My Beauty Best Teacher

Mr. Robbo the PE Geek is an excellent blogger and incredible teacher. Located in remote Australia, he has these students using heart monitors and high definition cameras to understand their sport. (Read his It's Now Possible blog post from today. This PE teacher taught me about QR Codes. A neat person too.)

We can talk about getting kids interested in science, however, science is interested IN them because it can unlock higher performance in the things they love. Taking science to the ballfield is only the beginning

For those of you who saw my Daily Education & Technology News For Schools this morning know that I'm having a bit of a traipse into Citizen Science.

Citizen Science is Becoming "Legitimate" Science
Authentic citizen scientist research work is becoming very useful to high level scientists. When I sat down with Dr. Geoffrey "Jess" Parker from the Smithsonian last year and the Microsoft Innovative Educator Forum in South Africa, he said that it is pretty easy to use statistical analysis to filter out "noise" of readings that have been taken in err.

Joshua Faulk helps students Treeband in south Africa at St. Cyprian's. Photo by Vicki Davis.

Dr. Parker is the scientist who discovered that trees in Maryland are growing faster than predicted. He and fellow scientist Joshua Faulk and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center have partnered with Taking IT Global and Microsoft to create Shout Learning and the Smithsonian Tree Banding project where your students can participate.

Here are some important reasons you should have citizen science as part of your curriculum:

• It introduces students to the scientific method and data collection responsibilities.
  
• It introduces students to live science in action and makes it real. They can see questions before they have been answered and understand how science moves forward.
  
• It adds meaning to their work. No longer answering the same questions answered hundreds of years a go, they are answering questions that help our world NOW! You and your classroom MAKE A Difference. (The principle of glocalization talked about in Thomas Friedman's work - Think globally act locally.)
  
• As in the case of Mr. Robbo's lesson plan, they can use science to improve their performance which can show benefits on the field and also in their life as they realize science is in them, around them, everywhere.
  
• It is project based learning in action and can lead to other cross curricular activities including math, writing reflections, technology (using spreadsheets) and more.

http://scienceforcitizens.net/

• The Network for Citizen Science Projects & Resources | Science for Citizens

  Another citizen science network. There are a ton of citizen science resources available on this website including a project to help track and save American Robins. You can also add projects here and blog. Another great place for projects. This website lets one rate projects as well. There are many games on this website. This is a definite goldmine for science teachers!

  tags: science citizenscientist flatclassroom education

• CitSci.org - Project List

  One can also list projects on this website. It might be interesting for students to create their own projects.

  tags: education citizenscientist science

• CitSci.org - Home

  A citizen science project monitoring nature and contribute to colelctive biological understanding. Every science classroom should find an appropriate citizen science project to do in their classrooms on an ongoing basis. Become part of research.

  tags: education science flatclassroom citizenscientist

• For Citizen Scientists - NASA Science

  NASA calls for Citizen scientists to help map Mars and says that citizen scientists "have helped to answer serious scientific questions, provide vital data to the astronomical community, and have discovered thousands of objects including nebulas, supernovas and gamma ray bursts."
  
  It is time to join your classrooms into the citizen scientist movement. How would your students feel about science if they helped discover a star?

  tags: education science flatclassroom citizenscientist edu_trends techintegrator

• H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online

  A website supporting collaborative research at the highest academic levels. Run out of the University of Michigan this looks like a fascinating endeavor where one can network with other researchers.

  tags: education research globalcollaboration flatclassroom professionaldevelopment

• Journey North's Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project

  Join in Journey North's Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project this fall in North America. This is an excellent citizen scientist project.

  tags: education learning butterfly science

• Acceptable Use Policies in Web 2.0 & Mobile Era > Consortium for School Networking

  Acceptable Use policies in a Web 2.0 and Mobile Era: A guide for school districts is one of those things you'll want to read and reference as you make your decision. Please, NEVER just blanket adopt any acceptable use policy. It should be customized for your school and needs.

  tags: education acceptableuse policy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Last month I wrote an important post called Global Climate Change is Caused by the Sun. That post has received a lot of comments and generated a lot of emails, most of them critical of the post because they didn't feel that I provided enough information to support my points or that I was not a reputable outlet to challenge their faith in climate change. But I want to hammer away at these people and continue to challenge their faith and make people feel more comfortable about the arguments that I made in that post, so I am going to all direct you to an article.

The article is published by the Financial Post and is called Science Getting Settled: New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans:

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory credence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials.

The mobilization to rally the press against the Danes worked brilliantly, with one notable exception. Nigel Calder, a former editor of The New Scientist who attended that 1996 conference, would not be cowed. Himself a physicist, Mr. Calder became convinced of the merits of the argument and a year later, following a lecture he gave at a CERN conference, so too did Jasper Kirkby, a CERN scientist in attendance. Mr. Kirkby then convinced the CERN bureaucracy of the theory’s importance and developed a plan to create a cloud chamber — he called it CLOUD, for “Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets.”

