I say we go with public opinion because this is a democracy

What do scientists know anyway? That bunch of pointy-headed, ivory-towered know-it-alls.

An overwhelming number of scientists (84%) say the earth is warming because of human activity, while just 4% of scientists say there is no solid evidence the earth is warming. Yet only 56% of Americans say that scientists agree that global warming is real and man-made. More than a third (35%) say scientists have not reached a consensus on climate change. The public’s perception of where the scientific community stands on climate change is tied to their own opinions on the issue.

Pew Research Center

The Equality State

On December 10, 1869, John Campbell, Governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in U.S. history explicitly granting women the right to vote. Commemorated in later years as Wyoming Day, the event was one of many firsts for women achieved in the Equality State.

On November 5, 1889, Wyoming voters approved the first constitution in the world granting full voting rights to women. Wyoming voters again made history in 1924 when they elected Nellie Taylor Ross as the first woman governor in the United States.

Library of Congress

Ouch!

On this rare occasion, black coaches actually are being hired at places with a chance to succeed. Memphis should be one of the better programs in Conference USA and sits on fertile recruiting ground. Same could be said for Virginia and the ACC. And Louisville is one of the more committed football schools in the Big East. . . .

Last year black coaches got dead-end jobs at New Mexico State, New Mexico, Eastern Michigan and Miami (Ohio) at a historic low ebb.

Pat Forde — ESPN

Best it is the season to be holy line of the day

“This time of year, many cultural Catholics — call them seasonal, the less-than-perfect, less frequent church-goers — feel a need to worship. They may be drawn to the ritual, the community, the music, a bright, hopeful message in the season of darkness.”

Timothy Egan while writing about the Bishop of Providence and Patrick Kennedy.

Egan’s line resonated with this cultural Catholic.

Sad but true line of the day

“It was truly amazing the way last week’s employment report was hailed by many people as a sign that our troubles are over. Here we are, having suffered huge job losses, and needing to make up the lost ground — and a report showing that we’re still losing jobs, but not as fast, is grounds for celebration?”

Paul Krugman

Krugman calculates we need to ADD 580,000 JOBS A MONTH for two more years to get back to where we were in 2007.

Or ADD JUST 300,000 JOBS A MONTH every month through 2014 to get back to where we were at the end of 2007.

So we need to add, nationwide, an economy the size of Albuquerque’s EVERY MONTH to get back to where we were two years ago.

A Book List

… that is better than most. Read below, then take a look.

When it comes time to take stock of the year in books, it’s inevitable that a few titles will escape notice in the rush to hand out accolades. Here are a few books that flew “under the radar” this year that I think will make perfect holiday gifts for everyone on your list — babies, kids, teens, and adults. Oh, and don’t forget yourself, too — read them all before you wrap them and give them away!

Librarian Nancy Pearl’s Under-The-Radar Holiday Books : NPR

[Librarian and book reviewer Nancy Pearl (yes, she really has her own Librarian Action Figure!) is the retired Director of Library Programming for the Seattle Public Library.]

This is spooky news

The poll released on Wednesday showed that three-in-ten Americans say they have felt in touch with a dead person and 18 percent say they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost.

Other Pew surveys have shown that relatively few Americans would identify an Eastern religion or New Age spirituality as their core faith. But about a quarter of those surveyed say they believe in aspects of Eastern religions.

Nearly 25 percent said they believed in reincarnation and 23 percent said yoga was a spiritual practice. Twenty six percent said they believed “spiritual energy” could be found in objects such as trees.

A quarter said they believed in astrology, while 16 percent of U.S. adults think that an “evil eye” exists or that some people can cast curses or spells on others. Among black Protestants the evil eye figure is 32 percent.

Reuters via Yahoo! News

Here’s the Pew report — Many Americans Not Dogmatic About Religion.

Best line of the day

“And yet, it’s better to be a one-hit wonder than say, a lifelong failure. Most creative people I know would cut off a finger to have the word ‘hit’ associated with their names — even a single time.”

