I Pledge...

to reduce my environmental impact by:

1. Refusing to buy processed foods. I will do my best to only eat foods that I make completly for myself...except when going out to eat of course. This includes ice cream, cookies, cakes, and all other "junk" foods. I also will not buy spice mixes, but will instead buy all spices and make them myself. I will grow my own herbs and also the majority of my vegetables. I will buy locally whenever possible and shop at farmer's markets as often as I can. I will not give up taste for the environment, however, and yet I believe I will actually be happier.
2. Refusing to buy plastic whenever possible. I will use aluminum foil instead of plastic wrap. I will use glass containers or jars with metal lids. I will use a fountain pen with homemade ink instead of buying disposible pens. I will use homemade glue instead of tape. I will not buy bottled water, or any bottled juice; and never soda. I will try not to use plastic baggies and will use them as many times as possible before recycling.
3. I will recycle any plastic that enters my life. I will recycle as much as I can, including making my own paper for letter writing so that I know where my paper was made and with what chemicals and how those chemicals go back into the environment.
4. I will reduce my water use. I will take shorter showers, or shower less often. I will buy water saving appliances. I will have a low flow shower head and toilet. I will practice "if it's yellow" so long as it is not obvious. I will not water my lawn/garden except with rain water I have collected. I will not leave the water running while I brush my teeth and I will shave in the shower.
5. I will reduce my electricity usage. I will not turn the lights on when I don't need them. I will go to bed, and wake up, early to get the most out of the light that the sun provides. I will buy a tank-less water heater so that I only heat the water that I use. I will use natural gas if and where possible. I will have energy efficient appliances. I will look into solar panels and wind turbines to supliment my energy usage. I will use a computer to watch television instead of a television set, since most likely I will be on the computer anyway. A laptop can be charged while in use and then run off the battery, getting twice as much usage with half as much power...though my physics is probably wrong with this.
6. I will strive to pay the least amount of money to any power or water company.
7. I will reduce the amount of chemicals I use in my home and in my body. I will seek natural remedies and use less harsh cleaners. But I will not sacrifice my health. I will not, however, just flush old medications down the toilet so that they can contaminate our water supply.

9 American's killed in Afghanistan...

I'm confused. My source is ABC Evening News. How do 9 American soldiers (okay, 8 soldiers and a contractor) get killed "exectution style"? I've always been under the impression that exectution style involves having the victim kneel and then shoot them at close range in the back/bottom of the head. I can hardly imagine 14 armed soldiers consenting to this. Maybe I have my definition of execution style incorrect, or else someone's facts are wrong. If the man had them line up, how was there no time for someone to get a shot of their own off? And how weird is it that though all the American's died, the Afghani's there were only wounded (and to what degree)? It's just odd.

Smallville Mistakes

So, apparently there's big money in finding errors in movies. I actually love finding them myself. I've been hooked on Smallville recently and I've seen two really obvious ones in the past two days.

In the episode "Suspect" the cop says that Jonathan's blood alcohol level was "2.0"-- yeah, that's beyond dead seeing as 0.4 will generally put someone into a coma. Whoops.

In the episode "Fortune", the Oliver is dressed like a show-girl including bedazzled brassiere.  Well, while he was fighting with some guy, the brassiere is ripped off...except that when the camera shifts to a different angle a second later, the bra is back. hahaha. By the way, that actor is super hot!! Even dressed as a woman.

EDIT:
Just started watching the 10th season (for real, not skipping around to clips that I like). When Chloe is reviewing Oliver's last message in episode 1 (from last season finale) they totally screwed up the order of the wording. Originally he said "I love you" then "they're not Kandorian", they swapped the two for the premier. FAIL.

The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson

***Includes Spoilers***

Well, first off, I read WAY too many scholarly historical books because my brain would say "made that up", "took this from a newspaper", "took this from a diary", "made THAT up", "wait, is there evidence for that?!? because if so, that's awesome!", etc. So, there's my complaint on this being a little too much on the fiction side of non-fiction.