But Mr. Kirkby made the same tactical error that the Danes had — not realizing how politicized the global warming issue was, he candidly shared his views with the scientific community.

“The theory will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century,” Mr. Kirkby told the scientific press in 1998, explaining that global warming may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.

The global warming establishment sprang into action, pressured the Western governments that control CERN, and almost immediately succeeded in suspending CLOUD. It took Mr. Kirkby almost a decade of negotiation with his superiors, and who knows how many compromises and unspoken commitments, to convince the CERN bureaucracy to allow the project to proceed. And years more to create the cloud chamber and convincingly validate the Danes’ groundbreaking theory.

Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years — this column will be the first that most readers have heard of it — because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby and other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” and to downplay the results by “mak[ing] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.” The CERN study and press release is written in bureaucratese and the version of Mr. Kirkby’s study that appears in the print edition of Nature censored the most eye-popping graph — only those who know where to look in an online supplement will see the striking potency of cosmic rays in creating the conditions for seeding clouds.

CERN, and the Danes, have in all likelihood found the path to the Holy Grail of climate science. But the religion of climate science won’t yet permit a celebration of the find.

Hopefully this article has made you feel more comfortable about accepting the fact that I am right- global climate change is driven largely by the sun, not humans, and thus almost every attempt by the government to control our behaviors and energy and production in the name of 'climate change' is misguided and dangerous and wrong.

UPDATE:  Come on people- now I'm getting emails that 'the Financial Post' isn't reputable enough for you- well how about the Wall Street Journal, because it also came out with an article today talking about the role that cosmic rays play in affecting the climate. Read the article The Other Climate Theory for more.

In this four part series, I cover tagging, review building a PLN with an iGoogle page, notes on wiki editing, and end up with Leadership notes. This is taken from a blog post for my ninth graders. This is an update to my first blog post: Wiki Wiki Teaching: The Art of Using Wiki Pages to Teach but truly represents most of my current thinking on wikis.

How to Information:

• Project Help Wiki
• Current Digiteen Wiki

Wiki Editing
We met with the [Digiteen] teachers this week and this is where many students stare numbly at the screen and don't know what to do. You are doing "authentic" research - this means that you can't really go on some web page and copy information and have it be accurate. You can't google "individual awareness" and find what you need. Don't try - you are wasting your time. Here are guidelines for how you should spend your class time. I use this when I'm working on projects.

1) First 5 minutes of class - Read and Respond.

• Review your PLN to respond to discussions on the wiki and questions or MEANINGFUL wall posts on the Ning. You could use the chat to see if someone is online from your group but DON'T leave the chat up unless you want to ask me questions in there. It can distract you and you have work to do. Multitasking is a myth - you will pay attention to one thing and not another.
  
• Answer people every day on the wiki discussion tab!
  This brings another point - when you see someone leave a message on the wiki ANSWER THEM. One of the best gifts you can give a group is to let others know that someone is out there! We are communicating ASYNCHRONOUSLY which means NOT at the same time. This is a challenging form of communications. The leaders online are those who engage and communicate. Sure, a person will see that 15 or 20 people have READ their discussion but when no one responds, it doesn't feel real - in fact, it is worse, they will think
  

  
  "OK, so I left a message and NO ONE IS ANSWERING - either I'm not important or they don't care."

  
  Every day I should see you commenting and leaving messages on the discussion tab of the wiki. EVERY day that you edit. This is part of being a good digital citizen - to communicate with online teams. Engage with them. You will see that a multiplier effect kicks in - the more you communicate, the more others communicate and then you end up with an engaged, fun group to be in. This doesn't happen if everyone waits for everyone else to do something. This is called the bystander effect - the more people watching something happen - the less likely each individual is to step in and do something about it. Speak up. Engage. Connect!
  
  Why do we care about working with people around the world?
  Right now you are working on a digital citizenship document that people around the world will read. Tomorrow you may be a scientist editing the Encyclopedia of Life or working on the cure for cancer or writing a collaborative business plan with your partner who lives in a time zone 12 hours away! This is important for your future and the future of our world - we HAVE to be able to work with people in different time zones.
• Review the current Research and news and see if you should add it to your wiki.

2) Time in Between. Read and Write
Here are some tips.

• Look at your wiki and read your topic.
  
• Errors. Are there any obvious grammatical, punctuation, or glaring errors? (Fix it.)
• Repetition. Is anything repeated unnecessarily. (Consolidate it.)
• Missing Links. Do you see any places that really need links? (Add them. See tips on hyperlinks below.)
  
• Copyright issues. Does anything look plaigarized or need re-wording? (Edit it.)
  
  Take Ownership. This is OUR wiki page not yours, not theirs, not any one persons but it belongs to the group - work as a team and reach out. If you change a lot of things, leave a message. If you see it, it is your responsibility to edit it!
  
  
• Look for content that needs to be added.
• Missing? From your research or common knowledge is there anything left out of this section? (Add it.)
  
