Genocide from ISIS
More peace from the religion of peace: The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) is exterminating the entire population of religious Yezidis.
Year: 2014
Rosetta arrives
Rosetta has successfully achieved orbit around Comet 67P/C-G and has transmitted its first close up images. More information here and here about the rendezvous and what science the mission scientists plan to do as they orbit the comet.
The image below is looking down and past the comet’s smaller component as it casts a shadow on the neck and the larger component beyond. As with the earlier images, the comet’s pitted and corroded surface, lacking any obvious craters, is reminiscent to me of a pile of dirty snow that has been dissolving away. In fact, when I lived in New York I would see this kind of look every winter. When the city would get a big snowfall snowplows would push it into large mounds on the side of the road. As time passed these piles would get dirty from the city’s soot and grime, and also slowly melt away. After several weeks it would look almost exactly like the surface of Comet 67P/C-G.
The images and data that will come down from Rosetta over the next year and half as it orbits the comet in its journey around the Sun will be most fascinating. Stay tuned!
The VA pattern of lies
Let me count the ways: VA officials have lied to Congress repeatedly in connection with multiple different investigations in a variety of different states and administrations.
The most egregious example for was the last item of the story above, where VA officials repeatedly told Congress that the employees who had falsified records to cover up long patient wait times had been fired, when in truth no one had been fired at all.
As I like to say, the VA is a perfect example of what government healthcare will be like. And it is coming soon to a hospital and doctor near you!
An Hamas officer, captured by Israel, admits he led the kidnapping and murder operation of three Israeli teenagers
Israel has captured the man who was in charge of the operation that kidnapped and then murdered three Israeli teenagers, who also admits that (surprise!) he is a squad commander for Hamas in Gaza.
So, let’s get this straight. Hamas organizes the killing of Israeli children. Hamas launches rockets from schools so that Arab children are endangered. Hamas also prevents Gaza citizens and their families from seeking safety during war. And Hamas also calls for the genocide of all Jews, women and children included.
But Israel is the one condemned for committing war crimes? As Thomas Sowell recently noted, “In an age when scientists are creating artificial intelligence, too many of our educational institutions seem to be creating artificial stupidity.”
Even the most superficial but honest observer of the Gaza War would have conclude that Hamas is just one step removed from a child abuser. And since when do we as civilized people lend aid and comfort to child abusers?
Hayley Westenra – Pie Jesu
An evening pause: Performed when she was fifteen years old. Hat tip Danae for finding me this amazing singer.
The lingering weak solar maximum
On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in July. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations to give it context.
For the first time in four months the decline in sunspots ceased, though the sunspot count hardly rose either. Instead the numbers stayed almost the same in July as they were in June. This was during a month that began with lots of sunspots, and yet saw the first blank sun in almost three years. In fact, the Sun’s activity in July was a roller coaster, as noted by the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC) of the Royal Observatory of Belgium.
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Ten very unusual libraries.
The link is here.
Obamacare poll numbers crash
Finding out what’s in it: New polls show that the more the public becomes familiar with Obamacare, the more they hate it.
Hey, what’s not to like? Obamacare gives you higher premiums, less availability of doctors, less insurance coverage, more bureaucracy, more paperwork, and — best of all! — increased government interference in your life.
British medical journal bans Israelis
Modern debate: The British medical journal, The Lancet, has banned Israeli academics from responding to any anti-Israeli papers that it publishes.
You’d think these Israelis were skeptics of climate change or something.
More about the Lancet’s antisemitic attack here.
Religion banned in shopping mall
Fascism in America: A shopping mall in Georgia has outlawed all prayer, even for those about to eat in their food court.
Eta Carinae’s next big show
Astronomers are gearing up to observe the next binary fly-by of Eta Carinae’s companion star over the next few weeks.
A binary system, Ξ· Carinae has two stars that swing past one another every 5.5 years. The bigger star β some 90 times the mass of the Sun β is incredibly unstable, always seemingly on the verge of blowing up. When the smaller companion star makes its closest approach to the primary star, as is happening now, the interaction between the two triggers violent changes in the high-energy radiation pouring out of the system.
Astronomers are watching the show in the hope of learning what drives this enigmatic system. In the 1840s, Ξ· Carinae had a mysterious eruption; in recent decades, it has again brightened unexpectedly. βThe star is in an awfully deranged state, and no one knows why,β says Kris Davidson, an astronomer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Eta Carinae is also famous because it was one of the first objects imaged by Hubble after its repair in 1993, and was thus the first stellar explosion ever caught on camera in a visually sharp and clear manner. (See my book The Universe in a Mirror for that fascinating story.)
How does Comet 67P compare with other comets?
A quick preliminary comparison of the surface features of Comet 67P/C-G, compared to other comets that spacecraft have visited.