The B612 Foundation Works With JPL To Answer The Question:

Can we stop an asteroid from causing irreparable damage to planet earth using a Gravity Tractor?




The folks at the B612 Foundation have hired the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to use their advanced computer simulations to determine if a gravity tractor can significantly alter the course of a medium size asteroid enough so that it misses the "keyhole" -the "small region slightly further from the Earth than the resonance line per se, which would, should the asteroid pass through it result in an impact at the time of the resonant return."

Take it away B612:

B612 Foundation
760 Fifth Street East
Sonoma, CA 95476
707-343-1627
24 September, 2008
Summary Statement by B612 Foundation regarding its contract with JPL to conduct a detailed performance analysis of a transponder equipped Gravity Tractor spacecraft.
A successful NEO deflection campaign will involve several key functional elements, including the ability to, in situ, precisely determine the orbit of a threatening NEO prior to and post deflection, and to precisely adjust the NEO’s orbit to assure its successful passage between return keyholes at the time of its closest approach to Earth. B612’s contract with JPL called on it to quantify these two critical capabilities. The analysis verified the viability of the transponder-Gravity Tractor (t-GT) spacecraft to perform these critical deflection functions. A full report of this work is now available on the B612 website at http://www.b612foundation.org/press/press.html, #18.

The full report from JPL is available here, and here are some highlights from their conclusions:

1.5 Study Conclusions

1. This study has shown that a relatively simple and robust thrust control law can keep a gravity tractor spacecraft in close proximity to the station-keeping location required to effectively tow an irregularly shaped, rotating near-Earth asteroid. For our test case, the spacecraft could be kept within a 20 x 50 x 50 meter box at a nominal distance of 155 meters from the asteroid’s center-of-mass for a total translational ΔV monthly cost of 40 - 45 m/s with a corresponding monthly fuel consumption of only ~ 1.4 kg.
16. A gravity tractor could be useful for the possible case in which a primary deflection technique such as a kinetic impactor happens to move the asteroid trajectory into a keyhole; the gravity tractor could shift the asteroid’s trajectory enough to miss a secondary impact keyhole. At the same time, tracking of the gravity tractor spacecraft could provide precision orbit information for the asteroid before and after the primary deflection attempt and after the gravity tractor trim maneuver.
17. While the gravity tractor in our simulation example was a viable method for towing the asteroid away from the 2049 keyhole, and hence avoiding a 2054 Earth collision, there might be other impacting scenarios for which it would not be viable. Each threat scenario would have to be analyzed individually to determine whether a gravity tractor could be used to move an asteroid trajectory away from a keyhole.

Additional general study conclusions include the following:

• The most threatening NEAs are those on Earth similar orbits.
• Simulations show that most actual Earth impactor discoveries surpass 99% impact probability very early in the second optical apparition – or after optical and radar data are obtained during the discovery apparition.
• The primary deflection techniques (e.g., kinetic energy impactor) provide relatively uncertain amounts of deflection (e.g., the momentum multiplier β is unknown)
• Secondary impact possibilities (keyholes) must be carefully examined for each specific case.
• Determining potential keyholes during Earth encounters and determining optimal times for tractoring to avoid a keyhole passage requires fully perturbed, non-linear numerical analysis (two-body analyses do not suffice).
• The combination of radiometric tracking of a nearby spacecraft with optical imaging of the asteroid from the spacecraft is sufficient to significantly improve knowledge of an asteroid’s orbit. It is not necessary to place a transponder on the surface of the asteroid to achieve precise asteroid tracking.
• The asteroid orbit accuracy improvements provided by the spacecraft range from factors of 2 to 5 over the knowledge which can be obtained using only Earth-based observations of the asteroid. The size of the improvement is dependent on the relative viewing geometry and hence the time period over which the spacecraft is tracked.
• The amount of time it takes to realize these improvements in the knowledge of the asteroid’s ephemeris is measured in days to weeks. A spacecraft need not be in place for months or years for the improvements to take place.
• A close flyby, such as the one that occurs in 2046 for this scenario can magnify the asteroid’s position uncertainty for subsequent flybys by a large factor.

In review, it appears that we have the technology available to prevent a catastrophic impact provided we have the time to track and analyze the threat years before potential impact. What this should emphasize more is the reality that the kinetic energy that will be necessary to prevent an immediate impact -say, a threat that will hit in a year or less- is not available or even being considered at the present time. And more disturbing is the fact that this is not a bigger part of the budget at NASA.

I'm afraid that when this does become an issue, the time we've lost engineering a solution to this problem will become insurmountable. JPL and the B612 Foundation make me a little less concerned, but we still need to be aware of our shortcomings.

"Stupidity Is Not Necessarily Unconstitutional"

So says Judge John E. Jones III, the George W. Bush appointee who presided over the 2005 Intelligent design trial, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in Dover, Pennsylvania. This was the trial that essentially sunk any chance of allowing creationism to be taught as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes from a constitutional standpoint.

Via Charles Johnson at LGF, here's a neat video of a presentation and Q & A session with Judge Jones at Case Western University. His main point throughout is the sorry state of civics education in the public realm, and that he hopes trials like this will remind people about the elegant genius that is our US Constitution.

Also, be careful who you elect to your school board.

The Tennessee Titans Meet Their First Goal of the 2008 Season

Jeff Fisher, in his usual no nonsense manner, explained what that was at yesterdays postgame press conference after the Titans waxing of the Cleveland Browns to clinch the AFC South title:

"It's a rewarding feeling; our goal was to -when we left the playoff game in San Diego [last season] the day we came back was to have a home playoff game here, this year. That was our first goal, first and foremost. We have now guaranteed that. So now we move on to the next step."

One of the things I like about this Titans team this year is that they have the mentality of the underdog, the disrespected, the backwoods nobodies, the chip on the shoulder that many championship teams have taken all the way to the top. Take the NY Giants last year. They were given zero chance to beat the 18-0 (at the time) Patriots in the super bowl, but they pulled it out. The Red Sox and Patriot teams from the last few years have changed from that scrappy underdog in to the team people are tired of seeing win all the time.