• Confusing? Does this information make sense to the average person who knows very little about technology? If it confuses you it will confuse others. (Clarify it.)
• Proper Place? Read the other sections of this wiki page. Does this section add to that information? Is anything repeated too much? (Put it in the right place- you can edit multiple sections - this whole wiki page belongs to all of you.)
• Summarized at Top? Does the summary at the top of the page reflect what you've put in your section? (Add it.)
• Included in the Guidelines? Do the digital citizenship rules reflect what you've put in your section?) (Add to them.) Are the recommendations accurate? (Work on them and discuss them if they are controversial.)
  
  
• Look for contextual hyperlinks to be added.
• In Context. Hyperlinks should be CONTEXTUAL or part of the paragraph in context. (You shouldn't put the full URL unless it is in a citation it should be PART of the paragraph.)
  
• Emphasize Important Words. Is the word essential to your topic? (Hyperlink it the FIRST time it occurs to a page that gives a good definition and is a good SOURCE of information.)
• Eliminate Distracting Hyperlinks. If the word is emphasized will it distract from the purpose of the page? (i.e. if a page is on digital netiquette I'm not going to link to a country's name about that country - it is not related to the page at hand unless it is a research study about netiquette related to that country.)
• Proper Nouns. Is the word the first occurrence of a proper noun that is central to the discussion in this section? (link it - this includes software, websites, and people, etc.)
• Watch for Dead Text. Teachers look for "dead text" as you should on Wikipedia. this is text w/ no citations. (We say "dead text is a dead giveaway" that students haven't researched and cited sources. Teachers and researchers will look to make sure that a paragraph is cited and true or if someone just made it up.)
• Concisely used. Less is more online. Never say "To find out more click here.
• Links to a good source. Make sure the source you are linking to is a good source of information and not just the first link you come to.
  
  
• Look to see how you should cite sources.
• Contextual hyperlink - Linking happens to clarify a topic as above and should be done to cite your source.
• Citation - In addition to linking a CITED source - if you quote something directly you must also CITE your source with a formal citation. This INCLUDES all photos and videos, research studies. This is done with numbers according to our project citation guidelines.
  
  
• Look to see how you should EDIT.
• Less is more. The flaw in past digiteen wikis is they are TOO LONG (some could say that about this blog post ;-)) Information is repeated because students don't want to edit each other's work. Edit, make it concise. Fix things!
• If you see it fix it. IF you see a mistake it is your responsibility to fix it. Remember that different forms of English exist around the world, make sure it is really a mistake (i.e. analyze vs. analyse. program vs. programme) Typos and grammatical mistakes shouldn't live for very long on an active wiki. If teachers see it we know that the students on that wiki aren't editing well.
  
• Put things in their place. Look at the wiki page as a WHOLE - where is the best place to say something. Teachers have the ability to look at the userid's of those who edit. If you edit, no matter where, you WILL get credit - even if it is "out of your section." 
• See the big picture. This whole page should flow as if written by one person even though it is around 80 or so students. Everyone working together can give it unity.
• One voice. Never use "I" on this - who is I? There are 80-100 of you on the page. Blogging is for "me" but wiki-ing is for "we."
  

3) Last 5 minutes of Class Recap and Write

• Recap what you did, ask questions. Post them on the discussion. The discussion tab should be a dialog that keeps work moving along. Not everyone is going to be as active or progressive as you are and hints of where they should start will help!
  
• Why Recap? This keeps the communication going and lets others know that you are "there" and working. They see edits but they do not know who is editing. Your discussions mark you as a leader, someone who is engaged and working, and a good team member. This habit will see you well. Not everyone knows how to see who is editing and contributing. The Recap closes your day. It is also a starting point for you to help you remember where you left off.
  
• A good recap. Include what you did today, other things you think need to be done, and where you plan to pick up next time. If you're going to be offline for a while, let others know. If you're done with the project, let them know as well.

4 Posts in this Series (Will link them after completed.)
Part 1 - How to Tag Properly
Part 2 - Building your PLN and RSS Feeds.
Part 3 - Editing Wikis and Placing Hyperlinks
Part 4 - Web 2.0 Leadership

After the recent global warming scandals whereby government workers faked and falsified research in order to get more money, the 'consensus' on global warming is now being called into question. So what does Congress do? Hold a phony sham of a Congressional committee hearing and invite four out of five 'believers' to testify in front of Congress how people are harassing them now that their cover has been blown and people realize what hacks they are.

Democrats are not holding a hearing to investigate the truth behind the matter. They are not having witnesses come forward to testify about anything that could to increases in my life, liberty, and property. Democrats are not trying to uphold the rule of law, achieve more transparency in climate change research, or contributing new information to the debate. They are simply engaging in typical sham fraud and giving a forum for fraudulent scientists to get on record with their opinions about the myth of man made global warming. As long as Democrats run Congress, you can expect thousands of conferences like this every day in Washington DC, all paid for by your tax money.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is an utter joke- this is the actual government official meeting notice.

