Yourish.com

08/30/2009

The son also op-eds

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

Well following in his father’s illustrious path, Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi has taken the pen to produce an op-ed for the New York Times, so he could, of course, argue that Megrahi is innocent.

Mr. Megrahi was released for the right reasons. The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed Mr. Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds. Mr. MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will. Despite the uproar over the release, others agree. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers showed that a majority of those surveyed agreed with the secretary’s decision.

It’s worth pointing out that we Libyans are far from the only ones who believe that Mr. Megrahi is innocent of this terrible crime. In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission determined that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred and referred the case to the High Court. A retired Scottish police officer who worked on the case has signed a statement saying that evidence was fabricated. The credibility of a key witness, a shopkeeper in Malta, has subsequently been disputed by the Scottish judge who presided in the review. Even the spokesman of a family group of Lockerbie victims has said that the group was not satisfied that the verdict in the Megrahi case was correct.

However, Stratfor lays out the case against Megrahi here (h/t Seraphic Secret):

Investigators were also able to trace the clothing inside the suitcase containing the IED to a specific shop, Mary’s House, in Sliema, Malta. While examining one of the pieces of Maltese clothing in May 1989, investigators found a fragment of a circuit board that did not match anything found in the Toshiba radio. It is important to remember that in a bombing, the pieces of the IED do not entirely disappear. They may be shattered and scattered, but they are not usually completely vaporized. Although some pieces may be damaged beyond recognition, others are not, and this often allows investigators to reconstruct the device

In mid-1990, after an exhaustive effort to identify the circuit-board fragment, the FBI laboratory in Washington was able to determine that the circuit board was very similar to one that came from a timer that a special agent with the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service had recovered from an arms cache while investigating a Libyan-sponsored coup attempt in Lome, Togo, in 1986. Further investigation determined that the company that produced the timers, the Swiss company MEBO, had sold as many as 20 of the devices to the Libyan government, and that the Libyan government was the company’s primary customer. Interestingly, in 1988, MEBO rented one of its offices in Zurich to a firm called ABH, which was run by two Libyan intelligence officers: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Badri Hassan.

The MEBO timer, model MST-13, is very different from the ice-cube timer in the PFLP-GC device found in Frankfurt in October 1988. Additionally, the ice-cube timer in the PFLP-GC device was used in conjunction with a barometric pressure switch, and the IED used a different main charge, TNT, instead of the Semtex used in the Pan Am 103 device.

Nor was flight 103 the only flight about which that Libya admitted guilt. The younger Qaddafi doesn’t address that in his op-ed. Furthermore it appears that rumors of Megrahi’s impending death may have been exaggerated. (via Israel Matzav via Seraphic Secret)

Both parties now want the doctor identified in order to determine whether the government allowed itself to get hoodwinked by the Libyans. The alternative theory would be that the government wanted to construct a good cover story for Megrahi’s release for other reasons — for instance, oil deals, as Moammar Gaddafi hinted and his son flat-out claimed.

The government thus far has refused to identify the doctor and says speculation on the length of Megrahi’s life is “tasteless.” But that was the basis of Scotland’s decision to release a mass murderer after serving only 11.57 days for every life he took. The Scottish government made the calculation of Megrahi’s life expectancy into public policy, and it’s completely dishonest to now claim modesty and etiquette when challenged on it.

Of course, we’ll know by January if Megrahi really is that sick. If he’s still breathing when the 21st anniversary of the bombing rolls around on December 21, we’ll have a pretty good sense that the deal to get him released was political with “compassion” the cover for an action that was anything but.

Is the younger Qaddafi sincere? Erratic seems like a good description of the younger Qaddafi’s pronouncements.

Esquire last year listed him as one of the most influential people of the 21st century.

The second-oldest son of “Brother Leader” Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi would appear to be out of his mind. Reared by the military dictator who admitted responsibility for the Pan Am flight 103 bombing, Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi believes democracy can take root in Libya. He once told Al Jazeera, “You have to bring democracy to your countries,” referring to the Arab world, adding, “The Arabs should either change or change will be imposed upon them from the outside.” With him in power, the Western world, and the U. S. in particular, could get what it theoretically wants in Iraq–the conversion of a large, oil-rich extremist Middle Eastern regime to a peaceful democracy–without the in-between step of a war.

But does Saif mean it? When his time comes, will he submit to a vote? Or will he simply inherit the reins of power. I think Esquire’s being too kind here.

The Lede picked this up:

As The Lede noted last week, in 2008 the younger Mr. Qaddafi said in this extraordinary interview with the BBC that Libya had “accepted responsibility” for the actions of Mr. Megrahi and paid compensation for the Lockerbie bombing simply to bring about an end to international sanctions, but “that doesn’t mean we did it.” In the same interview, Mr. Qaddafi called the families of the Lockerbie victims “very greedy” and said, “Instead of wasting their time blackmailing us,” they should now work with the Libyan government “in order to find the real criminal who was behind that attack.”

“[F]ind the real criminal?” Has he been taking lessons from OJ?

Saif Qaddafi seems to want the benefits of dealing with the West, but he still says lots of things that indicate that he’s wedded to the old way of doing business. I think he’s less of voice of change than a voice for preserving his own privileges.

The Lede’s – a blog at the NYT – damaging post about Saif Qaddafi certainly made it seem like the release of Megrahi was part of a deal between Britain and Libya. Now the Times has given Qaddafi the opportunity to respond. Will he ever give his own citizens a similar opportunity?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

08/26/2009

No Jews, No beer

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Saudi Arabia — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

Please see an important note at the end.

