Non-Gliese 581 Post! Red Sox Take Two of Three In Bronx. Rockies Turn Unassisted Triple Play Against Braves.

This non-Gliese 581 post is brought to you by Listerplus, watcher of two major-league baseball games this afternoon...

Red Sox Take Two of Three from Yanks

The Red Sox best the Yankees this afternoon in Yankee Stadium 7-4, taking two out of three in their weekend series versus the Pinstripes in the Bronx.

David Ortiz, Alex Cora (who should be the regular second baseman - NOT Dustin Pedroia) and Manny Ramirez all homered while starting pitcher Julian Tavarez went five-plus innings to earn his first win of the season. His only blemish was a three-run homer to former Red Sox first baseman Doug Meintciewicz to give the Yanks a short-lived 3-2 lead. Cora's two-run homer, his second of the season, gave the Sox the lead again, and the bullpen, first with Hideki Okajima, aka, the OTHER Japanese pitcher, continuing his outstanding pitching. Mike Timlin surrendered an 8th inning homer to Derek Jeter before Jonathan Papelbon closed things out in the ninth for his 8th save.

Ortiz's homer was his seventh of the season. Manny's was just his third. Manny is under .200 for the month, but he has hitting the ball hard lately. It just seems that most of his shots are right at somebody. Bobby Abreu made a nice running catch of a potential gapper Manny hit in the at-bat before his homer.

Since the Sox have tomorrow off, they end the month of April with a 16-8 record, four games ahead of the second-place Toronto Blue Jays. Next up, the Sox host the Oakland Athletics for two games beginning May 1st.


Rockies Beat Braves. Turn Unassisted Triple Play.

The Colorado Rockies best the Atlanta Braves this afternoon at Coors Field 9-7. This was a game the Braves basically gave away, as their pitchers gave up 13 walks, including five to Todd Helton. But the Braves escaped trouble several times as Matt Holliday hit into two double plays in the middle innings. But Holliday would be the hero in the end, as he hit a two-run game-winning homer in the bottom of the 11th inning, with Helton aboard, to end this wacky contest.

Part of the wackiness came when Rockies Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki converted the 13th unassisted triple play in major league baseball history in the seventh inning when, with Chipper Jones at the plate, Kelly Johnson on second base and Edgar Renteria on first, Jones hit a screaming liner right at Tulowitzki as the runners were off on the pitch. Tulowitzki grabbed the liner for the first out, stepped on second base for out number two, then tagged Renteria for the third out.

This non-Gliese 581 post has now reached its conclusion. Over and out...

More Exoplanet Information. Red Sox Invade the Bronx.

The news about Gliese 581c has grabbed the collective imaginations of quite a few people in my wage slavery containment facility. Because of my status as a part-time astronomer, I am usually the go-to guy whenever anyone with whom I work has a question about breaking news stories, general observing tips, advice about telescopes and binoculars, software, etc. To this end, I took the liberty of scouring the Internets and came up with a great site to peruse.

Go to the solstation.com site. This is a comprehensive site that contains vast amounts of information about nearby stars, bright stars, habitability projections and a whole lot more.

The first stop on this site, as it relates to how I opened this post is the Gliese 581/HO Librae page. It gives a rundown of the entire system: The physical characteristics of the host star, and what is currently known about its three planets.

The second stop is a page of notable nearby stars, with links for each star that give similar information modules to that described above. Have fun!

In Red Sox news, the team, having won its last two games in Baltimore against the Orioles, after having lost two straight to the Toronto Blue Jays, travels to New York for the three-game series against the Yankees in the Bronx. Action begins tonight with Daisuke Matsuzaka taking the mound for his second straight appearance against the Pinstripes. Andy Pettitte takes the hill for the Yanks.

New Exoplanet Discovery to Renew SETI Efforts?

In a follow-up to yesterday's post about the discovery of the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered, one of the co-discoverers hopes to be able to detect signs of life on this, and other exoplanets, within the next twenty years. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

GENEVA - Swiss scientist Michel Mayor, who heads the European team that announced the discovery of a new potentially habitable planet, has his sights set on an even bigger target, detecting signs of extraterrestrial life.

Mayor predicts that top researchers are less than two decades away from being able to detect real signs of such life — if it exists. "There's only one thing we can do. We can do science, we can do experiments. We have the methodology, the ability to do this simply on science, so let's do it," the University of Geneva scientist said Wednesday.

Mayor, who was credited in 1995 with co-finding the first planets outside our solar system, said the scientist in him was unsure of the presence of other life forms in our universe. "But, personally, I feel comfortable with the idea of life existing elsewhere," the 65-year-old said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Leading astronomers are describing the discovery of the new planet as a big step in the search for life in the universe because it is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles (20.5 light-years) away.

But there is still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, named 581 c, discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile. The telescope, which Mayor helped design, has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths, revealing the possible existence of other worlds.

"It is an absolutely fantastic instrument with great precision," Mayor said, but added that the planet's diameter, atmospheric makeup and contents have yet to be confirmed.

Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author also based in Geneva, speculated that the new planet is probably full of liquid water, but conceded that he bases the conjecture on how planets form, not on any evidence.

Mayor said many more planets meeting scientists' requirements for habitability would be found, but that that the most significant short-term discovery would be that of a low-mass planet even more similar to Earth. 581 c is about five times heavier than our planet, but is still the smallest found exoplanet, or one that is outside our solar system.

Mayor predicted that NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder and the European Space Agency's Darwin satellite would make increasingly significant contributions in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He said these institutions will be able to directly look for "signatures of life" on other planets, similar to the high presence of oxygen in our atmosphere, within 15 to 20 years.

Full Story

As stated yesterday, this planet seems promising, but until we have more data, we really cannot speculate on the prospect that life exists there. Gliese 581c would be about 7 million miles from the host star, at such a close distance, this planet is probably tidally locked, like the Moon, keeping one face pointed to the star. This means that one half of the planet would be in constant sunlight, and the other in constant darkness. What this would do to weather patterns on the planet is anybodys guess -- especially since red dwarf stars are notorious for having significant flare activity. At that distance, flares from even a low-mass red dwarf would likely fry anything alive on the surface. At least Mr. Mayor and his team have their eyes on the prize, so to speak. I look forward to seeing more from this team, and others doing this exciting work.

Potentially Habitable Exoplanet Found

The discovery of the first legitimate candidate for being a potentially habitable planet outside the Solar System was announced today. The planet is slightly larger than earth, and orbits a tiny red dwarf star called Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

WASHINGTON - For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it's worth noting that scientists' requirements for habitability count Mars in that category: a size relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water. However, this is the first outside our solar system that meets those standards.

"It's a significant step on the way to finding possible life in the universe," said University of Geneva astronomer Michel Mayor, one of 11 European scientists on the team that found the planet. "It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

The planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile, which has a special instrument that splits light to find wobbles in different wave lengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.

What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life.

The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs.

