iComposition News

Project Overlord
Some of the guys at iCompositions have started an 'Internet Band'. The guys with the handles FrozenEntropy, Electric Requiem and JKane have formed the core of a band and have posted up 4 tracks. It's pretty damn good stuff. FE is on guitars doing his post-Fripp style stuff; Electric Requiem handles the bass&drums parts and JKane does the vocals. It's really good. Check it out.

Recently Frozen Entropy has been dropping in on my postings and I've been listening to his stuff. Gotta tell you, earning stars from him is pretty good going as he's a pretty discerning listener. I like his stuff a lot as it has this super-controlled intensity that's unlike aa lot of the stuff up on the site. He's a damn good guitar player too. Along the way I've agreed to doing vocals on one of his tracks at his behest. That's right. Vocals. Not bass or guitar or mix engineering or directing a video clip, but vocals. Stay tuned for the result. :)

There are rumbling of another 'Internet Band' being formed around vilhelm23 and Diversion. Their first track is called 'I Already Know'. Check it out. It's interesting.

Artist 'Lene' got a mention by Fortunato:

If, for your GB Band, you can have (without preferred order...) :
Yohmar
FrozenEntropy
Pyrofly
Richard Geiger
Ponkey
TadashiTogawa
Zounds
Vinkingjay1542
Insomniac28
MrBajen
Jazzdall
hate03
Jkane
mickazoid
and the beautiful mood voice of Lene,
I think I would like to play in your bAnD !

As it turns out, the artist 'Lene' is in NY, and I hear she's going to take in a Yankee game at THE Stadium. :)
Yes iComp is starting to thrive as a real community.

More Thoughts On The Aussie Cricket Team

Slater Says Hayden's Got To Go

Once upon a time, the Australian opening pair was built on Mark Taylor and Michael Slater. They were an interesting pair to watch and certain;y the amassed total Test runs of both men stand as testament to their once amazing skills. So in the dying days of Michael Slater's career, there was a sense of "Is that it? Is that all we're going to see of this guy?" when he was dropped by the selectors in the previous Ashes Tour to England.

In retrospect it wasn't a bad decision at all as it allowed the duo of Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden to set the pace, and set the pace they did for 2 years. Today, Michael Slater's in the papers saying Hayden should go.

"The time has come for Australia to drop Matthew Hayden," Slater said.

"He has struggled to make runs all series, as he did in 2001 in English conditions, and, in truth, has been out of form now for 12 months.

"I've been a big supporter of his but with the Ashes on the line it is time to make changes.

"Because there is no spare opener in the squad, I would bring Simon Katich up to open the innings.

"He has done the job in four-day cricket and in one-day matches, and has the technique to cope well.

"In his place at No. 6, I would bring in all-rounder Shane Watson because he gives Australia a fifth bowling option, something England have had all series."

Hayden, at 33 a veteran of 71 Tests, has been befuddled by the swinging ball and clever field placings, which have blocked his scoring avenues.

Slater, who played in 14 Tests with the left-hander, said changes had to be made after yesterday's three-wicket defeat at Trent Bridge or the Ashes would return "home" for the first time in 16 years.

"I would also think seriously about playing another leg-spinner, Stuart MacGill, alongside Shane Warne because England have struggled against spin," Slater said.

"That would mean leaving out Shaun Tait, even though he did pretty well on debut.

"Australia must do something to change things because right now they are staring down the barrel at losing the Ashes.

"I believe we will lose the Ashes unless the selectors make changes."

Slater praised Warne, with a series-high 28 wickets and the bonus of 249 runs, and Brett Lee, with 19 wickets and 152 runs, for their efforts.

But the former opener, who was controversially dropped on the 2001 Ashes tour, felt too much was being left to too few.

Well, it's really kind of predictable, when you stop to think about it. Steve Waugh probably overstayed by 18months. The first blush of Ponting's captaincy was essentially coasting on the Waugh Team. The selectors have been trying to avoid the debacle of the 1980s when Dennis Lillee and Greg Chappell all retired at once. So in effect this delayed the generation change for the same amount of time that Steve Waugh over-stayed. Now that's not a knock on Steve Waugh himself; it's just that when he left was probably the best time to embark on re-modeling the team.

At the same time, Matthew Hayden was coming off 2 great calendar years of scoring 1000 test runs. The selectors probably felt secure in letting him continue, thinking he was due for another big year in spite of his age; by that logic, Sir Don would still be batting for Australia if only he were alive. It all stands to reason with 20-20 hindsight; but it's also the flip-side of being conservative or worse, nostalgic and perhaps a little too inert. Losing the Ashes would be a big price to pay.

Just for reference, this is The Australian's preferred team:

Preferred fifth Test team: Justin Langer, Michael Hussey, Ricky Ponting (c), Damien Martyn, Michael Clarke, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Watson, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Stuart MacGill.

That's a team that could have been fielded and blooded 12 months ago; that alone tells you how conservative and nostalgic the selectors have been.

Gus Grissom' Suit

Gus's surviving family and NASA have never really gotten on. Now a 15 year old girl has weighed in to their dispute.

MADISON, Conn. -- A 15-year-old girl with a Web site, a summer of free time and an astronaut for a hero is trying to resolve a three-year-old dispute over the fate of one of NASA's earliest space suits.

The family of pioneering astronaut Gus Grissom has been trying for years to get NASA to give them his 1961 Mercury space suit. NASA says the suit is government property and a valuable artifact that should be kept at the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida.
Enter Amanda Meyer, a Madison teenager, space enthusiast and co-captain of the Daniel Hand High School debate team. She believes she has a compromise and, after launching an Internet petition drive, she has spent the summer writing and calling NASA, the Smithsonian Institution, Congress and anyone else she can think of.

Meyer says the government doesn't have to give up its claim to the suit but should loan it to the Gus Grissom Memorial, a museum in his hometown of Mitchell, Ind.

"It just seems fair," Meyer said. "It should be in his museum because that's where he would want it."

There has been long-standing tension between Grissom's wife, Betty, and NASA since Grissom and two other Apollo 1 astronauts, Roger Chaffee and Edward White, died in a 1967 command module fire during a training exercise. The space agency, she feels, ignored her and her family after the tragedy, even as it honored the crews of Challenger and Columbia.

Grissom wore the space suit during his Mercury mission, in which his spacecraft safely landed in the ocean but sank after a hatch prematurely blew. Grissom escaped and said the hatch malfunctioned. But some, including author Tom Wolfe in his book "The Right Stuff," suggested he panicked and blew the hatch early.

After the Mercury mission, Grissom took the suit home and never returned it, NASA said. Family members have said he rescued it from the trash, a contention NASA denies. In 1989, Betty Grissom lent the suit to the privately run Astronaut Hall of Fame. But in 2003, after the government took over the museum, she and her son, Scott, tried to get the suit back.

NASA agreed to return 15 items, including a flight log and his commemorative medals, but refused to return the suit, saying it was government property belonging to the Smithsonian.

Meyer heard about the dispute in February, after she sent Scott Grissom a copy of a school essay she wrote about his father. When Scott Grissom called, Amanda's mother was so excited, she pulled Amanda out of school to return the call. Since that call, Meyer has worked to get the space suit moved.

"Gus Grissom is my hero," Meyer said. "I'd like to see his memory commemorated the way it should be."

Scott Grissom did not return phone messages seeking comment.

As the school year waned, she pledged to spend summer on the issue. Through her Web site and petition drives outside a local grocery store, she says she has collected about 2,000 signatures calling for the suit to be moved to Indiana.

"She's persistent," said NASA spokesman George H. Diller.

It's not the first time Amanda has thrown herself at an issue, said her mother, Carolyn Meyer. She raised money for a local no-kill animal shelter, worked on a state representative's campaign and, after growing out her hair to the point she could sit on it, she abruptly cut it off and donated it to make wigs for cancer patients.

Her Grissom petition has become fodder for space-related Web logs and message boards. Some admire her drive; others say she's being used in the Grissoms' dispute with NASA.

A representative from the Delaware North Companies, the government contractor that operates the Astronaut Hall of Fame, was to meet with Meyer this week but the company said only the Smithsonian can transfer artifacts.

"Amanda Meyer is a nice young lady, and as well meaning as she is, she's a third party in this," said Roger Launius, chairman of space history at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

At the end of the year, the space suit's fate will be reconsidered, NASA said. The space agency plans to ask the Smithsonian to keep it in Florida. Meyer hopes she can convince the Smithsonian to move it to Indiana.

And I thought we had the right stuff. :) Go Girl.

Pleiades Mailbag-Drop

Permian Extinction
Here's something on the relationship between climate change and the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period.

The work gives support to a theory that an abrupt and dramatic rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide triggered the massive die-off 251 million years ago. The research appears in the Sept. issue of the journal Geology.

"The results demonstrate how rapidly rising temperatures in the atmosphere can affect ocean circulation, cutting off oxygen to lower depths and extinguishing most life," says NCAR scientist and lead author, Jeffrey Kiehl.

