You, Too, Can Be Elected President!

....at least elected as our Virtual President, that is.

Sponsored by Cable In The Classroom, a site called eLECTIONS, Your Adventure In Politics.

This is quite a site. Some might consider it a game, but maybe running for office is a "game" of sorts.

Anyway, you choose your party, place yourself on the starting line, spin the dial for a number, and off you go. If you play as a single player, you have a virtual opponent. If you play with a partner, you and your friend pick a party (based on one Republican and one Democratic candidate), and take off on your campaigns together.

On the way, you "earn" money through contributions, have to participate in candidate debates, and sometimes a "scandal" erupts which causes your poll numbers to dip.

Not many days are left of the real presidential campaign, but if you have any inklings of wanting to run yourself, give eLECTIONS a run for the money.

Renewable Fuel

Although I've never owned a diesel-powered car, I have spent a bit of time around diesel engines, particularly in my days of commercial salmon fishing.

As we see our world-wide supply of fossil fuels shrink day-by-day, it's somewhat reassuring that people "out there" are working hard to provide us with alternative fuel options that don't deplete our non-renewable fuel resources.

One such effort is The National Biodiesel Board. Their site, Biodiesel, has a wealth of information about this initiative.

Quick! Duck!

If you've ever wondered what the migration paths of ducks are, do I have the site for you:
The Waterfowl Migration Map.

A service of Ducks Unlimited, their Waterfowling site gives you the opportunity to track migration of favorite waterfowl.

Some of the Ducks Unlimited site is focused on hunting, but there are also links to Conservation and information about these birds.

The mission of Ducks Unlimited is as follows:

Ducks Unlimited conserves, restores, and manages wetlands and associated habitats for North America's waterfowl. These habitats also benefit other wildlife and people.

Ghosts, Spooky Tales, and Fun Stuff, Too!

With just under two weeks until the big day, I've got to return to the Halloween theme. If you're going to do any exploring about goblins and pumpkins and costumes and scary stories....now's the time to do it. No fun waiting all the way until October 31.

Yahoo has a clearinghouse of information about Halloween (and other holidays) here. From this impressive list of links, you can find gobs of information and "stuff" about this most haunted of holidays. Naturally, a lot of it is supposed to be in the ominous and scary spirit of the season, but there's some just plain fun here, too.

One of the most enjoyable things about this season is the excuse it gives any of us literary types to revisit the genre of spooky stories.

Just like the days of when radio dramas were the big hit, there are sites that have stories available online in both printed and aural form.

One such site that spccializes in "ghost stories and strange folktales of the American South, told by the region's most celebrated storytellers (sometimes the author!)," is The Moonlit Road. Makes me wish I had Internet access in my car for long drives and commutes.

Except maybe for Trick or Treat-ing, nothing more fun than listening to some scary stories!

Volcano! Update

Our very own Mount St. Helens has been spewing, rumbling, letting off steam, etc. for some weeks now. As an update to my earlier entry about our volcano, I add the following resources to the mix.

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument [Windows Media Player]
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/mshnvm/
Mount St. Helens
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/msh/ [Quicktime, gif]
Mount St. Helens, Washington
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/framework.html
Mount St. Helens Seismicity Information
http://www.pnsn.org/HELENS/welcome.html
Narrative of Mount Saint Helens
http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vnarrative1.html
NASA Infrared Images May Provide Volcano Clues [jpeg]
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/oct/HQ_04331_sthelens_images.html
Mount St. Helens Blows Steam, Ash
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0930_040930_mountsthelens.html#main
Mount St. Helens streams and swells [Internet Explorer Browser]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6092368/
A Reporter Remembers 25 Years Later
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/05/17/st.helens.hamann/

Well, I'll Bee

It's been years since I've tried my hand at beekeeping and, even back then, I wasn't all that successful. However, bees remain of great fascination to me.

A great source for information about these critters and how to care for and maintain hives is BeeSource.com......Online Source For Beekeeping.

If you're ever tempted to jump into the world of this amazing insect, this is a good place to start.

Fall Colors

There is no denying that summer is definitely gone and fall is well entrenched in our weather and consciousness. School's been back in session for weeks and the skies are not as often blue and bright as they were in August.

One of the beauties of fall is watching the leaves change color and float to the ground. Out here in the Northwest, we've got plenty of coniferous trees (pine, spruce, etc.) that don't turn color with the change in the seasons. We do have a smattering of deciduous trees, though, so we get a chance to watch this metamorphosis take place.

Still, the area of the US that truly shows its colors in the fall is the Northeast and Southeast. If you're interested in keeping up with the changes in fall colors, one place to check out and revisit is The Foliage Network. They have reports from the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest with daily updates of color changes and rates of falling leaves.....not to mention pictures of this beautiful time of year.

Whistling A Tune....And More!

As the introduction to this site says:

This website is the result of over ten years of collecting whistling records. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the only site of it's kind in all of cyberspace. You'll find over 100 MP3s from whistlers around the world, discographies, album covers and more. Don't miss the section on vintage training records for parakeets and canaries!

I began collecting whistling records in 1993 when two volumes of Incredibly Strange Music were released on compact disc. These were compilations of oddball recordings from the fifties and sixties. One of the tracks was Fred Lowery whistling "The William Tell Overture" from his Whistle a Happy Tune album. Never before had I heard anything like it and was instantly hooked.

Learning about the relatively few whistling records in existence and tracking them down took quite some time. They were stumbled upon, one by one. The last three or four years it has became much easier to find them, especially the more obscure ones, thanks to the internet and online sources like ebay. I'd estimate 90% of my collection arrived in the mail, the other 10% came from local record stores.

