Scientists Puzzled by Titan

Spacecraft Cassini has sent more detailed pictures of the Saturnian moon Titan back to earth, much to the delight, and puzzlement of scientists.

According to the leader of the imaging team at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, Dr. Carolyn Porco:

We are seeing features and patterns on the surface, and there are processes creating these patterns, and that gives us something to chew on for a while. We can’t figure out what the features are, but they are intriguing. This is an environment we have never seen before. It is a very different place and it will take some time to unravel and piece it all together.

New Kodak DX7590 Gets Good Review

I own the sister model, the Kodak DX6490, and I have found this to be a wonderful camera, with lots of useful features. It is very easy to use, and you can see some of the pictures it has taken by browsing through Paige’s Page.

The newer model, the 5 megapixel Kodak DX7590 (shown at right), just released by Kodak, gets a positive review from Imaging Resource. The review itself is voluminous, however, here is their conclusion: “Kodak’s EasyShare digital cameras are consistently among the easiest to use of any I test, and the DX7590 certainly holds true to form. Its fully automatic exposure control performs very well under a variety of conditions, and the range of manual exposure controls extend the camera’s capabilities nicely. A wide range of preset scene modes help with special shooting conditions, while the Custom mode is handy for saving a set of frequently-used exposure settings.”

Paige’s Page Enthusiastically Endorses...

For President, we enthusiastically endorse John F. Kerry.

We believe that John Kerry has the right mix of policies and vision to take this country and move it in a better direction. We have applauded here in this blog his positions on jobs, health care, taxation and many other issues as being positions that will make America a better place. But don't take my word for what Kerry’s policies are (and certainly don’t take the Republican’s word on what Kerry’s policies are), read Kerry’s own words on his policies.

John Kerry volunteered for service in Vietnam and served admirably. Kerry has taken stands throughout his career that have been unpopular in some cases, but eventually Kerry wound up prevailing and making America a better place. Kerry testified against the Vietnam war, bringing the horrors of the war into the public debate and consciousness. Kerry attacked the Iran-Contra scandal, bringing him the disdain of the Reaganites, but it was the right thing for him to do. He dug into the BCCI scandal, despite the wishes of the first Bush administration and even his own party, eventually exposing this scandal and drying up a major source of funds for the terrorists. This is a record that Americans can be proud of. It is a record that bodes well for soon-to-be President Kerry.

In addition, we believe that President Bush has done nothing to merit another four years in office. In fact, we believe that he has adopted policies that are abhorrent and take this country down a divisive road. We believe that virtually every thing President Bush has done in office has been just plain wrong, migsuided or stupid. His biggest failure was to lead us into an unnecessary war with Iraq, resulting in over 1,000 Americans dead, many more thousands wounded, over $150 Billion dollars spent (with many more billions still to be spent), when there was no reason for such a war. Imagine how those billions could have better been spent. There are at least 100 good reasons to be opposed to President Bush.

Catholic Group Condemns Bush

From TalkLeft:

Catholics for Political Responsibility (CPR) has launched radio ads on 45 stations in Ohio,Wisconsin, Colorado, West Virginia and New Hampshire, condemning President Bush for his“failure of moral leadership.” The ads cite “mounting casualties in Iraq, the torture and rendition of detainees, the growing number of families in poverty and rising abortion rates.”

“I voted for Bush in 2000 because of my pro-life values but I am heartily sorry now. On war, health care, poverty and abortion, he has failed to promote the culture of life when it counts,” said Sidney Callahan, award-winning Catholic writer and CPR Co- chair.

… This group of prominent theologians, clergy, and laypeople bares witness to the moral failures of the Bush administration, the Catholic values of service and stewardship lived by John Kerry, and the obligation of Faithful Citizenship to have an informed conscience on all Catholic teaching.

Here is the text of two of the ads:

Ad No. 1: Moral Failure

I am Sidney Callahan, a wife, mother of six and a Catholic writer on moral theology. I voted for Bush in 2000 because of my pro-life values but I am heartily sorry now.

