Obama At The Naval Academy May 27, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Arnold, Old Lyme, Op-Ed.add a comment
I have now had the privilege of seeing two different presidents make commencement addresses at military academies. I saw George W. Bush in 2007 at the Coast Guard Academy and I saw Barack Obama at the Naval Academy this year. This gives me a chance to compare the two, not only from my own perspective but also based on the comments other people made about each of them.
Bush was an eloquent speaker, not at all like his critics like to portray him. His speech was well delivered and he did not exhibit any of the claimed misspeaks and mispronunciations that are frequently attributed to him, even though his speech included many people and places with difficult to pronounce names. Obama was a very charismatic speaker with a pleasant voice. He delivered this speech quite well. As speakers, I would rate the two as being equal.
But, the they were really far apart on the topic of their speeches. Bush’s speech was very substantive. He gave a speech that dealt with acts of terrorism that had been prevented. This information was classified up until the day of the speech. Obama gave what amounted to a campaign speech. There was no substance and their was no message. He was all over the place and made a bunch of feel-good statements that are appealing to a crowd, but really mean nothing. When it comes to substance, Bush was way ahead of Obama and there is no debate, Bush’s speech was much superior.
You might chalk it up to Bush’s more than six years experience in the Whitehouse in 2007 to Obama’s four months worth. That would be fine, but there were several comments that Obama made that I found interesting. For instance, when he said,
It’s a promise that as long as I am your Commander in Chief, I will only send you into harm’s way when it is absolutely necessary, and with the strategy, the well-defined goals, the equipment and the support you need to get the job done.
I really hope this was just a statement to please the crowd and that he doesn’t really mean it. This country has been sending its military into combat without the necessary training and equipment since the first Continental Congress and every president since then has followed suit. The first thing you do when there’s a military situation is send a military force there in the hope that if you can’t stop it quickly, you can at least get some control over the situation. I hope the commander-in-chief of this country would never decide that he was not going to take the necessary actions to defend the country because he didn’t feel the troops had the necessary training or equipment.
The crowd, I thought, was friendly, but not enthusiastic. The biggest cheer of the day occurred when Senator McCain was introduced by the graduating class (Senator McCain’s son graduated this year). I read once that McCain carried over 80% of the military vote and this reaction would reflect that (By the way, how I actually voted is my business, but I’ll say that I was not part of the 80%).
I talked to several people after both speeches and I heard mostly the same thing, so it wasn’t just my perception of the speeches. I think the conclusion I can reach is that Bush’s reputation for bad speeches was not warranted and Obama needs to put more effort into his military academy speeches.
But, if you just want a nice sounding speech without substance, it was a fine speech.
Did A Meteor Kill The Dinosaurs? May 12, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Science.add a comment
The popular theory is that a massive meteor struck the Earth 65 million years ago near what is now known as Chicxulub, Mexico. The effects of this impact destroyed the environment and caused the extinction of about 85% of the world’s lifeforms in what is known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T, extinction.
The evidence that a large impact occurred is conclusive. It is also clear that this impact caused widespread destruction of an unbelievable magnitude. Gigantic tsunamis ringed the world, earthquakes of a severity that we can’t imagine radiated out from the impact, returning debris caused firestorms, the suspended dust in the air caused climate change. And, of course, the impact site itself was totally obliterated with absolutely nothing surviving.
I became aware of this theory over 25 years ago and, at first, was skeptical. I read the comments that geologists and paleontologists made and they argued the evidence did not support the theory. As I continued with my education, I learned more and more about this theory and remained skeptical. I met many of the people that were involved with investigating it and even met Walter Alvarez, who first proposed the theory with his father, physicist Louis Alvarez, and got to talk to these people first hand. I have read a great deal about it and have studied the evidence.
This is one case when the evidence was enough to cause me to change my opinion. Or, at least to stop voicing my opposition. Many times, when I came up with an objection to the theory, the investigators were able to find the necessary evidence to show I was wrong.
One of the principle claims of the theory is that the impact put so much dust in the air that it blocked out the sunlight and caused what is known as a ‘nuclear winter.’ The idea of the nuclear winter has been discredited and found to be wrong. Placing giant amounts of dust in the air will not cause the world to go into massive climate change on the scale that was being proposed. When people pointed at some volcanic eruptions that had caused some climate change, I argued that it wasn’t the dust, it was the sulfur that was the source of the effect. Investigation later showed that the impact area had very large sulfur deposits which would have been put into the atmosphere as an aerosol. I argued this still would not cause a winter lasting for decades, as claimed, but my objections were not as strong.
