60 Years Ago Today

On a circle of ground cinders the unbelievable happened

The men who made it possible, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, have unfortunately passed on but they too need to be remembered.

In Joyous Celebration Of Pointed Teeth

Excited by article below about tasty animal goodness (which came out over the weekend) I decided that what I really needed for lunch after church on Sunday was a Jersey Burger

Yes, that’s a half-pound burger atop some sharp Vermont cheddar (with some jalapeño slices tucked underneath), covered with pork roll and a fried egg on a nice kaiser.

And yes, it was damned yum.

“Put Your Hands Behind Your Head and Step Away From the Phone”

“…We’re a generation of idiots. Smart phones and dumb people.”

Rejoice And Be Glad!

Via the WSJ comes to us this wonderful story of SCIENCE confirming every tenet of my life. In fact, it contains what is arguably the finest, most liberating sentence in the English language since “When in the course of human events…”:

Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish.

I am weeping with joy.

Cut Grass And Two-Stroke Engines

Ah! The smells of Spring!

Technology is Wonderful

I wish we had one for the White House.

Silent But Deadly

Forget meteorites: the “Great Dying” mass extinction event 252 million years ago may have been caused by farts

The physical environment can produce sudden shocks to the life of our planet through impacting space rocks, erupting volcanoes and other events. But sometimes life itself turns the tables and strikes a swift blow back to the environment. MIT researchers have identified a different culprit — one coming from biology rather than geology. They argue that the carbon disruption and, consequently, the end-Permian extinction were set off by a particular microorganism that evolved a new way to digest organic material into methane.

The end-Permian (or PT) extinction event occurred 252 million years ago. It is often called the Great Dying because around 90 percent of marine species disappeared in one fell swoop. Similar numbers died on land as well, producing a stark contrast between Permian rock layers beneath (or before) the extinction and the Triassic layers above. Extinctions are common throughout time, but for this one, the fossil record truly skipped a beat.
“The end-Permian is the greatest extinction event that we know of,” said Daniel Rothman, a geophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The changes in the fossil record were obvious even to 19th Century geologists.”

Understanding the cause of this biological devastation requires understanding the geochemical clues that go along with it. Chief among these clues is a sudden swing in the balance of carbon isotopes stored in rocks from that same time period. If geologists can find what disrupted the carbon, they’ll likely know what killed off so much of the Earth’s life forms. Several theories have tried to explain the carbon perturbation as, for example, massive volcanism, or a drop in sea level, but none of these environmental causes have fully matched the data.

With this genetic innovation, these methane-producers, or methanogens, ran rampant across the ocean, overturning the carbon cycle. The resulting changes in ocean chemistry would have driven many species to extinction.

Based on my own experience after a particularly tasty curry, this is a theory I can believe.

(via Ace’s sidebar)

Smart Power!

So as the Bestest Smartest Rootin-Tootinest President Evuh imposes Smart Sanctions on Russia to make them feel the pain of our displeasure about the Ukraine over at the Pentagon they’re wondering “how do we launch our satellites now?

The Pentagon has no “great solution” to reduce its dependence on a Russian-made engine that powers the rocket used to launch U.S. military satellites, the Defense Department’s top weapons buyer said.

“We don’t have a great solution,” Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, said yesterday after testifying before a Senate committee. “We haven’t made any decisions yet.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the Air Force to review its reliance on the rocket engine after tensions over Russia’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region prompted questions from lawmakers about that long-time supply connection.

United Launch Alliance LLC, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., uses the Russian-made RD-180 engine on Atlas V rockets.

Our military uses Russian rockets.

It shouldn’t.

Ace of Spades Moron Meet Up

On my way home now, quite a fun time and thanks to CBD for organizing it.

Only problem is the 9:30 bus out of the Port Authority is completely packed. No seats.

I am actually literally sitting in the aisle, on the floor.

Thanks for All the Good Wishes, You Guys

This is a Tuesday night shot of the brand new bridge over Escambia Bay that replaced the one Ivan blew away.

Interstate 10 bridge over Pensacola Bay flooded: pic.twitter.com/pnLN8ilrnA

— Fight the Blight (@Goodcleanliving) April 30, 2014

Miraculously, WE came out of it ~ in our low lying house ~ with nothing worse than a soggy garage and rattled nerves from a night of incessant thunder and lightening. I have NEVER in my life experienced anything like it. Just would NOT quit.

Folks in our neighborhood suffered terribly, though. A new military family who STILL had the UHaul from their move two days ago in front of their house had everything they owned baptised by half a foot of swamp water through the house. The new drainage system ~ put in after the 22 in. in one day event 3 years ago ~ may have solved a problem existing at the time, but the sure need to check out the water flow it’s creating.

Brand new drainage culvert undermined in Coral Creek. Was complete $1mil redo after 22+ in rain event couple yrs ago. pic.twitter.com/zuPQw4Ej55

— tree hugging sister (@treehuggingsis) April 30, 2014

Through, under and around someone’s house is not an optimal result of county “improvements”, I HATE to tell our district commissioner.

Water undercut this house foundation in Coral Creek subdivision. #Pensacola #Westside pic.twitter.com/6d7z3iaNQk

— tree hugging sister (@treehuggingsis) April 30, 2014

So, I’d say ~ conservatively ~ there’s at least 20+ houses in our little sub-division alone completely inundated, if not, like the poor folks above, damn near destroyed.

And we look GOOD compared to town and the rest of the county.
Seems like every other other one of our everyday roads and major arteries look like this:

Of course, in the middle of every disaster, a little levity emerges…

It was thundering again last night and now they’ve got storms forecast for the rest of today and Friday.

As we were already 18 inches above average when this hit and the schwamp behind us is filled to overflowing, I’m gonna have to wonder where any water is supposed to go.