The First Cephalopod in Space

The space shuttle Endeavor is carrying the first cephalopod in space. Called Euprymna scolope or bobtail squid, the onboard passenger will be the subject of experiments to test the Transpermia Hypothesis, also known as exogenesis or panspermia.

We are talking about space aliens in the form of microorganisms imbedded in meteorites that came to Earth billions of years ago and seeded our planet. If life came to Earth aboard primitive rock ships, then linguists are likely to build big words from Latin building blocks: Hence the term lithopanspermia.

Yes, our ancestors may have come from Mars or Venus or other corner in space, found a hospitable home on Earth, and evolved into the flora and fauna we know today. Sound far-fetched? Not according recent analyses of space borne particles.

In 1996, a meteorite originating from Mars was shown to contain microscopic structures resembling earthly nanobacteria. Although debunked and ignored for years, David McKay of the Johnson Space Center reexamined the sample in 2009, using an electron microphotography technique not available in 1996, and found “strong evidence that life may have existed on ancient Mars" (source).

In 2001, researchers from the University of Naples claim to have found live extraterrestrial bacteria inside a meteorite estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old. The scientists resurrected the organisms when they immersed their rock samples in growth medium. Similar to modern day Bacillus subtilis, they say, the DNA is unlike any found on Earth (source – bilingual English/Italian).

Earlier this year (March 2011), Richard Hoover of the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center published this paper, Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites.

Our stalwart cephalo-astronaut is not the only non-human inhabitant aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. Five strains of bacteria will be used to test the exogenesis theory, specifically whether or not Earth borne microbes can withstand extremes of temperature, zero gravity, and high levels of radiation in deep space.

For our high-flying squid, this experiment is about the beneficial bacteria that live inside the sea creature's body. Called Vibrio fischeri, these bioluminescent organisms generate light which give our squid the ability to outshine its own shadow and mask itself in water.

Previous experiments with microbes in space have shown that some bacteria turn nastier when subjected to extremes of temperatures and radiation. In 2007, for example, a Salmonella sample was three times more likely to kill their hosts after returning from a shuttle mission. Nasa wants to observe what happens to mutually beneficial microbes when altered in space. Will these bioluminescent bugs transform themselves from dim to high intensity?

Watch Octopus ink the aquarium and then turn supernova.

Fizzle ...

Water sports and frozen treats

So, what we have here is a semi-major blogger, Debbie Schlussel, leaping to a blatantly ignorant conclusion... No, wait, I'm sorry. Please replace the end of that sentence with "openly lying."

And then put a period after it. That should pretty much cover everything.

See, Debbie's not as famous as, say, Pammycakes over at Atlas Snores, but she's just as Islamophobic. Debbie, after all, is the one who thought it was great that reporter Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted in Cairo during the riots (it "warmed (her) heart" that people could see what savages these heathen be), or who calls for full-on genocide against all Muslims everywhere ("Rot In Hell, Osama Bin Laden. One down, 1.8 billion to go... many of ‘em inside U.S. borders") despite proudly proclaiming herself "granddaughter of immigrant Holocaust survivors" (Cognitive dissonance is her stock in trade, after all).

But she's willing to go to the mat for her fantasy causes. Case in point:

Philly Muslim Ice Cream Truck Driver Had Urine Popsicles to Sell

Was Muslim ice cream truck driver Yasser Hassan planning to serve “urine popsicles” to non-Muslim Philadelphia area kids? It’s not clear, but Hussein was drunk driving his ice cream truck in the area and police found at least one bottle of frozen urine in the refrigerator that was used to store ice cream sold to children. They also determined that the condition of the entire truck and the ice cream was unsanitary. But, no worries, as the Koran and the Hadiths would say it’s okay to sell this to infidel kids. Oh, and like all the good Muslims who preach to us not to do this and not to do that, he had quite a bit of alcohol in his system and in his truck, despite the fact that this is haram (forbidden) in Islam.

At the moment, there are 54 responses, ranging from "Damn those Islamic types!" to "OMG!! we should Sind all theese terrerist ragheads back to irak where They cum from!!1!"

There could be 55 responses, but there aren't. See, I've done long-haul driving, most often in nuclear convoys. Here's the one response that Debbie decided didn't make the cut editorially.

OK, y’all can feel free to be stupid about this if you want, but people who spend all day in their truck often pee in bottles. And I’m thinking that with an ice-cream van, that’s even more true: it’s harder to lock up. (From experience: if he was smart he was using a gatorade bottle – wider mouth.)

The problem is especially bad with long-distance truckers. The problem is so widespread that some lawmakers have had to take action.

