DeRosaWorld

Al Gore Asks Us: How Do You Feel About Our Hyper-Connect Future?

When Big Al talks, people listen. They may not admit it in public, like when we don't order a rare steak in a restaurant in front of a bunch of people we don't know... but people listen.

And who in America has actually asked what you think, lately?

Thanks for asking.

I love how the iPhone has allowed me to work from home or just not from the office. However, I don't love how people now assume they can reach me with work questions any time of the day or night... globally. I can work with people in Chicago, New York, London, Germany... but I do have to sleep and watch SMASH at some point without interruption. (see how easily we can get distracted on line)

I connect with my family, even the grandkids, from three thousand miles away. The kids are more interested in the technology than any real communication, but I would be missing them growing up if I didn't FaceTime with them.

Of course there is the parental worry that who else are their kids are facetiming with and why. It's all so instant and though a little less anonymous, still being able to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime is not the same as wanting to or even being allowed to... or being able to.

And as for permission. That is an interesting concept when one is connected. Who am I allowed to connect with? Do I have a right to total privacy? Do the network’s corporate interests have a right to sensor me or what I look at? Is it their network? It is anybody's network? Is the network a 'Commons'? And if it is, is it national or international?

And should everyone, even if you are too poor to afford the network, have a right to connect?

FISA court rulings certainly muddy the waters of this issue on a whole other level.

What, for example does one do with information found on the network that reveals criminal behavior? Can I even read or watch it?

What if it is criminal behavior of my network carrier? Or my government? What if we found proof one Presidential candidate planned and successfully stole an election from the rightful winner... in China, or Venezuela or here in the Untitled States? What is our duty as citizens of this country or citizens of the world?

We may have to start clarifying or even re-defining words like Citizen and Commons, Rights and Freedom.

There is also the good side of Law & Order. How do we fight cyber-theft? The Banks have no answer when identity theft occurs.

What of patent rights and copyrights? Should I be able to pass on an electronic book I just read? I shared plenty of paperback books with family and friends over the years.

How do I feel about our hyper-connected future?

Let's start, like Al Gore is encouraging us to, by asking questions. Then maybe when we understand the questions we can begin to answer them together and share the results.

Oh, And We're All Going To Die

"Nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere’s land surface is covered in permanently frozen soil, or permafrost, which is filled with carbon-rich plant debris — enough to double the amount of heat-trapping carbon in the atmosphere if the permafrost all melted and the organic matter decomposed.

According to a paper published Thursday in Science, that melting could come sooner, and be more widespread, than experts previously believed. If global average temperature were to rise another 2.5°F (1.5°C), say earth scientist Anton Vaks of Oxford University, and an international team of collaborators, permafrost across much of northern Canada and Siberia could start to weaken and decay. And since climate scientists project at least that much warming by the middle of the 21st century, global warming could begin to accelerate as a result, in what’s known as a feedback mechanism..."

Wow, so basically Twenty-something couples who are starting families... your grandchildren will be fighting with wild animals for what water is left on the surface of the planet.... and we were warned.

Fair & Balanced: Why Are There No Pictures of Neil Armstrong on The Moon?

Neil Armstrong, American hero, astronaut, pilot, first man on the Moon, was buried this past Friday on Earth. I waited until after Mr. Armstrong's funeral to post this two part documentary. 

There is a touch of the tin foil hat to Part One, but Part Two is more based around radiation and rocket science.  Dark Moon Parts One & Two are lots of fun and despite the conspiracy agenda, there are thought provoking facts in the film... I didn't know that there is only one picture of Neil Armstrong on the Moon... and he is trying to walk out of frame.

Lots of interesting stuff, taken with a grain of salt, but in total it adds up to a forceful questioning of the Apollo Space Program as well as the overall history of the Cold War Era Space Race.

And you have to admit, our Government has lied to us more than they have told the truth. In America, the conspiracy theories are usually closer to the truth than the official history.

Dark Mission: Part One - Analysis of the Lunar Photography

Dark Mission: Part Two - Environmental Dangers & The Trouble With Rockets

Getting It Done: Neil Armstrong

New York Time Obit for Neil Armstrong: "A quiet, private man, at heart an engineer and crack test pilot, Mr. Armstrong made history on July 20, 1969, as the commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft on the mission that culminated the Soviet-American space race in the 1960s. President John F. Kennedy had committed the nation “to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” It was done with more than five months to spare..."

We never looked at our Moon the same way again, or the Earth.

When astronauts were on the Moon when I was a kid, me and my brother and sisters would run outside and look up into the night sky to try and see them. Our old neighbor next store worried that when astronauts were walking on the Moon it always seemed to rain. She didn't gain the global perspective the astronauts did, she was concerned with our street in Philadelphia and her lawn, but our young minds were blown.

Rough Week For Women So Far... Especially Republican Women

Republican Todd Akin's beliefs about women lifted the rock that Republicans live under as regards to their attitudes towards women.

Paul Ryan is right down there in the mud with Akin. Ryan can't hide behind FOX News and the conservative pundits when it comes to his public record.

Republicans are evil.

Ladies, if you think you are a Republican or someone near to you is a Republican, get help immediately.

The Republican Party is extremely dangerous to the health of you, your daughters and grand daughters.

 

As A Species, We Do Have Our Moments

Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.

"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."

Do The 'Fathers' Have To Attend These Forced Ultrasounds, Too?

Ass-munch.

We've Been Warned: Is This Our Last Stand?

