Birth of deadly Oklahoma tornado

Satellite image of the storm system that generated the F-4 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, taken by NASA on May 20, 2013, at 2:40 p.m. CDT. (h/t FOTM’s igor)

Watch the birthing of the May 20, 2013 tornado at Newcastle, OK, and how it quickly developed into an F4 monster over Moore, OK — in less than 6 minutes.

Video taken and uploaded to YouTube by Charles Cook.

Please pray for the repose of the souls of those killed in this terrible disaster, and for the injured and those made homeless.

~Eowyn

Creation: Our Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and its planetary system of eight planets, their moons, and other non-stellar objects. It formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud.

The vast majority of the system’s mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal.

The four outer planets, called the gas giants, are substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are composed largely of substances with relatively high melting points (compared with hydrogen and helium), called ices, such as water, ammonia and methane, and are often referred to separately as “ice giants”.

Below are some stunning images of our Solar System, taken by photographer Michael Benson for his new book, Planetfall and his exhibition of the same title now at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

By “planetfall,” Benson means “the act or an instance of sighting a planet after a space voyage.”

To make his photographs, Benson peruses through thousands of raw image data, rarely seen by the public, which were collected on missions led by NASA—Cassini, Galileo, MESSENGER, Viking and Voyager, among others—and the European Space Agency. Benson then pieces together the image data into one seamless photograph. It can take anywhere from tens to hundreds of raw frames to arrange, like a mosaic, one legible composite image. Then rendering the photograph in realistic colors adds another layer of complexity.

Click image to enlarge

Jupiter’s innermost volcanic moon, Io.

Io passes across face of Jupiter

Surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa

Uranus and its rings

Eclipse of Sun by Earth

Neptune (crescent) and its satellite, Triton

Sun on the Pacific Ocean, as seen from the International Space Station

Source: Smithsonian.com

H/t FOTM’s igor

~Eowyn

13% of Americans believe Obama is the Antichrist

Matt Berman reports for National Journal, April 2, 2013, that a new poll by Public Policy Polling found that 13% of registered American voters surveyed believe the POS is the Antichrist, while another 13% are not sure.

The poll of 1,247 registered American voters was conducted from March 27-30, 2013, through automated telephone interviews. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/-2.8%.

Some other findings of the poll (here’s the survey in pdf):

• 4% of respondents believe shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power.
• 5% of respondents believe Paul McCartney died and
  was secretly replaced in the Beatles in 1966.
• 7% of those surveyed do not believe the moon landing was fake and that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had ever really landed on the moon.
• 11% are not sure if Osama bin Laden indeed is dead. (Note from Eowyn: Bin Laden allegedly was killed by Navy SEAL Team 6 on May 2, 2011, although the Pentagon has no records of his death.)
• 14% of respondents believe the CIA was “instrumental” in dealing crack cocaine into America’s inner cities in the 1980s.
• 15% of those surveyed think the media or government add “secret mind-controlling technology” to TV broadcasts.
• Only 25% of those surveyed think Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 51% believe there was a larger conspiracy.
• 28% of respondents think Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11; 51% don’t.
• 28% of those surveyed believe that a “secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.”
• 37% of respondents said global warming is a hoax; 51% think it is not.
• 44% of respondents believe the Bush administration intentionally misled the U.S. about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to promote the war; 45% said no.

~Eowyn

Obama’s Alien Secret Service spotted at 2012 AIPAC Conference?

OK, Now this is Freaky.

Have You Seen This?

Starts around :40 sec mark

~Steve~      H/T  Reader  Old North State

And In The ‘That’s Reassuring Department’ We Have This….

Kinda gives you the warm and fuzzies …Doesn’t it?

Nasa‘s advice on asteroid hitting Earth: pray

By Reuters in Cape Canaveral, Florida, edited by Sarah Titterton2:01PM GMT 20 Mar 2013

—————————————————————————————————

Charles Bolden, the chief of the Nasa, has warned that the US space agency’s best advice on how to handle a large asteroid heading towards New York City is “pray”.

