Wow the first post.....i am honored.....

Everyone does start out as a scientist and most of your life you have a fascination about science about the world and the heavens

I miss Carl as I would expect most of us do.

I saw something on my way to work the other morning....either a rocket...or a bright vivid falling star.....I was in awe...

At the end of the last kit I stated that I was unsure how soldiers could alter a mindset of the people. Here is an article written by one of my favorite Canadian journalists (Oakland Ross), about a PR campaign that has been untaken by the Canadian Armed forces in Afganistan.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/163311

It's always about Titan with you, isn't it?

For those of you wishing to give Sagan's Voyager record a spin, go to http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/Vgrlocations.pdf
to find out where it is...

Er, records, plural...

The most famous album to ever sell only 2 copies.

Just a quick trip back to earth for a minute:

nelson, I'm sending good thoughts your way.

Now, I'm back off to the Cosmos.

greenwithenvy, the annual arrival of the Geminid meteor shower was last week, and it was pretty spectacular at points. I saw a couple of them as I got out of my car after work late last week, including a zesty bolide. Wouldn't surprise me at all if you saw one too.

bc

Reposting from last Kit:

A little geopolitical quiz this morning compliments of Maureen Dowd at the NYT:

How many sides are there in the Sunni Triangle?

Which religious figure, Muhammad or Jesus, has not been the subject of a Mel Gibson film?

The name shared by two kings in Jordan and Saudi Arabia?

Which of the following quotes can be attributed to Dick Cheney?

a) "So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people: greedy, barbarous and cruel."

b) "Don Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had."

c) "Certain things are not known to those who eat with forks."

Is the Shiite crescent a) a puffy dinner roll, b) a new Ramadan moon, or c) an arc of crisis?

Truly most difficult:
Three and a half years after the invasion of Iraq, with nearly 3,000 American troops dead and the Iraqis not remotely interested in order or democracy, what on earth do we do now?

The context of her op-ed quiz deals with El Paso Democrat and Mexican-American Rep. Silvestre Reyes, who was tapped by Pelosi over knowledgeable Rep. Jane Harman of California, to head the House Intelligence Committee. Jeff Stein, interviewing the incoming Reyes for the Congressional Quarterly, asked Reyes key questions about what Middle East nations and militant groups were either Shiite or Sunni.

Reyes flunked the questions--miserably. (Do you remember me mentioning Dowd's call-out of Stein's quiz during her appearance at the Texas Book Festival?) I see that Dowd has finally gotten ahold of the Reyes test results, the original reporting done by the Associated Press and appearing about a week to 10 days ago in the San Antonio Express-News. For all the hay our local paper made of the story at the time, giving it prominent placement, I wonder how President George W. Bush would have fared on the same set of questions at the start of the Iraq war, given that Condi had to coach him on who the leader of Pakistan was back in 2000.

For those who realize the origins of Christmas are Middle East in origin, I offer these gems: the arresting rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by singer Loreena McKennitt on the Windham Hill sampler album "Carols of Christmas II." The arrangement is stunning, the instrumentation and beat very much Middle Eastern. It would be a short step from this song to the Putamayo Presents album "From Cairo to Casablanca."

Cardamom cookies. I baked them several years ago, including the time-consuming task of getting the seed out of the hull. I had acquired the cardamom pods at the Iraqi market in Louisville that I frequented. I took the cardamom cookies to a neighborhood cookie exchange, where the hostess, from hailed from Ohio originally, without even inquiring, threw up a placecard next to them that labeled them as gingerbread. Not even close, folks. One woman brought to the cookie exchange lumps of refrigerated cookie dough baked with a giant Hershey's chocolate chip on top. Needless to say, that was my last neighborhood cookie exchange.

"-- but for October and November and the first week of December, our actions on the ground have -- as a result of action on the ground, we killed or captured nearly 5,900 people." gwb

..now that may drop some, it being Christmas and all, but you can't be doing God's work all the time,heh,heh,heh

TBG, Joel has his Titan, *Tim has his, well, you know.

bc

Piece about Abizaid's opposition to more troops. ABC (TV)( News and NYT also reporting this a.m. that Gen George Casey also expected to be out about the time Abizaid leaves in March. Military opposition gone to Bush's foolhardy new plan of action (remind me why I voted in last November's election?):

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/world/middleeast/20abizaid.html

WaPo finally now has the Abizaid story through Reuters,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122000463.html

but Abizaid's acknowledgement of the real war on terror is so much better in the NYT article I linked to just moments ago (sorry, Joel):

"When you take a look at the reach of the extremism as exemplified by Al Qaeda, it's not just in Afghanistan, it's not just in Iraq -- it's in Pakistan, it's in Saudi Arabia, it's in Great Britain, it's in Spain," he said. "It attacked the United States. It is organized in the virtual world in a way that is very unique, very modern, very dangerous."

Ask for a solution to Sunni insurgents in Anbar Province, and he talks about their supporters in Syria and implications should Saudi Arabia overtly take sides against the Shiites of Iraq.

On the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, General Abizaid says the only course includes understanding tribal loyalties in Pakistan. Turn the conversation to Middle Eastern terrorists, and he describes the military's efforts to preclude their establishing havens in ungoverned corners of Africa.

>For those of you wishing to give Sagan's Voyager record a spin, go to

Seems to me I have some kinda CD box set of that. Might be interesting to dig up. I just had to see what we're telling the aliens, y'know?

I'm afraid none of MY stuff made the cut. I worked with a Russian girl once and mentioned that I did space music.

She said: "Is no music in space! I know, my mother is physicist."

Well, there's no acoustic music in space. Space is for metal-heads.

BPH? BPH? Hmmmm? No one answered me in the last boodle. January 3rd? (Then again, I'm not as cool as Mo or RDPadouk or ScienceTim, so perhaps when I call for a BPH, it's ignorable.)

*Goes off to pout in the corner.*

Good morning scientist friends! I'm just dropping in briefly. All persons who popularize science and warm the universe thereby, allowing science without fear, are good people.
Thoughts from the last Boodle: Don from I-270, thanks for your surgery story. I've often thought this was a remarkable community. RD, you are entirely too familiar (intimate, almost) with Tyson's Corner Mall.

I would gladly join you, PLS, for a January 3 BPH. Unless you can travel to Oklahoma, though, it will be in spirit only.

bc, for what it's worth, "zesty bolide" would be a pretty decent handle.

Who's the keeper of the available handles these days? omni?

PLS - you are, like, way cool. I just think folks are kind of caught up in that "Holiday Frenzy" business.

And if were remotely cool, I wouldn't blush at mannequins.

LOL, Ivansmom. Oklahoma is one of the few states I haven't been to!

SCC: if *I* were remotely cool.
(See what I mean.)

I shall check in before perusing this Kit and Boodle, due to time contstraints...

Don, thank you for letting us in on the secret of how we saved you! I'm very happy we did.

nelson, my thoughts and best wishes are with you, and we'll be waiting for your return!!

I'm now off to revisit the Lunch Ladies of Yore and sample the cafeteria fare with my daughter at school. Gave two presenatations to her grade-mates, and no snoring yet. *crossing fingers for the afternoon*

:-)

bc,
the weather was awful here during the meteoroid shower so I couldn't make any observation. The earthly weather interfered with the space weather so to speak. This time of year (sunrise 07:40 sunset 16:22 for a grand total of 8:42 of daylight) is usually good for aurora borealis but the sun activity being low in the lowest part of the cycle we haven't been treated to a show yet.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_weather.html
The long-term prospects for 2010-2011 are good though; we may have a couple of good years in our future.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
The peak of 1993 was a banner year for us. We were treated to great displays throughout October and November. Solar winds induced currents in the extra-long 750kV power line linking the James Bay hydro dams to the southern grid and caused a major blackout that year. It happened during a Stanley Cup play off game the Montreal Canadien were playing in Montreal. The Canadien won the finals with a young Patrick Roy in the crease.

