Radiation from the pulsar PSR B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star, causes nearby gas to glow with X-rays (gold, from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory) and illuminates the rest of the nebula, here seen in infrared (blue and red, from WISE).
We wound up discussing Blue Mountain coffee during last night’s podcast, and my podcasting partner Dianna Deeley heartily recommended this brand. She had received some as a Christmas gift and is greatly enjoying it.
Click on the image on the left to order some from Amazon.
Seven years ago today, the Great Snowpocalypse of 2016 was bearing down on Westminster. After sending the Lickspittle Broadcasting System crew home early, it wasn’t possible to get that day’s BLOGSMOKE episode finished, so I cued up this pair of Johnny Atsign episodes and got ready to shovel two feet of global warming.
JOHNNY: Why, Lieutenant, to what do I owe the honor?
LT. BRADSHAW: (Telephone Filter) Cut the sarcasm, Atsign. As much as I hate to admit it, I need some help.
JOHNNY: From me, Lieutenant?
LT. BRADSHAW: (Telephone Filter) Yeah. From you, Atsign.
JOHNNY: You must be in one helluva hole. Tell me more.
MUSIC: Theme up and under.
ANNOUNCER: The Lickspittle Broadcasting System presents W. J. J. Hoge in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed Twitter account, America’s fabulous free-lance Internet investigator …
This picture of the Andromeda Galaxy was made at the Mt. Palomar Observatory sixty years ago. Back then, the 200-in Hale Telescope was the largest in the world. Now, it’s in 20th place for ground-based instruments.
Brett Kimberlin’s lawfare campaign has been a failed attempt to use the courts to suppress the First Amendment rights of the those of us who have written about his past and present activities. In fact, this blog took no notice of him until his attacks on blogger Aaron Walker. Ten years ago today, I took a look at how Kimberlin’s lawfare was going with this post titled Dread Pirate #BrettKimberlin and Reputation Management.
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So what’s the result of a year of TDPK’s brass knuckles reputation management via lawfare? When one googles him, this is the result.
He’s “best known as the perpetrator of the Speedway bombings in 1978.”
The truth is still out there.
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And now, the Supreme Court has denied Kimberlin’s petition seeking to set aside his bombing conviction.
… then you pay for what you got. After Trump was elected, a video surfaced of a Google employee meeting in which the corporate leadership said they could not allow an election like that to happen again, and there’s plenty of evidence suggesting that Google participated with other tech companies in tipping the scales in Biden’s favor in 2020. They got what they paid for.
Of course, what they paid for is a dangerously incompetent administration. The poor economy is but one Joe Biden’s failures. Google may be big, but it’s not so big that it isn’t affected by a stagnant economy. They’re laying off 12,000 employees.
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
The Andromeda Galaxy (aka Messier 31) has several satellite galaxies. The best known are M32 and M110. M32 probably underwent a close encounter with Andromeda Galaxy and had its stellar disk removed by M31. That encounter caused a sharp increase of star formation in M32’s core region. M32 is the large galaxy near the center of the image.
M110 is the smaller galaxy below and to the right of MN32. It also appears to be interacting with the Andromeda Galaxy. Astronomers have found in the large galaxy’s halo a stream of metal-rich stars that appear to have been stripped from the satellite galaxies.
It was ten years ago that Bill Schmalfeldt first took a turn as editor of Breitbart UnmaskedBunny Billy Boy Unread. Pointage, laughery, and mockification began immediately with this post titled Cabin Boy #BillSchmalfeldt and the Beanstalk.
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Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt is now the editor of Breitbart Unmasked (No, I won’t link to it). Although I have never seen him in person, his pictures on the Internet lead me to assume that his is a rather large fellow. Given the image on the masthead of BU, he must think of himself as a giant. The most famous giant who threatens to grind one’s bones for bread is the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
Fee-fi-fo-fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I’ll have his bones to grind my bread.
Or so it goes in Joseph Jacobs classic version of the fairy tale. As I remember the story, it doesn’t turn out well for the giant.
Now, where did I put that axe?
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It would be several weeks after that post went up that I first met the Cabin Boy™ in person. Although I never had to use an axe, our interactions have cut him down to a size more in line with his talents and karma.
His last known employment has been as editor of the Center Republican in North Dakota. (Schmalfeldt. Republican. Karma. Some assembly required.) Last night, when tried to access his LinkedIn page (Bill Schmalfeldt – Editor – Central Nordak Publishing | LinkedIn), the link 404ed.
… but I am pleased to report that Twitter has finally removed the last of the false and defamatory sensitive content warnings to my tweets linking to my astronomy posts. They have also ceased applying new warnings.
While the operations side of Twitter is still almost completely opaque, a black hole into which request for help disappear without result, Twitter’s new legal team was responsive.
The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that a bill introduced in the Connecticut legislature would allow women to skip the Candidate Physical Ability Test for firefighters and qualify with a test with “revised physical standards.” It seems that the Democrats who have authored the bill are looking for an answer to the question “How do we make fire departments more diverse?”
Perhaps Connecticut should consider the question “How do we make our fire departments more effective?”
CALLER: (Telephone Filter) Mr. Atsign, my name is Steve. I’m a fan of your show.
JOHNNY: Hello, Steve. What can I do you?
CALLER: (Telephone Filter) Well, you could check for a DM from me in your Twitter account.
JOHNNY: Oh?
CALLER: (Telephone Filter) Yes. I believe you’ll find the link it contains intriguing.
MUSIC: Theme up and under.
ANNOUNCER: The Lickspittle Broadcasting System presents W. J. J. Hoge in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed Twitter account, America’s fabulous free-lance Internet investigator …