April 5, 2006

• out there, over there, and right here

  Out there in space–
  Lots of activity is reported this week on spaceweather.com. 
  Tomorrow night, Saturn will be easy to find because it is close to the
  moon.  A huge coronal hole is rolling across the side of the sun
  facing us, so that by April 9 the solar wind from that hole could be
  producing some spectacular auroral activity.  The big news of the
  week, however, is the increase in sunspot activity.  The big spot in the lead of group 865 has split into two, each larger than the earth.

  Over there in Texas–
  An appeals court overturned the convictions
  of two women wrongfully convicted under the state’s Prenatal Protection
  Act, for having endangered their unborn children through drug use.

  Prosecutors in Amarillo charged the women under Texas’s Controlled
  Substances Act, accusing them of “delivering” drugs to their unborn
  children, essentially indicting them for a kind of in-utero
  drug dealing. The appeals court, however, unanimously struck down the
  convictions last week on the grounds that the prosecutor had
  overreached in charging the women with passing drugs to their fetuses
  through the umbilical cord.

  Those protesting the prosecutions included anti-abortion advocates who
  argued that knowing that her addiction could lead to twenty years in
  prison might induce a woman to abort a fetus.  Others argued the
  unfairness of these measures when there are not adequate provisions for
  drug treatment, and the fact that low-income and minority women were
  targeted in the investigation and arrests.

  Right here in subarctic suburbia–
  The mental fog has lifted and I’m getting back to work on
  readings.  That feels fine, and about time.  It’s not as if
  there aren’t a lot of things I can get done in the fog, but I’m tired
  of sleepwalking.

  I’m also preparing for a trip to town tomorrow.  It will be only
  my second trip into Wasilla in 2006.  I’m amazed at how time just
  slips away and I don’t bother to bestir myself to start up the car and
  drive down the valley.  Since my volunteer position at the rehab
  ranch was discontinued late last summer, I don’t even have that
  inducement to go down there every two weeks.  Maybe I should start
  looking for some new commitment that’s not more than I can handle, but
  just enough to get me out of the house now and then.

  Greyfox had a series of dental appointments during the winter, that
  brought him up the valley past here, so he kept us supplied with
  groceries and such, and I wasn’t required to go anywhere.  Much of
  that time, I didn’t really feel up to the task, anyway, but with the
  longer days and warmer weather I am feeling more and more the urge to
  move.

  [edit]
  Paleontology bulletin:

  A fossil found in Canada appears to be a link in the big gap between fish and land animals.

  The
  new animal is a fish but may have made short excursions onto land. In
  some ways, the animal appears to resemble a modern alligator.

  Paleontologist Neil Shubin of the University of Chicago, one of the
  discoverers of the new fossil exclaimed, ‘It sort of blurs the
  distinction between fish and land-living animals.’

  The well preserved fossils found ranged in size between four and
  nine feet long. The fossils were found on Ellesmere Island, just north
  of the Arctic Circle in Canada.

  Elites TV

  

  • 12:30 pm
  • 2 Comments