SCC: constraints

Must be this well-worn keyboard...

:-)

America clearly needs another Carl Sagan. Someone with enough public stature to help counter the anti-intellectualism that seems to be gripping the nation. We need someone to say that it is okay to be smart. That science is distinct from, and not just another form of, belief.

But whoever that person is, please, oh please, stay away from turtlenecks.

Here is my Christmas present to all on the boodle, it is a humorous look at Canadians from an Austin, Texas point of view, found this site this morning while trying to help a colleague.

www.bushwatch.com/canada.htm

Ivansmom - I don't, you know, get out much.

PLS Jan 3rd works for me

EF, I am merely the keeper of known handles. Sorry, I don't recall who the keeper of available handles is.

Keep focusing on how radiation can guarantee that your body won't decay physically for a few thousand years because you'll be too radioactive, but hey, nuclear energy is clean 'n' fun and I'm sure they won't fall asleep, S'nuke.

Maybe not for a week....

I don't KEEP the boodle handles, but I've put up a few.

So whaddya looking for, vegetable, mineral, animal, colors, emotion, recipes, musical groups, or abstract silliness?

Since minerals are not popular boodle names, I say that is a wide open field.

So, go ahead and be Lucky with Diamonds (funnier), geolide grenade, etc.. Your porn names qualify.

Animal names: cow, caged rabbit are taken. Animal names must be combined with something else for parity to other boodlers who may feel their animal sides-- or culinary sides as with "Medallions of Ferret."

I hope this hasn't hopelessly befuddled any future boodlers into simply typing their social security, date of birth, and pin number instead. They could, but it's not the wisest move.

I think Jack's dogs stole the available boodle names and are busy play-guarding them. Good luck getting them back from Great Danes in "mine" mode!

omni, maybe time to expand your portfolio? You don't ask for power you know, you seize it.

>We need someone to say that it is okay to be smart.

RDP, I think part of the problem is smart people scare others. If you're not smart, you can never be quite sure what that smarty-pants is up to that you won't even recognize as a threat. Smart people make others feel insecure, and many people would rather feel secure than have their problems solved.

The problem with scientists is they should've kept their "High Priest" titles and left the details to shadowy initiation rites and secret meetings. Too much democracy and transparency confuses people.

EF - you make a good point. And I think that the burden is on smart people to avoid equating intelligence with moral superiority. For that matter, I think smart people need to make very clear that intelligence is often extremely compartmentalized. In my case I am quite good at a very narrow form of highly conceptualized thinking. Yet I cannot add in my head. I keep forgetting the times tables. I routinely forget people's names, and frequently have to look at my driver's license to remember my zip code. I really am something of an idiot savant. And I am not alone in this. Intelligence is extremely selective.

Yet this seems to be something that smart folks sometimes try to deny. Some of the most mind-bendingly paranoid and insecure people I know are also the smartest. I suspect it is because of this intelligence that they understand the severe limits of their own intelligence. So the secret is to show that being smart doesn't make you a smarty-pants.

It just means you have, you know, a skill.

A mite confused by Bob S.'s comment on last boodle.
Does he mean my comment fells in the "We kid because we love... and are you" category.

By the way, Mo is used to my simbuerzena anyway. A little iced tea, too much smoke and I'm ready to dance on tables.

And I think she knows I'm not THAT innocent, especially after the slightly blue ASL lesson I gave at a BPH.

She does know my intentions fall in a very loose category of "good". So yes, familiarity breeds presumptousness.

That reminds me, Wilbrodog was a bit shy of the christmas store I took him into as a puppy, especially of the big balloon snowmen, polar bears, etc.

By the end of our rounds around the store, he had mustered the courage to bonk a few snowmen with his nose, to see them sway back and forth, and walked out there with tail high.

Raysmom, I just explained Christmas to Wilbrodog and he loves the family gatherings the most. I don't really go too much for dogs opening presents with teeth, so I give stuff on Xmas, unwrapped.

Because of all the action on Xmas, I'm not so much on the Xmas goodies for him, since it's unfair to hand a dog a big bone and then tell him he has to leave in a hour with me. However he will get a pig ear or two this Christmas. :).

Thanks all for the good wishes and such.

dbG -- I found that link last nite as soon as I stopped dithering on the boodle. Thanks for posting it! Gonna order CDs from it today.

Surgery is two weeks from today -- I'll be popping in until then. Am home from nearly 3 months of continuous dogsitting!

RDP -- I really liked your 10:56. It's amazing, isn't it, that you even had to write something like that?

But I do like turtlenecks!!! :-)
I always thought Sagan was sexy in his t-neck and sport coat.

Am toying with undergoing a boodle-handle change (kind of like a sex-change operation). :-)

I like yoki's new handle. Maybe I'll decide on "yeti."

*Cocking an ear*

Pig ears? Not coals? Hooray! Can I get a side order of playtime and long walks with that?

Speaking of liberty, from a guest NYT op-ed yesterday by Orlando Patterson, Harvard sociology professor, on the cultural-historial-linguistic context of the word:

(I have no doubt that Joel pulls off the brainy bit quite easily because of frequent self-denigration.)

Those of us who cherish liberty hold as part of the rhetoric that it is "written in our heart," an essential part of our humanity. It is among the first civic lessons that we teach our children. But such legitimizing rhetoric should not blind us to the fact that freedom is neither instinctive nor universally desired, and that most of the world's peoples have found so little need to express it that their indigenous languages did not even have a word for it before Western contact. It is, instead, a distinctive product of Western civilization, crafted through the centuries from its contingent social and political struggles and secular reflections, as well as its religious doctrines and conflicts.

A group of smart people scaring others? Huh.

In many countries, a gathering of smart people in one place is considered a target of opportunity.

*That's* scary.

Fortunately, I'm rarely mistaken for a smart person. Otherwise, I'd dart around like Bluto Blutarsky sneaking around the Faber College grounds, making his way to the sorority house.

bc

On intelligence, one might want to check out Daniel Goleman's recent books on social and emotional intelligence--the more recent book about social, the earlier about emotional.

loomis -- I read that Patterson piece yesterday. Quite on the mark, IMHO. The concept of individual liberty and the freedoms we cherish rose out of the same cultural stew that developed Enlightenment Europe.

The great thing about Carl Sagan (this, of course, has been said time and again) is that he transcended the image of "smart person" with his incredible charisma and charm. This country desperately needs someone like him again.

Wilbrod, Ray isn't into tearing packages with his teeth--he lets the humans use their opposable thumbs for that. He actually likes to watch people unwrap gifts, even if they're not for him. And he loves watching us pull out all the decorations. Except, of course, for the motion-sensor singing reindeer, which he doesn't trust.

RDP, I think a lot of us have our super-powers and our Kryptonite. I can memorize parts of a map by looking at it. Just don't ask me what my neighbor's name is...

I haven't read Goleman's book about social intelligence, but I though his book on EI was brilliant. And it indirectly goes to the point I was trying to make. A rude and arrogant person, even if intelligent, will not only fail, but will also do grave damage to the perception of smart people in general.

TBG can attribute to my dreadful sense of direction. If it weren't for her, I would have doubtless ended up hopelessly lost in the District. For it is a very unforgiving place.

PLS: "I'm not as cool as ... ScienceTim..."

It is to laugh. However, I will be in Hawaii on January 3, enjoying the cold and low-pressure amenities of the Mauna Kea summit. I will think of you as I gasp for air and shiver in my parka. Beer will be unnecessary, although I might enjoy a hamburger and fries.

RD Padouk: "America clearly needs another Carl Sagan."

I'm working on it, I'm working on it. These things take time.

I think it also helps to have a name that is pronounced correctly, 9 times out of 10. A success rate that I dare not even fantasize, for fear that the pain of reality will be more than I could bear.

SCC: Can attest, not attribute.

Sheesh.

