RussBLib - what the ....

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Osama dead

Well, well, well. Osama bin Laden is dead, we are told. I tend to question authority and am skeptical by nature, so I hope to see some sort of evidence, be it photographic, video, DNA, whatever. I'd tend not to take Bush's word for it and I'm not that inclined to take Obama's word for it either, considering all of Obams's betrayals to date. Anything can be faked these days.

I would have rather they take Osama alive and put him on trial. Perhaps he would spill some beans that might implicate our own or others military or governments in complicity with Osama's organization. Perhaps not, but dead men tell no tales. On the other hand, if he were jailed and put on trial, he would become a rallying point for his supporters and ugly things could ensue.

I also find the spontaneous celebrations of Osama's death rather distasteful. The world is better off without Osama, but seeing people jumping for joy at the news is just a little unsettling.

As happens so often, the first blush of news gets revised. First we heard that Osama used a woman (one of his wives) as a human shield during the assault on him. What a coward, eh? Then later we hear that, actually, no, he didn't use a woman as a shield.

We also heard that he defended himself and shot at his assailants. Then we hear that, actually, no, he was unarmed when killed.

We've also heard that our special forces had orders to take him alive or dead. Will we also soon hear that the orders were to simply assassinate him? Dead men tell no tales.

Osama bin Laden saves America
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

I'm hereby delighted to report that many on the hard right, that fantastically insane cluster of hyperclenched beerchuggers who fully believe that Obama is a not only a Muslim, but also a Nazi commie socialist Mexican immigrant robot with lasers for eyes and molten pacifism for blood, do not actually believe Osama bin Laden is dead.

It's actually a dastardly CIA conspiracy, is what it is. Or if he is dead, well, lame ol' President Obama certainly had nothing to do with it, and it's all probably some giant PR stunt anyway, and that highly suspicious "burial at sea" was far too courteous given how everyone knows OBL's body should have been ripped apart by ravenous tigers in the middle of a NASCAR racetrack before the star-spangled eyes of tearful Wonderbread schoolchildren, etcetera and ad nauseam.

In short, we can rest in our reassurance that the more insane and mistrustful of our country are just as ridiculously askew as ever. Hell, we've got the hugely tasteless T-shirts to prove it.

As for everyone else, well, electric possibility reigns. You may right now be noticing that a rather delightful hush has fallen over the GOP, a reluctant reverence, a simple understanding that even the slightest peep in the direction of decrying Obama, or trying to shift the focus back to their whimpering agendas -- that, say, gas prices are somehow more important than the destruction of the global symbol of evil in the world -- any such puling would be horrifically immature, trifling in the extreme, politically fatal.

And no wonder. No matter where you land on the spectrum of overt weirdness that is celebrating a ruthless targeted killing, no matter how you view the brutality of warfare, the distorted costs of justice or America's creepy, cheerful bloodlust, there is right now a palpable shift, an irrefutable tang to this unexpected turn of events unlike many others in our short, spastic history.

Parse it as you will, but it's not every day the global symbol of all that is vile and wrong with the human animal gets taken out by the global symbol of all that is decent and right with American-style democracy.

An oversimplification? Probably. But it all points to a possible radical rethinking for (and of) Obama himself, a grand opportunity to regain both momentum and message lost. It's also a perfect occasion to reignite the entire "Change We Can Believe In" mantra for a newly electrified populace.

Question is, can he do it? Has he learned anything from the past 2.5 years of brutal pushback and opportunities squandered? Or will it all slip away in a maelstrom of mishandled message and twitchy Rush Limbaugh blubbering?

At present there is little doubt: The potency of the moment is Obama's to lose. There are those calling this the "man on the moon" event of this generation, on par with the Berlin wall collapse, a triumph of American will and sophisticated military cunning so significant the temperament of the country will never be the same.

So historic is the shift, in fact, that all Obama really has to do now is let the astonishing details of the clandestine operation trickle down and word of his direct, daring involvement penetrate the collective consciousness, and not only will any current agenda items be supercharged with new vigor, but many of his administration's previous, unsung achievements will take on a fresh luster as well.

The details are as mesmerizing as they are dark and unsettling. The undisclosed meetings. The careful orchestration. The strategic refining. The incredible secrecy, months of training by the most enigmatic facets of our elite military, the final call to make it happen. It's as gruesome and somber as advanced military craft gets.

