Author: Mark Alexander

0 comments

And considering there are no plans to send any more probes to Saturn during my lifetime I’m incredibly lucky to have lived during this mission.

Cassini Completes Final Close Enceladus Flyby

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has begun transmitting data and images from the mission’s final close flyby of Saturn’s active moon Enceladus. Cassini passed Enceladus at a distance of 3,106 miles (4,999 kilometers) on Saturday, Dec. 19, at 9:49 a.m. PST (12:49 p.m. EST).

After revealing Enceladus’ surprising geologic activity in 2005, Cassini made a series of discoveries about the material gushing from warm fractures near its south pole. Scientists announced strong evidence for a regional subsurface sea in 2014, revising their understanding in 2015 to confirm that the moon hosts a global ocean beneath its icy crust.

1 comments

I know it’s a losing proposition, but I was standing in the shower this morning trying to figure out where all this unbridled hate that’s running in the streets of this country has come from. Why now, and most importantly, what do the 25% of eligible voters who actually voted for the asshole and apparently agree with—or at least overlook—the overt racism Trump has vociferously denounced encouraged actually think is going to happen when the man assumes power?

Okay, for the sake of argument let’s assume that Trump gets his magic wall constructed (who is going to build it and exactly how the thing is actually going to get built remains another huge question) and somehow manages to successfully rip countless families apart and deport several million undocumented immigrants to Mexico. Do he or his minions have any idea what that is going to do to the economy? Do they seriously think that many people can be removed from the machinery of commerce without any negative repercussions? Do they even care?

“No, gol-durnit, because all those Mexicans are gonna be gone!”

I believe that not too long ago a group of regressive legislators in some southern hellhole tried to rid their state of all those pesky undocumented laborers and found themselves with millions of acres of cotton (or some agricultural product) rotting in the fields for lack of workers to pick it. Did all their state’s out-of-work white workers line up to take their places?

Of course they didn’t. BECAUSE AMERICANS DON’T WANT TO DO THESE JOBS. If they did there wouldn’t be a market for undocumented workers in the first place!

Who exactly do they think is going to pick their vegetables (or scrub their toilets, or pave their roads or perform the myriad other unskilled labor jobs that are ostensibly performed by non-whites—documented and otherwise—in this country)? Do they think their unemployed cousins, nieces, aunts, brothers, sisters, or other blood relatives are going to flood the employment offices in a rush to clean urinals? Are they willing to stand out there in the soon to be universal hundred plus degree summer heat and lay asphalt? (Because apparently not only are we going to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, but we’re actually going to roll back  existing environmental regulations as well, pretty much assuring that Florida will be completely underwater sooner rather than later—and considering the role that godforsaken state has played in recent elections that might not be such a bad thing.)

Of course they won’t…and they certainly aren’t going to agree to do it for minimum wage (which will probably also be abolished before long, come to think of it). But don’t worry—Trump is going to bring all those manufacturing jobs back to ‘murika!

Get ready for your shiny new iPhone to cost $2000—at least—if Apple is forced to bring their manufacturing back to these shores.

The people who seem to want to “make America great white again,” AKA the low information voters who apparently think the Cheeto-faced Shitgibbon is going to wave a magic wand and make all their lives better don’t really seem to have a clue about the unintended consequences of what Trump’s promises (if they’re even actually fulfilled) will do to their lives, because that would actually involve thinking beyond their blind racism. No, it’s easier to blame their own continued unemployment on the hoards of brown-skinned workers literally flooding across the border (Faux News said so!) instead of—I dunno—actually doing something about improving their skill sets so they are employable in a 21st century economy.

Are they prepared to take on their aging parents’ medical expenses after Medicare is wiped out? Do any of them have financial portfolios (or enough money stuffed in a sock under the mattress) that will provide the bare minimum of subsistence that Social Security would at least provide?

Somehow I seriously doubt that as well.

And who’s going to pay for their medical care after “Obamacare” is repealed?

And since we’re on the subject of rolling back all social progress of the last 80 years, can someone please tell me how preventing gays from marrying (or mixed races for that matter, because while nothing has been said about it I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to hear that’s coming once the easy targets have fallen)—or worse—is going to improve their marriages and their lives? In fact, how is taking away someone else’s rights supposed to increase your own? Just once I’d like to hear one of these troglodytes explain how that happens.

