olio post of quick catch up

jeez! been moving and its been a month since last post!

here a few teasers I encourage you to explore

Snip snip
10-15 NYT

Booker prize

Tajikistan cotton farmers

Bush signing statements


Science News (magazine)

from Science News

MILKY WAY'S BLACK HOLE SEEN IN NEW DETAIL
By Ron CowenSeptember 27th, 2008; Vol.174 #

Sagitarius A* black hole
Radio telescope image
milky way center

NPR 10/20

link to story

Los alamos eccentric museum
The black hole (?)

search google

At 85, 'Atomic Ed' Is Still Ticking Off Los Alamos

by John Burnett

[photo]
"Atomic Ed" at the Black Hole, his government surplus store and museum on a 5-acre compound in Los Alamos, N.M.


“One bomb is too many, no matter who has it. They have to think a different way. I don't know whether humanity can get out of this nuclear trap.”
Ed Grothus

[photo]
Ed Grothus, seen here with one of his "Doomsday Stones" — on which will sit a 32-foot granite obelisk inscribed with a screed against nuclear bombs, translated into 15 languages.


Morning Edition, October 20, 2008 · The most visited attraction in Los Alamos is the Bradbury Science Museum, where visitors find replicas of the two most famous bombs in history, Little Boy and Fat Man — dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively.

The next most visited attraction is the Black Hole, a government surplus store and museum whose inventory comes from the nation's foremost nuclear weapons lab — the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. Compared to the Bradbury Science Museum, the Black Hole's proprietor offers a very different presentation.

"My name is Ed Grothus, and I've been here almost 60 years in Los Alamos," he says. "The first 20 of those years, from 1949 to 1969, I worked in the laboratory. I came as a machinist. And I had a key role in making better — put that in quotes — 'better' atomic bombs."