I argued that the fossil evidence showed that many of the animals that went extinct actually survived the impact by as much as hundreds of thousands of years. Further analysis of those fossil records showed that the fossil beds had been disturbed, possibly even by the impact itself, and this disturbance had relocated the fossils out of the geologic sequence.
On and on it went. I made objections and they were able to counter them. Eventually, I began to accept they might have been right, after all. The answer to all of my objections, I decided, was just still buried and was simply waiting to be discovered. The fact that we didn’t know all of the answers didn’t make the theory invalid. It just meant we had to continue the research.
And yet, I always had a nagging problem with the whole scenario. Some of their claims did not make sense to me under the laws of physics.
One of the greatest problems I have had and continue to have is the description of worldwide firestorms that would, in essence, incinerate everything in the world. Under this scenario, the debris lifted out of the crater would rain back down all over the world with so much energy that it would turn the world into an oven with temperatures as high as thousands of degrees. This, I said, was not possible.
The amount of debris excavated by the impact, when distributed over the entire planet, would be very thin. It is not possible that it could carry enough energy to cause the temperature of the entire planet to skyrocket. But, they were able to show there was a layer of soot that dated to just after the impact. The claim is that this is soot from the worldwide fires. Not so, I said. All this shows is that soot was deposited. The accuracy of the thin sedimentary layer cannot show if that soot was deposited over 1 year or 100 years. It is undeniable that the impact occurred and it would certainly have caused enormous destruction. Certainly, entire forested regions would have been killed by the resulting cataclysm. With all of this dead wood sitting around, it would only be a matter of time before it caught fire. This kind of event would be repeated all over the world, resulting in just such a layer of soot as was observed.
I did some calculations of the amount of energy released by the impact. My estimates came in around 5 x 10^23 joules of energy. The accepted value is that it was probably around 4 x 10^23 joules, so I was very close. This is a truly unbelievable amount of energy. To put this in context, a 100 mega-ton atomic bomb, larger than any ever detonated, would release about 10^17 joules. In other words, the impact released the amount of energy in one million such bombs. This amount of energy is about 50 times as much as the second largest know explosion in history, the La Garita Caldera in Colorado. This was an explosive volcanic event that occurred some time about 26 million years ago and released around 10^22 joules, about 1/50th the size of the Chicxulub impact. This caldera is so large that geologists studied it for decades before they realized what it is.
But, even this extreme amount of energy would not result in the cataclysm that is claimed. Using a radius of the Earth of 6400 kilometers and an atmosphere thickness of 150 kilometers, I find that this would have resulted in about 10^3 joules per cubic meter, on average. This is enough to melt about 10 ice cubes and is far below what would be needed to result in the devastation claimed. Plus, the overwhelming majority of the released energy would have been concentrated in the immediate vicinity. This would have been a very large vicinity measuring many hundreds of miles across, but still small on a global scale. The resulting amount of energy for most of the planet to absorb would have been much less than the average.
So, I have listened to the theories and even teach it in my astronomy class, but there has always been a nagging problem in my mind that it just didn’t fit the laws of physics, at least not the way they were claiming. Now, evidence is starting to mount that the theory might be wrong after all and I read a recent NSF release with great interest. This report tells of how researchers have shown that the impact occurred long before the extinction, maybe as much as 300,000 years before. They have done some very nice research and uncovered some very strong evidence to support their claims. It will be very difficult to explain away what they have produced.
So, it looks like my gut instincts might have been right after all. I believe the impact occurred and that it was devastating. But, I’m skeptical about its role in the K-T extinction. I just don’t think this theory fits the laws of physics. There clearly is more research that needs to be done.
The Politics of Greed May 11, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Arnold, Op-Ed.add a comment
I consider myself to be an extreme optimist. My ex-wife was against me joining an optimist club because she thought they were pessimists compared to me. But, I find myself being a pessimist concerning the nation today.
I was having a conversation with a neighbor the other night and it left me depressed. What is most interesting to me is the fact that this guy was so optimistic and just bubbling with enthusiasm. The more I listened to him, the more troubled I was.
He was going on about how things are going so much better now and that the country is on the ‘right track.’ The stimulus bill and the spending by Congress and the President was going to make everything right. The mid-term elections in 2010, he said, would be really wonderful if things kept going the way they are. And, I realized he was right. And, that’s what made me depressed.
