The Dragon's Tales linked to a remarkable press release claiming, based on an analysis of rocks surveyed by the Spirit rover, that four billion years ago Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Differences between Martian meteorites and rocks examined by a NASA rover can be explained if Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 4000 million years ago – well before the rise of atmospheric oxygen on Earth 2500m years ago.

Scientists from Oxford University investigated the compositions of Martian meteorites found on Earth and data from NASA's 'Spirit' rover that examined surface rocks in the Gusev crater on Mars. The fact that the surface rocks are five times richer in nickel than the meteorites was puzzling and had cast doubt on whether the meteorites are typical volcanic products of the red planet.

'What we have shown is that both meteorites and surface volcanic rocks are consistent with similar origins in the deep interior of Mars but that the surface rocks come from a more oxygen-rich environment, probably caused by recycling of oxygen-rich materials into the interior,' said Professor Bernard Wood, of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, who led the research reported in this week's Nature.

'This result is surprising because while the meteorites are geologically 'young', around 180 million to 1400 million years old, the Spirit rover was analysing a very old part of Mars, more than 3700 million years old.'

Whilst it is possible that the geological composition of Mars varies immensely from region to region the researchers believe that it is more likely that the differences arise through a process known as subduction – in which material is recycled into the interior. They suggest that the Martian surface was oxidised very early in the history of the planet and that, through subduction, this oxygen-rich material was drawn into the shallow interior and recycled back to the surface during eruptions 4000 million years ago. The meteorites, by contrast, are much younger volcanic rocks that emerged from deeper within the planet and so were less influenced by this process.

Professor Wood said: 'The implication is that Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere at a time, about 4000 million years ago, well before the rise of atmospheric oxygen on earth around 2500 million years ago. As oxidation is what gives Mars its distinctive colour it is likely that the 'red planet' was wet, warm and rusty billions of years before Earth's atmosphere became oxygen rich.'

The unspoken implication of an oxygen-rich atmosphere four billion years ago on Mars is that the atmosphere was substantially modified by life, just as the Earth's atmosphere has been, hence that Mars was host to abundant life. It's not altogether clear to me, though, what proportion of oxygen counts as "rich" in the context of the formation of rocks. One commenter at the Guardian thinks that there exist alternate explanations for the formation of these rocks in processes in the rocky mantle of Mars.

Ah, so relieved, i'm 'normal' bloodwork wise!! yes, i fully realize i'm not normal in any other way.....so i got 10 days of penicillin to take and should be starting to feel better within 48 hours the dr. said.....yeah!!!!!

i obviously didn't putter around in the yard today, so i cross stitched....i have been told by the few who have seen the progress i've made i'm more than 80% done---i figured 80%, but probably more 90% but i gotta switch threads after a few stitches and it's a pain....

i did go out and look in the small back pond to see how far along the tad poles are and some might be hopping around tomorrow!!! others still have their tails, but some just have little nubs and were half out of the water on a branch i have in there for them....more wee little baby toads!!!

then i saw a snake in the grass, EEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah i got a pix after i flipped out....i can pick up toads no problem, but garden snakes? oh hell no!!!! this one was sort of small and wasn't totally brown like the one i relocated last month---i safely scooped it up with a lot of dirt with the shovel and we went for a walk across the street.....i don't like snakes!! i know they're good for gardens, but uh, i have toads....

i won't pick up preying mantises either....nope....they sort of freak me out....but i don't freak out like with snakes!!

uh, no pix tonight....i'll upload 'em tomorrow cuz i'd have to take the mem card out, upload to lj, blah blah and i'm achy and tired.....

i am gonna TRY to putter a wee bit tomorrow out front before the sun hits and it gets hot up there....i know i know....i'm sometimes not the brightest bulb but i am not a patient patient....i have stuff to do!!! i'll just do a bit and then cross stitch and then try to do a bit more friday.....suppose to be really hot friday thru sunday.....

alright....bedtime....which means out in the yard with a light....fucking joyce/kook....

Continuing on from the previous news item, Xtra!'s Rob Salerno considers the fate of Bob Rae's riding of Toronto Centre, a riding that includes--among other neighbourhoods--the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood.

Rae has represented Toronto Centre as a Liberal since 2008, when he won a by-election to succeed retiring Liberal MP Bill Graham. He twice had hopes to win the federal party leadership dashed, in 2006 and again in 2008, following the resignation of Stéphane Dion and the installation of Michael Ignatieff as leader. He helmed the Liberal Party after Ignatieff lost his own seat in the 2011 election until Justin Trudeau was elected party leader this April.

