Did The Media Treat Bachmann Unfairly Because She’s An Insane Woman?
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Important things elsewhere
I would like to point out that Ana and I have produced yet another Japan Disaster Update. This is number 42 in the series. Please have a look: Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 42: A River Runs Through It
We’ve actually had a visit by a Nuclear Power Apologist who wrote a post ten days after the meltdowns about it and has finally come by our place to express his concern that we did not read it.
And, there are two other items you may not want to miss: How to Speke Inglish and How to Eat a Taco. Just for fun.
And if you want some Science, here’s some: Russian Rivers and Arctic Salinity: Climate Variation Better Understood
How to Speke Inglish
I had never heard of The Chaos before today. I suppose that makes me unkulterd, and I’m afraid that I can’t use the excuse that it came out in the 1980s when I was either in a trench underneath Boston or deep in the Jungles of Zaire, or doing double duty taking classes and teaching and writing a thesis. Chaos is a poem by Gerard Nolst Trenité that demonstrates the lockstep association between English words as we say them, and English words as we write (spel) them. In other words, Chaos, using the non-mathematical meaning of the word.
The poem exists in many forms. I found what is probably the best “original” version, but the copy I found italicizes the words that you are suppose to notice, and includes line numbers. The italics makes it too easy and the numbers are distracting. So, I’ve decided to give you a link to that authoritative version, but provide a transcript sans italics below the fold.
Jean Baret was a Girl!
As you certainly know, Jean Baret was a famous botanical explorer of the 18th century, travelling on Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition and circumnavigating the world collecting and discovering new plants. But Jean was Jeanne, a female, who at first pretended to be a man, then later changed her story slightly to being a Eunuch, to stay on board after others had become suspicious of her gender identity. She was actually married to her boss, who presumably knew her secret.
Very recently, Glynis Ridley wrote a biography of her life (The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe
No SOPA
NO SOPA is a google chrome extension that warns you when you browse to a web site of an entity that supports SOPA. Go here to get the extension. Then, go to the Mosion Picture Association of America (fer instance) to test it. Seems to work fine.
Russian Rivers and Arctic Salinity: Climate Variation Better Understood
The sun heats the earth, but unevenly. The excess heat around the equator moves towards the poles, via a number of different mechanisms, the most noticeable for us humans being via air masses. That’s what much of our weather is about. Heat also moves towards the poles, in the ongoing evening-out of energy distribution on the planet’s surface, via ocean currents.
One of the interesting things that happens with ocean currents is this: Warm water tends to move from equator towards polar regions across the surface, then cools down and drops to the deep sea, where it moves back south again, often in a kind of loop that we call a "conveyor." Becuase of some quirky historical stuff, the continents on this planet are mostly in the norther hemisphere, so the loops of ocean water that mariners have long called "currents" are extra strange in the north, and as it happens, there is a big loop of warm water or two that go way farther north (as warm water) than usual, where increased evaporation and cooling cause the water to a) loose it’s heat to the air and b) sink rather dramatically to the bottom of the sea. The sinking helps direct the north-moving surface currents, maintaining the loop. The release of heat keeps England from looking like Canada and Norway from looking like Greenland, as much of this heat leaves the North Atlantic and traverses Europe first. By the time that energy gets around the world all the way back to Greenland, well, it isn’t helping to melt glaciers very much, bit it does in fact have an effect. Without this warming, there would probably be continental glacial masses on Europe and Canada, rather than scattered and small mountain glaciers. In other words, there would be an ice age.
Did I mention the evaporation as a driving force in the conveyor? Yes, of course I did. And the reason this works is that when the warm surface water evaporates, it becomes more saline relative to the rest of the ocean, and sinks, because salty water is denser than fresh water. We believe that there have been times in the past when fresh water being added to the northern seas has mixed with a conveyor, caused the water to be less salty, turned off the flow of warm water to the northerly latitudes, and ushered in a mini-ice age, or perhaps a maxi-ice age. Indeed, there are some theories about paleoclimate that suggest, very strongly, that this is exactly the mechanism that triggers an ice age.
