(Thanks, D!)
About as good as Jimmy the Groundhog and Punxsutawney Phil.
AP Impact: Hurricane season outlooks of little use
So how did these things become such a big deal?
[Craig Fugate, director of emergency management for Florida] thinks part of the problem is that the media and some public officials picked up the cloudy crystal ball and ran with it. “Particularly national media has been using these forecasts inappropriately,” he says. “I’m as guilty as anyone else.”
… So why keep doing them?
The answer they give: Because they add to the overall understanding of how hurricanes work. “You actually learn more when you bust than when you verify,” says [William Gray].
Science: Donor Gives $5 Million to Aid Fermilab
… An anonymous donor has given the University of Chicago $5 million to be spent at cash-strapped Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. With the money, lab officials will be able to stop a rolling furlough program that since February has forced employees to take periodic unpaid leave and slashed their pay by 12.5%. The lab will still lay off roughly 140 workers, but officials also announced that those cuts would be restructured to give employees a chance to take voluntary layoffs before the involuntary ones begin.
… Fermilab’s financial crisis began in December, when the U.S. Congress passed a last-minute budget for the 2008 fiscal year (ScienceNOW, 19 December 2007). Legislators whacked Fermilab’s budget from the $372 million requested by the Department of Energy (DOE) to $320 million, $22 million less than the lab had received in 2007 … This is the second time in recent years that philanthropists have bailed out a beleaguered DOE lab.
This is the saddest and, simultaneously, the most beautiful thing I have heard of in a while. The nation’s scientists have turned into beggars, but thank goodness for the generosity of people who prioritize well our necessities and can help.
The 2000 presidential election was very personal. Late that fall, I was to start my second master’s program in computational sciences working on a borehole geophysics project under the auspices of the Department of Energy, more specifically Sandia National Lab. Research funding was all lined up until Bush was elected and my project and several others were put on indefinite hold. “Maybe the recount will bring good news, Maitri,” my advisor said. We all know how that went. For a semester, I paid for classes and conducted research without income until, thankfully, Sandia and other research labs were able to scrounge up enough cash to keep our respective programs going.
Between the time Bush was elected and sworn in, colleagues and I watched as DoE funds were slashed and the Department of Defense coffers grew in size exponentially. If there ever was a sign of the Bush administration’s readiness to invade someone, anyone, that was it and we saw it back in the early days of 2001. Eight years later, our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters are dead or dying due to a misbegotten war in foreign lands, while, back home, we have squandered our responsibility to educate, conduct valuable research, grow and compete globally. This is America under Bush and the neoconservative chickenhawks. Are you happy now?
Once I was a libertarian who believed that all research ought to be funded by private donors. Since then I’ve moved to Reality, which is not a closed system, and have realized the depressing fact that the average citizen is someone who can’t begin to understand the concept of enlightened self-interest, i.e. helping others in order to help oneself, and is inherently a hoarder unlike our Fermilab philanthropist. He or she would rather die of a disease than spend the money to find the cure for it, which then everyone else can use. Also, if only certain people pay for and consequently reap the benefits of science and technology while many more could, that is just not a very good world to live in, is it?
Hello, you who want to pay less to no taxes, are you listening? This is partially why we pay income and real estate taxes, in the hope that money goes towards our schools, universities, laboratories, collective knowledge and a strong national research infrastructure and ALL OF US gain from our contribution. In theory, the taxes we pay are all tiny, private donations administrated by a central body that makes sure all of our vital institutions work and work everyday, not simply when Joe Donor throws some coin in the collection plate. We then, of course, run the risk of someone like Bush and his cronies coming along and using the treasury to invade Iraq in the name of less taxes, grandma and apple pie, but whose fault was that? Exactly. It was your own greed that got ALL OF US, including you, nowhere. Are you happy now?
Dear anonymous donor, I love you and wish there were more like you.
Related: U.S. Nuclear Brain Drain Feared
Friend Viji has been busy traveling and writing for the Christian Science Monitor. This article is a part of her plan to put Mylapore, my mother’s Indian hometown, on the map.
… Chennai’s efforts to tackle its water shortage bears watching. By 2030, about 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to be living in similar large metro areas with limited natural resources. The renovated [Kapaleeshwarar temple] tank with its greenish water offers reassuring evidence that efforts to harvest rainwater here – a pragmatic step to fight water shortage – have begun to yield results.
Geography does not favor Chennai: No major river flows through this semi-arid city. But the city averages 48 inches of annual rainfall, six times more than Phoenix. Historically, importing water from neighboring states has been fraught with political tensions.
Another piece describes and celebrates the dosa (South Indian rice crepe), of which Alli recently enjoyed the masala version at That Indian Place. Dosas, you are so amazing on the palate and equally irksome to make.
… Making dosas used to be hard work. Cooks soaked rice and lentils in water for several hours and ground these ingredients in a stone mortar. After this muscle work, the job still wasn’t finished. The batter needed to ferment. Then, once bubbles rose to the top, it had to be refrigerated, or it would turn too sour and be fit only to make uthappams, a pancakelike dish I don’t like.
Used to be?! It is still virtually impossible in the absence of a gigantic, mechanized ammi, a Sumeet or a Preethi, which, with their voltage differences and conversion requirements, would take out the power to all of the Lower Garden District. Even with today’s American blenders, it is a royal pain in the lower back to combine the right quantities of soaked urad dal and rice flour paste, grind, mix, grind, mix and, finally, pour the viscous batter into a container while trying your hardest not to get it all over the countertops and hardwood floor.
Come to think of it, the last time I was done grinding dosa batter I cried for two hours straight and prayed to the heavens above for a divine-intervention shoulder rub. The chili powder in the open wound was cooking those dosas on a hot, hot evening a month before Katrina hit, and the cooking was the easy part. Oh no, you evil temptation dosa, you can’t lure me into making you again here in New Orleans, not when I can eat them at Komi’s or about twice a year at my parents’. Avast, my flat and flavorful yet fickle friend.
And, before anyone even mentions it, I’d rather never eat dosas again than look at, much less cook with, pre-packaged batter. Scoff.
Great, now my stomach is growling. A fortuitous thing I’m making rajma tonight.
Help Oiled Birds
Please help some innocent living things by supporting the efforts of The International Bird Rescue Center in locating, rescuing, and cleaning wildlife affected by the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Click on the pelican to donate.
