Originally uploaded by elvenstar522.

In last night’s episode, we learned the following:

Secretary Heller is a courageous guy. For the first time in living memory, a conservative politician is being portrayed in a positive light. Smart, brave, a loving father, a patriot…Heller embodies qualities that would normally be associated with the portrayal of a Kennedy or a liberal…

Which means, of course, that before he dies its gonna be revealed that he’s participated in some incredibly NASTY and EVIL stuff…Maybe.

Audrey is one strong woman. This would seem to be, on its face, an obvious statement. After all, she IS sleeping with Jack Bauer (the smell of death alone on that guy must make being in the same room with him much less the same bed an exercise in vomit control.) But its more than that. Most of us have never thought what we’d do in a hostage situation similar to Audreys. If I ever do find myself faced with what she’s facing, I would hope I’d have the strength of character to deny the terrorists their little spectacle.

Edgar is a total wimp. Fat computer geek Edgar (Chloe: “You’re a geek Edgar…But a good guy. Don’t ever change.”) Being under the thumb of uber-bitch Maryann is one thing. But for God’s sake, geek, don’t you realize you can now turn the tables on her? If you rat her out to Erin regarding her shenanigans, it’ll be the word of a temp against yours! (Edgar has obviously never played the game of hardball office politics before.)

Beruss Azaz has an Oedipus complex. Greek king Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, had nothing on poor teenage, angst-ridden, hormone riddled, Beruss. It remains to be seen whether the father or the mother is going to be the one that has to kill the kid and put him out of his misery. Whether that happens before Beruss rats out his hated father will have us all on the edge of our seats.

Summary

The story wasn’t advanced very much. Heller and Audrey tried to kill themselves by turning on the gas…didn’t work. Jack got out of his little problem with the police by having Erin vouch for him (Sheesh! Not even a thank you!) and ended up watching as
terrorist Hasson “martyred” himself when he discovered that CTU was on his tail. Not to worry. At Jack’s request, a thermal overlay on a satellite image reveals the terrorist hideout. The conservative Republican President (who so far is pretty much of a non-entity) orders a cruise missile strike on the compound where the Secretary is just about to go on trial and Audrey is waiting to die. Erin orders Jack out of the area. Fat chance. I can guarantee that Jack’s body count next week is gonna go up considerably as it appears Jack is about ready to storm the compound all by himself to rescue his love.

We still don’t know what the main terrorist plot involves. We know that the next phase of it is an internet attack of some kind (Audrey recognized an American traitor working with the terrorists). Expect more of the plot’s outlines to be revealed after Heller’s trial is interrupted next week.

Body Count

Jack: 1 gratuitous wounding; 2 kills
Show: 54

Loose End

Jack is held up by the police for, according to the show’s time, more than 15 minutes waiting for his car to be retrieved from the convenience store parking lot. And yet, it takes him less than 20 minutes to catch up with Hasson. Do the math. If Hasson is going 60 MPH and is 15 minutes ahead, plus the additional distance he was ahead before the police stopped him, Jack would have to travel at close to the speed of light to catch up with him (actually, I don’t want to do the math. I’m no good at math. This is an algebra problem. Any sophomore’s in High School wanna give me a hand?)

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode where Jack either rescues Audrey and dissolves into a puddle of slobbering, weeping, quivering hunk of man-flesh or witnesses her death that will turn him into an avenging angel, shaking the thunder from the sky…Don’t miss it!

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Yours truly received a paltry 1/3 of a vote in a talented, crowded field that included Michelle Malkin, Capn’ Ed, John Hawkins, and Varifrank among others. The winning non-Council post was from the aforementioned Varifrank whose post “Today, I was Unprofessional” I myself linked to here.

My own contribution was entitled “Groping for Answers”. It’s about the Gonzalez hearings and the “torture narrative” repeated over and over by the left.

This week’s winning Council post comes via The Moderate Voice and fisks the Rathergate report right smartly:

Perhaps the biggest issue is how could a bunch of highly paid executives and Rather violate basic journalistic confirmation rules that are taught in any Journalism 101 class and not confirm this report? The panel details the steps that led to the report getting on the air and takes them to task. And, yes, competition is heated.