Kiehl and co-author Christine Shields focused on the dramatic events at the end of the Permian Era, when an estimated 90 to 95 percent of all marine species, as well as about 70 percent of all terrestrial species, became extinct.

At the time of the event, higher-latitude temperatures were 18°F to 54°F (10°C to 30°C) warmer than today, and extensive volcanic activity had released large amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere over a 700,000-year period.

To solve the puzzle of how those conditions may have affected climate and life around the globe, the researchers turned to the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). The model can integrate changes in atmospheric temperatures with ocean temperatures and currents. Research teams had previously studied the Permian extinction with more limited computer models that focused on only a single component of Earth's climate system, such as the ocean.

"These results demonstrate the importance of treating Earth's climate as a system involving physical, chemical and biological processes in the atmosphere, oceans and land surface, all interacting," said Jay Fein, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s climate dynamics program, which funded the research. "Other studies have reached similar conclusions. What's new is the application of a detailed version of one of the world's premier climate system models, the CCSM, to understanding how rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide affected conditions in the world's oceans and on its land surfaces enough to trigger a massive extinction hundreds of millions of years ago."

The CCSM indicated that ocean temperatures warmed significantly at higher latitudes because of rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The warmer temperatures reached a depth of about 10,000 feet (4,000 meters), interfering with the normal circulation process in which colder surface water descends, taking oxygen and nutrients deep into the ocean.

As a result, ocean waters became stratified with little oxygen, proving deadly to marine life. Because marine organisms were no longer removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, that, in turn, accelerated warming temperatures.

"The implication of our study is that elevated [carbon dioxide] is sufficient to lead to inhospitable conditions for marine life and excessively high temperatures over land would contribute to the demise of terrestrial life," the authors conclude.

It seems the underlying assumption of most people who think climate change is harmless, and that that we as humans, being smarter than amphibians of the Permian will somehow make it through whatever weather changes may come. Let's face it, storms by their nature, subside. So how bad could a spot of heating up be? Well, this thing will probaably impact our foodchain in ways we cannot begin to control, and so I have to say any post-Schumpeter observations about technological innovation overcoming the impacts of over-population might not be up to speed when the food we feed upon loses its food.

An Interesting Link
If you have time, check this one out too. It's a note of how far some people will stoop. In some ways, it's pretty funny, but I'm into gallows humour. Thanks again to Pleiades.

The Turning Wheel Of ... Sport

Aussie Debacle


Let's face it. When the tabloids in Australia announce on the backpages that Andrew Flintof is the best batsman in the world you know the home side is in the deepest pits. For the first time in 17 years, the Australian side has had to follow on. And while the resistance is happening, the truth is, England have yelled "check!" on getting the Ashes back.
Okay, last year, I had to weather the Red Sox bust their 86-year hoodoo (and it was my fave hoodoo in all of sport too), but now I'm getting to see the Australian side as spent and depleted.


Not suprisingly, the Ausralians are losing their cool . Mark Butcher, the 'celebrated' hacker during England's long dormancy had this to say:

Body language can be more expressive than a Van Morrison lyric. It has certainly told us something about the state of Australia during this Test, no more so perhaps than at the start of play on Friday morning.

England were four wickets down with not much more than 200 on the board. A couple of early breakthroughs then and if Australia were not exactly through, they would have made fairly serious inroads. But they did not attack to get those wickets, they placed sweepers on the off and leg sides from the start.

It was as if they feared what England could do to them, rather than thinking what Australia could do to England. Believe me, I know that feeling well from having played Australia over the years. It colours your decision-making, you can become fearful. It can be fraught with irksome possibilities. So that, for example, you take out third slip because you feel you ought to defend and the next minute the ball goes in the air where third slip would have been. Then it is too late, the chance has gone.

Over the course of a series, a side play the game in their captain's image. Now, in the case of Australia it is said of Ricky Ponting that he has had to set the in-out fields he has because he can hardly trust his bowlers. But that is part and parcel of the quality of England's play and the pressure they have exerted.

Before the Trent Bridge Test started, England had had the best of the previous eight or nine days of Test cricket. The gap between the Third and Fourth Tests allowed England to get over the tourists' great escape at Old Trafford and to clear their minds and ensure that they were able to dwell on their superiority over so long.

One other thing we have disproved over the past few weeks, whether the Ashes come home or not, is the perception that to have any hope of beating Australia we had to prepare seaming, sporting pitches. In its way it was a good kind of theory, but I was always suspicious of it. If the opposition had Glenn McGrath in their side then wasn't he likely to take rather significant advantage of a pitch working in his favour?

Butcher is right. These hungry Englishmen are out for blood, and boy are our boys ill-equipped to deal with this adversity. After all, the last Australian dynasty was built from the burning husks left from the glorious 1970s team that burnt down to the ground by the middle of the 1980s. The dynasty was built on hungry young guys who were sick of losing. In stark contrast, looking at the current Australian roster, there's no longer anybody who was there to take the stick from England in the '80s. Ponting is going to have take on the role that Alan Border once took upon himself; to guide the next generation of Australian Cricketers back to the light.
All in all, it's not such a bad thing. As I've been pointing out, the side has been due for a sea-change for some time. This is going to make Test Cricket a lot more interesting too.

The Other Dynasty Fights on


The Yankees are still in their bun-fight for the post-season. Since taking the series against the Chisox last week, they've won 3 of 4 from Toronto and 2 of 3 from Kansas City. Okay, beating the Kansas City Royals might not look like much, but here are the facts: The Royals have put together a 5 game winning streak since coming out of their worst losing streak in history and they put some of those wins against Bosox. They were a suddenly hot team. And while Randy Johnson turned up as himself to guide the yanks to one of the wins 3-1, the Yankees had to pull out a 5-run ninth to beat the Royals 8-7. The Royals were so hot they scored 7 runs off Jaret Wright and Aaron Small in 7.2 innings.

"I've seen these guys do this so many times, be down four runs and then work their magic," said Lawton, who was traded to the Yankees from the Chicago Cubs on Friday and contributed a single and a run during the rally. "I've got something to talk about now. I've got a lot to tell my friends."

Manager Joe Torre, seated in his clubhouse office afterward, called the game "as good as any we've played all year, as far as winning this type of ballgame."

The victory - the Yankees' seventh in nine games - kept them pointed toward the postseason. They entered the game trailing the Boston Red Sox by two and a half games in the American League East, and tied with the Cleveland Indians and the Oakland Athletics for the wild-card spot. Rodriguez, who drove in his 103rd run of the season, said that coming back from a 7-3 deficit in the bottom of the ninth seemed unrealistic, regardless of the opponent.

But the Royals, who had erased a 3-0 deficit against Yankees starter Jaret Wright, all but chaperoned the Yankees around the bases.

The good news is that Boston dropped one today against Detroit. As it turns out, the schedule down the stretch favors the Yankees according to the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog:

Prior to the game it was announced that the Yankees had acquired Matt Lawton from the Cubs for minor league pitcher Justin Berg. Berg's a low A pitcher who hasn't demonstrated much, and is not considered much of a prospect, so this was probably just a salary dump. Lawton's not a bad pickup. He's not a very good defensive player, but in his career he has demonstrated an ability to get on base at a decent clip (.366 this season), and gives the Yankees some depth in the OF. The Yankees don't consider him a CF, but they feel that he can play LF with Matsui shifting to CF. If the Yankees can do that, they can run the following lineup out there:

Jeter, SS
Matsui, CF
Sheffield, RF
Rodriguez, 3B
Giambi, 1B
Williams, DH
Posada, C
Lawton, LF
Cano, 2B

I don't know about you, but to me that's the best lineup they will have had all year.

Larry ran some numbers to estimate the strength of schedules for the AL playoff contenders through year end as of yesterday, which I'm going to post here.

Using actual records

Strength of Schedule the rest of the season:
Red Sox: .503
Athletics: .500
Twins: .498
Angels: .493
Indians: .487
White Sox: .484
Yankees: .467

Adjusted for .540 Home Field Advantage:
Athletics: .505
Twins: .500
Angels: .496
Red Sox: .489
White Sox: .488
Indians: .485
Yankees: .471

Projected Records using log5:
Boston: 94-67
Yankees: 91-71

White Sox: 100-61
Indians: 90-72
Twins: 86-77

Angels: 93-69
Athletics: 90-72

Using “adjusted” records (Adjusted records come from Baseball Prospectus's adjusted standings.

