Today I had the *immense* pleasure of a day away from SLAC. Wait a second. That sounded all wrong. You see, the pleasure was not in the separation from my laboratory; the pleasure was the company I kept while away, and the work I got to do. I got into […]
Yearly Archives: 2005
213 posts
If Katrina was any indication, then we can make some predictions about tropical storm Rita. This storm, headed to the Florida Keys, is aimed straight at the heart of the warm Guld of Mexico. Katrina, a storm which ravaged Florida before entering the Gulf, soaked energy from the waters west […]
Every year, scientists from all over the United States make personal visits to their elected representatives in Washington D.C. This ability to have an individual interaction to achieve collective action is a wonderous feature of our democratic society. When I first experienced this in 2003, I shared the optimisim of […]
Katrina is projected by some to cost the United States $200 billion. That’s basically the pricetag, as it stands now, of the war in Iraq. The irony here has not been overlooked, and the contradictions in a war to prevent terrorism being matched by a disaster we saw coming have […]
My dad is a high school chem teacher in CT, and has always been a huge influence on me as a scientist and educator. I was browsing his class notes from the first week of school, and ran across the “old standard” I love to see: THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. I […]
I had the pleasure of a long visit by one of my oldest, dearest friends. Eric arrived here from Hartford last Thursday afternoon, and it was pretty much nonstop fun until this morning, when he flew back. Eric has several weeks’ worth of vacation accrued over the past year, and […]
My colleague “Caolionn O’Connell has written a PSA for physics”:http://qd.typepad.com/13/2005/09/public_service_.html. I don’t know why, but I kept thinking about that Prairie Home Companion skit about how being an English major teaches you the life skills you need to succeed. Then again, success in physics really does prepare you to solve […]
This morning, I faxed to my elected officials letters discussing the importance of the method by which Congress reviews publicly funded science. This letter-writing campaign was kicked off by the singling out in June of three climate scientists by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which I’ve mentioned in previous […]
When science doesn’t inform policy, money can be cut from vital areas of the federal budget without an inkling of the consequences. “As Molly Ivins noted in the Chicago Tribune”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0509010009sep01,1,6491327.story?ctrack=1&cset=true, when the Congress did away with the Office of Technology Assessment in the 90s, they appear to have done away […]
Jodi and I are taking today to recover from head colds, stomach problems, shifts (me), and work (both of us). Ungh. We hit our favorite breakfast place this morning, then came back to tie up some little home/work things for the day (like finances and, for me, planning for 2006 […]
Sometimes, in science, it’s just laid out like that. Yeah. And here is a wonderful example. The “National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has posted on its website four nearly simultanoeous op-ed pieces from scientists confronting intelligent design”:http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/US/170_a_quartet_of_opeds_9_1_2005.asp. The papers in which these were published include the New York Times, […]
WIRED magazine has a “nice article detailing the timeline and scope of knowledge and preparedness avalable to local and state officals in the Gulf region”:http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68738,00.html. It’s clear there is a deep-seated frustation on the part of people who spent their lives preparing (and trying to prepare others) for the Katrina […]