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Sandy Hook: Their Horror, Our Country, Your Guns.

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Let me start with this. People talking about Sandy Hook need to stop saying that “20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 were killed.” That is technically true but misses an enormously important point and indicates that you really haven’t thought this through. All of the children who were killed were born between September 2005 and December 2006. They were all in the first grade, all in the same school year, and most of them in the same exact class. Sandy hook had about 100 students in that year. Now, the class is 20% smaller.

This means that every year for the next few years there will be a special, demographic, reminder of the killings. This will be the year with one fewer teacher and slightly more crowded classrooms, or the same number of teachers with smaller than typical classes, compared to the year ahead or behind. This will be the year when the number of busses needed for a field trip will sometiems be less than needed for the year before or the year after, as time marches on. In this particular school district, students consolidate into a middle school in the fifth grade, so the demographic shift will be less noticeable. Instead of 20% of the students missing, it will be 5%. But, that is not a small number when counting students, teachers, busses, desks, etc. It will be subtle, but the 7th grade history teacher will wait an extra year to order new textbooks. You see, one of the reasons to order a new volume, besides staying current, is attrition on the numbers of available books. When this class arrives that won’t be an issue for one more year. And so on. Many little things like this will happen, every week, to teachers, students, administrators. The memory, and thus the horror, of the Sandy Hook killings will be manifest in the details and will keep sneaking up on these people when they least expect it.

This is nothing, of course, compared to the horrors of the deaths and the circumstances surrounding them. But there will be times when a teacher will remember her fellow educator slain on that day while grading assignments and feeling the difference in numbers, or a student will notice that her section of the 4th grade concert assembly is smaller because her four best friends were slain while she hid in a cabinet, hearing her teacher trick the gunman into leaving the classroom just before being pumped with bullets. Will she remember the sound of her body falling to the floor or was it masked by the repeated gunfire or did she hear both sounds from her hiding place? You and I don’t know, but she’ll remember. If they make cute little year books for Elementary School graduation, this class will use less space, and it will take less time at the ceremony to hand out the scrolls. This will dawn on someone in the audience who will then be reminded of the horror, and if you are there, you’ll hear the sobbing.

Anyway, stop saying “20 children between the ages of 5 and 10” because that ignores the very important fact that these children were all the same exact age, as ages go.

Now, on to this point: Stop telling me that your guns are important. I don’t care about your guns. I have hobbies too, that don’t happen to involve guns and I don’t ask you to adjust your politics, to take risks of life and limb, to ignore the horrors of daily gunplay among testosterone poisoned men taking lives every few hours somewhere in this country, of the thousands of youth suicides every year facilitated by easy access to unsecured deadly firearms or the occasional horrific massacre. Do don’t do that to me. Don’t make me respect your stupid hobby which has, as a side effect, the horror that happened last week and will happen again in a few months, because these things happen every few months, in case you have not noticed because you are too busy playing with your precious little guns.

And then this. Don’t give me your made up, out of date, or irrelevant statistics. There have been enough studies. Not all fears (about guns) are real, but most of the accolades given to gun ownership are pipe dreams, or really, gunplay fantasies. When a conceal carry law was passed in Minnesota, anti-gun people feared more shootings, pro-gun people said we’d all be safer because when trouble happened, good guys would draw guns and stop it. Guess what. Neither happened. We had a major massacre here, in fact, just recently, a workplace shooting. No good guys drew their guns. So even if the number of shootings did not go up, the “good side” of allowing people to walk around slinging guns like they lived in the wild west did not happen either. But otherwise, the statistics generally show that more guns equals more bad things that happen with guns. If good things happen because of these guns, they are very small in number, very infrequent, occur at a very low rate, if at all.

To depict these relationships I’ve drawn two graphs. I don’t need to base them on data, because even though you will say “You are not a real skeptic if you make a graph with no data” (I dare you, say it in the comments), these two graphs summarize all that we know to be pretty much true. Here they are:

The more guns, the more bad shit that happens because of guns
If there is a positive effect of more guns, it is much less of an effect than the negative effects depicted above. This line, in real life, may in fact be flat.

