Nebula!!

Credit: Russell Croman Astrophotography

Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 2170. Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass is often as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars.

Gorgeous. Hat tip to Plum P.

Black Sites

The Washington Post has a harrowing story up this morning with an interview of Marwan Jabour, an alleged Al-queda paymaster who spent 2 years "disappeared" inside the CIA's network of illegal black sites.

On his last day in CIA custody, Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster, was stripped naked, seated in a chair and videotaped by agency officers. Afterward, he was shackled and blindfolded, headphones were put over his ears, and he was given an injection that made him groggy. Jabour, 30, was laid down in the back of a van, driven to an airstrip and put on a plane with at least one other prisoner.

snip

After 28 months of incarceration, Jabour -- who was described by a counterterrorism official in the U.S. government as "a committed jihadist and a hard-core terrorist who was intent on doing harm to innocent people, including Americans" -- was released eight months ago. U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials confirmed his incarceration and that he was held in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They would not discuss conditions inside black sites or the treatment of any detainee.

snip

Jabour spent five weeks there, chained to a wall and prevented from sleeping more than a few hours at a time. He said he was beaten nightly by Pakistani guards after hours of questions from U.S. interrogators. Then he and others were whisked off to CIA-run sites. Some sites were in Eastern Europe; Jabour went to one in Afghanistan. Interrogators -- whom he described as Americans in their late 20s and early 30s -- told Jabour he would never see his three children again.

Human Rights Watch has identified 38 people who may have been held by the CIA and remain unaccounted for. Intelligence officials told The Post that the number of detainees held in such facilities over nearly five years remains classified but is higher than 60. Their whereabouts have not been publicly disclosed.

Right. He couldn't have been that dangerous, or else they wouldn't have released him. How many other people are still lost in that nightmare? I have no doubt that America has enemies, after all, we've been busily creating them the last 5 years, but behaving like a fascist South American dictatorship is not the answer. Some days I am completely ashamed of my country.

Article is here: New LIght Shed on CIA's "Black Site" Prisions

More kitten palooza

What's on teevee? She finds the television periodically interesting.

She's stalking the camera. The shot is a little blurry because I started giggling again.

George asked for a torso shot, to see more of her markings. Here she's making off with one of her favorite toys, the dreaded pull ring from a milk jug. You never know when one of those dastardly things might be possessed by an alien.

Late Afternoon kitty

Her feather on a stick is getting woefully bare. She's plucked just about all of the feathers off the poor thing. I bought her two new ones, but she doesn't like them as much.

So today I made a side trip to get some replacements, and EEEEEEEK!!! they were out. She's going to have to make do with her 8,013 other toys until the weekend.

AAAAMMMMOOOOONNNNNNNN!!!!

AP/Rob O'Neal

Now we know what the giant wicker man eats.

(Your obscure Sci-Fi reference for the day. Watertiger and Eli will get it.)

Tuesday kitty

Yes, Maddie is getting bigger, and growing quickly, but she's still just a little thing. She barely weighs over a pound.

Radioactive kitten

Quit growing so fast!!!

Monday Maddie

About to pounce on the dreaded feather monster.

Just for the hell of it

I like the other feather photo better, but this one is cute too.

Oscar Night Maddie

"Why the hell are you watching that stupid show?"

"Wouldn't you rather play?"

Halloooo!!!

She loves her some feathers on a stick.

Last late night photo

For the late night folks.

Obama in the river city

Larry Kolvoord/Austin American Statesman

I hear Tucker Carlson says that Obama is finished. And here's your photographic proof.

Tucker is a moron.

Your daily Eeeeeeep!!

I love her delightful white fichu. She's trying to capture her uncle's sense of majesty there... but just manages to be cute instead.

Attack of the eyebrows!

The fetching was not a fluke, by the way. Last night we played for an hour, and she brought me things over and over to toss for her, purring all the while. She also started bringing me her toys as well, including dragging her feather on a stick up on my bed and depositing it on my head.

Current Baby Plush

Little scamp, jumping on my head every morning.