President Bush has failed to live up to his moral promises. He led us into a reckless and unjust war condemned by the Pope and other religious leaders. The violence has cost us 20,000 lives and brought the deep shame of torturing prisoners.

At home tax breaks for the wealthy increase the gap between poor and rich. Families struggle without health insurance. No wonder abortion rates are tragically rising again, after falling 18 percent in the 90's. George Bush talks a lot about his religious values but he is not choosing life when it counts.

Ad No. 2: BROKEN PROMISES

President Bush, as pro-life Catholics, we made a deal with you. You were on the wrong side of most Catholic teaching, but you were with us on abortion, and that mattered.

You marched us into an unjust war, against the appeals of the Pope and your own Methodist Bishops. The number of children in poverty rose and 5 million people lost health insurance.

You’ve controlled the White House and Congress for four years, but what have you delivered for the culture of life?

Now abortion rates are rising steadily, after falling 18 percent in the 90’s. That makes sense, more women lack the health insurance or economic security that help them choose life.

Mr. President, we waited for your moral leadership — it never came. You’ve disappointed us on all life issues — war, poverty, health care … and abortion. That wasn’t the deal we made.

Explosives at Al Qaqaa

Josh Marshall explains how the Bush administration is continually changing their explanation in an attempt to avoid looking culpable, hoping that people will miss the bigger picture, that there was a lot of stuff that should have been secured by the US military, and was not. The reasons the military did not secure this material are that they were undermanned and under-informed. Former NATO commander Wesley Clark, who knows a few things about military matters, chimes in with a few comments as well.

And — case closed! — KSTP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) has pictures of the explosives and pictures of the IAEA seals, taken by an embedded reporter when the US Military first arrived on the scene.

Fafblog explains the Lunar Eclipse

Did you catch the lunar eclipse yesterday? What does it mean?

Fafblog, in its inimitable manner, explains the omens and portents of a lunar eclipse. Warning: You might wind up LOL when you read this. When you are done reading it, explain it to me, okay?

“Hobbit Sized People”

When I first saw this report — “Scientists Find Ancient Hobbit-Sized People” — on ABC News, I thought it was a hoax. However, on an isolated Indonesian island, scientists have found remnants of seven individuals who are from a species of three-foot tall hominids who lived 18,000 years ago. These skeletons represent an entire species of miniature people whose existence overlapped with that of modern Homo sapiens.

Update: Carl Zimmer at The Loom describes the importance of this find.

Happy Centennial!

The New York City Subway system rolls on today, on the 100th anniversary of its opening. Congratulations! I wish I could be there.

For details about the history of the subway system, see the comprehensive website nycsubway.org.

Scientists Find Xanadu

Xanadu! No — not the movie starring Olivia Newton-John. Xanadu, discovered recently on the Saturnian moon of Titan by the spacecraft Cassini, appears to be a continent-like area, surprisingly white in photographs, that so far has mystified scientists. Dress warm if you travel there.

Fall Foliage along the Genesee River

Upside Down Donkey

Apropos of nothing, other than I happened to witness this yesterday whilst driving amid the lovely fall foliage here:

Maggots!

The FDA, after recently approving leeches for medical use, now approves the use of maggots for “... debriding non-healing necrotic skin and soft tissue wounds, including pressure ulcers, venous stasis ulcers, neuropathic foot ulcers, and non-healing traumatic or post surgical wounds.” I think I might hurl. (Link via Improbable Research)

By the way, if you want to learn more about these lovable little critters, see Mark Benecke’s webpage.

Get Out And Vote!

Here’s a web site that helps you find your polling place. It claims to be non-partisan, and it certainly is free. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy, it did find my polling place properly after a few simple clicks, I got routed to my county Board of Elections webpage, which then did indeed display my correct polling place after I enetered my address. Get out and vote!