2 comments

I think I need some yard work done.

2 comments

1 comments

0 comments

0 comments

From Wil Wheaton:

It is five in the morning. After a little over four hours of restless sleep, I got out of bed before my tossing and turning woke up Anne. I’m not sleeping much recently, and what sleep I do get is plagued by nightmares.

It’s been raining all night, which I realize isn’t something worth mentioning for most people, but it hasn’t rained here in Los Angeles since 1856, so it’s kind of a big deal. Back in the old days, when it rained a few times a year, before the myth of climate change tricked us all into believing that we’re having a terrible drought that apparently doesn’t really exist, we would sleep with the window open on rainy nights, so we could hear and smell the rain.

My dogs looked at me with confusion when I got out of bed, then did the dog equivalent of shrugging their shoulders and burying themselves back into the covers. My cat wants me to let him out, stop the rain, dry off the patio, and then let him back in. And then back out. And then back in again because he’s a cat.

So. Let’s get to it: we’re fucked. Nothing matters, everything is terrible, and we’re living in a nightmare that hasn’t even begun to hint at how bad it’s going to get. I’ve been spending a lot of time going through the stages of grief, and though it’s mostly a lot of anger, I’m bargaining: maybe the Electoral College will step in and prevent this fucking catastrophe from happening. Maybe the vote will be audited in some of these states where the devil won by just barely over one percent, which is honestly kind of suspicious. Maybe the Democrats in Congress will be joined by a few principled Republicans (they exist, right? They have to exist, don’t they?) and the white nationalist cabinet this president elect wants to install won’t be confirmed.

Bargaining. I know it isn’t going to happen. I know we’re fucked.

Twenty-five percent of eligible voters elected a racist demagogue who has never held a single elected office in his life, a seventy year-old man who has the temperament of a child. I still can’t believe it. When I hear the news say “President Elect Trump” it turns my stomach. It’s such an affront to the country, to the office of the presidency, it feels like it isn’t real.

Hate crimes are happening all over the country. White supremacists, anti-semites, and the absolute worst of humanity feels validated by this election, and they are boldly and fearlessly attacking people, declaring that this election — votes cast by one in four eligible voters — endorses their hateful, bigoted, regressive world view.

Anger. This never should have happened.

How can so many people, even if they are a statistical minority, have no problem supporting a racist for president? What are these fucking idiots going to do when all the things he promised them don’t happen? They say they were voting against corruption and lobbyists and Establishment Washington, but one look at the men this narcissistic sociopath wants in the highest positions of government reveals that none of those things will be reflected in his administration. They won’t get their jobs, they won’t get their draining of the swamp, but we’re all going to get the racism, bigotry, ignorance, and white supremacy they had no problem voting for.

Denial. Somehow, someone is going to do something to stop this from happening. He’s breaking all sorts of ethical rules. He’s breaking diplomatic norms. He doesn’t even want to live in the fucking White House! He doesn’t want the job, he just wants the attention. This can’t be happening.

And back to Anger. And then more Bargaining.

And Depression. So much Depression.

Paul Ryan is going to destroy Medicare, just because he can. Because he is a selfish, evil, despicable man. For the first time in the history of the nation, the Senate refused to confirm a Supreme Court justice (and apparently even the fucking Democrats who we’re supposed to count on to fight back are fine with it) and now our nation will deal with a regressive, right-wing majority on the court for the rest of my life. The Republicans are going to roll back and undo and destroy as much of the social progress of the last 40 years as they can, and in the richest country in the world, our citizens will suffer needlessly, because people like Paul Ryan subscribe to a selfish, hateful, myopic philosophy created by an asshole who never had to experience the consequences of her bullshit.

All of this, and more, because of twenty-five percent of voters.

Oh, there’s Anger again.

And so it goes, this cycle of grief, for my country, for the freedom and hope and opportunity I’ve always believed is fundamental to the American identity, for my fellow humans who are going to suffer now and in the future.

All because twenty-five percent of voters looked at this despicable, hateful, ignorant liar, and voted for him and everything he represents.