For the rest, I'm highly disappointed by the ending. I think his conclusion chapter was a total cop-out. Patterson gives no hard evidence to support that the wife was in on the conspiracy. The other two were obviously in on it, and fine, I'll take the cop-out there, but this is where his lack of scholarship (not that he didn't do the research, but through the flawed way he that he presented his research) comes into play. I wish that he'd gone into more detail about how he came about his conclusions. The chapter on finding the wife's ring is great because it answers the question of how he concluded that she'd been fed to the crocodiles. But how about a chapter like this on how he decided what conversations were held between the conspirators. How does he know that the queen's hand maiden was a spy? How does he know that it was a hired hit man that killed Tut? Does Patterson just assume that anyone reading this book has read other books that go into these details?!? If so, that's being stupid on his part.

I would rate this a 5/5 if it had been more scholarly, but as he was more interested in telling a certain story than to explain why he believed himself correct, a star is lost

Fox news

Have you ever been to cnn.com to read the news? You wouldn't believe how many links to fox affiliated news sites they have! Just one more example of Fox lying when it says that no body listens to them. In truth, a lot of people listen to them, just not their polarizing opinion pundits.

By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the Fox channel in Norfolk uses NBC's weather guy and I'm pretty sure they swap broadcasters periodically. So yeah, no body's perfect.

Why Global Warming is so Confusing.

One of the most common defenses against global warming is to use discrepencies in the conclusions of published papers and say that "well, if they can't agree, then it must not be true". What the skeptics don't realize is that there's a big difference in the conclusions of a paper written on Southern Alaska and one written on Northern Greenland. There's also the problem of scientists talking about additional research that can be done next within their conclusions without accurately saying why they didn't do what they think should be done next--because they ran out of funding or need more assistants. But anyway, I'm not here to complain about public misunderstandings of scientific papers. I'm going to propose a simple example that might help you understand why global warming is complicated and why you should be leery whenever someone proposes "scientific proof" that global warming is fake.

The world is a complicated place. Depending on the specific characteristics of a location, the way that location responds to changes will be different. Picture, for instance, a study of 20 different people. These people include men, women, children, the elderly, Asians, Africans, South Americans, Europeans, the disabled, the average, the health nuts, tall people, short people, "smart" people, "dumb" people, and any other number of other differences associated with the human genome. Now, lets take our experimental group and let's increase the temperature. The old and the young might be the first to drop out--unable to withstand extremely elevated temperatures (you know you've heard about the warnings during heat waves). The South Americans and Australians of the healthy variety will probably be able to survive the longest. Or, let's fill the room with excess CO2 and see who can best survive the pollution. Not enough water? Too much radiation? Etc. Why the discrepancies?

 No one would question a study that concluded that different people respond differently to different stimuli (well, actually, I think they do, but that's a different story), so why are there so many complaints when envirionmental scientists say that depending on where you are in the world the affects will be different?

Actually, my next area of study on this topic will be to figure out why so much of the public is convinced that we're actually in a state of global cooling. No scientists agrees with this.

What Proof do You Need?

It always amazes me that with so much scientific proof of common issues there is so much disbelief. So, I pose this question to those of you who don't believe...what proof do you need?

What evidence, once obtained, will convince you of the existence of evolution, that the climate is changing, that humans can affect the climate, that we've been to the moon, that Obama was born in Hawaii, whatever.

My history thesis focuses on how the Union was unable to express to otherwise Union loving Norfolkians that they really weren't a bunch of heinous abolitionist's intent on the destruction of the Southern way of life...at least in what resolutions they were passing. We as scientists (I'm an envi sci major, too), understand that there's a disconnect between our findings and public understanding and Al Gore doesn't really help this. Hence the existence of TED Talks. But here's one more way. It's possible that scientists just haven't been looking at the same questions/problems that bother you, since they seem obvious to us. So, what bothers you. What questions should they be askin? What proof do you need?

Tonight/tomorrow morning isn't going to be fun

No, nothing really great to say in this post. In fact, I probably shouldn't even write it. But since I'm stuck writing my thesis (25 pages, history, on the civil war) and can't write a letter to express my thoughts and since no body reads this anyway, I feel safe expressing myself here. And you might even learn a medical trick or two...

I have drunk way too much water over the past few days and today. Why? You might ask. Well, start out with my period and add a cold.

I'd never realized it until I was talking with a girl friend about being incredibly thirsty even though there was no reason for it, that there was a coorelation between my thirst and my period. Actually, I can tell you from now 5 months experience that if you haven't noticed this before, you really should go with it. I've found that drinking a TON of water during the first day(s) of my period really help with the cramps. I don't know if it's a full bladder adding the right amount of pressure to the right areas or just the extra water helps flush out all the crud faster--though given the nature of human anatomy, I'm not sure how well the latter explanation works. Anyway, if you're a guy (and I haven't already scared you off) and your girlfriend is in a similar situation, don't just bring her some Midol, but also a liter of water for her to nurse while you watch a favorite movie. It might help her feel better.

