Pangloss

Yes, of course, scorn accomplishes so much more than hard analysis and fact. I'm so sorry for bothering you with science on the Science Forums.

16 Reasons Why God Never Received Tenure at the University Author Unknown 1. He had only one major publication 2. And it was in Hebrew 3. And it had no references 4. And it was not published in a refereed journal 5. And some even doubted that He wrote it Himself. 6. It may be true that He created the world, but what has He done since then? 7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited. 8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate His results. 9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects. 10. When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects. 11. When subjects did not behave as predicted, He often punished them, or just deleted them from the sample. 12. He rarely came to class: He just told students to read the book. 13. He has his son teach the class. 14. He expelled His first two students for learning too much. 15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed His tests. 16. His office hours were infrequent, and usually held on a mountain top."

ABC News ran a story tonight in which residents of New Orleans accused the city of deliberately blowing the levee in order to save the French Quarter (by flooding a low-income area). They actually took that nonsense to the mayor and made him take the time to respond to that absurd charge. This sort of thing keeps up and a political response will be required (such as the ridiculous firing suggestion Mongo made above). It that happens, we may NEVER know what went wrong or how to fix it. But hey, at least they'll get to play their little blame game. (Sorry, I don't mean to flood the thread with multiple posts, I just happened to catch this on the news.)

Caught a story just now on the local news about how Fidel Castro is pissed because he says the US is ignoring his offer to send thousands of doctors to the stricken area. In typical Castro fashion, he shepherded all the doctors, complete with their little black bags, into a big audience hall to hear his speech.

He knew the Superdome was in use, so you need to be more specific by what you mean. That's part of the problem here -- people are parsing statements left and right and then throwing them back as examples of lies and deception. For example, Bush was accused of lying on various left-wing blogs and debate boards because of a statement he made along the lines of "nobody knew the levees were going to break". That's a true statement, not a falsehood -- nobody KNEW they were GOING to break. But if you look at it in a certain context (i.e. not the one he obviously intended), you could make it a lie (or a hat, or a broach, or a nice pin with a little flower and some gold and chiffon). See, you say above (and I'm not trying to give you a hard time here -- you're obviously not one of these extremists, but you're falling into a trap that I want to point out): And then immediately follow it up with: I added the bold just to point out that it's not even the same subject, much less the same context. You really have to watch out for that kind of thing if you're actually going to try and draw some conclusions. So you really need to know exactly what Chertoff said, as well as the context in which he said it. By the way, I don't think the handling of foreign nationals should be a focus of any kind, not now, not later. If anything it's the opposite -- foreign nationals handled with preferential treatment is a political DOWN side, not an up side (for example, the anger of the poor/black people trapped in the Superdome is hardly ameliorated by the knowledge that a white British couple was escorted someplace else when they couldn't get any transport out themselves).

I predict a smooth sailing. Too many Democrats and external observers have already declared him acceptable. Nina Totenberg of NPR (no friend of the Bush administration) was practically gushing about the guy when his name was announced. There will be more silliness from the special interest groups, but that's about it.

Or the contents of Judge Rehnquist's will? (Yeah, we're mean, sue us. Heh heh.)

Just a random thought: How about hitting Judge Roberts with a litmus test on his thoughts about personal property? Does he think it's okay for the state to take someone's personal property to, say, build a shopping mall?

