WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance... (more)
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With little international support, the U.S., Britain and Spain officially scrap the quest to obtain a new U.N. resolution on Iraq. Four and a half months have passed since U.N. Resolution 1441, and a new resolution would signal the world's belief that Iraq had failed the terms of that resolution and now faced the consequences. The 'Coalition of the Willing' announces it will enforce the U.N. resolution without the U.N.'s approval.
Nov. 23, 2007: At Cape Canaveral, not far from the launch pad where the space shuttle lifts off, there's a ragged hole in a chain link fence. Its message: Watch out for flying boulders.
"The powerful exhaust of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters blasts concrete out of the flame trench below the engines," explains physicist Phil Metzger of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). "On some launches, boulders of concrete up to a half meter wide are blown out as far as a half a kilometer away, traveling fast enough to shatter concrete light poles and punch through chain link fences."
This is no problem as long as people and equipment are kept at a safe distance, easily done. But, Metzger wonders, what if all this was happening on the Moon?
NASA is returning to the Moon in the next decade with plans to establish a durable outpost. There will be habitats, rovers, supply depots and mining equipment. Ships will be coming and going, landing and blasting off--and kicking up debris that might fly a lot farther than boulders at Cape Canaveral. Metzger is researching this problem as part of his work at KSC's Granular Mechanics and Surface Systems Lab.
"Boulders are no concern," he says. Lunar spacecraft will be far less massive than the space shuttle and they won't need such a powerful kick to escape lunar gravity. Movies made by six Apollo spacecraft of their landings and takeoffs showed nothing larger than gravel being rolled away by exhaust gases from the landing rockets.
Instead, Metzger is sweating the really small stuff--"moondust."
//snip//At their regular meeting Monday morning, the Watauga County Board of Commissioners approved a recommendation from the high school subcommittee to seek LEED certification for the new Watauga County High School. Commissioners John Cooper and Winston Kinsey were not present at the meeting, but Jim Deal, Billy Ralph Winkler and Mary Moretz voted unanimously in favor of the proposal.
LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a green building rating system—the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings.
LEED certification requires independent, third-party verification that a building meets the highest green building and performance measures 
and promotes a whole-building approach by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
According to information from the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED certification offers a number of environmental and financial benefits:
• Lowers operating costs and increases asset value
• Reduces waste sent to landfills
• Conserves energy and water
• Provides a healthier and safer environment
• Reduces harmful greenhouse gas emissions
• Qualifies for tax rebates, zoning allowances and other incentives in hundreds of cities
Since the commissioners decided to construct a new school rather than try to renovate the existing facility, they have consistently voiced their intention to incorporate as many energy-saving and sustainable features into the school as possible.
At Monday’s meeting, County Manager Rocky Nelson mentioned several of those features: daylighting, rainwater capture and reuse, high-efficiency lighting, geothermal heating and cooling, computerized control systems and environmentally friendly materials.
LEED offers four certification levels: certified (the minimum level), silver, gold and platinum. Project architect Jennifer Sisak has proposed obtaining silver level certification for the new school.
Cost is involved, not only for the application fee and inspection, but also for the architect’s services in overseeing the process. The estimated cost to the county for the certification is $50,000 to $65,000, an amount that does not include engineering fees. However, the board of commissioners has approached LEED-certified faculty at Appalachian State University to provide those engineering services at no charge in exchange for permitting their students to participate in the process and obtain hands-on experience with the certification process.
“I personally believe LEED-certified facilities will be eligible for grants that non-LEED buildings won’t,” said Board Chair Jim Deal. “There is some cost up front, but the potential long-term savings are far greater. If we get LEED certification, we will be the only [such certified school] in this corner of the state.”
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Frigid fall opens ski slope early
LinkYahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan trod grimly up to the sacrificial alter in the chambers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee today and laid themselves open for evisceration over the company’s cooperation in the 2004 arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao and his 10-year sentence for offending the state. The lawmakers did not hold back.
“While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,” railed Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif. Lantos made it clear he was not buying Yahoo’s story that because of a poorly translated document, it only belatedly discovered that the request for Shi’s records was related to a questionable “security” investigation (see “It was the Chinese word for ‘quisling’ that threw us“). “This was inexcusably negligent behavior at best and deliberately deceptive behavior at worst,” said Lantos. Twice. For purposes of extra shaming, the committee seated Shi Tao’s mother right behind Yang and Callahan, and at Lantos’ directive, they turned and bowed in apology, leading her to break out in tears.
The Yahoo duo vainly continued to defend their company’s actions. “I cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if, in my personal view, the local laws are overbroad,” Callahan said. Replied Lantos, “I do not believe that America’s best and brightest companies should be playing integral roles in China’s notorious and brutal political repression apparatus.” Committee members were also unhappy at the pair’s vague answers about whether Yahoo would somehow compensate Shi’s family (”You’re one of the richest companies in the country, and you don’t know whether you can provide for the humanitarian needs for a couple of families?” asked Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.), and whether it would continue to accede to such data demands. Callahan would say only that in going into new markets, “I would hope to have a structure in place … that we would be able to resist those demands or have that data not be accessible.” And Yang promised that in the future, “we’ll take more responsibility both morally and ethically.”