Strength of Schedule the rest of the season:
Red Sox: .522
Athletics: .521
Angels: .516
Twins: .508
White Sox: .505
Yankees: .491
Indians: .488

Adjusted for .540 Home Field Advantage:
Athletics: .525
Angels: .519
Twins: .510
White Sox: .510
Red Sox: .507
Yankees: .494
Indians: .485

Projected Records using log5:
Boston: 93-68
Yankees: 91-71

White Sox: 96-65
Indians: 91-71
Twins: 85-78

Angels: 92-70
Athletics: 90-72

Basically, all this tells me is that it's too close to call, and that Cleveland, the Yankees, and Oakland will be in a dogfight for the Wild Card. It also tells me that the division is still very much in play, particularly with 6 games remaining between Boston and the Yankees. Regardless, this should be the most exciting September that we have had as Yankee fans in quite some time, so sit back and enjoy it.

Yeah. Right On. This is actually interesting as the Yankees now sit 1.5 games back. :)

Saddam, Poet Laureate of Iraq

When Depressed, Turn To The Pen

It's a little bit like the Angry Fat Man. Saddam is depressed and has turned to writing poetry once more.

Saddam Hussein spends his time in solitary confinement tending a garden, writing poetry and reading the Quran, according to reports Monday that described him as depressed and demoralized.

One of Saddam's poems is about George Bush, though it wasn't clear whether that referred to President Bush or his father, Saddam's foe in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain and Newsday in New York quoted Bakhtiar Amin, the human rights minister in the new Iraqi government, who said he visited Saddam's cell on Saturday. Amin said he did not speak to the former Iraqi leader.

Bakhtiar said Saddam appeared "in good health and being kept in good conditions," but he "appeared demoralized and dejected."

Saddam's air-conditioned cell in a U.S. military prison is 10 feet wide and 13 feet long and contained a fold-up bed, a table and a single light bulb, Amin said. Saddam is not allowed to mix with other prisoners.

"Mostly he reads the Quran today," Newsday quoted Amin as saying. "He feels more afraid for his life."

Amin had little to report on Saddam's poetry. "One of the poems is about George Bush, but I had no time to read it," Amin said.

He reported that Saddam, 67, was being treated for high blood pressure and a chronic prostate infection, has a hernia and was gaining weight after losing 11 pounds during a time when he resisted all fatty foods.

Saddam and other detainees get an MRE (meal ready to eat) breakfast, and hot food twice a day. Dessert might include oranges, apples, pears or plums, but Saddam also likes American muffins and cookies, Amin said.

Saddam is not allowed newspapers, TV or radio, but has access to 145 books — mostly travel books and novels — donated by the Red Cross.

I wonder what Saddam would make of 'Autumn of the Patriarch' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Or for that matter, what Marquez makes of Saddam's poetry would be a great magazine piece. The world is an interesting place. Why are magazine editors so boring?

That's The Spirit

Mother Of All Martian Panoramas... So Far.
Mars Rover Spirit became the first Terrestrial to climb a Martian mountain. Spirit climbed 'Husband Hill', which stands 110metres above th Gustav Crater where Spirit originally landed. It should go down as a big moment in robotics history, if the rest of the rover missions already haven't. These two machines have shown the kind of tenacity of an errant R2-D2:

Steve Squyres, NASA's principal investigator for Spirit's science program, now visiting Australia, said that while the 110-metre-tall feature might technically be a hill, "to our little rover it's a mountain … Spirit's a Martian mountaineer".

Named after Rick Husband, the astronaut commander killed in the Columbia shuttle accident, the peak is the highest point in a range now known as the Columbia Hills. Spirit took almost 15 months to crawl more than one kilometre through the hills to reach the top.

"It's really been a struggle," Dr Squyres said. "In places the terrain was very slippery and in places it was very steep.

"When we landed on Mars and we saw the Columbia Hills off in the distance I thought just getting to their base was impossible."

He described the first low-resolution black-and-white images beamed by Spirit from the top as fantastic.

"You can see the plains to the east and plains to the west."

Peering north, Spirit could look down into terrain dubbed the Tennessee Valley.

Dr Squyres said Spirit would remain parked on the peak to snap the sprawling view in high-resolution wide-angle colour pictures likely to be made public next week. "We are taking the mother of all panoramas."

It's interesting how the expression "The Mother Of All..." has entered the English vernacular since Saddam Hussein's promise to deliver the Mother Of All Battles back during the first Gulf War. It's such a cool phrase and clearly, the man has some literary merit; apart from being an ousted dictator. They should give him an award or something.

While We're At It
This is an excerpt of Saddam Hussein's poetry in case you can't be bothered to click the link above:

Unsheathe your sword without fear, without hesitation,
Unsheathe your sword and let Saturn bear witness,
Unsheathe your sword, the enemy is smoldering, No one can (intrigue) him but a prudent hero, Saddle the horses and unleash them,
For in their wedding there is hope,
Let the lightening echo at the night of fire,
So that truth appears and injustice is defeated,
Shine, in the face of darkness as it turns deeper, Torches, whereas the frail and the weak,
Spark your lighter and keep the fire glowing Feared by the subservient vile,
Draw your sword and make it gleam, No winner but the determined man,
Make the banner fly on each pole, Pray to God, the wound will heal.

As the guy on the link quipped, it sounds like Iron Maiden's 'Run To The Hills' or something.

This Was In Technology news
Amazingly:

Google nicked my porn

Mens' mag sues search giant
By Nick Farrell: Friday 26 August 2005, 09:41

THE PUBLISHER of a men’s mag ‘Perfect 10’ is suing Google for nicking thousands of its eight by ten colour glossy pictures of girls with no clothes on.
In a statement, Perfect 10 said that it was going for a preliminary injunction against the search outfit to stop distributing its copyrighted images.

The mag filed a complaint against Google in November 2004 saying that the site was displaying the images to draw massive traffic to its website, which it is converting into hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising revenue.

Perfect 10 claims that Google is only pretending to be a search engine and that it is displaying, free of charge, thousands of copies of the best images from Perfect 10, Playboy, nude scenes from major movies, nude images of supermodels, as well as extremely explicit images of all kinds.

Norm Zada, (no really) who is the magazine’s founder said that since most of the traffic to search engines is sex-related, Google's must be doing it on the back of a massive misappropriation of intellectual property.Or so it says here.

Tut tut. They should re-name it 'Ogle' (And I'm not being a Wowser). :)

Ozone Hole

The Verdict Ain't Good
In amidst all the bad ecological signs is one of the biggest doozies of them all - the hole in the Ozone Layer above the Antarctic. The pciture above is the size of the thing at its peak in 2003. The WMO is now reporting the hole has grown larger in the last year.

The UN agency's top ozone expert added that seasonal depletion of the protective gas layer, which filters harmful ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer, may become more pronounced in the near future before the problem diminishes.

Large reductions in the ozone layer, which sits about 15-30 km (9-19 miles) above the earth, take place each winter over the polar regions, especially the Antarctic, as low temperatures allow the formation of stratospheric clouds that assist chemical reactions breaking down ozone.

The WMO said meteorological data showed last winter was warmer than in 2003 but colder than in 2004.

"At this stage it looks like this year's ozone hole will be quite average or maybe a little above average," Geir Braathen, WMO's ozone expert, told a news briefing.

Scientists say the hole spanned a record 29 million sq km (11 million sq miles) in September 2003, exposing the southern tip of South America.

The WMO said on Tuesday the area where temperatures are low enough for clouds to have formed -- an indication of the potential hole size -- now covered about 25 million square km.

"This area is near the 1995-2004 mean and higher than observed in 2004 but somewhat lower than in 2003," it said.

I love how these articles read so clear of conscience. Sort of as if the journalist never had to think about the issue ever before. Anyway, I'm not here to slam the journalism. It closes with:

"We still expect the ozone hole to appear annually and it actually might be a little bit worse in the next five to 10 years, then the situation will start to improve," he said.

"It will still take several decades before these substances have disappeared from the atmosphere. We expect the annual recurring ozone hole to take place until maybe mid-century."

The Geneva-based WMO, which has 181 member states, bases its analysis on data collected from satellites, ground-based observations and balloons launched into the atmosphere.

The thing that gets me about this hole is that because it sits above Antarctica, nobody seems to care. If it sat right above Washington DC, then there might have been a more significant effort to fix it.

Cry Shark

'Jaws' Had A Great Line

"You cry shark and everybody sits up and notices."
Jarrod Stehbens, 23, was taken by a Great White Shark off the South Australian Coast yesterday. His parents are pleading for the authorities not to hunt the shark.

David Stehbens said his son would not want the shark involved in the attack killed.

"Jarrod was doing exactly what he wanted to do when it happened, he loved the sea," David Stehbens said.

"He's a very experienced diver, he's done probably over 190 dives, he knew what it was about."

David Stehbens said his son "loved the outdoors and the sea".

"He was a good bloke, that was his character.

"He loved helping people...if anybody needed a hand, he would be the person to jump up and help."

Jarrod Stehbens was diving with University of Adelaide colleagues when taken by the shark.

He was an honours graduate in marine biology at the university and had planned to complete a PHD in Germany starting in two weeks.

