Still Believe ‘A Calorie Is a Calorie’?: via HuffPost

Still Believe ‘A Calorie Is a Calorie’?: via HuffPost http://huff.to/13Z3Fxk Calories are just a measure of the energy released if you burn away something with a flame. There is no such organ in the body and calories do not illuminate how something acts metabolically.

Cannibal plot trial

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/27/us/new-york-officer-cannibalism/index.html?c=us&page=2 A basic problem with the conspiracy part of the case is there doen’t appear to be any conspiracy. Unless they’ve done something weird with the definition there, it implies that there are two people working together. Broadcasting one’s intentions to another person does not create a conspiracy.

It Would Seem That Bob Woodward Does Not Understand How The Constitution Works: via HuffPost

It Would Seem That Bob Woodward Does Not Understand How The Constitution Works: via HuffPost http://huff.to/13oeMnu A point the journalist is missing is that congress has passed inconsistent laws, and it is unconstitutional to default. Why should Obama obey one law and not the ones it conflicts with.

Chris Christie Not Concerned About Lack Of CPAC Invite: ‘That’s Their Call’: via HuffPost

Chris Christie Not Concerned About Lack Of CPAC Invite: ‘That’s Their Call’: via HuffPost http://huff.to/XHc4Th Christie had been snubbing that group of anarchists for years, and although I’d never heard of them before it’s now the “all-star game”? Maybe they mean like that meaningless and badly played game every year for the players who didn’t make the Superbowl.

Monsanto Seed Case Reaches U.S. Supreme Court: via HuffPost

Monsanto Seed Case Reaches U.S. Supreme Court: via HuffPost http://huff.to/W1NAZC Only two interesting issues here, one being the terms on which the soybeans in issue were sold, the other being a monopoly issue. It may now be difficult to buy soybeans that are unaltered. But I see it as a contract case. If the contract to buy feed soybeans did not specify that they could not be used for planting there may be a fundamental problem.

Supreme Court Takes Campaign Finance Case, Will Rule On Contribution Limits: via HuffPost

Supreme Court Takes Campaign Finance Case, Will Rule On Contribution Limits: via HuffPost http://huff.to/131Thsu Free speech isn’t unlimited speech just like a right to bear arms doesn’t give each of us a right to nuclear weapons. A right isn’t a divine fiat.

Meteor science and binary thinking

So large one asteroid passed by and another hit the earth within 5 hours of each other, very long odds. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/16/opinion/urry-meteor-asteroid/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

So on the one hand the trajectories of the two asteroids were very different, on the other, the odds of two such events occurring at about the same time look to be around 100 million to 1- from the limited information we have on such things.  

On the other hand, the trajectory of the asteroids is only one issue.

Both have orbits that go way off the elliptic plane, although they come close to the sun.  That suggests that neither orbit is mature.  Orbits should have a tendency to flatten to the elliptic plane of the solar system over time. 

Also, bodies that spend time above the elliptic usually spend time below the elliptic.  It is really incidental that the two asteroids were crossing the elliptic in close to opposite directions. 

So it is probable that both have been disturbed fairly recently, in cosmic terms. 

Note that within a day there was another fireball over California.

Here is one issue that is missing from the probability calculations: how many fragments were there? 

Lets say that there are two asteroids of comparable size in the asteroid belt in more or less stable orbits, but one is slightly higher than the other with respect to the elliptic.

What will happen if they collide? The higher one will be bounced up, the lower one bounced down, into new orbits.  

Let’s say one asteroid remains more or less intact from the collision but the other one fragments into many pieces. 

Because the new trajectories stem from the same incident, it is possible that they will be in sync, the one mostly whole asteroid and the fragments of the other one.  There may be some mathematical resonance there, and that the force up from the collision is going to equal the force down may cause them to cross the elliptic at similar times.  That’s a hypothesis.

Now if asteroid B had fragmented into a hundred two meter chunks and fanned out, then how do our odds look for hitting one of those fragments when they cross earth’s orbit and the elliptic?  Then the odds start to look a lot better.   Then the calculation of odds is off because we’re looking at it the wrong way, what are the odds on any day that we would randomly be hit by a meteor vs. what are the odds of hitting a meteor if the earth passes through a debris field.  

If there is a debris field moving in some kind of resonance with an asteroid because the trajectories of both are tied to the same event, the odds of both passing on the same day go way up. 

