| Monday
June 23, 2008 Sen.
McCain offers $300 million prize for new auto battery - Yahoo! News
Dear Jerry,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080623/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_energy
He's just trying to get me to vote for him. More
domestic oil drilling including offshore exploration, 45 new nuclear power
plants, now an energy technology x-prize... Next he'll probably come out in
favor of turning wood chips into fuel, and using coal to make liquid fuel,
too.
Best Wishes,
Mark
Now if he'd just get over the
obsession with CO2 and greenhouse gasses.
Baruch Obama says McCain is Bush III.
There is something to be said for that assessment: but Baruch Obama is Jimmy
Carter II with a good sprinkling of Chicago machine politics. We none of us
have much reason to rejoice, but of the two, I have no problems choosing
McCain. Indeed, a McCain presidency with a Democratic majority in both
houses may be a fairly good deal: nothing accomplished. Nothing. Wouldn't I
suspect that's preferable to any other possible result. If I had to choose
among bad alternatives I'd add a Republican House with Gingrich as Speaker,
and Hillary Clinton as President, but that won't happen.
I know the temptation: Write in
Cthulhu. Why Settle for a Lesser Evil? But if we look carefully we will see
that McCain is trying to build a few bridges to the old Reagan coalition.
Bush I did less of that than McCain. McCain seems to understand the value of
prizes. That alone is a very large redeeming value.
Despair is a sin. And McCain has some
good qualities.
==========
Properly worked out energy?
Hi Jerry
I think you will like this guy's "let's measure it"
attitude:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/
06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/
Regards
Kevin Crisp
Anyone who respects numbers starts off
well.
I don't think he properly appreciates
just how bad our data are, but at least he understands that wishful thinking
will not save us. There is value in positive thinking -- but it doesn't
stand up to wildfires, solar activity, and volcanoes.
============
Letter
From England
Gales batter Northern England...
One of my professional specialities back in America
was workload and cost analysis. Recently, in the spirit of academic inquiry,
I asked what might be a suitable workload model for university teaching, and
put together one that traced workload to identifiable artefacts-- papers
marked, student contact, required meeting time, and paperwork (reports,
examination scripts, assignments, materials for distribution to the
students). The school executive has since made it clear that I should have
asked permission from them before doing this research.
School grades are key to university achievement. <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/
story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=402432&c=2 > <http://tinyurl.com/5qe2ch>
Teens in the UK <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/
2008/jun/18/ drugsandalcohol.health> <http://tinyurl.com/3oooan>
<http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2286976,00.html>
<http://tinyurl.com/5tg9c5 > <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/
columnists/india_knight/article4187488.ece > <http://tinyurl.com/66kudy>
Zimbabwe reports MDC candidate pulls out of the
presidential race. There is a point where those who would speak truth to
power must choose life or death. I pray their action has not been in vain. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/22/zimbabwe>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7467990.stm>
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/22/zimbabwe4>
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/
article4191585.ece> <http://tinyurl.com/63e4vz>
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/
africa/tsvangirai-to-pull-out-of-election-852250.html > <http://tinyurl.com/5b23bc>
Biologists edge closer to an understanding of
homosexuality.
<http://www.plosone.org/article/
info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002282 > <http://tinyurl.com/47n7hz>
This paper suggests the statistical data on male
homosexuality are most consistent with dominant alleles acting at a pair of
loci, one on the X chromosome and the second likely to be there. These two
loci are probably involved in wiring the brain to be attracted to males. In
women, the simultaneous presence of these alleles is associated with
increased fertility, while in males it produces homosexual behaviour in
about half the carriers.
This raises the issue of whether there is a similar
model for female homosexuality, and whether the genes involved are the same.
-- "an academic who listens to pleas of convenience
before publishing his research risks calling into doubt the whole of his
determination to find the truth." (Russell 1993) Harry Erwin
I have been following the homosexual
genetics publications, and so far I can make little of this. It is
compounded by a failure of understanding of the place of morality in
society. We do no studies on morality vs. proclivity, and we pay no
attention to thousands of years of literature. As an example, read about
Socrates and homosexual attraction. Clearly some people were able to resist
what was a pretty universal practice. (Note I am not saying here that they
should or should not have resisted the practices; that is a longer subject
and one on which I have nothing original to say.)