Next Hearing 5/20: Climate Science in the Political Arena
Select Committee hearing to examine attacks against climate scientists:
The scientists involved in the stolen climate emails from the University of East Anglia were exonerated by the British House of Commons and an international panel of climate experts, led by Lord Oxburgh. Even after these investigations found that nothing in the emails undercut the scientific evidence of climate change, attacks against scientists continue. Reports of harassment, death threats and legal challenges have created a hostile environment, making it challenging for actual data and scientific analyses to reach the public and policymakers.

On Thursday, May 20th, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing to examine the intersection between climate science and the political process. This hearing, entitled “Climate Science in the Political Arena,” will feature prominent climate scientists, some of whom have been the target of these attacks. This hearing will explore scientists’ ability to present data and information that can guide global warming solutions in a sometimes fierce political landscape.
WHAT: Climate Science in the Political Arena
WHEN: Thursday May 20, 2010, 9:00 AM
WHERE: 1334 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC and online
WITNESS LIST:Dr. Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences and Chair of the National Research CouncilDr. Mario Molina, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Professor, University of California at San Diego Dr. Stephen Schneider, Professor, Stanford University Dr. Ben Santer, Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Dr. William Happer, Professor, Princeton University

According to the Huffington Post, the first four people are all true believers (who feel that there can be no arguing or even suggesting that global warming is happening, that it is man made, that it is bad, and that only massive government control over every aspect of our lives can save us) and only William Happer is a non-believer ("the sole GOP witness arguing against the global warming consensus"). Yeah, that's fair and balanced- a four to one ratio to testify about this issue.

Every Democrat in Congress needs to be thrown out of office sooner rather than later if this is representative of how they spend their days. Every single one of them.

In 234Next Obidike Okafor reports on Bisi Silva's Art Place

In trying to break uncharted areas in the art world, the curator felt that there were few avenues for critical discourse. So, like a scientist experiments, discovers and develops, Silva set out to create a space that like a laboratory will allow artists to develop themselves, experiment on new ideas and interact with colleagues from different parts of the world and the African Continent."There was nobody out there for the teeming population of artists who needed to keep abreast of what is happening in other parts of the world," she said. Thus, the CCA was born.

More here

Buried in the story Stimulus projects under fire I saw this gem:

But supporters counter that the stimulus funds have had a major impact. Out of $7.6 billion awarded, Michigan has received $3 billion for projects that have led to 70,000 jobs, according to the Michigan Economic Recovery Office.

Let's do some quick math- 3,000,000,000/70,000. It equals $42,857.

So you work hard and produce a certain good or perform some sort of service. For your labor and effort skill, the government comes along and taxes you, and the more labor or effort or skill you put in, the more then government taxes you. That tax money is collected by a government agency, housed in a nice office building staffed by government agents paid a salary higher to one they would be paid if they worked in the private sector. These agents take that tax money and put it into an account. Elected officials (nice offices, nice salaries, lifetime benefits) then vote to take that money (plus money from your children and grandchildren, borrowed on interest from China) and spend it building roads or bridges or conducting studies or science or something. That money now goes to a government agency (nice offices, high salaries) which debates what to do with all that money. After much deliberation, they decide to spend it on such things as a professor  getting $145,000 to take students to Africa or a University of Michigan scientist getting $500,000 for a study on people's impact on the environment in Nepal. Then these bureaucrats put the money into accounts for each of these products.

By this point, the money has been cycled through many government agents and agencies, each one taking a cut of the money, and in reality very little of that money makes it to the 'shovel-ready' project. That explains why it costs $42K for the government to create a single job in Michigan, a job that performs actions that are questionable at best.

Any Congressman that voted in favor of the stimulus bill should be thrown out of office for their role in the mismanagement and wastefulness of public funds, and you can find this data at http://nationalrepublicantrust.com/PelosiIndex/Table_complete.php and see where your Congressman voted on key legislation. For their stupidity, lack of knowledge, and failure to lead our nation they deserve to be removed from their jobs. Spending $42K in taxpayer money to save a single job is not an efficient use of government money.

For those who are interested in learning more, check out Guide to the Stimulus: The Definitive Desk Reference to the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act 2009.

Sherine Nasr in Al-Ahram:

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." No more accurate a formula exists to describe the divide between developed and developing countries than that once proposed by Apple's CEO Steve Jobs.Innovation has different implications to a scientist and an economist. "If the applied research doesn't have an impact on the economy, and will not generate money, it is not an innovation," -Hamid El-Zoheiri(RDI),
Thus it becomes clear that the commercialisation of innovation -- at least for the businessman -- is what really counts. This brings up the issue of intellectual property rights that should be maintained and protected."We used to value only physical assets, but intangible assets are becoming more valuable. The market value of companies are increasingly based on intangible versus tangible assets,"-Beat Mollet of Nestle

more here

As many of you know, I am from Michigan, and actually live very close to Oakland University, so I was very excited about the Republican Presidential Primary debate that was recently held there regarding the economy and jobs. As a teacher, the way that I approach this debate may be a bit different than some- I imagine in my mind my students- who are learning about government but are coming from a weak background and years of liberal indoctrination- asking me about the debate and wanting me to give my thoughts on it as an impartial political scientist and also as a hip and cool and connected to the youth high school government teacher.

