An Amazing Eagle Story - Freedom & Jeff

I got it in my email. It's verified as true by Snopes.com:

Freedom and Jeff

Freedom and I have been together 11 years this summer.
She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings.
Her left wing doesn't open all the way even after surgery,
it was broken in 4 places.
She's my baby.

When Freedom came in she could not stand
and both wings were broken. She was
emaciated and covered in lice. We made the
decision to give her a chance at life, so I took
her to the vet's office. From then
on, I was always around her. We had her in a
huge dog carrier with the top off, and it
was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to
lay in. I used to sit and talk to her,
urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay
there looking at me with those big brown eyes.
We also had to tube feed her for weeks.

This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still
couldn't stand. It got to the point where the
decision was made to euthanize her
if she couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't
want to cross that line between torture and
rehab, and it looked like death was
winning. She was going to be put
down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in
on that Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go
to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't
bear the thought of her being euthanized;
but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone
was grinning from ear to ear. I went
immediately back to her cage; and there she was,
standing on her own, a big beautiful
eagle. She was ready to live. I was
just about in tears by then. That
was a very good day.

We knew she could never fly, so the director
asked me to glove train her.
I got her used to the glove,
and then to jesses, and we started
doing education programs for schools
in western Washington .
We wound up in the newspapers,
radio (believe it or not) and some
TV. Miracle Pets even did a show
about us.

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I had stage 3,
which is not good (one major organ plus
everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of
chemo. Lost the hair - the whole
bit. I missed a lot of work. When I
felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey
and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would
also come to me in my dreams and help me fight
the cancer. This happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2000

the day after Thanksgiving,
I went in for my last checkup.
I was told that if the cancer was not
all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last
option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they
did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for
the results. I went in Monday, and I was
told that all the cancer was gone.

So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and
take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty
and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her
up, and we went out front to the top of the
hill. I hadn't said a word to
Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me
and wrapped both
her wings around me to where I
could feel them pressing in on my back
(I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she
touched my nose with her beak and stared into my
eyes, and we just stood there like that
for I don't know how long . That was a
magic moment. We have been soul mates ever
since she came in. This is a very special bird.

On a side note: I have had people who
were sick come up to us when we are out, and
Freedom has some kind of hold on
them. I once had a guy who was
terminal come up to us and
I let him hold her.
His knees just about buckled and he
swore he could feel her power course through his
body. I have so many stories like that..

I never forget the honor I have of being so close
to such a magnificent spirit as
Freedom.

Hope you enjoyed this!

     

The Science of Tsunamis and Earthquakes

Japan earthquake, other tectonic surprises left science in a mess

What happened last March 11 wasn't supposed to be possible. The seismic hazard maps didn't entertain the idea of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the Tohoku coast of Japan. But the Earth paid no heed to scientific orthodoxy. A massive slab of the planet's crust lurched 180 feet to the east.

It rose about 15 feet, lifted the ocean and tipped the Pacific's waters onto the Japanese coast.

The quake and the resulting tsunami killed about 20,000 people, wiped out entire towns and triggered power outages and then meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

It also humbled the scientific community.

Since 2004, earthquake scientists have been caught off guard, or to some extent consternated, by huge killer earthquakes in the Indian Ocean, Haiti, China, Japan and New Zealand.

Now the geologists are in a state of soul-searching. They want to do better, get smarter and help save lives on a shaky planet. But they feel chastened by what happened in Japan and are reexamining their basic assumptions about earthquakes.

[...]

Seismic hazard maps typically show where earthquakes are most likely to occur over a certain period of time, and the expected maximum intensity. But critics say these maps merely describe what has happened before and have virtually no predictive value. They call it "Texas sharpshooting" - shooting the side of a barn and then drawing a bull's-eye around the bullet hole.

Defenders of the maps argue that they are better than nothing. Policymakers have to decide where to put resources. Which locations have older buildings that are most in need of seismic retrofitting? How high should a tsunami wall be?

Public officials may say, in effect, we know this map is probably wrong, but we still need it for planning purposes.

If there's one obvious change in attitude among geophysicists since Japan's 3/11 disaster, it's a recognition that huge earthquakes can potentially happen on any subduction zone - any of the places where one tectonic plate is diving beneath another.

As Thorne Lay, a seismologist at the University of California, noted in a commentary in the journal Nature: "We must allow for the possibility of larger quakes in regions where we thought that potential did not exist." [...]

Thus, Tsunami inundation and evacuation maps the state of Oregon have been putting out, are positing a worst-case scenario, in order to avoid under-estimating the potential for an event, as happened in Japan.

But I wanted to know more, to find out what science was used in creating these maps. So I attended one of the "Tsunami Roadshow" meetings, where the state geologists explain their findings and answer questions. Much of the information at their presentation can be found in this PDF file: The 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami: Lessons for the Oregon Coast.

More information for Oregon can be found at the link below:

Oregon Tsunami Clearinghouse/Resource Library


Also see:

On NW coast, potential for tsunami waves up to 100 feet now seems possible
     

"On a moonless night in a dark place, you can see your shadow in Venusian light"

Venus, Jupiter, crescent moon meeting up this weekend

[...] The last four weeks or so have been a spectacular time for stargazers, or, more precisely, planet-watchers. Venus and Jupiter have had a conjunction, and on March 13 passed so close to each other in the night sky that they could have exchanged business cards. Throw in the moon on Sunday and Monday nights and it’s a must-look situation.

“When you get a configuration like this, people who don’t normally look up above the horizon find that their eyeballs are being hijacked,” said Alan MacRobert, an amateur astronomer and senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine.

More news is on the horizon: On June 5, Venus will transit the sun, the last such transit until 2117. With a safe solar filter, the tiny black dot of Venus will be visible as it gradually moves across the sun’s face.

[...]

What’s unfolding Sunday and Monday nights is a reprise of what happened Feb. 25 and 26, when the crescent moon slipped past Jupiter and Venus. The two planets have a conjunction like this about once every 24 years, said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory.

This is what’s known as an evening apparition of Venus (it can be a morning star or an evening star), and it has been particularly sublime because the planet is relatively high in the sky. The second rock from the sun is near its greatest “elongation” — as far as it ever gets from the sun as seen from Earth — and so it’s up in the sky for a long time before it sets.

