The Salvation Army is taking donations now for relief efforts it will be undertaking in the coming days and weeks. Please click on the link and help them in this. Thanks.

Good morning.

1. Badda boom.
2. Badda bing bang biff.
3. After the room has been left.
4. Actually, I think the reason the mainstream pressers haven’t been anthro-warming this thing is that lots of snow is predicted.
5. So, where does e-reading come in?
6. Castle law, ultimately I think I’m OK with this law, how about y’all?
7. Evolution and milk.
8. Evolution and forks.
9. Libya links.
10. Stress and temperature changes.
11. Tools and the artisan.
12. A book noted.
13. After a long day, rest with a hippo.
14. On drones.
15. The testimony of the convict.
16. In the slightly more liberal land than ours.
17. Comparing questions.
18. A heartbeat from the President lurks … what?

This particular line, from a Grateful Dead song, has always struck me as poignant,

Sign the Mona Lisa with a spray can,
Call it Art

– Foolish Heart

As the singer insinuates, the quick and dirty tagger’s label can hardly sanctify a classic work of art.

What is it about the Western Evangelical Church that drives us to acquiesce with the culture we live in and, at the same time, justify said acquiescence as a noble cause?

Take, for example, the manner with which many churches are approaching the upcoming celebration of Halloween. This year Halloween falls on a Wednesday and, as most of you may be aware, many churches hold their “mid-week” services on Wednesday nights.

It seems to me that in times past the church would hardly have blinked an eye at this current conundrum.

“What? Halloween is on Wednesday? Oh well, try to get some ‘trick-or-treating’ in before you show up for Bible Study.”

Yet nowadays the church bends over backwards to accommodate a culture which worships Halloween (in terms of merchandising expenditures) less only than that of Christmas. Do a search on the various churches in your vicinity and my bet is that you’ll find them having, in lieu of their regular Wednesday night ministries, some event geared to provide the community with candy and fun and games and entertainment. Whether or not said event is described as a Harvest or Hallelujah Party one thing is clear, there’s very little chance of having a mid-week Bible Study at the event.

What I find most disconcerting with this whole fiasco is that, with cans of spray paint in hand, apologists for these events boldly stencil on the words COMMUNITY OUTREACH, and then walk away thinking that an event which has replaced the study of God’s Word is somehow promoting the Gospel. In our misguided attempt at reaching a community of non-believers we’ve succumbed to the market mentality notion of keeping the customer satisfied. While we’ve been given a divine opportunity to be truly counter-cultural and shine like a light on a hill in a world of darkness, we’ve taken to dimming said light as we go out of our way to join in the celebration with our culture.

POSTSCRIPT: $370,000,000. That’s how much money we Americans, who happen to be in the midst of the Great Recession, spend on Halloween costumes for our… pets.

Good morning.

1. Note to Mr Obama, tell our allies to f-off … and the might just tell you the same.
2. Penn State visits the UK.
3. “Debate” methodology.
4. Of consequentialism.
5. Of Germany, the EU, ethics and the Bloodlands.
6. Race and UCLA admissions.
7. Of government and their pull in the judicial chambers.
8. Da Chicago way.
9. A little morning Physics.
10. The high court and a case.
11. I bought this dvd for this scene … I’m not sure yet whether my kids appreciate it, alas.
12. Leave ya with a tune. … and an attentive listener?

Good morning.

1. Apparently those worldly wise multicultural Democrats have never heard of Calvinism. I think they confuse eating strange off-shore cuisines with actually coming to terms with the beliefs of other people.
2. Surprising to whom?
3. Just sucking down Colt-45 malt liquor by the quart.
4. El Alamein and a book.
5. Ya’ Mo-Town Mash or Motown food-group sounds just terrible. Or not. Try again.
6. Flexibility … I can’t imagine what would be broken in me if I got in that position. Or actually, I can, which is worse.
7. Hume. I think the very first is wrong.
8. Over-agressive mental health diagnoses.
9. On stimulus programmes.
10. Touche.
11. And “Forgive me, for I have sinned”, eh?
12. Of the debates and real debates … hmmm, we could have them play chess, run races, shoot trap, lift weights, take exams, work at various tasks and jobs … gosh lots of things.
13. Which.
14. To praise (Caesar), bury or both?
15. Men as priest.
16. A conversation.
17. Words from the dwarf.
18. Liberal everywhere proud that the term Gestapo has been returned to mainstream approved usage. Brownshirts to follow.
19. Words on that debate thing.

Good morning.