Then this: The problem is the Second Amendment. With or without the Second Amendment, we could have sensible gun laws.Gun ownership could be legal, but guns could be better secured an less often used. But with the Second Amendment, the pro-gun lobby takes the most extreme stance possible because they argue that any limitations on gun use or ownership will lead to abrogation of all gun rights. I know lots and lots of gun owners who are happy with increased restrictions or increased security, but the NRA bought-and-paid-for elected officials and gun lobbyists don’t represent those reasonable people at all. They refuse to compromise. One of the false statistic you might have wanted to cite above before I told you to shut up is this: There have been lots of gun restrictions passed and they did not good. That is not true in two ways. First, increased restriction leads to fewer deaths, compared across states or across countries. Second, there have not been very restrictive gun laws passed, for the most part. I’ve seen gun nuts cite the assault weapons ban as having done nothing, without noting that it exists for a few years then expired.

Here’s the the thing. If gun ownership is OK, then lets make it ok, using laws. If gun owners really think that what they are doing is OK, then they should be able to do it without hiding behind an amendment that has nothing to do with Boys and their Toys or with Hunting, or even with addressing issues of crime, threats of rape, home invasion, etc. The Second Amendment does not limit restriction on guns so you can defend your home from criminals or go hunting. It is to defend your home from the British. If what you are doing with your guns is really OK, then why do you want to hide behind an atavistic centuries old out of date no longer relevant amendment?

So here’s what we do, OK? First, we get rid of the Second Amendment. Then, we talk. In the mean time, keep your fucking guns away from me and stop complaining. Society has reached a tipping point. We are tired of your bullying, your whining, your childish insistence that you are doing something important with your toys, because for the most part, you are not.


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Quiet down the atheists

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When Atheists talk, people listen.

Then, they tell them to shut up.

David Phillip Norris of the Twin Cities recently wrote an article for MNPost called With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists. This was written as a reflection on the just finished and rather dramatic fight against an anti same sex marriage constitutional amendment on the ballot in Minnesota. By today’s electoral standards, the amendment was soundly defeated.

So while I’m thrilled that we can start talking about the possibility of voting “yes” instead of “no” for same-sex marriage in Minnesota, I’m still left feeling frustrated. In addition to being gay, I’m also a secular humanist. And an atheist. With candidates and party conventions making declarations about faith and belief in God, the amount of religious language used this year was alarming, but the marriage-amendment conversation was particularly loaded.

I don’t know how effective the faith-symp strategy was during that campaign, but it was a big part of it. The idea, clearly, was to show that in Minnesota, being religious does not mean being anti-gay or anti same sex marriage. This is true. In fact, not long after I moved to Minnesota, a friend of mine got married in a church. She was gay, her newly wedded spouse was gay, the ceremony was carried out in a Lutheran church by a female minister. I remember thinking, “Wow, Minnesota is progressive.”

Apparently, I had attended a completely illegal activity. The marriage was a sham, because gay marriage was not legal. But, the good people of South Minneapolis apparently chose to ignore that. Still, once “married” my friends would still not have had the rights afforded to others who happened to be in opposite sex marriages.

But I digress. Norris makes this point:

I wondered where my voice was in the conversation, where my link was on websites, and why more atheists weren’t speaking up on my behalf. In September, I attended a public forum on the amendment featuring panelists who shared their reasons for opposing it. All but one – August Berkshire, president of Minnesota Atheists — was religious. His arguments against the amendment were so sound and appealing that I was amazed they weren’t being used in MN United’s talking points. But Berkshire was the only prominent atheist I recall hearing from in the last 18 months about LGBT rights.

I should point out that Minnesota Atheists is the only non theistic group that has provided a legal brief in a law suit being carried out here regarding same sex marriage. Apparently, as Norrris says, the whole same sex marriage debate is a discussion being had among religious people. Go read his post, it’s very good and important. Here, my intention is not to expand on his arguments, but rather, to use this opportunity to point out a different (but very much related) problem: How do non-Atheists react when an Atheists says something out loud, about Atheism or anything relate to it?

You may recall that last summer, Minnesota Atheists (and American Atheists) teamed up with the local minor league team, the Saint Paul Saints, to sponsor a ball game. The Saints have a lot of sponsored games, and they are mutual fund raising activities. They changed their name to the Mr. Paul Aints for the game, and various other adjustments were made. The Saints, or rather, Aints have a lot of fun with their games, and this game was no exception.