I suppose you could say I also am keeper of available handles in that if compared to the list of known/in use handles it's available if not on it. Something is apparently wrong with my brain, as I seem to be writing increasingly tortuous sentences...

Speaking of smart people - I think that David Ignatius fellow has a few synapsis working:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901281.html

not to worry my dearest wilbrod - i, too, was quite confused by bob s. comment - i took it in a complimentary way *shrug* - bob - i have quite the thick skin and a healthy sense of humour about myself... you can't dress like a freak and then get all bent outta shape when people stare at you! (not that i always dress like a freak - i DO work for the gubment after all)

PLS said i was cool! hehehehe - i've got her SOOOO brainwashed! Jan 3 is fine for me (but i thought we had a post xmas bph scheduled for the 28th? am i wrong?)

(that canada thing was hilarious!)

I think Joel's continued infatuation with Carl is very tender and reflected in Joel's choice of hairstyles. Carl was a great man and deserves to be remembered fondly. He was a brilliant scientist and a excellent communicator. These are rare qualities to see combined. The, alas, also late Stephen Jay Gould is the only other example that comes to mind.

omni -- can I be yeti? if I choose to change my handle?

If you guys have a BPH on 1/3 -- hoist a few for me. That's the day of my impending date with a scalpel.

Can't remember who asked in last boodle where I'm having the surgery -- I live in Hampton Roads area of Virginia -- it will be at the Sentara Careplex in Hampton.

All Sentara hospitals have a big slate "water-feature" in their lobbies -- so they must be top-rated in hi-tech procedures and patient care!

The new hospital in Williamsburg even has a player piano in the lobby -- I suppose to trick people into thinking they're shopping at Tysons -- not going under the knife!! :-)

RD... you're lucky you were able to find a career in the area you're good at!

PLS.. I will be in NYC on Jan 3 on a mini-vacation with a fellow mom, leaving the kids and husbands behind. Woo hoo.

But we had been talking about a Dec 28 BPH to try to get Slyness and some other travelers there. Can you make that date?

nelson, yeti is not on the list, so yes it is available.

Dec. 28th also works for me.

tbg - will you be up in nyc for jan 1? we are going for new year's eve in times square...

*Tim writes:
"RD Padouk: 'America clearly needs another Carl Sagan.'

I'm working on it, I'm working on it. These things take time."

Then, "I think it also helps to have a name that is pronounced correctly, 9 times out of 10. A success rate that I dare not even fantasize, for fear that the pain of reality will be more than I could bear."

Dude, use the last four letters of your real last name as your "stage" last name.

Think about it. It also goes good with "Dr."

Lemme know when you need an agent, I'll have you sitting in Meredeth Viera's lap on Today inside of 6 months.

Oh, and you'll need to do something cool, like write book or deliver a paper to the IAU completely in song (accompanying yourself with guitar, natch).

Sorta like the Singing Nun - 'Dr. ****, the Singing [your title here]'.

C'mon, *Tim, you'd be a natural.

bc

I think I can do the 28th, probably not the 3rd.

bc

nelson, you're too modest. Try "Yeti Overlord" or something. You may want to join the other Yeti descendants at the Church of the Subgenius.

And good luck in the Careplex. Anyplace with "water features" in the lobby has got to be OK.

yellojkt notes: "... Stephen Jay Gould is the only other example that comes to mind."

Among the stiff contingent -- Rachel Carson, Lewis Thomas, George Gamow, Albert Einstein.

Among the live contingent -- there aren't too many who are principally targeting adults, that I know of. There are a number of us working children's science education -- me, Jeff Goldstein, Kendall Haven, Dave Grinspoon. However, there clearly aren't any folks with Sagan's kind of prominence and public admiration.

Good luck, Yeti Nelson. I know it isn't for a while but it won't hurt for us to wish you luck more than once. Ivansgrandma's surgery yesterday went well and she is resting in hospital, though not comfortably. She had a hernia in the upper part of her abdomen which had apparently been there for some time -- it was at least a hand's breadth and her colon was above her heart. That just ain't right. It was a nice challenge for the surgeons, I'm sure.

Soon I'm off to the Boy's school singalong. I was flattered and touched this morning. He'd told me to come, but usually implores me to just be quiet. Today he instructed me to sing the way I usually do, to help out in the audience. Does this mean I'll have to find a new way to embarrass him in public?

As long as I'm giving myself a stage name, I might as well go for it -- Dr. Scigood. Just my luck, folks would pronounce it "skiggid."

As long as I'm giving myself a stage name, I might as well go for it -- Dr. Scigood. Just my luck, folks would pronounce it "skiggid."

Ivansmom, perhaps you could borrow the hat Wilbrod mentioned yesterday to embarrass the boy.

Some of us hold Timothy Ferris in very high esteem. And, I think Joel certainly must be acknowledged as one who popularizes science. He just needs that, you know, breakout moment so that the world can see what a hip and happenin' guy he is.

I'm afraid the Boy is impervious to headgear. He has, and wears, a bright yellow fleece cap with a long tail and red spikes down the back; a black hat with even longer tail and darker red spines, very like a dragon; and a multicolored jester-type hat with bells. I wear them all on occasion when he tires of them.

ScienceTim, Dr. Scigood is a brave effort but easily mispronounced. Nutty Professor, Science Guy, Dr. Doom -- all taken. Wait, is Dr. Doom taken? Ah well, perhaps it is not appropriate. Science King? This could be a good Boodle project.

I agree that Joel is excellent at humanizing and popularizing science; just observe me and other non-sciency Boodlers. He just needs exposure. Here's a Boodle goal for next year: Joel on Oprah!

"Coming of Age in the Milky Way," by Ferris is one of my favorite science books. I re-read it every few years.

Also, if you want an excellent collection of science articles, I recommend "The Best American Science Writing of 2001" editted by Ferris.

Plus, I think Joel gets, like, 3 cents everytime one is sold.

>>Joel just needs that, you know, breakout moment so that the world can see what a hip and happenin' guy he is.

That's where the turtleneck comes in, I think.

Not.

Carl was nice, but frankly, the one who educated me about science was Isaac Asimov.

An indifferent biochemist, he was a good lecturer and teacher and writer. 70% of what I knew of astrophysics by the age of 18 was from him, the other 25% by Carl Sagans' "Cosmos" and 5% from other writers, etc.

And SciTim, how could you forget Bill Nye, the Science Guy?!!

We do need more handsome talking heads that will do TV appearances on various subjects and do clear sound bites.

Ironically, when you think about it, Stephen Hawking has done his share even with a speech synthesizer.

Did anyone mention these folks:
Brian Greene.
Jared Diamond.
The physicist Lisa Randall has a book out that's supposed to be really good, but I haven't read it. I heard her talk once and she was impressive.
Tim Flannery is great. His global warming book is about as good as it gets for science education.

I would also nominate Dr. Oliver Sacks for neurology & neuroscience. One of my favorite authors ever since I read "The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat".

Again, he found his talent wasn't in research, but in medicine and writing.

Besides, he did go Hollywood with "Awakenings". Any of your science peeps got hollywood credits based on actual stories?

He's not a scientist, but Robert Wright is a very smart guy and a great writer.

On my desk I have a book called "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose but it looks way too thick to read.

Jared Diamond is good. Guns, Germs and Steel alone makes him worthy of consideration, although he's technically a science journalist, (I enjoyed his articles in Discover for awhile), not a talking-head scientist as SciTim was thinking of.

Hello, Brian Greene? Michio Kaku?

David Attenborough? Jane Goodall?

Stephen Hawking?

hmmm?

I'm telling ya, Dr. Good might trump all of them, buddy.

bc

"Coming of Age in the Milky Way" is really great, and for my money better than "The Whole Shebang." I heard from Ferris a while back that he was going to do a new edition of "Milky Way."

Someone who could be the next Sagan in astronomy is Geoff Marcy but I don't know that he has the time and energy to deal with media. He's busy finding extrasolar planets.

