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jdupuis | December 2, 2016Somehow this post from News Biscuit seems even more relevant now than when it was intially published back in August. Of course, we all shudder to think who will be under that ghostly costume, orange hair, Alaska plaid, Brietbart ball cap and all.
Scooby Doo Team Expose Climate Change Tricksters
A two-man, two-woman, one-Great Dane team of young Americans has exposed the belief that the Earth is heading towards widespread famine and ecological disaster, as the work of a scheming fraudster. Team leader Fred explained that they were passing through Central London in their VW camper van when a…
cmonforton | November 30, 2016Good for them! They beat Congress’ deadline by 20 days.
That’s the first thing that came to mind yesterday when I read EPA’s announcement about the first 10 chemicals it's selected for risk evaluations. EPA’s announcement is the first major milestone established by Congress when it passed sweeping changes earlier this year to the Toxic Substances Control Act. One provision of the law (Section 2605(b)(2)(A)) directed EPA to select 10 chemical substances from its 2014 "TSCA Work Plan for Chemical Assessments" and begin risk evaluations on them no later than 180 days after the law was enacted (i…
gregladen | November 29, 2016You know that Donald Trump has been claiming very clearly and precisely that he won both the electoral and popular vote, and that it only looks like he did not win the popular vote because of voter fraud, meaning, that a certain number of American citizens voted twice, or otherwise rigged the elections. In fact, he explicitly says that millions of Americans voted illegally, accounting for the >2 million popular vote margin that Secretary Clinton currently holds.
Messing with voting in this manner is a serious crime, perhaps often a felony.
What we have here is Donald Trump accusing a…
gregladen | November 29, 2016... and loss of citizenship, which may amount to be thrown out of the country.
Flag burning may be obnoxious to many, but it is a constitutionally protected act, as long as it is your flag and you do it outside.
Presumptive President Elect Donald Trump has called for severe penalties for flag burners:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/803567993036754944
By the way, if you strip someone of their citizenship, and you do throw them out of the country, it is possible that they will have no way to go or no way to get there. Once they are no longer US citizen, they can be tossed into a…
gregladen | November 28, 2016You know what LEGO is. Do you know what LEGO Ideas is?
This is a program where people -- not normal people but Lego Ninja Expert people -- propose lego builds. The builds are normally actually built, but some are just designed or have parts that are just designed. These propose builds are then vetted on a publicly available web space at LEGO. People "support" the project by providing a very simple evaluation and, basically, a vote.
If a proposed build gets 10,000 votes, it goes into review. I suppose the review process is important, or all future LEGO projeects would be about Boaty…
denialism | November 24, 2016Amanda Marcotte, who I've enjoyed reading since her days at Pandagon, was curious about what having a CT president might mean. For some crazy reason, she thought she should ask me about it. Briefly, I tried to summarize the patterns of thought conspiracy theorists engage in, their willingness to accept any belief if confirmatory of their guiding ideology, and their tendency to project their own darkest behaviors onto others. Overall, I thought she provided a great summary of the problem. My only critique would be it's not all doom and gloom.
One thing we talked about that didn't make it…
gregladen | November 24, 2016Clinton beat Trump by a large margin, by electoral standards. A couple of percent is actually a lot these days. Yet so far it appears that Trump won the electoral vote, even though those votes are not yet cast and who knows what is actually going to happen.
But this year, strange as it it and stranger thought it may become, is not the strangest ever. That goes to 1876.
Wow.
gregladen | November 20, 2016These are my suggestions, mostly books, for holiday gifts that have some sort of science relevance. See this guide for gift ideas for kids. (There is a pretty good chance that there is an idea or two in the Kids Guide for the adult in your life, depending on the adult.)
For your Uncle Bob
Get ready for your favorite science-denying uncle, whom we all know of as "Uncle Bob" (though he goes by many different names) with these two important books related to climate change.
If your Uncle Bob is an Evangelical Christian.
Or, really, any kind of Christian.
My friend Paul Douglas has co-authored…
cmonforton | November 14, 2016The environmental justice, public health, and other communities are mourning the death of Steve Wing. Dr. Wing was an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. I did not have the privilege of personally knowing Dr. Wing, but I often used his papers in the classroom. His articles on collaborative research projects with communities which were adversely affected by industrial swine operations were exceptional for their intersection of science and social justice (e.g., here, here, here.)
Among those remembering Steve Wing is…
jdupuis | November 11, 2016Update 2017.01.31: First post-inauguration chronology post is done, covering the first week of the Trump administration.
From the point of view of someone sitting North of the Canadian/US border, the results of this week's US Federal election are somewhat terrifying. And honestly and truly as a Canadian and a Torontonian, I say this without a bit of smugness. Been there, done that, if not quite on the same scale.