You can google “urine bomb” or “pee bomb” on your own, if you try.

It's not pretty, but it's the truth. But they don't care about "facts" over there in Spittle-Flecked City.

Apocalypse tomorrow

What you gonna do
When Death come creepin' in your room?
O my Lord what shall I do?
Gonna run, gonna hide,
Gonna fall on bended knee
O my Lord what shall I do?

Mance Lipscomb -Run sinner, run-

_______________

The clock is ticking folks. What are you going to do? Duct tape and plastic sheeting? I don't think so. You need to be prepared for anything. The CDC, the Center for Disease Control thinks you're remiss if you haven't prepared for the Zombies who may well be roaming the streets after Saturday evening's apocalypse, looking for brains. (It you're a Teabagger, you can stop reading now. You won't have a problem there.) The CDC link will take you to a list of recommended supplies:

"So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored). . . . for a full list visit the CDC Emergency page."

In addition, I would certainly include firearms, at least one of which should be a shotgun ( and lots of shells) and always remember to aim for the head.

For those of you who are sure you're actually going to be raptured, I'd suggest you wear sky blue clothing since many of us will be down here with shotguns and itchy trigger fingers and not only Ted Nugent. Don't be an easy target. Don't dress like a duck or a zombie.

Here are a few tips:

1) Refrain from drinking liquids after 3:00 PM, there are no rest stops along the way
and God doesn't like to pull over.

2) Say goodbye to us sinners before leaving the atmosphere. In Space, no one can
hear you scream.

3) Bring a firearm. There will lots of traffic and that means road rage.

4) And behave yourself -- don't make God stop the car and come back there!

UPDATE:  Your Weekend Weather Forecast:

T minus 48 hours and raving

Dies iræ ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sibylla !


Well the End is neigh and a Day neigher than it was yesterday, but the proof is certain, says Harold Camping, even though he formerly had 'proof' 1994 was the big one; the Dies Irae, the End time.

But he has proof that God is allowing us to have gay pride parades and same sex marriage as a set up for the fall and the proof is in something called the Book of Jude, which I'd never heard of, my Bible ending somewhere around the book of Daniel or so and being in various Semitic dialects, not Greek. Anyway Camping says God all gaybashing mighty explains it in Jude 7 which is funny because although the Bible has at least two names for God ( and two versions of the stories to go with them) Jude isn't one of them. The real Tanach doesn't tell us that the elder Yahweh or the somewhat later Elohim wrote it either. That was Moses, it supposes -- nor did the prophets claim to actually be God, but that's a long road I won't go down today, you'll be pleased to hear.

But seriously -- it's important now in these last days before John the Revelator's ( also not God) psychotic episodes come true, to be familiar with the words of God, speaking through Jude and Camping (the least godlike of all) of course, so I looked it up to see just who this fellow was, but although I did find a site that explains it all, I had to stop reading the explanation when the writer accused Theologians ( as to be distinguished from believers) of incompetence.

" This subject is under constant dispute by many theologians. The trouble with them is they can't read English."

Stunning and in the interest of brevity I could quit right here -- but I won't.

I certainly can read English, but I can't claim to be an authority on this questionable early second century book, since I can't read Greek, so score one for The Bible Study Page. I'll even overlook the gaseous certainty that whoever the author claimed to be, he must then be, and the ubiquitous practice of naming anonymous religious texts for long dead prophets. I'm just not in an argumentative mood.

So I'll have to believe them when they say that God himself guarantees that Jude, like James, the Upright, was the brother of Jesus, but as the English language was more than a thousand years away in the future and out of respect for Mrs. Christ, or Miriam as poor old impotent Joseph ( who none the less made other kids with her) called her, let's call them Jehudi and Jacov just like their mother did. Not nice to contradict Jewish mothers, I can tell you -- I mean you want to talk about days of wrath?

So then -- just what does Jude 7 give us as the WORD OF GOD that can't be attributed to Jehudi son of Miriam or some other writer in another country?

"In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."

Well I guess Jehudi would know, being the half brother of the son of God or maybe the full brother - who the hell knows, but it's funny that neither of the real Gods, Yahweh and the Elohim mentioned this a thousand years and a half earlier and what they did mention didn't need some adopted son to relay the message. I thought it mentioned something about inhospitable treatment of strangers, and condoned tossing your virgin daughter to a crowd to be gang raped, but as the book was likely written quite a long time after these cities disappeared, who the hell could possibly know?

Anyway, since neither Lot nor his daughters were blasted to hell for incest, I think we can dismiss the sex thing entirely, OK? If Mrs. Lot was fossilized for looking over her shoulder, but Lot gets off for free (yes, that's a double entendre - aren't I wicked?) the whole God-hates-perverts thing came right out of Jude's ass and into Camping's mouth.

