extinction theory formed recently

Glen T. Penfield discovered the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico in 1978, just 30 short years ago.

In 1980, without awareness of Penfield’s discovery, Luis Walter Alvarez (Nobel prize-winning physicist, Manhattan Project member of distinguished descent) and his son Walter Alvarez (geologist) proposed the theory that a large impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

It wasn’t until the 1990’s (after Luis’ death) that the Alvarez hypothesis was connected to the Chicxulub Crater, and the theory became widely accepted.

Leonard reflections

My oldest son’s graduation from Space Camp this morning began with the national anthem.  I was singularly focused on Leonard’s sacrifice throughout.  I also reminded my son after lunch that this was the 4th anniversary of Leonard’s death.  He asked how it happened, so I retold the story.  He says he still remembers Leonard’s funeral at Arlington.  I hope he never forgets.

LBJ on the war powers question

Quoted from “Vietnam: a History (Unabridged)“, by Stanley Karnow, narrated by Edward Holland:

I want to make absolutely sure that the communists don’t play one branch of government against the other, or one party against the other. The danger is they’ll think we’re fat and fifty, and fighting among ourselves about free enterprise and socialism and all that. We might mislead them so they’ll think these Americans are just the country club crowd. That’s a mistake our enemies have made before. If you’re in an airplane and you’re flying somewhere, you don’t run up to the cockpit and attack the pilot. Mr. Eisenhower is the only president we’ve got.

Lyndon Baines Johnson
February, 1953, on the floor of the Senate

Phoenix to touch water on Mars

It will land on May 25, 2008 at 6:53 pm CDT in a far northern plain on Mars informally known as Green Valley within Vastitas Borealis.  And if touching water on another planet doesn’t get you fired up, maybe this simulated landing movie will.

installed Redmine tonight

Redmine is a snazzy web-based issue tracking tool that sits on top of Ruby on Rails and MySQL (one of its supported DB server options). I got it installed on Kubuntu 8.04.