It’s also preposterously brilliant. Its magnitude is almost at the maximum for Venus — minus 4.4. (The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object.) On a moonless night in a dark place, you can see your shadow in Venusian light, Chester said.

“The circumstances for this evening apparition are about as good as they get,” Chester said. “Then you throw Jupiter into the mix, which is usually the second brightest planet, then you’ve got a couple months when the moon is playing footsie with them. And that’s what makes it particularly interesting.”

Those unfamiliar with such things should be warned that planet-watching is a subtle pleasure, enhanced by the right attitude. Not much actually happens. The planets don’t zoom around. Nothing collides or explodes. There are no cameo appearances by comets. The moon and planets will drop below the horizon by late evening and some people may feel the need to find an after-party. [...]

I have seen them on the few cloudless nights we've had recently. I thought it was dramatic.

     

A So-Called "RINO" Tells it the Way It Is

Frustrated Senator Olympia Snowe Gives Obama an ‘F’

If there were ever a Republican for President Obama to work with, it was Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. She was one of just three Republicans in the entire Congress to vote for his economic stimulus plan in 2009 and even tried to work with him on health care, but in an interview with ABC's Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Snowe makes a remarkable revelation: She hasn't had a face-to-face meeting with President Obama in nearly two years.

Snowe said that if she had to grade the President on his willingness to work with Republicans, he would "be close to failing on that point." In fact, Snowe, who was first elected to Congress in 1978, claims that her meetings with President Obama have been less frequent than with any other President.

When she announced suddenly in February that she was not going to run for reelection - after three terms in the US Senate and a previous 14 years in the House of Representatives - colleagues and commentators alike were stunned.

"I think a lot of the frustration frankly in our party, in the Tea Party challenges or even Occupy Wall Street is really a reflection of our failure to solve the major problems in our country," said Snowe. "It's become all about the politics, and not the policy. It's not about governing, it's about the next election."

So has this Congress failed the country on those critical questions?
"Absolutely," Snowe asserted. "You have to sit down and talk to people with whom you disagree," said Snowe." And that is not what is transpiring at a time when we desperately need that type of leadership."

Sen. Snowe admitted that her party has changed since she entered politics, and that she is a rare moderate in the Republican caucus. That said, she is adamant that her core beliefs are as Republican now as they ever were.

"I haven't changed," she said. "I represent what I think is a traditional Republican… a limited government, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense, individual freedom and liberty."

THAT is the old-fashioned, traditional kind of New England Republicanism I admire. But sometimes it seems that nowadays, the GOP is being dominated by "Dixicrats", former Democrats who have made a conversion to Republicanism that is only skin-deep. They want to re-make the party into their own image, and "drum-out" anyone who won't conform to that image. Their favorite tool is the "RINO" label. It's enough to make Reagan turn over in his grave.

There is a video of the complete interview with Snowe at the link. She goes into more detail, such as how Ronald Reagan used to talk extensively and often with Tip O'Neil and other Democrats who opposed him, and how that was one of the things that made him a great president who was able to accomplish things.

When asked about wether she would support a candidate such as Santorum, if he is nominated, she said that, despite disagreeing with him on a number of issues, that of course she would support him if he's the candidate, because she's a Republican.

It's worth watching the whole interview, I was quite proud of her. I am so SICK of this talk about drumming RINOS out of the Party. A certain shrill, intolerant core of the Republican party wants to turn the GOP into the "Incredible Shrinking Party", drumming out divergent opinions with various "litmus tests". It's a loosing plan, given that the majority of voters are non-ideological swing voters, who are not particularly ideological. THEY will decide the election, not UBER Conservatives.

The GOP needs to build a coalition of various kinds of Republicans (like Reagan once did), and build a platform with planks that most of us can agree on, and that is also wide enough to accommodate and have appeal to swing voters.

I've always been willing to compromise with fellow Republicans with some different views than mine. And I have. The problem is, I seem to often be waiting for that consideration to be RECIPROCAL. Without it, there is no coalition. And no hope of winning enough to make a difference.
     

Aquariums with Live Plants can Lack Sufficient Oxygen at Night for the Fish

Low KH

In tanks with a low KH value, say under 2-3d (35.7-53.6ppm), the respiration of the plants or animals at night (CO2 production) can cause large pH shifts which harm and eventually kill aquatic animals. This is called pH shock. It is due to lack of water buffering.

KH is consumed by nitrifying bacteria 24/7 so either your substrate generates more, you perform water changes to supplement it or you add chemicals to add KH to your aquarium as otherwise it causes a pH crash/shock.

Tip: get up just before the tank lights (or sun light) come on and measure the pH and observe the animals for stress. It may be substantially different than it is during the middle of the day. [...]

This is the first time I've had an aquarium full of live plants with my fish. This has been part of the "learning curve". I keep a bubble stone providing aeration at night, to avoid this problem.
     

Popcorn as Health food? Maybe.

Popcorn Packed With Antioxidants
Study: More Antioxidants in Popcorn Than in Some Fruits and Vegetables; Other Experts Say More Study Needed

March 25, 2012 -- Popcorn, already known to be a good source of fiber, has higher levels of healthy antioxidants than some fruits and vegetables, according to new research.

"Based on fiber, whole grains, and antioxidant levels, popcorn is the king of snack foods," says Joe Vinson, PhD, professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton.

But he isn't suggesting that anyone scrap fruits and vegetables in favor of popcorn. It's not yet clear how much of popcorn's healthy antioxidants get absorbed by the body.

Vinson and Michael Coco, Jr., a chemistry student at the university, analyzed four commercial brands of popcorn, including two air-popped and two microwave varieties.

They evaluated antioxidants known as polyphenols. These compounds are found in a wide variety of plants. Antioxidants undo the damage that can be done by unstable molecules known as ''free radicals."

"Everyone knows plant foods have antioxidants," Vinson tells WebMD. "But nobody has even looked at what is in popcorn with respect to these compounds."

Vinson and Coco ground up the hull and the ''fluffy stuff," Vinson says, and checked the polyphenol levels.