LinkFor though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare [are] not fleshly but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And they will be ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.So how did I get here? It started at one stop on my morning prowl where the headline 'GOP chairman probes six major televangelists' caught my eye. The story noted that the watchdog group Trinity Foundation had stirred the pot.
2 Corinthians 10:4,5
CBS also reports that Sen. Grassley's letters were prompted in part by Ole Anthony, an investigator with the Trinity Foundation, a religious watchdog group that probes potential fraud among religious groups.The concept behind the essay is almost fundamental and one which demands scrutiny.
The Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) are unique deposits on Mars. They are also an enigma. Found near the equator, along the divide between the highlands and lowlands, they may represent some of the youngest deposits on the surface of the planet. This is inferred from the marked lack of impact craters dotting this terrain, unlike on older terrain. Mars Express has been collecting data from this region using its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS). Between March 2006 and April 2007, Mars Express orbited the region many times, taking radar soundings as it went.
For the first time, these radar soundings revealed the depth of the MFF layers, because of the time it took for the radar beam to pass through the top layers and bounce off the solid rock beneath. "We didn't know just how thick the MFF deposits really were" says Thomas Watters, lead author of the results at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, USA.
"Some investigators thought they might be a thin veneer overlaying topographic rises in the lowlands. The new data show that the MFF are massive deposits over 2.5 km thick in some places where MARSIS orbits pass over them," Watters added. The MFF deposits intrigue scientists because they are associated with regions that absorb certain wavelengths of Earth-based radar. This had led to them being called 'stealth' regions because they give no radar echo. The affected wavelengths are 3.5 to 12.6 centimetres. MARSIS, however, works at wavelengths of 50 to over 100 metres. At these wavelengths, the radar waves mostly pass through the MFF deposits creating subsurface echoes when the radar signal reflects off the plains material beneath.
MoreConventional wisdom (CW) is a term coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society, used to describe certain ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public.It appeared in a discourse on 'framing' which is well worth the read.
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fata morgana \fah-tuh-mor-GAH-nuh\ noun
mirage
hare \HAIR\ verb
to go swiftly : tear
*** an interesting definition of a common word
This brought to mind one of my pet gripes; the malalignment of the divisons in major league baseball. The numbers are even and it should be rather simple. Thirty teams in two 15-team leagues playing in three five-team divisions each. Not for the folks at MLB. Instead of that clean, simple arrangement, even the very foundations are skewed.UFOs are reported in all kinds of different shapes and sizes. From round, ball-like shapes, square boxes, cigars, to the traditional flying saucer. Out of all of these configurations, triangular-shaped UFOs seem to be receiving more attention and publicity recently.One passage in particular, "One of these bases was NATO controlled near the city of Glons..." has the potential of being one of those 'what is going on with that?' things. How many bases staffed by who and paid for by whom? The 'where?' is a given.Beginning in the early 1980's many countries, including the United States, have experienced mass-sightings of triangle UFOs, all with similar characteristics such as shape, sound, lighting and flight patterns. Seen with increasing frequency, several excellent photos and videos have been taken of these strange craft. Nevertheless, despite these photos, no good explanation has yet surfaced to account the nature of these remarkable UFOs. Link
I will share any nuggets.
Much of the growing sense of inevitability about Hillary Clinton's bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination revolves around the issue of electability. Polls show her running well these days against prospective Republican opponents, which she buttresses with references to the breadth of her own landslide Senate reelection victory last fall in New York.
But that race is a story with two sides. There is no doubt that a case for "Hillary the Vote Getter" can be made with cold, hard facts. She was reelected in 2006 with 67 percent of the vote, 12 percentage points better than her first run in 2000. She won 58 of the Empire State's 62 counties (after carrying only 15 six years earlier). And she swept every region of the state, most notably the vast Republican-oriented upstate sector, by comfortable margins. The latter is a clear demonstration, her proponents say, of her ability to make inroads in "Red America" on a wider scale in 2008.
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There is a bit of a skew in that data.Those extra games are played by winning teams and you know how everyone loves a winner. What better evidence is there of that than the mania which swept Boone in the wake of their upset of Michigan. That is reflected in the skyrocketing gates this year.Appalachian Among National Leaders in Attendance FiguresBut on to the reason for this posting...
by Appalachian Sports Information
October 18, 2005 - BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State University football ranks among the nation’s top three in both average attendance and average percentage of capacity, according to the latest I-AA statistics released by the NCAA on Tuesday.
Appalachian has averaged 22,377 fans per game at Kidd Brewer Stadium this season, good for third nationally behind only Tennessee State (25,342 per game) and Montana (23,506).
Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, The Citadel, Wofford and Elon are all averaging between 35 and 39 points a game. Any of those five averages would have led the league in scoring last season.
There are some interesting quotes in the story.
(Furman coach Bobby) Lamb said: “Whether you’re a Spread team that passes the ball or a Spread team that runs the ball, it’s effective. A team like Appalachian spreads you out to run, and a team like Elon spreads you out to throw…. The Spread offense has really produced scoring in this league.”
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Other factors for increased scoring range from more plays per game because of this season’s changes in play-clock rules, as well as offenses starting in better field position than before because kickoffs are now made from the 30-yard line.“Common sense will tell you, the more opportunities you get with the football in your hands the more chances you have to score points,” Coach Chris Hatcher of Georgia Southern said. Teams in the SoCon are averaging 15 more plays a game than last season.
As Cenk would say, 'Just saying'.
