Happy Birthday, Harry!

That's right, it's Harry Potter's birthday! Also J.K. Rowling's birthday! Happy birthday, J.K.!






It's also D.H.'s birthday, so happy birthday to him, too, I guess.

Links!

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Pi-Tastic!

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Happy Pi Day! I shall, as is traditional, make pie to celebrate. This year, it's pumpkin pie - or pies, rather. One will be for the family, and my lucky student workers and fellow librarians will be getting the other on Thursday.

But, of course, pie is only incidental to pi - as a grammarphile, I'm fond of homophones, but the day is dedicated to the number, of course. (I've memorized this much of it: 3.141592. That's as far as I can get. That's pretty sad, really. Ah, well.)

So, we'll do a special set of links for Pi Day!
What kind of librarian would I be if I didn't start with a reading recommendation list? Happy Pi Day! 13 Sweet Books for Mathletes and Pie LoversWhat is Pi Day? Good to know.For Pi Day, key figures on math and education in the U.S. Hey, we're not doing too bad! Math is cool. Kids like it. Keep it up, U.S.! 


Links!
Library LandDo you like podcasts? (I'm looking at you, Mary!) Do you like mythology? Here's a really great podcast fo…
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How Small Is His...Er, Hand?

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Trump to Seek $54 Billion Increase in Military Spending

This would be "...a huge rise even as the United States has wound down major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and remains the world's strongest military power....The United States already has the world's most powerful fighting force and it spends far more than any other country on defense." [Source]

Right around one-sixth of federal spending goes to defense already, and it makes up almost half of all discretionary spending.


Now, my math skills aren't the best, but if Trump does succeed in getting Congress to cut $54 billion from nondefense spending and put it in defense - it looks to me like that would put the total to quite a bit more than half of all discretionary spending.

In 2015, according to Business Insider's analysis of the International Institute for Strategic Studies' World Military Balance report (which I can't afford to access for myself), "...that's more than the next 11 cou…
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Where Are We Going, And Why Are We In This Handbasket?

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Today has been too crazy and it's late, so I'm just gonna leave these here:

Questions Raised by Chairman Nunes Disclosure of "Incidental Collection" of Trump Officials:  My sense is that the Trump team somehow thinks this disclosure helps them revive the quite discredited claim that Obama was spying on the Trump team.  Of course, it doesn't come close to doing this.  All this suggests is that the U.S. was spying on certain foreign officials (which it should obviously do) and that Trump's people spoke to these foreign officials.  Rather than vindicate Trump's false claim, it raises new and disturbing questions about who the transition team were talking to--and why.
Schiff: 'There Is More Than Circumstantial Evidence Now': Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said MSNBC Wednesday afternoon that there is evidence that is "not circumstantial" of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
M…
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