Despite huge growth in the NDP vote in 2011, Toronto Centre has been considered one of the few safe Liberal seats remaining in the country, and party activists are saying they will fight hard to keep it in the fold.

Many Liberals are saying that the nomination battle is George Smitherman’s to lose. Smitherman, who is openly gay, represented the riding provincially from 1999 to 2010, when he resigned to launch his failed bid for mayor of Toronto. Smitherman says he is considering running but hasn’t made a firm decision yet.

“It’s certainly been the case that Christopher [Peloso, his husband] and I have been thinking of a return to politics at a national level, and the implications on our family,” Smitherman says. “It’s a lot like the opportunity when I began to run in 1998, to play a role in chasing Mike Harris out of Ontario. I look forward to the opportunity to chase Stephen Harper out of Ottawa.”

Other names being mentioned as possible candidates for the nomination include Pascal Dessureault, who is chair of the 519 Church Street Community Centre and a former member of the board of the Liberal Party’s Quebec wing, and political columnist Zach Paikin. Both acknowledge that they’ve considered running at some time, but neither would confirm that they’re interested in Rae’s seat.

Оригинал взят у pinguinchen в Посвящается деятельности Государственной думы

Yesterday, we met again with the electricians about getting a line run into the garage , the panel replaced, etc..  They gave us a verbal estimate, rather than written, which bothered Ray and me a bit.  The price also seemed high: forty-five hundred dollars, to replace the panel and run a new service from the pole to the house.  We last had this done at our last house, which was a simpler installation, for a thousand bucks.  WTF, twenty years later, it's four and a half times as much?  I'm not buying it.
Today I called a much larger firm in the area.  The estimator called me right back about thirty minutes later.  I explained what I thought we needed.  He asked a lot of questions, answered quite a few of mine, and generally treated me with respect.  He pulled our house up on Google Maps.   Also, frankly, he discussed things from the standpoint of economics and code compliance.  It turns out many of the additional changes proposed by the first electrician are not, in fact required under code.  Yes if this were a new build, but it's not, so...
The bottom line from the second firm was two thousand dollars.  Which seems about right, given the degree of difficulty involved, the changes in code, inflation, etc.  Plus, the first people couldn't expect to get to it until the second or third week of July.  Company Number Two said seven to ten business days.
The estimator from CNT built value in the service in ways I could respect.  He asked if I knew what brand of panel we have now.  It's a Federal Pacific, which has been condemned by UL because of poor performance longterm.  Well, it's made it 52 years, guess it doesn't owe us anything.  He questioned whether we'd really need a 150 Amp service and panel, or if we could stay with 100 Amp.  As he explained it, the more important thing is to get a panel which is bigger in terms of allowing more circuits to be installed in it, rather than handling more amperage.  He asked how much amperage the car charger needed; I said less than 20A.  He asked if we had central air conditioning - yup - and we weren't experiencing brownouts or circuits overloading often - nope - then he concluded  100A would be enough, but if we were thinking about making the house easier to sell down the line, the additional $150 for 150A would make sense.  I like his approach tremendously.  Oh, by the way, he printed an estimate as we were speaking and snail-mailed it to me. 
I'm very grateful in all of this to Ray's trainer Sally, whose husband is in construction and recommended these people.  Also, at least three of my coworkers overheard what I was talking about and gave me huge support and practical advice.  Gary from Seafood had his done a few years ago - 12-14 hundred bucks.  Dave from Frozen just plain thought it sounded high, given the comparison to the last time we had it done.  Mark from Produce said the same thing.  I feel lucky to work in a place with so many people who treat me with respect.  We all kinda look out for each other.  Lynn from General Merchandise said her husband is an electrician, and he would do the job at his Friends and Family rate, where you only pay for materials.  I'm not sure I want to go that far, but damn, it's nice to feel cared for, you know?
______________________
Speaking of looking out for each other, the manager of our sushi bar came to me late last week, complaining that his tracking reports were not reporting many of his sales.  I pulled out my manual - it's called item movement, and in our computers, it's a tricky thing to negotiate.  I made sure the UPCs were showing up on the report.  Monday when I arrived, one each of the stickers for two styles of sushi packages were hanging from a shelf over my desk.  In black Sharpie, he'd written, "NO WORK PLEASE HELP".  It should be noted that English is not the first language of any of their employees.  I then went through a fairly laborious deduction process, through which I concluded that there was something wrong with the printer they were using to print their labels.  The Help Desk in Rochester called it in to a company in Buffalo which handles such things, and an IT technician downloaded the codes for sushi to the scale/printer in the prepared food department, and told a sushi employee to use that printer.  I told the store chef what had happened.   Tuesday came and went - no service call came through.  This morning, I called before 8 AM, and was told HD would call the vendor again.  By twelve-thirty, still no show, but a slight improvement had occurred.  The sushi employees, despite being uncomfortable around the prepared employees, were finally using that printer to generate their tags (This aspect of the whole experience made me feel like a baby sitter).  I then called the HD again, was careful to write down the name of the employee I spoke with, and asked her for something more: this time, I said, please call me back with an ETA.  She did call me back, and say someone should be there this afternoon.  That was at about one-thirty in the afternoon.  I was supposed to leave at three.  Meanwhile I told the cafe manager, through whose registers much of the sushi gets cashed, what was going on.  I happened also to run into the perishable manager, and told him.  He asked me, if the situation remained unresolved, to let him know. 

