Russian Cargo Vessel Docks With The ISS
It's not like it's an amazing event, but it's news.

The unmanned Progress M-53 spacecraft, which took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, was delivering supplies and equipment for its U.S. and Russian crew.

Russian Soyuz crew capsules and Progress cargo ships have been the only link to the space station since the U.S. shuttle fleet was grounded after the Columbia shuttle burned up as it returned to Earth in February 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard. NASA has said it plans to resume shuttle flights as early as next month.

Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who is on the station with U.S. crewmate John Phillips, manually steered the cargo ship into a smooth embrace with the station after the autopilot system failed minutes before the docking, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.

"Shortly before the docking, the autopilot switched off because of communications problems," Lyndin said by telephone from Mission Control in Korolyov, just outside Moscow. "Communications were quickly restored, but Mission Control decided to play it safe and asked the crew to conduct a manual docking."

At least the Soyuz program still works.

IWC Stoush
Nothing brings out the bitterness amongst so-called friendly nations than the International Whaling Commission meetings. This year's meeting is proiving to be a lovely bit of name-calling and abuse hurling:

Speaking at the opening of the International Whaling Commission' name International Whaling Commission meeting in Ulsan,
South Korea, Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Japan's research whaling programme was an "outrage".

Voting at the meeting, he said, "will come down to a clash between those who want to continue to whale and to expand whaling in this millennium and those of us who want to see whaling relegated to an historic fact from the last millennium." Japan on Monday informed the meeting it intended to double its catch of minke whales to some 880 and enlarge the cull to include endangered fin and humpback species

The scientific programme is allowed under a special clause in a 19-year moratorium on whaling that critics say allows commercial hunting by the back door but which Japan, Norway and Iceland want to be scrapped.

New Zealand's Conservation Minister Chris Carter launched an outspoken attack on Japan's plan: "New Zealand totally rejects Japan's proposals to double the number of whales slaughtered in the Southern Ocean," he told journalists.
"Where is the science from 18 years of scientific whaling? Where is the science? It doesn't exist."

He said New Zealand's whale watching tourist sector, which earns tens of millions of dollars a year, would likely suffer as a result of the extension in the cull to humpbacks.

"We have a very healthy whale-watch operation in New Zealand... These are our whales, they're Fiji's whales, they're Tonga's whales... What right does Japan have to go into the Southern Ocean and slaughter these rare marine mammals? "I say to Japan it's an outrage. I say shame that you are preparing to slaughter a species that is already in danger."

Responding to Japan's contention that whaling is part of its cultural heritage, he said tradition had never extended to the antarctic waters where Japan now caught most of its whales.

"Is Japan a poor nation? Does it need the protein...? No it does not. Japan says it is a cultural tradition... Japan has no cultural tradition of hunting whales in the Southern Ocean. We say shame!"

Ben Bradshaw, the British minister responsible for fisheries said the kind of suffering that many whales were subjected to, was "totally unacceptable in 2005."

"We don't think there's a humane way to kill a whale," he said, adding: "This is an absolutely vital IWC meeting... Future generations will not forgive this meeting if we go backwards in our conservation of whales."

Them's fightin' words. However, I don't think the anglophone nations understand who they are up against in this issue. The ruling LDP of Japan is sort of held hostage by the fisheries industry. They need those rural votes and the rural votes are tied implicitly with the whaling issue. The LDP can't back off because of the potential voter backlash. That doesn't make it morally right, but you'll have to sit there and imagine a lot of people with the jobs on the line pressing the government as hard as possible. Not only tyhat, if the whaling ban goes ahead, they think it's the thin end of the wedge before tuna and other fish then become 'protected' by a similar body. So you can see that Japan's not going to budge because somebody brings up moral outrage on the basis of animal rights. As such, Japan might pull out of the IWC as suggested in the article, and then you can be sure all bets will be off; and it might spell the end of the IWC if countries that want to go back to whaling don't get their way and quit.

On the other hand, the Japanese Fisheries Department have been keeping very close tabs on whale numbers; their numbers have been more accurate than those presented by Greenpeace because they've spent more money on it and they want to be persuasive. So the claim that there's 'no science' is probably misleading rhetoric. Besides, the anglophone nations always counter the 'sustainable whaling' argument with a moral objection backed by animal rights; which always devolves into:
"Well, you shoot kanagroos and eat cows; they're mammals. How do you explain that?"
"They're not endangered!"
"Well whales wouldn't be endangered if you hadn't gone hunting them for musk the way you did in the 19th century. Who wrote 'Moby Dick' and celebrated it as great literature instead of treat that tome as a moral outrage anyway?!"
"That's a long time ago and this is now."
"So now, we're saying we can do this sustainably instead of driving them to extinction. Here' re the numbers. What's wrong with that?"
"It's cruel to kill such beautiful creatures!"
"I think cows are cute but you still eat them."
"Cows aren't endangered!"
"Yes, but the steak you ate last night didn't know that when it got slaughtered brutally in the abattoir! Or did you read it its rights as it went in to get whacked?"
"It's an animal. It doesn't need to have its rights read or have last rites administered."
"So how is that any different with whales?"
"Whales are intelligent."
"So if you're intelligent, you can't be eaten?. All right, why do you eat pigs? Pigs are intelligent. We saw that in 'Babe'. Pigs are clearly intelligent, but you still eat them."
"Look, it'd be on our conscience if you kept hunting whales. Do you understand?"
"Right. So if we objected to you killing cows for steak, we're allowed to start our own International Beef Council and ban beef? You know, I think we might get some support there from the Hindus..."

Meanwhile, there's this other article that says the pro-whaling lobby might get the numbers to resume whaling.

The International Whaling Commission ended the hunting of the mammals in 1986, handing environmentalists a major victory in protecting several species that were near extinction after centuries of whaling. But on the eve of its annual meeting Monday, the 66 member nations are divided over ending the ban.

Norway holds the world's only commercial whaling season in defiance of the ban, while Japan kills whales for what it describes as scientific research, selling the meat. Japan, Norway and other nations this year are expected to take more than 1,550 whales.

Japan annually kills about 440 minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean and another 210 in coastal waters in the northwestern Pacific. Iceland also conducts research hunts, which it resumed in 2003 after 14 years. In both countries, eating whale meat is considered a tradition.

A complete end to the moratorium is considered unlikely at the five-day meeting of the Cambridge, England-based commission, since it would require the approval of 75 percent of members who vote. But pro-whaling countries say they are close to getting a majority, which would let them vote in changes they favor. With a majority, they could pass resolutions supporting Japan's research program, or even the
resumption of limited kills.

"We remain very optimistic ... that the scales are tipping in our favor," said Joanne M. Massiah, minister of food production and marine resources for Caribbean nation Antigua & Barbuda, which supports the resumption of commercial whaling.

