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This jerk has an outlet in my town. I ignored his slobbering over gay marriage; I disagreed with his opinion but liked the store.

But this is another level entirely. My mother and I have been showing Bill Penzey’s nasty screed to everyone we know and will no longer buy his products.

Again: every time I see posts about Global Warming/Climate Change/Insert Scary-Sounding Term Here, no matter whether pro or con, I have to mention the most ABUNDANT most POWERFUL greenhouse gas there is in the Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike CO2, it’s not a tiny fraction of a percent but varies from very low to saturation. Yes, it’s good old H2O, in water vapor form.

Humid locations hold in more heat than dry ones, all else being equal. Of course, some so-called scientists point to Venus. Do they forget that Venus is not only closer to the Sun but its atmosphere is mostly CO2? Not a tiny percentage. Very different mechanisms, very different outcome.

As for Earth and its trends, I invite you to google “hockey stick climate graphs” and see what comes up. Funny how a trend can magnify if you don’t extend it so the whole picture is visible. What, 5000 years ago it was warmer than it is now? Gotta hide that from the public.

Does climate change over time? Of course. Are the doomsayers a front for those seeking power? Certainly. As always, follow the money.

I’m the one who originally started posting the Astronomy Picture of the Day on the forums; I’m glad to see someone else picked up the baton when I left for my extended hiatus.

See above.

PS. A lot of these names here ring a bell; good to see the old guard is still alive and posting.

I have spent now 12 years in a union workplace. I am consistently surprised at the number of people who automatically swallow the union line......but there are quite a few who think for themselves in spite of the barrage of propaganda and distortions.

Ok folks: first of all I’m a she not a he. Second, no I did NOT spend time behind bars :P
The hobby in question was my overwhelming addiction to online video games (and I do still play). I let it take over my life for quite a long time... but the advantage was I quit spending money on almost everything else, and the games cost nothing near what other forms of entertainment do.

And thanks to all who welcomed me back.

Yes, a VERY big THANK YOU to both of you----your hard work has given us such a powerful platform for conservative political discourse, and a tool to combat socialism in all its varied forms.

There is little doubt why the leftists want to tax (and otherwise regulate) the Internet. They can't seem to make it into their tame mouthpiece. Darn!


Again, Jim and John ---- thanks to both of you for your continued dedication to this the greatest of all websites.

Don't know about that, but the Moon is looking like prime real estate for him and his followers right now.


Hehehe...

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On a different subject.... 4 MORE YEARS!

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Mt Stromlo opens to public
as re-build begins
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Posted: November 1, 2004

Situated 6 miles west of Canberra, Australia, Mount Stromlo's historic observatory was gutted by ferocious bushfires on January 18th, 2003. This image from 21 months ago shows the extent of the damage to one of the major domes. Image credit: ANU / Mt Stromlo

A new page is set to be written in Australian scientific history with the establishment of new buildings at Mt Stromlo Observatory.

Staff at the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics are celebrating not just the commencement of the $36 million first stage of the historic observatory's redevelopment; but also the announcement that the site re-opened to the public on Saturday, 30th October 2004, with self-guided tours of the site and a night sky viewing program.

"After getting an average of 70,000 visitors per year and conducting some of the world's leading astronomical research from Mt Stromlo, the fires of January 2003 were a huge blow not just for our staff, but for the global astronomical community," the Research School's Director, Professor Penny Sackett, said.

"Now, 21 months after the fire, it is really exciting to commence construction of the first stage of the new Stromlo. This stage will involve the construction of an Advanced Instrumentation Technology Centre, the rebuild of a destroyed multi-million dollar optical instrument and the construction of a new telescope. Plans for the second stage of redevelopment are already well advanced.

"A huge volume of work has preceded this moment. Plans for each building have had to comply with heritage considerations and with much data about the history of the site lost in the fires, that process has taken quite a lot of time.

"We are also hopeful that insurance issues will be settled soon, enabling us to plan for the full redevelopment of the Observatory.