But it still does NOT explain (from what we’ve read so far) in highly specific terms exactly how the basic checks and balances of solid confirmation were suspended and precisely WHY —even in the light of the warnings the network received.

The program had gotten enough red flags on this story to hold a bullfight in Madrid…

Yup.

It seemed like a great idea. The bluest of blue newspapers, the Washington Post, sent one of its best young writers, David Von Drehle, into the wilderness of red state America to find the answer to the question foremost on the mind of any liberal worth his salt; how did George Bush win?

The earnestness with which the Washington Post attempted to uncover the secrets to electoral victory for their beloved Democratic party in an America that no longer pays much attention to them would be laughable if it weren’t so interesting as a study of the pathological nature of American liberalism.

The very premise of the project is reminiscent of New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett sending Henry Stanley to the darkest of Africa to find explorer/missionary David Livingstone in 1871. Stanley’s job was to find out whether or not Livingstone was alive and to bring back word of his explorations. Von Drehle’s charge-to find out why George Bush won-might not have the drama of that long ago journey of Stanley’s, but it certainly must have seemed to him just as arduous.

Beginning in Nebraska and ending up in Texas, Von Drehle’s journey encompassed 700 miles through the reddest of red counties, never coming within a hundred miles of a county that voted for John Kerry. He runs into his first problem with trying to describe red/blue divide in terms of height:

Blue islands and blue archipelagos, a blue isthmus here, a blue peninsula there, rise in a Red Sea that stretches from coast to coast. Rise quite literally, in many cases, because blue country is often marked by skyscrapers and high-rise condos and state capitol domes and university clock towers. Red country, as we shall see, is often quite flat.

I guess the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Nevada don’t have mountains as high as those majestic, snow capped Ivy League University clock towers.

Outside of Abilene, Kansas someone asked Mr. Von Drehle why the media never portrayed “people like him” in a positive light:

All I could answer was that we were tired of hearing pundits tell us about “Red America” and wanted a firsthand look. For months, the passions had been running awfully high. A lot of Democrats seemed settled on the belief that Bush supporters were stupid and selfish and sanctimonious, when they weren’t downright religious fanatics and bigots. Whereas the Republican op-ed types seemed to feel that every conservative voter west of the Mississippi was somehow endowed with an innate wisdom and bedrock virtue not seen since the last days of Socrates. When I first saw that county-by-county map, I felt drawn to go there, to hear for myself why George Bush was reelected. I did this knowing that Bush voters can be found anywhere. Why not just stay home and hunt for some here? I guess for the same reason a person might visit China and not just Chinatown.

This isn’t so much a Stanley and Livingstone meme as much as it’s a motivation similar to what drives photographers and writers for the National Geographic. After all, you can go to Detroit and find a community of Afghan exiles. But its so much more exciting to get dressed up in your Banana Republic khakis, jump in your Travelall, and hit the road to Kandahar. It should also go without saying that there’s not much chance of contracting dysentery in Dearborn.

In Waco, NE Von Drehle stopped at a bar to talk to the yokels. His description suggests some kind of blue state safari where the Thompson’s gazelles are spooked by the site of a blue state big white hunter:

A minute ago there were 12 regulars seated in the puddle of light beyond the pool table. Seven men clustered quietly together while five wives chatted amiably at the table beside them. Turns out a good way to get folks moving in Waco, Neb., is to introduce yourself as a reporter from Washington, D.C.

Considering the hit pieces they’ve done on conservative Republicans since Richard Nixon, can you blame them?

How about this breathtaking description of life in “The Red Sea” as he calls Bush country:

One of the first things worth noting about the Red Sea is that people live there because they like it. (Several people proudly pointed out to me that there are no houses on the market in Waco.) This basic fact strikes wonder in some city dwellers, who live in cities because they love cities. They love the bustle, the myriad options, the surprises and the jolts and the competition. It can require a leap of imagination to perceive that there are people who seek precisely the opposite, and not just on weekends and vacations.

This “leap of imagination” apparently escapes even Mr. Von Drehle who “reports” the momentous news that people live where they live because they want to. How can something so self evident be considered a surprise except to the most completely clueless? Notice also that Mr. Von Drehle doesn’t believe there are “surprises,” or “jolts,” or “competition” in red state America because people who live there “seek precisely the opposite.” What people seek in places like Waco, NE is a decent place to raise their children and respite from nitwits like Von Drehle who constantly tell them how ignorant they are for not wanting to live in a place where if you leave your door open at night (as they do in Waco and countless other small towns in red state America) you’re more than likely to be murdered in your bed.

