The Daily Reviewer | Millard Fillmore's Bathtub

Great animation: “The Chesnut Tree”

Mar 14, 2010 8:03pm

Wonderful film from 2007, by Hyun-min Lee. I found it on PBS World this weekend, and then found a YouTube version. Watch it with your young children. Filed under: animation, Cartoons, children, Video and film Tagged: animation, Cartoons, children, film, Hyun-min Lee, Mothers, The Chesnut Tree ...

How will you celebrate James Madison’s birthday? What happened to James Madison Week at JMU

Mar 14, 2010 2:28pm

James Madison's birthday is March 16! Americans should do more to commemorate his birth, and here's why....

Warming and science denialists stuck with political egg on their predictions

Mar 14, 2010 1:17pm

If they are honorable people, they wish they could take it back. John Hinderaker at Powerline, November 23, 2009: At the end of 2008, the scientists at East Anglia predicted that 2009 would be one of the warmest years on record: On December 30, climate scientists from the UK Met Office and...

Typewriter of the moment: Helen Keller

Mar 13, 2010 10:14pm

Caption from the American Foundation for the Blind: “This photograph, taken in their home, shows Helen and Polly in front of two large windows. The light is bright outside, and the curtains on the windows are pulled back. Helen is sitting at her typewriter, describing something with...

Quote of the moment: Bertrand Russell, on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, 64 years prescient

Mar 13, 2010 9:22pm

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell, The Triumph of Stupidity in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell’s American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998), p. 28 With these words Russell stated, in 1935, a phenomenon observed and chronicled by Justin Kruger...

OK Go – copyright, industry change, culture and technology, and great music

Mar 13, 2010 8:25am

You’re internet and culture savvy — you probably already know all about this stuff. OK Go’s music appeals to many. The appeal convinced a major record label, Capitol/EMI, to sign the band to a deal. OK Go worked hard to promote the music of the band, including videos. Capitol looked at...

Birthers claim Obama born in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub in 1853

Mar 12, 2010 5:03am

With Henry Louis Mencken as his father. No, that’s not really what they claim (I think; sometimes it’s difficult to tell). But what happened, and how it spread virally through websites of birthers and Obama haters, should provide a moral to someone’s story. To demonstrate how easy it is to create hoax...

Texas standards for social studies — where to find them

Mar 11, 2010 12:52pm

Texas Tribune quickly establishes itself as a Really Useful journal on Texas politics, especially with features like this summary of the proposed Texas social studies standards, with comments on changes and the history of the changes. For example, explaining an insulting cut of Texas and African American heroes, Texas Tribune explains: Tuskegee...

Science bloggers doing it wrong?

Mar 10, 2010 5:58am

A new paper in the Journal of Science Communication offers a critique of the workings and effectiveness of science bloggers. Happily for us, the paper is open access, freely available. The article appears to be from some research for a Ph.D.: Inna Kouper is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and...

Sour grapes of wrath at the Texas State Board of Education

Mar 10, 2010 3:26am

A couple of months can make a big difference. Can. A difference which way? Two months ago the Texas State Board of Education suspended its revamping of social studies standards — the efforts to grind the standards into a right-wing crutch were so controversial that hearings, discussion and amending proposed standards took...

For sage grouse, not a nickel’s difference between Bush and Obama

Mar 9, 2010 5:46am

Sage grouse don’t vote. If they did vote, they’d have a difficult time picking between Democrats and Republicans on their own life and death issues. Of course, there aren’t enough sage grouse to make much of a difference on election day. That’s the problem. Last week the U.S. Department of...

Okalahoma earthquakes: No swarm

Mar 6, 2010 10:39am

Three earthquakes in a week do not make a swarm. Interesting that the last post on an earthquake in Oklahoma drew earthquake conspiratorialists and “skeptics.” Too many people distrust all science and sources of information these days. Here’s the dirt on Oklahoma’s shaking in the last week, from the U.S. Geological...

Could Abraham Lincoln ever live up to Millard Fillmore’s record?

Mar 4, 2010 8:08pm

Elektratig found the most delightful thing, and wrote about it on his blog — Georgia politician and future vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens wondering about this new guy on the hustings, Abraham Lincoln, and comparing him to Millard Fillmore, in a letter from July 1860. You gotta read...

Arctic Ocean gives up more methane than scientists predicted

Mar 4, 2010 3:20pm

Here’s another point of science that will give rational people concern, and which cannot in any way be explained as “no problem” by stolen e-mails: Methane releases from the floor of the East Siberian Arctic are much larger than predicted. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Frozen...

Shakiest states — geologically, that is

Mar 4, 2010 10:53am

Which states shake the most? Here are the top 20. Surprised that Maine makes the list? Much more from the US Geological Survey here, “Top Earthquake States.” Filed under: earthquakes, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, geology, History, Science Tagged: earthquakes, geography, geology, Top 20 Earthquake States, U.S. history, US Geological Survey ...

Diane Ravitch’s “U-turn”: The teachers were right

Mar 4, 2010 6:39am

Were I to advise Diane Ravitch right now, I’d tell her to change all her computer passwords and redouble the security on her servers. Why? After what happened to the scientists who study global warming, I expect many of the same wackoes are working right now to get her e-mails,...

Hope in Texas: McLeroy voted off of state school board

Mar 3, 2010 5:13am

Two earthquakes ravage American nations, tsunamis, freakishly large snowstorms, still trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran in turmoil and ruled by some sort of crazy, North Koreans still starve so the nation can make a nuclear sabre to rattle. Good news? Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy lost a primary...

Annals of global warming: Glaciological map of Antarctica’s Palmer Land Area, 1947-2009

Mar 3, 2010 3:39am

Are the ice fields of Antarctica increasing or decreasing? How do we know? U.S. Geological Survey released a study of the change in glaciation in Antarctica between 1947 and 2009. Serious student of climate change will heed what the maps show — better bookmark the site. The study and publication were...

Free, detailed maps of Germany

Mar 3, 2010 3:34am

Need maps of Germany for geography or world history? Germany’s geodetic and cartography agency, Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie, in Frankfurt, has three detailed maps available in .pdf form at it’s website. These .pdfs are suitable for papers sizes roughtly 8.5 by 11 inches in the U.S. — but they probably would...

Skeptics right! A titanic win from leaked documents . . .

Mar 1, 2010 11:13am

Alun Salt has the full story: I don’t know about you but I’ve been absolutely riveted by the recent release of records from a break-in at the White Star line. No really, it’s not just a stream of bilge from people who may not be experts but reckon something. Frankly I...