War
drorzel | March 16, 2015It's always a pleasure to see former students doing well, and to that end, we invited one of my former thesis students, Mike Mastroianni, class of 2007, to give a colloquium talk last week in the department. Mike went to physics grad school for a couple of years after graduation, but decided he was more interested in education issues, and is now in the process of writing his dissertation (to be defended in a few weeks) in a Curriculum and Instruction program at the University at Albany.
He gave a really interesting talk on his thesis work, looking at the evolution of gender ratios in STEM…
drorzel | May 2, 2011Over in Scientopia, Janet notes an interesting mis-statement from NPR, where Dina Temple-Raston said of the now-dead terrorist:
[O]ne intelligence officials told us that nothing with an electron actually passed close to him, which in a way is one of the ways they actually caught him.
As Janet notes, this would be quite a feat, given that electrons are a key component of ordinary matter. But for the sake of silly physics blogging, let's take this seriously for a moment. Suppose that Osama bin Laden really could make himself utterly devoid of electrons: would that be a good way to hide?
To…
drorzel | March 6, 2011I've been sticking to my "no Internet before writing something" quota fairly well the last several days, with a couple of exceptions: 1) writing or no writing, I read a bunch of RSS feeds on my phone when I'm putting SteelyKid to bed at night, and 2) I keep following events in the Middle East via Al Jazeera online, mostly their live blogging from Libya. It's fascinating to watch.
Of course, this blog also has an official Senior Middle East Correspondent, namely my friend Paul, who is a journalist based in Cairo. When the Egyptian revolution started, he was out of the country on a family…
drorzel | December 14, 2010As usual, the most sensible commentary on the Southern organizations celebrating the 150th anniversary of secession comes from the Daily Show. Specifically, Larry Wilmore:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The South's Secession Commemoration
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>
The Daily Show on Facebook
This whole business makes me think the British have the right idea regarding the commemoration of treason. We should have an annual Jefferson Davis day, but along the lines of Guy Fawkes day, not a fancy-dress ball…
drorzel | November 23, 2010Kevin Drum posted an anti-rant about the TSA, which argues that the new scanners and pat-downs aren't an outrage because they really mean well:
I'm not trying to defend everything TSA has put in place. Some of the stuff they do, like the penknife and nail clipper bans, really is stupid. And maybe backscatter scanners don't work. I'm certainly open to the idea. But honestly, most of what they do is pretty easy to understand: they're trying to make it so hard to get weapons and explosives on board airplanes that no one bothers trying -- and the few who do can't pack a big enough punch to do any…
drorzel | November 11, 2010I usually have ESPN on as background noise in the morning, but I turned it off today because their increasingly fulsome tributes to Veterans Day were getting on my nerves. I'm all in favor of honoring the sacrifices made by members of the military, but a little decorum would be nice at the same time.
It occurs to me, though, that what we really need is not yet more extravagant orations of thanks on Veterans Day, but rather a "Pre-Veterans Day." A day when we think about the men and women of the armed forces before they've had to make terrible sacrifices for the country. This would, ideally,…
drorzel | August 28, 2010I've never thought of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I haven't had to, since I don't live in The City, so about all I remember about him is that his choice of party back when he was first running seemed awfully opportunistic. I was really impressed with his appearance on the Daily Show this week:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Bloomberg
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Tea Party
This is about the best response to the endless mosque nonsense that I've seen from an elected official. Granted, he's not facing re-election any…
drorzel | November 10, 2009I failed to write something on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday, partly because I think the other six million blog posts on the subject had it pretty well covered. Another factor, though, was the fact that I don't have the sort of crystal-clear recollection of where I was and what I was doing on that night. I can reconstruct where I must've been-- I was a college freshman, so I would've watched it in the tv room on the second floor of Fayerweather-- but I don't clearly recall the event itself. It's all mixed together with the endless discussions of What It All Meant…
drorzel | September 17, 2009Theorem: The worthiness of a blog post on a political or social topic is inversely proportional to the number of times derisive nicknames are used to refer to the author's opponents.
drorzel | September 12, 2009I almost forgot about yesterday's anniversary-- I didn't think of it at all until the fulsome tribute before Thursday night's football game. I actually waffled for a bit about whether to put up the annual moment-of-silence post. It's been eight years, everybody's concerns have shifted to other things, and September 11, 2001 doesn't loom quite as large as it did a few years ago.