What I heard was someone that sounded like a teenager with a new credit card. Take that card and spend the money. Buy a new TV, new furniture, get a fancy car! While we’re at it, let’s buy a house on subprime terms so we can afford it. Life is good!
Of course, we all know the downside to this line of thought. Sooner or later, the card will be maxed out and you have to then pay the bills on it. The subprime loan becomes due and you find out you bought more house than you can afford, or even sell. And, since you’re spending a large percentage of your money on the finance charges, your standard of living begins to drop. Eventually, you are forced to file for bankruptcy.
We’ve seen all of this before. We’ve seen it on the personal level with the average person. We’ve seen it at the corporate level with all of the corporate greed gutting giant businesses. And, we’ve seen all of these entities collapse. But, now, we’re witnessing it at the government level and, somehow, people think its a good thing.
Tell me, what happens when the government can no longer make its payments? Do you really think that’s a crazy idea? Servicing the national debt is now the third largest item in the government budget. The amount of money spent on interest payments in 2008 was $412 billion. Obama and this Congress will have increased the national debt by 20% in the just the first year of his term. Servicing the national debt will be proportionally more expensive in the future and is about to become the largest single item in the budget. That is money that could have gone to something else.
But, you say, its OK as long as tax revenues increase enough to cover these payments. First, and most importantly, that is not the case. Interest payments have been growing faster than tax revenues. And, I’m very certain that tax revenues will not grow 20% this year.
But, that is a false argument to begin with. I am very conservative with my own money. With the exception of my mortgage, I have no debt. I don’t use credit cards, I pay cash for everything. When I bought my car I borrowed the money only because it was a 0% interest loan – there were no finance charges. I still have that car after six years and hope to keep it for another 7-8 years. I keep my money in interest bearing accounts so I don’t pay interest, I earn it. I live by a simply creed, ‘If I can’t pay cash for it, I don’t need it.’
How much difference does this make? You can probably see for yourself. Take all of your bills for the last month and add up the finance charges you paid. That is how much extra money I have in my pocket every month that you don’t. If you’re like most people, you may be paying over a thousand dollars every month for finance charges. I can do a lot with $1000 a month.
These same principles apply to the government. We need some debt to provide a sound financial system in the country. But, we don’t need to be spending this much every year. The effect has become to undermine the financial system, not support it. The government doesn’t even have to default on its payments, just the idea that government securities might be downgraded will be enough to cause a worldwide financial panic on a scale that has never been seen before.
And, this takes me back to the conversation with my neighbor. After everything we’ve seen the last year, you would think we would learn our lesson.
We’ve seen the collapse of the home mortgage industry as millions of people found they had bought more than they could reasonably afford. They, people said, were greedy fools.
We’ve seen the collapse of one giant corporation after another as the executives and unions have robbed the company of everything it had, diverting income streams into their pockets and benefits, instead of back into the company. They, people said, were greedy fools.
Now, the government is spending like crazy, giving everyone that can vote money for their pet projects. But, somehow, this is a good thing and the country is viewed as being on the ‘right track.’ How is it that we just don’t learn our lessons?
I really don’t need to go any further than my own family to witness the politics of greed first hand. My family is hard working. We all have jobs and don’t live on handouts. We’re all educated. All nine of us kids have at least some college education and there are several graduate degrees among us. I like to think that we are all intelligent. But, when the issue of the stimulus bill came up, I would hear my brothers and sisters say that they supported it because money was going to go to this or that, something they liked and supported. The fact that this was borrowed money that would have to be payed back was never mentioned.
And, that is why I think my neighbor is right about the 2010 elections. People don’t care that the money has to be paid back. They reason that it has to be paid back by the government, not by them. Of course, at least in theory, they are the government and the money the government spends is coming out of their pockets.
But, that isn’t the way people think. Taxes are taken out automatically and people never see that money, so they don’t feel like they lost anything. But, if they had to sit down every month and write a check to the government to pay for their taxes they would have a very different opinion. Take a look at your earnings statement. Compare the amount of taxes withheld from your pay to the amount of money you have to spend after all of your bills are paid.
And, of course, that money won’t have to be paid back by 2010, or even 2012. That will be left for some future administration and they will have to be the villains that cut the budget to pay for today’s politics of greed.
Do We Have A Soul? May 2, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Musings.add a comment
Certainly, that is an age-old question and I won’t be able to give a definitive answer here. But, I do have some thoughts.