When considering whether two cosmic events are connected, you don’t  just go back and review the past 24 hours. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth

The earth is estimated to be about 4.54 billion years old, in long form 4,540,000,000 years old. 

The mass of the earth is estimated at 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, or 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons. 

That would work out to a net average accretion rate of 1,315,770,925,110.132 metric tons per year to the earth.  It may be that most of that would have come together rapidly from dense material in dust clouds rapidly coming together but I wouldn’t assume that it all came together rapidly at a specific time and spent the next 4.5 billion years accumulating 100 tons per day. 

Divide that yearly number by 365, and it’s 3,604,851,849.6168 metric tons per day. 

It is inherently difficult to estimate how much lands on earth or in the atmosphere every day these days,  given that accumulated material may include everything from atoms to dust to asteroids, but  one current estimate is 15,000 tons per year: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/16/bay-area-fireball_n_2702888.html

I’d seen an estimate of a few days ago of 100 tons per day, which would be more than double that figure, but far enough away to lead to questions.  It does look like these estimates are more ballpark assumptions than anything else and nearly impossible to empirically test. 

There’s at least a theoretical possibility that there could be from time to time much, much more coming in. 

We hear a lot about missing mass of the universe and hear dubious theories about dark matter that sound more like theology than science, and as we learn more the missing mass gets smaller, as we discover planets and brown dwarf stars.

We should at least consider that there may be a lot of mass that is too small to be picked up by our observation and the planet could be periodically bombarded by it.

The bizarre cold case of Cheryl Gibbs and David Schwartz

Back in June 2007 the Alameda County medical examiner Cheryl Gibbs was on a road trip with a priest companion, David Schwartz, when they abruptly disappeared around June 8, 2007.

That evening a man calling himself “Doug Selby” called and claimed to have seen a car matching their car’s description going over the side of a cliff on route 26 in Oregon about 4 pm that day.  He called from a pay phone and left a number where he could be contacted. 

The number “Selby” left belongs to a woman who had the number for four years and had never heard of him.

The police and ambulance crews found no evidence that a vehicle had left the highway in the reported area and abandoned the search.

That 911 call was not connected to the missing persons case until 3 weeks later, when the vehicle was found about a half mile from where it had been reported to be.  There were distinctive tracks 90 degrees to the road that reflected the distance between the front and rear tires as shown in aerial photos at the time, with the car directly beneath the tracks, in a ditch where it had rolled over, which shows that the vehicle went sideways and had no forward momentum at the time it went over. 

As vehicles do not naturally go sideways and no wheels turn that far a natural question is how it went sideways.   It is possible if somebody got too close to the edge when stopping that it might have hung and flipped, but that was never pursued.

When looking back through online material, I can’t find the aerial photos that were available at the time.

What you do find in articles about the missing pair is a picture of a car with huge front end damage from hitting a tree head on at high speed, indicating a lot of forward momentum, and no roll-over damage. None.  Nothing to indicate that it rolled over repeatedly down what has been described as a 40 foot embankment.  The roof and sides aren’t even bent.

It is also interesting that the change in the vehicle makes it consistent with the cause of death- blunt force trauma to the chest in both cases, a forward motion injury rather than roll-over injury.

The first question that came to mind from the initially publiized photos was whether it had been pushed sideways off the road.

Another question that comes to mind with the distinctive tracks by the side of the road is how those could be missed if people were examining the area for a car going over, and whether that means that the car was sent over some time following the initial police search. 

Combine that with the report with apparently false name and contact information and the situation is very suspicious. 

The pair were supposed to check out from their hotel in Portland on June 9, 2007, and left their luggage there.   Odd that the hotel didn’t say anything.

Initially it was claimed that the pair were last seen at their hotel on June 7, 2007.

A couple of weeks later it was discovered that they had last used their room keys on June 8, 2007.   Some police and hotel employees were at the very least not taking the case very seriously.

The investigation began when Cheryl Gibbs, a pathologist and supervisor at the Alemeda County coroner’s office, didn’t show up for work about June 17, 2007. 

When police began investigating, they found that the parties’ luggage was still in their hotel rooms. 

Again it’s odd when people miss check out by 8 days or more and the hotel doesn’t report them missing or think it odd when nothing has moved and the bed hasn’t been slept in and they’re obviously missing, and doesn’t show interest in having anybody else in the room.

