New Mars Forums

I'm a bit slow to comment on this ESA image, Cindy, but I agree with you entirely that this is a "*Va-va-va-VOOM!  Spec-tacular" picture.
    The gullies all over that mound just shout "Water erosion!", at least to me. 
    But then, I'm no geologist.

Clark:-

    Hmmm.
    If you look at what I said, you'll find I stated quite clearly my opinion that the terrorists will never succeed in changing the West to suit their religious views. That was the point of my argument. Their cause is not connected to any rational or attainable goals. In that sense, you're right; our way of life, ultimately, is not threatened.

    In another sense, though, there are some people who regard having trains and buses blown out from under them in rush-hour traffic as a threat to their way of life. Probably because their way of life involves travelling to and from work each day on public transport.
    These same people, whose views I tend to sympathize with, look at being incinerated in an explosion while holidaying in a place like Bali, or having the architecture in their cities suddenly and explosively rearranged by means of passenger planes used as battering rams, and think of these things as somehow threatening - at least on a local scale.
    And I think they have a point.

Clark:-

    You're right that we're not waging a war against Islam as a whole and you may well be right that it is, or could be, turning out that way.
    But the reason it could turn out that way doesn't lie with individuals like me expressing the view that the extremists are irrational, which they are. The reason lies within Islam, where the clerics are failing to present a united front against the 'bad seed' in their midst. If every Imam declared loudly that suicide bombers are not martyrs, that killing themselves and the innocent people around them is condemned in the Koran and is a sin against God (which is the case, apparently), the murder and mayhem would almost certainly stop.
    This indicates to me that the fault lies not just with a few mixed-up savages on a mindless killing spree for no obvious reason, it shows there's something rotten within some echelons of the hierarchy of Islam.

    Clark, you may follow Bill's lead in thinking prudence is sometimes more important than morality. And I concede there is, regrettably, a place for such pragmatism in the real world.
    But where we have prominent Muslim clerics effectively encouraging terror and murder from the pulpit, or at the very least not condemning such atrocities unconditionally (and this is happening here in Australia), then I think the time for pussy-footing is over.
    We need to make it clear to such clerics that the freedom of speech they enjoy here in the 'evil West' does not extend to inciting civil unrest and violence.

    If you or Bill find this viewpoint 'imprudent', though I don't believe you will, then this is definitely where our paths part company. This is where, at least in my book, prudence blends into spineless appeasement.
    There's not much we can do against Islamic-extremist murderers if they're determined to kill us in the streets, but at least we don't have to listen to their rogue clerics cheering them on from the sidelines.

Bill:-

    Prudence is good, to a point.
    But is that what they called it when Nazi troops marched into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936, or when Nazi troops annexed Austria and seized the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938?
    When does prudence become appeasement and turn around and bite you in the a***?

Cindy:-

    This is the doctrine of the Islamic extremists who are stirring up this violence or participating in it. This is the social structure they want us all to follow. They know it will never happen but feel obliged to attack us anyway because we disagree with them.
    Bin Laden attacked us because American infidels were defiling the Land of the Prophet by their presence. American troops were withdrawn from Saudi Arabia and now Bin Laden attacks us because Muslims were driven out of Al Andalus (Spain) centuries ago!
    A logically consistent plan to advance their demands?
    No. There are no logically attainable demands; no demands at all, except for the annihilation of America, and all the Jews, and the Talibanization of the whole world - none of which is ever going to happen.

Clark:-

    True. But thousands are apparently in thrall to a sociopathic and totalitarian branch of a world religion - a much more dangerous situation all together.

    Effect change? No societal change they want in the West will be effected by killing New Yorkers, Londoners, Spaniards, Australians, or anybody else.
    They feel powerless all right; powerless to impose their medieval interpretation of Islam on those of us who prefer living in the 21st century.
    What alternative don't they see? They don't see the alternative of living their own lives and letting us live ours? They don't see the alternative of worshipping God in their own way and leaving us to do the same? They don't see the alternative of treating women as human beings instead of disposable commodities? They see only one option - to kill everyone (Muslim or otherwise) who doesn't share their insanely narrow worldview? To achieve what?
    Answer: Nothing but bloodshed. Because they have no achievable goal besides that!