I cannot prove the existence of the world. Its is possible that everything I witness is an illusion created in my mind. I wouldn’t say that its very possible, but I cannot completely discount it either. The fact stands, I cannot prove without doubt that you exist, that the Internet exists, that the room around me exists. I cannot even prove that my body exists. It could all be a very elaborate illusion.
But, I can prove one thing without question, if only to myself. I can prove that I think. I can’t prove it to you and you can’t prove to me that you think. But, I know, without any doubt, that I think. And, following the eloquent argument of Rene Descarte, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ I can then prove without question that I exist. Again, I can prove it to me, but not to you.
So, I know that I exist. There is something inside this body that is me. But, is that something a soul? In other words, is the something separate from the body and will it continue to exist after the body ceases to function? Is it possible that I am nothing more than animated chemicals? Again, I have to conclude that it is possible. It is possible that I exist only while this body continues to live. I don’t think it is very likely, but it is possible.
But, let’s go back to my earlier conclusion. I know that I exist. I cannot come up with any other possibility. Any form of alternative always leads back to that conclusion. You cannot take away my existence and leave my thinking in place.
So, if I exist, where did I come from? What is the ‘I’ that exists? If I loose my legs, I am still me. If I then loose my arms, I still exist. If I loose my eyes and ears and tongue, I still exist. Take away all body parts that are not necessary for the immediate demands of my living body (even if it would eventually die) and I still exist. This certainly seems to show that the body and the ‘I’ are not one and the same.
But, of course, if you take away the brain, the body can live for a long time, but the person is gone. This would seem to indicate the brain and the consciousness are linked. Is the ‘I’ in the brain? Or, is the brain merely the means for the individual to inhabit the body? Even then, not all parts of the brain are critical to this. You can loose parts of the brain and still be the person you were.
Its a conundrum and I don’t have an answer.
But, if there is an ‘I’ inside this body, it begs a couple of questions: “Where did I come from?”, and “Where am I going?”
I have no memory of any past lives. I have met people that claim they have such memories. I cannot do anything to prove or disprove those claims. And, there have been many people over the years that have made such claims. General George Patton, for instance, claimed to remember six prior lives. But, look at the list of lives he said he remembered: A prehistoric warrior who “battled for fresh mammoth” and “warred for pastures new”; a Greek hoplite who fought the Persians of King Cyrus; a soldier of Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre; a legionnaire with Julius Caesar in northern Gaul; an English knight at the battle of Crecy during the Hundred Years’ War; and a Napoleonic marshal at a time “when one laughed at death and numbers, trusting in the emperor’s star.” All of these memories are of soldiers. Patton was a great scholar, especially of military matters. As far as I know, he never had memories of non-soldiery activities. All of these ‘memories’ could be explained as being recollections from his studies over the years. These ‘memories’ certainly don’t constitute proof.
There are many stories of people that had detailed memories of prior lives that were investigated and confirmed. There are stories of people that had some kind of knowledge, such as fluency in a foreign language, that could not be explained. The problem with all of these stories is that they are just that. None of this stuff has ever been rigorously confirmed. And, there have been frauds that have been revealed, indicating that there really are people that would fake these kinds of things. Again, there is no proof there.
The same for life after death. Lots of people claim to have near-death experiences where they claim to have seen the after-life. There have been many scientific investigations into this with some results indicating its merely brain activity in the dieing brain. But, the scientific results cannot prove it one way or another. I have never experienced it myself, so I don’t have any comments about it.
So, we can’t prove anything about where we come from or about where we’re going. But, that still takes me back to my original conclusion. I know I exist. Based on that absolute, I must have come from somewhere, and it is necessary that I will eventually go somewhere. If I exist, both of these conclusions are inescapable. I don’t know where those places are, but the fact that I came and will go indicates there is more than just a body to me, there is an ‘I’.
In other words, I believe I have a soul and that soul is separate from my body. And, just like everyone else, someday I will get a definitive answer to the question. Hopefully, not for quite some time, though.
National Science Foundation Report on Climate Change May 1, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Global Warming.add a comment
I’ve written numerous reports concerning climate change and global warming. Click on the link to the right to see a list of them. I submitted a proof that man is responsible for global warming and have responded to at least two people that argue that mankind’s activities are not changing the climate. I’ve tried to include links and references to scientific data and refereed resources in this debate.
So, I thought I would include a link to the NSF report on climate change. I found it to be very interesting and a valuable resource.
It is becoming increasingly more difficult for the skeptics to deny the issues of global warming. I have stated that it is impossible for any skeptic to successfully challenge global warming based on a scientific argument and using scientific data. I have defended that statement and continue to stand by it. This report only strengthens the validity of that statement.
