Tag Archives: andrew

Cosmic Impact – Andrew May

by Myrna Posted on June 12, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Cosmic Impact

Understanding the Threat to Earth from Asteroids and Comets

Andrew May

Genre: Physics

Price: $6.99

Publish Date: February 7, 2019

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Seller: Perseus Books, LLC


As end-of-the-world scenarios go, an apocalyptic collision with an asteroid or comet is the new kid on the block, gaining respectability only in the last decade of the 20th century with the realisation that the dinosaurs had been wiped out by just such an impact. Now the science community is making up for lost time, with worldwide efforts to track the thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, and plans for high-tech hardware that could deflect an incoming object from a collision course – a procedure depicted, with little regard for scientific accuracy, in several Hollywood movies. Astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May disentangles fact from fiction in this fast-moving and entertaining account, covering the nature and history of comets and asteroids, the reason why some orbits are more hazardous than others, the devastating local and global effects that an impact event would produce, and – more optimistically – the way future space missions could avert a catastrophe.

Continue reading here:  

Cosmic Impact – Andrew May

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Cosmic Impact – Andrew May

Martian Summer – Andrew Kessler

by Myrna Posted on February 24, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Martian Summer

My Ninety Days with Interplanetary Pioneers, Temperamental Robots, and NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission

Andrew Kessler

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: July 15, 2014

Publisher: Open Road Media

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


A space enthusiast goes inside mission control with a motley crew of rocket scientists in this “fascinating journey of discovery peppered with humor” ( Publishers Weekly ). The  Phoenix  Mars mission was the first man-made probe ever sent to the Martian arctic. Its purpose was to find out how climate change could turn a warm, wet planet (read: Earth) into a cold, barren desert (read: Mars). Along the way,  Phoenix  discovered a giant frozen ocean trapped beneath the north pole of Mars, exotic food for aliens, and liquid water, and laid the foundation for NASA’s current exploration of Mars using the  Curiosity  rover. This is not science fiction. It’s fact. And for the luckiest fanboy in fandom, it was the best vacation ever. Andrew Kessler spent the summer of 2008 in NASA’s mission control with one hundred thirty of the world’s best planetary scientists and engineers as they carried out this ambitious operation. He came back with a story of human drama about modern-day pioneers battling NASA politics, temperamental robots, and the bizarre world of daily life in mission control.

Continue reading:  

Martian Summer – Andrew Kessler

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Martian Summer – Andrew Kessler

Ruthless Tide – Al Roker

by Myrna Posted on May 22, 2018

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Ruthless Tide

The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster

Al Roker

Genre: Nature

Price: $14.99

Expected Publish Date: May 22, 2018

Publisher: William Morrow

Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS


“Reads like a nail-biting thriller.” — Library Journal, starred review A gripping new history celebrating the remarkable heroes of the Johnstown Flood—the deadliest flood in U.S. history—from NBC host and legendary weather authority Al Roker Central Pennsylvania, May 31, 1889: After a deluge of rain—nearly a foot in less than twenty-four hours—swelled the Little Conemaugh River, panicked engineers watched helplessly as swiftly rising waters threatened to breach the South Fork dam, built to create a private lake for a fishing and hunting club that counted among its members Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Carnegie. Though the engineers telegraphed neighboring towns on this last morning in May warning of the impending danger, residents—factory workers and their families—remained in their homes, having grown used to false alarms. At 3:10 P.M., the dam gave way, releasing 20 million tons of water. Gathering speed as it flowed southwest, the deluge wiped out nearly everything in its path and picked up debris—trees, houses, animals—before reaching Johnstown, a vibrant steel town fourteen miles downstream. Traveling 40 miles an hour, with swells as high as 60 feet, the deadly floodwaters razed the mill town—home to 20,000 people—in minutes. The Great Flood, as it would come to be called, remains the deadliest in US history, killing more than 2,200 people and causing $17 million in damage. In Ruthless Tide, Al Roker follows an unforgettable cast of characters whose fates converged because of that tragic day, including John Parke, the engineer whose heroic efforts failed to save the dam; the robber barons whose fancy sport fishing resort was responsible for modifications that weakened the dam; and Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, who spent five months in Johnstown leading one of the first organized disaster relief efforts in the United States. Weaving together their stories and those of many ordinary citizens whose lives were forever altered by the event, Ruthless Tide is testament to the power of the human spirit in times of tragedy and also a timely warning about the dangers of greed, inequality, neglected infrastructure, and the ferocious, uncontrollable power of nature.