Norway and Iceland have traditional claims to whaling in a way that the Inuit do. Just because they're white folks doesn't mean they don't have whaling traditions, so you can imagine that they're not feeling too great to be blocked at every turn, every year. Iceland in particular thought they were cheated by the IWC and walked out of the 2002 meeting. I've never figured out what Russia's claim to continuing whaling is, but they're pretty interested and have been for years. At the end of the day, there are a lot of motivated people who will go to great lengths to hunt whales.

I'll just post up one more remark, and it is this: there's a Japanese saying: "The grudges over food are frightening."
Stay tuned. This is going to get very interesting.

- Art Neuro

Derek Jeter's First Career Grandslam Homerun
I don't think I've ever posted a pickie of DJ here before. Well, here he is: Captain Dreamboat, Captain Crunch, Mr. Intangibles, Mr. Over-rated, The Last Single Digit Yankee To Play...
- Art Neuro

Derek Jeter's Career-First Grandslam Homerun
For the first time in his 10-year career with the Yankees, team captain Derek Jeter hit a Grandslam homerun.

Jeter's first career slam, a sixth-inning drive to left-center off reliever Joe Borowski, backed a stellar start by rookie Chien-Ming Wang as the Yankees extended their winning streak to five with an 8-1 victory Saturday.

It was Jeter's first home run in 136 at-bats and 155 plate appearances with the bases loaded. The Yankees captain had the most at-bats with the bases loaded without a slam among current major leaguers, and his 156 homers coming in were the most without a slam by active major leaguers.

He came out for a curtain call, then was given another standing ovation when he went out to shortstop for the seventh. Fans loudly chanted his name in the eighth, when he hit a leadoff homer off Cliff Bartosh, a drive just over the wall in right-center. With the seventh multihomer game of his career, Jeter tied his career high of five RBIs.

Grandslam homeruns are just the jackpot of hitting; which is to say, play long enough as a regular, most of them hit them at one point or another in their careers. AP has this report:

When Derek Jeter walked to home plate with the bases loaded in the sixth inning Saturday, he had gone 5,770 at-bats over 11 major league seasons without a grand slam.

``I thought I'd never hit one,'' he said. Jeter finally filled one of the few gaps in his resume, connecting off Chicago Cubs reliever Joe Borowski for a home run to left-center that broke the game open. Cheered even more loudly than usual by the Yankees fans who idolize him, Jeter added a solo shot in the eighth, backing a stellar start by rookie Chien-Ming Wang in an 8-1 victory that extended New York's winning streak to five.

It was Jeter's first home run in 136 at-bats and 155 plate appearances with the bases loaded. The Yankees captain had the most at-bats with the bases loaded without a slam among current major leaguers, and his 156 homers coming in were the most without a slam by active big leaguers.

His teammates wouldn't let him forget that. ``It's usually after I get out. I'd come back and they'd say, `Well, we thought you were going to hit one,''' Jeter recalled.

He had been aware of his grand slam drought since April 22, 2002. Mark McLemore hit his first one in his 5,349th at-bat and told Jeter about the stat when the Yankees arrived in Seattle four days later.

Philadelphia's David Bell, who hasn't homered in 118 at-bats with the bases loaded, now has the longest drought, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Tampa Bay's Alex Gonzalez has the most homers without a slam, 132. ``I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't feel good right now,'' Jeter said.

Fans demanded a curtain call, and Jeter was given another standing ovation when he went out to shortstop for the seventh as third baseman Alex Rodriguez gave him a pat on the rear. With his name being chanted loudly in the eighth, Jeter hit a leadoff homer off Cliff Bartosh, a drive just over the wall in right-center. Jeter tied his career high of five RBIs and had the seventh multihomer game of his career.

``You have to just push him out there to take a bow,'' Yankees manager Joe Torre said.

Jeter once said he had never hit a grandslam at any level of baseball he played. Here's a joke factoid for you: In all my years of pottering around playing 'ball, I've only had 3 measley homeruns hitting for the Ku-Ring-Gai Stealers; even for such a largely-lowly-talentless-player as me, one of them was a grandslam homerun off some grizzled-old relief geezer from the Fivedock Falcons. What took you so long, Jetes?

- Art Neuro

Phobos Speculation
This is the Spacefreaks' Blog, so I have to pass on this weird one from Pleiades concerning Martian Moon Phobos. It seems that Dr. S Fred Singer, formerly an advisor in the Eisenhower administration about half a century ago strongly believes that Phobos is hollow and therefore probably an artificial satellite.

"I would be very disappointed if it turns out to be solid," said the White House advisor. If the figures were correct, he stated, then Phobos undoubtedly is a hollow, artificial satellite. If it is, he said, its purpose would probably be to sweep up radiation in the Mars' atmosphere, so that Martians could safely operate around their planet. Dr. Singer also pointed out that Phobos would make an ideal space base, both for Martians and earthlings.

Now that's an odd claim, probably on a par with the Face-on-Mars thing, and I'm more surprised I hadn't heard of this one before.
So naturally I Googled, as one does in such instances and found this list, which contained this page. Detective work's never been more boring. :)

Dr Iosif Shklovsky based his conclusion on calculations that had been done by the U.S. Naval Observatory (rumored in the 1980s to have been the home of the elusive MJ-12 group). Shklovsky stated Phobos was being "slowed by electromagnetic drag and tidal friction more than was possible was an actual solid moon."

Shklovsky is also famous for having written a 1966 book on SETI called Intelligent Life in the Universe. A famous astronomer by the name of Carl Sagan was asked to edit the book. When he had finished adding all his viewpoints the book had doubled in length and he became a co-authored with Shklovsky. Their views on extra terrestrial life still remained at odds. During the Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects - Hearing before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, Sagan was asked by Congressman Roush if Shklovsky shared his views. Sagan replied:

I think he shares my restraint. I think both of us would say we think this is an extremely important subject, that we are on the frontier of being able to find out, but that neither of us knows whether there is or isn't life out there. Let me say if it turns out there isn't life on Mars, that is almost as interesting as if we find there is life on Mars, because then we have to ask, what happened different on Mars than on the Earth, so that life arose here and not there. That will surely give us a very profound entry into the question of follow-up of evolution and the cosmic context.

Enough to make one want to run away from the Woo-woos even more than before. Here's a pretty long entry about the Russian Probes Phobos 1 & 2 that were launched and lost.

Phobos 2 arrived safely at Mars in January 1989 and entered into an orbit around Mars as the first step at its destination towards its ultimate goal: to transfer to an orbit that the would make it fly almost in tandem with the Martian moonlet called Phobos (hence the spacecrafts name) and explore the moonlet with highly sophisticated equipment that included two packages of instruments to be placed on the moonlet's surface.

All went well until Phobos 2 aligned itself with Phobos, the Martian moonlet. Then, on 28th March, the Soviet mission control center acknowledged sudden communication "problems" with the spacecraft; and Tass, the official Soviet news agency, reported that "Phobos 2 had failed to communicate with Earth as scheduled after completing an operation yesterday around the Martian moon Phobos. Scientists at mission control have been unable to establish stable radio contact."