I've watched the Titans since they arrived in Nashville, and I was recently reviewing an old preview post from the year they finally blew up the Super Bowl team cap space and the resulting damage was a 4-12 season.

Titans still look to make another run next year. McNair appears to be ready to rock- his annual off season surgery appears to have gone well. I can't imagine why he would appear in the NFL "Annie-Tomorrow" commercial if he didn't plan on returning. And we still have some young guns upcoming in Chris Brown, Tory Fleming and Ben Troupe. Add in the offensive genius of one Norm Chow, former offensive coordinator for the USC Trojans, as well as Ray Sherman as the new Wide Receivers coach, and all certainly does not appear lost. On the defensive side, check out this interview with Jim Schwartz, the defensive co-ordinator who after a 5-11 season last year seems pretty fired up about the upcoming one.

Yep. My enthusiasm that year was not exactly justified. The 4-12 year, that was rock bottom. Consider the price paid. Minus about three guys from that squad we give you your 2008 Titans. It's pretty much an entirely rebuilt team around franchise guys like Haynesworth and Bulluck.

Despite being second in scoring in the AFC, this Titans team won't exactly light up the highlight real. There are however, several very good reasons they have only lost ONE GAME ALL SEASON. And I believe that we will continue to see more reasons as they progress. But for now, I'll take 12-1 and the AFC South title for a guaranteed home playoff game.


TITANS!!!!

Fireball Meteor Caught On Tape

Edmonton had a nice fireworks show courtesy of the Universe on Thursday night-







The remains of the fireball are currently being searched for around Edmonton. They have estimated that this weighed about one to seven tons before it entered the Earth's atmosphere, and was five times as bright as a full moon. And after all of that there are only going to be softball sized pieces left of the rock itself.

And of course, now is the time when I link to The B612 PROJECT FOUNDATION.

Thanks To Those Who Served

Yes, I realize this isn't official by any means, but today there are a bunch of us like-minded bloggers who want to take this opportunity thank those who served in the US Military for their service in Iraq and the success they have achieved.

In particular, I also want to thank afew friends of mine personally Hagan, Erin, and Dave. You guys are the real deal and you deserve a day of honor for your service.

Thanks to all who served, and may this day mark a new direction for the hopes of Iraqi's and the rest of the world!

Yes, It Needs To Be Said.......

Victory In Iraq Day will be November 22, 2008.


The US Armed Forces ONCE AGAIN proved to be the single most liberating military force known to human history. In a little over five years the US and Coalition forces removed this scumbag from power:




So he could no longer do this:





And so he could no longer support Islamic terrorists who do things like this:

Kurdish Paper: Cooperation Between Saddam Regime, Al-Qaeda

The Kurdish daily Kurdistani Nwe has published a 2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency that it says proves that there was cooperation between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

The letter, which appeared on the paper's front page, was published by the intelligence apparatus of the Iraqi presidency and discussed an intention to meet with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in order to examine a plan drawn up by the Iraqi presidency to carry out a "revenge operation" in Saudi Arabia.

Delroy Murdock explains it the best in my opinion at the Hussein and Terror page:

Thus, there is abundant and undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein provided money, diplomatic services, shelter, medical care, and training to terrorists of every stripe, including those complicit in the 1993 WTC bombing and — according to a Clinton-appointed federal judge — the September 11 attacks. The Iraqi dictator aided al-Qaeda and other global terrorists who murdered Americans, both at home and abroad.

Saddam Hussein was a living threat to American national security and the safety of the civilized world. Earth is a safer place with him now where he belonged all along:

HANGED BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD.

VI Day, November 22nd. Mark your calendars.

The Latest from Despair.com

And it couldn't be more apt than it is today....

Congrats To Our New President-elect.

Barack Obama has attained the highest office in our land and deserves every bit of praise and support for his accomplishment. I don't agree with the majority of his policies, but Obama made history in the US tonight and he is surely who this country wanted to lead us the next four years.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his most famous "I have a dream" speech, he wished for the day when "my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

This is a momentous occasion in the history of the US, but I'm not convinced that Obama was elected sorely on the content of his character.

What I am convinced of is that this country will not deny someone the highest job in the land because of the color of their skin. This is what Dr. King dream t of and this is something very much worth celebrating.

Congrats and good luck President Obama.

Here's To Hoping McCain Pulls It Out, and Saluting America No Matter Who She Chooses

The best comment I've read concerning my Country's quad-annual reshuffling was from the following commenter El Mondo at pajamas media from this satirical post about Roger Simon moving to France if McCain loses...

61. ElMondo:

Of course I understand that all this talk of leaving the country is a joke at previous crying celebrities responses. But in spite of that, the sentiment has an undertone that’s mildly worrying. So to speak towards that, this Asian Catholic proffers a phrase from Jewish wisdom that seems particularly applicable here:

“gam zeh yaavor”… “This, too, shall pass”

No need to leave the country. It’s a big, strong, vital one, despite the economic downturn and recent cynicism. The fundamentals of what makes America strong haven’t changed; it’s just that those fundamentals reputation has taken a bruising, slightly deserved, but not totally so. Anyway, I believe it’ll take more than a bad president to really screw up this country. I may not like the direction it would head in for 4 years of an Obama presidency, but even he couldn’t undermine the heart and soul of what makes this country great.

I guess you have to be an immigrant to appreciate what a truly screwed up government is. Trust me, despite my distaste for an Obama administration, it won’t be anything remotely resembling a genuinely broken government. It’ll just have the potential to be a bad one. And who knows? Sometimes when put to the test, people rise above themselves.

Call me Pollyannaish, but it’ll take more than Obama/Biden to screw this nation up.

Jimmy Carter, despite being better than Nixon, failed to run this country in to the ground. So I have faith that even if Obama is worse than Carter, which is entirely possible, this country is too fundamentally sound to screw up.



