Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
If the Administration is serious about this, that's what it amounts to: The Obama administration is expected to announce by Wednesday its updated plan for oil and natural gas drilling in U.S. waters, including whether to allow exploration for the first time along the U.S. East Coast. The plan could pave the way for a …
Continue reading "European Style Government Deserves European Style Offshore Oil Policy"
Some people just haven't figured this out: President Barack Obama, after a year of fitfully searching for compromise, is taking a more aggressive tack with his Republican adversaries, hoping to energize Democratic voters and possibly muscle in some Republican support in Congress. On Thursday, the president challenged Republicans who planned to campaign on repealing his …
Continue reading "The Only Thing Obama Runs Against is Reality"
Sure sounds that way, as the U.S. House Third District (TN) Republican candidate's campaign manager lashes out against Mike Huckabee's endorsement of her opponent: "Given Huckabee’s history of denouncing candidates for office that contribute large sums of money to their campaigns in order to win elections, it is curious that he would choose to support …
Continue reading "Robin Smith and the Politics of Resentment"
This is Holy Week. When Jesus and his disciples gathered together, the Eucharist was instituted, but what they were coming together for (Tyndale's "Easter lamb" notwithstanding) was the Passover. Tonight the Passover is celebrated by Jews all around the world, and some Christians even have a Seder meal. Thus the two events are intertwined, both …
Recently an "old China hand" friend of mine sent around an email with this piece about the analogies between our current situation and that of Nazi Germany in the 1930's. Leaving aside the attribution problems of the piece itself, I'd like to address this issue, because I keep hearing it come up in our discourse. …
Continue reading "Is the US Really Headed Down the Road of Nazi Germany?"
That's what our Transportation Secretary said: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving. “Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at …
Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari assures us that higher fuel taxes aren't in the cards: President Obama remains opposed to raising federal fuel taxes while the economy is trying to recover despite calls in Congress to increase those fees to fund new legislation, said Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari. The DOT’s second-highest official assured the …
Continue reading "Don't Want Higher Fuel Taxes? Be Seeing You!"
In his book Introduction to the Differential Equations of Physics, German physicist Ludwig Hopf opens with the following statement: Any differential equation expresses a relation between derivatives or between derivatives and given functions of the variables. It thus establishes a relation between the increments of certain quantities and these quantities themselves. This property of a …
Nolan Finley at the Detroit News hits the nail on the head: Passage of a national health care bill begins fulfilling the fantasy of the left of making over America into something resembling its refined and compassionate European cousins. Throughout the health care battle, President Barack Obama asked, if European nations can deliver expansive universal …
Continue reading "From US to Europe, Without Leaving the Country"
Sir Ken Robinson thinks so, from this TED talk. This hilarious discourse is all too painfully true, as I have found out in my brief educational career. But the humour he uses kills a lot of the pain.
Positive Infinity 