He said he and his wife, their son Trent, 21, and daughter Jasmin, 15, were still struggling to comprehend yesterday's tragedy. Jarrod Stehbens, was attacked about two kilometres offshore about 4pm (CST) yesterday.

The University of Adelaide scientist aged in his 20s was on a scuba dive trip to a tyre reef off Glenelg beach when he was taken.

Mr Stehbens and another diver were in the water when two colleagues aboard a boat saw the shark approach.

They managed to haul one of the divers aboard but the shark used its snout to push Mr Stehbens back into the water before his friends could grab him, a colleague of the men, who asked not to be named, said.

An oxygen tank and buoyancy vest were recovered by searchers late yesterday.

None of which is an appetising thought, so to speak - unless you're a Great White Shark of course. People in the immediate area thought the divers were crazy diving near so many boats feeding bait into the sea:

Local boatie Keith Klemasz, who was in waters near the Glenelg tyre reef, described the divers as "crazy".
"It's very unfortunate but I don't think it's a good idea to dive when you have got a lot of boats out," Mr Klemasz said.

"It's a feeding pattern, if we are all putting berley in the water, that will attract them [sharks]. It is crazy, they were shark bait."

Another fisherman, Alby Dixon, said he was 100m from the university research boat at the time of the attack.

"I saw them diving but I didn't see any sign of distress. We were close and we didn't even realise it had happened," he said.
Mr Klemasz, 57, was fishing about 100m from the students when the shark attacked.
"I didn't see anything at all until all the choppers started flying over us," he said.

Mr Lemasz said he did not see any sharks while he was out fishing.

"[However] there are a lot of sharks out there all the time," he said.

Professor Bob Hill, of the University of Adelaide's school of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the group was collecting cuttle fish eggs and all were accredited divers.

"The school will need to have a very serious look at whether similar activity will continue," he said.

"It appears they made every attempt they could to do the right thing while they were out there.

"They were well aware of the dangers and we have very strict occupational health and safety regulations."

The divers had "been out many times before" doing similar research, he said.

A spokesperson for the university said the survivors would speak about their ordeal at a later date.

Look, I really like top predators as they are the most dramatic and dynamic of creatures in the wild, but I've never really gotten comfortable with liking Great White Sharks (or sharks of any kind for that matter): it's a real chore. My primordial fear is always going to be Giant Shark Attack thanks to bloody Spielberg, so it's predictably very hard for me to stand up with conviction and say "protect the big cute toothy things!". The way I see it, it's a case of "dance with wolves, expect to get bitten, swim with Great White Sharks, expect to get eaten". I'm sorry for the family but boy, what was he thinking?

X-15 Pilots Get Their Wings

Never Too Late
NASA handed out astronautical Wings to the pilots who flew the bell X-15 back in the 1960s.
Here's the link

Retired NASA pilot Bill Dana, and family members representing agency deceased pilots John McKay and Joseph Walker, received the civilian astronaut wings. The wings acknowledged the fact the pilots flew the X-15 at altitudes of 50 miles or higher.

The men were honored in a ceremony at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., site of their achievements. Dana was philosophical about it; "NASA pilots didn't wear wings anyway, and the concept of winning special wings was probably more crucial to a military pilot's career ladder," he explained.

During the turbulent era of 1960's Cold War confrontations, the moon race and war in Southeast Asia, eight test pilots quietly flew the radical X-15 rocket plane out of the atmosphere and into the record books, earning astronaut status. However, only the military aviators received astronaut wings, because NASA, a civilian agency, had no badge to award to agency pilots.

Dana's first space flight took him 58.13 miles above the Mojave Desert on Nov. 1, 1966. He tried to collect micrometeorite samples, while learning about issues of sky brightness.

Walker's third X-15 foray into space claimed the unofficial world altitude record of 354,200 feet (67.08 miles) on Aug. 22, 1963. Walker's unofficial record was the highest altitude flown by the X-15. McKay reached 295,600 feet (55.98 miles) on Sept. 28, 1965.

The X-15 program used three piloted hypersonic rocket planes to fly nearly seven times the speed of sound. Volumes of test data from 199 X-15 missions helped shape the successful Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle human spaceflight programs.

Retired X-15s are displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and the Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio.

For more information about the X-15 program on the Web, visit: History X-15 or Dydren Fact Sheets.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research on the Web, visit: NASA Aeronautics.

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: NASA Home.

Not too shabby after all these years.

Esoteric Headlines

I'm Not The Only One
Here's an interesting article comparing the Yankees and the Australian cricket team.

Within their sport, this Australian cricket team has been likened to Bradman’s Invincibles and Clive Lloyd’s West Indians. Outside their sport, an apt contemporary comparison of sporting dynasties would be to the New York Yankees baseball team since 1995.
It wasn’t just that they mostly won, it was the way they won: with self-belief that sometimes bordered on brashness. Their fans saw their belief and embraced them. Others saw brashness — plus, in the case of the Yankees, owner George Steinbrenner’s cheque book that underwrote championships — and loathed them.

All these years, on the highway to success, the Aussies and the Yankees charted similar paths. Today, at a crossroads, they face similar questions. Depending on what you see and whom you believe, both teams are either in slow decline or in a slump. All summer, they have been threatening to perform, but have been consistently losing the plot.

The Aussies we know. For the Yankees, the first half of the long-winding baseball season was their most miserable in the past decade, prompting Steinbrenner to fire tirades and sign more cheques.

Both teams revolve around ageing veterans, who’ve been there and done that but are struggling to string it together this season or series. There have been rumblings to make wholesale changes and consign these teams to history but the men who matter have placed their faith in the tried and tested to play catch up.

On Monday, the Yankees did catch up, moving into a tie for the ‘wildcard’ lead in their American Division — basically the fourth and final playoff spot on their side of the draw. Still, after the numerous false dawns, few, if any, are saying they look like a championship team.

But there are some telling signs. For the first time in the season, three of their five original starting pitchers — the most important men in a baseball team — are healthy and throwing freely. Similarly, Australia are done backing one under-performing veteran. At Trent Bridge, for the first time in the series, they will have four bowlers, not three bowlers and a passenger called Gillespie.

Of all the tests they have had to collectively endure, this is among the hardest. The stakes are high. On it hinge some reputations, some careers, and the future of two great teams.

There's a tone there that seems to declare that both the Yankees and the Australian cricket teams are done; perhaps a little wishful. Of course, unlikely as it seemed three days ago, the Yankees have earned sole-possession of the Wild Card lead after edging out Toronto 5-4 today.

Felix Escalona's bases-loaded single with two outs in the ninth inning gave the New York Yankees a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night and sole possession of the AL wild-card lead.
Hideki Matsui hit a tying homer in the ninth, and Derek Jeter had two hits in his return to the lineup for the Yankees (69-55), who scored in each of the final four innings to win for the ninth time in 12 games and reach 14 games over .500 for the first time this season.
New York, which didn't lead until the final hit, had been tied for the wild-card lead with Oakland, which lost at Detroit.
Vernon Wells had three hits, including a homer, as the Blue Jays wasted a strong start by Josh Towers.
Toronto took a 4-3 lead off Mariano Rivera (6-3) in the ninth, but Matsui led off the bottom half with his 20th homer, a drive off Miguel Batista (5-5). Jorge Posada walked with one out, and Robinson Cano walked with two outs. Batista then intentionally walked Jeter to load the bases for Escalona, who singled to center.
After New York tied it in the eighth, Orlando Hudson singled off Rivera with one out in the ninth when Escalona came off first base to grab Jeter's throw. Hudson took second on an infield out and scored on Reed Johnson's single, beating Matsui's throw.
Al Leiter gave up three runs and six hits with one walk and five strikeouts in seven-plus innings.

So Al Leiter pitched a gritty seven-plus innings, Rivera blew a save again, but the bats bailed him out for the win. Meanwhile, Australia heads into yet another test match on their Ashes Tour, this time at Trent Bridge

Australia will certainly make one change, axing fast bowler Jason Gillespie and ushering young tearaway Shaun Tait to his dressing-room peg. The 22-year-old is expected to pose more problems in swinging conditions.

Gillespie's lack of zip has been shocking. For years, he has been the unsung hero of the Australian attack.

During the last five weeks, however, he has been treated dismissively by English batsmen, his three wickets costing 300 runs and bucketfuls of self-esteem.

By this time during the 2002-3 Ashes, the contest was already over. It took barely 11 days for Australia to go 3-0 up in that five-match series.

Everything was different then, not least the press coverage.

England, beset by one injury after another (Andrew Flintoff did not get on the pitch and Simon Jones lasted one session), were lampooned in Australia as the most physically and mentally brittle bunch of losers ever to show their red faces Down Under.

Mockery, of course, is the preserve of undisputed world champions.

In 2005, however, the Australians have spent more time anxiously studying their navels. Adam Gilchrist's lack of dazzle has been as perplexing as Matthew Hayden's shortage of runs.

Former captain Ian Chappell has suggested the side may not be quite as good as they imagined, having spent so many years subsidised by the twin genius of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Dennis Lillee has talked of an ageing team in decline.

