Fantastic new photos of Saturn from the Cassini-Huygens mission

All photography credits are NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Space Science Institute. The photos were all shot by the Cassini spacecraft a couple miles from Saturn (well, 800,000 miles, actually).

Click to enlarge - "Magnificent blue and gold Saturn floats obliquely as one of its gravity-bound companions, Dione, hangs in the distance. The darkened rings seem to nearly touch their shadowy reverse images on the planet below. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 9 degrees above the ring plane. The rings glow feebly in the scattered light that filters through them. Dione is 1,126 kilometers (700 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 4, 2007, at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 75 kilometers (47 miles) per pixel. "

Click to enlarge - this clip from a movie sequence captures Saturn's rings "during a ring plane crossing--which Cassini makes twice per orbit--from the spacecraft's point of view. The movie begins with a view of the sunlit side of the rings. As the spacecraft speeds from south to north, the rings appear to tilt downward and collapse to a thin plane, and then open again to reveal the un-illuminated side of the ring plane, where sunlight filters through only dimly. "

click to enlarge - "Surely one of the most gorgeous sights the solar system has to offer, Saturn sits enveloped by the full splendor of its stately rings. Taking in the rings in their entirety was the focus of this particular imaging sequence. Therefore, the camera exposure times were just right to capture the dark-side of its rings, but longer than that required to properly expose the globe of sunlit Saturn. Consequently, the sunlit half of the planet is overexposed. Between the blinding light of day and the dark of night, there is a strip of twilight on the globe where colorful details in the atmosphere can be seen. Bright clouds dot the bluish-grey northern polar region here. In the south, the planet's night side glows golden in reflected light from the rings' sunlit face. "

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Earthquake!: Shakin' All Over In Berkeley

click map to enlarge—the red square is this 'quake

An hour after I arrived in Berkeley tonight, and settled into my hotel, the building started to rock and roll. The 4.2 earthquake, centered in Lafayette, while not so bad, was felt all around the Bay Area. Berkeley was the site (and epicenter) of another earthquake just last week.

Kron-TV says that "The earthquake shook basketball fans at Haas Pavilion on the University of California's campus in Berkeley. The crowd issued a collective "Oooh," as the building briefly shuddered during a timeout in Cal's game against Arizona, then cheered loudly while officials briefly delayed resuming the game."

We experienced dozens of earthquakes when we lived here, especially our year in married student housing in the Berkeley Hills. The Hayward fault ran--literally--through our backyard, and straight through the U.C. campus. We felt little earthquakes every day while we lived there. Fortunately, we had moved to Seattle by the time of the big quake of '89.

When I was 11, the Seattle April 29, 1965 earthquake (epicenter: Shelton) registered a 6.5 magnitude. I was outside at elementary school and watched the massive waves roll through the streets and saw cars bouncing up and down. I was in San Francisco during the April 24, 1984 Morgan Hill earthquake. I worked on the 10th floor of a 1905 skyscraper on Market Street. In that 6.2 quake, my building rocked for several minutes after the quake. It was 15 years 'til I experienced my next big one--the Seattle Nisqually earthquake on February 28, 2001--a 6.8 magnitude temblor, still vivid in my memory. While it's happening all you can think is "when's it going to stop?" As your intestines turn to jelly, you begin to wonder if this is finally the one we've all dreaded; if this is The Big One.
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Correction: "Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?" Misstated An Obvious fact

When I posted Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household? on Tuesday, I characterized The Tennessee Center for Policy research as "an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization." Right.

Jeff, a/k/a Dogbowl, a friend, and astute political analyst wrote—without even looking it up—that this was clearly a hit piece. He was, of course, right. They may be nonprofit, but they are indeed partisan—something my defective BS detector should have picked up. They are known for stirring up trouble with the left. The timing alone should have rung my bells.

I stand corrected.

Ed Begley and long time friend Bill Clinton - click to enlarge

That being said, I still have some doubts about people buying green offsets to make everything right. Yeah, I get how it works, but I still have to wonder if it wouldn't be better not to use the energy in the first place.

As a former poor kid, I have a knee-jerk reaction to rich people buying their way out of the various pickles they create. Do you remember from your history of the middle ages how people would pay for "sin-eaters" to erase their sins? Or how at various points and places in history, people were able to buy their way out of military service by paying a poor kid's family to send him in their stead? This has that same sort of vibe for me.

Yes, I get how it works, and how buying offsets helps a great deal. On the other hand, I have to totally admire the likes of Ed Begley, Jr.— about as green as you can be without living in a tent—who has to hop on his electricity generating stationary bicycle and ride a few minutes whenever he wants to make a couple pieces of toast!

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Another found photo from 10Eastern.com

click photograph to enlarge

This is another fantastic found photo from 10Eastern (one of my favorite web sites). One of the best things about all the photos gathered there is that they have no context! And this photo--the costumes, Welsh Independence, Ninjas?, sort-of-cheerleaders with orange feather headdresses, and the somewhat laughable, somewhat spooky dude in the gold lame costume? What's not to like?---o0o---

Photo: An EBE (extraterrrestrial biological entity)

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This Michael Toubbeh Story Goes On. . .And On. . .And On

This story was deleted by the All This Is That editors July 12, 2007.
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The Blog Police

Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?

Does Al Gore use twenty times more energy than the average U.S. household? According to The Tennessee Center for Policy Research—an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization—the answer is yes. They issued a press release late Monday (See below).

I don't know if Tennessee Policy is legit or not, if it's really just some redneck front organization, or whether these facts and figures are true or not. I will state that I am pulling for Al Gore as the dark horse in the presidential race. I do believe he was screwed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000. I was an Al Gore delegate to the Washington state convention in the 1980s. I don't have an axe to grind with him. Quite the contrary. However, if what the Tennessee Center for Policy Research says is true, it gives one pause. There is no queston that Al Gore's mansion is big.

