30,000 Year Old Seeds Grown

Russian Scientists Grow Pleistocene-Era Plants From Seeds Buried By Squirrels 30,000 Years Ago
Wow, that's really cool.

I guess the Young Earthers will doubt the carbon dating used to come up with that 31,800 year estimated age. The seeds must have been buried by the Flood, not squirrels.

Alternate Delegate

Well, the precinct caucus was fun.  We were allotted 3 delegates and 4 alternates, and five of us raised our hands, and I suppose my support for Dr. Paul in a room half filled with Romney supporters doomed me to be an Alternate Delegate to our county convention.  So, I get to go, and if one of the three don't show up, I'm in!  Should be interesting.  I'm also going to be volunteering in the Republican party this year however I can, and the kids are interested as well.

I'm pretty worried though...  Obama is such a terrible president, but I just do not see how either Romney or Santorum win in November.  Honestly.  Yes, either one would make a way better President, but I just don't see them winning the vote in this nation of morons.  Oh well.

Been Working Hard

OK, so I haven't been posting here, because I have been working a LOT of overtime lately.  Unfortunately, I have a laptop, and can connect to my work network from home, so I get to take the laptop home and do work.  Fortunately, I have been able to charge a good bit of overtime and get paid for it, so I am NOT complaining.

Tomorrow night is the Colorado Caucus!  Mrs. Astro and I are planning to go and to vote for Ron Paul.  I am also going to try to get elected as a delegate for Dr. Paul, or at least to vote for one of my neighbors who are Paul supporters.  It should be fun, I guess.  My older daughter is looking forward to helping out; she's been anxious to do something with politics for quite a while now.  We will probably end up helping out with the Republican party this year to get the vote out and stuff.  Yes, even if that means working for Governor Mittens, well, that's a damn sight better than re-electing the President.  Not much better, but still.

Weird Noises

What are they? Mysterious unexplained noises now being reported across the globe

There are several videos on this page where people have recorded weird sounds in differnet locations around the world, yet they all sound similar. I haven't heard anything like this, but my sister-in-law claims to have heard weird sounds in the middle of the night down in Dallas.

Wonder what they are hearing?

Why I Support Ron Paul

Vox Day: 10 Years Later...
Once again, Vox sums it up perfectly.

I'll embed that video here later, that shows how Ron Paul's 2002 predictions have come about in the last ten years. The only one that can arguably said to not have come about is the one about interest rates going higher, but that's only because the Federal Reserve keeps the rates artificially low. If the rates were set by market forces, they would definitely be higher than they are now. I suppose Dr. Paul temporarily forgot that the rates are not set by market forces when he made this five minute speech.

Climate Science Doublespeak

Sea ice down under: Antarctic ice and climate « Icelights: Your Burning Questions About Ice & Climate

One reason that we hear less about Antarctic sea ice than Arctic sea ice is that it varies more from year to year and season to season than its northern counterpart. And while Arctic ice has declined precipitously over the past thirty years of the satellite record, average Antarctic sea ice extent has stayed the same or even grown slightly.
...
Overall, Antarctic sea ice has grown slightly over the past thirty years of the satellite record, but the trends are very small, and the ice extent varies a lot from year to year. In Southern Hemisphere winter months, ice extent has increased by around one percent per decade. In the summer, ice has increased by two to three percent per decade, but the variation is larger than the trend.
...
Stammerjohn and other scientists say that declining sea ice around the Antarctic Peninsula probably helps destabilize continental ice in that area by allowing the air above the ocean in that region to warm more than before. These continental ice areas are shrinking and therefore contributing to sea level rise. Stammerjohn said, “Though it is true that, on average, Antarctic sea ice is not changing, or even slightly increasing, the overall average hides a very large regional decrease that could have global consequences.”

Um, what?

So the ice in the Antarctic is increasing, and this is indicative of a DECREASE that "could have global consequences"?

What a bunch of hacks. It must be time for putting in the next research grant. I don't really blame the guy, because if I got to be a scientist in Antarctica, I'd want money to stay there too.

Busy Year

Sorry for the light posting, but I've been really busy since getting back to work after New Year's, and just don't have the time to spend here. I'm only posting right now because I'm fixing to take our little (not so little anymore) puppy to the vets to have his operation. Sure hope that calms him down. He's a great little dog, but he can get really hyper, and we're all tired of him biting and chewing stuff. Just two days ago, he chewed up Mrs. Astro's glasses!

Anyway, hope everyone (Res, WB, who else reads this?) is doing well. Go Ron Paul! I'm planning on going to the caucuses on Feb. 7 to vote for Dr. Paul, so we'll see how that works.

UPDATE: the dog is doing fine; just had to put the Cone of Shame on him before going to bed.

And A Happy New Year!

Been watching that thing drop on New Year's Eve as long as I can remember. It's still kind of weird to have it happen at 10PM local instead of 11PM local, having grown up in Texas. Is it just me, or all those people absolutely crazy for standing there in Times Square for hours and hours just to be there at midnight? That whole spectacle holds no attraction for me whatsoever.