Links, We’ve Got Links

President Bush cuts funds for first resonders, fire fighter assistance, homeland security block grants and urban search and rescue grants.

John Kerry claims we missed a chance to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora because we outsourced (mismanaged) the job. Dick Cheney calls this “absolute garbage”. However, way back in April of 2002, the Washington Post wrote: “U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight” and placed the blame on military commanders who allowed the Afghan Northern Alliance to do the fighting instead of American military. (Link the Left Coaster via Talking Points Memo).

Abu Aardvark offers a simple way to decide who to vote for in the upcoming election.

The New York Times reports: “Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.”

What took them so long?

Kos asks this very pertinent question, when, 37 months after 9/11, the United States has finally begun conducting background checks on all foreigners seeking to attend U.S. flight schools.

Christopher Reeve

A co-worker told me a story. He received an e-mail from his brother, who was happy that Christopher Reeve had died, because that would be one less person to vote for John Kerry. Is that what some people think about politics these days? It’s okay to be happy that someone has died, simply because of who he would have voted for? That belief, if true, is truly disgusting.

Moose hoisted 50ft into the air

Workers constructing power lines in Alaska accidentally strung a moose 50 feet up in the air.

The workers were putting up overhead power lines to the Teko Pogo goldmine, reports the Fairbanks Daily News. The wires were close to the ground when the curious 1200lb bull moose got his antlers caught. Workers further down the line couldn't see the entangled animal when they pulled the wires tight, hoisting the moose up into the air. They only found the moose when they backtracked after finding the line hard to pull with their hydraulic winch.

National Priorities

Quoted entirely from Bradford Plumer’s blog:

Over the past few weeks The Detroit News has done a great job of sketching out the consequences of our budget priorities over the last four years.

First, the supply side round-up: The Bush tax cuts have benefited the wealthy. The estate tax repeal has benefited the wealthy. Tax cuts to help stockholders increase their earnings have benefited the wealthy. Tax cuts for horse owners (really!) have benefited the wealthy.

So some people have made out quite well. Now, on the other side of the ledger: Federally subsidized child care has been slashed, leaving many families unable to lift themselves out of poverty. Meals on Wheels is no longer rolling. Programs to help low-income families heat their homes have dried up. Public housing programs have dried up. Families, seniors, and disabled people need to wait years to qualify for Section 8 rent assistance. Programs to police public housing have been eliminated, fanning the rise of crime in low-income neighborhoods. A job creation program for low-income seniors is being hacked up. And dwindling financial aid means that students can no longer afford to go to public universities.

Fall Foliage in Western New York

Picture taken in Rush, New York.

Bush vs. Saddam, 2000 Style

Guess which presidential candidate in the 2000 presidential election talked several times of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Guess which candidate even threatened to go after Hussein if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Chris Bowers at myDD has done the research and found that then Governor Bush brought up the issue of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction numerous times during the campaign. Bowers quotes Bush several times on this issue. Here’s one such quote from Bush, from a presidential debate with Al Gore:

The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it’s unraveling, let’s put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don’t know whether he’s developing weapons of mass destruction. He’d better not be or there’s going to be a consequence, should I be the president.

Remember, this was eleven months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Al Qaeda, not Iraq. I wonder if W stands for “Warmonger”, as many others have suggested.

Fox’s Diamond Cam

Fox has developed a new camera angle from which to show baseball plays — its a little camera, apparently placed in the dirt near home plate, from which we can look up at the batter and watch him swing.

As a long-time baseball fan, I have to say that I absolutely hate this camera angle. Fox Sports, please don’t use it any more. It adds nothing of value, unless you think looking up into the batter’s nostils is a valuable addition.

