Science

Both the National Hurricane Center and the Colorado State University forecast team founded by Dr. Bill Gray are forecasting above normal Atlantic hurricane seasons. The NHC is predicting 12-16 named storms, 6-9 hurricanes, 2-5 major hurricanes and an "ACE" range 100%-210% of the median. CSU is predicting (PDF) 15 (avg. 9.6) named storms, 8 (avg. 5.9) hurricanes, 4 (avg. 2.3) intense hurricanes and a "NTC" 160% of average.

However, these forecasts don't address the "mystery" of the missing oceanic heat that has now been found.

Via Discover Magazine: Space Travel For Every Budget: 7 ways to be a space tourist—even if you’re broke.

a Northrop Grumman–sponsored flight of schoolteachers, who were videotaping a variety of experiments to show their students. This meant a full cabin, which at times resembled a human washing machine as the teachers bounced off each other while trying to do their experiments and line up their cameras for a good shot.

In which you are invited to be an astronomer.

The title says it all. Chat away.

Over at the Dark Overlord's website, comes word that the Earth does not revolve around the sun. Huh, ummm, well, shit.

How do you argue intelligently with people who are so fracking dumb they spout nonsensical bull-shit such as this? I mean, really, how do you talk to people that are this ignorant?

OK, that's it. It's 5:00 somewhere over the Atlantic (unless time zones are BS too, crap, if the Earth does not revolve around the sun, how can I know when it's beer-thirty?). Fuck it, I'm gonna crack a cold one anyway. Stoopit Flat-Earthers.

Via Ex:

A weird moment this morning when I was reading this post from Josh Marshall about another warped science=politics moment. This one involving a state Rep from Georgia, a theory that evolution is a Jewish conspiracy and one of my old high school teachers (the one who taught the Americanism vs. Communism course, not the creationist biology teacher).

I went back to the Dent archives and dug up this post I wrote in Feb. 2006 about Evolution Sunday and high school weirdness.

Original Post from the now departed Dent blog:

This Sunday, in honor of Charles Darwin’s 187th birthday, the message from pulpits across the country will be that God and science can co-exist. Pope says so, too.

Many of you were here during our live-blogging session with Congressman Brad Miller. Some of you might remember this comment he made after a question from gregflynn.

We're still collecting accounts of intimidation.
Submitted by repbradmiller on Thu, 12/28/2006 - 10:02am.
The Science Committee will have a new subcommittee next year, an Investigations and Oversight subcommittee. Yes, it will have subpoena power.

I will no likely chair that subcommittee next year, unfortunately, but I expect to remain active on the issue. You can still send e-mails confidentially to heather.parsons[at]mail.house.gov with any examples of research being quelched or manipulated because of political considerations.

I was sad to see that Rep. Miller wouldn't chair that committe, because I felt he would be an excellent fit for the job. The good great news is that Congressman Brad Miller is indeed the chair of the Investigations and Oversight subcommittee and yes, the committee does have subpoena power. They have just finished their first organizing meeting and it is official.

Find out more below the fold...

I can wrap this baby up in one word: Awesome! Obviously, my unbridled enthusiasm could use some perspective. I don't get out much. My time with the grownups - very bright grownups - is something I hope to repeat next year.

Kirk and Robert might have more subdued, mature reactions for you and I hope they'll chime in with their own posts or in the comments.

Bora Zivkovic and Anton Zuiker organized the event with the help of volunteers. WillR tended to the registration duties and BrianR was also helping out to make sure everything ran smoothly during the day. I'm sure there were other volunteers who worked hard to make the event seem effortless. Breakfast and lunch were provided and we had lots of goodies waiting for us. I'm going to provide a list at the bottom to give the folks who helped out a little more ad space and promotion. They deserve it.

Find out more below the fold...

As many of you know, Anglico and I attended Converge South in Greensboro just days before election day. While there we did some networking and I picked up a few items for our calendar. The below is one of them.

The North Carolina Science Blogging Conference will be held on Saturday January, 20, 2007 in Chapel Hill. It is a free conference and appears to be formatted the same as Converge South in a casual, unconference style.

Please follow below the fold...

Kos readers have probably already seen this, but I'm posting it here because it's truly an amazing piece of video animation. Here's the story behind the magic. Enjoy.

Today I received an email from Brad asking for money. At this time of the year most of us are pretty tapped out, but we still want our Dems to win. This is part of his plea:

We’ve almost raised enough to pay for what we’ve planned to spend on television, mail, flyers, signs, campaign staff, and all the rest. But not quite. To be precise, we need an extra $37,895 by Tuesday, October 31.

If you can find any money, maybe $5.00, maybe forgo that lottery ticket or a night out, it will help a good Democratic Representative keep his seat. Brad has been working hard in Washington, looking out for us, here in North Carolina and across the USA. He understands the plight of the middle class worker and has introduced legislation to prohibit predatory lending. He founded and co-chairs the bi-partisan Community College Caucus. Seeing case after case of the suppression of science by this administration, he is actively collecting stories about this censorship of real science and is building a case for the House Science Committee to investigate after the Rubber Stampers leave.