A Friend Has Died: Eleanor Hamerow: 1920 - 2011

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
      -- Henry Adams

men·tor:  [men-tawr, -ter], noun
1. a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
2.an influential senior sponsor or supporter.

A friend of mine died this past week. She was 91 years old. She was a teacher, a filmmaker, a chemist and pharmacist, a dancer, a communist and atheist, a lousy cook and one hell of a person. They don’t make them like that in New York City anymore.

I met Eleanor Hamerow when I attended NYU’s Graduate Film Program back in the 1980s. She was my teacher and we were terrified of her gruff New York accent and attitude which was only a veneer for a caring and intelligent woman.

The heyday of the NYU Program was slipping fast, mostly due to the enormous popularity of film schools across the country. NYU was becoming a money-making corporate entity and some of the old timers like Ellie seemed to be in the way of a new image the school wanted to portray. Her last years at the school were a constant political battle for students and the art of film.

She hung in there as long as she could showing Orson Welles and John Ford movies and La Belle et la Bête and teaching film editing.  She was a film editor and documentary filmmaker of some renowned.

(CBS News (She was fired for including President Eisenhower's "beware the military, industrial complex" speech in their televised documentary of his life.), Martha Graham: An American Original in Performance,  A Dancer’s World, An American Family...)

Film Editing was her second profession after her early years as a chemist.  Teaching was her Third Act.

She got a small auditorium named after her at NYU...but when she finally retired, the soul went out of the school along with all the increasingly antiquated film equipment, like hand-cranked sound synchronizers, moviolas and film splicing blocks...and the old projectors that chewed up old French new wave or Italian neo-realist film prints...

After I finished school, Ellie gave me a job working for her to help me pay off my student loans and I was able to work on her last documentary...appropriately about a teacher.

Somehow...and it is probably worth a novel in itself, I travelled to Moscow with her in 1989 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the VGIK Film School started by Eisenstein in 1919.  One brief story I’ll share is we went in search of the Moscow Arts Theater...home of ‘The Method’ and Stanislavsky...the mythical directing and acting philosophy that breathed life into Marlon Brando, James Dean, Lazlo Benedict, and Elia Kazan...and the NYU Gradate Film Program under Ellie Hamerow.

We found the old theater in the early afternoon and walked into the empty lobby. The doors were open, but the place seemed deserted.  A man in a dark suit handed Ellie a rose and escorted us into the theater...on the stage was a casket with a large photo next to it of one of the actors from the theater troupe. They assumed Ellie had come to pay respects...she looked born and bred...her boots, her head popping out the top of a heavily-scarfed, long black coat...all 5' 1" of her...so we joined the line of mourners.

We had a young interpreter from the school with us and he found the administrator of the theater and told him that Martin Scorsese (me) and a famous American film producer (Ellie) were here. So he came to see us and though we didn’t fool him, we scored some tickets to the theater the next night, and Ihe gave me a poster for the 100th anniversary of The Seagull.  

The next night, we got to see a play that was banned since the 1930s by Stalin himself. Ellie was in heaven. There we were sitting in the front row at the Moscow Arts Theater watching a play in Russian. Our translator was there, kind of filling us in on what was being said and of course there was Ellie's running commentary as though the performance was taking place back at NYU in one of her classes...

Again, a story for another time...but Ellie had written a speech for the VGIK Film School celebration in which she was going to scold the Russians for Stalin and ruining the promise of communism...

After Ellie retired and the years started piling up, some of her contemporary friends began to get ill or even pass away. I would get a phone call from her telling me that Mimi or Ruby couldn't make the performance tonight at Lincoln Center and would I like to go...I saw my first Shostakovich with her and my first Tudor ballet...and my first opera...(a four-hour Semiramede where I didn’t realize that Marilyn Horne was supposed to be playing a man).

She introduced me to the Manhattan cocktail...she couldn't drink anymore, but she wanted me to order one so it sat on the table through dinner so she could smell it...she ordered it the way she liked it: gin, dry vermouth, a dask of bitters and a twist lemon peel.

She was a teacher, but also, always a scholar. Into her eighties she was taking classes at Columbia University. In her late seventies she decided she needed to read the Bible and took a class. I would get a call from her. “What do you know about The First Nicene Council?”  or “Have you read Aquinas?  Let’s have a nosh and talk about it.”  So I would wrap up in a scarf and coat and gloves and take a cab from my East 55th Street apartment to her West 89th Street penthouse and we’d get coffee and something to eat and discuss religion and inevitably movies.

I moved to Los Angeles over twelve years ago and only corresponded with Ellie at first by phone and letters and then dwindling to a few emails and a long Holiday card.

I wasn’t there for the dementia or the need to put her in a home, or for the end where I am told she simply refused food and shortly after, died.

To live such a life and to take it to age 91...Not bad Ellie, not bad at all. You are remembered and cherished...tonight over a Manhattan, Ellie-style.

And You Thought You Felt Your Age... IBM Turns 100

"As it celebrates its centenary, International Business Machines is a business that shows how innovation has accelerated - and how fast you have to move to stay ahead.

The company they called Big Blue was the dominant force in early commercial computing, when mainframes arrived on a fleet of trucks and IT managers used to say "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

But those days are long gone..."

In the mid-1980s, every business major I knew in New York City wanted to go work for IBM... even before a Wall Street job.  I was given a night time tour once, of the IBM offices on 57th and Madison by a junior analyst at the time and I thought I was walking into the Starship Enterprise (TNG)... There were card sensors on the glass doors! Young guys in white shirts and ties were still sitting at all the desks instead of sitting in the bars on 2nd Ave... they were making the future.