Nasa has found and is tracking about 95 percent of the largest objects flying near Earth, those that are .62 miles (1 km) or larger in diameter Photo: Alamy
By Reuters in Cape Canaveral, Florida, edited by Sarah Titterton2:01PM GMT 20 Mar 2013
Mr Bolden told US lawmakers that prayer was all that the US or anyone could currently do about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth.
An asteroid estimated to be have been about 55 feet (17 metres) in diameter exploded on Feb 15 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and damaged buildings. More than 1,500 people were injured.
Later that day, a larger, unrelated asteroid discovered last year passed about 17,200 miles (27,681 km) from Earth, closer than the network of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.
The events “serve as evidence that we live in an active solar system with potentially hazardous objects passing through our neighborhood with surprising frequency,” said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat.
“We were fortunate that the events of last month were simply an interesting coincidence rather than a catastrophe,” said US House of Representatives Science Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican.
Mr Smith called a hearing on Tuesday to learn what is being done and how much money is needed to better protect the planet.
Nasa has found and is tracking about 95 percent of the largest objects flying near Earth, those that are .62 miles (1 km) or larger in diameter.
“An asteroid of that size, a kilometer or bigger, could plausibly end civilization,” White House science advisor John Holdren told legislators at the same hearing.
But only about 10 percent of an estimated 10,000 potential “city-killer” asteroids, those with a diameterof about 165 feet (50 meters) have been found, Mr Holdren added.

On average, objects of that size are estimated to hit Earth about once every 1,000 years.
“From the information we have, we don’t know of an asteroid that will threaten the population of the United States,” Mr Bolden said. “But if it’s coming in three weeks, pray.”
In addition to stepping up its monitoring efforts and building international partnerships, Nasa is looking at developing technologies to divert an object that may be on a collision course with Earth.
“The odds of a near-Earth object strike causing massive casualties and destruction of infrastructure are very small, but the potential consequences of such an event are so large it makes sense to takes the risk seriously,” Mr Holdren said.

About 66 million years ago, an object 6 miles (10 km) in diameter is believed to have smashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, leading to the demise of the dinosaurs, as well as most plant and animal life on Earth.
The asteroid that exploded over Russia last month was the largest object to hit Earth’s atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event when an asteroid or comet exploded over Siberia, leveling 80 million trees over more than 830 square miles (2,150 sq km).

I guess it would be “Assume the Position” Head between leg’s and kiss your Arse goodbye.          

Source: Reuters                                   ~Steve~

Spirit’s mission to Mars

The distance from Earth to Mars (the 3rd and 4th planets from the Sun, respectively) varies greatly because Earth’s orbit around the sun is much smaller than Mars’ orbit.

The minimum distance from the Earth to Mars is about 54.6 million kilometers (33.9 million miles). The farthest apart they can be is about 401 million km (249 million miles). The average distance is about 225 million km (140 million miles). To compare, the circumference of our Earth is only 40,075 km or 24,901 miles.

On January 4, 2004, NASA’s Spirit, a robotic MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover), landed successfully on the planet Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

Three weeks later, Spirit’s twin, Opportunity (MER-B), landed on the other side of Mars.

This YouTube video is a clip from the IMAX movie “Roving Mars” from 2006. I recommend you watch the video in Full Screen mode!

Before Spirit became stuck in late 2009, the rover already had completed its planned 90-sol mission, functioning effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners had expected. Spirit logged 4.8 mi of driving instead of the planned 0.4 mi, allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission (the 90-sol prime mission) were published in a special issue of the journal Science.

On May 1, 2009 (5 years, 3 months, 27 Earth days after landing; 21.6 times the planned mission duration), Spirit became stuck in soft soil. This was not the first of the mission’s “embedding events” and for the following eight months NASA carefully analyzed the situation, running Earth-based theoretical and practical simulations, and finally programming the rover to make extrication drives in an attempt to free itself. These efforts continued until January 26, 2010 when NASA officials announced that the rover was likely irrecoverably obstructed by its location in soft soil, though it continued to perform scientific research from its current location.
The rover continued in a stationary science platform role until communication with Spirit stopped on sol 2210 (March 22, 2010). A formal farewell was planned at NASA headquarters after the Memorial Day holiday and was televised on NASA TV.

