The "Civil" War, cont.

Sadly, despite the resounding Northern victory, the so called "American Civil War" (1860-1865) never really ended, as the cancer that was "The South" was allowed to persist, metastasizing into sharecroppers and Jim Crow laws and the KKK and thousands of lynchings. But then this aggressive Southern disease infected and took over the Republican Party - the very party that engaged their destruction a hundred years earlier. Goldwater, Regan, Nixon, and you have today's insanity, insto-presto in just the past 40 years (LOL I'm old). Legions of monsters, breaking down democracy and society across the country in pious fervor.

Somehow, despite desegregation and women's lib and gay marriage and so on, we've fallen under the sway of the Confederacy Risen, the Republican Party, the Southern Jim Crow culture writ large as "American Culture" and proving to be the doom of not just America, but the world.

What madness is this? And how can Earth escape?

LOL America '14

When America burns the world, future dystopian historians will hopefully, one day far, far from now, discover that it was just a small percentage of Americans who managed to destroy the world so thoroughly. 27% in fact. Americans who of course were an exceedingly small percentage of humans worldwide.

But probably not. We're all awash in the doom we bring down upon everyone. Yay!

Working the land

It's hard work, but it's honest work. Tilling the land, bringing forth life, harvesting and sharing in the bounty that is God's Green Earth.

Also, here's a picture of weed from the 70's that someone thought was awesome enough to photograph:

Seeds and stems. Wouldn't fly with today's sophisticated pot smoker.

Tiny Worlds

Behold Saturn in her absolute magnificence. There are much larger pictures available on the Internet, fans, than here. Seek them out if you need a new desktop.

Look just outside Saturn's brightest inner rings at 9:15 o'clock  - there is a white dot. That white dot is Earth, and that dot contains our entire species, now, then, and seemingly forever.

We regress, while we know such wonders await us.


Blame Republicans.

Cassini

That "star" you see in the middle right is actually Earth. Our world, from Cassini.

Cassini is currently cruising around Saturn, taking it all in.

Cassini is one of mankind's greatest achievements, on par with the pyramids etc. And I mean that both ironically and unironically.

Of Interest Perhaps Only To Me

Click for big! My discovery, simple minded as it is, was that the Sun moves all over the sky.

Having lived in cities for many years, I never saw the path of the Sun through the seasons. But now, high up in New Gondolin, I see the Sun go from Winter left to Summer Right, booking across the sky. Of course it is we - The Earth - that is moving, not the Sun, but hard to deny the illusion.

So you see above half my year. That is the Winter Sun, 2011. The dates above the other mountains cover the sunsets to come/gone. Spring/Fall is a magical spot there in the hollow of the closest mountain.

 Seeing the rhythms of our planet play out every night, every year, is awesome. Man.

Our Friend the Atom

Let us follow the human understanding of the Atom. Ja, man?

Here's all the conditions upon the Earth. What happens to minerals exposed to such?

Primary colors.

Send a Dog

Laika, the first Earthling to leave the planet. How greater could be the glory? Laika, SPACEDOG!

Glory enough to make the art for a pack of Soviet smokes. That smooth flavor and gentle smoke reminds one of the heroic sacrifices from our dog friends on our behalf. Thank you, dogs, for all you do for us!

Of course, dogs have been used in war from the day war was invented, I bet. Or thereabouts. Here we have a dog bomb - a little terrier packed with explosives, trained to run under tanks. You wouldn't trust a job like this to a monkey, or a cat. Only dog will deliver, and BOOM.

But a dog can be trained in the hippy as well, out protesting in the street and fightin' The Man! Kanellos has inspired (and probably fathered) the next generation of Anarchy Dogs.

Pretty Fly

Awesome shirt, Pappy! That's some hippy shit, right there.

And for your daily moment of despair, try and imagine any current Republican in any way celebrating or even noting Earth Day. Go ahead, I'll wait....

That said, Pappy would stand zero chance of winning any national position in today's Republican party. Not isane enough, by far.

I Pledge

For true, I am a citizen of the Planet Blue, Earth, and all life upon it. From the lowliest worm to highest falcon soaring in mountain crevasses, and all the heights and lives in between, we are all brother and sister in life. So rare in this cosmos of stars scattered light years apart, rejoice! We are alive - a privilege rarer than the rarest rarity that you could imagine. To be alive amidst this infinity! What an awesome opportunity! And here we are, Earthlings, alive on this planet. If we could all step together,  t'would be a paradise overnight. Till then - FSM help us.

I've longed believe the ONLY thing that will bring humanity together is an alien invasion. An external enemy would be just the trick to get humanity to stick together through thick and thin. Despite the loss of life. Otherwise, it will always be small gangs of douche bags ruining it for everyone else. No matter the disaster - nuclear war, asteroid, earthquake, tsunami, etc - douche bags will rule the ruins. Unless you fight back. Will you fight back against the douche bags of the future? Say it with me:

I Pledge allegiance...