View this article: 

Ruthless Tide – Al Roker

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, William Morrow | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ruthless Tide – Al Roker

Historian on Donald Trump’s Civil War Comments: "God Help Us"

by AugustiXxj Posted on May 1, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

President Donald Trump said in an interview on SiriusXM’s “Main Street Meets the Beltway” show Monday that if Andrew Jackson had been president in 1860, the Civil War would have been averted. “Had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War,” he stated, and he asked, “Why could that one not have been worked out?”

I asked David Blight, a Yale University historian whose work has focused on slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, what he thought of Trump’s remarks. Here’s his response:

“Worked out?” God!…

Well, I just read these postings? So he really said this about Jackson and the Civil War? All I can say to you is that from day one I have believed that Donald Trump’s greatest threat to our society and to our democracy is not necessarily his authoritarianism, but his essential ignorance—of history, of policy, of political process, of the Constitution. Saying that if Jackson had been around we might not have had the Civil War is like saying that one strong, aggressive leader can shape, prevent, move history however he wishes. This is simply 5th grade understanding of history or worse. And this comes from the President of the United States! Under normal circumstances if a real estate tycoon weighed in on the nature of American history from such ignorance and twisted understanding we would simply ignore or laugh at him. But since this man lives in the historic White House and wields the constitutional powers of the presidency and the commander in chief we have to pay attention. Trump’s “learning” of American history must have stopped even before the 5th grade. I wish I could say this is funny and not deeply disturbing. My profession should petition the President to take a one or two month leave of absence, VP Pence steps in for that interim, and Trump goes on a retreat in one of his resorts for forced re-education. It could be a new tradition called the presidential education leave. Or perhaps in New Deal tradition, an “ignorance relief” period. This alone might gain the United States again some confidence and respect around the world.

Hope this helps. God help us.

Read article here:  

Historian on Donald Trump’s Civil War Comments: "God Help Us"

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Historian on Donald Trump’s Civil War Comments: "God Help Us"

Here’s What Happened When a Trump Admin Hopeful Tried to Delete His Pro-Hillary Columns

by VaniaOrosco563 Posted on April 4, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

According to Arab News, columnist Andrew J. Bowen, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is currently in the process of landing a job with the Trump administration. But in order to clear the final hurdles of the hiring process, Bowen has allegedly tried to convince the news outlet to delete some of his previous writings, mainly ones that were critical of Trump and praised his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Examples include posts describing Trump as “boorish and predatory” and charging the then-Republican candidate with “whipping xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments” unlike any other presidential hopeful in US history.

Those attempts to strong-arm Arab News have apparently backfired. A statement from the editors on Tuesday:

Arab News regrettably announces that it will discontinue publishing articles by US columnist Andrew Bowen.

The reason behind this decision is the columnist insisting that this newspaper deletes previous articles dating back prior to the recent US election where he was in favor of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Bowen, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has repeatedly requested the removal of these articles stating that this is needed for him “to be cleared” for what he claims to be a possible job with the new Donald Trump administration’s State Department.

Mr. Bowen also insinuated — verbally and in writing — that he will seek the support of influential friends and contacts to help remove the articles.

Arab News possesses all correspondence relating to this matter and its position is that such a request is unprofessional journalistically, particularly given that there were no factual errors or libelous comments that require a redaction or correction.

We wish Mr. Bowen the best of luck in his job application.

The statement ends with a link to Bowen’s archival history writing for the site.