The new planet is about five times heavier than Earth. Its discoverers aren't certain if it is rocky like Earth or if its a frozen ice ball with liquid water on the surface. If it is rocky like Earth, which is what the prevailing theory proposes, it has a diameter about 1 1/2 times bigger than our planet. If it is an iceball, as Mayor suggests, it would be even bigger.

Based on theory, 581 c should have an atmosphere, but what's in that atmosphere is still a mystery and if it's too thick that could make the planet's surface temperature too hot, Mayor said. However, the research team believes the average temperature to be somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees and that set off celebrations among astronomers.

Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the "Goldilocks problem." They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter. The new planet seems just right — or at least that's what scientists think.

"This could be very important," said NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay, who was not part of the discovery team. "It doesn't mean there is life, but it means it's an Earth-like planet in terms of potential habitability."

Eventually astronomers will rack up discoveries of dozens, maybe even hundreds of planets considered habitable, the astronomers said. But this one — simply called "c" by its discoverers when they talk among themselves — will go down in cosmic history as No. 1.

Besides having the right temperature, the new planet is probably full of liquid water, hypothesizes Stephane Udry, the discovery team's lead author and another Geneva astronomer. But that is based on theory about how planets form, not on any evidence, he said.

"Liquid water is critical to life as we know it," co-author Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France, said in a statement. "Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X."

Other astronomers cautioned it's too early to tell whether there is water. "You need more work to say it's got water or it doesn't have water," said retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran, press officer for the American Astronomical Society. "You wouldn't send a crew there assuming that when you get there, they'll have enough water to get back."
The new planet's star system is a mere 20.5 light years away, making Gliese 581 one of the 100 closest stars to Earth. It's so dim, you can't see it without a telescope, but it's somewhere in the constellation Libra, which is low in the southeastern sky during the midevening in the Northern Hemisphere.

A few weeks before the European discovery earlier this month, a scientific paper in the journal Astrobiology theorized a few days that red dwarf stars were good candidates. "Now we have the possibility to find many more," Bonfils said.

Full Exoplanet Story

How big is this discovery? Well, it would be a lot bigger if we could find a way to get there from here. It would take thousands of years with our current technology to bridge the 20.5 light-year gap between the two systems. And, since we can't seem to even get back to the Moon or to Mars without blowing stuff up, it stands to reason that, unless someone invents a hyperdrive in the next few years, we aren't going anyplace outside the Solar System.

Gliese 581 also has two other planets, much larger than Earth, and this newly announced body (8.5 to 15 times Earth's mass). Check out the Gliese 581 System Data.

I agree with Mr. Maran when he states that it is far too early to tell whether this world has water without any spectroscopic analysis having been done. Still, this planet is, by far, the most similar to Earth in terms of size, and that alone gives us reason to think that there may be some other similarities as well.

Red Sox Sweep Yankees With Help From Four Consecutive Homers

The AL Eastern Division leading Boston Red Sox are now 12-5 on the young season after having swept the Yankees last night at Fenway Park. Part of the fun was a record-tying four consecutive homers in the third inning off the bats of Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek. ESPN.com excerpt:

BOSTON (AP) -- It took the Boston Red Sox 10 pitches to hit four straight homers and three days to complete a sweep of the New York Yankees.

In another thrilling chapter in a rich rivalry, the Red Sox tied a major league record with the home run streak and got their third consecutive comeback win with a 7-6 victory Sunday night despite Daisuke Matsuzaka's shaky debut against the Yankees.

Depsite Matsuzaka's shaky debut against the Yankees...Well, yeah. Look, the Yankees are on a pace to score 1,000 runs for the season. Christ, Curt Schilling got bombed Friday night as A-Rod dented him for two homers, and it was only a rally against Mariano Rivera that saved the day.

I've avoided analyzing Matsuzaka because, quite frankly, three spring training appearances and four regular season starts is a pretty small sample from which to choose. People are on him because they don't think he can pitch from the stretch. Bullshit. I'm fairly certain that Matsuzaka, on at least one or to occasions in his EIGHT YEARS AS A PROFESSIONAL PITCHER IN JAPAN, HAD TO DEAL WITH OPPOSING BASERUNNERS. The reason this "analysis" is so prevalent is simple" 103 million dollars.

From what little I HAVE seen from Matsuzaka, he seems confident and in command of his pitches. He also throws harder than I expected. I suspect he will settle down okay and provide the Red Sox with 18 wins, and be right in the mix for the AL strikeout lead.

Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek connected against Wright, making his second major league start.

Lowell also added a second homer, his third of the season, a three-run shot in the seventh inning to give the Sox a 7-5 lead.

The third-inning outburst made the Red Sox the fifth team in major league history to hit four homers in a row. The Los Angeles Dodgers did it on Sept. 18 last season against San Diego. Drew hit the second of those four homers as well. It was the second homer of the season for all four Boston batters.

Wright became the second big league pitcher to allow four consecutive homers. The other was Paul Foytack of the Los Angeles Angels on July 31, 1963, in the sixth inning of the second game of a doubleheader against Cleveland. One of those homers was hit by Tito Francona, the father of current Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who turned 48 on Sunday.

J.D. Drew gets to be part of history twice, and Terry Francona gets the same by association with his dad Tito from what he did in 1963, and on his birthday no less. Not only that, but each of the homers was the second of the season for each batter. Is that the Twilight Zone theme I hear playing in the background...

Wright also tied a major league record for most homers allowed in an inning. He was the first pitcher to give up four since Randy Johnson of the Yankees on Aug. 21, 2005, against the Chicago White Sox.

Red Sox Homer Binge

The Red Sox hope to keep the momentum going as they begin a two-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays tonight at Fenway with knuckleballer Tim Wakefield matched against former Sox hurler Tomo Okha.

In other baseball news, Mark Buerhle tries to tie Johnny Van Der Meer's record of two consecutive no-hitters when he takes the mound tonight in Kansas City as his Chicago White Sox take on the Royals with their starting pitcher Gil "Ga" Meche. The White Sox lefty threw a no-no against the Texas Rangers his last time out. I wonder what the Vegas odds are of him matching Van Der Meer?

And yesterday, Barry Bonds launched his 740th career homer, leaving him 15 shy of Henry Aaron's all-time major league mark of 755 as the Giants beat the Diamondbacks yesterday 2-1 behind Barry's homer and Matt Cain's strong complete game outing at San Francisco's Lefty O'Doul Stadium.

Bonds is edging toward history, and for some he is doing it under the cloud of suspicion due to having used a cream that contained steroids (supposedly without his knowledge). Whether this affected his performance or not, he is still one of the best baseball players I have ever seen, and I hope he stays healthy and effective as he nears Aaron's magical mark.

The Yanks Are Coming! McCain Is Unfit to Lead--And He's Not Funny Either...

The Red Sox, hot on the heels of yesterday's come from behind 5-3 victory over the Blue Jays in Toronto (I think Gibbons showed way too quick a hook with Roy Halladay--Thanks John!). welcome the New York Yankees to Fenway Park for a three game series starting with Curt Schilling versus Andy Pettitte tonight. A-Rod has ten home runs (including a game-winning three-run bomb in yesterday's Yanks victory over the Indians). Big Papi has five, and Manny hit his first yesterday (a game-tying shot off of Scott Marcum after Halladay was pulled). Let's start the insanity!

