"The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realisation of yoga, of union."
- Rabindranath Tagore
"Legends can be now and forever
Teaching us to love for goodness sake.
Legends can be now and forever
Loved by the sun, loved by the sun."
- Jon Anderson, in lyrics of Loved by the Sun, written for the "Unicorn Theme" by Tangerine Dream
"I have seen the mystics play there
Once or twice but I knew they had a reason
Enchantment plays it's cards all right
Hand in hand with the working of the seasonsLegends can be now and forever
Teaching us to love for goodness sake
Legends can be now and forever
Loved by the sun, loved by the sun
LovedTwo and two go so close together
Whether there is hope that is torn apart
In the words of all that's singing
Hand in hand the beginning is at the startLegends can be now and forever
Teaching us to reach for goodness sake
Legends can be now and forever
Loved by the sun
Loved by the sun
LovedWho sings of all of love's eternity
Whose shines so bright
In all the songs of love's unending spellsONLY lightning strikes all that's evil
Teaching us to love for goodness sake
Hear the music of love eternal
Teaching us to reach for goodness sake
Legends can be now and forever
Teaching us to love for goodness sakeSweet songs of youth, the wise, the meeting of all wisdom
Sweet songs of youth, the wise, the meeting of all wisdom
Sweet songs of youth, the wise, the meeting of all wisdom
Sweet songs of youth, the wise, the meeting of all wisdom
To believe in the good in man.
To believe in the good in man.
To believe in the good in man."
“To Love is to reach God.
Never will a Lover's chest
feel any sorrow.
Never will a Lover's robe
be touched by mortals.
Never will a Lover's body
be found buried in the earth.
To Love is to reach God.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
Love rests on no foundation.
It is an endless ocean,
with no beginning or end.
They will ask you
what you have produced.
Say to them,
except for Love,
what else can a Lover produce?
My head is bursting
with the joy of the unknown.
My heart is expanding a thousand fold.
Every cell,
taking wings,
flies about the world.
All seek separately
the many faces of my Beloved.
There is a certain cloud,
impregnated with a
thousand lightnings.
There is my body,
in it an ocean formed of his glory,
all the creation,
all the universes,
all the galaxies,
are lost in it.
I always thought that
I was me — but no,
I was you
and never knew it.
This is a gathering of Lovers.
In this gathering
there is no high, no low,
no smart, no ignorant,
no special assembly,
no grand discourse,
no proper schooling required.
There is no master,
no disciple.
This gathering is more like a drunken party,
full of tricksters, fools,
mad men and mad women.
This is a gathering of Lovers.
Love said to me,
there is nothing that is not me.
Be silent.
I don't know where I am.
At times I plunge
to the bottom of the sea,
at times, rise up
like the Sun.
At times, the universe is pregnant by me,
at times I give birth to it.
A hundred souls cried out, but
we are yours, we are yours, we are yours.
You are the light
that spoke to Moses and said
I am God, I am God, I am God.
I said Shams-e Tabrizi, who are you?
He said, I am you, I am you, I am you.
Even if you lose yourself in wrath
for a hundred thousand years,
at the end you will discover,
it is me, who is the culmination of your dreams.
Didn't I tell you
not to be satisfied with the veil of this world?
I am the master illusionist,
it is me, who is the welcoming banner at the gate of your contentment.
Didn't I tell you?
I am an ocean, you are a fish;
do not go to the dry land,
it is me, who is your comforting body of water.
Didn't I tell you?
They will accuse you of all the wrongdoings,
they will call you ugly names,
they will make you forget
it is me, who is the source of your happiness.”
- Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (Born September 30, 1207), Hush Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (1999) as translated by Shahram Shiva
“Wisdom is the table, not bread or meat.
Wisdom is the light, food for the soul.
No nutriment can compare to
the nourishment of light.
Nothing can nourish the soul but light.
Rid yourself of material needs and be set free.
Taste the original victual, the dainty morsel of light.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.
I want a heart which is split, part by part, because of the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longing and complaint to it.
What is the body? That shadow of a shadow
of your love, that somehow contains
the entire universe.
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
Someone sober will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.
Gamble everything for love,
if you are a true human being.
Lovers think they are looking for each other,
but there is only one search: wandering
This world is wandering that, both inside one
transparent sky. In here
there is no dogma and no heresy.
Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain,
and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion.
Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal:
it has no interest in a disloyal companion.
The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God:
that root must be cherished with all one's might.
If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving — it doesn't matter,
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,
Come, come again, come.
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."
- Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (Born September 30, 1207)
"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
- Carl Sagan
"Explanation: Stars and their planets are born in cold, dark, interstellar clouds of gas and dust. While exploring the clouds at infrared wavelengths, astronomers have made a surprising discovery -- dozens of cases where dense cloud cores shine by reflecting infrared starlight. Based on archival Spitzer Space Telescope data, these panels illustrate the newly described phenomenon, known as coreshine. At longer infrared wavelengths (right) the core of cloud Lynds 183 is dark, but at shorter infrared wavelengths (left) the core clearly shines, scattering light from nearby stars. As seen in these panels, the elongated core covers a mere 1.5 light-years. The scattering requires dust grains that are about 10 times larger than previously thought to exist in the clouds, about 1 micron in size instead of 0.1 micron. For comparison, a human hair is about 100 microns thick. The larger dust grains indicated by coreshine could change models of the early phases of star and planet formation, a still mysterious process hidden within the interstellar clouds. Dark nebula Lynds 183 lies around 325 light-years away in the constellation Serpens."
"This that we are now ... The human body and the universe grew from this, not this from the universe and the human body.
Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.
Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don't claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.
