Friday Open Thread
It’s Friday and it’s open thread time. That means your Friday is already halfway over!
It’s also National Mole Day, a celebration of Avogadro’s number, 6.02 x 10^23 (the number of atoms in a mole). It’s celebrated from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM on 10/23 every year. This link gives you some tips on how to celebrate Mole Day:
*Send a Mole Day greeting card to friends.
*Drink a glass of molasses milk (201g [ 7.1 oz ] of C6H12NNaO3S = 1 mole) at 6:02am & pm.
*Bake and eat 6.02 molasses cookies.
* Drink 1 mol of H2O (18 g or 0.63oz) of water at 6:02am.
* Ask people to guess how many moles you have in a brown paper bag.
I haven’t gotten any extra appreciation for National Chemistry Week. Perhaps everyone was waiting until Mole Day?
Bwahahaha – this is just funny. In North Carolina, a Republican critic of the Democratic governor delivered a wheelbarrow full of surveys to the governor’s office. Apparently he didn’t read the responses:
“I am embarrassed to be associated with this organization. Your tactics are disgusting and you’re going to lose a generation of voters,” was one, Perdue spokeswoman Chrissy Pearson told the News.
“Stop wording questions so geared up to get the answers you want and start wording them to actually find out the people’s opinion, not just confirm your own,” read another.
[…]
Other questions on the survey included:
“Do you oppose Bev Perdue and the Democrats’ plan to pass a job-killing $1.6 billion dollar [sic] tax increase in the middle of a recession?”
“Do you support sending the North Carolina National Guard to help secure our southern border?”
LOL, is North Carolina in danger from South Carolina?
Tags: Open Thread
Wow. Read this.
They scare people, which seems appropriate for the party of fear.
W.H. tells Congress that policy ‘Czars’ won’t testify
Washington Times ^ | October 23, 2009 | Stephen Dinan
The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of President Obama’s policy czars to testify before Congress – a decision senators said goes against the president’s promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress’ constitutional mandate to investigate the administration’s actions. Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said White House counsel Greg Craig told her in a meeting Wednesday that they will not make available any of the czars who work in the White House and don’t have to go through Senate confirmation.
hope & change & transparency
I am happy today because the US Senate Passes Byrd-Shepard Hate Crimes Act!(More on my blog!) – but sad that it had to be attached to the Defense Spending Bill to pass and absolutly disgusted at some catholics that disagree with the Act and make it all about gays and lesbians, even though it isn’t.
Update on where we are in the fight for the public option:
I’d really like to know who the 1 or 2 holdouts are. Is the Lincoln and Landrieu?
Stephen Hawking’s successor named
BBC ^
Cambridge University has named the man who will succeed Professor Stephen Hawking in one of the world’s most prestigious academic positions. The celebrated physicist, who has motor neurone disease, completed his last day as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics on 30 September. The university said Professor Michael Green had been elected as the 18th person to take up the position…. …The Lucasian Professorship was established in 1663 and previous holders have included Isaac Newton.
Well, I’ve been celebrating National Chemistry Week, all week. Some of us just aren’t showy about our religious identities. 😀
I am glad you explained that 6.02 x 10^23 was a mole, at first glance I thought it was the Obama Deficit!
http://media.sfexaminer.com/images/091022beelertoon_c.jpg
Honestly? The best part of the Mole Day site is the drawing of the Mole. Really.
Obama went to MIT today and got a geek shirt with a big formula on it. Which conservatives will probably say is a secret socialist message. But it didn’t have a Mole.
The photo is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/23/obama-visits-mit-research_n_331963.html
Happy Mole Day, UI
Thanks, PM. I love the tshirt, too!
Been trying to self teach myself quantum physics for a while and was lost until one thing came to light, that,s the literally tiny size of the atom, 10,000 atoms will fit on the eracer head of a pencil, but they do have mass [there are now powerful microscopes that can actually see them] and more important the atom has worling parts to it called particles, 10;000 particles could fit comfortably on the sharpened tip of a pencil, these quarks control all the functions of the universe, up, down,sideways motion, magnatism, electricity, gravity etc. these specks on speack pass thru or pores easily and control are nerve system and all the functions that go on around us. It,s fun stuff to try and read and understand but the atom was actually discovered by the ancient greeks some tthree tousand years ago.
Moving away from the cool science for a sec, this has got to be the most hilarious story of the day — these wingnuts are so desperate to believe just any shady or bad thing about Obama that they fall for ANYTHING.