But now, here are is a news story I just couldn't ignore. Let's call it...

McCain Makes Bad, Old Joke

WASHINGTON - The liberal group MoveOn.org is launching an ad against Republican John McCain and his joke about bombing Iran, arguing that the nation "can't afford another reckless president."

The group plans to spend about $100,000 to air a commercial on network and some cable television stations in Iowa and New Hampshire, states that hold early contests in the presidential nomination process, spokesman Alex Howe said Friday.

McCain, campaigning Wednesday in South Carolina, answered a question about military action against Iran with the chorus of the surf-rocker classic "Barbara Ann."

"That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran," he said. "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah ..." His audience laughed, but MoveOn.org called the comment dangerous.

"America has lived through six years of a reckless foreign policy," an announcer says in the ad. "We're stuck in Iraq. More than 3,000 Americans are dead. And thousands more wounded. "Now comes John McCain with his answer to what we should do about Iran. John McCain? We can't afford another reckless president."

The group ran ads in the same states in January, criticizing the Arizona senator's support for sending more troops to Iraq.

McCain defended the joke during a campaign stop in Nevada on Thursday. "Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends," he told reporters in Las Vegas. "My response is, Lighten up and get a life." Asked if his joke was insensitive, McCain said: "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

That response sums up perfectly why John McCain is not qualified to be president. He has become a Bush clone, and that is simply something we definitely do not need.

McCain, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, lost whatever credibility he had during Campaign 2000 when he became a waterboy for then Governor Lazy SOB, even after the future Preznit's campaigners lit up the phones of South Carolinians prior to Super Tuesday to tell voters that McCain was "unbalanced" from his time in Vietnam as a POW, and that he had fathered a black baby. Instead of fighting back, he surrendered, then became one of Bush's biggest cheerleaders.

McCain's idiotic remarks show how completely unfit for command he truly is. He and Joe Lieberman (D-R in Sheep's Clothing) have so thoroughly tied themselves to Preznit Flight Suit Fantasy that there they are in the Land of No Return. Their moronic "surge" plan is now in place, and they now share in the blame for the tragedy that is going on in Iraq. McCain's phony walking tour of Baghdad, which was followed by the worst single day of violence in that city since the invasion shows how out of touch he is on this issue.

I ackshully voted for him in the Massachusetts primary as a pre-emptive strike against Bush, not because I believed for one nanosecond the bile he spewed from the "Straight Out Of His Ass Talk Express" (He once took three different positions on abortion in a 48-hour span), but because I saw the momentum that Bush's campaign had been getting. That and the fact that the "liberal press" refused to ask him anything more complicated to answer than: "What's your favorite color?" I figured that McCain, as flawed as he was, was bound to be better than Bush. Little did I know to what depths he'd crawl to ingratiate himself with the man and his crooked family.

To say McCain has been a disappointment would be a HUGE understatement. I used to value his independence, and thought that he might make a fine president one day. Those thoughts were quickly wiped away once I saw how eager he was, and how far he was willing to bend over for the BFEE. A close friend opined, during Campaign 2004, before John Kerry (D-I'd Rather Be Windsurfing) chose John Edwards as his running mate, that McCain would be a good choice for the job. A "dream ticket" was the description used. I quickly persuaded my friend that such a notion was fatally flawed, and McCain quickly fulfilled my lowered expectations as the war dragged on, as Bush got a second term, and even now with the Democrats forgetting they are now the majority in Congress. Well, if there is any solace to be taken in all this, it is that John McCain has as much chance of being inaugurated President on January 20, 2009 as I do of marrying Jessica Alba and living a life of indolent pleasure in a penthouse suite overlooking Sydney Harbour. Buh-Bye John...

McCain Dumbass Joke Full Story

In Memory of My Father

My father passed away on April 2, 2007. Dad had been battling a number of health problems for the better part of a year. These included COPD and a minor stroke he suffered last summer. He had just turned 73 on February 20th, and I'm glad I got to spend that week with him. Here is a copy of the eulogy I read at his funeral service, held last Saturday, April 7th:

Clarke McCullough Rainey was born on February 20, 1934. My sisters and I knew him as our father, but he was also a son, a brother, an uncle, a husband, a grandfather and a friend.

He liked to say that he was born in the middle of a snowstorm, which is why he was always trying to get warm. When he was born, one of the hospital nurses thought he looked like the baby from the comic strip “Baby Bunkie”, and from then on, he was known to his family as Bunk. As he grew up, friends and co-workers knew him as Red.

As a child, one doesn’t get to know their parents as anything but a parent, but my sisters and I have been lucky to have been able to get to know our Dad as a youngster and a young man through the countless stories we heard from longtime friends like Red Harvey and Charlie McCarthy, and our Uncle Bob and Aunt Gloria.

Dad himself was also an entertaining storyteller, and as children, my sisters and I would listen to many of his stories at family gatherings—many of which he told again and again. One of our favorite stories had to do with the time his brother, our Uncle Bob, who was six years older than Dad, had been scaring Dad by telling him that the shadows of trees were ghosts flying around their house. Dad became so scared that our Grandfather made Bob crawl the perimeter of the roof, with Dad watching from the windows, to show him that there were, in fact, no ghosts. The brothers also had teasing rhymes. Bob would tease Dad by saying “Skunky Bunky can’t go out, Skunky Bunky sit and pout”, and Dad would reply with “Slobby Bobby can’t go out, Slobby Bobby sit and pout”.

At age 11, Dad became an uncle for the first time. His sister Gloria had eight children and numerous grandchildren to whom Dad was an uncle and great-uncle. And for over six decades, Dad enjoyed friendships with Red Harvey and Charlie McCarthy, friendships that sustained him in good times and bad times, and we should all be similarly privileged.

Dad was also a lifelong baseball fan. He got his love of the game from his father, and he passed this love on to me. As you all know, being a Red Sox fan is far from easy, and I’m glad he got to see them finally win a World Series, and I’m especially happy that we watched the Series together.

Dad had a wonderful sense of humor, and he was always there for my sisters and I as an advisor and mentor. He wouldn’t always give us the answers we wanted, but he was always there to help pick up the pieces when needed.

Dad was always fairly easy going, and he and our mother Lenore were married for 38 years at the time she passed away on February 5, 1999. The old adage that opposites attract was true in their case, as Mum seemed to worry about everything whereas Dad tried to take everything in stride. Somehow, they both knew when to laugh at themselves and with each other.

One of our mother’s quirks was her fear that some small animal or animals has somehow gotten into the house because she would hear noises that she couldn’t readily explain. Dad would dismiss this as her simply hearing things or saying that “the house was settling”. One time, while watching TV at their home in Clinton, Mum thought she saw something zoom by out of the corner of her eye, and she told Dad about it. He dismissed it in typical fashion saying that it was just her imagination. The next thing Dad knew, Mom was screaming, “It’s a bat!” and then hit the deck. Dad’s response was “Lenore, what are you doing? You’re hurting yourself, there’s nothing there!” At which point, the non-existent bat dive-bombed Dad, which put an end to his usual easy dismissal of Mum’s claims.