Reason is like an officer when the King appears;
The officer then loses his power and hides himself.
Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.
If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."
- Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (Born September 30, 1207)
“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
- Vincent van Gogh
"Explanation: How can the majesty of the night sky best be captured in a painting? This was a continual challenge for Vincent van Gogh, a famous painter in the late 1800s who pioneered stirring depictions of star filled skies into several of his works. Pictured above is van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone, where the French town of Arles is depicted complete with gas lights reflecting off the Rhone river. van Gogh's night sky appears alive with turbulent stellar images contrasting with lofty dark blue hues. Above the river, one can discern the stars of the familiar Big Dipper asterism. Following a line connecting the two Big Dipper stars on the right, the North Star Polaris could be easily found, the height of which can then be estimated and actually gives the latitude where the painting was created."
"A beginning is a very delicate time...."
- Princess Irulan in Dune (film)
"I have been... and always shall be... your friend. Live long... and prosper."
- Spock's dying words to James T. Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Jon Stewart's planned rally to 'restore sanity' just got a big endorsement from the White House. AP Photo
RICHMOND -- President Barack Obama seemed to offer a ringing endorsement Wednesday for "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart's upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity – although he didn’t get the name quite right.
"I was amused -- Jon Stewart, you know, the host of The Daily Show, apparently he's going to host a rally called something like Americans in favor of a return to sanity, or something like that," Obama told a crowd gathered around a living room in a comfortable suburban home. "And his point was 70 percent of the people – it doesn’t matter what political affiliation –70 percent of folks are just like you. They go about their business. They work hard every day. They’re looking after their families. They don’t go around calling people names. They don’t make stuff up.”
The session was Obama’s final – and friendliest – small-group suburban discussion that took him through Ohio, New Mexico and Iowa. White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One the president will likely field a few more rounds of casual, unscripted lawn-chair gatherings in the coming months.
The goal of the gatherings is to give the president an intimate forum to discuss his policies, including education reform, the sweeping health care overhaul, and the economy. But the groups don’t always toss Obama softball questions: in New Mexico, one woman asked Obama to describe why he is a Christian, and in Iowa several members asked about government intrusion, challenged his plan to tax the rich and asked him how he intends to eliminate poverty.
In Richmond, the president discussed the rancorous political discourse in Washington: it must be fixed.
Both the right and left have used the president as a political punching bag: conservative TV host Glenn Beck once called Obama a racist who hates whites and accused him of embracing a "perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ," while liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow repeatedly shreds the administration for its muddled stance on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning gays from serving openly in the armed forces.
But Obama takes particular issue with Fox News, home to some of his fiercest critics like Beck and Sean Hannity.
In a Rolling Stone interview this week, said Fox News is “part of a tradition” of a free American press with a “very clear, undeniable point of view.” But he said the right-leaning network has “a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive” for the nation. He also said in the interview that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, is more concerned with profit rather than journalistic standards or ethics: “I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful.”
Obama told his living-room audience that pundits who say outrageous, provocative things – liberals as well as conservatives – are being rewarded with more TV time and book deals. But he noted that Republicans made a tactical decision to block his agenda no matter what, and "from just a raw, political point of view, it's been a pretty successful strategy."
Reflecting his 2004 DNC convention speech that launched him to the national stage, Obama reiterated that there aren't "red states" and "blue states."
"I believe that so profoundly," he said.
"So I understand that people are frustrated. I understand people are impatient with the pace of change. Of course they are. Look, I’m impatient, but I also know this: Now is not the time to lose heart. Now is not the time to give up. We do not quit. And we cannot forget that this nation has been through far worse and we have come out stronger from war to depression to the great struggle for equal rights and civil rights.
We want to make clear that in good times and in bad times, no young American should have to sacrifice the dream of a college education just because they can’t afford it.
But this is why -- look, this is why we’ve got to work even harder in this election. This is why we’ve got to fight their millions of dollars with millions of our voices, voices who are ready to finish what we started in 2008.
Because if everybody who fought for change in 2008 shows up to vote in 2010, we will win.
So what the other side -- you know what the other side is counting on this time around? They’re counting on you staying home. They’re counting on your silence. They’re counting on amnesia. They’re betting on your apathy, especially because a lot of you are young folks.
Let’s show Washington one more time that change doesn’t come from the top. It doesn’t come from millions of dollars of special interest-funded attack ads. Change happens from the bottom up. Change happens because of you.
That involvement can’t end with the vote that you cast in 2008. That election was not just about putting me in the White House. It was about building a movement for change that went beyond any one campaign or any one candidate. It was about remembering that in the United States of America, our destiny is not written for us –- it is written by us. That is the blessing of this country. The power to shape our future lies in our hands –- but only if we’re willing to keep working for it and fighting for it and keep believing that change is possible.
So that’s what’s being tested right now. That’s what’s being tested. We are being tested here. The question is, are we going to have the courage to keep moving forward even in the face of difficulty, even in the face of uncertainty? This election is not about what we’ve done; it’s about the work we have left to do. It’s what -- it’s about what you want this country to look like over the next two years. It’s about your future.
Because if we do, if you’re willing to step up to the plate and realize that change is not a spectator sport, we will not just win this election -- we are going to restore our economy, we are going to rebuild the middle class. We will reclaim the American Dream for this generation."
- President Barack Obama
Excerpts from the transcript from White House Media Affairs Office:
"THE PRESIDENT: You proved that the power of everyday people going door to door, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, was stronger than the forces of the status quo. It made more difference than PAC money. It made more difference than all the TV advertising. You tapped into something that this country hadn’t seen in a very long time. You did that.
