I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
Created by Train Horns
Link to the original at This is Indexed blog
I may not agree with every book in the library, but I think it is dangerous when people want to control what is in there. If you have trained your kids, then a book should not threaten your kids.
I have two articles on the meet last night. First out of the TVC (Record-Eagle) since TVC St. Francis is in the LM Confernce. Also out of the Petoskey News-Review kind of our local paper for The Boyne area.
Boyne City and TVC St. Francis tied in the team competition, with Kaleb leading the way for the Boys from Boyne.
Harbor’s Drake Doherty won the giant slalom in 1 minute, 4.09 seconds, followed by Boyne’s Kaleb McNamara (1:04.14) and Mike Cortwright (1:05.08), and St. Francis’ Keaden Hornyak (1:06.03) and Stephen Siddall (1:06.47).
McNamara won the slalom (1:21.26), followed by Doherty (1:21.47), Cortwright (1:22.30), Hornyak (1:23.17) and Grayling’s Mike Olson (1:23.83).
So First in the Slalom and Second in GS. by only 0.05sec…wow!!
Mary and I are going to make an attempt at going to the State meet in Marquette on Monday. I have the day off. The only thing is that we would have to leave really early in the morning to make it to the slopes on time (can’t afford to get a hotel). If we do, we will get pix and video to post after.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an astronomer that is approaching Carl Sagan status, at least in my mind. He is a great communicator. He is on a book tour and received the question about the Republican war on science. I always felt that it was a misdirection. While two big science areas of debate were politicized, were embryonic stem cells and the environment. However, as Dr. Tyson points out, budgets for science went up during the Bush years and down during the Clinton years. Also to point out that Dr. Tyson is a liberal, by his own admission.
Watch the clip from Fora.tv in fact if you have the time, watch the whole hour and change of his talk and the Q/A session after. Fascinating.
Kaleb ran the Regional meet at Nub’s Nob north of Harbor Springs on Thursday. Brandon was able to go and told us that Kaleb hip checked on the first run of the GS (that is he started to fall but was able to bounce back up), so it was a slower time. However, his second run was almost a full second faster than any of the field so he finished 5th. He then had to flawless runs in the slalom, for first place. The entire Boyne City boys team is going to the State competition at Marquette in a little over a week.
Here are some quotes from Kaleb in the Petoskey News-Review:
Kaleb McNamara, who won the boys’ slalom in 1 minute, 8.30 seconds, said he was proud of Boyne’s performance.
“It feels awesome,” McNamara said. “We haven’t done this as a team in a while so it feels good.”
“We were all pretty nervous, but we were determined to win it as well,” McNamara said. “All our guys stood and we were consistent on both runs. We skied pretty decent.”
WooHoo!!! Way to go Kaleb!
Ah, yes. You have to love being misquoted…from the Cadillac News
The 1 to 2 inches of rain combined with the melting snow may result in poor drainage areas, which may in turn result in areas of temporary flooding. Lutz urges residents to call 911 or the National Weather Service lines if they see areas of flooding. The NWS can then issue a warning to others.
“We will see a decent rise on a lot of rivers because we’ve had little in the way of frost. We’re not getting a lot of run-off. It has to do with the rain and snow melt,” Lutz ¨ explained.
“It takes time for the snow melt to enter the ground, and since we had so much snow early, the ground never ¨ really froze. Some surfaces had freezing, but not down deep; it’s only 32 degrees in the first eight inches,” he added.
Either I wasn’t making sense from low blood sugar, or I got misquoted, because this statement contradicts itself. A better explanation would be:
Since the snow came early in the season, we have little in the way of frost in the ground. This will limit the amount of run off, since the water will go straight into the ground. However, we will still a pretty decent rise in a lot of the rivers, due to the rain and snow melt.
So when I rail against the media at times for misquoting people or not completely reporting at story, I like to think that I know what I’m talking about, because it happens to me from time to time.
I saw this on the UMNS reporter’s blog yesterday and heard about it on an NPR podcast yesterday as well. An astronaut within NASA made a point about the barriers to innovation within NASA. It has been shown to senior NASA personnel, they thought it was funny and painful to watch, because it was true.
This is so true not only in NASA, but in the UM church as Amy Forbus points out. I say that most organizations that get large get into this rut. I think that Christians in general get into a tradition to the point that it is made into doctrine. All need to work at breaking down those silos of compartmentation.
As funny that I could point at NASA, but my own agency can suffer from it as well, although I have seen some changes in recent years. I also see it in agencies that I have to work with as well, not only in the Federal government, but the state and local levels as well.
So, is this rampant in your own company or organization? Look for ways to change. The end of the video has probably the best way for change…Servant Leadership.
Traverse City Record-Eagle – Article: Glads, Ramblers take LMC ski meet
Click the link above to read the article, but Kaleb won both the slalom and GS last Thursday at Nubs.
I’ve been into science for a long time. I’ve been a Christian for a long time. I’ve been an adult leader at a church youth group for almost 10 years now. A long time ago I found a book on my dad’s bookshelf called ,”How to Lie with Statistics.” I was a bit young to read it, but after having two statistics classes in college, and dealing with statistics in my job all the time, I see how people do this all the time, both intentionally and unintentionally. After a few years of the kids are out of control mantra, by some, hard data is beginning to refute that.
Two sociologists in Philadelphia, Kathleen A. Bogle, of La Salle University, and Maria Kefalas, of St. Joseph’s University, both specialists in teen sexual behavior, told Parker-Pope that they’d had to struggle mightily to get people out of their “moral panic” mindset, and make them understand that teens are not “in a downward spiral” or “out of control.” The Myth of Lost Innocence – Judith Warner Blog – NYTimes.com
I work with teens, trying to build relationships and helping to guide them through that time of life that I would never want to go back to. I have to say that the students seem to be pretty healthy with most of their attitudes, and that it’s only a few kids that are the “at risk type.” My experience has been that the kids are all right. It isn’t time to panic.
The last several years have been a turning point in the band wagon effect that I have suffered from my youth. I’m beginning to question everything I read and hear on the internet and test it all. From things that come out of religious circles like the 4% generation, to some man made global warming thoughts. My dealings with the media in the past to not tell the whole story, from the reporter being a flawed human being to the editor trying to sell newspapers or TV ratings. I have even seen and remember people pushing their own agenda, that was out of selfish motivation and not for the common good.
I looked on at the last presidential campaign and saw things on both sides of the spectrum that had little to do with anything. From the “is Barack Obama a natural born citizen to the Sarah Palin downs syndrome baby was really her daughter’s. All of which have been proved false, but to this day continue on into the concious thought of the American public.
So, if people call me conservative, it is because that I think that we should slow down and not rush to judgement and question all of the things that people say. If people call me liberal, it is because I have looked at the raw data for myself and agreed that there is a problem that we need to combat now. That is why on my Facebook page, I list myself as, “A Little to the Right but not by much.” Slow down people think about the crap in the media that is shovelled. Some is right, but some is wrong.
My main point that I guess that I’m trying to make is that my opinons have come to me over a long period of time. I try to remain open to new data, but I question it, and I question the old data, as well. I respect other people’s opinions and try to arrive at my conclusion by using the scientific method. However, I am a flawed human just like the rest of us. I realize that I can be fooled by people, and that I need to remember to question everything.
Thursday night Kaleb had another conference meet. It was at Nubs Nob north of Harbor Springs. Brandon was able to go, and said that Kaleb clipped a gate in the slalom so he did not finish. However, he finished first in GS. The whole story is here: Traverse City Record-Eagle – Article: Ski Roundup: Glads, Rams claim meet
