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Subject: 10th planet
Bonn astronomers measure size of recently discovered solar system object
Claims that the Solar System has a tenth planet are bolstered by the finding by a group led by Bonn astrophysicists that this alleged planet, announced last summer and tentatively named 2003 UB313, is bigger than Pluto. By measuring its thermal emission, the scientists were able to determine a diameter of about 3000 km, which makes it 700 km larger than Pluto and thereby marks it as the largest solar system object found since the discovery of Neptune in 1846 (Nature, 2 February 2006).*
Like Pluto, 2003 UB313 is one of the icy bodies in the so-called Kuiper belt that exists beyond Neptune. It is the most distant object ever seen in the Solar System. Its very elongated orbit takes it up to 97 times farther from the Sun than is the Earth - almost twice as far as the most distant point of Pluto's orbit ? so that it takes twice as long as Pluto to orbit the Sun. When it was first seen, UB313 appeared to be at least as big as Pluto. But an accurate estimate of its size was not possible without knowing how reflective it is. A team led by Prof. Frank Bertoldi from the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) and the MPIfR's Dr. Wilhelm Altenhoff has now resolved this problem by using measurements of the amount of heat UB313 radiates to determine its size, which when combined with the optical observations also allowed them to determine its reflectivity. "Since UB313 is decidedly larger than Pluto," Frank Bertoldi remarks, "it is now increasingly hard to justify calling Pluto a planet if UB313 is not also given this status." Here.
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Subject: how 'bout those deficits? thanks Big Jew
Q&A: FEDERAL RESERVE: Two Deficits, Fed Turnover
By LEE HUDSON TESLIK
Two decades ago, the United States was the world's largest creditor; now it's the world's largest debtor. As Ben Bernanke assumes the post of Federal Reserve chairman, succeeding Alan Greenspan, opinion is split over how much America's profligacy actually matters. The Economist recently suggested that Greenspan, hailed by many as a hero, is in fact leaving behind him "the biggest economic imbalances in American history." Jeffrey Frankel, professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, says that irresponsible spending is America's "worst economic problem in the last twenty-five years, and will be the dominant problem over our next twenty-five." And yet, despite warnings, American consumers (and the federal government) just keep spending, and growth remains strong. Most experts agree that some kind of correction will ultimately be in order, but how this might come, and when, remains far less obvious.
Two deficits?
We should be worried about two deficits, not one, according to a 2005 CFR Task Force Report by Menzie D. Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin's LaFollette School. The "twin deficits" to which Chinn refers are the current account deficit, which reflects how much America spends internationally (imports) versus how much it makes (exports); and the budget deficit, or the gap between government tax revenues and total government spending. Each of these deficits reached record levels in 2005.
Here.
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Subject: freedom of expression - for critics of Muslims, not critics of jews
Newspapers Reprint Cartoons of Muhammad
From Times Wire Reports
Newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that have sparked anger among Muslims since they first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September.
The Middle East Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, and publication of the drawings has divided opinion within Europe.
French and German papers cited freedom of expression in publishing the cartoons.
Two large Danish companies reported their sales falling in the Middle East after protests over the cartoons in the Arab world and calls for boycotts.
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Subject: line
"This year," writes Bill Haynes, "both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day. As Air America Radio pointed out, 'It is an ironic juxtaposition: One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog.'"
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Subject:
even the WND neocon dupes hate Mexican invasion
http://worldnetdaily.com/letters.asp
Sick, or rabid?
You people are really weird. Really sick. Obviously, really Jewish.
You do not belong in this country. Farah and his wannabe pseudo-journalists should immediately move to Israel, or wherever it is that Jews congregate.
I am so sorry that I accidentally tuned into this sick, perverted, maggot infested, Jew-run propaganda cesspool. It has made me sick at my stomach, and I have contacted my lawyer about possible damages (including an emergency visit to the hospital, as directed by my physician).
My only prayer is that the Reich will once again rise and wipe you parasites off the face of the planet!
Charles T. Reuter
Ed. Note: What the WNDies don't grasp is the people sending their sons to Iraq to die for Israel are the same ones preventing our military from shooting invading mexicans. The jewish key unlocks all. Itz the skeleton key to politics.
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Subject: UCLA prof taping
Cracking the eggheads
There is currently a brouhaha brewing here in Los Angeles. On one side are the highly-educated academicians at UCLA, while on the other side are all the really smart people.
It seems that a young UCLA alum named Andrew Jones came up with the nifty notion of getting students to tape their professors' lectures. He figured that was the one sure way to discover whether or not the pedants are really just a bunch of leftist windbags using their lecterns as soap boxes, indoctrinating rather than instructing.