Mum and Dad also loved their three dogs. The first dog was Silky, who joined the family in 1971, which did not thrill Dad at all. In fact, he was adamant that he’d have nothing to do with “it”. Of course, that proved to be the opposite of what happened as he soon began teaching the dog how to bark. Samson joined us in 1978, and was only around for a couple of years, but he would always make for Dad’s easy chair whenever he left the room. Foxy joined us in 1993 and was the constant lap dog companion, first to Mum, then to Dad until she died last year, and she was definitely Daddy’s baby girl. Not too bad for a man who at first wanted nothing to do with animals—especially dogs.

Both Mum and Dad shared a love of big band music, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and all the crooners. As kids, my sisters and I were subjected to Saturday evenings watching Lawrence Welk. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the torture would be increased when they would sing along and dance to the show’s music. This could be one factor that explains my love of heavy rock and heavy metal music. Judy, however, got our revenge by making him watch American Idol when he moved in with her. Dad also became quite a fan of Nickelodeon and Noggin as a result of his grandson Conor’s influence. Dad would counter by threatening to change the TV to the news whenever Conor misbehaved.

For nearly a year, Dad had been battling severe health issues—issues that led us to the painful decision to move him last September, to western Pennsylvania to live with Judy, her husband Ron and son Conor. This is ironic given the fact that, in the middle of Judy’s college years, Mum and Dad moved from Ashland to Clinton without giving Judy a forwarding address or phone number. Chris thought that we were in the clear, but Judy eventually tracked us down, despite our best efforts.

During most of the last six months Dad got to be with Conor, which was time well spent enjoying his grandson’s liveliness and developing personality. Although the house was far from quiet, with two dogs (Midas and Murry) and a four-year-old running around, the energy within probably helped him sustain his health better than he otherwise would have.

While Dad was in hospice, he made it clear to everyone that he was a Massachusetts boy, and the nurses all referred to him as Mr. Boston. He wasn’t able to talk on the phone, but he did ask us to call all of you, Gloria, Harv, Charlie and the rest of you, to say that he was thinking of you, and how much he loved all of you.

It’s impossible to tell you all about our Dad in just a few minutes. We have tried to share with you some of the highlights and interests of our family. He was very special to us and we will miss the stories, the laughter and the love.

My Mother, Lenore, passed away on February 5, 1999, long before I began blogging, so this tribute to my father is also, as you can read, a tribute to her. I'll be taking a break from posting for a bit due to the demands on my time in tying up some loose ends having to do with Dad's estate. My thanks to those friends, neighbors and co-workers for you support for me and my sisters during this difficult time. It means a lot to us.

Back to Bullpen for Papelbon

Red Sox pitcher Jonathan Papelbon is going back to the bullpen to resume the closer role he filled so well last season. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Jonathan Papelbon's conversion from closer to starter didn't last long. Papelbon is heading back to Boston's bullpen to fill a major void, though he isn't doing it because an injury to Mike Timlin left the Red Sox without a closer.

"I haven't been sleeping well because there's been that feeling deep down in my heart that I wanted to close," Papelbon said after the Phillies and Red Sox played to a 4-4 tie in 10 innings on Thursday.

Papelbon is coming off a sensational rookie season in which he had 35 saves and an 0.92 ERA. But he was shut down with a month to go because of shoulder problems, and the Red Sox had planned to use him in the rotation to keep him on a more regular schedule.

The Red Sox needed a reliable closer because the 41-year-old Timlin has a strained side muscle and isn't going to be ready to start the season.

Papelbon made the decision to tell manager Terry Francona how he felt about returning to his closer's role earlier this week after consulting with his family and speaking to catcher Jason Varitek.

"He's unique," Francona said. "He's at the top of the list of relievers in baseball. He impacts the game like no other. I'm thrilled we have a young guy that feels enthusiastic about doing a job."

Papelbon allowed one run and two hits in three innings against Philadelphia. Karim Garcia's RBI single in the seventh off Papelbon tied the game at 4.

Julian Tavarez will take over as Boston's fifth starter behind an impressive staff that includes Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield.

Papelbon opened last season with 20 consecutive saves after taking over for injured closer Keith Foulke. The 26-year-old right-hander blew six of his last 21 chances, and missed the final month with a shoulder injury. Overall, Papelbon's rookie year was one for the ages.

Among pitchers who threw more than 50 innings, his ERA was the eighth lowest in major league history and his .167 opponents batting average tied him for the major league record Pedro Martinez set in 2000, when the former Boston ace won the Cy Young Award.

Papelbon's injury led the club to switch him back to the starting rotation because the routine of having to be prepared to pitch every day — and being in games two or three consecutive nights — might have caused some stress. Papelbon pitched almost exclusively as a starter in the minors, but worked out of the bullpen at Mississippi State and was selected as a closer in the fourth round of the 2003 amateur entry draft.

Papelbon pitched 68 1-3 innings in 59 appearances last year. He was 4-2 with 75 strikeouts and only 13 walks.

I think this is probably a good move. The guys the Sox either already had on hand (Tavarez, Manny Delcarmen), or brought aboard through off-season transactions (Joel Piniero) haven't been terrible, but they haven't been dominant. Not that such things matter a hell of a lot in spring training. In 2004, Keith Foulke had an absolutely BRUTAL spring training. I think he gave up something like 467 hits and 258 runs in 13 innings in Fort Meyers (not really). But, once the real season began, Foulke was golden, and was a major part of the 2004 WORLD SERIES CHAMPION RED SOX!

Papelbon would have made a fine starter, of that I am sure. But when you see what he did closing games last season, you'd be a fool to mess with that type of success. Will he again have a sub one ERA? Probably not. Hell, betting on consistent pitching is a fool's game. But if we are discussing probabilities, the notion that Papelbon could throw another 70 innings in 60-65 games with a strikeout per inning and 30-35 saves is not out of the question. I'm just glad the Sox braintrust didn't wait until mid-May after ten blown saves to act.

Full Story

Calvert "Larry "Bud" Melman" DeForest Dead at 85

Today brings the sad news that Calvert DeForest, who played Larry "Bud" Melman on Late Night with David Letterman has died at age 85. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

NEW YORK - Calvert DeForest, the white-haired, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late night television shows, has died after a long illness. The Brooklyn-born DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman's "Late Show" announced Wednesday.

He made dozens of appearances on Letterman's shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on "I Got You, Babe," doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

"Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself — a genuine, modest and nice man," Letterman said in a statement. "To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him."

The gnomish DeForest was working as a file clerk at a drug rehabilitation center when show producers, who had seen him in a New York University student's film, came calling.

He was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman's NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film "Frankenstein." "It was the greatest thing that had happened in my life," he once said of his first Letterman appearance.