And every single one of you is a shareholder in that mission of rebuilding our country and reclaiming our future. And I’m back here today because on November 2nd, we face another test. And the stakes could not be higher.
Think about it, when I arrived in Washington 20 months ago, my hope and my expectation was that we could pull together, all of us as Americans -- Democrats and Republicans and independents -- to confront the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I hoped and expected that we could get beyond some of the old political divides between Democrats and Republicans, blue states and red states, that had prevented us from making progress for so long because although we are proud to be Democrats, we are prouder to be Americans. (Applause.)
And this country was confronting a crisis. Instead, what we found when we arrived in Washington was the rawest kind of politics. What we confronted was an opposition party that was still stuck on the same failed policies of the past, whose leaders in Congress were determined from the start to let us deal with the mess that they had done so much to create.
Because their calculation was as simple as it was cynical -- they knew that it was going to take a long time to solve the economic challenges we face. They saw the data. They were talking to the economists. They realized that Obama was walking in and we had just lost 4 million jobs in the six months before I was sworn in; 750,000 jobs the month I was sworn in; 600,000 jobs the month after that; 600,000 jobs that month after that. So before our economic policies could even be put into place, we’d already lost most of the 8 million jobs we would lose.
And they knew that people would be frustrated. And they figured, if we just sit on the sidelines and just say no and just throw bombs and let Obama and the Democrats deal with everything, they figured they might be able to prosper at the polls.
And that’s what they’ve done for the last 20 months. They have said no to just about every idea and policy I’ve proposed -- even ideas that historically, traditionally, they agreed with. So now the pundits are saying that the base of the Republican Party is mobilized. The prediction among the pundits is this is going to be a bloodletting for Democrats. That’s what they’re saying in Washington.
AUDIENCE: Boo!
THE PRESIDENT: And what they’re saying is -- and the basis of their prediction is that all of you who worked so hard in 2008 aren’t going to be as energized, aren’t going to be as engaged. They say there is an enthusiasm gap and that the same Republicans and the same policies that left our economy in a shambles and the middle class struggling might ride right back into power.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, that’s what they’re saying. I’m not making this up. You guys read the papers. You guys are watching the television. They’re basically saying that you’re apathetic, you’re disappointed, you’re “oh, well, we’re not sure that we’re going to turn out.”
Wisconsin, we can’t let that happen. We cannot sit this one out. We can’t let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn’t care enough to fight. (Applause.) The stakes are too high for our country and for your future, and I am going to get out there and fight as hard as I can -- and I know you are, too -- to make sure we keep moving forward. (Applause.)
The other side would have you believe this election is a referendum on me or a referendum on the economy, a referendum on anything except them. But make no mistake. This election is a choice. And the choice could not be clearer.
Understand, for the last decade, the Republicans in Washington subscribed to a very simple philosophy -- and I want to be clear, this is the Republican leadership in Washington. A whole bunch of Republicans out all across America are feeling pretty disaffected, too, by what they saw when the Republicans were in charge. But the basic theory of the Republican leadership was, you cut taxes mostly for millionaires and billionaires.
AUDIENCE: Boo!
THE PRESIDENT: You cut regulations for special interests, whether it’s the banks or the oil companies or health insurance companies. Let them write their own rules. You cut back on investments in education and clean energy and research and technology.
So basically the idea was if you just put blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, then America would automatically grow and prosper.
But that philosophy failed. Because in the period when they were in power -- understand this, from 2001 to 2009 -- job growth was slower than it had been in any decade since World War II. Between 2001 and 2009, middle-class incomes fell by 5 percent. The cost of everything from health care to college tuition just kept going up. And a free-for-all on Wall Street led to the very crisis that right now we’re digging ourselves out of.
So it’s not like we don’t have a controlled experiment here. (Laughter.) We have -- they were in charge. We saw what happened. (Applause.) So I’ve got -- I’ve had two main jobs since becoming President: to rescue the economy from this crisis, to clean up after their mess, and to rebuild our economy stronger than it was before. That’s been my job. (Applause.)
And over the last 20 months -- over the last 20 months, we’ve made progress on both these fronts. We’re no longer facing the possibility of a second depression -- and I have to say, Wisconsin, that was a very real possibility when I was sworn in. We had about six months where the economy was teetering on the edge, and we could have plunged into a second depression.
Now the economy is growing again. (Applause.) Now the private sector has created jobs for the last eight months in a row. (Applause.) There are about 3 million Americans who wouldn’t be working today if not for the economic plan that we put into place. Those are facts. (Applause.)
By the way, I emphasize those are facts because the other side isn’t always interested in facts.
AUDIENCE: Boo!
THE PRESIDENT: To rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation, we passed Wall Street reform to make sure that a crisis like this never happens again, so that these reforms are going to end the era of taxpayer-funded bailouts forever --reforms that will stop mortgage lenders from taking advantage of homeowners, reforms that’ll stop credit card companies from hitting you with hidden fees or jacking up your rates without any reason. (Applause.)
But we didn’t stop there. We started investing again in American research and American technology and homegrown American clean energy because I don’t want solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars of the future built in Europe or Asia. I want them built right here in the United States of America with American workers. (Applause.)
To help middle-class families get ahead, we passed a tax cut for 95 percent of working families. I want to repeat that: We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, because if you were listening to the other side, you’d think we raised taxes. But, again, we deal in facts. And the fact is, we cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We passed 16 different tax cuts for America’s small business owners, who create the majority of jobs in this country. We passed health care reform that will stop insurance companies from denying you coverage or dropping your coverage because you’re sick. (Applause.)
And by the way, Madison, let me just see a show of hands, how many people are under the age of 26 in this crowd? (Applause.) Every single one of you, when you get out of college, if you have not found a job that offers you health care, you’re going to be able to stay on your parents’ health care until you’re 26 years old, so you don’t end up taking the risk of getting sick and being bankrupt. (Applause.)
We finally fixed the student loan system so that tens of billions of dollars -- tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies that were going to big banks, they were acting as middlemen, and the student loan programs were going through these financial intermediaries. They were taking billions of dollars of profits. We said, well, let’s cut out the middleman. We’ll give the loans directly to students and that means million more students are going to be able to take advantage of grants and student loans. (Applause.)
And by the way, we also kept a promise I made on the day that I announced my candidacy. We have removed combat troops from Iraq and we have ended our combat mission in Iraq. (Applause.)
Now, that’s just some of what we’ve done. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that we signed into law laws making sure that we enforce equal pay for equal work, because I think my daughters should be treated just like somebody else’s sons. I haven’t mentioned the fact that we had the largest expansion of national service so that young people can tap into their idealism and start working here in this country and around the world to make people’s lives better. I haven’t talked about the fact that we made sure that tobacco companies can’t market their products to children. (Applause.)
We have made progress over the last 20 months. And that is the progress that you worked so hard for in 2008. Now, we didn’t get everything done. Sometimes people say, well, you know, this item is not done and that idea -- well, I’ve only been here two years, guys. (Laughter.) If you look at the checklist, we’ve already covered about 70 percent, so I figured I needed to have something to do for the next couple of years. (Applause.)
And look, here’s the fact. Here’s the fact, is that we’re not where we need to be -- not even close. The hole that we’re climbing out of is a deep one. People, I want you to understand the magnitude of what we’ve gone through. This is deeper than the last three recessions combined. Most of the jobs we lost took place before any of our economic policies had a chance to take effect. And on top of that, the middle class had been struggling for more than a decade and jobs had been getting shipped overseas and millions of families were still treading water. Millions are still barely able to make their bills or make the mortgage. I hear their stories every day. I read them in just heartbreaking letters that I receive each night.
So I understand that people are frustrated. I understand people are impatient with the pace of change. Of course they are. Look, I’m impatient, but I also know this: Now is not the time to lose heart. Now is not the time to give up. We do not quit. And we cannot forget that this nation has been through far worse and we have come out stronger from war to depression to the great struggle for equal rights and civil rights. (Applause.) We do not quit.
In every instance, progress took time. In every instance, progress took sacrifice. Progress took faith. You know, the slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs, they weren’t sure when slavery would end but they understood it was going to end. When women were out there marching for the right to vote, they weren’t sure when it was going to happen but they kept on going. (Applause.) When workers were organizing for the right to organize and were being intimidated, they weren’t sure when change was going to come but they knew it was going to come. And I am telling you, Wisconsin, we are bringing about change and progress is going to come -- but you’ve got to stick with me. You can’t lose heart. (Applause.)
Change is going to come. (Applause.) Change is going to come for this generation -- if we work for it, if we fight for it, if we believe in it. The biggest mistake we could make right now is to let disappointment or frustration lead to apathy and indifference. That is how the other side wins. And I want everybody to be clear, make no mistake: If the other side does win, they will spend the next two years fighting for the very same policies that led to this recession in the first place. The same policies that left the middle class behind for more than a decade. The same policies that we fought so hard for to change in 2008.
Just look at the agenda the other leaders -- that the leaders of the other party unveiled last week. They call this “Pledge to America.” That’s what they called it. And in case you’re wondering how serious they are about changing Washington, this pledge was actually written with the help of a former lobbyist for AIG and a former lobbyist for Exxon-Mobil.
[...]
This is an economic issue of our generation. And I will not allow politicians in Washington to sacrifice your future on another round of tax cuts that aren’t paid for, that we don’t need and you can’t afford. And that’s the choice in this election. That’s why you need to be involved. Your future is at stake here.
Look, we have a different idea about what the next two years should look like. And it’s an idea rooted in our belief about how this country was built. We know that government doesn’t have all the answers to our problems. We don’t believe that government’s main role is to create jobs or prosperity.
One of the things that the other side has been able to do is to hoodwink a whole bunch of folks all across the country, after we had to take emergency measures to clean up their mess, to say, look, he’s for big government. The steps we took to make sure that the auto industry didn’t go down the tubes, or the financial system didn’t go down the tubes, was because they weren’t minding the store when they were in charge.
It’s not because I came in with a big government agenda. I believe government should be lean and efficient. And that’s why I’ve proposed a three-year spending freeze. That’s why I set up a bipartisan fiscal commission to deal with our deficit, but in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they can’t do better for themselves. (Applause.) I believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility; a country where we look after one another; a country where I say I’m my brother’s keeper, I’m my sister’s keeper. (Applause.)
I believe in an America that gave my grandfather the chance to go to college because of the GI Bill. (Applause.) I believe in an America that gave my grandparents the chance to buy a home because of the Federal Housing Authority. (Applause.) I believe in an America that gave their children and grandchildren the chance to fulfill our dreams thanks to scholarships and student loans like some of you are on. (Applause.) That’s the America I know. That’s the choice in this election.
Instead of $700 billion tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, we want to make permanent the tax cuts for middle-class Americans. (Applause.) You deserve a break. Instead of cutting education and student aid, we want to make permanent our new college tax credit that’s worth $10,000 of tuition relief for each young person going to four years of college. (Applause.) We want to make clear that in good times and in bad times, no young American should have to sacrifice the dream of a college education just because they can’t afford it. That’s what we believe. That’s the choice in this election. (Applause.)
If we let the other side take control of Congress, they’ll spend the next two years fighting to preserve tax breaks for companies that create jobs and profits overseas -- billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies that we lose each year. Over the last 20 months, we’ve had -- we’ve taken the step of closing a lot of these tax loopholes. And over the next two years, we’re going to fight to give tax breaks to companies that are actually creating jobs here in the United States of America. (Applause.) To small businesses. To clean energy companies. To American manufacturers. To entrepreneurs who are researching and investing and innovating right here in the United States. That’s who we want to help. And that’s the choice in this election. (Applause.)
If the other side takes back Congress, they’ve promised to give back power to the same special interests we’ve been fighting for the last 20 months. In every state, including right here in Wisconsin, you’ve got millions of dollars pouring in from special interests. I refuse to let that happen. I refuse to go back to the days when insurance companies could deny you coverage or drop your coverage just because you’re sick.
Just the other day I was talking to a woman who did not have health insurance, even though she was working at a school. Contracted cancer; was not sure whether she was going to have to use the entire college fund that she had saved for her kids in order to get treatment. Fortunately, because of the health reform we signed, she now has coverage. (Applause.) But they would want to roll it back. They don’t think that makes sense.
I refuse to go back to the days when credit card companies can jack up your rates without reason. I refuse to go back to the days where taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts end up being necessary. We can’t allow the special interests to take the reins again. We’ve got to keep on fighting. There’s too much at stake right now.
So Madison, it comes down to this. And I’m not just talking to Madison, by the way, because there are 200 campuses across the country who are plugged in through web cams and house parties -- (laughter) -- so I’m speaking to everybody out there. (Applause.) Many of the folks in the other party who are running today are the exact same people who spent the last decade driving our economy into the ditch.
So me and Russ Feingold and Tammy Baldwin, we all went down into the ditch. And we put on our boots, and it was muddy down there and dirty and dusty and we were sweating and we’re pushing the car out of the ditch. And every so often, we’d look up and see the Republicans standing there. They’re just standing there sipping on a Slurpee -- (laughter) -- and waving at us. And we’d say, “Well, come on down and help.” They’d say, “No, no, no, but you should push harder. You’re not pushing the right way.”
But we understood we had to get the car out of the ditch so we’re pushing and we’re pushing. Finally -- finally -- we get it up on level ground. Finally we get it up on level ground. And look, let’s face it, it’s a little dented and a little busted and it needs a tune-up and the fenders all need to be hammered out a little bit, new paint job. But we’re finally on level ground, we’re moving. Suddenly we get a tap on the shoulder and we look behind us and who is it? It’s the Republicans. And they’re asking for the keys back.
And we’ve got to tell them, you can’t have the keys back. You don’t know how to drive. You don’t know how to drive. (Applause.) You don’t know how to drive. You can’t have them back.
I mean, I hope everybody has noticed when you want to go forward in your car, what do you do? You put it in “D.” When you want to go backwards, you put it in “R.” (Applause.) Don’t go back into the ditch. That’s not a coincidence. (Applause.) That’s not a coincidence, people.
So ultimately, whether they get the keys back is up to you. Look, there is no question the other side is excited. They have been pumped up to think that Obama is a socialist, and he’s this and he is that, and he’s for big government, and he’s responsible for all the -- look, they have been fed a lot of information.
And there’s some well-meaning people out there who are understandably scared of debt and deficits, and they see what’s going on. They see jobs being shipped overseas, and they’re not sure what’s happening. And we are in charge. And they’re saying, well, why hasn’t change happened faster?
And so you can persuade them maybe to give the Republicans the keys back if they’re not hearing the other side of the argument. So a lot of them are fired up. And thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, they are being helped along this year, as I said, by special interest groups that are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on attack ads. They don’t even have to disclose who’s behind the ads. You’ve all seen the ads. Every one of these groups is run by Republican operatives. Every single one of them -- even though they’re posing as nonprofit groups with names like Americans for Prosperity, or the Committee for Truth in Politics, or Americans for Apple Pie. (Laughter.) I made that last one up. (Laughter.)
But this is why -- look, this is why we’ve got to work even harder in this election. This is why we’ve got to fight their millions of dollars with millions of our voices, voices who are ready to finish what we started in 2008. (Applause.)
Because if everybody who fought for change in 2008 shows up to vote in 2010, we will win. (Applause.) We will win. (Applause.) The polls say the same thing. We will win. (Applause.)
So what the other side -- you know what the other side is counting on this time around? They’re counting on you staying home. They’re counting on your silence. They’re counting on amnesia. They’re betting on your apathy, especially because a lot of you are young folks.
So Madison, you’ve got to prove them wrong. (Applause.) Let’s show Washington one more time, change doesn’t come from the top. It doesn’t come from millions of dollars of special interest-funded attack ads. Change happens from the bottom up. Change happens because of you. (Applause.) Change happens because of you. Change happens because of you. (Applause.)
I know times are tough right now. I know times are tough. I know a lot of folks are anxious about the future. And I know that during the campaign, especially after we had already started winning, the feeling was, well, this is just exciting. You got those nice Hope posters, and then there was the inauguration, and you got Beyoncé singing and Bono. (Laughter.)
And I know sometimes it feels a long way from the hope and excitement that we felt on Election Day or the day of the inauguration. But I’ve got to say, we always knew this was going to take time. We always knew this was going to be hard. I said it was going to be hard, remember? I said I was going to tell you some things you didn’t want to hear. I said that we were going to have to make some difficult choices. I said not everybody was going to be happy with every single decision I made.
You did not elect me to do what was easy. You didn’t just elect me to read the polls and figure out how to keep myself in office. Whenever you read the media in Washington, all they’re concerned about is, boy, his polls numbers are down, so that must mean that he didn’t do the right thing. Just because your poll numbers are down. That’s how everything is measured.
But you didn’t elect me to look at the polls. You elected me to do what was right. You elected me to do what was right. (Applause.) That was change you could believe in -- that I was going to do what was right, not what was expedient, not what was convenient. (Applause.)
And you got involved. What was different about this campaign was because you believed this was the moment to solve the challenges that the country had ignored for far too long.
That involvement can’t end with the vote that you cast in 2008. That election was not just about putting me in the White House. It was about building a movement for change that went beyond any one campaign or any one candidate. It was about remembering that in the United States of America, our destiny is not written for us –- it is written by us. That is the blessing of this country. (Applause.) The power to shape our future lies in our hands –- but only if we’re willing to keep working for it and fighting for it and keep believing that change is possible. (Applause.)
So that’s what’s being tested right now. That’s what’s being tested. We are being tested here. The question is, are we going to have the courage to keep moving forward even in the face of difficulty, even in the face of uncertainty? This election is not about what we’ve done; it’s about the work we have left to do. It’s what -- it’s about what you want this country to look like over the next two years. It’s about your future.
So, Madison, get out there and shape it. Get out there and fight for it. (Applause.) I need your help, Madison. We need you to commit to vote. We need you to pledge to vote. We need you to knock on doors. We need you to talk to neighbors. We need you to make phone calls. We need you to bring energy and passion and commitment. (Applause.) Because if we do, if you’re willing to step up to the plate and realize that change is not a spectator sport, we will not just win this election -- we are going to restore our economy, we are going to rebuild the middle class. We will reclaim the American Dream for this generation.
Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)"
- President Barack Obama
This illustration offers a glimpse of the Gliese 581 system from the perspective of planet G.
Artwork by Lynette Cook
A new member in a family of planets circling a red dwarf star 20 light-years away has just been found. It's called Gliese 581g, and the 'g' may very well stand for Goldilocks.
Gliese 581g is the first world discovered beyond Earth that's the right size and location for life.
"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it," Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California Santa Cruz, told Discovery News.
The discovery caps an 11-year effort to tease out information from instruments on ground-based telescopes that measure minute variations in starlight caused by the gravitational tugs of orbiting planets.
Planet G -- the sixth member in Gliese 581's family -- orbits right in the middle of that system's habitable region, where temperatures would be suitable for liquid water to pool on the planet's surface.
"This is really the first 'Goldilocks' planet, the first planet that is roughly the right size and just at the right distance to have liquid water on the surface," astronomer Paul Butler, with the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., told reporters during a conference call Wednesday.
"Everything we know about life is that it absolutely requires liquid water," he added. "The planet has to be the right distance from the star so it's not too hot, not too cold... and then it has to have surface gravity so that it can hold on to a substantial atmosphere and allow the water to pool."
With a mass three times larger than Earth's, the newly discovered world has the muscle to hold atmosphere. Plus, it has the gift of time. Not only is its parent star especially long-lived, the planet is tidally locked to its sun -- similar to how the moon keeps the same side pointed at Earth -- so that half the world is in perpetual light and the other half in permanent darkness. As a result, temperatures are extremely stable and diverse.
"This planet doesn't have days and nights. Wherever you are on this planet, the sun is in the same position all the time. You have very stable zones where the ecosystem stays the same temperature... basically forever," Vogt said. "If life can evolve, it's going to have billions and billions of years to adapt to the surface."
"Given the ubiquity of water, it seems probable that this thing actually has liquid water. On the surface of the Earth, everywhere you have liquid water you have life," Vogt added.
The question wouldn't be to defend that there is life at Gliese 581g, says Butler. "The question," he said, "would be to demonstrate that there isn't."
Current technologies won't allow scientists to study the planet's atmosphere for chemical signs of life, but astronomers expect many more similar life-friendly planets to be discovered soon. If one or more of those cross the face of their parent star, relative to our line of sight, then it's possible to gather atmospheric data.
"This system is not in an orientation such that this planet would ever transit, so unfortunately this is not a case where nature has thrown us a bone," Vogt noted. "That being said, it is so close and we have found this thing so soon that it suggests we will start finding a lot of these things in the future and eventually we will find systems that do transit. This is a harbinger of things to come."
The research appears in this week's issue of Astrophysical Journal.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
After years of saying habitable exoplanets are just around the corner, planet hunters have finally found one. Gliese 581g is the first planet found to lie squarely in its star’s habitable zone, where the conditions are right for liquid water.
“The threshold has now been crossed,” said astronomer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, one of the planet’s discoverers, in a press briefing Sept. 29. “The data says this planet is at the right distance for liquid water, and the right mass to hold on to a substantial atmosphere.”
The discovery is both “incremental and monumental,” comments exoplanet expert Sara Seager of MIT, who was not involved in the new study. When a recent study predicted the first habitable world should show up by next May, Seager rightly said the real answer was more like “any day now.”
“We’ve found smaller and smaller planets that got closer and closer to the habitable zone,” she said. “But this is the first that’s in the habitable zone.”
The new planet is one of six orbiting the star Gliese 581, a red dwarf 20 light-years from Earth. Two of the planet’s siblings, dubbed planets C and D, have also been hailed as potentially habitable worlds. The two planets straddle the region around the star where liquid water could exist — 581c is too hot, and 581d is too cold. But 581g is just right. The discovery will be published in the Astrophysical Journal and online at arxiv.org.