How about Jennifer Ouellette?

http://www.jenniferouellette-writes.com

Bonus: She's totally hot.

Women folk will like her cause she a smart woman, and guys will like her cause...well, see bonus...

I remember seeing Lisa Randall's "Warped Passages" sitting on the "new acquisitions" table of our library. The cover looks cool. Perhaps I will saunter on over and see if it is still available. After "The Great Influenza" I need something that doesn't keep me up at night hiding under the blanket.

Oh, I see while I was composing that, JA *did* mention Brian Greene.

And Wilbrod, I'd disagree that Diamond is just a science journalist. He holds a PhDs (maybe more than one) and teaches at UCLA.

bc

omni, you're just bringing Jen up because she visits her occasionally.

She is a good science writer, though.

And I think you missed the boat on Ms. Ouellette, omniman; she's getting married soon IIRC.

bc

I must also add a Canadian who has done a lot up hear, David Suzuki, more environmental than pure science.

But Suzuki announced his retirement in October. Said he's sorry nobody's listening to him, so he's going to go into the bush for a while...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/canada_life_suzuki_col

Another Canadian occurs to me - Bob McDonald, who hosts Quirks and Quarks on CBC Radio - always an interesting show.

As a junior-high kid in NW Puerto Rico, I got to see the insides of a nuclear reactor facility (I don't think it was online yet), the grand new Areceibo radio telescope, and the little botanical garden at the USDA facility in Mayaguez. Plus read Rachel Carson. I think the cannonball tree at the botanical garden won, aided by Carson.

Much later on, I was taken by Rene Dubos, William McNeil (Plagues and Peoples), and Alfred Crosby (why Europeans prevailed and natives died--or didn't). By the way, there's a new history of yellow fever in the US by Molly Caldwell Crosby.

I'm not good at fiction. Robert Alter's "Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age" was helpful. I need to try out Stendhal sometime.

Omni, I'm flattered by the description. :) And since BC mentioned my impending nuptials, let me take a moment to plug my fiance, Sean Carroll, as an up-and-coming popularizer of physics/cosmology. He's smart, funny, and way cute -- lots of chicas confessed to having bloggy crushes on him when we got engaged. :)

http://www.cosmicvariance.com/sean

Carl Sagan was our giude to the universe.

She has a great post on Sagan and I added it to the kit.

Ah, but no bc, I mention her because I visit her blog.

Come to think of it, Cornell's Tom Eisner has sort of done for insect-plant relations (i.e. chemical ecology) what Sagan did for space.

I've ordered what should be a nice book from Australia titled "Why Does the World Stay Green: nutrition and survival of plant-eaters"

http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/18/pid/4987.htm

Best wishes, Jennifer Ouellette. Bloggy crushes!

There's also the fact she had a strict conservative religious upbringing, and was able to overcome that in college, and is now open minded and intellectually curious.

What's not to love?

I note that "Crotchety Misanthrope" remains available as a Boodle handle.

Even better than "Zesty Bolide", I have to say.

bc

Oh, and hi, Ms. Ouellette.

bc

ooo, I hate misanthropes...

oops, BOoO...

Wapo article on the Bowie/Crosby duet - see Omni's post this morning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901260.html

dmd, you've outed me. I got the idea to find that video from reading the article this AM...

I for one am glad the article inspired your search and subsequent posting of the link.

Aha, I see Jared Diamond is 69 and has been a prof for a long while. My bad, I really just know him from Discover and his books.

Richard Feynmann, Stephen Jay Gould, Roy Chapman Andrews...

This will henceforth be known as the Scientist Rock Star Boodle.

And this-- well, this sure paints the objectivity of a scientist.
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html

There's also horticulture, which is practiced by many hunter-gatherers.

I do happen to believe that monoagriculture, which is a fetish in the US is harmful, but unless he's starved nearly to death and liked it, he shouldn't knock agriculture. Almost anything that guaranteed a stable food supply is going to cause larger populations.

Also, in his contention that agriculture fed sexism; he has a sexist attitude to the whole deal as well.

I don't think a lot of women would be in favor of carrying kids for 4 years and/or practicing infanticide. Why can't the MEN carry the kids?

The real birth control limitor is probably prolonged breastfeeding and being underweight, not mobility.

Why can't hunter-gatherers you know, tame horses or dogs and do dog sleds or carts? I believe that's what the native americans did. They did do some agriculture, but it wasn't their major food staple in North America.

Which is better, to survive a famine seriously malnourished but still alive, or to die in a famine?

You see, this is part of why I have problems believing he's a working scientist. He's smart and knows a lot, that's for sure. But he buys into the noble savage mythos a little too much for my taste.

Still, because I am very concerned about how reliant we are on monoagriculture, I'm giving him this much leeway.

I would remind him though, that hunter-gathering without any kind of storage unit and guarding only works well in tropical and subtropical climes. The more north you go, the more you need to invest in permanent places for drying food and more sturdy shelters.

It's worth mentioning the earliest argiculture signs appeared spontaneously with the end of the Pleistocene, where people would have been able to move further north again.

Flooding of many coastal areas would have occured, forcing people to move further inland as well.

Because people historically like to stay near bodies of water and coasts, what exactly most of those peoples were doing before the Ice age may well be lost under many fathoms of water.

In fact, Graham Hancock argues in "Underworld" this is what happened.

I'd be happy to become the next big science popularizer, a la Carl Sagan, but my knowledge of science is pretty much constrained to the stuff I learned in alchemy and astrology classes way back in school in the Dark Ages (when memorizing the periodic table was a snap: earth, wind, fire, water, and memorizing the names and order of planets was easier still: we had none. Just a lot of zodiacal stuff). The point is, I'd have the perfect science nerd stage name: Mister Withered.

(An homage to one of my early heroes, Don Herbert, who I believe is still alive and about 89 years old [born 1917]; at least, there doesn't appear to be any obit for him.)

Had a bit of drama last night. This place is so big there are shuttle buses to take people from one part to another. We had boarded a shuttle in front of the lobby last night to go to dinner on "the other side" and we're sitting in the first row of seats. The bus was nearly full and ready to leave when a woman came hurring down the steps to catch the shuttle. Suddenly she lost her balance and fell down about six steps, and laid still and unmoving. I was out of the bus like a shot and was the first to get to her. She was breathing and after a moment her eyes fluttered. Half a dozen others had gathered around, and I took off running for the concierge desk. When I got there I told them a lady had fallen down the steps and we needed help immediately. Then I ran back. When I got there, several people where helping her stand up, which I thought was dumb and a major mistake, and I was angry at myself for not staying and preventing that. She seemed to be OK, though pretty shaken, and her friend had joined her (don't know where the husbands were, but that's irrelevant). So she had someone helping her, and they moved her to a bench to sit down. So I got back on the bus. The driver had also jumped out and had also gone for help and wasn't back yet.

What pi$$ed me off was that after two or three more minutes, the "help" finally arrived: some sort of security guy with a walkie-talkie. And what steamed me was, he walked over at a leisurely pace, with no air of urgency. The woman could have been dead for all he knew, or bleeding profusely. About the then the driver came back and the bus departed.

This morning we went to the pool, and I swam for a while and then got into one of the giant (20-people-size?) whirlpools to whirlpool my bad leg. After 10 or 15 minutes, and older man and woman come over and he helps her into the whirlpool. She has her arm in a makeshift sling made from a colorful towel, and of course it's the lady from the night before. Turns out she's a [censored]-Canuckistani from Montreal, and speaks English with a heavy [censored] accent. I told her I jumped off the bus, etc., and was glad to see she wasn't too badly injured. I asked if she had gone to the hospital, and she said no, they wanted her to, but she wouldn't. She said they were going home Satuday, and she'd go when she got back to Montreal. But then she said she thought she broke her arm or shoulder, and maybe also her ankle, which she turned which led to the fall. I said she should definitely go to a hospital, but also noticed she had enough mobility to be walking around, and had moved her arm in the sling a bit, so I suspected she almost certainly didn't have a broken arm. She might have had a hairline fracture in her foot, but I doubt even that. I asked her what kind of mobility she had in her arm, and she could raise it a bit, but not much. I told her she might have had a rotator cuff injury (I had one once from a bad fall, and knew the sysmptoms, etc.). So I told her about rotator cuff injuries and said she still should see a doctor. But what can ya do? She was going to wait. I mentioned I was worried about a head injury and her appearing to be unconscious. She said she was indeed unconscious and still didn't remember anything for several minutes after the fall.

