Now THAT'S a supernova

In a classic and beautiful spiral galaxy some 21 million light-years away a massive stellar explosion is so powerful you will be able to see it with a pair of binoculars.

The supernova, named SN 2011fe, is the 136th seen by astronomers this year, but its proximity makes it significant not only for stargazers but to the scientific community.

The event was first observed on Aug. 24, only hours after it first became visible from Earth. Located within the Pinwheel Galaxy, the explosion happened 21 million light-years away – a relatively small distance by astronomical standards.

On the scale of astronomical magnitude, in which brighter objects have lower numbers, it was a 17.2 – about 1 million times too dim to be seen by the naked eye.

Since then, “the supernova of a generation,” has been brightening by the minute and will hit its peak this week, said Joshua Bloom, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, in a press release.

By Friday, the supernova could hit magnitude 10, still below the 6.5-magnitude threshold to be seen with the naked eye, but visible with binoculars...

SN 2011fe is located in the constellation Ursa Major, better known as the Big Dipper. "The easiest way to find it is to take the last two stars in the handle of the Big Dipper, form an equilateral triangle heading north and bang, you’ll find the Pinwheel Galaxy,” said Nugent.

He said a pair of 80 mm binoculars would suffice to view the display, but a telescope with a lens measuring greater than three inches would be better.

Just before the crowd went wild with his executions scorecard

Rick Perry said this:



Undoubtedly the Beltway then declared Perry the winner.

We are so fucked.

And meanwhile, unemployment still over 9%, global warming rampant, no cure for cancer

But hey, people can make awesome animated recreations of the Johnny Quest opening (click to see the original before viewing vid below).

Jonny Quest Opening Titles from Roger D. Evans on Vimeo.

So, um, there!

Priorities people.

Not even fit for a drinking game

I'm tired of Lucy and the football, let's have a new analogy for how tonight's speech will be perceived:

Oh the drama of a speech to Congress that gets rescheduled to accommodate Republicans only to have many of them not show up. One would think it is a sign, but in a Reaganesque move the President is sure there's a pony in that big pile somewhere.

There seems to be little hope that Obama is going to accept the reality -- or seemingly cares -- that the GOP is going to work with him on anything other than moving expenses (and they'll just pull the rug out on that one on January 19, 2013 too). Not allowing government to do anything but protect gated communities and release the predator drones otherwise is their raison d'être. The purpose of government is to show government cannot do anything -- don't take my word for it, take the word of a longtime Republican operative (the one only a few publications and we liberals have written about).

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

And the only Democrats that don't seem aware of this (emphasis on seem) are the one's that don't appear to give a damn.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The pride of the American Educational System

Iowa always brags about our students high (comparatively) standardized test scores.

So explain the brilliance of people wondering why the 900 foot long, 110 foot wide battleship USS Iowa (also 38 foot draft) cannot be brought to y'know, landlocked Iowa?

Something pretty

Amazing picture of Saturn released by NASA. Take it away Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

As opposed to the "Lighter Side" of it

Top Secret America Looks At The Dark Side Of The War On Terror

PBS Frontline is airing, Top Secret America, a documentary that explores how the government manipulated the public and expanded its powers all in the name of homeland security.

Oh how quaint, after a decade of saying this and being ignored, we've moved on to the latest "real issues" that right-wingers care about like denying the authenticity of birth certificates or editing video of anyone to the left of Sean Hannity.

Just another meaningless act of violence

Made more destructive by the easy availability of weapons.

God forbid we make it as difficult to get a gun than it is to drive or fish.

An accurate representation

Of much of ESPN's afternoon programming:

He also blew up the Maine

You would think once the Republican elites had rationalized away any responsibility they have had for 9/11, the economic collapse, and any other ill to befall America after the Civil War, they could be satisfied just going after the Obama Administration on its limited economic accomplishments (which at this point amount to 'well we prevented a complete collapse').



But if folks like Mitt Romney did that they wouldn't really be Republicans.

