Why I'm Not Posting

Couldn't have come at a better time ... There's a Nonbelieving Literati post due on Aug 1, and I come home from the hospital where my father's just had back surgery to this:

Your blog at: http://thegreenbelt.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at [url redacted]

Your blog will be deleted within 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and you'll be unable to publish posts during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

So I hope they get to it tomorrow (today is Thursday, July 31), but probably they won't until Monday. Especially since their message on the posting page reads (my emphasis):

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on August 1, 2008. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

Oh, did I mention how thrilled I am to be told my blog was tagged by an automated classifier which thinks spam blogs "can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site"?

Why Hate Crimes Aren't Just Crimes

This week Wayne Besen writes:

The far right's dirty little secret is that they depend on the threat of violence to retard the advancement of the GLBT movement. Without the fear of physical attack, the number of people who are out of the closet would quickly multiply. Gay couples would hold hands in every city in the nation. On each block, from San Francisco to San Antonio, gay and lesbian people would be visibly present.

Each day, all but the bravest GLBT people make subtle or even significant adjustments to remain safe. Some dress a little blander in order to blend in. A number of gay men talk a bit deeper so they won't arouse suspicion. Some lesbians apply make up so they won't get beaten up. And, most loving couples act like buddies so they won't get bashed.

We tell ourselves comforting lies, such as "we don't like public displays of affection," to justify pushing a partner's hand away at a romantic moment. But, the reality is, even the most confident and brave among us have something to fear.

Of course, the overwhelming majority of people are not violent and a significant minority of Americans fervently supports GLBT people. What the right wing realizes, however, is it only takes a small number of twisted fanatics to keep GLBT people in check. We rarely know who these lunatics are, as they often keep their hate closeted. But, each gay person knows these hidden ticking time bombs exist and could go off at any moment - shattering our lives.

What's Important 35

Thirty-fifth in a series.

This is from CBC and q-pheever (at A Roguish Chrestomathy) who has, I think, hit the nail squarely on the proverbial head:

As discussed in a recent post on Language Log, John McCain has an interesting tendency to say "Iraq" when one might expect to hear "Afghanistan." In the most notorious example, he referred to "the Iraq-Pakistan border"; this led to some speculation about whether he really thought there was such a border (the least charitable hypothesis), or whether it was just a slip of the tongue (Mark Liberman's charitable interpretation), or whether "the Iraq-Pakistan border" is the new way to say "Iran" (my suggestion).

From what I heard on CBC Radio last night, though, I'm now inclined to think that McCain really does think that Afghanistan and Iraq are the same place. The CBC played a clip in which McCain made an ‘argument’ that can be paraphrased as follows:

1. Barack Obama says that the U.S. should send more troops to Afghanistan.
2. Sending more troops constitutes a surge.
3. But Barack Obama said that the surge in Iraq was a bad idea.
4. Therefore, Barack Obama is being inconsistent. Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah!

McCain's reasoning is sound if and only if "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" refer to the same place, or perhaps if there is One Correct Strategy that applies to all conflicts everywhere. If John McCain believes either one of those things, it would be extremely foolish and dangerous to put him in charge of deciding where to deploy U.S. military forces.

Carnival of the Liberals

The Carnival of the Liberals is up at the Cult of Gracie: a good collection of links for this end of July week. Head on over and do some reading.

Good news out of Massachusetts

(Boy, it's not easy to find something that's not AP sometimes... I almost had to link to Fox! But Reuters came through for me, and so did the NY Times.)

Following a vote by the state Senate two weeks ago, the House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to repeal a 1913 law that prevented Massachusetts from marrying out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states.

The vote of 118 to 35 followed about 45 minutes of debate. Gov. Deval Patrick said he would sign the repeal.

This is important not just for the overwhelming margin of approval (and it was unanimous in the Senate), but because it's a rebuke to the politics of hate (my italics):

Massachusetts in 2004 became the first U.S. state to permit legal marriages of same-sex couples, but then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, told state officials to obey the 1913 law, which dates back to a time when some American states banned interracial marriages. Legislators who voted for the repeal described the move as a matter of fairness, noting Massachusetts for decades had ignored the law when heterosexual couples sought to marry in the state.

"This law has not been enforced, looked upon or even talked about ... it should not be allowed to prevent gay and lesbian couples and their families from taking part in what is rightfully and legally theirs," said Paul Loscocco, a Republican who voted in favor of the repeal. "This law has applied a double standard to certain couples and it needs to be repealed."

Here's one of the most important things about this:

Michael Thorne, 55, and his partner, James Theberge, 50, of Cape Elizabeth, Me., said they planned to marry in Provincetown, Mass. Mr. Thorne said he and Mr. Theberge had declined to register as domestic partners in Maine, where same-sex marriage and civil unions are illegal, because it would have felt like “willingly going to sit in the back of the bus.”

He said, “we made a commitment to our 6-year-old a couple of years ago that we would get married, and he won’t let us off the hook. He has a little brother now who’s 8 months old and that makes it important for both of these guys to demonstrate to them our commitment to be a family for them, and to be a family as legitimate as any other.”

Family.

It's a word we need to reclaim, and a group we need to genuinely honor and care for.

What's Important 34

Thirty-fourth in a series.

This is from the Larry King interview:

KING: You said yesterday that you endorse an Arizona ballot referendum to eliminate affirmative action. Ten years ago, you described a similar effort as “divisive.” What changed?

MCCAIN: You know, I don’t know what we’re talking about. About 10 years ago and I’m going to look it up.

("Yesterday" (Jul 27) he told George Stephanopoulis that "he supports a referendum on the ballot in his home state 'that would do away with affirmative action.'"

"Yes, I do," he responded. "I do not believe in quotas. But I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I've always opposed quotas.")

Mallard Fillmore lies - like the rest of his ilk

Today's Mallard Fillmore (which is in the local paper, unfortunately) represents Barack Obama as saying:

"Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English... you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish."

Senator Obama's actual words:

"I agree that immigrants should learn English. But instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they'll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual. We should have every child speaking more than one language."

In other words, inside that ellipsis is Obama's statement of belief that immigrants will learn English without the need of legislation (though help would be nice). What he's saying is almost as far away from what the cartoon implies as is possible; not the full 180, of course; that would be a declaration that since English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for anybody, but certainly not a "surrender" to immigrants and a call to abandon English. It's quote-mining worthy of the Discovery Institute, it is!

As I said in the letter I sent the editor, "What Bruce Tinsley did is called "quote mining" and it's about as dishonest as you can get. I realize that it's a political cartoon, but are there no standards left, even on your op-ed page?" The answer, I expect, is "No"...