A few days ago the Washington Post concluded in Self-Muzzled at Yale:

In effect, Yale University Press is allowing violent extremists to set the terms of free speech. As an academic press that embraces the university’s motto of “Lux et Veritas,” it should be ashamed.

Would it be that the truth were so benign.

Last week in response to Roger Kimball’s column about Yale’s decision not to publish the cartoons, InstaPundit quipped:

I suspect that they were mostly afraid of scaring away Saudi money.

Martin Kramer fleshes out the further:

Imagine, then–and we’re just imagining–that someone in the Yale administration, perhaps in President Levin’s office, gets wind of the fact that Yale University Press is about to publish a book on the Danish cartoons–The Cartoons That Shook the World. The book is going to include the Danish cartoons, plus earlier depictions of the Prophet Muhammad tormented in Dante’s Inferno, and who-knows-what-else. Whooah! Good luck explaining to people like Prince Alwaleed that Yale University and Yale University Press are two different shops. The university can’t interfere in editorial matters, so what’s to be done? Summon some “experts,” who’ll be smart enough to know just what to say. Yale will be accused of surrendering to an imagined threat by extremists. So be it: self-censorship to spare bloodshed in Nigeria or Indonesia still sounds a lot nobler than self-censorship to keep a Saudi prince on the line for $20 million.

Now Prince Alwaleed’s gift was not the first Saudi gift to Yale, back in 2002, the Yale Herald wrote about a gift from (then) Crown Prince Abdullah.

… Abdullah’s comes with several stipulations. Five million dollars will fund a named professorship in the international relations department dedicated to United States-Middle East relations; $2 million will be earmarked for the burgeoning Near Eastern languages and civilizations department, with an emphasis on courses in Arabic language instruction. Smaller, as-yet-unspecifed amounts will be funneled to the Yale University Art Gallery, the Religious Studies department, and a future DeVane Lecture. A large portion of the remaining sum, roughly $350 million, will enable the construction of a 13th residential college–a project previously postponed by the Yale Corporation, which thought it was years away from execution for fiscal reasons.

Now think about it, given these “stipulations,” what would be the orientation of that professor of international relations? Is he likely to harbor any sympathy for Israel? I think we know the answer to that one. And yet the Yale PR machine compares King Abdullah’s stipulations, to those of Paul Mellon.

Perhaps you remember that Yale once returned a $20 million endowment for the teaching of Western civilization. The stated reason was that the donor, Lee Bass, had stipulated that he wished to have veto power over professorial appointments. Perhaps Saudi royalty makes no such explicit demands, but the episode with the book about the Danish cartoons shows that it had no need to. The Yale administration knows its limits.

Perhaps, then, Yale President Levin’s recollection about meeting (then) Crown Prince Abdullah should raise some concern.

THE ENTIRE TRANSACTION WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL BUT IMPOSsible were it not for a whispered conversation held in a United Nations (U.N.) elevator at the end of the summer of 1998. Along with a delegation of Saudi Arabian diplomats, the Crown Prince was attending a conference on the global integration of educational networks and the nation-derived economic determination of such processes, with a focus on the Middle Eastern states. One of the panel’s speakers was none other than Levin himself. After the conference, Levin found himself next to Abdullah in a crowded elevator in the U.N.’s Secretariat office building. “We had talked only formally during the conference,” Levin said, “though I felt we had an unspoken affinity with each other. He showed a pointed interest in the American university system… I don’t know exactly why–perhaps out of habit–but I invited him to campus.” Abdullah accepted, and a week later he became the first member of the royal family to visit an institution of higher education in the United States.

(emphasis mine)
Got that? The (present) King has a strong interest in the American university system. And as Martin Kramer showed, that interest is not altruistic but strategic.

Two years ago, in what read like a press release from the Saudi government the New York Times reported that Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert.

On a marshy peninsula 50 miles from this Red Sea port, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is staking $12.5 billion on a gargantuan bid to catch up with the West in science and technology.

Between an oil refinery and the sea, the monarch is building from scratch a graduate research institution that will have one of the 10 largest endowments in the world, worth more than $10 billion.

Its planners say men and women will study side by side in an enclave walled off from the rest of Saudi society, the country’s notorious religious police will be barred and all religious and ethnic groups will be welcome in a push for academic freedom and international collaboration sure to test the kingdom’s cultural and religious limits.

The report goes on to portray this as the enlightened monarch attempting to bring his country into the modern world. But at the end of the article we learn that there limits to that enlightenment.

But the kingdom’s laws will still apply: Israelis, barred by law from visiting Saudi Arabia, will not be able to collaborate with the university. And one staple of campus life worldwide will be missing: alcohol.

So even though some of the top scientists in many disciplines are from Israel, the Saudis won’t bend their rules to enhance science. And I love the juxtaposition: No Jews and no beer, as if these restrictions are of equal import.

This makes a mockery of the claim made by another academic about its partnership with the Saudis.

“We are working with a university that has guaranteed nondiscrimination on the basis of race, religion or gender,” said Peter Glynn, director of the Stanford institute. “We recognize that this university operates in Saudi Arabia. Having said that, this university recognizes that if it wants to be world-class, it has to be able to freely attract the best students and faculty from around the world.”

If the Yale scandal was simply a matter of bowing pre-emptively to fears of extremism, the damage to intellectual inquiry would be discrete. But if, as it appears, the calculation was to avoid offending a benefactor – whose generosity Yale (and other universities) seeks, then its an ongoing problem. It is a corruption of academia.