"...People who affect to be horrified by the power of small fry such as Microsoft and Google have no idea what it was like when IBM represented more than 70 percent of the industry — when it was twice as big as every other IT company put together. To have that kind of power today you'd need annual revenues of well over a trillion dollars. IBM has only managed a tenth of that — $100bn — though it is still roughly the size of Microsoft and Intel combined."

An Apple A Day...

"Apples, celery and strawberries have the most pesticide residue among popular produce sold in the U.S., according to a report issued Monday.

The Environmental Working Group today posted the results of its 2011 Shopper's Guide to Produce, which reviews tests of 50 common fruits and vegetables on six different scales, testing for the number and amounts of pesticides.

Also among the so-called dirty dozen: peaches, spinach, imported nectarines and grapes, sweet potatoes, domestic blueberries, lettuce and collard greens..."

Something Other Than Lame-Assed American Politics... Technolgy Review, an all-science fiction special issue!

The stories within will be hard-science fiction tales set in the near future, loosely organized around the areas that Technology Review  covers: computing, the Web, communications, energy, materials, and biomedicine. We are currently finalizing our slate of authors, which are a mixture of celebrated and emerging authors; stay tuned for more announcements. We're still ironing out the distribution details too, but TR:SF will be on U.S. and Canadian newsstands and available for mail-order purchase internationally (we're also looking at how we might distribute the issue electronically.)

Is God Punishing The Red States?

With the Catholic Church coming down hard on climate change deniers and Republican Party fiscal policies, the Religious Right seems to have no where to go for cover. They are congregating in the deep South and mid-West... but the plagues are following them...

Is it science and weather or is it religion and God's wrath that make the winds blow and the rivers rise?

50 Years Ago Today: JFK Explains Why 'We Choose To Go To The Moon'

It is the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's first Presidential year... 1961.

Here is his inspiring We Choose To Go To The Moon speech delivered at Rice University on May 25, 1961.

The stuff dreams are made of...

And here is a fascinating historical addendum to this speech released by the John F.Kennedy Presidential Library today... a declassified White House conversation JFK had with NASA Administrator James Webb discussing the future of the US space program.

The meeting was held in the White House on September 18, 1963 and reveals President Kennedy’s private concerns over waning public support for space exploration.

This is great stuff, real, true history, not tainted by bias... the real audio recordings of President Kennedy in the White House.

Saturday Musings: 'Petunia Pig Is Back and He's Running For President' Edition

The Republican Party is demanding, and acting with their votes, to protect the right of people on the FBI terrorist watch list to buy guns. God Bless America.

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And for God’s sake, are we really going to have to hear what Newt Gingrich (aka Petunia Pig)is thinking every day between now and Election Day 2012? As an American, this is embarrassing.

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Speaking of God blessing things, the Chosen People have lost an advocate this week with the resignation of George Mitchell as the President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East. He had to call it quits because both sides are run by nuts and people who feast on violence, hate and war. What can you do with that? Go with God, George Mitchell.

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So if opening oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t reduce the price of gas at the pump, can we throw stones at oil executives and their families? That should actually be in the legislation.

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The television spokes people for the Republican Party and their leading Presidential candidates have lost a major moral ally in the Catholic Church.  Global climate change denial and Republican Party fiscal policy are now actions that are considered sinful. What’s  a sexually promiscuous Catholic politician to do? They have needs and pressures to protect America… give a brother a break…

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It’s a shame that our national media is unwilling and frankly, unable to cover world news properly. There is a dynamic, divergent, complicated, scary, dangerous and inspiring global democracy fueled revolution happening…  oh, man Aston Kutcher is replacing Charlie Sheen?!!!!!?!!  WTF! I'm so Tweeting this shit.

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Still haven’t figured out what to do with my iPhone4 beside check my work email at home without having to turn on my computer.

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Cell phones have changed the way we communicate so pervasively that even old people are driving cars and checking their text message at the same time.

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I have been listening to a Miles Davis album that is freaking me out a little: Filles De Kilimanjaro, probably because I don’t completely understand it, but I am really into it… it seems the same can be said for the musicians… what the hell are they up to…? that and the fact that I am reading James Baldwin’s Another Country make me want to visit to Manhattan this summer... it’s been twelve years since I thought about that old rock. I’m sure it is nothing like how I left it.

I heard there was a Cuomo in the Governor’s Mansion again, but this apple may have fallen far from the tree.

DeRosaWorld has been facing the Pacific Ocean with his back turned to the rest of the country for too damn long… and now the waves are filled with flash mobs of dead fish off the pier at the end of my street.

Winds of change are blowing...

The shattered water made a misty din.
 Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
 Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

                                                  -Robert Frost

What's A Good, Practicing Catholic To Do?... Follow The Beatitudes?... God Damn It!

    

"...More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleges have written a pointed letter  to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House will hurt the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable, and that he therefore has failed to uphold basic Catholic moral teachings...."

Just what are super-Catholics Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and John Boehner to do?  Burning abortionist at the stake just doesn't go over well anymore... 

In a statement on the Vatican  website, Pope Benedict XVI made a bold “call to action” for “all people in all nations.”

"...We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.

The bold remarks came after the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) presented new evidence on climate change to the Vatican..."

The true hypocrisy of the 'moral majority' is about to under-reported by the American media.

The Price of Rubies...

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to "carve up" Arctic resources - oil, gas and even rubies - as the ice retreats.

"...Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, oil companies like Cairn are rushing in to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place," campaigner Ben Ayliffe, who is on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, told Newsnight.