1 comments

0 comments

0 comments

0 comments

Just when I think I have a small part of it figured out…

0 comments

0 comments

Here’s a .gif of Charlie Brown finding Snoopy for the very first time.

0 comments

It’s a thing of beauty. That is all.

0 comments

Over the past few days, I’ve stumbled upon a word that more of us should know as it so perfectly captures this moment in time. Commit this one to memory, because you’re probably going to want to use it often:

Kakistocracy n. (kak·is·toc·ra·cy / kækɪsˈtɑkɹəsi) Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

The origins of kakistocracy are actually pretty neat. The term was first used around 1829 and was coined as an opposite to “aristocracy”. It comes from the Greek “kakistos” or “worst”, which is the superlative form of “kakos” or “bad”. Switch the “k” to a “c” and you have the root of modern words like “cacophony”.

But here’s where it gets even more fun. “Kakos” is closely related to “Caco” or “defecate”. As we saw above, it’s essentially the same phonetic sounds and has similar modern words derived from it.

Today, you’ll find this in the Greek “Kakke” “human excrement”, Latin “cacare”, Irish “caccaim”, Serbo-Croatian “kakati”, Armenian “k’akor”, Old English “cac-hus” or “latrine”, Dutch “kak”, German “Kacke”, and the school-yard favorite “caca”.

So in this trying time, remember the word “kakistocracy”.

Quite literally, government by the shittiest.

(Source)

0 comments

I woke from a dream this morning that has left me both shaken and reassured.

A storm had blown into town. It was one of those once-in-a-century things (much like the storm that hit Phoenix a year ago in August). The sky was dark. I mean dark. It hadn’t started raining yet, but the wind was whipping about, and that was pretty bad in and of itself. Ben and I were sitting in the living room when all of a sudden we heard a tremendous thud on the roof.

I went outside. The wind had died down and it was eerily quiet. The darkness was now punctuated by a ray of sunlight coming from a break in the clouds, hitting squarely on our yard, allowing me to clearly see survey what had happened. The first thing I noticed were the rivers of what at first thought was water pouring off the eaves of the house. It looked like rain, but on closer examination it was actually dirt. That’s weird, I thought. I then stepped off the porch and looked around. The tree out front was stripped of its leaves and branches; there was debris everywhere. Then I looked up.

There were a lot of shingles missing from the roof. “Nothing that can’t be repaired,” I thought. But then as turned my head the source of the tremendous thud was apparent: there was now a huge, 15-foot side hole in middle of the roof, and the edge of a pallet full of rolled sod was now sitting where that part of the roof used to be.

It could only have been a tornado, I thought.

“Ben!” I yelled, “Come here!”

Ben came out and looked and the damage. I swear I’d never seen him so frightened in my life; the color completely drained from his face. At the same time my thought was, “Nothing inside was damaged. We and the dogs are all safe. The hole can be covered with a tarp until it can be repaired. And most importantly, our landlords (who live right next door but whose home seemed undamaged) have insurance on this place.

“We need to go next door,” I said. Ben motioned for me to stay put, and as he started walking over there, he fell to the ground on all fours and started wretching.

I came away from this dream with several insights. Yes, a storm is coming. There will be damage, but Ben and I will survive. And most importantly, there are people out there who will have our backs.

 

0 comments

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t as conscious as I am. It would be so much easier.” ~ River Phoenix

1 comments

…has more class in his little finger than the entire incoming Trump administration possesses in its entirety.

(Photos via Pete Souza)

While I never agreed 100% with everything Obama did during his tenure in the White House, I will still take solace in knowing that if the United States descends into madness after 20 January 2017, I had the pleasure of living through what was still one of the greatest Administrations this country has seen.

Barack, Michelle…I’m going to miss you and your exceptional family. After Tuesday’s election I’m not sure we ever deserved you, but I’m grateful we had the opportunity.

0 comments

…is that even though their God Emperor won the election (yet lost the popular vote, by an ever-increasing margin), this does not give them license to freely go around beating up anyone they don’t like and act like they’re now above the law.

BECAUSE THEY AREN’T.

