- Aside from debunking key theories from that kook Albert Einstein, what exactly have the fols at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory, been doing with their expensive toys? Not much, but they may finally be getting around to accomplishing something of note. From the time the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its supercooled electromagnets became operation in 2008, the global scientific community has been awaiting confirmation of the discovery of one of the universe's most secretive particles -- the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is believed to be the "force carrier" of the Higgs field -- a field thought to permeate the entire universe and endow matter with mass. Only powerful particle accelerators like the LHC provide any chance of seeing these elusive particles. Rumors of their discovery have cropped up over the past few years, but none of those rumors have proven accurate. The latest rumor is that , CERN's Scientific Policy Committee will be meeting on Tuesday to discuss, amongst other things, an update on the search for the Higgs boson. Teams from the lab’s ATLAS and CMS experiments will be in attendance and the head scientists of the two groups will be there to give the Higgs update. Typically, junior researchers are the ones to present on this particular topic. Perhaps the LHC really has locked in on the Higgs and it is only a matter of time before it is found. Both the ATLAS and CMS experiments have independently identified a Higgs signal and the predicted mass of the particle agrees with the experimental results. Locating the Higgs would also bolster one of physics' bedrock theories, the Standard Model. To go all science dork on you, the ATLAS detection has been measured to a 3.5-sigma certainty and the CMS result has been measured to a 2.5-sigma certainty. What does that mean? "Three-sigma events happen occasionally, especially when you look at a lot of data, but the likelihood of the finding being legitimate is extremely high. At 3.5-sigma, the ATLAS measurement has a 0.1 percent chance of being a "random fluke” and the 2.5-sigma result has a 1 percent chance of being a fluke. It’s the strongest evidence so far that the Higgs just might exist…………
- The Oakland Raiders are in a place they haven't been for quite some time……and right where they always are, all at once. They occupy first place in the AFC West and that’s new territory for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2002 and hasn’t won its division since. On the other hand, they are once again the most-penalized (and undisciplined) team in the NFL, narrowly edging out the idiots currently lacing up their cleats for the Detroit Lions. Coach Hue Jackson’s squad incurs an average of 9.9 penalties per game and no player is more emblematic of the team’s lack of discipline than Pro Bowl defensive lineman Richard Seymour. Seymour, who has incurred substantial fines three times in his three seasons since being acquired in a trade with New England in Sept. 2009, was fined $30,000 by the league for punching Miami offensive lineman Richie Incognito in the Dolphins' 34-14 win over Oakland on Sunday. Seymour was previously fined $25,000 after being ejected for slapping and knocking down Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger last season and $10,000 after he was ejected for an offense against Cleveland Browns running back Jerome Harrison in 2009. His punch Sunday was blatant, obvious and begging for a fine and the NFL gave it to him. Coupled with a few minor infractions earlier this season, he has now been fined at least $60,000 for offenses in the 2011 season. Fortunately for Seymour, he signed a two-year extension with Oakland earlier this year worth up to $30 million. Ironically, the oft-penalized Raiders are tied for first place in their division with the Denver Broncos, who just happen to be quarterbacked by conservative, do-gooder and all-around ideal citizen Tim Tebow………
- Indiana: Where fiscally responsible government thrives. Just as long as the standard for fiscal responsibility allows for a state to have $320 million in funds it didn’t know existed and for that state to be ignorant of its windfall for several years, than Indiana qualifies without any trouble. Indiana's state government has discovered $320 million in funds it didn't know it had and only became aware of in an ironical twist when officials were putting new statewide belt-tightening measures in place. "Christmas came early," Gov. Mitch Daniels said. The governor announced the found money during a press conference Tuesday, citing a "programming omission" and modernized tax collection processes for unearthing the $320 million in corporate tax revenue. The money had been piling up since 2007 but did not appear in the state's operating budget. It simply slipped by unnoticed while the state attempted to balance its budget with several deep cuts -- including roughly $320 million in state funding for K-12 education, according to state Sen. John Broden. "We've