Gotta love it

From today's Sacramento Bee comes this story:

Proponents of a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriages in California plan to appear in court today to challenge state Attorney General Jerry Brown's rewording of the measure's ballot summary.

On the petitions circulated last year to qualify the measure for the Nov. 4 ballot, it was described as a "Limit on Marriage."

But Brown's new title and summary of Proposition 8, posted on the Secretary of State's Web site on July 22, states the proposed constitutional amendment "Eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry."

What are they objecting to? It's what they want. Gotta figure that they want to sneak their bigotry past people who aren't paying a lot of attention, or who are shocked by the blatancy of the way Brown put it.

You go, Jerry. Tell it like it is.

Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the title was reworded because of a state Supreme Court ruling in May that overturned a ban on gay marriages in California. "We had a very significant Supreme Court decision, and the title and summary accurately reflect the measure," Lacy said.

He said the attorney general's office regularly changes "title and summaries to make them as accurate as possible at the time of the election."

Accurate as possible. "Limit on Marriage" sounds ... well, maybe it's stopping those Muslims or FLDSers from having four wives, or something. Brown's summary describes what it is, simply and plainly.

It's like those business owners who told the LA Times that

because of their personal beliefs they would refuse to be involved in same-sex marriages. But they declined to be identified out of concern that their business would suffer.

They know their raw hatred is too much for the average Californian, so they hide it behind "declining to be identified" or weasel-worded propositions. If you're going to force a vote on something, be honest about what it is. Don't your "personal beliefs" include something about lying?

Comment unnecessary...

I grew up outside Knoxville, and that's where I am now. There's not much I can possibly say about the TVUUC shooting, but I'll provide this from the local paper, the Knoxville News Sentinel. Note the final paragraph especially...

Knoxville Police Department Investigator Steve Still wrote in the search warrant that Adkisson "admitted to shooting McKendry and several others at the church."

Adkisson went on a rampage at the church, Still wrote, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets."

Adkisson, who had served in the military, said "that because he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement he would then target those that had voted them in office," the search warrant states.

Still noted Adkisson had sawed off part of the barrel on the shotgun and had left his home unlocked to provide police easier access after he was killed during the attack.

Still seized three books from Adkisson's home, including "The O'Reilly Factor," by television commentator Bill O'Reilly; "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder," by radio personality Michael Savage; and "Let Freedom Ring," by political pundit Sean Hannity.

Happy Birthday, Alexis

de Tocqueville, that is - born in 1805.

"He went with his best friend, Gustave de Beaumont, and after a brief stop in Newport, they arrived in Manhattan at sunrise May 11, 1831. Over the course of the next nine months, Tocqueville and his friend traveled more than 7,000 miles, using every vehicle then in existence, including steamer, stage-coach, and horse, going as far west as Green Bay, Wisconsin, and as far south as New Orleans. He interviewed everyone he met: workmen, doctors, professors, as well as famous men, such as Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence and the richest man in America. At the end of nine months, Tocqueville went back to France, and in less than a year, he had finished his masterpiece, Democracy in America (1835)." [quoted from The Writer's Almanac]

America demonstrates invincibly one thing that I had doubted up to now: that the middle classes can govern a State. ... Despite their small passions, their incomplete education, their vulgar habits, they can obviously provide a practical sort of intelligence and that turns out to be enough.

I hope our passions aren't necessarily so "small", nor our intelligence just "practical" - let's make it more than "enough" this time.

Happy Birthday, Gerard

Born today in 1844 in Stratford, Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite poets (still today, though I don't agree with his philosophy).

Bless you, Robert Bridges, for publishing his work after he died, in 1888, too young and no longer writing...

Here's one of my favorites (curse html and its difficulty with rendering text meant to be so heavily indented):

Pied Beauty


Glory be to God for dappled things--
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
        For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
        And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
        With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
        Praise him.

Word Clouds

I've seen this a couple of places now (lastly at Staring at Empty Pages). It's called "wordle" and it was invented by an IBM Research guy named Jonathan Feinberg. He calls it a "toy for generating 'word clouds'." You can go to the wordle site and create your own out of whatever text you want. You can play with layout, fonts, colors ... it's fun.

Here a couple I did - the first is my front page (delivered by RSS feed), and the second is what comes up under the label "birds"... Try it - it's painless and entertaining!

Not that it's a big surprise

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Hat tip to Ordinary Girl...

What's Important 33

Thirty-third in a series.

This is an MSNBC report:

NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl, despite the claim by McCain folks and others. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits because he had joined the campaign -- violating rules that it not be a political stop.

Obama had gone to see wounded troops in Iraq earlier in the week, without even confirming he'd been there. No press, no pictures. He has done the same when he goes to Walter Reed -- never any press.

In other words, McCain's ad is a lie (and one that most of the media is letting him get away with).

(Hat tip to TPM)

And check out Fact Check's analysis.

Happy Birthday, Equal Protection and Due Process

Proposed on June 13, 1866, ratified on July 9, 1868, and certified on today, July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:


All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Monday Science Links

Sorry this is late, but things came up! And it's still Monday ... So here are this week's links:

• Carl at Rigor Vitae posts on a white eagle: Usually, white plumage is a liability for a predatory bird, especially in tropical forests. Conventional wisdom suggests the white Gray Goshawks realize a benefit from their similarity to white cockatoos (Cacatua spp.); small prey birds are likely to mistake them for the innocuous psittaciformes until it's too late. In fact, the white phase is not known to occur in any localities where Cacatua species don't.


• Jennifer at Mind the Gap tells us what prompted her return to science: Sometimes even the most innocuous events can have serious consequences. In a recent post, Henry related a lab nightmare of Hieronymus Boschian proportions which, on waking, made him thank Dawkins that he was no longer a practicing scientist. This, in turn, reminded me of why I decided to abandon a successful and lucrative career in science publishing to return to the lab. I’ve already discussed some of the core reasons for this volte-face, but up until now, I haven’t actually revealed the decisive inconsequential moments that catalyzed the whole affair.


• Kristjan at Pro-science fisks a creationist's challenge: Back when I started this blog, I would frequently take apart articles and comments made by people ignorant about the subject they talked about. Most often, the subject at hand would be evolution. As time went by, I stopped doing it quite as often, and lately I haven't done it at all. However, I've come across an article so stupid, so ignorant, that it virtually begged to be fisked, so here we go again. How Dawkins Misrepresents Evolution! by Babu Ranganathan Wow, that's a really strong title - note the exclamation mark and everything.


