Please go vote today. The Democrats have managed to nominate an exceptional man. This race is far from won, though, despite the favorable poll numbers. All those optimistic polls depend on likely voter models that expect unprecedented voter turnout, especially among infrequent or first-time voters. Without that historic voter turnout, those swing states (Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Mexico, Indiana) will easily fall to the Republicans.
Starting tomorrow though, if Obama wins, I sincerely hope Democrats show the same enthusiasm shown throughout this long campaign in keeping our new President-elect accountable for his ambitious health-care, tax, environmental and foreign policy proposals.
Some prominent DIY Noise musicians, including Deathbomb Arc’s Brian Miller and Lightning Bolt/Black Pus’s Brian Chippendale, have recenty launched a website advocating for Barack Obama. Young people, the only sort that can tolerate/enjoy noise music, have historically historically had little impact in American politics. In Iowa, young first-time caucus goers were largely responsible for Senator Obama’s almost 10-point victory over Clinton and Edwards. With the GOP energized (inexplicably) by McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin, its wonderful to see young people, always overwhelming favorable to Democratic candidates, stepping up to close to gap. Check out Noise for Obama.
Political non-participation in my social sphere often stems from not wanting to ‘play the game.’ But I’m pretty sure that if you are standing in a city, driving a car down a public road, emailing whoever for whatever, or eating food not grown within walking distance (and even then) you Are playing the game. Earth (and beyond) is the board, and it needs your help to stay a cool place to play. Your town, the country, the entire planet is interconnected now more than ever. We share resources across the globe and we need to participate in our little corner to hold the whole puzzle together. It would probably take me about half a day to walk to Boston or half a day to fly to China. One big neighborhood. I vote in all my local and national elections, and though it won’t solve my every problem, it might effect something. It might mean more money for science, or a more flexible, inspired educational system. It might mean marriage rights for all or government incentives for new energy research. Sure it’s a “maybe”, but it’s an easy one to reach for. Picture a huge heavy ball with hundreds of people trying to push it, add your little bit of weight and at that moment it may give, the ball is rolling. Four years ago Lightning Bolt was in on tour in Europe right before the election watching the debates when we could, I specifically remember watching Edwards debate Cheney. Cheney, his pals probably seizing contracts to rebuild Iraq already. What a scheme they had, blow a country up and get everyone to pay you to put it back together. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush had an adviser with a bodybag company. These people are my representatives? Touring in Europe and apologizing to everyone for being from the USA. My country, a country that invades sovereign nations. A country that from the rest of the world’s perspective is a thuggish bully with the capacity to nuke the planet to atoms.
My eyes welled up with tears listening to Obama speak at the DNC, finally a person who I can be proud of, a figurehead who respects intelligence and speaks with intelligence. Politicians constantly promise this that and the other thing so I listen between the lines, trying to judge if this person has the ability to reason, learn, listen and empathize and has a humanitarian perspective. But of course while a president needs first and foremost to be able to filter information they don’t work in a void, they have a wealth of experience around them. Hillary will be there with all her fire and knowledge; McCain (for better or worse) will be there with his military experience. Biden will be there with his grip on foreign policy, Kucinich will be there with his vision of peace, but Obama will tie it together and make the mature decisions to put us on the path towards reason and renewal.
And on top of that I love voting. Providence always moves my spot around. Me being in a not so wealthy area, they are probably trying to shake us off the trail. So I’ll wander into whatever school gym or apartment complex lobby I’m assigned too and say “chippendale” and the volunteers will all giggle and I’ll make a joke about my rich stripper uncle or something like that. Then I’ll vote, we will all smile and I’ll get my “I voted” sticker and walk out happy that I shared a moment with a few new people from some other walk of life. All of us participating in this grand democratic experiment. — - Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt, Black Pus) 8/30/2008
There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It is every American’s duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones.
Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.
Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, “WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.” Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.
A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.
Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.