You see, the old centerfield shot of the batter is a very useful view. We get to see the entire pitch on its trajectory to home plate. We get to see the batter’s reactions, and we get to see where, approximately, the ball was in relation to the strike zone. But the Fox Diamond Cam shows us none of that. We can’t see the pitch until it reaches home, we can’t judge its location, and we don’t really get a good idea of the batter reactions, since normally batters begin reacting before the ball reaches home plate.

I guess Fox Sports wants to develop new camera angles to differentiate themselves from other networks. That’s fine, but please, develop camera angles that work! (And what is this stupid end-zone view of kickoff returns? Whose idiotic idea was that?)

Update (10/17): I am not alone in my disdain for the Fox Diamond Cam. Donnie Johnston of the Fredricksburg (Va) Free Lance-Star agrees. Says Johnston: “Come on, guys! Fans don’t want to see the game from the viewpoint of a gopher!” Jim Ingraham of the News-Herald opines: “Overrated — Fox’s Diamond Cam, or whatever that dirt-level, dirt-poor camera in front of home plate is called. It adds absolutely zero to the broadcast and smacks of nothing more than ‘hey, look what we can do-ism’ among Fox technogeeks. Underrated — The center field camera. Still by far the best camera angle in the game, and it’s so valuable in clearly showing the catcher’s signs, where he sets up, whether the pitch is a strike or a ball and how the hitter reacts…”

Horrible News From Iraq

No, not the 10 US sevicemen dead in the last two days, that’s horrible, but not what I’m referring to. Nor am I referring to the 1,000+ US servicemen dead since the invasion began. That’s horrible, but not what I’m referring to. Nor am I referring to the thousands of American servicemen injured, the thousands of Iraqis killed, nor the recent bombings in the Green Zone.

I’m referring to a story today in which a platoon of Army reservists who refused to go on what they thought was a suicidal mission, delivering fuel in extremely unsafe vehicles. Now the entire platoon has been arrested and could face court-martial and jail time. Since we have spent about $150 billion so far in Iraq, couldn’t we get these men properly armored and maintained vehicles?

Suppress The Vote?

Kos details activities (here, here and here) in many, many states in which it appears that there are attempts to suppress or destroy voter registrations. And guess who is funding a lot of this? The Republican National Committee, that’s who. Isn’t democracy wonderful? And I’m guessing, we will have to deal with this in every election from now until the end of time.

Shocking

Bill O’Reilly, one of the apparent bastions of “values” that conservatives like to quote so often, has his values displayed in a sexual harrassment suit filed by a female Fox News producer. Read all the lurid details, especially O’Reilly’s Caribbean Shower Fantasy! Keep that in mind the next time O’Reilly blathers on about values. (Link via Political Animal)

Tonight’s Presidential Debate

Paul Krugman checks the facts, in advance!

Hilary To Keep Her Squeaky Clean Image

We have speculated here a few times about whether Hilary Duff will wind up as another sexed up pop-star, like Britney Spears, or as a Disney-style performer, with a squeaky clean image. The New York Times today reports that Hilary still wants to keep her girl-next door image. And we applaud her for that. These days, that’s a somewhat rare path to take and yet remain a star. But so far, that path seems to be working for Hilary. She is a huge star, with two movies released so far this year, and her second CD has just been released. Despite lukewarm reviews, those movies and that CD will no likely sell big to the target audience (her CD was ranked #6 this week). But Hilary doesn’t mind, she says “The 50-year-old person that’s writing the review is not who is meant to see my movie.”

Then, there’s Hilary’s passion for pickles. One of her friends has taken to calling Hilary “Pickle”. I thought you would like to know that.

Watch Out Down Under

Hilary Duff will go on a shopping spree when she arrives in Sydney, Australia for her latest concert tour. She says she will hit the shops instead of traditional pursuits like a Harbour Bridge climb. Hilary adds: “I am a girl. I don’t think that I need anything and I don’t think that I am looking for something in particular, but I always find stuff I need.” Hilary always makes deep statements like this.

But hey, I’ve written enough about politics and I just wanted to post another picture of Hilary. You got a problem with that?