H/t FOTM’s Ken L.

~Eowyn

UN admits the sun may cause global warming

Skeptics of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming have been saying for years now, that if the Earth indeed is warming — which is also disputed (see “Global Cooling for Last 10 Years” and “Climategate scientist: no global warming since 1995“) — the cause is not human but rather solar activities.

The United Nations’  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world’s most powerful proponent of both global warming (now called “climate change”) and man-made global warming. The IPCC’s report on global warming even garnered a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, which the UN body shared with climate hypocrite-fraudster Al Gore.

Al Gore and Chair of UN’s IPCC Rajendra Pachauri (a porn writer) with their Nobel Peace Prize

But the IPCC report was found to be riddled with mistakes: The Himalayan glaciers are not melting. The Amazon rain forest are not disappearing. And it’s 20%, not 55%, of the Netherlands that is below sea level.

Now another report by the same IPCC finally admits what some scientists have been saying for years — our Sun’s activities may play a significant role in global warming!

NASA image of a solar flare on the Sun, taken in June 2012.

 

Maxim Lott reports for FoxNews, February 01, 2013, that a leaked draft of an upcoming report by the United Nations’ IPCC says that heat from the sun may play a larger role than previously thought: “[Results] do suggest the possibility of a much larger impact of solar variations on the stratosphere than previously thought, and some studies have suggested that this may lead to significant regional impacts on climate.”

The report was leaked by StopGreenSuicide blogger Alec Rawls, who told FoxNews.com that the U.N.’s statements on solar activity were his main motivation for leaking the document.

Rawls first leaked the report last December. He wrote on his blog: “The public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself.”

He also blames the U.N. for burying its point about the effect of the sun in Chapter 11 of the report: “Even after the IPCC acknowledges extensive evidence for … solar forcing beyond what they included in their models, they still make no attempt to account for this omission in their predictions. … It’s insane.”

Despite the IPCC’s admission, some climatologists still say that the report is important, but not game-changing.

Pat Michaels, the former president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and current director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, said: “The solar component is real but not of sufficient magnitude to have driven most of the warming of the late 20th century.” Michaels also points out that the U.N. report says the effect of solar activity will be “much smaller than the warming expected from increases in [man-made] greenhouse gases.”

But even Michaels admits that while the Earth had warmed over the last two decades, it did so more slowly than the U.N. had predicted: “Climate science has the problem of trying to explain why we are now in our 17th year without a significant warming trend. As a result, you are seeing many forecasts of warming for this century being ratcheted down.”

Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientists says that the focus on solar activity distracts from the big picture — the fact that the Earth is warming: “I see climate contrarians try this trick almost every time a big new solar study comes out. They somehow tend to neglect mentioning that solar variation is smaller than the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide. The basic evidence is that solar activity has varied a bit while global temperature keeps going up.”

Blogger Rawls argues what should really worry us is not global warming, but global cooling, due to a fall in solar activity: “Unlike warming, cooling really is dangerous, regularly dropping the planet into hundred-thousand-year-long glacial periods.”

An estimate from NASA said that solar variations caused 25% of the 1.1 degree Fahrenheit warming that has been observed over the past century. NASA has said that there is evidence that the most recent “Little Ice Age” was caused by a dip in solar activity: “Almost no sunspots were observed on the sun’s surface during the period from 1650 to 1715. This extended absence of solar activity may have been partly responsible for the Little Ice Age in Europe,” during which temperatures were colder by about 1.8 degrees F than they are today.

Global Warming, man-made or sun-made, is no idle chatter among scientists.

Global Warming has very serious implications and consequences because it is used by very powerful forces in our world, behind the façade of the United Nations, to push for Agenda 21 — a blueprint for global political control.

The number 21 refers to an agenda for the 21st Century. In the name of environmentalism and sustainability, Agenda 21 is a comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans directly affect the environment.