Check out the Online Guide to Whistling Records.

Pumpkin Redux

Even though I've already had a couple posts about the October holiday -- Halloween! -- I'm going to file another.

Check out Pumpkins And More, put together by the University of Illinois Extension. Not only will you find all the information you ever needed to know about this favorite squash of the season, but you can get linked to some Halloween sites, too.

Carve out some time and give Pumpkins And More a visit!

Seeing United States History

I must be at a certain age because when I see some films or pictures from the past (and we're talking years and decades here, not weeks and months), my curiosity is piqued. The "Now And Then" pictures in the Pacific section of the Sunday Seattle Times/Seattle Post-Intelligencer have held a certain fascination for some years but now I've run across a treasure-trove of pictures from the past.

The Bureau of Land Management has a site which houses Historical Pictures from the 1890s to the 1980s. You can browse or search the collection. Many pictures are considered in the public domain,.

For those interested in the United States and its history, this collection gives you a glimpse back. In its introduction the BLM Historical Pictures site says:

The historical database contains more than 3,500 historical digital images, some dating back more than a century. These images document the nation’s westward migration and highlight the activities of the General Land Office and the Grazing Service, which were later consolidated to form the BLM. The photos in this database are part of BLM’s digital photo library.

Definitely worth a look or two.....and many more!

More Online Excellence And Teaching/Learning Resources

Yet another very exciting online resource --National Science Digital Library (NSDL) -- gives you access to a tremendous amount of linked information. Take the online Flash tour by clicking here. This animated tour will give you an excellent introduction to NSDL and its mission. It also lays out how the website is organized and how to best access the resources you need.

Many sites are linked to this library and one that I got hooked up to after only a few minutes doing an exploration of NSDL's resources was Teachers Domain (registration required to enter site, but registration is free). Under the sponsorship of WGBH in Boston, the Teachers Domain is a tremendous resource for broadcast and other material on a wide range of subjects.

And that's just one example of what you can find by taking a dive into NSDL. This is a winner.

A Top-Notch Educational Site

Internet4Classrooms -- Helping Teachers Use The Internet Effectively is simply an astounding site.

Collaborators Susan Brooks and Bill Byles have assembled a tremendous store of resources in all the major subject areas.

The primary categories of their site include:

• Links for K-12 Teachers
  
• Daily Dose Of The Web
• Online Modules
• Searching
• Educational News
• Grants
• In School Integration Support (ISIS)

Outstanding and well-worth regular revisits!

Volcano!

Mount St. Helens, as you no doubt have already seen, is rumbling, shaking, and spewing back into some sort of life. Impossible to know how the mountain will play out this episode of magma movement, but it's a very interesting time in our area, volcanically speaking.

A couple logical places to check out for information about volcanoes in general is "How Volcanoes Work" and for specific info and updates on Mount St. Helens, I can recommend the United States Geological Survey (USGS) site, "Mount St. Helens, Washington."

Evolution And Analysis Of The Toothbrush

Written by Kyle Sembera at Lamar University at Beaumont, I could not resist this article about that humble but oh so important tool for healthy teeth.

From the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' website, I think you'll enjoy this look back at where the toothbrush came from and how it has developed.

Online E-Literature

More and more literature is being made available via the Internet.

Here is a site that offers access to the work of many 18-century literary works. Called "Eighteenth Century E-Texts," you'll be amazed at the variety of works available at the click of your mouse.

You'll also find links to other online digitized literature resources that include other initiatives to get great books online and available to as wide a public as possible.

The Big Debate Tonight

Another posting about presidential debates, this time on the occasion of John Kerry and President Bush's first face-to-face appearance on the debate stage.

Many resources and information available at the Commission on Presidential Debates.

A Cosmically Relatively Close Call

An asteroid named Asteroid 4179 Toutatis brushed by Earth at its closest distance today. For a summary of the space rock, its composition, its size, and its "eccentric four-year orbit," click here.

Scientific Credibility On The Big Screen

The online version of Chemical & Engineering News has a service on its website called ReelScience.

ReelScience reviews selected movies in national release. The reviews not only give the standard summaries of plot and character but they also examine the science behind the "plot" and see how it compares with "real" science.

One movie recently reviewed was "The Day After Tomorrow." C&EN writer Bette Hileman gives the flick four of five stars (I, Robot only got two-and-a-half). A sample paragraph from her review says:

To a scientist, the film is interesting because it compresses everything that could happen under an abrupt climate change scenario (and much that could not happen) into a few days, rather than the more realistic decades. A collapse of the thermohaline circulation is a low-probability, but high-impact event. If it did occur in the early 21st century, it would have a huge impact on weather.

Other films currently reviewed inclue "Blue Butterfly" and "Godsend."

Satire

After hearing another example of very effective political satire from Harry Shearer, I couldn't help but include him here.

Check out Le Show. Le Show is Harry Shearer's weekly radio program that airs on a number of stations across the US. This website is a place where you can come and listen to current or past shows (going back as far as October, 1995) and find out if a radio station in your area carries the program.

This is one very talented guy.

The Internet And Its Impact On American Life

The Pew Internet & American Life Project studies how our life is affected and influenced by the Internet. At the moment, featured reports include: "How Americans Use Instant Messaging," "The Internet and Daily Life," "How Americans Get In Touch With Government," and "Internet as Unique New Source."

Categories of on-going studies include

• Online Activities & Pursuits
• Major New Events
• E-Gov & E-Policy
• Technology & Media Use
• Latest Trends
• Your Input
• Our Commentary

In today's What's New category, the question is asked: Do You Use RSS?

A useful site to both keep up with new developments and to help assess which of those new developments warrant the "hype."