Month: November 2010

Undefeated youth football team banned from playoffs for being too good

8:40 am

How’s this for teaching kids the wrong lessons: League officials have banned an undefeated youth football team from the playoffs because they are too good. The other teams in the league feared they lose if they played them again.

Update: Teaching kids the joy of winning instead of the misery of “fairness.” Key quote:

Every week you’ve been told that the important thing is just to have a good time. Well, this week it’s going to be different. The number one goal is to win; the number two goal is to have a good time. But I assure you: if you win, you will have a much better time!

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Update on Mount Merapi eruption

9:57 pm

More on the continuing eruption of Mount Merapi in Indonesia. Key quote:

The Volcano Mitigation and Geological Disaster Agency warned of worse in store as magma pushed towards the surface from depths of 6-8km, compared with a maximum 2km deep when the mountain previously erupted in 2006. “This is the scenario I dislike the most, because the deepest magma is pushing up now,” said the agency’s chief, Surono. “The eruptions haven’t stopped, the tremors are getting stronger and one big explosion could be the result. I’ve never seen it act like this. We don’t know what to expect.”

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Bankruptcy of U.S. government “mathematical certainty” says banker

3:22 pm

The former CEO of one of the nation’s largest banks says that unless the federal government gets its budget under control, bankruptcy is a “mathematical certainty.” I especially like this quote from the CEO, John Allison, in describing the past history of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack:

“I was on a committee, a Financial Services Roundtable, for nine years trying to do something about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae,” said Allison. “You couldn’t help but see it coming,” he said. “You ran the numbers, particularly the last several years, and it was mathematically certain Freddie and Fannie were going bankrupt.”

“We met with Congress. We met with [House Financial Services Chairman] Barney Frank and [Senate Banking Chairman] Chris Dodd and they absolutely wouldn’t see it,” said Allison.

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Showing how the country is polarized . . . with a t-shirt

11:17 am

Want to find out how polarized our county is? Then wear this shirt (which can be purchased here) and watch the reaction.

Reagan is right t-shirt

How do I know this? Well, yesterday on my flight home from California after giving a lecture to the Orange County section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, I tried it. Nor was this the first time I’ve worn this shirt and seen the reactions. People always seem to notice it, often doing a doubletake because at first they think it is the Obama image with the word “Hope” underneath. Then they realize what it really is, and either laugh in amusement or frown in annoyance.

Yesterday was no different. As I stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby of my California hotel, I passed a woman whose eyes immediately widened when she saw the shirt, and then scowled as she walked past. Then, I went into a local Subway to pick up something to eat during the long flight home. The woman who made my sub as well as the clerk who took my cash both looked at my shirt and glowered. Though they did nothing outright rude, I really think they would have preferred to tell me to leave and not sell me my sub.

At the airport things were interestingly different. Two guys in front of me on line to check bags immediately wanted to know where they could buy the shirt. Then, on the airplane, a steward as well as the passenger sitting next to me asked me the same question. When I said I’d forward them the webpage if they’d give me their email addresses, they all complied eagerly. The steward then went out of his way for the rest of the flight to make sure I was happy, to which I remain grateful.

Though I do find these reactions both amusing and intriguing, I also find them disturbing. How can a free nation survive if people get so emotional over something so silly as a t-shirt?

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An Early Warning System for Asteroid Impact

10:23 pm

In a paper posted tonight on the Los Alamos astro-ph website, an astronomer is proposing an early warning system for asteroid impact. Key quote from the abstract:

This system, dubbed “Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System” (ATLAS), comprises two observatories separated by about 100km that simultaneously scan the visible sky twice a night, and can be implemented immediately for relatively low cost. The sensitivity of ATLAS permits detection of 140m asteroids (100 Mton impact energy) three weeks before impact, and 50m asteroids a week before arrival. An ATLAS alarm, augmented by other observations, should result in a determination of impact location and time that is accurate to a few kilometers and a few seconds.

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