Hot Dog!

I am thrilled at the news.  After years of being maligned by fellow epicures, I have been exonerated by the scientific community.  Let me bring you up to speed.  Since childhood, I have hated hot dogs.  It is not one of those, “nobody knows what’s in it conspiracy hatreds”.  It was, and remains to be, the taste.  I cannot stand the mix of spices that give said pseudo sausage its particular, and to me peculiar, flavor.

Thanks, Mom!

On that rare occasion when the pride of Oscar Mayer was the only dining option, I would have to drown the beast in condiments.  Bring me catsup!  Bring me relish!  Bring me mustard!  Or, if you can, bring me a hamburger!  Many a time I have fought back the urge to retch when I witnessed some tyke roaming around with a bare Ball Park frank, listlessly gnawing away as they uncaringly teetered this way and that.

And why, I inquire, must we befoul the blessed stew, chili, by pouring it over a questionably kosher Hebrew National?  Toss the dog, put it in a bowl and I will sop the remnants with the now unnecessary bun.  Carroll Shelby will rest easier in his grave.

Charlton Heston, "Soylent Green"

But now my stand against miniature bologna (yeah, you guessed right, I don’t eat that either) is reinforced by academic investigation.  A recent study of hot dog hygiene issues by Clear Foods, results published October 26, 2015, reveals two percent (2%) of wieners tested contained human DNA. Aghhh!  You’ve been eating people.  And not only were you unaware, you developed a passionate liking for it!  The age of Soylent Green (look it up!) is here; or would this be Soylent Pink.

For those vegetarians out there breathing a sigh of relief, the study also found that ten percent (10%) of “vegetarian hot dog products contain meat.”  And two-thirds (67%) of vegetarian samples contained human DNA.  I know true vegans are okay because they wouldn’t ever eat a food product named for an animal. Too bad for them bear claws are so delicious… well, more for you and me.

Coming soon, “California’s New Right to Die Initiative; Coincidence or Correlation?” (See Soylent Green)

The Right Honorable Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr., Governor

The Crowded Sky

Well, truth is, I just forgot.  So, here’s some stuff to occupy your time.

The Orionid meteor shower peaked this morning (Thur. October 22).  You missed it.  But you may be able to catch some action Friday morning just before dawn (about 6AM).  Just go outside and look into the sky to the south.  Find the constellation Orion and watch.  If you don’t know what Orion looks like, Google it.  The meteor shower is caused by Earth cruising through the particles left as Comet Halley last passed this way (1986).  Good luck.

Then, on October 31, 2015, Earth will be passed by a massive (1,542 feet in diameter) asteroid with its closest approach being 310,000 miles (the Moon is 240,000 miles away).  This baby is whippin’ through the solar system at a mere 78,000 miles per hour.  So, do you think all of that is scary?  Well hang on to your “depends”, the asteroid was discovered only 11days ago!  Once again, Orion will be the backdrop for the action.  The closest approach will occur at 10:05 AM San Diego time (17:05 UTC) but the rock is not large enough or close enough to see in daylight.  The best chance is the previous night, Oct. 30 (my source article says 11:50 PM CT, so 9:50 PM San Diego time?).  If you want more information, just Google “Halloween Asteroid”.

And if that’s not enough, the world’s astronomers are all agog about a star (KIC 8462852… sexy name, huh?) they found out there somewhere that is behaving rather oddly.  While none of the eggheads will allow themselves to say it, the phenomenon could indicate the presence of an alien population capable of building a structure somewhat like the Halo from the computer game… or it could just be an asteroid field.  But they’re not sure because they’ve never seen anything like it.  So, anyway, they’re searching for radio signals that may indicate the presence of any intelligent population.  They should be done with the data collection this week and once the numbers have been crunched, they will start the peer review process meanwhile keeping mum about what they think it all means.  We will probably hear from them some time next year.  Plenty of time to draw up your last will and testament... of build a laser blaster.

That’s it for this week, sleep tight!

Cameroon

Breathe easily, this promises to be a short and probably unexciting missive.  It is one of those weeks that offer little in the way opportunity for self-expression through sarcasm.  Nothing funny, well humorous, seems to be happening.  There all kinds of funny things happening if you apply the proper nuance to the word funny.

As I was beginning to generate some small anxiety over selection for this week’s topic of elucidation, my efforts turned to scanning the journalistic headlines as is my wont when faced with such a crisis.  Nope, couldn’t find anything useful from the reporting (if that’s what you’d like to call it, a more apt synonym might be drivel) on the Democratic Presidential debate.  Say, when did the Three Stooges join forces with the Battling Bickersons to create the quintet of soulless acolytes anyway?  Anderson Cooper should be pilloried for cowardice in the face of the friendly.  But I digress.