• Stefan at Back-reaction looks at the centenary of the first liquefaction of helium: I read about the story of the liquefaction of helium in the July issue of the PhysikJournal (the German "version" of Physics Today - PDF file available with free registration). Moreover, the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden shows a special exhibition to commemorate the event, "Jacht op het absolute nulpunt", but the website seems to be in Dutch only. However, the curator of the exhibition, Dirk van Delft, describes the story in a nice article in the March 2008 issue of Physics Today, "Little Cup of Helium, Big Science", where he makes the point that the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in Leiden marked the beginning of "Big Science" in physics (PDF file available here and here). One Hundred years later, there is a twist to the story I wasn't aware about at all: Helium is now so much used in science and industry that there may be a serious shortage ahead!


• gg at Skulls in the Stars blogs about freezing images in an atomic vapor, saying: I thought I’d step out of my comfort zone and specific field of expertise for once and do a post on some interesting quantum optics. In a June issue of Physical Review Letters, an Israeli research group experimentally demonstrated the ability to store and retrieve optical images in an atomic vapor using so-called ‘electromagnetically induced transparency’, a purely quantum-mechanical effect. Researchers have previously demonstrated the ability to ‘freeze’ light pulses in an atomic medium, but this is the first time to my knowledge that a structured two-dimensional image has been given the same treatment. To fully describe the research and its significance, however, we need to say a little bit about how atoms and molecules absorb and emit light.

Enjoy!

The Week in Entertainment

Film: Hellboy 2 - a little weaker than the original but still plenty of fun.

DVD: The Spiderwick Chronicles - I remember when I saw the posters for this; I said to my friend, "There were five of those but I bet they'll make one decent sized movie." Not a bad film at all, but they left out a lot from the books, slim as they were.

Read: Dead Heat - by Dick and Felix Francis - which was okay but not a really strong mystery. As usual the romance was very much out of the blue but mostly the story is strong enough to withstand that; this one wasn't. Plus the whole motivation was obvious, we knew the bad guy as soon as he was named, and anybody could have guessed the crime ... Borrow it from the library, don't buy it. Cosmicomics - wait for my Nonbelieving Literati post! Persepolis - excellent! Highly recommended.

F. Scott Key

This afternoon I listened to a presentation on teaching The Great Gatsby to non-English-speaking Italian high school kids. Interestingly, the presenter referred to the author as "F. Scott Key Fitzgerald".

Now it's true that Fitzgerald's full name was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. But no Americans call him "F. Scott Key"... he's either F. Scott, or just plain Scott, Fitzgerald. This speaker, though Italian, had a markedly British accent, and I'm willing to bet that she learned English either in the UK or from British teachers. And that she thinks his last name is "Key Fitzgerald".

I've noticed that Brits occasionally get three-named Americans wrong*. For instance, I've heard them refer to "Wendell Holmes" or "Luther King" or "Foster Dulles" in contexts where the plain surname was used for others. I think they think these are double-barreled surnames (like Conan Doyle). But "F. Scott Key Fitzgerald" is the oddest thing I've heard in a while.

*On the other hand, I remember hearing the Australian golfer Ian Baker-Finch say that the first time he played in Houston, everyone called him "Ian Baker", thinking that was his given name...

Uncool

From What's New by Bob Park:

Suppose, I asked myself, that the deniers are right and the CO2 thing is a mistake? What will happen if the world takes the CO2 thing seriously, adopting common sense measures to counter anthropogenic warming and there never was any warming in the first place? 1) there will more non-renewable resources to leave to our progeny; 2) we will breath cleaner air and see the stars again, the way we saw them half a century ago; 3) we could stop paving over the planet, and 4) cut down on the number of billionaires. If we’re wrong we could have a party. We could have a party either way.

What's Important 32

Thirty-second in a series.

This one comes from Harold Meyerson's July 17 column:

Whether Americans are even experiencing a downturn has been a matter of some dispute in the McCain camp, since former senator Phil Gramm, until last week one of McCain's chief surrogates on economic issues, deemed America a nation of "whiners" mistaking subjective insecurity over the economy for an objective economic fact. For McCain, who had the misfortune to be campaigning in Michigan the day that Gramm's remarks dominated campaign news, Gramm's insensitivity was appalling. But McCain has never expressed any concern that Gramm wrote the legislation that enabled the $62 trillion credit default swaps market to remain unregulated, which, as David Corn documented in Mother Jones, meant that banks and hedge funds could accumulate liabilities that they could not cover if the markets -- most particularly, the subprime mortgage market -- went south. To the contrary, McCain has viewed Gramm as one of his economic gurus. "There is no one in America that is more respected on the issue of economics than Senator Phil Gramm," McCain declared in February.

Treasury material, perhaps, even...

For some values of "historic", yes, it was

In Froomkin's column today he quotes CBS's Mark Knoller on Bush deputy CoS Joseph Hagin:

It was Joe Hagin's idea that Mr. Bush -- a one-time pilot in the Texas Air National Guard -- fly to the carrier 'Top Gun'-style aboard a Navy S-3B Viking warplane. ... And to this day, Hagin remains "surprised" by the criticism of the flight and the banner -- but still regards Mr. Bush's visit to the ship as "historic."

Historic? You betcha.

It was the first time a president ever dressed up and played soldier in public.

Happy Birthday, Robert

Today in Wimbledon, England, in 1895, Robert Graves was born. 18 when WWI started, he was immediately shipped off to France. He was badly wounded and reported dead; he believed his life had been spared to write poetry. He suffered from PTSD - recurring nightmares and flashbacks that paralyzed and terrified him. But after he married he began to write, prolifically. In 1929 he published a memoir called Goodbye to All That, and he was able to support himself and his family on his writing for the rest of his life. He may be best known for The White Goddess, a exploration of poetry and myth, and his novels I, Claudius and Claudius, the God, his translations from Latin, and the controversial King Jesus. But he also wrote poetry:

To Robert Nichols
(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.”)

Here by a snowbound river
In scrapen holes we shiver,
And like old bitterns we
Boom to you plaintively:
Robert, how can I rhyme
Verses for your desire
Sleek fauns and cherry-time,
Vague music and green trees,
Hot sun and gentle breeze,
England in June attire,
And life born young again,
For your gay goatish brute
Drunk with warm melody
Singing on beds of thyme
With red and rolling eye,
Waking with wanton lute
All the Devonian plain,
Lips dark with juicy stain,
Ears hung with bobbing fruit?
Why should I keep him time?
Why in this cold and rime,
Where even to dream is pain?
No, Robert, there’s no reason:
Cherries are out of season,
Ice grips at branch and root,
And singing birds are mute.

