Ponderings of a Scientist

I just read a breif in the Portland Press Herald about a hockey game in the Asian hockey league with a score of 52 to 1! hehe

I was reading Science News magazine this morning and came across this.
It’s a series of tests developed at Harvard to examine your impliict
bais to a variety of topics. The article talks about the race
test so that is the one I took. I’m not sure if I buy the result;
I think they set it up in order to get that resut, but it still was
interesting.

On another note it was me that scored my first hockey goal last Monday
(i.e. Zipy’s blog). Sorry Tizzom not to have mentioned it
earlier. The Details: I was attempting to make a pass in front
of the net, but a defender got in the way. Luckily he was too
slow with his stick and the puck hit his skate and flew into the near
side of the net before the goalie even saw it.

So apparently nice relaxing weekends don’t inspire me to blog. So just few things for prosperity’s sake:

1. Running a road race on the first hot day of Spring, not a good idea! I think I’m going to have to drink all the water in the river outside my window to be re-hydrated again. Unfortunately, by then I will have died of Giardia (sp?)!

2. Teenage boys are rude! No surprise there, just an over abundance of them in my life lately has caused major annoyance.

3. I feel like I should round the list of with a third comment, but I can’t think of anything…um.. Go Red Sox!!

P.S. to K.P., the bag does look like a cat!

I was just thinking about the public library. Dover has a great library that I use regularly. Really why would anyone buy fiction (something you will read once, maybe twice) when they could get it for free from the library. It amazes me how few people use this resource, the FREE resource. The whole library concept actually amazes me, in the world where nothing is free and everything can be found on the internet libraries have held tight to their niche and are doing well.

In thinking about public libraries I started to think about all the services I value in society and it seems all of them are grossly underfunded. Why is that? Don’t people want 1) free books, 2) quality educations for their children, 3) sufficiently manned and equipped police and fire departments? I think the problem is that our tax system is f**ked! I would certainly agree to tax increases for the above services if I was convinced the money would go to those services. However, it seems the more we pay the less we get back!!

Well at least the Majors, Governors and Senators of the country keep getting raises, because they are doing such a good job using my tax money and creating legislation I support (think of the close, but not quite banning of smoking in restaurants in NH - boy I’m sure glad that didn’t pass that would of seriously cut into my chances of lung cancer in the future). **Notice** the previous paragraph was all sarcasm for those of you that have a hard time noticing sarcasm.

In summary, the one thing I value that is actually funded at a more then meager level is broadcast sporting events. And as much as I like watching the Bs and the Sox, they are entertainers getting paid millions, yet our civil servants are lucky to make 40K!! What is wrong with people!!!

I’ve had a few topics on my mind the past few days that are
blog worthy. I don’t have much time so I
will touch on each briefly and follow up at a latter date if I see fit.

First and most important: Go Sox!! Thank you to Mirabelli and the rest of the
gang for kicking some Yankee BEE-hind.
Hopefully they won’t get rained out tonight.

Second, the “Day without Immigrants”, I feel I should
mention something about yesterday’s events for prosperity’s sake. I’m really not sure how I feel about the
immigrant issue. On the one hand,
immigrating illegally is a crime; on the other hand, there is something
seriously wrong with our immigration policy if the only way to live here (at
least for Hispanics) is illegally.
Fixing the policy for the future will be the easiest part, what to do
with the mistakes of the past is beyond me, and what about all the legal
immigrants who have been in the system for 10 + years and still aren’t citizens. Any thoughts?
I just can’t help thinking that we all have immigrants not too far back
in our genealogy (I’m 3^rd generation), we have no right being
righteous.

Third, I’m sick of lazy Americans trying to solve our
dependence on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources with quick fixes
(i.e. dump the federal gas tax of 18c per gallon during the summer driving
season). Boy can everyone talk the talk,
but when it comes down to it no one is willing to walk the walk and I mean that
literally!! I (besides my stupid commute)
make it a point to avoid the car as much as possible. However, I’m still going to re-evaluate my
car use and try to limit it further and I encourage all of you to do so as
well! The Diane Rehm Show yesterday had
a good discussion on oil policy if you are interested.

Last, I hate light pollution. How many of you (those that don’t leave in
apartment buildings) leave the outside light on all night? Why?
To scare away the bad guys; to act as a beacon to midnight guests?
While I think the porch light is unnecessary, I’m really bothered by
businesses (other than Store 24) that leave their lights on 24/7. I
understand the security concern, but wouldn’t motion sensored lights serve that
purpose. I don’t really understand the desire
to advertise 24/7; I don’t want to see your sign up in lights if you aren’t
open, I’ve actually been tricked before into thinking a store was open because
it had some many lights on after hours.
The same goes for the hallways in my apartment building, the place is ablaze
at night, couldn’t we do with every other light on, or perhaps less
wattage? Not only are unnecessary lights
wasteful (see #3 above), but that also disturb nature. You can barely see the stars because of the
light pollution of downtown Dover. A recent article in Science News outlined the
effects of light pollution from southern California
and Las Vegas on reptile and
amphibian species in national parks up to 300 miles away!! These nocturnal species
are going extinct because their feeding and mating behaviors are disturbed.

In summary, Go Sox, Go immigrants, WALK and SHUT OFF THE
LIGHTS!!