As far as I can gather from Bereshit, or Genesis, Gay Pride wasn't the problem with the cities of the plain at all, and as far as we know, ancient Greece wasn't blown to hell by a firestorm like Gomorrah, nor was Egypt whose kings made Oedipus look like a prude, but who am I to argue and point out contradictions?

Like the Wrong Reverend Phelps, Camping believes "God hates fags" and is going to kill most of us for allowing them to live in peace like other people, just like he killed the Sodomites and Gomorrans for their gay pride parades and same sex marriages. And he'll find proof somewhere whether it makes sense or not, and since none of his followers are really quite sane, it doesn't matter.

The real proof of Camping's high fecal content will come at the International Date Line ( no, not the phone sex number) on 6:00 PM Saturday when nothing at all happens and the Repo men will begin to pick up all those vans, The leases on the billboards will expire, his followers will stand around like fools looking at them and wonder how they're going to get their property back and the 18 million dollars Camping has raised will likely disappear into various "good works." Perhaps he'll rapture himself to Marbella or Monte Carlo.

Anyway, Even though there are two sets of commandments given in two slightly different settings by Gods with two different names in the Bible, it's obvious to me that God doesn't like having words put in his mouth and for those who believe Jesus was Divine ( no, not the Drag Queen) I think Jesus didn't think much of you putting hate speech or damnation in there either. Of course in my personal religion, God not only speaks through our mouths, he speaks only through our mouths and thus nobody can be certain of what he's all about. Certainly for those like me who escaped out the back door during those weekend religious study classes and actually read it in its entirety, Psalm 77:19 comes to mind.

"Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known. "

Like the Poet said: nobody knows where God is going or where he has been and his wake is long lost in the waves, so stop pretending you know.

Newtie!

OK, let's be clear here. We want there to be no misunderstanding.



Are we clear on that? He misspoke. It wasn't what he meant to say. He was frazzled. That wasn't a planned speech; he just went off the cuff, and dropped the ball. He went out there, and just flubbed it. It was a mistake, now let it go.

Of course, context is important, right? So let's take a look at these impromptu, unrehearsed remarks that he regrets having said now.

("But," I hear you wailing, "that'll take forever! That fucker starts talking and just won't stop! I don't have that kind of time! Plus, his voice gives me the shingles!" Ah, but I wouldn't do that to you: this is just the money shot. Three minutes and two seconds (plus a 15 second ad, because MSNBC has to pay the bills).

.
See that? Off his game. No way he could have rehearsed that, right? All that stammering and stuttering. He was winging it. Never would have said something like that. He was taken completely off-guard. Anybody who could say that was a prepared argument is just blind.

So let's repeat this for you. It's very important that you understand.



You got that? This has nothing to do with Newtie spending 15 hours on the phone with every Republican in Congress. The Koch brothers didn't say a word to him. It was a complete misunderstanding. He was tired, and had to squint to see through the glare off David Gregory's platinum helmet of hair. He opened his mouth, and some truth just fell out. That's so unlike him! It landed in a big pile of bullshit, but there it was, naked. For everybody to see. It was embarrassing, but that's our Newt. Big enough to look the camera in the eye and lie his ass off about it.

And by the way, don't make fun of Callista.


She can't help it. It's fucked up you're even talking about it.


Bitch ain't crazy.


It's congenital.

Apocalypse fer sure

By Capt. Fogg


Well folks, here it is again. The doomsday circus is back in town and guess what's happening in the big top in less than three days - that's right, it's the rapture and we're all gonna die screaming! OK, maybe some of y'all are actually Holy Smoke Church members and won't have to sit here through the tectonic shimmy, the lakes of fire and all the other rides while Jesus, like some Mexican wrestler with a gruesome mask is gonna kick some infidel ass, but not yours, Mr. camo pants. You get to go to the magic kingdom. You'll have to leave the truck behind, of course.

Yes, May 21, 2011 is right around the corner and Doomsday, as it has been countless times before, is almost here. For perhaps the first time however, these prophets have recognized that there are a dozen time zones and so Saturday at 6:00 PM, starting at the International Date Line out in the pacific, the apocalypse will march across the planet at a thousand miles per hour - boy can those horses move! That means we'll get to watch it all on TV as that Titanium robot, or whatever Jesus comes dressed as these days. kicks hell out of Asia and moves on toward Europe. That will give a lot of people her in God's own US of A enough time to convert and yes, you can do it on line through Paypal.

