Interesting Picture of Mercury

In the Science section of FoxNews.com website, there is an interesting story about recent pictures taken of Mercury by NASA’s MESSENGER probe. Story here. In this story, they talk about the spider formation in this picture:

FoxNews — NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
It is a very interesting crater impact on the surface of Mercury. The article also states that Mercury is the only other planet to have a magnetic field around it. The MESSENGER probes has much work to do in helping us understand the planet closest to our sun.

Meet Me In The Stairwell

Sharing an e-mail I received from my sister today. Although I removed most of the pictures from the e-mail, as you read the text, remember the pictures you actually saw of that day compared to the New York City nighttime skyline shown below.

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‘MEET ME IN THE STAIRWELL’

You say you will never forget where you were when
you heard the news On September 11, 2001.
Neitherwill I.

A “Stimulus Package”? – Thomas Sowell @ Townhall.com

Another great piece today from Thomas Sowell at Townhall.com entitled, A “Stimulus Package”?

Mr Sowell discusses the stimulus package the Congress and White House developed to help us through the upcoming economic crisis this year. I had to agree with Mr Sowell’s assessment of bipartisan approach versus a partisan approach on this legislation:

That alone should be enough to make us remember that “the devil is always in the details,” because things that are bipartisan are often twice as bad as things that are partisan.

Everyone in Washington thinks they are doing us favors by giving us this money. But, if look closely sometimes the money is not going to the hard working people who need it. In fact, if someone starts to complain that they are not getting any relief, the package is just grows and eventually is not helping anyone. So, should the government do anything to help us through this stuff point in the economy?

Well, Mr Sowell makes a good point about what government can do:

The idea of a stimulus package is based on the general notion that there are things the government could do to make things better in the economy.

Unfortunately, there is a vast difference between what the government could do and what it is likely to do.

One of best ways government could help us taxpayers would be make the tax cuts permanent. But, this not approach they are taking in this election year. Those running for election want to be re-elected and giving us some sweets by throw a couple hundred dollars back to us by this summer. But, another good way is actually to do nothing. As Mr Sowell points out through our recent history:

There are too many examples of government interventions that made things worse, the Great Depression of the 1930s being the most tragic.

Those on the left love to believe that the stock market crash of 1929 showed the failure of the free market and that the New Deal interventions in the 1930s saved the day.

But the stock market crash of 1987 was just as big and Ronald Reagan resisted loud calls for him to intervene. The result was not another Great Depression but the beginning of a decades-long period of prosperity.

In this case, the government should learn its lesson from the 1980s and do nothing to stimulate the economy. The best thing is to free the taxpayers from shackles of tax burden we are currently under by reducing our taxes and cut woeful earmark spending both parties have been doing this past 10 years.

Otherwise, Mr Sowell point out, we will only make short-term problem into a long-term problem.

How are you doing financially?

So, how are you doing financially? Are you on your way to save that $1 million dollars by the time you retire?

Well, at Yahoo Finance website, check out this interesting link, How to make a million, by Mark Beth Franklin.

It provides details on steps you can take to save a million dollars by the time you retire. Can you do it? Well, start your plan today.  Do not delay. The sooner you start, the better off you will be.

NHL at the All-Star Break

Well, the NHL is heading into the All-Star break. How are the teams doing to date?

We find that 29 of 30 teams are still in the hunt for 16 playoff spots. This shows the league has balance this year. At this point, here are the division leaders:

Atlantic: Flyers & Devils

Northeast: Senators

Southeast: Cans

Central: Red Wings

Northwest: Wild

Pacific: Stars & Sharks

At the month old point of the season, I saw the following teams as disappointments: Atlanta, New Jersey, Anaheim, and Nashville. I can say now that these teams apparently had a slow start to the season. New Jersey, Atlanta, and Anaheim are now challenging for the top spot of their division. But, only New Jersey and Anaheim are in position for the playoffs.

If the playoffs were today who would be in (in order of seeds, top to bottom)?

East: Senators, Flyers, Hurricanes, Canadiens, Devils, Penguins, Bruins, Islanders.

West: Red Wings, Sharks, Wild, Stars, Ducks, Flames, Canucks, and Avalanche.

Of the teams looking in, all teams have a chance to make the playoff with exception of the Kings. In the East, the eighth place team to the sixteenth place team are separated by 9 points. Meanwhile, in the West, the separation is 6 points from eighth to fifteenth place. So, the next part of season is going to be make or break the teams who are in the running for playoff spots.

