Millard Fillmore's Bathtub

• Nathan Wolfe’s jungle search for viruses | Video on TED.com (Why it’s important to beat H1N1, now)

  Here’s Nathan Wolfe explaining how viruses work, quickly and at a high enough level to be entertaining, and explaining why we need to worry about H1N1. more about “Nathan Wolfe’s jungle search for viru…“, posted with vodpod Wolfe also explained a lot at the TED Blog: Take us back a step or [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 8:44pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Time to start making huge stone heads

  Number of comments: 3
  Well, maybe not yet. But consider Jared Diamond’s 1997 essay in Discover: In just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism. Are we about to follow their lead? Among the most [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 8:39pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• No health insurance: Can you look this man in the eye and tell him you want to let him die?

  Number of comments: 17
  Our National Conscience, Nicholas Kristof asked the question in his column a week ago:  Are we going to let John die? 45,000 Americans die each year because of a lack of health insurance.  What do you think:  Should we allow John to die? Which system saves John’s life, “socialism,” or “free enterprise?” Here, [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 1:02pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Starlings of climate change denial do about-face on data-corruption and fraud

  Number of comments: 1
  Funny.  Zumwalt never complained when the data-corruption and fraud were all on the denialists’ side. I am reminded that, as of the end of November 2009, there are incredibly few science papers (see CCPO’s note) — meaning papers based on research, published in peer-review journals — which make any case contrary [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 7:59am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Good excuse to get to Houston: QWERTY, a typewriter exhibt at the Museum of Printing History

  Number of comments: 1
  Well, yeah, its that kind of quirky museum you love — one topic, so you know the kind of history you’re going to get. And this particular subtopic?  Just right square in the middle of the road — that is, up my alley! QWERTY: A Typewriter Retrospective October 8, 2009– March 20, 2010 [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 6:36pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Sources: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and Trial

  Number of comments: 2
  More than just as tribute to the victims, more than just a disaster story, the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire, and the following events including the trial of the company owners, lay out issues students can see clearly.  I think the event is extremely well documented and adapted for student projects.  [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 4:57am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Obama’s well-qualified cabinet: Conservatives hoaxed by “J. P. Morgan” chart that verifies prejudices

  Number of comments: 20
  Barack Obama’s cabinet is highly qualified on almost every score.  It’s the first cabinet to feature someone who has already received a Nobel prize in the field (Teddy Roosevelt as head of his own cabinet excepted).  Obama pulled highly qualified people from a lot of important positions, from both major [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 11:41am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Yeah, it’s ironic (hacked e-mails and global warming)

  Number of comments: 1
  James’s Empty Blog: It is hard to miss the irony in people eagerly poring through illegally-obtained private email, looking for ethical breaches by the writers! I’m sure we can all imagine the outrage if one of the emails revealed that a scientist had hacked into one of the sceptics’ computers and [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 7:15am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Mau-mauing the gullibles: Sirkin on DDT (again)

  Number of comments: 4
  The hard core uneducables who make of the hard knot at the center of the anti-science and anti-environmental movement just refuses to jettison their adored myths about science, regardless how many times those myths are shown to be false. It’s a religious exercise with them, and their faith in error and [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 6:35am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Few posts lately: I apologize

  Number of comments: 3
  Posting’s been much slower than events warrant, lately.  Difficulties at work, and a six-week bout with allergies of unknown origins haven’t helped. A visit with the allergist yesterday offers some hope — I’ve been symptom free now for almost 24 hours, for the first time since early October. Before next Monday I [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 1:28pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• 150 years ago, a book that changed history: Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

  Number of comments: 5
  150 years ago today Charles Darwin’s “big book,” On the Origin of Species, was first published.  The entire publication run of more than a thousand copies sold out within a few days, making it a certified best-seller of its day. A rare copy of the first edition, found in the loo [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 2:03am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• The unbearable lightness of Palin groupies

  Number of comments: 11
  I’m not sure what to make of this.  No amount of dopeslapping or head:desk banging is going to help these people get a clue. And while I haven’t read Sarah Palin’s book, I’ll wager they won’t get a clue there, either.  Listening to the interviews one wonders whether they would be [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 2:02am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Purloined CRU e-mails on climate science: One scientist pleads for accuracy