This debate was one of the better ones that I have watched, and I believe it demonstrates the depth and maturity of the GOP field of candidates. While Democrats focus on demagoguery and constantly throw out rhetoric and boilerplate language about hope and change and doing things different, the GOP field from top to bottom displayed in this debate depth of knowledge on a range of issues facing our nation on to the topic of the economy and jobs. Their answers were candid, focused on the points addressed to them, and they took time in their answers to really try to get their points across. There appeared to be much less 'game-planning'- they weren't trying to 'score points' or 'do anything', but were instead doing a great job answer the questions and trying to convince the American people why they would make a great President of the United States. The moderators did a good job too- asking tough questions but staying away from the 'gotchya' questions that really annoy me as a viewer.

To me, the field has clearly separated after this debate into three candidates who are clearly head and shoulders above the other candidates, each having unique strengths and each having a good shot at winning the nomination. The three that I see emerging after this debate are Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Hermain Cain. I'll come back to those three in a moment after considering the other candidates on the stage.

John Huntsman should drop out of the race- he is not the sort of Republican that the Republican Party is looking for or needs this election. In too many of his answers he asserted that he personally knew what the right size of banks should be, or that he could 'right-size' industries, as if he knows what the 'right size' industries should be. He is trying to come off as a sort of GOP caring and trusting candidate, but I don't think people are looking for a hug and a shoulder to cry on this election- they should be looking for leadership and competence to fix the blunders and mistakes of the past administration, and Huntsman does not represent that in any way. He adds little to the discussion and should drop out.

Rick Santorum is a nice enough politician, but his desperation for attention is bothersome to me and he clearly is a one-trick pony. Most of the other candidates listened to the other candidates and bounced off their ideas, but it appeared at times if Santorum was in his own little world, hearing only what he wanted to hear while bouncing up and down whining 'look at me.' His self-promotion was annoying. And government should not pick winners and losers in our nation, even if you think that winner should be manufacturing- that sort of mentality is what got our nation in the mess it is in right now. He's a nice guy, but not President, and also should drop out of the race.

Rick Perry, I hate to say, should also bow out of the race at this time. I really wanted to like Perry- I heard him speak on Mackinac Island at the GOP Leadership Conference and walked away impressed, but he is clearly out of his comfort zone in running for the President of the United States. Yes, not remembering what department he wanted to axe is embarrassing, but it was more than that- his answers on a range of issues were boilerplate and the kind of stuff that I find trite and shallow and lacking in specifics of sophistication. I thought that he would be able to take what he did in Texas and communicate how he would bring that model to our whole nation, but it increasing appears as if he doesn't fully understand or isn't able to communicate what that model is or how he can bring it to our whole nation. He has been measured, evaluated, and found wanting- he is a good Governor of the State of Texas, but I feel nothing more, and should exit stage right now.

Ron Paul I also feel should drop out of the race, although I understand him staying in the race- he still adds something to the discussion and gives the GOP candidates still in the race someone to agree with and disagree with. He is good at stirring the discussion and is a great legislator- although he is not going to the nominee for President because he lacks leadership and executive qualities that are needed to be President of the United States. During this debate he looked good- restrained, having a good time, and trying to teach America views and policies- but in other debates on foreign policy or family values he looks lost, and sometimes in this debate and others he fell back on 'conspiracies' and little black men to explain away our issues and problems. You need a guy like Ron Paul in Congress and running for President- but he should not be the nominee for President.

Michelle Bachman really impressed me- she has really gotten a lot better and a lot more comfortable up there on stage and she now looks like she belongs. She showed depth of understanding on a range of issues and was able to approach issues with a more complex understanding that I am looking for in a President- I liked her stance on lower taxes, on having everyone pay a little something in taxes, reforming healthcare, and focusing on how our spending problem is what is leading to a rising China. She was good and I'd like to see her stay in the race and continue to improve- but I don't think she should be the GOP's nominee. On too many issues, she simply fell back to being critical of Obama rather than articulating a clear position of her own, and I felt at times like she was quoting from articles that I had read on the major newspapers or heard on talkshows rather than being a President. She is a good Congresswomen and commentator- but not yet Presidential.

Hermain Cain did not impress me. 9-9-9 is not the answer to every question that our nation faces- it may be a bold reform plan, but it will not address every issue facing our nation and can't be the answer to every question that he is asked. For example, when asked on how he would get along with Democrats, he tried to answer that that wasn't important and that was important was passing 9-9-9- that's naive and misguided, because there are going to be Democrats in the House and Senate still after 2012 and 2014, and they aren't even going to give 9-9-9 a chance, and most Republicans aren't either. This guy is living in a dream world if he thinks he can just blow by those sorts of questions and shout 9-9-9 at people, and to me this speaks to the fact that Cain has never been in politics and has never run a government and has never had a position of leadership working in an environment where the other side hates his guts and will do anything possible to stop or sabotage his plan. In addition, on a range of answers he lacked knowledge of the details and issues- and this was domestic policy, his strong suit, not foreign policy, where he is very weak indeed in spite of the fact that foreign policy is a huge part of being President in our nation. He's a likable guy and easy-going- but I'd rather have as President a rude and stiff guy who knew what he was doing and could approach complex issues with complex and knowledgeable policy options. Hermain Cain would make a good Senator, but not a good President- increasingly I feel like the GOP likes him because he's the GOP's version of Obama- a weak on details, likable, easy-going fellow who can get off some good lines but has no experience and leadership and will be quickly overwhelmed with how boring and immense the office of the President is.

