Category: News

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Okaaayyy This is one of those really weird trains of thought.

imagesI was scanning the year end news. I know… BAD Idea!

Anyway,

Black Lives matter has made their presence known all over the place.

Many of the folks in the group and their leaders have been published saying stuff that paraphrased reads like “Kill the white devils!”

The Knock Out game is still being played in cities across the land. Victims are usually white. All the victims have been hospitalized and many have died. In the news rooms around the country the sound of crickets is the only sound of outrage to be heard.

If you want to see outrage, have a black person CLAIM to have been called the “N” word by an unidentified person driving by in a truck.

The President wants to import Syrian refugees, BUT Daesh has said they’re going to pepper the refugees with extremists with orders to do violence here in the states. Terrorists  are already well entrenched in the West and are not only threatening violence, but have committed horrific acts of terrorism in western countries.

Then I thought, I will not submit to EITHER of these groups. I will not bow, I will not convert. I was thinking i need to find a WHITE only country. A place where I could feel safe.

nar-sealThen it hit me.

We are well and TRULY FUCKED when the NorthWest Front starts to look good!

Section one of their proposed constitution turns me off immediately.

Yeah, I read it, and wow! There are a couple of things in their document that I actually agree with, but, and this is a big BUT so much of it sounds so very much like the Hitler’s NAZI party, that I can’t even begin to feel like they’re any kind of alternative.

There has to be something somewhere in the middle. Something between sanctioning an angry permanent victim class, and excluding people based on sexual, religious, behavioral, or racial differences.

This isn’t the country I was built to live in and I don’t want to live in a country that’s heading in the direction we appear to be going.  I thought that we’d have gotten past this kind of stuff by now.

Apparently not.

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Earthquake!!!!

While the local news people were losing their minds over a 4.x that was more of a roller than anything else. The dogs didn’t even look up.

The glass ornaments on the Christmas tree didn’t even tinkle together.

In other words Big Deal! So What?

When I first moved here 4.x was not even anything to bat an eye about. But it’s been so long since we had regular quakes folks are easily freaked out about it now.

Good! maybe there will be an exodus from California and the freeways will open up.

The REAL issue is the weather in the middle of the country.

Their llittany of problems reads like Elmer Fudd’s lyrics in What’s Opera Doc.

Norf winds bwo, Sowf winds bwo, Storms, Thunder, lightening strike, SMOOOOG!

It would be funny were it not so unbelievably tragic.

Those folks went from rain and being in shorts, to tornados, then sleet, then snow and their neighborhoods were wiped out.

Merry Christmas!

Meanwhile our talking heads blather on and on and on about a little shaking that may have done a little damage.  As always California newscasters need to have a little perspective.

For New Years all I want is newscasting that is factual, accurate, and not spun for entertainment.

I’m not holding my breath!

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Briny Water on Mars!

Mars

This is very cool. The remote sensing work to confirm the hypothesis is elegant.

I wonder, if the hypothesis is actually proven, or do we only call it proven when one of our machines or a human takes a physical sample and confirms water and perchlorate salts.

This makes me wonder if future explorers could, as part of a water production facility, use the extracted salts as a component for fuel for the return trip to Earth.  I suppose it would depend on the source of the water (underground versus atmospheric) the exact composition of the salts and how easily they can be extracted. 

This discovery gives me hope that we will go to Mars, and that someday we’ll have self sustaining colonies there.

This is progress and perhaps this discovery will spark a whole new generation of scientists.

Yes, I’m a geek, I love science and NASA!

Marvin

I also learned something else during this morning’s announcement.

Under no circumstances should you monitor the Twitter #askNASA hashtag during the announcement of a discovery.

You’re suddenly exposed to a planet full of (paraphrasing Marvin here) “depressingly stupid people.”

Honestly, some of the questions were so stupid as to actually cause brain damage, which is a mercy since the damage occurs in the hippocampus and effectively erases the memory of the question instantly.

The effect leaves a trace of revulsion and disgust, which I suspect is the brain’s way of preventing further assault,without having to process the stupidity again.

The Keeper

In my case I shut down Twitter and the feeling passed immediately.

What was it The Keeper of Talos IV said? “Punishment and Reward, you’ll find it’s an effective combination.”

Reward your favorite Scientist with a hug or compliment today.