  Number of comments: 5
  Here is what he said.  Edward Cook, one of the world’s foremost authorities on ancient trees and how to learn from them (Dendrochronology),  wrote to Michael Mann, both men scientists involved in making their science understandable and available to the public and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Both [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 11:48pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• U.S. Rhodes Scholars, 2009

  Number of comments: 2
  Rhodes Trust’s American branch announced the 32 winners of Rhodes Scholarships in 2009’s competition.  List of winners and press release below – congratulations to the winners, and congratulations to all the finalists, each of whom probably deserved to win. American Rhodes Scholars-elect for 2010 (Subject to ratification by the Rhodes Trustees after [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 1:12pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Smoking guns in the CLR stolen e-mails: A real tale of real ethics in science

  Number of comments: 20
  Climate skeptics fear that some climate scientists have cooked their data in order to produce a pre-ordained outcome from their research.  Many of these people are excited this weekend at the public release of e-mails purloined from Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in England, from one of the [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 2:42pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Newtongate shakes anthropogenically-generated mathematics at the foundation

  Satire, hoax, fact — how can we tell the difference? Maybe more importantly, how can we tell early on that the “Climategate” kerfuffle, involving purloined, but otherwise dull e-mails from climate scientists, is nothing to worry about? Look at history!  Remember Newtongate?  Read it here, at Carbon Fixated. If you own any shares [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 12:28pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Rap at the White House: Alexander Hamilton

  Number of comments: 1
  An Obama guest, Lin-Manuel Miranda, pushes the envelope on gangsta rap, and history teaching: You can’t use that in the classroom, teachers?  Why not? More: Wikipedia notes of Miranda: He is working on a hip-hop album based upon the life of Alexander Hamilton, entitled The Hamilton Mixtape.[5] He recently performed “The Hamilton Mixtape” at [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 12:01am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Why more kids should study world history, harder

  Number of comments: 1
  Jon Taplin explains why knowing world history is valuable. The sad thing is that, of course, the story that makes his reason doesn’t appear in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills list for world history, nor in any other social studies course. Now that the Texas State Board of Education has [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 4:33pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• A Jonathan Alter-cation: Teacher pay-for-performance? How about the same for pundits?

  Number of comments: 12
  Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter likes charter schools, and often enough writes about them and his frustration that public schools and their teachers won’t roll over and play dead while charter schools steal money from them (my characterization, not Alter’s). At Public School Insights, Claus von Zastrow suggested that maybe pundits like Alter [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 7:35am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Leonid meteor scattered showers

  Meteors from the Leonid shower could have been good viewing — generally, as I predicted, it was not spectacular.  At least BBC said so. But if you can make the time, it’s almost always profitable — psychologically and spiritually — to look up at the sky. Some who did look up got [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:21am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Palin: Ignore the woman abusing the flag and look at those gams!

  Number of comments: 2
  Newsweek features Sarah Palin on the cover this week, a couple of weeks after featuring Al Gore.  I thought the Gore cover was interesting, but could be interpreted to make him look sinister. Palin, on the other hand, is featured in a full photo she posed for Runners World last year.  [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 7:10am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Brave 10-year-old Arkansas boy refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance, on principle

  Number of comments: 9
  Adults worry about peer pressure.  Kids can goad other kids into doing stupid things, dangerous things, illegal things, and immoral things. Pressure from adults on kids might be just as strong. What about a 10-year-old kid who stands up to peer pressure, and stands for principle against adults who use all sorts [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:43pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Chess games of the rich and famous: Ben Franklin and Lady Howe

  Number of comments: 1
  Resources: Ben Franklin and his essay, “The Morals of Chess,” by John McCrary A history of Ben Franklin and chess, from Wholesale Chess Posted in Ben Franklin, Chess, History Tagged: America's founding, Ben Franklin, Chess, games, Lady Howe [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 12:51pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• H1N1 vaccine, a citizen’s duty

  Number of comments: 4
  Claudia Meininger Gold practices pediatric medicine in Great Barrington, Vermont.  When someone recently suggested offering flu shots at polling places, it struck her that, like voting, getting a flu shot is a good citizen’s duty.  She wrote about it in the Boston Globe. AS A pediatrician, I received my swine flu [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 6:31am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Chess games of the rich and famous: Will Smith