Newt Gingrich was the candidate that I was very happily surprised by. The best thing about Newt is that he doesn't let the liberals and Democrats frame the debate or control the direction of the debate- if he were the opponent of Obama I really think he would go after the guy and fight the battle on his terms. He has a stunning command of the issues and the complexity of the issues, easily referring to policies adopted by other nations and other areas as examples of what the United States should do while also drawing on history and economics concepts and philosophy with ease. His ideas about firing Bernake, auditing the Fed, reforming Freddie and Fannie, pushing Medicare to the states, expanding FSA's, giving more young people choices in Social Security, reforming student loan programs, and making America more competitive are all great ideas that the Republican party should and can get behind. Newt is a legitimate contender for the nomination, I feel, and would make a good (although wonkish) President of the United States, holding his own against the other party and executives from other nations, pushing for policies that would be innovative and creative to tackle the challenges that America faces in the 21st century. Obama might look for inspiration to FDR and the Great Depression of the 1930's- but Newt is a bold thinker looking ahead and pushing for new policies that could move America into the future. I think he would be a great addition to any ticket the GOP put forward.

Mitt Romney with this debate should have solidified his spot as the front runner. His knowledge of the issues and comfort with attacking problems with sophistication is only surpassed by Gingrich; his ability to attack Obama and roll of 'red-meat' lines that the base likes is surpassed only by Bachman; his experience as an executive and record of success in government is surpassed only by Perry; and his moderation and appeal to all-important middle-class voters is only surpassed by Huntsman. But put together all of these assets, combined with his general positive nature and range of experiences and Presidential look, and he makes a good nominee for the Republican Party. Not the best one- but on a lot of levels, a better nominee than McCain or Dole or Ford or Goldwater was, and comparable to others too. I believe that he speaks to the 'silent majority' in America that is always the key to winning elections- conservatives might not like this and might want him to be fully owned by the conservative movement, but the 'silent majority' of slightly right middle-class moderates is the group that really determines the President in our nation, and we'll need to win over that group to win the Presidency, and Romney can do that. Frankly, I don't know why conservatives hate him so- he was against the bailouts, against the auto bailouts, wants government to follow laws and processes, wants a flatter and broader tax base with less deductions, will cut the deficit, believes in federalism, talked about injecting the free market more into healthcare policies, and said that he'd push for more free trade. Oh, I know he also talked about keeping in place a safety net for the poor- but so did Ronald Reagan. And he was the only person who talked about he moral reasons for balancing the budget- about how it isn't right to pass that sort of debt down to our children. And he knew what sort of levers and buttons to push as President to get China to 'cheat' less in international trade while the other candidates didn't. I'm not endorsing him at this point- but there is a lot to like about him from this debate.

The best thing is that all of the candidates- from RINO Huntsman to libertarian Paul and everyone in between- all want to lower taxes, all were against the bailouts, all wanted to get rid of Obamacare, and all wanted to expand energy production in the United States. Right there, we know that whomever the nominee is, they will be a better President than the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, and will make America a better place for us to live, a more free nation for us to live in, and will create and protect our prosperity better.

UPDATE: Welcome readers from The PJ Tatler and from The Hill! While you are here, please take a moment to look around my site and check out some of my other posts or look through my archives and read anything that catches your interest. Bookmark my site or link to it on your own or subscribe by email and become a regular reader!

From Slate:

....It is no secret that the ranks of scientists and engineers in the United States include dismal numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans, but few have remarked about another significantly underrepresented group: Republicans.


No, this is not the punch line of a joke. A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation....

...Yet, partisan politics aside, why should it matter that there are so few Republican scientists? After all, it's the scientific facts that matter, and facts aren't blue or red....

...Or could it be that disagreements over climate change are essentially political—and that science is just carried along for the ride? For 20 years, evidence about global warming has been directly and explicitly linked to a set of policy responses demanding international governance regimes, large-scale social engineering, and the redistribution of wealth. These are the sort of things that most Democrats welcome, and most Republicans hate. No wonder the Republicans are suspicious of the science. Think about it: The results of climate science, delivered by scientists who are overwhelmingly Democratic, are used over a period of decades to advance a political agenda that happens to align precisely with the ideological preferences of Democrats. Coincidence—or causation? Now this would be a good case for Mythbusters.

