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NASA Notices New, Nasty Solar Storm Type
saskboy writes "Solar Storms generally aren't this bad, but in January unique conditions led to a "proton superhighway" that bombarded earth with fast moving protons that could have harmed astronauts caught without a radiation shield.
"Scant minutes after the January 20th [2005] flare, a swarm of high-speed protons surrounded Earth and the Moon. Thirty minutes later, the most intense proton storm in decades was underway."
Listen to the story here.
Archives from the January storms are also available from SpaceWeather.com"
Al Gore didn't by chance invent this, did he? /kidding
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
My complaint about Pres. George W Bush
Having just been exposed to Pres. George W Bush's sappy precepts, I ponder how best to express my disgust at Bush's total lack of sensitivity and reasoning. Here's my side of the story: We need to stand up for our rights. If you doubt this, just ask around. Does he have a point? I doubt it.
Judging by the generally rash nature of his understrappers, I can see that there will be sick things said on both sides of this issue by the end of the decade. The sooner he comes to grips with that reality, the better for all of us. Bush argues that it's okay for him to indulge his every whim and lust without regard for anyone else or for society as a whole. To maintain this thesis, Bush naturally has had to shovel away a mountain of evidence, which he does by the desperate expedient of claiming that his wheelings and dealings prevent smallpox. You know what? If he can't stand the heat, he should get out of the kitchen.
I am undoubtedly weary of listening to Bush descant on the glories of Maoism. That's self-evident, and even Bush would probably agree with me on that. Even so, of all of his exaggerations and incorrect comparisons, one in particular stands out: "Bush has mystical powers of divination and prophecy." I don't know where he came up with this, but his statement is dead wrong. By toning down his whinges, many more people are exposed to his satanic message, convinced by his passion, and seduced by his simplistic answers to complex social problems. Bush's list of sins is long and each one deserves more space than I have here. Therefore, rather than describe each one individually, I'll summarize by stating that he has a talent for inventing fantasy worlds in which courtesy and manners don't count for anything. Then again, just because Bush is a prolific fantasist doesn't mean that anyone who resists him deserves to be crushed.
Some avaricious, disagreeable twerps actually aver that a totalitarian dictatorship is the best form of government we could possibly have. This is the kind of muddled thinking that he is encouraging with his disquisitions. Even worse, all those who raise their voice against this brainwashing campaign are denounced as brassbound four-flushers. When I was little, my father would sometimes pick me up, put me on his knee, and say "Bush's crusades have no redeeming value." Bush's sentiments rub me the wrong way. It is also worthy of note that Bush will probably throw another hissy fit if we don't let him waste hours and hours in fruitless conferences and meetings. At least putting up with another George W Bush hissy fit is easier than convincing Bush's subordinates that the acid test for Bush's "kinder, gentler" new strictures should be, "Do they still bowdlerize all unfavorable descriptions of his arguments?" If the answer is yes, then we can conclude that Bush is a man with more ambition than conviction. Or, to express that sentiment without all of the emotionally charged lingo, Bush is an interesting character. On the one hand, he likes to jump on everything that is written, said, or even implied and label it as either money-grubbing or out-of-touch. But on the other hand, it has been said that he is capable of passing very rapidly from a hidden enjoyment of anal-retentive pauperism to a proclaimed attachment to demagogism and back -- and back again. I, in turn, suspect that it is pointless to fret about the damage already caused by his mawkish ideals. The past cannot be changed. We must cope with the present if we hope to affect our future and denounce his flimflams.
I have two words for Bush: Grow up! In a broad-brush sense, when he tells us that every word that leaves his mouth is teeming with useful information, he somehow fails to mention that his announcements are a modern-day example of a Procrustean bed. He fails to mention that the chief difficulty in writing about him is that the world would be a much better place to live if he stopped trying to encourage the acceptance of scapegoating and demonization. And he fail
It's all, but it's more offtopic than the others.
It's technically a troll, but it's so far away from the topic of discussion that it's totally irrelevant. If someone had posted that GNOME versus KDE troll that always gets posted whenever GNOME gets brought up (it claims to be from a GNOME developer, but he ends up just making ridiculous claims), that would also be offtopic, not a troll.
Trolling requires some sophistication, and some attempt at riling people up to respond. It's a troll in the sense that *you* responded to it, but even then all you did was bitch about mods.
It's more flamebait than troll, but I think that Offtopic is more appropriate.
-1, Asshole would be good too...