There have also been injury worries, with McGrath missing the second test and playing in Manchester only half fit, while Michael Clarke spent more time in bed than on the pitch during the third test.

England have stayed fit and with the same 11 that began the series. In their last home series, they used 19 players.

Trent Bridge, though, is not one of England's favourite Ashes haunts with only three wins there in 19 tests. In 1997 and 2001, Australia wrapped up the series in Robin Hood country. The last English champagne was uncorked in 1977.

I know I said the dynasties are over a week ago, but these dynasties seem to be refusing to go into the night quietly; and that's what we like from our sporting heroes. A good deal of fight and fire in their bellies. :)

Nutbar Central
You know it: The Christian Right in US politics is about 50 cards short of a full deck. Former Presidential Hopeful (delusional perhaps) Pat Robertson called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela. The repercussions are coming hard and fast.

There's an old Southern saying that you dance with the one that brung ya, but as the Bush administration found out this week, sometimes you don't want to dance too close. The administration quickly distanced itself Tuesday from the suggestion by religious broadcaster and Bush backer Pat Robertson that the United States assassinate a leftist Latin American head of state.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ``inappropriate,'' but stopped short of condemning them.

``This is not the policy of the United States government,'' McCormack said. ``We do not share his views.''

The Bush administration does share many of Robertson's views on other matters, such as stem cell research, and Robertson's largely conservative, evangelical audience overlaps with the core of Bush's political base.

About nine of 10 white evangelicals voted for Bush in the 2004 election - about as high as his support from any group of voters, according to exit polls. This group also supported Bush overwhelmingly in the 2000 election.

McCormack tiptoed around the question of whether the rest of the world might assume that Robertson speaks, if not directly for Bush, at least for a sizable share of the Republican Party.

``I would think that people around the world would take the comments for what they are,'' McCormack said. ``They're the expression of one citizen.''

Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1988, supported Bush's re-election last year and said he believed Bush is blessed by God. Robertson also told viewers of his ``700 Club'' television program that God had told him Bush would win re-election in a ``blowout.''

Speaking on the same program Monday, Robertson said killing Chavez would be cheaper than starting a war to oust him. Getting rid of Chavez would stop Venezuela from becoming a ``launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism,'' Robertson said.

``We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,'' Robertson said. ``We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator.''

A Robertson spokeswoman, Angell Watts, said he would not do interviews Tuesday and had no statement elaborating on his remarks.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon isn't in the business of killing foreign leaders, but he also did not denounce Robertson or his remarks.

``He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time,'' Rumsfeld said.

Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, said of Robertson's remarks: ``We are concerned about the safety of the president.'' Alvarez said measures should be taken to guarantee Chavez's safety any time he visits the United States. The Venezuelan leader is expected to attend the special session of the U.N. General Assembly next month in New York.

Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have been linking Chavez with Cuban leader Fidel Castro as destabilizing troublemakers in teetering Latin American democracies. En route home from visits earlier this month to Paraguay and Peru, Rumsfeld told reporters, ``There certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways.''

This is just so sad. As an aside I can't resist a little kicker: I guess The Angry Fatman could put a spin on this to make it all acceptable to himself. *Ugh*. More Disgust.

Cassini Update Plus Randy's Amazing Implosion

Cassini Update
From the mailbag from Pleiades:

The Cassini spacecraft, a cooperative project between NASA, ESA and Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, has indicated that Saturn's ring system has its own atmosphere.

Data from the Cassini spacecraft indicate that Saturn's majestic ring system has its own atmosphere, separate from that of the planet, according to an August 17 press release from the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Italian space agency.

During its close fly-bys of Saturn’s ring system, Cassini's instruments showed that the environment around the rings is an atmosphere composed mainly of oxygen molecules, similar to the atmospheres of Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede.

“As water comes off the rings, it is split by sunlight; the resulting hydrogen and atomic oxygen are then lost, leaving molecular oxygen,” said Andrew Coates, a co-investigator for one of the instruments from University College London.

Saturn's rings are mainly water ice mixed with smaller amounts of dust and rocky matter. They are very thin – no more than 1.5 kilometers, although they are 250,000 kilometers or more in diameter.

The rings’ origin is unknown. Scientists once thought they formed at the same time as the planets, coalescing from swirling clouds of interstellar gas 4,000 million years ago. But the rings now appear to be young, perhaps only hundreds of millions of years old.

Another theory suggests that a comet flew too close to Saturn and was broken up by the planet’s tidal forces. Alternatively, one of Saturn's moons might have been struck by an asteroid, smashing it into the pieces that now form the rings.

The ring system is unstable and must be constantly regenerated, probably by the breakup of larger planetary bodies. The atmosphere is likely kept in place by gravitational forces and a balance between the loss and replacement of ring particles, Coates said.

Last month, mission scientists celebrated Cassini’s first year in orbit around Saturn. The spacecraft began to orbit Saturn in July 2004 after a six-year journey of more than 3 billion kilometers.

Additional information about the mission is available on both the NASA Web site and the European Space Agency Web site.

Text of the ESA press release follows:

European Space Agency
[Paris, France]
Press release, August 17, 2005

Saturn’s rings have own atmosphere

Spectrum from Cassini instruments indicating atmosphere over rings

Data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft indicate that Saturn's majestic ring system has its own atmosphere -- separate from that of the planet itself.

During its close fly-bys of the ring system, instruments on Cassini have been able to determine that the environment around the rings is like an atmosphere, composed principally of molecular oxygen.

This atmosphere is very similar to that of Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede.

The finding was made by two instruments on Cassini, both of which have European involvement: the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) has co-investigators from USA and Germany, and the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) instrument has co-investigators from US, Finland, Hungary, France, Norway and UK.

Saturn's rings consist largely of water ice mixed with smaller amounts of dust and rocky matter. They are extraordinarily thin: though they are 250 000 kilometres or more in diameter they are no more than 1.5 kilometres thick.

Despite their impressive appearance, there is very little material in the rings -- if the rings were compressed into a single body it would be no more than 100 kilometres across.

The origin of the rings is unknown. Scientists once thought that the rings were formed at the same time as the planets, coalescing out of swirling clouds of interstellar gas 4000 million years ago. However, the rings now appear to be young, perhaps only hundreds of millions of years old. Another theory suggests that a comet flew too close to Saturn and was broken up by tidal forces. Possibly one of Saturn's moons was struck by an asteroid smashing it to pieces that now form the rings.

Though Saturn may have had rings since it formed, the ring system is not stable and must be regenerated by ongoing processes, probably the break-up of larger satellites.

Water molecules are first driven off the ring particles by solar ultraviolet light. They are then split into hydrogen, and molecular and atomic oxygen, by photodissocation. The hydrogen gas is lost to space, the atomic oxygen and any remaining water are frozen back into the ring material due to the low temperatures, and this leaves behind a concentration of oxygen molecules.

Dr Andrew Coates, co-investigator for CAPS, from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) at University College London, said: "As water comes off the rings, it is split by sunlight; the resulting hydrogen and atomic oxygen are then lost, leaving molecular oxygen.

"The INMS sees the neutral oxygen gas, CAPS sees molecular oxygen ions and an ‘electron view’ of the rings. These represent the ionised products of that oxygen and some additional electrons driven off the rings by sunlight."

Dr Coates said the ring atmosphere was probably kept in check by gravitational forces and a balance between loss of material from the ring system and a re-supply of material from the ring particles. Last month, Cassini-Huygens mission scientists celebrated the spacecraft's first year in orbit around Saturn. Cassini performed its Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) on 1 July 2004 after its six-year journey to the ringed planet, travelling over three thousand million kilometres.

Way cool. Now, to wait for the Hoagland version of this story. :)

Randy Implodes
Randy Johnson has been having a bitch of a season in the Big Apple, where expectations run about as high as King Kong climbed. It's just the nature of that city and its denizens. he has alternatively been referred to as 'The Big Disappointment' or 'The Big Uselss' , or 'The Mediocre Unit' amongst other nasty epithets instead of his famous 'Big Unit' tag. The press has been particularly pointed with Randy Johnson since his snarling arrival. It's like he didn't throw that perfect game last year.

They (as in the Yankee brass) say that it takes a long time for the superstars to acclimate to playing in NYC, so I d cut some slack with the big fella', but then you have games like today.

AP - Aug 21, 6:33 pm EDT
More PhotosCHICAGO (AP) -- Randy Johnson sat by his locker and shook his head as he searched for reasons, an effort that was futile.

A dazed and frustrated Johnson allowed home runs to three consecutive batters for the first time in his major league career and four in all during the fourth inning, and the Chicago White Sox beat the New York Yankees 6-2 Sunday to stop a seven-game losing streak.

``I felt great,'' said Johnson, who allowed the homers in a 16-pitch span. ``The velocity was there.''

But afterward, he felt miserable.