There seem to be many who feel it is necessary to question their assumptions about Israel, who are diffident about challenging bogus charges of undue Jewish influence in the world. But when it comes to oil money, they are noticeably incurious. That money would seem to buy both influence and silence.

Saudi money speaks louder than ideas.

UPDATE: One reason I like blogging is because it involves linking to my sources. Readers can check out my sources and determine if I read them correctly.

I quoted from a Yale Daily Herald article from 2002. It was a perfect example of the deference academic institutions showed towards the Saudis.

It was in fact, too perfect. It was an April Fool’s satire. I think that my basic contention that the Saudi investment in academia corrupts the institutions that take the money. However one of the bases of my contention was mistaken. I should have been more careful.

In fact the tone of the satire matched the tone of at least one of the New York Times articles I used. Still, I should have been more careful.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/08/2009

The moon is made of multi-colored tie dyed cheese

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 7:00 am

365717main_image_1405_946-710

Wow, a really funky color enhanced picture of the moon from NASA.

Earth’s Moon

This composite image depicts the moon’s rugged south polar region and is the highest resolution topography map to date of the moon’s south pole. It was generated by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, using data collected using the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Solar System Radar located in California’s Mojave Desert. This new map provides contiguous topographic detail over a region approximately 311 miles by 249 miles (500 kilometers by 400 kilometers).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

04/13/2009

Deka and DARPA

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 1:00 pm

60 Minutes had a report yesterday about the Army’s efforts to create artificial arms for amputees. Prosthetics, until now, haven’t changed since they were first invented. Now efforts are being made to tie the artificial limbs into the users nervous system and give them greater utility. 60 Minutes focuses on the efforts of Dean Kamen and his work for DARPA. (via memeorandum)

One of the scientists Ling asked to join the team is Dean Kamen, a sort of rock star in the world of inventors. His creations include dozens of medical devices, and the Segway.

They are inventions which have made him a multimillionaire.

“When the folks from the Defense Department came to this office and said, ‘Here’s what we need,’ what did they tell you?” Pelley asked.

“We want these kids to have something put back on them that will essentially allow one of these kids to pick up a raisin or a grape off a table, know the difference without looking at it. That is an extraordinary goal,” Kamen explained.

“He basically said, ‘You’re crazy.’ That’s what he told us,” Ling remembered. “He said flat out, he and he himself, who’s a crazy guy himself, I mean he is very innovative thinking. He’s a brilliant man, totally brilliant man, but mad scientist.”

Kamen told Pelley he thought the Pentagon and DARPA were unbelievably optimistic in their expectations and that he told them that.

“He said to us, he said, ‘I can do my, you’re crazy. But, we’re willing to rise to this, rise to the challenge because it’s important,’” Ling remembered.

Towards the end of the segment, 60 MInutes correspondent Scott Pelley interviews Capt. Jon Kuniholm about the efforts. Kuniholm is not only a scientist working on artificial arms, he lost an arm four years while in patrol in Iraq. Kuniholm is also involved in other parallel efforts, including “Air Guitar Hero,” an effort to differentiate between fine tune an amputee’s control over their limbs.

Inspired by Wii-hab, Armiger and colleague Jacob Vogelstein borrowed a colleague’s copy of Guitar Hero and attacked the controller with a soldering iron. They rewired the standard guitar-shaped controller to take instructions from the VIE.

Next they substituted muscle contractions for button presses. In particular, they had to rejigger the inputs. Two-handed gamers normally play by using one hand to press colored “fret” buttons to correspond to the correct notes while using the other hand to push a “strum” button in time with the note. Onscreen, these same five colored buttons scroll down the display in time with the notes the players are supposed to hit. To correctly play a note, the player must press the right color fret button and the strum button with the opposite hand.

But Vogelstein and Armiger wanted to use the game to train an amputee. So first they needed to make the game’s controls one-handed. They did that by wiring the two controls together so that an input from a muscle contraction would be read by the VIE as a simultaneous “fret” and “strum.”

One aspect of the story left out by 60 Minutes, is the role of open source thinking involved in improving prosthetic technology.

The two prostheses from Walter Reed were state-of-the-art, the latest in prosthetic design. But back in North Carolina, Kuniholm and his partners at Tackle Design were shocked at the lack of innovation in arm and hand prostheses. They were sure they could do better. And that is how the small North Carolina design firm got into the prosthetics business. More, Kuniholm and his partners have created a clearinghouse for prosthetic designs, an online consortium they call the Open Prosthetics Project (OPP), whose goal is to nurture useful ideas for innovations and then freely give the designs away. The idea is to benefit not only people such as Kuniholm, who already have the resources that come from living in a first-world economy, but also amputees all over the world.

Here’s an IEEE video of an interview with Dean Kamen as he explains his “Luke” arm.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Pictures from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Soccerdad @ 4:33 am
Baltimore's Inner Harbor - from the Light Street Pavilion

Baltimore's Inner Harbor - from the Light Street Pavilion

A green headed mallard

A green headed mallard

Police on bikes and a Segway

Police on bikes and a Segway

Which way are you going?

Which way are you going?

Looking down a channel through a circle.

Looking down a channel through a circle.

02/25/2009

An Obama tax question

Filed under: Miscellaneous, The One — Meryl Yourish @ 9:30 am

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

When Obama says he’s going to raise taxes on families making more than $250,000, what’s the limit for singles? No one ever mentions that, and I’m curious as to what Obama thinks is rich.

I think his and my ideas on that subject are not going to be the same.

02/23/2009

I’m a racist, not a coward

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

I took the Project Implicit test to see if I’m a racist. And I am.