Our Beautiful Apocalypse

A glacial whirlpool, beautiful but deadly. A living dagger to a glacier as its life force is drained away. Happening every day, across the planet.

Methane bubbles waiting to break the ice. Once we get a bit warmer, all sorts of gasses will be released and tipping points reached across the board. Our end will be collective.

Greenland and the clouds around her. Which will change every day it gets warmer and warmer, and more ice melts into the sea, until another tipping point is reached.

We walk on thin ice, loudly.

In a saner world

Thank you Russian dashboard cams! The best recorded meteor event of all time happened recently, and should be a wakeup call for us all. This tiny piece of rock - which explodes as you see above - caused fairly extensive damage over the city below mostly due to the pressure wave of the explosion, which blew out windows and knocked down some rickety walls.

And this was just a tiny rock. Here's (possibly) the final impact spot:

Get some learnin' in slick modern inforgraphic form!

Click for big. The takeaway lesson here, friends, is we are in great peril. From a variety of sources. Meteors/asteroids are one of these threats - and something we could do something about, if we had the collective will. And we should - it is INEVITABLE that a large rock will hit the Earth again and send everything into collective turmoil. This has happened many, many times in the past and WILL happen again. Only a question of when. We might be able to see it coming, but we might not. Isn't the entire existence of humanity worth trying to protect? I think so, and so look forward to the day the leading nations of Earth agree to jointly fund a peaceful program of monitoring and engagement of space rocks.

Bonus extra feature: Space mining. We could make it happen right now, if we wanted to. But I guess we (some) don't.

Vladimir's ready to save the world!

Lunar Coda

Luna and Venus - they're old friends in the sky. By David Cortner.

From the ISS. Look how thin our atmosphere is! All it would take is a big gust of solar wind from the sun to blow it all away, and there's nothing we could do to prevent it. We'd know it's coming a few days in advance, so I suppose bunkers could be stocked and whatnot, but surely, t'would be our doom.

Hurricane Emily, also from the ISS. Wouldn't it be awesome to be the official photographer on board - like, that was your job? All the other astronauts gotta turn nobs and shit while you just snap sweet pics all day/night - which occur like every hour.

Behold the power of the storm - precisely the same form we theorize blackholes to possess, if you could imagine it in 3 dimensions rather than the 2 here (A sphere as opposed to a plane). All points rotate towards the center due to the enormous change in pressure - low pressure, man. Real low. The lowest - and so all things fall towards it, increasingly fast as you get closer to the center. Speed causes heat and heat is energy which does work. Or, in this case, flip a ton of shit over.

Also, yay President Barack Hussein Obama!

In the fight against insanity and outright nihilism, Bronco Bamz is our greatest fighter, and deserves all our support. As you can see, even Luna supports BHO - so should you! That is, if you stand against nihilism. Some don't. They suck. 27%

Knowing is half the battle

Click for big. I'm wrapping up our exploration of the Solar System's moons, and so I give you REDSHIRTS TOP TEN MOONS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM!

Based on coolness/interest/possible exploration potential.
10. Mimas - Death Star moon, y'all. Also reminds me of Mimosas, which I've only had like twice in my life, but gosh do I love the word.
9. Phobos - interesting example of captured asteroid, and will serve as an ideal staging base for trips down to Mars.
8. Triton - a captured planet, the other moon with an atmosphere and cyrovolcanoes
7.Ganymede - the biggest, but kinda boring.
6. Io - HELLFIRE!
5. Luna - boring, but we're married, and we love her so.
4. Enceladus - so much coolness
3. Europa - More water here than on Earth - by many factors. Probably home to weird ass alien whales too. We'll find out eventually.
2. Titan - just so exotic yet familiar. It's Earth, if you replaced oxygen with methane and lowered the temperature by 200 degrees C.
1. Calisto! - Big moon, with ice sitting on the surface, right at the edge of the asteroid belt, and out of the radiation field of Jupiter. It's got it all for a future truck stop.

For bonus reference:

Coda 1: Many moons ago, as they say, there was a dust up here on ye olde Redshirt's Lament about the perception that the moon seems bigger when rising/setting than when directly overhead. The common answer to this is it's an optical illusion, caused by the brain comparing objects on the horizon, whereas there is no such comparison available when it's high overhead. And while this is no doubt correct, it's not 100% correct. Witness:

Luna is not in a perfect orbit, and thus it is closer to us at some times. This closeness does translate to a perceived size difference, shown here. Also, more controversially:

From the ISS. You can see the changes in shape as the moon rises above the distorting affects of the atmosphere. Close up:

Also from the ISS. Conclusive proof the atmosphere does change the way we see Luna, stretching it out, making it seem bigger. So take that! Bonus Luna pic:

I knew the sun could show a "green flash" when setting, under certain conditions. I was unaware Luna could do the same - but here it is. All green flashy.