I would be very interested in having a skeptic show why this report is not valid. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be doing something more worthwhile during the long wait.
Making the Most of a Bad Situation April 27, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Arnold.add a comment
So, my son got into a fistfight at school the other day. Even the school administration said it wasn’t his fault. The other kid was taking my son’s lunch away from him and harassing him, trying to start a fight. Instead, my son tried to walk away, but the other kid hit him and it started. The other kid was hitting my son in the head, so my son hit him back, hitting him right in the nose. The other kid went down to the floor with blood all over his face. My son backed up away from him and tried to get away. By the time the other kid got back to his feet the police officer was there and broke it up.
I told him that I was actually proud of him. He tried to walk away from the fight, not pursue it. When he was attacked, he defended himself. And, when the other kid was down, he didn’t take advantage to clobber him. I told him he made some mistakes, like not going for help, but I confessed to him that I’m not sure I would have done any better. I could tell he was feeling very down about the whole thing and that made him feel better.
Even though the school admits he wasn’t at fault, the policy is that anyone in a fistfight gets a five day suspension from school. I support this policy. Having had to fight my way through junior high school, I know what its like to have to spend your time at school worrying about the next bully. School should be a place for learning, not bullying. So, my son is at home all this week.
But, he has the idea that this is a week off and he’s going to play around all week. I’ve made it clear to him that he is wrong on that count. This is still a school week and he has to go to bed and get up at the normal times. He also has to do all of his normal school work and I’m sitting down with him every night to review what he did. Failure to study results in consequences. I guess this is the problem with having a teacher for a father.
I’ve tried to explain to him how he can make this a positive thing. If he works at it, he will go back to school next week ahead of his classmates, not behind. By using this time to invest in his school work, he can become more proficient at it and actually raise his grades. This, I’ve been telling him, is how you take a bad situation and turn it to your advantage. He could go back and be the bad guy that gets into fights. Or, he could be Hester Prynne, an analogy that he didn’t get.
That, I think, is one of the biggest secrets to success. It is inevitable that something bad is going to happen to you. There is nothing you can do to prevent bad situations from coming your way. You can make all of the right decisions in life and you can minimize them, but they will still occur. And, how are you going to act when they do? Are you going to mope and sink low? Or, find a way to make the most of it?
I, of course, have had quite a lot of experience at it, so its pretty easy for me to talk about it. There’ve been times when, if I wasn’t getting in trouble, I would wonder what was wrong. Even when I work at making the right decisions, it seems like I’m a magnet for trouble. So, I really know what I’m talking about here.
I’m sure from my son’s perspective, this is double punishment. Not only is he suspended from school, but he has to listen to his dad talk about what an opportunity he has. It doesn’t get much worse than that for a teenager.
Irrationality of Creationism April 19, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Evolution and Creationism.add a comment
I’ve run across some stories about Creationists lately that have illustrated to me just how irrational this belief is. In summary, Creationists believe God created the world, about 6000 years ago, in a span of six days. The reason behind this belief is that the Bible says so and they claim the Bible is the word of God and, therefore, infallible.
And, that’s where the problems begin.
To start with, let’s examine what the Bible says about creation.
Starting with Genesis 1:1, God creates in order starting on the first day, the Heaven and the Earth, then light, night, the Firmament, Heaven, seas, dry land, plants, the Sun, the Moon, the stars, fish, fowl, land animals and man and woman.
Let’s ignore the weaknesses of this story, such as making plants before making the Sun. Instead, let’s look at Genesis 2, because in this chapter, God creates the Earth again – and its not the same story!
In the Genesis 2 creation, the Earth is formed as a barren landscape with no water. He then creates plants and causes it to rain before creating Man. Then, he goes about creating the Garden of Eden and places Man in the Garden. This man is then called Adam and he is alone, so God creates the beasts and fowl and brings them to Adam for him to name as he pleases. Despite this, Adam is perceived to be alone and Woman is created.
Very simply, it is not possible for both creation stories to be literal. There are great contradictions in the stories and the order of creation is different. In the first version of the story, the order of creation is plants, birds and fish, land animals, and finally man and woman to reign over all created before them, while in the Adam and Eve story, the creation order is reversed, with man coming first, then plants and animals. Woman is created the same time as man in the first version, but created much later than man in the second one.
If the Bible is the word of God and is to be believed literally, how do you go about reconciling these contradictions?
