Global Warming Happening Much Slower Than Expected?

Back in 2010, President Obama suggested NASA refocus its energies a little bit on using satellites to observe Earth's weather and gather more data on climate change.Well apparently they did, and boy is it surprising:NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal...

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White Roofs

Sullivan starts a thread on white roofs. This Duke University prof confuses me by arguing that white roofs are so good at cooling that in the winter (anything can be argued true when you can point to a somewhat-related scientific study!) you'll have to provide extra heat to offset the lack of sun heating the normally black roof. This extra heating is greater than (the article and Dr. Chameides argue) the decrease in cooling needed during the summer,...

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Competing Headlines Battle It Out!

MSNBC: Fewer people buy homes, but prices rise.CNN: Home Prices dip 4.5%Amazingly, both these articles have the same conten...

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The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

$263,000,000 for a movie about teen vampires. Meanwhile....

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Curbing College Costs by Ending University Athletics, Ctd

Andrew Sullivan points to this Wilbon piece suggesting that colleges should pay collegiate athletes:If the student as athlete can find a way, he/she should be able to endorse products, to have paid-speaking gigs, to sell memorabilia, as Allen Sack, the author and professor at the college of business at the University of New Haven has suggested in recent years. The best college athletes in the two revenue-producing sports have always been worth much more than tuition, room, board and books. The best football and basketball players in...

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The Three Rules of Modern American Economics

 Another apt title for this post would be "why I'm a liberal."The above chart has, for several months now, floated around the internet and irritated me like no other graphic I can remember. Partially it is because it is so obviously true, and partially because I know the truth of it is as inescapable as gravity.The Three Rules of Modern American EconomicsRule 1: Rich get richer. Everyone else gets stagnant.Rule 2: Repeat Rule 1.Rule 3: Pretend...

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Unobtainium

I love these "mine the moon" concepts because they are so far-fetched. Here's a run down of the plan:1) Set up $20 billion Moon base2) Strip mine huge areas of the Lunar surface for Helium-33) Ship Helium-3 back to Earth for use as a fuel source for yet-to-be-invented fusion reactors4) Repeat 2-3 while also paying for maintenance of Moon base.Meanwhile:5) Invent a fusion reactor with positive output6) Build fusion reactor (several billion dollars)I';m suddenly reminded of the movie Avatar (2009), in which the humans arrive on "Pandora" and set...

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The Exobrain

Typically I razz on Jonah Lehrer, but this article about the internet's effect on human memory is spot on, and makes an incredibly valid point:And this is where the internet comes in. One of the virtues of transactive memory is that it acts like a fact-check, helping ensure we don’t all descend into selfish solipsism. By sharing and comparing our memories, we can ensure that we still have some facts in common, that we all haven’t disappeared down the private rabbit hole of our own reconsolidations. In this sense, instinctually wanting to Google...

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Friday Poetry Burst

Well, not literal poetry today, but when Chaplin performed it, it was basically poetry nonetheless. I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone...

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Weekly Devotional

Once again, I came up in the rotation at church:So I tried to explain to my 3-year-old Ava what "the purpose" of something is. For example the purpose of a refrigerator is to keep things cold. The purpose of a car is to carry people around from place to place. The purpose of a fork is to pick up food. However things became very hazy (i.e. Daddy became stumped) when I tried to explain what the purpose of a person was. There are some easy ones....

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