 

At three o'clock I was on the prepared side of the store, and scanned over the sushi department.  Hmmm, a gentleman in a blue chambray shirt, obviously not a Wegmans employee, was standing next to the scale/printer.  Halle-fuckin'-lujah.  I made an obvious O.O face at him, and one of the sushi employees caught it and smiled at me.  I made sure I approached the guy, gave him two big thumbs up and thanked him.  Then I returned to the office, called the HD, asked for Sandy, and thanked her.  I'm pretty sure no one bothers to do that, usually, judging from the sound of her voice, but it's important to do, because people in IT services hear way too much whining, usually, and far too little thank yous.  And thus I roll, folks.

 

taken from today's Towleroad.com

The upcoming Supreme Court decisions on DOMA and Prop 8 will not be the last word on marriage, in particular, or gay rights, in general. As we look forward to those words, however, let's take a look ahead and discuss how the legal landscape may be more complicated after the end of June. "Gay Rights After SCOTUS" is Towleroad's series on LGBT legal issues after Perry and Windsor. In today's column, state-to-state marriage recognition.

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) makes things really easy: it mandates that no matter what this or that state says about marriage, gay marriages are never going to be recognized by the federal government. So-called "federal marriage law" -- to the extent that there is such a thing -- will be a lot more complicated when the Supreme Court tosses DOMA into the dust bin of history.

Complication is not always a bad thing. It just takes a little more work.

Normally, marriage law is pretty simple: For 99 percent of heterosexual couples, the hardest thing about marrying in one state and moving to another state is packing the fine china. Sure, there are some states (New York) that allow first cousins to marry and some states (West Virginia) that do not, but for the most part, when a man marries a woman, they are married in all legal respects whether they live on the 65th floor in an Upper West Side hi-rise or in a ranch house in Oklahoma.

The end of DOMA doubles down the complexity faced by legally married same-sex couples. What is the governing law for marriages for federal law: the place of celebration or the place of domicile? What if the choice of law is different from different aspects of federal law? What happens when a legally married couple moves to a state that feels that their marriage violates public policy? What of gay couples that do not have the option of marrying and are in registered domestic partnerships or civil unions that provide all the benefits of marriage?

This column is really about an arcane, complex, and salient concept called "choice of law." If you've ever signed or read almost any kind of contract, there is usually a provision that states, "this contract will be interpreted according to the laws of the State of Smith." That's a choice of law provision; the parties have literally chosen a state's law to govern their relationship with one another.

Couples seeking to marry can choose law to the extent that they can go somewhere that recognizes gay marriage. By coming to New York City, for example, a Dallas, Texas, couple is choosing New York law to govern their marital relationship.

So, in a world without DOMA, which makes the choice of law question moot, what will the federal government do? The general rule is the marriages are recognized in the state of celebration, or the state the couple signed the marriage license, even if they reside somewhere else.

Some people argue that all states should recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states because the Constitution, specifically the Full Faith and Credit Clause, requires the states to recognize the "the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings, of every other state." But a marriage license is not a judicial proceeding and although it could be considered a "record," courts have generally not required other states to give binding recognition under the Full Faith and Credit Clause to similar documents, such as a pharmacist's, dentist's, or a lawyer's license.