Given a 1-0 lead, Johnson allowed consecutive solo homers to Tadahito Iguchi, Aaron Rowand and Paul Konerko with one out in the fourth and, after singles by Jermaine Dye and Juan Uribe, a three-run shot to Chris Widger.

Johnson (11-8) has allowed 29 homers, the most in the American League and second in the major leagues behind Cincinnati's Eric Milton (35). The most Johnson has allowed in a season was 30 with Arizona in 1999.

The Big Unit, who missed a start earlier this month because of a bad back, allowed 10 hits, struck out eight and walked none in his fourth complete game this season. His ERA rose to 4.34, but both Johnson and manager Joe Torre said he pitched well.

``His stuff was good,'' Torre said. ``He's going to win games pitching like that.''

It was just the second time in his career Johnson allowed four home runs in a start, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The other was on June 20, 1999, for Arizona against Atlanta.

Scott Sanderson and Catfish Hunter were the only other Yankees pitchers to allow four homers in an inning.

Chicago tied a franchise record by hitting four in an inning for the third time, the first since May 3, 2000, against Toronto.

``The energy was good today early,'' Konerko said. ``I knew we'd be in the game. I hope guys realize that we can't wait for good things to happen and then have energy. You've got to come with it first, and then good things follow.''

Former-Yankee Jose Contreras (8-7) allowed two runs -- one earned-- and 11 hits, and matched his career-high by pitching eight innings. He struck out five and walked none.

"We got 11 hits off of him, so we had some opportunities,'' Torre said. ``It looked like the right-handers were having better swings than the left-handers. We really never had him on the ropes. He had a great splitter, and it looked like that was what was getting the left-handed hitters. They just couldn't identify it and he was getting a lot of swings and misses.''

After allowing a leadoff single to Pablo Ozuna in the first, Johnson retired nine straight batters before a White Sox offense that scored two runs in its previous three games came to life.

Iguchi homered to right on a 2-0 pitch, and Rowand homered to right after fouling off a 2-2 pitch to put Chicago ahead.

Konerko, who missed the first two games of the series with a strained lower back, fell behind 0-2 before sending a drive to left for his 32nd homer.

It was the seventh time in franchise history the White Sox hit three consecutive homers. Johnson was the first Yankees pitcher to give up three straight since Bill Fulton in the eighth inning against Minnesota on Sept. 12, 1987.

After the singles by Dye and Uribe, Widger hit his fourth home run of the season, connecting on a high 1-2 pitch that Johnson wanted him to chase.

``How do you explain something like that?'' Johnson said. ``It's the one thing that I'll walk away from this game not really understanding.''

Johnson is 0-2 with two no-decisions since pitching eight scoreless innings against Minnesota on July 26.

``I felt very comfortable watching Randy pitch,'' Torre said. ``The first three innings it looked like he was having an easy time locating the ball. But that inning, it seemed like the more pitches he tried to make, the less success he had trying to locate them.''

I don't know what to make of it, but Randy Johnson seems to have imploded under the weight of his own reputation.
Today, he gave up 4 homeruns in an inning; three of them consecutive; giving up 6 runs in total in a complete game 6-2 loss. In other words, had he not had that one bad inning, he had a shutout going. Let's rephrase this another way. The difference between an ERA of 0.00 and 9.00 was made up of 6 pitches. As in HR, HR, HR, single, single, HR. Well of course, that would undo 17 innings, let alone 8 good innings of shut-out ball. This just does not look like a Yankee team headed for the play-offs.

Lucky Dip Surprise

Who'da Thunk It

In most years during the recent dynastic run, deadline trades made hardly any impact on the Yankee squad. This maybe because for the last seven years, the Yankees were cruising with a commanding lead over the AL East as the trade deadline rolled around. The exception to the rule was the move to acquire David Justice back in 2000. Indeed, trade-deadline deals rather bore me. So it is with great surprise that I'm pointing at the recent move to acquire Shawn Chacon from the Rockies as the trade-deadline-masterstroke of the decade.

Chacon is 2-1 in 5 starts since coming over. Amazingly he sports a 1.64 ERA, and his won-loss record might be even better if the bullpen had not coughed up 2 very good starts from him. Here's a quick article on him.

"I was a little nervous at first, coming to the big city from Denver," said Chacon, who was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and grew up in Greeley, Colo. "It's just great to be pitching in meaningful games, and I'm trying to have fun with it."

Saturday was Chacon's biggest effort yet: His eight innings helped spell the Yankees' tiring bullpen. He allowed four hits, walked three and struck out five, pitching out of jams in the first, third, fifth, sixth and eighth, retiring all 11 batters he faced with runners in scoring position.

"He'll throw any pitch on any count at any time in the game," manager Joe Torre said. "To me, that's having confidence in your stuff. He wanted to go out there for the ninth inning, too."

Chacon throws a sinking fastball, a curve, a looping changeup and a slider. Not many pitchers throw both the curve and slider, but his effectiveness was limited in 41/2 seasons with the Rockies, not only because the ball carries better in the thin air, but because breaking pitches don't seem to act the same way. Chacon had a 5.56 ERA at Coors Field.

"There has to be a difference," said the Yankees' Tino Martinez, who played in the National League in 2002-03. "He has great stuff, he keeps the ball down and he knows how to pitch."

With four starting pitchers on the disabled list, the Yankees offered two pitching prospects to the Rockies, Eduardo Sierra and Ramon Ramirez. The Rockies finally accepted that package in late July and Chacon, who was 1-7 with a 4.09 ERA at the time, came to New York. The Yankees were intrigued by Chacon's 3.12 ERA away from Coors.

"You don't have to worry about finishing off every pitch the way you do [at Coors]," Chacon said. "Later in games when you start to feel fatigued, your curveball would stay up."

For the Yankees, Chacon has lasted at least six innings in every start but one - against Texas last Sunday when he pitched five innings and did not return after a long rain delay. In his one relief appearance he worked the eighth against the Rangers Aug.12 and held a one-run lead. The Yankees are 5-1 in games in which Chacon has appeared.

"His mental makeup is there," catcher Jorge Posada said. "He does everything possible to keep us in games."

22 Ks and 11 BB in 33 innings pitched doesn't exactly make him a DIPS darling. Still, his WHIP is 1.15 and the BAA is a nice and low .211 indicating pretty good 'stuff' - In fact he's only allowed 2 homeruns in his Yankee tenure. He's also 27 y.o. (turns 28 in December) making him the second youngest pitcher behind the injured Tiger Wang. And while 5 starts and a relief appearance is a very small sample size, if Chacon can keep these kinds of stats going, the Yankees might have found a fantastic number 3/4 Starting Pitcher going forwards. Right now, you'd have to say this guy's a keeper even if Pavano and Wright fizzle out. It's amazing to think the Yankees got this guy for 2 unheralded minor leaguers. In a season marred by injuries and whatnot, it's exactly the kind of stroke of luck the Yankees needed.

The New Spacefreaks' Weblog

All New, All Splendid
Here's to new beginnings.

Update On The iComposition Situation

And just like that, the block was gone. I still have no idea what the heck was going on there. No e-mail notification, nothing. I'm seriously thinking of moving to MacIdol. I really dig the people I've met through iComp but there are issues that I feel make me feel very uncomfortable with their site.

Getting Suspended

Hard To Believe
I've been suspended from iComposiions. I have no idea why. I didn't get an e-mail notification as to why. There isn't exactly an 'appeals' process. So I'm off the site until the 19th of this month, after which i recall from their Terms of Service that I get a review or something.

Well, this sucks. In all my time on the net, I've never been suspended from any site. I figure at worst I'm an average, jocular contributor who avoids flame-wars with strangers, so I think this is kind of strange. The worst part is, I don't recall doing anything that contravenes their inadequate TOS. So who knows maybe it's the FATMAN again, in which case I'm going to have to draft a letter to iCompositions explaining the sordid details.

I'm not impressed, and now I'm thinking I should find somewhere else to post stuff.
I told you their site was creepy.

Look Back With Laughter

Some years ago, I was in a recording project 'Beaver Patrol' with my friend 'The Dude' down at Audio Darnok. This album cover was designed by Penelope Barton for the projected EP that never got finished. I'm wondering how this concept would go down at iCompositions now and feel really uncertain. :)

Censorship Debate Of The Day

This Is Very Disappointing
As most of you know, I'm a big advocate for freedom of expression, particularly artistic expression. So it pains me to show you this discussion that took place some time last year at iComposition, months before I arrived. particularly distressing to me was this exchange here:

PowerMac99:@ Mon Jan 26, 2004 7:50 pm

Okay, hi. To those of you who don't know me, I'm powermac99 and I own this site, domain name, and server. Because I own it, it is my decision what goes up or not. Basically, you have no rights to use my server but I give you those because I want to create a nice place for people to discuss GarageBand and to upload their creations. Heck, when I first thought of the site, I didn't even know that GB had support for vocals.