During the Bush administration, Democrats discovered that they could score political points by accusing Bush of being anti-science. In the process, they seem to have convinced themselves that they are the keepers of the Enlightenment spirit, and that those who disagree with them on issues like climate change are fundamentally irrational. Meanwhile, many Republicans have come to believe that mainstream science is corrupted by ideology and amounts to no more than politics by another name. Attracted to fringe scientists like the small and vocal group of climate skeptics, Republicans appear to be alienated from a mainstream scientific community that by and large doesn't share their political beliefs. The climate debacle is only the most conspicuous example of these debilitating tendencies, which play out in issues as diverse as nuclear waste disposal, protection of endangered species, and regulation of pharmaceuticals.

How would a more politically diverse scientific community improve this situation? First, it could foster greater confidence among Republican politicians about the legitimacy of mainstream science. Second, it would cultivate more informed, creative, and challenging debates about the policy implications of scientific knowledge. This could help keep difficult problems like climate change from getting prematurely straitjacketed by ideology. A more politically diverse scientific community would, overall, support a healthier relationship between science and politics....

This relationship is an interesting one, and is explained not by the fact that all Republicans are idiots and unscientific, but because Republicans are all busy actually doing things for society and not just getting government contracts to write papers that no one reads. Scientists are largely useless bureaucrats of a specialized sort today, performing little to no function for society but rather drawing off wealth from working engineers, businessman, and inventors who send their hard-earned tax money to government-run institutions who employ professional scientists to formulate government responses to government-related problems, and so it is no wonder they are all Democrats.

If you can produce a good, improve a product, design a new system, or contribute research that people actually will pay to get their hands on, then you aren't going to be a scientist, you're going to become a businessman, inventor, engineer, or something like that and give yourself a different label than "professional government controlled scientists".

From the PLOS computational Biology website, "...To be a scientist in a low-income country (LIC)...requires a set of qualities that are necessary to confront the drawbacks that work against the development of science. The failure of many young researchers to mature as professional scientists upon their return to their country from advanced training elsewhere, motivated us to propose these ten rules..."[continue reading]
via Science Blogs

Via Dissecting Leftism I came across this article called 'Econophysics' points way to fair salaries in free market':

A Purdue University researcher has used "econophysics" to show that under ideal circumstances free markets promote fair salaries for workers and do not support CEO compensation practices common today.

"It is generally believed that the free market cares only about efficiency and not fairness. However, my theory shows that even though companies focus primarily on making profits and individuals are only looking out for themselves, the collective self-organizing free market dynamics, under ideal conditions, leads to fairness as an emergent property," said Venkat Venkatasubramanian, a professor of chemical engineering. "In reality, the self-correcting free market mechanisms have broken down for CEOs and other top executives in the market, but they seem to be working fine for the remaining 95 percent of employees."

In the new work, the researcher has determined that fairness is integral to a normally functioning free market economy. Findings are detailed in a research paper that appeared in June in the online journal Entropy and is available at http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/6/1514/

This is pretty interesting, and provides hope that our society will finally begin making progress on psychohistory. Pshychohistory, invented by science fiction author Isaac Asimov and a key point to The Foundation Series, is a concept of mathematical sociology analogous to mathematical physics that uses the law of mass action so that it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the galaxy, which has a population of quadrillions of humans, inhabiting millions of star systems). The larger the number, the more predictable is the future. Using pshychohistory, you can predict the future.

This scientist who is working on econophysics could be an early Hari Seldon.

UPDATE: To elaborate on my thoughts on the fictional theory of pshychohistory, I do think there is a plan out there- God's plan- and I do think that some of God's plan is revealed to us through the Bible and his unseen hand (the free market). I think that the field of economics is probably the closest to guessing at some of it, and thus I find it kind of cool whenever anyone works on this.

Too many people are focusing on the 'fairness for CEO's' aspect of this guy's equation, but the more important point is that the free market is working. Probably the failures with fairness with CEO compensation are the result of government policies.

Africa News reports:

“Farmers innovations are often shaped by capital limitations and mainly rely on locally available resources, of which knowledge is a key one,” said Paul Van Mele, a scientist at the Africa Rice Center. “Video proved a powerful, low-cost medium for farmer-to-farmer extension and to expose rural communities to new ideas and practices.”...Innovation levels of 72 percent were recorded in villages where women were introduced to improved rice processing techniques by videos compared to 19 percent among farmers who had attended training workshops. When women who had attended training workshops watched the videos, the innovations recorded shot up to 92 percent.

More here.

My Fake Wall is a spin-off of Facebook but has educational purposes in mind. ...OK, maybe it wasn't exactly created FOR education, but we can use it for educational reasons!

 My Fake Wall allows users to create a fake facebook-look-alike account. This may sound like a play-only tool, but what if our students were to step into someone else's shoes and make a facebook account for them? ...Say, Albert Einstein? Michael Jordan? Thomas Edison? Queen Elizabeth? George from Of Mice and Men? William Shakespeare? The list goes on and on. This is a way for our students to really dig into someone else's life while utilizing the tool they love so much: Facebook.

