High Noon on Titanic Beach
18 February 2014

Getting away from New York and Connecticut for a while may be a good idea in this weather.  How about Saturn?

The Cassini-Huygens probe launched by NASA and the European Space Agency in late 1997 went into orbit around Saturn in 2004 and has been returning stunning data and pictures ever since.   In December 2004 the satellite released a sub-probe called Huygens which soft landed on Saturn's giant moon Titan a few weeks later.
 

Titan has since become famous as the only OTHER place in the solar system where waves gently lap the shores of remote beaches and gentle rains wash down from the mountains in chuckling rivulets, emptying into peaceful lakes.  

Before planning your next vacation though it's instructive to look more closely at this promising vacation spot:

• 1. It's a bit chilly: -290oF 
• Leave the shades home.  The sun looks like a very bright star at high noon.  That's about it. 
• The lakes and seas are not water; they are crystal-clear liquid methane - Natural gas. 
• Sure, go for a swim - but since liquid methane's not particularly buoyant you'll sink like a stone. 
• Want to build sand castles?  Fine, but since the sand on Titan is a weird hyper-solid water ice, watch where you put the grill!  "Oh no!  Dad melted the beach!" 
• Better forget the grill altogether since the atmosphere's mostly nitrogen.  Add enough O2 to get a good flame and the lakes explode (Right. Natural gas)

Bon Voyage!

A Seasonal Carol for Atlanta 
...and Tuscaloosa, and Tel Aviv, and Leningrad, and Mumbai...  
Think: "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!"
12 February 2014

It’s beginning to look a lot like Norway, 
Here in Tel Aviv,
There’s already a foot of snow, And everyone wants to know,
 
Can we ski the Pyramids on Christmas Eve? 

 

It’s been hotter than hell in Novosibirsk,

For a month at least …but tovarisch, don’t you know? 
To Siberia I’d go - Just to catch a breeze!

 






Glaciers retreating and subartic heating 
The jetstream’s out of control… 
Carbon emissions confirming suspicions
The ozone’s peppered with holes;

  

But Eskimos are fi-nally enjoying guacamole!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Moscow, 

Here in old Bombay, 
For a change it is very nice, 
But my curry has turned to ice, 
and they’re skating on the Ganges, so they say;

 
They used to have sun in Ala-bama,
Not so long ago,

 

But the funniest sight to see 
Are the “experts” that will be
There on Fox TeeVee,

Climate change it’s NOT, 

It’s a Liberal Plot!

JUDICIAL EXECUTION OF CONVICTED FELONS
5 February 2014

I'm not against capital punishment for heinous criminals and murderers.  On the other hand, executing someone after 10 or 20 years in prison is barbaric.  

In one sense, the Chinese are not too far off the mark here.  They convict someone.  They take them out back.  They shoot them in the head.  The end. 

Here in the U.S., where we damn other countries for human rights violations, we convict someone and then...

• We keep them in prison for many years at huge taxpayer expense.
• We let them reform and find religion.
• We let them dedicate their lives to helping other felons 
• We encourage them to find aspiration, education and purpose
• We let them hope and pray for life
• We tell them all appeals have failed and we are going to kill them.

 And then, we give them another few months to think about this after which we dramatically lead them to horror-movie rooms where they are either slowly electrocuted or to strapped to tables surrounded by poison-containing machines.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment?  The Chinese may occasionally execute the innocent and harvest the organs, but at least they do it without 20 years of psychological torture.