meta-roj

peace and education and islam

antinuclear campaigner, with cred

according to the october 21 mission status, the opportunity rover is getting more juice than expected – much more.

Since early September, the amount of electricity from Opportunity’s solar panels has increased markedly and unexpectedly, to more than 700 watt-hours per day, a level not seen since the first 10 weeks of the mission.

“We’ve been surprised but pleased to see this increase,” said Erickson, “The team is evaluating ways to determine which of a few different theories is the best explanation.”

Possible explanations under consideration include the action of wind removing some dust from the solar panels or the action of frost causing dust to clump. “We seem to have had several substantial cleanings of the solar panels,” Erickson said.

clark hoskin figured this one out in 1997

the story [ap via abc news, nov 4, 2004] about the f-16 shooting up the elementary school in new jersey has some legs – it’s made the local tv news – possibly because the pilot is based at andrews air force base, “home of air force one.”

with the present swept into office on an unprecedented 1% mandate, and considering that the best of the best must work out of andrews, i felt compelled to find another reason that the united states military would start shooting up our schools. what could possibly make little egg harbor township intermediate school worth shooting?

80.3% passed their language nj assessment of skills and knowledge, 70.3% passed their math nj assessment of skills and knowlege (2002-2003 [pdf]). sure, that could be better… but… worth strafing?

there’s gotta be something in here that i’m missing: little egg harbor intermediate 2002-2003 school report card. maybe it’s the two “turkish speaking” students.

america is safer. america is safer. america is safer.

there’s another analysis, and that is that we’re far enough down the food chain in the people “protecting the homeland” that this sort of thing (errant bomb lands on hiking trail [ap via times-leader, oct 23, 2004]) is just par for the course.

this is one way to put it…

Council of Churches: God Has No Place in U.S. Politics [reuters, november 4, 2004]

God has no place in politics and should not have been used by churches in the United States to influence the presidential election, a council representing 342 Christian groups around the world said.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) told U.S. member churches in a letter that they should not ask whose side God was on in an election but only offer “a moral and spiritual compass for their community, their nation and the world.”

and this guy has another…. (nsfw)

[mp4/video]

[mov/video]

[mp3]

(you gotta give me credit for putting eric schwartz and the world council of churches on the same side of an issue…)

so i’ve been casually looking for a hook to hang this story on since i first ran into it, and i finally found one…

Being an Adult [climb to the stars]

She was telling me how being a parent isn’t something one can be really prepared for. As a kid, we always think our parents know what they are doing – but as a first-time parent, you just do what you can. You don’t know much more than before the baby arrived. You’re not transformed into another person because you just gave birth.

just to emphasize the point, You’re not transformed into another person because you just gave birth.

sure you are!

Indiana University study: having children significantly lowers parents’ IQs [hoosier gazette, september 2004]

Researchers at the Kinsey Institute began their study in 1999 by giving 200 married couples who were planning on starting families within the next four years Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests. By 2003, all but 27 of these couples had conceived.

Another IQ test was given to each set of parents successful in conceiving and birthing a baby six months after their child was born. These results were compared to the previous intelligence tests.

In every single one of the 173 cases, both parents scored at least twelve points lower on the second IQ test, with the majority of parents losing twenty or more IQ points.

so there you have it. parents donate part of their brains to their children.

every single one…. at least twelve points lower.

i guess the next study will be how much brain is left after the 2nd…3rd… 6th child.

in the vein of doing something, and, since blogs don’t actually do anything, but they can direct attention, i want to direct your attention here:

world on fire

i’ve heard the “bush was elected with more votes than any president in history” line just a few too many times today. nice statistic. nice spin to try to establish mandate from a 51% return. nice try. so i’m going to spin that top the other way.

in the 2000 race:
bush: 50, 461,092
gore: 50,994,086
nader: 2,882,728
other: 1,039,754
gore + nader + other: 54,916,568

in the 2004 race:
bush: 59,056,036
kerry: 55,464,322
nader: 394,840
kerry + nader: 55,859,162

so, the counter-spin is….? bush was voted against by more people than any elected president in history too.

Alexander Taylor, 1778

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.

update: auf deutsch

betting on stupid and dishonesty do work in american politics.

bummer.