What had caused the Phobos 2 spacecraft to be lost? According to Boris Bolitsky, science correspondent for Radio Moscow, just before radio contact was lost with Phobos 2, several unusual images were radioed back to Earth, described by the Russian as "Quite remarkable features". A report taken from New Scientist of 8 April 1989, described the following: "The features are either on the Martian surface or in the lower atmosphere. The features are between 20 and 25 kilometers wide and do not resemble any known geological formation. They are spindle - shaped and proving to be intriguing and puzzling." An unusual photo of a thin shadow across mars was shown on the Russian television segment. Seen on the surface of Mars was a clearly defined dark shape that could indeed be described, as it was in he initial dispatch from Moscow, as a "thin elipse" (this photo is a still from the Soviet television clip).

It was certainly different from the shadow of Phobos recorded eighteen years earlier by Mariner 9. The latter cast a shadow that was a rounded ellipse and fuzzy at the edges, as would be cast by the uneven surface of the moonlet. The 'anomaly' see in the Phobos 2 transmission was a thin ellipse with very sharp rather than rounded points (the shape is known in the diamond trade as a "marquise") and the edges, rather than being fuzzy, stood out sharply against a kind of halo on the Martian surface. Dr. Becklake described it as "something that is between the spacecraft and Mars, because we can see the Martian surface below it," and stressed that the object was seen by both the optical and the infrared (heat seeking) camera.

You should check out the photo on the page.
Now that's creepy and odd, because I'd never heard of that either; which doesn't say much because well, I wasn't really keeping a close eye on what Russian Probes send back, back then.

Anyway, that's all I've got in wading through all the woo-woo speculations. Phobos might be hollow. I can live with that.

Less Mysteriously, The Yankees Beat Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are visiting Yankees Stadium this week for the first time since the 1938 World Series. They've lost the first rubber to the Yankees, 9-6. It was Hideki Matsui Day as he went 3-for-4 with a homer and 5 RBI, which is excellent for my fanatsy team.

Cheered on by Hall of Famer Ernie Banks and boosted by chants of ``Let's go, Cubbies!'' that echoed in the sellout crowd of 54,773, Chicago overcame an early four-run deficit and took a 6-4 lead in the sixth inning.

After Gary Sheffield's shot into the stands was reversed by umpires and called a foul ball -- correctly -- in the first inning, Matsui put one into the seats that counted and capped a three-run rally in the seventh. Matsui added a two-run double in the eighth. He also had an RBI single.

``Hideki is one of the most impressive players I've ever played with,'' teammate Alex Rodriguez said. ``He's just tenacious and has a knack for the big hit.'

There you go. Finally, the offense is clicking and look what it can do.

- Art Neuro

Myth of Redemptive Violence
On many occasions, Chris talks about the Myth of redemptive violence; it's the stock and staple of movie scripts and pulp fiction, but today Pleiades has sent in this article about how empty that myth really is. It'sa good read so I recommend you check it out. Two sections stand out and relate to my upbringing so I'll quote them here.

But the words of the vanquished come later, sometimes long after the war, when grown men and women unpack the suffering they endured as children, what it was like to see their mother or father killed or taken away, or what it was like to lose their homes, their community, their security, and be discarded as human refuse. But by then few listen. The truth about war comes out, but usually too late. We are assured by the war-makers that these stories have no bearing on the glorious violent enterprise the nation is about to inaugurate. And, lapping up the myth of war and its sense of empowerment, we prefer not to look.

This is entirely true. I was born 21 years after WWII into a family of people who watched incendiary carpet bombing of their cities in 1945 and hid in sheer terror. When I have talked about the carpet bombings of Japan to people over the years most people have tried to make out that it was justified on the grounds that it was a moral war being waged against an evil regime.

We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront the lies and hubris told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions of the Taliban, we will not so much defeat dictators such as Saddam Hussein as become them.

As some of you know, I spent time as a kid in America and came face to face with the 'pitiless to the others weaker' quality of American culture. It's the only place on earth where they teach to kick a man when they are down because it's easier than hitting them. It's the flip-side of the desire to be winners; for there to be clear winners, there need to be clear losers and for losers to be clear losers, they must not only be beaten, they must be humiliated. Well, here's a writer who has noticed this pattern and I applaud that he has writen it down. Anyway, it's a good read.

Space Shuttle Discovery Back To Launchpad
Here we go again.

The shuttle team was disheartened when it had to haul Discovery off the pad last month for more work, but understood it was the right thing to do, Stilson said.

"Today was not quite the excitement of the first time, but still, what a great thrill to be back on track, moving in the right direction, getting ready for launch, getting back out to the pad," she said.

Discovery was transported to the pad in April but removed May 26 after NASA determined that potentially deadly pieces of ice could form over an expansion joint on the external fuel tank after the super-chilled fuel was loaded. Managers decided to install a heater at the joint, located along the feed line for liquid oxygen.

So hopefully they have lessened the risk significantly.

Denmark Changes Position On Whaling Ban
This is interesting. Denmark is changing its position on the whaling ban, going into the next IWC meeting; about time some nations got to be thinking about other possibilities.

"The current moratorium is not good enough, because a number of countries break the rules. If we stick to the ban, the IWC will fall apart," Moeller was quoted as saying on Danish daily Politiken's website.

"We have therefore charged our negotiators to push for a new system that can better protect the whales," he added.

Denmark's Scandinavian neighbor Norway is the only country in the world that allows commercial whaling despite an almost 20-year international ban on the practice, but other countries, like Iceland and Japan, have been accused of skirting around the rules by claiming that their whaling is for scientific purposes only.

The semi-autonomous Danish territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, also legally hunt whales within the framework of what the IWC calls "aboriginal subsistence whaling", for food.

If the ban is lifted, Moeller said that scientific culls should be included in each country's whaling quota.

"Japan especially culls lots of whales for scientific purposes and thus circumvents the rules. We want to work towards getting scientific culls counted," Moeller said, pointing out that such a move would help protect the whales and also prevent that some countries hunt far more than their share of the ocean mammals.

I think it's very Scandinavian to say, let's calla shovel a shovel because that's what you do with it. Now watch the flack fly.

- Art Neuro

Global Warning on Global Warming
The jury is in, as far as corporate America, apparantly, and at long last too if you ask any sane person.
Here's an article sent in by Pleiades:

General Electric is the latest big corporate convert; politicians at the state and national level are looking for solutions; and religious groups are taking philosophical and financial stands to slow the progression of climate change.

They agree that the problem is real. A recent study led by James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirms that, because of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, Earth is trapping more energy from the sun than it is releasing back into space.

The U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures will rise 2 to 10 degrees by 2100. A "middle of the road" projection is for an average 5-degree increase by the end of the century, says Caspar Amman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

What the various factions don't necessarily agree on is what to do about it. The heart of the discussion is "really about how to deal with climate change, not whether it's happening," says energy technology expert James Dooley of the Battelle Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md. "What are my company's options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Are there new business opportunities associated with addressing climate change? Those are the questions many businesses are asking today."

