Is anyone coming to JPL's Open House this weekend? We have neat stuff and rovers and it's free! Oh and I will be volunteering and telling people where the bathroom is and that climate change is not a hoax, I think. If they ask. Mostly they just want to know where the bathroom is.

Allyson, have you seen this? Do Climate Skeptics Change Their Minds?

Until a few months ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more classic climate skeptic than D.R. Tucker. A conservative author and radio talk show host, he didn't buy the notion that greenhouse-gas emissions were causing temperatures to rise. He was pretty sure global warming was a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore and a cadre of liberal, grant-hungry scientists. Then Tucker did what partisan pundits and climate skeptics rarely do: He changed his mind.

"I was defeated by facts," Tucker announced on FrumForum, the popular conservative blog. In an April 18 post, "Confessions of a Climate Convert," Tucker told readers how he came to question the ideologies of the climate debate, examine the science, and conclude that global warming was, in fact, very real. Tucker's post sent a giddy ripple through green circles and stoked the ire of his libertarian colleagues.

Apparently this sort of "conversion" is rare.

Please tell me you'll send them somewhere interesting if they still believe climate change is a hoax AND want to know where the bathroom is. Preferably where they'll experience a climate change in their pants.

I don't know any MtF trans women who don't wear dresses, stockings, heels, makeup, jewelry -- the whole 9 yards.

Yes. And what's funny is a lot of them would look more feminine in less stereotypically girly outfits. I totally get why it happens, but...

In unrelated news, there's a karaoke contest for Pride over many weeks (the final winner is on a float, and more importantly gets $1000 and two airline tix). This week I'm going to perform, it's "country week" (every week has a theme). But I can't decide what to sing--there are various songs I know I'd be good at, but I want something that would get the audience into it too.

Oh, I meant to say: I found Salon and TT because my college friend started working there after graduation. I don't recall if she started as an intern, or just entry-level writer. By the time she left, she was in an upper level position, though I don't recall what. She took me to a Salon event in DC that, had we not both been getting very sick, we would have ended the night in Arianna Huffington's livingroom, getting rather drunk with a bunch of big names in political commentary. That would have been surreal.

She moved back to be near her parents after they had a bad health scare, worked as an editor for a bit, got into reporting on media and community in the local press, went back to grad school at Duke, and shortly is starting as a research associate in there center for media and democracy.

And she was such a flake, a beloved flake, and drama queen in college. Now she's a mom to her own son and two teenage stepdaughters. And no flakiness evident.

Yeah, I was a complete flake in my twenties. And now I hope I am not!

Allyson, have you seen this?

I did. Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.

Jim Lehrer ending his primary role in the NewsHour makes me feel old. I hated the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour as a kid cause it meant the end of my kid shows on PBS. But I grew up with it and came to appreciate it. And those guys will always make me think of my dad (just like Dan Rather always did.)

Anyway, in nostalgic googling, I came across this McNeil/Lehrer's principles of journalism:

• "Do nothing I cannot defend.
• Cover, write, and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.
• Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.
• Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am.
• Assume the same about all people on whom I report.
• Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.
• Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything.
• Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions.
• No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
• And finally, I am not in the entertainment business."

DAYUMN.

He was the last of the on-air newsmen with a sense of gravitas, Sara.

Seriously. He is the end of a grand legacy.