People talk a lot about racism in the US, and how this election can "redeem" the reputation of America in the world, for a variety of reasons. But I always find it telling that the most vociferous defense of the values of America come from recent immigrants. Every country in the world has their own fair share of ignorance and racists, but the US is one of few places that is based on fundamental values that negates this type of ignorance. Some of these values usually mentioned are a combination of the good traditions from our ancestors -hard work, personal and family responsiblity- mixed with a common theme- LIBERTY. Freedom is an overused cliché to Americans, but it's almost a dirty word in other countries.

I now realize why people move here. This is the country where people are least afraid of their own government.



Now about those asteroids.............

John McCain Makes Letterman, Leno and Stern Look Like "Up and Coming Local Comedians"

You can vote for who you want, but this shite is farking hilarious.

Best line:

"But if you know know where to look, there are signs of hope. Even in the most unexpected places. Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats I can't shake the feeling that some people here are pulling for me.......


.........I'm delighted to see you here tonight Hillary..."




And then Senator McCain reminds everyone what a great farking country we live in.




To the rest of the world: Reports of Americas’ demise are greatly exaggerated.

Apocalypse Watch Has Begun

Its a fun weekend in Nashville kids!

Victor Hanson on Joe "GaffeyMcgaffenstein" Biden

It's really sad considering the last two VP's the Democrats have put up are a World Class Aldulterer and this guy-

Victor Hanson at The Corner:

And the Media Worries about Palin's Experience and McCain's Age? [Victor Davis Hanson]

I think in the space of about the last 24 hours, Joe Biden claimed that the AIG bailout was bad, but then said it wasn't bad;

that we did not need to burn coal;

that his apology about the dirty McCain ad was, as they say, inoperative;

that FDR once went on television to address the nation after the stock market crash of '29 (that's a twofer that trumps Obama's Americans liberating Auschwitz);

and all but said that McCain took a $50,000 bribe.

Not a bad day's work — encompassing terrible energy policy, flip-flopping, historical ignorance, and slander. And this comes on top of Palin the "good looking" "Lt. Governor" of Alaska, Hillary as the better VP pick than himself, the patriotism of paying higher taxes, and so on.

And those in turn come on top of the primary remarks about Indians in donut shops, and "bright and clean" blacks. And those in turn come on top of . . . (Well, go back to the pilfered speeches and made-up bios.)

Something is very wrong here. While most forgive the silly slip like "Barack America" or asking the wheel-chair bound to stand up, I think the Obama staff must have gone from amusement to embarrassment and now to serious concern whether Biden is up to the job.

Had this been Palin, the election would now be over.

This of course isn't surprising to anyone. Palin managed to meet a bunch of World Leaders recently and people were more interested in talking about how dumb she is.

If Biden and Edwards are your alternatives, I'll take dumb, thanks.

It's Time For Another Installment Of DEEP SPACE NEWS......

First up is the latest from NASA's Swift Satellite, which recently (ho-hum) picked up the single most luminous event ever witnessed by humans.

Take it away NASA-

On March 19, 2008, Swift discovered a bright Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB 080319B). The image shows the X-ray afterglow as seen by the X-Ray Telescope (left) and the bright optical afterglow as observed by the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope on board Swift.

Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler

The folks at the Eberly College of Science continue-

"Naked-Eye" Gamma-Ray Burst Was Aimed Squarely at Earth
10 September 2008 -- Unparalleled data from satellites and observatories around the globe show that the jet from a powerful stellar explosion on 19 March was aimed almost directly at Earth. The event, called a gamma-ray burst, became bright enough for human eyes to see. The burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material directly toward Earth at 99.99995 percent the speed of light.

NASA's Swift satellite detected the explosion -- formally called GRB 080319B -- at 2:13 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time that morning and pinpointed its position in the constellation Boötes. The Swift satellite is controlled by Penn State University from its Mission Operations Center at University Park, and Penn State led in the development and assembly of two of the Swift satellite's three telescopes. "Swift was designed to find unusual bursts," says Swift principal investigator Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We really hit the jackpot with this one."

By the way, this Gamma Ray Burst was 7.5 billion light years away, which is more than halfway across the visible Universe. Very cool, and even cooler that it did not irradiate the entire planet with lethal high-energy gamma and X-rays in a matter of seconds. That would be bad, mmmmkay?

Also we have the latest from the Rosetta Mission . It recently flew within 800km of an asteroid known as Steins, which is orbiting in our solar system more than 220 million miles from Earth, whilst en route to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In 2015 Rosetta will do with a comet what NASA did with an asteroid during the NEAR Shoemaker mission in 2001: land a spacecraft on said comet/asteroid and ideally transmit back some data.

Here is the 3-mile wide in diameter asteroid Steins-For an amazing video, click here and watch the actual animation of the raw data from Rosetta as it flew by Steins.


Yes, since you didn't ask I'll tell you: if this asteroid was on its way to earth and scheduled to hit us within the next five years, we would be pretty much farked. We have nothing remotely capable of diverting a 3 mile wide asteroid from it's pre-ordained path that is available to launch in the next five years.

Yes, the folks at the B612 Project Foundation are one of the only groups currently doing anything about this. As former astronaut and current B612 Foundation contributor Ed Lu and said recently-"The number of people, worldwide, who are actively working on this problem, is enough to staff one shift at McDonalds. And that's about accurate."

Sure looks pretty though, don't it?

And finally in somewhat related deep space news, they turned on the Large Hadron Collider and sent a pair of photon beams around the 17 mile long path in different directions successfully. No, they didn't create any mini-black holes which was the latest fad conspiracy. And they won't when they send the other photon beam in to collide with the first one. Hopefully.


Take it away Science Daily-

It will take about a month for scientists to align the proton beams traveling in opposite directions in the LHC so that proton-proton collisions are generated. The LHC will create almost a billion such collisions per second at an energy of 14 trillion electron volts. These collisions will take place at four points around its 17-mile ring, where the four main LHC experiments, including CMS, are located.

