Nasa’s Messenger probe is working its way through its mission to Mercury. Eventually it will enter into an orbit around Mercury, but it is already sending back some amazing photos, including this one:
Date Acquired: October 6, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 131775256
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 6 (430 nanometers)
Resolution: 5 kilometers/pixel (3 miles/pixel)
Scale: Mercury’s diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude: 27,000 kilometers (17,000 miles)
Of Interest: Yesterday, at 4:40 am EDT, MESSENGER successfully completed its second flyby of Mercury. Today, at about 1:50 am EDT, the images taken during the flyby encounter began to be received back on Earth. The spectacular image shown here is one of the first to be returned and shows a WAC image of the departing planet taken about 90 minutes after the spacecraft’s closest approach to Mercury. The bright crater just south of the center of the image is Kuiper, identified on images from the Mariner 10 mission in the 1970s. For most of the terrain east of Kuiper, toward the limb (edge) of the planet, the departing images are the first spacecraft views of that portion of Mercury’s surface. A striking characteristic of this newly imaged area is the large pattern of rays that extend from the northern region of Mercury to regions south of Kuiper. This extensive ray system appears to emanate from a relatively young crater newly imaged by MESSENGER, providing a view of the planet distinctly unique from that obtained during MESSENGER’s first flyby. This young, extensively rayed crater, along with the prominent rayed crater to the southeast of Kuiper, near the limb of the planet, were both seen in Earth-based radar images of Mercury but not previously imaged by spacecraft. As the MESSENGER team is busy examining this newly obtained view that is only a few hours old, data from the flyby continue to stream down to Earth, including higher resolution close-up images of this previously unseen terrain.
This is absolutely amazing. For a space geek like me, nothing can be more exciting than new high-res pics of our sister planets.
More pics to follow, I just liked this one enough that I had to post it now. 
I was at the duelling protests between the brain-dead gay bashers and pretty much everyone else on the 16th Street Mall yesterday. I’m going to put pictures up on my blog (http://biffster.org) soon. While the rhetoric was very heated between the two groups, everyone was doing what they were supposed to. No one was stepping off of the curb, everyone was staying where told by the police. The mall shuttles were landlocked ‘cuz of the mass of police officers in the bus lanes, but that was the only major disruption.
I also got to see the kid arrested. I was standing right next to him, then moved across the intersection to take a couple of pics of the line of shuttles. I heard a noise, looked over and saw the kid being picked up and slammed onto the street. It was almost gentle by DPD standards. Another kid ran across the street, muttering, “Oh my god, the cops just beat up my best friend. MY BEST FRIEND!!!” He didn’t stop, just ran down Curtis until he disappeared from view.
So, while talking with Jay Leno, John McCain decided to answer the house question with this little nugget:
“Could I just mention to you Jay, that in a moment of seriousness, I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair,” said McCain, citing his history as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. “I spent those five and half years not because I wanted to get a house when I got back home.” (via
9news.com)
Have y’all seen The Big Lebowski? You know John Goodman’s character, Walter, who always tries to equate everything to Vietnam? John McCain is that guy. He has turned into Walter. I keep expecting Jeff Bridges to show up, yelling “Everything’s a fuckin’ travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Seriously, though, what does being a POW have to do with owning a bunch of houses?
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This really is McCain’s biggest weakness, and Obama’s best weapon. It’s something that he needs to keep hammering on throughout the campaign: there is no difference policy-wise between McCain and Bush.
Y’know, I don’t know why I like this story as much as I do. I’m not really much of a history buff, and I am definitely not a Civil War afficianado. But I think there is something very cool about finding an historic document that’s been completely ignored. It’s like the ultimate “treasure in the trash” scenario:
Officials at a small Civil War museum made an intriguing discovery while sifting through storage: A document long treated as a photo reproduction of the terms of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender appears, upon closer inspection, to contain actual signatures and date to 1865.
Museum officials believe they have one of the three original documents signed by representatives of the Union and Confederacy in Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 10, 1865, a day after Lee’s surrender. (AP via Yahoo! News)
Even if this turns out to be a souvenir copy, the fact that it was signed by the key participants, including General Lee, makes this a relic from our country’s history. I think it has to be amazing to be able to hold a piece of history in one’s hands like this. I’d love to be able to touch it, or at least to see it in person.
