Eideard

Today marks the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell“. The law is repealed. From this day forward Gay and Lesbian soldiers may serve in our Army with the dignity and respect they deserve. Our rules, regulations and policies reflect the repeal guidance issues by the Department of Defense and will apply uniformly without regard to sexual orientation, which is a personal and private matter.

Click on the link above for the whole statement.

Overdue.

They are crap spilling over the rim of the overstuffed garbage can of history.

 
A new video from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft takes us on a flyover journey above the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta.

The data obtained by Dawn’s framing camera, used to produce the visualizations, will help scientists determine the processes that formed Vesta’s striking features. It will also help Dawn mission fans all over the world visualize this mysterious world, which is the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt.

You’ll notice in the video that Vesta is not entirely lit up. There is no light in the high northern latitudes because, like Earth, Vesta has seasons. Currently it is northern winter on Vesta, and the northern polar region is in perpetual darkness. When we view Vesta’s rotation from above the south pole, half is in darkness simply because half of Vesta is in daylight and half is in the darkness of night .

Another distinct feature seen in the video is a massive circular structure in the south pole region. Scientists were particularly eager to see this area close-up, since NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope first detected it years ago. The circular structure, or depression, is several hundreds of kilometers wide, with cliffs that are also several miles high. One impressive mountain in the center of the depression rises approximately 15 kilometers above the base of this depression, making it one of the highest elevations on all known bodies with solid surfaces in the solar system.

Enjoy. Who knows? Your children or grandchildren may visit someday.

Thanks, Cinaedh

Thousands of pro-independence Basque citizens march in the rain in San Sebastián, northern Spain, to demand the freedom of Arnaldo Otegi, the former leader of outlawed Basque independence party Batasuna who was sentenced on 16 September to 10 years in jail.

I went looking for photos of the demonstration; but, my eye was caught by all the umbrellas. In Seattle or Boston, even in London or Glasgow, you wouldn’t see so many umbrellas in a rainy demonstration.

I haven’t the slightest explanation for the preference. It rings no responsive chord in these Celtic genes.

Sony is preparing to ban gamers from the PlayStation Network (PSN) unless they waive the right to collectively sue it over future security breaches. The firm has amended PSN’s terms and conditions and users have to agree to them next time they log in…

The new clauses, dubbed “Binding Individual Arbitration,” state that “any Dispute Resolution Proceedings, whether in arbitration or court, will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class or representative action or as a named or unnamed member in a class, consolidated, representative or private attorney general action”…

Those that want to opt out will have to send a letter to Sony’s Los Angeles headquarters in the US. Once they do, the subscribers will be able to keep their right to file a class action lawsuit without any need for arbitration.

But before subscribers have a chance to opt out, they will still be required to agree to the new terms the next time they log into their accounts. Otherwise they will not be able to use the online services.

In many countries, forcing individuals to agree to contracts which violate constitutional rights – are automatically invalid. Someone might mention that to Sony.

One year ago this week, America got a wake-up call about a core problem in our politics that empowers ideological extremists and special interests…

In the tea party-driven purges of 2010, Mike Castle was considered a traitor to the conservative cause because he had a record of working across the aisle. And so they turned to activist and serial candidate Christine O’Donnell.

Keep a few things in mind. O’Donnell had just five in-state donations in the first quarter of the 2010 cycle. But in the third quarter, as the RINO-hunting fever took hold, she received a quarter-million dollars in tea party national activist cash.

On September 14, 2010, she beat Castle in a closed partisan primary in which only 32% of Republicans voted (and keep in mind that Republicans are a distinct minority in Delaware).

The result? In November, Republicans lost a Senate seat they were likely to win, especially in a GOP-leaning year…

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s story in Washington is less well known, but no less resonant. Tea party primary challenges are already infamous, but left-wing challenges to more centrist Democrats are in the process of catching up…

The real issue in his re-election, however, was his embrace of education reform, led by his controversial but nationally known schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee — one of the stars of the education reform documentary “Waiting for Superman.”

Teachers unions are among the top donors to Democratic campaigns. They expect their way to be obeyed. And they decided to use Fenty as an example. They ended up pouring about $1 million into the September closed partisan primary, in which Fenty faced City Council President Vincent Gray.

That money — and directly linked get-out-the-vote efforts — ended Fenty’s tenure as mayor despite a majority of residents saying that the city had improved under his watch…

The parties have forgotten that they are not the purpose of our politics. So here’s one reform whose time has come: Replace closed partisan primaries with open primaries — like those in California and New Hampshire and many other states — allowing independents and other candidates full access to the political process.