DeForest, or Melman, was an unintentional comedic genius. His awkwardness was hilarious and charming, and Letterman was smart enough to simply get out of the way and let the magic happen. The appearances as Dave's on -site correspondent at various events was comedy gold. You couldn't have planned a character like that and gotten away with it, it simply would have been too contrived. But DeForest, a true non-professional entertainer, somehow made it work just by being himself. Here's to you Calvert/Larry!

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San Francisco Giants Ballpark to go Solar. Lefty O'Doul Retrospective.

The home of the San Francisco Giants will soon be powered by solar energy. Yahoo News Reuters excerpt:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. will install a solar energy system at the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park, believed to be the first solar power plant at a major league baseball park.

The utility, a unit of San Francisco-based PG&E Corp., will place 590 solar panels at the park to produce 123 kilowatts of electricity, enough energy to light up a new scoreboard or power about 25 homes, PG&E said on Tuesday.

The system will be ready in time for baseball's All-Star game on July 10 at AT&T Park.

As long as we are doing something new, why not rename the stadium to something more fitting the rich baseball tradition of this fine city. Please join me and my good friend Miss Templeton in urging the powers that be to change the name of this ballpark to Lefty O'Doul Stadium. O'Doul was a lifetime .349 hitter in the majors in 970 games with the Yankees, Red Sox, Giants, Phillies, Dodgers. He won NL batting crowns in 1929 with a .398 mark for the Phillies with a league record 254 hits (tied with Bill Terry who matched him the following season for the Giants) and in 1932 with a .368 for the Dodgers.

O'Doul also had a fine career in the Pacific Coast League, in which he excelled as a player and manager. Lefty hit .354 in 1,068 games for San Francisco, Hollywood, Salt Lake City and Vancouver (for whom he hit a pinch-triple in 1956 at the age of 59). Playing the long PCL schedules (between 180 and 200 games a season) he led that league in the following categories:

• Hits with 309 for Salt Lake City in 1925 and again with 278 for Hollywood in 1927.
• Triples in 1925 with 17.
• Runs scored with 164 in 1927.
• Total bases with 428 in 1927.

In addition to his hitting prowess, O'Doul was also a long-time manager in the PCL. He managed the San Francisco Seals from 1935-1951, the San Diego Padres from 1952-54 and Oakland Oaks in 1955. He stayed with that club when they moved to Vancouver in 1956. His career managerial record was 2008-1890 for a .515 winning percentage. He managed the Seals to first-place finishes in 1935 and 1946, and the Padres in 1954. O'Doul is also credited with having been a top ambassador of the game to Japan.

In addition, Lefty O'Doul's Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge has been a San Francisco landmark since its opening in 1958. What more reason do we need to rename the place where the Giants play?

Special thanks to the invaluable The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 by Dennis Snelling for help in compiling O'Doul's numbers.

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Bush Ups Ante in Attorney Firing Fiasco. Will Dems Call His Bluff?

Preznit Flight Suit Fantasy has challenged Democrats in the attorney firing fiasco. He is betting that they are still the gutless wonders that cringed throughout his first term, and that they will not issue subpoenas to get the answers to this mess. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

WASHINGTON - A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

Democrats' response to his proposal was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.

"Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That's the formula for true accountability," said Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, said, "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants. ... I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse."

He added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural to consider replacing them. "There is no indication that anybody did anything improper," the president said.

Bullshit. Bush wants the deck stacked in his favor AGAIN. This won't be a rerun of his hideous 9-11 "testimony", during which time he sat on Unka Dick Cheney's lap while never having to be placed under oath. Not this time. It's too late for "reasonable proposals".

Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, a boost during an early morning call and ended the day with a public statement repeating it. "He's got support with me," Bush said.

The Senate, meanwhile, voted to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation. Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority.

Several Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden and John Edwards, have called for Gonzales' ouster or resignation. So have a handful of Republican lawmakers.

More and more voices are being heard to call for the head of AG Abu-G. I don't believe for one moment that Gonzales is safe. If the subpoenas come, there is a chance that Rove may be called to testify, and that will almost surely cost Gonzales his job. The Democrats have already taken the necessary action to make Gonzo accountable to them with regard to filling future attorney slots. But that may be a moot point, as the man seems to be living on borrowed time. Let's hope the final tick of that clock sounds sooner rather than later.

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Former White House Official Defends Fudging Global Warming Reports

A former White House official today defended his fudging of the numbers in global warming reports so that the mis-administration could say "What global warming?" Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

WASHINGTON - A former White House official accused of improperly editing reports on global warming defended his editing changes Monday, saying they reflected views in a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences.

House Democrats said the 181 changes made in three climate reports reflected a consistent attempt to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science of climate change and undercut the broad conclusions that man-made emissions are warming the earth.

Philip Cooney, former chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged at a House hearing that some of the changes he made were "to align these communications with the administration's stated policy" on climate change.

Said "stated policy on climate change " being the stubborn, incorrect position that global warming is not happening.

The extent of Cooney's editing of government climate reports first surfaced in 2005. Shortly thereafter, Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, left the White House to work at Exxon Mobil Corp.

Gee, there's a surprise. A former oil industry lobbyist tweaked the environmental report findings to show data that bolstered the White House's boneheaded position. Where is Claude Rains when we really need him?

"My concern is that there was a concerted White House effort to inject uncertainty into the climate debate," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.

Cooney's appearance before Waxman's committee Monday was the first time he has spoken publicly, or was extensively questioned, about the issue. Cooney said that many of the changes he made to the reports — such as uncertainty about the regional impact of climate change and limits on climate modeling — reflected findings of a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report on climate.

Waxman's committee also heard from James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the country's leading climate scientists, who said the White House repeatedly tried to control what government scientists say to the public and media about climate change.

"Interference with communications of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career," said Hansen, who was one of the first to raise concerns about climate change in the 1980s.
Hansen's battles with NASA and White House public affairs officials are not new and resulted in an easing of NASA's policies toward scientists talking to the media about their work.

Hansen said that in 2005 he was told by a 24-year-old NASA public affairs official he could not take part in an interview with National Public Radio on orders from senior NASA public affairs officials. Instead, three other NASA officials were offered for the interview.

The young press officer, George Deutsch, now 26, sat next to Hansen at the witness table Monday and told the committee he had simply been "relaying" the views of higher-ups at NASA that Hansen was not to participate in the interview.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., suggested that Hansen was not being muzzled at all and that there is nothing wrong with government scientists being subject to some limits in what they say.

"It doesn't ring true," said Hansen. "It's not the American way. And it's not constitutional."

Issa is a douchebag. And Hansen is right. It's NOT the American way, and it's NOT constitutional.

I'd bet that Issa would have been more than willing to lift Hansen's muzzle if he was going to spout some batshit craziness about trees causing more pollution than factories the way Saint Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt once did. But is anyone really surprised at this? These bastards have been pulling stunts like this since they stole their way into power back in 2001, and nobody has had the balls to call them on anything. Maybe Waxman can slap a scare into these goons, but it is more likely that we will continue to get more of the same treatment until January 20, 2009, which simply cannot get here fast enough.