Escape
(August 6, 1916.—Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)

…BUT I was dead, an hour or more.
I woke when I’d already passed the door
That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road
To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed.
Above me, on my stretcher swinging by,
I saw new stars in the subterrene sky:
A Cross, a Rose in bloom, a Cage with bars,
And a barbed Arrow feathered in fine stars.
I felt the vapours of forgetfulness
Float in my nostrils. Oh, may Heaven bless
Dear Lady Proserpine, who saw me wake,
And, stooping over me, for Henna’s sake
Cleared my poor buzzing head and sent me back
Breathless, with leaping heart along the track.
After me roared and clattered angry hosts
Of demons, heroes, and policeman-ghosts.
“Life! life! I can’t be dead! I won’t be dead!
Damned if I’ll die for any one!” I said….

Cerberus stands and grins above me now,
Wearing three heads—lion, and lynx, and sow.
“Quick, a revolver! But my Webley’s gone,
Stolen!… No bombs … no knife…. The crowd swarms on,
Bellows, hurls stones…. Not even a honeyed sop…
Nothing…. Good Cerberus!… Good dog!… but stop!
Stay!… A great luminous thought … I do believe
There’s still some morphia that I bought on leave.”
Then swiftly Cerberus’ wide mouths I cram
With army biscuit smeared with ration jam;

And sleep lurks in the luscious plum and apple.
He crunches, swallows, stiffens, seems to grapple
With the all-powerful poppy … then a snore,
A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor
With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun—
Too late! for I’ve sped through.
    O Life! O Sun!

Happy Birthday, Zelda

My father grew up in Montgomery, and once when he was ill Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald read him a story. She was beautiful and crazy, and her life is a tragic romance...

I and the Bird

Yes, it's that time again - the Hawk Owl's Nest presents a wonderful, Olympics-themed, edition of I and the Bird as the premiere bird-blogging carnival begins its fourth year. Check it out for fabulous international birds and bloggers.

He said, he said? How about He said, he lied?

Michael Kranish, over at the Boston Globe, covers McCain's New England tour. He does a pretty good job of balancing the two campaign's claims, but does get a little bit stuck in the "he said, he said" trap of reporting both sides' claims as if they were merely opinions:

Appealing to voters angry over high prices at the pump, McCain launched a hard-hitting new TV ad yesterday accusing Obama of doing nothing to help motorists.

"Gas prices - $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America," the narrator says. "No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?" A crowd, chanting "Obama, Obama," can be heard.

"Don't hope for more energy, vote for it," the announcer says, ridiculing one of Obama's main campaign themes.

Obama's campaign says that more offshore drilling wouldn't provide any relief for a decade, and instead promoted his plan to invest $150 billion in renewable sources of energy.

The thing is, it's not just "Obama's campaign" that says that - it's virtually everyone who's not a Republican politician. Even this administration's own energy bureaus and agencies. Best estimate for getting oil from new fields to American drivers? Seven years. That's the best estimate, remember. Some say fifteen.

So points to the Globe for pointing out that McCain's claim is contested, but points off for acting as though there isn't an objective truth out there. It really is more than "he said, he said, take your pick."

Happy Birthday, Stephen

Vincent Benet, that is. Born in 1898.

They bred such horses in Virginia then--
Horses that were remembered after death,
And buried not so far from Christian ground
That if their sleeping riders should awake
They could not witch them from the earth again
And ride a printless course along the grass
With the old manage and light ease of hand...

What's Important 31

Thirty-first in a series.

This one's from Stephen Thomma at McClatchy Papers Washington Bureau:

McCain frequently says that Barack Obama would raise tax rates on 23 million small-business people who file tax returns as individuals.

Why that's wrong: "It's a false and preposterously inflated figure," concluded factcheck.org, the nonpartisan watchdog group at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. Many would pay higher taxes, the group said. But Obama's plan would raise tax rates only for individuals who make more than $200,000 a year and couples that make more than $250,000. That probably comprises fewer than 700,000 people who report business income, according to a study by the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And not all of them are small-business owners.

Meanwhile, of course, McCain's plan would make permanent the irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy enacted by Bush - and adding more - while cutting taxes for the middle class and working poor by much much less than Obama's.

Monday Science Links

This week's science:

• Phil at Bad Astronomy asks how do you weigh a supermassive black hole?: Black holes are cool. They’re also scary, and weird, and exciting. But if there’s one word I’d use to describe them (besides, well, "black"), it’s mysterious. They twist our minds, and they push our math and science to the limit. After all, they’re like punctures in the fabric of space and time, and that has some inherent effects on our common sense. But maybe maddening would be a good word, too. Astronomers love black holes for the same reasons you do, but we also hate them, because they’re so frackin’ resistant to study. They’re black. They don’t give off any light, so that makes them pretty difficult to observe.
  


• Sean at Cosmic Variance is also looking at measuring things in the sky ... or actually, the whole sky: Nevertheless, there is a subtle way for the universe to break isotropy and have a preferred direction: if the tiny observed perturbations somehow have a different character in one direction than in others. The problem is, there are a lot of ways this could happen, and there is a huge amount of data involved with a map of the entire CMB sky. A tiny effect could be lurking there, and be hard to see; or we could see a hint of it, and it would be hard to be sure it wasn’t just a statistical fluke.


• Carl Zimmer at The Loom looks at how our brains control time: Whenever I lose my watch, I take my sweet time to get a new one. I savor the freedom from my compulsion to carve my days into minute-size fragments. But my liberty has its limits. Even if I get rid of the clock strapped to my wrist, I cannot escape the one in my head. The human brain keeps time, from the flicker of milliseconds to the languorous unfurling of hours and days and years. It’s the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Keeping track of time is essential for perceiving what’s happening around us and responding to it.


• Jennifer at The Infinite Sphere does some tree classification: Identifying trees is hard. Especially when they're so tall you can't access the leaves or see the fruit! But last weekend I did my best to collect samples from as many trees for my biological inventory project. My plant presses work great. The only problem is I filled them both up in about 3 hours. I guess I need to make a few more! (with pictures)


• Jennifer (not the same one) at Mind the Gap judges a science fair: My friend Alom Shaha is an amazing guy: not only is he a freelance science filmmaker, but he’s also a part-time physics teacher at the Camden School for Girls. It transpires that the official UK science curriculum is so heartbreakingly easy that his students had finished it weeks earlier with both hands tied behind their backs and were filling in the remaining year with more adventurous, creative endeavors, including the school’s first ever Science Fair. When I met up with Alom and his pupils on the fateful afternoon, I found them out in the sunny grounds, learning about the physics of bubble blowing. In addition to the novelty of hearing Alom called variously called ‘Sir’ and ‘Mr Shaha’ by a chorus of winningly enthusiastic girls, I bore witness to a few bubbles that definitely seemed to violate the laws of physics, and got to enjoy a genuine English school dinner.

