Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, but first I need more coffee.

Month: December 2008 (Page 3 of 4)

Links of Interest for December 11, 2008 12:37PM CST

There is nothing sexy about posting a bunch of links. No way to really jazz them up, but I’m going to try anyway. Posting a bunch of links is becoming popular, so I’m going to be a copycat and post a few.

Buh bye Mikey
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/12/11/nasas-griffin-butting-heads-with-obama/

Carter’s advice to Obama: Don’t gnaw on rocks.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122894725018995935.html

Droughts are a comin’ and I’m feelin’ a powerful thirst
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/12/11/drought.problem/index.html

I was born a poor black child: A tragic tale of recessive genes
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1093674/The-tragic-story-white-girl-born-black-tore-family-apart.html

I Chu Chuse you (new Energy Secretary has a brain and he USES it)
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4861

Who knew Greeks could out-riot the French?
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/12/9/205526/093

They let Tina Turner her keep her Mad Max costume?
http://newyork.metromix.com/content_image/full/824560/560/370

The Opposite Party

I was watching 70’s Fever on The History Channel last night, and I realized that if Bobby Kennedy had lived he would have been President in 1968. I’m sure Nixon would have echoed Salieri’s remark in Amadeus. “And then a miracle happened.” Or rather I grokked the implications of an RFK presidency. Nixon campaigned on ending the war in Viet Nam and once inaugurated promptly escalated the war. Hmm… Bush campaigned on tackling global warming (among other things). We all know how well that worked out.

There were accusations Reagan interfered with the Iran hostage situation, though nothing was proven. So I’m not sure what to make of this: LBJ White House Tapes Reveal Nixon ‘Treason’, Sabotage of Viet Nam Peace Talks

I think we should rename the Republican Party the Opposite Party because they do the exact opposite of everything the promise. The sad thing is too many Americans are like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football Lucy holds for him. The tragedy is they think it’s their fault they missed the football. So they keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Journey to Palomar

Last night Mel and I watched Journey to Palomar on DVD. It’s a new PBS documentary about George Ellery Hale and how he created the largest telescope in the world, the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar. The film is billed as America’s First Journey into Space.

The movie is more than just about Palomar. It’s about Hale and how he created not just one large telescope but three of the largest ones on the world: Yerkes, Mt. Wilson, and Palomar. I also learned he also helped found CalTech. The movie is truly riveting. He also got some of the richest men in America to fund them: Yerkes, Hooker, Carnegie, Rockefeller. Not a small accomplishment.

It was fascinating watching people coming out in droves to see an enormous mirror blanks 100″ and 200″ being moved from place to place. First for Mt. Wilson and second for Palomar. It was very much like the way people came out to see the first space shuttle being transported on the ground. The other thing that struck me was how large the dome at Palomar is. It’s the size of the Dome of the Pantheon in Rome. Here’s a picture of the dedication ceremony.

Here’s the trailer:

I got the DVD through Netflix. It’s well worth it for the extras. It has three short films about upcoming telescopes: James Web Space Telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope, and the Thirty-Meter Telescope. More info about program over at PBS. It’s one of the best science documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. It’s also very approachable. It will appeal to a non-science crowd. I think that is why I liked it so much.

Dogfood Economy [Updated]

Well Bush, Cheney, Gramm, Greenspan, et al. have finally driven the economy off the cliff. Now it’s up to their Republican croneys to obstruct Obama and the Democrats from accomplishing anything in the next two years so they can make their comeback in 2010.

We all knew we were heading into a rice & beans economy, but now it looks like we are skipping over the moist dogfood economy right into a dry dogfood economy. What I mean by that is it is all we’ll be able to afford to eat. I’m optimistic we won’t be heading into a soylent green economy.

The more I read about the economy and how it got that way it becomes clearer where it is actually heading. The guv’mint has finally admitted we’ve been in a recession since 2007. Actually it’s been in one since 2000. The bubbles that Greenspan helped to create, and the the unregulated financial evironment Phil Gramm helped to create masked that wages have been stagnant for the middle class and that more people were falling into poverty and the lower middle class.

Today I read that unemployment has hit a 34 year high. If I were being optimistic, the government is finally admitting how high unemployment really is and has been for a while. They don’t count the underemployed nor those who’ve given up looking for work or dropped off the unemployment rolls. If I were being pessimistic, they haven’t changed the way they count and the job market is even worse than what they are reporting. You know the economy has to be bad for record number of illegal immigrants to return home.

The sad thing is it doesn’t have to be this way. We have abundant resources. We have a talented labor pool. So the ten trillion dollar question is “How did we allow ourselves to be brought to our knees by parasites who produce nothing?”

Update— DailyKos has a front page story about how the unemployment situation is actually worse than the reported numbers. The author pointed out:

Back in 1994, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics changed how it gauged unemployment, choosing to exclude “discouraged workers.” That means people available and eager to work but who, after a year of looking, have given up because they cannot find a job. The Clinton administration just chopped these discouraged workers out of the most commonly reported statistic on unemployment.

I’m really sick and tired of the way government officials try to paint a rosier picture than things really are. Things aren’t rosy and haven’t been for a long time. We really need transparency back in government and officials need to stop lying.

Twittermania

Can’t remember if I posted about this before. I probably did on my blog. Anyway, I’m on twitter. You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/clm122704. It doesn’t make much sense at first but it grows on you. It’s been in the news twice now. The first reports of the earthquake in China hit Twitter and now reports about the attacks in Mumbai informed others of what was going on. After email it’s my most used Intertube tool.

UpdateDopey me I did post about it here a few entries ago. Yeah, I’m too lazy to even check my previous entries. Meh.

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