Morality and principles of morality
and ethics are said to "evolve" but surely their "evolution" is through
intelligent design? We have choices: either we make those choices ourselves
or they have been made for us, but either way it is "intelligent design",
no? Note that "intelligent design" does not need intervention at every
stage, whether we are talking about biology or morality. It is sufficient
that a pre-selected end condition govern "selection" of the evolutionary
steps' that each step not itself be "better", but that it lead toward the
end condition desired. That is "intelligent design" in action.
This is hardly the place for a
discussion of temptation and endurance in conventional morality, but perhaps
that ought to be put in the list for future topics. For a long time our
legal system did not recognize "irresistible impulse." Now in some places
and times we do. The best episodes of "Law and Order" deal with this
theme....
============
Interesting article about cold war apollo craft..
Jerry,
Don't know if you've seen this, or how accurate it is,
but perhaps you'll find it interesting.
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpsule.htm
-Bill
I had never heard this story. I did
have something to do with boiler plate Apollo when I was doing the suit
testing for the spacecraft programs, but I never heard about this one.
Interesting photographs, too!
===========
My Childs Education -
Jerry,
As an avid reader of your columns, I'm been keeping up
with the discussion on your web site regarding education and the No Child
Left Behind Act.
I'm a man in my early 30s and would like to start a
family soon. After reading some of the stories and articles referencing
education today, the decision on where to have my children educated and what
type of education to give them is not one I'm looking forward to.
If you (and your other readers) were in my position,
what would you (and they) do? Send the kids to an affordable private school?
Public school with private tutoring?
Thank you, JB
P.S. I wish you a smooth and speedy recovery!
This is a terribly important question.
I have said many times I am working on a major essay on education, and my
recent health problems have prevented me from doing it: it's important
enough that I think it ought to be done correctly.
I publish this today so that others
who are interested may send me suggestions and comments; and I promise that
I'll get to this subject in the near future not just Real Soon Now.
My first advice is to make sure you
choose the proper mother for your children. My second is that you be
prepared for sturm und drang.
You may also find this interesting:
"Testing young children for gifted classes most likely
will increase inequities," read the letter, "and undermine educational
opportunities for all children."
Smart kids in short supply.
Louis A
The New York Times
June 19, 2008 Gifted Programs in the City
Are Less Diverse By ELISSA GOOTMAN and ROBERT GEBELOFF When New York
City set a uniform threshold for admission to public school gifted
programs last fall, it was a crucial step in a prolonged effort to
equalize access to programs that critics complained were dominated by
white middle-class children whose parents knew how to navigate the
system.
The move was controversial, with experts
warning that standardized tests given to young children were heavily
influenced by their upbringing and preschool education, and therefore
biased toward the affluent.
Now, an analysis by The New York Times
shows that under the new policy, children from the city's poorest
districts were offered a smaller percentage than last year of the
entry-grade gifted slots in elementary schools. Children in the city's
wealthiest districts captured a greater share of the slots.
The disparity is so stark that some gifted
programs opened by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in an effort to increase
opportunities in poor and predominantly minority districts will not fill
new classes next year. In three districts, there were too few qualifiers
to fill a single class.
The new policy relied on a blunt cutoff
score on two standardized tests. According to the analysis, 39.2 percent
of the students who made the cutoff live in the four wealthiest
districts, covering the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, Staten
Island and northeast Queens. That is up from 24.9 percent last year,
even though those districts make up 14.2 percent of citywide enrollment
in the entry-level grades: kindergarten or first grade, depending on the
district.
Students in 14 districts where the poverty
rate is more than 75 percent account for more than a third of enrollment
but received only 14.6 percent of the offers for spots in gifted
programs this year, down from 20.2 percent last year.
The results reflect a head-on collision of
two key themes in the Bloomberg administration's overhaul of the school
system. On the one hand, the city has centralized and standardized
admissions procedures, including those for pre-kindergarten and high
school, to even the playing field and eliminate any advantage held by
certain parents.
On the other hand, the administration is
intent on ensuring equal access to the system's most coveted offerings
and closing the racial achievement gap, which Schools Chancellor Joel I.