Leave it to that dastardly Dick Cheney to leave out facts because they don’t jive with the admnistration’s policies:
Seeking to play down the effects of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change on public health, a former senior EPA official claimed Tuesday.
The official, Jason K. Burnett, said the White House was concerned that the proposed testimony last October by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might make it tougher to avoid regulating greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. (via Yahoo News)
Yeah, who cares about the truth, anyway! Ignore whatever doesn’t work for us!
Barack Obama is already showing that he is not going to ignore unfounded attacks. Apparently he learned well from John Kerry’s mistakes in 2004. So when the rabid right wingers took one of Obama’s comments and twisted it to say that Obama wanted to force Americans to learn Spanish, Obama fired right back:
This is an example of some of the problems we get into when somebody attacks you for saying the truth, which is: We should want our children with more knowledge. We should want our children to have more skills. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a good thing. I know, because I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing. (via Yahoo News)
Bravo for Mr. Obama! Everything in his campaign is going right. There’s absolutely no reason to lay down and take these attacks. And Barack obviously understands that.
Whether Carol Kreck was meeting a very strict definition of trespassing or not, this didn’t need to get to the point it did. Why not let her carry her sign? Where was the harm in it? This was a bizarre occurrence. Simply bizarre.
One thing that libertarians, moderates, liberals and progressives seem to agree about is that the current administration has made a mess of things. The nation is much worse off now than it was eight years ago. Aside from the 25% or so of staunch neo-conservatives/Bush devotees, everyone is happy that the Bush years are coming to an end. I think that, no matter which way the election goes, things are going to get better starting in January.
Of course, as one of our groups two progressives, I have to say that I am looking forward to an Obama presidency. Obama is poised to do for the country what Bill Ritter is doing for the state of Colorado: break us out of the rut that politics has been stalled in for decades, and move us onto a better, brighter future. We are seeing this in Colorado, as renewable energy corporations are starting to invest heavily in our state under Ritter’s natural energy initiatives. Obama’s policies are on a much larger scale, and the impact will be that much larger.
Of course, I am making the assumption that Obama will be the winner in November. Based on the current economy, the momentum that Obama is building, and the general feeling that the American people are sick of Republican leadership, I am pretty positive about that assumption. Add to this the fact that John McCain’s main strength is national defense, which is not going to be a factor in the upcoming election (unless there is a major economic recovery in the next six months), and I become even more positive about my assumption. It’ll be Obama in ‘08. And 2012, for that matter.
I have been more and more bemused by how rabid TalkLeft has become in their support of Hillary Clinton. They are to the point where any credibility they had built is now completely and totally gone. TalkLeft has become nothing but a Hillary Clinton propoganda machine. Anyone who dares question anything about Hillary clinton are immediately labelled as haters or Hillary bashers. This brings to mind the 2004 Carl Rove tactic of labelling anyone who disagreed with the Iraq war as unpatriotic.
To TalkLeft, anyone who points out that Hillary made a mistake is actually slandering Clinton. For example, Jeralyn had this to say about the reaction to Clinton’s reference to Robert Kennedy’s assassination:
The media and blog commenters are engaging in character assassination. She was making a historical statement on why she needn’t drop out of the race by early June. Democratic nominations have gone past that before. Her emphasis was on the word “June.”
The leap that is required to think that her reference to the RFK assassination was in any way a statement or subliminal wish that it might happen to Obama is mind-boggling.
Jeralyn is stating that anyone who views Clinton’s remarks as offensive and reports that are assassinating Clinton’s character. As opposed to simply stating their displeasure with those remarks. This is totally and completely baffling to me. And apparently TalkLeft is no longer willing to engage in any type of conversation on the issue. From Jeralyn:
This will be the final TalkLeft thread on the matter. I’m not going to spend the weekend on this. And I’m going to have a low threshold for accusatory comments. If you want a place to further your attacks on Hillary, go somewhere else.
So, to sum up TalkLeft’s new philosophy: If you are anything less than a rabid Hillary supporter, you are not welcome at TalkLeft, and don’t you even think about posting anything in their comments. Interesting to find out that the Republicans don’t have a monopoly on trying to silence dissention within their ranks.