Not me though, It's going to be months before the planet is cleansed of disbelief and animal life and since the righteous will no longer be here, I get to grab their trailers and second hand pickup trucks and ATV's and firearms and stuff and me and the other heretics can shoot guns and barbeque like Ted Nugent. It's gonna be a hell of a party - as long as the beer don't run out before that lake of fire thing.

Anyway, the Rapture should hit the fan at my house at 7:00 PM Eastern Daylight time according to God's infallible plan. That's about the time pious Jews will be ending the Sabbath and I'll be watching it all unfold from poolside and I'll have plenty of ice on hand. Perhaps I'll live blog the whole thing. Stay tuned.

Cornel West and the Blackness Patrol

I'm not a fan of Cornel West nor his buddy in the "Obama isn't black enough" club, Tavis Smiley. West identifies himself as a part of the black intellectual elite and as such, fully expected that he would play a pivotal role in Obama's campaign and be an often consulted advisor of the nation's first black president. His issues with Obama began when Senator Obama was running for office. The commitment that West, Smiley and others demand from Obama is to support black interests at the costs of all others.

Yesterday, columnist Chris Hedges' graced us with an article entitle The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic. In the first line of the article, Hedges dubs Cornel West a moral philosopher and a voice of moral conscience if Obama's ascent to power was a morality play. Funny, I don't recall any meeting of black folks to elect West as our moral compass. If any of y'all took part in this vote, drop me a line and tell me when and where the election was held.

A telling story on West is that he was livid that he did not receive tickets to the inauguration. I have to wonder how much of his criticism of the President is motivated by his hurt feelings that he has not been included in the President's inner circle. The point of West's diatribe against Obama that he shared with Hedges appears to center on West's belief that Obama is a sellout who is a white man in a black skin. West pontificates at length on this topic:

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable."

Dr. West, you're full of crap. West is a professor at Princeton, not exactly in the hood. What credentials does West posses that qualify him to define blackness and exclude those whom he feels don't do "being black" right? It's a rhetorical question; he has none. It's difficult enough being marginalized based on skin color without the further complication of having members of your own group decide that you don't measure up to some arbitrary standard of membership in the group. West also takes issue with Michelle Obama, questioning why she doesn't visit a prison or "spend some time in the hood." 

West and Rev. Al Sharpton engaged in heated debate at Smiley's recent annual State of Black America conference. Sharpton insisted (rightly I believe) that Obama is the president of all the people and that promoting policies that benefit all Americans will benefit black Americans. West insisted that Obama has become the soul of darkness itself, betraying the poor, particularly poor black people. However, I don't think that West's ire comes from any real belief that Obama is the anti-Christ; he's upset because Obama stopped calling him on the phone.

“There is the personal level,” he says. “I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back. And when I ran into him in the state Capitol in South Carolina when I was down there campaigning for him he was very kind. The first thing he told me was, ‘Brother West, I feel so bad. I haven’t called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re busy.’ But then a month and half later I would run into other people on the campaign and he’s calling them all the time. I said, wow, this is kind of strange. He doesn’t have time, even two seconds, to say thank you or I’m glad you’re pulling for me and praying for me, but he’s calling these other people."

West does deal with some substance as to his issues with Obama. He feels that Obama has betrayed his populist promises, adopting a centrist agenda instead of the progressive populist agenda that Obama promised during his campaign. I give West some credit on this point. I think that on many issues Obama has chosen to be centrist or as West puts it, an advocate of a neo-liberal centrist policy in the same mold as Bill Clinton. I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm a pragmatist and I never believed that Obama would be able to implement a purely progressive agenda in less than a single term. Change is always incremental unless it's done through revolution, which seldom works out well as the lofty goals of the revolutionaries are soon corrupted.  West never fully fleshes out the specifics of his issues with Obama's presidential policies and decisions; instead he goes off on another rant declaring that the President "...feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want...”

West does raise concerns about the have-nots in America, the people who have been marginalized and haven't fared well under any administration, including the current one. I could get behind a push to urge Obama to take more aggressive steps in addressing eroding poverty in America but I don't buy into West's vision of himself as a prophet shouting the truth in the wilderness nor his vision of Obama as Darth Vader embracing his dark side. Clearly there is a lot of work to be done but the President has given no indication that he is unaware that the journey has only just begun.

Hedges is late to the party. West's rants against the president are nothing new in black media.  He and Smiley had a hissy fit when candidate Obama declined to attend Smiley's annual State of Black America conference. Smiley has declared himself the voice of black America over the last decade and West has bestowed his blessing on Smiley. The other third of this triumvirate of blackness is Michael Eric Dyson, who joins Smiley and West in measuring the President's blackness and finding it insufficient. If you are truly interested in keeping up with what a lot of black people are talking about, add Black America Web to your bookmarks.

