Happy Thanksgiving

I’m spending Thanksgiving in NH, so I’ll just hope everyone has many things to be thankful for today.
Ok, I must as well put up a couple pictures. The first is a Thanksgiving floral bouquet:

The second is a picture of my sister’s two cats (Mini and Sophie):

Saturn, nuclear war, and a poem

To try to keep things calm, let’s start with a very nice image of Saturn (taken by Cassini–it’s a mosaic of many pictures taken over 8 hours; Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute):

Ok, now that you’re calm, here’s John Bolton intimating that Israel should attack Iran with nuclear bombs:
“Negotiations have failed, and so too have sanctions,” [...]

More healthcare craziness

Now that the lies about ‘death panels’ have lead to the elimination of funding for end of life counselling, what’s next? It seems we might go to the start of life (via here):
Now conservative opponents of health reform have found a new threat: home nurse visits to low-income parents. “We are setting up a situation where [...]

Part 2 and a poem

I’m a little slow, but here’s the second installment of some sort of story (the first part is here or you can see it in one place in the Stories tab):

And when the fog had lifted, she had found herself here. Which was weird because there was no fog to lift and she hadn’t been a [...]

40 years ago and a poem

We are in the middle of the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing (well, the first with people). Apollo 11 lifted off on July 16, 1969 (all photos courtesy of NASA):
 
it reached the moon on July 19 (this is the lunar lander and so the photo’s probably from July 20):

the lunar lander Eagle landed on [...]

Some fighting galaxies, Saturn, and a poem

Today a couple of recent images of the day from NASA.
First is Stephan’s Quintet a set of galaxies in the midst of evolving (Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O’Sullivan Optical: Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope/Coelum):

and here’s a natural color shot of Saturn (Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute) taken by Cassini on July 23, 2008. If you want to try your [...]

The Earth above the moon and a poem

First, here’s a set of pictures taken every two hours above the moon’s surface by Japan’s Kaguya:

and then here’s a poem that might be talking about space or might be talking be talking about preparing to eat a Twinkie:
A life walks jauntily
Through the open rays
While I watch
It open up to me.

Now that’s real money

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has won a legal battle to be able to publicly name employees at Merril Lynch who were given large bonuses last December. Cuomo thinks this means he will also win the battle to release the names of people from AIG. Some of the information is coming out now and it’s [...]

95% Confidence Interval For My Music

Hmm, here is my random 10 for the day:
All The Love In The World Nine Inch Nails
Blowin’ In The Wind Bob Dylan
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat Bob Dylan
Fa_Ci-La Feelies
I’m Waiting For The Day The Beach Boys
Help Me Joan Osborne
Layla Eric Clapton
Running On Faith Eric Clapton
Radio Friendly Unit Shifter Nirvana
Wonderwall Oasis
Sweetness Skindive
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment The Ramones
I wonder if the songs are really randomly played, but that’s a hard question [...]

Somalia and DR Congo

Somalia and the DR Congo have been in the news a lot lately. For Somalia it’s because pirates from there have become high profile:
Efthimios Mitropoulos, secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, said 120 attacks have been reported off the coast of Somalia, resulting in the seizure of more than 35 ships and the kidnapping [...]

Music and a Poem

As you can tell, I’m being unimaginative today so here’s a random 10:
Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town Talking Heads
I Hate The TV Violent Femmes
Call Me Blondie
Dear Prudence The Beatles
Dance Along The Edge Concrete Blonde
Sora ni Saku Lisa Komine
Higher Ground Red Hot Chili Peppers
Cecilia Simon & Garfunkel
I Heard It Through The Grapevine Creedence Clearwater Revival
Waitin’ On A Sunny Day Bruce Springsteen
Paperback Writer The Beatles
Locomotive Breath Jethro Tull
and a [...]

Study Needed for Solar?

The Bureau of Land Management has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public lands:
The land agency’s manager of energy policy, Ray Brady, said the moratorium on new applications was necessary to “ensure that we are doing an adequate level of analysis of the impacts.”
That sounds good. The projects would occupy a large amount [...]

Indiana Voter ID Law

A while ago I wrote about the Supreme Court decision saying Indiana’s voter ID law was constitutional. One of the reasons Justice Stevens gave for voting that way was that there were no individuals who could show they were disenfranchised. This is no longer true (a longer version is here):
A dozen Indiana nuns were turned away [...]

T. Boone Pickens=Weasel

It seems that T. Boone Pickens, the main bankroller of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, issued a challenge at an American Spectator gala that he would pay anyone $1 million dollars if they could prove any of the claims by the Swift Boat ads false.  Senator Kerry has now accepted the challenge, so what [...]

Let’s Attack Iran and Then Where?

Yesterday I had a quick note to the change in rationale for attacking Iran (now we attack because of terrorism and support of same in Iraq).  Seymour Hersh has a long article in the New Yorker about that here. Here are a few choice bits:
Vincent Cannistraro, a retired C.I.A. officer who has worked closely with [...]

Speak Up for Burma

The crackdown continues.  It’s not as violent today only because the miliatary has sealed monasteries, shut down internet connections, killed hundreds (although it’s impossible to know how many), and arrested hundreds more.
If you want to know why this can happen, look at these quotes:

“China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle [...]

The Petraeus Report

I haven’t said anything about the presentation by General Petraeus, becuase others have done it much better than I could (I’m not linking to a single artice because they have a lot, scroll down a bit and you’ll find one).  So, I’ll just sum up the main ideas you should know:

the army is near to breaking.  [...]

Greenhouse Curb Agreements

As a follow-up to this post, it seems that:
Negotiators from 158 countries reached basic agreement Friday on rough targets aimed at getting some of the world’s biggest polluters to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
 
A weeklong U.N. climate conference concluded that industrialized countries should strive to cut emissions by 25 percent [...]

Tweeter

As a refresher from my post here, I notice that Tweeter has been bought by Schultze Asset Management.
After they accepted the offer, management at Tweeter asked for bonuses. You’ll remember that Tweeter had reneged on severance for workers who had agreed to stay on to help close the stores that were shuttered.  What about them?
In [...]

George Will and FDR

FDR is considered one of the best presidents in US history, but he’s a big government liberal so you know conservatives want to take him down.
Here’s George Will (where he’s talking about a book by Amity Shlaes) trying:
Some mornings during the autumn of 1933, when the unemployment rate was 22 percent, the president, before getting [...]