Light Blogging and Other Stuff

This may be a light blogging week here at Paige’s Page, due to back and shoulder problems. Please feel free to read the many fine blogs in my blogroll. Allow me to recommend The People’s Republic of Seabrook. Jack, the commander-in-chief over at Seabrook, goes on a rant today, which is pretty much how I feel too.

Today will be a politics-free day. I’m tired of it, and I need a break from the lunacy.

The usual rants and full-blown Left-wing partisanship will likely resume tomorrow. Or not. It just depends on what kind of mood I’m in. For now, I’m feeling the need to write about something outside of politics. To those of you who come to TPRS for your daily fix of truth, justice, and Progressive politics, I offer my humble apologies. I would submit however, that one less Liberal pissing into the wind is hardly a tragedy. For one day at least, I’ll spare myself the inevitable result…I end up getting wet and smelling badly.

Sage Newsreader for Firefox

Of course you’re now using Firefox as your browser. But now I want to introduce you to a new way to read blogs inside Firefox. It’s called the Sage Newsreader and I’ve posted a screenshot below. In the top left panel is a list of all the blogs I read regularly. On the bottom left are the list of recent articles from the selected blog. And in the main panel, you can see all of the recent entries and read the beginning of each article and click on the title if you want to read more.

By the way, I think the Theme shown above for Firefox, named Noia Exteme, is one of the nicest themes I have ever used in a browser.

Some Interesting Conversions

For those of you who have a little trouble converting things measured in one set of units to another, take a look at this humorous help guide. Some of my favorites:

1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope
Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram
Half of a large intestine = 1 semicolon
2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds

The Anti I-Pod

Today, I became the proud owner of an MP3 player, the Dell Digital Jukebox 20. I looked at several models, and consulted an expert, my sister, who has an Apple I-Pod. She doesn’t like it, because the hard drive inside it keeps losing her music. In addition, the Dell Digital Jukebox has received some very good reviews.

Here are my impressions of the Dell Digital Jukebox 20. First, the things I like:

• Huge capacity to hold music, I have nearly 3000 songs loaded onto it, and that uses about half of the capacity.
• Easy to use interface. I figured it out in about 3 nanoseconds.
• Cheaper than the Apple I-Pod — at least, when Dell chooses to sell it at a discounted price — plus no sales tax and often free shipping from Dell.
• Claimed 20 hour battery life — I listen to it all day at work plus on the drive to work and on the drive home, so that’s about 8 hours of listening some days and I still have plenty of battery life left according to the battery life indicator.
• Very nice carrying case, including a belt clip.

Here are some things I didn’t like so much:

• The software that comes with the device is rather limited. For one thing, if you have two songs with the same title, the software wants you to rename the second such song, or skip it , or overwrite the first. And if you choose rename, the software then has a bug that renames lots of songs with that same new name. But for $25 you can purchase a very complete piece of third-party software called Dudebox. I really think that Dell should provide complete functionality in the software they provide, but Dudebox has been fantastic.
• The ear-bud style headphones that came with the Digital Jukebox are the worst sounding tinny headphones I have.

Finally, this would be true of any MP3 player — it is a lot of work to organize all of your music and download it to the player. It helps to provide tags — the name of the artist and song title and optional other information — that may or may not be present in your music. I have spent a huge amount of time cleaning up this information, correcting misspellings and other errors, and Dudebox has made this rather easy — if I had to do it with the software that Dell provided, I don’t think I would have bothered.

All in all, I am happy with this purchase, despite the drawbacks mentioned above. So, thus far, I give it a thumbs up.

Flu Shots

It seems as if our supply of flu shots has dried up. Now authorities are advising citizens who are not at high risk of catching the flu to not get the shots, so that there will be enough for the high risk group. All of which is very unfortunate.

