The Lynnertic

Happy New Year! (Lunar calendar)

In honor of the Chinese Year of the Ox, I share the story of Ferdinand the Pacifist Bull, whose mother just let him smell flowers under the cork tree and be happy. An accident caused Ferdinand to be judged the fiercest bull in his herd and so he was sent to a bullfight.

By the way, the matador is a caricature of Walt Disney. (Cartoon at link!)

A Spanish Bullfight is a barbaric game inevitably leading to the bull’s death. It’s a glamorous spectacle meant to emphasize Man’s domination over animals. Ferdinand’s happy refusal to fight thwarts the Matador’s aggression, defeating him, and saving his own life.

Like Ferdinand, may you who read this save the day by sitting on your ass, when asked to facilitate violence and oppression. I wish you all the happiness and joy of peace in the coming year. You can have it, if you want it. I want it now.

Mars: game on

Funny how this comes out the day after Obama’s Inauguration… almost as if more than one gag order has been lifted in the last week.

1. There is Lots of Water on Mars, and it’s Pure.

French researchers published a study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters claiming that the North Polar ice cap on Mars holds a volume of pure water that is about 100x the amount held in the Great Lakes of North America.

This and other NASA images of Mars’ polar ice caps are at the link

2. The good news that Methane plumes were detected on Mars (indicating the possibility of Life on Mars) was overshadowed by the other good news of successfully crash-landing USAir flight 1549.

Quote from this Marstoday.com article:

The key is in the soil and water, and how the two behave together at that site on Mars, not the expected confirmation of water ice at this stage in the mission, Mars investigators told Aviation Week.

The MECA instrument, in its first of four wet chemistry runs a month ago, found soil chemistry that is “Earth-like” and capable of supporting life, researchers said then.

It is intriguing that MECA could have found anything more positive than that, but NASA and the University of Arizona are taking steps to prevent word from leaking out on the nature of the discovery made during MECA’s second soil test, in which water from Earth was automatically stirred with Martian soil.

I wonder about the results of the second soil test. But it’s secret.

More Martian milestones:
July 31, 2008 (Thursday) NASA confirmed the discovery of water on Mars
August 1, 2008 (Friday) White House briefed on possibility of life on Mars
August 4, 2008 (Monday) NASA backpedals, explaining that the water they tested was tainted with perchlorate — rocket fuel — a substance that while so pervasive here in civilized portions of our Earth that it’s in almost all of our lettuce and milk, is detrimental to organic life as we know it, so hold off the celebrations.

Barack Obama’s Inauguration

Two million people visited the Mall to witness Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration. From the angle of the sun in this photo, I guess it’s close to noon. My brother and a few cousins are somewhere in the crowd.

I found this image of the Obama Inauguration as seen from Space at UniverseToday.com. I downloaded my own free high-res copy from GeoEye, the satellite company that Google uses for Google Earth and Maps images.

Author and Blogger Chris Knowles (The Secret Sun) has got me fascinated with a recent trend of viewing ceremonies from space. He wonders out loud who the audience may be.