Well that's nice that they noticed. I guess consumerism might hit a wall if the consumers are washed away in tidal waves and floods or starve to death because food supplies die out in doughts. That would put a major cramp in their style, wouldn't it.

GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt recently announced that his company, which reports $135 billion in annual revenue, will spend $1.5 billion a year to research conservation, pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Joining him for the announcement were executives from such mainline corporations as American Electric Power, Boeing and Cinergy.

Religious groups, such as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals and National Council of Churches, have joined with scientists to call for action on climate change under the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

"Global warming is a universal moral challenge," the partnership's statement says. And high-profile politicians from both parties are getting into the act. For example, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a reduction of more than 80% over the next five decades in his state's emission of greenhouse gases that heat in the atmosphere.

To be sure, many companies — most notably oil industry leader ExxonMobil — still express skepticism about the effects of global warming. And the Bush administration has supported research and voluntary initiatives but has pulled back from a multi-nation pact on environmental constraints.

The administration was on the defensive last week when The New York Times reported that a staff lawyer has been softening scientific assessments of global warming. White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended such action as a routine part of a multi-agency review process. Nonetheless, the tides of change appear to be moving on.

"As big companies fall off the 'I don't believe in climate change' bandwagon, people
will start to take this more seriously," says environmental scientist Don Kennedy, editor in chief of the journal Science. Companies aren't changing because of a sudden love for the environment, Kennedy says, but because they see change as an opportunity to protect their investments.

"On the business side, it just looks like climate change is not going away," says Kevin Leahy of Cinergy, a Cincinnati-based utility that reports $4.7 billion in annual evenue and provides electricity, mostly generated from coal, to 1.5 million customers. Most firms see global warming as a problem whose risks have to be managed, he says.

Power companies want to know what sort of carbon constraints they face — carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas — so they can plan long term and avoid being hit with dramatic emission limits or penalties in the future, he says.

That'd be right. You sort of wonder why American Industries with so much at risk lived in denial for so long. What were they hoping for? That it'd all be a lie or a hoax and these things we were observing would literally vanish into thin air?

Climate scientists say this acceptance comes none too soon. "All the time we should have been moving forward ... has been wasted by arguing if the problem even exists," says Michael Mann of the University of Virginia.

The IPCC estimates that rainfall will increase up to 20% in wet regions, causing floods, while decreasing 20% in arid areas, causing droughts. The Environmental Protection Agency says melting glaciers and warmer ocean waters will likely cause an average 2-foot rise in sea level on all U.S. coasts by 2100. Carbon dioxide is the byproduct of burning fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or oil. There are now about 1 trillion tons of carbon from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By the end of the century, atmospheric carbon projections range from 1.2 trillion tons if stringent corrective steps are taken to 2.8 trillion tons if little is done.

Moving ahead with solutions looks like the hardest part of the equation for the United States. The Bush administration's stance has frustrated advocates of a more aggressive response.

Bush explained in a 2001 speech why he opposed joining the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to curb greenhouse gases: "The (Kyoto) targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science. For America, complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases."

Instead, the administration "harnesses the power of markets and technological innovation, maintains economic growth, and encourages global participation," former Energy Department head Spencer Abraham wrote last year in Science. He pointed to tax incentive programs, climate research and technologies such as "FutureGen," the Energy Department's 10-year,$1 billion attempt at creating a coal-fired power plant that emits no greenhouse gases. Other administration efforts:
• The $1.7 billion hydrogen fuel-cell car initiative announced two years ago in Bush's
State of the Union address.

• A $49 million carbon "sequestration" initiative with 65 projects to see whether carbon dioxide can be stripped from emissions.

• Participation in the international ITER program to develop nuclear fusion as an energy source.

The administration has encouraged voluntary efforts. Fourteen trade groups representing industrial, energy, transportation and forest companies have signed up for a program aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 18% by 2012.

So why isn't this enough to assuage critics? Rick Piltz, a science policy expert who resigned in protest from the administration's Climate Change Science Program in March, says the reliance on voluntary measures and long-term technology breakthroughs is a roadblock against simple conservation steps that could curb emissions now. Piltz provided the edited documents that were the subject of last week's story in The New York Times.

Commonly cited examples of the conservation steps Piltz mentions:
• Incentives for emission controls on the oldest and least efficient power plants.
• More stringent mileage and tailpipe requirements on vehicles.
• Expanded tax credits for more efficient air conditioners, hybrid cars and appliances.

Political leaders will support such measures only if the benefits come at a low cost to the economy, says William Reilly, co-chair of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy and former head of the EPA under President George H.W. Bush. "But there is a lot going on, and I think we will be seeing some movement on this."

Away from the political arena, other irons are in the fire:
• More people are advocating nuclear power. Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore told a congressional panel in April that "nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse gas-emitting energy source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand."

• Immelt called for the United States to adopt an emissions-trading plan for greenhouse gases. Taking a cue from the EPA's policy of having companies buy and sell permits to release sulfur dioxide, which is responsible for acid rain, economists suggest that such a scheme would limit carbon dioxide by making emissions economically less feasible. In Congress, the Climate Stewardship Act proposed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., would commit the country to such a plan.

I don't know about you, but the creepy evidence has been around us for us to see. Just last Tuesday, I stepped out of Walk-Off HBP's house at 10pm and heard crickets. That's 14th of June in Sydney, with crickets chirping. Normal, it ain't.

Yankees Stagger To 2 wins In A Row Against The Pirates
Most people think this isn't a fair fight because the Pirates' payroll is a fraction of the Yankee payroll. And yet, the Pirates came into Yankee stadium a couple of days ago on the back of a better record than the Yankees. Well, the Yankees have now taken 2, but the second win didn't look too clean.

- Art Neuro

Burning Down The House
George Steinbrenner announced the Yankees are going to build a new stadium. In short, George is tearing down 'The House That Ruth Built' and replacing it with a far more contemporary stadium design with more amenities for the fans. What is interesting is that the Yankees are building the stadium off their own bats, taking on a certain amount of debt to do so. What that means is that the Yankees significantly reduce the amount they place into the revenue-sharing pot; something George would like to do very much. After all, it's business.

For the second time in a week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled plans this afternoon for a new baseball stadium in New York City: an $800 million home for the Yankees that will replicate the team's original ballpark in the Bronx, from the limestone walls and distinctive copper frieze to the placement of the bullpens in the right field.

The team plans to build an open-air stadium in Macombs Dam Park, across 161st Street from the team's historic home. It would have 51,800 seats, which could be expanded to 54,000, and 50 to 60 luxury suites, as well as 4,000 additional parking spaces, for a total of 11,000. The existing stadium has 56,937 seats and about 18 luxury boxes.

"What a week for baseball and what week for New York City," Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference. "I'm thrilled that we've reached this agreement to build this stunning stadium."