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The Comedy Stylings of Robert Novak - Dissecting Tom Delay Edition

Now on exhibit is a piece by Robert Novak (aka the man who should also be walking the plank in the Valerie Plame identity exposure incident), courtesy of the Washington Post in which he describes Tom Delay's new book, "No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight". The article explores some of Delay's problems with Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and Preznit Flight Suit Fantasy hissownself. Excerpt:

DeLay is an angry man after being driven from the leadership, from Congress and, so far, from public life by "a concerted effort to destroy me legally, financially and personally" through a 2005 indictment in Texas. DeLay's response to Democratic District Attorney Ronnie Earle is familiar. What is unusual are his claims that "pre-existing tensions I had with Gingrich and Armey" partially explain their role in kicking DeLay out of the leadership.

DeLay admits that the Republican leaders empowered by the 1994 elections -- comprising himself as majority whip, Gingrich as speaker and Armey as majority leader -- "were not a cohesive team, and this hindered our ability to change the nation." He puts most blame "at Newt Gingrich's door."

In describing Gingrich as an "ineffective Speaker," DeLay writes: "He knew nothing about running meetings and nothing about driving an agenda." He adds: "Nearly every other day he had a new agenda, a new direction he wanted us to take. It was impossible to follow him."

DeLay also declares that "our leadership was in no moral shape to press" for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Writing well before Gingrich's admission for the first time last week, DeLay asserts: "It is now public knowledge that Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a staffer during the entire impeachment crisis. Clearly, men with such secrets are not likely to sound a high moral tone at a moment of national crisis."

Well, DeLay was right about the first sentence of that last paragraph. Too bad he and the other scumbags who rode the impeachment horse until it was foaming at the mouth, with blood streaming from its nostrils didn't realize that at the time they were playing God. DeLay, Gingrich, Livingston and the rest of those hypocrites should be ashamed of themselves for having subjected the nation to that travesty.

DeLay refers to Armey as "so blinded by ambition as to be useless to the cause" and a "poor leader" who had "few fresh ideas." He adds that Armey "resented anyone he thought might get in the way of his becoming speaker of the House. Beware the man drunk with ambition." He pleads innocence in his version of the failed 1997 coup attempt against Gingrich and accuses Armey, after realizing that he would not succeed Gingrich, of telling the speaker that DeLay was plotting against him: "He had lied to cover his ambitions, betraying both his movement and his fellow leaders."

Does the phrase "the pot calling the kettle black" have any meaning here? I guess not when DeLay is the one blinded by ambition...

DeLay, who was forced to step down as part of a politically motivated prosecution, is angry that Republicans, pressured by Democrats and the news media, retreated from a party rule that an indicted House Republican need not resign from the leadership. Gingrich and Armey (both out of Congress) opposed the rule. More significantly, to DeLay's dismay, so did Hastert, his former lieutenant.

The memoir ends DeLay's reticence in criticizing President Bush. Deriding Bush's self-identification as "a compassionate conservative," DeLay asserts that "he has expanded government to suit his purpose, especially in the area of education. He may be compassionate, but he is certainly no conservative in the classic sense." He also charges that Bush has failed to stress the role of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, adding, "typically . . . no one at the White House was listening" to his advice.

Wah, wah, wah...I didn't fail conservativism, conservativism failed me... What a crock of excrement. And Tom, don't cry about the fact that Preznit FSF wasn't listening to you, he didn't listen to anyone once what passes for his mind was made up.

Anyway, here is some of Novak's summation:

Notwithstanding Flake's criticism, DeLay was the most conservative congressional leader I have witnessed in 50 years covering Capitol Hill. I rate him with Lyndon B. Johnson as a dominant legislator. But his revelation that GOP leaders did not constitute a band of brothers helps explain why 12 years of control produced much less than was anticipated.

There is no information about how many martinis Novak had imbibed when he typed this nonsense. I find it interesting that Novak, in his zeal to praise DeLay the legislator, compared DeLay to Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat. And Bob, the reason that "12 years of control produced much less than was anticipated" was because those in control were a gang of crooked bastards who wanted to run the country as if it was a feudal kingdom, with the citizenry as their serfs.

There's more, but it's turning my mind to Lime Jello. Read the whole article, and be thankful that Tom DeLay is, for the time being anyway, out of our lives. Too bad the same cannot be said for Robert Novak...

Leahy on US Attorney Firings: "I Want Subpoenas!"

In a refreshing change, a leading Democrat is showing some fighting spirit. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) is all but demanding that people like Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and a host of other Bush insiders be subpoenaed to testify about their roles in the mass firing of US attorneys. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he intends to subpoena White House officials involved in ousting federal prosecutors and is dismissing anything short of their testimony in public.

The Bush White House was expected to announce early this week whether it will let political strategist Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and other officials testify or will seek to assert executive privilege in preventing their appearance.

Of course these assholes will assert executive privilege. That's why Leahy is calling for subpoenas. And it is why EVERY Democrat, and every sensible Republican should be doing likewise.

The chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., last week delayed a vote on the subpoenas until Thursday as the president's counsel, Fred Fielding, sought to negotiate terms. But on Sunday, Leahy said he had not met Fielding nor was he particularly open to any compromises, such as a private briefing by the administration officials.

"I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this," Leahy said. "I do not believe in this, we'll have a private briefing for you where we'll tell you everything, and they don't."

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the committee, said he had a long talk with Fielding on Friday and was reserving judgment. Specter said he would like to see Rove and Miers' open testimony because there were numerous precedents for it. "I want to see exactly what the White House response is," Specter said. "Maybe the White House will come back and say, 'We'll permit them to be interviewed and we'll give them all the records.'"

Yeah, and maybe Jessica Alba will become Mrs. Listerplus, or maybe the Red Sox will sign me to play center field for the upcoming season. Arlen, stop kidding us. Remember, we're still angry at you about that Magic Bullet bullshit you foisted on us so many years ago. Thanks, but don't try to help now.

At issue is the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, dismissals that Democrats say were politically motivated. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales initially had asserted the firings were performance-related and denied the White House played a role.

But e-mails released last week between the Justice Department and the White House contradicted that assertion and led to a public apology from Gonzales over the handling of the matter. The e-mails showed that Rove, as early as Jan. 6, 2005, questioned whether the U.S. attorneys should all be replaced at the start of Bush's second term, and to some degree worked with Miers and former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson to get some prosecutors dismissed.

Several Democrats and a few Republicans, including Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire, have called for Gonzales to resign, saying he had lost the support and confidence of Congress and the nation. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Senate Judiciary Committee had a deal with Sampson, Gonzales' former chief of staff, for him to testify voluntarily.

Sampson, who resigned last week, released a statement making clear that senior Justice officials were aware that the department and the White House "had been discussing the subject since the election" of 2004. Gonzales has said he was kept in the dark about the communications.

Really? The chief law enforcement officer of the United States was kept in the dark about this? Ordinarily I'd call "bullshit" on this assertion, but having seen the sloppy way this mis-administration conducts its affairs, this may be true. Aw, who am I kidding? Bullshit!