For another perspective on West and Hedges' article, please check out this article by Melissa Harris-Perry, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University and a colleague of West,  Cornel West v. Barack Obama.

Clearly, I don't believe that the President is immune from criticism; neither does the author of the article that I recommended above. I think that he has made missteps and errors in judgment. However, Hedges' article isn't about those errors and missteps as much as it is about Cornel West, a man with a self-inflated ego who is peeved that his "greatness" is not fully recognized by the President.

Cities of the plain

By Capt. Fogg

There are people who give Free Speech a bad name; people who use any freedom the government protects to undermine and destabilize and overthrow that government and exploit the population -- and all for personal ( and corporate) gain.

Such are the shadowy, entities behind the multi-headed beast pumped into a frenzy by unaccountable and uncountable millions they get for the purpose: entities like SOCYBERTY.COM whose recent post was sent to me by a breathless Republican eager to impart the secret knowledge that no, President Obama did not give the order to enter Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan because he is a dithering, indecisive coward and the reins of government have been pried from his trembling, black hands. You see, Leon Panetta had to "override" Obama with the help of cabinet members and that eye-rolling Minstrel Show clown is too afraid now to tell the truth. Holdouts like Valerie Jarett aren't telling us either because of the "investigation back in Chicago" but there was a silent coup and Obama is no longer in control.

"What Valerie Jarrett, and the president, did not know is that Leon Panetta had already initiated a program that reported to him –and only him, involving a covert on the ground attack against the compound."

Of course no news agency; not ABC or NBC or FOX or CNN or BBC or Deutsche Welle or al freakin' Jazeera knows about this, only SOCYBERTY.COM and all the other PAC funded heads of the same hydra who are cutting and pasting and posting these stories. Google it and you'll see. They have secret sources in the cabinet, you know, who will commit treason only for them.

Sure, we can see it as the desperate death throes of a humiliated racist party, a wicked witch melting and hissing on the floor, but I can't forgive it and I can't forgive the people who e-mail it around the country like some titillating photo of some stoned starlet getting out of a limousine in a short skirt. I can't forgive, I can't forget and while old Yahweh was willing to spare Sodom for the sake of ten good citizens, no God worth his scriptures would forgive a country that contained ten such unpunished liars as these.

COMMON RAPS, OREILLY FLAPS

And Jon Stewart enters the fray…

Last week, President Obama hosted the rapper, Common at the White House. Since he isn’t white and espousing poetry with Biblical overtones, the talking heads at Fox have jumped right on the kool-aide wagon over this latest action that proves Obama is a facist/Marxist/commie sympathizer who is not an American citizen.

Seems Common has joined others in criticizing the handling of the cases of two people convicted of killing cops. As with many cases from the 70s and early 80s, procedural errors and other questionable tactics in cases involving persons of color perpetrating crimes against whites and authority figures were often ignored and/or covered up.

The two individuals involved, Mumia Abu Jamal and Assata Shakur were not exactly pillars of society and both were once members of the Black Panthers and other activist groups. Both were put at the scene of the crimes they were convicted of but both cases also raise lots of questions about the fairness of the justice system.

OReilly threw down the debate gauntlet in front of Jon Stewart who eagerly accepted the challenge. The video of their exchange can be seen HERE.
While I think both of them are publicity sluts, whoring for ratings, I did find the exchange of some merit.

For one thing, OReily tips his hand to his true objections when he questions why this rapper who is not identified as a poet should have been invited to the White House at all. Apparently Bill is now an artistic aficionado and all artists invited to the White House need his seal of approval. He adds weight to his remarks (in his mind anyway) by asking the rhetorical, “Do you know how many poets would have loved to be invited to the White House?” Jon showed class and restraint in NOT answering, “I don’t know, Bill – how many?”

I am sick and tired of angry, old white men, born of privilege and entrenched in their own racist, bigoted beliefs continually trying to regress society to a prehistoric social system. STFU!!!!!!!

I am heartened by Stewart’s reasoned responses as well as Obama’s recent smack down of the birther debate led by that cotton-haired loonie, Trump. Obama weathered the scrutiny of his (non)relationship with Bill Ayers and I think this latest pseudo-outrage will also become Common.

In the meantime, we have quite a few groups in this country working to review cases and bring true justice to victims by ensuring that not only is justice served fairly but that it is served on the actual perpetrator of the crime. The fact that these groups exist and are finding errors and wrongful convictions does not speak highly of how our justice system has operated thus far. This SHOULD be the topic of discussion.