Sorry, let me just add one more post, in part to respond to Tetra's original post about media coverage. With regard go the issue of media coverage, I think it's interesting that some of the right-wing elements in the press immediately launched into an attack on foreign countries who are willing to accept our aid but never come to ours. They're eating a LOT of crow today. I'm floored by the amount of foreign aid that's being reported. Canada, the EU, Asia, even Mexico and South America are all contributing. Middle-eastern states are putting up free oil. The list is growing extremely long. I believe I even caught something the other day about aid coming from the tsunami-struck region! I hope the right-wingers are listening. But even more importantly, I hope all Americans get the message on this. People care about us. They're grateful when we help them, and more than willing to extend a hand in return. And just because people don't agree on political issues doesn't mean they can't agree on human suffering. Anyway, let me address one of Tetra's points that I missed earlier: No, it's not reasonable to shoot people who are stealing to survive. Yes, it is reasonable to shoot people who are stealing from you if you are defending your property. Reasonable but not preferable. If it were me, it would depend more on whether I felt physically threatened, and how badly *I* needed the stuff they were stealing. The distinction between looting-for-food/water and looting-for-cash/goods is an important one. Interestingly (because I'm a pretty politically-aware guy), I think this is the first time I've ever heard this particular angle on this debate. We've had looting-to-survive in this country before, but I can't remember ever having this discussion at this level before -- a national debate on the subject. And the agreement seems to be more or less universal -- there doesn't seem to be a debate. I do think it's hogwash the argument I heard put forth in one place that people were stealing TVs to barter for food. That's splitting the hair just a bit too fine, IMO.

Oh, regarding the subject of whether the military is overextended due to Iraq, this analysis from James Robbins at National Review seems appropriate: http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200509020719.asp The issue with people claiming that the military is overextended in Iraq has to do with the LENGTH of service required there, and the rotational capabilities of the active units. Iraq has basically zero impact on whether they can deal with domestic issues, like natural disasters, uprisings, terrorist acts, etc.

Nobody thinks the response was adequate. I don't think it's a case of media exaggeration, either, I think it's just a clear case of not being prepared. Whether it's possible to have been prepared for this to an adequate degree is another question, but I think it's a very GOOD question. I still don't think this should be a matter of politics. But of course, as is often the case in history, it will become one. The buck stops here, as they say. First, regarding President Bush, heaping all the blame on him is a convenient but false approach. Nothing happened to prepare for this this well-known probability during the Clinton administation either. Or Bush 41. Or Reagan. Or Carter. (Of course at some point you have to stop and look at who knew what, when, etc, but I think the point is made.) The New York Times and other outlets are pointing a finger at Bush for cutting funding to FEMA. But this is not, in fact, what has happened. FEMA was rolled into the larger Homeland Security organization in 2003. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and anybody who suggests such is conveniently forgetting the fact that FEMA was itself created out of a merging of previous organizations by Carter. Regarding the claims that African Americans have been deliberately abused (or however it's being put), I think it's more accurate to say that poor people were dealt a mean blow. Some further investigation needs to take place into specific incidents, such as the Mayor of New Orleans evacuate foreign citizens ahead of his own people, etc. (The mayor is an African American.) More whites were affected by Katrina than blacks. This is not surprising, given the racial makeup of the country. But of course this is not really the issue. You'll hear the far right take this up as a rallying cry, but really the issue was why those people in New Orleans went so long without assistance. This is a valid question and requires further investigation, in my opinion. Regarding the issue of why people didn't evacuate, many were unable to do so, lacking transportation. This was one of the fastest-moving and fastest-developing storms on record, and (in an oddly contradictory twist) also one of the most unpredictable in terms of where it actually hit. There simply was not enough time to get everyone out. It's worth noting, by the way, that no American city has ever been fully evacuated. We're seeing something completely unprecedented here. Getting back to the subject of blame, state and local officials will have to share in the apportionment of this as well. Some of the analysis already put out there has been unexpected. For example, Mississippi is already talking about the fact that the morality-based laws requiring that the casino boats be located off shore directly lead to the deaths of Mississippi citizens. And of course, even a house built with a solid hurricane code has no chance of stopping a 10,000-ton barge from going wherever it wants to go (much less the matchstick houses that existed in the area). This wasn't anything anyone expected at all, and it will be interesting to see whether that results in casinos moving ashore, something Mississippi citizens have rejected in the past. One thing I believe you will see along the gulf coast are stronger hurricane codes. South Florida should be the role model for these improvements. If you look at those pictures, you see a lot of houses replaced with fields strewn with broken two-by-fours. Houses built under Florida hurricane codes are built out of cement blocks (and have been for 30+ years, in fact). I'd like to see the gulf coast redeveloped under SOUTH Florida (post-Andrew) building codes, which entail roof-naildown processes and windows and doors that can withstand 190+ mph impacts. We have seen the benefits from this in South Florida, and they have been tremendous. Another area where the gulf coast will hopefully learn from Florida is in the area of infrastructure. Power companies in the three affected states are already familiar with FP&L procedures, but power company management (driven by shareholders) logically tend to resist infrastructure improvements that they have to pay for. More work needs to be done in this area. I don't mean to suggest that South Florida is perfect at handling this stuff. We had as many residents lose power due to Katrina (when it was a Category 1) as did Mississippi and Alabama combined. That's because the population density is much higher here, but also because we still have many areas with overhead power lines that do not mix well with old trees (especially older ones. The difference is that power was restored to 90% of our residents within 48 hours. That's because (a) our houses were still there (and would have still been there even if Katrina had been much stronger), and (b) the infrastructure was less susceptible to damage. We still have issues here. One of them is underground power lines, which are still prone to flooding (and when they do get damaged, are much harder to repair), but are less likely to fail, and much easier to maintain. A big issue here is whether older neighborhoods should be retrofitted with underground power. I hope that the gulf coast is rebuilt with that issue in mind (many parts of South Florida were NOT, after Andrew, fitted with underground power, but all new development today is).