"This is an extremely important moment," said Clare, a professor of physics. "We are now on the verge of making hopefully many discoveries over the next years in our understanding of particle physics and how the universe works. For the first time in a long time, we will be breaking new ground. We may discover the Higgs boson; we may discover supersymmetry. We may discover completely new and unexpected phenomena, which would be by far the most exciting prospect."

For a good chuckle, check out The 5 Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World

Until next time thanks for reading the latest installment of DEEP SPACE NEWWWWWSSSSSSSSsssssss........

Is This The Year For The Tennessee Titans?

Can they win the Super Bowl this year?

Current Las Vegas odds put them at around 40:1 according to various sources, so there's what people with money think.

The majority of the talking heads on TV, print and alternative media don't even see the Titans finishing any better than the Houston Texans, and in most cases worse. There is a strong argument to be made that the AFC South actually has four playoff teams that should be playing in January, as they had the most last year with three. I can describe it in many ways, but the AFC South is one of the harder divisions to play in primarily because they have to play each other so much. There are no off days on division games. It is somewhat like the argument that the SEC makes in the NCAA Championship every year- "If we didn't have to play each other, we would've been undefeated". Actually, I guess it's like that for a reason; there are a ton of SEC players in the AFC South.

I normally don't make any pointless predictions about the season for any of the teams I like to follow, but this year I'm breaking with tradition.

THE TENNESSEE TITANS WILL WIN THE SUPER BOWL.

No hold on, I know what you're saying; Vince Young, no wide receivers. How can a team win a Super Bowl with a talented yet unpolished QB, and a wide receiver corps who would get shut down by Vanderbilt's secondary on most days? I don't necessarily disagree with these facts, because they are facts.

Vince Young has tons of talent but has been downright ugly at times in his decision making adjustments since he came to the the NFL. I've seen just about every NFL game snap he's had in the two years he's played. The list of plays he's made have ranged from walk-off homeruns in over time, like this-



to others like the abomination he had at home last year against the Atlanta Falcons, in which the Titans still won 20-13, thanks to the Defense. For an example of Vince also just being Vince, fast forward to about the 1:10 mark of this video and watch him throw a 2nd and 10 rollout directly to the other team as if he forgot what jersey they were wearing. That was also for my friends at DGDB&DM: A Texans Blog who will surely appreciate that video.


I think this is the year that Vince gets it together, mainly because Mike Heimerdinger has replaced Norm Chow as the Offensive coordinator. One thing Vince is not is a Matt Leinart Pac-10 style drop back QB. Chow and Young were never going to see eye to eye, and I'm not sure Chow worked all that well with McNair either. The last time Coach Heimerdinger was in charge of the Titans offense, Steve McNair shared the MVP of league with Peyton Manning. I have every reason to believe that Vince Young will fit better with Coach Heimerdinger based on what he was able to do with Steve McNair in terms of style. Steve was also a QB who could get the job done wth his legs too, running for four TD's in the 2003 MVP season. I think this was the problem with Vince last year, and it has now been corrected.

If Vince plays better, expect to see less whining about our Wide Receiver corps, because they do have some potential in the two Justin's- McCareins and Gage. Plus, the addition of pro-bowl Tight End Algae Crumpler will be a much needed safety valve option for Vince. Crumpler is used to playing with a non-traditional QB from his days with Michael Vick from Atlanta, so this could really be interesting.


Other than these two issues and the normal injury-free hopes for the starters, I can't really find any other big problems with the 2008 Titans lineup. The Defense appears ready to pick up where it left off last year. If pro-bowlers Albert Haynesworth and Kyle Vanden Bosch stay healthy, no one will be running against us, and our secondary is a year less green with true studs emerging at CB Courtland Finnegan and at safety Michael Griffin. We have one of the best LB's in the business in Keith Bulluck. Did I mention The Freak is back? Yes, Jevon Kearse has come back for another year to terrorize AFC South QB's again. How about thunder and lightning in the backfield with Lendale "Bowling Ball" White and Chris "What was that?" Johnson ?

Watch this run from Chris from this years preseason game against the Rams-



This kid should be fun to watch.


So there's my argument. I have no reason to root for or desire anything less than a Super Bowl Title for the Tennessee Titans. When you root for your team you should throw the odds and the talking heads out the window and cheer for them to win the whole damn thing. Why would I want to write anything less with this team? Sure, they have some issues, but which team doesn't?

Last year the Giants started out 35-1 odds to win the Super Bowl.

Iowahawk Reports From America

The internet is many things.


Today it is very, very funny thanks to Iowahawk:


America Speaks Out: "Juno" in Juneau?

Go forth in laughter my children, and all will make sense with the world!

Did He Really Say This?

I didn't get to watch all of the Obama speech tonight, so I read the transcript which is apparently available through The Corner, and the New York Times. Besides the enormous amount of scripted boilerplate that is pretty much verbatim of what all democrats have been whining about since Bush took office, there was this one line that stuck out considerably as Mr. Obama was discussing his non-policy of foreign policy......

You know, John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives.

Obama hasn't served in the military, and neither have several other great presidents, so I don't consider that a prerequisite for running for president.


However, I think it is the height of arrogance and contempt (not to mention UNTRUE) for Mr. Obama to claim that a guy who spent several years being tortured by the Vietcong is somehow afraid of going to a farking cave in Afghanistan.

Tonight On The Menu We Have.....

Sauteed Onion, Squash and Zucchini in Angel hair pesto pasta with Italian sausage....

Ingredients:
1 Zucchini
1 Onion
1 Squash
1 Bulb of Garlic
1/2 cup Pinenuts
1 Tbsp Green curry paste
1 splash Dave's Insanity Sauce
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/2 pound Italian Sausage
3 Handfuls of fresh Basil
Angel Hair Pasta
2 tsp salt
Fresh ground Pepper
1/2 tsp dill
1/2 tsp thyme


Brown Italian sausage with some garlic and salt, and drain the fat. Take all the vegetables, curry paste, hot sauce, lightly chopped garlic, and sauté with the salt pepper and spices to taste. Take the basil, pine nuts, olive oil, three cloves of garlic (peeled), 1 tsp of salt and ground pepper to taste and mix separately in a blender.

