The Raw Story

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Geminid meteor shower to occur December 12 - 14

Peak viewing for the 2014 Geminid meteor shower will probably occur on from late evening December 13 through dawn on December 14.

The peak night of the 2014 Geminid meteor shower will probably occur on the night of December 13 (morning of December 14). The night before (December 12-13) may offer a decent sprinkling of meteors as well. Geminid meteors tend to be few and far between at early evening, but intensify in number as evening deepens into late night. A last quarter moon will rise around midnight, but Geminid meteors are bright! This shower favors Earth's Northern Hemisphere, but it's visible from the Southern Hemisphere, too. If you're at a temperate latitude in the Southern Hemisphere, try waiting a little later - until close to midnight - to see the beginning of the Geminid shower.

Follow the links below to learn more about the Geminid meteor shower in 2014.

Moonlight a factor in Geminid shower in 2014

How to watch the Geminid meteors

An earthgrazer Geminid meteor possible at early evening

Why are these meteors called the Geminids?

What causes the Geminid meteor shower?

Moonlight a factor in Geminid shower in 2014. In a year when moonlight doesn't obscure the view, you can easily see 50 or more Geminid meteors per hour on the peak night. However, in 2014, the waning moon will dampen the display in the peak viewing hours.

Don't let the moonlight discourage you. A good percentage of these yellow-colored Geminid meteors are quite bright and will overcome the moonlit skies.

Of course, you can always watch this shower during the evening hours before moonrise. That's the best time to catch an earthgrazer ... more about that below.

The moon will rise quite late on December 13 and 14, creating a window of darkness for watching the Geminid shower in the evening. Keep in mind that the moon will rise about an hour earlier on December 13 than it will on December 14. Click here for custom sunrise/set calendar. Check boxes for moonrise/set times..

Even as the moon rises, however, it will be sitting low in the east. If possible, find a hedgerow of trees, a barn or some such thing to block out the moon. Sit in a moon shadow but at the same time, find an expansive view of sky. Or simply look away from the moon.

The Geminid meteors radiate from near the star Castor in Gemini.

How to watch the Geminid meteors. The December Geminids are a particularly reliable and prolific shower, one of the finest of the year. In 2014, the peak night is probably the night of December 13 (morning of December 14). Try the night before (December 12-13), too.

You need no special equipment - just a dark, open sky and maybe a sleeping bag to keep warm. Plan to sprawl back in a hammock, lawn chair, pile of hay or blanket on the ground. Lie down in comfort, and look upward.

The peak is typically centered at about 2 a.m. local time, no matter where you are on the globe. That's because the constellation Gemini - radiant point of the shower - will reach its highest point for the night around 2 a.m. (your local time). As a general rule, the higher the constellation Gemini climbs into your sky, the more Geminid meteors you're likely to see.

Some people mistakenly think that, since meteor showers have radiant points, you should look in the direction of the shower's radiant point to see the most meteors. Not so! The meteors will appear in all parts of the sky.

It's fun to bring along a buddy. Then two of you can watch in different directions. When someone sees one, they can call out "meteor!" This technique will let you see more meteors than one person watching alone will see.

Be sure to give yourself at least an hour of observing time. It takes about 20 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark.

Be aware that meteors often come in spurts, interspersed by lulls.

An earthgrazer meteor possible at early evening. You won't see as many Geminid meteors when the constellation Gemini sits close to the eastern horizon during the evening hours. As night passes, the Geminid's radiant will climb upward, so that the meteors will be raining down from a point that's higher in the sky.

Even so, the evening hours are the best time to try to catch an earthgrazer meteor.

Earthgrazers are rarely seen but prove to be especially memorable, if you should be lucky enough to catch one. An earthgrazer is a slow-moving, long-lasting meteor that travels horizontally across the sky.

© EarthSky Facebook friend Mike O’Neal in Oklahoma

Meteor flying straight from Gemini’s two brightest stars, Castor and Pollux, during the 2012 Geminid meteor shower.