Some experts think that what is happening in the Arctic is like the Scramble for Africa in the 19th Century when European nations raced to secure resources.

However, it is not just a race for oil and gas. Russia hopes that the Northern Sea Route will open up and allow northern European shipping to get to the Far East a third quicker than via the Suez Canal.

New fisheries are opening up and Greenland in particular has mineral resources including aluminium and rubies.

Super-Crazy, Smart Stuff

"Nasa's Gravity Probe B has produced remarkable new confirmation of some key predictions by Albert Einstein.

The satellite's observations show the massive body of the Earth is very subtly warping space and time, and even pulling them around with it...

I hope this is okay with the religious, Texas-set. Wouldn't want to contradict the Book of Genesis, now.

...Gravity Probe B was put in space to confirm two important consequences stemming from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity - his description of gravity. The predictions characterise the way space and time will be distorted by the presence of huge objects such as planets and stars.

One, known as the geodetic effect, is the amount by which the mass of the Earth will warp the local space-time in which it sits.

The other, which physicists refer to as frame-dragging, is the phenomenon that sees the Earth twist local space-time around with it as it rotates..."

America's Manned Space Exploration Began 50 Years Ago Today

"At 9:34 on the morning of May 5, 1961, as America watched on black-and-white TV, the Redstone blasted off, cleared the pad and rushed skyward. Seconds later, Shepard radioed down, "Ah, Roger liftoff, and the clock is started." 

Two minutes and 42 seconds later, the engine burn ended, and Shepard was traveling faster than any American before him: 5,134 mph. The capsule separated from the booster rocket, and he was weightless. He took control, firing retrorockets on NASA's commands, adjusting the Mercury's position on all three axes."

How The World Works: EPA to raise limits for radiation exposure while Canada turns off fallout detectors...

...Fukushima, you see, is doing to the Pacific Ocean what BP and the Deepwater Horizon did to the Gulf of Mexico last summer. Except that in the case of Fukushima, that radiation doesn't just disappear with the help of millions of gallons of toxic chemicals. Nope, that radiation sticks around for decades.

So what to do? If you're the United States Environment Protection Agency, there's only one option: Declare radiation to be safe!

...The EPA maintains a set of so-called "Protective Action Guides" (PAGs). These PAGs are being quickly revised to radically increase the allowable levels of iodine-131 (a radioactive isotope) to anywhere from 3,000 to 100,000 times the currently allowable levels.

The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is all over this issue, having obtained internal emails from a FOIA requests that reveal some truly shocking revelations of the level of back-stabbing betrayal happening inside the EPA. For example, under the newly-revised PAGs, drinking just one glass of water considered "safe" by the EPA could subject you to the lifetime limit of radiation.

Saturday Musings: 'Clarence Thomas Edition'... No Really...

Clarence Thomas is at the top of his profession, sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Nominated to replace Thurgood Marshall… an  Ayn Rand devotee… And a sad example of the Republican Party and the hypocrisy that guides their every waking hour and an example of the American Nightmare more than it is the American Dream.

His latest public outrage came when he wrote the conservative majority opinion that defended the right of a crooked District Attorney to knowingly convict an innocent man of murder and put him on death row. What is he trying to prove… it would take a Shakespearean play and years of therapy to unravel Clarence Thomas.

And.. at the end of the day, he really must know that no matter what he does for them, the Republicans he works for really don’t want to shake his hand.

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So how about Libya, huh?

Nobel Peace Prize winner and President of the United States Barack Obama went all Commander-in –Chief on us… Three wars!  He must be tough.  I bet Republicans are going to rise up like a Japanese tsunami and sweep Barack Hussein Obama back into office:  the grand coalition Richard Nixon only dreamed of… Democrats and Republicans, little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls… oh, put him on Mount Rushmore, now, before his first term is over… it is the right thing to do.

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never saw a war she didn’t like, either.

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Argh, enough international ranting… yeah, yeah, yeah, Japan is melting down and a hole is going to form in the Pacific Ocean and all the water is going to drain in and put the molten Earth’s core out and we all die. So much for sectarian violence... and god...

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Is the NCAA Final Four over, yet?  Baseball Season has started. Get those college brats off my TV.

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Did that pitcher from San Francisco fix his teeth, yet? ( Hey, I’m from Philadelphia)

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What’s up Wisconsin?!

Props to Ohio, too and New Jersey… white mother fuckers never learn.

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Has anybody noticed, besides the people that live here, that California was completely fucked over by The Governator?  And you know America, if California goes under… you are all screwed, because you all ain’t got nothing left... we're it.

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I wonder if land is as cheap on Mercury as it is in Detroit…

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You know folks… we still hold elections here in the United States… on the municipal level, city level, state and national level… we can change this…

If Socialized Medicine Is Communism and Un-American... What Is Shipping American Jobs That Make Medicine To Communists Countries?

"Ten years ago, no one would have thought to go to Shanghai," said James O'Malley, a former Pfizer researcher who now runs the New London biotech firm Myometrics.

"It's an acknowledgment of labor cost and high intellect in China," added Larry Rothman, a respected industry blogger.

So Obamacare is socialized medicine and socialized medicine is communism and communism is bad...

China is a communist country...

But... Chinese workers are smarter because their socialism educates the masses to be smart enough to make medicine and,  America's capitalism does not support an education system that makes our workers smart enough to make medicine...

So Pfizer needs to move to communist China to make medicine...  plus American workers want too much money... so there is the profit motive, too.