    The usual fallacious nonsense spouted by the Western liberal intellectuals and media, who can't see the wood for the trees.
    If Islamofascists are 'disenfranchized' (great buzzword!) in today's world, it's because their own fanatical religious intolerance separates them from mainstream civilization. It's their own doing - no one else's.
    (Comparing them to the American revolutionaries is a specious argument because the American settlers had understandable grievances and logical attainable goals.)
    There's no point in somehow 'allowing' them to "have their voices heard". They're not trying to negotiate some kind of accommodation with liberal Western democracy or the Jewish people ... this is where the breast-beating, guilt-ridden, "mea culpa" brigade lose their grip on reality over and over again, despite the glaring facts staring them in the face.
    These Islamic extremist murderers want all Jews killed and the rest of us to abandon liberal democracy and follow Sharia Law. Negotiation is not part of the deal!
    If these people "have their voices heard", as it's so quaintly and oh-so-reasonably put, all you'll hear - aside from the barking of orders pertaining to totally unacceptable religious, political and social demands - is silence.  That's why they're blowing people up.
    Get it?

    We're fighting a long slow drawn-out war against a foe we can't see. We can create strategies and carry out undercover and/or military actions, but there's no feasible defence against an invisible and implacable enemy with no coherent agenda we can ever come close to dealing with.
    This is a problem which can only be solved within Islam itself - when enough Imams finally see that illogical bloodshed (even against their own brothers and sisters) in a war without an attainable cause, or indeed any sane cause at all, is unacceptable.
    In the meantime, free peoples all over the world will simply have to absorb hit after hit from these murderers. We just have to understand that intermittent terrorist attacks are part of sharing the world with rogue elements of a large religion.

RobertD:-

     :laugh:  Good point!
    I'm not surewhat pressure you want in this PCTFE greenhouse, but presumably it'll have to be cylindrical(?) with the lower 1/3rd or so below the level of the surrounding ground(?)

I can see both sides of this thing. I can see how the people who want to improve the human condition, by encouraging equality among us all, will see this as a retrograde step, some sort of betrayal. And largely because Aldrin is genuine hero material in most people's eyes.
    On the other hand, I can see the other side as well, the side I think he was indulging in when he said those words to a youthful mixed audience.

    I wholeheartedly sympathize with and support the idea of sexual equality in every department that matters - human rights, equal pay for equal work, and equal opportunity regardless of gender. But I also rejoice in the differences between males and females and I don't have any desire to 'paper over' those differences.

    We all accept these days that everyone should be treated equally, or at least we damned well ought to! What many of us don't understand is that not all of us are capable of contributing equally, either in manner or degree. And who would want us to?
    Young human males are not the same as young human females. They don't think the same way, they don't act the same way, and they don't feel the same way. Females communicate better, they mature more quickly, they learn faster in school at an earlier age, and they don't indulge in risk-taking activities to the same extent as males. Males do take risks, they communicate less readily, they engage in more physical contact based sports, and it's all because of their physically different brain structure and their different endocrinology.
    You can pretend these differences don't exist if you like but you'll run into difficulties if you try it because you're denying a biological reality.

    Of course boys have feelings! And Aldrin knows this as well as anyone else. To try to deny that is to deny an obvious emotional reality.
    But in saying otherwise Aldrin plays to the young males in the audience who bond with other young males via their masculinity, their biological identity. You mightn't like it but it's very real, it's generationally perennial, and it's not going to go away. And it's not evil; it's tongue-in-cheek male to male rapport, celebrating the strengths of the male gender in gentle mockery of the female.
    And don't think the human female doesn't join forces with her sisters to mock the male of the species. She certainly does!

    It's all part of something we call the 'war of the sexes', which has been going on for a long time now. And while we recognize from history the dangers of allowing unfettered dominance of one sex by the other, and take steps to ensure we don't go back to that situation, we attempt to suppress these normal and natural sexual rivalries at our peril. Because, in doing so, we attempt to suppress our own biological nature.

    Females, in general, have certain strengths and physiological advantages in certain departments that the average male doesn't have. And the reverse is also just as true.
    I think we should be able to publicly mock each other's idiosyncracies and weaknesses, and brag about our own gender's innate strengths, without causing an eruption of finger-wagging political correctness.
    As long as there is good humour in it, as long as there is underlying respect and affection, as long as it doesn't translate into actual physical or sociological repression of either sex, I believe it serves to bind us closer together - not drive us apart.

    Let's not take ourselves too seriously - life's too short. 

Thanks for this picture, Sean:-

    It's interesting to observe the shape of the darker surface material, which I assume is the actual rocket blast zone(?). And note the scale - which appears to be 2 metres per millimetre.
    From these two pieces of information, we can see that the rocket 'scar' on the surface is elongated and covers a region some 18 metres long but no more than 6 metres wide.