Here.
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Subject: god save niggerball
Pregnant Steelers Fan Makes Plans To Be Induced
(KDKA) A pregnant Steelers fan is not letting the birth of her baby get in the way of the Super Bowl celebrations.
She convinced her doctor to induce her early, so she'll be home in time to watch the Super Bowl with all of her friends.
Baby Alexandria is just a blurry image of a baby right now, but she'll enter the world with a wardrobe of Steelers clothes, her birth scheduled around the Super Bowl.
"The Super Bowl is like Christmas," said Carrie Welling, of New Kensington. "The fact that the Steelers are going - that's what you live for."
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Subject: niggers: every kind of dance but rain
Zimbabwe crops fail despite good rain
Food crops in Zimbabwe have failed again despite ample rainfall.
Zimbabwe is expected this year to grow less than half of what it needs to feed the population and the rains have denied President Robert Mugabe his standard explanation of poor weather for slumping production.
Foreign exchange-earning crops, such as tobacco, flowers and coffee, are now almost too small to count.
More than 20 million acres of Zimbabwe's well-developed agricultural land has been confiscated from about 4,000 experienced white farmers since 2000 and handed to Mr Mugabe's cronies, senior civil servants and members of his extended family.
About 90 per cent of that land is now fallow and the infrastructure is destroyed. Hendrik Olivier, the director of the Commercial Farmers' Union, said: "We have seen good rain which fell on time but there were serious shortages of fertiliser, fuel, and seeds. In some areas, maize planting, which should have ended a month ago, is still continuing."
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Subject:
Christians slam 'homophobia' resolution
European Parliament's action equates condition to racism, anti-Semitism
The European Parliament's recently passed resolution "Homophobia in Europe" has raised alarms among European pro-family groups, Christians and others who worry the measure is a move to cut off public debate over same-sex unions and force universal acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle.
The controversial resolution urging member states to ban "homophobia" states that "homophobia can be defined as an irrational fear of and aversion to homosexuality and of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people based on prejudice, similar to racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism."
Homosexual activists point to recent tension, including so-called "hate speech," between traditional values and the growing public expression of homosexuality throughout Europe as the catalyst for the resolution. Last year, Premier Edmund Stoiber of Bavaria declared his intention to challenge Germany's proposed law favoring homosexual adoption. In June, conservatives in Spain took to the streets to protest the passing of same-sex unions.
Here.
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Subject: aid for Hamas
In defense of foreign aid – for Hamas
Ever since President Bush, sometime after 9-11, converted to neoconservatism, his Middle East policy has suffered from the triple defects of that subspecies of the Right: hubris, ideology and immaturity.
Neoconservatives see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. Like teenagers, they act on impulse and rail against the counsel of experience. "Often clever, never wise," Russell Kirk said of the breed.
Repeatedly, Bush was warned by traditional conservatives that to send a U.S. army to occupy Baghdad would engender Arab rage and Islamic terror. Heeding the "cakewalk" crowd, he refused to listen. Three years later, we are trying to extricate a U.S. army from Iraq with the least possible damage to U.S. security interests.
Prodded again by neoconservatives, Bush declared our true goal had always been to democratize Iraq and the entire Islamic world. His second Inaugural resonated less of Reagan than of Rousseau:
So, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
To advance the end of "tyranny in our world," Bush began to call for elections across the Middle East. Again, he and Condi were warned that if these people were allowed to vote their convictions, they might just vote to throw us out and throw the Israelis into the sea.
Now that elections have been held, what do the returns show?
Propelled into or toward power have been Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, pro-Iranian Shiite zealots in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Hamas in Gaza and on the West Bank.
Here.
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Subject: blog o' morons
Pajama Party Springs a Leak
Posted by James Wolcott
When bloggers are in full war cry against Big Bad Butt-Ugly Mainstream Media, they demand transparency and accountability from these bureaucratic dinosaurs tottering on the bottom line of extinction; they want files thrown open, memos released, heads lopped, apologies tendered. So when such renegades band form a Justice League of Super Bloggers to build a better tomorrow dedicated to accuracy and American dynamism, they won't play the cryptic CYA games of overpaid anchormen, publishers, and producers. They'll tear down the Kremlin walls before they're even built, shunning the opaque practices of CBS News and the NY Times and CNN hanging their monogrammed leotards on the line for all to see. They'll be open for inspection, responsive to questions, refreshingly frank.
Er, not exactly.
In the February issue of Los Angeles magazine, RJ Smith has an article (not online, unfortunately) about that experimental weapons system of ideas known as Pajamas Media, which in a few months has achieved mythic status, like the Hindenberg, or the '62 Mets.
