Welcome Home Roxana Saberi

Welcome Home Roxana Saberi

No words needed here, Roxana says it well enough.

More from the BBC Article.

UPDATE: Roxana Saberi wins at Cannes Film Festival:

CANNES, France (AP) – A film co-scripted by U.S.-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi won a prize in one of the Cannes Film Festival competitions on Saturday.

“No One Knows About Persian Cats” won a special jury prize in the festival’s Un Certain Regard competition.

The film is a lively look at Tehran’s underground music scene and the risk of censorship and jail faced by Iranian musicians.

Saberi shares a screenplay credit on the film, which was directed and-co-written by her romantic partner, Bahman Ghobadi.

The Sources of the Meltdown

Few things are simplex, most are complex – and when it comes to the current financial meltdown, the failures go beyond complex to multiplex.

Simplex, Complex, Multiplex

Few things are simplex, most are complex – and when it comes to the current financial meltdown, the failures go beyond complex to multiplex. No depression coming, but a serious recession – here’s a lecture that enumerates the multiple sources of the multiplex stall we are in.

H/T LittleOldLady at Little Green Footballs

* My wife has a quibble with the statement on underwriting standards – she says in the bigger institutions the underwriting standards were there, but were too often over-ridden by Regional Managers to hit volumes. If regulators don’t pay attention to who can over ride an Underwriter’s “NO way in Hell!” as well as the securities risk managers, then we will just be back here in a few decades.

Tales of Brave Ulysses II – Solar Wind at Lowest Pressure Since Measurement Began

What we’re seeing is a long term trend, a steady decrease in pressure that began sometime in the mid-1990s

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Tales of Brave Ulysses II – Solar Wind at Lowest Pressure Since Measurement Began
 

The Ulysses satellite Solar Wind Observations Over the Poles (SWOOPS) solar wind sensors are reporting a 20 percent drop in pressure, with only a 3 percent drop in speed. Dave McComas, the principle investigator for the project, states  this as the lowest solar wind pressure observed since the early sixties when we began measuring it.

“What we’re seeing is a long term trend, a steady decrease in pressure that began sometime in the mid-1990s,” explains Arik Posner, NASA’s Ulysses Program Scientist in Washington DC.

How unusual is this event?

“It’s hard to say. We’ve only been monitoring solar wind since the early years of the Space Age—from the early 60s to the present,” says Posner. “Over that period of time, it’s unique. How the event stands out over centuries or millennia, however, is anybody’s guess. We don’t have data going back that far.” 

What this bodes longer term is unknown, we don’t have a long history of solar wind measurements to judge by. Here’s a link to the positve Ion measurements half of the data if you want to take a look at it yourself, and I’ve also included a McComas jpg visual above, click the thumbnail to enlarge. On Earth we aren’t going to be affected short term, but Space Travel has become slightly more dangerous due to increased Cosmic Ray penetration of the Heliosphere.

“The solar wind isn’t inflating the heliosphere as much as it used to,” says McComas. “That means less shielding against cosmic rays.” Dave McComas

To picture this think of the solar wind pressure emanating from the sun as part of the atmosphere of the sun (no, it really isn’t, but bear with me a moment;) a huge bubble around the solar system called the Heliosphere. Then picture that heliosphere zooming through a dense sea of Cosmic rays. Still can’t picture it? Take a look here.

Anecdotal but truth as I know it: People living near the poles will also be exposed to more cosmic rays, which could lead to some effects. One of the visible effects I’ve observed is higher incidence of gray hair at earlier ages in populations living near the Northern pole. Earth’s magnetic shield is the backstop for the heliosphere in stopping cosmic rays from affecting life on Earth, and the shape of the magnetic field allows entry to more Cosmic rays at the poles.

Another effect could be on Clouds and climate, which the linked story speaks of.

Spread the Wealth Around (Music Video)

A seriously well produced and well sung send up of the Democrat’s socialistic tendencies.

A seriously well produced and well sung send up of the Democrat’s socialistic tendencies. Video below the fold.

Continue reading “Spread the Wealth Around (Music Video)”

Obama’s Greatest Hits

A concise compilation of the things that should raise doubts about an Obama Presidency. H/T Patterico

Obama Calls for Marxist Re-Distribution of Wealth

In this segment from NPR radio Obama is debating the best means to Re-Distribute the wealth of America – he prefers legistlative; but only because the courts would not have a way to administer it. So, when you vote for president, and when you vote for your Congresscritters, please take this into account – are you electing a Socialist whose idea of change is to destroy the engine of American productivity?

This is a case where Obama clearly calls for those who produce more to provide for those who produce little — or classical Marxism. He maintains this stance even though that form of government caused the greatest of all human suffering time after time as it was practiced last century. There’s no future for Marxism in this country, to tread that path is to retreat to the failures of last century and that’s not change at all.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. – Karl Marx

Socialists in the US have recently even expanded Marxist ideology – they have taken the luxury of having trust, or good credit, and declared it a need by extending that to everyone, worthy or not, through the Community Reinvestment Act, Acorn, and Fannie Mae / Freddy Mac. They’ve decided as well that owning your own home is a need, rather than something earned.

Bill Whittle at NRO has much more on this, and says it much better than i right here.

UPDATE:

Another classic socialist and marxist technique is to indoctrinate children — here you can see them doing just that. To me it’s absolutely despicable to callously involve children in politics as the left is wont to do, it’s just another way to steal their childhood.