Scientists believe the Big Bang occurred because of an observed “cosmological background radiation” seen in all directions from the vantage point of Earth. Since June, 2001, a space-based instrumented observation platform called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has been collecting data that allows scientists to literally look back in time and space to virtually witness the birth of the universe.

In the video below, you will see a journey back through space/time starting from the WMAP probe in it’s orbit and continuing outward past Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, through the Oort cloud and into interstellar space. The journey continues through a “local” nebula in Orion and thence out of the Milky Way and past thousands of galaxies back into the time of primordial blue giant stars and ultimately past the “dark ages” and into the afterglow of the Big Bang. Then, brilliant light and, finally, darkness at “before the beginning of time.”

Please take this thrilling journey back to the beginning of time: (press to play)

Some history about WMAP:

WMAP was launched on June 30, 2001 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket.

WMAP completed its prime 2 years of mission operations in its L2 orbit by September 2003. Meanwhile, the 2002 and 2004 Astronomy and Physics Senior Review granted WMAP mission extensions, endorsing the proposed 8-years of mission operations, to end September 2009.

In February 2003 the WMAP Team released a set of 13 papers (241 journal pages) along with flight data from the first year of observations of the CMB. In March 2006, the WMAP Team released 3-year data, including full polarization data, and papers describing the data processing, systematic error analyses, calibration, and other critical aspects of the experiment.

And, finally, a schematic diagram of the trip you just took back over more than thirteen and a half billion years in about a minute!

Schematic of the cosmic chronology

Images and video courtesy of NASA

No, not a romance story, but a good one nonetheless. Since terrorists in Iraq have taken to the sewers and canals like the rats they are, the Multi-National Forces have been equipping and preparing troops to deal with getting wet, staying afloat and protection from small arms fire — the latest accessory is floating body armor.

Operation.Iraqi.Freedom — Body armor protects, floats

Story and photo by Pfc. Paul J. Harris
3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

BALAD, Iraq - In Iraq the insurgents have begun using the canals and waterways of the Tigris River as a means to move weapons caches while avoiding Coalition Forces patrolling the streets.

Image: 1st Lt. Sean Craig, a Chicago native and a 3rd Battalion platoon leader, swims a 16-yard distance in his body armor system during a drown proofing class.

With the battle being taken to the rivers of Iraq, the command group of 3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Task Force Band of Brothers, developed training to help Soldiers survive in full combat gear if they fall in water.

With river boat patrols increasing, Command Sgt. Maj. Dean Keveles, 3rd Battalion’s top enlisted soldier and a team of his senior noncommissioned officers decided to test the buoyancy of the interceptor body armor system at the outdoor swimming pool at Logistical Support Area Anaconda.

A Soldier going out on patrol wears about 40 to 50 pounds of gear. With the weight of the gear there was concern the Soldier would sink to the bottom of a canal.

It turns out body armor will float and support the weight of the Soldier. It is like having a bulletproof life vest. Keveles said.

From what they learned at the pool, Keveles and his sergeants were able to put together a training exercise they could teach Soldiers. The exercise has Soldiers in full Army Combat Uniform wearing armored vests without ammo pouches.

The instructor gave a Soldier a kick in the back to simulate the surprise of falling into the water. Once in the water Soldiers had to swim 16 yards before coming out of the pool.

We don’t have a way to simulate river current in the training but at least the Soldiers can build their confidence by training, said Keveles.

1st Lt. Sean Craig, 3rd Battalion platoon leader, felt no discomfort after hitting the water.
“I am a pretty strong swimmer so it felt fine, felt like I normally swim,” said Craig. “It felt like a life jacket, a secure feeling because as soon as you get in it pops you back up.”

Last night we saw Walt Disney’s Eight Below. Inspired by a true story, this Antarctic adventure is about sled dogs, rescue, survival and more rescue. The movie has beautiful scenery, dramatic and exciting sequences and is mostly about these wonderful dogs. This movie was so good that we had to add a new rating level to my on-line DVD database — “excellent” didn’t quite get it, so “sensational” has been added.

