The brain in love.

No one gets out of love alive. That is the brain...in love.

or...



Romantic possess you...and someone is camping in your head...

Love,
The Lass

for Mandela...my favorite song...for many reasons.

This song haunts my dreams...and it reminds me that we all need to THINK...about what courage means. I do...and I am constantly humbled by that thought. Would I stand? Well...I did once. My mother did once...and we found we stood alone...for a little time...then...others joined. That was a very long time ago.

It doesn't matter now...It wasn't roaring it was weeping....My God...this is a tune.

Happy Birthday Nelson.

Love,
The Lass

statistically speaking...there is a possiblity for error...with fatal consequences.

and to prove my point....



Oh you may think that you are smarter than the jury...or the statistician....and that may be true. But when it comes to important things...I rather refer to my old friend Solomon. While all the evidence, arguments and pleas did not furnish an answer...one statement did. "Cut the baby in half" Now...that seems to me to be a very good way to determine the answer. Or at least it makes sense to me. Why?

Because...well I think you already know.

Love,
The Lass

happy fourth of july....and memories of better times...

Have a safe...wonderful celebration. We really are a revolutionary lot. So...drink your iced TEA...and enjoy the illuminations...and remember...our Thomas Lamb arrived here in 1630...no doubt he never would dream that a woman would be celebrating the men and women who lived so long ago...well Thomas...thanks for taking the trip...and thanks for giving me a shot...at a life in the greatest nation on this earth...you better believe it.

'

Have to work...but I did spend some time sharing the day and the festivities with my fellow Seattle immigrants...

Love,
The Lass

when in the course of human events...

what words can do...



This document was signed on July 2, 1776...well at least some signed it...that day...and by the way, Hancock never said anything about the king...or his signature...that is lore. But I rather like lore...just need to make sure we don't get too wrapped up in it. The truth is...He had a very flamboyant signature...but if you ask me...I rather like the lore. But that is me.

What men were these? Well they were men who had a vision...and a mission...and we are here to tell the tale.

Thank you forefathers...and I am thinking about you today.

Love,
The Lass

america the beautiful...and a garden...well of sorts...

A garden...of the god's...a woman...a poem...and the rest is history...

O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain . . . The author of "America the Beautiful," Katharine Lee Bates, was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1859 and grew up near the rolling sea. Her graceful poetic style came through in poems such as "The Falmouth Bell:" Never was there lovelier town Than our Falmouth by the sea. Tender curves of sky look down On her grace of knoll and lea. . . . Bates, who eventually became a full professor of English literature at Wellesley College, made a lecture trip to Colorado in 1893 and there she wrote the words to "America the Beautiful." As she told it, "We strangers celebrated the close of the session by a merry expedition to the top of Pike's Peak, making the ascent by the only method then available for people not vigorous enough to achieve the climb on foot nor adventurous enough for burro-riding. Prairie wagons, their tail-boards emblazoned with the traditional slogan, "Pike's Peak or Bust," were pulled by horses up to the half-way house, where the horses were relieved by mules. We were hoping for half and hour on the summit, but two of our party became so faint in the rarified air that we were bundled into the wagons again and started on our downward plunge so speedily that our sojourn on the peak remains in memory hardly more than one ecstatic gaze. It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind." Happy Independence Day... Love, The Lass

randy pausch.....and I just needed to revisit him...

oh what a man...and what a lecture. I once visited this wonder...and now I needed to visit him again...



Love
The Lass

listen to this young man....he is brilliant...and I am going to get to see him...

His name is Bjorn Lomborg and you need to read his books...and think about what he is saying. Why? Well read on...who is he? HMMMM...a statistician with an attitude...love it...

jorn Lomborg is associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His formal education is political science. He earned his Ph.D. in game theory. From 2002 - 2004 he was head of the Environmental Assessment Institute. In 2004, following the Copenhagen Consensus, he resigned the post to return to academia. He is also the author of:

Cool it - The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide To Global Warming

A groundbreaking book that transforms the debate about global warming by offering a fresh perspective based on human needs as well as environmental concerns.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world's temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply-which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He asks why the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent.

Lomborg presents us with a second generation of thinking on global warming that believes panic is neither warranted nor a constructive place from which to deal with any of humanity's problems, not just global warming. Cool It promises to be one of the most talked about and influential books of our time.



Now...he does draw fire...

The concern over Lomborg's misrepresentation of the science was so great that three complaints were lodged with the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, which Lomborg describes as "a national review body, with considerable authority".

The committee found "the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice". [10] They stated "there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty ... have been met".

In the wake of the decision the conservative Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, requested a review of the work of the Institute for Environmental Valuation (IEV) which Lomborg had been appointed to head in February 2002.

Subsequently, the Danish government appointed a panel of five scientists to evaluate the reports produced by IEV. In August 2003 the committee announced that "the panel must conclude that none of the reports represent scientific work or methods in the traditional scientific sense".

In December 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (a branch of the government that had appointed Lomborg) repudiated the findings of the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, saying its treatment of the case was "dissatisfactory", "deserving criticism" and "emotional" and contained a number of significant errors. It told the DCSD to reconsider their verdict.

In March 2004, the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty declined to reconsider its verdict against Lomborg.

But as I frequently say...you are never a prophet in your own land...so what does that mean for our young statistician? Well...more controversy...but does he make sense? Well, some people think not. There is even a website to keep track of his errors...my my....errors site go here. Think about it. This man's ideas draw fire....must be hitting the right buttons.

There is a saying about men of controversy...

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King...well he drew fire...

or better stated...“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves” Abraham J. Heschel

Well what do I think...I will tell you after I attend a meeting on July 15th in Seattle...to listen...with eyes wide open...if you get my point.

Oh...and one more thing...

they felt the need to tell us this...

Lomborg is openly gay and a vegetarian. As a public figure he has been a participant in information campaigns in Denmark about homosexuality, and states that "Being a public gay is to my view a civic responsibility. It's important to show that the width of the gay world cannot be described by a tired stereotype, but goes from leather gays on parade-wagons to suit-and-tie yuppies on the direction floor, as well as everything in between"

So...did this add to the analysis of his ideas? No...but it does reveal something about what is important to those who think those things are important...go figure...Do I care??? nope...I still think he is brilliant...just not sure if he is right...still working on that one...How about you?

Well...start thinking...and give the lad a chance to voice his concerns.

Love,
The lass...still asking the questions...and looking for the answers. Not so much for me...but for three young girls whose future I do care about...