Most of the polyphenols -- about 90% -- were in the hull, Vinson says.

The four brands tested had slightly different serving sizes, from a little under an ounce to a little over. The antioxidants per serving ranged from about 242-363 milligrams (mg).

In comparison, they found that a serving of many fruits has about 160 mg of polyphenols.

Popcorn's polyphenols are not as diluted with water as those are in fruit, Vinson says."Popcorn starts out about 15% water and ends up a couple percent."

He calls popcorn "a wonderful high-fiber snack," but like other experts, he warns that adding too much butter and other oil can quickly ruin popcorn's healthy image. He presented the study, which was partially funded by Weaver Popcorn Company, today in San Diego at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting.

The study is a good first step, but it wasn't designed to measure health benefits, says Jeffrey B. Blumberg, PhD, professor of nutrition at Tufts University and senior scientist and director of Tufts' Antioxidants Research Laboratory.

The next step is to figure out how much of popcorn's polyphenols get out of the hull and into your gut, Blumberg says. [...]

     

Windows 8 to be released later this year

Here is a preview review:

Windows 8 first impressions: It's a game changer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The PC needs saving. With Windows 8, Microsoft believes it has the magic cure.

It just might. I've been testing a consumer preview version of Windows 8 for the past week, and it's unlike anything I've ever seen in a PC operating system.

The stunning "Metro" interface just begs you to touch and interact with it. Beautifully designed apps, ultra-simple navigation, and instinctive commands make it hard to believe Metro came from the same company that brought us Windows Vista. Interactive, "live" tiles and an intuitive app store simplify the PC. Windows 8 is as easy to use as the iPad.

That's exactly what Microsoft intended. As PC sales slump amid a surge in tablets (okay, iPads), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is creating an operating system that lets hardware makers reimagine the PC for a tablet world. The software is slated to go on sale later this year.

But let's be clear: Under the veneer of its redesign, Windows 8 is still very much a PC operating system. It features the familiar desktop and taskbar you've learned to love -- or hate -- over the years, and it works just as well with a keyboard and mouse as it does with a touchscreen.

[...]

The iPad is the simplest entry point to what Apple calls the "post-PC" world, but PCs haven't outlived their usefulness just yet. Most people still go to their PCs for tools like Microsoft Office and more complex content creation tasks

That's where Microsoft sees uncharted territory. It wants Windows 8 to power each user's primary device, which can be as portable and intuitive as the iPad but also be able to perform all the intricate tasks that today's tablet users flock to their PCs for.

Microsoft does that by making the desktop itself into an app. The PC boots to the Metro interface, which serves as the "start screen" and main backdrop for Windows 8.

Metro is ideal for everyday tasks like Web browsing, e-mail, photo sharing, social networking, and casual gaming. But when you need to manage files, edit a document, or do anything else you wouldn't typically try on an iPad, a tap or click on the desktop app launches what looks and feels like the Windows 7 interface.

Is Windows 8 a perfect solution? Not quite, but it's getting closer. [...]

Read the whole thing for the "likes" and "don't likes" in the reviewer's opinion.
More technical details can be seen at Windows 8 on Wikipedia.

     

Dick Cheney has a Change of Heart

Literally:

Former Vice President Cheney has heart transplant

[...] Cheney, who served as vice president under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, suffered his first heart attack when he was 37. In 1988, Cheney underwent quadruple-bypass surgery. He also had two artery-clearing angioplasties and had a heart-monitoring device implanted. The device was removed in 2007.

In 2005, Cheney had six hours of surgery on his legs to repair a type of aneurysm, and in March 2007, doctors discovered deep venous thrombosis, or blood clot, in his left lower leg. An ultrasound a month later showed the clot was getting smaller.

In July 2010, Cheney announced that a small left ventricular assist device (LVAD) had been implanted to help treat congestive heart failure. The device, which included an external system controller, required two rechargeable batteries to help pump blood throughout the body. A few months later Cheney appeared noticeably thinner at the groundbreaking for the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas.

“The [heart pump] technology was originally developed to provide a transition,” Cheney told NBC News in an interview in August, “to take somebody who’s reached the point where they needed a transplant, but a transplant wouldn’t immediately be available, so they put this in as a temporary measure.”

Cheney said in the interview that he hadn’t decided whether to seek a heart transplant. [...]

The article said the Cheney's don't know the identity of the owner, but they will be forever grateful. Will the press press to reveal the doner? We shall see.
     

The Unpredictable Variables of Solar Storms

About the solar storm that ended last Friday:

A Strong Backhand Slap From End of Solar Storm

[...] The latest storm started with a flare on Tuesday, and had been forecast to be strong and direct, with one scientist predicting it would blast Earth directly like a punch in the nose. But it arrived Thursday morning at mild levels — at the bottom of the government's 1-5 scale of severity. It strengthened to a level 3 for several hours early Friday as the storm neared its end. Scientists say that's because the magnetic part of the storm flipped direction.

"We were watching the boxer, expecting the punch. It didn't come," said physicist Terry Onsager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather center in Boulder, Colo. "It hit us with the back of the hand as it was retreating."

Forecasters can predict a solar storm's speed and strength, but not the direction of its magnetic field. If it is northward, like Earth's, the jolt of energy flows harmlessly around the planet, Onsager said. A southerly direction can cause power outages and other problems.

Thursday's storm came in northerly, but early Friday switched to the fierce southerly direction. The magnetic part of the storm spent several hours at that strong level, so combined with strong radiation and radio levels, it turned out to be the strongest solar storm since November 2004, said NOAA lead forecaster Bob Rutledge. [...]

Apparently, we can only find out about the composition of the magnetic field of these flares headed toward Earth, when they come in contact with our ACE satellite which is a million miles out, monitoring this for us:

Our only solar storm warning satellite ‘could falter soon’

Washington: A US satellite that offers the only advance warnings of incoming solar storms is more than a decade past its expected orbital lifetime and is possibly on its last legs, researchers say.

Stationed around 1 million miles from Earth, NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer satellite, nicknamed ACE, cautions about incoming high-energy particles from the sun which can wreak havoc on radio, GPS, satellite communications that are now embedded in modern life.