I would rather have socialized medicine in American and nationalise the pharmaceutical industry and keep the jobs here, please... and maybe educate American workers to create medicine... sounds like a worthy endeavour... kind of win/win... for Americans... who cares what we call it?

Japanese Tsunami and Earthquake Footage... Scary Stuff

The BBC has a link with updated videos of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear threat in Japan.

Some amazing video. It ain't pretty.

Neurotoxins Found in the Redondo Beach Fish... Media Either Lying or Morons.

Acapulco: Masses of sardines, anchovies, stripped bass and mackerel surged close to shore Friday on one beach in the Mexican resort city, packed so tightly near the surface they looked like an oil slick from above.

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Biologists Find Powerful Neurotoxin in Redondo Beach Dead Sardines...

Efforts continue to clean the millions of dead fish out of King Harbor. Biologists say the millions of dead fish that washed up in King Harbor in Redondo Beach tested positive for a dangerous neurotoxin.

The California Department of Fish and Game had originally blamed the die-off on oxygen deprivation, after the fish were driven into the marina by rough waters.

High traces of domoic acid were found by an independent team of biologists at the University of Southern California, who took their own samples.

The Harbor In My Town... End Times.... UPDATE: "Natural Selection"

Prophecy Update: 'We're fucked'.

 Don't order the anchovies.

UPDATE: "A southern California fish kill that authorities identified as "millions" of sardines is not the result of any environmental foul play but rather is the product of natural forces, officials said Tuesday.

Floating fish were so pervasive in King Harbor Marina in Redondo Beach, California, that some moored boats seemed surrounded not by water but by the lifeless aquatic animals a foot deep.

"All evidence points to oxygen deprivation as cause of death," California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan told CNN...."

"There is no oil sheen, nor is there a chemical sheen," Hughan said...

...Redondo Beach Police Sgt. Phil Keenan said authorities are confident of test results showing that oxygen deprivation caused the massive fish kill because the other part of the sardine school is alive and well in the mouth of the harbor.

Keenan said the floating fish are a foot deep, and clean-up boats will spend the next few days removing the silvery animals by net.

"Part of the sardine school is out in the channel of the harbor and they're doing fine," Keenan told CNN. "For some reason, this large school of sardines got chased into the harbor -- and they died off."

Authorities said that the sardines likely sought calm waters inside the 1,400-vessel marina Monday evening when winds were gusting up to 45 mph and the waters were rough.

"They like to follow each other and it only takes one to come in before the others follow," Brent Scheiwe, program director of the SEA Lab, a hands-on coastal science education center in Redondo Beach, told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.

"The fish found these back areas of the harbor, and then the oxygen depletion would have occurred... If it's rough out there, they will stay here in the waters where it's more sheltered," Scheiwe said.

"There is a risk of the same thing happening tonight," he added.

The harbor's algae may have contributed to the lack of oxygen, and then when the fish started dying, the resulting bacteria also consumed oxygen, Scheiwe said.

Once the fish got into the harbor, "they couldn't get out," said Redondo Beach Fire Chief Dan Madrigal.

About the extraordinary number of dead fish, Hughan stated that "while it is unusual, it is not unprecedented. This is natural selection."

Hughan said a necropsy, including a chemical analysis, will be performed on some of the dead fish..."

Looking Up and Out

A couple of interesting space exploration storeis from the BBC. One is about satellites the United States has sent into space to study our Sun...

Two US spacecraft have moved either side of the Sun to establish observing positions that should return remarkable new information about our star.

Launched in 2006, the Stereo satellites have gradually been drifting apart - one in front of the Earth in its orbit, the other lagging behind. 

On Sunday, Nasa said the spacecraft had arrived at points that put the Sun directly between them.

It will give solar physicists the first 360-degree view of our star.

Stereo is short for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory.

The mission is studying the Sun's great explosive events that hurl billions of tonnes of charged particles at Earth - events that can disrupt power grids and satellites.

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And the other story is about the Russians planning to go to Mars...

The crew of the Mars500 simulated mission to the Red Planet have reached a key milestone.

The six men, sealed since June inside steel containers representing a spacecraft, have "gone into orbit" at their destination.

Three of the group will now "descend" to the planet, don real spacesuits and walk on the "surface" of Mars.

In reality, this surface will just be the sandy floor of another module at the Moscow-based experiment.

The Mars500 project is run by Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems with the participation of the European Space Agency (Esa).

Al Gore Fucked Around... Now Look At Us.

 

Back when he was a member of the House, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) was one of a few Republicans who voted for a far-reaching climate change bill. That legislation quickly fueled Tea Party rage, and conservatives went on the attack against the plan's backers. So Kirk did an about face on the issue, and now blames... Al Gore's personal life for the whole sorry episode.

"The consensus behind the climate change bill collapsed and then further deteriorated with the personal and political collapse of Vice President [Al] Gore," Kirk told Greenwire.

What will historians write about us? They can't treat us nicely at this point. We killed ourselves and took the rest of the world with us.

It's Fucking Hot In Los Angeles

Even the cats are swimming.

Look Like The Innocent Flower, But Be The Serpent Under It

"The makers of high fructose corn syrup want to sweeten its image with a new name: corn sugar. The Corn Refiners Association applied Tuesday to the federal government for permission to use the name on food labels. The group hopes a new name will ease confusion about the sweetener, which is used in soft drinks, bread, cereal and other products.

Americans' consumption of corn syrup has fallen to a 20-year low on consumer concerns that it is more harmful or more likely to cause obesity than ordinary sugar, perceptions for which there is little scientific evidence.