1. Keep burning-at-the-stake those who confess and whistleblow … and the outcome will be?
2. My collegiate experience would vindicate that, one caveat, you have to work hard enough at up to going to sleep so that your sleeping self will work on it.
3. I was going to say, alcohol was involved, but the first comments indicates that was not true? However, impairment remains on the table, I should think.
4. Liberals and their hard to shake postulates. (note: this isn’t to say that conservatives, or anyone else, doesn’t have hard-to-shake postulates that are wrong, so don’t go whistling up that tree)
5. A good final send off question. Why?
6. Word search.
7. And a book noted.
8. Make that books noted, here’s another.
9. So, was the health tax on tanning beds a sly stab at the gym membership -> conservative conversion effect?
10. Thumbs up on this end.
11. Today will tell? Uhm, no .. the day that will tell is a Tuesday in early November.
12. Myth and consequence.
13. For the cricket race followers.

Watch this one…

Recently there’s been a bit about Ada Lovelace and setting aside a day for noting “important women” in science. Why Ada and not another woman? Some ask, if not Ada, who? I say, not Ada. The only rational choice is Emmy Noether. There was nobody like her. Ever. This started as a comment (at my personal blog) on today’s link thread were this was noted. But it grew into post size, so I’ve promoted it.

The point I’m trying to make if had the name the top 5 most influential people in 20th century physics (ignoring their sex), Emmy Noether would be a top candidate for that list … or possibly even the top 3. The Ada Lovelace thing is for “famous women scientists”. Other names are suggested but … none of which have that stature.  The big question is why don’t people recognize her? Have you heard of Emmy Noether? If not, one might ask is the reason why not due to sexism or anti-semitism (she was a Jew)? Is that a factor? Einstein was a Jew … and it didn’t diminish him .. but it’s a possibility I raise, especially noting in the 30s and 40s anti-Semitism was far more common than it is now.

One other possibility was that it was territorial, i.e., Noether wasn’t a physicist. One might think that it’s embarrassing (for physicists) that one of the biggest theoretical discoveries in your field to be made by some one who just stopped in looked at the maths in your playground for a bit and said, you know “I had this little idea, so I wrote it up.” And subsequently this little paper becomes the cornerstone of your whole science for the next century and counting. In part this is why I find the “Ada Lovelace” kind of thing questionable, there isn’t any question of who the most important women thinker/scientist of the last N years has been, where N is a number larger than 100 (1000? or 10000?). There’s only one candidate, and the other question might be was there anyone male or female who was more influential … perhaps there’s a short short list.  There is not a single other woman who has dominated two separate fields of study and wrenched them both around in such a fundamental way. What men might you make the same claim for, what male scientist revolutionized two separate scientific fields? If you think there is a better candidate, put that name out there .. link or comment .. your choice.

So, was it scientific jealousy? Anti-Semitism? Or sexism? Or something else?

My commenter (this started as a comment response), noted he watches Discover/Cosmos type shows. So, in the nature of a quick “Cosmos” style precis, where does Ms Noether’s work fit in the grand scheme of things? (that explanation goes below the cut) Read the rest of this entry

Good morning

1. Hook it up to a nuclear power plant and bingo, the putative excess CO2 problem bites the dust.
2. More girls gallivanting about (at high speed).
3. Zanzibar.
4. Is killing? More like is the essence of.
5. Chaos and beauty.
6. Liberal dis-enchantment.
7. Why the tax/math claims against Romney don’t have bite. The other reason is that when Mr Obama cites “my plan” … the plan of which he speaks are the budgets he sent to Congress that didn’t even get Democrats to vote for it in the House. Realism not.
8. A song for your day.

Gotta run. Have a good one.

Good morning. Well, fortunately the hotel wifi is up to snuff.

1. A political “heh”.
2. Water water everywhere. And not enough human industry and too too much salt.
3. Of women, rights, and stupid faux vaginas. Touche.
4. Power and a girl (in a speaking of which sort of way).
5. Abortion and the campaign.
6. And nobody spent any effort refereeing it, obviously.
7. Paternalism comes to bio-ethics and economics.
8. Three on Benghazi from the shadow folk, one, two, three.
9. The other way to win a bike race.
10. Apparently single mothers in Black urban communities are rare. Or not.
11. ’cause the media is unbiased. Riiight.
12. Who needs security anyhow.
13. Let’s end with some zoooom.

Good morning.

1. Balance.
2. Not crying over split milk, it’s the thumb. Deal with it.
3. Cardboard and the bike. More here.
4. How times have changed, gosh now it’s acceptable to hate men. Seems to me the problem is the who it’s the verb.
5. Nature + industry = art.
6. Meta linking.
7. I wonder why Ms Lovelace has captured the imagination in a way Ms Noether hasn’t. The latter was a far more prominent and influential modern intellect. Is it anti-Semitism?
8. That question in itself answers this question.
9. Art as societies mirror or not.
10. Ya want full employment? Easy, remove (almost all of) the safety net. Poof, even those well paying jobs in the Dakotas and coal industry our 20 somethings won’t touch will be taken.
11. Not necessarily for the young at heart, just the young hearts.
12. A crisis from a different point of view.
13. It’s not stealth, it’s right there out in the open.
14. Syrian WMD.