You're welcome to go to MacJams or MacIdol or MacJukebox but they have probably adopted the same policy. We will not be changing our policy on this (but if you stop griping, we might add some way to upload obscene material in its own category).

Chezedog:@ Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:08 pm

You keep sidestepping the question.

If whatever YOU feel is offensive is to be deleted, then people should be informed as to what that might be. Saves time for everybody that way.

If you're going to enforce a "policy" it'd be nice to know what that policy is exactly.

Not everyone is offended by the same things.

My song, for example, is not offensive in my own opinion, so how was I to know it would offend you?

Some people find entire genres of music offensive.

Myself I'm more offended by censorship itself than a few so-called "dirty" words.

So if you'd just spell it out... state exactly what is not allowed... it'd save everyone a lot of trouble.

The fact that you can delete whatever you want for any reason whatsoever is not at issue.

We as users need to know what's allowed and what's not, it's that simple.

jlgerk: @ Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:25 pm

In my small opinion, this subject has gone on too long. Might I suggest that content should be acceptable by, your mother, your grand mother, your little sister, your teachers, your ministers, the cop on the beat, the lady at the grocery store, that little old lady you should help cross the street. I understand all to well, how some might want to express them selves the way they like, and that's OK. You should be able to know when and where you should use questionable content. However, you should be able to understand the guide lines, accept them, or not, abide by them, or not. I don't see all the Hub Bub............................But then I'm old, and grew up to try and have some manners in public. I have 4 grown sons, and have delt with this prob. from time to time, not always with success...............Just my opinion.

It gets a lot worse as the thread goes on.

jlgerk:@ Mon Jan 26, 2004 9:07 pm

My self, I'm not offended by anything, except the host of a party not get'n enough beer to go around. It just seems that too many people are making too big a deal about this. I think perhaps the Admids. have a clue what will go over with the widest possible viewership. A commen sense thing,,,,,,,,,,,that's all I got to say,,,,,,,,,,,, Mabey your grand ma wasn't a good analogy, I'm trying to make some sense of it all too.

Chezedog:Censorship is a very important issue to a lot of people.
As it should be.

You shouldn't be surprised when a "big deal" is made when you practice it.

jlgerk: @ Mon Jan 26, 2004 9:26 pmYou CAN do anything you want in some places
You CAN"T do anything you want in some places

Censorship is not being able to do anything you want anywhere
my opinion

Chezedog:@ Mon Jan 26, 2004 9:38 pm
I know what censorship is.

Let me try this another way.

Driving through town at 120 mph is a bad idea. ALMOST everybody agrees.
But somebody might do it anyway.
So they pass a law and POST A SPEED LIMIT.
Thus everyone knows that you can't drive through town at 120 mph.

I'm not saying I want to do whatever i want here.
I am saying that I want to know what i can and can't do.

If you read it, you find that eventually the site-owners relent and they make the 'explicit' tags available. Which is to say, they came up with a good compromise; but all the same, I find some of the attitudes expressed by the site conveners really puzzling:

powerMac99: Re: new auditorium @ Tue Jan 27, 2004 9:33 am What you obviously didn't pick up on was that I was trying to say that I'm not going to pay for it but if you want to, you're welcome to. And yes, I'm getting to the point that I'm irrateted with this entire subject and I don't see why you guys can't mute the TOS Violations in your songs before you upload them or go someplace else.

Gravity:doesn't matter @ Tue Jan 27, 2004 10:57 am

I heard you loud and clear. I picked up on your point.

However, This issue is only going to grow. You're growing. You're going to experience growing pains...and it's going to be about censorship. You're going to need more moderators and you're going to have to establish specific standards and an effective means for content management.

By creating an age-appropriate auditorium for racier stuff, you're going to have an easy way to manage content that everybody can accept. It will become your only way to avoid controversy and confrontation.

Short of banning dissidents....which becomes ugly unto itself.

Your irritation with this is understandable, but you do need a plan. Creativity and censorship are not good bedfellows, and you can't force them to be.

"You gotta keep 'em separated" (quick, name the song)

I don't recognise Gravity or Chezedog. Presumably Chezedog walked away, and I can't blame him. I don't know what happened to Gravity. Can't imagine they came out of it unscathed. The guys at iCompoisition are pretty damned undeveloped when it comes to the discourse of censorship, and that was probably what is so distressing about this thread. Anyway, I just wanted to share just how creepy it can get out there in the big wide yonder of internet music. :)

ON VP Day

Japan Apologises... Again
Is anybody listening?
Does anybody care anymore?
Here's the yahoo article
Oh screw it, here it is, in its entirety:

TOKYO, (AFP) - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated Japan's "heartfelt apology" for World War II and vowed to seek a new relationship with Asia, in a statement on the 60th anniversary of surrender.
"In the past, Japan, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.

"Japan squarely faces these facts of history in a spirit of humility. I express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology, and my feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, of that war," he said.

The statement echoed word-for-word much of Japan's watershed apology for the war issued on the 50th anniversary of surrender by then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama.

Japanese leaders have since used phrases from Murayama's apology in their statements on the war, as did Koizumi in an April speech before Asian and African leaders in Jakarta.

In his latest statement, Koizumi said Japan's post-war history is "60 years of peace that showed its remorse about the war through actions" such as humanitarian activities, international aid and economic and cultural exchanges.

"With Asian countries, like China and South Korea that are only separated from Japan by a narrow strip of water, I think we must join hands to ensure peace in this region.

"As we look straight at the past and correctly recognize history, I want to build cooperative relations that look to the future and are based upon mutual understanding and trust," he said.

The point, is, those people never give you credit for the ODA you gave all these years; they never say "apology accepted", they never even say it took a man to get up and say it over and over again, shouldering the blame for a nation. They just complain some more, humiliate you in their own press and ask for more economic aid. It's disgusting and on the whole not worthwhile. I think there should be a moratorium on Japanese Prime-Ministerial apologies. John Howard on the other hand is long overdue with his.

Who Says Sumo Isn't An International Sport
A Blonde, Estonain felloww going by the ring-name of Baruto has made the rank of Jyu-ryo. That means he's a proper ring fighter in the world of proper Japanese Sumo.

大相撲初の金髪関取、エストニア出身の新十両把瑠都（ばると、20＝三保ケ関）が、化粧まわしを母国ゆかりの海賊バイキングの絵柄にした。14日に行われた同部屋の土俵祭りで、明らかにした。
　化粧まわしには自身の故郷の風景などを描くことが多い。把瑠都も師匠の三保ケ関親方（元大関増位山）に「故郷の山は？　」と尋ねられたが、思いつかなかった。困った師匠から「ならばエストニアは何が有名なんだ？　」と聞かれ、パッとひらめいた。「日本人でも知っているものといえば海賊ね」。角のついたかぶとをかぶったバイキングに決めた。近日、同部屋の後援会から贈呈される。
　母国は世界陸上が開催中のフィンランド・ヘルシンキとバルト海を挟んで、わずか60キロの距離にある。「テレビで世界陸上を見て雨が降っていたらママに『今、雨でしょ？　』って電話するんだ」。04年4月の入門から1度も帰国していない把瑠都は、テレビや化粧まわしで母国を思い出して励みにしている。
（日刊スポーツ） - 8月15日9時53分更新

The gist of it is that he's going to enter his first major ring with a horn-wearing-Viking-patterned 'keshou-mawashi'. Go Baruto! I'm a fan already.

The End Of The K-K Boys
No, it's not the end of the Ku-Klux-Klan. We're talking about the duo of Kazuhiro Kiyohara and Masumi Kuwata, also known as the 'K-K-Combination' dating from their days a Highschool ball players playing for the PL School in tthe National High School Tournament. They're probably two of the most storied guys in the Yomiuri Giants outfit, but the Giants (like the Yankees and The Australian Cricket team) are looking to get younger and so their 20 year road as professional ball players might be coming to an end. They're guys my age - which dates me, but heck, there you have it. I've known of them for 20 years, and I'm surprised they're still kicking around with the Giants.

Once upon a many moons ago, the K-K Combination led the PL School to a pile of wins. Then, as 18 year old shcool leavers, they got drafted by the Nippon Professional Baseball League. Kuwata, the pitcher was the number 1 draft for the Giants.

Kiyohara, who had voice his love for the Giants ended up at Seibu. He wwnet there crying, but put together 10 solid years as a slugger who was instrumental in the late1980s dominance of the Seibu Lions.Kuwata went on to a 20 year career as the backbone of the Giants rotation until the wheels truly fell off the franchise last year. Kiyohara used his Free Agency to land a spot with the Giants, but he's been more injured than playing since then; even so, he is perhaps the most popular player they've had on the roster for many years. He sort of inspired a tear-jerking drama with his antics and heroics. I like him, but I've always liked him without knowing why. Call it charisma.

Kuwata had a shocking outing today where he pitched only a 1/3rd of an inning as a starter and got removed after pitching a dead-ball to the helmet.



