Aug 2012 Young Eagles

Foggy day at WVI. We scrubbed the Young Eagles flights due to the low clouds and the risk of a bunch of planes flying around the same place in them. I killed my battery trying to start anyway so spent the rest of the afternoon servicing it and then taking an quick scud running flight.

Over 40 kids showed up to fly.  Kind of hard to tell them we weren't flying today.


Battery out, serviced and charging.  This battery problem is pissing me off.


60 year old battery and engine compartment, could stand some refurbishment.


Nice for VW to place a power outlet in the trunk. Inverter to charger to battery.


I don't think I went over 1000' the whole flight. It was clearer over the water.


It was fun zooming around the Pajaro Valley. Good thing I took this flight... I came back down in a much better frame of mind.

Free Speech and Feminism

Speaking Out Against Hate Directed at Women: Matt Dillahunty

"When someone expresses a concern that something is making them feel unwelcome, we need to address it. Period."

"When someone expresses a concern that something is making them feel unwelcome, we need to address it. Period."

"When you hear a complaint that someone has raised, you might think that they’re expressing an irrational, emotional, over-reaction to the situation. You might even be correct – but it doesn’t matter, and here’s why:
You don’t get to decide what someone else finds offensive.
You don’t get to decide what someone else finds uncomfortable, unwelcoming, disconcerting, stressful, harassing, troubling or painful."

I fully support Dillahunty's position here.  How to reconcile this with the value that no one has the right to not be offended?  (I'm just trying to process his words here)

• Women are being excluded from the skeptical/atheist community by some ingrained and outdated attitudes that get expressed.  Mostly there is no intent to exclude but because of a lack of empathy, there is insensitivity to what is offensive, excluding, and threatening.
• The community wants women involved and active.  Any who don't aren't really part of the community.
• If I offend someone in the community who I want to ally with, then I need to understand why.  Not take offense that they took offense.
• This doesn't mean my free speech rights are curtailed or have limits. 
• It doesn't mean women have the right to not be offended.  
• It means I need to re-look at what and how I say things.  Or reassess my membership in the community.
• Is this censorship?  Not if it is an increase in understanding and knowledge.

Romney Lies

"Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something—there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."

The deliberate use of the highlighted phrase to imply...   what?  That businessmen didn't build their businesses?  Are people that stupid to think that is what he meant?  The people in the room obviously understood what he meant, probably didn't even catch the phrase itself.

No, they are not that stupid.  Not if they see the whole statement.  Presented with the context of the statement, the meaning is clear.  Success is built upon the success and support of those before.  

The only other way someone would use that statement is to lie to people you want to sway to your side, to vote for your candidate who has no other leg to stand on.  The funny sick thing is that Romney has made these very points previously.  The.  Exact.  Same.  Points.

That makes the lying that much more egregious.  

Romney lies.  He tells the lies his puppet masters tell him to say.  He isn't a leader, he is a mouthpiece.  Whenever he is on his own, he says really stupid things.  Whenever he is under control, he lies.

Climate Change Cluedo

Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2 (via Skeptical Science)

Posted on 25 July 2012 by Tom Curtis Anthropogenic CO2? The human-caused origin (anthropogenic) of the measured increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is a cornerstone of predictions of future temperature rises.  As such, it has come under frequent attack by people who challenge the science…

Offshore Economy

Ah yes... the rich will create jobs if allowed to keep their money. Ok, they have their money, where are the jobs? Where are the roads and bridges they are building? National defense they provide? Where is the consumer protection they provide? No? Oh, that is government's job? And were is government supposed to get the funds to do these things? And do the rich benefit from these things? They better start stepping up or things are going to get ugly.  Just say'n.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy

A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.

James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.

Atheist Obama - almost.

"And if there’s anything to take away from this tragedy it’s the reminder that life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious. And what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things, which so often consume us and our daily lives. Ultimately, it’s how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another. It’s what we do on a daily basis to give our lives meaning and to give our lives purpose. That’s what matters. At the end of the day, what we’ll remember will be those we loved and what we did for others. That’s why we’re here."

As I heard Obama say this on the radio Friday morning after the Aurora shootings, I was thinking how atheist he sounded.  Nothing about heaven or evil or god.  At least not until the very end where he blathered about the Lord giving comfort and God blessing us all.

Jupiter and its moons

This week in the War on Women: Republicans want to fight about lady parts some more? Okay.

This week in the War on Women: Republicans want to fight about lady parts some more? Okay.

Just in case you thought the GOP war on women has subsided... it hasn't. Time to donate more to Planned Parent Parenthood.


I do.

• Catherine Gile Where is the outrage when baby girls are aborted simply because they are girls?
  

  5 hours ago via mobile · 
• 
  

  Tom Hail Planned Parenthood opposes sex selection abortion. Rational thinkers oppose it. Education and real prenatal assistance prevent it. Stifling PP and other such organizations on puritanical grounds solves nothing and makes the problem bigger. http://shar.es/tOmBK
  

  
  

  http://shar.es/tOmBK

  www.plannedparenthood.org
  

  ‎"Planned Parenthood health centers provide high-quality preventive health care ...See More

  
  

  37 minutes ago ·  · 

You Didn't Build That

Shit, did you wing nuts actually listen to the whole _sentence_ before jumping on this?  No, you trusted Rmoney's campaign staff to tell you what he said.  Here it is for you.  Here is the CONTEXT for you.  "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

You fucking morons are driving this country into the dirt.

