A Good Start for 2006

Yesterday, California held it’s primary elections. Of interest to us, locally, was the race pitting our over-developing mayor and city council against challengers who ran on a “less-development and fix the infrastructure first” platform. Damsel and I often noted the outrageous development and resulting load to the streets, sewers and other services in the city. Today, we have a new mayor and two new members on the council, displacing cronies of, and the soon-to-be former mayor.

Also of interest to us, were two propositions on the statewide ballot; one under the guise of “Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation,” and the other would place 4-year old children in “free” pre-schools for a year. Both would unnecessarily fleece taxpayers for progressive/socialist purposes. In other words, pump more money into failed educational systems and increase debt. Fortunately, both went down to defeat.

There was also a national interest in the results of Congressional District 50 to the south of us; the district vacated by “Duke” Cunningham when he admitted to bribes. Republican Brian Bilbray emerged victorious after a costly and contentious special election race against Democrat Francine Busby, a local school board member. That’s a good thing since the Democrats would have been given a net gain had this woman been elected. And who knows what momentum it may have stirred up for them.

All in all, we were satisfied with most of the election results, and look forward to re-electing Arnold as governor and electing Tom McClintock as lieutenant governor in November.

Spouting More Hot Air than Al Gore

Who are Al Gore and his enviroloons going to blame for this reckless discharge of greenhouse gasses?

From Astronomy Picture of the Day:

An Alaskan Volcano Erupts

What is happening to that volcano? It’s erupting! The first person to note that the Aleutian Cleveland Volcano was spewing ash was astronaut Jeffrey N. Williams aboard the International Space Station. Looking down on the Alaskan Aleutian Islands two weeks ago, Williams noted, photographed, and reported a spectacular ash plume emanating from the Cleveland Volcano. Starting just before this image was taken, the Cleveland Volcano underwent a short eruption lasting only about two hours. The Cleveland stratovolcano is one of the most active in the Aleutian Island chain. The volcano is fueled by magma displaced by the subduction of the northwest-moving tectonic Pacific Plate under the tectonic North America Plate.

Image and story courtesy NASA and APOD

Things That Go Trump in the Night

The Donald” wants to put his own name on a Rancho Palos Verdes road now called “Ocean Trails Drive” and call it “Trump National Drive.” Other than immense ego, why would anyone want to change a poetic name like that to something that rhymes with “rump” or “frump?” I don’t get it. It should be enough to merely have a big, gaudy stone and brass monument at the entrance — like this one . . .

Huge 4th of July Display — on Jupiter!

And, on an astronomical scale, it IS huge! We reported in a previous article, See Spot Run about the two red spots on Jupiter, Great Red and Red, Jr. Time to get the backyard telescope out and get it tuned up for this!

NASA – Huge Storms Converge

June 5, 2006: The two biggest storms in the solar system are about to go bump in the night, in plain view of backyard telescopes.

Storm #1 is the Great Red Spot, twice as wide as Earth itself, with winds blowing 350 mph. The behemoth has been spinning around Jupiter for hundreds of years.

Storm #2 is Oval BA, also known as “Red Jr.,” a youngster of a storm only six years old. Compared to the Great Red Spot, Red Jr. is half-sized, able to swallow Earth merely once, but it blows just as hard as its older cousin.

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Cactus Flower Season

The time is upon us for our many cactii to produce their beautiful, albeit short-lived, blossoms. This pair of buds atop one cactus looked to me like an alien creature peering at us through its eye stalks. Don’t worry though, these awkward little buds will mature into a couple of very beautiful, delicate and fragrant nocturnal flowers. Just watch out for the needles.

I’ll be sure to get many more photos of these beautiful flowers and post the best ones here throughout the cactus flower season.

Binary Space Rocks Pass Earth Today


Like ships passing in the night, pair of space rocks zooms past Earth today at a distance of (only) 2.5 million miles. Dubbed Asteroid 2004 DC, the pair were not known to be a pair until radar reflections off the asteroid were detected by the Arecibo radar/radio telescope (remember the movie “Contact?”).

The green dot in the center near the bottom of the image below (from a NASA orbit simulation) is planet Earth. The scale of the image is such that the asteroid looks very close to our planet, but it is at quite a safe distance.

From SpaceWeather.com:

BINARY ASTEROID: Asteroid 2004 DC is flying by Earth today about 2.5 million miles away. Yesterday, astronomers using the giant Arecibo radar in Puerto Rico pinged the asteroid and discovered that it is actually two asteroids–a 60m rock orbiting a 300m rock. Researchers estimate that one in six near-Earth asteroids are binaries.