Enjoy!

The Week in Entertainment

Very busy week at the conference!

TV: The British Open

Read: Finished up Reginald Hill's The Stranger House, which is extremely well written. Started The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay, which is fascinating so far.

The Open

Sheesh. We're watching some tremendous golf from Pádraig Harrington - he just made an eagle on 17 for a four-shot lead - the announcers suddenly start going on about how "these conditions would have been right up Tiger's alley". Fortunately, after a few moments, one of them recollected himself and said, "But there won't be an asterisk beside anybody's name." No kidding. It still frakking counts, even if Tiger isn't here.

Few of the announcers can deal with Pádraig, either - not the golfer, the name. They all get the vowels right (I haven't heard Patrick) but the consonants defeat most of them. I've heard Pahrick, Pahtrick, Pahdrick, Pahrig, Pahdrig, Pahdrig... Pahrig is the northern pronunciation, and Pahdrig the southern, Munster. Harrington's from Dublin; he seems to say Pahdrig with the D very soft. But the Irish don't devoice as the Scots do in their Gaelic language (Irish and (Scots) Gaelic are very different, like English and Dutch), so it's never Pahtrick.

But Harrington played tremendous golf today and Norman's three-bogey start doomed him to a third-place finish, tied with KJ Choi and Henrik Stenson behind Harrington and Poulter. Not that third in the Open is a poke in the eye, of course, especially for a guy no one picked to make the cut. But for Norman, it is one more Sunday lead lost ... though he didn't blow it, he just was outplayed.

Harrington of course won last year at Carnoustie in a playoff with Sergio. The Irishman can play some golf.

Can't Help

Sally Forth from today is about how bad movies are. No comment there, but I would like to look at Hilary's line in the last panel. The picture's a bit small (the link is better), but the line is:

"Man, Hollywood can't help pump out the greatness, huh?"

This isn't right - at least, not for the joke to work.

Usually, "can't help" takes a participial complement when the subject is the same: Hollywood can't help pumping out the greatness. The structure in the cartoon - the bare form- isn't wrong; it just doesn't mean the right thing. Hollywood can't help pump out the greatness means that someone is in fact pumping out greatness, but Hollywood can't help. (The 'to infinitive' can also be used here: can't help to pump out.)

Another way to express this using the bare form is to add a "but": Hollywood can't help but pump out the greatness. This, like the participial, says that Hollywood is pumping out greatness and can't prevent itself from doing so.

And that line is funny, given the set up. That Hollywood cannot produce greatness is just a bland summary of the preceding panes

Nice slogan

Just saw a commercial for the Minnesota Opera - their slogan is a good one, like Baltimore's "Opera - it's better than you think. It has to be."

Theirs is "Check out opera. You know you want to."

The Open - update

Ian Poulter just finished the final round 1 under for the day. At this course, in this weather, that's an astonishingly good score. Meanwhile, Padraig Harrington is playing very steadily, and Greg Norman ... is not.

A terrific final day.

Carnival of the Godless #96

The latest Carnival of the Godless is up at Sean the Blogonaut's place. 96, can you believe it? Great godless blogging for the rest of your weekend. Enjoy!

Rook's Hawk

Found this at Ordinary Girl's ...

Your result for Which Chess Piece are You Test?...

The Rook's Hawk

Congrats! Only 12-16% of the population score this!

The Rook’s Hawk is like a judge. They have a great sense of right and wrong especially in their area of interest or responsibility. They are devoted to duty. They are punctual. People who set their clocks on others are typically measuring their time with the Hawk. It is common to perceive that the Hawk is cold or aloof. They frequently protect their emotions via practicality.

They work systematically to get the job done. When a new procedure is proven, they can be depended upon to carry it out. The Rook’s Hawk is deeply frustrated by the inconsistencies of others, especially when it comes to commitments. They will keep their feelings to themselves – but when asked expect truth over tact. They are quite able to make the tough call and carry it out. You will find the Rook’s Hawk at home in government, schools, military or any other organization which maintains strict hierarchy. They are the traditionalist and are perfect for balancing out the idealists of other types.

The Rook’s Hawk thrives on organization. They keep their lives and environments well-regulated. They bring painstaking attention to detail in their work and will not rest until satisfied with a job well done. They are obviously hard workers. They will sort through ideas and find the most practical ones, again revealing how common sense prevails in this type. This ‘Pawn’ is the cornerstone of an ethical working society. They are centered on dealing with the present and most practical affair. They observe life and promote consistency in society. They value loyalty and others are best to acquaint themselves with this type if they wish to gain a fruitful insight to what makes the world tick.

Take Which Chess Piece are You Test? at HelloQuizzy

What's Important 30

Thirtieth in a series.

From the New York Times's Frank Rich (his Sunday column):

The term flip-flopping doesn’t do justice to Mr. McCain’s self-contradictory economic pronouncements because that implies there’s some rational, if hypocritical, logic at work. What he serves up instead is plain old incoherence, as if he were compulsively consulting one of those old Magic 8 Balls. In a single 24-hour period in April, Mr. McCain went from saying there’s been “great economic progress” during the Bush presidency to saying “Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago.” He reversed his initial condemnation of mortgage bailouts in just two weeks.

In February Mr. McCain said he would balance the federal budget by the end of his first term even while extending the gargantuan Bush tax cuts. In April he said he’d accomplish this by the end of his second term. In July he’s again saying he’ll do it in his first term. Why not just say he’ll do it on Inauguration Day? It really doesn’t matter since he’s never supplied real numbers that would give this promise even a patina of credibility.

Mr. McCain’s plan for Social Security reform is “along the lines that President Bush proposed.” Or so he said in March. He came out against such “privatization” in June (though his policy descriptions still support it). Last week he indicated he isn’t completely clear on what Social Security does. He called the program’s premise — young taxpayers foot the bill for their elders (including him) — an “absolute disgrace.”

McCain admits to being no economist - and he leans on Phil Gramm (a likely Secretary of the Treasury pick - enough to chill you right there) - but this is ridiculous.

Duck Duck Goose

Here's something I did this past week. I like having time - and instructions! - to play with things.

Name Games

Oh, I see. It's a time horizon, not a time table. Petraeus says so:

The top American commander in Iraq is downplaying recent comments by Nouri al-Maliki on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, claiming that the Iraqi prime minister wants “time horizons,” not timetables.