The cold adds to the situation because I've been told by numerous health-nut friends that when you're sick you should drink a(nother, in my case) TON of water. This seems to work, so here I am a few days past the need for menstral water (that actually sounds gross) and I'm still chugging the stuff. I told myself to drink 4 bottles of water today (totalling about 2 liters), though I've only made it through about half that amount (not including 3 tall glasses of orange juice).

For the most part the conversion from water to urine has been slow--caused, I suspect, by that whole water weight gain from my period. Well, I just went twice in 2 hours, and I don't expect it to stop any time soon as my body releases what it's been storing and making me look extra fat. At least it's been hot in here/I probably have a low grade fever, so I've been sweating a lot yesterday and today so that's some water that won't be sending me running for the bathroom. All I want is to not wake up at 3am with an insatible need to pee.

Unwise Passions by Alan Pell Crawford

First off, I recommend this book; as a good historic novel, not for it's scholarly contribution.

It's about the "first" great scandal of 18th century America. Well, the scandal happened in 1793, so how exactly can it be the first? But then the country was only born in 1787, so maybe I'll let it slide.

Alan Crawford isn't a scholar, in fact he's a former speech writer and press secretary. I can't find who in particular he wrote for, but I did find out that his latest book on Jefferson dying in debt is well liked by UVA's Jefferson Professor. Fine--I haven't read that one. I read Unwise Passions. And this post is about that book.


I think Crawford took some liberties with the story to give it a moral theme. I mean, the story literally ended with me feeling that "if I'm good and persevere I will come out on top and anyone who makes my life miserable will die miserable and alone". That's not how real life works--that's a Jane Austen novel. One of my friends gave me a good label for this: "non-fiction novel".

So, to end this: take it with a grain of salt. I believe that any non-fiction book should be taken with a grain of salt but I think this book should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt than normal. Use it to become interested in the people and look for more scholarly works on them.

The Postal System

I love mail! Period. I don't get much junk mail personally, but I love to read my mom's catalogs. What I do get a lot of is real snail mail letters--I know that you're jealous. Anyway. As a person who gets something better than bills, I think I'm entitled to give my two cents on the postal system and how to make it better. I actually think that reducing service to three days a week would be wisest. They could cut their employees by half because they would still be working 6 days a week, but with 2 routes. Half the citizens would have mail deliveries Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; half would have deliveries on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The biggest worry I've heard is that citizens would be hurt because they would get an even shorter amount of time to pay bills (it would take longer to receive them if mailed on the same day). Well, companies have been short-changing billing due dates for as long as I can remember. I think that the government just needs to pass a law that says that bills are due a minimum of 30 days after the date that they are post marked. Period.

I just don't like it when postage prices increase. I think I've already posted her how I believe international first class mail should be exactly twice that of domestic first class mail for a 1 ounce letter.

On School Uniforms

I had an interesting conversation with a friend last week about whether school uniforms should be mandatory. Her main argument is that clothes are a form of expression and using her sister's dissertation on the subject, said that if kids can't self express with clothing, then they will express in other, more dangerous, ways (drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc). I believe that the safety issue trumps any kind of self expression, especially when there are other forms of expression available to students.

I argue that the most important aspect of school uniforms is that they are totally uniform: from the same brand and style of shirt and pants right down to the socks and shoes. For safety's sake, I believe that clothing must fit. But I couldn't care less about style. So I offer this compromise: students are issued their uniforms and then are free to express themselves as they wish with them. They may not add bandannas or other gang related paraphernalia, but if they want to cut off sleeves or pant legs, feel free. If someone really cares enough about their gang to bedazzle the sign on the back of their blazer, they can go for it.

But not all kids care to express themselves with clothes, which is why I'm such a proponent for the arts in schools--music, physical education/sports teams, drama, you name it. Heck, even a sewing club. Then there are the students who express themselves with academics.

I believe in well rounded students, but there are some things that an individual will just love and excel at and I think we need to start focusing our education system on finding these things and feeding them in a productive manner.