So I’m sitting here trying to finish my book, writing about the inevitable collision of the Andromeda Galaxy with the Milky Way, when literally I take a few seconds to check my email. And what do I see?

Beauty. Sheer, incredible, perfectly coincidentally-timed beauty. Behold:

Holy Haleakala! Click on it for access to a much, much more beautiful version. This small one does it no justice at all.

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Yahoo! News is reporting that a couple of large meteorites up for auction were withdrawn because the bidding didn’t go high enough.

A 30-pound chunk of the Willamette Meteorite which fell in Oregon a few thousand years ago only got up to $300k in the auction, and they were hoping for $1.3 million. I am not an expert, but that strikes me as a tad high. 30 pounds is 13,600 grams, and hoping for $100/gram is, IMO, insane. It’s a beautiful piece, to be sure, but they probably should have taken the $300,000.

The other meteorite was the Brenham meteorite, which fell in Kansas and was dug up a couple of years ago. It’s a Pallasite, which is a relatively rare and beautiful type of meteorite (it’s my fave, actually), and it only got a top bid of $200,000, a third of what was hoped.

I’m sure eventually they’ll sell the pieces; collectors of such high-end pieces may not be interested in bidding at public auctions. I don’t mind bidding on small pieces; I have a couple of dozen meteorites I’ve picked up here and there (they are so cool!); maybe someday I’ll be able to get a few really nice pieces.

But $100k+? Heh. Dream on.

BABloggee TPrime pointed out to me that the image I posted of Comet 17/P Holmes yesterday reminded him of something, and it didn’t take long for him to figure it out…

Hmmm. Maybe I should upgrade soon. Apple is obviously spending a lot of cash on advertising!

I do sometimes comment on political activity, especially when it intersects — and tramples — science. The Bush Administration has been appallingly heavy-handed about crushing any science that goes against its political and religious leanings.

Last week, I posted about the White House redacting large portions of a speech given by the head of the Centers of Disease Control when she spoke about how the CDC is preparing to deal with the effects of global warming.

In a recent post I made about global warming, a reader, clearly unsatisfied with my posts, asked if I would take back what I said since the head of the CDC herself said it wasn’t a big deal.

I read that link, and was immediately suspicious: it’s from the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and those guys are neocon lackeys of the worst sort. So I said I would wait and see what the changes to the speech actually were, and comment then.

Good thing I did. As usual, the WSJ is full of it. The changes made by the White House were extensive, and clearly along the same line as their usual antiscience attacks on reality.

So, to answer the commenter: no, I won’t take it back. In fact, what I wrote was correct, and, if anything, the situation is worse than I originally thought.

You can find the actual edits to the speech here and here. It’s appalling: the White House removed a solid 1/3 of the speech. Some of it is harmless enough, but other parts make their agenda clear. Here’s one part taken out:

Scientific evidence supports the view that the earth’s climate is changing. A broad array of organizations (federal, state, local, multilateral, faith-based, private and nongovernmental) is working to address climate change. Despite this extensive activity, the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern.

Maybe the White House doesn’t consider global warming "a serious public health concern". I sure do. Any reality-based person would. So why was this part taken out?

Or how about this:

In the United States, climate change is likely to have a significant impact on health, through links with the following outcomes:

* Direct effects of heat,
* Health effects related to extreme weather events,
* Air pollution-related health effects,
* Allergic diseases,
* Water- and food-borne infectious diseases,
* Vector-borne and zoonotic diseases,
* Food and water scarcity, at least for some populations,
* Mental health problems, and
* Long-term impacts of chronic diseases and other health effects

If she had given the original speech, she would have gone on to give a very detailed discussion of these problems. Unfortunately, the White House chose to edit all that out, leaving instead a fairly bland and obviously spun speech about how the CDC needs to be prepared. All the details taken out also take the teeth out of her speech. Instead of driving home what will happen in the US and the world when — not if, mind you, but when — temperatures increase and weather patterns change, what is left is just another empty set of statements from an agency head.

Too bad. It would have been fun to Senator Inhofe’s (R-fantasyland) head explode as she read that list of problems.

John Marburger, the scientist who sold his soul to the devil and is now the White House "Science Advisor", put out a statement on the changes as well. It’s actually laughable, in a highly schadenfreude sort of way. The money quote:

However, [the Office of Science and Technology Policy] also found that there was an overall lack of precision in aspects of the draft testimony describing important details regarding the level of certainty for specific findings, the spatial scale for which certain impacts have been assessed, and the specific nature of some climate change impacts on human health.