"It is vital to recognise that despite the fires and subsequent delays in reconstruction, Mt Stromlo has continued to be a major international centre for astronomical research. Our staff have used telescopes at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran and other telescopes around the world for their research and continue to make some of the most exciting discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics."

The 2003 fires destroyed a superbly-equipped workshop complex, seven houses, five telescopes and a historic administration building. Demolition of parts of several buildings was allowed to commence in August after permission was granted by the Department of Environment and Heritage and the National Capital Authority, pending final approval of the redevelopment plan. The demolition process has now made the site safe for public access.

"It is fantastic to once more be able to welcome the public back to Mt Stromlo. We weren't able to make the site safe for public visits until demolition and reconstruction plans were approved. The commencement of our night viewing program on Saturday marks an important milestone in our recovery, allowing the public to experience some of the same excitement about the Universe that we feel in our daily work at the Observatory."

Funding for the redevelopment will come from a Federal Government grant, donations and partial payments from insurance companies. Money donated by the public will be used to fund domes that will house small telescopes for public viewing of the night sky, one of which is a historic telescope salvaged from the heritage Commonwealth Solar Observatory building.

The key ingredients of the first stage of redevelopment are:

• The Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre, which will replace the workshops destroyed in the blaze, offering expanded design, manufacturing and testing capabilities for precision optical instruments, opportunities for higher degree student participation in technical projects, and a research and development program focusing on Extremely Large Telescopes.
• The world's fastest sky-mapping telescope, the SkyMapper, to be installed at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory, but controlled from Mt Stromlo through an ultra-fast broadband link. SkyMapper will complete the first digital all-sky map of the Southern Sky.
• The $6 million Near-infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph, being rebuilt for the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii in partnership with Auspace.

Construction of Stage Two will commence as further insurance money is received in compensation for the fires. ANU is still in active discussions with three insurers over full payment for damage of Mt Stromlo.

Mt Stromlo will be open to the public every Wednesday to Sunday between 10am-5pm. Saturday night sky viewing (Saturday Stargazing) commenced on Saturday, 30th October.

For the uninformed: al baby is just having fun with you --- sarcasm it's called. He's no lib.

But there's something especially satisying in going to work tomorrow and watching the Dems cry in their beer

Yep I work in one of those union shops---so tempted to take a little tape recorder with me to work tomorrow to record some of the abysmally stupid/ignorant/usefulidiotic rants I am sure to overhear from the Kerry Kneepad Kamp.

Hehe shades of Gore!

Did my part -- so did poorman and my mother -- gotta counteract the union puke votes from my workplace.


Please everyone in those states that still have open polls --- VOTE!

You may have NO IDEA how nasty and violent the Dem/union shills are...I got my reminders in the break room today. One real loser was even advocating sedition against the US government. Wanted to find a way to get Euros into this country to kidnap and "disappear" the President, take over, and then install their own candidate. This without benefit of an alcoholic stupor!

Lots of nuts out there!

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Pit chains hint at recent marsquakes on red planet
SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE NEWS RELEASE
Posted: October 29, 2004

Strings of depressions dotting the Martian landscape indicate that seismic activity - marsquakes - may still be reshaping the surface of the planet, according to Dr. David Ferrill of Southwest Research Institute in a paper published in GSA Today. These pit chains occur along dilational faults, partially filled or open cavities that served as conduits for past groundwater flow.

"These faults could now serve as reservoirs for water or ice, making these locations of potentially great interest to the scientific community searching for signs of life on Mars," said Ferrill, a senior program manager at SwRI.

"Astrobiologists consider subsurface aquifer systems high-priority targets for a potential Martian fossil record," said Danielle Wyrick, an SwRI planetary geologist who co-authored the GSA Today article. "Detecting underground water is difficult because current Mars data show only the surface. Pit chains are easy-to-recognize features that give us clues to what’s going on below the surface, including prospective groundwater systems."

This image from the THEMIS instrument on the Odyssey spacecraft shows details of normal faults and a pit chain on the surface of Mars.