“It would be a very bad day for us if that spacecraft was not working,” the Discovery News quoted William Murtagh, program coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., as saying.

“When an eruption occurs on the sun, there are still quite a few question marks as to if it’s going to hit the Earth and when it’s going to hit the Earth,.”

Until the sun’s free-flying and highly energetic outbursts, known as coronal mass ejections, hit the ACE spacecraft, forecasters are not acquainted with the orientation of their embedded magnetic fields.

Depending on the polarity, or alignment, Earth’s magnetic shield will either peel away, giving the highly charged particles more freedom to disturb electrically sensitive equipment and communications, or rebuff the particles, like what happened during this week’s outburst. [...]

The aging ACE spacecraft is scheduled to be replaced by the Triana spacecraft, which has a target launch date of June 2014. Lets hope the ACE spacecraft can last for us until then.
     

Happy Places in America

More specifically, happy states:

Top 5 Happiest States in the U.S.

Feb. 28, 2012 -- People who live in Hawaii are the happiest in the U.S. and have the most positive outlook, according to this year’s Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

It’s the third year in a row the survey has ranked Hawaii as the No. 1 state for well-being. North Dakota, Minnesota, Utah, and Alaska rounded out the top five happiest states.

West Virginia scored lowest on well-being, but did slightly improve from last year.

The Well-Being Index score for the nation as a whole is the lowest since tracking began in 2008.

The rankings are based on daily surveys conducted from January through December 2011. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, where a score of 100 represents ideal well-being. Hawaii’s score of 70.2 wasn’t perfect, but it topped the list.

Staying consistent with the trend for the past four years, Western and Midwestern states notched nine of the 10 highest well-being scores, while Southern states claimed half of the bottom 10 scores.

What Makes a Happy State?

The Well-Being Index is calculated based on six key areas:

Life Evaluation: Alaskans ranked their lives as “thriving,” giving them the highest ranking in this category with a score of 60.2, while West Virginia residents ranked lowest on this scale at 41.1.

Emotional Health: Hawaiians were the most likely to say they smiled or laughed a lot “yesterday” and were the least likely to report daily worry, stress, or depression, scoring at 83.3. Kentucky ranked lowest in emotional health with a score of 75.5.

Work Environment: North Dakota workers said they have the most positive work environments, including job satisfaction and trust, and can best use their strengths while performing their job. This gave them the highest ranking in this category at 54.3. Delaware ranked lowest in job satisfaction at 40.6 and had the worst workplace perception for a third year in a row.

Physical Health: Minnesota ranks at the top of this category -- which includes the percentage of obese residents, disease, and other health problems and daily ailments -- with a score of 79.9. West Virginia ranks lowest at 69.9, in part because it has the highest obesity rate.

Healthy Behaviors: Hawaii ranks at the top of this category also, with a 68.9. The Hawaiians’ good eating and exercise habits, along with their lower smoking rates, gave them the top spot. Oklahoma ranks lowest with a score of 59.1.

Basic Access: Massachusetts residents rank highest in this category for a second year in a row, with an 86.6. This high rating is a result of the high percentage of residents who have health insurance along with access to basic necessities and satisfaction with one’s community. Mississippi ranks lowest in this category, as it did in 2010, with a 77.6. [...]

Oregon was ranked #15. Read the rest of the article for the full list of states.
     

The problem of "C. Diff"

C. Diff on the Rise: Is Your Doctor to Blame?
Not Just a Hospital Problem: Deadly C. Diff in Doctor's Offices, Clinics

March 6, 2012 -- America's deadly C. diff epidemic is spreading not just in hospitals, but in doctor's offices, clinics, and other health care facilities, a CDC study finds.

C. diff -- short for Clostridium difficile -- are spore-forming bacteria that cause diarrhea. Severe cases can result in a life-threatening condition called toxic megacolon. There's an ongoing epidemic with a particularly nasty, especially toxic C. diff strain.

C. diff kills about 14,000 Americans each year. Half of infections are in people younger than age 65. But 90% of deaths are in people 65 and older.

Cases have tripled over the last decade. Why?

"Traditionally, C. diff infections were thought to be mostly a problem for hospitals. But today's report shows that these infections are a patient safety concern in nursing homes and outpatient care settings as well," Ileana Arias, PhD, CDC principal deputy director, said at a news conference.

There's been a lot of worry about C. diff spreading in the community. But the CDC study finds that nearly all C. diff infections -- 94% -- are linked to medical care. About 75% of C. diff infections first show up in people recently cared for in doctor's offices, clinics, or nursing homes.

[...]

How C. Diff Spreads

Here's how it works. In a typical scenario laid out by the CDC:

You go to the doctor's office and get a prescription for an antibiotic.

A month later, you break your leg and go to the hospital.

A health care worker forgets to wear gloves while caring for a C. diff patient in another room. You get a C. diff infection.

Two days later, you go to a rehab facility, where you come down with diarrhea. You are not tested for C. diff. Your nurse doesn't know you are infected and doesn't wear gloves while treating you.

Another patient gets infected.

You finally get diagnosed with C. diff and properly treated -- ironically, with antibiotics.

McDonald says that this constant interplay between different kinds of health care facilities keeps C. diff in circulation. Half of cases diagnosed in hospitals are in patients already infected when admitted to the hospital.

"That means hospitals are partly at the mercy of surrounding facilities," McDonald says. "Because patients often transfer back and forth, an infection in one place can easily become a problem in another. This points to strict need for prevention across all facilities." [...]

The article also advises what patients and care givers can do to stop C. diff.
     

Recent X5-class solar flare

Sun unleashes huge solar flare; possible Earth-bound solar storm

Between 7 and 8 p.m.Tuesday night, the sun spit out a large, X5-class solar flare. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center called it “one of the largest solar flares of the current solar cycle.”

X class flares are the strongest category of solar flares. According to NASA, they can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms.

These flares are often complemented by phenomena known as coronal mass ejections (CME) which are essentially bursts of solar wind. If a CME is directed towards the Earth, a geomagnetic storm results that can interfere with the Earth’s magnetosphere.

NOAA said predictions for this particular flare/CME event “are still being refined.”