  Number of comments: 2
  Actor Will Smith worked with chess masters to improve his game — literally.  Photo and story from 2001 at The Chessdrum. Posted in Chess Tagged: Chess, Will Smith [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:44am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Leonid meteor shower tonight: Don’t wait up in Dallas

  Space.com’s story on tonight’s Leonid meteor shower doesn’t encourage me to stay up, or get up to watch (tomorrow morning’s meteor shower, really).  A “strong show,” but not spectacular numbers, and our living so close to Dallas will help obscure much of what would be visible normally. The first cloud [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 8:59am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• The birth of death panels in the unprincipled opposition to improving health care in America

  Number of comments: 2
  Heckuva story.  Earl Blumenauer is the man responsible for the language in H.R. 3200 that Sarah Palin erroneously claimed created “death panels.” He’s a Congressman from Oregon. In Saturday’s New York Times he detailed how critics hijacked the debate with false claims.  Fascinating story. A very odd result:  Because of the false claims, [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 6:57am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Gilbert and Sullivan meet George Lucas: A Grievous “Modern Major General”

  Number of comments: 1
  A friend wrote about enjoying a production of “Pirates of Penzance” at Oregon State.  I looked for YouTube versions . . . Oh, my! (Better:  Rent one of the movies, either of D’Oyly Carte, or the Linda Ronstadt/Rex Smith/Kevin Kline version.) Posted in Art, Movies, Music Tagged: copyright, General Grievous, Gilbert and Sullivan, [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 10:13pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Greater depression

  Number of comments: 1
  Musing on a short break from grading:  Is it possible to read Eschaton without getting horribly depressed at the incompetence and meanness in the White House — up to Obama? And then one thinks of the challenges facing Obama.  The Great Depression was more psychological than economic.  Mine is, anyway, right [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:36pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Creationist: Murdering Jews may be preferable to lying to prevent the murder

  Number of comments: 6
  I’m cutting the monster a lot of slack with the headline. P. Z. Myers publicized the e-mail exchange involving Bodie Hodge, a minor deity at the anti-science, creationist organization Answers in Genesis (AiG).  Myers was nice to the guy, contrary to the usual creationist cartoon of Myers as somehow immoral for [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:22am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Stealth malaria promotion in favoring DDT over brown pelicans

  Number of comments: 2
  Another blogger decided to take some potshots at the environmental protection success that banning DDT was is. edwinleap.com laments that the brown pelican flew off the Endangered Species List this week.  “Brown pelicans 1, brown human beings 0,” the headline reads.  The piece claims that banning DDT use in America has [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 9:14am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Who are those Boy Scouts in 1943?

  Number of comments: 7
  A posed photograph:  Three Boy Scouts, from at least two different units, holding a poster Scouts were distributing about international cooperation in World War II.  They are saluting, and behind them rises the dome of the U.S. Capitol on a brilliantly sunny day. 1943?  Who were the Scouts? The photo is online [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:30am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• 50 U.S. Senators missing — can you help find them?

  Number of comments: 1
  No, not current senators — don’t get your ignoble hopes up. With more than 40,000 photographs and other images, the Senate Historical Office has images of almost all people who have served as members of the U.S. Senate.  5o members are completely absent from the Senate collection, however. Got any idea where [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 4:09am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Fly your flag today: Veterans Day 2009

  Number of comments: 4
  Fly your U.S. flag today — thank a veteran.  We have a lot to thank veterans for, and veterans need a little more appreciation today. US Veterans Administration tells the history of celebrating Veterans Day on November 11: World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 2:39am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Rep. Pete Sessions stirs up a tornado; sow the wind . . .