The results of your tests are outlined below:

Your data suggests a slight automatic preference for Black people over White people

Your data suggests a strong automatic preference for John McCain over Barack Obama

Depending on the magnitude of your result, your automatic associations may be described as ’slight’, ‘moderate’, ’strong’, or ‘little to no preference or difference in association’. How implicit associations affect our judgments and behaviors is not well understood and may be influenced by a number of variables. As such, the score should serve as an opportunity for self-reflection, not as a definitive assessment of your implicit thoughts or feelings. This and future research will clarify the way in which implicit thinking and feelings affects our perception, judgment, and action. If you have any questions about this study or if you would like to find out the overall results, please email feedback@projectimplicit.net.

I love the explanation. Before you take the test, they ask you who you voted for, and then if you have warm or cold thoughts towards each candidate, and whether you are “strongly” for or against a candidate. So it’s a pretty keen grasp of the obvious to tell me I have a strong automatic preference for McCain. Also, that was the last of the four tests, so by then, I’d gotten really used to hitting the K or D key.

Of course, here’s where I would normally say “Some of my best friends are black,” but that would be a lie. I have one friend who is black, and all the rest are white. But everywhere I go, I relate to people as people, regardless of race. My parents taught me that when I was a child. Standing in line at the grocery, getting gas, in the mall, at work—I’m not a coward, and this isn’t a nation of cowards. Are we completely finished with racism? Of course not. But we have a black president now. I’m thinking that in itself speaks volumes about the lack of racism in America.

02/13/2009

Ring around the planet?

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

bee-hive-leo_h1

70% of all catalogued objects are in low-Earth orbit (LEO), which extends to 2000 km above the Earth’s surface. To observe the Earth, spacecraft must orbit at such a low altitude. The spatial density of objects increases at high latitudes. Note: The debris objects shown in the images are an artist’s impression based on actual density data. However, the debris objects are shown at an eggagerated size to make them visible at the scale shown.

Credit ESA.

The New York Times reported the other day that two communications satellites – one American. one Russian – collided in space.

“This is a first, unfortunately,” Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said of the collision.

It happened some 490 miles above northern Siberia, at around noon Eastern time. Two communications satellites — one Russian, one American — cracked up in silent destruction. In the aftermath, military radars on the ground tracked large amounts of debris going into higher and lower orbits.

“Nothing to this extent” has ever happened before, Mr. Johnson said. “We’ve had three other accidental collisions between what we call catalog objects, but they were all much smaller than this,” the objects always very small and moderate in size.

The communication satellites, he added, “are two relatively big objects.”

If you’re wondering why NASA has someone in charge of orbital debris, that picture above illustrates the problem in a somewhat exaggerated form. While the threat to the space station is viewed as minimal for now, later on in the report there’s a reference to a bigger problem:

Mr. Johnson, who works at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the new swarms of whirling debris might also eventually pose a threat to other satellites in an orbital chain reaction.

About that chain reaction … Two years ago the New York Times reported:

Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests.

Now, experts say, China’s test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars’ worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity’s reach for the stars.

Federal and private experts say that early estimates of 800 pieces of detectable debris from the shattering of the satellite will grow to nearly 1,000 as observations continue by tracking radars and space cameras. At either number, it is the worst such episode in space history.

If I understand the article, the chain reaction that observers fear, would create a ring of debris around Earth that would be nearly impossible to penetrate.

Cascade warnings began as early as 1978. Mr. Kessler and his NASA colleague, Burton G. Cour-Palais, wrote in The Journal of Geophysical Research that speeding junk that formed more junk would produce “an exponential increase in the number of objects with time, creating a belt of debris around the Earth.”

(The Times also provided an interactive graphic to illustrate the problem.)

Whether or not the cascade ever occurs, it’s likely that there will be more collisions like the one that occurred this week.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

01/27/2009

Jeopardy tryouts

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Pop Culture, Television — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:30 am

If you want a chance to appear on Jeopardy, there will be online tests starting tonight based on your geographic location in the United States. Register here. Three years ago I think I got about 40 of the 50 questions, but last year, I did somewhat worse. I really haven’t kept up with my knowledge of popular culture. The online test is tonight for the east coast, tomorrow night for the Central and Mountain time zones and Thursday night for the west coast, Alaska and Hawaii.

This is only a preliminary test. If you do sufficiently well and you’re randomly chosen you still have three more steps to go through to become a contestant.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

12/25/2008

Diffracted light II

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 2:00 pm

Last time out, I didn’t do exactly what I wanted to with the diffracted light on the wall behind the computer desk. So here, for the full context are three shots, zooming in a bit with each.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

12/18/2008

2 more from NASA

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 7:00 am

A Tectonic Feast

On Oct. 5, 2008, just after coming within about 15 miles of the surface of Enceladus, NASA’s Cassini captured this stunning mosaic as the spacecraft sped away from this geologically active moon of Saturn. Craters and cratered terrains are rare in this view of the southern region of the moon’s Saturn-facing hemisphere. Instead, the surface is replete with fractures, folds, and ridges–all hallmarks of remarkable tectonic activity for a relatively small world. In this enhanced-color view, regions that appear blue-green are thought to be coated with larger grains than those that appear white or gray.

Near the top, the conspicuous ridges are Ebony and Cufa Dorsae. This false-color mosaic was created from 28 images obtained at seven footprints, or pointing positions, by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera. At each footprint, four images using filters sensitive to ultraviolet, visible and infrared light (spanning wavelengths from 338 to 930 nanometers) were combined to create the individual frames. The view was acquired at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 73 degrees.