    Is it possible the MPL was coming in on an angle, with too much lateral velocity? Could it be that, rather than cutting out too early, the engine burned all the way down, as planned, but the unintended lateral velocity caused the lander to pitch over on contact and sustain terminal damage?  ???

From what I've seen of the site so far, I have to agree with Rik. It's a very worthwhile site and I add my thanks to Rik's - thank you Aldo!  :up:   

CM:-

     :laugh:

And this week's grand prize for truly, awesomely unrealistic fantasy goes toooooooo .....
CC:-

    <screams, whistles, applause and wild cheering> 
    [Come on CC, you know perfectly well that any attempt to inject some form of nutritional value into a donut would absolutely crucify the bej**z*s out of its criminally glorious taste!!  Try to get a grip on reality, willya?!]

Cindy:-

    Excellent suggestion!  :up:

And:-

    Never a truer word spoken (or written). I love butter and I love mashed potato (especially with sweet potato mashed in with it <drrrooooollll> !!)
    And there are some meals which, if served without gravy, are simply an unmitigated travesty of the culinary arts ... meals including mashed potato being primary examples of such!     

Cindy:-

     :laugh:  Good analogy!

Thanks again, Weave, for drawing our attention to the MER 'micrographs'. As I've said, I'm always interested in looking for fossils because I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that we might find one in these amazing images. 

    However, while I'm very open to the investigation of any and every suspicious rock on Mars, I like to think I have high standards of proof - as I'm sure you do, too.
    Without wishing to appear unduly dismissive of your evidence, I have to say I'm having grave difficulties seeing anything in these two images which cannot be explained by geological processes. And honestly I cannot see anything resembling a flying reptile, no matter how hard I look.

    The point here, I think, is not so much whether there is actually a fossil flying reptile in the rock in this photograph, or not. The point is that any alleged fossil in a Martian rock must be indisputably a fossil .. there must be no room for equivocation.
    Even on Earth, where fossils are known to exist, there has been controversy over certain structures found in ancient rocks. Eons ago, colonies of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) left large, lumpy, mushroom-shaped formations in the fossil record, which are called stromatolites. And although there is little doubt among the experts about the biological origin of some of the more recent stromatolites found in the rock strata, some of the more ancient ones are not accepted by all scientists as being biogenic. Some believe there are explanations for these extremely old structures which don't depend on bacteria.

    You see my point?  ???
    If the same piece of rock, right here on Earth, which is readily available for detailed examination by our top scientists in the field, can be the subject of such a dispute, then the standard for Martian fossils in pictures must necessarily be very high indeed.
    In order to identify a formation in a Martian rock as being a fossil, that formation must stand out and scream "FOSSIL!!" in a resounding and absolutely irrefutable way!

    My opinion is that the photographs you've pointed out don't pass this test. But, again, I hope you'll continue the search because I think it's worth the effort. 

Cindy:-

    My mother was a nurse in London before antibiotics became widely available. Yet she maintained they rarely had  in-hospital infections - even following 'dirty' surgical cases.
    The reason for this was the strict control of the environment on the wards by someone called 'the Matron', who ruled with a rigid discipline virtually indistinguishable from that of the military! And she exerted this control over everyone, including members of the public who simply came in to visit ailing relatives. Many matrons were so formidable that even the doctors tip-toed around them and recognized their authority over the wards.

    The rules imposed by matrons were non-negotiable and imposed for a reason: in those days, they were dealing with an implacable microbial enemy against which they lacked the antibiotic weaponry which came after the war. If someone acquired an infection, there was a good chance they would lose a limb or die.
    Therefore, the rules of hygiene were observed at all times and woe betide anyone who even looked like they might be tempted to take a short-cut around them. Hands were washed routinely and regularly - especially between patient attendances - and bedlinen was constantly being changed and cleaned. The wards themselves were disinfected regularly, too, and bedheads, legs and bases, together with any other ward furniture, were washed down with disinfectant between patients. And visitors were forbidden to sit on a bed, being restricted to sitting on a chair near the bed.

    My mother was always horrified at the standards in modern hospitals as she grew older. Obviously, those standards had become more relaxed after we gained mastery of infections using antibiotics. But lately, we've been seeing the rise of in-hospital infections again because of bacterial resistance to our antibiotic arsenals.
    Unless or until we get better antibacterial drugs, I think it's time to re-instate some of the old methods, draconian though they were.
    You can't reason with Golden Staph.  ???