The United States is a still a country of laws, and if they go beating on someone, threatening lives, or commit any number of the other horrific acts that have occurred in ONLY THE LAST TEN DAYS and they’re caught, they will pay the price. They will go to jail. This isn’t a free-for-all, and it isn’t The Purge.

So if you see any of this shit going down, intervene if you feel safe doing so, or at the very least get a good description of the assailants, use your goddamned cell phone for something beyond Candy Crush and CALL THE FUCKING COPS so these animals can be caged…while you still can.

0 comments

0 comments

0 comments

0 comments

This is not America, (sha la la la la)

A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die (This is not a miracle)
For this is not America
Blossom fails to bloom this season
Promise not to stare
Too long (This is not America)
For this is not the miracle

There was a time
A storm that blew so pure
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea

For this is not America
(Sha la la la la, sha la la la la, sha la la la la)
This is not America, no
This is not, (sha la la la la)

Snowman melting from the inside
Falcon spirals to the ground
(This could be the biggest sky)
So bloody red, tomorrow’s clouds

A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die (This could be a miracle)
For this is not America

There was a time
A wind that blew so young
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea

For this is not America
(Sha la la la la, sha la la la la, sha la la la la)
This is not America, no
This is not, (sha la la la)

This is not America, no
This is not
This is not America, no
This is not, (sha la la la)

0 comments

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

0 comments

I just can’t any more.

I’m tired of having to “Mark All As Read” the entire contents of the Politics folder of my RSS Reader multiple times on a daily basis without actually opening anything. After the abysmally depressing things I read today (and still reeling from the knowledge—glaringly obvious to anyone who didn’t vote for the joker in the first place—that not only is Trump fundamentally unqualified to be President, he and the Cabinet of Deplorables^® he’s surrounding himself with are fundamentally unprepared for the Presidency) tonight I deleted all the feeds completely.

Gone.

I’m sure that come tomorrow I’m gonna be jonesing for an outrage fix, and I’ll still go to the various websites manually now and then to stay informed, but the daily—nay, hourly—barrage of horrible news has become too much for me. When the possibility was raised today that any number of America’s nuclear-capable enemies might take immediate advantage of Trump’s ineptitude following his swearing-in, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

https://twitter.com/voenixrising/status/798941066682470400

And considering this news, reading nothing but whining coming from the tech blogs over Apple’s new MacBooks, I have a feeling that my “Tech” folder may be next on the chopping block.

1 comments

I get that you’re upset. I get that you’re processing in the comments. And its not my place, nor would I ever suggest you stop. But I would like to suggest that things are not as bad as your reactions seem to make them out to be. And that’s not to suggest that things are good. This is not last Tuesday at noon with all the promise that day seemed to hold. But its also not the fall of Rome either.

Right now, between the most senior of the President Carter appointments, as well as the much younger still President Clinton and Obama appointments, the Federal judiciary at the district and appellate levels maintains a majority of judges appointed by these three Democratic Presidents. That isn’t going to change any time soon. Trying to pack the district and appellate courts isn’t going to be done quickly or easily. And even with a Supreme Court justice, provided the Senate Democratic caucus doesn’t slow things way, way down and the nomination, advise and consent occurs at a normal pace we’re talking March or April before whoever is nominated gets their final vote. This means that the Supreme Court will be 4-4 this term and if the nomination can be slowed into the summer, then at least the first half of the 2017-2018 docket will be chosen by a 4-4 court. So few momentous, major change of direction cases, because neither side wants to risk a 4-4 tie that affirms an appellate decision the other side can’t live with. And even with a 5th conservative justice we’re just back to where we were before Associate Justice Scalia died.

From what I’m observing things are going to be a shitshow. Even the folks around the President Elect with government experience don’t seem to actually have a clue what they’re doing. This too will slow things way, way down. Right now inexperience and incompetence are good things. Remember, our system of government is not meant to be efficient—as in quick—even in a crisis. It’s a high veto point system, and inherently ademocratic to anti-democratic specifically because the Founders and Framers were concerned with something like this happening. They wanted to make it as hard as possible for the system to be turned against the citizenry, to be turned toward autocracy. That works in the favor of the loyal (to the Constitution) opposition. ~ Adam L. Silverman, Balloonjuice

0 comments

0 comments