The president of New York Yankees, Randy Levine, said that the project, which is to
begin next spring and be completed by 2009, would "benefit the Bronx" by ensuring that no businesses or residents would be displaced, by renovating areas around the stadium and by creating thousands of new jobs. The design, by the architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, would restore many of the signature features of the original 82-year-old stadium that were wiped out by the 1976 renovation, and it would retain the same field dimensions and dugouts, Mr. Levine said.

"This will give everybody the feel of what people who in 1923 went to see the Yankees saw," he said. The announcement, made jointly by Mr. Bloomberg, Gov. George E. Pataki of New York and George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the Yankees, comes only three days after a similar proclamation by the mayor and the Mets concerning plans to build a new stadium in Queens for about $700 million. That stadium would also be used for the Olympics if the city won its bid for the 2012 Games.

The Yankee Stadium project is part of a broader redevelopment plan, initiated by the Bronx borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., that includes a hotel, conference center and high school for sports-related careers. "Today is a very special day and I'm very gratified that we are all here together as a team," Mr. Carrión said. "We have a achieved a great accomplishment."

The Yankees, one of the most valuable franchises in sports, have agreed to pay all construction, operating and maintenance costs for the stadium. The city and state will spend about $220 million on work related to the stadium, bringing the total cost to more than $1 billion.

The state has agreed to spend up to $75 million to build three or four parking garages, and to do some road work. The team says that the cost of the garages will be more than covered by game-day parking fees.

The city is expected to spend about $135 million to replace the roughly 17 acres of Macombs Dam Park and Mullaly Park that the new stadium will occupy with a 28-acre waterfront park along the Harlem River, Mr. Bloomberg said. The Parks Department will replace the running track, soccer field and tennis, handball and basketball courts that were in the parks with new and additional fields, some atop the garages.

The Jets' plan to build a $2.2 billion stadium on Manhattan's Far West Side collapsed last week, but the Yankees have chosen to follow a different route in their attempt to build a stadium. They have put their project through the city's lengthy land-use review process, rather than attempt to bypass it. Unlike the Jets, the Yankees have yet to encounter opposition.

In their new stadium, the Yankees plan to place about 30,000 seats on the first level and 20,000 in the second level, giving more fans a closer view of the field than the
current stadium provides. Most of the current Yankee Stadium will not fall to the wrecking ball.

The city plans to preserve at least the existing baseball field, the dugouts and the first level of the stands for Little League and high school use. "I'm sure they'll have limos or vans to take the ghosts over to the new ballpark," Yankees Manager Joe Torre said. Although the new stadium, like the old one, will go up on city-owned land, the team will not pay rent or property taxes under the terms of the deal with the city and the state. The Yankees and the Mets have existing leases with the city that are widely regarded as especially favorable to the teams. From 2000 through 2004, the Yankees paid a total of $26.43 million in rent, or a little more than $5 million a year.

To finance the construction, the city and the state would create a local development corporation that would issue tax-free bonds, which would be paid off
by the Yankees. That allows the team to save an estimated $12.8 million a year
in financing costs, although it reduces tax revenue.

The announcements are a remarkable postscript to Mr. Bloomberg's declaration in 2002 that the city could not afford to build sports stadiums, given more pressing municipal needs. Today, the New York area is awash in plans for stadiums and arenas, with new homes planned for the Mets, the Yankees and the Nets in New York City, and the MetroStars, the Devils, the Giants and, maybe, the Jets in New Jersey.

A 1996 report by the city comptroller estimated that professional sporting events account for only 0.7 percent of the region's economy.The deals for the Yankees and the Mets are far less generous today than in 2001, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani came to a tentative agreement with the two teams. Mr. Giuliani agreed to pay half the cost of building $800 million stadiums with retractable roofs for the Yankees and the Mets. Each team, in turn, agreed to pay the city 4 percent of the annual gate receipts.

I went to the current Yankee Stadium three times and each time the Yankees won. most memorable of those games was a 3-1 win agianst the newly minted Steattle Mariners, working behind Ron Guidry whoo was picthing at his peak and my favourite player Graig Nettles almost hit a homerun. The ball faded at the warning track and was caught, but everybody stood up the moment it was hit, and I had to jump to glimpse the moment the ball was caught and the crowd let out this mighty 'aaaaawwwwwww'. So some of the best moments of my childhood were spent in that stadium. Funny how I remember that but not where the Reggie Jackson double landed.

I guess by the time I get back for a look, there'll be this little league field where the original stadium used to stand. That won't be too bad. I know I'm going to stand in the batters' box and try to imagine it back.

- Art Neuro

Olias Of Sunhillow Revsited
Why now? Why at all? Because Walk-Off-HBP (formerly Alsorans manager) sent in this review:

'The Funniest Prog Rock Album EVER':

I remember when Patrick Moraz was with Yes and they were all so bored they decided to do solo albums. The results were pretty much awful, but Jon Anderson's brand of awful was kaleidoscopically awful. It was the all time stupidest album I ever heard with weird synth boings and gongs, tons of phase shifting effects for the headphone and bong crowd, repeated nursury rhyme licks over and over and over, lyrics like "Chee chee ree ree! Chee chee ree ree!" and the goofiest read along book gatefold record cover I have ever seen before or since. It's as if he took acid and thought "I Am the Walrus" actually meant something profound!

Someone asked me at a party once what the worst album I had was, and I gleefully ran over and pulled out Olias of Sunhillow. We got about five minutes into it before one of the listeners lept to his feet and grabbed the needle off the turntable with a big ZZZZZIPPPP! It's THAT bad! You gotta be on drugs for this one to make any sense whatsoever.

Then Rick Wakeman came back and they continued their downward spiral with wonderful lyrics like "Don't Kill the Whale! Diggit! Diggit!" What happened to Rick Wakeman anyway? When he returned to Yes, it was as if he hadn't an idea in his head any more. His dorky synth sounds on Tormato are laughable. They sound like a children's video game... Blues Clues goes prog rock! Then Wakeman got Jesus and got all John Teshed out and started cranking out profoundly boring "new age records. I have no idea who the target audience for that kind of crap is... people who are half asleep all the time, I guess.

I always thought of Yes whenever I saw Spinal Tap. Jon Anderson definitely is Nigel Tuftnell with the midget dancing around the tiny model of stonehenge!

I have a Yes DVD somewhere, I think it's the one where they've collected all the videoclips and each of them lay a comment. Jon Anderson says words to the effect that during the filming of one thing or another, he and director Steven Soderburgh went to see 'Spinal Tap' together (which was then a freshly minted new film) and that he laughed and squirmed the way through it; after which he made the desicion never to take himself so seriously ever again.
So the reviewer is dead right, but Jon Anderson knows it too so he can rest assured there won't be another album like Olias of Sunhillow.

I actually can't top this review. Of the 5 Yes solo albums that were issued in 1975-76, the ones that I go back to repeatedly with any amount of love are 'Fish Out of Water' by Chris Squire and 'The Story of i' by Patrick Moraz. 'Olias of Sunhillow' is just 'too much', though too much of what exactly, I cannot relate to you properly.