Portions of the tiger stripe fractures, or sulci, are visible throughout the image. The icy moon’s famed jets emanate from at least eight distinct source regions, which lie on or near the tiger stripes. However, in this view, the most prominent feature is Labtayt Sulci, the approximately .6 mile-deep northward-trending chasm.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Earlier we got a look of Endeavor getting ready to return to the Kennedy Space Center, now we get to see it en-route.

The Journey Home

Fresh from the STS-126 mission space shuttle Endeavour, mounted atop its modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, flew over California’s Mojave Desert on its way back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 10, 2008.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas

In addition to the Astronomy Picture of the Day, that LGF mentions, NASA also has its Image of the Day plus links to several other image galleries. It’s really great stuff.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

12/16/2008

A spider in space

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 7:00 am

Tarantula Nebula

Drama in the Heart of the Tarantula

Enormous stars in the Tarantula Nebula, one of the largest massive star-forming regions close to the Milky Way, are producing intense radiation and searing winds of multimillion-degree gas that carve out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust. Other massive stars in the nebula have raced through their evolution and exploded catastrophically as supernovae, expanding these bubbles into x-ray-brightened superbubbles.

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley, et al.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

12/12/2008

Endeavor flies home

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 6:00 am

Atop a modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, space shuttle Endeavour began the journey from Edwards Air Force Base on the first leg of its ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center just after sunrise on Dec. 10, 2008.

Image Credit: NASA/Tom Tschida

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

12/03/2008

Author of stupid CF motion resigns from student council

Filed under: Juvenile Scorn, Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 6:00 am

The PC moron who wanted to defund the Carleton College cystic fibrosis fundraiser because the disease affects “mostly white males” has resigned in disgrace.

The student council at an Ottawa university has reversed its controversial decision to pull out of an annual fundraiser for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Following vocal protests from students, the Carleton University Students Association voted unanimously Monday night to:

  • Support next year’s cystic fibrosis fundraiser, called Shinerama.
  • Donate at least $1,000 to the organization.
  • Issue a formal apology.

In addition, the student councillor who crafted the controversial motion to drop the fundraiser resigned.

Score one for the good guys.

However, it seems that we can never have a stupid action without an equally stupid reaction: Can we ever, ever, EVER have people email their opinions to people without some idiots having to issue death threats? Really, stupid on the left, stupid on the right—all right, all right, we get it: There are stupid people everywhere.

I forgot to link to Sarah’s post last week, with a scan of a CF Foundation calendar that shows a lot of female and dark-skinned white males.

Sometimes, all’s well that ends well.

12/02/2008

Richmond gas price below $1.50

Filed under: Iran, Juvenile Scorn, Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 11:30 am

The $1.50 plateau has been broken in Richmond.

Richmond gas price below $1.50

Gas went below $50 a barrel yesterday and it has stayed at $49 and change today.

Crude oil fell for a third day after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries deferred a decision to reduce output until its next meeting on Dec. 17.

What I find the most amusing in all of this is the Saudi insistence that $75/bbl is a “fair” price.

Prices around $75 a barrel would be “fair” and would support investment in new fields, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said over the weekend. The global market is oversupplied by more than 2 million barrels a day, Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said.

When oil was up around $147/bbl, the Saudi oil ministers insisted they could not control the price of oil, and that it was the fault of speculators. They said nothing about a fair price. Funny, nobody’s blaming speculators on the collapse of crude oil prices. But then, Saudi Arabia only needs oil to be at $30/bbl for their purposes. It’s Iran ($75-100/bbl) and Venezuela ($65/bbl) that are hurting the most. And may we say: Good.

I’m shedding no tears for the oil ticks. I saved more than $100 driving to New Jersey for the holiday last weekend, and I’m saving on my weekly commute again, as well. Which is not to say I’m not going to get a fuel-efficient vehicle next time around. I’m counting on the government to bail out Chrysler, and for Chrysler to make a hybrid Jeep Wrangler. That way I can have my cake and eat it, too.

11/21/2008

The generosity of Americans

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama accused Americans of not being charitable enough. Well, he was wrong.

As more Americans turn to charity amid worsening economic gloom, operators of food banks and other aid groups are relying on the surprisingly resilient generosity of their neighbors and finding that even when times are tough, people still give.

In Seattle, Boeing Co. (BA) employees tripled their cash donations this year to Northwest Harvest, operator of Washington’s largest food bank. And every week, Northwest Harvest spokeswoman Claire Acey says, companies call to say their employees have decided to skip their holiday party and buy food for the hungry instead.

Our synaogue food bank donations were higher than ever this year. I know I gave more than last year, and I gave a lot last year.

Greeves, of Harris Interactive, said that in a year when people are having trouble meeting basic needs, giving by individuals usually increases food, shelter and health care.

“If it makes them feel good and they feel like it’s making a difference, they’ll give money,” he said.

I don’t think it’s the “feel good” part that counts. I think the average American gives when she or he can when times are tough, because times are tough, and everyone can use a helping hand.

11/16/2008

Canning spam ^ 2

Filed under: Computers, Miscellaneous, Pop Culture — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

A tale of two meanings.

This spam is canned.

Immediately after McColo was unplugged, security companies charted a precipitous drop in spam volumes worldwide. E-mail security firm IronPort said spam levels fell by roughly 66 percent as of Tuesday evening.

Spamcop.net, another spam watch dog, found a similar decline, from about 40 spam e-mails per second to around 10 per second. (See their graphic representation here.)

(via memeorandum)
This is undoubtedly good!