Merry Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho! All the best to one and all.

Thanks for the reminder, Rat

From Pearls Before Swine.

One Year Left Everybody!

Wikipedia: 2012 phenomenon

Yep, one year from today, the world will end. This is the time I've been anticipating my whole life, ever since I heard about this stuff from my mom when I was a kid. She let me read her copy of "Chariots of the Gods", and knew all sorts of stuff about the Mayans, and inspired me to read more about it. (Dang, wish I knew where that book was now; I don't have it)

Now, what do I REALLY think will happen next year? Nothing out of the ordinary. The sun will rise, the sun with set, and the earth will keep flying through space just as it has for billions of years. Although, hopefully, there's some small chance that Ron Paul would be President-Elect at the time.

This is Not Good

Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer

After reading through this article, I think I believe the Iranians. I don't know everything about how the GPS spoofing problem works, but the sort of vulnerability that the Iranians claim they took advantage of makes sense. And, they have the drone, intact. What doesn't make sense is how our guys knew about this but did not design around it.

The Iranians are not idiots. Neither are any of the other peoples around the world. Yeah, their countries suck, smell bad, and aren't as nice and pretty as the U.S. or Europe, but that doesn't mean they are stupid. "White Man's Burden" led us to think we're smarter than the rest of the world. That is not true, we (Europeans) just got to the modern level before everyone else, thanks to the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. We forget that the Romans and the Greeks were not the only advanced ancient civilizations either, and that much of European advancement came after exposure to the Chinese thanks to Marco Polo. Given that, it should not surprise us that the yellow, brown, and black men of the world are able to catch up.

So is Ron Paul naive to think that we should deal with Iran and not "pre-emptively" strike them to "prevent" them from nuking up? Or do we want to start World War III?

A WW3 in which our GPS guided munitions are redirected to fall on our own heads...

Here Come the Ron Paul Attacks

The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : The Ron Paul Newsletters
Reason.com: Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters? (from 2008)

There were some newsletters written by Lew Rockwell for a Ron Paul newsletter in the late 80s and early 90s which are arguably racist. Dr. Paul claims to have not written these things, but no, I don't think a full and satisfactory explanation has been made of this issue, or at least one that will stand up to presidential-campaign-media scrutiny. I don't believe he is racist. I've been listening to his speeches on podcasts, and he doesn't even get into race. But it will be instructive to see how he responds to this.

Pot, Meet Kettle

Vladimir Putin lashes out at America for killing Gaddafi and backing protests - Telegraph
Is it just me, or did Pooty-Poot have some plastic surgery?

In a ferocious verbal tirade broadcast on state TV that lasted more than four and a half hours, the Russian prime minister made it clear he was determined to return to the Russian presidency next year, scornfully dismissing recent demonstrations against him.

"I know that students were paid some money - well, that's good if they could earn something," he said, referring to the biggest protest of its kind since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union last Saturday.

Facing down the biggest challenge of his almost twelve years in power, the Russian strong man insisted that the disputed parliamentary election which triggered the protests was not flawed, rejecting calls for a re-run outright.

"It properly reflected the real balance of power in the country," he said during a live televised question and answer session that has become an annual tradition. "As for the fairness or unfairness: the opposition will always say the elections were not fair. Always. This happens everywhere, in all countries." Repeatedly accusing his domestic critics and opponents of taking money from the West to do him down, he claimed there was a plot to destabilise Russia by effecting a velvet revolution there.

"There is a well-tested scheme to destabilise society," he said.

Well tested by your very own KGB!!!

It's well known that the many of the protests and protest groups in the U.S. during the 1960s were funded by the Soviets, with the express purpose to destabilize our society and weaken us from within! And now we have those very same protestors running our government!

Turnabout is fair play, Vlad.

I Am Doing Something Wrong

Another year, another average rating at work. This year, I agree with the rating. I moved to a new program and have been working a lot of tasks that I haven't done before. Given my inexperience with some of these things, I didn't do a wonderful outstanding job on them, but I did pretty good. I think I'm getting better.

But dadgummit, what do I have to do?

And why do I stay where I am?

The second answer is that I want the chance to work on the kind of projects that aerospace engineers work on. It's still exciting to me to know that what I work on will be launched into space and work up there for years doing whatever, and to know that I helped build it. So that's the biggest reason I put up with all the crap that goes along with working for my employer.

Also, there's the pension. Now, will that pension be there in 25 years for me to collect on it?

The first answer? I have no f-ing idea. No matter what I've done, how I've been recognized by the customer, how many people I've replaced in doing a job, or how vital my work was to getting the thing (whatever it was) to work, all I ever am is a "Successful Contributor".

They say they want "results". I give them results. They say they want this, they say they want that. I give them those things. They give me a crap sandwich and send me back to my cubicle.

I take it because they pay me every Friday and thanks to the tropical storm ten years ago and some medical expenses since then, I'm in debt and trying to get out. We're making progress but I'm not there yet. And, "AT LEAST I HAVE A JOB".

Screw it. I have got to figure out something else to do.