A group of mothers with sons in the war in Iraq have been sending personalized quilts to the next of kin of those killed in action. They started when the dead numbered around 250, but now they've got a 500+ backlog. They just can't quilt fast enough.
But as of yesterday, with 1,874 names on the rolls of the dead, Mrs. Lang and the Marine Comfort Quilt volunteer group are struggling to keep their promise. "Never did I think that, 2 1/2 years later, I'd still be doing this," says Mrs. Lang, the group's founder, who sometimes finds herself in a panic at the thought she might have sent the wrong quilt to a grieving family.
The group has finished 1,313 quilts but faces a backlog of more than 550. Complicating their project, the volunteers have been unable to identify and locate the next of kin for at least 282 of the dead.
Paul Hoffman, who was appointed in 2002 to oversea the Park Service, has proposed a series of changes to the underlying vision of the Park Service which many critics say fundamentally undermines and threatens the pristine nature of our national parks.
"They are changing the whole nature of who we are and what we have been," said J.T. Reynolds, superintendent of Death Valley National Park. "I hope the public understands that this is a threat to their heritage. It threatens the past, the present and the future. It's painful to see this."
The potential changes would allow cellphone towers and low-flying tour planes and would liberalize rules that prohibited mining, according to Bill Wade, former superintendent at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.
Larry Whalon, chief of resource management at Mojave National Preserve, said the changes would take away managers' ability to use laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act to oppose new developments in parks.
Hoffman apparently was also behind the Creationist book in the Grand Canyon gift shop:
Last year, he overruled the decision of the superintendent at Grand Canyon National Park to remove religious plaques on display near the South Rim. And he instructed the park to allow a book that espoused a creationist view of the canyon's formation, which runs counter to the park's own scientific-based approach and had been criticized by the park's scientific staff.
Just disovered this site: Inequality.org. Their facts page has some really interesting graphs, showing the differences in income growth in the different income brackets. It also has some interesting numbers on cross-generational class mobility.
The bottom line on the site, literally and figuratively, is that they draw attention to these numbers because class stratification is a real, undeniable phenomenon, with far-reaching ramifications:
These multi-dimensional effects and feedback loops are important for what they reveal about the nature, severity, and scope of economic inequality in America. In addition, they underscore the issue's relevance to those focused on more policy-specific problems. Your first concern may be education, health, poverty, racial justice, the workplace, the environment, or the preservation of democratic government and a strong civil society. In all these realms, recent history has taught us that the fulfillment of broadly shared ideals is going to be immensely difficult in a world of highly concentrated wealth, income, and economic power.
The "Intelligent Design" movement stems from the Creationists' fundamental misunderstanding of what science is about. They perceive science as a mechanism for getting "answers", and not liking the answers that science has given so far, they propose their own.
*But science is not at all about getting an "answer"; it is about rejecting all the non-answers.* In fact, the underlying premise of all scientific endeavour is that there never is The One True Answer. This is the point that the Creationists have missed; this is why Intelligent Design is a non-starter. They'd like to frame the "controversy" as one between Scientific Truth and (insert euphemism for "biblical") Truth, but in doing so, they've already placed themselves outside the realm of science, because *there is no such thing as Scientific Truth*. There is only Scientific Explanation-That-Is-Least-Nonsensical-Right-Now. Because "Intelligent Design" is not an explanation, it is not in the realm of science.
Furthermore, the whole "science vs. non-science" issue aside, Intelligent Design is still flawed on its own merits. It argues, "Right now we can't figure out how life originated, so... it *must* have been the result of the conscious act of a single, "intelligent" entity." (Note that the "intelligence" of the "designer" is entirely gratuitous; perhaps it was a remedial God that created our world, and the all the smarter Gods made better ones whose inhabitants aren't so oblivious to reality.) The structure of the argument, though, is essentially: "We don't know [X], so we posit [Y], without proof or any method of verification."
So, rather than "Intelligent Design", I propse we call it "Stipulated Ignorance". Why can't we apply this to any other field? Consider Stipulated Ignorant Arithmetic: "We can't compute pi to 100 trillion digits, so we assert its value is "GOD". (The children and their parents are free to decide for themselves what "GOD" is, but undoubtedly, there is a "GOD".)"
Here is an interesting article about how DNA dissipates the energy from UV radiation. Apparently UV doesn't damage DNA by breaking the base pairs, but instead travels up the helical edges fo the DNA molecular strand and disrupts the electronic bonds between successive base pairs. Also interesting is this:
The Nature paper builds on work from five years ago, when the associate professor of chemistry and his team first discovered that single DNA bases convert harmful UV energy to heat to prevent sun damage in the same way that sunscreen molecules protect sunbathers.