More Astronautical Firsts
An astronaut testified from outer space.

The star witness before the U.S. House Science Space Subcommittee was just getting warmed up on Tuesday when one question made him float to the ceiling.

U.S. astronaut John Phillips, testifying live on video from the International
Space Station, slowly turned heels-over-head, showing his sock-clad feet to the assembled lawmakers when Rep. Charlie Melancon asked, "Are your feet strapped down so you're not floating?"

"Yes, sir, we're not strapped down," Phillips said, though he appeared to be standing at attention in the station's U.S. Destiny laboratory module, even though the gravity probably hovered somewhere around zero.

"Right now I'm not wearing any shoes, we only wear shoes pretty much for exercise," Phillips said. "But I've got my stocking-clad feet stuck under a railing on the floor because if I didn't do that I'd kind of just float around." Suiting the action to the word, Phillips freed his feet and drifted up to the ceiling of the station, drawing a laugh from the Louisiana Democrat and the rest of the panel. He then drifted back down and tucked his feet under the rail again.

Phillips' testimony was the first from the space station to a House hearing, though space shuttle and space station astronauts have done interviews and other broadcasts while in flight.

Two other station astronauts also testified, but they were in the hearing room. They faced tougher questions about the station's utility as an orbiting laboratory, while Phillips answered such queries as "What's the view like?"

Perhaps predictably, he said the view was "incredible." The hearing aimed to give lawmakers an idea of what life is like aboard the half-built space station, where construction has been stalled for the last two years with the grounding of the U.S. space shuttle fleet after the 2003 Columbia accident.

Forgot about that. Yes, the ISS is still under construction and if they don't get the fleet up, again, it likely won't finish. Talk about a bad situation.

- Art Neuro

The Ordeal Of The Other Michael Ends
At the time we started this blog, we had very little direction, so one of the first things I picked up on was the Michael Jackson pedophilia trial. Well, it turns out the posterchild for plastic surgeons everywhere, Michael Jackson, has beat the rap. It was unianimous as it wasa criminal trial and all charges were dropped.

The trial seemed to wear Jackson down. He lost weight, and the artist known for his electric, moonwalking performances was rendered motionless, seemingly frozen in his courtroom chair as his private world became utterly public.

Prosecutors portrayed Jackson as being in dire financial straits because of heavy spending. Jackson's "Thriller" album from 1982 is one of the best-selling albums of all time, but his dominance of pop music eroded around the time molestation allegations began to arise in the 1990s.

Although Jackson did not take the stand, the defense used a powerful tape of him shot by his own video cameraman. The jury saw nearly three hours of introspection during which the star talked about his troubled childhood.

"I haven't been betrayed or deceived by children," he said. "Adults have let me down."

Yeah, right. That and indulging every infantile wish and whim that crossed your mind, Mike.
So the upshot is that Michael Jackson can moonwalk the streets once more.

- Art Neuro

Remembering Mike Tyson As he Was In His Heyday
- Art Neuro

The Mike Tyson Era Ends
If the Babyboomers can lay claim to one superiority for sure in their epoch it is in the area of Boxing. they had Muhammed Ali as their champion; the Generation X-ers had Mike Tyson. Where as Ali was sidelined amid the peak years of his career by his conscientious objector stance: "No Vietnamese ever hurt me!", Mike Tyson was sidelined by a proison term over raping a young beauty contestant. Whereas Ali will go down in history for his glorious comebacks culminating in the Rumble-In-The-Jungle bout with George Foreman and (that wonderful documenatry 'When We Were kings'); Tyson's many comebacks were simply circus acts where he would repeatedly get knocked out, culminating in chewing off the ear of Evander Hollyfield.

And so it is today we report that the era of Mike Tyson has finally come to an end with a thud.

An Irish heavyweight of little repute was bullying him around. He wasn't the baddest man on the planet anymore, not the baddest man in Washington, not even the baddest man in the ring. He was an aging heavyweight who looked older by the minute Saturday night, finally coming to grips with the fact that this was the way it was going to end. It was all Tyson could do to look at referee Joe Cortez, pull himself to his feet and trudge wearily to his corner.

Tyson sat on his stool and told Cortez he had enough. Enough for this fight, enough for a tortured career that began with greatness only to spiral out of control and finally end in desperation and sadness. He said he would fight no more. The sport that allowed him to earn more than $300 million had passed him by, and now it was time for Tyson to admit as much.

"This is it," Tyson said. "It's finished."

I'm not a big boxing fan. I can't stand to watch the sport most days to be honest. But even for a total outsider like me, I have witnessed a few boxers and boxing matches, with the resulting accretion of data forming some opinions on this sport.

Muhammed Ali was the first boxer to truly trasncend and break out of the confines of his sport so that his name was known around the world, even by children. I knew his name and his career and the famous bout with George Foreman in Kinshasa as a kid. And while I had no aspirations to being a boxer whatsoever, if I had to be a boxer I would have liked to have been like Ali: "dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee." Even in this latter part of his life where he suffers from Parkinsons' Disease, he remains the visage of a noble man.

And in the wake of Ali arrived Iron Mike in the mid-1980s. The rise of Iron Mike was a shock of the new. It wasn't black pride, it was black rage. This guy came across like half-man half punching machine. Famous trainer Cus D'Amato had trained Tyson from boyhood as his final 'gift' to boxing. Tyson, while his image was a ruthless powerslugger, was actually a finesse fighter with unparalleled speed and accuracy. So while he was knocking out his opponents at a furious pace in his early career, people got the image that this boxer was a heavy-hitter. Then, amid his peak, he was convicted for rape. After he came out, he was never the same boxer again. The speed and accuracy was diminsihed and so he tried to make up for it with harder hits; but it didn't really work out as he declined steadily.

But such is sport. It happened to John McEnroe, to Graig Nettles, to Laurie Daley, to Plugger Lockett, Steve Waugh, to Matthew Burke and all the rest of the guys I used to enjoy watching; it happens. I'm slightly perverse in that I find the Lion in Winter, the decline phase of champions very interesting to watch. I find that as they go down, we truly see what they are made of; the victories they forge with diminishing skill and speed seem to tell me somethinig more than the victories they stamp out on the way to the top. Heck, even this year's aging Yankees with their sub-.500 record is rivetting in a very strange way.

So it is that I feel a lot of undescribable affection for the times of Mike Tyson if not for the athlete himself. It's surprising he was going this long; it's 20 years! He leaves boxing with 50 wins in 56 bouts, 3 of the losses coming in his last 6 bouts, losing to people he would have totally obliterated had he encountered them in his youthful peak. Broke and bankrupt, he returns to his home in Phoenix Arizona.

He talked about doing missionary work in Africa to help heal his life, but Tyson has said a lot of wild things before. What he doesn't want is anyone to feel sorry for him.