But, after it became known that the Saints/Aints wer teaming up with Atheists, a certain amount of fecal matter hit the air moving device. I heard but did not confirm that there was a move in the home town of the team that was to play the Saints that night to forfeit the game rather than to play in an Atheist sponsored event. A couple of local professional journalists wrote columns that were very intolerant, asking why the heck anyone would want to do something with a bunch of atheists.

To our credit, we who often speak out locally on behalf of Atheism responded cooly and calmly and pointed out to those journalists that they were doing it wrong. One approach I took was to re-write one of the journalists columns replacing mentions of “Atheists” or “Atheism” with “Jews” and “Judaism.” That shift in frame made the column look like something from Germany in the 1930s, sort of. This can be a very effective way to point out the true nature of intolerance.

So, now, let’s do something along those lines with the comments on Norris’s post. I’ve screen captured a few of them for you. Note that I did not black out names because these are all public comments on the above cited post. They are shown in order of appearance. You may need more context than I provide here, and that is why you should click through and read Norris’s original essay.

This first one is a bit grammatically flawed (looks like AutoCorrect has had its way with it) but you can get the point:

Let me rephrase:

I have often found Jews to be as dogmatic as the orthodox religious, perhaps a more palatable view (to me) is better expressed by Lutherans.

Well, to each his or her own when it comes to religion, but the author of this comment is saying that often Atheists are unpalatable, presumably not in a cannibalistic sense, but rather, in regard to the things they say. This implies that it would be better (for him) if Atheists remained silent. This, posted on an essay by an Atheists expressing a sense of not belonging and not being listened to could be translated further as:

I do wish that you had not written this post. Please shut up.

OK, let’s look at the next one:

The commenter starts out by putting words in Norris’s mouth. Norris does not say, or imply, that people of faith are not for human rights. Rather, he clearly documents that many Minnesotans of faith were very active in the pro same sex marriage movement. This first statement is also a bit of a smokescreen because he mentions that “…In fact these values are fundamental to Christianity.” So, now we have a “fact” on the table that Christians are all for human rights and equality. But, the anti same sex marriage bill was introduced by members of a very common sect of Christians and supported by many churches. The smoke is rather thin in this case. In fact, he acknowledges this in his next paragraph, but the chance to school the Atheist on how good people of faith are was not deterred by the fact that they often are not so good and that the situation is more complex.

In the third paragraph, he (as did many of the atheists in the comments) restates the mistaken assumption that Atheists are not organized. We are. But here, we see our organizations, which were mentioned explicitly in the post and illustrated with a photograph of the president of the statewide organization and everything, are being ignored. Or, more precisely, set aside. moved out of the way.

Then we are told that we are annoying. Squeaky wheels. And we are going to do it wrong by being condescending. Go read Norris’s post. It is nothing like condescending. But it was an Athiest talking, and when a Atheist whispers, many theists hear … well, at least a squeaky sound, of not something more harsh.

More precisely, we are being told that until we do it right, we will not be acknowledged.

After all this disrespect, we are told this:

The key is that atheists must respect all people and their beliefs.

And it goes beyond that. After mischaracterizing the Atheist Voice, and not even knowing that there is in fact a statewide group of organized Atheists (and many other groups) even though he was just told this, the commenter tells us he will disregard Atheists until they, Atheists, learn all about him and how he thinks and does things. And he does this in a harsh and insulting way:

…. guess what? I’m not going to give a rip about what an atheist thinks if he or she isn’t willing to even attempt to understand what my values are, where they come from and why I hold them so dear. I’m not looking to proselytize. I’m looking for real relationship with the people I’m devoting months if not years of my free time to work with on a campaign or cause. That’s how effective organizing happens.

So, “effective organizing” means ignoring the perspective and presence of an entire group of potential allies, telling them to shut up when they politely ask questions about their position at the organizing table, and insisting that they jump through hoops that you have designed for them. Huh. Didn’t know that.

The next comment is by the same person responding to an Athiest:

The response is very annoying. First, the Atheist is told he is speaking in the wrong tone. To add to the commenter’s (Greene’s) authority, he explicitly approves of a part of the comment. That was nice of him. But in telling the Atheists to shut up, essentially, and after complaining at length about how Atheists are doing it wrong, he scolds that one should not negatively label people if you want them to like you. In other words, STFU and maybe I won’t dislike you, disregard you, and set you aside. And, again, he verifies that he knows nothing about Atheists in Minnesota, even though he insists that Atheists, to be listened to, must first learn about his beliefs.

