Tuesday - August 08, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

U.S. Army 2nd Lt. James Malwitz walks with Iraqi children during a humanitarian mission near Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Tikrit, July 23, 2006. Malwitz is from 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion.

-- Department of Defense photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/08/2006 at 09:56 AM   
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   Friday - August 04, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Lake Volta, Ghana”
BigFoto.com

(Click image for larger 1200x900 in popup window)

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/04/2006 at 03:21 PM   
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   Tuesday - August 01, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“USS Kitty Hawk Transits Iwo Jima”
_{(click image for larger 1024x680 image in popup window)}

Pacific Ocean (July 13, 2006) - USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) Sailors prepare for the first launch cycle of the day following a transit past Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima was strategically important to the U.S. in World War II as an air base for fighter escorts supporting long-range bombing missions against mainland Japan. Currently under way in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility, Kitty Hawk demonstrates power projection and sea control as the U.S. Navy’s only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier.

-- U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Stephen W. Rowe

Personal Note: I had two uncles on my mother’s side who served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific during WWII. Both managed to survive from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima. I remember one time when I was about twelve or thirteen, we were visiting Uncle Bibb and I asked him what it was like at Iwo Jima. I had watched “Victory At Sea” and all the WWII TV shows and I thought he’d tell me a real war story. Instead, he just sat there staring off into space for a few minutes and then got up, walked out the back door to his little ham radio shack out back and didn’t come back in until hours later. I never got to hear a war story that day and it’s probably a good thing I didn’t. Some things just don’t bear telling ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/01/2006 at 05:24 PM   
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   Saturday - July 29, 2006

Cool Photo Of The Week

“Mt. Fuji”

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/29/2006 at 05:53 AM   
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   Friday - July 28, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Storm Tracking Map”
<sub>-by-
UNIFIL

(Click image for larger version 1024x807 in popup window)</sub>

In the 28 years since 1978, the UNIFIL “peacekeeping” force deployed in Southern Lebanon has managed to maintain approximately zero amount of peace. The only good thing they accomplished was to draw a pretty map. Now you can use this treasured artifact as your very own Storm Tracking Map. Now you can follow the action when the Lamestream Media talks about “Bint Jubayl” and “Haddatha”, names that would tax anyone’s brain. Click on the image above to get your very own king-size (1024x807) tracking map. Now you can know precisely where everything is ... except UNIFIL. They departed Lebanon today. Adios.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/28/2006 at 02:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • United-Nations •  
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   Tuesday - July 25, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Bonneville Salt Flats”
_{All that is left of a once huge system of fresh-water lakes in the American West}

Lake Bonneville

Lake Bonneville was a prehistoric pluvial lake that covered much of North America’s Great Basin region. Most of the territory it covered was in present-day Utah, though parts of the lake extended into present-day Idaho and Nevada.

Like most, if not all of the ice age pluvial lakes of the American West, Lake Bonneville was a result of the combination of lower temperatures, decreased evaporation, and higher precipitation that then prevailed in the region, perhaps due to a more southerly jet stream than today’s. The lake was probably not a singular entity either; geologic evidence suggests that it may have evaporated and reformed as many as 28 times in the last 3 million years.

About 14,500 years ago, the lake level fell catastrophically as Lake Bonneville overflowed near Red Rock Pass, Idaho and washed away a natural dam formed by opposing overlapping alluvial fans. The lake level fell some 105 m (~350 ft.) to what is now the next lower bench (the “Provo level") in a flood that geologists estimate to have lasted up to a year. It is estimated that this breach released 1,000 cubic miles of water in the first few weeks. The Provo level is the most easily recognized shoreline feature throughout the valley (Utah Valley?) and is distinguished by thick accumulations of tufa that formed near shore during the 500 years that the lake was at this level.

About 14,000 years ago, the lake started to drop again due to changing climate conditions, and by 12,000 years ago, the lake reached a level even lower than that of the modern day Great Salt Lake. A slight transgression or rise in lake level occurred about 10,900 to 10,300 years ago and formed the Gilbert shoreline. The Gilbert shoreline is the least conspicuous of the major shorelines but evidence of it remains at Antelope Island and in large coastal features, such as the Fingerpoint Spit near the Hogup Mountains.

_{(Source: Wikipedia)}

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/25/2006 at 03:52 PM   
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   Friday - July 21, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Davey Crockett Slept Here”
<sub>-by-
Jon Sullivan

(click image for larger 1024x768 version in popup window)</sub>

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/21/2006 at 04:38 PM   
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   Thursday - July 20, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Wild Goose Island - St. Mary Lake”
Glacier National Park
<sub>-by-
Jon Sullivan

(click image for larger 1024x768 version in popup window)</sub>

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/20/2006 at 05:06 PM   
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   Tuesday - July 18, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Orion Nebula”
-by-
Hubble

This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.

The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars still young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are called protoplanetary disks or “proplyds” and are too small to see clearly in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.

The bright glow at upper left is from M43, a small region being shaped by a massive, young star’s ultraviolet light. Astronomers call the region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. Next to M43 are dense, dark pillars of dust and gas that point toward the Trapezium. These pillars are resisting erosion from the Trapezium’s intense ultraviolet light. The glowing region on the right reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds - streams of charged particles ejected from the Trapezium stars — collide with material.

The faint red stars near the bottom are the myriad brown dwarfs that Hubble spied for the first time in the nebula in visible light. Sometimes called “failed stars,” brown dwarfs are cool objects that are too small to be ordinary stars because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way our Sun does. The dark red column, below, left, shows an illuminated edge of the cavity wall.

The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colors, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/18/2006 at 05:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography •  
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   Monday - July 17, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

For those of you who are sweltering in 105-degree heat today, The Skipper feels your pain (and I didn’t even need any interns or cigars to do it). It’s hotter than a (fill in the blank) in St. Louis today. Therefore, as a public service I present to you all a little therapy.

Click the image below and when the larger version pops up and fills your screen, wipe the sweat off your forehead, sit down, mix a good stiff margarita and gaze steadily at the image for ten minutes.

Picture yourself standing there at the entrance to this bridge ... nekkid as a jaybird ... shivering and shaking ... body parts going numb ... thinking to yourself ... WHAT THE F**K AM I DOING OUT HERE NEKKID IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE FREEZING MY ASS OFF?

There! Feel better now? I thought so. Now go get dressed before you freeze to death.

“Snow Bridge”
_{Ozaukee Interurban Trail, Wisconsin
(click image for larger 1024x768 in popup window)}

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/17/2006 at 04:07 PM   
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   Sunday - July 16, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Heat Lightning”

_{FAF (Found At Fark)
Hello, Drew! Thanks for the Foobies!}

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/16/2006 at 04:51 PM   
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   Friday - July 14, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“South Rim - Grand Canyon”
<sub>-by-
Jon Sullivan

(click image for larger view 1024x768 in popup window)</sub>

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/14/2006 at 04:00 PM   
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   Friday - July 07, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Devil’s Throat”
Iguazu Falls, Argentina

_{-by-
Michael John Meehan}

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/07/2006 at 06:21 PM   
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   Wednesday - July 05, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Micro Satellite Launch”

A joint government/industry team launched this Delta II rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Wednesday, June 21. The payload was a Micro-satellite Technology Experiment designed to support and enhance future U.S. space operations.

-- (U.S. Air Force photo)

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/05/2006 at 03:00 PM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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