You are lying.  Because you know what he meant.

Feminism in Skepticism

There has been some discussion of harassment of women at skeptical events such as The Amazing Meeting (TAM).  The worry is that women will stop coming to these events, understandably, because they aren't there to get hit on.  It seems some guys can't take no for an answer.  At Cognitive Dissonance I posted the following comment to their excellent support for women: "I appreciate you position on feminism in the skeptical communities.  I think you made many great points and I hope you got through to some thick heads.  Sometimes the blunt truth is the best.  DJ Grothe's handeling of this hasn't been very impressive to me.  My 20-something daughter and I are paid up for TAM this year again before I realized this issue.  We had an awesome time last year with 40% female attendance.  I hope to hell that this year isn't an 18% female sausage fest.  If that happens I'm not going back, like you said, I'm paying a lot of money I can't really afford to be there.  I'm not there to hit on anyone (my gal would be sad), I want to listen and talk to anyone with something interesting to say.  Having the other half of the population show up doubles those chances!  I do hope that women realize staying away doesn't help their position, they have to stand up to sexism and harassment.  Make noise, make it clear why and how it is wrong.  Avoiding it won't solve it.  I'll stand with them if they are there.  I applaud you for standing with them clearly and loudly.  Thanks!"

At Skepchick I found that Rebecca Watson won't be at TAM this year and I commented: "Rebecca, at Cognitive Dissonance I posted the following comment to their excellent support for women: "I appreciate you position on feminism in the skeptical communities.  I think you made many great points and I hope you got through to some thick heads.  Sometimes the blunt truth is the best.  DJ Grothe's handeling of this hasn't been very impressive to me (I am just learning how unimpressive).  My 20-something daughter and I are paid up for TAM this year again before I realized this issue.  We had an awesome time last year with 40% female attendance.  I hope to hell that this year isn't an 18% female sausage fest.  If that happens I'm not going back, like you said, I'm paying a lot of money I can't really afford to be there.  I'm not there to hit on anyone (my gal would be sad), I want to listen and talk to anyone with something interesting to say.  Having the other half of the population show up doubles those chances!  I do hope that women realize staying away doesn't help their position, they have to stand up to sexism and harassment.  Make noise, make it clear why and how it is wrong.  Avoiding it won't solve it.  I'll stand with them if they are there.  I applaud you for standing with them clearly and loudly.  Thanks!"  I am sad you won't be there this year, I was looking forward to meeting you if I could screw up my courage.  My daughter isn't one to back down for something like this and I am sure she still wants to go.  And I understand the point you make not appearing.  It is a good point.  As a manager in a large corporation with a high percentage of women engineers and staff, harassment is NOT tolerated.  It is reenforced yearly and serious.  It is clear and no nonsense.  No wink-wink smirks and management to the top supports it.  The culture has definitely changed in the 30 years I've been there.  I didn't realize this level of tough love is necessary at TAM and elsewhere.  Rebecca, thanks for what you do and keep it up!"

Atheism - Purposeless & Meaningless

This cracked me up at first (when I saw it on Facebook) in it's demonstrated ignorance of atheism. Atheism is without a belief in gods. Religious belief is a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny and the world. Spontaneous? Sure, the math, observations, and experimentation of quantum physics expects it. Causeless? Physics. Sourceless? Sure there was a source, but that disappeared an instant later. Purposeless, meaningless existence? Now this pisses me off since I spent the last 4 months preparing for what I spent all day doing yesterday, helping to give hundreds of families with special needs children a safe, inclusive, interesting, fun day at the airport. Purpose in my life is to relieve and prevent suffering, to learn new things, to grow, to make for a better future for my children and their friends. EVERY ATHEIST I KNOW strives for this in some form or another. I do this all the time in my work, home, and spare time. I DON'T need to justify myself to some made up deity in the wishful thinking that there is something after I die. I want my children to be able to live and prosper in a safe world after I no longer can support them, to give them the tools to support me in my old age. That means supporting my community and nation, getting them and the people around them educated, building the community they will need to do the same for their children. Most people do this. They would do it without religion if they half way thought about it. Since it is obvious there isn't any supernatural being doing ANYTHING in this universe, why believe?

Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT

Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT

"NOTHING ELSE FITS THE EVIDENCE

Not theory, not ideology, not political views, not internal variability, not questions over surface temperature records, not fudged or not fudged data, not hockey sticks or Medieval Warm Periods, or perhaps missing 'hot-spots'."

Comparing warming increase from '61 to '03 vs '93 to '03.

Fear believes - courage doubts

"Fear believes - courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays - courage stands erect and thinks. Fear is barbarism - courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion, courage is science."

• Robert Ingersoll

Talk:Doubt - Wikiquote

This stuck me for some reason.  Conservatives and the religious fear change, believe in the comforting myths, fear the out group, believe in the in group, fear loss of control, believe in social rules.  The couragous doubts the myths, are curious of others, challenge themselves, embrace adventure and the rule of reason.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/95243928/fear-believes-courage-doubts-ceramic

The Most Astounding Fact (Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

Awesome.  The atoms in our bodies were cooked up in early stars of the universe.  We are part of this universe, we are in this universe.  Most important is that the universe is in us.  That makes us big.  And connected to the universe.

Beautiful

Twitter / @MileyCyrus: Beautiful. http://t.co/dKz ...

Miley Cyrus might be growing up since she tweeted this photo. There is hope for all of us.  :-)