And finally, we are reminded that Atheists are not recognized because of their own failure, their own negativity. After a campaign in which theists (some, not all of them, of course) were busy being very negative to a portion of our population, and attempting to extend that negativity into the State’s Constitution:

To many, when an Atheist talks, that is a negative thing. To some, Atheists should only talk when they are not being negative.

The question I have, then, is this: If you throw a person in the mill pond and they sink to the bottom, does that mean that they were not an Atheist?


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Do you know where your .emacs file is? UPDATED

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I just reconfigured my laptop with a new system (a form of Linux) and, almost as important, a new power brick. That second item may be more interesting than it sounds for some of you; I’ll write that up later. This change also meant trashing my emacs configuration file. I didn’t have to trash it, of course, but it made sense to do so. I don’t use my laptop in any way that requires that I pay attention to data saved on it. It is a data-free appliance. Sort of. Or, at least, if I took the hard drive out of it and put it in a blender, I would not lose anything important other than a blender which would surely break. In order to achieve this state, I manage certain data not by backing it up but by ignoring it. If I toss the hard drive and put in a new one and install a new system, my emacs configuration file(s) can be gotten off of another computer. Or, preferably, just recreated from scratch.

Why would I want to recreate my emacs configuration files from scratch? Because a) it is fun and b) with the newest version of emacs, a number of things that required excessive messing around with before have become normal. Thus, the configuration files are less cumbersome and easier to manage.

In case you are still reading this post about emacs (good for you!) but don’t know much about it let me explain a few things. If you are already an emacs expert, you may want to skip down to my .emacs file and get right into ridiculing it.

emacs is the best text editor in the world for a number of reasons, but mainly because pretty nearly everything is configurable, and it is very cleanly associated with a very powerful programming language that you can write programs in to make your emacs text editor do amazing things like manage your email, carry out sophisticated statistical analyses on data, make coffee, or stand in for an operating system. Or, you can do like I do; find where other people have written these things and graciously made them available for others to use.

But emacs also suffers from a logical conundrum I call The emacs Paradox. Here is how it goes:

emacs is wonderful because you can configure it any way you want.

emacs keybindings (what happens when you press certain keys) are the most efficient possible therefore you must not change emacs keybindings.

We know this is an interesting paradox because right after hearing all about how emacs keybindings are wonderful, the first thing you will be told to do if you read the introductory material on emacs is to swap the caps lock and control keys, and the second thing you will be told to do is to replace the alt key with any one of a number of alternatives “so you won’t have to squish up your fingers” while executing “meta” commands. This duality (’emacs is perfect ’emacs is flawed) is part of what makes emacs a religion.

Like this:

That’s the guy who invented emacs.

OK, back to the point. emacs out off the box is probably pefect for some people. emacs with two or three hundred lines of elisp code in various files, some compiled, is perfect for others. But I use emacs to write, not program, so my needs are met by the out of the box version with a hadnful of changes.

My emacs file is below, and it is annotated to make it clear what each step does. This is all hand-codedd. Many of these changes can be made by selecting configuration options from the emacs menu.

Included in the file are a few comments of possible additional changes I may or may not make. I’m agnostic as to whether these changes are worthwhile; I go back and forth. The comments are in there as reminders.

The file is called .emacs and resides in the home directory on a Linux computer with all the other “dot” files, which are by default hidden from view in many file managers (unless you specify otherwise).

And here is mine (UPDATED to make CUA work better within emacs and between apps:

;
;
; This is a text editing-focused .emacs file
; a ";" means "comment" if it is in the first position
;

;---Reload the .emacs file after messing with with alt-x reload-dotemacs

(defun reload-dotemacs()
  "Reload .emacs file"
  (interactive)
  (load-file "~/.emacs"))


; do not display the annoying startup screen

(setq inhibit-splash-screen t)

; get rid of annoying box cursor
; replace it with a nice bar cursor

(set-default 'cursor-type 'bar)

; type face size needs to be bigger on this laptop
; number (190)/10 = point size

(set-face-attribute 'default nil :height 190)

; scroll bar on right where all other scroll bars
; in the universe ever are

(set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)


; make Visual Line Mode work in text mode all the time
; (this means, make the text wrap as in a normal
;  text editor)

(setq text-mode t)
    (global-visual-line-mode 1)
    (cua-mode t)
    
;
; Make sure ctrl-a selects all
;