That means that the Constitution isn't going to be much help coming up with a clear choice of law rule in a post-DOMA world. We could rely on the common law default rule that marriages are recognized by the federal government based on the laws of the state of celebration. But the common law rule has exceptions -- big ones -- that make life impossibly difficult for gay couples to move from one state to another when those state gay marriage laws differ. For some moves -- say, from New York to New Mexico -- there is no problem because whereas New Mexico may not be a freedom to marry state, it will recognize out of state gay marriages. But for other moves -- say, from Massachusetts to Utah -- the public policy exception to out-of-state marriage recognition takes Utah off the map as a viable destination for gay couples.

This raises questions of social justice and fairness, but also constitutional rights. You have a right to move, and states that ban gay marriage and refuse to recognize out-of-state marriages put an effective burden on gay would-be new residents. In Saenz v. Roe (1999), for example, the Supreme Court held, in part, that those who leave one state and become permanent residents of another state have a right to be treated equally to native born citizens of that state. That holding is not cabined by a mover's sexual orientation: a gay person isn't entitled to be treated like any other gay person in his new state, but rather he is entitled to treated equally to any other person in his new state. That could apply to marriage discrimination, as well.

Of course, Congress could step in and solve the complexity problem. The Respect for Marriage Act (ROMA), for example, would codify the following rule:

For the purposes of any Federal law in which marital status is a factor, an individual shall be considered married if that individual’s marriage is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into or, in the case of a marriage entered into outside any State, if the marriage is valid in the place where entered into and the marriage could have been entered into in a State.

This is a pretty good rule and a good one for the gay community. The rule would make domestic marriages valid for federal purposes if the marriages were valid in the state of celebration. Notably, that's almost always the case: you go to a state to get married specifically because that state would recognize your marriage as valid. What's more, it has the added benefit of being simple, easy to implement, and plain to understand.

Short of this kind of Congressional action -- which, by the way, is unlikely, given the makeup of the House and the long decades that have passed without Congress taking any action to mop up the messy patchwork of choice of law rules when it comes to marriage -- the post-DOMA world will be a tangled web of common law rules that will be subject to future litigation. There are no simple answers to the next questions. The IRS may interpret the tax and bankruptcy codes to define marriage based on state of celebration, but that rule can be challenged. Immigration authorities may interpret the rule differently, based on contradictory case law coming out of the spousal visa context, though, as attorney Lavi Soloway has argued, the celebration rule is the stronger argument.

*** Ari Ezra Waldman is the Associate Director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy and a professor at New York Law School and is concurrently getting his PhD at Columbia University in New York City. He is a 2002 graduate of Harvard College and a 2005 graduate of Harvard Law School. Ari writes weekly posts on law and various LGBT issues.

Bob Rae's departure from electoral politics in Canada, as reported by CBC, strikes me as a bit of an anti-climax. (I'd argue that his political career peaked with his premiership in Ontario two decades ago.)

Bob Rae, who served as interim Liberal leader following the party's disastrous showing in the 2011 election, is stepping down as an MP, CBC News has learned.

Rae told his Liberal colleagues of his decision during Wednesday's party caucus meeting, an announcement that was met with tears and applause, according to sources.

Rae recently accepted the role of chief negotiator for First Nations in talks with the Ontario government about development of the Ring of Fire, and is to tour the nine Matawa communities in the mining and resource-rich area of Northern Ontario this summer. Rae is a former NDP premier of the province.

At a news conference with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in the foyer of the House of Commons, Rae said that work as a lawyer and mediator was taking more and more of his time and he felt he needed to focus on his role with the First Nations. He didn't say when his resignation would be effective.

"This is not about money, this is about time. I'm not being paid for my work in the North," Rae said, adding that his decision was about, "How can I effectively serve the interests of the people I've been asked to serve?

"The passion and the enthusiasm that I feel for the First Nations of Canada, the need for a different kind of partnership between Canada's first people and those of us who've come later on, is absolutely necessary," he continued.

Rae thanked his caucus colleagues and said "above all, I want to thank my leader," saying he has enjoyed his time working with Trudeau. He added that he and Trudeau had been discussing his departure.

He continued, "I'm quite confident that Mr. Trudeau will become the prime minister of Canada," Rae said.