One resident of a Nebraska town remarked how he liked being able to throw a snowball as far as he could without hitting anybody. Too bad Mr. Von Drehle couldn’t have stood in the path of that snowball. It would only be fair after he slimes the gentleman who made the remark:

I couldn’t help noticing that among the people Paul Kern won’t likely hit with a far-flung snowball are black people, openly gay people and people born in foreign countries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, York County, Neb., is 97 percent white and more than 98 percent U.S.-born. One of the area’s distinctive entertainments is, Kern said, “watching a ballgame where all the kids on both teams are white, if you can believe that.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with the other!” he hastened to add. “But just to show you how it is around here.”

Anyone want to guess whether or not Mr. Kern actually used the term “distinctive entertainment” when talking about watching two teams of all white ballplayers?

One of the more fascinating aspects of the article was this study about the relationship between voters and their marital status:

There are 30 states—including all the Red Sea states—in which married couples form a majority of all households. Bush won 22 of the 30, by an average of 21 percentage points. The eight that went for Kerry were very narrow victories, an average of five points. Utah, with the highest percentage of married folks, gave Bush his largest ratio of victory: 71 to 26.

A similar relationship was found in states where married couples were outnumbered by single people and where the percentage was about equal. Mr. Von Drehle, tries to draw some conclusions about the data:

One could dream up all sorts of theories about this. Married people have, on average, a more stable financial situation. They have, on average, more avenues of support in times of trouble. You might say that marriage involves the surrender of certain personal liberties in favor of creating lasting institutions. You might say marriage favors stability over experimentation. All of these might point, on average, to a more conservative disposition.

Only a liberal would believe that conservatives are for “the surrender of certain personal liberties in favor of creating lasting institutions…” It must make it easier for them to believe that a happily married John Ashcroft cheerfully tried to gut the constitution because he had no problem with American citizens surrendering personal liberties.

Von Drehle actually comes close to summing up the Bush voter rather well and in a straightforward manner:

After a campaign in which the Democrat made very little effort to seek their votes, the Red Sea folks decided to cast their ballots in large numbers for George W. Bush. Something he said or did struck a chord with some note of their own political music. Maybe it was the feeling that bureaucrats just don’t get it. Or the idea that elitists hold the heartland in contempt. Maybe it was the worry that traditions are under attack. Maybe it was the view that coastal culture is an enemy, not a friend, in the effort to raise children. For some, it was the feeling of authenticity and apparent horse sense. The attitude toward land and resources that comes from living amid an abundance of both. The significance of personal faith.

Von Drehle’s travelogue doesn’t give him the single overarching answer he’s looking for. How could it? In a nation of 290 million people, it’s impossible to pigeonhole 60 million of them by trying to discover their motivations for voting, especially when it comes to voting for a President. Von Dehle, to his credit, realizes this:

I suppose there are no great surprises there—these views represent many of the strands that have been collected over the past generation into the political camp we call “conservative.” But the focus on this common label may obscure the individual nature of these voting decisions. I met regular churchgoers and people who attend church seldom if ever. I met young libertarians and elderly prims. I met a wealthy man and a man unemployed and deeply in debt. I met people who admire Bush and people who have little regard for him.

I imagine this might disappoint those people who seek a large and unified explanation of something as important as a presidential election. How much more satisfying it is—especially for those who make a living from explaining elections in catchy sound bites—to conjure up overarching themes, towering trends, looming like alps over an election. Nothing sells like a big trend story, whether the trend is “right-wing backlash” or “values revival.”

Mr. Von Drehle seemed to make a mostly good faith effort in trying to understand those strange and wonderful creatures who inhabit what he calls “The Red Sea.” And aside from several gratuitous slaps at attitudes and traditions of his subjects, he made some cogent arguments and observations about his travels.

What bothered me more than anything was the underlying theme running through the entire article that he was almost in a foreign country and that the observations he was making was of a different America than the one from which he came.

