This was really cool last night - Mars is also relatively close to the earth - a very red jewel almost opposite the Venus/Jupiter conversion in the early evening.

ScienceCasts: An Alignment of Planets

Starting this weekend, the closest supernova found in at least 25 years will be visible from your backyard with just binoculars or a small telescope. The exploding white dwarf star is currently brightening in the Pinwheel Galaxy, nestled, from our perspective, within the Big Dipper.

How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

The eclipse will actually begin when the moon enters the faint outer portion, or penumbra, of the Earth's shadow a little over an hour before it begins moving into the umbra. The penumbra, however, is all but invisible to the eye until the moon becomes deeply immersed in it. Sharp-eyed viewers may get their first glimpse of the penumbra as a faint smudge on the left part of the moon's disk at or around 6:15 UT (on Dec. 21) which corresponds to 1:15 a.m. Eastern Time or 10:15 p.m. Pacific Time (on Dec. 20).
The most noticeable part of this eclipse will come when the moon begins to enter the Earth's dark inner shadow (called the umbra). A small scallop of darkness will begin to appear on the moon's left edge at 6:33 UT (on Dec. 21) corresponding to 1:33 a.m. EST or 10:33 p.m. PST (on Dec. 20).

The moon is expected to take 3 hours and 28 minutes to pass completely through the umbra.
The total phase of the eclipse will last 72 minutes beginning at 7:41 UT (on Dec. 21), corresponding to 2:41 a.m. EST or 11:41 p.m. PST (on Dec. 20).

At the moment of mid-totality (8:17 UT/3:17 a.m. EST/12:17 a.m. PST), the moon will stand directly overhead from a point in the North Pacific Ocean about 800 miles (1,300 km) west of La Paz, Mexico.
The moon will pass entirely out of the Earth's umbra at 10:01 UT/5:01 a.m. EST/2:01 a.m. PST and the last evidence of the penumbra should vanish about 15 or 20 minutes later.

Amazing Spectacle: Total Lunar Eclipse Monday Night

Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University, said presidents were not advised to use e-mail because of security risks and fear that messages could be intercepted.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

This is a rationalization for a quaint anachronism.

Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

Congradulations Congress... The result of all this ineffectual pre-election grandstanding you've been doing this week is that the Sunni insurgency, who boycotted the elections a few years back, just declared victory. Anyone got any links on what, exactly, their problem is with the democratic government?

Insurgents form political front to plan for US pullout

The Bush administration is developing plans to "internationalise" the Iraq crisis, including an expanded role for the United Nations, as a way of reducing overall US responsibility for Iraq's future and limiting domestic political fallout from the war as the 2008 election season approaches.

The move comes amid rising concern in Washington that President George Bush's controversial Baghdad security surge, led by the US commander, General David Petraeus, is not working and that Iran is winning the clandestine battle for control of Iraq.

This is an interesting report. The problem I see here is that they are called peace keepers and not peace makers, and when misapplied they will not work. The problem remains Iran.

Bush may turn to UN in search for Iraq solution

] In press conferences, TV ads, and interviews this year,
] President Bush has manifested a series of
] psychopathologies: an abstract notion of reality,
] confidence unhinged from facts and circumstances, and a
] conception of credibility that requires no correspondence
] to the external world. Tonight, as he vowed to stay the
] course in Iraq, Bush demonstrated another mental defect:
] incomprehension of his role in history as a fallible
] human agent. Absent such comprehension, Bush can't fix
] his mistakes in Iraq because he can't see how or even
] that”he screwed up.

Thats pretty much how I feel about the present spin work that Bush is engaged in. The situation in Iraq is fucked up. I want to see changes on the ground. Spin doctoring doesn't influence me.

But the American people's attention span is about 1 week long, so I'm sure this thrust will improve his numbers domestically. It would be really neat if he could change the perceptions in the minds of people actually in Iraq, but that remains to be seen. I told someone a few days ago that I wish that I could fast forward three or four months. The uncertainty right now is unbearable. It will either completely improve in that timeframe, or we'll have completely lost control. Either way, we'll know whats up.

MSNBC - About last night

] At current rates of production, there were 40.6 years of
] consumption covered by proven reserves in 2002, the latest
] data available, according to the Wall Street Journal.
]
] The newspaper, citing the BP Statistical Review, said
] that in 1989, there were 44.7 years left of consumption.
]
] "[A shortage] will probably happen in the next 10 to 20
] years," Professor David Goodstein, a physicist at the
] California Institute of Technology, told CNNfn.

hrm...

As prices rise, concerns grow about world oil supplies

Wild lays the smack down:

] Inside the United States, where the war began, we
] must continue to give homeland security and law
] enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend
] us, the president said, noting that key provisions
] of the Patriot Act were set to expire next year.
]
] The terrorist threat will not expire on that
] schedule, he told lawmakers. Our law
] enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our
] citizens. You need to renew the Patriot Act."

Fuck you Ashcroft. We are not interested in more Patriot Act. We do not live in the middle east. We live in America. We have rights and civil liberties built by our forefathers. You strip those from us and leave us with only what our forefathers would be rolling in their grave to learn about. You are not making me safer from terrorism by reading my bank account statemets without court concent but by dropping bombs on tents where terrorist reside. Also, you are not providing due process to those terrorist that reside in the United States. You only lock them up and throw away the key. Why not show the world our court system and due process and what happens to people/groups that carry out evil deeds.

Let the Patriot Act die is deserved death and bring on the guns and bombs where the real war of terrorism is fought.

MSNBC - Bush makes case for second term

] Iraq will chair the United Nations' most important
] disarmament negotiating forum during the panel's May
] session.
] At the rules-minded United Nations, it's not a country's
] status with international weapons inspectors, but the
] letters in its name that determine which member state
] chairs the Conference on Disarmament.
] "The irony is overwhelming," a U.S. diplomat said.

Iraq to chair U.N. disarmament conference