Back then, they studied only single bases floating in water. They hit the bases with a kind of UV strobe light, and saw that the energy was released as heat in less than one trillionth of a second.
Their new experiments show that the behavior of full DNA differs profoundly from that of isolated bases. When the chemists turned their strobe light on whole strands of novel DNA, the UV energy still changed to heat eventually, but the energy dissipated a thousand times more slowly.
Props to Dave for sending me this brilliant piece. http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/2003/02/18.html
So you want to talk about homosexuality? YOU want to talk about homosexuality? You want to talk about homosexuALITY?
Sit down CHRIStian. Give me that bible you're waving before you hurt yourself. I'm going to resist the temptation to snatch it from your hands and beat you with it. I am your worst nightmare, a Texas preacher who knows The Book better than you do.
You cannot wave your unread bible and scare me. I know its larger story and I will tear you a new biblical asshole.
Microsoft has released the technology preview of their vector drawing package, code named Acrylic.
A friend showed me some examples sketches he had done, and they were very cool.
Colonies of anemones are formed from genetic clones of one another, but they differentiate into castes and specialize during warfare at border zones with other colonies.
The study shows that very complex, sophisticated, and coordinated behaviors can emerge at the level of the group, even when the group members are very simple organisms with nothing resembling a brain, Grosberg said. The research was published in the June issue of the journal Animal Behaviour.
Duh, but nice to see yet another example from nature of the emergence of complex behavior.
Well, technically not a review, but he tears these guys a new one, all the while maintaining his trademark eloquence. The essay/letter is a wonderful reflection on the possibilities of cinema (and art in general) in the context of the human condition.
I think there has been a serious misunderestimatating of Cindy Sheehan. This woman is eloquent, she is pissed, and she has a Gold Star immunity to mud slinging. Even Bill O'Reilly is afraid to say anything bad about her directly, and has to discredit her by slamming all sorts of right-wing bogeymen that are associated with the anti-war movement.
She just wrote an essay about the current state of the "Camp Casey" phenomenon and how the right-wing attack machine has been going after her. It's awesome.
"I got an e-mail the other day and it said, 'Cindy if you didn't use so much profanity '. There's people on the fence that get offended.'
And you know what I said? 'You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?'
"If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out."
Go read it. It's awesome.
Here's an article about an upcoming report in Foreign Affairs that shreds the theory that "market liberalization is the most reliable path to democracy." An excerpt:
"To understand how this strategy works, it helps first to understand how political competition emerges in the first place. To effectively pursue political power, citizens have to engage in "strategic coordination": activities such as disseminating information, recruiting and organizing party members, selecting leaders, raising funds and holding meetings and demonstrations. Economic growth has traditionally been thought to promote democratization by making strategic coordination easier, as communications technology improves, news media become more diverse and the citizenry more educated.
"But in recent years some savvy regimes have learned how to cut the cord between growth and strategic coordination, allowing the former without having to worry about the latter. Their trick is to ration carefully the subset of public goods that facilitate political coordination, while investing in others that are essential to economic growth. The "coordination goods" that they need to worry about consist of things such as political and civil rights, press freedom and access to higher education. "Standard public goods" include public transportation, primary and secondary education, and public health; all of which contribute to economic growth and pose relatively little threat to the regime.
Foreign Affairs is a great journal to start with, but it looks like I'm really going to have to make a note to pick this one up. Here's a link to an article written by the same authors about this subjet.
The Onion hits it on the head, as usual:
Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
I had heard the second one before but not the first:
Lemma: All horses are the same color.
Proof (by induction):
Case n = 1: In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all
horses in that set are the same color.
Case n = k: Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses. Pull one of these
horses out of the set, so that you have k horses. Suppose that all
of these horses are the same color. Now put back the horse that you
took out, and pull out a different one. Suppose that all of the k
horses now in the set are the same color. Then the set of k+1 horses
are all the same color. We have k true => k+1 true; therefore all
horses are the same color.
Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs.
Proof (by intimidation):
Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It
is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in
back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a
horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is
infinity; therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs.
However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an
infinite number of legs. Well, that would be a horse of a different
color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist.
[Not sure what category to file this under... I don't have a "health" category, which is probably telling...]
I did some googling related to my eye fatigue and strain prolems I've been suffering of late. I'm not sure why this has become more pronounced in the past few months - I'm still trying to work that out - but I guess that "gritty" feeling I have under my left eyelid is part of the symptoms of eye strain. Who would have thunk!
"Ergonomics and Computer Use" (search the text for "eyestrain")
There are several things you can do to create a more eye-friendly environment around the computer. The easiest thing to do is reposition the monitor. It should be squarely in front of you at a distance of 18 to 30 inches with the top of the monitor (not the screen) level with your eyes. Positioning the monitor in such a way will allow your eyes to remain in a natural position (straight ahead and slightly down) and you will be far enough away so that particles propelled from the screen's electrostatic field will not reach your eyes.
