Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy posted this terrific piece that started off my Saturday with a smile.  It reads like The Onion, though I also can’t find the original source. Take a look and see if you agree that author Michael Haber might be onto something…

Emboldened by their success in declaring Pluto not a
planet, the International Astronomical Union determined this week by a
close vote that February is too short to be considered a true month. It
has, however, been granted the newly created status of “dwarf month.”
It shares this dubious distinction with several other calendar time
spans, including Labor Day Weekend, Christmas Vacation, and the Time
Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When You
Actually Did.

“It only seems fair,” said IAU President Ron Eckers. “February
reaches a peak size of 29 days, averaging only 28 days for 75 percent
of the time. Recent research has shown that other periods, such as the
Time Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When
You Actually Did, often exceed this meager time frame. In fact, this
erratic behavior only strengthens our case that February does not
belong in the same classification as the eleven ‘true’ months.”

Eckers also warned that the crop of 30-day “so-called” months should
be careful to maintain their number of days. “They’re already cutting
it pretty close in my book.”

I LOVE all things space–arguably more than the next girl. For years I wanted to be an astrobiologist. Infinite possibilities and the ultimate opportunity to explore the unknown. And it’s no secret to readers that I adore Carl Sagan and Cosmos, which fostered a love and appreciation of science in so many of us.

All I’m saying is, just perhaps–for the time being–we might be better off spending the kind of figures currently invested in large scale BIG ‘what if?’ projects on more proximate concerns. No doubt the mission of Kepler is really cool, but why rush to search for planets like ours when it behooves us to focus efforts on preserving life as we know it here.

My exuberance over the possibility of an eventual planetary census is tempered as this week I’m hearing about university cuts to every budget and program possible. And as college tuition continues to rise, high school students are emailing me that their education feels ever more elusive in an unprecedented economic crisis. I understand that these projects have been in the pipeline for a long time, that they seek important answers, and have the potential to change everything. But, they also might not succeed. Kepler cost close to 600 million dollars and overruns even put the mission in jeopardy at one point.

In 2009, we need to balance budgets so that we’re doing a better job to foster the next the generation of scientific leaders who are going to pursue the coming decades’ BIG ideas. And we must additionally put a fair share of support into the projects that will preserve what we’ve got at home on Planet Earth. As I wrote recently, in a climate of limited budgets, I’d rather see funding for more immediate global concerns like improving agricultural yield, preparing for climate change, and mitigating the impacts of ocean acidification. And no, it’s not comparing apples and oranges. It’s dollars and a collective future. A glance at the number of digits in NOAA’s budget and you’ll understand what I’m getting at–something’s wrong when such a vital agency is so overlooked that it’s never even been authorized by Congress.

I want more than most anyone to explore the cosmos, it’s just not our highest priority from my perspective. That said, with Kepler’s Friday launch set to examine more than 100,000 sun-like stars in the Swan and Lyre constellations, you bet I’ll be watching and listening with great interest.

I’ll admit PZ’s post yesterday featuring a cosmic cephalopod sleeping overhead in the Carina Nebula was both daunting and impressive…  but never fear friends, a heroic starry sea cucumber keeps vigilant in the Crab Pulsar and continues to protect us from its merciless tentacles.

In lieu of blasting the Washington Post again over their recent faux pas, I’m interested in finding out whether you’re as intrigued as I am lately over LOST…

During my recovery, I’ve been catching up on past episodes and this season includes a lot of ‘science‘ in the script as the island jumps through time and space. And what is the DHARMA Initiative? Presently, we’ve got a physicist wandering through the jungle, years that span days, and the occasional troublesome nosebleed. All of which has inspired wide speculation about what’s really going on.

Regular Intersection readers know this blogger appreciates good scifi from Carl Sagan to Arthur C. Clarke and back again, so let’s discuss what Benjamin Linus, Charles Widmore, and the island itself are up to and see if we can put some of the pieces together here.

I’ll get us started: Say you’re moving through time. The earth is spinning, rotating, even wobbling. Would the position of where you arrive be predictable?

Folks, you have the floor, errr, thread…