During an interview that aired Friday on MSNBC, Gen. David Petraeus cast al-Maliki’s growing assertiveness on the presence of US. troops as a positive sign of the government’s sovereignty while lauding Iraq’s improved military ability. But Petraeus indicated that doesn’t necessarily mean American troops will be able to leave by the end of next year, a goal many Democratic lawmakers favor.

“Again, what [al-Maliki] has said is not a timeline or a timetable. He said time horizons, which, again, we think that there's nothing wrong with talking about time horizons,” said Petraeus.

So, you see, it's very different from saying that we would like to begin withdrawing troops next year. Because of course that would be a time table, which would mean the terrorists win, but when al-Maliki says

"US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

and

"Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems."

that's only a time horizon, and so the terrorists lose.

Got it.

Go, Greg!

Greg Norman?

Wow.

It's been 12 years since he led a major going into Sunday.

He's won The Open twice, but it's been a long time since he won anything ... eleven years.

I was pulling for Sergio, of course, but now (I'll scream for Sergio if he makes a move, but 7 back? not likely) I'm solidly behind Norman. Go for it, old man!

In case you haven't seen it - Quick!

You probably don't need me to tell you this, but just in case: Head right over right now to Dr Horrible and watch it. All three parts of Joss Whedon's new project are up. And I mean now, because it won't be up after Sunday midnight.


There's extras too, but the main thing is to watch it. Neil Patrick Harris is Dr Horrible, Nathan Fillion is Captain Hammer, and Felicia Day is Penny. Great, great stuff. (Though I confess, I was halfway expecting - hoping for? - a reference to someone moving his chair...)

It's brilliant.

Learn this from me

(This has been in drafts for a long time. In lieu of something new, I finished it up.)

Over at his blog You Don't Say, Baltimore Sun copyeditor John McIntyre discusses often usage nuances; this is one of his examples:

My wife grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where she was mystified in English class to be taught that to learn is an intransitive verb. Who, she wondered, would get that wrong? But I grew up in eastern Kentucky, where there was a supply of bullies ever willing to learn me not to give myself such airs as a bookworm. Learn as a transitive has a long history in English, probably surviving in Appalachia as a remnant of the 18th-century English of the first Scotch-Irish settlers. But no one heard that usage coming from my mouth, because it would have identified me as subliterate.

Excuse me, Mr McIntyre, but "learn" is definitely a transitive verb. "I learn grammar", for instance.

I believe he means that "learn" is not a ditransitive verb, and that it's semantically restricted from taking the learner as its object. Of course, that's harder to work into a throwaway comment about regionalisms, isn't it? Still, it's true. "Learn" is most definitely not an intransitive verb.

"Learn" takes a pretty full range of complements: it can take noun phrases as a direct object (learn your lesson); it can take infinitive or participial clauses as its complement (learn to play golf, learn reading music); it can even take full clauses, with or without the complementizer "that" (learn that Bob is coming home next week, learn what to do in case of emergency, learn Sue doesn't know how to work the copier) . "Teach" has almost the same range - direct objects, infinitive clauses, and participial clauses are fine (teach math; teach to read Spanish; teach playing the guitar), but with other clauses it really needs the overt "that" - and the indirect object (teach you that you can succeed). It can always have a noun phrase indirect object with a noun phrase, either plain or with "to" (teach Bob math, teach math to Bob) and the plain one with an infinitive clause (a structure that mimics a direct object: teach Bob to play golf = teach [playing] golf to Bob), while learn can only have a prepositional phrase in the reciprocal position. Given the different semantic, or case, roles the verbs require, for "teach" that preposition is generally "from", since prepositions are how we show what case endings used to; but differing semantic roles or not, there's no denying that "learn" is transitive.

This semantic restriction, by the way, is (as he points out) a relatively recent development; the use of "learn" to mean "teach" is not a substandard innovation, it is a throwback (substandard now, to be sure) to the original usage, which is seen in most IndoEuropean languages, in which the same verb is used for both 'directions' of learning. English's loss of pronomial inflections made the distinction (learn + dative = teach; learn + genitive = learn, as we still see in "learn from someone"). Semantically, of course, the distinction survives; only when you fill the object slot with a proper noun (teach/learn Shakespeare, or - a better example - teach/learn Steven King) is there confusion. I'm not at all surprised that the new usage has to be taught.

But I am surprised that McIntyre thinks "learn" is intransitive. (Or maybe that he doesn't know what "intransitive" means?) And I hope that Mrs McIntyre wasn't really taught that it is.

Splish, splash

flip, flop ... 180-degree-shift ... U-turn ...

Check out Obsidian Wings for a detailed (and sourced!) look at John McCain's decision to change his position on Afghanistan and adopt Obama's.

Hat Tip to TPM
who wonder if a news story like John McCain's recent shift in position on troop levels in Afghanistan doesn't fit in with the dominant narrative of the campaign, will any news organizations pick up on it?

One step forward...

The Washington Post's "Federal Insider" feature today has an example of stupid policy. Really stupid.

Although gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts and California, census officials say that same-sex partners in both states who list themselves as spouses will be recorded as "unmarried partners" -- just as they were in the 2000 census.

Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner cited the Defense of Marriage Act, approved by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing as a marriage the union of anyone but a man and a woman. The law "requires all federal agencies to recognize only opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of administering federal programs," Buckner wrote in an e-mailed statement. "Many of these programs rely on Census Bureau statistics." Census officials have said the agency will retain same-sex spouses' original responses but will edit them for the published census tabulations.

The policy will, for example, require that the couple's children be listed as having single parents, Gates said. And it will cause the census to undercount families, defined as two or more people in the same household related by birth, adoption or marriage, he said.

So much for the states' right to set policy, which so many bleeding-heart conservatives insist is the way to go. And so much for any hope of accurate data.

Happy Birthday, Erle

Born today in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1889, the creator of America's most famous fictional lawyer. Erle Stanley Gardner qualified as a lawyer himself without attending law school, only working in a law firm. After passing the bar, he made his living defending poor immigrants in California, and writing an enormous number of stories. He finally settled into the Perry Mason novels, and wrote more than 80.

Happy Birthday, Peter

It's the birthday of Peter Schickele (1935)! A Julliard-trained musician who writes good stuff under his own name, he's probably most famous for his "discovery" of JS Bach's youngest son - the incomparable PDQ Bach, composer of such works as Oedipus Tex, Iphigenia in Brooklyn, The Abduction of Figaro, and innumerable shorter works. I saw Schickele in concert last year - he's still got it!

Aston--- well, no.

I was going to say that it was astonishing that fundamentalists in North Carolina would rather let kids be bullied than protect gay kids. But it's not, really.

