The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center is a space research facility, funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by Cornell University and located six miles from Arecibo, Puerto Rico. It houses a 305 meter radio telescope dish, the world’s largest single radio dish, and it operates 24-hours a day. The center opened in 1960 and has been a valuable source of scientific data for longer than I’ve been alive. It is in danger of losing funds. As we recently saw, the combined voices of Americans committed to a strong, healthy research program in the United States can make a difference. It was only the day before many people were laid off at Fermilab, that the President signed funding of $60M to keep the laboratory going another year. The basic sciences, and basic research are under attack in our country, and it is this very research that will expand our knowledge and capabilities and next generation of technology. If we do not safeguard basic R&D, and if our government decides to only fund “sure things” with commercial or military pay-offs, we will become a second rate scientific force, and this will lead to our nation being less capable of maintaining a leadership status in the coming decades when technology will advance so very rapidly.

We must show that we care more about the search for knowledge and truth than we care about baseball and NASCAR. I don’t mean to offend anyone’s sensibilities here, but you need to wake up if you think our standard of living and our position in the world can be maintained if we let the next scientific revolution pass us by. We were fortunate to be at the forefront of the computer revolution, but when it comes to genetics, robotics, nanotechnology and other leading areas of scientific research, you either decide to pony up and lead or you follow behind. Basic physics research is fundemental to our understanding of nature, and we should all be excited that Fermilab won’t have to severely cut back on staff and projects. We must not let that victory keep us from seeing that other basic research facilities still have great value and must not be squandered or allowed to waste away. The Arecibo telescope is a good example of one such facility. The public recognized the importance of saving the Hubble Space Telescope, and extending its mission. Likewise, we must recognize this terrestrial telescope still has a lot to offer. From a personal perspective, this has been one of the main telescopes used in the SETI project, to search for civilizations beyond Earth. Finding life beyond our fragile blue globe might just be one thing that would unite our fractured planet into a global community where we can recognize what we have in common more than fighting over our differences. Let your representative know that you don’t want to see it die.

Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope and the source for the SETI@home data that your computer analyzes, faces massive budget cuts that will END its ability to continue the search for life beyond Earth. The decision to ensure full funding currently rests upon votes in Congress on Senate Bill S. 2862 and House Resolution H.R. 3737. These bills desperately need more support.

Please take a moment to help us SAVE ARECIBO.

Clicking the link below will direct you to a web page that allows you to print out letters prepared for your Senators and Congressional Representative urging them to support Arecibo. Printing and mailing the letters is really easy, too! You will also have the chance to add a few personal thoughts, if you wish, to let your Senators and Representative know why this funding is important to you! And if you’re really feeling passionate about saving Arecibo, please use these letters as the basis for letters you write yourself, urging your congressmen and women to vote to save Arecibo.

Because our representatives in Congress rarely give much attention to all the email they receive, printing out and MAILING these letters via standard U.S. Postal mail remains our best option for contacting them and our best hope for saving Arecibo (The second best option is to call your representatives). Your 42 cent stamps on these letters could help us get the millions of dollars
needed to save Arecibo.

Our search cannot continue without the necessary support. Your work, as SETI@home participants, represents an indispensable resource for conducting the search. Now, we need your help to ensure that our other most valuable resource - our eyes and ears to the cosmos - can continue to probe the universe as we seek to answer the question: Is there anybody out there?

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/arecibo_letter.php

Thank you for your help,
The SETI@home Team

I’ve decided to write short stories. Long stories involve a commitment and a long, complicated plot. I think short stories will be a nice way to just focus for a couple hours on a topic. Usually I write from start to finish, and rarely go back and change things. I do my editing as I go, in a linear fashion. It’s like taking a dump. Hmmm…. maybe that’s not such a great example. (You decide if my writing is crap, hehe!)