I wish he had concentrated more on what unites us as Americans than on what divides us as political and cultural adversaries.

UPDATE:

Pat over at one of my old favorites Kerry Haters points out more Von Drehle cluelessness. It involves a woman who says she couldn’t support Kerry because he was pro gay marraige and pro abortion. Von Drehle sniffs:

Later, I double-checked what Kerry had said on those subjects. During his campaign, he opposed same-sex marriage and said that abortion was a private matter. But Joyce Smith heard it the way she heard it, and voted the way she voted.

Pat’s comeback:

Look, this is one of the signal problems that Democrats have, something that I have commented about on more than one occasion. They don’t say what they really believe, but their actions speak louder than words. What is John Kerry saying when he says that abortion is a private matter? Essentially that he’s in favor of it. As for gay marriage, Kerry’s either lying, or completely out of touch with his own party.

Absolutely correct. For all their talk about changing how the party talks to voters, wanting to speak the “values language” of the Republicans, the fact is, the Democrats won’t get anywhere until they stop trying to hide who and what they are. Voters will vote for people who they have disagreements with. But they won’t vote for people they know are liars.

BTW, check out Pat’s excellent blog at Brainsters

Originally uploaded by elvenstar522.

Picture of Titan’s surface taken from about 8 miles up. The picture shows what could be a “lake” of frozen methane, a clearly defined shoreline, and a mist-shrouded horizon. The picture below is an enhanced 3-D view of the same topographical features.

Originally uploaded by elvenstar522.

The pictures were NOT processed by NASA or the European Space Agency. Instead, the raw images were downloaded and processed using open source image technology. (HT: The Professor. Note the link is to Spaceref.com due to very slow page loading). Titan enthusiasts were impatient with the slowness with which NASA and the ESA were releasing the processed images from the Huygens lander so they took matters into their own hands.

The second picture in the sequence above is an extrapolated image using image processing software. It allows any image that’s scanned to be viewed from any angle. The color has been added according to the ESA color scheme seen in this picture.

Note the clearly defined channels running down the bluff into what scientists think may be a methane (or perhaps hydrocarbon) lake. The second picture shows what could be an island in the background.

Weird. Odd. Spectacular.

Originally uploaded by elvenstar522.

Van Helsing over at Moonbattery alerted me to this disturbing bit of news:

In perhaps the most appalling example of moonbattery ever to arise at the relatively courageous Fox, the network has agreed to pay for the sin of having dared to air a show featuring Muslim terrorists by distributing to its affiliates two propaganda pieces produced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a fifth-column Islamist organization with terrorist links.

Who is CAIR? Professor of Mid East Studies at Harvard Daniel Pipes ticks off some interesting things that CAIR has been associated with over the last few years and tells us what’s wrong with an organization its spokesman Ibrahim Hooper describes as being “similar to a Muslim NAACP.”

For starters, it’s on the wrong side in the war on terrorism. One indication came in October 1998, when the group demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as “the sworn enemy,” finding this depiction “offensive to Muslims.”

The same year, CAIR denied bin Laden’s responsibility for the twin East African embassy bombings. As Hooper saw it, those explosions resulted from some vague “misunderstandings of both sides.” (A New York court, however, blamed bin Laden’s side alone for the embassy blasts.)

In 2001, CAIR denied his culpability for the Sept. 11 massacre, saying only that “if [note the “if”] Osama bin Laden was behind it, we condemn him by name.” (Only in December was CAIR finally embarrassed into acknowledging his role.)

CAIR consistently defends other militant Islamic terrorists too. The conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing it deemed “a travesty of justice.” The conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh who planned to blow up New York City landmarks, it called a “hate crime.” The extradition order for suspected Hamas terrorist Mousa Abu Marook it labeled “anti-Islamic” and “anti-American.”

Not surprisingly, CAIR also backs those who finance terrorism. When President Bush closed the Holy Land Foundation in December for collecting money he said was “used to support the Hamas terror organization,” CAIR decried his action as “unjust” and “disturbing.”

So not only is CAIR an apologist for terrorists, they’re a fundraising arm for one of the most murderous and lethal group of thugs in the world, Hamas.