Why are these meteors called the Geminids? If you trace the paths of the Geminid meteors backward, they all seem to radiate from the constellation Gemini, hence the reason for the meteor shower's name.

In fact, the radiant point of this meteor shower nearly coincides with the bright star Castor. However, the radiant point and the star Castor just happen to be a chance alignment, as Castor lies about 52 light-years away while these meteors burn up in the upper atmosphere, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the Earth's surface.

You don't need to find the constellation Gemini to watch the Geminid meteor shower. These medium-speed meteors streak the nighttime in many different directions and in front of numerous age-old constellations. It's even possible to see a Geminid meteor when looking directly away from the shower's radiant point. However, if you trace the path of any Geminid meteor backward, it'll lead you back to the constellation Gemini the Twins.

Orbit of Asteroid 3200 Phaethon, parent of the Geminid meteor shower

© Wikimedia Commons

The orbital path of asteroid 3200 Phaethon, and the four inner planets of the solar system: Mercurio (Mercury), Venere (Venus), Terra (Earth) and Marte (Mars).

What causes the Geminid meteor shower? Every year, in December, our planet Earth crosses the orbital path of asteroid 3200 Phaethon, a mysterious body that is sometimes referred to as a rock comet.

In periods of 1.43 years, this small 5-kilometer (3-mile) wide asteroid-type object swings extremely close to the sun (to within one-third of Mercury's distance), at which juncture intense thermal fracturing causes this rocky body to crack and crumble, and to shed rubble into its orbital stream. Annually, at this time of year, the debris from 3200 Phaethon crashes into Earth's upper atmosphere at some 130,000 kilometers (80,000 miles) per hour, to vaporize as colorful Geminid meteors.

Bottom line: Despite the moonlight in 2014, the reliable Geminid shower is sure to add to the holiday lighting on the nights of December 12-13 and 13-14! This post contains information about the shower's radiant point, and tips on when and how to watch December's Geminid meteor shower.

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

'Nidelric pugio' named in honour of University of Leicester scientist who passed away earlier this year.

Nidelric pugio fossil dates back half a billion years and teaches us about the diversity of life in Earth's ancient seas. In life the animal was a 'balloon' shape, covered in spines but the squashed fossil resembles a bird's nest. The fossil has been named in honour of Professor Richard Aldridge from the University of Leicester.

This rare 520 million year old fossil has been discovered in China by an international research team.

The research team behind the discovery was led by Professor Xianguang Hou from the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology at Yunnan University in China with collaboration from the Universities of Leicester and Oxford.

The fossil, from Chengjiang in southern China, is of a probably 'chancelloriid', a group of bizarre, balloon-shaped animals with an outer skeleton of defensive spines. The animal was flattened during the fossilisation process so that it looks like a squashed bird's nest.

Funded by the National Science Foundation in China and the Royal Society in the UK, the research team named the species Nidelric pugio as a way to honour the late Professor Richard Aldridge, and internationally renowned palaeontologist and keen ornithologist formerly from the University of Leicester's Department of Geology and a scientist who was a world leader in Chengjiang fossil research.

The name of the fossil has derived from the Latin Nidus, meaning 'bird's nest' or 'fancied resemblance to' and alderic, derived from the Old English personal name 'Aedelic' - 'adel' meaning 'nobel' and 'ric' meaning 'a ruler' - which is a source for the name Aldridge.

Dr. Tom Harvey from the University of Leicester, a co-author of the paper, said: "There is only one fossil of this enigmatic animal after 30 years of collecting by our Chinese colleagues at Chengjiang. It is exceptionally rare, but it shows us just how strange and varied the shapes of early animals could be.

"We are glad the fossil can honour the name of Professor Richard Aldridge, who was a leader in this field and whose research was vital in better understanding the rich tapestry of fossils found at Chengjiang."