People like that have already made it clear that kids are better off lost in foster care than with gay parents. And moving away from gays, they've made it clear they'd rather their daughters get cancer and die than have sex before marriage.

So it's not astonishing at all that they'll sacrifice "good" children in order to promote their own twisted, hateful sexual morality. It's just very very sad.

Carnival of the Liberals #69

The 69th edition of the Carnival of the Liberals is up at Stump Lane (and as Montag says, "let’s all be studious and earnest in our attempts to not giggle about that.") The posts should entertain and outrage you, so check it out.

What's Important 29

Twenty-ninth in a series.

From the McCain campaign, via the Boston Globe:

McCain's advisers say that if he becomes president he would build on President Bush's decision to rely on NATO forces - which now have about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan - and would prod Pakistan to take on Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters camped inside its borders.

"There is no easy answer, but clearly Pakistan needs to do more to crack down there," said Scheunemann.

Meanwhile, out in the world, Pakistan is refusing to do as much as they have been, let alone more. Our relations with Pakistan are at their lowest since 9/11 (when almost everyone loved us, remember?), due to our habit of firing missiles across their border. This plan doesn't look so good to me.

What's Important 28

Twenty-eighth in a series.

From John McCain talking to the New York Times:

Q: Do you think religious organizations that get federal funding to deliver social services – faith based organizations – should be permitted to take faith into account in deciding who to hire. You saw Obama’s proposal.

Mr. McCain: I support faith-based organizations and I support a lot of the things that the president did. I was in New Orleans after Katrina and I went to their Resurrection Baptist Church and I saw volunteers from all over America working and helping in the clean-up, and the work that they did and talking with people like Governor Jindal, he said they did great work. I would continue along the model of what the president has done. And I certainly applaud Senator Obama’s, what I heard of his position basically the same.

Q: I think the one difference is whether or not as a condition of getting these monies, that these organization say they will not take into account religion or other factors in hiring decisions.

Mr. McCain: Obviously it’s very complicated because if this is an organization that says we want people in our organization that are Baptists or vegetarians or whatever it is, they should not be required to hire someone that they don’t want to hire in my view. Listen, this is the kind of the issue that goes on with the Boy Scouts, it goes on with a number of other issues. I think the president’s faith-based organization has been successful and I support what he has done

Q: I guess the way opponents describe it means that these groups are allowed to discriminate in hiring.

Mr. McCain: I can only answer it to say that I think faith-based organizations have been one of the more successful parts of the Bush Administration and I would continue it.

While I would have to agree with him that "faith-based organizations have been one of the more successful parts of the Bush Administration" (if only because the rest of it has been such an unmitigated disaster), the answer isn't to keep them going. The answer is to do other stuff properly! And Obama's position (not one I entirely agree with) isn't "basically the same" because Obama does believe that if you take federal money you adhere to federal standards.

McCain never addresses that part of the equation. He only says "should not be required to hire someone that they don’t want to hire". I don't disagree with him. If organizations are so picky, though, they shouldn't take federal money - and the government certainly shouldn't give it to them.

What's Important 27

Twenty-seventh in a series.

From John McCain talking to the New York Times:

Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?

Mr. McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.

Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents.

Mr. McCain: I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents.

Q: But your concern would be that the couple should a traditional couple

Mr. McCain: Yes.

Because obviously the foster care system is so wonderful it's better for kids than loving parents who happen to be gay. What next, I wonder: taking kids away?

Oh, Reuters...

Er, what?

Reuters has this headline:

Ian McKellen says used to get gay death threats

I'm not even sure what a "gay death threat" is. One written is fabulous handwriting?

Actually, to be serious, I thought he meant death threats from gays, which seemed odd. But on reading the article I found that they are "death threats due to his homosexuality".

I don't think that's what the headline conveys.

Monday Science Links

This week's sciency goodness - super-sized for your enjoyment!

• Darren at Tetrapod Zoology gives us a week's worth by himself - of sea monsters (start here and read the whole series):Welcome to sea monster week. Yes, a whole week devoted to the discussion and evaluation of photos purportedly showing marine cryptids, or carcasses of them. Why do this? I'm not entirely sure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. We begin with a fantastic image that - hopefully - you've seen here and there yet may know little about (again, to those who know the cryptozoological literature, I apologise for insulting your intelligence). Judging from comments I've seen on the internet, people nowadays assume that this image is a photoshop job unique to the digital age, whereas in fact it's a classic, much-reproduced image, widely discussed in the cryptozoological literature, and first appearing in print in March 1965 (together with others). It's Robert Le Serrec's photo of a huge, tadpole-like creature encountered in Stonehaven Bay, Hook Island, Queensland...


• Chris at Mixing Memory posts on how we adapt to accents: I have this friend from New York who, most of the time, speaks in a normal (that is to say, southern) accent that she's acquired as a result of being surrounded for so long by people who speak the King's English ('cause Elvis was a southerner). Occasionally, though, usually after she's been talking to someone back home, she slips into her old Jamaica Queens accent, and when she does, I spend the first thirty seconds or so just trying to figure out whether she's speaking English, and I don't even bother trying to understand the meaning of those strangely accented words she's uttering. After that period of complete incomprehension, though, I seem to get used to her relapsed accent, and suddenly I can understand her perfectly well.


• Carl Zimmer at The Loom writes about flatfish: Sometimes a species is so complex, so marvelous, or simply so weird that it’s hard to imagine how it could have possibly evolved by natural selection. Among the weirdest is the flounder. Not many animals would be at home in a world made by Picasso, but the flounder would fit right in. It belongs to a group of fish called flatfish, or pleuronectiforms, that all spend their adult lives hugging the sea floor, where they ambush smaller fish. Flatfish are teleosts, a huge group of fish species that include more conventional creatures like trout and goldfish. While they have a lot of teleost anatomy, flatfishes also have some bizarre adaptations for their life at ninety degrees. All vertebrates, ourselves included, use hair cells in the inner ear to keep ourselves balanced. In most flatfish species, the hairs have rotated so that swimming sideways feels normal to them. Many flatfish can camouflage the upward-facing side of their body. The underside is pale, and in many species the fin is tiny. And then, of course, there are the eyes.


