In 2009 I was asked to travel to Kosovo to give a talk at a UN conference on climate change – my participation was no doubt due to some wrangling on the part of some of my former students at the American University in Kosovo since I’m not a climate scientist. I’ve got to admit [...]
In that relatively dead news time between Christmas and New Years the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that 8 sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan were suing the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on the grounds that TEPCO had covered up the severity of the Fukushima accident and that, as a result, the sailors had been [...]
When I was younger I used to wonder how I could know if the reality I perceived was the same thing that other people perceived. In Philosophy 101 I found out that this is actually a fairly common question – when you see something that’s red, for example, how do I know that it’s making [...]
It’s easy to be inspired by the hero, even if we never put ourselves at risk for the sake of another. But it can be hard to really understand heroism – I know, for example, that I positively cannot envision what must go through a soldier’s mind as he’s running through enemy fire to try [...]
A couple of weeks ago the Associated Press ran a story that seemed to confirm the world’s fears about Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Central to the story was a plot (shown here) that showed, over a period of a few microseconds, energy and power output from a nuclear weapon. While everyone seems to agree [...]
According to Thomas Jefferson “The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.” In a nutshell, government exists to serve and to protect the public. This view of government (not surprisingly) echoes the Preamble [...]
Although I know that leading off with an apology is not recommended, in this case it seems appropriate to do so in this case – for having been somewhat erratic in the last few postings, and for having missed last week. The emergency response to Hurricane Sandy (now apparently renamed “Superstorm Sandy”) is winding down [...]
This week’s posting is a bit tardy – in the continuing aftermath of Hurricane Sandy I’ve been helping on the night shift at one of the city’s shelters and, more recently, been helping to check on the occupants of high-rises and housing project buildings in some of the areas affected by the storm. It’s been [...]
I’d initially planned on writing about the tension between freedom of information versus security for this week’s posting, but this week’s weather has given rise to some musings that seem a bit more relevant and immediate. So – I hope you’ll indulge me in discussing what I’m sure hundreds (or thousands) of other bloggers (not [...]
I’m old enough to remember the duck-and-cover drills at school when I was a kid. Even in the first grade I can remember wondering how a desk would protect me against a nuclear explosion – at some point I just assumed that the adults must know more than I so I’d climb under my desk [...]