Klein frequently refers to as a critical front in the civil rights
battle.
"Clearly nobody in the Department of
Education wanted this to happen, but they should have known that it
would," said James H. Borland, a professor at Columbia University's
Teachers College who studies gifted education. "The idea that somehow
making this totally reliant on tests would be an improvement, it's
mind-boggling."
Joseph S. Renzulli, director of the
University of Connecticut's National Research Center on the Gifted and
Talented, who was a consultant to a city task force on the gifted, said
he admired the chancellor's intentions but felt that children should be
judged against others in their neighborhoods, not by a citywide cutoff.
"I've discussed this with the chancellor
and the chancellor's people, and it just doesn't seem to register," he
said. "I want the smartest or most creative kids in Red Hook or the
South Bronx."
Education officials defended their
revamping of the system, saying they had introduced fairness and
transparency.
"Of course we wanted to have programs in
every district for all the students," said Anna Commitante, who oversees
the city's gifted and talented programs. "We implemented the eligibility
criteria, it didn't shake out that way and now we have to take another
look at it."
Officials said that it was "very likely"
that the same policy would apply next year but that they would try to
broaden the applicant pool. They said judging students against others in
their districts was difficult in a city like New York, where children
move frequently.
Education officials noted that last year,
they swept away a jumble of locally run admissions systems that
befuddled or shut out many parents, and required all applicants to
undergo the same two evaluations. But last year, there was no citywide
cutoff, so available seats were distributed to the top scorers in each
district. Some districts that had many spots or few applicants welcomed
children with very low scores.
"We just kept going down the list," Ms.
Commitante said.
School districts nationwide are struggling
to make gifted programs more racially and economically diverse.
The Miami-Dade public schools have spent
more than $6 million over two years to identify more gifted and advanced
students from what officials described as "traditionally
under-represented groups." Some districts are rethinking gifted programs
under pressure; last year, the American Civil Liberties Union of
Southern California threatened to sue the Tustin school district, saying
that Latino and black students were "grossly underrepresented" in the
programs.
The topic is also luring researchers. A
study by Sean F. Reardon, of Stanford University, found that the
achievement gap between white and black students grew faster among those
who enter kindergarten with high skill levels. At Yale, researchers are
devising a test that they hope could identify a more diverse gifted
population.
The Times's analysis did not consider
racial or demographic information for individual children who were
offered gifted spots, because the Education Department said it was not
available. The department also said it did not have comprehensive data
about how many students in each district were offered gifted spots in
previous years.
For years, middle-class parents in some
districts have clung to gifted programs as a refuge from low-performing
schools. The racial composition of the programs has been a flashpoint
since the 1990s, when complaints by the reform group Acorn and the
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund prompted a federal civil
rights investigation.
In 2005, his re-election year, Mr.
Bloomberg vowed to expand gifted programs into neighborhoods that did
not have them, and has since opened more than three dozen new programs.
There are now 121 elementary school gifted programs citywide.
Still, the chancellor was dissatisfied with
the varying admissions criteria. After requiring last year's applicants
to take the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, or Olsat, a reasoning exam,
and be assessed by teachers through the Gifted Rating Scales, Mr. Klein
replaced the scales this year with the Bracken School Readiness
Assessment, which was considered more objective. He also set a uniform
cutoff of the 95th percentile, as measured nationwide, on the combined
score. There were so few top scorers that the city lowered the cutoff to
the 90th percentile. A higher threshold still applied to three more
selective citywide programs.
Citywide, fewer children qualified this
year than last. This was disproportionately so in districts with a
higher poverty rate, measured by eligibility for free lunch.
In District 6, in Upper Manhattan, where
85.5 percent of students are eligible for free lunch, 160 children were
offered slots in gifted kindergarten classes last year. This year, only
50 qualified. Therefore, the district's share of entry-grade offers
declined to 2.2 percent of the city total, from 4.1 percent last year.
"They're trying to push Hispanic kids and
minority kids away from gifted programs," said Judith Amaro, a parent
leader in District 6.
In District 3, which includes the Upper
West Side, 310 students qualified for kindergarten gifted slots for next
year, down from 440 who were offered slots last year. But this year,
District 3 students made up a larger share of city students offered
slots - 13.4 percent, up from 11.4 percent last year.
