Daily Archives: June 7, 2011

“Armchair Astronaut” Discovers Martian Anomoly

June 07, 2011   Jacob Blanchard   No comments

David Martines, a self-described “armchair astronaut”, believes that he has discovered a structure on the surface of Mars. He has named his discovery “Bio-station Alpha”. Although he does not say that his find is definite proof of life on Mars, he believes that some form of intelligent life created it. He made the discovery while using Google Mars, a companion to the more popular Google Earth.

Bio-station Alpha

Martines announced his discovery via a youtube video. Strangely, he removed the video after it went viral. But there is a transcript of his narration, courtesy of the Examiner:

“This is a video of something I discovered on Google Mars quite by accident. I call it Bio-station Alpha, because I’m just assuming that something lives in it or has lived in it.
“It’s very unusual in that it’s quite large, it’s over 700 feet long and 150 feet wide, it looks like it’s a cylinder or made up of cylinders. It could be a power station or it could be a biological containment or it could be a glorified garage – hope it’s not a weapon.
“Whoever put it up there had a purpose I’m sure. I couldn’t imagine what the purpose was. I couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to live on Mars.
“It could be a way-station for weary space travelers. It could also belong to NASA, I don’t know that they would admit that. I don’t know if they could pull off such a project without all the people seeing all the material going up there. I sort of doubt NASA has anything to do with this.
“I don’t know if NASA even knows about this.”

The video lists the structure’s coordinates as 49’19.73″N 29 33’06.53″W.

But before you go looking for any bio-stations, know that experts like Alfred McEwen, planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona and the director of the Planetary Imaging Research, believe that Martines was fooled by “linear streak artifact produced by a cosmic ray.”  Google Mars’s images were taken from an orbiter. Orbiters, without the protection of an atmosphere, often take pictures that are effected by cosmic radiation.

This is similar to early astronomers believing they saw intricate Martian canal systems, when they were actually seeing faults in their telescope lenses. But with our technology and understanding of the universe expanding every day, we may soon find real evidence of Martian life.

 

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Number of Catholic Schools Continues to Fall

June 07, 2011   Brianna Bucci   No comments

In big cities across the United States the number of Catholic schools that remain open has dramatically declined over the past fifty years. The number of Catholic schools fifty years ago was around 13,000, where today it is down to 7,000 schools. The number of students in Catholic schools has also significantly decreased from enrollment at five million to now barely two million students. Many students graduating from these Catholic schools are moving on to college with a substantial amount of money in scholarships.

The reasons for these schools closing are due to a decline in enrollment, less money coming from the schools, fewer members of the church working for little pay, as well as the tuition rates much too high for lower and middle class citizens to afford for their children’s education.

With the amount of money charter schools have been able to raise, it is hard to believe Catholic schools cannot do the same. Now, many students who received financial aid to attend these Catholic schools will be attending inner city public schools, and their dreams of attending college were just pushed back a step.

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Santorum Announces Presidential Candidacy

June 07, 2011   Fouad Egbaria   1 Comment

Republican Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, officially announced his intentions of running for president underneath the GOP banner, adding his name to the heretofore decidely underwhelming crop of candidates. On Monday morning in an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America, Santorum confidently stated: “We’re ready to get into this race, and we’re in it to win.” Despite the optimism, Santorum is certainly a long-shot in this race.

However, Santorum has been doing some work on the campaign trail since 2009 in key states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, a necessity if he is going to overcome the greater name recognition of some of the other GOP candidates (chiefly, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin if she ultimately decides to run). Unfortunately for Santorum, CNN reports that he receives single digit percentages of the votes in nearly every poll aimed at Republican voters.

Santorum represents the traditional conservative candidate, who also has foreign policy experience via his work in the Senate. The pro-Israel, fiscally conservative, pro-life former senator would ostensibly need to leverage his image of being the “traditional” conservative against other candidates, such as Romney and Palin (once again, assuming that she is a candidate). While Santorum will certainly find some support amongst conservatives, particularly in the Southeast, it is difficult to imagine his campaign ending with success because, simply put, he lacks the “star power” and name recognition of other candidates.

 

Contains information from CNN.

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Job Losses Increasing at State and Local Levels

June 07, 2011   Fouad Egbaria   No comments

As we enter the new fiscal year (beginning on July 1st), it’s clear that the failing job market will receive no help from governments at the state and local levels. Greg Daco, an economist at IHS Global Insight put it bluntly: “We’re on a downward path. It’s not looking good.” While the private sector had added a significant amount of jobs, the public sector has done just the opposite, losing approximately 23,000 jobs a month for the past three months. Since April of 2008, over 500,000 public sector jobs have been lost.

Sadly, this seems to only be the beginning, as state governments are planning on cutting spending across the board, particularly spending that goes toward education, social services, and local governments. Federal stimulus money did its part for a while, but now state and local governments will be forced to make some difficult and unpopular decisions. Those working in education will likely be hit the hardest, as many layoffs are imminent. According to economists, it will take at least a year for these governments to recover, as it is usually the norm for state and local governments to take longer to recover (i.e., as opposed to government at the federal level).

However, amongst the various twists and turns along this downward path the economy has taken, it is important to remember the tragedy that these cuts represent. Educators, many of whom are likely very, very good at what they do, have been and will be laid off in the coming months. The real tragedy is the fact that kids everywhere will receive a lesser education due to factors beyond their control, beyond the control of their parents, and even beyond the control of the local governments around them. The need to cut education funding is perhaps the most emotionally resonant and significant aspect of this economic downturn; that is, in a time of outsourcing, a gradual falling behind in subjects such as math and science vis-a-vis nations like China and India, and an increase of American independence on products made overseas, one would think that education would be the last thing to be cut. Nobody in their right mind would ever willingly cut education, for both practical and emotional reasons. How can we deny–or severely limit–the youth of America an education that will provide them intellectual fulfillment and practical incentives (e.g., job opportunities) for the future? The fact that such cuts are an inevitability is an ominous sign of how bad things might become and how bad they’ve been to get us to this point.

 

Contains information from CNN.

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