So what, of any substance, have we been wringing our hands over the past few days?  Of course, the withdrawal timing of remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan and the number of support personnel to remain as a stabilizing force.  We know the administration has set a course for total abandonment of said locale.  And I have heard some growling opposition from the Republican led houses of our esteemed legislature.  But true to his campaign word, Obama will make sure that by the end of his tenure no American troops will remain to aid in the safe-guarding of that ancient and honorable culture which some thirty years ago chewed up the formidable Soviet Army.  Nope, the war against Islamic extremism is moving to… Cameroon?

This week, the President notified Congress that he was deploying three hundred “non-combat” troops to Cameroon to help with surveillance and intelligence activities in that country’s efforts to resist incursion by Boko Haram: The daughter stealers of Nigeria, not the 1970s English rock group Procol Harum.  Obama said the troops would remain there only until they are no longer needed.  That seems kind of counter to his strategy for Iraq.  Well, maybe his understanding of things military is expanding.

Now doesn’t that just turn your skin a whiter shade of pale?

Economics for Chickens

About two weeks ago I happened to breakfast at the local Coco’s restaurant.  I opted for the raspberry cheese blintz pancakes combo, with bacon, eggs over easy.  It was very good, thanks for asking; it is hard to beat raspberries.

As I was waiting to pay my bill at the front counter, I noticed a rather disturbing hand-crafted sign announcing no meringue pies would be available do to the egg shortage.  I perused the refrigerated cabinet on the wall behind the counter and confirmed by brief visual inspection that indeed there were no meringue pies to be counted among the inventory.  I looked again at the hand-written sign to see if I had missed any explanatory information that might shed light on the root cause of this epicurean catastrophe.  By the time I had exhausted that resource, the cashier arrived.  In poring over her vacuous facial expression, I determined there was no information available in that quarter to shed light on this most troubling crisis.

So I pursued the course of any ambitious pseudo-intellectual and duly forgot all about it.   But a kernel of curiosity stayed with me and finally today, desperately searching the news headlines for some subject with which to entertain you as is my wont, I stumbled upon an article reporting a shortage of pumpkin pie filling for this year’s Thanksgiving season. (As I learned from my fictional mentor, Ford Prefect… “DON’T PANIC”, but more about the pumpkin worriment later.)  This revivified my wonderment over the aforementioned egg shortage.  So, lacking any ambition, as is also my wont, I Googled “egg shortage”.

It seems that since sometime earlier this year, we have been experiencing a dire egg shortage.  This was caused not by lack of effort on our hens’ part, but rather an outbreak of avian flu that has affected some forty-eight million birds including chickens, geese and TURKEYS.  I am not sure if I have stumbled onto some nefarious Islamo-fueled, anti-Pilgrim plot to deprive us of our God-given right to overeat on the third Thursday of November, but something reeks of marine odiferousness (smells fishy for you ESLs out there).

Somewhat to my relief, as I continued into the factual, non-inflammatory depths of the article, I learned that the shortage to date has really only affected the liquid egg supply.  (I am going to ask you to take a leap of faith here and assume as I did that the phrase “liquid eggs” refers to egg product that has been extracted from its ovoid protector and shipped sans shell for the intended use as an ingredient in commercial food applications.)  Any noticed price increase in the retail egg market is due to pressure from liquid egg product providers seeking an alternative supply source.  There are still plenty of eggs available to the non-commercial consumer.  We are assured by those who know (or at least speak as if they do) the condition will have corrected itself by 2016.  I’m not sure how the retail turkey market is poised to deal with their seasonal concerns.

But more importantly, we must prepare ourselves for the prognostication that there will be a shortage of pumpkin pie filling.  This potential calamity is the result of record rainfall levels in Illinois.  It seems, ninety percent of all pie filling pumpkins are raised within ninety miles of Peoria.  Kinda sounds like a monopoly to me (that’s the economic term for close control of a commodity or product, not a Parker Bros. game), and that’s wrong.

At any rate, Libby’s, the most prodigious pumpkin pie filling producer, recommends you buy your canned pumpkin pie filling early and often, as the supply may run short.  Go figure!

  

Mars Attacked... Yet Again!