More Spam is canned – and sold!

Through war and recession, Americans have turned to the glistening canned product from Hormel as a way to save money while still putting something that resembles meat on the table. Now, in a sign of the times, it is happening again, and Hormel is cranking out as much Spam as its workers can produce.

In a factory that abuts Interstate 90, two shifts of workers have been making Spam seven days a week since July, and they have been told that the relentless work schedule will continue indefinitely.

(via memeorandum)

But is this a good sign or a bad one?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

11/11/2008

To our veterans

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

Thanks for your service.

10/29/2008

Damn. Crude oil’s recovering

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 10:59 pm

It’s near $70/bbl now.

Oh, well. Gas is under $2 a gallon in Richmond. I’ll have to go somewhere tomorrow so I can fill up one last time under $2 per.

10/24/2008

OPEC cut is backfiring on them

Filed under: Evil Meryl, Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 11:30 am

This is great news:

Oil options contracts to sell crude at $50 by December almost tripled today after an OPEC decision to slash production failed to allay concerns that the global economic slump is hurting demand.

The cost of the $50 December 2008 put option, which gives the holder the right to sell oil futures at $50 a barrel, rose as much as 142 percent to $1.50 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with 62 cents yesterday, according to exchange data.

“It certainly seems to me that we could get down to $50 a barrel,” Adam Sieminski, Deutsche Bank’s chief energy economist, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview today. “You could look at the OPEC cut as a sign of weakness, not strength.”

The cost of the option jumped on speculation that an output cut announced today by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, won’t be enough to stem plunging prices.

Ladies and gentlemen, can we have a little Nelson here, please?

Oil be seeing you at $2 a gallon?

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

Gas is $2.15 at the local Costco and Sam’s Club in Richmond, and OPEC is meeting to try to stop oil from falling any further.

Crude oil rose for a second day on speculation OPEC will agree to cut output to stem a more than 50 percent in drop in prices from July’s record.

Venezuela and Iran are among members to have called for a reduction at today’s meeting in Vienna. OPEC President Chakib Khelil said there is a consensus to trim supplies without agreement on the size. Oil is poised to drop for a fourth week, the longest losing streak since January last year.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to be in a short position ahead of OPEC’s announcement,” said Toby Hassall, an analyst with Commodity Warrants Australia Ltd. in Sydney. “OPEC will probably go with a strategy of cutting now and then wait for more evidence of the demand situation and then cut output again before the end of the year.”

Yeah, but rising from $66 to $68/bbl is my kind of rise. Plus, there’s the potential for some serious falling-outs among, um, frenemies.

Crude prices dipped yesterday after Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi declined to express his support for a possible cut, on his arrival in Vienna. Saudi Arabia and Iran are the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ two biggest producers.

“Who said anything about a cut?” al-Naimi said when asked whether he supports the possibility of the group agreeing to reduce output. “Prices will be determined by the market.”

It is to be hoped. Because when I read facts like these, I smile, smile, smile.

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices of less than $30 a barrel to balance its government budget, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates. The United Arab Emirates requires $40 a barrel and Qatar $55.

Iran, with double the population of Saudi Arabia, has a breakeven point of about $100 a barrel, according to Edward Morse, managing director and chief economist at Louis Capital Markets LP in New York. In Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez’s government is spending oil revenue on social programs, the figure is about $120, he said.

Even if the price goes back up to $70-80/bbl, Iran is screwed—and we still get relief at the pump.

I wish the OPEC ministers the very worst of luck. Particularly the Iranians. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of oil ticks.

Update: OPEC is cutting production by 1.5 million bbl. The market reacted by dropping the price of crude oil to $62.96 at 8 a.m.

The must-read quote of the day:

OPEC President and Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil said at a news conference that the cut will be “100 percent effective” in stabilizing prices.

Pardon my schadenfreude. Oh, no, don’t. These are the scumbags who have financed the murderers of Jews and Americans for decades, and who take our money and turn it into dictatorship and despotism. I hope oil collapses to $30 a barrel. We’ll still be working on alternative fuels. They won’t be working on alternative products for their economies.

10/22/2008

Is this the end of little OPEC?

Filed under: Miscellaneous, World — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Looks like the global recession, falling oil prices, and the world’s lack of funds to pay oil extortion money may contribute to the end of the world’s worst cartel. And here’s why:

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices of less than $30 a barrel to balance its government budget, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates. The United Arab Emirates requires $40 a barrel and Qatar $55.

Iran, with double the population of Saudi Arabia, has a breakeven point of about $100 a barrel, according to Edward Morse, managing director and chief economist at Louis Capital Markets LP in New York. In Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez’s government is spending oil revenue on social programs, the figure is about $120, he said.

Oil options trading shows the probability that crude will fall below $50 a barrel by June has more than doubled in 10 days, Deutsche Bank AG said in an Oct. 17 report. There is a 9 percent likelihood that June 2009 crude oil contracts will expire below $50, up from 4 percent, Deutsche said.

There is squabbling among the sheiks, and this can only be good news for the world’s working stiffs. And then there were these grand old times:

Eleven years ago, OPEC members bickered about output quotas as oil slid 28 percent in 10 months amid the onset of the Asian financial crisis. At a meeting in Jakarta in November 1997, they raised quotas, ignoring the turmoil that slowed Asian economies and cut oil demand. Prices fell another 44 percent by December 1998 to below $11 a barrel.

Time to get us to alternative fuels.