Well, I'm no doctor, and what can ya do? Still, I feel bad I didn't keep her immobilized and made them take her away in an ambulance.

TBG, your 9:27 made me sort.

Off to play miniature golf.

"that hunter-gathering without any kind of storage unit and guarding only works well in tropical and subtropical climes."

In graduate school I heard the suggestion that the traditional Sami culture in Finland is essentially a hunting-gathering society, with the "crop" being semi-wild reindeer. The Sami pretty much just follow the natural reindeer migration.

Also, he forgets that the Greeks in Athens in particular once practiced serious socialism and female infanticide to keep the ekos (families) going and in roughly equal levels of wealth and authority. That was really non-sexist and wonderful population control.

Just look at how happy those traditions made Oedipus. The Hebrews were relatively rare in outlawing and having disdain for any kind of infanticide, even in their nomadic herder days. It's that what we have inherited as a cultural tradition.

The countless tangle of assumptions and implications in his essay does infuriate me. Infanticide is routinely practiced to this day in many countries, unfortunately. It's almost always sex-biased.

Mudge! Glad you checked in, I was starting to worry about you. It's a concern when we don't hear from you for over 24 hours. You never know what horrible things can happen in paradise...

Speaking of, you are correct about not moving an injured person and the need to be checked out immediately. She will probably be okay, but a quick look wouldn't have hurt and she could have gotten appropriate meds. But, like you say, what can you do?

Several years ago, Hubby slipped on ice and hit his head on the side of a car, causing a concussion. We spent the morning in the ER and he missed a flight, which seriously vexed him. The ER doc told him to go home and be quiet for the day. Would he do that? Not on your life, he got on the next plane and flew to Phoenix that afternoon. He hit his head right at the hairline, but even before we left the hospital, the blood started to move and he spent the next two weeks with a fabulous black eye. Which he blamed on me.

Hmm, the hebrews used to be classified as nomadic herders, not hunter-gatherers.

I thought it was distinct from hunting-gathering, since when you're talking about Kalahri bushmen as hunter-gatherers, they live in the forest and animals don't herd as much as they don the plains.

They do follow game, yes, but it's different from following cattle or reindeer as a lifestyle and coming to regard a herd of cattle as property, for instance.

I've heard that sanskrit word for war is go-raksyam --"cow-protection" (guarding cows). It's now a common battle cry for Hindu nationalism and communal violence in recent decades, so whatever it originally meant, it does mean war now.

http://sanskrit.safire.com/Humor.html

Which again, if true, belies Dr. Diamond's assumption that agriculture is the root of all evil. It's actually cows.

I thought agriculture was the evil of all roots (or maybe that's just potatoes). I'm so confused (and still overly full from lunch)

bc
sorry to take so long to reply.I am almost sure what I saw was not a meteor.It had a crooked trail behind it and was going up and I watched it for almost 10 minutes.I thought I might have been a plane except for the crooked trail.Then when I last saw it,I could see it falling back.I took several pictures from my digital out my windshield,But I live on a dirt road and my windshield is dirty.I am anxious to read the local paper(morgan county wv) to see if anyone else saw it.

I will keep you posted

BZ, Mudge, for being Johnny-on-the-spot, and using your head. I agree that you did commit a tactical error in not making somebody else go get help, but in the heat of battle, you can't think of everything. That's why training and practice are important.

A sea-story about that: I took the standard Red-Cross first aid course a bunch of years ago, and had the following experience. We were being taught that, if the victim is conscious, talk to them first. Identify yourself, then ask if anything hurts. (Of course, if they're not, you go to ABC - Airway, Breathing, Cardiac) After some training time, we practiced various first-aid stuff. It was my turn to be the victim. I laid myself out on the ground, face down, and twisted my leg up under my body catywampus, an obvious clue that something was broken. My partner didn't get the hint, and forgot to ask me if anything hurt before trying to turn me over onto my back.

"I'll teach her a lesson." I thought to myself. As she tried to roll me over, I let out a blood-curdling scream, much like a person with a real live broken leg would do under that situation. There were about 20 of us in a room that was, well, cozy. It was generally used for aerobics, so there wasn't much sound deadening material around. And I got a * huge * set of pipes, the result of years of singing in the bass section of various choirs.

Well, my practice partner was so startled, that she screamed, and even went truly hysterical. That made folks near us start screaming. Another fine mess I had gotten us into, Ollie. It took my partner fully five minuets for her to calm down from her own hysterics. The instructor, highly annoyed by my antics, nonetheless, couldn't argue against what I did. Lesson learned, all the way around.

I can be a little stinka' once in a while!!

mo, how do you say "quadruple bogey" en espanol?

_Coming of Age in the Milky Way_ by Ferris is fab.

But my fave sci-wri guy -- not really the same lay-audience magic as Sagan -- is Martin Gardner, of _The Night is Large_. I should say WAS, but books speak, don't they, long after the writer recycles into stardust.

--
But the most pressing question concerns Joel A's hair as compared to Carl Sagan's pate?

Thin, with scientist-fluffs on the side?

--
Here is my Bill Nye story. Before he broke into nationwide/Disney vision, he stopped by my old digs at UMCP to chat about climate change. He was concerned that without care, the story for kids would be yet another world-is-going-to-hell scenario.

I appreciated his interest in telling right, but also considering the impact on tender audiences. Some, including my middle child, were already up nights worring about lemurs, etc., and the rain forest, etc.

Oucho

"body catywampus"

Thanks, Don, for this word from my past. We spelt it CADY-wompus. Not that I am calling you out on spelling, mind you....viva la regional spellings of words sometimes said but seldom written.

Note to self: say this to Son of CPian, aged 14, in front of friends.

LOL mudge - that's a hard one! esp translating bogey since in england it's a slang word for booger so spain spanish is going to treat it the same... you stumped me on that one! (i even tried googling it and kept getting the spanish word for booger

which - btw - is moko...

I think Mudge meant the golfing term "bogey" so look up Spanish golf terms?

By the way, somebody define catawampus (catywampus) in relation to putting a leg under your body? This dictionary says kitty-corner (which is diagonal). On the other hand, this list has a great list of boodle handles. (Also sounds like a list of Dumbledore words).

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~dboyk/word.html

I thought Mumpsimus was the whale that Mudge harpooned when dinosaurs walked the earth, but apparently it means most of the boodlers on this list (me too when I'm nice and aged).

BTW:
recorrido normal aproximado o norma de perfección -- a bogey.

I missed the whole entire day, and am in deep withdrawal.

For reasons that are clear to me about 6 months too late, I appear to be hoist by my own petard. Since I know we talked about petards before, and since I know you are all brilliant people, can you please advise, how do I un-hoist a petard? Is there a petard release button? An anti-petard ray? A petardastardly destructo switch? Can I get it from Acme?

I think I'd develop "boodle handles" if I stayed in here much more.

Mudge I think that phrase you're looking for is, "Guillermo es un golfista malísimo con un columpio como un herrero."

Works for me, anyway.

greenwithenvy, I'd love to see those pictures. I love a good mystery.

bc

dr, don't forget the Petard Maneuver.

bc

For heaven's sake, open a window before attempting the petard maneuver!