SpaceWeather.com wouldn’t draw any conclusions about where the CME might go.

“First-look data from STEREO-B are not sufficient to determine if the cloud is heading for Earth,” it said.

Its “best guess” was that CME probably won’t directly head for Earth, but rather produce a “glancing blow” on March 8 or 9. [...]

So we wait and see.

UPDATE 03-07-12 9:am

Full Halo CME heading straight for Earth on Thursday, strong effects forecast

(TheWeatherSpace.com) - A sunspot nearly the size of Jupiter; AR1429, has unleashed a powerful X5-Class eruption from the Sun and it could cause geological effects, according to one.

Even though it was not directly squared at our planet, model predictions have put Earth in the center of the blast zone, with 800 k/m + solar wind coming toward our geomagnetic fields on Thursday.

It will hit at 09:00 UT on Thursday, March 8th 2012. This means that it will hit during the United States aurora oval hours tonight when the oval extends down into the country. Will it spark bright auroras into the mid-latitudes?

TheWeatherSpace.com Senior Meteorologist Kevin Martin has studied space weather effects and geological triggers for many years post 1999. Martin has some chilling information to give.

"I'm a meteorologist, but I know patterns and numbers well and the last strong X-event that hit our planet on this scale "coincidentely" triggered the Japan quake and tsunami last year," said Martin. "Geomagnetic storms could very well be a trigger for these quakes as they react deep within the crust and mantle where magnetic rocks lie. There are things we just cannot ignore even if we cannot see them."

NOAA expects a major geomagnetic storm with this arrival. Already a Kp-Index of 6 (Strong) is in progress across the planet due to an X1-Class this past weekend. This X5-Class has yet to impact and is coming — straight for us at 800 km/sec.

Most scientists say there is no proven link between flares and earthquakes. But others argue that, there are lots of "coincidences".
     

Milton Friedman's Cure for Health Care Costs

How to Cure Health Care

[...] The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment. A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes.

The ideal way to do that would be to reverse past actions: repeal the tax exemption of employer-provided medical care; terminate Medicare and Medicaid; deregulate most insurance; and restrict the role of the government, preferably state and local rather than federal, to financing care for the hard cases. However, the vested interests that have grown up around the existing system, and the tyranny of the status quo, clearly make that solution not feasible politically. Yet it is worth stating the ideal as a guide to judging whether proposed incremental changes are in the right direction.

Most changes made in the final decade of the twentieth century were in the wrong direction. Despite rejection of the sweeping socialization of medicine proposed by Hillary Clinton, subsequent incremental changes have expanded the role of government, increased regulation of medical practice, and further constrained the terms of medical insurance, thereby raising its cost and increasing the fraction of individuals who choose or are forced to go without insurance.

There is one exception, which, though minor in current scope, is pregnant of future possibilities. The Kassebaum-Kennedy Bill, passed in 1996 after lengthy and acrimonious debate, included a narrowly limited four-year pilot program authorizing medical savings accounts. A medical savings account enables individuals to deposit tax-free funds in an account usable only for medical expense, provided they have a high-deductible insurance policy that limits the maximum out-of-pocket expense. As noted earlier, it eliminates third-party payment except for major medical expenses and is thus a movement very much in the right direction. By extending tax exemption to all medical expenses whether paid by the employer or not, it eliminates the present bias in favor of employer-provided medical care. That too is a move in the right direction. However, the extension of tax exemption increases the bias in favor of medical care compared to other household expenditures. This effect would tend to increase the implicit government subsidy for medical care, which would be a step in the wrong direction.

Before this pilot project, a number of large companies (e.g., Quaker Oats, Forbes, Golden Rule Insurance Company) had offered their employees the choice of a medical savings account instead of the usual low-deductible employer-provided insurance policy. In each case, the employer purchased a high-deductible major medical insurance policy for the employee and deposited a stated sum, generally about half of the deductible, in a medical savings account for the employee. That sum could be used by the employee for medical care. Any part not used during the year was the property of the employee and had to be included in taxable income. Despite the loss of the tax exemption, this alternative has generally been very popular with both employers and employees. It has reduced costs for the employer and empowered the employee, eliminating much third-party payment.

Medical savings accounts offer one way to resolve the growing financial and administrative problems of Medicare and Medicaid. It seems clear from private experience that a program along these lines would be less expensive and bureaucratic than the current system and more satisfactory to the participants. In effect, it would be a way to voucherize Medicare and Medicaid. It would enable participants to spend their own money on themselves for routine medical care and medical problems, rather than having to go through HMOs and insurance companies, while at the same time providing protection against medical catastrophes.

A more radical reform would, first, end both Medicare and Medicaid, at least for new entrants, and replace them by providing every family in the United States with catastrophic insurance (i.e., a major medical policy with a high deductible). Second, it would end tax exemption of employer-provided medical care. And, third, it would remove the restrictive regulations that are now imposed on medical insurance—hard to justify with universal catastrophic insurance.

This reform would solve the problem of the currently medically uninsured, eliminate most of the bureaucratic structure, free medical practitioners from an increasingly heavy burden of paperwork and regulation, and lead many employers and employees to convert employer-provided medical care into a higher cash wage. The taxpayer would save money because total government costs would plummet. The family would be relieved of one of its major concerns—the possibility of being impoverished by a major medical catastrophe—and most could readily finance the remaining medical costs. Families would once again have an incentive to monitor the providers of medical care and to establish the kind of personal relations with them that were once customary. The demonstrated efficiency of private enterprise would have a chance to improve the quality and lower the cost of medical care. The first question asked of a patient entering a hospital might once again become "What’s wrong?" not "What’s your insurance?"

I appreciate that he acknowledged that the vested interests of the status quo will make radical reform impossible. So he goes on to describe what can be done "realistically". THAT is worth aiming for.
     

Five Tips for Saving Money on Drugs

Dos and Don'ts for Saving Money on Rx Drugs

If you think you’re spending a lot of money on prescription drugs, you’re probably right. In 2008, American patients and insurance companies spent more than $234 billion on prescriptions, up from $40 million in 1990. In 2020, annual spending on prescription drugs is expected to top $512 billion.