One blog writes up a satire in August about an Obama college thesis (entirely made up) — two days ago, Micheal Ledeen writes this up as the proof of the week (I have no idea of what) and today the Leader of the Republican Party and Fox Nation get in on the act. And it seems really likely that not one of these amazing geniuses knows yet that they’ve been had.
How these people stay in the gene pool is a real mystery to me.
Speaking of rats moles and other rodents, the 100th bank failed today in naples florida,FDIC bye week is over. at this rate the entire country will have just two banks left to deal with, if you think bank charges are high now wait till citi and B of A have hold of your connolies.
Faux News ran an article based on unsourced material. I seem to remember a big uproar over some unverified documents and Dan Rather. So, Fox is held to a different standard now?
Cassandra_m
Did you folks around here condemn the false quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh, or did you revel in those poorly sourced frauds (like Media matters itself did)? And when they were shown to be frauds, did you admit your error or did you say “Well, they sounded like something he would say, or at least think?”
Just checking to see if you are consistent in your views, or if you hypocritically apply one standard to your political opponents and another to your side of the aisle — and yourselves.
Are you talking about the same Rush Limbaugh who routinely smears and insults people? The one who routinely trades on racial invective and bigotry? The one who wouldn’t know the truth if was giving away free oxycontin?
DO NOT CARE about any false quotes attributed to that rat bastard. For someone who makes a pretty damn fine living from making shit up, Rush is a damned whiny bitch. If you live by the falsehood, you an die by the falsehood as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks for owning up to your hypocrisy. You’ve lost your credibility as a blogger, cassandra.
Exactly, Cassandra. Rush’s problem was that the false quotes didn’t look too different than his real ones. It was a nice try by the wingnuts to try to confuse the issue but Rush was has a very long history of racially insensitive language. Wasn’t it just last month that Limbaugh said that Obama is responsible for black kids beating up white kids and that we should have segregated buses?
UI
A technical question of sorts since you used scientific notation. If I am using a typescript that won’t let me do superscripts and I am doing a really really huge number like 1 raised to the 25th raised to the 25th is this the right way to do it? (1×10^25) x 10^25 or what?
Steve,
Your question doesn’t make much sense because 1^25 is 1.
The way you’ve written is correct, but I would probably simplify to 1×10^625. I’ve also seen it written as 1E25 (like on a calculator).
Speaking of GOP propaganda fail, check this out.
Oh my:
Charming!
UI I should have written it more clearly. There is a number in a book by Frank Tipler that I wanted to talk about (you know, the physicist who believes that the Omega Point will send us all to Heaven) that is so large he described is as (I don’t have it in front of me), say 3 raised to 10 to the 25th all raised again to 10 to the 100th. It wasn’t (3 x 10^25) times something, but (3 x 10^25) itself raised. He employed a superscript and then a superscript to that superscript. I can’t even figure out how to express the number because I had never seen that notation before.
What you’re describing sounds more like:
[3^(10^25)]^(10^100)
Mike Castle to the left of Tom Carper on banking regulation? While it is not hard to be to the left of Carper on anytyhing – Castle just burnished his “bipartisan” street cred by being the lone Republican to vote for the creation of the consumer financial protection agency by voting against Tom Carper, his US Chamber paymasters, and his payday loan making buds.
Placed in the “winners” category by politico they managed to mar their observations with this knee slapper:
Ha! Politco sucks!
Tom Carper brags to Fox News that he was invited to caucus with Republicans on HCR.
Pssst…Tom, Fox News is not really a news network
As much as I hate Tom Carper for his unrelenting corporate WHORING – if he has really switched to supporting an “opt-out” clause for states that don’t want to participate from an “opt-in” plan, that would be a significant improvement that I would have to give him credit for.
That Carper will eventually do the right thing doesn’t change the fact that he voted to protect the pharmaceutical industry and he voted against the public option in the SFC bill. But yes, I think it will turn down the burning passion against him.
I think Carper might have gotten the message that rank and file Dems were very, very angry at him. I went to two party meetings where Carper’s aids were under relentless attack and the executive committee resolution was also aimed at Carper.
I’m loviing this NY-23 race.
Newt and the NRA love Scozzafava while Palin, The Club for Economic Ruin, and Santorum love Hoffman. Who knows..If Christine O’Whackjob runs hard at Castle from the wingnut right – maybe she can cause a stir.
UI
Thanks–that’s exactly what I wanted. I just couldn’t figure out how to write it without two sets of superscripts.
Who are the worst tippers? The answer will not surprise you.