Well, yesterday my parents were in town for their last day on this trip … and I had the morning off from work. That’s my excuse for not posting links and I’m sticken to it.

1. The earth as a smallish sphere, before you jump.
2. Is that a Halloween thing?
3. So, what is she taking the blame for? Failing to boost security, which could be an honest mistake, or what really needs blame assigned, the pack of lies in the cover up. Which?
4. Purging the records, documents, and 1984.
5. The press shielding Islam. Cui bono?
6. Of Islam, Scandinavia, and guns.
7. More stuff to process for the overworked Biden defenders.
8. I’ve a two part solution, work to make Internet anonymity more difficult and legalize dueling. So, do you have a better solution?
9. Marketing fail.
10. Of Science Fiction and personhood.
11. Moneyball and education.
12. A vote that will not be counted. Illinois, with the Chicago population dominance, will not be a close race … and absentee ballots are only counted if the number of those ballots could make a difference. They won’t so it won’t. The only chance is is some regional race is close in her district, which is iffy.
13. Talking to that rare undecided voter.
14. 16 years of not-warming and counting.
15. The affirmative action disadvantaged minority.
16. Late spring snow down under.
17. “What they were smoking?” … it’s not about smoking it’s about epistemic closure and the liberal news cocoon.

Without much fanfare, figures were released recently that shows global temperatures remaining flat for the past 16 years.

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

Three years ago, when this trend was becoming clear, Professor Phil Jones (director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and who was part of the whole "Climategate" scandal which leaked e-mails among prominent climate scientists at East Anglia) said this:

Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails: ‘Bottom  line: the “no upward trend” has to  continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’

But although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the  models’ gloomy predictions:  ‘I still think that the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17 degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.’

Only if that did not happen would he seriously begin to  wonder whether something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would make him ‘worried’, that period has now become 20 years.

Keep moving those goalposts, guys.

The article is full of opinions, on all sides of the climate change issue, saying that the climate is still not fully understood. But it’s supposedly understood enough to want to create global economic upheaval in order to "fix" something that may not be broken. Fortunately, the current global economic situation has given politicians less of a stomach for huge taxes.

No, the Bush tax cuts didn’t cause the recession. Yes, Obama’s "recovery" has been the worst in history. These and other economic realities can be summed up in this graph. (Click for a larger version.)

A sex scandal involving adults and children under their charge. No, not the Catholic church of the 60s; the public schools of today.

While he did get the number wrong, Romney was right in that those who pay the least in income taxes are the least likely to vote for him.

The number of scientific papers that had to be retracted last year was a 10x increase over the rate during the previous decade. And a study of those retractions finds that 3/4ths of those retractions were due to misconduct rather than honest mistakes.

Good news in the stem cell debate. "Two stem-cell researchers have won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking work in cellular reprogramming, a technique that unleashed a wave of advances in biology, from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using a patient’s own cells." That is, there is less of a reason to use embryonic stem cells, when adult ones will do just as well.

Hedging their bets? "A survey by the Pew Research Center discovered that 2.4 percent of Americans say they are atheists and 3.3 percent say they are agnostic. Among the atheists and agnostics, however, 6 percent said they pray daily."

Need more money for your school district, by proving how many students attend? Make them wear microchips. Privacy takes a back seat to cash.

And finally, some apt scripture for the VP debate last night. (Click for a larger version.)

Good morning.

1. Will not make the evening news cycle.
2. A libertarian considers the candidates.
3. So does Ms Paglia.
4. Ah, don’t worry most of his base still believes his dissembling. So if you wonder why politicians lie so much, it’s because it works.
5. Civilization failing in Southern California. Question is, will it spread?
6. Add a way to kick back troubles for sponsors if the sponsered get in trouble and I’m in.
7. East meets sort-of-East.
8. Works for geese and cyclists.
9. Weight and the battleship.
10. On Afghanistan.
11. Not a salad, sorry.
12. Who petitions for a C compiler?
13. So, the bin Laden killing was an assassination, de facto if not de jure.
14. Adverts for science, well, maybe not science but just weird datum.
15. Zooom. Now mothballed by the way.
16. Speaking of zooom.
17. So, I guess one question is the delay ordinary or unusual? If it’s unusual, why, cui bono?

17 points … 17 by the way is the “standard random number” a concept which bugs my more mathematically minded daughter.