More on Manny in Albuquerque

As fellow Albuquerque Twitterer drywall said, it's weird seeing an ESPN reporter in Isotopes Stadium. As far as I can recall, this is the first time.

And somehow, ESPN managed, to get a shot that doesn't include the Sandia Mountains. You'd think that great backdrop would be an ideal thing to show on TV.

Anyway, no new news here, but at least there is video:

Picture of volcanic explosion caught from space

NASA recently caught one of the coolest pictures you'll ever see. It's of the Sarychev Peak Eruption, Kuril Islands, and it was the photo of the day yesterday.

This detailed astronaut photograph is exciting to volcanologists because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption. The main column is one of a series of plumes that rose above Matua Island on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance; the surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption. The smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column. This cloud is probably a transient feature: the eruption plume is starting to punch through. The structure also indicates that little to no shearing wind was present at the time to disrupt the plume. (Satellite images acquired 2-3 days after the start of activity illustrate the effect of shearing winds on the spread of the ash plumes across the Pacific Ocean).

Click on the picture for a larger image. It's worth it.

Weird award name

New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish will receive an award from the city of Santa Fe. It has kind of a weird name, though:

Affordable Housing Champion Award Affordable Housing Division

I wonder who will get the affordable housing champion award in the non-affordable housing division.

Albert Pujols is pretty good at baseball

Albert Pujols is currently 9th in batting average, 1st in home runs and 1st in RBIs in the National League. He already has two Most Valuable Player awards (and arguably could have more).

But this story about Sunday's game (Pujols' St. Louis Cardinals beat the Kansas City Royals) makes it even more clear how good Pujols is:

El Hombre didn't just provide the difference with four hits, including two home runs, his ninth career grand slam and six RBIs; he quite literally called his four-run shot.

After opening the third inning with a fly out, Pujols returned to the Cardinals clubhouse to review video. There he predicted to assistant hitting coach Mike Aldrete that his next at-bat would ricochet off the yet-to-open Royals Hall of Fame behind the visitors bullpen in left field. "He didn't say he might hit the Hall of Fame. He said he would hit the Hall of Fame," Aldrete recalled.

Pujols returned in the fourth inning against Royals starting pitcher Gil Meche with the bases loaded and one out in a 4-4 game. Pujols and Meche reached a full count. By then Meche had shown Pujols every pitch in his repertoire except a change-up. When Meche finally threw the pitch, Pujols swatted it some 423 feet off a Hall of Fame window.

Not only did he call that he's going to hit a home run, but he also called where he was going to hit it.

He's good.

Iran monitoring all internet activity in the country

People have asked why Iran hasn't simply shut off the internet in their country. Well, it turns out they are analyzing all the internet activity using something called "deep packet inspection."

From the Wall Street Journal:

Deep packet inspection involves inserting equipment into a flow of online data, from emails and Internet phone calls to images and messages on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Every digitized packet of online data is deconstructed, examined for keywords and reconstructed within milliseconds. In Iran's case, this is done for the entire country at a single choke point, according to networking engineers familiar with the country's system. It couldn't be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection.

All eyes have been on the Internet amid the crisis in Iran, and government attempts to crack down on information. The infiltration of Iranian online traffic could explain why the government has allowed the Internet to continue to function -- and also why it has been running at such slow speeds in the days since the results of the presidential vote spurred unrest.

This probably means that changing your Twitter location to "Tehran, Iran" does about as much as turning your avatar green.

Manny mania comes to Albuquerque

From the Associated Press:

Isotopes general manager John Traub said the 15,000-seat stadium is expected to sell out for Tuesday night's game, including outfield berm seating. Tickets for the remaining three games are going fast.

Fans began buying tickets Friday amid speculation Ramirez might be coming to Albuquerque. The club sold almost 7,000 tickets that day, compared to typical pre-game reserved sales in the hundreds for a midweek series in June.

"And then it got busy," Traub said. "Friday was nuts. Friday was a vacation compared to what followed."

Since Torre told reporters on Saturday evening that Ramirez had agreed to begin his minor-league assignment in Albuquerque, Traub said the Isotopes have sold about 20,000 tickets for this week's four home games.

I will be in attendance on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm going with family on Wednesday and friends on Thursday.

New Mexican wins "Stick Science" contest

Via Bad Astronomer.

The first place entry for the Florida Science Stick Science competition is Richard Korzekwa from Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The contest challenged people to put public misunderstanding of science into an easy-to-understand cartoon -- using only stick figures (kinda like XKCD, except for the "easy to understand" part).

And why?

Public understanding of science, especially biology/evolution, is horribly low. Folks who push antievolution efforts on local, state and national stages prey on that weakness. One such gap in knowledge is the use of the word "theory." When the general public uses the word, it means one thing; when a scientist uses the word, it usually means something completely different. We see this a lot when antievolution folks claim that "evolution is only a theory." The news media mistakenly runs intelligent design and evolution alongside as two competing theories in their stories and accompanying graphics. Lawmakers take advantage of this when proposing antievolution legislation.

Besides the misuse of the word theory, antievolution efforts rely on false arguments such as gaps in the fossil record, the ever changing nature of science, and scientists being afraid of honest critical analysis.

You can see Korzekwa's winning entry -- about evolution, of course -- here.

Chris Dodd changes his mind; supports gay marriage

Chris Dodd wrote today in an op-ed in the Meriden Record-Journal that he is now in support of gay marriage. You can read it on his Senate website.

"Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds," Dodd wrote. "But I firmly believe that it’s important to keep learning."

While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

The reason was simple: I was raised to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And as many other Americans have realized as they’ve struggled to reconcile the principle of fairness with the lessons they learned early in life, that’s not an easy thing to overcome.

But the fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore.

The Connecticut Supreme Court, of course, has ruled that such a distinction holds no merit under the law. And the Court is right.

Iranian accuses "The West" of meddling

Iran is accusing "The West" of meddling.

Of course, whenever one of these countries who hate the United States say "The West," it seems they really just mean the United States and their allies.

In this case, they are saying that "state-run media" is sowing the discontent:

Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi alleged that foreign media organizations, such as CNN and the BBC, were mouthpieces of their respective governments that were exaggerating reports of police clashes with protesters who have demonstrated daily since the June 12 race.

He also said that government-run news sites, such as the Iranian Student's News Agency, had been hacked in recent days and implied foreign outlets were behind it.

I don't think that CNN or any cable news network, for all their flaws, are state-run media (despite the Pentagon's best efforts).

But this criticism from Iran shows that things are serious. And it also shows that if President Barack Obama hadn't been so restrained in responding to the situation, the Iranians would have an example to point at and say, "See! The President of the United States is sowing discontent!"

This is what would happen if Obama listened to hawkish cheerleaders like the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby or Republican ideologue Rich Galen and strongly denounced the Iranian government and called for new elections and did a host of unnecessarily hawkish things.

Other, less partisan or anti-Obama driven analysts have praised Obama for his restraint.

So what can the United States, the West, and outside powers do to help? One key action is to take a public stance of continued restraint. Let Khamenei and Ahmadinejad further discredit themselves with false claims and xenophobic nonsense. Wait to take open action until it is clear what kind of official action can really make a difference.

In other words, cowboy diplomacy, as was the M.O. under George W. Bush, wouldn't be helpful here.

You think you have a big TV for your video games?

My friend has a 65-inch TV. It's very fun to play video games on or watch a baseball game -- mainly because it's huge.

But it has nothing on the Cowboy Stadium screen that is 72 feet by 160 feet. And here's a video (via Engadget) of someone playing Gears of War on the massive screen.

The angle seems a bit tough, though.