Ferrill, Wyrick and their team reached these conclusions after comparing high-resolution imagery of the surface of Mars with pit chains discovered in Iceland, and conducting laboratory experiments to recreate the processes they believe formed the pit chains. The work was funded internally through an SwRI initiative directed to Mars research.

"The pit craters are larger and better preserved on Mars than on Earth because the surface erosion and higher gravity on Earth result in smaller pits that are rapidly erased, sometimes within decades," said Ferrill. In many areas of Mars, pit crater chains appear to be some of the youngest features, postdating drainage channels, faulting and impact craters. Using visible spectrum image data of Mars from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on the Odyssey spacecraft, the team mapped pit crater outlines, surface drainage channels and fault traces. Pit craters can be observed at all stages of formation. The smallest pits have apparently flat floors with surface textures similar to the surrounding topographic surface; the steeper pit walls are smooth.

"We deduce that some of these pits are youthful, perhaps even actively forming, because surface subsidence has not destroyed the original surface of in-falling material," explained Ferrill. Laboratory physical analog modeling also supports these observations. Based on analysis of Mars data, scientists simulated slip on a normal fault using unconsolidated dry white or dyed sand to represent Mars surface materials. Constant thickness rigid wooden or aluminum plates, with or without an overlying layer of cohesive powder, represented dilating fissures beneath the sand. Scientists initially placed the plates edge-to-edge and created tabular voids by progressively separating the plates to simulate fault slip. "Our physical models reproduced most pit chain morphologies observed on Mars," said Ferrill.

SwRI is an independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organization based in San Antonio, Texas, with more than 2,800 employees and an annual research volume of more than $350 million.

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Scientists elated by Cassini's Titan observations
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: October 27, 2004

PASADENA, Calif. - After years of anticipation, the Cassini spacecraft beamed back smog-piercing close-up images of Saturn's moon Titan late Tuesday, revealing a strange, striated landscape that both thrilled - and mystified - planetary scientists.

This image taken by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer clearly shows surface features on Titan. It is a composite of false-color images taken at three infrared wavelengths: 2 microns (blue); 2.7 microns (red); and 5 microns (green). A methane cloud can be seen at the south pole (top of image). This picture was obtained as Cassini flew by Titan at altitudes ranging from 100,000 to 140,000 kilometers (88,000 to 63,000 miles), less than two hours before the spacecraft's closest approach. The inset picture shows the landing site of Cassini's piggybacked Huygens probe. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Download larger image version here

The initial images, discussed at a news conference today, show sharply defined bright and dark regions that may be blanketed by a thin layer of transparent or translucent material that presumably settled out of the atmosphere or was deposited by some other transport mechanism.

Other than a 600-mile-wide formation near the south pole, few clouds are present and no large craters are apparent, indicating tectonic, volcanic or depositional processes are at work that have resurfaced the moon on a global scale.

But so far, there is no evidence of lakes or pools of liquid ethane and similar materials that many scientists believe must be present given the moon's ultra-low temperature, high atmospheric pressure and hydrocarbon chemistry.

In short, Titan's mysteries withstood Cassini's initial scientific assault.

"We've been saying for a long time now that Titan was the largest expanse of unexplored terrain in the solar system," said imaging team leader Carolyn Porco, a leading expert on Saturn's rings. "And what remains hidden under the atmosphere and under the haze, the conditions at its surface, its geological history and so on are, at least in my mind, the solar system's last great mystery."

Even though Cassini's cameras operated flawlessly and even though conditions were optimal for imaging, "I have to report that we are still mystified and we are not quite sure what we're looking at," Porco said. "There isn't much we are absolutely, definitively confident about right now."

She might as well have paraphrased Winston Churchill's 1939 comment about the former Soviet Union: "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Cassini entered orbit around Saturn in June after a seven-year voyage from Earth. The $3 billion spacecraft made its first of 45 planned flybys of Titan late Tuesday, streaking past the cloudy moon at an altitude of just 745 miles. Using filters to peer through the hydrocarbon haze that blankets the satellite, Cassini snapped dozens of pictures that raised as many questions as they answered.