For those people out there insisting that cheap gas will get Americans back to their gas-guzzling ways: No, it won’t. I was gassing up on Sunday and chatting with the gentleman in the SUV next to me about the low gas prices. “It won’t last,” he said. That’s the attitude that most people have. We’re happy for the relief, but know we have to change our driving habits. The elites don’t understand that Americans aren’t as stupid as they think.

In the meantime, enjoy the falling gas prices. It’s down to $2.25 in Richmond, and still falling.

10/16/2008

Oil prices are flatlining

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Oil fell below $70 a barrel today, for the first time since 2006.

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil futures fell below $70 a barrel after a U.S. government report showed a bigger-than- forecast increase in inventories.

Supplies rose 5.6 million barrels to 308.2 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 10, the Energy Department said today in a weekly report. Inventories were forecast to rise 2.6 million barrels, according to the median of analyst estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

Crude oil for November delivery fell $4.50, or 6 percent, to $70.04 a barrel at 11:14 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil fell as low as $69.15 a barrel after release of the supply report.

But of course, this isn’t good news for OPEC, which is gathering to see if the oil ticks can suck any more blood out of our economic corpus.

The “ideal” price for crude oil is between $70 and $90 a barrel, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries President Chakib Khelil said today. OPEC hasn’t decided the size of an output cut it may opt for at a meeting in Vienna on Oct. 24, Khelil told reporters at the Hassi Rmel gas fields.

The best news is that I read somewhere—I can’t find it and can’t remember where it was—that below $70 a barrel is the drop-dead point for Iran. They’re already hurting, but when oil drops this much, it’s going to cause a huge economic crisis. And let’s not forget that Venezuela is also hurting in the current market. Our bad economy means their horrible economy. I think their schadenfreude is going to be cut short, and quickly.

Even if OPEC cuts production, it doesnt’ look like it’s going to stabilize the price of oil.

Credit Suisse Group and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. slashed their oil-price forecasts for next year as tightening credit conditions and slowing economic growth eroded fuel demand.

Bernstein lowered its crude oil price forecast to $70 a barrel from $90 in 2009 and cut the 2010 estimate to $80 from $95 a barrel, according to a report today. Zurich-based Credit Suisse reduced its next-year estimate by 32 percent to $75.

Sam’s Club in Richmond is charging $2.41 a gallon. We haven’t seen prices that low since September of 2006.

I believe this is where we get to say: In your face, Ahmadinejad.

09/19/2008

I guess he got a lot of iron in his diet

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Pop Culture — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 6:00 am

From the Telegraph:

Michel Lotito (France) (b. 15 June 1950) of Grenoble, France, known as Monsieur Mangetout, ate metal and glass from 1959 until his death last year. His diet since 1966 included 18 bicycles, 15 supermarket trolleys, seven TV sets, six chandeliers, two beds, a pair of skis, a low-calorie Cessna light aircraft and a computer.

If I have my French correct Mangetout = omnivore.

I guess you could say that he spun a record.

I’d guess that she’s not claustrophobic.

What a waist.

Starts here.

H/T Oyvay Blog

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

08/31/2008

Michael Moore and proof of deity’s existence

Filed under: Miscellaneous — SnoopyTheGoon @ 11:37 am

According to this, the world-famous creator of post-documentary documentaries found a new proof of existence of deity and His/Her attention to political affairs in US of A:

During an appearance Friday on MSNBC, Moore noted the coincidental timing of Gustav, which threatened the Gulf Coast on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as the Republican Party planned to hold its convention in St. Paul, Minn.

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” the Oscar-winning director of “Fahrenheit 911″ said. “To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.”

I was just thinking after reading the above that:

  1. This mug is another proof that the deity exists and that He/She has been unusually cruel toward the mug’s parents. On the other hand, the parents might have sinned mightily – who knows?
  2. Michael Moore must have been paid by Republicans to sabotage the Democrats’ cause.
  3. Krispy Kreme donuts definitely cause brain damage in the long run, especially if a person who is a walking cemetery of these donuts wasn’t a genius to start with.
  4. Being an ugly, fat and lying jerk is not an excuse for moral debauchery. Or for idiocy.
  5. Who is hating America more – Osama or Michael Moore?
  6. Re item 1: Since we have established the existence of the deity, there is a five words message the deity should have passed to the parents (probably mislaid it due to extreme busyness): “Contraception, contraception, contraception!”.
  7. More miscellaneous items that could not be published.

As you might have noticed, the items are not arranged in a particular order. Just thinking, you know…

More on the slobbo here.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

07/27/2008

Qantas still hasn’t crashed

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Qantas airlines had a pretty incredible save the other day The NYT reports:

The jumbo jet, which carried 346 passengers and 19 crew members, landed safely on Friday and those on board left without injury. As a piece of fuselage the size of a sedan ripped from the plane, the jet, Qantas Flight 30, had been forced to descend steeply to 10,000 feet from 29,000 feet.

Passengers described hearing a loud bang and seeing debris fly into the cabin. As the plane depressurized, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and cabin crew members shouted to passengers to put them on.

Here’s the part that’s particularly incredible:

He said passengers were not in danger from the depressurization because aircraft that fly above 10,000 feet are generally required to carry oxygen systems. The atmosphere is thin above that altitude, and people can function for only a few minutes without oxygen before becoming groggy and losing consciousness.

Pilots are trained to bring a plane down swiftly to 10,000 feet, where passengers and crew can breathe without assistance. Given that the Qantas jet was at 29,000 feet, the plane dropped roughly a mile a minute, “not the kind of descent you would normally subject passengers to,” Mr. Mann said.

The Times also lists other Qantas close calls and a similar incident from 20 years ago.