"The stories keep changing from so many people," Schumer said. "A good lawyer will tell you when the witnesses keep changing their stories, they're usually not telling the truth and they have something to hide."

Gee Chuck, ya think? Thanks for playing Mr. Stater of the Obvious...

Bud Cummins of Arkansas, one of the fired U.S. attorneys, said Gonzales should step down if it is proved that he was involved in the firings.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, cautioned against a "political witch hunt" and said Democrats "think Karl Rove is lurking behind every bush in Washington." But he said Gonzales needs to get his story straight — quickly.

Hey John, maybe Democrats think that because Karl Rove, in fact, DOES lurk behind every bush in Washington. And please, don't start that crap about political witch hunts when your party has led the way in that category.

Anyway, I'm glad to see some fire in Leahy. We already know that Bush will not let these people testify on their own, so the subpoena is a necessary measure to get these thugs to talk, so it is good to see Leahy realize this and begin to call for the appropriate actions.

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Kuiper Belt Detective Work

The Kuiper Belt, a group of smaller, rocky bodies that orbit the Sun past the orbit of Neptune, is providing more clues as to what lurks at the edge of the Solar System--and the dynamics of how these bodies interact. Yahoo News AFP excerpt:

PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers have pieced together the remnants of a mighty collision that smashed apart a planet-sized rock in the Kuiper Belt, on the far-flung fringes of the Solar System.

First identified in the 1950s by Dutch-US skygazer Gerard Kuiper, the disk-shaped belt is believed to be populated by tens of thousands of icy bodies, encircling the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune.

A team led by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) took a close look at the belt's third largest object, 2003 EL61. Nicknamed "Santa" because the team spotted it at Christmas-time, 2003 EL61 is a grey rock so big that it is a contender for the new category of a Solar System "dwarf planet."

Brown describes Santa as "one of the strangest objects in the Solar System," likening its shape to a cigar or an American football that has too little air in it and been stepped on. Flanked by two moonlets, 2003 EL61 measures some 1,500 kilometers (950 miles) across, tumbling over and over at a prodigious rate and pursuing a weird egg-shaped orbit inclined at nearly 30 degrees to the plane at which almost all of the Solar System's objects travel.

Brown's team found five other rocks, measuring between 10 and 400 kilometers (six and 250 miles) across, that they believe were smashed away from 2003 EL61 in the distant past. The cluster shares the same colour and the light they reflect has a signature that suggests they are covered with surface water ice. The paper is published on Thursday in the weekly British journal Nature.

The Kuiper Belt and the asteroid belt, which is located in the gap between Mars and Jupiter, are believed to be rubble left over from the building of the Solar System.

Astronomers have already identified 35 "collisional families" -- clusters formed when their parent rock is whacked -- in the asteroid belt. But this is the first time something similar has been spotted in the Kuiper Belt, and the discovery could shed light on the dynamics that shaped the early Solar System and the surface of Kuiper Belt objects themselves.

Brown is one of the leading authorities on the Kuiper Belt, a region also inhabited by Pluto. His discovery of a big Kuiper Belt object, 2003 UB303 (since renamed 2003 Eris), sparked a fierce debate about the status of planets, leading to Pluto's relegation last year to the status of "dwarf planet" by International Astronomical Union (IAU).

The Kuiper Belt is proving to be a mysterious and fascinating region of the Solar System. Moon-sized objects have been detected at orbits that are highly inclined away from the plane of most of the major planets--a major reason they have evaded detection until recently. It appears we now have reasons to pursue these objects in unexpected areas of the sky, but there are nowhere near enough professional telescopes pointing to these regions. I suspect that the amateur community will step up and eventually make some contributions in this area.

Another resource is one that has been already completed--the recent sky surveys by Hipparcos come to mind. There are thousands of images that can be reviewed and compared to those of previous surveys to see if anything has moved. It appears that Mr. Brown and his team are making some nice progress with this research.

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Large Ice Deposits Found on Mars!

Before I launch into today's story, let me tell you that about 15 inches of snow fell in my area yesterday and last night, a mere TWO DAYS after we had 71 degree temps in my part of the Bay State. The snow removal is complete, and I am back at the keyboard to bring you a story that is HUGE in its implications. Large deposits of ice have been detected at Mars' south pole. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spacecraft orbiting Mars has scanned huge deposits of water ice at its south pole so plentiful they would blanket the planet in 36 feet of water if they were liquid, scientists said on Thursday.

The scientists used a joint NASA-Italian Space Agency radar instrument on the European Space Agency Mars Express spacecraft to gauge the thickness and volume of ice deposits at the Martian south pole covering an area larger than Texas.

The deposits, up to 2.3 miles thick, are under a polar cap of white frozen carbon dioxide and water, and appear to be composed of at least 90 percent frozen water, with dust mixed in, according to findings published in the journal Science.

Scientists have known that water exists in frozen form at the Martian poles, but this research produced the most accurate measurements of just how much there is. They are eager to learn about the history of water on Mars because water is fundamental to the question of whether the planet has ever harbored microbial or some other life. Liquid water is a necessity for life as we know it. Characteristics like channels on the Martian surface strongly suggest the planet once was very wet, a contrast to its present arid, dusty condition.

Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who led the study, said the same techniques are being used to examine similar ice deposits at the Martian north pole. Radar observations made in late 2005 and early 2006 provided the data on the south pole, and similar observations were taken of the north pole in the past several months, Plaut said.

While images taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft made public in December suggested the presence of a small amount of liquid water on the surface, researchers are baffled about the fate of most of the water. The polar deposits contain most of the known water on Mars.

Plaut said the amount of water in the Martian past may have been the equivalent of a global layer hundreds of meters deep, while the polar deposits represent a layer of perhaps tens of meters. "We have this continuing question facing us in studies of Mars, which is: where did all the water go?" Plaut said. "Even if you took the water in these two (polar) ice caps and added it all up, it's still not nearly enough to do all of the work that we've seen that the water has done across the surface of Mars in its history."

Plaut said it appears perhaps 10 percent of the water that once existed on Mars is now trapped in these polar deposits. Other water may exist below the planet's surface or perhaps some was lost into space through the atmosphere, Plaut said.

This is terrific news. It is likely that there is more water on Mars than what has been detected with this finding, and this team will likely find it. The discovery assigns more certainty to the equation that is human colonization of Mars. Now we just have to get our shit together and make the missions happen.

The other equation is that water is a key ingredient for life. Now that a lot more water (though still not very much) has been found than was believed to be present on the Martian surface, and in the soil, it makes one wonder if there could be a hardy form of life on the Red Planet. Such a life form would have to be able to survive an environment with cold temperatures, low atmospheric pressure, an atmosphere that to us would be deadly (mostly Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide) and extremely dry conditions. But the presence of water automatically means that Oxygen is also present in the water, so who knows?

But, another interesting question remains: How the hell DID Mars lose most of its water? There are all sorts of theories, some are practical, others are a little more far-fetched. Plaut is correct when he points to the geological features of Mars that point to these features having been created by erosion combined with the presence of water. That question will be a lot harder to answer.