Mary Elizabeth Williams writing about The one-hit wonder of the decade.

Billboard selected Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day.” Click to learn about the runners-up and more.

When the sacred becomes toxic

From High Country News, a brief look at the fights over San Francisco Peak and Mount Taylor. An excerpt:

When the Spaniards returned, they were less heavy-handed in their proselytizing, fearful of a repeat. Still, cultural tensions between the Southwestern tribes and the European newcomers have not gone away. And more and more, it seems, that tension is finding its way into natural resource battles.

Do you have fire insurance? Car insurance? Life insurance? Why?

You have them, if you do, because though the event may be unlikely, it’s catastrophic if it happens and you aren’t prepared.

We just know two things: one, the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years, so it is “irreversible” in real-time (barring some feat of geo-engineering); and two, that CO2 buildup has the potential to unleash “catastrophic” warming.

When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.

Thomas L. Friedman

Climate emails line of the day

“Nothing in the [Climatic Research Unit] e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.”

From an editorial in Nature.

Best line of last night

“But in terms of the temperature, going up and up and up, we are making some progress. Today over there at the conference in Copenhagen, they put a cap on the number of hot girlfriends for Tiger Woods. That’s going to cool things off a little bit.”

David Letterman

Redux joke post of the day

Two cattle buyers from Oklahoma were on a trip to Central Texas to look at a set of cows when they were pulled over by a State Trooper. The trooper walked up and tapped on the driver-side window with his nightstick. The cattle buyer rolled down the window and WHACK, the trooper smacked him in the head with his nightstick.

“What the hell was that for?” the cattle buyer asked.

“You’re in Texas, ” the trooper answered. “When we pull you over in Texas, you better have your license ready by the time we get to your car.”

The trooper ran a check on the license and the cattle buyer was clean, so he gave him his license back. The trooper then walked around to the passenger side and tapped on the window and the other cattle buyer rolled down the window and “WHACK”, the trooper smacked him on the head with the nightstick.

“What’d you do that for?” the cattle buyer demanded.

“Making your wish come true,” replied the trooper.

“Making WHAT wish come true?” the cattle buyer asked.

“I know you cattle buyer types,” The trooper said. “A hundred feet down the road, you would’ve turned to your buddy and said… “I wish that SOB would’ve tried that on me!”

December 9th is the birthday

… of Kirk Douglas. The three-time Oscar nominee is 93. NewMexiKen’s favorite Douglas performance is in Lonely Are the Brave. “Filmed on location in New Mexico, Lonely are the Brave was adapted by Dalton Trumbo from Edward Abbey’s novel Brave Cowboy.”

… of Judi Dench. The six-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner, is 75.

… of Beau Bridges. Jeff’s big brother is 68. No Oscars for Beau, but he has three wins from 10 Emmy nominations.

… of Dick Butkus, 67. The Butkus Award is given each year to the best college linebacker.

… of Tom Kite. He’s 60.

… of John Malkovich. The two-time Oscar nominee is 56.

… of Donny Osmond, 52. Fifty. Two.

… of Felicity Huffman. The Oscar nominee and Desperate Housewife is 47.

… of Jakob Dylan, son of Bob. Jakob is 40 today. He’s the youngest of his dad’s four children with first wife Sara Lownds, the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

Grace Hopper was born in New York City 103 years ago today.

She began tinkering around with machines when she was seven years old, dismantling several alarm clocks around the house to see how they worked. She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale.

Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. Her father had been an admiral in the Navy, so she applied to a division of the Navy called WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. They turned her down at first[;] they said she was too old at 35, and that she didn’t weigh enough, at 105 pounds. But she wouldn’t give up, and they eventually accepted her. With her math skills, she was assigned to work on a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets.

Hopper learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use. And she went on to help write an early computer language known as COBOL — “Common Business-Oriented Language.” She remained in the Navy, and eventually she became the first woman ever promoted to rear admiral.

The Writers Almanac from American Public Media (2006)