Thousands more children opted for gifted
testing this year than last. To further broaden future pools, Mr. Klein
had planned to screen all kindergarteners. While the plan has fallen
victim to budget cuts, widespread kindergarten testing is so
controversial that last week, a group of professors and luminaries -
including Deborah Stipek, the dean of Stanford's School of Education,
and former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo - deplored the practice in a letter to
the chancellor and mayor.
"Testing young children for gifted classes
most likely will increase inequities," read the letter, "and undermine
educational opportunities for all children."
The whole approach is wrong, of
course. But that's for my major essay. Sorry to be so long about doing it. I
still have to make a living.
===========
"umpatient"
Dear Jerry:
My mother used to call it being "umpatient" which was
her way of saying "unreasonably impatient," and that, my friend, is exactly
what you are! Do you think those X-rays magically bypassed all healthy brain
tissue in some sort of quantum tunnel to reach only the tumor cells? Nice
idea, but hardly likely. And, I hesitate to point out, you're no spring
chicken any more. Which is MY way of telling you to be quite a bit easier on
yourself, simmer down, and if your body is telling you to sleep all the time
why don't you just listen? In fact why don't you try sleeping until you
cannot sleep any more instead of getting up and running around as soon as
the peg moves off "E"???
Your ambition to be back at it is admirable but in
this case I don't think it's virtuous. Why stress about it? A sizable piece
of your brain has been turned to mush and you're tired: what a freaking
surprise!
While you're "just laying around" here's something to
ponder: I'd like to know why so many in Congress are dead set against any
kind of energy policy that makes sense? That would be, in my opinion,
starting an Apollo-style project to build, say, 200 nuclear power plants
within a decade, allowing drilling just about anywhere it makes economic
sense, and proceeding with "NIMBY"-blocked alternatives like the Buzzard's
Bay wind project. Why in the name of all that's holy would any rational
person be against such a practical approach to achieving energy independence
for this country? Or are our politicians simply no longer rational?
I'm serious, I don't get how anyone stands to gain
from our present policies (basically do nothing but talk about doing
something). If Senator X is a crook wouldn't he stand to gain much more from
championing these capitol intensive projects and looking to "wet his beak?"
And if he's honest how can he possibly not see these ideas are in the best
interest of America both now and for the future?
So explain this to me at some point, until then cut
yourself some slack vis a vis your recovery, and truly get well soon.
Best--
Tim
Thanks. I have myself wondered about
people who tell me that if you do X it will take 5 years to have an effect,
then 5, then 10 years later, when there is a crisis, say, well, it will take
5 years to have an effect so why do that? I refer to domestic oil
drilling and refineries.
===========
SKULL & JONES
Harrison Ford's latest object of desire poses a worse
archaeological problem than the faux Ark the Raiders merrily chased.
This time there is no Original- the crystal MacGuffin
is based on a fake fake, the so-called Aztec crystal skulls were invented by
the 19th century Mexican tourist trade to cater to the Gothic revival taste
of the French who came on the coattails of ill-fated Emperor Maximillian
The first were re-carved from plain but authentic pre-columbian
rock crystal beads , using diamond wheels that allowed far greater detail
than Aztec or Maya lapidaries could manage, not having , well, invented the
wheel.
<http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/
2008/06/crystal-skullduggery.html>
I hope to get out the back story in a magazine soon-
it involves an Edwardian talk radio host , a fake Maya skull made in
Germany, a case of dynamite ,and a pyramid .
-- Russell Seitz
But surely almost all but the most
avid listeners of Coast to Coast (well, I admit to being a Coast to Coast
addict; George Noory is a good friend and I admire his ability to do that
show) -- surely all but the most avid understood most of this? But perhaps
not. And don't neglect the REAL crystal skulls, that allow distance healing
by distance viewers, and were used by a Top Secret US Navy project to heal a
friendly dictator without anyone knowing about US intervention....
==========
More data on global warming:
Tree Ring Research
Jerry,
You will find this interesting, particularly the last
graph where trends from their data are extrapolated for the next 40 years.
Link & paste below.
Regards, George
Finnish Finish “Global” Warming
<http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/
2008/06/20/finnish-finish-global-warming/>
George
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