Mars

Earlier this week, or maybe it was last week (time has no fixed reference point when you live the life of the idle moderately-comfortable) NASA announced unequivocally that they had found water on that planet most likely for extra-terran human migration, Mars.  For those of you unfamiliar with our solar system, Mars (so named for the Roman God of War due to its reddish appearance; the planet, not the god) is the fourth planet from the Sun (we’re number three, and we appear to be blue; the color, not the state of mind).  It is also, due to feature similarity and proximity of orbit, the most likely target for establishment of a permanent human colony.  As such, Mars has become a frequent subject for science fiction genre literature and films, e.g. The Martian due to be released Oct. 2^nd.  (Ray Walston will always be my favorite Martian!)

Venus

When I was in my youth, about fifty-five solar orbital cycles ago, Venus was portrayed in science fiction films as the most likely candidate for human exploration, perhaps even having produced indigenous intelligent life forms.  Venus, after all, is in the goldilocks zone; that distance from the sun where a planet may experience a temperature range not hazardous to life as we know it (someday I will take on the implications of that phrase, but I need to be in a particularly snarky state of mind).  It is also very similar in size to Earth which suggests comparable gravitational parameters, necessary to hold an atmosphere.  But as our science acumen increased we learned two things.  One: Venus does indeed have an atmosphere; unfortunately consisting primarily of carbon dioxide.  This atmospheric chemistry yields surface pressure of nearly 1,400 psi (92 times that of Earth: 15psi).  Two: Venus’ rotation rate is one per 243 Earth days, (and it rotates backwards, it is the only planet in the Solar System that rotates from east to west (we, as you could infer, rotate from west to east).  This causes the extreme temperature of 872^oF and results in wind speeds of 220 mph.  Russia has successfully sent several probes to Venus, delivering data for twenty-three minutes to two hours before giving up and going to satellite heaven (or wherever atheist satellites go).  Venus is also the obvious inspiration for that Earthly phenomenon that began to signal our future doom in 1970, the runaway greenhouse effect.  Venus’ atmosphere is does indeed exexperience greenhouse warming. However, Venus: CO₂ percentage > 95%.  Earth: CO₂ percentage < 0.05%.  We are not planning to colonize Venus in the near future, she is a false seductress.  But I digress.

Venus Surface Image

Do you understand the implications of flowing water on Mars?  If sufficient free-flowing water is present, it significantly reduces the amount of weight a spacecraft would have to devote to carrying potable water.  There is no substitute for potable water, how else would an astronaut make his Tang?

Hydrates Salts Streaks

But wait!  Before you launch that rocket take note.  NASA has pulled back a bit from the overly enthusiastic reporting of the popular press.  The New York Times opening line was “Scientists have for the first time confirmed liquid water flowing on the surface of present-day Mars, …”  Well isn’t that nice?  Doesn’t that just conjure up an image of a riparian paradise with a rippling rill flowing down a gentle slope into a mirror-like tarn?  Get your picnic basket, Yogi.  We’re going a wandering in the lea.  But as one reads paragraph after paragraph it seems the flowing water is indicated not by direct evidence of standing pools.  Rather, dark striations (streaks in NY Times parlance) photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (not the Mars rover Curiosity, although they boldly inserted a picture of that vehicle in the article) that may be hydrated salts, evidence of damp spots at some recent time.  Now damp spots are hardly free flowing water.  The spectrometer on the orbiter is not sensitive enough to provide chemical analysis on said streaks which are a few yards wide at most.

Curiosity Selfie

So, why not just send Curiosity over and take a sample of one of these “evidence of flowing water” skid marks?  Well there are two concerns.  One: The Rover is two years away from the suspected hydrated salts trails (yeah, but I’ll bet he’s getting’ great gas mileage).  Two:  It seems the eager little beaver, whose prime mission was to search for life, is not sterile and some scientists fear contaminating the Mars aquatic environment with Earth born microbes.  NASA tells us, that building the rover and transport craft to standards allowing Earth-bound sterilization by heat prior to launch would have required the addition of too much weight.  (I’m sterile and all it took was a bit of novocaine, two judicious snips and a bag of frozen peas… but I digress)  In space travel, weight is everything.  So I ask: In building a rover (actually, two rovers) to go to another world where we knew there was some probability of the presence of water from orbital photographs of the erosion patterns on the planet’s surface, not to mention the ice at the polar caps, did we not think we might just stumble across one of these damp spots by chance and contaminate that?

The estimated cost of sending a manned mission to Mars is $6 billion to $500 billion (wow, that’s razor cut budgeting, huh?).  What’s a half-trillion when your national debt is approaching $20 trillion?  I say, let the market decide.  If some clever entrepreneur can convince private investors there is gold in them thar red hills, let him.  And welcome to the profits.  But I’m seeing little real benefit for the common taxpayer.  I believe I will continue to focus on Earth-bound investment opportunities for the time being.  Unless of course you are planning to send Matt Damon along with the first sortie; then all I need to know is where to send my check.