And now you know.

Venus and Luna

Another redshirt shot of Venus and The Pleiades, with a very special guest "Ring around the Moon (w/ cloud)"! Not a shop in any way, just some funky clouds making it all spectral and astral n' stuff. Word. Click for big. Bonus ring pic:

I'm ashamed to admit I don't have a big enough lens to capture phenomena like Ye Olde Moon Ring in their entirety. This was the best I could do to fit it all in one pic - no dice. It was a huge ring around the Moon, and striking to behold, especially with the bright planets to the lower right. The night sky is amazing when you can finally see it, free of interference.

The source of myth in fact - consider, even ancient pre-humans understood the movement of stars and planets. They understood this "cage" we live in - with the stars far, far away, disappearing during the day when a giant fireball awakened. Which some figured out, way, way back when, was just another star, like all the lights of night. That will blow even an Erectus mind.

Also too: As I've said before, we need to call our moon a name, not "The Moon". The word "moon" refers to any natural satellite in orbit around a planet. Our moon is but one of hundreds (millions really when you consider Saturn's rings are made up of pieces of ice and each piece is technically a moon) of moons in our Solar System, and one of hundreds of billions in our galaxy, and mayhaps of trillions across the Universe. As you see, referring to the awesome object orbiting Earth as "The Moon" is no descriptor anymore.

I propose Luna, which is a cheat, sure, but Latin is classy. I am open to suggestions, though of course I will have no role whatsoever in naming our moon. Thank you for your support.

Screaming Trees

All things fade in time. You, me, Rome, Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way, the entire Universe, some trillion trillion years from now. Not my fault, nor my picture. Lovely though, is it not? The power of entropy?

An abandoned factory in Japan, nature reclaiming the space. As entropy is nature, all order will be deconstructed, torn down, eaten up, broken into pieces and spread all about. Entropy is the way of things. All our deeds are but acts holding back the tide, so ever briefly.

Our end is inevitable. The only true questions are when and how. Probably asteroid, sometime in the future. But there's so many other options! Nuclear bombs, earthquakes, global warming, solar radiation, magnetic shift, name your apocalypse, and you'll find the likelihood is not insignificant. Ignore the possibility we do at our own peril. Life is fragile, we exist on the surface of a reality of harshness. Prepare yeself, mortal!

Satellite Photographers

Earth and the Moon as pictured by Voyager 1 back in the 70's. Beautiful, haunting, evoking a wonder and loneliness that is life. And the artist is a historical explorer. Yay culture!

Earth and Moon as seen by the Mars Global Surveyor, a craft currently snapping lovely pics on assignment at Mars. MGS is the foremost auteur in Red Planet Studios.

Earth and Moon as seen by the Juno space probe, launched last Summer for a mission to Jupiter. Currently, Juno is getting ready to swing by Earth for the last time, obtaining a huge sling shot of gravity assisted speed which will scoot it on the way to Jupiter in 2016. Prospects there are rated "ridiculously good". The moons of Jupiter in all their glories!

Speaking of Moons - Saturn's got a lot of them. But, see that bright dot in the upper right, between the rings? That's no Moon. Magnified in the inset, hey, it's Earth! As snapped by a contender for greatest space artist of all time, Cassini, currently orbiting around Saturn making fantastic discoveries.

All thematic riffs on the PBD, of course, but why wouldn't you love this shot? Only a handful of photographers ever get the opportunity, and it certainly is a lesson in perspective.

Elemental Art

Thin slices of a meteorite, seen through different filters. Or a Warhol piece or knock off. Either way, I'd hang it on my wall. Fun gift idea - framed science pics! Astronomy! Genes! Microscopes! There's a lot of beautiful images. Like this one:

Call me an enormous nerd, sure, but the Periodic Table is a thing of beauty. Its elegance is stunning, and the meaning behind it is profound. The numbers on each element represent the number of protons in the atom's nucleus, and thus also the number of electrons orbiting the nucleus. Dig it: Each new row represents a new electron shell - the orbital paths of the electrons. Hydrogen and Helium have one. Lithium and all the elements in row two have two, Sodium's row has three, and so on. The columns are called Groups and each column has the same number of electrons in its outermost shell, giving each element in the column similar properties, despite the difference in number of electrons. For it is true! All matter is made up of elements - you, me, the tree, the oceans, the Earth, the Sun, all the stars, the vast clouds of gas spanning hundreds of light years, and so on - all just collections of elements. And each element is an atom that becomes the thing we know as Gold or Silver or Oxygen simply based on its number of protons and electrons. Hydrogen has 1 electron, Helium 2, Lithium 3, Iron 26, and so on. And thus our reality is fashioned. It's incredible! And all presented cleanly here in this awesome chart. Awesome work, Dmitri Mendleev!

Bonus element pic:

Earth and our Moon as seen from Mercury. All but vast collections of different elements bound together by gravity.