Valleys and Troughs

Mystery Norway spiral really failed Russian missile test, if you're inclined to believe that sort of thing.

The explaining-away of inexplicable phenomena with euphemistic devices such as weather balloons or in this case a failed Russian Bulava missile launch entered into the realm of tired cliché long ago. Still, we have a pretty hard time swallowing the news that the above enormous, glowing spiral that appeared last night in the sky above Norway (justifiably panicking onlookers who believed it was at the very least a UFO and quite possibly a sign of the apocalypse) was simply the result of said failed Russian missile test. From the NYTimes:

"It has been established ... that the missile's first two stages worked as normal, but there was a technical malfunction at the next, third, stage of the trajectory," a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Norwegian experts reported sighting of phenomena in the atmosphere near the White Sea, where earlier Bulava rockets were fired, the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers reported.

We are hard-pressed to think of a person whose excuse we're less likely to believe in this situation than a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman. Those guys have been lying to us since we invented a way to ask them what the hell was going on over there. And it's not as though news of Russia blasting nuclear-deterrent missiles into the stratosphere is entirely encouraging either. But for us it's about, as always, the possibilities. It's hard to get a sense of the face-melting awe that would accompany stepping into the street and actually seeing something like this, and we often feel that if we did, our lives would never be the same. We leave you to sift through the story as it develops, but for our part we will be keeping an anxious eye on the horizon, as always.

TROUGH

photo via Discovery

Morning Marginalia: Sarah Palin enters rarified breast-signing air.

That's Sarah Palin's signature on the chest of the unfortunate little creature above, which signing occurred at a Costco in Utah, which certainly make sense. We imagine it was part of Palin's publicity/book tour, but can't be bothered to confirm this. Normally we'd applaud this sort of thing on general principle, but nothing about Sarah Palin and her status as some kind of celebrity amuses us. Some things are just too depressing.

TROUGH, for obvious reasons.

via gawker

UPDATE: killer seals real, more or less.

Last week we brought to your attention a story from Russia involving that nation's attempt to catch up with the U.S. in the pivotally important marine-mammal arms race. Really. Gennady Matishov, director of the Murmansk Marine Biology Institute in northern Russia, explained his country's desire to match America's prowess in the intricate dance that is dropping seals out of helicopters. This story was certain to raise a lot of eyebrows, ours especially, and thanks to some good old-fashioned investigative reporting by the folks at NPR, we have some answers:

"It is true that the U.S. military does employ teams of dolphins and sea lions," Noah Shachtman says. He's an editor for Wired Magazine and runs its military technology blog, "Danger Room."

They take on two roles, Shachtman says. "One is to look for underwater mines, and the other is that marine mammals are used to patrol certain U.S. bases to watch out for the very unlikely event of a terrorist swimmer attack."

Looking for underwater mines? The very unlikely event of a terrorist swimmer attack? Something's not adding up here. The Russians claim they have a seal that can incapacitate or even kill an enemy diver, and we're owning up to having dolphins with cameras strapped to their fins?

Impressive, to be sure. but we're not willing to be duped here. This thing has its roots in the Cold War, and those roots stretch deep into the danger and mystique lurking among the alien depths of the ocean floor. Something tells us it will be a long time before we have any real answers, but that doesn't mean we'll stop searching. Somewhere out there, somebody knows the truth.

And lest you think the convergence of sea animals and helicopters a trifling matter, we present you with maybe the least-thrilling action sequence ever filmed. At least it has inspired us to always be carrying shark-repellant Batspray:

VALLEY

China wants its pandas back, whenever we get a chance.

China is America's biggest creditor (TROUGH) and they've begun calling in their debts - beginning with Tai Shan, the only panda cub born at the Smithsonian National Zoo to survive to adulthood.

Under the Smithsonian's panda loan agreement, any cub born at the zoo must be returned to China for breeding. Tai Shan was born in 2005 and was supposed to be sent back to China in 2007, but the zoo was granted an extension to keep the panda for two more years.

Of all the indignities. Pandas are an astoundingly rare commodity, and are notoriously difficult to breed - some naturalists even argue we should give up on trying to save them altogether (which sentiment we find absurd, and so do most people who have, you know, a heart), and we are left to wonder if we shouldn't try to hang onto as many as we can. God knows we've taken firmer stands on issues of less significance than the propagation of the one species that is literally the symbol of wildlife conservation. We suppose there's something to be said for international cooperation with this sort of thing, though. Sadly it's an issue that may not trouble us for too much longer.

TROUGH

via Discovery

Obama will save us from the machines.

Introducing his "Educate to Innovate" science-based campaign - yes, science, of all the malarkey - President Obama displays a bit of levity (and perhaps also foresight) in his tongue-in-cheek pledge to keep an eye on the rise of the machines. "We live in a world of unprecedented perils, but also unparalleled potential," the president notes. If that coupled with the quote above doesn't sound like the too-often ignored words of warning that predate armageddon-type-scenarios where weird Japanese vacuum robots start strangling people in their sleep and we all have to live in bombed-out medieval castles murdering each other over the grisly contents of unmarked cans of food, we certainly don't know what does. The video below contains his speech in full, should you care to watch it - and say what you will about Obama, the man can run a room.

VALLEY

via gizmodo

This is what you find at the bottom of a trough.

From conservative hip-hop artist and Christ we can't even bring ourselves to legitimize this ... person ... with a genuine introduction. Calling himself "Hi-caliber," and echoing the luminescent Michael Savage in proclaiming "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder," This New Jersey (who would have guessed?) native has brought his rapacious wit to bear on the burgeoning governmental crisis, as it is perceived in the dim corridors of his mind. His lyrically-dubious and disturbingly well-produced Patriotic People lashes out at the numerous ills engendered by our limp-wristed (he actually makes the limp-wrist gesture) and Godless society. Our favorite part comes around the 1:50 mark:

Another thing marriage is between a man and a lady / have you all lost your minds have you all gone crazy? / Every night I pray to God that he saves me / and give us a leader like the one we had in the eighties. [sic]

This followed by a hero shot of Reagan circa: just before he lost his powers of speech, by the looks of it. If there is anything more damning, we couldn't say, for we lost the stomach to watch past the two-minute mark. The only consolation is that as of this posting, the video has garnered a measly 28,420 views on Youtube. Pathetic even by the lowly standards of these sorry days.

TROUGH, clearly.

The Word.

Stephen Colbert, bless his heart (and is that a stately hint of gray at the temples?), reviews Sarah Palin's Going Rogue, determining that even though it is a "steaming pile of shit," Palin is the victim here, as she has been for so very, very long.

VALLEY