Van Helsing gives us his take:

Although Fox is leaving it up to their affiliates when and even whether they will run the CAIR pieces, the fact that they feel the need to negotiate with these villains will send a chill up any sane person’s spine. It is the equivalent of agreeing to distribute SS propaganda during World War II.

Spot on. I sincerely hope the Fox affiliate here in Chicago refuses to air this claptrap. After all, Jack Bauer has enough on his plate already. It’d be a pity if we had to let him loose on his erstwhile employers for supporting the very thing he’s fighting against.

It’s Sunday and I’m feeling lazy. Come to think of it, that makes Sundays not much different from any other day of the week. That said, I really do enjoy Sundays. Coffee tastes better: As do bagels and cream cheese. The cigarette is more satisfying. The dawn has a special feeling; almost like experiencing sunrise for the first time again.

And of course, there’s football.

Now I realize that many of you humans of the female persuasion out there actually like football. Significant Otherhawk is a football fan of sorts…except she hates the college game and, adding insult to injury, roots for the PATRIOTS! (except when they play my beloved Bears…she knows too well my wrath would be unleashed at ANYONE rooting for ANYBODY but my beloveds in my presence).

But football, more than any other game, has been influenced by and is a living metaphor for war.

Think about it. What you see on the field when 22 men line up opposite one another is a miniature battlefield, a window into what Gettysburg, Waterloo, or Stalingrad must have been like. There is attack and defense. The attackers launch mini-offensives on every play, seeking to outnumber defenders on the line of scrimmage (also called the point of attack) where the offensive is aimed. There can be deception, making the defenders believe the attack is actually going to be launched somewhere else. There can be something like an airborne assault as passes are thrown over the initial line of defense and dropped into the waiting arms of a receiver. There can be mis-communication-just like on the battlefield-that results in a disaster.

For defenders, they have a first line of defense (the front 3 or 4 lineman) a second line of defense (linebackers) and a mobile reserve (safeties and cornerbacks). The job of the defenders is to counter or outguess the offense.

More than any other team sport, the coach (General) has a profound affect on the outcome. Quarterbacks used to be called “Field Generals.” This is something of a misnomer as quarterbacks today function much more like Captains or Lieutenants on the battlefield. They execute direct orders from the General and lead the men into battle. Like any good military officer, their ability to improvise either to avoid disaster or take advantage of an opportunity is of great value and often spells the difference between victory and defeat.

This idea of football being a metaphor for war in American society is not new. The left in this country has been denigrating football for nearly 40 years. I remember back in the 1980’s one particular moonbat who blamed football for what he called “the warlike nature of American foreign policy” and how peace loving the Soviets were because they played a much less brutal game; soccer.

I pointed out in an op-ed published in the Washington Post that anyone who believed soccer wasn’t a brutal game had never seen Manchester United play Liverpool or Brazil play Argentina. Those games are extraordinarily warlike, played with a viciousness rarely seen in any sport. I also wrote (none too gently as I recall) that the two most popular sports in Russia were hockey and boxing. Carrying the moonbats theory on sports reflecting the aggressive nature of the society that plays them to its extreme, that would put the Soviets somewhere between Ghengis (that’s jengis for all you Kerry lovers out there) Khan and Attila the Hun.

I don’t believe that we Americans watch football because we’re warlike. I believe we watch football because it’s fun…and it can be profitable. It’s estimated that something like $3 billion will change hands between now and the end of the Super Bowl. And starting this weekend through Super Sunday most Americans will be watching, united in a spirit of community, rooting for their favorites, and celebrating the spectacle.

HERE’S TO FOOTBALL!

When I was about 7 years old, my mother took me and my siblings from our home in Mt. Prospect to the loop in downtown Chicago. She wanted to do some Christmas shopping at the Marshall Field store, which back then was the middle class ideal of nouveau riche . I remember seeing the young kids hawking newspapers on the street just like in the movies:

EXTREE EXTREE READ ALL ABOUT IT POE-LICE CATCH COP KILLER EXTREE

I mention this because if newsboys were around today and if the press ever started to print the “news” that comes to us via the moonbats at the Democratic Underground, the entire city of Chicago would be so convulsed in laughter that “The City That Works” would be renamed “The City That Can’t Stop Giggling.”