Excerpt from – 

Here’s What Happened When a Trump Admin Hopeful Tried to Delete His Pro-Hillary Columns

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s What Happened When a Trump Admin Hopeful Tried to Delete His Pro-Hillary Columns

Reince Priebus Asked the FBI to Assure Reporters There Was Nothing to the Russia Story. They Refused.

by KathieV68qwr Posted on February 24, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Last week the New York Times reported that members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. The White House vigorously denies this, and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus went on TV to knock down the story. That’s fine. But it turns out Priebus did more than that. According to CNN, Priebus asked the FBI to tell reporters that there was nothing to the story:

The discussions between the White House and the bureau began with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe1 and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on the sidelines of a separate White House meeting the day after the stories were published, according to a U.S. law enforcement official.

….A White House official said that Priebus later reached out again to McCabe and to FBI Director James Comey asking for the FBI to at least talk to reporters on background to dispute the stories.2 A law enforcement official says McCabe didn’t discuss aspects of the case but wouldn’t say exactly what McCabe told Priebus.

Comey rejected the request for the FBI to comment on the stories, according to sources, because the alleged communications between Trump associates and Russians known to US intelligence are the subject of an ongoing investigation.

I wonder if anyone in the Trump White House even understands how inappropriate this is? They might not. Partly it’s because they’re so inexperienced, and partly it’s because they’ve all been marinating in the Trump worldview that you’re a chump if you let delicate moral sensibilities get in the way of hitting back against your enemies. They might well believe that asking the FBI to talk to reporters is no different than asking the press secretary to talk to reporters.

If this is true, it’s no excuse. I’m just curious. If Priebus knew this was wrong, it’s hard to believe that he would have pressed the bureau multiple times, even knowing that it was almost certain to leak eventually.

In other words, at best they’re muttonheads. At worst they’re casually corrupt. Take your pick.

1In case that name sounds familiar, it’s the same Andrew McCabe who was supposedly at the center of one of the dumbest “Hillary scandal” stories ever written outside of the fever swamps.3 Long story short, McCabe’s wife is a Democrat. ZOMG!

2This is especially rich since Reibus whined just a few days ago about reporters using anonymous sources. “Put names on a piece of paper and print it,” he said on Face the Nation. “If people aren’t willing to put their name next to a quote, then the quote shouldn’t be listed.”

3Speaking of which, can you even imagine the epic meltdown we’d be enduring from Republicans right now if Hillary Clinton had done anything like this?

View article: 

Reince Priebus Asked the FBI to Assure Reporters There Was Nothing to the Russia Story. They Refused.

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Reince Priebus Asked the FBI to Assure Reporters There Was Nothing to the Russia Story. They Refused.

Trump Brags About Job Growth That Happened Under Obama

by Sidney2406 Posted on February 3, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After repeatedly accusing the government of inflating its monthly jobs reports while on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump on Friday praised the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest numbers, which showed 227,000 new jobs in January, as “really big league.” He even appeared to take credit for the report, even though the data were collected during Barack Obama’s final days in office.

“A couple of things happened this morning,” Trump said referring to the report. “So we are very happy about that. I think that it’s really big league. We’re bringing jobs back, we’re bringing down your taxes. We are going to get rid of your regulations.”

Conservative outlets, including Fox News and Breitbart, also misleadingly implied that the reported job growth came under Trump:

While running for president, Trump took a strikingly different approach to the Labor Department’s reports. He routinely accused the Obama administration of purposely understating the true unemployment rate, which he believed to be as high as 42 percent.

“Don’t believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment,” Trump said at a rally nearly a year ago. “The number is probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”

Some of the president’s Cabinet picks, including treasury secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin and labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder, have also mocked the government’s official unemployment rate.

Original link – 

Trump Brags About Job Growth That Happened Under Obama

Posted in Bragg, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump Brags About Job Growth That Happened Under Obama

Here’s the Truth Behind Obamacare’s Horror Story Deductibles

by ZegBrewster Posted on January 9, 2017

Mother Jones

Recently, the go-to argument from the anti-Obamacare forces has been about deductibles. Sure, 20 million people have insurance. Sure, most of them can afford the premiums. But what’s the point if all it buys you is crappy insurance with a $6,000 deductible? As Nathan Nascimento put in National Review a few months ago, “what good is health-insurance coverage for middle- and low-income families if they can’t afford to use it?”

