Category: Enlightenment Warrior
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Port Discover Science Center Needs Your Enthusiasm
Nobody flunks a science museum. – Frank Oppenheimer, founder of Exploratorium Center Director Jenny Eaton at the Port Discover Booth for Knobbs Creek Recreation Center’s Safety Day There’s a feeling I get when I find a picture of a living species on Earth that looks as though it belongs in a science fiction film, come…
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Response to the OSTP Request for Comment on Scientific Integrity
On March 9, 2009, the White House issued a Memorandum on Scientific Integrity, directing the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop recommendations for improving scientific integrity based on six core principles. The OSTP opened a solicitation for public comment on their blog for ideas on how best to implement and enforce these…
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Remember Snow?
When I was a kid, it was guaranteed we would get at the very least one good school-closing snowfall a year. It was like a bonus holiday, where all the neighborhood kids would come out for snowball fights, sledding, and maple-syrup snow cones. The snow was always gone in a day or two, leaving a…
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The United State’s New CIO, Vivek Kundra
Vivek Kundra at the Announcement for the “Applications for Democracy” Technology Contest Winners Although the mainstream media pretty much glossed over it (because covering our country’s IT infrastructure is too complex for them), I was eager to hear all about President Obama’s choice of federal Chief Information Officer, but even this Whitehouse Press Release was…
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Economists Really Gots No Science
“Wow. If I’d only followed CNBC’s advice, I’d have a million dollars today… provided I’d started with a hundred million dollars.” – Jon Stewart Thank the Cosmos for The Daily Show. I’ve been meaning to sit down and quantify just how incredibly wrong all those idiots like Jim Cramer, Rick Santelli, and the Fast Money…
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Go Back to School Patriots!
My favorite part of President Obama’s Address to the Joint Session of Congress last week: It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or…
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The Wall Street Journal Doesn’t Understand New Media
Iridium Communications Satellite Credit: Moi Last week, I got a late message from the Wall Street Journal that they wanted to use my flickr photo of an Iridium satellite for their coverage of the satellite collision in space. Very exciting! It would have been awesome bragging rights to have my (pretty unremarkable) photo appear in…
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Science Stimulus
Science Debate Allow me to be upfront in my support for much of the Government Spending portion of the 2009 stimulus plan working its way through the fed presently. $125 billion in education spending, a $3 billion increase in NSF funding, $100 billion for energy infrastructure, and $10 billion for basic science research are just…
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Science and Democracy Empower Each Other
Dennis Overbye has a superb commentary in the NYT Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy that reminds me of the Mark Twain quote, “the domain of Science is a republic, and all its citizens are brothers and equals.” Overbye writes: [Science], which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values,…
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Punxsutawney Phil Disproves Anthropogenic Climate Change
THAT’S RIGHT!!! SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER!!! Where’s your Anthropogenic Climate Change now scientists??? Huh? HUH?? HUH??? Punxsutawney Phil says HUH!?!? Credit: alemaxale An you know what else??? It snowed somewhere in America last week. That’s right. IT SNOWED IN JANUARY SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA!!! In fact, as of my writing this, people are still without…
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Is This the End of the Punk Rock Enlightenment Era?
There’s a lot of transitioning going on in American culture right now. Barack Obama’s Presidency is bringing dramatic changes in American Policy in just its first few days. A recent news story that caught my eye was how the brilliantly satirical Daily Show was wrestling with how its narrative will adapt to the new administration.…
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Barack Obama 20090120
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed…