The Breakfast Club (Apocalypse!)

Or not (sigh).

You know, whenever one of these warnings about the end of the Universe, or Earth, or even just the Tri-State area (were you aware that we got issued an erroneous Tsunami alert last week?), and I have a deadline, there is always a fair part of me that hopes it’s true just so I can avoid writing.

It’s a hateful, horrible task that sucks out your soul photon by photon and I do love it so.

The ‘Super’ Blood Moon Non-Apocalypse Is Upon Us

By Chas Danner, New York Magazine

September 27, 2015

(M)uch of the U.S. will be able to witness the rare convergence of a total lunar eclipse and a so-called “supermoon,” which is when the moon appears a whopping 7 percent larger because it’s at the closest point of its orbit of the Earth.

…

A lunar eclipse is also referred to as a “blood moon,” due to the reddish-brown color the eclipsed moon gets after the sun’s light is filtered through the particulates in our atmosphere. Put another way, as Plait adds, “If you were standing on the Moon, it’s like you’re seeing every sunrise and sunset on Earth all at once,” or put even another way, its like projecting all the crap in our atmosphere onto the surface of the moon. Bonus: Tonight is a harvest moon as well.

Tonight is thus a harvest-super-blood moon, as well as the possible end of the world if you’re a believer of fringe religious theories suggesting that. But while astrophysicists are certain the world will end some day, NASA insists that won’t be tonight.

And here we all are still, fixed in our orbits like the Moon.  This is what I did for entertainment last night-

Yup.  Four hours doing squats behind a camera in the dark only it wasn’t so dark because I was in a parking lot behind a school that was brightly lit and under 24 hour a day surveillance as the helpful sign informed me.  I only got busted by the cops twice.

The first time they came by it was me and my camera and the Officer very helpfully suggested I must be out to watch the Blood Moon.

Why yes.  Yes I am.  Pay no attention to my home made digital clock (I’m not the tidiest of solderers).

I got there early, but right on time the SUVs with the kidlings arrived to see the show.  They paid very little attention, preferring to play flashlight tag (very distracting) and throw balls (even more distracting if you weren’t ready to think quick).

I admit it’s a rather slow moving event for a child, I on the other hand was quite busy, especially during those times when it was too dark for the viewfinder and you had to take Aperture Priority shots just to line up the camera.

I took over 300 photos of which I’ve identified 5 that are almost acceptable.  In addition to the pointing problem focus is also an issue, as far as I know my camera decides what it likes.

10:45 was peak eclipsish and everyone packed up the rug rats and headed home.  I bitter ended because I was (correctly) not confident in the quality of any of my shots.  The cops rolled around again when everything was as desolate as it was when I arrived.

How did it go?

Ok I guess.  Don’t believe them when they say that this is it until 2033.  There will be other Eclipses and other Super Moons, just not the two together.

Sports AND Entertainment

My family reads my blogs (yes, I have one) and my cousin’s kids as I think I’ve mentioned are big Nationals fans.  Therefore I will just quietly mention that The New York City Metropolitans are National League East Champions and link to this.  

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.  Then it’s just fun.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. –Aristotle

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Obligatories

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

This Day in History

News

• Russia Surprises U.S. With Accord on Battling ISIS, By MICHAEL R. GORDON, The New York Times
• Royal Dutch Shell Abandons Disappointing Offshore Alaskan Well, By STANLEY REED, The New York Times
• Frackers could soon face mass extinction, by  Stephen Gandel, Fortune
• Catalonia election: what does victory for pro-independence parties mean?, by Alberto Nardelli, The Guardian
• It’s make or break time for Jeb Bush, By Ed O’Keefe and Matea Gold
• VW was warned of cheating emissions software, Al Jazeera
• Amid VW scandal, polluted Paris asks if time to dump diesel, By ANGELA CHARLTON and SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press
• Taliban Fighters in Afghanistan Come Close to Taking Kunduz, By MUJIB MASHAL, The New York Times
• Hundreds gather in Hong Kong to mark anniversary of protests, By Jessica Macy Yu and Yimou Lee, Reuters
• United flights were part of effort to ‘save’ Atlantic City, By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ and DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press
• Edward Snowden Inspires Global Treaty for Online Privacy, By David Miranda, Joseph Huff-Hannon, Rolling Stone
• Big banks abusing 2012 settlement deal, By Jon Prior, Politico

Blogs

• GCHQ’s Karma Police: Tracking And Profiling Every Web User, Every Web Site, by Glyn Moody
• In The Post-Ferguson World, Cops Are Now Victims And It’s The Public That’s Going To Pay The Price, by Tim Cushing
• Debacle, Inc.: How Henry Kissinger Helped Create Our ‘Proliferated’ World, By Greg Grandin, Naked Capitalism
• No Disclosure Of Foreign Participants In Corruption Probe Of BNY Mellon, by Dan Wright, Shadow Proof
• Decolonizing Spain: Colonial Legacies and the Importance of Renaming, By Mahdis Azarmandi and Roberto D. Hernandez, Truthout
• Bernie Sanders’ Shrewd Move That May Push Clinton Left,  By Marc Daalder, In These Times
• Martin Shkreli’s Free-Market Fetish: How the Drug Profiteer’s Pathetic Excuses Reveal a Dangerous Ideology, By Conor Lynch, Salon
• Nutcases and Knut Cases, Paul Krugman, The New York Times
• Boehner wants to “clean the barn up” before leaving, Undercover Blue, Hullabaloo
• Burger King brings out a black bun for Halloween Whopper, CNNMoney