• We can't have rational discussions about campaign finance reform;
• can't discuss global warming without invoking or commenting on dinosaur flatulence;
• some kind of market control resembling Glass Steagall;
• rational gun control (at least demand gun owners purchase biometric safes as 1.4 M were lost to home invasion burglaries, and if refused, liable for the crimes committed);
• alternative energy;
• education reform;
• job creation in a global economy;
• Hurricane Sandy relief;
• a give-and-take on fiscal cliffs or raising the debt ceiling.

• A real, not-too-secret cabal, blatant conspiracy and effort of "poll tax style" voter suppression was tried in the 21st Century with evidence of its near success;
• the "End-of-the-world" Mayan apocalypse;
• so-called "faked" moon landings (it interrupted my cartoons the day before: I WAS THERE).

This blog is open to critique: you can list it, and I'll post it (anonymous, misspelled or otherwise). I really don't have to agree with you, but I do sensor abusive insults and advertisements. That is how we all learn: that is what a rational, thinking species does.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were much longer and far more detailed than our current 90-minute infomercial reality shows by comparison. Sorry for the rant, but this massive, national "dumb down" cannot continue and we resemble a democratic republic for very much longer.

One cubic centimeter of aerographite weighs just 0.2 milligrams, which is four times lighter than the previous record holder, 5,000 times less dense than water, and six times lighter than air. Aerographite is so light that it is difficult to work with it in a normal lab. Any small movement in the lab can create winds that blow the material around.

Last night (other than fiscal cliff theatrics) was the 150^th anniversary, or sesquicentennial, of that tradition; today the same for the Emancipation Proclamation.

It formed the world George Washington Carver would enter a year later: From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses. This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time. (Wikipedia)

It enabled Edward Alexander Bouchet to enter Yale in 1870, complete his dissertation in geometrical optics in 1876 becoming the first African American to earn a PhD in physics and the sixth American at that time to do so (see link at Edward's name).

There are many more that I could name, many names of note since. They exist because of an innate curiosity of the world around them, and an opportunity courageously presented; a freedom of simply being counted as part of humanity extended: to learn about it.

It was, and is, a world worth creating.

Hmm: ...my 1,013^th posting for this blog, on 01/01/2013. Interesting.

Financial-risk models got us in trouble before the 2008 crash, and they're almost sure to get us in trouble again

When it comes to assigning blame for the current economic doldrums, the quants who build the complicated mathematic financial risk models, and the traders who rely on them, deserve their share of the blame. [See “A Formula For Economic Calamity” in the November 2011 issue]. But what if there were a way to come up with simpler models that perfectly reflected reality? And what if we had perfect financial data to plug into them?

Incredibly, even under those utterly unrealizable conditions, we'd still get bad predictions from models.

The reason is that current methods used to “calibrate” models often render them inaccurate.

Model - Science Definition: A systematic description of an object or phenomenon that shares important characteristics with the object or phenomenon. Scientific models can be material, visual, mathematical, or computational and are often used in the construction of scientific theories. See also hypothesis, theory.

Models are a starting point, then they must bow to the unrelenting outcomes and consequences...of reality.

The educator in me challenges our congress to a simple test: the exit TAKS on social studies. Curious with your displayed acumen on governance what your scores would be.

Scientific American: Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong
Money Morning: Fiscal Cliff 2013

But researchers may have figured out a way to create a chip that spikes. The people at HP labs who have been working on memristors have figured out a combination of memristors and capacitors that can create a spiking output pattern. Although these spikes appear to be more regular than the ones produced by actual neurons, it might be possible to create versions that are a bit more variable than this one. And, more significantly, it should be possible to fabricate them in large numbers, possibly right on a silicon chip.

Astronomers have detected five possible alien planets circling the star Tau Ceti, which is less than 12 light-years from Earth — a mere stone's throw in the cosmic scheme of things. One of the new found worlds appears to orbit in Tau Ceti's habitable zone, a range of distances from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface.

The above embed is from the SETI institute: From the people listening for "little green men." If an invasion were forthcoming; if a rogue planet were bearing down on us (it would be visible by now), they'd be killing themselves to get to a microphone: it'd be the last Nobel Prize awarded for the most trans-formative news ever! If THESE guys are saying it's bunk; it's bunk!

Apocalypse has come to mean "disaster," yet the literal translation is "un-covering"; a "disclosure of knowledge"; "revealing." It is from that the last book of the Bible, "Revelation" takes its name.

It will be revealing what we'll all feel like tomorrow: I will be blogging, the earth will be spinning, and certain persons in bunkers will have a lot of beans, rice and MREs to contend with...and certain hucksters that have made a HUGE amount of money on this fraud will fall silent as they book their flights to Bahamian shores...until tomorrow, I'll be:

USA Today: Maya 'end of world' is a mistranslation, Dan Vergano