The chart [used in supporting Romney's plan], however, calls the period of time from 2007-2009 the “Obama recovery,” blaming him for the poor job numbers over that three-year period. As Romney surely knows, however, George W. bush was serving as president in 2007 and 2008, and Obama did not take office until January 2009.

Knows? Maybe. Cares? Not so much.

Besides you cannot beat the Romney plan, which is to triple the square footage of all houses owned members of his Administration (and also the houses of all nominal leaders of any occupied nation)...and to adopt all parts of the Ryan Plan, except those which are not awesome. It's quite the stimulus package.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

More shoes dropping

Not that you'll hear much about it over in this country.

Former News of the World legal manager Tom Crone has told MPs he was "certain" he told James Murdoch about an email which indicated phone hacking at the paper went beyond one rogue reporter.

Mr Crone said the email was discussed and "it was the reason that we had to settle the case".

In a previous hearing, News Corp bosses Rupert and James Murdoch said they were not told of an email.

This glittering I approve of

I generally disagree with public-pies in the face or glittering (though I reserve the 'Kristol Exception') but in regard to the Minnesota State Fair one, I whole-heartedly approve. Somehow last minute space was found for the anti-gay marriage group -- but NOT for the pro-gay marriage group. Nice going Fair when the issue is equal treatment.

And now, a good use for those chair-lifts:

I know he is no longer involved

But this Labor Day I remembered Jerry Lewis by imagining how terrible "The Day the Clown Cried" must have been.

Winner of the Dick Cheney Collective Shrug Award

Another glorious story of the collective war on a noun:

A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him...

[Abdul Hakim] Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport. He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds and then sent to Libya, where Gaddafi had long seen him as one of the biggest threats to his tyrannical four-decade rule.

This was all part of the Bush Administration's loudly trumpeted "victory" against global terror by getting Gaddafi to give up his non-existent WMD program in return for being treated like an eccentric ally to the United States and avoiding all those nasty lawsuits.

Like all Bush Administration foreign policy, this attempt to fight reality had the results you would expect.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Stupid Things To Attempt One Week After a Hurricane

A walk in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Yes, I had huge welts all over my face and neck courtesy of not-shy mosquitoes! The hike wound up lasting less than ten minutes, at which point my fellow hikers and I did a one-eighty and fled to a drugstore in search of something to stop the itch.

No, I don't get out in nature much.

/scratches self

Totally unrelated: best feature films about the Civil War? Put 'em in comments, please. No "Gone With the Wind" and/or "Glory". Need less obvious stuff. Thanks.

Labor Day

Figure I might as well be one of the few locations to acknowledge the hard work of people in this country that manufacture things. I hope you can all get together to fill out a lineup in a softball game.

We all know there's no way this had been made a holiday nowadays -- it would be all
too reflective of a "socialist" attitude.

It's Happened Before

"Cheney Laughs off War Criminal Threat".

Here's the video:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

It figures

Nearly a decade before there was one legitimate news organization -- ignored in the cacophony of a world of Villagers like Fred Hiatt -- who showed the Bush Administration overplaying the facts supporting military action against Iraq. That organization was McClatchy (then Knight-Ridder).

Move to the present day and the current non-stop Republican talking point that "regulation" prevents small businesses from creating jobs (almost as much [almost] as rich people losing some of their tax cuts).

And here comes McClatchy exposing it as the lie it is -- what do small business owners think of regulation?

None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath

And, of course, they are correct.

Which means, the White House will do what the Republicans want any time now.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Headline says it all

And there's support for it as well (so you know it isn't from FoxNews)

Executioner Perry’s Murder Train Often Picks Up Teenagers and Disabled

He's a living (mouth) breathing exemplar of a T4 program.

It's a scam people

Sarah Palin isn't running...but she wants a few more months of grifting to continue to fill her coffers from pathetic dupes.

She's far less popular than say Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, yet they might as well not exist.

It's almost as if the media have priorities other than reality.