In southern China, rocks 520 million years old in Chengjiang County, Yunna Province generate a diverse array of fossils preserved with traces of their soft anatomy, including their legs, eyes, guts and even brains.

Amongst the array of fossils are many animals that can be related to modern relatives, including distant relatives of anthropods such as crabs and lobsters, a wide variety of worms.

There are also several enigmatic fossils that don't appear to fit with anything living today, and amongst these are the chancelloriids.

The fossils enable an unprecedented view of life in Earth's ancient seas.

Tom Hearing, a PhD student from the Department of Geology who is working on the skeletons of Cambrian fossils, added: "We usually only get the broken-up remains of ancient animal skeletons. With this specimen we can see how all the different parts of the skeleton stuck together. It tells us much about how early animals functioned, how they might have interacted with other animals, and how they might have protected themselves from predators."

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

Naturalist Paul Rosolie

Some of you may have missed (or not!) the "very special episode" of this past Sunday on the Discovery Channel, where a man named Paul Rosolie intended to be eaten alive by an anaconda and have it filmed for the world to see. I'm going to spoil the end result for you right now: he did not in fact get eaten alive.

What the viewing public got to see was a man, dressed up like Darth Vader, provoke a poor snake into attacking him and then 15 minutes later call it off when the pain from the constriction became too much (for the man, not the snake). Yes, amazingly, the snake at first wanted nothing to do with Paul. In his own words:

"When I went up to the snake, it didn't try to eat me right away. It tried to escape. And when I provoked it a little bit, and acted a little more like a predator, that's when it turned around and defended itself."

You couldn't really blame the snake, Paul. You're a member of the human race, that is collectively responsible for the extinction of thousands of animals and killings of untold snakes. This particular snake probably realized that you aren't exactly dinner material. But that doesn't matter, because advertising slots must be sold! So Paul attacked until the snake finally decided it had enough and fought back.

Paul Rosolie and his snake suit

The guy obviously did not think things through, and the TV executives were only too happy to waste people's time with the worst television payoff since Geraldo Rivera burst into Al Capone's vault (Rivera was similarly not eaten by a snake, unfortunately).

But let's talk about the audience reaction to the lack of payoff. There are people who actually want to see someone eaten alive by a snake. Possibly 4 million of them. I'm guessing some were watching out of morbid curiosity, but that does not absolve them in my eyes. Is anyone else having a hard time understanding how this could even be an event? I feel like I'm stuck in a dystopian sci-fi film. Just look at some of the reactions that people on Twitter had to being denied the pleasure of seeing a human being eaten by a snake:

There's 16 minutes left and this man is not in a snake's mouth. What have they been doing for the last hour and 44 minutes?? #EatenAlive- Amy Mariani (@AmyMariani) December 8, 2014

Calling it #EatenAlive is like having a show on the Food Network about cooking a turkey and all they do after 2 hours is preheat the oven.- Reagan King (@ReaganKingIsles) December 8, 2014

That's a small sample. I'm glad I don't know these people, because if I did, I might just have to smack some sense into them over how stupid this whole charade was from the beginning.

Then again, maybe I'm the naive one, to be surprised that our society would not be disgusted by this ridiculous idea, and on top of that demand what they were promised, some 'eaten alive' action, dag gummit! To heck with our country's imminent plans to bomb Russia or the practical elimination of our civil liberties. We've got snake eatin' on the TV!

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaigners

Ireland's lower house of parliament has unanimously approved a nonbinding, symbolic resolution calling on the government to recognize the state of Palestine formally on the basis of the 1967 borders.

The motion is similar to one passed in October by the upper house, the Seanad. It calls on the government to officially recognize the State of Palestine, on the basis of the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital, as established in UN resolutions, as a further positive contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The symbolic measure was sponsored by Sinn Fein, an Irish nationalist party with strong Palestinian links.

