Random Thoughts

American science media is constantly going on about evolution and climate change deniers - sometimes even inventing assaults on evolution that don't exist - but when it comes to quasi-religious beliefs about energy and medical science, we get a whole slew of rationalizations about how people just don't trust corporations, or they have ethical issues or whatever. And then there's food. The intellectual food obfuscation in order to avoid discussing the obvious demographic that embrace food pseudoscience is truly dizzying. American Shamanism is alive and well and its temples are in a Whole Foods…

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves….” Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act 1, scene 2. Our fire problem has been a long time in the making. It did not happen overnight. We will not fix it overnight, perhaps we never will. Coeur d'Alene National Forest, Idaho. Photo taken between 1909 and 1920. Photo Credit: Library of Congress. It is almost summer so wildfires are in the news. California's drought has put fire on those living here. Since January 1, my old outfit CAL FIRE has responded to 2,053 wildfires across the state that have burned 16,910 acres. And this year’s…

This Father’s Day, for the first time in my life, I find myself nearly struck dumb with fear. I am the proud father of a one-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl whom I love more than the sun and the moon – more than I love my own being. I am also the founder and CEO of an addiction treatment center, where I see the horrors of what can happen to human beings through their own bad choices and being taken advantage of by others. Until this year my kids seemed so little, so young. They were at home; I could protect them. This year, I am looking at kindergartens for my eldest and I can’t help…

The World Cup is fast approaching and with it come no end to projections, estimations and forecasts about who is going to do what.  Using a Bayes analysis, once you reach the semifinal you have a 50 percent chance of being correct - just like flipping a coin. But can it work before then? Yes, is you do enough simulations.  But before you fire up your copy of Championship Manager and try to play 100 times, there is an easier solution. Computer scientists David Dormagen and Raul Rojas from the Intelligent Systems and Robotics Group at Freie Universität Berlin have developed software…

Contained therein was a reality show about sheep. I get it, they want to sell eyeballs some ads, but surely there is a female scientist out there with more than a Master's degree and who happens to have not been a model?

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has announced that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is accepting applications for projects related to  abandoned mine drainage projects . You'll have to be a non-profit or a government agency to get government money - the groups most likely to be able to do something on budget are prohibited from applying to get a grant from taxpayers. The Growing Greener Grant Program is funded by a series of bond issues and a fee on waste entering landfills. The infusion of additional Act 13 revenues of more than $7.8 million restores funding…

American Council on Science and Health is an advocacy group consisting of hundreds of scientists, doctors and policy experts devoted to science outreach. They've been around since the 1970s, when the core of their original group, including Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, the "father of the Green Revolution", wondered why there were no science groups that offset the wonks promoting fear and doubt about researchers. Since then, they have gone where the data takes them. Co-founder Dr. Elizabeth Whelan has been attacked by both food fetishists and Big Tobacco for promoting inconvenient truths…

MH370 - Why Search Teams Ignored Georesonance As soon as I read about the claims that Georesonance identified an aircraft wreck at the bottom of the Bay of Bengal my bogusness meter went off the scale.  A whois search shows the company is registered to a small private residence.   The company claims to have identified an underwater object using multispectral images. Quoted words below are from the Georesonance Pty. Ltd. press release posted by Air Traffic Management.net. Nonsense on stilts The wreckage is sitting on the seabed approximately 1000m to 1100m from the surface....…

The 35th international chess tournament in Mogliano Veneto this year did not feature strong grandmasters or international masters, but a pack of 24 local players of average strength around 2150. Still, it was a very hard-fought competition, with almost no game ending as a draw before all winning attempts had been tried. I scored a rather disappointing 2 points out of 5, losing two games -one of them undeservedly, for a performance rating is 2030, a bit less than what I believe is my current playing strength. Below I report my only win, against Enrico Danieli, an elo 2070 player. Danieli-…

Debris Find - Likely Came From A Caravan Yet another mystery object turns out to be unrelated to missing flight MH370. FAIRFAX Media has received photos of the debris found near Augusta which investigators have since confirmed is not linked to the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Mat Franklin and his son discovered the debris on Easter Monday four kilometres from Augusta.   Augusta-Margaret River Mail There is a lot of debris in the oceans and the chance of any of it turning out to be from MH370 is exceedingly slim.  The complexity of the ocean currents in the area…