Smith hones in on the primary dilemma facing PeePee Media: how to attract affluent, upscale advertisers who tend to shy away from rabid controversy to a blog mall where there are always ugly brawls breaking out near the coin fountain. Smith quotes Roger L. Simon claiming that racism, sexism, and other "stuff universally disliked" will not be verboten in their camp.
Smith: "He must have forgotten about Charles Johnson, whose Little Green Footballs believes all Muslims are terrorists until proven innocent. Slangy, clever, the site is a dysfunctional mix of beautiful photos Johnson takes on coastal bike rides and constitutionally protected hate speech."
Smith excerpts a choice batch from a LGF hate rally in the comments section, adding drolly, "The screech you hear is the sound of a Lexus backing over a Nikon camera. Is there any corporation in the would that would pay to have its log slapped alongside such calls for slaughter?"
Good question. Too bad he can't obtain an answer from PeePee's transparent founders.
"Doesn't the presence of Footballs make it harder to attract ads to the site? When asked that question, the otherwise loquacious Simon pulls up short. 'I have no comment on that. You should ask Charles,' he said."
He does. "Johnson has not returned phone calls."
Nor can Smith get a reply when he inquires into the investment backing for PeePee, its main moneyman a former software designer named Aubrey Chernick whose company NC4 is "deeply involved in preparing for potential terrorist attacks on Los Angeles and New York City." Chernick was also listed in 2000 as a trustee for the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC, which has the been the tense scene of some interesting drama during the last year.
Be interesting to find out what Chernick expects and wants from his investment in PeePee, what he hopes the financial and ideological payoff to be. But, quelle surprise, "Chernick declined requests for an interview."
Okay, so maybe the Justice League of Super Bloggers isn't so much transparent as gray and filmy. But the important thing is that they're standing up bold and strong against the remnants of Big Bad Media, armed with excaliburs of truth, knowing in every sedentary corpuscle that journalistic momentum is irresistably on their side and victory is assured.
Uh, not quite.
Smith ends his report with an account of the starry PeePee media launch in Manhattan's Rainbow Room to get the buzz snowballing. In attendance were such totemic Play-Doh figures as Lucianne Goldberg, John Podhoretz, and keynoter Judith Miller, who had just had a bitter kissoff from The New York Times. At the end of her keynote speech, Miller, flanked by a couple of bodyguards (possibly to keep some excitable, gin-crazed blogger from pawing her), is ready to face the music.
"...it's time for questions, and none in the crowd asks Miller a single stinging inquiry. Not even anything especially critical, though this is one of the few times she's fielded questions in the days after announcing she would leave The New York Times. Maybe those bodyguards were just too intimidating.
"All day long, bloggers had celebrated themselves as 'the Tom Paines of the 21st century.' I could be wrong, but Tom Paine probably would have had his notebook out when Miller took questions. Bloggers across the board want to be considered the equal of journalists, but the way they froze in the lights of the old media shows the field has a distance to go. So does Pajamas Media."
It has a farther distance to shlep than even Smith suspected. That delightful, calorie=counting scamp Dennis the Peasant recently received in a diplomatic pouch PeePee Media's advertising kit, and it's even more Amateur Hour than you'd imagine. It's like something Chandler and Joey would have cobbled together as a get-rich scheme on Friends, and I detect certain snorts of sarcasm in Dennis the Peasant's deconstruction of the ad kit's graphs and sales pitch.
"Advertisers don't give a flying handshake whether you have 'thought leading, tipping point audiences.' What they do give a flying handshake about is whether you can deliver purchase decision makers. That Pajamas Media is chattering on about 'thought leading' and 'tipping point' type folks will simply indicate to those that control the advertising dollar that Pajamas Media hasn't got a clue. Period."
You must read the entire explication d'texte. It's quite delish.
Here.
First slide with text, bad grammar. If this were a technical presentation I'd overlook it, but these guys are selling advertisers a showplace, and there's dirt on the metaphorical floor. (Metaphloor?).
Furthermore, all the overblown, easily mocked language. Dzheeshe. Would you advertise in a magazine that talks like this? No, because nobody would read it.
"thought leading" -- yeah, I was out leading some thoughts around just last night.
"tipping point type audience" -- as opposed to 12 point type, I guess
"engaged with the blog" -- are they registered at Bed & Bathroom?
"psychographic" -- their audience draws charts of their personality measurements?
"We have crafted a vehicle" -- What, a rickshaw? A little red wagon? You could look for a more tired cliche, but why reinvent the wheel for this vehicle?
I'm very confident about the future of Pajamas Media.
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