Not too long ago James Randi was on the German TV show "Welt der Wunder" (roughly, "World of Wonder"), debunking paranormal stuff including spoon bending. TheFriendlySkeptic has put up the show on YouTube in five parts. Here is Part 1, and you can get the other four parts by clicking on the menu labeled "More from: TheFriendlySkeptic" on the YouTube page.

Oh, did I mention the show is auf Deutsch? Well, if you speak German, enjoy. If you don’t, you can probably skip a few parts.

Cooooool.

Héctor Julián Coronado Cervantes has translated my Is Science Faith-based? post into Spanish! He posted it on his own blog, Libre Pensar (he also has a translation of my Welcome to Science speech, too.)

I assume he did a good job. My Spanish is limited to Where is the bathroom? and May I have cold bottle of coke, please? both of which I learned on a trip to Mexico with the then-future Mrs. BA.

Seriously, I’m pleased about this. A lot of us activist skeptics are concerned that we’re not reaching across borders enough; women, Latinos, African-Americans, and other groups are not represented well at skeptic meetings, and I would bet that reflects a reality of the population. That’s something we need to fix.

Update: Jetzt auf Deutsch!

I’ve been pointing out for months now that President Bush and his Administration have been waging a planned, protracted, and devious attack on science in almost every field across the board. I’ve been taken to task by some commenters on this, saying I am being unfair (implying I simply hate Bush and will disagree with everything he does — never mind that the more likely scenario for most folks is the other way around).

For those of you who think I am being unfair, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman would like a word with you.

Waxman is the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They have been studying Bush and his stance on global warming, and have just released their findings. Surprise! Bush is waging a planned, protracted, and devious attack on science. Check it (emphasis mine):

For the past 16 months, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating allegations of political interference with government climate change science under the Bush Administration. During the course of this investigation, the Committee obtained over 27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, held two investigative hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials. Much of the information made available to the Committee has never been publicly disclosed.

This report presents the findings of the Committee’s investigation. The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.

Yeah, shocker. And if only this were the only front on which Bush and crew were engaging in criminal stupidity. There is also health, sex education, religious freedom, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Administration, and and and.

Oh yeah, and NASA, too.

I wonder if anyone (besides Keith Olbermann) in the mainstream media will pick up on this?

Read Waxman’s report. It’s not terribly long, but it’s certainly damning.

Hat tip to C&L.

In previous post, a commenter took me (and by proxy, Chris Mooney) to task for not providing citations in accusations of political hackery of the Bush Administration. That’s a fair cop, so I will elaborate.

I have many examples of such behavior by the White House in this blog, including the hackalicious George Deutsch, who tried to undermine science at NASA. A search on his name will provide spectacular examples of how this Bush demagogue ham-fistedly tried to insert religion into NASA.

Looking around the web, I found another fine example. Bush has undermined regulations to make it harder to put lead in children’s toys and lunchboxes. Lunchboxes! That article has citations and quotations from experts. Bush has repeatedly and with malice aforethought put incompetent lobbying boobs into positions of not only power, but also where their incompetence or shilling for corporations has put people in direct risk.

Or how about the guy who’s going to oversee the investigation of the recent Utah mine disaster? Richard Stickler is the Mine and Health Safety Administrator, and when he was a mine executive, his mines had twice the national average of accidents. Guess what? Bush appointee. In fact, he was a recess appointment, since Bush couldn’t get this guy past even the Republican congressmen.

Remember Katrina? Heckuva job, Brownie. Or do a search on how the EPA is doing. Or General Petraeus’s surge report. Or how the White House created "’asset deployment’ meetings held to discuss the use of federal resources to promote the reelection of President Bush and Republicans in Congress" (which is very, very illegal). Or the Undersecretary of Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey, who was a former logging industry lobbyist and who is now under fire for allowing the Forestry Service to dump a flame retardant on a fire that killed up to 20,000 fish in Oregon in 2003, and also for blocking a review of that event by a court of law.

Had enough?

Sure, I’m a scientist, and I make it known when I think science is under attack. But this White House, this Administration, George Bush, is destroying far more than just science. He’s killing all of us, and it really seems to me that he cares far more about who gave him money and who can help him consolidate his power as unitary executive than who can do a good job.

And don’t give me that static about "every President does it". Every President does not. I refer you again to this article where Clinton appointed a consumer advocate as head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Someone who cared for people over corporations? Quelle damage! And in this current Administration, quelle impossible.

NASA’s bad news just keeps on rollin’.

Another Bush/Cheney/Rove flunkie has been given a sweet job at NASA. Jane Cherry, a Karl Rove staffer, is now NASA’s White House liaison. It’s unclear if, like George Deutsch, she is totally unqualified for the job, or, like Patrick Rhode, she was placed there to get her out of a less-than-flattering spotlight on the White House.

Maybe neither. But c’mon, have you been paying attention lately? Maybe it’s both.

Continue Reading »

Sigh.

In a recent NASA press release, it was announced that a 400 year old piece of metal — probably a shipping tag of some sort — bearing the words "Yames Towne" will go onboard Atlantis and up to the space station. I don’t have too much of a problem with stunts like this, as it promotes space travel and makes it fun for everyone.

What I do have a problem with is this line from the press release (emphasis mine):

A nearly 400-year-old metal cargo tag bearing the words “Yames Towne” and some commemorative mementoes [sic] are packed in Atlantis’ middeck floor cargo space for the roundtrip flight to the International Space Station. Their hitchhike through the galaxy honors this year’s 400th anniversary of Jamestown, Va., the first permanent English settlement in North America.

I would think the NASA Public Affairs Office (where these releases get written) would know the difference between the galaxy and low-Earth orbit. But then, they’ve hired people in the past who are fuzzy on just how old the Earth is. Maybe they’re also hazy on the difference between a few hundred miles and a few hundred trillion.

NASA hasn’t been doing so well in the public relations department lately, if you hadn’t heard. George Deutsch, Lisa Nowak, budget cuts, some odd management decisions… NASA could use a PR boost.

The funny thing is, when they try it themselves they tend to screw it up. Many are the times that manned spaceflight PR from NASA comes across as, well, uncool. Unhip. Square. Not every time, of course, but sometimes I watch the press conferences for the space station, for the Shuttle, for the Moon intitiative, and I cringe. I know that in some manners NASA has lost its way, but I wonder what they can do to recapture that feeling of zest, of adventure, of can-do.

Then something comes along, something that brings those feelings back. Something that is honest, and good, and feels right.

Enter Damaris Sarria. She’s a young aerospace engineer for Boeing who works at the Kennedy Space Center. She wants to be an astronaut, and she decided to document her voyage on a blog, How I Am Becoming An Astronaut.

She is a wonder. Cheerful, dynamic, energetic, enthusiastic, and seemingly honest about her mission: to fly in space. "It’s my ultimate goal, my dream" she says, and reading her writing, I believe her.

NASA can’t buy that kind of PR. But I think that’s a good thing. Let Ms. Sarria do this on her own, untouched by the PR machine. She benefits by being honest, we benefit by reading about her life, and NASA benefits too. She makes them look good.

But most of all, she makes me feel good. She reminds me of why I like space exploration in the first place. It’s cool, it’s fun, and it’s exciting. I hope she does become an astronaut, and I hope she keeps on telling us all about it.

Update (March 23): In a weird coincidence, Ms. Sarria’s blog is featured in a Florida Today article today. Nice timing!