Yes, hello! That’s the whole point. We don’t know all the details, and so we need to be prepared. That was the point of her speech, but it was totally eviscerated by political hacks. Marburger’s comments are also precisely aligned with what the far right has been doing to science for years: saying "we don’t know enough, so we can’t draw any conclusions. More research is needed." That is simply and obviously a way to stall real science, real understanding. They get to pick and choose what we don’t understand well enough to base policy on, and therefore anything contrary to their preconceived notions gets swept under the rug (while extremely solid scientific findings are ignored when a policy they want to implement is contradicted by reality).

Chris Mooney has something to say about the part of speech dealing with the effect of global warming on hurricanes, as you can imagine. I also imagine we’ll be hearing more from actual scientists about this as time goes on.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: global warming is real. Humans are partly if not mostly to blame for it. The evidence is in, real scientists agree, and the effects are being seen now. Sticking your head in the sand will only make things worse down the line. You can listen to the boneheads like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others who openly and actively lie about these and other issues, but you are committing an act of personal and global suicide by doing so.

And the Bush White House is only too happy to keep doing so. But there are those of us who have had enough, and we will be vocal about it. Please feel free to comment on this topic, but if you do, make sure you have your ducks in a row. I’m only too happy to inject a dose of reality into sandy heads.

I just went outside to look at Comet Holmes. Wow, it’s changed in two days.

For one thing, it’s expanded a lot. I can see it’s not a star just with my unaided eyes! It looks distinctly fuzzy.

Through the ‘scope it’s changed a lot as well. I took a bunch of pictures, but my equipment isn’t up to snuff. Here’s the best one:

This is a time exposure and my ‘scope doesn’t track, so the image is a little blurred. You can just see in the image that the expanding debris has taken on a decidedly shell-like appearance (through the eyepiece this is really obvious). It’s brighter toward the edge! That’s a classic shape for something like this. As the debris expands, you see it brighter near the edges, because your line of sight intersects more debris toward the edge. Here is an excellent image of Holmes showing this.

The nucleus is slightly off-center to the shell. I am starting to suspect that this is not a shell of debris, but a jet or beam of debris that happened to be aimed either right toward us or directly away from us. That’s why it looks round. It must be 100,000 miles across by now. Wow.

Also, a star-like object can be seen above it– that’s the streaked line above the nucleus in my image. I originally thought that might have been a chunk that came off the comet, but now I think it’s just a background star. I’ll be going out to re-observe in an hour or so and that’ll make it clear. If it moves with the comet it’s a piece, if it stays put and the comet moves away from it it’s a star. Edited later to add: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a background star; the distance between it and the nucleus has clearly gotten bigger in two hours.

So this is the comet that keeps on giving! I think it will start to fade soon; as the debris expands it gets thinner and less able to reflect sunlight. Eventually it will disperse and fade away completely. But it’s stayed bright for three days now, and, with the Moon rising later every night, this is your best chance to see it! If you live near an observatory or University (in the northern hemisphere or not too far south fo the Equator), see if they have a viewing of it. You’ll be glad you did.

And I am really looking forward to better images taken tonight. This is really an amazing object.

Update: October 28, 2007: I just went outside to look at Holmes through my ‘scope, and it’s changed significantly since two nights ago! The cloud surrounding the nucleus is much larger (roughly the size of (but much brighter than) the nucleus of the Andromeda Galaxy, which I took a quick look at to compare), and has taken on a distinctive edge-brightened appearance, like a thick soap bubble. I suspect it will start to fade now; as it expands it will get thinner and reflect less sunlight. There appear to be two nuclei; one is bright and slightly off-center from the cloud, and the other a dimmer but sharper pinpoint significantly off-center. It’s possible the second light is a background star: I’ll observe again in a couple of hours and see if the comet has moved relative to it. The comet as a whole has moved noticeably in two days. I am not sure I understand the shape of the cloud; I would expect it to be significantly elongated, but instead it appears to be expanding as a spherical shell, like the whole comet blew off its surface. Very weird. Update on the update: I decided to make a whole post about this after taking a new image of the comet.

It cleared up tonight, so I may try again. And Halloween is coming up, so I may haul the ‘scope out and show Holmes to the costumed tykes…

Where has Slacker Radio been my whole life?

And how awesome is that URL? Wow.