Perhaps my monitor is too high up, and this is causing strain?
A comparison of Strom Thurmond to a British centagenarian statesman, Lord Shawcross.
From McSweeney's: Ten precepts that never made it into The Art of War.
Isn't there a porn website about the "wind" beneath people's "keels"?
A friend of mine is working on a cool app called EasyMontage. It allows for easy compositing of photos into collages and montages, with built-in rotation, crop, and other image adjustments. It also features effects like drop shadows. A zillion times easier than doing it by hand in Photoshop!
The "Dalai Lama's lessons for Good Karma"... it's been circulating for umpteen years now, but I just saw it today. Despite my usual nauseous gag-reflex response to most of these sorts of emails, I actually rather enjoyed this one. Whereas normally I go through these itemized lists and compose a cynical, snarky response to each one, I went through this one and, much to my own disappointment, found myself agreeing with each one.
Read full entry...If you're like me and are constantly running into problem pasting multi-line text into Firefox's address bar, you can rectify the problem with this one simple fix:
type "about:config" into your address bar, and change the editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines setting to 3.
Tada!
(credit: Gravitonic)
I guess he pretty much nails it on the head: Kung Fu Monkey's rant about the Prez endorsing the teaching of "Intelligent Design".
The Rain Forest Site has a click banner ad that generates enough money per click to save 11 sq ft of rainforest. (They take all of their advertising revenue and donate it to rainforest preservation funds.)
They also have a store that does a similar sort of thing, so if you buy th s nice Taureg leather wallet, you save 2290 sq. ft. of rain forest.
An excellent editorial by the father of a Marine about the economics and psychology of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I'm always a bit bemused by those who oppose the idea of compulsory service, or requiring that children of legislators be pressed into service. "But... but.. that will make us reluctant to go to war!"
Well, that's the WHOLE POINT. What such chickenhawks are admitting is that not only are they willing to send somebody else's kids onto the battleground, but they wish to do so while maintaining less of a stake in the outcome and in whose lives are lost. What they are forgetting is that unless they feel so strongly about an issue of national defense that they are willing to put their own necks on the line, then they have no right to ask others to do the same. (When others *do*, however, we should lavish rewards and praise on them, not cut their health benefits and salaries and foreclose on their houses.)
The bottom line is: put up or shut up. If you're not willing to grab a rifle and go dodge bullets, then what right do you have to tell someone else to?
Today I found a few links to some Geometric Algebra/Calculus resources as I was looking at some Python science modules. I first heard of Clifford algebra when I was at Immersive, but found it rather difficult to visualize properly.
I found links to David Hestenes's Oersted Medal Lecture (2002) in which he gives a wonderful, lucid, and enlightening exposition on Geometric Algebra and its applications to understanding physics.
I ordered his book New Foundations for Classical Physics. I'm really excited to see all this material be unified in a new, more geometric framework. (I've always been better at geometry than algebra.)
http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm
Taken on its own merits, the Shuttle gives the impression of a vehicle designed to be launched repeatedly to near-Earth orbit, tended by five to seven passengers with little concern for their personal safety, and requiring extravagant care and preparation before each flight, with an almost fetishistic emphasis on reuse. Clearly this primitive space plane must have been a sacred artifact, used in religious rituals to deliver sacrifice to a sky god.
"C'mon Crystal, surely you've heard the quote... 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a...?'"
"...a hook?"
The New Yorker has an interpretation of the significance of the Administration's renaming of "The Global War on Terror" to "The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism".
Nice to see them calling a spade a spade. Nice to see them admitting that "War on Terror" is about as meaningless as "War on Drugs". Nice to see them admitting that fighting terrorism is a small piece of a much larger effort that must involve policy, diplomacy, and hearts & minds.
An article about the formal launch of the bi-partisan Partnership for a Secure America.
As US President George W Bush announced the unprecedented recess appointment of ultra-nationalist John Bolton as his next ambassador to the United Nations, a group of diplomatic heavyweights was preparing to launch a bipartisan coalition to promote a return to a more moderate and multilateral foreign policy.
...
The group includes top officials who served in the administrations of presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, such as the two presidents' most durable national security advisers - Samuel Berger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, respectively - as well as former secretary of state Warren Christopher; Clinton's first national security adviser, Anthony Lake; former defense secretary William Perry, and former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
But it also includes leading Republican moderates, some of whom have even served under Bush. They include former senator Howard Baker, who served until last year as Bush's ambassador to Japan, and, even more significantly, his most recent UN ambassador, former senator John Danforth, who, since his resignation, has been uncharacteristically outspoken about his concerns that the Republican Party has increasingly come under the sway of the Christian Right.