Cook pasta, drain and get one big mixing bowl.

Combine pasta and pesto first, then fold in both the sausage and vegetable mix.

Serve with salad, garlic bread and beverage of your choice...bon appetit!

Bush Did Not Lie About Iraq..

The common mantra that we hear repeated by the Major News Media is that the war in Iraq is a disaster that was fought under dubious pretenses. As further evidence comes to light we can now safely state that neither of these statements are true. Currently, the situation in Iraq is vastly improving on a daily basis, and attacks on coalition forces were the lowest they have been in the last several months than since the war started. The idea that the war in Iraq is a "failure" or a "disaster" is in stark contrast to the reality on the ground. What is not a debate is if the people of Iraq are much better off without a psychopathic dictator running the country anymore. This is a guy who raped and pillaged his own people for the better part of 30 years, and relentlessly purged any dissent. A dead Saddam is a vast improvement for the lives of the Iraqi people.

And as far as the lies that supposedly "duped" congress in to voting for the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq, I just came across a post by Randall Hoven at American Thinker that once and for all demolishes any argument that Bush "lied" to force us to war.

Read the whole thing of course, but here is the conclusion from the article-

The True Story

The Bush administration did not lie. Saddam's Iraq was a threat to the US that demanded the use of military force. That was not just Bush's "cowboy" opinion; that was the written law, passed by huge and bipartisan margins in both houses of Congress. That opinion was supported by both pre-war intelligence and post-war intelligence.

Moreover, the "legal case" was solid and Iraq was given chance after chance after chance. The authorization noted at least 10 UN resolutions, spread out over a decade, to justify the use of US military force. The Authorization noted that "the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in ... Public Law 107-40." The Authorization noted Public Law 105-235 (passed under President Clinton) that urged the President "to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations."

The invasion of Iraq was arguably the most justified case of military action the US has ever taken in its history, based on national defense, validated intelligence and legal authority, not to mention morality. Articles of impeachment would have made more sense if Bush had not invaded.

That the exact opposite story is what a majority of Americans appear to believe, and a super-majority of non-Americans, is a scary thought. The truth has been sabotaged, and not by President Bush or his allies.

People should not be allowed to make the claim that Bush "lied" about taking us to war in Iraq, nor should they now make the claim that Iraq is a "dismal failure" based on the available facts and evidence.

They can make the claim all they want, but IT ISN'T TRUE.

YO! LHC Raps!

This is why nerds don't make hip-hop tracks. The following is a rap video explaining what is going down with CERN's Large Hadron Collider,..Yo.



17 days until the first beam is fired, yo...word.

A B612 Foundation Cameo: Ed Lu For The Win!

I was watching the History Channel yesterday and they were replaying "The Last Days On Earth" from 2006. The show is a documentary that has some amazing science for the first hour and a half followed by a thirty minute lecture on why none of what they mentioned in the first half matters if we don't stop global warming because things will get too crowded and there won't be any water to drink.

Yes, it gets that stupid at the end. Even Al Gore gets in to compare global warming skeptics with the Tobacco executives who lied under oath to a grand jury in the 1970's. Fortunately for Al, another scientist says something so ridiculous and offensive that Al's own hypocrisy can be ignored. Bill McGuire, a Professor from University College in London, makes the argument that those who are skeptical about global warming are just as bad if not worse than those that deny the holocaust.

Yes, really. The History channel, to their credit, has a discussion board where you can read various posts in agreement about how insulting and absurd this comparison is. ("Last Days on Earth" -Insulting)


The show does however have a nice bit about asteroids, which comes in at #4 on the list of apocalyptic scenarios. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a little cameo where he gives bits of essentially the same speech from this lecture. Again, Mr. Tyson clearly lays out the specifics behind asteroids and the threat they raise to humanity. One of my favorite points he always makes is how Hollywood always shows an asteroid strike as this dramatic explosion where people slowly watch this streaking ball of fire crash in to a building or something. The reality is that these asteroids are moving at several thousand feet a second, at essentially hypersonic speed. This means that anyone anywhere near close enough to see this object slam in to the earth will be dead before they really see anything hit. Astronaut Stan Love, also a contributing member of The B612 Foundation, describes during the show thusly-

"If you are anywhere in the let's say 1000 mile diameter area where you can see this thing coming down, the light and the heat coming off it would just burn you to death immediately".

Here's a link to the computer analysis of what this impact would look like from a thermal level Via the Sandia Labs-

But the quote of the weekend, which further typified why this show had so much potential that fizzled out was this quote from Astronaut and B612 Foundation member Ed Lu-

Narrator: "So what is humanity doing to address this deadly threat?"

Astronaut Ed Lu: "The number of people, worldwide, who are actively working on this problem, is enough to staff one shift at McDonalds. And that's about accurate."

It is well past the time that NASA and the B612 Foundation start planning a mission to Apophis to track and further detail our respective options for mitigating the threats posed by asteroids. U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has been backing the efforts of the B612 Foundation, and this issue needs continual support.

We need more people than one shift at McDonalds.

Are you ready for some football?

So What Is Space Made Out Of?

Here is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image.





There are an estimated 10,000 galaxies in this picture. Each galaxy, like our own, may contain millions to trillions of stars. Our own star, what we collectively refer to as "the sun" is this much bigger than the Earth.



Notice in each picture you see a lot of black stuff. That black stuff has a gravitational pull on everything in each picture, and for lack of a better term we have called it Dark Matter and dark energy, which put together make up 96% of the universe that is visible to us.

Now we are trying to recreate the conditions that allow us to observe dark matter/energy in the lab. It takes a big science experiment to make this happen.



Say hello to the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator complex intended to collide opposing beams of protons at a rate which will allow us to test theories about particle physics in ways that we haven't been able to try before.

Here's a picture timeline of the 25 some year history of the LHC. And here is the main page of the site complete with countdown to flipping of the switch and everything.