The new planet is about three times the mass of Earth, which indicates it is probably rocky and has enough surface gravity to sustain a stable atmosphere. It orbits its star once every 36.6 Earth days at a distance of just 13 million miles.
The surface of a planet that close to our sun would be scorching hot. But because the star Gliese 581 is only about 1 percent as bright as the sun, temperatures on the new planet should be much more comfortable. Taking into account the presence of an atmosphere and how much starlight the planet probably reflects, astronomers calculated the average temperature ranges from minus 24 degrees to 10 degrees above zero Fahrenheit.
But the actual temperature range is even wider, says astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who designed some of the instruments that helped find the planet. Gravity dictates that such a close-in planet would keep the same side facing the star at all times, the same way the moon always shows the same face to Earth.
That means the planet has a blazing-hot daytime side, a frigid nighttime side, and a band of eternal sunrise or sunset where water — and perhaps life — could subsist comfortably. Any life on this exotic world would be confined to this perpetual twilight zone, Vogt says, but there’s room for a lot of diversity.
“You can get any temperature you want on this planet, you just have to move around on its surface,” Vogt said. “There’s a great range of eco-longitudes that will create a lot of different niches for different kinds of life to evolve stably.”
Another advantage for potential life on Gliese 581g is that its star is “effectively immortal,” Butler said. “Our sun will go 10 billion years before it goes nova, and life here ceases to exist. But M dwarfs live for tens, hundreds of billions of years, many times the current age of the universe. So life has a long time to get a toehold.”
The discovery is based on 11 years of observations using the HIRES spectrometer at the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, combined with data from the HARPS (High-Accuracy Radial-velocity Planet Searcher) instrument at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile.
Both instruments looks for the small wobbles stars make as their planets’ gravity tugs them back and forth. The HIRES project started looking for planets 25 years ago, back “when looking for planets made you look like a nut,” Butler said. At first the instruments could detect changes in a star’s velocity that were 300 meters per second or larger. That’s why the first extrasolar planets discovered were almost exclusively hot Jupiters: These monstrous planets that sit roastingly close to their stars will exert a bigger gravitational pull.
Since then, techniques have improved so that changes as small as 3 meters per second can be seen. That wouldn’t be enough to see Earth from 20 light-years away, Butler says. Because red dwarfs are so small and their habitable zones so close, though, Earth-sized planets have enough gravitational oomph to make a difference.
“The excitement here is that by looking at stars that are small it’s much easier to find small planets,” said exoplanet expert David Charbonneau of Harvard, who is hunting for small planets that cross in front of dwarf stars. “I think it’s great news for those of us looking for this kind of thing around this kind of star.”
But finding them takes a long time. In all, 238 measurements of the star’s wobbles, went into the discovery, and each measurement took a full night of observing.
For Butler and Vogt, though, 11 years wasn’t so long to wait. He’s actually surprised that a potentially habitable planet showed up so quickly and so nearby.
“The fact that we found one so close and so early on in the search suggests there’s a lot of these things,” Butler says. Only about 100 other stars are as close to Earth as Gliese 581, and only 9 of them have been closely examined for planets. Odds are good that 10 to 20 percent of stars in the Milky Way have habitable planets, Vogt says.
Finding them won’t take a huge advance in technology, he adds. It will just take more telescope time.
“I have suggested that we build a dedicated automated planet finder to do this kind of work 365 nights a year,” he said. “If we had something equivalent to Keck that we could use every night, these things would be pouring out of the sky.”
Image: 1) Lynette Cook. 2) The planetary orbits of the Gliese 581 system compared to those of our own solar system. Zina Deretsky/National Science Foundation.
See Also:
- First Habitable Exoplanet Could Be Discovered by May
- Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered Outside Our Solar System
- Astronomers Closer to Exoplanet ‘Holy Grail’
- Most Earth-Like Extrasolar Planet Found Right Next Door
- Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet
- Name the New Super-Earth
Follow us on Twitter @astrolisa and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.
Astronomers have discovered a habitable planet 20 light years away
Orbiting a nearby red dwarf star called Gliese 581 are 6 planets. One of them is a rocky ball, bigger than Earth, in the "habitable zone" where water is liquid and temperatures are human-friendly. It's possible we could live there.
Unlike Earth, this planet called Gliese 581g, is "tidally locked" to its star. That means one side of the planet always faces the sun, and the other faces darkness. Temperatures on the two sides would be dramatically different, with the livable area in the "terminator" between day and night. Living on Gliese 581g would put you in an eternal twilight, which doesn't sound bad at all. Temperatures in the terminator area might be between -24 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 to -12 degrees Celsius), which is the average temperature of the planet's surface. So things would be a bit chilly, but if you could always visit the perma-sun on dayside if you needed a dose of red dwarf radiation.
According to AFP:
The planet, found by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is orbiting in the middle of the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which means it could have water on its surface.
Liquid water and an atmosphere are necessary for a planet to possibly sustain life, even it it might not be a great place to live, the scientists said.
The scientists determined that the planet, which they have called Gliese 581g, has a mass three to four times that of Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days.
Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet and has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere, according to Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and one of the leaders of the team that discovered the planet.
The researchers say the most important aspect of this discovery is that it means Earthlike worlds are probably pretty common, given that we found one that's practically in our own stellar backyard.
via AFP [PDF of scientific paper from Astrophysical Journal via Steven Vogt's website]
Image by Lynette Cook
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
');
Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.So, their red dwarf sun.Does that mean super powers for us, or super powers for them when they get here to enslave us?
This has really been an exciting couple of weeks for science and certainly should help put it back on the funding agenda for the US and UK and maybe will spurr on the Western world to go back into space.