Memorial plush

Because he's in my thoughts everyday.

More kittenz

Posted without comment. What more is there to say except, "Eeeeeeeeep!"

Plumy tail

I noticed last night that her tail is already becoming quite long and plumy. Mr. Plushy would be so proud.

Thursday kitten blast

Leaping lizards! errr, kittenz!!

A momentary pause.

She loves to play hockey. As you know, kittenz are naturally good at hockey.

Last night Maddie learned to fetch. Or more accurately, just spontaneously did it when I called her. I said, "C'mere Maddie!" and she picked up her crumpled piece of paper she was batting about, trotted over and dropped it on my knee.

What a smart girl.

OOOOOF!!! Mwah!!!!!

She gets prezzies!! Long time reader Karen sent us this delightful edition of the classic children's tale, en francais!

Merci! une mille fois!!

Space War

Okay, this is really interesting.

Australian astronomer Ray Palmer was photographing the Southern Cross from his observatory in Western Australia on Feb. 19th when a flaming plume cut across the Milky Way. "I had no idea what it was," he says. "It was moving very slowly and I was able to track it for 35 minutes."

In mid-apparition the object exploded. Gordon Garradd of New South Wales photographed an expanding cloud filled with specks of debris. Tim Thorpe of South Australia saw it, too. "Quite a surreal scene," he says.

What was it? It was a mystery for almost 24 hours until satellite expert Daniel Deak matched the trajectory of the plume in Palmer's photo with the orbit of a derelict rocket booster--"a Briz-M, catalog number 28944."

One year ago, the Briz-M sat atop a Russian Proton rocket that left Earth on Feb. 28, 2006, carrying an Arabsat-4A communications satellite. Shortly after launch, the rocket malfunctioned, leaving the satellite in the wrong orbit and the Briz-M looping around Earth partially-filled with fuel. On Feb. 19, 2007, for reasons unknown, the fuel tanks ruptured over Australia.

Jon P. Boers of the USAF Space Surveillance System confirms the ID and notes "later, on the other side of the world, our RADAR saw 500+ pieces in that orbit." Today the count is up to 1111 fragments. "We're seeing more fragments as the cloud expands," he explains.

I thought for a moment we were seeing evidence of a galatic battle. In any event, I think it's clear that skies in the southern hemisphere are more interesting than ours.

Eeeeeeeeep!! for Watertiger

This is how she looks at me much of the time. I am putty in her paws.

I almost caught her sitting up like a meerkat. Or a kangaroo, take your pick. She actually boxes. Teh funny, if a little blurry.

Wednesday Maddie

So I took a bunch of blurry photos of Maddie last night because I was too tired and lazy to put the flash on my camera (and because it's really hard to handle the heavy camera and get her in the frame). So these aren't the greatest, but she's still cute as ever.

In this one she kept coming up and sniffing the lens and trying to grab the camera strap.

Here she looks deceptively sweet and calm. She's not. She's gotten a little wilder everyday. This morning she was tearing around like a maniac, growling to herself (I think she just figured out how to growl). I'm pretty sure she didn't sleep much last night, and she made sure I didn't either.

It's also her 12 week old birthday!!

Halloooooooo!!!

Chicken kitten paté is delicious!!

Tuesday kitten fix

She looks a little sad in the bottom photo, but she's not. She was just very, very sleepy after two hours of racing through the house like a bottle rocket.

She's eating like a cat four times her size and growing like a weed.

Kitten attack

Kill the dastardly feather.

Kill it some more.

Maddie springs into action. Note the poofy tail.

Tiger Triple Shot

All photos by Marcos Rindicci/Reuters

Ooooof!!

Morning Maddie

I wish everyone could have seen her zooming around this morning. She is so damned funny. If only I could bring her to work with me.

Whatcha doing 4lgs??

She's developed an unhealthy fascination with my laptop. It's a good thing it goes to work with me every day, there's no telling what mischief she could get into.

Sunday kitten plush

She's cute doing just about anything.

Little scamp.