For Fellowship of the Minds’ many posts on Agenda 21, go to the links colored dark red on our “Police State / NWO” page. Click here.

See also:

• “Agenda 21 population control map for USA,” May 27, 2012.
• “Agenda 21: Global Warming theory is baloney,” July 29, 2011.
• “Physicist says global warming is pseudo-science fraud,” Oct. 12, 2010.
• “Global Warming Nazis,” Oct. 5, 2010.
• “Ex-warmist scientist calls global warming a contrived myth,” July 30, 2010.
• “Now it’s Global Freezing,” Jan. 11, 2010.

A report by the Royal Academy of Engineering warns that a solar “superstorm” will hit Earth some time in the near future, knocking out  communications satellites, and cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics. But it’s impossible to predict more than about 30 minutes before it actually happens. Solar superstorms are estimated to occur once every 100 or 200 years, with the last one hitting the Earth in 1859.

~Eowyn

Wonders of the Universe: Geminid Meteor Showers

When we are weighed down and weary from human wickedness, we need a reminder that there is a Universe beyond our petty little world, which is more glorious and wondrous than we can ever imagine.

Every year in mid-December, we earthlings are treated to the Geminid meteor shower, touted by scientists as the most “intense” shower of the year.

According to NASA, the shower produces as many as 120 meteors per hour in dark sites under clear weather. The shower lasts for days, and can be seen without a telescope from your own backyard if you live away from the urban lights of cities.

“The Geminids are my favorite,” said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke on the agency’s website, “because they defy explanation.”

This year the Geminid Shower peaked between Dec. 13 and 14.

Here’s a breathtaking video made of the Geminid Shower of December 12-14, 2010. Make sure you watch this in full screen mode!

H/t FOTM’s WildBillAlaska

~Eowyn

 

New U.S. Army manual forbids our soldiers from criticizing Islam

The evidence is mounting that the Obama regime at best coddles radical Muslims, at worst it’s actively supporting and arming them. To wit:

• The Obama regime refuses to call US Army psychologist Nidal Hasan, who perpetrated the worst shooting ever to take place on a U.S. military base, at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009 — an Islamic jihadist. Despite eyewitness testimonies that Hasan had shouted “Allahu Akbar! (Allah is Great!)” before opening fire, killing 13 and wounding another 29; and regardless of internal Army reports indicating Hasan’s fellow officers had reported his outspoken sympathy with radical Islam since 2005.

• In August 2011, afraid of offending the delicate sensibilities of Muslims, the U.S. Marine Corps banned Marines serving in Afghanistan from — I kid you not — audible farting.

• In Sept. 2012, a highly-decorated 18-year veteran Army officer, Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, was fired from teaching a course on Islam because he had the temerity of actually teaching “negative aspects” the truth about Islam. (More evidence at the end of this post.)

The latest is a new U.S. Army handbook for troops deployed to the Middle East, forbidding our soldiers from making derogatory comments about the extremist Taliban, pedophilia, or Islam in general, as well as any comment approving of rights for women.

Aren’t we fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan? So if the Obama regime were in power then, U.S. soldiers in the Second World War would have been barred from making “derogatory comments” about Hitler and the Nazis.

What lunacy.

The non-partisan public interest organization Judicial Watch reports Dec. 11, 2012:

Here is a strong indicator that the Obama Administration’s crusade to appease Islam has gone too far; a new U.S. military handbook for troops deployed to the Middle East orders soldiers not to make derogatory comments about the Taliban or criticize pedophilia, among other outrageous things.

It gets better; the new manual, which is around 75 pages, suggests that Western ignorance of Afghan culture— not Taliban infiltration—is responsible for the increase in deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against the coalition forces.

The soon-to-be-released Army handbook is still being drafted, but [The Wall St. Journal] … got a sneak preview and published an article [for subscribers only] that should infuriate the American taxpayers funding the never-ending war on terror. The manual is being created because someone with authority bought the theory that cultural insensitivity is driving insider attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

More than three dozen insider attacks have killed 63 members of the U.S.-led coalition this year, according to the article, and some blame “American cultural ignorance.” The bottom line is that troops may experience social-cultural shock and/or discomfort when interacting with Afghan security forces, the new military handbook says. “Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [troops] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead toward green-on-blue violence.”