Philadelphia is still the biggest improvement team from last year. From the bottom of the league last year to the top of their division right now. We will see if they can hold on.

The teams at the top of their conference still are the teams to beat. But, it seems that Senators may have some issues with injuries. This could result in the Eastern Conference race tightening up. Injuries are not limited to the Senators. The Pittsburgh’s lost of Crosby for 6-8 week could hurt them as well. But, other team members will have to carry the slack to keep the Pens in the playoff hunt.

In the West, the Red Wings appear to be coasting for the top seed. The rotation of the goalies have keep them fresh and team plays well regardless of who is in goal.  I see much improvement in the Blues and Blackhawks this season.  This should keep the Red Wings on their toes as they push for West Conference crown.

So, the All-Star games in Atlanta should be a good game of skill and high scoring.  Check out NHL All Star Game by clicking the logo below:

But, the reminder of the season should be exciting. Catch the action on Versus in US, TSN/CBC/RDS in Canada, and NBC in the US (weekends only).

Check out my 2007 year end analysis here.
Check out my first analysis here.

Limbaugh, Geraghty, & Global Warming – Roy Spencer @ NRO

Royer Spencer has a piece at National Review’s Planet Gore blog called Limbaugh, Geraghy, & Global Warming.

He makes several interesting statements.

About carbon dioxide being a major greenhouse gas:

After many years in this line of work, I’ve come to the firm conclusion that global warming is one of those research areas where scientists think they know much more than they really do. In many ways, putting a man on the Moon was far easier than understanding the climate system. Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas — a minor one. And, yes, humans burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide: one molecule of CO2 for every 100,000 molecules of atmosphere, every five years.

We need to realize also that as humans we do breathe out CO2 as well, but the plants and trees take it to produce oxygen which we in return use to breathe. Hmmmm. Why do we not hearing about that?

On why he disagrees with the majority,

So, why would a minority of scientists like me dare to disagree with a 56-percent majority? (That is how many of the 530 climate scientists polled agreed that global warming is mostly caused by humans,)

While there are several answers to this question, here I’ll mention only one. Compared to the carbon dioxide that humans produce, Mother Nature routinely transfers 40 times as much CO2, and 24,000 times as much water vapor (Earth’s primary greenhouse gas), back and forth between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, every day.

Scientists have simply assumed that these natural processes have been in balance for centuries. But, what if there have always been some small — but natural — imbalances in those large up-and-down flows that slowly change over time? In that case, our measured increases in greenhouse gases and global temperatures might well turn out to be more natural than manmade, lost in the noise of natural variability.

Can I prove any of this? No — not yet, anyway. But neither have any scientists produced one single scientific paper showing that Mother Nature isn’t the dominant source of what we are seeing. Mankind is one possible explanation, and our measurements of natural variability in the climate system on time scales of decades to centuries are simply not good enough to find out how many natural sources of variability are also out there.

Although he cannot prove any of it, neither can the majority prove what they are saying. Interesting. He also has very good website called Global Warming and Nature’s Themostat. It is a good read. Check it out.

He confirms what Rush is always saying about the success of our country:

He frequently reminds listeners that America’s success has not come from its politicians, but from its people. Not from soaring (yet ambiguous) speeches, but from enduring ideals, creativity, hard work, and most of all — freedom.

This is something we should not take for granted.  If we let government run over us, we will have little freedoms left.  So, whether we go along with the global warming mania, he states something that many do not talk about, the long terms effects impact on us.

I can certainly appreciate Jim Geraghty’s concern over the short-term political risks of doubting the paradigm of manmade global warming. But the long-terms risks of giving in to it are far greater.

Towards the end of his piece, he concludes with the topic about our dependence on oil,

This is the one subject for which I believe “hoax” is an entirely appropriate label when it comes to people’s motives for advancing such solutions. Either “hoax,” or “stunning stupidity.” Rush is right — mankind depends mostly on petroleum and coal for its energy, and nothing is going to change that until human creativity, fueled by the extra wealth created by free markets, leads to new energy technology breakthroughs.

As I stated in a previous blog entry, if we could break the bonds that holds us back, we could develop the new fuel that run our country.  But, we must stop listening to those who seem to dictate our energy policy.

I can say that Dr Spencer, a climatologist working as a research scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, has a good understanding of the global warming topic. He brings forth facts that can help us better understand the truth about climatology without all the alarmist hype.  He is someone we can all learn from.

Bond 22

A fellow blogger at WordPress.com has an untitled entry about the next Bond movie.  Check it out.