Above: “Max” and “Maya”

If you enjoyed “Snow Dogs” and “March of the Penguins” then “Eight Below” is for you. If you haven’t seen them yet, then I highly recommend seeing all three!

I’ll bet that NONE of the mainstream media will publish emerging evidence that the events that took place at Haditha, Iraq involving the U. S. Marines have been highly distorted by both the media and partisan Democrats, Jack Murtha, in particular.

Read this article from NewsMax: New Evidence Emerges in Haditha Case

In the aftermath of the brutal mutilation and murder of two U. S. Soldiers, the terrorists responsible for these atrocities have been tracked down by the Military. Why is this largely overlooked by the press?

From CENTCOM: Press Releases - COALITION FORCES TRACK DOWN TERRORISTS RESPONSIBLE…

Where was the press when the Clinton Administration sat around and did little in the aftermath of the Khobar Towers terrorist attack that killed 19 U. S. Airmen and wounded scores of others?

From Opinion Journal: Khobar Towers

And finally, did you know that the Bush Administration never rejected the Kyoto Accords? Did you know it was unanimously rejected by the U. S. Senate when Bill Clinton was still in the White House? Probably not — the press was too busy demonizing Ken Starr for investigating presidential philandering.

From Right Thinking from the Left Coast:More Kyoto Idiocy

How can you possibly trust the major media when these important facts are largely ignored by them?

Treason Central, the New York Times, has again betrayed America and compromised yet another tactic in the War on Terror. Boycott the New York and Los Angeles Times.

And not to shortchange the equally treacherous L.A. Times . . .

Well, yesterday we pampered the dogs so it seemed fair to do something for ourselves today. Now, Damsel likes girly stuff, so I usually get her some nice flowers for the house every week. She is particularly fond of Asian Stargazer Lilies, so they show up often. She also likes her new SW686 revolver, so we went to the indoor range and squeezed off a few rounds. That’s my Damsel — Guns ‘n’ Gazers!

Got up early, took the dogs to get baths and inoculations, came home, swept up all the dog hair (they shed a lot in the summer), fixed the broken floor in the doghouse, went after the dogs and then home to fix our Saturday Dinner. Busy, busy, busy. At least the pups don’t look like they have leprosy from shedding anymore.

The freedom of speech of Sheehan, Murtha, most of the media and all Islamic “protection” groups (ACLU, CAIR, etc.) to speak out are protected by the very same military they weigh down with their insane rantings. They just don’t get it!

Cox & Forkum see it the same way:

This is an interesting story. It seems that a local syndicate of thieves in conjunction with Central American criminals have been busy stealing over 200 high-end vehicles.

The key figures in this (literally) are a GM dealership employee and a locksmith accomplice. Gang members would scout out a likely vehicle. They would read the vehicle ID number through the windshield and forward it to the GM guy, who would then look up the VIN on GMs computer and identify the key and codes for that particular vehicle.

Then the illegal alien thieves would be given the keys and remotes so they could drive the vehicle to a cooling off location — that is a place to abandon the vehicle temporarily in case a tracking device would lead police to the vehicle. Those that weren’t “hot” were then fitted with phony VIN tags and sold at liquidation prices.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca had this to say about the illegals:

“This is a very big, international auto-theft ring,” [Sheriff Lee] Baca said. “What makes this case unusual is that four of the main suspects have been arrested in the past for this very same crime.

“They are nationals from (Central American) countries. They were deported after their previous crimes occurred and they were convicted … and here they are, back in the United States, back in Southern California, doing the very same thing.”

[read the whole article]

Deported? And they’re back already doing the same thing? This is a clear demonstration of just how lame our border enforcement has been in the past and will continue to be if we don’t get a border security policy that works.

This may only be the first of a series of revelations of previously classified data. Why it takes this long for these vital facts to emerge is anyone’s guess. One might expect the administration would have a stake in disseminating this information and make it public. Why they have not done this, is also a mystery.