Having hit his 500th homerun earlier in the year, Kiyohara is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury. On top of that, he got demotedoff the regular squad. People are now saying it's the end for these guys. If so, it's the end of a truly remarkable epoch of baseball in Japan.


And that is what happened today on VP Day. :P

The End Of The Dynasty

It Ain't Just The Yankees
Australian cricket is at a turning point. After 15 years of winning and 10 years of being the world's best, they are being found out by a young, resurgent English cricket squad. If you compare the woes of Yankees to the Australians, there is something very similar going on, namely, the age factor, the inflexibility of the roster and vulnerability to injuries as a result of the two problems being ignored.

I saw this article by the great Peter Roebuck in The Independent that seemed to underscore the very problems I've been predicting for some time:

Not since The Prince And The Pauper have roles so decisively been reversed. A rapidly deteriorating Australian side faces a formidable task as it attempts to save this crucial Test match. Mental disintegration could be detected in their work in the field and that bodes ill for their prospects. Ricky Ponting, especially, has looked rattled. Sometimes, though, it only takes one stirring innings to turn things around. At present Shane Warne is holding the side together. The time has come for vaunted colleagues to pull their weight.

Australia's senior batsmen must make a stand. Fifth-day heroics alone can atone for their failures. Extras have contributed more runs than four members of a highly regarded order. No one has scored a hundred. No one has scored ugly runs. Only Justin Langer has made the bowlers dig him out. Lower-order rallies have stood between Australia and batting ignominy. Reputations and records are coming under scrutiny. Naked figures are no longer enough. Performances against strong sides in tough situations are a better guide.

Confronted with the toughest bowling some of them have faced in their Test careers, a supposedly powerful line-up has wilted. Even at Lord's it was clear that England - more appropriately the British Lions - had the capacity to launch a more physical and varied attack than Australia had encountered for years. It was a throwback to the early days of Steve Waugh's career, when batsmen spent much of their time fending off bumpers. It was a reminder of how impoverished international bowling had become.

Peter Roebuck then goes on to write:

Suddenly this Australian team is looking its age. Sometimes, when the end comes, it is quick. Regardless of the outcome of this series - and it is worth remembering that England stand second in the rankings and that Australia lost by only two runs in Birmingham and that the score is level - the selectors will need to take stock.

Michael Hussey's time may be at hand. Rejuvenation is needed. Not that Australian cricket has an abundance of emerging talent. Nor is the series over. Australia might yet retain the Ashes. Right now they would settle for that. Harder days, though, lie ahead.

Well, exactly my point. There have been a couple of really bad trends in the Australian squads since the last days of the Steve Waugh captaincy. Waugh himself probably over-stayed by 18-months as there was nothing that he accomplished in that period that added to his legacy. It was 18months that was better spent with blooding a younger player. The age factor has been particularly prominent, but mostly been ignored. The average age of this Australian squad is higher than at any point in the last 15 years because it's basically been the same guys for a good decade. And while Steve Waugh was eased out of the squad 18 months ago, the side still has over-30 players in Hayden, Langer, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, and Gillespie. These guys are older than captain Ricky Ponting, and while there is some value to their veteran presence, some of these names date back to the very early 90s. Let's face it, they remind one of the stodginess of Graham Gooch, Ian Botham and Michael Gatting at the end of their days. England are coming at the Aussies full-tilt, and our guys look a little like rabbits cuaght in the headlights.

The younger guys in the squad are Brett Lee, Michale Clarke, Simon Katich. The latter two really need to be given time and space to grow into their roles. There are probably any number of names that could be thrown into the mix instead of the stalwarts who created the golden age. Based on the results, we can announce the golden age as closed. Win lose or draw the Ashes, it's time for the selectors to get bold and engineer the next generation. however, that takes guts to make the roster more flexible.

The Australian cricket squad is a lot more inflexible than one would imagine for the simple reason that the whole country is asked to invest its emotions into this group of players. So the selection policy is always, "hard to get in, hard to get out". Now, with Warne and McGrath having amassed a colossal number of Test wickets between them, it should be clear that the selectors err on the side of veteran players. Now, what escapees scrutiny is that while they have collected the numbers at a great rate across their careers, there's nothing to say the last 100-200 wickets couldn't have been taken by other players at a similar rate. Yet there's a feeling that the current Test Squad is somehow a young squad in need of growth pains.

"Whatever happens on this Ashes series," Australia's coach John Buchanan told his interlocutors on Saturday evening, "we will grow as a group as a result."
This great Australian team is certainly broadening its life experiences, with yesterday's another distinctly unfamiliar one: trying to restrict the building of a potentially match-winning lead.

And though they have stormed Gallipoli, visited Villers-Bretonneux and penned more bad poetry than a tortured teenager, the challenge that Ricky Ponting's side face today is as acute, and for them as rare, as any: batting all day to save a Test.

For Australians in recent years, time has flown; today it may drag. This Ashes tour has become such compulsive viewing as to outdo reality television. What began as Celebrity Love Island, when Shane Warne's private life became public knowledge, has now become an edition of Survivor.

There is even talk of a rift in the lute of the Australian team, specifically between Warne and Ponting. This is perhaps inevitable. Steve Archibald, or maybe his literary ghost, came up with a memorable line about team spirit always being "the illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory". The corollary is that disunity is the impression usually gleaned in the event of adversity.

It made for a day that hummed with speculation when not buzzing with activity. After an edge from Andrew Strauss off Brett Lee bisected Warne and Ponting at first and second slip just before lunch, for instance, there was what seemed a pregnant silence in the Australian cordon. Were they simply disappointed, or contemplating how to blame one another in their tour diaries?

When Ponting tossed Warne the ball for the seventh over of the innings, was it is a case of "let's do it for the baggy green" or "if you're so clever you bloody win it for us, fat boy". When Warne wrapped an arm round Ponting's shoulders before an over after tea, was there just the hint of a headlock?

It may not matter overmuch. There have been bones of contention in Australian teams on their last few visits: over the form of Mark Taylor in 1997, over the omission of Warne in 1999, over the eventual omission of Michael Slater in 2001. Victory, as it were, washed away all sins.

One worries about this perception problem. The thing is, it's not the young guys who are creating the big problems. It's that Warne is still there to have the ball tossed to him by Ponting after all these years. It's not his fault for having been a great player; it's the selectors' collective fault for wanting to have him do it one more time, once too often.

This Week's Mailbag

The World Is An Unsafe Place
And it's not getting any safer, in case you're not used to that notion. You'd better believe it: Here's Pleiades' weekly list of global horrors, terrors and other travesties, political and ecological.

First on this list is this link to a book promotion. It's about the MIC. Should check out the introduction page at least.

Second up: This is an article in The Guardian. It's a generally 'down' article on 'the Iraq War', but it closes with this:

Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.

There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

The third is a KeepMedia watch on Global Warming. Today's entry has this section in it:

GENEVA (AFP) �� Swiss technicians are to use a special insulating foam to wrap up a glacier that has been shrinking under the summer sun, an official from a resort whose clients ski down the ice-field said.

Carlo Danioth, in charge of the slopes at the Andermatt resort in central Switzerland, said the Gurschen glacier was to be partially covered with 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) of PVC foam from the beginning of May.

Confirming a report in the weekly SonntagsZeitung newspaper, Danioth said the aim was to halt the melting of the glacier, a phenomenon that has been attributed to global climate warming.

Sure enough, the glaciers are moving faster because they're melting.
Greenpeace, as shrill as they are, are reporting this thing here.

Independent scientists on board a Greenpeace ship found last month that the glacier, located in eastern Greenland, is moving at a speed of 14 kilometres per year, compared to five kilometres per year in 1988, it said.

The scientists, from the Climate Change Institute in the US state of Maine, also found that the glacier had receded five kilometres since 2001 after remaining stable for four decades.

"This is a dramatic discovery", said scientist Gordon Hamilton.

As the warming trend migrates north, other glaciers could respond in the same way and "this could have serious implications for the rate of sea level rise," he said.

"Greenland's shrinking glaciers are sending an urgent warning to the world that action is needed now to stop climate change," Greenpeace expedition leader Martina Krueger said.

There's even this little thing here:

Satellite and weather-balloon research released today removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say.

Surface temperatures have shown small but steady increases since the 1970s, but the tropics had shown little atmospheric heating -- and even some cooling. Now, after sleuthing reported in three papers released by the journal Science, revisions have been made to that atmospheric data.

Climate expert Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, lead author of one of the papers, says that those fairly steady measurements in the tropics have been a key argument "among people asking, 'Why should I believe this global warming hocus-pocus?'"

After examining the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif., found that the satellites had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures. Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found a math error in the calculations.

Just in case anybody had some doubts about it. Ladies in Mosman, STOP DRIVING YOUR FRICKIN' ALL-WHEEL DRIVES! Apart from being environmentally dangerous, they kill people.