I always thought cattywampus meant totally out of whack, not kitty-corner. Is that just the Southern definition?

dr, this sounds serious. Please open the window and take it verrry easy.

dr, I don't know what petard you have been hoist upon, and I fear I may have followed your (very funny) tone a little too closely and fallen into cavalier levity.

If you are in a real situation that is causing you distress, we're here.

dr... what Yoki said.

cat·a·wam·pus /ˌkætəˈwɒmpəs/ Pronunciation[kat-uh-wom-puhs] Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S.
-adjective
1. askew; awry.
2. positioned diagonally; cater-cornered.
-adverb
3. diagonally; obliquely: We took a shortcut and walked catawampus across the field.
Also, cattywampus.

I use catty-corner or kitty-corner for a diagonal direction. I used cattywampus a bit ago in the boodle to describe my computer desk configuration after the network problems. Cattywampus, to me, implies more of an out of control situation.

Lindaloo, glad you liked the Loreena McKennitt version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. It comes from a collection of 5 songs called A Winter Garden - I just got this from the library and am listening to it for the first time. She uses Middle Eastern instruments and rhythms quite a bit in her later albums, which I like.

dr, hope you're just kidding. Get away from that petard, ok?

Someone mentioned Feynmann earlier. If he came into prominence in the television age he would have been enormously popular. His autobiographies are hilarious. Not only a big hitter in the science world but had a bigger view of things. Became interested in Tuvan throat singing because he saw a city called "Kyzyl" and decided any place with that weird a name must be of interest. No one will forget him dipping an "o-ring" in a glass of ice water to explain what happened to Challenger.

I've never heard of Feynmann, but anyone who likes Mongolian throat singing can't be all bad.

http://www.fotuva.org/music/t-perf.html

I've seen these guys in concert - fabulous. And check out the carved horse head on the cello-like instrument.
http://www.huunhuurtu.com/

Seriously, his first installment (see link) is absolutely fascinating. It describes how he realized his talent, a fascinating era of scientific discovery (including his work at Los Alamos) and his enviable love of life.

http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041/sr=8-2/qid=1166669055/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-8813476-6550531?ie=UTF8&s=books

I think Wilbrodog does throat-singing whenever an ambulance comes by, but he needs a voice coach.

I read his biographical stuff as a kid. Great reading! I agree with that philosophy.

I think his physics stuff is a little heavier on the reader, though.

In 1974 (I was 22 at the time), I wrote a letter to Dr. Sagan at Cornell regarding quasars and pulsars that I wanted cleared up. Much to my surprise, he wrote me back a very friendly and personal letter that looked as if it had been typed on an old Smith-Corona. Remember, this was pre-word processors. I still have that letter, and I keep it in my safe to this very day. He was somebody I really looked up to, and I continue to admire his works to this very day. He did much to educate lay-people about evolution, physics, astronomy and nature -- but clearly, not enough. He'd be quite shocked if he could see what's been happening to the advancment of science over the past six years of anti-science politics stemming from the current White House.
Bruce Lindner,
Portland Oregon

Wilbrod, I agree. He would have had to do some serious dumbing down of a lot of his stuff to make it intelligible to the masses (including me). But I bet he could have done it.

I have a copy of the Feynman Lectures in my cubicle. You would be hard pressed to find a more concise exposition of physics.

And anyone who really wants to understand the eccentric nature of the very intelligent should read Gleick's biography of Feynman.

Retired Orlando Sentinel columnist and cartoonist Jake Vest was big on Wampus Cats, evidently something from Tennessee.

And although I couldn't find the book I was looking for this afternoon, my attention was caught by one called "The Founding Fish" by John McPhee. It claims to link ichthyology with American history.

This oughta be good.

Sounds fishy. The U.S. WAS the one that got away, though.

Incidentally, I thought "oucho" as the spanish for a quadruple bogey to be awfully funny, if I do say so myself.

SonofCarl, I laughed at "oucho".

!Groucho teneba un "oucho"!

Yeah, that could work. Just wave your arms like Grover, make a face like Oscar, and swear like Eddie (Murphy), and you've mastered la baile del oucho.

RD -- McPhee's _Founding Fish_ is great. All about shad.

mostlurking,
Thanks! I went over to amazon to listen. A Winter Garden is only 22 minutes long, but "Snow" is also lovely. I own her 1997 Book of Secrets, but saw and heard tonight that her 2006 An Ancient Muse also has the same Middle Eastern sound.

Ha! Will have to buy along with the Kottke that danghippie recommended some time ago.

What I had in mind for my list of science writers was practicing scientists who also are skilled expositors of science for a lay audience (what I usually refer to as "talking to normal people"). Many fine science writers have been mentioned here, but most of them are not scientists themselves. There is a certain valuable authenticity that comes from being a toiler in the field -- it doesn't make one better than the professional writers (in fact, of course, the scientist probably is not as good a writer as them), but it helps to keep the whole endeavor honest and accurate.

Brian Greene came up. I actually have not gotten around to reading him. I have a certain curmudgeonly grouchiness towards string theory. It's a topic in which only the acolytes of the initiated get involved. It's not part of standard grad-school coursework that is considered an essential part of any physicist's education. That kind of thing always leaves me a little worried. The vulgar term "circle-jerk" tends to come to mind.

Good morning, friends. Ivansmom, got the book, and the g-girl and I read it tonight in bed. I love the pictures and the story, and the g-girl loves the pictures. Thanks again.

I heard, rather read some of the President's speech this morning, and I kept wondering where is he going to get the soldiers that he needs to send to Iraq? Are we going to do a draft? Clearly I don't understand, and I did not look at the whole speech because it was so depressing. Every time he talks about more soldiers, I can't help but think about my grandsons, and other young men coming of age.

I'm up so early, just cannot sleep. Are you still enjoying yourself, Mudge? Hello, Slyness. And good morning, Nani and Error.

We're getting closer to the big day. Will try to get some chores done tomorrow before doing absolutely nothing.

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all.

I'm not familiar with Carl Sagan, but I think what JA said about all of starting out as scientist is absolutely true. We have a natural curiosity, but somewhere along the line it is destroyed. When my grandsons were toddlers they loved the outdoors and crawling things. They just looked at everything with wonder, and still do to some extent, but I can tell something is creeping in to take that away. I try hard to encourage them in that sense of wonder. When we go to the lake to fish, they really don't want to fish, they want to find those crawly things or pull tadpoles out the water or turtles. I allow them their fill of it all.

Have a good day, everyone. The holidays are upon us, and hopefully yours will be everything you want and more. As always I am hoping that we all come to know that God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

Linda, The Mask and Mirror is also very good - several songs with Middle Eastern flavor. And The Bonny Swans is the first song that I heard Loreena McKennitt do - very powerful. I'm pleased to see that the Amazon reviewer says:
"There's a tension and density to this music that safely removes it from the new- age category."
Thank you.

Good morning all, big morning here, the little one turns six and hopefully Dad will have his angiogram today - barring any complications.

I mentioned earlier that one of my uncles passed, he was dads brother in law, and while mom was sick I found a book he had written about growing up the child of a country doctor.

While looking up his obituary I found this story, a story of a young boy with diabetes, the story was published in the Canadian Medical Journal and to me reminded me how far we have come, thanks in part to dedicated scientists.

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/175/8/923

Happy Winter Solstice Everyone.

dmd - I really like that story.

For all the troubles of the present day, it is good to be reminded that at one point losing a child to disease was considered almost normal. Indeed, my own daughter would doubtless be dead several times over, I fear, if we had lived 50 years earlier.

Best wishes for your Dad, and a happy birthday to your little one.

Here's a little YouTube for River Tam fans. I hope you like the Beatle's 'Blackbird'.

oops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYX2AXfB-fQ

for fans of Sarah Mclachlan and the Beatles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDZSClcEnwA

George Will is a well educated maroon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001330.html
He doesn't get any social changes that happen after 1969.