Continue reading Russian Rivers and Arctic Salinity: Climate Variation Better Understood
Rush Limbaugh Calls the Shots
… in the Republican Party.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has canceled the climate change chapter in his upcoming book of environmental essays after Rush Limbaugh and other commentators targeted its author, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
The truth about Iowa. Not work safe.
Don’t watch it unless you are going to watch it ’till the end. The total end, not just the thing you think is the end.
Don’t believe him? Click here.
It is reported that John McCain has endorsed Mitt Romney
“It’s with some nostalgia that I return to this place that I love so well, but I am really here for one reason and one reason only and that is to make sure that we make Mitt Romney the next president of the United States of America”
I haven’t seen a news report of this yet, but that’s what my email tells me. The Washington Post will have it shortly.
Bachmann Ends Campaign
Only hours after indicating that she would take the fight to New Hampshire, we now hear that Michele Bachmann will suspend her presidential bid today. She is expected to make the announcer soon from West Des Moines.
May I Direct Your Attention to Ring Number Two!
… of my bloggy three-ring circus.
Over the years, I’ve blogged quite a bit about election politics, with increasing attention paid at appropriate times, including the Minnesota Recount (winner: Al Franken!) and other timely issues. As of last night, the 2012 election season is officially up and running, and for general election commentary, I’ll be blogging mainly at The X Blog, and I just wanted to draw your attention to that. For example, we have what I said before the Iowa Caucuses (The Meaning and Significance of Tonight’s Iowa Caucuses) and what I said after the Iowa Caucuses (Bachmann Moves Ahead “Full Steam” after Iowa Victory …)
This does not mean that there will not be election related blogging here. After all, the current “front runner” for the Republican Party seems to be Rick Santorum, and he may be the most denialist of the denialists with respect to Anthropogenic Global Warming in the race. So we will be addressing that and other issues here, of course.
Iowa Caucuses FTB Linkfest
An older post suddenly turned very current, by Jason Thibeault, on Santroum’s wife’s abortion, a laser-like analysis of last night’s numbers by Pharyngula’s PZ Myers, a commentary on Bachman thinking (or not) on her feet, or not, by Ed Brayton, Zingularity on The Iowa Afterbirth, Greta Christina summarizes the Twiterverse’s Titilating Tweeting about Santorum surging from behind, and my own insightful analysis in which I liken Iowa and New Hampshire to a long married couple deciding where to have dinner.
Funniest facebook entry: 2011
Here is my entry for the Funniest Facebook Entry 2011 award:
and here’s the runner-up
These are from here. There’s a lot more where they came from. Do not be drinking a hot beverage while browsing through the provided five pages of facebook updates and comments. Seriously.
I have been awarded a Great Honor
Along with some other deserving people including …
Greta Christina, Ophelia Benson, Jen McCreight, Amanda Marcotte, Stephanie Zvan, Greg Laden, and PZ Myers
It’s hardly a secret that last year was a challenging one for me in terms of a large number of people in our community shitting on me on a daily basis. Amanda, Stephanie, Greg, and PZ were with me at SkepchickCon last year when Richard Dawkins told me that sexism in this community didn’t matter because FGM. I’ll be honest: that was kind of a low point for me, and a big part of me just wanted to pack up and never interact with the atheist community again.
But seeing the reaction of Amanda, PZ, Greg, and Stephanie helped me put it into perspective and realize that I wasn’t alone in this fight, and that meant the world to me. In the weeks that followed, Greta, Ophelia, and Jen joined in to publicly denounce both Dawkins and others who were trying to bully me into silence.
Their support has extended far beyond the Dawkins disaster. When I recently…
Go read all about it here and leave a nice supporting and encouraging comment, or I’ll kick your ass!!!
"Hey Lerb, why big cat have long teeth?"
The history of human thought is an epic adventure of exploration and discovery. Since the beginning of time, humans have been curious about order and chaos in nature and our place in the world. By understanding the natural world around us, we understand ourselves better. But how we attempt to answer these fundamental questions has evolved over time. This evolving history, looks something like this: