TED VIDEO: Sean Carroll on the arrow of time

Chris turned me on to these videos several months ago, by posting them on the blog. They're basically genius lectures. All relatively short, and all very interesting. In this one, a cosmologist talks about time.

Sorry, some genius got the bright idea of having this video auto-turn-on every time the page loads. How very 1996 of them. I yanked the video and am linking instead. Read the rest of this post...

Please back away from the Teabagger, ma'am

Politico reports that conservatives are now trying to purge the Teabaggers of their most extreme elements, such as birthers and the militia movement:

After months of struggling to harness the energy of newly engaged tea party activists, the conservative establishment - with critical midterm congressional elections on the horizon - is taking aim for the first time at the movement’s extremist elements.

The move has been cast by some conservatives as a modern version of the marginalization of the far-right anti-communist John Birch Society during the reorganization of the conservative movement spearheaded in the 1960s and 1970s by William F. Buckley Jr.

“A similar effort will be required today of conservative political and intellectual leaders,” former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote in his column in the Washington Post . “It will not be easy. Sometimes it takes courage to stand before a large crowd and proclaim that two plus two equals four.”

In front of conservatives, that would be next to impossible. You see, facts have a liberal bias. It's the reason a recent study showed that kids who go to college end up more liberal. Intelligence and knowledge tend to make you more accepting of reality, and other human beings. That doesn't go over so well in Republican circles, where far too many believe that great grandma used to hang out with pterodactyls. Read the rest of this post...

Live cams from Hawaii. Tsunami hitting momentarily (4:05pm Eastern ish)

UPDATE: The surge is coming in right now, at least at the one location. 4:47pm Eastern. They say the waves will be coming and going for hours, so it's not clear when, or if, they'll be bad.



It's supposed to be coming through the various Hawaiian islands starting at 4:05pm Eastern and for another half hour. The local news is already showing some idiot swimming in the ocean.

Waikiki beach cam.

Hawaiian TV news coverage live.

This is NOT from Hawaii. It's video I just saw on YouTube of the deadly tsunami that hit Asia on December 26, 2004.

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Obama ready to compromise on health care reform if GOP is serious

Washington Post:

Obama plans to unveil an updated proposal this coming week, likely on Wednesday, according to press secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs suggested it would include concepts put forward by Republicans at the summit. One Republican who was there, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., was contacted Friday by the White House and asked to submit details of suggestions he made on rooting out waste and fraud from the medical system, Coburn's spokesman said.

It's interesting to note that the President came to the table last week after having compromised three times already.

First, he compromised when asking Congress to pass health care reform last year. He was no longer for single payer, and clearly indicated that a public option was no longer a necessity. Second, he compromised twice when presenting his plan to the Republicans last week. He compromised by basing last week's plan on the House and Senate bills, which themselves were already compromises intended to get more conservative and Republican votes. The President could have simply based his proposal on his original campaign promises. The President also compromised in that he didn't include everything from the House and Senate bills in his proposal to the GOP. And now, he's going to compromise a fourth time, by melding GOP proposals into his proposal of last week.

The GOP hasn't presented a single compromise yet. The Republicans walked in last week and presented the same proposals they've had from day one. Now, will that show the GOP to be intransigent and the President to be more flexible, in the eyes of the public? That's a question of messaging - something the Democrats have been failing on, but seem to be getting better at in the past week. Read the rest of this post...

The man who refused to die

A horrendous story from the BBC of one man's tale of being a prisoner of war during WWII in Asia. Horrific.

They came to think of themselves as the forgotten army - the men who endured years of suffering in Japanese Prisoner of War Camps during World War II.

Yet many of the survivors, when they came back, never spoke of what they had seen and suffered. Now, one survivor of the camps has broken his 65-year silence.

This is a story of almost unimaginable suffering. The POWs were transported deep into Thailand on rice trucks that were more like steel coffins.

The men survived on a few handfuls of rice a day. Many succumbed to disease - cholera, beriberi, tropical ulcers. Their weight fell to five or six stone. Beatings were routine.

For years he went barefoot and naked except for a simple loin cloth. After another death march through the jungle, Alastair Urquhart was taken back to Singapore and, with 400 other men, loaded into the hold of a cargo ship.

There was standing room only. It was airless, fetid, the heat baking. Many died here too.

I am breaking my silence now, he writes in his book, to bear witness. I am a lucky man, but I am also an angry man, and my business with Japan is unfinished.

Germany has atoned. Young Germans know of their nation's dreadful crimes. But young Japanese are taught nothing of their nation's guilt.

It's far worse. The prison boat he was on got torpedoed by a US submarine. He was picked up by the Japanese, after five days of floating on a barge, then sent to a prison camp a few miles outside of Nagasaki. Guess what happened next. Read the rest of this post...

'State of catastrophe' in Chile after 8.8 earthquake strikes

UPDATE: Reuters reports that a tsunami is heading for Hawaii, estimated to hit at 4:19pm EST, 11:19am local time.

Twitter on Chile quake here. Interesting that the local media in Chile is using Twitter reports from their "reportwiteros," a pun on "reporteros," or "reporters."


Look at the breadth of the tsunami warning:

A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR

CHILE / PERU / ECUADOR / COLOMBIA / ANTARCTICA / PANAMA / COSTA RICA / NICARAGUA / PITCAIRN / HONDURAS / EL SALVADOR / GUATEMALA / FR. POLYNESIA / MEXICO / COOK ISLANDS / KIRIBATI / KERMADEC IS / NIUE / NEW ZEALAND / TONGA / AMERICAN SAMOA / SAMOA / JARVIS IS. / WALLIS-FUTUNA / TOKELAU / FIJI / AUSTRALIA / HAWAII / PALMYRA IS. / TUVALU / VANUATU / HOWLAND-BAKER / NEW CALEDONIA / JOHNSTON IS. / SOLOMON IS. / NAURU / MARSHALL IS. / MIDWAY IS. / KOSRAE / PAPUA NEW GUINEA / POHNPEI / WAKE IS. / CHUUK / RUSSIA / MARCUS IS. / INDONESIA /
N. MARIANAS / GUAM / YAP / BELAU / JAPAN / PHILIPPINES / CHINESE TAIPEI

Via Reuters:

A massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck south-central Chile early on Saturday, killing at least 78 people, knocking down homes and hospitals, and triggering a tsunami.

Buildings caught fire and residents huddled in streets strewn with glass and masonry, many terrified by powerful aftershocks and desperately trying to call friends and family.

President Michelle Bachelet said there were 78 confirmed deaths and that more were possible. Telephone and power lines were down, making it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage close to the epicenter.

The President has declared a "state of catastrophe."

"A widespread tsunami warning" is in effect.

Lots of aftershocks.

Live coverage from Chilean TV:

Free TV Show from Ustream
More photos from Chilean TV:

















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