Yes — you read that title correctly.

In one of the craziest stories in a crazy election year a furry feline  from Springfield, Virginia ran for a seat in the US Senate and received the third most number of votes in the race.

His campaign slogan? “It’s OK to vote the humans out.”

Hank the Cat’s campaign began as a joke, but gained support from animal rights activists as November 6th got closer, raising almost $60,000 that will be donated to animal rescue groups. And although Hank received far less votes than former Governor Tim Kaine (D) and Senator George Allen (R), the Virginia Board of Elections has counted approximately 7,319 write-ins for the kitty.

On his campaign website, the cat stated the following:

Hank knows that the key to a better America and a brighter future is the creation of jobs — jobs that will improve a street, a town, a state, and the nation. These time-tested ideas and Hank’s energy and determination make him the best candidate for the job, and have brought millions of Virginians from frustrated voters to energized campaigners.

Seems legitimate, right? Heck, I would have liked what I saw if I was reading this out of a voters guide. 

But, back to reality — this is a campaign to elect a cat to Congress.

His owners, Anthony Roberts and Matthew O’Leary, said they stood outside of polling places for almost twelve hours on election day, waving signs picturing a hopeful-looking Hank with sparkling eyes and shiny fur. They even enlisted some of their friends to do the same in other precincts. 

They are not disappointed with Hank’s loss — both are incredibly pleased with the efforts. In regards to the results, Roberts said,

Regardless of the votes, we still raised $60,000 for animal rescue. There are literally going to be lives that are saved with that. From our personal point of view we got to share our kitty with the entire world, and that’s really great.

So was this some wacky animal rights activism? Or was it a cute campaign? Do you think that Hank for Senate made a mockery out of the democracy for running for Congress? More importantly, are voters mocking the democracy for actually voting for a cat?

Regardless, you can still buy a Hank for Senate t-shirt, coffee mug, tote bag, or bumper sticker if you so desire to support this fluffy candidate’s case for animal rights.

Things are not good in the Gaza Strip today.

The 25 mile long sliver of land borders on Israel and is the crowded home to 1.7 million Palestinians and the controversial ruling party Hamas.

If you’ve checked any news or social media today- you’ve no doubt seen articles, tweets, and pictures of the violence and destruction occurring in the Gaza Strip. 

Beginning on November 8th, Israel has conducted a series of attacks in Gaza, in response to months of rocket fire into southern Israel from Hamas.  

The first target and victim of these attacks was Ahmad al-Ja’abari, the leader of the military wing of Hamas.  

USDemocrazy understands that the “fog of war” is just as prevalent (if not more) in the media, as it is on the ground.  

As you tackle the conflict of navigating yourself through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these may be of great use: 

• “Gaza in Pictures” from flickr; a timeline of photos over the past few days, complete with descriptions.  

Al Shifa hospital struggles with the number of casualties…

• Amnesty International’s brief report from today, calling on BOTH sides to end indiscriminate violence.  

The international community must put pressure on both sides to fully respect the laws of war and protect civilian lives and property.

•  The Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding’s  (IMEU) “Watching Gaza” twitter feed, where people in Gaza are providing real-time updates from the civilian point of view.

Drones. F16. Raid. Apache. Martyr. Unconfirmed. Confirmed. Ambulance. Sirens. North. East. That’s what we’ve seen for hours.

"College remains a hurdle for many with disabilities. Now a new study offers insight on what separates individuals with special needs who are ultimately successful in higher education from those who are not.

In interviews with recent graduates with disabilities, researchers found that students who earned degrees shared the ability to self-advocate and persevere. They also had good insight into their abilities and limitations and often cited a strong relationship with at least one faculty or staff member on campus...."

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9254339 - Rehabilitation Counselor - TAY - Humanim
9254820 - Typist - Geoffrey Mitchell, LLC
9254300 - Mobile Apps JavaScript Developer - CargoTel, Inc.

Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement

A Decadal Gridded Hyperspectral Infrared Record for Climate
Sep 1st 2002 – Aug 31st 2012

David Chapman

2:00pm 20 November 2012, ITE 325B

We present a gridded Fundamental Decadal Data Record (FDDR) of Brightness Temperatures (BT) from the NASA EOS Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) from ten years of hyperspectral Infrared Radiances onboard the NASA EOS Aqua satellite. We show that these results are consistent with the expected greenhouse forcings, and also discovered a drift of ~0.13K/decade in spectrum relative to 4 MODIS-Aqua for Global All-sky Brightness Temperatures. AIRS, operational on September 1, 2002 is the first successful hyperspectral satellite weather instrument of more than 1 year, as well as the longest running global IR hyperspectral measurement. Although global surface temperature data records are available for over 130 years, it was not until 1978 when the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) was the first instrument series to reliably monitor long-term trends of the upper atmosphere. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) provides the first continuous global hyperspectral IR radiance data record from a single satellite for a decade. Our contribution, was to prepare a gridded data record from the AIRS Outgoing Longwave Spectrum (OLS). We have shown high correlations with the GISS global surface air temperatures as well as with the NOAA ONI index of El Niño phase. In addition, we have performed inter-annual inter-comparisons with the Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the same satellite to examine the relative consistency of their calibrations. The comparisons of the two instruments for the 4µ spectral channels indicate an inter-annual warming of 0.13K per decade of AIRS more than MODIS. This relative decadal drift is small relative to inter-annual variability but on the order of historic surface temperature trends. In the 12µ window channels we see a relative constant difference of 0.01K over a decade. It is convenient to observe the climate variability by using monthly average lat-lon grid projections. The polar orbiting data projection to a lat-lon grid is a lossy process that invariably introduces aliasing artifacts and noise. We observed an exponential decay between the number of days averaged and the expected noise due to gridding. We have extended the Observation Coverage (Obscov) gridding algorithm, developed for the MODIS instrument that incorporates the Point Spread Function (PSF) and we show the Obscov gridding algorithm reduces the aliasing noise from AIRS grids by nearly 40% by comparing the spatial correlation of gridded MODIS IR data. We also show that the use of a circular approximate PSF is a sufficient representation to obtain the noise reduction of Obscov at the climate resolution 0.5×1 degree monthly average grids. We extended these spatial sampling methods to the AIRS Level 3 retrieval records for which quality filtering due to opaque clouds is an additional spatial sampling challenge. We correct for an observed dry bias in the AIRS Level 3 monthly average gridded moisture retrieval records by means of spatial interpolation with the Nearest Neighbor (NN) strategy.

Thesis Committee:

• Dr. Milton Halem  (Chair)
• Dr. Yelena Yesha
• Dr. Chin-I Chang
• Dr. Shujia Zhou
• Dr. Joel Susskind (NASA Goddard)

On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines in the next month.

** AOL/Advertising.com
Interviewing on 12/5/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  11/25/12)
Position:  Automation QA Engineer, Associate Application Technical Support Engineer
Majors:    IS, CMSC,

 **Sherwin-Williams

Interviewing on 12/7/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  11/23/12)
Position:  Management/Leadership Training Program
Majors:  All Majors

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.