But, this is only the beginning. Explain to me how it is that you reject evolution because, you claim, the Bible must be believed. But, you’ll reject other parts of the Bible without hesitation. For instance, if the word of the Bible is absolute, then you must believe the Earth is the center of the universe and the Sun, Moon, planets and stars all orbit about us. A great example of this is the story, in chapter 10 of the Book of Joshua, of how God made the Sun stop moving in the sky. You cannot accept the story as the literal truth and still believe the Earth orbits the Sun.
Interestingly, there have been several attempts by the Creationist to show how this event was scientifically validated. The reason I find this so interesting is that they almost universally reject science. Why is it important to them to scientifically validate this event if they reject science?
But, this story has been thoroughly and completely debunked. Check out Snopes.com for an excellent example of this.
Just how irrational this belief can be is illustrated at the website The Day The Sun Stood Still. This site proceeds to offer ‘proof’ of the event by citing legends from many different cultures of a day when the Sun stood still. Since this legend lives in so many cultures, they reason, it is proof that it really did happen. There are many fallacies and logical errors in this argument, but let’s look at just one fatal flaw. They cite, besides the Book of Joshua, legends from China, India, Greece, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, and Polynesia. Impressive, when you think about it. This event, they claim, was independently observed and recorded by people all over the world. Except, they were all daytime, even though the cited examples went all the way around the Earth. These examples from different cultures all speak of a long day, not of a long night.
As if that wasn’t enough, they then cite another legend, one it which the night didn’t end for a long time – in Mexico! Wait a minute! Only a few lines above this, they are citing legends of a day when the Sun didn’t set in Mexico. Then, they follow it again with another story of a day when the Sun didn’t set – in Mexico again! This really was an amazing day. The Sun didn’t set, but it was also a long night! At the same time!
Apparently, it is somehow easy for many people to believe this, but it is difficult for them to believe these are only legends, passed down over the ages, and they are merely good stories and not historical accounts.
Not all religious people are so easily taken in. For instance, check out the Joshua Website, owned by the United Methodist Church, that says
Biblical writers often use hyperbole — exaggeration — as all good storytellers do.
The beliefs of these people are not even self-consistent and are not supported by anything in the Bible. Yet, they will continue to argue that they are true, because the Bible says so. But, the Bible also says it didn’t happen that way.
So, why isn’t that a problem for them?
James Abbott and the University of South Dakota April 15, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Legal Fight With USD.add a comment
I read this editorial in the USD school newspaper, The Volante, today. As you can see, I have not been exaggerating when I talk about how malicious the USD administration is.
When I was there, Abbott was famous for his vindictiveness. When I got into my legal problems, people were telling me of their first hand horror stories. When I asked them if they would be willing to testify, they said they were afraid. Abbott, they said, would either fire them or, if they didn’t work for the university, would fire their spouses. Five faculty members stepped forward and volunteered to testify of their personal experiences where they suffered retaliation at the hands of Abbott. They didn’t have to, but the very fact they were willing to forced the university to change their tactics.
Lawyers all over the state warned me about how vindictive Abbott is and they told me that, no matter how long it took and no matter what it took, Abbott would get even with anyone that crossed him. It was spelled out for me in perfectly clear language that breaking the law was not something he was afraid of doing.
I received many death threats during my last year there after the legal fight began. I would be somewhere in town and someone would come up to me and ask me who I was. When I responded, they would say something like, ‘I just wanted to let you know that I heard Jim Abbott is going to burn your house down while you’re asleep.’ Or, maybe that he was going to have stolen property or illegal drugs placed in my car and then call the police. Over the course of a year, I received about 10 such threats. Right before I left town, someone came up to me one evening while I was having a beer and told me Abbott was going to have Tina Keller killed and have me framed for it. That way, I was told, he would get rid of me and a troublesome mistress at the same time.
Now, you can believe that Abbott had nothing to do with all of that. But, when total strangers come up to me and start making comments like that, I cannot believe for a second that it was uncoordinated. And, the best part is, no laws were broken. They didn’t actually threaten me, they just told me they had heard about it somewhere. But, the message was clear.
Let me say that I never believed they would carry through with the threats. I felt at the time, and feel even today, that they were just trying to intimidate me. In that regard, they failed completely.
In fact, it is this very vindictiveness that is the source of their problems now. After leaving town, I was worn out and ready to put it all behind me. I would have settled for anything they might have offered me. Instead, I fully understood they were going to come after me with everything they had. They didn’t want to settle, they wanted to make an example of me. Forced to fight, I found a way to win. I knew the South Dakota courts would never decide against USD or Abbott and I was flat out told the only way I could win was to go to the US Supreme Court. So, that’s where I am now. And, I believe very strongly that I will win.
