Conservatives Tell a Whopper (Video and Transcript)

Two red italic text sections?!? Yes. This top one is just for you, dear readers. It’s just a few different notes. First, this isn’t a perfect transcript, but it is very close. Second, while yes, I very much want you to engage and comment here, it’d be extremely helpful if you also liked and commented on the video, as well. Hell… it’d be even better if you also subscribed to my channel and maybe even shared the video. Like I say… I don’t know if this is gonna become a thing, but it sure as hell isn’t if I get only 9 views, no likes, no comments, no engagement on it, etc… where’s my motivation to do stuff like this if basically no one’s gonna see or interact with it?

Also… I do say, in the video, that burning out on writing about Trump is part of the reason I stopped blogging. It’s been a few years since I last posted here about Trump, but it’s still true. That was my sigh of relief when he finally lost. I have almost no expectations for Biden to be truly progressive, although it does appear as if he’s been listening to Sanders a lot to start out his presidency so… maybe I’m wrong? I still have zero hope for any kind of truly universal healthcare program, but we might actually get a universal basic income! That’s pretty cool. I do wonder if the Green New Deal can actually get through Congress a little easier now, as well, but I’m not sure.

Finally, do yourself a favor and watch with the subtitles turned on… if you can. Doing so will provide a slightly fuller experience, I think…

Anyways… let’s get to the video and transcript…

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I Am NOT Satisfied by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Response

Okay so… Neil deGrasse Tyson was probably my favorite living scientist and science-popularizer. He has carried on the scientific legacy of Carl Sagan in a way I can only admire. I absolutely adored his take on Cosmos, and I loved Startalk (until he decided to have Michael Shermer on as a guest… recap on that for those who’ve forgotten). I was a huge fan of his, to the point where I was defending his “ruining” of movies. I loved when he pointed out the scientific failings of films, regardless of what film it was or if science was at all relevant to the film. He was like CinemaSins, only with science (and yes, I like CinemaSins… get over it).

So, by all accounts, I’m the exact right person to defend his statement about these allegations.

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E-Cigarettes, Wet Lung, and the US vs the UK

Yet again, the US news media over-hypes a story and uses it to peddle a narrative about e-cigarettes being “just as bad” as analog cigarettes. They are evil, dangerous, and should be banned. And this obsession in the US with e-cigarettes being somehow terrible is very strange to me, seeing as how other countries (such as the UK), are actually quite happy with e-cigarettes as smoking cessation devices.

E-cigarettes are in the news again because of a Pennsylvania woman with a history of mild asthma going to the hospital after having developed a cough, chest pains, and difficulty breathing. After attempts to control these symptoms, all of which failed, she went into respiratory failure, needing a machine to help her breathe and tubes inserted into her chest to drain fluids from her lungs. She was diagnosed with hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

According to Cleveland Clinic, hypersensitivity pneumonitis (also known as extrinsic allergic alveolitis) is “a complex condition of varying intensity, clinical presentation, and natural history. It is the result of an immunologically induced inflammation of the lung parenchyma in response to inhalation exposure to a large variety of antigens. These are primarily organic antigens to which patients have been previously sensitized and are hyperresponsive.”

Wikipedia gives a less technical definition, calling it “an inflammation of the alveoli within the lung caused by hypersensitivity to inhaled organic dusts. Sufferers are commonly exposed to the dust by their occupation or hobbies.”

What does this have to do with vaping?

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Cassini’s Grand Finale (Why I Missed Wednesday’s APotW)

Hello! You’ll noticed that I skipped Astronomy Pictures of the Week on Wednesday. That… was on purpose.

Today was Cassini’s last day alive. This morning, Cassini plunged into Saturn, sending back some amazing data, but, in the process, ending its life.

Cassini was launched on October 15th, 1997. For two decades, Cassini revealed the wonders of the greatest planet and planetary system in our solar system to us. We learned so much.

But, now, it’s over…

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Astronomy Picture of the Week – Saturn-lit Tethys

Here’s a pretty cool image…

Cassini gazes across the icy rings of Saturn toward the icy moon Tethys, whose night side is illuminated by Saturnshine, or sunlight reflected by the planet.

Tethys was on the far side of Saturn with respect to Cassini here; an observer looking upward from the moon’s surface toward Cassini would see Saturn’s illuminated disk filling the sky.

Tethys was brightened by a factor of two in this image to increase its visibility. A sliver of the moon’s sunlit northern hemisphere is seen at top. A bright wedge of Saturn’s sunlit side is seen at lower left.

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Astronomy Picture of the Week – Highlighting Titan’s Hazes

Back to Cassini’s Grand Finale… today we’re highlighting Titan…

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft looks toward the night side of Saturn’s moon Titan in a view that highlights the extended, hazy nature of the moon’s atmosphere. During its long mission at Saturn, Cassini has frequently observed Titan at viewing angles like this, where the atmosphere is backlit by the Sun, in order to make visible the structure of the hazes.

Titan’s high-altitude haze layer appears blue here, whereas the main atmospheric haze is orange. The difference in color could be due to particle sizes in the haze. The blue haze likely consists of smaller particles than the orange haze.

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Astronomy Picture(s and Video) of the Week: US Total Solar Eclipse, August 21, 2017

Taking a detour from Cassini’s Grand Finale to celebrate the solar eclipse we had in the US just this past Monday. I’m sad to say that, from my vantage point (Long Island, New York), it was pretty underwhelming. I wish I’d had the money and time to travel to somewhere along the path of totality and really observe it. Hopefully I’ll be able to for the next one. I’m quite positive that this isn’t my first, but it could just be that I watched clips of one when I was younger. Did the last total solar eclipse in the US happen sometime within the last 30 years?

Hm…

Anyways…

The eclipse has been called the “Great American Eclipse” which like… they know that Canada and South America have had total solar eclipses, too… right? I mean… the United States isn’t the only country in America you know… But anyways…

The event’s shadow began to cover land on the Oregon coast as a partial eclipse at 4:06 p.m. UTC (9:06 a.m. PDT), and its land coverage ended as a partial eclipse along the South Carolina coast at about 6:44 p.m. UTC (2:44 p.m. EDT). Visibility as a partial eclipse in Honolulu, Hawaii began with sunrise at 4:20 p.m. UTC (6:20 a.m. HST) and ended by 5:25 p.m. UTC (7:25 a.m. HST).

Okay so…

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Astronomy Picture of the Week – Prometheus and the Ghostly F Ring

Cassini’s Grand Finale…

The thin sliver of Saturn’s moon Prometheus lurks near ghostly structures in Saturn’s narrow F ring in this view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Many of the narrow ring’s faint and wispy features result from its gravitational interactions with Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across).

Most of the small moon’s surface is in darkness due to the viewing geometry here. Cassini was positioned behind Saturn and Prometheus with respect to the sun, looking toward the moon’s dark side and just a bit of the moon’s sunlit northern hemisphere.

Also visible here is a distinct difference in brightness between the outermost section of Saturn’s A ring (left of center) and rest of the ring, interior to the Keeler Gap (lower left).

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 13 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 13, 2017.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 680,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 4 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel.

Click the image for the tif file…

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Astronomy Picture of the Week – Haze on the Horizon

Late on this one… by a week… I know why I’m missing these, too… real life has me extra stressed… 🙁

Anyways… here’s more from Cassini’s Grand Finale…

This false-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft gazes toward the rings beyond Saturn’s sunlit horizon. Along the limb (the planet’s edge) at left can be seen a thin, detached haze. This haze vanishes toward the left side of the scene.

As usual… click on the image for the tif download…

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