Brian's blog

National – This past winter, an 11-year old kid found a mistake at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. It was a notation in one of the Tower of Time exhibit identifying Precambrian as an era. Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time between the beginning of the world and the Cambrian era. So this was a really technical mistake. The solution was to simply paint over the word era on the sign. When the museum wrote back to this kid and acknowledged his correctness, however, they spelled his name and home-town wrong. The mistake in the museum had been bothering the staff for 27 years.

Opinion – Though Mr. Huss would say there is no such thing as the Precambrian time-period, I thought it was interesting that a fifth grader knew so much about natural history. Since I’ve been at PC all my life, I know next to nothing about all the different eras, and I don’t think I’ve really been given a fair chance in deciding whether I believe the earth is a million years old or six thousand. So I simply have no idea. Anyways, even the Smithsonian gets things wrong.



International - At a recent NATO conference, soon to be former Russian president Vladimir Putin said, “Let’s be friends, guys, and be frank and open”, saying another cold war is impossible. Tomorrow he is to meet with Bush to work on a Strategic Framework security pact, which Bush would like to leave as his legacy.

Opinion – This is really interesting. I hope it works out. It’d be nice for Bush to leave office on a little more of a positive note, and avoiding another cold war with Russia would definitely be a good way to go out. I also like Putin’s way of asking for friendship. Nice and modern.