Given the documented history of this school, I really have to wonder why anyone would accept a position there. In fact, they have a very hard time filling their openings. I have been told by members of the administration that about one-third of all open faculty positions go unfilled every year. Its understandable.
Knowing the history and attitude of Abbott and his cronies, I have cut and pasted the entire editorial below. If he forces the Volante to remove it, there is a copy of it here. Also, notice there is no by-line on the editorial.
***************************
SPECIAL EDITORIAL: Administration secrecy must stop
Published: Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, April 15, 2009
They’re intensely secretive, they’re unapologetic and they increasingly deal in misleading statements.
They’re members of USD’s administration.
They’re a group led by President James Abbott and it increasingly seems their mission is to squelch negative news and muzzle dissent among faculty and staff.
Just a few weeks ago, Abbott downplayed the recession’s effects on USD in a forum. He assured us personnel and program cuts were last resorts.
Now, despite the fact that USD is a liberal arts institution, science programs are being expanded at the expense of 16 faculty and staff, who were abruptly fired last week.
We weren’t we told we had so quickly reached our last resort.
And the administration’s secrecy didn’t start with the firings.
Earlier this semester, we wrote about the secrecy surrounding the administration’s controversial plan to fund the Promise Scholarship.
That’s the scholarship centralization scheme.
Seemingly plucked from thin air, it seemed hurried and reactionary. Students, faculty and staff were blindsided by the administration’s sudden, unprovoked power grab.
Many faculty and staff had strong opinions on the secrecy, but their opinions weren’t printed in The Volante. And that’s not because we didn’t ask.
It’s because the administration seems willing to punish when secrecy is violated. This has created a culture of fear.
The Volante was refused interviews by several faculty members, citing possible administration retaliation. Others insisted on off-the-record interviews, saying even the lightest criticism of administration policies or decisions could end their careers at USD.
Faculty and staff have even requested we contact them through non-USD e-mail accounts, in case university e-mail was being read.
We recently received an anonymous letter from a faculty member decrying the administration’s Promise Scholarship secrecy. While it is our policy to not publish unsigned letters, this statement is quite telling:
“I’m not signing this note because I honestly believe that doing so would cost me my job,” they write.
We can’t be sure why these faculty and staff believe their jobs are at risk.
We’re no conspiracy theorists, but that feeling seems ubiquitous on campus.
Is the Abbott administration actively punishing faculty and staff who dissent from its policies and decisions? We demand an answer.
We note that the Abbott Administration has complied with The Volante’s every interview request.
They routinely meet with our reporters for interviews on many topics, and they’re nice about it.
But we’re not concerned with their manners. We’re concerned they’re not telling us the whole story. We’re concerned that, with faculty effectively silenced, they can spin information any way they’d like.
Abbott even refused an invitation to participate in the Cross Media Council’s Budget Forum on Thursday. He would have been forced to answer to fellow faculty sitting next to him onstage, unlike in his own forum, which occurs an hour earlier than the CMC’s.
So his refusal is quite telling.
Of course, some degree of secrecy is necessary. We know some decision-making processes are sensitive and must be kept from the general public.
But Abbott and company are treating the rest of USD like the enemy by withholding information and downplaying negative news.
This secrecy is unwarranted. Indeed, if we’d have been told layoffs were coming, we mayhave been better able to accept them when they did.
But instead, we were consistently left in the dark about the imminent danger of layoffs. We were consequently dismayed by last week’s firings.
Faculty and staff are fearful. They were suddenly thrust into a world of layoffs, a world from which the administration suggested they’d be protected.
More, they’re being pressured to not criticize their superiors. Is this the kind of work environment that would be tolerated in any other state institution?
The administration’s secretive tactics have been tolerated for far too long.
It is imperative that students, faculty and staff make it known to the administration that under no uncertain terms will they accept undue secrecy and bullying tactics.
Arctic Sea Ice Continues to Thin April 13, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Global Warming.1 comment so far
One of the issues that global warming skeptics hate most is the issue of thinning arctic sea ice. The reason is that there is clearly no other explanation other than global warming. Try as they might, and they really do try, they cannot explain this phenomena away. Their favorite explanation is to just deny its occurring. I have frequently been told by the skeptics that arctic sea ice is at record extent, which is completely contrary to the facts. The truth is, arctic sea ice has dramatically thinned over the last 30 years. Now, new data shows this thinning is continuing.
