Gas Prices

Thanks for the laugh, Tigerhawk!

Blue Marble

MESSENGER (Wikipedia) (seen at right in an artist's impression) is a NASA spacecraft on its way to the planet Mercury for a mission of explanation. Its name is an awkward acronym: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, but that's a fair description of what it will do. Here is the official MESSENGER website.

In early August, MESSENGER made a swing by the Earth, using our planet as a kind of gravitational slingshot. This swingby maneuver, which is now a common feature of a space probe's trajectory, saves a lot of rocket fuel — but at the cost of taking a lot longer to actually arrive at the destination.

Anyway, MESSENGER happens to be equipped with a good camera, and during this recent swingby maneuver the folks at NASA took pictures at regular intervals — and then strung them all together to make a movie showing what MESSENGER saw as it swung by our humble abode. It's beautiful and spectacular; our blue marble in space. The download is huge (~5MB) but it's worth it...

A New Low

Three percent relative humidity!

This is the lowest I've ever recorded on my weather station (and I've had an electronic weather station going for five years now). The temperature outside is 89F, but you'd never know it — it feels more like about 80F or so with our more usual 10% to 20% relative humidity.

While the low relative humidity makes the heat more bearable, not all of its effects are good. For example, sustained low relative humidity (especially combined with wind) sucks all the moisture from the dead brush and other plant-derived fuels in the chapparal, greatly increasing the danger of wildfire. This phenomenon is why the fall has the greatest fire danger for us, as we generally have low relative humidity most of the summer.

But generally not quite this low! I was a little shocked to see that number on my gauge... BTW, the "37" you see on the gauge is the high value for relative humidity in the 24 hours preceding the snapshot I took showing the "3" reading. That 37% relative humidity occured in the middle of our night last night. Our air cools rapidly in our cloudless nights, and as it does the relative humidity goes up — usually to 100%. So even this "high" reading is quite low!

Hot Chocolate

Some recently declassified documents describing exotic weapons proposed (and possibly actually made) by the Nazis in World War II. Amongst these were exploding chocolate, tinned pea grenades, and shoe bombs. I found quite a few articles, mostly in the U.K. press, including this one from BBC and a more amusing one from The Sun.

I couldn't find any more detailed description or photographs on the web, probably because the documents were so recently declassified.

Strategeric

On the nomination of Roberts to Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court — what she said (Sissy Willis at Sisu):

We knew we loved this Roberts fellow — in Dick Cheney's phrase, "big time" — ever since we read his reply to history-challenged members of the other side of the aisle with a rapier wit that takes no prisoners. In reponse to a House Democrat's proposal that the White House and Congress convene a "conference on power-sharing" to codify the duties of each branch of government, he replied:

"There already has, of course, been a 'Conference on Power Sharing' . . . It took place in Philadelphia's Constitution Hall in 1787, and someone should tell Levitas about it and the 'report' it issued."

Great choice, Dubya, and superbly "strategeric" move.

Now what could I add to that <smile>?

Foreign Aid

The Katrina aftermath includes a phenomenon that I, for one, wasn't expecting: massive reverse foreign aid — many countries offering aid to the U.S. victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The single largest such aid package I've seen announced is from Kuwait: they've offered us $500M in aid, in the form of oil products. That's extremely generous by any measure I can think of, and — considering what the U.S.-led coalition did for Kuwait in 1991 — somehow very fitting and right. But still gratifying, and...somehow, still unexpected. In the words of Kuwaiti Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd Al-Sabah:

“We, Kuwaitis, feel it is our duty to stand by our friends to alleviate this humanitarian tragedy and express our gratitude for the support extended to us by Washington throughout the distinguished ties between the two friendly nations … This gives us the opportunity to show our gratitude to our friends and allies who stood by us in the darkest times … They supported us with the blood of their sons.”

The same article in the Arab Times that yielded the above quote also has this list of countries that have so far committed aid for Katrina victims:

Afghanistan, Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Tunisia, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.

I don't know about you, but I find the list above to be simply stunning. Never mind that in some cases (Cuba!) the offer is a chance to kick W, or that in some cases the amount of aid is relatively small. Just the fact that 78 (if I counted correctly) countries are pledging aid to the U.S. is kind of mind-boggling.

Maybe Americans have made more friends in faraway places than the lefties would have us believe.

A tip 'o the hat to Chrenkoff (whom I will miss very much when he quits blogging to take his new job) for the pointer to the Kuwaiti contribution.