The smaller of the two moons of Mars

This photo of Deimos was featured recently on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website, which says: “Deimos is one of the smallest known moons in the Solar System measuring only about 15 kilometers across. The diminutive Martian moon was discovered in 1877″.

AbsoluteAstronomy.com explains: “In Greek mythology, Deimos was the personification of dread. He was the son of Ares and Aphrodite. He, his brother Phobos and the goddess Enyo accompanied Ares into battle, as well as his father’s attendants, Trembling, Fear, Dread and Panic. His Roman equivalent was Formido or Metus. Asaph Hall (a 19th century American astronomer), who discovered the moons of Mars, named one Deimos, and the other Phobos.”

A recent entry in the Planetary Society website has more:

Deimos is relatively poorly studied because all modern Mars spacecraft orbit at altitudes much lower than Deimos’ 20,000 kilometers. Since Deimos, like nearly every moon in the solar system (including our own), is tidally locked to its planet, that means that all orbiters see only one face of the moon, the “sub-Mars hemisphere,” and that at a great distance. Phobos orbits much closer to Mars (at 9,400 kilometers), which is still above the altitude of the circular, polar orbiters like Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but it’s below the apoapsis of Mars Express, and is now being well mapped from all sides.

One indicator of how little attention has been paid to Deimos is the number of place names that have been formally approved for it. Are you ready for the complete map of all named places on Deimos? Here you go…>

As you can see there are only two landmarks at present, named after outstanding European intellects of the 18th century.

Both men, in their own way, put a dent in doom.

The reason they were associated with Deimos, after it’s discovery indicated that Mars had two moons, is even more obscure. Voltaire and Swift both wrote about the two moons of Mars, more than a century before the smaller moon was observed by an astronomer. It’s possible they picked up the idea from Kepler, who believed Mars had two moons because he mistranslated one of Galileo’s anagrams. Sometimes history of science reads stranger than science fiction…

To the point. Who else deserves a crater on Deimos named in their honour?

Who has scored a direct hit on dread and taken a sizeable chunk out of the prospect of Doomsday? Suggestions welcome.

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Allied Bombing of Northern Germany, World War Two

“It may be Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation. Chamberlain conceded that it was “absolutely contrary to International law.” It began in 1940 and Churchill believed it held the secret of victory. He was convinced that raids of sufficient intensity could destroy Germany’s morale, and so his War Cabinet planned a campaign that abandoned the accepted practice of attacking the enemy’s armed forces and, instead made civilians the primary target. Night after night, RAF bombers in ever increasing numbers struck throughout Germany, usually at working class housing, because it was more densely packed.”

- from The Peoples’ War by Angus Calder; London, Jonathan Cape 1969.

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An interesting article by Christopher Howse about Britain’s bombing of Germany entitled Bomber Command’s bombing of Second World War civilians was wilful murder was published in the British Daily Telegraph last December.

Howse mentions that Churchill had very occasional pangs of conscience – and even ordered a review of the murderous bombing campaign a month before Germany surrendered! He also had a civil service – proficient then as ever – in mopping up distasteful language. Here’s an extract:

“Tonight at Chequers, in the course of a film showing the bombing of German towns,” wrote a guest, on June 27, 1943, “Churchill suddenly sat bolt upright and said to me, ‘Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?’ ”

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See also Are we beasts?, a brief review of two recent books on the World War Two bombing of Gemany.

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) just got sillier.

Last week ACMA banned a post on the Whirlpool forum because it linked to a banned page that the Whirlpool poster has asked AMCA to ban – a page that had nothing to do with child pornography and had a public interest defense (anti-Abortion advocacy).

This week, ACMA banned a page on the anti-censorship website Wikileaks. But Wikileaks is hosted outside Australia, so ACMA can’t order a take down. Consequently, the page that ACMA banned for Australians is still on the web. So, peevishly, ACMA is threatening every Australian who links to that page with an $11,000 per day fine. Ouch!