Try this one on, newsboys circa 2005:

EXTREE EXTREE!! READ ALL ABOUT IT PREZ BEHIND ANTHRAX ATTACKS EXTREE

This is too easy. Proper fisking of moonbat droolings requires a modicum of effort. But this is like USC playing Slippery Rock in football. It’s like the New England Patriots playing my beloved Bears. If it were a little league baseball game, it’d be called on account of the slaughter rule. It’s not a mismatch…It’s a slam-dunk-katie-bar-the-door-in-your-face-full-fledged-nuclear-wipeout.

To wit:

Whoa_Nelly: “Anthrax: Why did the “threat” stop so suddenly? have been wondering why there was such a spate of anthrax threats/findings/deaths just after Bush was selected in 2000, and then why did all so suddenly stop? Was this a Rove/Bush scheme to begin the state of terror in the US?”

Sentinel Chicken: “They were trying to use anthrax to drum up support for … their planned war in Iraq. They were trying to create an excuse to attack Saddam. When 9/11 happened they had all the excuse they needed for their war plans. They found out it was semi-traceable later. This is why when people talk about 9/11 conspiracies I think they’re looking at the wrong crime.”

fertilizeonarbusto: “Dust for Shrubby’s fingerprints…I always thought all of that smelled.” (HT: John Hawkins at Right Wing News)

Their logic is impeccable. It’s the kind of logic Lucy uses in the song “Little Known Facts” in the musical “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown:”

LUCY
Do you see that tree?
it is a Fir tree.
It’s called a Fir tree because it gives us fur,
For coats,
It also gives us wool in the wintertime

LUCY
And way up there,
Those fluffy little white things,
Those are clouds,
They make the wind blow.
And way down there,
Those tiny little black things,
Those are bugs,
They make the grass grow.

LINUS
Is that so?

LUCY
That’s right. They run around all day long, tugging and
tugging at each tiny seedling until it grows into a great
tall blade of grass.

The DU moonbats have nothing on Lucy. Here’s more:

MadAsHellNewYorker: “It was after 9/11. only democratic leaders (Daschel and Leahy were the two most prominent Dem’s to get letters) who were in a position to oppose the patriot act received the letters. No republicans ever got an anthrax letter.

They stopped because the administration did not need to keep the Dem’s in line—they had already showed them who was boss.”

Warpy: “Right, I think the original plan was for a much wider “attack.”

They planned it to justify their war against Iraq, the centerpiece of their idiotic foreign policy of imperial domination.

9/11 happened and the attack was scaled back to just those people who needed the most intimidation: journalists (including the one who published photos of the Bush brats falling down drunk, an attack that proved fatal) and Democratic congressmen. They just couldn’t resist those targets, and that’s how we know who ordered it.

Typically arrogant and hamfisted, they never expected the wide contamination as the spores exited through the paper of the envelopes, nor did they expect it to be traced to Fort Detrick so quickly.

This isn’t “speculation.” Speculation is postulating an outcome based on known fact. The only thing we know here is that the intelligence quotients of these moonbats aren’t measured according to The Wechsler IQ scale. They’re measured in accordance with the Richter scale for earthquakes. Judging by the exchange above, I’d say combined their IQ’s may reach a 5.0…no great shakes.

Picture7_L
Originally uploaded by elvenstar522.

15 January 2005
This image was returned yesterday, 14 January 2005, by ESA’s Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. This is the coloured view, following processing to add reflection spectra data, gives a better indication of the actual colour of the surface. Initially thought to be rocks or ice blocks, they are more pebble-sized. The two rock-like objects just below the middle of the image are about 15 centimetres (left) and 4 centimetres (centre) across respectively, at a distance of about 85 centimetres from Huygens. The surface is darker than originally expected, consisting of a mixture of water and hydrocarbon ice. There is also evidence of erosion at the base of these objects, indicating possible fluvial activity.

Credits: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona

(From European Space Agency)

The camera aboard Huygens is so good it’s making those rocks appear much larger than they actually are. Other pictures reveal an awe inspiring landscape including islands in a sea of methane with a mist shrouded horizon. The “fluvial activity” is most intruiging. Is it the result of liquid methane or liquid nitrogen running over the rocks? Or could it be possible that at some disant point in Titan’s past, liquid water flowed?

