Saturday, March 27, 2010

Martin Rucker visits Parkville

I met the current 29th District state representative Martin Rucker who is running for the Missouri State Senate for the 34th District. Let me see...the current senator is Charlie Shields...he's never been in our store. Mr. Rucker was in today. I don't know Shields' politics, but I suspect there would be little about them with which I would agree.
I'm going to watch this race with renewed interest simply because Mr. Rucker stopped by specifically to meet me, Carol and Leif in our store. It reminds me of the very first time Mike White ran for office in Jackson County. That's a long story, but because of his personal efforts Carol and I voted for him and, as I recall, he won by one vote!
All politcs are local.
==JFK==

Monday, March 8, 2010

Parkville Residents asked to Participate in Local Precipitation Measurements

This was originally posted on the H.M.S. Beagle Science Blog, but I thought it was appropriate for here too. After all, when it comes to global climate change, we're all in this together. Whether or not you subscribe to to the overwhelming evidence that the earth's climate is changing and in large part due to human activity since the dawn of the industrial age, I think that you can well appreciate the need for as much data as possible. With more data climatologists can greatly sharpen their models and their predictions.

This was sent to us, at the Beagle, this morning by the Earth Gauge group:

Parkville, MO
Link: http://www.earthgauge.net/2010/march-madness-2

Earth Gauge: March Madness
It’s March Madness for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) – they want to see how many volunteers sign up this month to measure precipitation in their backyards. CoCoRahS is a nationwide network of citizen scientists who are measuring and mapping precipitation in their communities. CoCoRaHS volunteers help to provide quality rain, hail and snow data used by the National Weather Service, hydrologists, emergency managers, city utilities, engineers, ranchers and farmers, teachers and a range of other interest groups.
Viewer Tip: CoCoRaHS is in all 50 states! Sign up to become a Volunteer Observer with CoCoRaHS in your state to help this network grow. You can volunteer to measure precipitation as an individual or as part of a community or school group. Check out http://www.cocorahs.org/ to learn more.

(Sources: Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. www.cocorahs.org; “About Us,” http://www.cocorahs.org/Content.aspx?page=aboutus)

JFK