Look at this picture:

http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=cheryl+gibbs+david+schwartz&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=N&biw=1292&bih=661&tbm=isch&tbnid=6R_it5c5jmIT8M:&imgrefurl=http://blog.oregonlive.com/multimedia/2007/07/chronology_of_search_for_missi.html&docid=b_PRfTTYgUMKFM&itg=1&imgurl=http://blog.oregonlive.com/multimedia/2007/07/vehiclefound.jpg&w=1000&h=750&ei=6OQfUfPHF-KCiwLFj4HYCg&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,i:121&iact=rc&dur=2904&sig=107045514992559300991&page=1&tbnh=164&tbnw=214&start=0&ndsp=21&tx=27&ty=49

Which is connected to this story:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/multimedia/2007/07/chronology_of_search_for_missi.html

Could somebody please explain why a triangular shaped area around the car and including the car has been clumsily photoshopped into another picture?

There are multiple inconsistencies in the descriptions of how the vehicle was found and what happened to it.

Initially it was said that the vehicles had rolled a couple of times, then later maybe to have some consistency between the new photographs showing no rollover damage to the roof or right side, it was said that it rolled on the left side only.

Which begs the question, with a dead on collision with a tree evidence from the newer photos, did it hit a tree in the middle of the highway or hit a large tree that was horizontal but a couple of feet off the ground while on its left side. And again that is inconsistent with the initial area photos showing the car plainly visible right beside the road, not 60 feet away as in some other reports.

The location of the body dump was in an area notorious for jurisdictional infighting, which had already led to an unnecessary death not long before, and which issues had not been resolved by the time of the incident.

One of the victims was a senior pathologist in a violent county which includes Oakland, an area with a lot of gangland murders.  Oakland had a murder rate 7 times that of California generally in 2006. 

You would expect that the suspicious death of such a person would be looked at more diligently.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=%22cheryl+gibbs%22+car&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=N&biw=1292&bih=661&tbm=isch&tbnid=gkUubW0yXmaefM:&imgrefurl=http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/OREGON-Motorist-saw-priest-friend-drive-off-2553932.php&docid=hUdrJJUQVCQuVM&itg=1&imgurl=http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/12/21/40/2693140/9/628×471.jpg&w=628&h=471&ei=qc4fUeDxEO7RigKxzoD4DQ&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,i:103&iact=rc&dur=228&sig=107045514992559300991&page=1&tbnh=164&tbnw=214&start=0&ndsp=22&tx=172&ty=51

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july012007/missing_persons_070107.php

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july032007/hwy_26_crash_7307.php

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/8319327.html

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july022007/priest_death_7207.php

http://www.katu.com/news/local/8272727.html?tab=video&c=y

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50579

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.true-crime/2007-07/msg00064.html

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/OREGON-Motorist-saw-priest-friend-drive-off-2553932.php

http://www.thetribonline.net/news/print_story.php?story_id=118316053489440600

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oregon-crash-victims-died-right-away-2571722.php

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-7510742.html

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_6193636

Skeptical about claim Russian meteor is 1 in 100 years event

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/15/world/europe/russia-meteor-shower/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.ca/2009/10/pacific-ocean-meteor-28sep09-update.html

http://www.space.com/7464-huge-explosion-biggest-space-rock-strike-earth-1994.html

 

There was an earthquake detected a few years ago from the Pacific that scientists speculated was caused by a meteor exploding with the force of about 1 megaton, which they estimated would be about a 9 meter diameter asteroid as well.  That would be significantly larger than the one that hit Russia and would cause more damage.  Instead of lighting up the city and rattling windows it might have vaporized it. 

However it was over open water and nobody seemed to be around.  

A meteor was the default explanation because nothing else made sense.  There was no volcano, the quake was shallow, no fault zone, with an explosion type signature. 

There is a big methodological issue about how we can know about the number of sizeable meteor hits when except for the largest over water there will be no crater, most of the time they will hit in remote areas with few people around, and the technology to monitor things like small quakes worldwide has not been around for very long. 

The Pacific impact may have never been verified which raises a sub issue, if there is a probable meteor strike as big as a megaton in force and it doesn’t go into the books for lack of direct information, how do we make any sensible valuation at all?

There could be dozens of these things hitting every century.

As the species spreads out, it will get harder and harder for meteors to hit without affecting people. 

There is no empirical foundation at all for claiming that such meteor strikes only happen every hundred years.  It is highly likely that a more powerful strike occurred just a few years ago, and that’s just the information that we do know.