Achieving and recognizing a Palestinian state has always been the objective of the Irish government. Everything we do in the Middle East is directed towards that aim, Sinn Fein's Phil Flanagan told a virtually empty parliamentary chamber, with barely a dozen lawmakers present in the 166-seat chamber, AP reported.

While successive governments have always seen recognition coming as part of an agreed peace, I've made it clear that I've absolutely no difficulty in principle with the idea of early recognition, if I believe it can contribute to achieving a settlement of the conflict. The present stalemate is not acceptable to me," Flanagan stated.

Ireland has become the latest EU member to approve the motion seeking recognition of Palestinian statehood. On October 30, Sweden was the first Western EU member (and 135th of the world's 193 nations) to recognize Palestinian statehood officially. Similar nonbinding motions have recently passed the legislatures in the UK, France and Spain.

On Thursday, France's Senate is also set to vote on symbolic recognition of a Palestinian State after the lower house approved the measure last week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move "irresponsible and a grave mistake

Do they have nothing better to do at a time of beheadings across the Middle East, including that of a French citizen? he told i24news on November 23 in Jerusalem, referring to Herve Gourdel, a French tourist who was executed in Algeria in September by an Algerian jihadist group linked to the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants.

The world is divided on Palestine's status: While most developing countries recognize it as a state, most Western European countries don't, insisting that an independent Palestinian state may only emerge from direct negotiations. Israel argues that nations that recognize the Palestinian state discourage direct talks.

Earlier this month, a Palestinian envoy to the UN said that by the end of December he would submit a first draft of a request to renew peace talks with Israel to the UN Security Council, which will include a set date for establishing a Palestinian state. Riyad Mansour said that the request draft will also set a date by which the Israeli and the Palestinian delegations must come to an agreement, Israel Radio reported.

On November 26, President Mahmoud Abbas stated that he would be ready to set up a Palestinian State on land he says is only 22 percent of the size it should be, the Turkish Anadolu Agency reported.

On November 23, Foreign Minister Riad Malki told the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency that the Palestinian Authority had decided to put off its statehood bid at the UN Security Council. This was supposed to take place at the end of November, allegedly because of US pressure and threats, as well as due to the failure of the PA to get the backing of nine Council members in favor of the statehood bid.

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

The European Council on Foreign Relations and Berlin think-tank Friedrich Ebert Stiftung have just reached more or less the same conclusion.

If the dangerous stand-off between the EU and Russia over Ukraine is not solved, the EU could face, up to 2030, a military build-up in eastern Europe; a new arms race with NATO as a protagonist; and a semi-permanent "zone of instability" from the Baltic to the Balkans and the Black Sea.

What these two think-tanks don't - and won't - ever acknowledge is that a new European "arc of instability" - from the Baltic to the Black Sea, as myself and other independent analysts have stressed - is exactly what the Empire of Chaos and its weaponized arm - NATO - are working on to prevent closer Eurasia integration.

By the way, the Pentagon excels in fabricating The previous one was - and remains - massive, stretching from the Maghreb to Xinjiang in western China across the Middle East and Central Asia.

Moscow has totally identified the plot; Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, once again, has made it crystal clear, in detail.

And crucially, some influential sectors in Germany also did, as in members of the cultural elite destroying the notion of a new war in Europe: "Not in our name."

The same applies to those that always preach more transatlantic cooperation, extol the US's role in Germany, and effusively praise Germany as the most American country in Europe; that's the case of the newspaper - which stands for the core of the political and economic establishment in Germany.

It's still in an embryonic stage, and has not yet made Chancellor Angela Merkel see the light; but a reverse reengineering of Atlanticist relations is already in progress in Germany.

The SWIFT war

Meanwhile, the proverbial group of extremist US senators, plus the notorious poodles/vassals of Britain and Poland, haven't stopped lobbying to shut Russia off from SWIFT - just as they did with Iran.