Un.Be.Lievable.

BRAVE NEW WORLD
Originally uploaded by alpenstock.

You’re looking at the first picture sent back from the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan taken by the Huygens Lander earlier today.

WOW!

After nearly 25 years of work, European scientists are ecstatic over the engineering and scientific success of the probe. It performed flawlessly earlier today as its parachute opened and allowed the craft to gently drift down through the thick atmosphere of the only moon in the solar sytsem known to have one.

Taking nearly 2 hours to float to the surface, first reports show that the telemetry from Huygens was successfully downloaded onto its mother ship, the Cassini, which is currently orbiting Saturn. What’s truly remarkable is that the batteries powering the little Lander evidently have outperformed even the most optimistic projections as scientists will have nearly two hours of data from the surface of Titan itself. This is far beyond the 10 or 15 minutes of power most scientists had expected. This also means that over the coming days, we’ll see even more spectacular pictures from the surface of Titan.

The primary mission of Huygens was to gather information about Titan’s atmosphere by collecting data on its long, gentle descent. Any images or data gotten from the surface of the frigid moon would be a bonus. Huygens, apparently has hit the jackpot.

Not only is Titan important because it has an atmosphere, but also that atmosphere may reflect (in a deep freeze sort of way) what the earth’s atmosphere was like in the very beginning. Titan’s atmosphere is largely nitrogen with a bit of methane. It’s so cold however, that it’s probable that there are oceans of liquid nitrogen as well as liquid methane. Pictures taken during the descent show possible channels carved into the moons surface suggesting that some kind of liquid flowed or is flowing on its surface.

Trying to get any of these pictures by accessing either NASA.gov or Space.com was a chore. There must be millions of people as curious as I am about what the surface of this strange place looks like.

UPDATE:

Here’s a link to the story at Space.com. Be prepared for very long page loads as they must really be getting slammed. I gave up trying to get any text from NASA.

Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court William Rehnquist is sicker than anyone has imagined according to this article by Vincent Morris in today’s New York Post:

The longtime chief justice hasn’t been seen in public in several months and it was clear to me why.

Rehnquist was hunched over in his wheelchair, an old hunting cap pulled down low over his ears to cover up his blotchy skin and near baldness, possibly the result of the aggressive treatment he’s getting for his thyroid cancer.

His eyes looked sunken and lifeless. A plastic collar was wrapped tightly around his neck, where his throat had been opened recently for a tracheotomy.

I tried to make eye contact and wanted to offer a word of encouragement. Our eyes never met.

The Chief has been at the center of some enormous controversies over his tenure both as Chief Justice and Associate Justice since Richard Nixon appointed him in 1972. At that time, he was considered something of a fringe figure, far out on the right wing. Since then, of course, history has proven Nixon to be something of a prophet as both the courts and the country have moved Rehnquist into the mainstream. This from Jeffrey Toobin, liberal commentator for CNN on legal affairs:

The issue he is most identified with among people who follow the court is the power of the states versus the federal government.

He is someone who believes that the federal government should be limited and the states should have greater power. But on a lot of issues, the country has come around somewhat to his thinking, but not entirely.

Prior to Rehnquist’s ascendancy, both the Warren Court of the 50’s and 60’s and the Burger Court of the early 70’s sought to radically expand not only the role, but the influence of the federal government in matters previously thought to be the province of state legislatures.

Rehnquist has participated in some of the most important Supreme Court decisions in history. Appointed to the Chief Justice’s slot in 1986 by Ronald Reagan, Rehnquist’s tenure has been marked by controversial decisions involving the partial rollback of Affirmative Action, restricting abortion rights, weakening Miranda law that some have credited with drastically reducing crime, as well as presiding over the historic impeachment trial of President Clinton.

Rehnquist is obviously very sick. He’s attended only one session of the court this term and, from what Mr. Morris has seen, is extremely weak and fragile. But Mr. Rehnquist has one more duty to perform; the swearing in of President Bush on January 20th.

Given all that Mr. Rehnquist has accomplished, I believe he deserves this last moment in the sun. Liberals will do all they can to besmirch his record, his legacy, and predictably his integrity. It will be left to historians to judge how successful the Chief was in keeping the forces of socialism at bay and preserving the freedom of generations to come.