Send your name (or a child's name) to the moon!

Join NASA's Return to the Moon! Names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission.

The deadline is June 27, 2008 for the submission of names.

LRO's objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.

Add your name here

Passover is a Jewish and Samaritan holy day and festival commemorating the Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Israelites from slavery.

Hag Simea'h! from Sharon Cobb.

Then we eat the most amazing meal one can imagine. We drink four glasses of wine during the service, so you're drunk and stuffed. Not a bad holiday.

Happy holiday! We'll toast you all when drinking our wine this evening.

Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday. He was 65.

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"If you didn't think about the danger, it looked like a performance," he said. "It was beautiful, like fireworks. War is beautiful if you don't get killed. But because you know it's going to kill, it's no longer beautiful."

The Iraq War is an abomination, as was the Vietnam War. Why must it continue?

Pran was certainly a courageous man. May he rest in peace.

I want to show you a neat picture from India about the Chaturshringi Temple in Pune, India in an exhibition in the Francis Land House in Virginia Beach, VA.

Chaturshringi Temple in Pune, India. The Hindu temple was built for the goddess Chaturshringi. Within the temple grounds there are three smaller temples dedicated to the goddess Durga in various forms.

The exhibition was about the Samgam World Center of the World Assocoation Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in Pune, India. The picture were shot by a lifelong Girl Scout, Kaylen Hopkins . The Girl Scout Museum of Tanasi Council (Link...) has a sari and several other Guide uniforms also. The sari was donated by Oak Ridge Senior Troop 69 after the graduating seniors went to the Sangam World Center.

Art Museum Touring.com has several pictures relating to Kaylen's trip to Sangam and the Francis Land exhibition by the Colonial Coast Girl Scout Council. This link will take you directly to the pages on the site: Link...

Sherrie

Memphis born and bred Cary Fowler is in charge of the “Doomsday Vault” seed bank in Svalbard, Norway. The Vault, which opened last week, will store seeds from every country on earth, and from every variety of food crop.

He will be in Memphis at the Pink Palace Museum, Monday, March 10, 2008, for a free public lecture entitled, “Seed Banks and Polar Bears: The Quest to Save Agriculture’s Past and Our Future.” This is one of a series of free public lectures in connection with our new exhibit, “Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics.” More details are available on the Pink Palace Museum page on Art Museum Touring.com (Link...).

Fowler grew up in Memphis, graduated from White Station High School and spent his summers on his grandmother’s farm near Madison, Tennessee. That is where his interest in agriculture began. Fowler is the Executive Director Global Crop Diversity Trust based in Rome.

This is a tremendous opportunity to learn more about this fantastic project to protect one of the world's most basic resources, food, and perhaps our species. If you can, you should make an effort to go to this lecture and reception to meet Fowler. The importance of the seed bank makes all the political squabbling pale in comparison. It would be a nice break!

Sherrie

American Conservatives claim credit. By giving Castro menacing looks for 35 years, the American Conservative movement has brought down this evil dictatorship using the time-honored tactic of old age. Once again, a historical moment occurs under the steady hand of George W. Bush, who "Can't wait to see Dean Martin again in Havana like Daddy used to." Democrats reacted with horror as their ideal state has started to collapse to be replaced with big box retailers and market-based health care.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the founder of the Transcendental Meditation technique.

Check out the quote of the day at WhitesCreek.

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In today's (1/18) Toronto Star website, there's a remarkable video called 'Airsick'. It's remarkable both technically (it consists entirely of still photos--20,000 of them) and remarkable in terms of the message it brings. Does any reader know anything about Earth Hour? This is the first I have heard of it.

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Anybody think this guy is for real?

We're coming at you. Your ships will explode in a couple of minutes.

Looks like the Straits of Hormuz Incident wasn't what we were told.

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Mushroom Cloud Pranksters to Stand Trial

The TV channel CT2 received frantic phone calls from viewers who thought a nuclear war had started. But the Prague-based collective, Ztohoven, said it had mounted the hoax to show how media images could be manipulated.

[..]

They had climbed a TV tower and hacked into the weather camera and broadcast cable with a computer. They also inserted a Web address for Ztohoven in a corner of the screen.

Three years in jail sounds a little harsh. Excellent prank, though. Watch it on YouTube.

P.S. Why isn't anyone calling for the prosecution of Condi Rice and Dick Cheney for essentially the same prank? In their case, lots of people actually died.

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide bombing that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, a party aide and a military official said.

Facts can be proven but statistics are much more easily bent. Could this be a perfect example?

So what exactly has caused this man to turn on his former neocon master? His consciense? Escape from Jail? Money? No matter what the reason, anyone standing in the way of impeachement at this point "Pelosi" is performing treason themselves.

For those who still claim Plame was not covert, she was no matter how you spin it.

