moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
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(and my Wish List)

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Annihilation: Black Hole  
'Annihilation', from the Latin word nihil, meaning nothingness, nothing, absence, zero.

Utter destruction: eradication, extermination, extinction, extinguishment, extirpation, liquidation, obliteration.
putting an end to: abolishment, abolition, abrogation, annulment, cancellation, defeasance, invalidation, negation, nullification, voidance.

In law: avoidance, extinguishment.

Images

www.spaceref.com/ news/ viewpr.html?pid=10345
www.djspiral.com/ images/ graphics/ BlackHole.html
www.spaceref.com/ news/ viewpr.html?pid=10290
www.bbc.co.uk/ derby/ unexplained/ unexplained_websites.shtml
www.cosmographica.com/ gallery/ portfolio/ portfolio101/ pages/ 131-BlackHole.htm
www.spaceprime.com/ blackhole.htm
www.thestarsareout.com
www.exn.net/ Stories/ 2000/ 01/ 13/ 57.asp

Sheer joy that Liberal Party is worried. I'm not sanguine about the result, though; many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, as the old saying goes. I do like the use of the word they so freely and without feeling or care liked to use to wipe out people from consideration being used repeatedly in the dictionary/thesaurus entries for the word they are worried about for themselves. (I used to carp and say they should use 'extinction' rather than 'extinguishment', because that might bring people up a little short and get them to think.)

Labels: astronomy, language, pix, politics, space

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 12:19 pm

 
Alternative History (What might have been)  

September, 2001

"There are people who are willing to commit heinous acts to change what we do, who we are, and how we act.

We are not the only nation to face such problems, the Basque separatists in Spain, the Tigers in Sri Lanka, the IRA in Ireland; and the UK, all have afflicted those nations.

Like them we will remain true to our ideals. We will mobilise our police, streamline out intelligence. See where our failures were and close our vulnerabilities, but we will not cower.

As FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself," if we give in to fear we grant them a victory, in a struggle which will never end; just as poverty can only be ameliorated, not eliminated, so too will those who feel marginilised magnify their greivances, while those who are marginal will manufacture them.

If we overreact, and give up our liberties, villianize those who share nothing more than nation, language or religion with those who have attacked us, be they Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Jew; Nationalist or religious fanatic, then we not only grant them a minor victory in a skirmish, but cede to them the field of battle. For if we let them make us demonize those with whom we have no quarrel, we will forfeit allies.

No, rather we shall affirm what we have always been. We have made mistakes; and for those we must own up, but nothing we have done justifies the targetting, the killing, the terrorising of a nation, much less the random killing of those who were not Americans, but merely victims of circumstance.

The FBI, the CIA, Interpol, and all those who are willing to aid us in the search will bring the investigative powers of the offended to bear. Make no mistake, the people who did this will be found. The case will be solid, and they will be brought to justice.

We will persevere. We will find them. We will show the world, in open court, that they did this.

And they will be punished."

                — Terry Karney

Labels: history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 2:02 am

 
Michelangelo's Pietàs (sculptures of and about mourning)  
The extraordinary Bandini Pietà (aka the Deposition) is in Florence, or there's the much more famous, much earlier, Pietà tucked behind heavy security barriers up towards the doors at the back of St Peter's Basilica in Rome. (There's another, even more extraordinary, fragmentary, late Pietà that you can experience in the Sforza Castle at Milan.)

UPDATE: Anita Roddick Dies

— Guardian story

Labels: art, mourning, sculpture, travel

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:57 pm