Breaking News Post Scripts:

 PS  I trust you are all keeping up with your Russian language lessons.

PPS  Your Chinese manufactured prayer rugs are on back order.

PPPS  To paraphrase (British Prime Minister) Neville Chamberlain:  The world will fall to pieces in our time!

PPPPS   Sea monkeys found on ISS!

Super Duper!

Finally, something worth getting out of bed for:  This weekend (Sunday, Sept. 27) we will be given the opportunity to observe an astronomical event known as a Supermoon.  The event is so called because our sister orb will appear 14% larger and 30% brighter than its norm.  The phenomenon happens when full phase occurs with the moon at perigee (the closest point in its orbit around the earth).  Sunday evening, the moon will rise at 6:35 PM (PDT).  Visibility will depend of course on local weather conditions.  Currently, the forecast calls for clear skies; but on the other hand it was supposed to have rained considerably for the past two days and, well you know.

But Wait, There’s More!!!

We are even luckier than you imagined, because this full moon will be cast into the Earth’s shadow as we experience a lunar eclipse!  The indirect lighting reflected from the moon’s surface will produce a reddish hue known as a Blood Moon. This alignment of the Sun, Earth and moon provide us once again with dramatic proof that we are not at the center of the universe.  

Any female readers of a pagan bent may feel free to celebrate by assuming the persona of dryad, naiad, sylph, nymphet or sprite and dancing naked on my front lawn.  There is nothing that celebrates the wonder of nature like a good debauch!  Frank, you may not assume the undress of a fairy and dance on my lawn.

The eclipse will begin at approximately 1:00 AM GMT (British Time) Monday morning (Sept. 28) which translates to 5:00 PM PDT (local time) Sunday evening (Sept. 27).  The eclipse will last approximately one hour and ten minutes.

Doing the math for you (because it’s really easy… and that’s the kind of math I specialize in), with the eclipse beginning at 5:00 PM and lasting just a bit over one hour and moonrise scheduled for 6:35 PM, by the time the moon rises here in paradise, the whole thing will be… over.

Well, you ladies can come over anyway and dance to celebrate the recent autumnal equinox.  After all, we only have one of those each year.  Clothing optional, of course.

Westward, Ho!

For some time now, we have been following events in that troubled Middle East country, Syria.  It seems some sort of civil war is in progress there spurred on by the continuing dissatisfaction of the population with the performance of their president, Bashar al-Assad.  Beginning in Tunisia in December 2010 the revolutionary wave known as the Arab Spring had spread to other Arab League countries and by the end of February 2012, rulers had been ousted in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.  The scope of the movement covered almost all countries of Arabia and Saharan Africa.  While most of the participating nations have settled into some sort of relative peace, Syria’s movement festered into a full civil war.  Despite diplomatic efforts by countries around the world, little progress has been made to amicably settle the conflict.  Certainly Assad does not want to give up his position as president.  And why should he, his daddy (Defense Minister General Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in a “corrective revolution” in 1970) gave it to him in 2000.  Nice gift!

Bashar al-Asad

During the last few years things have gotten quite nasty there and now those with the means and initiative to use them are swarming to Europe.  It seems that from Syria it is a dry trip (meaning one does not have to swim a body of water) across Turkey, Bulgaria, and Serbia to the Hungarian border.  So why do these Muslims eschew their cultural ilk in Turkey?  Why do they not settle in Bulgaria or Serbia where there are substantial numbers of the followers of Allah?  Why do they proceed onward some thousand miles to establish their refugee camps in a Christian, Central European country?  Because Hungary is a member nation of the European Union.

From what I have gleaned watching the news, and who knows how accurate that is, the EU has a very tolerant attitude toward refugees and will support those who qualify for said status.  I do not know what the criteria for refugee status are, but I would conjecture that persecution by a mad dog despot is probably on the list: Very magnanimous of those Europeans.  We should applaud their sense of charity.  Hoo-ray, hoo-ray!

 

But wait, it seems that while the collective EU welcomes the downtrodden with open aid, Hungary, where the refugees are actually making footfall, is not so generously inclined.  Their welcome baskets seem to be filled with teargas and water cannons.  Hmm!

PS Late breaking but unrelated news:  An 8.3 magnitude earthquake occurred off of the western coast of South America at 1845 hrs (ET) Wednesday.  Well, you know what they say, “Chile today, beachfront Argentinean property tomorrow!”