  When I first joined the Dallas Bar I quickly met a delightful woman who had some experience from which she spoke:  Louise Raggio.  On a few occasions I was fortunate enough to sit with her at a continuing education session and benefit from her explanations of how law really works [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 7:42am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• New music station fires up in Dallas today

  Number of comments: 2
  KXT-FM hits the airwaves at 7 a.m. Central Time, in Dallas today.  91.7 on the FM band. KXT is a sister station to public broadcasting KERA-FM, 90.1.  In the past 20 years KERA’s outstanding music programming slowly gave way to talk and news — good talk and great news, but the [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 4:26am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• 20 years ago, the Berlin Wall fell – reverse domino effect

  Number of comments: 1
  High school sophomores in Texas study world history, and juniors study U.S. history. At 16 and 17 years old, they have difficulty figuring out the fuss over the Berlin Wall. It’s just pictures in their textbook. The Wall was already three or four years gone when they were born. They don’t [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 3:48am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Quote of the moment: Robert F. Kennedy, on what matters in economies

  Number of comments: 2
  Cribbing completely from Harry Clarke (with a few corrections in the text): RFK said this in 1968.  In a speech I heard today it was quoted and it stirred me. Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 11:16pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• If at first you don’t succeed . . .

  Number of comments: 1
  . . . try again, and then quit, Mark Twain said.  “No use being a fool about it.” All I can say is, I’m happy she is not working to get a license to drive a bus. (News story:  Woman passes written test for drivers license on 950th attempt.) Posted in Humor, Testing [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 11:57am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• All U.S. flags at half-staff until Veterans Day, Obama orders

  Number of comments: 2
  President Obama issued a directive ordering all federal facilities to fly the national flag at half-staff from now until Veterans Day (November 11), to honor the soldiers and civilians felled at Fort Hood, Texas. “It is an act of violence that would have been heartbreaking had it occurred anyplace in America,” [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 11:06am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Geography Awareness Week, November 15-21

  Geography Awareness week is sneaking up — November 15-21. Got your special lesson plans ready, teachers? Posted in Education, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Lesson plans Tagged: Education, geography, Geography Awareness Week, Lesson plans [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 2:08pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Texas flags at half-staff today, remembering Fort Hood

  Number of comments: 5
  Texas Gov. Rick Perry has ordered flags in Texas to be flown at half-staff through Sunday, November 8, in remembrance of the victims of the shootings at Fort Hood.  The statement from Perry’s office follows. AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement regarding the shootings at Fort Hood: “The [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 7:32am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• What books and papers literally turned history around?

  Number of comments: 20
  Debating the effects  of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring got me wondering about the true influence of that book.  That quickly turned into wondering about the true influence of other writings, books and papers that might be credited with having turned around history in a given field, or in the United [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 5:13am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Surely we’ve found everything by now

  Number of comments: 4
  Well, no, we haven’t.  Nice little post by a photographer urging people to go look to see what they can find, with a brilliantly concise set of arguments about big things discovered just in the past few years. Nice photos, too — go see. Posted in Adventure, Education, Explorers and Exploration, Geography [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 7:06am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Al Gore shows green investing works

  Number of comments: 3
  Among the more amusing about-faces in conservative knee-jerk politics is conservative criticism of Al Gore for being a successful investor. No, I’m not kidding. Back in April, Gore testified to a House Energy and Commerce Committee in April — one of the committees where Gore was a shining star when he was [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 4:54am EST
  by Ed Darrell

• 2 millionth reader, coming in November

  Number of comments: 4
  Unless things really drop off the table, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub will have its 2 millionth reader sometime this month, probably between the 14th and the 20th. Update: No, that won’t happen.  Such goofs come from posting when tired.  We’ll click over 1.8 million readers, but not 2 million.  What was I [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 5:17pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Veterans Day 2009 – Here’s the poster

  Number of comments: 5
  Get ready to fly your flag on Veterans Day, November 11. Information Gen. Shinseki designated 41 model Veterans Day celebration sites VA works to help World War I veterans get France’s Legion of Honor Non-government site with information on Veterans Day Posted in 1776, Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, veterans Tagged: [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 1:49pm EST
  by Ed Darrell

• Jack Kilby, inventor of the computer chip

  Number of comments: 2
  KERA Television has a marvelous short film profile of Jack Kilby, who won the Nobel in physics for his invention of what we now call “the computer chip.” Teachers should check out the film and use it — it’s a great little chapter of Texas history, science history, and U.S. history.  [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 3:46am EST
  by Ed Darrell