If you're going to study a particular piece of literature, maybe you could have the students do research over the author and create a fake wall profile as part of the anticipatory set. Or, after the novel is over, you could have the students pick their favorite character and create a fake Facebook over that character.

History folks, what about impersonating a famous historical figure? Science people could ask students to research and write about a famous scientist. Math folks...you know where I'm going with this, right?


It's a biographical study that allows students to present their information in a way they enjoy: mock Facebook. Furthermore, the website says users can actually share their fake Facebook walls on their own personal Facebook accounts. So...what if you created a class Facebook page and allowed every student to post his/her fake account information onto the class Facebook wall?

Ben Franklin's fake wall. Source

...Just throwing out ideas.

I like this for a few reasons:

1. In order to create a Facebook account for another person, the creator has to know a LOT of information about that person! (Have you ever noticed how much stinkin' information Facebook wants from you?!) This encourages some research, but it probably won't FEEL like research to the students, since it's for something "fun," like Facebook. 
2. This is a more creative assignment than a regular ol' report over someone's life!
3. You could "go green" by asking students to post to the class Facebook wall, print copies of their fake accounts, or even take screen shots and e-mail them to you.

I think I'll try to use this next year!

2010 has come and gone, and thanks to a great website like Michigan Votes, citizens of Michigan can now look at and analyze data on their legislators. One interesting statistic that I'm going to look at today is the number of votes that Michigan Congressmen missed the past year. Now, it is understandable to me to miss a few votes- sometimes your kids birthday is on the same day as a vote or sometimes their is a family emergency or sometimes there is an important debate during the campaign season, so I'm not one of those people who demand 100% voting rates out of their legislators.

But on the other hand, missing 20 or more votes out of 600 is kind of a high margin and one has to begin to ask questions. Perhaps there are explanations for these (I haven't researched every Congressman and interviewed them to find on their side of the story), but for most of them, the reason why they have missed so many votes in Michigan Congress over the past year is that they are not good Congressmen. They are doing a poor job of serving their constituents and doing a poor job of representing them in Michigan Congress and probably should be re-elected. So with that, let's take a look at the top ten Michigan Representatives and Michigan Senators who missed the most votes last year (2010). The following shows their name, their party, and the number of missed votes they had out of 672.

First let's look at the Michigan State Senators. The Top 10 'MIA' Senators for 2010 were:
Sen. Hansen Clarke, Democrat, 156 missed votes
Sen. Valde Garcia, Republican, 94 missed votes
Sen. Bruce Patterson, Republican, 87
Sen. Alan Sanborn, (R), 77
Sen. Samuel B. Thomas, III (D) 70
Sen. Martha G. Scott (D) 53
Sen. Wayne Kuipers (R) 44
Sen. Michael Switalski (D) 39
Sen. Liz Brater (D) 38
Sen. Glenn Anderson (D) 37
In 2010, there were 22 Republicans and 16 Democrats, so all things being equal, there should be more GOP members in the top 10 (GOP made up 58% of Senate, should have 5.7 of top 10) . But instead, looking at the top 10 here what jumps out to me is that 6 of them were Democrats and 4 of them were Republicans. That means that Democrats outpeformed the average by a considerable bit.

Is this some sort of larger trend- that in Michigan politics, it is the Democrats who miss more votes than the Republicans, who care less about representing in a basic way their constituents, who take a paycheck and yet don't even bother showing up to vote? Let's test that theory by looking at the top ten most votes missed results of the Michigan House of Representatives. Out of 633 votes:
Rep. Bettie Scott (D) 249
Rep. Kate Ebli (D) 194
Rep. LaMar Lemmons, Jr. (D) 159
Rep. Judy Nerat (D) 140
Rep. Doug Bennett (D) 131
Rep. John Espinoza (D) 131
Rep. Fred Miller (D) 129
Rep. George Cushingberry (D) 125
Rep. Jon Switalski (D) 119
Rep. Shanelle Jackson (D) 103
In the Michigan House of Representatives in 2010 there were 65 Democrats and 42 Republicans. All things being equal, you should expect there to be 6 Democrats and 4 GOPers in the top 10 (60% of 10). But what did we discover? All 10 of the top 10 are Democrats! In fact 19 out of the top 25 missed voters in the Michigan House were Democrats- that is a considerable higher proportion than expected!

I'm not scientist, but I did notice something- Democrats missing voted in the Michigan Senate at a higher proportion than it should be- and came up with a theory- that Democrats serving in the Michigan House have some characteristics that cause them to not showing up to vote (they're lazy, they don't care about their constituents, they have a sense of entitlement, they are too busy meeting with special interests, they have a disrespect for democracy, whatever)- and then I tested that theory using more data- the voting rates in the House of Representatives- and found that my theory was considerably justified.

To me, that proves a law- that Democrats are more likely to skip voting for whatever reason, whereas you can take it to the bank that Republicans will show up and cast ballots as they were elected and are paid to do. I'm sure though that liberals and Democrats will comment below though doing what they usually do best- coming up with excuses.