RTFA. There’s a bunch of details over at the original article for those of you who follow the smell of American politics – within the least progressive 2-party system ever created to satisfy the needs of corporate dollars and congressional clowns.

Open primaries only let you vote once; so, you must choose the primary you want to participate in. This whole process could be taken a couple more steps towards real democracy; but, this alone would be a big step. I would no longer have to register as a Democrat long enough to get through primary season in New Mexico – and then unregister to sleep easier as an independent.

The Beatles showed their support for the US civil rights movement by refusing to play in front of segregated audiences, a contract shows.

The document, which is to be auctioned next week, relates a 1965 concert at the Cow Palace in California. Signed by manager Brian Epstein, it specifies that The Beatles “not be required to perform in front of a segregated audience”.

The agreement also guarantees the band payment of $40,000 (£25,338). Other requirements include a special drumming platform for Ringo Starr and the provision of 150 uniformed police officers for protection…

The Beatles had previously taken a public stand on civil rights in 1964, when they refused to perform at a segregated concert at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.

City officials relented, allowing the stadium to be integrated, and the band took to the stage.

“We never play to segregated audiences and we aren’t going to start now,” said John Lennon. “I’d sooner lose our appearance money.”

I knew there was another great reason why I always loved the Beatles. Actually, among folks active in the civi rights movement – in the Land of the Free – we all knew about the Beatles’ stance against racism. It was only the “official” newspapers and radio and TV stations that wouldn’t admit it.

Video-game players have solved a molecular puzzle that stumped scientists for years, and those scientists say the accomplishment could point the way to crowdsourced cures for AIDS and other diseases.

“This is one small piece of the puzzle in being able to help with AIDS,” Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington, told me. Khatib is the lead author of a research paper on the project…

The feat, which was accomplished using a collaborative online game called Foldit, is also one giant leap for citizen science — a burgeoning field that enlists Internet users to look for alien planets, decipher ancient texts and do other scientific tasks that sheer computer power can’t accomplish as easily.

“People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at,” Seth Cooper, a UW computer scientist who is Foldit’s lead designer and developer, explained in a news release. “Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans.”

For more than a decade, an international team of scientists has been trying to figure out the detailed molecular structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus found in rhesus monkeys. Such enzymes, known as retroviral proteases, play a key role in the virus’ spread — and if medical researchers can figure out their structure, they could conceivably design drugs to stop the virus in its tracks…

That’s where Foldit plays a role. The game is designed so that players can manipulate virtual molecular structures that look like multicolored, curled-up Tinkertoy sets. The virtual molecules follow the same chemical rules that are obeyed by real molecules. When someone playing the game comes up with a more elegant structure that reflects a lower energy state for the molecule, his or her score goes up. If the structure requires more energy to maintain, or if it doesn’t reflect real-life chemistry, then the score is lower…

The challenge fit the current capabilities of the Foldit game, so Khatib and his colleagues put the puzzle out there for Foldit’s teams to work on. “This was really kind of a last-ditch effort,” he recalled. “Can the Foldit players really solve it?”

They could. “They actually did it in less than 10 days,” Khatib said.

RTFA for lots of details. Especially make it through to the end with an email comment from one of the lead gamers known simple as “mimi”. So many aspects of this research are interesting.

DA Gerry Leone initiated the cold case program after taking office in 2007

State Police arrested and charged a Holyoke man last night with a 1983 slaying, moving to close an investigation that had been open for 28 years.

The Middlesex district attorney’s office said Shawn Marsh, 46, of Holyoke, had been indicted by a Middlesex grand jury and arrested by State Police in connection with the homicide after evidence against him emerged through new fingerprint testing technology…

The case dates to Aug. 22, 1983, when Malden police, responding to reports of gunshots, found Rodney Wyman, of Simsbury, Conn., suffering from a gunshot wound at the Town Line Motel in Malden. Wyman was rushed to Malden Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities said an immediate investigation into the case yielded no arrests at the time because of a lack of evidence…

The technology, including a national fingerprint identification database, had not been developed at the time of the homicide. The system was launched by the FBI in 1999 and contains the fingerprints, criminal history, and physical description of more than 66 million criminal subjects. It is the largest biometric database in the world…

Authorities alleged that the defendant and another suspect, who has yet to be identified, shot Wyman after breaking into his hotel room with the intention of robbing him.

Bravo. I’m enough of a CSI-freak as it is. But, re-opening and solving cold cases like this one are a special benefit of advances in forensic science.

Looks great full-screen, ~11 minutes and worth every second

Thanks, Ursarodinia