(global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'mark-whole-buffer)

;
;
; turn automatic spell checking on more or less universally

(defun turn-spell-checking-on ()
  "Turn flyspell-mode on."
  (flyspell-mode 1)
  )

(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-spell-checking-on)

; turn on "CUA mode" ... so control -c, -v, -x, -z and
; a few other things work as they do in virtually all
; other software ever

    (setq cua-auto-tabify-rectangles nil) ;; Don't tabify after rectangle commands
    (transient-mark-mode 1) ;; No region when it is not highlighted
    (setq cua-keep-region-after-copy t) ;; Standard Windows behaviour

; Make the keys work even if CUA does not:

    (global-set-key (kbd "C-c") 'copy)
    (global-set-key (kbd "C-v") 'paste)

;  Make emacs use the system clipboard even if CUA does not:

    (setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)


; associations
; add later some minor modes for certain kinds of files
;
; macros
; add later some handy markdown and html macros and functions
;

; make ctrl f cause forward "search"

(global-set-key (kbd "C-f") 'isearch-forward)

; make ctrl s save the current document

(global-set-key (kbd "C-s") 'save-buffer)

; some other time make the escape key stop commands in process
;

; Don't make the files with the #'s in the names
; a default emacs behavior we don't want

(setq auto-save-default nil) ; stop creating those #auto-save# files

; make a hidden backup to a directory mirroring the full path
; of files edited

(defun my-backup-file-name (fpath)
  "Return a new file path of a given file path.
If the new path's directories does not exist, create them."
  (let* (
        (backupRootDir "~/.emacs.d/emacs-backup/")
        (filePath (replace-regexp-in-string "[A-Za-z]:" "" fpath )) ; remove Windows driver letter in path, e.g. “C:”
        (backupFilePath (replace-regexp-in-string "//" "/" (concat backupRootDir filePath "~") ))
        )
    (make-directory (file-name-directory backupFilePath) (file-name-directory backupFilePath))
    backupFilePath
  )
)

(setq make-backup-file-name-function 'my-backup-file-name)


; make the titlebar (window frame top) show the name of the file in the buffer.

     (setq frame-title-format "%b")

;
;
;
; Line by line scrolling. By default, Emacs scrolls off the visible buffer by several lines. This is annoying
; This causes the scroll set to be whatever you want, in this ase, 1
;
;

(setq scroll-step 1)

;
;
; also, make the middle mouse wheel scroll only one line at a time
;
;

(setq mouse-wheel-scroll-amount '(1 ((shift) . 1)))



;
; later:
;
; make home and end buttons work better
;
; figure out how to make emacs work better with markdown
;
; Tabs, fast tab switching
;

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Could there be an "Out" Atheist in the US Senate?

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Tea Party leader South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is stepping down from his position in the US Senate to take on leadership of the Conservative Heritage Foundation. That itself is kind of strange, since being a US Senator is a Big Huge Deal and being the head of some think tank is only a moderately big deal. But no matter. Since he is leaving office, he needs to be replaced, and that job, in South Carolina, goes to the Governor, Nikki Haley, one of those enigmatically female Republicans. One of the candidates she is apparently considering for the job is Jenny Sanford, the ex wife of Mark Sanford. Remember him? He’s the guy ow disappeared in 2009 while he was governor to visit his mistress in Argentina. That would be funny.

Meanwhile, the Charleston City Paper is running a poll to see who should be selected to fill this seat. The poll is here. Naturally, one of the names proposed in that poll is Stephen Colbert, the TV comedian guy, who happens to be from South Carolina. At present, he has 11% of the vote and as such is in distant second place to Herb Silverman.

Who is Herb Silverman, you may ask? He’s the president of the Secular Coalition for America, and while technically one does not have to be an Atheist to have that job, he is one. And, he has 87% of the vote in the City Paper’s poll!

I understand that the Secular Coalition for America, on Silverman’s behalf, has challenged Colbert to a debate. They are in touch with Colbert via his twitter handle @StephenAtHome and the conversation is happening with the hashtags #SenatorHerb and #senatorcolbert … you might want to go join the fun.

By the way, Richard Dawkins has come out with an endorsement of Silverman.

“South Carolina has recently shown itself to be a leader in political diversity, with an Indian-American Governor and the only African-American Republican in Congress,” Dawkins said, according to the Charleston City Paper. “I think the time is now ripe for South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to appoint Herb Silverman as the first acknowledged Jewish Atheist in the United States Senate.”

