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www.goobernews.com
Bill, Angie and Danny's Groovy home page

Pale Blue Dot

Recent Mars rover images I've been following these rovers for over a year now, thought I would share it with you all. These are amazing little rovers, they were built to last 90 days, they have lasted over a year now and are still roaming mars! Good job NASA/JPL (Aug 2005)

Kelo v. New London Today a very bad thing happened. (June 23 2005) The Supreme Court ruled that city governments should be allowed to take private property from one person and give it to a developer. This is the constitution as it was written: nor shall private property be taken for PUBLIC use, without just compensation [constitution.org] Today, five supreme court justices, who are sworn to uphold that constitution, changed it to read: nor shall private property be taken for PUBLIC OR PRIVATE use, without just compensation
It is very difficult to overemphasize quite how evil this ruling is.
Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter?

"YOU ARE HERE" View of Earth from the surface of Mars. "The larger image also includes the horizon and Sun, which because the Earth is seen as an inner planet closer in towards the Sun from a martian perspective, is difficult to photograph without saturation by solar glare."

"The Effect of Various Insulators on Temperature Change in Water, by Danny Holmberg" This is Danny's science fair project for his 6th grade science class. His project was chosen to be entered into the school wide science fair!

"Pledge of Allegiance" "As reported in this CNN.com article, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next year (most likely in June) involving whether public schools can lead students in a 'voluntary' recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. At issue in this case is whether the inclusion of the phrase 'under God' in the pledge constitutes an establishment of religion on the part of the state and an infringement on students' religious liberty when it is recited in the public school setting."

"No Man’s Land" I enjoyed reading this short concise explanation on why Oklahoma has it's long skinny panhandle.

PIONEER 10 spacecraft send last signal. This is sad. What a trooper little spacecraft! At last contact, Pioneer 10 was 7.6 billion miles from Earth. Currently travelling at 32,400 mph, it is still the fastest man man made object ever. Congrats to all those involved with Pioneer 10 through the years.

"How Taxes Work" This is a VERY simple way to understand the tax laws. Read on -- it does make you think!!

Go Ira! "The real story behind the first man to Mars." If you have a little time, this is a fun story to read.

The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) Yet another spy agency is born. Excuse me but I have to rant. There are FAR reaching implications here.
A Wired article reports: "On Wednesday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will begin awarding contracts for the design and implementation of a Total Information Awareness (TIA) system...The Total Information Awareness program, with its ability to provide persistent storage of everything from credit card, to employment, to medical, to ISP (your Internet Service Provider) records, is a recipe for civil liberties disaster unless there are provisions for citizens to find out who is looking at their records and to see and correct those records." The foundation for the omnipotent National ID database has now been laid." I always wondered what that eye on top of the pyramid was for.
UPDATE ... Mar 2003, They have changed their logo. The original (creepy) one can be seen here --> Original Logo --- New Logo
UPDATE ... Oct 2003, It appears that they have taken the web site off-line, no longer available. But before they did, they changed the name (TIA) from "Total Information Awareness" to "Terrorism Information Awareness", and then soon after the whole web site was gone. hmmmm....First change the logo to make it less menessing, then change the meaning of the name (TIA), then hide the whole thing.

The Time Travel Fund "For the low price of $10 you can travel into the distant future." This is amazing! Why didnt I think of this?! As far as I can tell, this is FOR REAL! I even looked up to see who owns the web site. A company called "Classical Dreams" which is a classical music publishing company.

The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy This is a nifty web site showing the variations in the use of the terms "Pop" and "Soda" to describe carbonated soft drinks. (Takes a little bit to load, be patient)

IBM's Quantum Computer Makes History. "IBM scientists used a quantum computer to correctly identify 3 and 5 as the factors of 15. Sounds simple, but to think that a quantum computer really did a simple mathematical calculation. Wow. I'm tellin ya folks, quantum computers is an emerging field thats gonna be big, real big. (Dec 19 2001)

"The Lawn Chair Pilot" Dedicated to the family, friends, and fans of Larry Walters"
"Official Wikipedia Page, Lawrence Richard Walters"

The Bill Of No Rights. "This has been on the internet for quite sometime. Everytime I read it I enjoy it more. "

Portrait of the Earth and its companion Moon. .....Wow! The Earth and moon are really far apart! ....On April 19, NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft turned its multipurpose camera homeward and took this rare image. This portrait of the Earth and its companion Moon, was taken at distance of more than 2 million miles. From this distance and perspective the camera was able to acquire an image that directly shows THE TRUE DISTANCE from the Earth to the Moon. Photo: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University Click here for full details

A dead link .....A missing web site (humor)

Get your Uranium here !! ..."On-Line Uranium Auctions" Wow, now all those blueprints for nuclear weapons I downloaded might be useful! (Seriously, they say it's safe from terrorists.)" Granted, it does look like you have to be a registered purchaser and it's not plutonium or anything. No, this is NOT a joke!. (Aug,23)

8-Ball Revealed! Remember the old Magic 8 Ball that had all the answers to any question? Here it is! The secrets of the "Icosahedral Answer Device" revealed!

Internet fun ..This is just something fun a friend and I did on the internet one day.

Radiation Sites in Oklahoma ...Oh my, This is a little unsettling. It is a list of radioactive sites here in Oklahoma. When you see "contaminated site" under the location name, it's not good. I believe the worst site is #11 in Gore because I have heard news about it. A close second is #8. Maybe we should all turn our lights off and see if we glow.

Where I worked in San Diego, Advanced Cruise Missile ...Ok, speaking of radioactive sites, I must confess I was in the nuclear buisness. This is a photo of where I used to work. These are nuclear cruise missiles. I worked down the hall that can be seen way back in the background. It sure is good not to have a security clearence anymore. PS, This is a press relase photo, so it's ok.

The United States Constitution .....This is a refesher course. I was amazed at how hard it was to find a copy of the constitution on the internet that did not have editorial comments included. Page down to read the original text.

This Day in History .....Thanks to the History Channel. You can also see what happened on your birthday.