With all signs pointing to more spending increases, this article covers the dos and don’ts of how to save on prescription drugs. [...]

Follow the link for the tips.
     

Economic forcast: Gloomy?

But isn't the economy improving? Yes, some economic indicators are, but other indicators are showing something else:



A new recession seems inevitable

[...] ECRI is one of the more widely respected firms on economic recessions, as it has never been wrong when forecasting that a recession would start, or failed to predict a recession well before it was widely accepted.

Achuthan predicts the recession will happen even without a new shock to the economy, such as a spike in oil and gas prices or a Greek sovereign debt default sparking a financial meltdown. If those things occur, he says they will simply make an inevitable recession more painful.

In fact, Achuthan said data gathered since his September forecast only confirms his view that economic growth has slowed to such a degree that a downturn is now unavoidable, likely by late summer.

"Now that we have several months of definitive hard data, this is not a forecast," he said, pointing to key measures that don't receive as much attention from the public or many economists.

Specifically, he identifies annual growth in industrial production, real personal income and spending, as well as the year-over-year change in gross domestic product, a broad measure of the nation's economic activity. That GDP reading has been stuck between 1.5% and 1.6% growth for the last three quarters, far less encouraging that the rising quarterly GDP, which is more widely reported.

"Basically, growth has flatlined," he said.

Some might think that a new downturn would be a so-called double-dip recession, in that it comes before the economy has fully recovered from the jobs lost during the Great Recession. But Achuthan said if the economy falls into recession at this point, it would be a new recession, not a double dip, given the time that has passed since the formal end of the recession in 2009 and the economic growth since then.

He said improved consumer confidence and economists' stronger outlook are due to gains in jobs and stocks over the last six months.

The unemployment rate has fallen for five straight months, dropping to 8.3% in January compared to 9.1% in August. Filings for new jobless benefits have fallen to a nearly four-year low. And the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index has gained 27% since an October low to reach the highest level since June 2008.

Even ECRI's own leading indicators have been showing steady improvement since October. But Achuthan said those readings are still recessionary.

He said the time it takes employers to increase staff means that job growth is a so-called lagging indicator, which reflects economic conditions in the past rather than pointing to future growth.

"Job growth always follows consumer spending growth, not the other way around," Achuthan said.

That doesn't necessarily mean the economy will start losing jobs again by this summer, when he expects the recession to start. He said hiring can continue in the early months of a downturn, but there will definitely be job losses ahead. [...]

Read the whole thing to see why. The worst part is, the obvious signs of a new recession may not start to manifest until after the November elections.
     

Do "Feelings" win elections more than facts?

How Obama could win in a landslide

[...] In his book "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," Drew Westen convincingly argues that "people vote for the candidate who elicits the right feelings, not the candidate who presents the best arguments." [...]

More about that book:

THE POLITICAL BRAIN
The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

[...] In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.

Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. [...]

The only thing missing is Barbara Streisand singing "Feelings...".
     

What "do no evil" Google Knows about You

And what it does with it:

Google knows too much about you

(CNN) -- If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and terms." It gives you the choice to "Learn More" or, another option, the one I'm betting most people followed, to "Dismiss."

Who wants to read about what Google plans to do with all that information it has about us?

[...]

If Americans -- or people anywhere -- decided to take up Google's offer to check out its new policy, they would discover something so troubling, so frightening, really, that it would override the national tendency to leave companies alone to make money how they see fit. At least in the case of companies such as Google -- and now Facebook -- which know more about us than even our closest friends.

Here's what Google knows about you, what it stores right there on its servers, waiting for a hacker:

Google has every e-mail you ever sent or received on Gmail. It has every search you ever made, the contents of every chat you ever had over Google Talk. It holds a record of every telephone conversation you had using Google Voice, it knows every Google Alert you've set up. It has your Google Calendar with all content going back as far as you've used it, including everything you've done every day since then. It knows your contact list with all the information you may have included about yourself and the people you know. It has your Picasa pictures, your news page configuration, indicating what topics you're most interested in. And so on.

If you ever used Google while logged in to your account to search for a person, a symptom, a medical side effect, a political idea; if you ever gossiped using one of Google's services, all of this is on Google's servers. And thanks to the magic of Google's algorithms, it is easy to sift through the information because Google search works like a charm. Google can even track searches on your computer when you're not logged in for up to six months.

Facebook has even more interesting stuff: your pictures, your comments, your likes, your friends, your un-friends.

[...]

Google's famous motto is "do no evil." I won't accuse Google of deliberately doing evil. It has done much to improve our lives. It makes no secret of the fact that it seeks to make profits, which it richly deserves. I do believe, however, that it deliberately tries to deceive us when it claims the new privacy policy seeks "to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible."

I followed the instructions and with some difficulty eventually downloaded pages upon pages of personal material about myself from Google. What I was looking for was a simple, shall we say beautiful, button telling Google not to save anything I don't explicitly want it to save. But there was no such button.

Google, like Facebook, owns trillions if not quadrillions-plus bits of information. They mine it, use it to sell ads, algorithm it. But my real fear is not Google. My real fear is that computer technology has turned into an arms race between good guys and bad guys. Google may see itself as a jaunty white hat wearer, valiantly protecting all our information. And it may be doing it to the best of its ability. But hackers are hard at work all the time. [...]

Is the concept of privacy, as we've known it, destine to become a thing of the past?

Read the whole thing for embedded links, and more about what is being attempted to contain this collection and use of personal data.

And here is something you can do, before March 1st:

How to delete your Google browsing history in three simple steps . . . before it's too late to hide your secrets


Also see:

Social Media Dangers in our Brave New World

Are Facebook's "Social Plugins" making the service less popular with older users?
     

Intervention in Syria = American Military

And here are some good reasons why it shouldn't happen:

West must not intervene militarily in Syria

(CNN) -- Some of the bravest, noblest women and men I have met are members of the United States armed forces. To them, military intervention is not about winning a debate on television or sounding smart on Twitter. With the United Nations ruling out support for military options to stop the bloodbath in Homs in Syria, leading U.S. commentators are calling for NATO and the Arab League to intervene militarily.