However, some scientists have linked consumption of full-calorie soda — the vast majority of which is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup — to obesity.

The Food and Drug Administration could take two years to decide on the name, but that's not stopping the industry from using the term now in advertising..."

Another of Charles Darwin's Great Stories...

Charles Darwin's ecological experiment on Ascension isle... a wonderful little story from the BBC.

"Two hundred years ago, Ascension Island was a barren volcanic edifice.

Today, its peaks are covered by lush tropical "cloud forest".

What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem.

By a bizarre twist, this great imperial experiment may hold the key to the future colonisation of Mars."

Keep That Skank Chicken Away From Me.

We really are an insane, suicidal nation.

Today the New York Times reports that the FDA considered, but rejected, mandating hens be vaccinated against salmonella as part of the new egg-safety rules that kicked in July 9.

I have an idea, let's mandate that all chickens must be free range....

FREE RANGE or FREE ROAMING: Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside.

Oh, shit, I forgot, American corporate lobbyists have changed the definition of words like "OUTSIDE"... they are that powerful.

But “allowing access” doesn’t mean much. A small door in a barn with thousands of chickens technically gives chickens an opportunity to go outside, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll have access to grass (it may only be a concrete slab).Free range is a term which outside of the United States denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals are allowed to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner. In the United States, USDA regulations apply only to poultry and indicate that the animal has been allowed access to the outside.  The USDA regulations do not specify the quality or size of the outside range nor the duration of time an animal must have access to the outside.

The Earth, Looking Back From The Moon

The first picture of the Earth looking back from the moon was taken on August 23, 1966 by the Lunar Orbiter 1.

Tell Me This Guy Couldn’t Suck A Pewter, Saint Dominic Belt Buckle Off A Thirteen Year Old Catholic School Boy.

Holy Mary Mother of God...

From TPM:

 "To many conservatives, almost everything is a secret liberal plot: from fluoride in the water to medicare reimbursements for end-of-life planning with your doctor to efforts to teach evolution in schools.

But Conservapedia founder and Eagle Forum University instructor Andy Schlafly -- Phyllis Schlafly's son -- has found one more liberal plot: the theory of relativity...

...In non-confusing terms, that indicates the ability to cause something to happen instantaneously in another location (i.e., faster than the speed of light). Since Jesus could, reportedly, do this, thus Einstein is wrong. Schlafly's evidence is John 4:46-54, in which Jesus reportedly cured someone's son just by saying it had happened...

...The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world...

...See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold...

Schlafly brags on Conservapedia that he has homeschooled 185 children, all of whom do exceptionally well on standardized tests.

Yeah... sigh...

nuff said:

"On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn't want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives."   - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - August 3, 2010

Saturday Musings: 'All Or Nothing At All' Edition

So Apple is going to distribute free cases so their iPhone 4 users won’t touch both antennae at same time, disrupting their signals. Has anybody done research on what the side effects are of having two active antennae in your pocket sitting next to your balls all day?

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So Congressman Boehner (R-OH), one of the biggest assholes in the House, announced he wants a one-year moratorium on all new Federal regulations… and if the Republicans take the House this November, he may just get his, and Corporate America’s wish… in time for Christmas… that and the repeal of the Health Care Bill. Republicans, you gotta love ‘em.

Corporate America wrote the Health Care Bill and Corporate America wrote the new Financial Regulations Bill… Republicans couldn’t have written better, less helpful to Americans, kind of embarrassing bills unless they simply… wrote no bills at all or did away with Financial Regulations and Health Care protection… ah, that’s it. 

The difference between Republicans and Democrats are Democrats write bad, corporate-sponsored legislation while Republicans don’t do anything.

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Thirty-two U.S. soldiers took their own lives last month, the most Army suicides in a single month since the Vietnam War.  Last year, a record-breaking 245 soldiers committed suicide. The Army seems on track to surpass that number this year, as 145 soldiers have taken their lives in the first half of 2010. 

What is it about those two wars that make our boys want to kill themselves?  What do those two wars have in common…?

In a touch of unnoticed irony: Col. Chris Philbrick, head of the Army's suicide prevention task force, told CNN. "I have no silver bullet to answer the question why."

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And now scientists are saying there really isn’t such a thing as gravity… well that what the hell am I doing still stuck on this fucked up and doomed planet!

The Ant and The Grasshopper... American Style

"The scientists revealed they have been told to "go gargle razor blades" and have been described as "Nazi climate murderers". Some emails have been sent to them without any attempt by the sender to disguise their identity. Even though the scientists have received advice from the FBI, the local police say they are not able to act due to the near-total tolerance of "freedom of speech" in the US."

What is really both sad and infuriating about American conservatives/Republicans is that they are so fucking stupid. Their arguments and self righteousness comes from watching commercial, corporate television, whose anchors laugh all the way to the bank with their support.

Well, when hell freezes over, don't go a-knocking on the climate scientists' doors asking for help, they will probably pour boiling oil over the ramparts of their ivory towers.

The Beginning of The End...

"Oil droplets have been found beneath the shells of tiny post-larval blue crabs drifting into Mississippi coastal marshes from offshore waters.

The finding represents one of the first examples of how oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill is moving into the Gulf of Mexico's food chain. The larval crabs are eaten by all kinds of fish, from speckled trout to whale sharks, as well as by shore birds..."

Wow... maybe humans have evolved into the one thing the Universe doesn't need...

And maybe the Universe is about to do something about it...