"Most of my fans are too sensitive when it comes to me. I'm a cold and a cruel and a hard person. I've been around the worst," he said. "You can't take away what's happened to me. I've been abused any way anyone can be abused. I'm not used to sensitivity any more. Don't cry. I don't know how to handle people crying anymore. I've lost my sensitivity."

Good luck and best wishes in your retirement Mike, and thanks for the many memories.

- Art Neuro

Smarter Than Your Average Bear
- Art Neuro

Today's Idiot Tripleplay
Sometimes when you see the headlines that come up, you get overwhelmed by the world that accepts certain kinds of stupidity.

Here's today's top3 stupid articles:

1. Bono hails Group of Eight Summit on African debt relief.
The G8 decided to write off $40bn in debt.

LONDON (AFP) - Irish rock star and activist Bono hailed the agreement by Group of Eight finance ministers on debt relief, although much more needs to be done to eradicate poverty in Africa.

"What we have here today is a little piece of history," the U2 frontman told Britain's Sky News television after the G8 agreed to wipe away 40 billion dollars (33 billion dollars) of debt owed to multilateral institutions by 18 of the world's poorest nations, most of them in Africa.

"There's more to go to really make this an end to extreme poverty, of course," he said, speaking from the German city of Cologne. "But this is one of the three asks that we have -- debt (relief), a deal on an increase in aid flows, and a deal with the unfair trading that goes on between the richest countries and the poorest."

Bono has been a leading figure in a long-running campaign to lift billions of dollars of debt off the backs of African nations, enabling them to use money otherwise spent on interest payments to pay for schools and health care.

He acknowledged that debt relief cannot be divorced from the issue of better governance in Africa, saying: "Corruption is Africa's problem -- it's actually the most important problem."

"There's no point in cancelling the debts and ending up redecorating presidential palaces," he said. "That's not the point."

He held up Uganda as an example of best practice, citing its "poverty action fund" in which savings from debt relief are ring-fenced for development purposes and "everyone can see where the money is spent".

Bono added that it was as important as ever for demonstrators to gather by the thousands in Scotland ahead of the G8 summit on July 6-8 to stress the need for more action to combat global poverty.

"We have to still turn up at Gleneagles," he said. "Believe me, politicians love to sign cheques, but they hate to cash them. Unless we turn up at Gleneagles en masse, the world will try to fudge things -- not the debt stuff, but other things."

"This is an important moment. We have to finish the job."

This is all very well and good. Bono is an activist voicing his opinion about something that deserves our passionate support; which is also his prerogative, something I'm not questioning here.
But folks, you know, when world policies get the stamp of approval of fatcat rich rock stars, and that becomesa headline, you sort of think, fuck, how far have we fallen? It's not that Bono isn't a deserving mouthpiece or that he is stupid or that his cause is stupid. It's that you seriously have to question the leadership of the dumb politicians that create a context whereby grandstanding rockstars can make such headlines. I vomit in their general direction.

2. US NAtional Acedmies to take up Evolution Fight.
Monkey trials never end in the eternal fight for the soul... Just don't let scientific facts get in the way of saving souls, right?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Academies, the flagship of U.S. science, said on Friday it had set up a Web site to battle attempts to portray evolution as mere speculation about how life developed on Earth.

The Web site, http:/nationalacademies.org/evolution/, carries links to various reports on evolution, which some U.S. religious groups want to be taught in schools only if their own views of a divine creator get equal credence.

"The theory of evolution is one of science's most robust theories, and the National Academies have long supported the position that evolution be taught as a central element in any science education program," the Academies said in a statement.

"Over the past several years, however, there has been a growing movement around the country to include non-scientifically based 'alternatives' in science courses," it added.

"Currently there are challenges to the teaching of evolution in some 40 states or local school districts."

Some of these are detailed by the National Center for Science Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping evolution in public school education, at its Web site, http:/ncseweb.org.

The National Academies is an independent organization that routinely provides guidance on scientific, medical and engineering questions to the federal government and other groups that may ask them.

Again, you have to question the stupidity of a world that keeps Evolution as a debatable topic.
At least this too is good news.

3. Cruise Says Holmes 'Digs' Scientology'
Katie Holmes is allegedly a virgin. She is allegedly a strict Catholic which explains the alleged virginity. She is now madly, passionately in love with one Tom Cruise, known scientologist. So now, it's HEADLINE NEWS when Cruise says that Holmes 'digs' Scientology... allegedly. While it is entirely Ms. Homes' prerogative as to when, where, how, and with what, or with whom she should choose to penetrate her own hymen, Scientiology is no such thing for her own mental health to be 'dug'.

"Yes, absolutely. She digs it," the 42-year-old actor tells the magazine. When asked if he's become more passionate about Scientology, Cruise says: "I've always been passionate about it. I've always talked about it when people asked about it."

He also confirmed there was a Scientology massage tent on the set of his upcoming film, "War of the Worlds."

"I also had a cappuccino tent on that set. And I made sure the crews were fed well, too. And if someone wanted an assist from a (Scientology) volunteer, it was there for
them," he says. "People are curious about it — they're always asking me about it, they want to know what Scientology is."

In an EW.com poll, 61 percent of respondents said they liked Cruise less now after the recent exhaustive attention to his personal life, 3 percent said they liked him more, and 36 percent said their viewpoint of the "Top Gun" star hadn't changed
When asked by the interviewer if he's going to propose to Holmes, Cruise whispered, "It's gonna happen, man. It'll happen."

HEADLINE NEWS, folks!
Maybe Katie Holmes likes Scientology's position on pre-marital sex. I wonder how Pope Benedict feels about this one. :)
Tell me the world isn't somehow stupid...

Hubble Watches Deep Impact
The Hubble Telescope is going to be utilised to observe the Deep Impact probe's collision into Tempel 1.

The best view is expected to be had by the Deep Impact probe itself, but officials at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which coordinates Hubble's use, say they are ready for anything.

"We will be here and we'll be working," said Cheryl Gundy, a spokeswoman for the Space Telescope Science Institute. Hubble was also trained on the collision of comet Shoemaker Levy and Jupiter in 1994 and "had those great results. We're hoping well see something similar," Gundy said.

While the Shoemaker Levy collision was the first collision of two solar system bodies ever observed, if all goes well, the Deep Impact mission will mark the first time a spacecraft has struck a comet.

As Deep Impact nears the end of its six-month journey, the Hubble is also observing the comet to help guide mission officials, Gundy said.

So Hubble's still got some great uses.

NASA Shake Up
The Washington Post is reporting that the new NASA Administrator is looking to oust 20 of its high ranking officials in th wake of a new report.

The departures include the two leaders of the human spaceflight program, which is making final preparations to fly the space shuttle for the first time in more than two years.

Senior NASA officials and congressional and aerospace industry sources said yesterday that Griffin wants to clear away entrenched bureaucracy, and build a less political and more scientifically oriented team to implement President Bush's plan to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars.