From Fox News:

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers [Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum] said Wednesday.

“We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons,” Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon. Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

Image: Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum - Courtesy Fox News

In the wake of the recent torture and deaths of PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas L. Tucker, there will be a dearth of any encouraging news from Iraq. We feel it is important to forward some of this news when the MSM ignores it. For instance this post about events on June 19th in Iraq from CENTCOM depicts some positive coalition activities:

COALITION FORCES KILL 15 TERRORISTS, DETAIN THREE OTHERS

Coalition forces came under immediate small arms fire from a rooftop upon arrival to the objective area. The ground force returned fire, killing nine armed terrorists on the rooftop, and an additional two armed terrorists who were identified firing on Coalition forces from next to the building, were killed by Coalition aircraft supporting fire.

Following this initial contact, Coalition forces found 10 AK-47 assault rifles, one shotgun, one pistol and a crate of explosives.

One supporting aircraft hit utility wires as they were engaging the armed terrorists. The aircraft was damaged and forced to make a controlled landing. There were no injuries to the crew and the ground force immediately secured the site. Three armed suspects were then killed by another Coalition aircraft as they attempted to attack the downed aircraft.

After securing the aircraft, Coalition forces moved to assault the building that several terrorists had fled to following the first contact. One terrorist was killed by a Coalition sniper as he attempted to engage the troops from the nearby rooftop.

The force cleared the buildings, detaining the three terrorists. The captured individuals, who fled earlier, were found hiding amidst nine women. None of the women were injured. One of the detained terrorists was wounded at the initial target building after he engaged Coalition forces.

The raids were targeting individuals associated with a suspected senior al-Qaida in Iraq network member targeted in previous Coalition operations.

The downed aircraft was recovered prior to all forces returning to base, and all weapons and explosives were destroyed on-site.

And the next news release:

COALITION FORCES DETAIN SENIOR AL-QAIDA IN IRAQ NETWORK MEMBER

Coalition forces detained a senior al-Qaida in Iraq network member and three suspected terrorists during coordinated raids southwest of Baqubah June 19.

The terrorist is reportedly a senior al-Qaida cell leader throughout central Iraq, north of Baghdad. He’s known to be involved in facilitating foreign terrorists throughout central Iraq, and is suspected of having ties to previous attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces.

Coalition forces secured multiple buildings and detained the known terrorist plus three suspected terrorists without incident. Troops found an AK-47 with several magazines of ammunition and destroyed them all on site.

Several women and children were present at the raid sites. None were harmed and all were returned to their homes once the troops ensured the area was secure.

What these two items mean to the coalition is that they have weakened the enemy and have increased the possibility of recovering intelligence regarding the enemy’s intentions and composition. All good things.

We feel the grief of the families of those tortured soldiers and share the avenging spirit that must be in the hearts of the rest of the soldiers as they continue their campaign in Iraq. That being said, the overall scorecard since the death of Al Zarqawi has been overwhelmingly in the favor of the coalition:

Coalition: hundreds of captures and kills — Al Qaida in Iraq: a handful of casualties and two atrocities.

But AQI gets support from the Associated Press, Reuters and much of the MSM due to their heavily-biased reporting.

UPDATE: A good resource for breaking news out of CENTCOM may be found on their press release website.

Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) is in the throes of upgrading their MySQL Server this week. I have been advised that the one currently in service is experiencing high demands on it’s capabilities and often will be slow to respond. This supposedly will be resolved by Thursday, 22 June 2006. Please be patient with occasional slow response times until then. Thanks.

UPDATE: Just got this from the ISP:

We have been experiencing some issues with MySQL performance. We
discovered a user with a packaged PHP program causing unusual load to
MySQL. Service to the offending account has been suspended and you
should no longer experience trouble.

Should be OK for now. They are still proceeding with installation of the new server.

UPDATE: Still seems to be some slowness in spite of the message.