Back in my day, which was seven or eight centuries, give or take, after 'mudge's day, Mr. Wizard was a brand name, the Bill Nye of the era. He had the Saturday morning show and they sold Mr. Wizard microscopes and chemistry kits. I spent some time making things change colors, but when I realized there was nothing in there I could blow up the house with I lost interest.

And thanx to Wilbrod for giving mad props to Dr. A. I just fear recommending him to young readers since much of his science may be dated or obsolete by now.

SciTim is on my wavelength that the genius scientist and lucid writer is rare. I think Hawkings gets a lot of mileage off the novelty of his disease. How many people really read 'A Short History of Time' because they were interested in cosmology versus just bought it because they felt bad for the guy with the genius mind trapped in the frail body. He's like that poor kid that wrote the bad poetry Oprah was always fawning over.

Wow. That is about the meanest thing I ever said. Ban me now.

yellojkt - I thought this might soothe your shame.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27621

dmd... Happy Birthday to your daughter! And I hope all goes well for your dad today. Tell him that your imaginary friends are pulling for him.

Your uncle's story was beautiful. I would love to read his book.

Bad yello, bad you. You will rot in he11. (but I'm laughing).
Bonne fête to the little one dmd. My little one, not so little at 12, is having a bad day. She puked a few times during the night and she is not in any shape to go to school today. Unfortunately it is the day on which all her parties were scheduled. So of all the days to miss school she is missing the one that promised to be filled with mirth and merriment. She had tears in her eyes.

Shrieking I feel for your daughter, the same illness is running rampant in this area. Little one had it Friday night before her birthday party, several people cancelled for the same reason and kids have been dropping like flies at school. Hope she recovers soon and the excitement of the next few days can some how make up for missing the school activities. Big hugs to her, my older one is 11 so I can relate to your daughters disappointment - mine would be the same she actually got sick at school the other day but didn't want to come home - too much fun stuff going on this week.

I read the George Will column twice and still couldn't get the point. He's against something, but I can't quite figure out what. He's just mad that bc already accepted the POTY instead of him.

A read a lot of Dr. A, but I'm a little biased there, since he was a friend of the family.

And I would add that I read Feynman and Hawking not because one has a terrible disease and the other frequented strip clubs. I wanted to learn about cosmology and physics, though the bits about safe cracking have come in useful from time to time. As it were.

You've got a good point about 'Six not-so-easy Pieces', though Wilbrod.

*Tim, you're not going to end up on the Today show talking like that (11:55 PM)! Isn't all science Good, Dr.

I've read some B. Greene, and saw those "Elegant Universe" specials on PBS, and, have tried to understand string theory in my continuing research of physics and cosmology (aka Operation: What the Hell Happened, How it Went So Tragically Wrong, and the Assignment of Blame). As with any theory that is based mostly on observational evidence and not much experimentation (nor much possibiliy for it until the LHC is up and running), it's fair to criticize it and compare it to the Standard Model with particles, or loop quantum gravity or whatever, but so far the theorists have been able to correlate predictions with observations to a reasonable extent. IMO, anyway.

Sure, if only a couple of people in the world can *really* understand it enough to particiapte in the discussions, the current theories are likely flawed. But remember, even though only a couple of people in the whole world understood something of calculus from the Greeks until Newton and Leibnitz, it did turn out to be correct, and now it's part of many people's high school education.

bc

Good morning Cassandra!

>And anyone who really wants to understand the eccentric nature of the very intelligent should read Gleick's biography of Feynman.

RDP, wasn't Feynman the guy who had his free flying revoked after he spent about 8,000 hours flying around looking at clouds? I think it was in Gleick's book on Chaos theory.

And yes, Loreena McKennitt rocks. I've been known to wander around the fields on a full moon listening to the The Mummer's Dance.

Brings out the Druid in me.

Loreena McKennitt
IRAQ:God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1uq7IgmezM

WARNING: the previous video link is probably not suitable for young children. It is probably best to minimize the window and just listen.

(I am in a totally linky mood today)

Martin Gardner, was, I believe, an undergraduate math major.

Kip Thorne, physicist, writes well in books like _Black Holes and TIme Warps_.

But no one has stepped up to the plate quite like Carl Sagan.

Still thinking about the hair. JA's pic looks nothing like Carl Sagan. Is JA hiding a thinning top? Does he have scientistey side puffs?

A quick note for BPHers here, if they ever kick us out of McCormack & Schmick's, I think we may be welcome here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001723.html

We'd probably have to BOOB.
And cheeseburgers.

BOOB - gadzooks, pretend I didn't write that.

bc

EF - I don't recall that anecdote, but it has been, what, 20 years now since I read Chaos.

And it would be wrong not to mention James Gleick as an excellent science writer.

CP - I think Joel still has a pretty impressive head of hair. Still, I think it wise not to mention, or imply, or in any way insinuate that time is a corruptive influence for the next few weeks. I suspect Joel may be feeling vulnerable, and just a small nudge away from hiding under his desk listening to the greatest hits of 1982 and refusing to come out.

No, wait, that would be me.

CP, I can speak for Joel's hair.

He's got a nice head of thick straight flyaway genuis hair, not hiding a bald spot (that I've ever noticed, anyway), and unnaturally free of grey for a man of his advancing age. No Nancy Pelosi Baltimore Beehive (though he could probably pull it off when it attains its natural follicular equilibrium), no mutton chop sideburns, either (I cannot speak for Joel's back, however).

When will the world ever get to a point where men are judged not by their hair, but what's under it?

This is why Rogaine, the Hair Club for Men, and Just for Men do such great business, preying on men's insecurities of not being good enough for women.

Makes me want to go home, put on a bathrobe and watch ESPN while eating a holiday beef stick, a big bag of potato chips with a quart of onion dip and a container of Double Stuf Oreos. And wash it down with a liter of Mountain Dew and a six-pack of Youngling. I mean Yuengling.

Sheesh. There's more to us than our ability to lift heavy objects and perform repetitive menial tasks like cleaning the pool or mulching the garden while looking great in a thong. We have brains, too, you know.

Harrumph. I'm out. Gotta go cool off.
Grrr.

bc

O.K., omni, I bit on your youtube links.

I have a Mclachlan CD that no longer plays after the first one or two times I heard it. So I checked out your link because I'm marginally interested in her voice. The Mclachlan clip is sweet and sappy, with just pretty little kids faces who really don't do much of anything but run around looking cute until the middle of the clip, when they start singing, not very professionally or in an organized manner. S'O.K.

The youtube link to the McKennitt song we discussed on this Kit is just plain strange. Yes, it shows the horrors and casualties of war. Yes, it shows us bringing our Christian cultural practices into a Muslim country as we sit there as occupiers. But didn't we move our bases out of Saudi Arabia because of pressure from the Wahabis and others that our presence in the country was defiling THEIR holy sites. I don't see any attempt in he clip by our soldiers to learn much about the culture of Iraq, or any scenes of instruction to understand their seasonal holiday of Ramadan, for example.

And what's the purpose of the quote of Isiah at the end of the youtube video compilation? I wonder if McKennitt knows if her music is being used in such a way, and had given her permission for such, as an overlay for such a jumbled and incoherent set of images? Can someone from the blogosphere just "borrow" material like a song and do with it as she or he pleases? What if the format is distasteful to the artist who created the material? What do you get from watching this clip, omni and others?

If the purpose is simply to hear McKennitt's arrangement of this old carol, why not direct us to amazon (since you direct us to close the window)? With the faming green thing-toy and the inflatable Santa on top of a military compound, and Christmas tree and decorations, I didn't get much out of this clip, except the message, that we all understand, that war is he11 and Christians are just as capable of killing as the next guy, who may happen to be Muslim.

When did the Post add Facebook to its "Save and Share" links next to articles?

Boy, now I do feel old (besides the fact that it's my birthday tomorrow: the last birthday of my forties).

bc, please tell me you do not clean the pool or mulch the garden in a thong - mental image of any man (well maybe not any) but most men doing such activities in a thong - too much this early in the day. :-)

bc,

That sounds like a lot of fun. Can I join you?

