Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme – Week 181
Aunt Elaine sent me this, a circulating email. I always check these out. This one is not a hoax.
The email calls this the rarest of all atmostpheric phenomena, a “fire rainbow.” Clouds have to be cirrus, at least 20k feet in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals and the sun has to hit the clouds at precisely 50 degrees.
Yup, you get the right combination of conditions and – voila! beauty.
From Snopes
This is a real photograph of an atmospheric phenomenon known as a circumhorizon(tal) arc, the example shown above was captured on camera as it hung for about an hour across a several-hundred square mile area of sky above northern Idaho (near the Washington border) on 3 June 2006.
In general, a circumhorizontal arc (or “fire rainbow”) appears when the sun is high in the sky (i.e., higher than 58° above the horizon), and its light passes through diaphanous, high-altitude cirrus clouds made up of hexagonal plate crystals. Sunlight entering the crystals’ vertical side faces and leaving through their bottom faces is refracted (as through a prism) and separated into an array of visible colors. When the plate crystals in cirrus clouds are aligned optimally (i.e., with their faces parallel to the ground), the resulting display is a brilliant spectrum of colors reminiscent of a rainbow.
Well, I think it’s more than “reminiscent” of a rainbow. It’s the normal prism effect – but angled out over flame-shaped clouds.
Gorgeous, isn’t it?
Thanks to Lucas for pointing me to NewsHounds.org. The logo, heh heh.
It’s comparable to Media Matters, only a little less researched, more opinion-based, perhaps a little bit more hip, a bit less careful. A younger audience?
Don’t wanna be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It’s calling out to idiot America.
– American Idiot, Green Day
If you’re wondering why I haven’t blogged on the current violence in the Middle East, it’s because my opinion is not as well-informed as it could be. I don’t feel qualified to stand forth with an analysis.
I don’t trust much of what I’m hearing in the news, especially knowing that there is a lot of history there. What we are getting is a snapshot viewpoint here and there. My overall feeling so far is that there is plenty of blame, and a fair bit of hypocrisy and spin, to go around. I would like to hear viewpoints from countries that are a lot less involved in that part of the world.
As the violence has escalated more and more people are being killed.
I hope there are people already there (and with greater skill than Condi) who can help negotiate an end to this bloodshed.
Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme – Week 180
I’ve added a new page – “About VirusHead.”
There is a short explanation of why the blog is named VirusHead.
There is also a long rambling section about theoryheads and postmodernism (only for the intensely curious).
I’ve also added a page dedicated to Jehovah’s Witnesses issues, news and resources. In addition to page links (to bits of the main VirusHead site), the page lists all the titles of the blog posts on this topic, so that you don’t have to click through the category pages to get a sense of what’s there.
I’ve also moved my tag cloud to its own page, which includes all the tags. All of them.