I'm fascinated to find out which theories about quantum mechanics are supported, and how they relate to the rest of the universe. Can you imagine if Newton were alive to see this today? It would be the equivalent of Darwin observing our completion of the human genome.

Neat time to be alive folks, that's all I'm sayin.

Oh, and ah TITANS!!!!!!!!

This One's For Me Sis

Stand and Deliver.......and whatnot......Thankyou Sis for staying sufficiently obscure.


We are both better off.

So A Lot Of People Ask Me.............

.......whaddaya think about the whole "Manny being a Dodger" thing.

I respond succinctly:

Have you ever had a job where you failed at what you're paid to do 2 out of the 3 times you do it, and then the company that fires you pays your new boss a $7 million advance for two months of your future employment just so you won't be around anymore?


Me neither.

Thanks for the Jazz-hands Manny. We'll miss you!

Bosox fans, Say hello to your new left fielder Jason "I-can't-believe-I'm-playing-for-the-BOSTONREDSAWX" Bay-


Bay triples, scores winning run as Red Sox clip A's in extras

So yeah, I think the current World Champion Boston Red Sox Organization will be just fine thank you.

Time For Some New Reading Material

Recently I've been going back and forth between reading about two subjects that are near and dear to me; Evolution and Near Earth Objects. In doing so I've been running across the familiar faces I admire who are involved in the debate about these subjects such as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens in terms of evolution, and Rusty Schweickart and David Morrison on the NEO side.

But there's this other guy that keeps showing up in these debates, and the funny part (for me anyways) is that he shows up with regularity as a recognized and respected perspective in both debates.

His name is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is an astrophysicist and, since 1996, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. You may also recognize him from PBS's educational TV show NOVA scienceNOW.

I was reading the following Gizmodo.com report of a recent public lecture by Rusty Schweickart about the B612 Foundation and I came across this video of Mr. Tyson discussing Apophis, the asteroid scheduled to buzz the earth in about 30 years.


And here he is discussing what the B612 Foundation and others have been working on to resolve the deflection "problem"-


Great stuff. Mr. Tyson breaks it down in layman's terms effortlessly. I've seen him on other shows before, but this was a neat explanation of the facts behind NEO's like Apophis and what is currently being done about it.

I have also been following the recent intellectual purging that Charles Johnson has been subjecting his audience to over at Little Green Footballs. He's been taking on each and every last idiotic and ignorant stance on creationism/intelligent design and flailing it mercilessly in to a beaten stump of denial, and in doing so getting the full wrath from the usual suspects. It's been refreshing for me to watch this happen as his stances on politics are similar to mine, yet the audience that has made his site one of the most visited on the web had a reputation for being knuckle-dragging creationist-conservatives. His posts on evolution have cleared any misconceptions about what the owner of the site believes.

As I was thumbing through some of the more recent discussions in the evolution debate , I came across, well, Neil Tyson again.

And in this following video from the Beyond Belief 2006 Forum , Mr. Tyson takes the evolution debate and sort of turns it on its head by taking some angles that I bet you haven't heard of before. For instance (about 8:45 in) he talks about how Sir Isaac Newton himself could be considered a proponent of intelligent design and still be wrong, so maybe that's what we need to be teaching in science class. He also brings up 9/11 (he lives four blocks from ground zero) to make a point about Arabic culture and creationism that should be a lesson for humanity.



Next step for me was to order his recent book, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, and now I basically have to ignore the web because I don't want to spoil the book.




Thank you video poker. I'll post a review when I finish the book.

Update:.....so I found this video of Tyson on the Daily Show......so sue me, alright?


Daily Show - Neil Degrasse Tyson Pt 1 Comedy Video via Noolmusic.com

The Dark Knight Mirrors Bush?

Somehow I don't see our current president riding the batpod without killing himself and several bystanders simultaneously, but Mr. Andrew Klavan makes some interesting points in his recent WSJ article...

What Bush and Batman Have in Common
By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Mr. Klavan talks about the current Hollywood movies that depict the actual wars going on right now in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how they appear to be more interested in moral equivalence than right vs. wrong, whereas The Dark Knight never hesitates. It spells it out the entire movie:

We all know what evil men can do. And we know we have to stop it. We don't know how far we will have to go to stop it, but one thing we know for sure, the evil men aren't going away.

I've Found Someone Who Almost Makes Stephen A. Smith Tolerable

Skip Bayless decided to jump on in to the Ledger/Nicholson Joker debate recently and he achieved something monumentally difficult; make Stephen A. Smith a.)stop yelling and b.)not sound like an idiot.

Very sly senor Bayless.....



I plan on writing some thoughts about The Dark Knight here soon, but I need to see it again and this time in IMAX because it really whizzes by even at two and a half hours.

And if you haven't seen it yet, go immediately. There hasn't been a villain like this that scrapes the very depths of mankind's potential for evil since Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, and the Joker is just one part of the movie.

Is there anything that ISN'T on youtube?

The Allman Brothers on David Letterman from the 90's?


Yep, we have that.

Ron Bailey Reports From The Conference on Global Catastrophic Risks

Saturday's subject was the one yours truly was extremely interested in hearing about..

It Came From Outer Space

Ronald Bailey | July 19, 2008, 7:21pm

July 19, Oxford, UK-Death by asteroids, comets and gamma ray bursts was on the agenda of the conference on Global Catastrophic Risks this morning. First up was NASA senior scientist David Morrison to talk about the Spaceguard Survey and the threat of a catastrophic asteroid strike.......
..........According to Morrison, 80 percent of the NEAs that are a kilometer or more in size have been identified. Consequently, Morrison could happily assure the assembled Oxford catastrophe mavens, "We are not going the way of the dinosaurs." Why because the Spaceguard Survey has not turned up any NEAs near the size of the one that likely killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That asteroid measured between 10 and 15 kilometers and blasted the 180 kilometer-wide Chicxulub crater.

Bailey reports that "Morrison groused that NASA has spent only $ 4 million on Spaceguard and argued that the magnitude of the risk merits a budget of half a billion dolars."

