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WWPD (What Would Patton Do)?

Posted by Far_view on Monday, July 23, 2007 9:18:07 PM
I heard this on the Mark Levin show... Awesome! Too bad Patton isn't still around. I bet this wouldn't be too far off the mark from what he would say.
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Opportunity in peril

Posted by Far_view on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 9:19:58 PM
Mars is in the midst of a dust storm and it is worse over the Meridiani Planum site where the Opportunity rover is located than at Gusev Crater where the Spirit rover is located.  So this is really bad news for the rovers and especially for Opportunity.  The atmospheric opacity is so high that very little solar energy is reaching the rover's solar panels and without that energy, the rovers won't be able to keep going.  We are all holding our breath hoping for the weather to improve.  At this point all we can do is hope and pray for that to happen.
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Victor Hanson on the Bizarro world of Middle East politics

Posted by Far_view on Thursday, July 12, 2007 2:04:14 PM
Victor Davis Hanson has a good opinion piece here on the upside-down politics in the Middle East and why western liberals are so willing to give a pass to thugs and criminals such as Hamas.
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great article in July issue of Discover magazine on global warming

Posted by Far_view on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 2:09:16 PM
There is a great article in the July 2007 issue of Discover magazine (0n newstands now!) about global warming. It is currently on-line here. It is an interview with Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark and the research that he has done on how solar activity influences the amount of cosmic rays received at the Earth's surface and how that in turn affects the global average of cloud cover. During periods of high solar activity, such as that which we are undergoing now (according to the article, the highest level of solar activity in the past 1000 years) there will be fewer clouds and hence a warmer Earth. No human induced CO2 activity needed! The interview is also interesting in that it goes into a little bit how Svensmark has been castigated by some of his peers because his research goes against the conventional orthodoxy.
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National self-loathing at the BBC

Posted by Far_view on Sunday, June 17, 2007 9:12:02 AM
Boy, it is no wonder that England has muslim 20-somethings who hate their country enough to blow themselves up- the BBC is telling them to hate their country!  I watch the BBC show HEX on the BBC America satellite channel.  Last night they were having ads for a TV movie- "The Trial of Tony Blair".  Can you believe it?  One of the few politicians in that country with the guts to stand up to islamic terror and for doing that they hate him so much that they make a movie where a fictional Tony Blair in 2010 is on trial for his "crimes" with regards to the Iraq war.  If those people don't realize soon who the real enemy is then England in 20 years will look like Lebanon today.
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There is some justice in the world after all

Posted by Far_view on Saturday, June 16, 2007 6:03:17 PM
I see that the detestable Mike Nifong has been disbarred. The guy should really be in jail for how he ruined the lives of those Duke Lacrosse players. Hey! Has Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton apologized for all their rhetoric at the time that all that went down? I didn't think so...
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Boost in power for the Spirit rover!

Posted by Far_view on Thursday, June 14, 2007 7:58:53 AM
Apparently the Spirit rover at Gusev Crater has had its solar panels swept clean by the wind- resulting in a boost in power for the rover.  Over 1220 Martian days of operation and still going strong!
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Oh no! Not the Law of the Sea Treaty again!

Posted by Far_view on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 12:21:35 PM
I was surprised and saddened to see that the Bush Administration is actually urging the adoption of the abominable, socialist Law of the Sea Treaty. Andrew McCarthy discusses it here. This treaty can not be allowed to go into force.
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How many times can Tim Russert beat a dead horse?

Posted by Far_view on Sunday, June 10, 2007 10:49:06 PM
I watched and listened to parts of "Meet the Press" this morning with Tim Russert interviewing Colin Powell and going over, for the umpteenth time, the decisions leading up to the Iraq war.  How many times can Tim Russert beat a dead horse?  OK Tim.  We didn't find WMD there.  How many times can he cover that territory?  And would it kill Powell to actually point out that WMD might have been moved to Syria?  I guess that would ruin his next appearance at his next cocktail party.  He definitely fired up his cocktail party cred by dumping on Guantanamo Bay.  That was outrageous.  We bend over backwards to give the human debris down there culturally appropriate meals and prayer rugs and korans and there is Colin Powell promoting this canard about "torture".  Unbelievable.
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A good opinion piece on Space in USA Today

Posted by Far_view on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 11:27:37 PM
Former Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, has a good piece in USA Today (online here) on the "new space race".
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An Outrage

Posted by Far_view on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 10:38:16 PM
   My jaw just about hit the floor when I heard that a judge had sentenced Scooter Libby to 30 months in prison.  For what???  For having a bad memory in a case where no crime was even committed?  If anyone should be investigated and prosecuted for outrageous conduct it is that pompous Patrick Fitzgerald.  Apparently that guy knew very early on that it was Richard Armitage who had leaked Valerie Plame's CIA association.  As soon as he found that out he should have either charged Armitage (which he couldn't, since no crime was committed) or shut down the investigation.  Everything beyond that point was a huge waste of taxpayer money. 

  Bush should pardon Libby immediately.  I doubt if he will though.  He doesn't seem to have the guts to do it.
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Yeesh! You'd think Mike Griffin had killed someone!

Posted by Far_view on Friday, June 01, 2007 11:05:20 AM
I'm at a meeting out here in Pasadena and some of my colleagues were talking about an interview that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin had done on NPR (link here). They were talking about it kind of in the terms that you might hear a neighbor talk about another neighbor ("Did you hear that Raymond is beating his wife!"). I knew that he said something about global warming, but when I finally saw what it was, I couldn't believe that my colleagues were getting so spun up about it. Frankly, I agree with Griffin. Accept that he lends more credence to the idea that it is human-induced than I would. Anyone with any knowledge of the recent geologic past should know that climate has varied considerably and it is ridiculous to think that it will always be the same as it has been in the last few generations.
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the last bastion of freedom

Posted by Far_view on Thursday, May 24, 2007 8:44:45 AM
I have always been opposed to seat belt laws. I don't think the government has any right to tell me that I have to wear a seat belt. The heavy hand of the federal government has forced all the states to pass mandatory seat belt laws. All the states that is but one- New Hampshire. I just saw this story that New Hampshire is still holding out... good for them! They are the last bastion of freedom in this country- on this issue at least.
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the ultimate Colorado bumper sticker

Posted by Far_view on Sunday, May 13, 2007 4:18:16 PM
I just saw the ultimate bumper sticker for those of us who live or work in Boulder County, Colorado. The bumper sticker said:

"Nevermind Tibet. Free Boulder County."

That is awesome!!!!
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Virtual Earth

Posted by Far_view on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 5:15:48 PM
I've been down in Tampa, FL for the annual ASPRS (American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) meeting.  For several years I have been co-instructor of a one day workshop on hyperspectral remote sensing and GIS feature extraction.  I was around for the first part of the formal conference today and one of the keynote speakers was from Microsoft's "Virtual Earth" project.  It is a pretty ambitious project.  They are collecting 15 cm / pixel multispectral (I presume just three or four band) data over major cities and doing photogrammetry to get topography and also doing "drive-by" imaging for ground scale views.  The goal is to have kind of a mix between Google's Google Earth and mapquest where you can zoom into a city and get a 3-D model of the city... pretty amazing stuff.
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