After all, China, India, Japan and Korea all have Space programme's that look like they may take over ours in a few decades. Reply
Meanwhile, back on Gliese 581g's Star Command headquarters, Rodanl, the trusty and long serving sidekick to Memsphi, the Galactic Watch Lord, fell to his knees gasping for breath from his exertions in getting past the Royal Guards without clearance. He had fallen to his knees in front of the Royal Star Lord, protector of the Gliessendon Empire, and whose cape just above his second nose he could smell the faint wisp of starch."Well? What's the meaning of this?" glared the Star Lord down at poor Rodanl."Have your guild forgotten again the code of conduct and protocol when seeking the audience of the Star Command? Up on your reuoss and explain yourself now!"
Gulping desperately and suddenly dry mouthed, Rodanl glanced furtively around the feet of the Star Commander, not daring to look up.
"S-s-s-sir... I have a m-m-message f-f-f-from the W-w-w-watch L-l-l-lord s-s-s-sir," he stammered. He paused and sucked in some desperately needed magnesium through his second nose he had now moved away from the Star Commander's red velvety cape.
"Well? Get on with it!"
"T-t-t-the W-w-w-watch L-l-l-lord, sir, he, he s-s-s-says a p-p-p-pulse eye h-h-h-has f-f-f-found u-u-u-us s-s-s-sir! H-h-h-he s-s-says, its those, those..." and he gasped yet again this time with both noses utilized, bordering on being extremely rude.
"Well? Those what? Is it the Dkeuans? They wouldn't dare risk being spotted themselves would they? Come on, get a hold of yourself. Those what?"
And with that final breath, Rodanl yelled out the cursed names of the race long thought dead and most feared in their previous incarnations.
"The Earthliiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnn...!!!! Ayeeeee....." And Rodanl promptly fell faint off his reuoss, his third ear luckily cushioning the sudden fall of his rather large head.
The Star Commander swung around, his third reuoss gripping tightly on to his second chin. I knew those fucking assholes would find us again, he thought to himself. This time, they will be wiped from their measly stone planet before they found their old weapons that the older Gliessendon empire had buried on the dark side of their watery moon...
To Be Continued...
Annalee, can we have a forum for chain storying? Reply
So, here's a question:How do they determine it's tidally locked to the star from over 20 light years away? What observation is there to differentiate between one that is and one that isn't? Reply
I'm rather ashamed that nobody in the comments section has compared this planet to Ryloth yet. Reply
oh i'm sure all those smart scientists can figure out how to make a planet spin, then everything would be gravy. Reply
Maybe this is the planet that is home to the extraterrestrials that are going to be revealed to the world soon?? Reply
We need to be sending probes to this planet right now, because it's going to take like 50+ years just to get more direct observation on it... Reply
Well, now that you've found it, I guess it's about time I revealed the truth.This planet is my homeworld.
It is called BRAAK. It is named for me, Braak!, it's more important and handsomest inhabitant.
I had to abandon it many centuries ago, but with your help, people of earth, I will be able to regain it. What you will all need to do is divert all funding from everything to building me a spaceship that can take me back to this planet.
It will be difficult, and time-consuming, and expensive, and we will all have to make sacrifices. But it is the only way. Reply
I'm probably a bit older than the average clicker here at io9 - and being stuck in 'The Village' limits my exposure to a lot of things - but I actually remember the beginnings of the space program. I've always thought that if we, as a species, didn't find a way off this 'dust ball in space', we'd eventually terminate ourselves.But then, I also thought that our modern leaders 'learned' from the historical European leaders that when you place the base of power so far away from the settlers of 'this new land' it's difficult to use your power to control -- which is why I gave up on the space program. If England could make such a fuss about the Falkland Islands, what would our leaders do if we made it off this planet and then suddenly turn around and said, "Sorry, guys, but we have clean air, clean water, and unspoiled land... and we decided to setup some new 'rules' so we don't frak-up this new world the way you did the old one."
This is the first one. Give it time, kids. There was a time when it was believed we'd never track the human genome. Now we're on the dawn of new genetics. There was a time when you needed a room the size of a manufacturing company to house a computer; now more individuals have 1000x that power in their smart phone.
Technologically, there is nothing to stop the creature known as 'man'; sociologically, can we 'grow up' quickly enough to control this knowledge?
Maybe, just maybe, before the rest of you reach my age, or your children reach your age, we as a species might be the ones who finally get out of this 'Village' and discover that it's a really big universe out there. And with that action, maybe we will finally discover that - like all the 'gods' we have created over the history of mankind - we are all 'unique, yet the same'. Reply
Dresan promoted this comment
It's locked? Wouldn't it be TOO FUCKING HOT or TOO FUCKING COLD?You would have to live in the ring of twilight. We should call the planet Twilight.
Or is the sun just so weak that its not TOO FUCKING HOT or TOO FUCKING COLD? Reply
I think a romantic comedy set on this planet would be awesome. She's from the sunny side and likes to par-tay. He's from the dark side and absorbs nutrients by licking moss from stones and sees using radar receptors and making loud clicking sounds. They meet and then die from Red Dwarf radiation half way through act two. ReplyClintonD promoted this comment
After decades of pointing out how impossibly unique Earth is, it turns out we find another Earth right next to Earth, cosmically speaking.Maybe not the best place for a spa, but this close, this thing will be a science bonanza; except we somehow drastically increase traveling speeds in the foreseeable future. Reply
I think the bigger concern here is if there are any organisms living on that planet. Because as we all know any organism from a red star solar system invariably evolves totally unnecessary adaptations that give it superpowers when exposed to yellow light. Then again I did learn all my biology from DC comics. Reply
.jpg){kind=link}