And now I feel especially guilty. The first day flu shots were available, I lined up for one, and got one in my left arm. A few days later, the announcement was made that the supply of flu shots has dried up. I know that I didn’t do anything wrong, still I can’t help but wondering if my flu shot will cause someone else to catch the flu and perhaps even die. Yikes!

Cheney’s “Facts”

Kevin Drum at Political Animal has some comparisons of what Dick Cheney said in his debate against John Edwards last night, and what the facts actually are.

Ezra Klein at Pandagon also has some facts that don’t match Cheney’s statements.

Those Aluminum Tubes

The New York Times writes:

The tubes-for-bombs theory was the creation of a low-level C.I.A. analyst who got his facts, even the size of the tubes, wrong. It was refuted within 24 hours by the Energy Department, which issued three papers debunking the idea over a four-month period in 2001, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency. A week before Mr. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, in which he warned of an Iraqi nuclear menace, international experts in Vienna had dismissed the C.I.A.’s theory about the tubes. The day before, the International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program and rejected the tubes’ tale entirely.

It’s shocking that with all this information readily available, Secretary of State Colin Powell still went before the United Nations to repeat the bogus claims, an appearance that gravely damaged his reputation. It’s even more disturbing that Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, had not only failed to keep the president from misleading the American people, but had also become the chief proponents of the “mushroom cloud” rhetoric.

Ms. Rice had access to all the reports debunking the tubes theory when she first talked about it publicly in September 2002. Yet last Sunday, Ms. Rice said that while she had been aware of a “dispute” about the tubes, she had not specifically known what it was about until after she had told the world that Saddam was building the bomb.

Ms. Rice’s spokesman, Sean McCormack, said it was not her job to question intelligence reports or “to referee disputes in the intelligence community.” But even with that curious job disclaimer, it’s no comfort to think that the national security adviser wouldn't have bothered to inform herself about such a major issue before speaking publicly. The national security adviser has no more important responsibility than making sure that the president gets the best advice on life-and-death issues like the war.

If Ms. Rice did her job and told Mr. Bush how ludicrous the case was for an Iraqi nuclear program, then Mr. Bush terribly misled the public. If not, she should have resigned for allowing her boss to start a war on the basis of bad information and an incompetent analysis.

What were you doing, Ms. Rice, if finding out the details of this extremely important issue was not on your priority list? Let me see if your picture is here in the dictionary next to “incompetent”? Maybe I should look for your picture under “L”.

Some Important Links

Read how the Republican party has hijacked the legislative process. More and more, legislation is passed without a chance for modification, debate, or even for the Congressmen to fully read the legislation. That and other horrors courtesy of The Boston Globe.

Former US Administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, says that we never had enough troops on the ground to do the job. Whose fault was that, Mr. Bush?

Condoleeza Rice, the National Security Advisor, admits that there was indeed a dispute over what the aluminum tubes found in Iraq could be used for, but that she never learned the details (she was only vaguely aware) and never informed the President. Most of the intelligence community felt that the tubes were useful for rocket launchers but not nuclear weapons. But Rice at the time made statements that the tubes “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs”. Both Colin Powell, in his address to the UN, and by President Bush, used the apparently mistaken conclusion that these were for nuclear weapons, to justify attacking Iraq. Is this any way to run a government? Evidence that is key to an invasion, which has been debated for a year, and Rice, National Security Advisor, never learns the full details of the dispute?

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says there is no hard evidence that links Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda. So why did we invade again? (But later, Rumsfeld says he was “misunderstood”.)

Vibrator closes airport

An adult sex toy sparked a security scare which closed an Australian airport for nearly an hour.

The vibrating object was discovered at Mackay Airport by a security officer who noticed a suspicious package inside a rubbish bin.

Important Security Update for Firefox Available

A security update is now available for the browser Firefox. You are all using Firefox or Mozilla now, aren’t you?

Anyway, to further protect your computer, upgrade Firefox by clicking here and then following the instructions. Takes under a minute. Browse safely! (Link via J-Walk)