lost a whole year of educational opportunities for our children because of this misplaced money," Broden, the ranking Democratic member of the state senate's appropriations committee, said in a written statement. Broden and other Democrats penned an open letter to a state budget committee requesting "an independent audit ... to determine how this significant error occurred and how Indiana citizens can be assured that it will not happen again." Some of the blame for the lost money will undoubtedly fall on Daniels, a Republican who served as Office of Management and Budget director under former President W. Daniels has been governor since 2004, but certainly didn’t sound like a man who felt like he had let his entire state down. "As far as I'm concerned, we just drew the community chest card -- collect not $200, but something much more," he raved in a classic (and loser-ific) Monopoly reference. Jane Jankowski, a spokeswoman for the governor, dismissed the call for an investigation because the governor does not believe it is necessary. "We know what happened. We know what the problem was and we're correcting it," Jankowski said Thursday. Hmm……an investigation might be a wise decision in this case…………
- There would be many reasons to sue director James Cameron if wasting four hours of a person’s life watching Titanic were grounds for lawsuits. Sadly, no legal system in the world has recognized that right so far and instead we’ll have to settle for Cameron being sued by a former employee of his production company who claims he came up with the idea of an "environmentally themed 3-D epic about a corporation's colonization and plundering of a distant moon's lush and wondrous natural setting” long before Avatar. In a lawsuit filed in LA County Superior Court, Eric Ryder alleges he came up with an eerily similar movie called “KRZ 2068” and pitched it to Cameron’s production company in 1999. His pitch was rejected, but more than a decade later he saw Avatar breaking box office records around the world and thought, “Hey I had an idea for self-contained robotic exterior suits which house a single human operator just like the one worn by the Stephen Lang character in Avatar. Should the case go to trial, Cameron’s attorneys are likely to argue that the exo-skeleton bears a striking resemblance to something Cameron designed for Sigourney Weaver to use in kicking some extra-terrestrial ass in 1986’s “Aliens.” The director has previously claimed that he came up with the idea for the environmental parable behind “Avatar” in the early ‘90s but had to wait for special effects technology to catch up with his vision. "I certainly feel a personal sense of responsibility because I made a movie on these issues," Cameron said in 2010. "Why? Because they were personally important to me. It's not like the studio said, 'Jim we want you to make a movie about the environment.' No. ...They said, 'We really like the big epic science fiction story, but is there any way we can get this tree-hugging crap out of it?'” Either way, this lawsuit should be amusing to watch……………
- Whether you realized it or not, today is Human Rights Day around the world. The annual event is based on the United Nations' more than 60-year-old Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the document stating that all people are entitled to fundamental human rights and freedoms. It also lays out guidelines for expanding human rights protections for vulnerable groups such as indigenous people and the disabled. Given how many of those rights are trampled by so many countries around the world on a daily basis, every day could be Human Rights Day and it still wouldn’t be enough. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay cited the Arab Spring pro-democracy movement that began earlier this year as evidence that human rights must be “part of the equation” for the stability and security of governments. At a news conference marking the event on Friday, she also said human rights efforts had gone “viral” in 2011. “Over the last year in their different ways in Tunis, Cairo, Madrid, New York and hundreds of other cities and towns across the globe, the voice of ordinary people has been raised and their demands made clear. They want human beings at the center of our economic and political systems, a chance for meaningful participation in public affairs, a dignified life and freedom from fear and want,” Pillay said. Various governments and groups are putting their own spin on the day, with U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke urging Beijing to uphold its commitments to the U.N.'s universal declaration by lifting its “constraints” on Tibetans, ethnic Uighurs and Christians. The World Health Organization is using the occasion to ask countries to implement “QualityRights,” a project designed to end human rights violations against the mentally ill. All of the above are worth causes, even if one day to advocate human rights is about 364 too few………….
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