I am not holding my breath, but I am making popcorn!

See also this.


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Are Fox News Viewers Relatively Less Intelligent?

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A very humorous but fake study from the conservative “The Intelligence Institute” has been circulating around the Internet. The headline: “Intelligence Institute Study shows Fox News viewers have an IQ that is 20 points lower than the U.S. National average” The good news, the study says, “…an IQ of 80 is well above the score of 70, which is where psychiatrists diagnose mental retardation. P. Nichols says an IQ of 80 will not limit anyone’s ability to lead happy, fulfilling lives.”

Again, that is fake.

But it turns out that there is something else going on.

The underlying conclusions of this “study” are affirmed by research conducted by a number of reputable organizations including the University of Maryland, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and the Sunlight Foundation. Unfortunately, this study, and the “Intelligence Institute,” appear to be figments of some prankster’s imagination. There is no evidence that the institute exists and the sole source for the Yahoo! item is a press release that contains no verifiable identifying data.

Nevertheless, the perpetrator of this hoax seems to have a solid grasp on the cognitive capacity of Fox News viewers even if no study was conducted to document it. As noted above, plenty of other real studies arrived at the same conclusions. Here are some key “findings” by the imaginary Intelligence Institute…

And for that information, CLICK HERE.


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Sciency Christmas Gifts for the Whole Family

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I’d like to call a truce on the War on Christmas. The true meaning of this holiday is, of course, the presents, and pursuant to that I have some suggestions for you in case you are stuck.

Dr Who Presents

The Doctor Who TARDIS Cookie Jar is a must have because is is a Dr. Who Thing, it is a TARDIS and it is for holding Cookies.

This particular cookie jar has light and sound effects. And, if you run out of cookies it is relatively easy for you and your companion to go back in time and get more.

This TARDIS does not come with cookies.

TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

Speaking of TARDIS, The Amazing Disappearing TARDIS Mug is a perennial present.

If you gave this to someone last year, consider giving it again. Chances are, by now, someone put theirs in the dish washer and melted off the magic coating that makes the TARDIS disappear into an alternative Time and Space Dimension when hot beverage is poured into it.

No home is complete without a Dalek. I recommend a Dalek alarm clock.

The Underground Toys Doctor Who Dalek Projector Alarm Clock is a particularly fancy model. It projects the time on the ceiling. The alarm itself is, as you would expect, unique. The clock shouts “Exterminate … Exterminate….”

Just for fun you might consider throwing in a set of Dalek Blue Prints TV Poster.

Finally, The Tenth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver is a must have for any Dr. Who fan. From the Manufacturer:

Let the Doctor help you get all of your home and office repairs done with this Electronic Sonic Screwdriver! The Doctor’s handy-dandy sonic screwdriver is the epitome of multifunctional gizmos. Whether it’s driving a screw, picking a lock, or disabling an opponent, this amazing implement seems to exhibit the precise capability required by its owner at the time. Now this marvelous gadget can be yours! The sonic screwdriver measures 8-inches tall x 1-inch wide. This Doctor Who Electronic Sonic Screwdriver Replica features button-activated light and sound effects. It includes a hidden ultraviolet pen and UV light that reveals your secret writing, as well as a spare standard ink nib. Look who’s Doctor Who now! Requires 3x “AG13” button-cell batteries, included. The sonic screwdriver is a fictional tool in the British sci-fi television series Doctor Who. Its most common function is to operate virtually any lock, mechanical or electronic, and thus open doors for escape or exploration. It has also been used for repairing equipment, as an offensive weapon, and occasionally even to drive screws. Like the TARDIS, it has become one of the icons of the program and is closely associated with the Doctor.

Space Science Presents

There are myriad space science presents including devices to project stars on your ceiling, and of course, telescopes and such.

Here I just want to point out two interesting choices. First is The Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space kit.

Starring Ms. Frizzle, kids get to make a night-vision flashlight, design a solar system mobile, a constellation box, and xonstellation cards. This is mostly for younger kids, maybe 3rd through 6th grade.

For older kids and the whole family, there is Monopoly Night Sky:

Can’t really go wrong with that. Julia would probably like one of those.