These crocodile tears would be amusing if they weren’t so infuriating. Nobody on the right has ever been willing to support higher funding so that deductibles can come down. In fact, folks on the right love high deductibles. It puts “skin in the game.” A combination of HSAs and high-deductible health policies is one of the standard bits of smoke-and-mirrors offered up by conservatives when you ask them what kind of national health care plan they’d like to see replace Obamacare.

But let’s put that aside for a moment and ask another question: what are the deductibles under Obamacare really like, anyway?1Here’s the answer:

The average deductible decreased from $900 to $850 in 2016. And as you can see if we extrapolate from the figures in the table, it looks like nearly two-thirds of all enrollees had deductibles under $1,000. Only about a fifth had the horror-story $6,000+ deductibles that we hear so much about.

But that’s not all. We don’t have figures for how this breaks down, but my guess is that the majority of the people with high deductibles are the famous “young invincibles” who are single, don’t qualify for subsidies because they’re fairly well off, and don’t think they’re going to get sick. So they buy the cheapest plan they can, take advantage of the preventive care stuff they’re allowed before the deductible kicks in, and go about their lives. No one in their right mind who had any kind of real health issues would ever buy a plan like this.

There are undoubtedly exceptions to this. There always are in a country the size of ours. I’m all for helping these folks out, but one way or another, that calls for more money, not less. Anybody who says otherwise is just playing with you.

1Hat tip to Andrew Sprung, who drew my attention to this table today.

Read the article:  

Here’s the Truth Behind Obamacare’s Horror Story Deductibles

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s the Truth Behind Obamacare’s Horror Story Deductibles

Swamp Watch – 8 December 2016

by GregoryDerringto Posted on December 8, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Well, Donald Trump is just playing with us now. The great protector of the working class plans to nominate for Secretary of Labor—that’s Secretary of Labor—Andrew Puzder, the wealthy CEO of a fast-food empire who doggedly opposes a wide variety of worker protections imposed by big government. He also seems to take a fairly dim view of human labor in general, regardless of how much it costs:

Puzder doesn’t think that it’s likely that any machine could take over the more nuanced kitchen work of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. But for more rote tasks like grilling a burger or taking an order, technology may be even more precise than human employees. “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case,” says Puzder of swapping employees for machines.

Puzder might not be quite as bad as that quote suggests, but he’s hardly a fulsome friend of the working man and woman. On the bright side, Carl’s Jr. makes a good burger. If they could just improve their fries, they’d be great.

See original article here – 

Swamp Watch – 8 December 2016

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Swamp Watch – 8 December 2016

Solar power’s not just for roofs anymore: It’s being woven into fabric.

by VitoBadgett Posted on September 15, 2016

Soon, everything from sneakers to beach umbrellas could suck up the sun’s energy and turn it into electricity.

Marianne Fairbanks, a fabric designer, and Trisha Andrew, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, teamed up to make solar fabric — first invented 15 years ago — a little bit sleeker. They created a layer of polymer-coated fabric that absorbs light and conducts electricity, and can be applied to any type of textile. A four-by-four foot swath of cloth can generate enough power to charge a smartphone.

“I get really excited, because textiles are portable and lightweight,” Fairbanks told Smithsonian. “They could be deployed in the wilderness for a hunter or in the field for medical or military applications in a way that big clunky solar panels never could be.” The duo is working on creating marketable solar-powered products like gloves, tents, and other outdoor gear.

Meanwhile, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology recently developed a different wool textile that harvests wind and solar energy. Who knew the renewable energy fabric industry was so competitive?

Excerpt from: 

Solar power’s not just for roofs anymore: It’s being woven into fabric.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Bunn, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, organic, oven, Smith's, solar, solar panels, solar power, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Solar power’s not just for roofs anymore: It’s being woven into fabric.