Is Vice-President Gore asking us to cinch our belts without pulling his own in a notch or two? I don't know. I've never been comfortable with the "don't do as I do, do as I say" school of politics. I do know that this estimate does not even include the many miles Prince Albert spends jetting around the globe on jets, or speeding around town in limos. Can some of you Gore supporters tell me how this really works?
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According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the former Vice-President may not be shooting from ther hip:

"Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

"In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

"The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

"Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

"Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

"Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“ 'As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,' said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. "

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006. [1]

[1] For Further Information, Contact: Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431, itor@tennesseepolicy.org .
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Are you a capitalist?

I am apparently 16% Capitalist, 84% Socialist

You see a lot of injustice in the world, and you'd like to see it fixed. As far as you're concerned, all the wrong people have the power. You're strongly in favor of the redistribution of wealth - and more protection for the average person.

Are You a Socialist or Capitalist?

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How's your vocabulary?

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

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Poem: Dual Mortality

Petting my cat Booya
I count the cats I've had
And wonder how many more

I get to have?
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More Memories Of Kent, Washington: The Internment Of The Japanese Families

The first wave of immigrants to the Kent, Washington area happened shortly before 1900. The immigrants were mostly European. There were, even as I was growing up, several Italian families still farming the valley. The 1900 census count shows 13 Japanese families in and around Kent.

The number of Japanese immigrants rose steeply over the next few years until 1907, when the US Government put the brakes on the number of Japanese allowed to immigrate. Eventually, in the 1920's, they were banned altogether. The Anti-Alien Land Law in 1923 barred these immigrants from owning land, and even from becoming citizens. Those with a child born in America could put land in the child's name. Some of the Japanese worked for established farmers and some cleared land and began their own farms in Kent, Auburn, and the nearby villages O'Brien, Orillia, and Thomas.

Many Japanese farmers had dairy farms until the price of milk plummeted after the Great War. Those farmers jumped into vegetable and berry farming, and their truck farms were profitable. They sold produce in Seattle, at farm stands, and shipped lettuce and cabbage to the east coast.

In 1930 there were about 200 Japanese families farming in the White/Green River valley. In 1942 during WW II all Japanese people in the White/Green River Valley were ordered evacuated from this area and were detained at the War Relocation Camp at Tule Lake, California. They lost their businesses, farms and personal belongings. They lost everything in the war hysteria.

.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered them jailed with Executive Order 9066, a law designating certain "military areas" as zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded." Thus, in one of our more shameful national acts of jingoistic racism, all people of Japanese ancestry were removed from the entire Pacific coast--all of California, Oregon and Washington (except for those already in internment camps). In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this law, saying it is permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a "pressing public necessity." I don't know if that decision still stands or not. Perhaps this is the precedent we use for locking up various Muslims and people of middle-eastern extraction.

The forced removal encompassed about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans--3/5 of them U.S. citizens. They were sent to quickly and shoddily constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" in remote portions of the nation's interior. . .far away from where they might have, say, used a flashlight to guide a fleet of Japanese bombers toward the Boeing warplane plant.

My mother, Betty Brummet, remembers Japanese American kids being marched from Ballard High School one day. Some of the students lined up and booed.

The phrase "shikata ga nai" (loosely translated as "it cannot be helped") summarized the interned families' resignation to their helplessness. This was even noticed by the children, as mentioned in Farewell to Manzanar. The Japanese people tended not to make waves, and complied with the government to prove themselves "loyal citizens."

Dust storm at an internment camp a/k/a relocation center

In our war hysteria, we didn't want any Japanese Americans near the west coast. They would form cells and assist soldiers and pilots from the motherland in attacking The Pacific Coast. The number of Germans and Italians placed in the camps is only a fraction of their total population compared with the Japanese, virtually all of whom were locked up.

After the war only about thirty families returned to the valley area. I remember the Miyoshis, Yamadas, Nakaharas, Koyamatsus, Hiranakas, and Okimotos. Some of them got back into farming (not on their old farms, which had been confiscated and sold). I worked on the Yamada's farm a couple of springs, cutting and boxing rhubarb, and I worked for a couple of weeks on Kart Funai's farm one summer, bunching radishes and scallions.

In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed legislation awarding formal payments of $20,000 each to the surviving internees—60,000 in all. This same year, formal apologies were also issued by the government of Canada to Japanese Canadian survivors, who were each repaid the sum of $21,000 Canadian dollars. President Ronald Reagan even apologized on behalf of the United States. $21,000 would buy a fraction of the hundreds of acres of stolen land. Sure, it's better than the reparations paid to the families of slaves (zero, to date), but a pittance compared to losing everything you owned, and the farms you nurtured. If they held on until now, they'd all be rich.

Through the 1950's the Green River continued to flood the valley floor in late spring. This is what made the valley floor some of the richest soil in the world. . .but, alas, flooding prevented big business from locating there. In 1963 the Army Corps of Engineers built the Howard Hansen Dam (an earthen dam, still protecting the valley from floods) to regulate the river waters. The danger of uncontrolled flooding ended. The flat, treeless land on the valley floor now was an attractive area for business. And build they did.

Boeing built an aerospace lab, and the floodgates were opened. Farming was over, and dwindled rapidly, although there are a few pockets left. One of my old high school mates, Danny Carpinito has in fact become a wealthy vegetable farmer. Of the Japanese kids I knew in school, virtually none remained in Kent after high school. Of course, neither did I nor most of my friends, although some of our familes still live there.

Sources:

The Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

The History of Kent, Washington: http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/vtours/kent/

Japanese Relocation Centers: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html

The Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American

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