Clarence Page reports that white supremacists have mixed feelings about the Obama campaign. Apparently they’re positive thinkers, glass-half-full types, those guys. David Duke says “Obama is a visual aid for white Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.” And that Swift Boat guy, Jerome R. Corsi, author of the bestselling ObamaNation… why aren’t his white supremacist ties being given more attention?
If you’re involved in education in any way, including raising children, or even just paying property taxes, you owe it to yourself to check out these two videos at DoyceTesterman. (hat tip to ***Dave) If nothing else, it will help your kids not to stress too much about choice of career. Because odds are, they’ll wind up working at a career that doesn’t exist yet. But the videos also raise questions about what and how we ought to be teaching. And one other little thing, name the following country: wealthiest, currency the world standard of value, center of world business and finance, most powerful military, highest standard of living, best education system…
On a lighter note, Greg Laden brings us two Chinese characters who teach the right way to say Beijing. (hint: the Frenchie-sounding ‘Beissjhing’ is wrong). And some really revealing pictures: Dust on Mars (really, really close-up) and volcanoes of Enceladus! Remind me… why do we have people riding a can around the Earth in low orbit, not doing much of anything in the way of science? You can send a Mars probe for what a single shuttle resupply mission to the ISS costs.
National Geographic reports an amazing find in the Sahara by paleontologist Paul Sereno – a cemetary from the holocene era. There are some wonderfully evocative photos and a video. Remind me, what the big difference is between us and our primitive ancestors? Oh right, they didn’t have the interwebs.
On SmartEnergyShow, there’s a Stanford podcast from last April in which historian Naomi Oreskes asks; “Where are the press getting their information about climate change?” And how is it, exactly, that while scientists have a very high level of consensus on the issue, that public perception is the opposite? And who is the “Western Fuels’ Association”? (Hat tip to Tim Lambert at Deltoid)
Finally Vjack at Atheist Revolution has a thought-provoking post on America’s deepening cultural divide; implications for atheists. But it’s really implications for everyone, not just atheists. Suppose you’re a right-wing Christian and you want to win public acceptance over the secularists – you’re facing exactly the same issues. The post asks some questions I’m short of answers for. (Another hat tip to ***Dave, who may be writing a post of his own about it)