That's a little harsh. It's clear now that nothing could have saved the astronauts, for example. But I agree that management screwed the pooch, as they say. The engineering teams said little for 20+ years while foam was hitting the shuttle the entire time. What changed was the addition of high resolution photography at the launch site. Columbia's ill-fated launch was the first time they'd ever seen anything that big falling off the tank on takeoff, and engineers were SPLIT about what it meant. Most of them agreed that further investigation and testing should be initiated, and management supported that decision, but of course that could not help Columbia. As far as investigating the damage, that was not possible on that mission. The manned maneuvering unit (jet pack) was not on board, and there was nothing for the EVA astronauts to fasten themselves on to in order to take a look at the underside of the shuttle. They don't carry ropes/tethers/etc. Had any damage been found, no tools existed on board the shuttle or the space station to carry out a repair. And insufficient supplies were on board to wait the weeks-to-months it would have taken to launch another shuttle. Worst of all, it was not possible for the shuttle to reach the International Space Station. The calculations are pretty straightfoward (though certainly beyond my reach) and if I remember correctly it couldn't have made it even with a full fuel load, because of the particular inclination of this launch. Even if it had been able to make it to the space station, it did not carry the docking mechanism. All crew members would have had to transfer via EVA, and only two EVA suits were on board (and only two of the crew members were trained on EVA). But it's possible they could have worked all that out. But getting back to management's error, there are literally millions of decisions they have to make for each launch, MANY of which have similar, KNOWN probabilities of disaster. I agree that they made a poor choice, and so did the accident investigation board (agree), but I don't think it's a case of sheer stupidity. More like a case of institutional blindness. As Dr. Richard Feynman put it after his participation in the Challenger accident review board: One of his more eloquent statements, IMO. RIP, Doc. Incidentally, the facility which manufactures the external fuel tank was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Good Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Accident_Investigation_Board http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Shuttle_accident http://www.io.com/~o_m/clfaq/clfaq.htm The last link is NASA's now-famous Columbia accident FAQ. Quite an interesting read. I believe the link to section eight is broken, but if you look closely at the URLs under your hovering mouse you can probably figure it out.