"Sunspots are windows into the sun’s magnetic soul. They form where giant loops of magnetism, generated deep inside the sun, well up and burst through the surface, leading to a localised drop in temperature which we see as a dark patch. Any changes in sunspot numbers reflect changes inside the sun. “During this transition, the sun is giving us a real glimpse into its interior,” says Hathaway.

When sunspot numbers drop at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all becomes much calmer. This “solar minimum” doesn’t last long. Within a year, the spots and storms begin to build towards a new crescendo, the next solar maximum.

What’s special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. But computer models predicted that when the spots did return, they would do so in force. Hathaway was reported as thinking the next solar cycle would be a “doozy”: more sunspots, more solar storms and more energy blasted into space. Others predicted that it would be the most active solar cycle on record. The trouble was, no one told the sun..."

Build God. Then We'll Talk.

Huh...

Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell.

The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.

The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.

The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.

The researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases.

If Your Going To San Francisco, Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair

The loss of the Gulf Coast of the United States doesn't matter to them. Drill, baby, drill!

"California voters will decide the fate of the state's landmark global-warming bill in the November election after a big-bucks battle that may break records for political spending on an initiative.

Today, a group heavily backed by Texas oil giants Tesoro Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. plans to submit signatures for an initiative seeking to suspend AB32 until California's unemployment rate improves dramatically.

The group, the California Jobs Initiative Committee, says the sweeping environmental bill - signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 and set to be phased in between 2012 and 2020 - will kill jobs and hurt businesses.

AB32's proponents call it a vital step in efforts to curb greenhouse gases and create green jobs. And with federal climate-change regulations stalled in Congress, the California law takes on added significance as a potential model for other states..."

Saturday Musings: 'Apply The ObamaCare to Everything' Edition

Why would any true, conservative Republican not want President Obama to put some regulations on Wall Street?

You know he will let the CEOs write the regulations themselves. No one is going to jail. He wants Wall Street to succeed. The best you can say about President Obama’s view of the financial crisis is that he is not nuts.

...But look at the record… This President is not going to clamp down or prevent Wall Street from doing business any more than any other millionaire in this country would. To oppose him from the starting gate is simply immature, stupid and bad politics. Just look at the Health Care Reform package... what honest Republican and Wall Street Bankster doesn't like Obamacare?

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A few people gathered on Tax Day to protest the lowered taxes and CNN and FOX News, etc covered it like it was the Million Man March.

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So no more Americans on the Moon… that is unless some corporation decides to build a fast food chain up there, then look out. You won’t be able to drive a rover through the Sea of Tranquility without passing a McD’s or Taco Bell or Burger King.

Here is a space exploration plan…. Have a plan.

Have one goal and go for it and if you are smart, each goal you achieve will lead to the next goal in the plan.. Or the next rung on the later, etc… Here are some successful examples:

Land a man on the Moon.
Build a reusable shuttle.
Send a Rover to Mars.

Focus on one thing and get it done right and keep private, greedy-assed corporations out of the business plan. (Remember what happens in the movie Alien?)

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And while you are at all this, slow down on the multiple war thing and save some of that money for educating the future space explorers and engineers. Let’s focus on putting Bushism, Oil and the Crusades behind us this century and reach for the stars.

Have You Not Learned Anything? Outsourcing Space Exploration? Really?

"The White House has decided to begin funding private companies to carry NASA astronauts into space, but the proposal faces major political and budget hurdles, according to people familiar with the matter.

The controversial proposal, expected to be included in the Obama administration's next budget, would open a new chapter in the U.S. space program. The goal is to set up a multi-year, multi billion-dollar initiative allowing private firms, including some start-ups, to compete to build and operate spacecraft capable of ferrying U.S. astronauts into orbit—and eventually deeper into the solar system..."

Is this what the Obama Administrations calls a jobs program?

Who are you going to higher besides aerospace engineers? Where are you going to get them?

NASA...the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Who are you going to trust spacecraft capable of ferrying U.S. astronauts into orbit...? and into deep space...?  and to Mars?

And who do you think is going to be in charge when this happens? Republicans, because your ass is going to be out of a job unless you stop acting like a Republican.

Damn man, you sound like fucking Dan Quayle.

Once again, let's turn to JFK to learn how a President leads the way to explore space.

Help Stop Global Warming: Eat A Denier

"A worst-case scenario is one where the feedback passes a tipping point and billions of tonnes of methane are released suddenly, as has occurred at least once in the Earth's past.

Such sudden releases have been linked to rapid increases in global temperatures and could have been a factor in the mass extinction of species."

And the world looks at America as the main cause of this and as the villain of the story for not wanting to help stop it because it would be bad for business.

"Some estimates put the amount of carbon trapped in shelf permafrost at 1,600 billion tonnes - roughly twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere now.

The release of this once captive carbon from destabilized ocean sediments and permafrost would have catastrophic effect on our climate and life on Earth, warn the scientists." 

World War Two aside... we are really the bad guys, aren't we?

Is Mother Nature Taking The Solution For Global Warming Into Her Own Hands... And Preparing To Kill Us All?

"It’s essentially pure methane.”

Pure methane, gas bubbling up from underwater vents, escaping into northern skies, adds to the global-warming gases accumulating in the atmosphere. And pure methane escaping in the massive amounts known to be locked in the Arctic permafrost and seabed would spell a climate catastrophe.

Is such an unlocking under way?

...In 2007, air monitors detected a rise in methane concentrations in the atmosphere, apparently from far northern sources. Russian researchers in Siberia expressed alarm, warning of a potential surge in the powerful greenhouse gas, additional warming of several degrees and unpredictable consequences for Earth’s climate.