In reality, this would mean the United States would once again carry the heavy burden of war. In NATO's recent operation in Libya, the United States provided 75% of the reconnaissance data, surveillance, intelligence and refueling planes. Syria is not Libya, and NATO without the United States is not up to the job.

The Arab League is no match for a brutal Syrian regime backed by Russia, China and Iran.

In essence, therefore, we must stop pretending about NATO or the Arab League intervening and accept that it is not "international intervention," but U.S. military intervention that is being sought in yet another Muslim-majority country. The Muslim dimension is important because the lessons of Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan are that, invariably, intervention leads to occupation, which leads to varying degrees of Islamist radicalization.

Whatever the motivations to advance U.S. military intervention, we need to address the following questions before contemplating placing U.S. armed forces in harm's way again, and demanding the U.S. taxpayer foot the bill. [...]

The author goes on to spell it out. He has spent time living in Syria, and has many good insights, on both Syria and the larger picture.


Also see:

Syria: Alawites, Sunnis, the Russia factor...
     

Charging and Maintaining Deep Cycle Batteries

I got a deep cycle battery to use with my Ham Radio, as back-up emergency power. I thought it would be easy to deal with, but there is so much to know:

Deep Cycle Battery FAQ

[...] Deep cycle batteries are designed to be discharged down as much as 80% time after time, and have much thicker plates. The major difference between a true deep cycle battery and others is that the plates are SOLID Lead plates - not sponge. This gives less surface area, thus less "instant" power like starting batteries need. Although these an be cycled down to 20% charge, the best lifespan vs cost method is to keep the average cycle at about 50% discharge.

Unfortunately, it is often impossible to tell what you are really buying in some of the discount stores or places that specialize in automotive batteries. The golf car battery is quite popular for small systems and RV's. The problem is that "golf car" refers to a size of battery (commonly called GC-2, or T-105), not the type or construction - so the quality and construction of a golf car battery can vary considerably - ranging from the cheap off brand with thin plates up the true deep cycle brands, such as Crown, Deka, Trojan, etc. In general, you get what you pay for.

[...]

Cycles vs Life

A battery "cycle" is one complete discharge and recharge cycle. It is usually considered to be discharging from 100% to 20%, and then back to 100%. However, there are often ratings for other depth of discharge cycles, the most common ones are 10%, 20%, and 50%. You have to be careful when looking at ratings that list how many cycles a battery is rated for unless it also states how far down it is being discharged. For example, one of the widely advertised telephone type (float service) batteries have been advertised as having a 20-year life. If you look at the fine print, it has that rating only at 5% DOD - it is much less when used in an application where they are cycled deeper on a regular basis. Those same batteries are rated at less than 5 years if cycled to 50%. For example, most golf cart batteries are rated for about 550 cycles to 50% discharge - which equates to about 2 years.

Battery life is directly related to how deep the battery is cycled each time. If a battery is discharged to 50% every day, it will last about twice as long as if it is cycled to 80% DOD. If cycled only 10% DOD, it will last about 5 times as long as one cycled to 50%. Obviously, there are some practical limitations on this - you don't usually want to have a 5 ton pile of batteries sitting there just to reduce the DOD. The most practical number to use is 50% DOD on a regular basis. This does NOT mean you cannot go to 80% once in a while. It's just that when designing a system when you have some idea of the loads, you should figure on an average DOD of around 50% for the best storage vs cost factor. Also, there is an upper limit - a battery that is continually cycled 5% or less will usually not last as long as one cycled down 10%. This happens because at very shallow cycles, the Lead Dioxide tends to build up in clumps on the the positive plates rather in an even film. The graph above shows how lifespan is affected by depth of discharge. The chart is for a Concorde Lifeline battery, but all lead-acid batteries will be similar in the shape of the curve, although the number of cycles will vary.

[...]

Battery Charging
Battery charging takes place in 3 basic stages: Bulk, Absorption, and Float.

Bulk Charge - The first stage of 3-stage battery charging. Current is sent to batteries at the maximum safe rate they will accept until voltage rises to near (80-90%) full charge level. Voltages at this stage typically range from 10.5 volts to 15 volts. There is no "correct" voltage for bulk charging, but there may be limits on the maximum current that the battery and/or wiring can take.

Absorption Charge: The 2nd stage of 3-stage battery charging. Voltage remains constant and current gradually tapers off as internal resistance increases during charging. It is during this stage that the charger puts out maximum voltage. Voltages at this stage are typically around 14.2 to 15.5 volts.

Float Charge: The 3rd stage of 3-stage battery charging. After batteries reach full charge, charging voltage is reduced to a lower level (typically 12.8 to 13.2) to reduce gassing and prolong battery life. This is often referred to as a maintenance or trickle charge, since it's main purpose is to keep an already charged battery from discharging. PWM, or "pulse width modulation" accomplishes the same thing. In PWM, the controller or charger senses tiny voltage drops in the battery and sends very short charging cycles (pulses) to the battery. This may occur several hundred times per minute. It is called "pulse width" because the width of the pulses may vary from a few microseconds to several seconds. Note that for long term float service, such as backup power systems that are seldom discharged, the float voltage should be around 13.02 to 13.20 volts.

Chargers: Most garage and consumer (automotive) type battery chargers are bulk charge only, and have little (if any) voltage regulation. They are fine for a quick boost to low batteries, but not to leave on for long periods. Among the regulated chargers, there are the voltage regulated ones, such as Iota Engineering and Todd, which keep a constant regulated voltage on the batteries. If these are set to the correct voltages for your batteries, they will keep the batteries charged without damage. These are sometimes called "taper charge" - as if that is a selling point. What taper charge really means is that as the battery gets charged up, the voltage goes up, so the amps out of the charger goes down. They charge OK, but a charger rated at 20 amps may only be supplying 5 amps when the batteries are 80% charged. To get around this, Statpower (and maybe others?) have come out with "smart", or multi-stage chargers. These use a variable voltage to keep the charging amps much more constant for faster charging. [...]

And that's just a sample, there's LOTS more to know, regarding the age of the batteries, different battery types, charging voltages, charging regulators, temperatures, storage, etc.