And by done that, I mean that I've often seen my mission to document important stories in the world. In the past, mostly Canadian or mostly in the library world and all basically…
aardvarchaeology | November 8, 2016For the first time since 2011 I haven't got any teaching this autumn semester, which is really bad both for my finances and for my troop morale. (I feel like my colleagues would celebrate or not even notice if I got eaten by a grue tomorrow.) To boost both I'm instead seeking paid extramural speaking gigs. Here's what I've got scheduled at the moment.
27 Sept. On early local history, in Sickla.
6 Oct. On the Skällvik castle excavation, in Söderköping.
19 Oct. On archaeology and religion, in Jönköping.
20 Oct. On archaeology and religion, in Visby.
27 Oct. On archaeology and religion, in…
gregladen | November 3, 2016The most likely way for Hillary Clinton to not win the presidency may be a tie between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump. This is because, when one looks at the data a number of ways, and makes various adjustments, Clinton wins, often just barely, most of the time, except in what appears to be the worst case scenario. That scenario is Clinton losing most of what are called "Battleground States" -- but for the most part, only those that are truly in contention, so it is quite possible -- but retaining her "firewall" states, the states she really can not possibly lose. That puts Clinton 3…
gregladen | November 1, 2016The election is one week off. I think I've convincingly demonstrated, here, that Clinton is likely but not certain to win, that Trump has something of a chance, but not a great one, and that the swing states, therefore, matter.
There are a lot of states that are called swing states but are not. There are non-swing states that are slowly becoming swing states. For example, Georgia and Texas may well be swing states for the next presidential election. Virginia has been considered a swing state for so long that this now reliably semi-progressive/centrist vote-for-the-Dems-for-POTUS state…
gregladen | October 30, 2016When Secretary Clinton is elected President, barring more shenanigans on the part of Republicans like James Comey, she will take an oath of office, promising to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
Then, within a few days, she'll violate that oath by appointing one or more Republicans to important positions in the Federal Government.
(As an aside, I'm wondering, what is the mechanism for paying someone like James Comey for giving a helping hand to his party and violating his constitutional oath? Offshore accounts? Do the payments come later? How does that…
gregladen | October 29, 2016A Trump-Kaine presidency is now on the table.
It ain't over 'till the lady in the pantsuits wins. Or looses.
Imagine Debbie Downer and Chicken Little have an offspring. It would be me. Or at least, that's how I've felt over the last few weeks as the only person in the Free World who seems to have noticed that the gap between Trump and Clinton is closing, and in fact, was never really that large to begin with. It only appeared large because a fluctuation occurred at about the same time everyone was hoping for a fluctuation, so it became more real than it should have been. The race has…
jrosenhouse | October 17, 2016Folks, I'm done.
A recent story in the news involves the decision by FIDE, the world chess federation, to hold the Women's World Championship in Iran. That's a bit awkward, since Iran imposes certain religion-inspired dress requirements on women. This has led some players, most notably the current American women's champion Nazi Paikidze, to boycott. She is supported in this by the U. S. Chess Federation, among many others. Frankly, you have to go back to the 1970s to find a time when FIDE was something other than a corrupt embarrassment to chess players.
So here we have a story about…
gregladen | October 16, 2016There are some interesting, and in some cases, potentially disturbing, things going on with the state by state numbers in the current election. Most of this has to do with third party candidates, and most of it with Gary Johnson.
First, I'll note, that despite fears among liberals and progressives that a lot of Bernie Bots would flock to third party candidates and eschew Clinton, there is no strong evidence that Clinton is losing much to any third party candidates. However, in some states, especially those with libertarian tendencies, Gary Johnson is doing fairly well. And, this had been…
gregladen | October 8, 2016National Novel Writing Month Project
NaNoWriMo is an international project, or would be writers, who commit to writing an entire novel within the month of November. (I hear that you can finish a work already started, but you have to produce 50K words during the month for the novel to count). Since I've written a novel within a month once before, I figure I can do it again, only this time, better. Why will it be better? Because I can take my time, since I have a WHOLE MONTH to do it in. (I only had a few days to finish the last one.)
This post is a modified version of my novel's page at the…
gregladen | October 6, 2016I refer you to the book Bad Clowns, by Benjamin Radford.
I remember my first bad clown. I was at a Home Bureau event with my mother, and I was probably not in kindergarten yet. Home Bureau was part of the "Ladies Auxiliary" arm of the war effort during WW II, that remained as an organization long after. It had to do with sewing, I think. This was at the Albany Armory. It might not have been a Home Bureau event per se, but a Home Bureau booth at a larger scale event of some sort. And there were many different events and attraction.
One of the things they had was a booth with Bozo the…
jrosenhouse | October 2, 2016I've just posted the new Problem of the Week, along with an official solution to last week's problem. But this one will have to hold you for a while, since I'm taking next week off.