Qantas has also had some close calls. In 1999, a Qantas jet ran off a runway in Bangkok while landing in heavy rain. There were no reports of serious injuries.

More recently, a Qantas-operated Boeing 717 was damaged in February when it sustained a hard landing at Darwin, Australia. The landing gear, tires and fuselage of the plane, flown by QantasLink, the airline’s regional carrier, were damaged.

In 1988, a gash opened in a Boeing 737 belonging to Aloha Airlines at 24,000 feet on a flight from Hilo to Honolulu, Hawaii. A chunk of the plane’s roof and the cockpit door were blown out. One flight attendant was killed when she was swept out of the plane, and 65 passengers and crew members were hurt.

Federal investigators said the accident was caused by metal fatigue, exacerbated by corrosion caused by salt water.

The Times mentions the famous Qantas claim and the scene in Rain Man that popularized it.

The Times points out that in its early years before it was incorporated as Qantas it did lose some jets. USA Today’s airline blog has more on how the airline has protected that claim.

The Guardian notes Qantas “paid a reported $100 million to repair it, way above the value of the Boeing 747-400, apparently so it could preserve its ‘never lost a jet’ status.” The airline has had several other incidents during the past decade, but — so far — none have resulted in the loss of a jet.

The cynical tone doesn’t seem right. Even if Qantas has to declare a plane a loss, it’s still a pretty incredible safety record. Last week’s heroic piloting should be a reason to emphasize the record, not question it.

(h/t Mrs. Soccer Dad)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/16/2008

A good news post for today

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Oil is down another $4 per barrel.

And may we all say: Amen.

Fluffy kitty posts to come later today.

The news just reeks, otherwise.

07/06/2008

Celine Dion on the Middle East

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Politics — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 10:30 am

I’ve learned many important things from Barry Rubin. Last week’s column taught me something new: Celine Dion covered Eric Carnen’s “All by myself.” Dr. Rubin used the lyrics to illustrate the shifting sands of politics of the Middle East.

For more than a half-century, the region’s politics revolved around Arab nationalism. Individual states sought to have influence, leadership, or just to survive. The Arab-Israeli conflict was an important issue in this framework, though not the sole or even the most significant one.

Now, as Celine Dion sings, “Those days are gone.” Today, the centerpiece is a struggle between two blocs, one well-organized, the other weak and facing internal conflict. The former is the Tehran-led alliance of the HISH (Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizballah); the latter is just about everyone else, call it the coalition of the unwilling.

So how do the moderate Arab states deal with this?

Still, their behavior is understandable. They want to use the radical appeal of Arab nationalism, Islamism, anti-Americanism, and xenophobia to divert attention from their own failings while mobilizing support for themselves as the true defenders against all those big and little satans out there. At the same time, they are happy to appease their foes if possible.

A particularly blatant example is Kuwait’s foreign minister who denounced those who want to wage a false jihad at home. He explained that instead of murdering innocent Muslims, young people should kill Israelis instead. Much of the regimes’ “anti-terrorist” rhetoric is merely really aimed at shifting the targets away from themselves.

On one hand, the Saudis host a global interfaith dialogue conference; float a peace initiative toward Israel, fight domestic terrorism, and battle Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon. On the other hand, they aid terrorists and spread extremist forms of Islam. Egypt is horrified by radical Islamism but refuses to go all-out against Hamas. The official media demonize the West and Israel, while the official Islamic religious apparatus endorses terrorism against Israel and in Iraq.

I’d say that this is a somewhat generalized form of what Dr. Rubin writes in “The truth about Syria,” in that the Assads use all means at their disposal to deflect criticisms of themselves and preserve their family’s tenuous hold on power.

So how does the West respond. I once wrote in a letter to the editor that every time Hafez Assad or Yasser Arafat sneezed it was interpreted as a signal of moderation. It appears that I was more or less correct.

By apologizing, conceding, refusing to defend themselves, or by negotiating, exaggerating the potential for moderation, and dropping sanctions, they can strengthen the extremists and undercut the regimes. When that happens, the regimes know they might better cut their own deal. So while there are arguable reasons to bargain with Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, or Syria, such a strategy splits the anti-HISH alliance and starts a race toward appeasement.

In the Dion song, “Love so distant and obscure, Remains the cure.” But this is politics. The best one can hope for is the wisdom to build on coinciding interests and courage to stand up to unrelenting enemies

And strengthening the extremists, no matter how well they keep the trains running on time, does not help.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/04/2008

Interesting euphemisms

Filed under: Media Bias, Miscellaneous — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 6:00 pm

Honor Guard

An honor guard stand to attention …

These are members of Hamas brandishing (I think) AK-47’s. Wouldn’t the more appropriate term be “armed terrorists?”

Iranian diplomats

picture depicting the four Iranian diplomats who were kidnapped in Lebanon in 1982 …

More likely they were intelligence officers tasked with coordinating Shi’ite militias at the time.

But this does make me wonder: If the Iranians are claiming that they were kidnapped by Christian and transferred to Israel, is this an implicit admission that the Iranians are/were holding Ron Arad. According to some rumors after he bailed out of his plane he was captured and eventually transferred to Iran.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/02/2008

The world’s worst motivational poster

Filed under: Media, Miscellaneous, Parody, palestinian politics — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 12:01 am

I’m sure you’ve seen those motivational posters around.
Listless

(This parody was created by Despair, Inc.’s Parody Motivator Generator.)

I saw this picture and thought it must be the world’s least appropriate motivational poster.

Israelly Cool! thinks it’s part of a subliminal effort to affect people’s perceptions.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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