This would be nothing but yet another declaration of (economic) war - or the economic counterpoint to NATO hysteria. In fairness, a great deal of the EU - especially Germany - knows this is madness.

Germany's top financial paper recently published a key interview with head of VTB-Bank Andrei Kostin, which has still not been translated into any major English-language paper.

Kostin went straight to the point:

Next May, Russia's Central Bank is planning to introduce an analogue to SWIFT - after key consultations with China. It's always important to keep in mind that China set up a parallel SWIFT to do business with Iran under sanctions. But still there will be a window of four months for a lot of nasty things to happen after a Republican-controlled US Senate is empowered in January.

All that glitters...

And then there's the golden rule. Why is Russia buying so much gold? With the US dollar forced upward and gold downward, it makes total business sense to sell gas for inflated dollars and then buy cheap depressed gold; that's what the Chinese call a And of course on both counts, the West loses.

The Washington/Wall Street elites are fully aware that both Moscow and Beijing won't accumulate US dollars anymore. As for the Masters of the Universe plutocrats who manipulate/control the value of the US dollar, a case can be made that one of their purposes is wrecking the US's industrial base and the nation's middle classes.

Moscow, meanwhile, has adjusted to the new The weak ruble has a positive effect - already stressed by President Putin - by forcing Russia to diversify its manufacturing and become more self-sufficient.

Of course, the problem remains for Russia to pay the foreign interest on its debt in US dollars. Moscow could always declare a moratorium in debt repayments. The ruble might go down even more. But as everyone from Lukoil to Rosneft converts more US dollars into rubles, that will drive the ruble back up. Not to mention that the ruble is shorted as it stands. The bottom line is that Moscow has learned yet another lesson for the immediate future: never become indebted to the West.

What's certain is that the Empire of Chaos won't relent in its strategy of heating up the new arc of instability - inside Europe, across the economic/financial spectrum - and instrumentalizing its pre-fabricated New Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

The Kremlin seems to know exactly how high the stakes are. As The Saker told me in an email, "Putin is telling both the West and the Russian people that there is a long war in progress and that the Russian people have to morally be prepared to accept sacrifices for the survival of Russia. This is one more step in the 'coming-out' of what I call the 'Eurasian Sovereignists' in which the US [has] now openly declared as a Russophobic (Russia-hating and Russia-fearing) enemy, and the Europeans as a powerless colony. Military power is not directly a factor in this, the internal power balance between the pro-Western 'Atlantic Integrationists' and the 'Eurasian Sovereignists' is."

It's all here - from the debacle of a regime (Bretton Woods) to the current, provoked crisis, all brilliantly explained by Mikhail Khazin. Russia is getting ready to rock. Is the West?

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

Iraqis wave as the last U.S. convoy heads

© Lucas Jackson/AFP/Getty Images

The US has a history of “invasion, occupation and destruction” throughout the world, Dennis Etler says.

The United States is seeking to dismember China because it has a history of invasion throughout the world, an American researcher in California says.

"The US has invaded countries throughout the world, in its own backyard, in Latin America and particularly around the periphery of China," said Dennis Etler, a professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California.

"Two wars have been fought on China's borders (by the US) within the last half century," Etler told Press TV on Wednesday.

"China has a history of course over the last 150 years of invasion, occupation and destruction by forces both East and West, of course there's European colonialism and Japanese imperialism as well as US imperialism have wreaked havoc on China," Etler added.

China has a right to defend itself from US "imperialism" which still has a desire to dismember China, similar to what it did with the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, Iraq and other nations, Etler stated.

A new report has revealed that the Chinese Navy is preparing for a possible enemy attack, arming its submarines with nuclear missiles that could reach the United States.

Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that the Asian superpower is "cloaking its arsenal with the invisibility needed to retaliate in the event of an enemy strike."

China has also been developing advanced anti-ship ballistic missiles that could target US naval forces in the South China Sea.

The US is concerned about the growing military and economic power of China.