"This image has been processed, it's been sharpened, it's been contrast enhanced and there it is," Porco said, displaying one such photo. "We don't know exactly what we're looking at. There are sharp boundaries between the dark regions and the bright regions, there ... are white things that stick out, they kind of look like islands sticking out of the dark material.

"But frankly, there is no topography in our images," she said. "We do not see shadows on the surface of Titan. And because we don't see shadows, we can't look at an image like this and immediately deduce topographic information, what's up and what's down. Everything here ... could be perfectly flat. Maybe what we're seeing is just bright material, dark material, all at the same level. But we don't know."

Radar data from Cassini will help fill in many of those blanks and researchers plan to present their initial findings Thursday. Scientists said the first processed image was spectacular.

This image shows Titan in ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. It was taken by Cassini's imaging science subsystem on Oct. 26 and is constructed from four images acquired through different color filters. Red and green colors represent infrared wavelengths and show areas where atmospheric methane absorbs light. These colors reveal a brighter (redder) northern hemisphere. Blue represents ultraviolet wavelengths and shows the high atmosphere and detached hazes. Titan has a gigantic atmosphere, extending hundreds of kilometers above the surface. The sharp variations in brightness on Titan's surface (and clouds near the south pole) are apparent at infrared wavelengths. The image scale of this picture is 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Download larger image version here

Along with carrying out a general reconnaissance of Titan, Cassini collected data on the density of the moon's atmosphere that will help engineers determine whether future flybys can be safely conducted at even lower altitudes. More important, those data also will be used to refine the entry angle of the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, scheduled to slam into Titan's atmosphere in January for a parachute descent to the surface.

At today's briefing, Porco concentrated on the pictures. She said that despite the moon's lack of extensive cloud cover, "we've deduced that Titan is a super rotator, it means the cloud speeds, the wind speeds in the middle and the upper troposphere, are going faster than you would get if you just accounted simply for the conservation of angular momentum as a cloud basically developed from a convective parcel of air. This is the same case as for Venus."

But the most intriguing features to her were linear streaks on the surface that indicate some sort of active process at work.

"What we can confidently say about the structures we are seeing on the surface is there are linear trends, there are streaks or perhaps there are cracks in the bedrock ice of titan, we don't know," Porco said. "But there are linear features and we see this in lots of regions where we look in high resolution. And again, not quite exactly sure what it's telling us, whether it's a tectonic process we're looking at or it's (wind related).

"What we can say from those images is the surface seems to be a young surface. We see very few circular features that one might interpret as craters. In fact, that doesn't even mean they're not there. If the surface is coated at this viewing geometry with no shadows, if the surface was coated completely with a uniform material, we wouldn't see any craters anyway even if they were there.

"It's going to take combining all these data together, it's going to take our stereo imaging, which will give us topography, it's going to take a combination of the (infrared imaging spectrometer) and the radar in order to really pick out whether we're seeing highs or lows and so on. There's a lot of work left to do. Our reconnaissance of Titan, our exploration of Titan, is really just beginning."

Imaging spectrometer team leader Robert Brown said his instrument also showed "a lot of complex structure on Titan's surface, a lot of strong margins between bright and dark regions."

"We're not exactly sure what the composition of the bright and dark regions are but some of the preliminary indications we've gotten from VIMS (Visual Imaging Spectrometer) suggest that even though there are differences between bright and dark, which are roughly a factor of two, that the composition of those bright and dark regions are not all that different, which is not what we expected.

"It's a bit hard to understand because their albedos are so different," he said. "But one way that can happen is you could coat the bright material and the dark material with a material which would mask the composition of the substrate, but you could see through it partially. So it may be some sort of a coating effect."

For now, no one knows.

"I think we're going to have to wait several flybys," Porco said, "maybe even several years, before we get a really good indication of what's going on."

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Titan up close
CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE
Posted: October 26, 2004

These raw, un-processed images of Saturn's moon Titan were taken by the Cassini spacecraft and transmitted to Earth on October 26. The pictures provide the closest views ever snapped of the hazy moon. Cassini flew 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) above the moon during the encounter.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute