Not all dazzling fireworks displays will be on Earth this Independence Day. NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan.Yeehaw! Hold my beer and watch this!
The big question is: What kind of fireworks can sky-gazers expect to see from Earth?But the probes are taking pictures of the action.
Scientists do not know yet. But if the probe hits the bull's-eye, the impact could temporarily light up the comet as much as 40 times brighter than normal, possibly making it visible to the naked eye in parts of the Western Hemisphere.
The real action starts in the early morning of July 3 (Eastern time) when the spacecraft separates, releasing an 820-pound copper probe called the "impactor" on a one-way trip straight into the path of the comet. During the next 22 hours, mission control at Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena will steer both craft toward Tempel 1.Now we're talking! Hmmm, I'm surprised no ecoweenies have jumped on this.
Two hours before the July 4 encounter, the impactor kicks into autopilot, relying on its self-navigating software and thrusters for the rest of the journey to steer toward the sunlit part of the comet's nucleus so that space and Earth-based telescopes can get the best view.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft - with its high-resolution camera ready - will veer out of harm's way some 5,000 miles away, as it stakes out a ringside seat for recording the collision. The spacecraft will make its closest flyby minutes after impact, approaching within 310 miles.
The collision is expected to occur around 1:52 a.m. EDT when the comet, traveling through space at 6 miles per second, runs over the impactor, which will be shooting some of the most close-up pictures of Tempel 1 up until its death.
Grammier has likened it to standing in the middle of the road and being hit by a semi-truck going 23,000 mph - "you know, just bam!" The energy produced by the crash will be like detonating nearly 5 tons of TNT.
Whew, these are difficult times for those of us who expect a laugh or two out of politics. Yet happiness is back. We can laugh again. The irrepressible Senator Joe Biden has announced on CBS's Face the Nation that he is seeking the presidency. He thought about running in 2004, but feared he had gotten the presidential itch too late. Dr. Howard Dean was already a shoo-in. Now he only has Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to worry about, and Senator Biden apparently is not all that worried. Perhaps he shares my childlike belief that the American people are becoming impatient with liars. Senator Clinton has been caught lying so many times by independent counsels and others that the American people will give her candidacy short shrift.All the world's a stage, but some folks are best suited to sweeping up after the show.
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You might recall that Senator Biden ran once before, seeking the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination. Within no time he was caught plagiarizing from the stock speech of Neil Kinnock, who was then hidden away in London as leader of Britain's Labour Party. Soon it was discovered that he had also plagiarized from other little known figures, Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. I have forgotten what lines he pilfered from Jackson. Conceivably it was the one about his coming from "the outhouse to the White House." I doubt he used Jesse's line about New York being "Hymie Town." But anything is possible. This is a longtime Democrat we are talking about.
During his 1988 trials it was also discovered that he had been guilty of plagiarizing in Law School. He bowed out of the 1988 race saying, "There'll be other presidential campaigns and I'll be there." Who said this originally I have not been able to discover, possibly it is a line from Shakespeare.
THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the new web-based media for “paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry”. He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was “close to that of unpoliced conversation”.And the problem with "unpoliced conversation" is what, exactly?
ROBERT Mugabe and his wife Grace are this weekend preparing for a lavish wedding anniversary celebration by approving a guest list that includes the names of African leaders seeking massive debt relief for their impoverished countries.The party is in August but I guess you can't start too early for a big shindig like this. A list of the leaders includes:
Several Southern African regional leaders are expected to attend, including best man at the wedding, former Mozambican president Joachim Chissano. Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, his Tanzanian counterpart Benjamin Mkapa and former South African president Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel have also cracked invites. “It’s not expected that President Thabo Mbeki will come, but an ANC delegation will ...Nice of them to take time out from counting their foreign aid bucks. But back to the original story:
"It will be a classy, royal-like occasion," a government source said in Harare. "The Mugabes will be driven from a church service at Kutama Mission outside Harare where they were married in August 1996 in an open Rolls-Royce with horses in front. That's how they want it."One can't help but wonder if the horses are actually pulling the Rolls. And wearing diapers.
Plans for the lavish celebrations in August have been confirmed as millions of Zimbabweans face starvation. This year the country was forced to import millions of tons of grain, most of it corn from neighbouring countries.It's great that everyone is chipping in! But heck, loves springs eternal for Bob and Gracie:
The all-day party will be partly paid for by President Mugabe - one of Africa's wealthiest men - partly by impoverished Zimbabwean taxpayers and partly by local companies seeking to stay in business at a time when the words "ethnic cleansing" are never far away from the lips of European, Asian and middle-class African businesspeople.
Grace Mugabe is 40 years younger than her husband. The couple met when President Mugabe was still a married man.They got married when the kids were teenagers and the first wife was only four years dead? Naughty Bobby and Gracie! Also her being a "State House security operative" is a lttle vague - most reports are that Gracie was his secretary. And what a piece of work she is - check out Hanging out with Zim's First Shopper:
His first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Mugabe, died in 1992 and 40 days of national mourning was declared. Then rumours started that the austere Catholic-educated Mugabe had been having an affair for years with a State House security operative, Grace Marufa.
Robert Mugabe fathered two children with her - Robert Jnr (now 18) and Bona, who is 16. The children were presented to almost 30,000 wedding guests at the end of August 1996. Since then the couple have had a third child.
AT HOME in Zimbabwe more than seven million of her people are starving. But as Robert Mugabe's wife Grace strolled around the most exclusive boutiques in Paris recently, the plight of the hungry and dying was the last thing on her mind.Much, much more by following the link including "a home dubbed Gracelands", but the best line is:
Hiding behind £180 Christian Dior sunglasses and with a £25,000 diamond-encrusted Rolex hanging off her wrist, the First Lady of Zimbabwe spent a day doing what she does best - shopping.
Asked recently how she justified travelling to Europe to spend thousands on Ferragamo shoes while her people starved, she replied simply: "I have very narrow feet, so I wear only Ferragamo."Well, gosh, that's all right then!
Geldof yesterday sparked new fears of G8 chaos as he invited thousands of French protesters to descend on Edinburgh, promising a Dunkirk-style flotilla of small ships to carry them across the Channel.And pulled out of his ventral orifice.
Already reeling from Geldof's call for a "million-man" march through the city's streets, Lothian and Borders Police warned protesters to stay away if they had no accommodation.
And the coastguard service, which was not told in advance of Geldof's plans, also expressed concern that his armada would be crossing some of the world's busiest seaways.
One Scottish politician also said he was worried that Geldof's plan was being "made up as it goes along".
Geldof has plenty of backing, and not just from lords of rock such as Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, Sting and U2.Be there or be square, I guess. If you aren't too particular about the company you keep.
Britain's Labor Government is behind him, as is a coalition of church groups, unions and charities called End Poverty Now. Anarchist groups also plan to join his festival of anger.
The official Live 8 demands -- endorsed by the Blair Government -- seem simple: "This without doubt is a moment in history where ordinary people can grasp the chance to achieve something truly monumental, and demand from the eight world leaders at G8 an end to poverty."Tsk, in the best circles, it's not polite to mention the thugs!
An end to poverty? How?
"By doubling aid, fully cancelling debt, and delivering trade justice for Africa."
Notice how none of the solutions involve African countries doing much themselves? But this always was more about us than them.
What a terrible fraud.
More aid might help Africa. Freer trade most certainly would. But nothing can truly help Africa until it helps itself -- by becoming as free, open and accountable as is the West.
But who wants to go to rock concerts to demand an end to African corruption? That's so . . . judgmental.
Let Kenya be a warning.That must be an ice water douche for ole Bob. More bad news in It's tyranny stupid!:
The British High Commissioner there, Sir Edward Clay, has publicly accused corrupt officials of "vomiting on the shoes of donors", and named 20 big public projects riddled with graft.
In February, the US Ambassador, William Bellamy, backed him, saying the money stolen in one of those projects could have paid for enough anti-retroviral drugs for every HIV-positive Kenyan for the next 10 years.
It's a notion that forms the foundation stone of the Africa Commission.More by following the links, but I have one question that doesn't seem to have been asked: Can Bob Geldof be sued for damages caused by the Million Goof March?
'Things are changing on the continent, with African governments showing a
new vision ... Africa, at last, looks set to deliver,' the commission's report gushes, while assuring us it has done its best to be 'blisteringly honest'.
To which, in 'blisteringly honest' mode, I can only say: utter balls.
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Let's take a few examples. Uganda, say, where President Yoweri Museveni, who once said no African leader should spend more than 10 years in power, has now governed for nearly two decades and is set on amending the constitution to allow him to stand again. It's strange that the Museveni case doesn't weigh more on Geldof's mind, as Sir Bob was recently demonised in Uganda's press for telling Museveni to step down.
And then there's Kenya. True, the opposition won the elections there in 2002 and, for once, an old-style Big Man leader agreed to stand down. But the public mood has turned sour and angry, for the corruption of President Mwai Kibaki's new administration makes Daniel arap Moi's regime look almost restrained. The American ambassador to Nairobi worked out that the sums stolen could have paid for every HIV-positive Kenyan to get antiretroviral treatment for a decade.
Take Ethiopia and Eritrea, whose leaders are arms-shopping while relying on the international community to feed their drought-hit millions. Or Ivory Coast, where Laurent Gbagbo has encouraged the militias who support his presidency to talk the language of genocide. Or Ghana, where President John Kufuor's new administration, local commentators estimate, include more than a dozen members of his family. But enough.
The point is that there are precious few signs of this enlightened 'new leadership'. The fact that more African countries are run by nominally elected governments instead of military dictatorships obscures just how structurally similar the new administrations often remain to what went before. The elites that have sabotaged development since independence have adapted to the times, learning to play the democracy game with panache. Africa's lootocracies have reinvented themselves.
For weeks, Downing Street had been insisting that Cherie Blair's lucrative speaking engagement in the US was entirely a 'private' visit, in her capacity as a barrister and mother of four.It does sound like a snoozer. But heck, whatever works.
So it may have come as a surprise to her fee-paying audience yesterday when she was given gushing introductions by none other than the British Ambassador to Washington and Senator Hillary Clinton.
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Her remarks came on another day of controversy when ambassador Sir David Manning's presence, in particular, led to renewed accusations that Mrs Blair is cashing in on her husband's status and pulling in favours from his political friends.
The row threatened to overshadow his talks with President Bush, as Shadow Commons leader Chris Grayling wrote to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw demanding to know why a British diplomat was supporting an entirely commercial event.
Mrs Blair was paid between £20,000 and £30,000 for the 90-minute interview at the John F Kennedy Centre in Washington DC. She later rounded off her 'private' visit with a stay at the British Embassy and dinner at the White House.
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"There are strict guidelines which prevent ministers from making money out of their position, yet Mrs Blair is allowed to do so even though Mr Blair will clearly be a beneficiary of the money she makes.'
Despite Mrs Blair's interview with CNN anchorwoman Paula Zahn being billed as a sell-out, the 2,450-seat auditorium was barely half full for her talk.
To date, Mrs Blair has made an estimated £170,000 from speaking engagements, including a 'charity' tour of Australia in February which earned her £100,000.Just a little walking around money.
A multidrug-resistant tuberculosis known as MDR-TB is persistent in California, primarily among its "foreign-born" population, and has serious financial implications for the state's public-health system, federal and state health officials said yesterday.Hmm, sounds like a duck.
"Treatment for MDR-TB is very expensive -- ranging from $200,000 to $1.2 million per person, over an 18- to 24-month time period," said Dr. Reuben Granich, a lead investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a press conference in the District yesterday.
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He added that 84 percent of patients infected with MDR-TB "were foreign born" and that those infected are four times as likely to die from the disease and twice as likely to "transmit the disease to others" than other tuberculosis patients.
The study did not categorize the "foreign-born" patients as illegal aliens, but says the patients in question characteristically did not complete standard TB treatment and were in the U.S. less than five years at the time of diagnosis.
"TB is a deadly airborne disease and a global public-health emergency. If we hope to accelerate progress and guard against resurgence of TB, we must employ innovative public-health strategies -- not border closings," Dr. Granich said.With all due respect to the doc, it sounds like border control would be a pretty good strategy, but I'll bite - what does he recommend instead?
Overall, he said, the study underscores the need for better control of TB worldwide and the expansion of overseas screening programs.Gosh, that's real practical - control TB everywhere else in the world to keep contagious illegal aliens from bringing it to the US. The doc then finished off his presentation with a chorus of Kumbaya. And remember, Californians, if you have to go to the emergency room, don't sit next to anyone with a cough!