Observers believe America's efforts to increase its presence in the Asia-Pacific region is aimed at containing China. Beijing has demanded that Washington stay out of regional disputes.

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

After the eruption of large-scale protests which subsequently devolved into chaotic riots in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in response to the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson police, protests began to spread outside of Ferguson to large cities all across the country. Fresh on the heels of the Michael Brown protests, reports of the Eric Garner murder by the NYPD and the non-indictment of the murderer, large-scale protests erupted in New York City and, like the Brown-inspired protests, all across the country as well.

In short, anger, protests, riots and other forms of violence have engulfed cities all across the United States. Years of authoritarianism, a stagnant economy, and police brutality among many other issues are coming to a head, regardless of what one thinks about the methods or even the merits of some of the protesters/rioters.

Flashback to 2011, shortly after death squad operations funded by NATO, the GCC and Israel began in earnest inside Syria. According to Western media, these operatives who were killing Syrians indiscriminately in the streets, implementing Sharia law, and beheading civilians were peaceful protesters. Such widespread chaos in the streets of Syrian cities was used as a justification by Western leaders such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister David Cameron to call for Assad to step down.

According to these leaders, "peaceful protests" across Syria were enough to warrant calls for Assad to step down as President of the country. Such civil unrest was reason enough to demand that Assad "face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people."

So with the massive civil unrest taking place all across the United States in 2014, one must ask the question, is the logical response to demand that U.S. President Barack Obama step down?

If mass "protests" in Syria are enough to demand that Assad has lost his legitimacy, then why are mass protests across the United States not enough to demand that Obama has lost his own legitimacy?

Indeed, while Assad was facing down terrorists funded by foreign powers for the purposes of destroying his country (slower and more tepid than many Syrians would have preferred), headlines accusing him of "brutality," "oppression," "killing his own people," and "crimes against humanity," abounded in the Western press.

Considering the history of police brutality in the United States, particularly the skyrocketing increase in police aggression and murder of American citizens, as well as the response to the subsequent protests, one can only imagine the headlines if the shoe was on the other foot.

While mainstream outlets in the United States were quick to call for Assad to step down, where are the headlines reading "Years of Human Rights Violations Reach Tipping Point In U.S.," "International Community: 'Obama Has Lost Legitimacy," "Obama Kills His Own," "Authoritarian U.S. Regime Faces American Spring?"

With the response of militarized police forces to the riots and even the legitimately peaceful demonstrations using "non-lethal weapons," rubber bullets, and tear gas, one wonders where the mainstream press' headlines of "U.S. Cracks Down On Peaceful Protesters," "Military Cracks Down On Civilians," and "Obama Uses Chemical Weapons on Civilians," might be.

In addition, such wide-scale protests come right as the U.S. Senate's torture report is released, a report that admits that not only was the CIA torturing on a massive scale but that it did so with the complicity and direction of the White House. Although the focus of the blame is placed on the shoulders of George Bush and Dick Cheney, only a fool would believe that the United States has not continued its practice of systematic torture under the Obama administration. In fact, while kept much more quiet in the mainstream news, Obama's administration has been implicated in the continuation of torture techniques on a number of occasions.

Needless to say, we will not hold our breath for such headlines as those mentioned above to appear in the mainstream press. At least not in terms of the police brutality epidemic in the United States and the legitimacy of an American president. Such statements are only reserved for the targets of American imperialism.

Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog

The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

Kiev orders crackdown on Russian TV channels

What I did after police killed my son

Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Geminid meteor shower to occur December 12 - 14

Rare 520 million year old fossil discovered in China

SOTT Exclusive: Discovery's airing of Eaten Alive is another sign of our society's descent into Idiocracy

Ireland's lower house approves Palestinian state recognition

Empire of Chaos and the new European 'arc of instability'

Analyst: U.S. has a desire to dismember China

Amid massive civil unrest in America, should Obama step down?

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