The impression I get from the conference is that we still aren't looking at this issue from a reasonable cost-benefit analysis. The budget for NASA is usually in the $18-20 billion range the last few years, and it's inexcusable that we've spent such a mere pittance on resolving the one issue that would make all of NASA'S other projects a moot point.


As always, please visit the folks at the B612 Foundation for more.

People Ask Me Sometimes Why I'm Not In A Band Anymore...

I tell them it's because when you live in Nashville a guy like this-



probably served your dinner at that restaurant last night.

Welcome to Music City Kids!

Update: To answer my sisters question, this sensational guitar player is the Australian Tommy Emmanuel.

20 Years Later, And This Film Still Kicks Ass

My buddy Mark and I were in high school when we wore a VHS version of this movie out to the point that we probably could've recited the entire script from memory.


Midnight Run

Below are some of the greatest clips from the movie via Youtube. If you haven't seen this movie then I would suggest watching it first, and then watching this clip.

Rated R For Swear words and such. You have been warned.

Fourth Of July Feast.

Appetizers were a fruit salad with mint and cilantro, grilled jalapeno peppers stuffed with chevre and wrapped in pancetta and bacon, and some fresh guacamole.

Main course was this year we have the standard Tmans Ribs which we did on the grill instead of the smoker, grilled salmon steaks (that spent the night in a marinade of olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon slices, and covered in fresh rosemary and thyme), a rib eye steak, pork chipolte tacos and sides of grilled squash and zucchini in roasted red chile paste and corn on the cob in herb butter.

I'm stuffed. Happy Fourth Everyone!!

That's A Big Flag...

Let's hand it over to the folks from the NASA Image of the Day Gallery-

Stars and a Stripe in Celestial Fireworks

A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.

100 Years Later....

Today is the 100th anniversary of the 30-megaton explosion over a desolate Siberian Forest, known as The Tunguska Impact-

Via Wikipedia-

The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a massive explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, at around 7:14 a.m.^[1] (0:14 UT, 7:02 a.m. local solar time^[2]) on June 30, 1908 (June 17 in the Julian calendar, in use locally at the time).^[2]

The explosion was most likely caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3–6 miles) above Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates for the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.^[3]

The Tunguska event is believed to be the largest impact event on land in Earth's recent history;^[8] impacts of similar size in remote ocean areas would have gone unnoticed before the advent of global satellite monitoring in the 1960s and 1970s.

(Damage from the impact)

This particular anniversary at the very least would have been much more somber day had the impact occurred several hours earlier. As you can see from this picture, St. Petersburg lines up relatively close to the center of the impact on latitudinal lines.



I think it's safe to say that if this impact happened in a major urban area like St. Petersburg which it very well could have done, our priorities today in terms of space exploration and human survival in general would be very different.

There are positive signs from Congress that NASA has been given the ok to start projects that are primarily designed to resolve the logistics behind altering the course of a potentially devastating earth impact. Let's hope this continues.

Happy "Thank God A Million People Didn't Die In One Impact" Day!

I Can't Believe I'm Saying This But.....CONGRESS FOR THE WIN!!!

Via KurzweilAI.net-

House passes bill mandating a plan for asteroid warning and deflection

KurzweilAI.net, June 27, 2008


In recently passed H.R.6063, The U.S. House of Representatives would direct the NASA Administrator to develop plans for a low-cost space mission to rendezvous with the Apophis asteroid and attach a tracking device (subject to Senate approval).

The Apophis is expected to pass at a distance from Earth that is closer than geostationary satellites in 2029.

The bill would also require the Director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop a policy within two years for notifying Federal agencies and relevant emergency response institutions of an impending near-Earth object threat. And the OSTP would be required to recommend a Federal agency (or agencies) to be responsible for protecting the Nation from any near-Earth object anticipated to collide with Earth, and for implementing a deflection campaign.

This is extremely good news. NASA has been pretty much ignoring this issue while they concentrate on missions that excite people more such as trips to Mars etc. At the last senate hearings in November 2007- [nai.arc.nasa.gov]- here is Scott Pace, from the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation at NASA:

"NASA would be pleased to implement a more aggressive NEO program, if so directed by the President and Congress. However, given the constrained resources and strategic objectives the Agency has already been tasked with, NASA cannot place a new NEO program above current scientific and exploration missions."

Well, here you go Mr. Pace. You have now been so directed. Get crackin'. As I said over at Gizmodo, PUT THESE GUYS ON THE JOB.

THE B612 FOUNDATION.

Saturday Night Feast

Grilled sirloin with a grilled zuchini-squash-jalapeno-red chili paste mix. Side garlic bread....Bon apetit!

Friday Night Downtown Nashville......

TOP OF THE WORLD MA!!......or third floor downtown, whatever..

Ladies And Gentlemen, I Give You Your 2008 NBA Champion Boston Celtics!!!!!

I'm barely able to type right now after listening to Kevin Garnett explain how winning this title was the same as finally laying out that bully at school, words can't explain.

But hey, I'll give you nine. Here are the nine players taken BEFORE Paul Pierce in the 1998 NBA draft...

1 Michael Olowokandi (C)
2 Mike Bibby (PG)
3 Raef LaFrentz (C/F)
4 Antawn Jamison (F)
5 Vince Carter (G/F)
6 Robert Traylor (F/C)
7 Jason Williams (PG)
8 Larry Hughes (SG)
9 Dirk Nowitzki (PF)

Take it home Paul Pierce......WOW, what a team......

Defense BEATS LA!!! AGAIN!!!

I wrote the following post four years ago before the 2004 Detroit Pistons proved all of the naysayers wrong by demolishing the three time champion Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal led LA Lakers in five games by playing THE BEST DEFENSE.

So did anyone else read this Bill Russell column in the Wall Street Journal?....
...............Anyone?.........No?


See, since I only have time to read one paper every day, I choose the Journal. I choose the WSJ mainly because they don't pretend to be unbiased. The paper is primarily concerned with money, and what it's doing. You can elaborate, which the Journal does and say the philosophy behind the paper is Free Markets, Free people, and you would be right. It isn't a coincidence that those two go together. You could criticize it and say that it's conservative/republican biased. I would disagree. Albert Hunt bashes Bush worse than anyone in the New York Times. There is always a "this is good, but" media balancing act in every front page political briefing. Free markets, Free people, that's the only bias.