Recently released studies by NASA show that the sea ice level continues to be at near record lows. While the data shows the extent of sea ice has increased this past winter over winter last year, it also shows a greater amount is thin ice. This is very important because thin ice is more likely to melt completely. Once the ice melts, the ocean begins to heat as it absorbs the sunlight that was previously absorbed and reflected by the ice. A warmer ocean means ice will melt longer, form later, and be thinner, leading to an even worse scenario in the future.
Again, I would like to hear any global warming skeptic explain this with scientific data and using the scientific method. They don’t explain it because they can’t. So, they just deny it. And, instead of finding the strength of will to work together and fight this problem, we spend our time and strength debating the obvious. All the while, the situation continues to get worse.
Look at the reports linked above and decide for yourself.
A Time To Catch My Breath April 12, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Arnold, Musings.add a comment
My life has been quite full since about the beginning of December. Christmas, the start of the new semester, scientific papers, legal fight, sailing training, household projects, official duties, and more have all added up to keep me completely occupied. But, I made a couple of my famous to-do lists and just checked off things as I got them done.
Now, I’ve managed to work through all of these major items. I completed my tax returns yesterday and that was the last one. I completed my sailing training this last week and am now just waiting for my summer assignment. Most importantly, I submitted a significant scientific paper that I’ve been working on for the last two years. This was a major effort and required a huge amount of studying and researching, and restudying and re-researching. But, it is now being reviewed by peers and I am waiting for their comments. My teaching requirements are, as usual, demanding, but the semester is going amazingly smoothly. Being a single-dad with a teenager has had its expected moments this spring, but we muddle through somehow.
I tell you this because, despite all of the intense demands and heavy workload, I have had very little stress. I have been very much at ease with the demands on me and have really enjoyed myself. I have my girlfriend, Diane, to thank for much of that. Somehow, we have kept this long-distance relationship going and have just celebrated our first year together. She has been a comfort and a joy. Everyone needs someone like that in their lives. If you don’t, find someone.
I also have been involved in things I enjoy doing. Mondays are not days I dread and I do not spend my week counting the days until the weekend. I love my job and I love where I work. Teaching at the Naval Academy has been the best job I’ve ever had. I not only get to teach dedicated students, but I am in a very supportive atmosphere. They give me time to do research and freedom to teach my classes. And, the exchange between faculty is great. People routinely share papers they have submitted, give talks on their research, and invite other faculty to meet with outside guests when they are on campus. This last week I got to meet with NASA’s director of Mars exploration. This week, I will be meeting with the director of astronomy funding from the National Science Foundation. While it may not sound like much to many people, for someone like me, its better than fine chocolate. And, that’s the moral. Enjoy your work and bring in extra things to keep it interesting. Enjoying what you do does more than add five days to your week. If you have to spend all of your off-time recovering from how much you hate your job, then you really don’t have any off-time, just recovery time. As much as I love what I do, I can switch gears on weekends and holidays and do something else without a feeling of relief that I’m not at work, or dread about it ending.
Another thing that has helped is that I put fun things on my to-do list. Diane loves this. In among the chores are ‘go to the movies’ or ‘read a book’ or ‘play a video game’ or something similar. Taking a break from the work keeps me fresh and actually makes me more productive than if I had just kept working straight through.
I always take time for myself. I love to take bubble baths, especially by candlelight. Add a glass of wine and I’m in hog heaven. I eat well and I get a good night’s sleep. I exercise. I keep my house clean and neat. I spend time talking to my son (Its even better when he talks to me, too. Teenagers!). I take walks on the local nature trails. Sometimes by myself, but also when Diane is in town (about once a month). I feel I’m worth taking care of, even worth pampering, and I enjoy doing it. A little fine dining every now and then, a better bottle of wine, a little fine chocolate, a good dessert. It also makes it easy to pamper the people in my life, which makes them even more pleasant to be with.
I try to be truthful with myself. And, I always feel grateful for the things I have.
Now, I have one of those rare periods where there are no major tasks to be done. The to-do list has everything marked off. I can sit and just enjoy. Or not, if that’s what I want to do. I know a new to-do list will be coming, so I want to enjoy this interlude while I can. I’ve been sitting in my study with a good book this morning and I think I’ll do some work in the garden this afternoon. What a great pleasure both of those are.
Life is good. But, its even better when you plan it that way.
