Shout out to my friend Tony for sharing a mirth worthy snippet. So silly, so true and so what I needed to shake off oppressive Trump worms –
Monthly Archives: February 2020
Apple Of Your Patriot Eye
Dear Trump-Nation,
Trump is on his third chief of staff, fourth national security advisor, fourth defense secretary, fifth secretary of homeland security, sixth deputy national security advisor and seventh communications director. Would it offend you terribly if I asked how this resonates with you? Not wishing to upset sensibilities of card carrying Trump-nation supporters, is it presumptuous to ask how you rationalize the fore mentioned administration failures?
Understandably, fake news driven witch hunts weigh heavily on your minds. Fervent defense of Trump can’t be easy, I’m sure it takes a toll on your well being. After all, life is tenuous without personal health and safety. Speaking of health, do you know Trump’s administration fired the entire pandemic chain of command in 2018? Fired and never filled the position of global health security expert until yesterday when he named Ken Cuccinelli (regular Fox News contributor and failed Virginia Republican candidate for Governer ) as head of Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force?
Far be it for me to criticize the greatest president in U.S. history, apple of your patriot eye for appointing a Lawyer turned politician to chair the coronavirus task force. A man without a shred of science or medical training whose first challenge played out on Twitter, attempting to access the coronavirus map without success. (See link below)
Defining “news”
Viral Kitty
Despite WHO (World Health Organization) assurance of no existing evidence to suggest pets can be infected with COVID-19, reports out of China illustrate a alarming level of public hysteria. Contrary to WHO’s position, spokesman Li Lanjuan of China’s national health commission said – “If pets go out and have contact with an infected person, they have the chance to get infected. By then, pets need to be isolated. In addition to people, we should be careful with other mammals especially pets.”
Surely I’m not alone in scratching my head over these images. It’s acceptable to serve whole bats and live mouse soup in high end restaurants, but when disease crosses the species barrier it’s time to walk masked kitty on a leash?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10947705/pets-china-makeshift-face-masks-coronavirus/
Pale Blue Dot Revisited
Thirty years ago today, February 14, 1990 – NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 looked back from Saturn to capture the Pale Blue Dot.
In this image from Voyager 1 – acquired on February 14, 1990, from a distance slightly past the orbit of Saturn – Planet Earth is visible as a bright speck within the sunbeam, just right of center. Earth appears softly blue. It occupies less than a single pixel in this image and thus is not fully resolved. Image via NASA.
As Voyager 1 approached Saturn, mission control planned to conserve power by shutting down imaging cameras. Astronomer Carl Sagan had an idea – before shutdown look back at planet Earth. Six billion kilometers across the cosmos Voyager 1 immortalized the Pale Blue Dot.
On this 30th anniversary, every last one of us should take a moment to ponder Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot –
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan
The Day Democracy Died
Shout out to exemplary WordPresser Jill at https://jilldennison.com/2020/02/13/the-founding-fathers-have-their-say/ for bringing this to my attention –
Oh America! Do we laugh, cry, plan your funeral?
Sunday Night Pink Tonic Sing Along
It’s been a tough week. Rather than succumb to ominous implications of Trump’s kangaroo court acquittal or coronavirus headlines, I found musical tonic in Pink’s cover of 4 Non Blondes, What’s Up. Sometimes all it takes to refocus is a Sunday night Pink tonic sing along….
Stratospheric Rarity
Rare polar stratospheric clouds known as nacreous or mother of pearl clouds were captured in timelapse by Adrien Mauduit of Night Lights Films. Stratospheric iridescence requires extreme cold, abundance of high altitude moisture and precisely timed low horizon sunlight striking ice crystals for a moment in time. Ponder stratospheric rarity –
Inouye Sun
Highest resolution images ever taken of the Sun were released January 29, 2020 by astronomers at the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. Inouye, the world’s largest solar telescope sits near the summit of Mount Haleakala on Maui. Construction began in January 2013. The distinguishing feature, a 13 foot primary mirror arrived in August, 2017. This week we have Inouye to thank for expanding solar horizons. A statement from NSF (National Science Foundation) –
“The images show a pattern of turbulent ‘boiling’ plasma that covers the entire sun. The cell-like structures – each about the size of Texas – are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface. That hot solar plasma rises in the bright centers of ‘cells,’ cools, then sinks below the surface in dark lanes in a process known as convection.”
https://www.nso.edu/press-release/inouye-solar-telescope-first-light/
I can’t watch this video without grinning from ear to ear –
Erupting solar plasma drives space weather’s engine. Solar storms impact airlines, GPS, telecommunications and the power grid. To understand solar dynamics, is to understand space weather. High resolution Inouye images are touted as the greatest leap in humanity’s ability to study the Sun since Galileo. Said Thomas Rimmele, Director of Inouye Solar Telescope –
“It’s all about the magnetic field. To unravel the sun’s biggest mysteries, we have to not only be able to clearly see these tiny structures from 93 million miles [150 million km] away but very precisely measure their magnetic field strength and direction near the surface and trace the field as it extends out into the million-degree corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun.”
notestoponder 