Did someone write "maroon"?

Commplicated word. Evidently related to the Spanish "cimmaron," for self-liberated former slaves.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esclavo_cimarr%C3%B3n
That led to the Jamaican term "maroon" and the Maroon Wars.

Thus, it was a bit odd, a decade ago, to spot a new housing development named "Cimarrone." I'm sure there was no intention to honor free spirits of the past.

SCC: Faming=flaming

Spelling error: the Spanish is "cimarrón"

I sometimes do the same thing to "chaparral".

Dave... there's a road around here called Gallows Road. I've been hearing the name for so long that it no longer has any meaning to me.

But I remember years ago they were building a new housing subdivision somewhere along the route and the sign at the entrance proclaimed the building of Gallows Estates.

bc, one more thing about your rant that women only want men for their work, in our home I mow the law, shovel the snow, mulch the gardens and tend the gardens, take out the trash, paint, hang the christmas lights, cleaned a gutter or two, cleaned the pool, made a skating rink and a pool.

I want a man who cooks and cleans - the stuff I don't enjoy!!! Fortunately I have one so all is good. Still working on putting away laundry though.

I can't count Feynmann as a great science writer. He was a great physicist and a great talker. All of his books seem to be from someone (generally, Matthew Sands) recording Feynmann talking and then doing the writing. Feynmann thus was saved from the most onerous and painful part of the process -- plucking out a whirling butterfly from the air and nailing it dead to a board with a pin through its little thorax. There is a definite art to mounting the words so that they still recall the moment of life. Feynmann didn't do much of that. Either that, or he did the writing but preferred to let others absorb some of the credit or blame.

Of course, he still was a genius and a gigantic personality of such proportion that the rest of us seem barely to be of a related species. Sui generis, y'know (if I have correctly intuited the meaning of that phrase).

Loomis I just did a google search and clicked the first link that came up. I myself didn't watch the video, I didn't think it appropriate to the music. In the future I'll be more selective in my linkage. Like this Sarah McLachlan cover of Joni Mitchell's 'River'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjAuXi4wBEg

omni,
I did laugh hilariously at your story of wrapping gifts in the middle of the night with just 2 inches of Scotch tape.

(If you've ever seen how Japanese wrap packages, I know that you could have done it with that much--or little tape.)

And before dmd has a chance to 'out' me:

Joni Mitchell's Blue 'River' Flows Onto Holiday Playlists

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001843.html

You do all that looking good in a thong dmd?

(bad, bad me *hitting myself across the nose with a rolled-up newspaper*)

Omni I won't out you I am feeling very proud with all the Canadiana today.

Who needs men? Not this komodo dragon:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061220.wdragon1220/BNStory/Science/home

TBG - Happy, happy birthday. There does seem to be a cluster of Capricorns around here.

I thought I would boodle last evening about my particular petard, but I was waylaid by a bottle of wine, ok 4 and some very noisy friends with which to share it. Life was good, till I came to work, where I shall once again occupy myself trying to get off this dang petard. Cavalier levity was certainly called for.

You know how some days you decide nah, that's got to wait till later, so you leave it to fester? I did that, and its now become 'the thing'. I just did not plan for the thing to rear its head, capture and hoist me. A few more petard maneuvers (I can't beleive I forgot that) and I should be free to return to my regularly scheduled boodling.

SciTim - I think you are right on the money about Feynman. The Feynman Lectures probably owe a lot to Sands and Leighton. Further, I have found that the books by Feynman are not nearly as interesting as the books about Feynman. He was, well, a little odd. From my reading this is not unusual. Many of the Uber-Genius class have been described as eccentric. Alas, if only being eccentric could make one an Uber-Genius.

Website with many, many Christmas parodies:

http://www.dwarfnet.com/christmas/parodies/parodies.shtml

Aliens' Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the spaceship,
Every creature was stirring, including Commander Flongwhip.
Uniforms were thrown on the floor without a care,
As many aliens floated, upside-down, in mid-air.

Some of them were standing up on their heads,
With visions of planet Earth, where humans slept in beds.
And Commander Flongwhip with his Snotglop, and I in my Fnack,
Set a course for Earth, as we had a large snack.

When suddenly outside the spaceship there arose such a clatter,
I jumped from my chair, thinking we had run into another pile of matter.
Away to the spaceship window I ran with Captain Fnash,
Tripped over Sargent Suttah and fat Lieutenant Clash!

The moon on the side of our spaceship was shining,
And then I heard Sphignat, our spacedog, start whining.
When what to my large, onyx eyes should appear,
But long, shooting flames coming out our ship's rear!

I turned to Captain Fnash, who was now floating more quick,
And said, "Captain, I fear we've run into Saint Nick!"
More rapid than dungshotz flew the reindeer we'd maimed,
And as we entered Earth's atmosphere, I suddenly exclaimed:

"Poor, Dasher! Poor, Dancer! Poor, Prancer and Vixen!
Poor, Comet! Poor, Cupid! Poor, Donner and Blitzen--
Got in our flight path as we were starting to fall,
And somehow our spaceship ran into them all!

To the top of their antlers! To the top of their heads!
These deer had an accident, and I hope they're not dead!"
As dry spaceship waste emits a foul odor,
When it's left to sit too long with no motor,

So these eight reindeer got in our way,
With Santa driving them; now they'll be heck to pay.
We then landed on Earth, and saw the injured reindeer fly,
Over our heads with their huge, bewildered eyes.

The poor deer had met with an obstacle in the sky,
Up in the atmosphere, they were flying too high.
And then, suddenly I saw them on our ship's roof,
They were scraping and clawing with each reindeer hoof.

As I was turning around, I heard a strange sound,
And saw Saint Nicholas fall down from the sky with a bound!
He landed on our spaceship, squashing four, poor deer,
And then he yelled some terrible words, and I was filled with fear.

He was dressed in black fur, from his head to his foot,
And his once-red clothes were tarnished, but from ship's fumes, not soot.
A bundle of broken toys was slapped across his back,
And a pedal from some poor kid's bike went sailing out of his pack.

His eyes--how mad they looked! His dimples, looked really silly,
His cheeks were sagging balls of fat, his nose was bumpy and hilly!
His drooling, little mouth was tied up like a sash,
And the beard on his chin was as brown as moldy mash.

The stump of a pipe he had bitten down on and broken his teeth,
And the smoke from our spaceship circled his head like a wreath.
He had an expressionless face and a hugely fat belly,
That was covered with remnants of peanut butter and jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a quite old, fat, elf,
And I pulled out my ray gun and aimed it, in spite of myself!
A blink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had something to dread.

I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work,
And began to neutralize him, before turning with a jerk,
And cramming a finger inside of my nose,
And giving a nod, into my spaceship I rose.

I sprang to the bridge, to my team gave a scream,
And away we all flew, like we'd just had a bad dream.
But Earthlings heard me bellow as we flew out of sight,
That fat old man just had a really bad night!"

dr - good luck with your festering thing. Those can be the worst kind.

Interesting to see that the thought of folks prancing around in thongs still keeps, ahem, popping up. Speaking of which, when is Mohito man going to check in again? Is he, like, out getting his thong waxed, or something? Or maybe he got bushwhacked by a bevy of bikinied beach beauties, and banished to a secluded cabana, where they are inflicting on him their notorious coca butter torture, slathering him from head to toe, and whipping him with strands of their silky, raven, waist length hair.

Whew, is it just me, or is it getting hot in here? Gotta go wipe the steam off my monitor. Just talk amongst yourselves. String theory, as in those fangled, invisible, oh never mind.

SCC * new * fangled. The blood was draining from my head.

OK, back to work. Bah, humbug.

It begs the questions, bc, is that thong strictly summer wear? What does one wear to shovel snow? And exactly where do you