Jeremy Scahill has written a remarkable, well researched book about Blackwater: Blackwater: The Rise and Fall of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

This interview with Bill Maher is informative.
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" In just a few minutes Scahill covers the mercenary army's origins (they're named after a swamp), its leader Erik Prince (who has deep ties with the extremist far right) and its plans for world domination (opening bases all over the country, thousands of men they can send to international and domestic conflicts of natural disasters.) Maher and Scahill also talk about how Blackwater mercenaries are better paid and have better armor than American troops in Iraq and how they make fighting the insurgency more difficult since they "commit crimes, shoot up Iraqis" and then the Iraqis retaliate against American troops."

"Washington has generously backed the general {Musharaff), sending him more than $10 billion in aid since 2001, mostly for the military. Now the administration finds itself in the bind of having to publicly castigate the man it has described as one of its closest allies in fighting terrorism."
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First Russia's Putin. Now Musharaff in Pakistan. It seems another of GWB's "good friends" seems to have duped him into thinking he was pro-democracy or maybe it was just the way these Bush allies were presented to the USA, so us taxpayers would want to help them. I do not want my tax dollars going to support a government that oppresses its own people. I thought we were fighting to support freedom and democracy in the Middle East?

There are American laws going back to the 1800's that say waterboarding is torture. After WWII, we actually convicted the Japanese of this crime. Now our nominee for Attorney General, Michael MuKasey, suggests maybe there are times when "persuasive techniques" may need to be used to gather information. Does changing the name of something illegal make it suddenly legal?

What do you think is the best reason for outlawing torture? Personally I loathe the idea that I would allow myself to become complicit in torture by approving of it when everything in me says is wrong. I also know anyone will say anything if put under pressure.

Where do you draw the line?

Jennifer Baichwal's documentary, Manufactured Landscapes, is opening at Downtown West tomorrow, and I'd encourage everyone with an interest in globalization, environmentalism, photography and/or film to give it a shot. I saw its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival a little over a year ago and can still play back whole sequences from memory. The opening shot is one of the most fascinating you'll ever see.

For the past few years, photographer Edward Burtynsky has been traveling around the world, capturing images of man's impact on the land. In her film, Baichwal follows Burtynsky to China and more or less watches over his shoulder as he find the strange beauty in places like rock quarries, manufacturing facilities, and the Three Gorges Dam project. It's not a perfect film, but it'll be one of the most interesting things shown in a Knoxville theater all year.

I hadn't seen this video. It's well worth watching.
How the hell did this guy lose the presidency to Bush?
Oh, nevermind.

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What would you do? You perceive a threat to your national security. A known terrorist group is a serious threat to harm your country and kill your citizens. You devise a plan to make a pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign country and threaten it loudly and long. Your parliament is set to vote on authorization any time now. Other nations encourage you to use diplomacy but you are inflexible….

Do you think the KNS will have a front page update on this?:

"Saddam Hussein, today, had we not gone in, would be sitting on this power keg and be in control of the whole thing," Thompson said. "He would have been the new dictator of that entire region in my estimation. He is — was — a dangerous irrational man who, by this time, would have been well on his way to having the nuclear capability himself."

Who else knew? Maybe FD's now playing the role for Cheney that he played for Nixon while he was supposed to be counseling Howard Baker's senate committee.

When Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, addressed the United Nations for the first time today he showed not only a healthy sense of humor, but also an open mind about dissent. He was only a few minutes into his speech when a woman rushed the stage. Security wrestled her away, but she struggled. The minister stopped speaking for a moment.

With all the financial news lately this really hits home. So much for fiscal responsibility!

Say what you will about Clinton but he at least had a balanced budget with the debt about to be paid off. I would make a strong argument he was more Republican then most current Republicans.

Pakistan ought to be the model of democracy in the Islamic world, being secular and more modern than its neighbors, but a political crisis is rapidly developing there. Now Osama bin Laden, likely hiding in Pakistan's rugged, semi-autonomous, northern mountains, has called for a holy war against President Musharraf.

Which is more stupid? The continuing rattling of sabers by the US or, this "attack" on Iraq by Iran. That is if it is true.

The lawmakers said their plane, a C-130, was under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades over the course of several minutes as they left for Amman, Jordan.

"It was a scary moment," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who said he had just taken off his body armor when he saw a bright flash outside the window. "Our pilots were terrific. ... They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares."
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Despite the scare, Shelby, Martinez and Cramer said they believed the recent increase in troop levels has helped stabilize parts of the country.

"It was kind of dicey," Shelby said. "But it just shows you what our troops go through every day."

US troops stabilizing parts of the country where they are in greatest number. Except for Baghdad, apparently.

Do they need to experience what our troops go through while on the ground? No pilots to zip them away.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced that the 2006 near-record "warmth was primarily due to human influences." El Nino actually had a slight cooling effect in the U.S.

What will the data show about 2007? What are we in for next winter/summer?

h/t Grist.

I just wanted to cross-post something I wrote on The Moderate Voice about the motivations of Sunnis who turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq. It deals with what I think is one of the least discussed and most important elements of future US strategy in Iraq.

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This is a interesting map that shows how & when people migrated around the globe to arrive in the Americas.

Click here: JOURNEY OF MANKIND - The Peopling of the World

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