"...Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf."

Like swatting a mosquito on her arm, Mother Earth may have a solution to the global warming problem... kill all the humans who are warming the planet.

That would make meetings like the one we all just had in Copenhagen kind of a waste of time, wouldn't it?

President Obama's Long Game Moves Into Its Second Year

So here we are approaching the end of the first year of Change We Can Believe In.

How's the Hope holding up?

We were told this was a transformative Presidency. (Remember the Cairo Speech!?)  But it seems more of a slow transformation out of the clutches of certain death into a choking grip around our throat.

Bush, Jr./Cheney must be very pleased with their replacement. We know Wall Street is... for now.

So, my biggest problems with the Obama Administration are not his Nobel Peace Prize winning Afghanistan War and War on Terror policies. If he is really going over there to crush, kill, destroy, clean up and get out, great... go Long Game.

My really big problem with the President is his economic policy and actions so far. They scare and frustrate me.

He lost the greatest opportunity for fundamental, sane, fair, christian, 21st century, Democratic, economic change in American history since 1932. He blew it. If there is a Long Game, our team is behind by 100 points in the 4th Quarter.

Obama needed to start affecting a cigarette holder and slapping a New Deal on Wall Street instead of creating a living memorial to Robert Rubin.

If there is not a Long Game for economic regulation by the Federal Government then the Obama Administration will have FAILED miserably in this area.

Also, The Obama Administration's Health Care Reform Long Game is a sad, cowardly affair full of lies and total miscalculation of the political landscape of Washington, D.C.

Obama's critics who worried about his lack of experience had real reason to worry. He was either played or he is playing the voters of this nation.

If there is no Long Game for further, furious and far reaching Health Care Reform, then his Administration has FAILED miserably here.

Climate Change seemed like a combination of lack of expertise on the subject and outright cowardice of the issue. If there is no Long Game by this Administration on Global Climate Change, the Game may be over and none of the other policy issues really matter. It will be the End Times, brought to you by The United States of America.

We have three (maybe seven) more years with President Obama's Long Game. Both he and the Democratic Congress have tripped over each other in trying to take the mantle of power away from thirty years of Republican Party/Media ass-kicking. But we are all grown-ups and have the political scars to prove it. It has always been an uphill battle for the modern Democratic Party.

Nothing they throw at us should be a surprise. Isn't that what Rahm Emanuel is for?

The only way to win the Game is to play to win...or you will lose.

The best defense is a good offense and we need to see some offense from this Administration.

Get in the game, Mr. President, you're embarrassing us.

White Flight... To Mars

The US and European space agencies have signed the "letter of intent" that ties together their Mars programmes.

The agreement, which was penned in Washington DC, gives the green light to scientists and engineers to begin the joint planning of Red Planet missions.

The union will start with a European-led orbiter in 2016, and continue with surface rovers in 2018, and then perhaps a network of landers in 2018.

The ultimate aim is a mission to return Mars rock and soils to Earth labs.

Their broad vision would encompass the following launch opportunities:

In 2016: A European-led orbiter to study trace gases, including methane, in Mars' atmosphere. The mission would also put a static meteorological station on the surface. Critically, Europe would handle the entry, descent and landing (EDL) of this station - a capability it has yet to demonstrate.

In 2018: European and American rovers would be dispatched to Mars. The US would do the EDL.

In 2020: "Under consideration" is a network of landers focused on geophysics and the environment. 

The U.S. Congress wants an amendment to the 'Letter Of Intent' that states no American funding for these space flights will be used on aborted missions.

"And if California slides into the ocean... Like the mystics and statistics say it will... I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill." - Warren Zevon

"That is a signal of the fault weakening; you only have to push a little bit and the fault fails."

We're fucked.

The major 2004 earthquake in Sumatra may have weakened the San Andreas fault, 8,000km away in California.

Does It Replace Watson or Holmes?

Gumshoes need not apply.

How would Raymond, Chandler, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie or Dashiell Hammett deal with this technology?

"In the heart of New York Police Department's (NYPD) Real Time Crime Centre (RTCC), Inspector Kenneth Mekeel surveys data coming in on a giant monitor the size of a cinema screen.

As queries come in from officers on the street he brings up different data streams and punches them back to the officers.

Inspector Mekeel is on the digital front line of North America's fight against crime.

He is also part of a new wave of policing which increasingly relies on technology and immediate access to digital information."

Hammer Films Presents: Return Of The WITCH

In England, their first computer, the Harwell (1949) is being resurrected.

"The computer, which was designed in 1949, first ran in 1951 and was designed to perform mathematical calculations; it lasted until 1973.

When first built the 2.4m x 5m computer was state-of-the-art, although it was superseded by transistor-based systems.

The restoration project is expected to take a year.

The system was built and used by staff at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire...

...Retired from service at Harwell, the system was offered as a prize for colleges, with Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Technical College (later Wolverhampton University) taking ownership and renaming it as the WITCH (Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell). It was used in computer education until 1973."

The U.S. Outsources The Total Eclipse Of The Sun To India And China

"On Wednesday, 2009 July 22, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean."

The Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress have given over the total eclipse of the sun to India and China... probably 'cause Obama was born there.

A Man On The Moon: 40 Years Ago Today

"Impressive. Most impressive" - Darth Vader

Okay, let''s all stop and think for a moment. On July 20, 1969, the United States landed men on the moon. And we returned them safely back to Earth.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Maybe for only a few moments, we were all one people. We were Earthlings. That's saying something.