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Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn Dead at 80

Bowie Kuhn, former Major League Baseball commissioner from 1969-1984 has died at the age of 80. Yahoo News AP wire excerpt:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Bowie Kuhn, who saw baseball become a business of free agents making multimillion-dollar salaries during 15 tumultuous years as commissioner, died Thursday. He was 80. Kuhn died at St. Luke's Hospital following a short illness, his spokesman Bob Wirz said.

When Kuhn took over as commissioner from William Eckert on Feb. 4, 1969, baseball just had completed its final season as a tradition-bound 20-team sport, one with no playoffs, a reserve clause and an average salary of about $19,000.

Kuhn battled the rise of the NFL and a combative players' union that besieged him with lawsuits, grievances and work stoppages. Yet it was also a time of record attendance and revenue and a huge expansion of the sport's television presence.

Along with his bumpy reign came a string of controversial decisions. When Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth's career record in 1974, Kuhn was not in the stands. And he banned Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from associating with their former teams because of liaisons with gambling casinos.

These were three idiotic decisions Kuhn made. Especially since he ordered the Braves to play Aaron in the opening road series of the 1974 season, which could have seen Aaron break the home run record away from Atlanta. Banning Mays and Mantle was just stupid. It's not like they were gamblers like Pete Rose.

By the time Peter Ueberroth succeeded Kuhn on Oct. 1, 1984, the major leagues had 26 teams in four divisions, a designated hitter in the American League, the first night World Series games, color-splashed uniforms, free agency and an average salary of nearly $330,000.

"I want it to be remembered that I was commissioner during a time of tremendous growth in the popularity of the game," Kuhn said, "and that it was a time in which no one could question the integrity of the game."

Part of that growth was the fact that both leagues expanded in 1969 to Seattle, Montreal, Kansas City and San Diego. Sure, KC had had a team before, but they moved to Oakland. Montreal was where Jackie Robinson first played integrated professional baseball, and both Seattle and San Diego had been long-time Pacific Coast League cities. Kuhn gets no credit for this. Nor does he get credit for the further expansion of the American League in 1977 into Toronto and Seattle (the Mariners--the Pilots left in 1970 when future commissioner Bud Selig moved them to Milwaukee to become the Brewers).

It was also a time of memorable feuds. Kuhn did battle with ornery owners like Charlie Finley, Ted Turner, George Steinbrenner and Ray Kroc. Finley once went so far as calling Kuhn "the village idiot."

His downfall came after he presided over a 50-day strike that split the 1981 season in half. A prim and proper lawyer who stood ramrod erect, Kuhn was regarded by some as a stuffed shirt.

Born in Takoma Park, Md., on Oct. 28, 1926, Kuhn grew up in Washington, D.C., as a fan of the original Washington Senators — yet he allowed the expansion Senators to leave after the 1971 season and become the Texas Rangers. He graduated from Princeton in 1947 and received his law degree in 1950 from Virginia.

After school, he joined the law firm of Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, which represented the National League. In 1966, he represented the Milwaukee Braves in their legal battle with the city over a move to Atlanta and gained the respect of the league's owners.

He eventually lost that respect through repeated confrontations with many of those owners, who kept him from getting involved in negotiations during the 1981 strike. Kuhn suspended Steinbrenner in 1974 for two years — later shortened to 15 months — for his guilty plea regarding illegal campaign contributions to President Nixon's re-election campaign. He then suspended Turner, the Braves owner, in 1976 for tampering with the contract of Gary Matthews.

In 1976, he voided the attempt by Finley's Oakland Athletics to sell Vida Blue, Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers for a combined price of $3.5 million, saying the deals weren't in the best interests of baseball.

He fined Kroc, the San Diego Padres owner, $100,000 in 1979 for saying he wanted to sign Joe Morgan of the Reds and Graig Nettles of the Yankees.

During Kuhn's years as commissioner, attendance in the major leagues grew from 23 million in 1968 to 44.6 million in 1982. In 1983, baseball signed a $1.2 billion television contract that would earn each team $7 million a year for six seasons, then an astonishing sum. It was clear by now that baseball was transforming itself from a sport to a business, with revenue rising from $163 million in 1975 to $624 million in 1984.

Again, that is due to the fact that the American and National Leagues expanded into half a dozen new markets, not because of anything he did.

"You can't be commissioner for 14 years and not change, for better or for worse. I hope I've changed for the better," he said. "I'm more philosophical about our problems. Initially, I used to become more upset. Now, I take problems for granted as being part of the office."

While business boomed on his watch, players wanted their cut. Curt Flood sued to gain free agency, but lost his U.S. Supreme Court case in 1972. In 1975, the union finally ended the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams forever, winning an arbitration case filed on behalf of Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith. Baseball hasn't been the same since.

On the field, Kuhn injected himself into Aaron's chase for Ruth's home-run record by ordering Braves manager Eddie Mathews to play Aaron in 1974's season-opening series at Cincinnati. Aaron entered with 713 homers, one shy of Ruth's mark.

See? I told you so! Then, he had the nerve not to show up for Aaron's historic home run.

A year later, Finley led a group that attempted to oust Kuhn as his first term ended. "That was an ambush," Kuhn said. "I was blindsided. I didn't see it coming, and I wasn't prepared."

But with the support of Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, Kuhn managed to gain re-election. By 1982, a year after the strike — baseball's fifth work stoppage under Kuhn — owners were ready for change. At a Nov. 1 meeting at a Chicago airport hotel, AL owners voted 11-3 to give Kuhn another term, but the NL vote was 7-5, short of the 75 percent needed.

He is survived by wife, Luisa Kuhn; son Stephen Kuhn; daughter Alex Bower; and stepsons Paul Degener and George Degener.

Did Kuhn help the game? No, not really. Did he hurt it? Again, no he did not. As Jim Bouton wrote in the classic Ball Four, Kuhn was an owners guy in the labor negotiations of the late 1960s when the players union hired Marvin Miller. Miller , and the players, emerged the winners over time, and Kuhn did his best to control the growth of salaries, which was really what the feud with Finley was all about. But the tide had already started to turn, and Kuhn was left holding the bag as the big-money free agent era began.

Some of my comments may appear harsh, and to a degree they are. Kuhn was a lawyer who worked for the league's owners. He tried to keep salaries down. His feud with Finley was legendary, and shows that free market principles do not completely control the game. Kuhn was slow to respond to baseball's changing economic profile, and he was punished for it by the owners. The owners then hired Ueberroth, a marketing guy, to guide the game. After him, the late Bart Giammatti and Fay Vincent attempted to run things, but Vincent, like Kuhn, was ambushed by the owners, who were now feeling a sense of entitlement. That led us to where we are now with Bud Selig. Sometimes I wonder if we would be better off with a Kuhn-type commissioner. I think he would do a better job of standing up to bullies like Steinbrenner. Can you imagine Selig suspending King George the way Kuhn did? Nah. Me neither.

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