Life Science Presents

For someone who has recently acquired (or is just getting) a microsocpe, consider something like the AmScope 100 Piece Assorted Specimen Collection for Home School Students, Basic Biology Science Glass Prepared Microscope Slides (Set E). This incudes animal and plant tissues, insect parts, etc. all prepared in a cool wooden box. Sure, it is good to make your own slides, but it is also nice to have a set of slides with diverse objects so you know what a nice set of slides looks like. This particular one is normally about $250 but is on sale for way less as I write this.

I’ve been looking at USB digital microcopes such as the Learning Resources Twist Flexible Digital Microscope. They seem to vary a lot in terms of features but there are several models of digital USB scopes that would be great. You should look through a variety and find one that seems to be made to do what you were thinking you would do with it and then check the reviews to see if the particular one you are looking at is bogus, great, or somewhere in between.

Cameras make the best presents

Just so you know, THIS, or a similar model, is the camera you should get your loved one if you really truly love them. I’ve not seen THIS ONE in action but it looks really cool and is orange. Both have really nice lenses.

True Geek Presents

If you know someone who messes around with their Linux or even Windows computer a lot, get them a 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) along with a cheap conversion kit so they can put the new drive in either their laptop or desktop.

If you know someone who makes podcasts and is currently using a cheap mic like the one that came built into their computer, get them a Samson Meteor Mic USB Studio Microphone (Cardioid) (highly recommended by many) or even the Platinum Edition of the same mic.

Ultimate Expensive Gift for the Apple Lover

Do you know someone who has an iPod Touch and really likes it, but does not have an iPad? Consider the Apple Ipad Min.


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Sean Carroll, Marie-Claire Shanahan, and the Higgs

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I’m pretty sure that for a long time people who were supposed to know what they were talking about were explaining the Higgs Boson wrong. This led other people to think of it the wrong way as well. I’m not even speaking here of the whole “god particle” thing. That’s a whole nuther, equally annoying, issue. But eventually, the real story started to get around and I think it is possible to get a reasonable idea of what the thing is without being a theoretical physicist or particle expert.

Let me try. Here’s my current version of the Higgs Boson. There seems to be three things to know about it:

1) It is a continuous field that gives rise to a particle under certain circumstances. Sort of like how air is continuous (within our atmosphere) and occasionally gives rise to a snowflake (screaming rants from physics grad student blogerinos about how horrid the snowflake metaphor is in 3…2…1…0…)

2) One of the things the Higgs does is to impart the property of mass to certain, but by no means all, other particles. That these particles having mass, in turn, causes them to interact with other particles the way they do. Ultimately, this means that without the Higgs particle-field thingie, there would be no atoms, or at least, no atoms other than Helium, and I’m not so sure about Helium.

3) The Higgs Boson appears to exist based on this year’s science achievement.

Sean Carroll is two people, a physicist and a biologist. One of them, the Physicist (Sean M. Carroll), is two people: An actual physicist and an excellent science communicator. Or, should I rephrase: The ability to communicate effectively about science gives scientists the property of mass. And by mass, I mean relevance. Sean Carroll is massive.

Marie-Claire Shanahan is also, I’m sure, two or three people at least, and is an outstanding communicator in her own right. As a science education expert, Marie-Claire occasionally subs for Desiree Schell on Skeptically Speaking, and this Sunday, tomorrow, Marie-Claire will interview Sean Carroll about the Higgs Boson.

This, dear reader, is your best chance to understand what the heck the Higgs Boson really is, other than reading Sean’s new book, The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World.

I am ensaddeded that I will not be home tomorrow evening at the time of the show and thus can’t listen to the live-before-an-Internet Audience production and participate in the chat room, but you can. I’ll catch the podcast when it comes out later in the week.

Have a massive day.


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Echo Chambers

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Rachel Maddow can be very scary, because she’s like, all truth and stuff. For example, she claims that evolution is real and the moon landing was real! Imagine that!

But seriously the question is, how can people get things like this, and lots of other things (Obama’s place of birth, what really happened at Benghazi, etc.) so wrong.

Many misconceptions are politically motivated, but they are so absurd that it is hard to understand how they are spread and maintained. Recently, Rachel threw a few “truth bombs” and discussed the “truth” bubble that conservative politicians and the conservative media live in. This prompted Eddy, Lauren, Lux and Mindy, of Teen Skepchick to engage in a discussion of Echo Chambers, as Episode 2 of their new podcast. Here.


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