I generally enjoy much of what The Atlantic publishes, but Gregg Easterbrook’s feature article last month regarding the delights of our solar system, especially near earth objects, was especially delightful. We’ve all heard a great deal about humanity’s untimely demise at the hands of an errant asteroid from the likes of Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman, but the threat has always seemed too abstract, too existential to really resonate. Reading about the 1908 Tunguska Event for the first time a few months ago, and more recently enjoying Easterbrook’s Atlantic article, these issues started to come into more focus. Wikipedia provides this helpful summary of the Tunguska Event:
The explosion was most likely caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5-10 kilometres (3-6 miles) above Earth’s surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates for the object’s size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.
Although the meteor or comet burst in the air rather than directly hitting the surface, this event is still referred to as an impact. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 5 megatons to as high as 30 megatons of TNT, with 10-15 megatons the most likely – about 1000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and about one third the power of Tsar Bomba.
Easterbrook’s Atlantic article notes, “had the explosion occurred above London or Paris, the city would no longer exist.” Delightful! While the 1908 air burst over Siberia is certainly chilling, another possible (relatively recent) asteroid impact is even more shocking.
Abbott believes that a space object about 300 meters in diameter hit the Gulf of Carpentaria, north of Australia, in 536 A.D. An object that size, striking at up to 50,000 miles per hour, could release as much energy as 1,000 nuclear bombs. Debris, dust, and gases thrown into the atmosphere by the impact would have blocked sunlight, temporarily cooling the planet—and indeed, contemporaneous accounts describe dim skies, cold summers, and poor harvests in 536 and 537. “A most dread portent took place,” the Byzantine historian Procopius wrote of 536; the sun “gave forth its light without brightness.” Frost reportedly covered China in the summertime. Still, the harm was mitigated by the ocean impact. When a space object strikes land, it kicks up more dust and debris, increasing the global-cooling effect; at the same time, the combination of shock waves and extreme heating at the point of impact generates nitric and nitrous acids, producing rain as corrosive as battery acid. If the Gulf of Carpentaria object were to strike Miami today, most of the city would be leveled, and the atmospheric effects could trigger crop failures around the world.
What’s more, the Gulf of Carpentaria object was a skipping stone compared with an object that Abbott thinks whammed into the Indian Ocean near Madagascar some 4,800 years ago, or about 2,800 B.C. Researchers generally assume that a space object a kilometer or more across would cause significant global harm: widespread destruction, severe acid rain, and dust storms that would darken the world’s skies for decades. The object that hit the Indian Ocean was three to five kilometers across, Abbott believes, and caused a tsunami in the Pacific 600 feet high—many times higher than the 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia. Ancient texts such as Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh support her conjecture, describing an unspeakable planetary flood in roughly the same time period. If the Indian Ocean object were to hit the sea now, many of the world’s coastal cities could be flattened. If it were to hit land, much of a continent would be leveled; years of winter and mass starvation would ensue.
I’m not entirely sure why I’m obsessed with space-based articles recently. I hope to share mostly music here, but occasionally I can’t resist drifting off focus if I’ve recently been reading material even more compelling than Machinefabriek’s 13th 3″ cdr release of the year.
Best of all, Easterbrook’s article ends on a high note. After explaining at length the horrible danger of asteroids, he casually concedes, “But when it comes to killer comets, you’ll just have to lose sleep over the possibility of their approach; there are no proposals for what to do about them… because many comets change course when the sun heats their sides and causes their frozen gases to expand, deflecting or destroying them poses technical problems to which there are no ready solutions.”
Another more dramatic simulation of an asteroid strike is included below the fold. The simulation below is more cinematic, but really nothing to worry about. As Easterbrook reminds us, those relatively small (and relatively common) objects — like the 30m Tunguska Event asteroid — are our real concern.
May 26, 2008 — A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander’s successful arrival at Mars Sunday evening, May 25.
The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter marks the first time ever one spacecraft has photographed another one in the act of landing on Mars
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Camera pointing for the image from HiRISE used navigational information about Phoenix updated on landing day. The camera team and Phoenix team would not know until the image was sent to Earth whether it had actually caught Phoenix.
“We saw a few other bright spots in the image first, but when we saw the parachute and the lander with the cords connecting them, there was no question,” said HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen, also of the University of Arizona (arizona.edu).
With data recorded on board Mars Express, you can hear Phoenix descend on to the surface of the Red Planet. After being processed by the Mars Express Flight Control Team, the sounds of Phoenix descending are audible, loud and clear (esa.int).
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