VIDEO: Volcano From Space

ISS020 Saraychev Peak Eruption

A chance event captured by astronauts by photos and remixed by private citizens to make a video. They were able to do this because the ISS photos are public domain as the astronauts were taking pictures in the course of their official government duties.
But I didn’t post this [...]

Find Your Way with NOAA Charts

Alaska is a maritime state. We have more coastline than the rest of the United States put together.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has made it easy to examine the charts covering our coastlines, islands and channels with their Online Chart Viewer at http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/OnLineViewer.html.
Start by clicking on Alaska. If the chart names and numbers [...]

Groundtruthing on Douglas Island

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Gastineau Meadows trail and how I hoped it would provide an entry to a number of different trails on Douglas Island. One of the hikes I hoped to do was to start off on the Mt. Jumbo trail, hike up to the intersection with the Treadwell Ditch [...]

Unwelcome Results Pt. 2 – Postponed

Last weekend I shared some (to me) unexpected results about the correlation between abortion restrictions and country human rights reports. I invited comments about my methodology and conclusions and said I’d react to it the following weekend.
But I didn’t get comments on my methods or speculation on what it could mean to the pro-life movement. [...]

Road to Ruin: Patriotic Retirement Plan

Part of why we’re in deep trouble in this country is that people aren’t numbers literate. This leads them to embrace quick feel good solutions that are quite frankly madness.
Case in point is an e-mail I received today:
———————————————–
Subject: PLAN TO FIX THE ECONOMY
This is from an article in the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday. [...]

Unwelcome Results: Part 1

If there is any common area of agreement between absolutist pro-choicers and absolutist pro-lifers, it is that the issue of abortion is absolutely key to human rights.
The pro-life argument is that the right to life is absolutely fundamental and trumps all others. To allow abortion is the first or early stop on the road to [...]

Walking Tour of Solar System

A few weeks ago, I thought it would be neat to demonstrate the distance between planets in the solar system by documenting Juneau’s Solar System walk on video. The Solar System walk is out at Twin Lakes. This video is about three and a half minutes long and has pictures both [...]

Book Review: Honeymoon in Tehran

I just finished reading the book:
Moaveni, Azadeh. (2009). Honeymoon in Tehran: Two years of love and danger in Iran. New York: Random House.
And I highly recommend it. Not because it is a balanced look at Iran, even though it is. Not because it focuses on women in Iran, though it does.  But mostly because it [...]

A Gastineau Meadow

A Gastineau Meadow
Originally uploaded by AlaskanLibrarian

Time for a change of pace, don’t you agree?
This picture is from a two hour walk I took today along Juneau’s newest official hiking trail. The trail is called Gastineau Meadows and is off Crowhill St in Douglas. You can see many more pictures from the trail from my Gastineau [...]

Chain of Death Broken

When I read about Dr. George Tiller’s assaination by Scott Roeder, I reflected that this was one more link in a sequence of death that I supposed would end with Kansas giving Mr. Roeder the death penalty. What I imagined looked something like this:
- A mother decides that her unborn child would make her life [...]