I wrote this after lunch, and posted it on the arcology.com website of mine, where I started a little publishing venture. This short story is called Dreamstate. (http://www.arcology.com/FT/dreamstate.html)

Steve Wells at “Dwindling in Unbelief”, posts an insightful article with a whole list of Biblical atrocities committed by or at the behest of “you know who” (the “god of the bible”). Wow. They just sentenced a man to 4000 years in prison for raping 3 girls. Seems to me the sins of humans pale in comparison to this god’s capacity for cruelty and retribution. Steve figures if you asked a believer, they would agree a human shouldn’t do those things but argue it was alright for god to do it, because we don’t know “his plan”. (Isn’t that just the ultimate cop out?) Come on, who really wants to spend an eternity with a supreme being that makes Hannibal Lecter look like a pussy? Not me.

It is so nice to get up and not head into work on a Thursday. My holiday has already begun, and I am easing into it. I put the flag out, had a glass of juice and surveyed my kingdom. It is in serious need of work! (LOL) Cleaning, mowing, laundry, picking up random piles of crap. I also stopped by the new 24×7 gym to get a key for a week to try it out. So, I might head over there with the boys later today. I already spent enough to fun a small Central American army on fireworks, so, other than groceries (they’re also open 24×7) I am prepared for a 4-day siege in the kingdom of Null.

[I should have stopped here, but I just had to read the news!]

Checking out the morning news:

• Scientists use quantum mechanics (entanglement) to photograph something they aren’t looking at… - neat-o!
• North Pacific Gyre is a 1000 mile wide garbage patch in the Pacific. I want to write more about this another time.
• Ron Paul just won’t give up his rock star status - annoying Paulbots go away!
• It appears watermelon is good for you, with some bonus benefits!
• Because this guy says so, all the science supporting evolution is wrong I guess… (ROFL) This is how some uneducated evolutionist really think! Scary!
• Interesting data on the earth’s magnetic field.
  We’ve known for a while that the earth’s field is changing rapidly (in the past 300 years) so this is just more supporting evidence. I am sure the creationist will claim this is proof of impending armageddon, but the copious science behind a million different models like how the earth’s magnetic field works (clue: not magic) support the earth being really really old because these pole changes occur periodically hundreds of thousands of years apart.
• Is the Left mounting a Swift Boat campaign against McCain? Looks the same as 4 years ago.
• It used to be fun to go to reddit.com, but now it is filled with ignorant liberal wackos who just spin every story to support their view of a conspiracy-filled world by creating extreme, sensationalist headlines. The pro-Obama and pro-Ron Paul just come off to the rest of us as deluded, but there are some really hateful anti-Bush and anti-American people out there. It is depressing to see people so biased, and either oblivious to the fact or enjoying the ability to get together and twist the truth in ways so they can insult those they hate. I’ve said it before, the noisy people who come out of the woodwork on the Internet are not interested in truth or fairness, but just about being loud and hating anyone with an opposed viewpoint. They enjoy flaming others, and have no interest in constructive dialogue. They are just like the creationists who have their minds made up, and use the Internet to search for arguments that support their twisted view of things, and forums where they can feel special and get attention of others who think the same way. I can only hope that there really is a silent, sane and better educated minority out there. Reddit.com is all the evidence you need for why these people don’t write real newspaper headlines.

Reading the general Reddit.com feed is like trying to get a mouthful of clean water from a putrid fire hose. While there are some interesting articles there, most are stupid, redundant old links or have vile twisted (ha ha, I’m so clever) headlines. I had much better luck, and my blood pressure stayed low when I visited Digg - Science, and I found a really intersting Discover article on three leading areas in science. As the election nears, I am really going to have to crawl under a rock or find a cave far away from the partisan stench and the crap flinging monkeys at Reddit.com and similar sensationalistic sites that do nothing more than beat in your brain and lower your IQ.

Now I’m going to have to find something wholesome to do, so I can forget about all this stuff that makes me so damn angry! This is going to be a great 4-day weekend, we all just need to follow my friend’s advice and turn off the TV and Internet for a while!!