• Grrlscientist at Living the Scientific Life tells us about learning the color of fossil feathers which is way cool: When looking at paintings and reconstructions of fossil birds and dinosaurs, people often ask "how do you know what color they were?" Well, we didn't. However, a new paper was just published in Biology Letters that explores the possibility of deciphering the actual color of fossilized plumage and makes a startling discovery: scientists can identify at least some of the original colors in ancient feathers. In sharp contrast to mammals, whose colorations are really very boring, birds are colorful -- many species are stunningly so. But colors are expensive and wasteful to produce if they can't be used to communicate a particular message that can be seen by the intended recipient. In fact, birds evolved colors to send signals to other birds. They also evolved the visual structures in their eyes necessary to perceive those colors and they developed behaviors designed to draw attention to their plumage coloration. Which leads one to ask; what colors were ancient birds and feathered dinosaurs?


• Stefan and Bee over at Back Reaction tackle the question how did the LHC get confused with the Big Bang, anyhow?: With the start of the Large Hadron Collider coming closer, the topic is present in the media more than ever. A commonly used motivation is the alleged recreation of the Big Bang. Peter Woit recently mentioned that Martinus Veltman, winner of the '99 Nobelprize in physics, “described claims that the LHC will 'recreate the Big Bang' as 'idiotic', and as 'crap'. He said that this is 'not science', but 'blather', and that the field would come to regret this, arguing that if you start selling the LHC with pseudo-science, you will end up paying for it.” I am totally with Veltman. But what is behind the story? What does the LHC have to do with the Big Bang?

Enjoy!

Le 14 juillet

Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé ! (bis)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes,
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes !

Aux armes, citoyens !
Formez vos bataillons !
Marchons ! Marchons !
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons !


But I feel compelled to add a link to Bill Poser's post which notes

On this day we celebrate the French Revolution, the end of feudalism, the disestablishment of the church, and the promulgation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. For some of us it is also a day that reminds us of Jim McCawley.

From a linguistic point of view, however, the French Revolution was a disaster. The monarchy had been largely unconcerned with what languages its subjects spoke. At the time, the languages spoken by natives of France included six Romance languages: French, Occitan, Franco-Provencal, Walloon, Catalan, and Corsican (a dialect of Italian), the Germanic languages Flemish and German, the Celtic language Breton, and Basque. Some of these, especially French and Occitan, each had numerous divergent forms. ...

Since the Revolution, all French governments have been hostile to minority languages.

Happy Birthday, Woody

Woody Guthrie, born this day in 1912.

He wrote a lot, and he he gave a voice to the unheard.





Dear Mrs. Roosevelt

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt, don't hang your head and cry;
His mortal clay is laid away, but his good work fills the sky;
This world was lucky to see him born.
He's born in a money family on that Hudson's rocky shore;
Outrun every kid a-growin' up 'round Hyde Park just for fun;
This world was lucky to see him born.

He went away to grade school and wrote back to his folks;
He drew such funny pictures and always pulling a joke;
This world was lucky to see him born.
He went on up towards Harvard, he read his books of law;
He loved his trees and horses, loved everything he saw;
This world was lucky to see him born.

He got struck down by fever and it settled in his leg;
He loved the folks that wished him well as everybody did;
This world was lucky to see him born.
He took his office on a crippled leg, he said to one and all:
"You money changin' racket boys have sure 'nuff got to fall;"
This world was lucky to see him born.

In senate walls and congress halls he used his gift of tongue
To get you thieves and liars told and put you on the run;
This world was lucky to see him born,
I voted for him for lots o' jobs, I'd vote his name again;
He tried to find an honest job for every idle man;
This world was lucky to see him born.

He helped to build my union hall, he learned me how to talk;
I could see he was a cripple but he learned my soul to walk;
This world was lucky to see him born.
You Nazis and you fascists tried to boss this world by hate;
He fought my war the union way and the hate gang all got beat;
This world was lucky to see him born.

I sent him 'cross that ocean to Yalta and to Tehran;
He didn't like Churchill very much and told him man to man;
This world was lucky to see him born.
He said he didn't like DeGaulle, nor no Chiang Kai Shek;
Shook hands with Joseph Stalin, says: "There's a man I like!"
This world was lucky to see him born.

I was torpedoed on my merchant ship the day he took command;
He was hated by my captain, but loved by all ships hands;
This world was lucky to see him born.
I was a Gl in my army camp that day he passed away,
And over my shoulder talkin' I could hear some soldier say:
"This world was lucky to see him born."

I guess this world was lucky just to see him born;
I know this world was lucky just to see him born;
This world was lucky to see him born.

Language Quiz

Wow, it's been a while since I did one of these!

Here's a new quiz - though, as always, maybe there's nothing wrong.

From the Writers Almanac, this description of 'Woody Guthrie:

He was one of the only American artists whose reputation never really suffered, though he was openly affiliated with the Communist Party.

The previous quiz was:

From the Cassini-Huygens site, this description of a photo:

Curving wakes perturb the edges of the Encke Gap in Saturn's A ring. The culprit in their creation is the flying saucer-shaped moon Pan, shining brightly within the gap.

This one's pretty simple - not enough hyphens! Pan is not "flying and shaped like a saucer", it is "shaped like a flying saucer". It's "the flying-saucer-shaped moon".

And look here for Previous Quizzes, 41 so far.

The Week in Entertainment

Live: My Fair Lady at the local Playhouse. Excellently done!

Film: Wall-E - and what can I say? It's as good as the hype. As a friend says, "Pure magic - and it irritates the right. Bonus!"

DVD: Behind the Curtain - a very old and badly acted mystery - a 1929 movie badly marred by everyone's being unused to sound. Have you seen the "talkie" in Singing in the Rain? Remember the love scene? Here it is, and worse. Moreover, this is allegedly a Charlie Chan movie, but he barely made an appearance (though when he did, he was played by a guy named E.L. Park - who was Oriental!!!). I loved the way Eve and John made such a big deal of his trip into "the Persian desert" - all alone! "Four months in the desert, away from everyone!" "You know what it means - four months in the desert, all alone!" All alone ... well, except for the forty guys in the caravan, of course. (One of those was Boris Karloff, quite easily the best thing in the whole movie.) Some other Chans (my father has the set and is working his way through): in Panama, The Black Camel, Murder Cruise. Uneven lot - and Murder Cruise has almost the same alibi trick in it as in Paris does, so I guessed the killer right away. Hellboy (I'd seen it before but am preparing for the sequel) - pretty enjoyable, all things considered - stylish, well acted, and feels like it's in a coherent universe that just isn't quite ours. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, which is extremely funny. "Too much science? Is there such a thing?"

TV: The Ninth Gate - moody, intriguing, well-acted, and compelling. Also beautifully shot and scored.

Read: I actually read nothing this week until Sunday. Astonishing. That's what being on vacation does to you. I'm scheduling this since I'll be traveling Sunday and may not get to post, so I'll note that I'll be reading The Penguin Who Knew Too Much and The Stranger House on the plane.