As a bonus, The WSJ somehow managed to get Bill Russell, the Hall Of Famer (who won 11 NBA championships with the Boston Celtics in 13 seasons (1957, 1959-66, 1968-69)) to pen a column about the beauty of this years NBA Finals.

DEFENSE.

I'm not exactly sure if I'm breaking any laws here, but I want to post the whole article, with a link to the original, because after the absolute beating the Pistons gave the Lakers tonight, it almost writes itself. Keep in mind that Bill Russell rarely, if ever even grants interviews, never mind writing his own column.

Enjoy.........and buy a journal or something....

An NBA Finals Victory
Begins With Team Defense

By BILL RUSSELL

June 8, 2004; Page D14

As we saw Sunday in Game One of the NBA Finals (the most exciting time of the NBA season), defense is the tiebreaker. Tonight, as the Los Angeles Lakers meet the Detroit Pistons for Game Two, defense will continue to be the key.

I always would rather play in and win a close game with unrelenting defense and a final score of 84-83 than a game where one team scores 120 points and wins by 15. Dunks and great passes are always exciting, and even so-called low-scoring games have their share of them. But nothing compares to the subtle beauty of a winner absolutely taking away the other team's "game."

Defense is an action, not a reaction. Great defense attacks an opponent's offense vs. reacting to it.

When I was playing for them, the Boston Celtics won an unprecedented 11 championships in 13 seasons, from 1957 to 1969, by embracing a team strategy that I call "team ego." Team ego recognizes the collective alignment of everyone's individual talents for the benefit of the team. Team defense wins games. Team defense -- that is, the coordinated efforts of five individuals -- wins championships. From high school to the NBA, I played 21 years of organized basketball and won 18 championships, including the record 11 NBA titles, by focusing on our being the better defensive team.

How does one team become the better defensive team?


Game One of the NBA Finals.


The most successful defensive teams understand one critical reality: All players have patterns of play. Wilt Chamberlain was bigger, stronger and faster than almost any center to play the game. When his team was on offense, Wilt like every other player had one particular place he liked to start his offensive pattern from. By simply "nudging" Wilt a few inches (any more would have tipped him off to what I was doing) from that "starting" spot, I quietly took Wilt out of his comfort zone of play.

Great defensive teams study the offensive patterns of every team and every player they play against. Great defensive teams understand the predictability of their opponents' offensive patterns. All great offensive players are predictable. Still, it's inconceivable that any team can always take away its opponent's first shot option or favorite move or favorite starting offensive position. But in team defense, the core operating principle is to reduce efficiency. Our game plan never varied, we could let our opponent's star offensive player score 35 points, but if we could take away Jerry West, Oscar Robertson or Walt Frazier's preferred shot and cause him to miss three, four, five or six shots...we believed that we could convert those misses into Celtic points.

This week during The Finals, try watching the Lakers and the Pistons differently. Watch for the team that builds its defense around taking away its opponent's preferred shots (its first option) or preferred shooting positions. Watch Kobe Bryant or Ben Wallace try to force their opponents into their second or third options. As we began taking our opponents out of their offensive comfort zone, our team would subtly begin backing up each other to compensate for these defensive changes. This team defensive effort was singularly what created the Celtics' records.

The second characteristic of great team defense is a team that understands the power of invisibility. I can admit this now, some 35 years after my last game: I used to get this great joy from having my opponents "look for me." Why? Because it distracted them and took them out of their pattern of comfort. Defense is about breaking your opponent's offensive patterns, breaking its concentration and subtly modifying its offensive schemes. Blocking shots, stealing passes and causing turnovers all distract its concentration. Team defense is as much a psychological strategy as it is a tactical weapon.

In the end, an offense feeds off of its defense. And effective offenses begin with effective defense.

Our Celtic style of play is timeless and will always be relevant. I see a number of players and teams in the NBA who understand the subtle art and science of defense. Wallace of the Pistons comes to mind. Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers clearly earned the Defensive Player of the Year award. And while both Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Bryant of the Lakers are known for their scoring ability, they also are among the best players in shutting down their opponent.

It is no mystery why the Lakers, Timberwolves, Pistons and Pacers were all within sight of The Finals. Four of the five players named to the All-NBA Defensive First Team made it to the Conference Finals -- Wallace, Bryant, Artest and Garnett. In fact, the past 15 NBA champions ranked in the top five in at least one of the two major defensive categories (points and field-goal percentage) during the regular season or postseason.

I don't know who will win tonight, or if it will be the Lakers or Pistons to emerge as the 2004 NBA champions. But I do know how the eventual champion will arrive at the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Since the Celtics transformed basketball, defense wins championships.

Mr. Russell, who played for the Boston Celtics from 1956 to 1969, was named Sports Illustrated's Greatest Team Player on the Greatest Team of the 20th Century and is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and the NBA's 50 Greatest Players.

Ladies And Gentlemen, I give you your 2008 NBA Defensive Player of the Year




BEAT LA.

Congrats To Josh And Nicole, That Was An Awesome Wedding...

BEAT L.A.!! BEAT L.A.!!!

How much did we Celtics fans hate the LA Lakers back in the day?


This much:

1982 Eastern Conference Finals, Philadelphia 76ers at Boston Celtics-Game 7...

The 76ers are cruising as the Celtics are down by 12 points with 30 seconds left in the game, and it's serious garbage time as the game winds down the final seconds. The crowd at the Boston Garden has realized defeat is upon them, and there will be no Boston team this year in the NBA Finals. But they already know that the LA Lakers will be the team from the West representing in the Finals against the 76ers.

That means there is only one thing left to do.........





Bring it LA.





Update:

I'm adding this wonderful youtube gem for posterity...



Update revised:

Oh, and this too. This is how you celebrate a World Championship..