What to make, then of the fact that the URL of the offending page is available to the public via AMCA’s own website? Should ACMA fine itself? Let’s hope.

The page on the ACMA website that contains material banned by ACMA

One consequence of this latest nonsense must surely be to pursuade yet more Australians to host their websites overseas, safely out of reach of the kind of totalitarian capers that hit Whirpool last week, when pressure was exerted via its Australian-based webhost.

Is Australian Communications Minister Senator Conroy a foreign agent? Certainly, he behaves like he has a personal vendetta against the quality of Australian communications.

The whole Conroy Affair has gone on too long. Far too many episodes! It’s amusing, yes, but increasingly in a tragic way. It’s become like a long-running comedy show after exhaustion sets in. Australia really does need to snap out of it and get on with real life.

Acma Banned Webpage v.2: the same URL - by the time I'd finished this article!

Time to fix this, Mr Rudd! Within months you may have spawned scores of anti-censorship independents. Fancy that at the next election?

You can only fool some of the people some of the time.

On this occasion, you missed out.

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Dennis Blair, Director of US National Intelligence since January 2009: His move next...

Chess is a fascinating game. I’m not much of a player, but I’ve played enough to know that in the opening and middle game, snatching an opponent’s piece usually incurs a cost, in positioning or momentum. No gain without pain.

In the fascinating Chas Freeman case, pundits are now discussing whether the Israel Lobby has just overplayed its hand. Perhaps they read this blog?

Tom’s Dispatch reports on Robert Dreyfuss, The Freeman Affair, quoting extensively from an Dreyfuss article in The Nation: Israel Lobby Defeats Freeman Appointment

Here’s an extract from the Dreyfuss article (emphasis added):

Numerous reporters, including Max Blumenthal at the Daily Beast website and Spencer Ackerman of Firedoglake, have effectively documented the role of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC, in sabotaging Freeman’s appointment. From their accounts and others, it seems clear that the lobby left its fingerprints all over Freeman’s National Intelligence Council corpse. (Indeed, Time’s Joe Klein described the attack on Freeman as an “assassination,” adding that the term “lobby” doesn’t do justice to the methods of the various lobbying groups, individuals, and publications: “He was the victim of a mob, not a lobby. The mob was composed primarily of Jewish neoconservatives.”)

Zionists, as a generalization, are rather paranoid people.

If I was one of them, I’d be worried that I might have been set up.

Perhaps Mr Freeman never wanted the job anyway? Maybe he did his job: forcing discussion of the Israel Lobby onto the front pages of the Washington Post and New York Times (even if they remain in denial mode).

If so, he did a very nice job of it. Let’s hope the next choice for Chair of the National Intelligence Council is an equally independent person, with an equally quizzical view of The Lobby. This was one of the comments under Robert Dreyfuss’ article:

And if I were Obama, I would CONTINUE to appoint people who he believes share his view that US intelligence should not be politicized, and force these lobbyists of foreign governments out in the open where they are most uncomfortable.

There is simply no way these lobbyists will win with the American people given the intelligence lapses in Iraq and the public’s disdain for being tricked into war!

It’s hard to argue with that analysis.

The Zionist Lobby is powerful, but not in complete control. Its ability to operate outside public scrutiny has been crucial to its success in recent times. Knocking Freeman off the board made a lot of noise – and that has consequences.

They wouldn’t want to play that move too often.

POSTSCRIPT: See also The Lobby Falters by John Mearsheimer in the London Review of Books, published 26th March 2009. His analysis concludes:

Freeman’s remarkable statement has shot all around the world and been read by countless individuals. This isn’t good for the lobby, which would have preferred to kill Freeman’s appointment without leaving any fingerprints. But Freeman will continue to speak out about Israel and the lobby, and maybe some of his natural allies inside the Beltway will eventually join him. Slowly but steadily, space is being opened up in the United States to talk honestly about Israel.

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