Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
The turn of the year is generally a time when I try to reflect on serious issues of a broad nature. My first one was on my sorry contemporaries the Boomers, who are as much a plague now as they were six years ago. But there have been other topics: the Muslims, the Manhattan Declaration, …
Continue reading "The Two Underlying Assumptions Behind the Opposition to Gun Control"
Every now and then you'll hear a news item about someone's math problem being controversial (involving slavery, etc.) This gem has been around for a long time: it comes from Marvin Marcus' A Survey of Finite Mathematics (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969). It's purpose is to illustrate the use of combinatorial matrix theory, and (stripping …
Continue reading "Math and the Middle East: Some Things Never Change"
I am amused at the persistence of the New York Times editorial Asians--Too Smart for Their Own Good? AT the end of this month, high school seniors will submit their college applications and begin waiting to hear where they will spend the next four years of their lives. More than they might realize, the outcome …
Continue reading "It's Hard to Admit When You're Inferior, Especially When You Are"
For instance, the Chinese: China is the largest financier on the entire continent. Chinese corporations, financial institutions, and the government have invested billions of dollars in large new dams, for example. And why? Indeed, many African governments prefer China as an economic partner over Western countries for a number of reasons. First, China's own development …
The last of the Watergate Committee in the Senate passes: Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, a highly decorated World War II combat veteran who used his status as one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington and the second-longest-serving senator in history to send billions of dollars to his home islands, died Monday at …
He officially becomes a Democrat: Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's decision to formally join the Democratic Party – making the announcement via Twitter after a fist bump from President Obama – suggests to his critics a savvy political chameleon prepping for a 2014 gubernatorial run against Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Few tears shed over this …
Continue reading "Charlie Crist: When Diversity Doesn't Quite Work Out"
Some people are trying though: A new petition gaining ground on the White House website calls on President Obama to cancel his estimated $4 million vacation and devote the money instead to helping victims of Hurricane Sandy. The petition, which was created just two days ago, had 872 signatures as of 8:45 am ET this morning and …
Continue reading "Please Don't Stop Barack Obama From Skipping Town"
When they're leasing public land, and that must be stopped: Kevin Lunny’s struggle to keep his family’s oyster farm running in Point Reyes National Seashore appears to be over, closing out an era of oysterman plying the park’s pristine waters and ushering in the nation’s newest ocean wilderness. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement Thursday …
Nothing to it, really: It's a message no one wants to hear: To slow down global warming, we'll either have to put the brakes on economic growth or transform the way the world's economies work. That's the implication of an innovative University of Michigan study examining the evolution of atmospheric COâ‚‚, the most likely cause …
Continue reading "How to Lower Carbon Emissions: Tank the Economy!"
My regular readers are probably aware that, among my other activities, I'm pursing a PhD in Computational Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. It's been an experience for several reasons. Starting such a degree in my superannuated condition wasn't an easy thing to do for that reason alone. Being both on the faculty …