I decided to go with it, though, for the same reasons as always. How long will I keep doing this yearly? Probably until this stops making me cry. Gonna be a few years yet...
Screw this depressing stuff. Here's a happy…
drorzel | November 7, 2008Former NBA player Manute Bol spoke on campus last night. Bol, who was born in southern Sudan, is currently working with a group called Sudan Sunrise to promote peace and reconciliation efforts in that country, and specifically to build a school in his home village.
Bol spoke for an hour or so about his experiences trying to draw attention to the situation in his home region, where his people have been being oppressed by the Sudanese government since long before anyone had heard of Darfur. Even when he was playing, Bol sent a good deal of money to Sudan. Since his retirement he has spent…
drorzel | October 20, 2008Checking in from Cairo, Senior Uncertain Principles Middle East Correspondant Paul Schemm, with a wire story titled "Ultraconservative Islam on Rise in Mideast":
Critics worry that the rise of Salafists in Egypt, as well as in other Arab countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, will crowd out the more liberal and tolerant version of Islam long practiced there. They also warn that the doctrine is only a few shades away from that of violent groups like al-Qaida -- that it effectively preaches "Yes to jihad, just not now."
In the broad spectrum of Islamic thought, Salafism is on the extreme…
drorzel | September 21, 2008And now, a report from Uncertain Principles's Senior Middle East Correspondent, checking in from Yemen in the wake of the attack on the US Embassy there:
For years, the Yemeni government has let some al-Qaida figures and other Islamic extremists go free in political deals hoping to keep them quiet. Now it finds itself having to confront a new generation of militants -- younger, more radical and fresh from fighting in Iraq.
Wednesday's assault on the gate of the U.S. Embassy by a half dozen gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives killed 17 people, including six militants, and was the…
drorzel | May 21, 2008Fred Clark of Slacktivist points to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and specifically their Banners Across America project:
NRCAT is making June the month for Banners Across America! We are asking congregations of all sizes, from every state, and all faiths, to join in a public witness against torture by displaying a banner outside their place of worship during Torture Awareness Month (June 2008).
Our goal is to have banners displayed by NRCAT member congregations in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico.
(Update: Note that the map is deceptive-- they have a list of 200-ish…
drorzel | May 16, 2008Matthew Yglesias's first book arrives burdened with one of the longest subtitles in memory ("How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats"), which is a little off-putting. Of course, it also features a back-cover blurb from Ezra Klein calling it "A very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care." So there's a little in-jokey blog reference to lighten the mood.
I'm not a big reader of political books-- I don't even care for excessively political SF novels-- but I enjoy Matt's blog a good deal, and met him…
drorzel | April 9, 2008The much-promised peer-reviewed research post is going to slip by another day, becuase I had forgotten about a talk by Neil Lewis last night on campus. Lewis is an alumnus of Union, and a writer for the Times best known for writing about the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he was speaking as part of the Alumni Writers Series.
He had prepared remarks, but his speech still had a very off-the-cuff feel, and he tried to get through the prepared stuff quickly to get to a more open Q&A period. He talked about Guantanamo here four years ago, and joked that he was going to re-use that…
drorzel | February 11, 2008Via Inside Higher Ed, the Boston Globe reports that the Pentagon opposes increasing GI Bill funding. Why? Because if they gave them full tuition, eligible soldiers might not re-enlist:
Now, five years into the Iraq conflict, a movement is gathering steam in Washington to boost the payout of the GI Bill, to provide a true war-time benefit for war- time service. But the effort has run headlong into another reality of an unpopular war: the struggle to sustain an all-volunteer force.
The Pentagon and White House have so far resisted a new GI Bill out of fear that too many will use it - choosing…