Justice Rehnquist passed away tonight in his home. While not the court's oldest member, he had been suffering from post-cancer illness for some time, and was 80 years old. Recent rumors had surrounded his predicted retirement, especially after Sandra Day O'Conner retired at the end of the most recent Supreme Court session, but Rehnquist said he was staying on. All of that's news you can find anywhere, but I thought I would just add a few comments of my own for the purposes of furthering political discussion here on the boards. I don't mean any disrespect in jumping right into a political discussion. I think it's a great loss to the country, but also a shame for another reason -- anybody who puts in that much service to his country deserves a long and healthy retirement. But it was what he wanted, and there's something to be said for that. Rehnquist, a Nixon appointee, was generally considered to be part of a slim 5-4 conservative majority in the court. This is somewhat misleading, however, as he often contradicted the "conservative" label. In fact, any discussion you've ever heard about how the court "defies" those liberal/conservative labels generally begins with the service of Justice Rehnquist. That fascinating story, and what it meant to Nixon and his supporters, is deserving of whole hours of discussion in itself. In brief, Rehnquist favored the death penalty and state's rights over federal government, but only to a point, and he supported gay rights and free speech. I've always considered him a personal role model, in terms of being able to set aside ideology in favor of fairness and impartiality. As has been pointed out in many places, he presided over the impeachment of President Clinton in 1999. What you (probably) won't read in other places is an irony that represented: Rehnquist had written one of the definitive histories of the impeachment of President Jackson, the only other time an American president has been impeached. I believe Rehnquist wrote three books, all histories, including the interesting "All the Laws But One", written just a few years before 9/11, about various acts involving the of suspension of civil liberties in American history. (I couldn't understand why it began with Lincoln rather than Adams, but never mind.) His style was academic and perhaps even "dry", but the man could practically reference himself when it came to expertise. I believe Rehnquist actually used this famous quote from Cicero in his book, and it seems appropriate to repeat it now: "Inter arma silent leges." ("In times of war, the law falls silent.")

Heh, I knew that looked familiar!

If you go to the Google Earth site (http://maps.google.com) and type "New Orleans" into the search function, a new button appears in the upper-right corner called "Katrina" (labelled in red). It basically switches to an "after" satellite view. You can peruse the entire area for damage. I thought the new arena had a fabric roof like the Georgia Dome? Maybe not.

Interestingly, if memory serves, New Jersey and New York had the second and third highest numbers of slaves in the revolutionary era (after Virginia). Of course, these numbers are skewed by the fact that the population count in Georgia and South Carolina was still extremely low at that time.

Extreme urban rowboating?

I just happened to catch a blurb on Slashdot about Linspire offering its software free for a limited time, so I thought I'd pass it along. Apparently you just go to the Linspire.com web site, go to purchase the standard $49.95 version for electronic download, and then enter the code word "Freespire" somewhere. It's slash-dotted at the moment (busy as hell), so I haven't actually seen it. I know most folks here prefer other distros, but I thought it worth a mention. If you guys are like me you like to check out other things from time to time, just to see what's going on.

Hehe, actually that was aimed at mike90. We must have cross posted. But the same applies to you of course. I've enjoyed reading your opinions on the board, even if we don't always agree.

I don't mean to make light of anything, but as I look at this I'm getting an errie sense of "god game gone bad". Maybe I spend too much time playing computer games, I don't know. Before: And after:

I thought we might just post here places where you can donate or contribute in some way to the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina victims. Here's the one that's linked to Amazon and Google: American Red Cross/Amazon.com Hurricane Relief http://s1.amazon.com/paypage/PELYGQVJ8Q7IB/103-4951205-6402255 (If that link doesn't work, just go to amazon.com or a9.com and look for a big button at the top.) http://www.google.com

I think the voltage stuff you've brought up in this thread is interesting. I have not heard that discussed before, and it sounds like an important factor.

Apparently we're not supposed to accept what the government tells us at face value, but we ARE supposed to accept what certain other individuals tell us at face value. The measure for determining which people are the correct ones to listen to? Beats me. We should just do what we're told, I guess. Or was it NOT do what we're told? I'm confused. Oh well, I'm sure someone will tell me what to think.