The draft leaked to the newspaper offers a list of “taboo conversation topics” that soldiers should avoid, including “making derogatory comments about the Taliban,” “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “directing any criticism towards Afghans,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.”

At least one high-ranking military official had the backbone to publicly criticize the new manual, albeit through a spokesperson. U.S. Marine General John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, doesn’t endorse it and rejected a proposed forward drafted by Army officials in his name. “He does not approve of its contents,” according to a military spokesman quoted in the story.

Earlier this year the Obama Administration changed the way federal agents are trained to combat terrorism and violent extremism by eliminating all materials that shed a negative light on Muslims. Under White House orders, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) destroyed instructional material that characterizes Muslims as prone to violence or terrorism in a government-wide call to end Islamophobia.

Under Obama practically every major federal agency has been ordered to participate in Muslim outreach initiatives, including the Justice Department with a special program to protect Islamic civil rights, Homeland Security meetings with extremist Muslim organizations and the nation’s space agency (NASA) with an unprecedented mission to focus on Muslim diplomacy.

Additionally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a special order to allow the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties long banned them from the U.S. and the administration sent an America-bashing mosque leader (Feisal Abdul Rauf) who blames U.S. foreign policy for the 9/11 attacks on a Middle Eastern outreach mission. The Obama Administration even ordered a government-funded meal program for home-bound seniors to offer halal cuisine prepared according to Islamic law.

About U.S. Marine General John Allen who has refused to endorse the new Muslim-appeasing military manual: This is the same Gen. Allen whose previously-announced promotion is now indefinitely postponed, and who will soon be replaced by Gen. Joseph Dunford as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. See “Obama purges U.S. military command (Part 1),” Dec. 3, 2012.

See also:

• “Obama fires general for wanting to help Americans being attacked in Benghazi,” Oct. 29, 2012.
• “Embryonic Islamic States Forming In America,” Aug. 18, 2012.
• “8 of 10 Mosques in America Promote Jihad,” June 5, 2011.
• “We’re Broke, but Obama Welcomes 80,000 Muslim Refugees into America,” June 5, 2011.
• “US Islamic Website Calls for Demolition of Statue of Liberty,” March 5, 2011.
• “Radical Muslim Group Trains TSA Agents,” December 9, 2010.
• “3 Mainstream US Muslim Groups Support Terror,” November 28, 2010.
• “Flag of Islam Will Fly Over the White House,” October 4, 2010.
• “Radical Muslim Group Has Infiltrated U.S. Government,” September 17, 2010.
• “Obama Says He’s Muslim,” July 8, 2010.
• “Obama’s New Mission for NASA: Boost Muslim Self-Esteem,” July 6, 2010.

H/t Eyes Wide Shut

~Eowyn

Creation: Celestial Angel

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the sky proclaims its builder’s craft”
-Psalm 19

Look at this breathtaking Hubble pic of a star-forming region far, far away in the Universe. It looks like a HUGE celestial Angel with gossamer blue wings….

~click pic to enlarge~

Here’s the description from The Atlantic:

The outstretched “wings” of the this bipolar star-forming region called Sharpless 2-106 record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium. Sharpless 2-106, Sh2-106 or S106 for short, lies nearly 2,000 light-years from us. The nebula measures several light-years in length. It appears in a relatively isolated region of the Milky Way galaxy. A massive, young star, IRS 4 (Infrared Source 4), is responsible for the furious activity we see in the nebula. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape. Hubble’s sharp resolution reveals ripples and ridges in the gas as it interacts with the cooler interstellar medium. Dusky red veins surround the blue emission from the nebula. The faint light emanating from the central star reflects off of tiny dust particles. This illuminates the environment around the star, showing darker filaments of dust winding beneath the blue lobes. More info here. (NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team – STScI/AURA)

Here are two more breathtaking images of the “Celestial Angel”:

H/t FOTM’s silent reader Ken

~Eowyn