It's also overwhelmingly cinematic, the American good-versus-evil fantasy writ large, even as it speaks to Obama's powerhouse strengths of focus and intention. No waste. Minimal collateral damage. Precision and timeliness and absolute clarity of purpose.

(Meanwhile, mere hours before it all goes down, effortlessly singe your critics and enemies alike at the correspondents' dinner, and travel to survey the damage in Alabama. Not bad for a couple days' work, really).

Or perhaps not. Perhaps all we'll feel now is an overheated jolt of jingoism, a warped sort of respect for the billion-dollar special forces military teams -- the same groups reportedly responsible for some of the most brutal torture and rendition under Bush and Obama alike. A mixed blessing, to be sure.

Or perhaps all we get now is this strange sense that bin Laden was, after all, just a symbol, and without a massive effort on the part of Obama to upheave the acidic political and ideological tone in America, a new symbol will simply emerge elsewhere to enrage and divide us anew. America loves its demons. It seems we always must find something, someone upon whom we can transfer all our fears. Can Obama change that? Is it even up to him?

One thing is absolutely clear: We don't get many such moments in a given lifetime, especially one containing such a strange and dazzling bolt of irony.

It goes like this: Osama bin Laden successfully poisoned much of the American spirit, brought tragedy, pain and unwanted, devastating war, was leveraged as an excuse to commit all manner of despicable misprision by the Bush administration, and changed the complexion of a nation for the worse.

And now, his bloody demise a full decade later at the hand of a far more measured, intelligent, focused president could actually, in a way, bring America back to life, give it a focus and purpose like it never quite had before. The same pitiful demon that caused much of our pain could, if handled correctly, turn out to be the source of a new, more thoughtful kind of liberation. How's that for wayward poetic justice?

Original.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

May Stargazing

Keep looking up!

Stargazing Summary

There's a planet pile-up in the east shortly before dawn this month. Venus — the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon — is the dominant player as the month begins, but Jupiter, which ranks right behind Venus, takes over by month's end. Mercury briefly joins them, but it's much fainter. Mars is also nearby, but it is closer to the Sun and almost impossible to find in the dawn glare.

More stargazing information: http://stardate.org/nightsky

Radio Program Highlights

Hear StarDate every day on more than 360 radio stations nationwide or subscribe to our podcast: http://stardate.org/feeds/podcast.xml

May 2-8: Taking steps. Astronaut Alan Shepard took America's first small step into space 50 years ago this week, and we'll have details. We'll also talk about a small step into the morning sky, and two steps into the asteroid belt.

May 9-15: Moon meanderings. The Moon passes by a bright planet and two bright stars this week. They'll all be on display for most of the night. And two other planets team up to put on their own display in the dawn sky. Join us for this and more.

May 16-22: Multitudes. The numbers really pile up this week. We have tales of a twin that's really a triplet of twins, a passel of planetoids, and several stars that help mark your position right here on Earth.

May 23-29: Planet hunt. While most astronomers look for planets around stars like our own, a few are looking for them around stars that are so feeble that you can't see a single one of them with the eye alone. Join us for the hunt for red-dwarf planets.

May 30-31: Solar eclipse. The Moon will partly cover up the Sun on Wednesday, slightly darkening skies from China to Norway. We'll have details. And we'll also talk about five decades of impressions of the space program.

May Program Schedule: http://stardate.org/radio/calendars

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Get StarDate's Special Summer Reading Issue!

The May/June issue of McDonald Observatory's StarDate magazine is our annual Summer Reading issue! We'll bring you excerpts from great new books in astronomy and space science to help you make your summer reading plans. And our Sky Calendar column and star charts are the perfect things to help you plan summer stargazing.

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News from the Observatory

Caught in the Act: Cascading Material Pours onto a Young Star

Astronomer Joel Green of The University of Texas at Austin has been following a rare massive flare from a nascent star similar to the early Sun using the European Space Agency's infrared Herschel Space Observatory and a cadre of other telescopes. Green has found that this protostar, called HBC 722, is situated in a tangled web of gas and protostars tightly packed into a small area. Green's research was published in the April 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Read more: http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/releases/2011/0420.html