the park’s supervolcano could erupt.
“We started to take action as soon as we found out about it,” said Jessica Robertson of the USGS, adding that the agency was notified on Friday.
The issue has been referred to the USGS’s solicitor’s office which is pursuing charges of impersonating a federal official as well as violation of the agency’s trademark.
It’s a hoax, but a very pernicious hoax. In a world where people believe in all sorts of things that do not happen and take actions that hurt themselves and others as a result, hoaxing is not a good game to play.
(Update, evening of January 11, 2009: Here’s the site complained about; it appears he’s removed material that would make the site look like a USGS site.)
Was this guy under a belief that what he said was correct?
The issue highlights Nash’s concerns about where people get their news.
“There is a legitimate place to get this information; this is not it,” Nash said of the Web site [ Al Nash, the Yellowstone National Park's chief of public affairs]. “The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory is out there. You can find it. It is run by three really bright geologists. There’s really good monitoring in the park. Our offices would be the secondary place to go for information.”
Robertson said this isn’t the first time USGS has been falsely used in such claims. She said in June a YouTube video used the agency’s logo to lend legitimacy to a claim about the end of the world.
Earthquakes are very interesting. The Yellowstone is fascinating. These are good reasons to study the facts and events of nature. Hoaxes like this one, urging people to panic, play on the wealth of ignorance about science and nature, and scientists.
The only firm defense is good education and good information.
Resources:
From the Billings Gazette’s sidebar on good information:
“Latest quake info
“According to the latest information from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, about 900 earthquakes occurred between Dec. 26 and Jan. 8 in the Yellowstone Lake area.
“Five hundred of the earthquakes (including all greater than magnitude 2.0) have been reviewed by seismologists. There were 111 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 2.0 and 18 earthquakes greater than 3.0. About 400 smaller earthquakes have yet to be reviewed.
“The largest earthquake during the swarm was a magnitude 3.9 on Dec. 28. One of the analyses seismologists use to talk about earthquakes and swarms is the cumulative seismic moment, which is a measure of the earthquake energy. The cumulative moment (the energy from all the analyzed earthquakes in the swarm) for the Yellowstone Lake Swarm is equal to the energy of a single magnitude 4.5 earthquake.
“Earthquakes with magnitudes less than 3.4 are generally not felt by people unless they are very shallow and you are standing very close to the epicenter. For perspective, earthquakes of magnitude 3.4 to 4.5 are often felt and there were multiple reports of felt earthquakes during this swarm. A magnitude 5 or greater is generally required to produce damage to buildings or other structures.
“For more information, log onto the observatory’s Web site at: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/ “
Powell (Wyoming) Tribune blog, with an e-mail interview with the hoax perpetrator — note the nonchalance with which Chris Sanders, who appears to be the perpetrator, acknowledges his pirating of the USGS log, claims connections to soon-to-be-President Obama, and otherwise suggests he’s the smartest scientist even touching geology in the U.S.
YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO OBSERVATORY INFORMATION RELEASE
Friday, January 9, 2009 19:44 MST (Saturday, January 10, 2009 02:44 UTC) YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO (CAVW#1205-01-)
44.43°N 110.67°W, Summit Elevation 9203 ft (2805 m)
Volcano Alert Level: NORMAL
Aviation Color Code: GREEN
Small Earthquake Swarm on 9 January 2009 near northeast corner of Yellowstone Caldera
A currently modest swarm of earthquakes began in the northeast corner of the Yellowstone Caldera, about 10 miles (16 km) NNE of the north end of the Yellowstone Lake swarm that was active in late December and early January. As of 1930 MST, 10 earthquakes had been located by the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, the largest with M= 3.3 and two other events with M >2.0. Located depths are between 2 and 4 km.
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory staff and collaborators are analyzing the data from this and from the earlier Yellowstone Lake swarm and are checking for any changes to the thermal areas located near the epicenters. We will provide further information as it becomes available.
—–
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) is a partnership of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Yellowstone National Park, and University of Utah to strengthen the long-term monitoring of volcanic and earthquake unrest in the Yellowstone National Park region. Yellowstone is the site of the largest and most diverse collection of natural thermal features in the world and the first National Park. YVO is one of the five USGS Volcano Observatories that monitor volcanoes within the United States for science and public safety.
It’s winter in Yellowstone, a great time to go. It’s the best time to go, my Yellowstone-obsessed brother would say. A swarm of earthquakes means you’ll have something to talk about at breakfast before taking your camera out to get once-in-a-lifetime shots of nature.
Earthquakes are normal in much of the Rocky Mountains, and in much of the rest of the Intermountain West. My mother used to enjoy quietly sipping coffee at the stove in her kitchen in Pleasant Grove, Utah, and saying “Oh. We’re having another earthquake.” She’d watch the power and telephone wires, which formed neat sine waves during quakes.
I’ve managed to get myself banned at that last website. I asked the author to make a case, to provide the evidence and arguments against Obama’s eligibility. Such an appearance of gravity and Newtonian physics scares the bejeebers out of these groups.
One of the most intrigueing questions now: What will the Bergites and Dononfrions do after inauguration?Are there enough of them that Pfizer is working on a treatment, or cure?
I was just about to tell Kevin to put away his I-pod, when I looked down and saw the graph of the function we were looking at on it. I did not know I-pods had this capability. He said that he downloaded a program with math applications and that is why he was able to do this.
Some days, I just love my job. I yelled at Kevin. “It’s kids like you that are keeping me from retiring.”
Who knew?
Of course, it takes a special teacher to be doing the job so well that the kids use their toys to learn the subject. Or does it? This is a special category of “discipline.”
RT @tom_peters: Watching sunset over Tasman Sea. Considering billion+ living on <$1/day. Anyone not subscribe to overwhelming power o ...Splashed: 6 days ago
RT @neiltyson: ThisJust In: A LeapSecond will be added to the last minute of June 30, 2012 to account for Earth's ever-slowing rotation rateSplashed: 6 days ago
Fox News says Gingrich's cheating means he'll make a good president; read Dave - Words Fail Me http://t.co/Tua6bIVmSplashed: 6 days ago
RT @SOSMarch: Read The Accountability Plateau. http://t.co/4RhL4rli The failure to improve reading reflects a failure of the accountabi ...Splashed: 6 days ago
#LCatALA - Who's at the ALA convention to report this stuff out for us? Library of Congress offers some of the stuff on the webSplashed: 6 days ago
#LCatALA - Library of Congress shows off what it can do for classroom teachers, at the American Library Assn convention in DallasSplashed: 6 days ago
RT @neiltyson: .@andrewcookie93 Want to prolong sunset at the NorthPole? Just sit there on the Fall Equinox. The Sun takes 27 hours to setSplashed: 6 days ago
RT @neiltyson: .@andrewcookie93 Want to stop sunset along the equator? Fly east to west about 1000 mph. But our planes don't fly that fast.Splashed: 6 days ago
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
RT @neiltyson: ThisJust In: A LeapSecond will be added to the last minute of June 30, 2012 to account for Earth's ever-slowing rotation rate 6 days ago
Fox News says Gingrich's cheating means he'll make a good president; read Dave - Words Fail Me http://t.co/Tua6bIVm6 days ago
Stumble It!
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Stumble It!