The moon-Mars initiative has put severe pressure on NASA's budget, forcing Griffin into a difficult balancing act -- trying to build quickly a next generation spaceship without crippling programs ranging from Earth observation satellites and aeronautics research to maintaining the Hubble telescope.

At the same time, the sources said, Griffin wants to restore NASA's glamour, reasserting the engineering and science leadership that has been eroding since the Apollo era. To this end, the sources said, he is willing to oust as many as 50 senior managers in a housecleaning rivaling the purge after the 1986 Challenger explosion.

"Some people make a lot of changes; some people make a few," said Ed Weiler, director of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "He's going to want people that are on his wavelength, and his wavelength is that he's an engineer and a scientist."

Whoah. This is going to be interesting boys & girls.

Top Predator Report
Longtime readers would know I like top predator stories and they always make an appearance on this blog. Apparently there's one top predator that's on the increase and it's the Grizzly Bears in the Yellowstone National Park. Yeah, Booboo, they're proving to be tougher than your average bear.

Grizzlies have been listed as threatened in the region for 30 years. More than 600 are estimated to live in the Yellowstone ecosystem, a vast swath of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

Their removal from federal protection could not come soon enough for some who think the population has grown too large. Bucky Hall, a county commissioner in Park County, Wyo., near Yellowstone, said bears are "just pouring out of the park, literally."

"You'd be hard pressed to find anyone on the ground who doesn't think there are enough bears," he said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will make the final decision on the delisting proposal. It is not expected until sometime next year, Servheen said.

So, once again, protection might be lifted, which would send them back to being endangered...
500 is the (pardon the pun) bear minimum you need to keep a mammal species going in a pool according to my brother who is a population geneticist. So I'm not really going to accept the claim that bears are "pouring out the park literally".
Not so fast, junior.

- Art Neuro

Breakthrough In Nanotechnology
Pleiades sent in this 'Wired' article about quantum mechanics computing.

Scientists at the University of Arizona have discovered how to use quantum mechanics to turn molecules into working transistors in the lab, a breakthrough that might one day lead to high-powered computers the size of a postage stamp.

Results of the as-yet-unpublished study came together just weeks before Canadian researchers performed a similar feat using chemical means. That experiment appeared in the journal Nature last week. Together, the two studies could bring the final frontier in nanocomputing -- a single-molecule transistor -- considerably closer to reality.

[break]

The smallest transistors in consumer electronics devices today measure 50 nanometers across -- a million times tinier than their postwar progenitors. (This shrinkage would be equivalent to reducing the continental United States to the size of a hot tub.) Taking transistors down another one or two orders of magnitude, to the
realm of individual atoms and molecules, requires a generational leap in technology.
Three years ago, scientists at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard and Cornell universities announced the fabrication of a transistor from a single organic molecule. But these delicate circuits only operated at single-digit temperatures above absolute zero.

Both the Nature paper and the Arizona study propose transistors able to handle room-temperature environments -- although scaling such designs as these up to mass-production levels still will require years of research and development.

Orgmolec! The future is now! Cyberpunk lives. One day I'll be able to store the entire series of 'Seinfeld' in my neural-activity-controller brain-computer. Yadda yadda yadda. :)

- Art Neuro

Everybody's Interested In A Bite Of An Apple
Or so it seems. Ever since the Apple company announced its move from IBM to Intel to source its processors, the news-wire has been rife with analysis and specualtion as to what it all means.

Walk-Off HBP sent in this one.

So Intel buys Apple and works with their OEMs to get products out in the market. The OEMs would love to be able to offer a higher margin product with better reliability than Microsoft. Intel/Apple enters the market just as Microsoft announces yet another delay in their next generation OS. By the way, the new Apple OS for the Intel Architecture has a compatibility mode with Windows (I'm just guessing on this one).

This scenario works well for everyone except Microsoft. If Intel was able to own the Mac OS and make it available to all the OEMs, it could break the back of Microsoft. And if they tuned the OS to take advantage of unique features that only Intel had, they would put AMD back in the box, too. Apple could return Intel to its traditional role of being where all the value was in the PC world. And Apple/Intel could easily extend this to the consumer electronics world. How much would it cost Intel to buy Apple? Not much. And if they paid in stock it would cost nothing at all since investors would drive shares through the roof on a huge swell of user enthusiasm.
#

That's the story as I see it unfolding. Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates. And with the sale of Apple to Intel, Steve accepts the position of CEO of the Pixar/Disney/Sony Media Company.

Remember, you read it here first.

Which seems to be the big picture version some are forecasting.
Yahoo News service had this AP piece.

At the same time, Apple would retain as much control as it wants over its software and brand. Beyond the future performance and energy efficiency improvements Intel has promised, Apple could deploy an Intel security scheme that could allow Apple to keep its operating system locked to Macs. Apple also could tap a separate Intel technology that lets multiple operating systems run efficiently on a single chip.

Such advances could be critical for Apple, which has gained a reputation for building innovative and stylish machines that run Apple's own, acclaimed Mac OS X operating system. By not allowing clones, as are common in the Windows world, Apple can still charge a premium and differentiate itself.

After all, the microprocessor may be the brain of a computer, but the soul is provided by the software, which Apple has said will continue to be locked to its systems.

And so on.

How F*cked Up Is North Korea Really?
Here's an article about a deserter from the US Army 'coming home'. In it, I noticed this casual section:

Jenkins now lives on the island of Sado, about 300 km (190 miles) northwest of Tokyo, with Hitomi Soga, 46, the Japanese woman he met and married in North Korea, and their two daughters.

Jenkins was a 24-year-old sergeant when he fled to North Korea in January 1965. He became part of Pyongyang's propaganda machine and married Soga, who had been abducted from her homeland by North Korean agents in 1978 to help train spies.

Soga was allowed to leave North Korea with four other Japanese abductees in 2002.

You wouldn't want to be abducted by the North Koreans I tell you. You wouldn't wish it even upon your worst neighbours...

Come On Guys, What's Going On?
The Yankees hit a new rock bottom today as the St. Louis Cardinals jumped them 8-1.

Furious after a performance he called the low point of the Yankees' dismal season, Torre tore into his players in a meeting after the game. In comments to members of the news media after a brutal 8-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Torre did not hold back. "I'm just not happy," he said after the Yankees collected three errors and just six hits. "It was an ugly game. We didn't play hard enough. We didn't do anything to help ourselves win. It was an embarrassing, embarrassing game."

Derek Jeter and others said they had never seen Torre as upset as he was after the game. Though he later modified his answer, Jeter seemed as disgusted as Torre at what he had seen. "It seems like we don't care," Jeter said.

Asked if the message would be heard in the clubhouse, the third-base coach, Luis Sojo, who won four World Series rings under Torre, said, "It'd better be, because he never talks like that. I've been here 10 years, and I've never seen him talking like that."

That don't sound too good. So fellas', are we going to play 'Stonehenge' tomorrow night?

- Art Neuro