And if all that isn't overwhelming enough, consider these:

Mini Factoids

Nearly all batteries will not reach full capacity until cycled 10-30 times. A brand new battery will have a capacity of about 5-10% less than the rated capacity.

Batteries should be watered after charging unless the plates are exposed, then add just enough water to cover the plates. After a full charge, the water level should be even in all cells and usually 1/4" to 1/2" below the bottom of the fill well in the cell (depends on battery size and type).

In situations where multiple batteries are connected in series, parallel or series/parallel, replacement batteries should be the same size, type and manufacturer (if possible). Age and usage level should be the same as the companion batteries. Do not put a new battery in a pack which is more than 6 months old or has more than 75 cycles. Either replace with all new or use a good used battery. For long life batteries, such as the Surrette and Crown, you can have up to a one year age difference.

The vent caps on flooded batteries should remain on the battery while charging. This prevents a lot of the water loss and splashing that may occur when they are bubbling.

When you first buy a new set of flooded (wet) batteries, you should fully charge and equalize them, and then take a hydrometer reading for future reference. Since not all batteries have exactly the same acid strength, this will give you a baseline for future readings.

When using a small solar panel to keep a float (maintenance) charge on a battery (without using a charge controller), choose a panel that will give a maximum output of about 1/300th to 1/1000th of the amp-hour capacity. For a pair of golf cart batteries, that would be about a 1 to 5 watt panel - the smaller panel if you get 5 or more hours of sun per day, the larger one for those long cloudy winter days in the Northeast.

Lead-Acid batteries do NOT have a memory, and the rumor that they should be fully discharged to avoid this "memory" is totally false and will lead to early battery failure.

Inactivity can be extremely harmful to a battery. It is a VERY poor idea to buy new batteries and "save" them for later. Either buy them when you need them, or keep them on a continual trickle charge. The best thing - if you buy them, use them.

There is so much to know, not just about deep cycle batteries, but the many kinds of batteries, and the different requirements they have. Gosh, who knew? Well I guess I do now.
     

NASA's internal culture and bureaucracy problem

Are the problems that caused the destruction of two space shuttles and their crews still ongoing? Here's one man's opinion:


Roger Boisjoly dies at 73; engineer tried to halt Challenger launch

The 1986 explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger and killed seven astronauts shocked the nation, but for one rocket engineer the tragedy became a personal burden and created a lifelong quest to challenge the bureaucratic ethics that had caused the tragedy.

Roger Boisjoly was an engineer at solid rocket booster manufacturer Morton Thiokol and had begun warning as early as 1985 that the joints in the boosters could fail in cold weather, leading to a catastrophic failure of the casing. Then on the eve of the Jan. 28, 1986, launch, Boisjoly and four other space shuttle engineers argued late into the night against the launch.

In cold temperatures, o-rings in the joints might not seal, they said, and could allow flames to reach the rocket's metal casing. Their pleas and technical theories were rejected by senior managers at the company and NASA, who told them they had failed to prove their case and that the shuttle would be launched in freezing temperatures the next morning. It was among the great engineering miscalculations in history.

[...]

Boisjoly could not watch the launch, so certain was he that the shuttle would blow up. In the months and years that followed, the disaster changed his career and permanently poisoned his view that NASA could be trusted to make the right decisions when matters came to life and death.

Boisjoly, 73, died of cancer Jan. 6 in Nephi, Utah, though news of his passing was known only in the southwest Utah community where he retired.

The Challenger disaster and the resulting investigation pulled back the curtain on NASA's internal culture, revealing a bureaucracy that had made safety secondary to its launch objectives and to the political support it needed to continue the shuttle program.

[...]

Boisjoly was not the only engineer who attempted to stop the launch and suffered for blowing the whistle. Allan J. McDonald was Thiokol's program manager for the solid rocket booster and became the most important critic of the accident afterward. When he was pressed by NASA the night before the liftoff to sign a written recommendation approving the launch, he refused, and later argued late into the night for a launch cancellation. When McDonald later disclosed the secret debate to accident investigators, he was isolated and his career destroyed.

The tragedy was particularly hard on Boisjoly, who would sometimes chop wood in the Utah winter to work out his anger. In a 2003 interview with The Times, he recalled that NASA tried to blackball him from the industry, leaving him to spend 17 years as a forensic engineer and a lecturer on engineering ethics.

When the space shuttle Columbia burned up on reentry in 2003, killing its crew of seven, the accident was blamed on the same kinds of management failures that occurred with the Challenger. By that time, Boisjoly believed that NASA was beyond reform, some of its officials should be indicted on manslaughter charges and the agency abolished.

NASA's mismanagement "is not going to stop until somebody gets sent to hard rock hotel," Boisjoly said. "I don't care how many commissions you have. These guys have a way of numbing their brains. They have destroyed $5 billion worth of hardware and 14 lives because of their nonsense." [...]

Harsh words. But spoken by someone in a position to know what he's talking about. There were two interesting comments left beneath the article:

B-737-247 at 8:06 AM February 7, 2012

"It was among the great engineering miscalculations in history."

Nonsense. Boisjoly and McDonald's engineering calculations were tragically accurate. The Challenger disaster was the result of a foolish and reckless management misjudgment, not an engineering miscalculation.

Boisjoly and McDonald were technically competent engineers with the strength of character to stand up for what was right when lives were at stake. Both of them paid a terrible price for their integrity.

It's a shame their gutless bosses could think only of what they thought (wrongly) to be their own selfish career interests. The result was the death of seven astronauts, the loss of a precious national asset and the destruction of many careers, deserved and otherwise.

RIP, Mr. Boisjoly.


=====****=====


hayes.whitt at 7:20 AM February 7, 2012

I remember this.. i[t] WAS front page news in 1986. Sadly, the press allowed NASA managemnet to control the story, and spin these good engineers as cranks who were trying to use the o-ring "debate" to elevate themselves after the accident. So much for the 4th estate.

THe public was as disintrested, ignorant, and unmotivated to do anything about it as they are now.

CEOs, Execs, and Generals place the blame on the workers who do the time. Same as it ever was.

Many of the same (or similar) pressures that NASA management face, would also be faced by a private company. Could they, would they, do it better? Possibly. We may yet see one day.