"May 2, 2009"
http://www.spaceweather.com/
"Daily Sun: 02 May 09 Sunspot number: 0"

The visible face of the Sun is without blemish:
http://www.spaceweather.com/images20...ubiia436 hk56

Please visit:
http://blog.nj.com/southjersey_impac...SolarCycle.jpg

The right panel shows the visible face of the Sun as it looked on a good day
during the late Modern Warm Period. Sunspots are the apparent size of
craters on the moon. The left panel shows a Sun as it appears today. Please
write to Al Gore so that Al knows that the Sun is not living up to his
religious expectations. Al Gore is a divinity school dropout. George Carlin
had a better grasp of the true nature of God's creation, than does Al Gore.

Please visit:
http://www.co-intelligence.org/newsl...es/sun-etc.jpg
which shows the relative sizes of the Sun and planets. Compared to the Sun,
Jupiter is the size of a pea, earth is the size of a grain of sand.

Global Press Freedom Declines
By Meredith Buel
Washington
02 May 2009

Journalists are facing an increasingly dismal working environment, with a
decline in global press freedom in every region of the world. Those are
among the findings of a report released Friday by Freedom House, a
Washington-based organization that supports freedom around the world.

In the nearly 30 years Freedom House has been rating global press freedom,
2008 is the first year it has reported declines in every region across the
world.

The executive director of Freedom House, Jennifer Windsor, says the
journalism profession is fighting to stay alive, which she warns has
enormous implications for democracy. "Declines have been registered in
established democracies, as well as partly free countries, and the most
repressive regimes have continued to tighten their grip in order to control
the information flows that have become increasingly globalized and out of
their control," she said.

The annual media study says twice as many countries declined in press
freedoms than gained last year.

The gains, the group says, were overshadowed by a campaign of intimidation
targeting independent media, particularly in the former Soviet Union, the
Middle East and North Africa.

Karin Karlekar of Freedom House is the managing editor of the report. "We
found that only 17 percent of the world's population lives in countries that
enjoy a fully free press. While 41 percent live in partly free media
environments and 42 percent, a significant percentage, live in countries
with a not free press," she said.

Karlekar says of the 195 countries covered in the study, only 36 percent are
rated as having a free press.

She says Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states suffered
the biggest drop in press freedom, with Russia's judiciary unwilling to
protect journalists from attacks. "We note that a number of authoritarian
governments are also moving to consolidate control, and in this category I
would note particularly the case of Russia, which has seen a substantial
numerical decline over the last few years, where the space for free media
has significantly shrunk," she said.

Israel, Italy and Hong Kong slipped from the study's free category to partly
free status.

The report says Israel fell due to restrictions on journalists and official
attempts to influence coverage during the conflict with Hamas in the Gaza
Strip.

The study says Italy slipped because the country is limiting free speech
with libel laws and the intimidation of journalists by organized crime.

Freedom House says it downgraded Hong Kong because Beijing is exerting
growing influence over the media there.

Karin Karlekar says the level of violence against journalists is growing.

"The main worry that we have is regarding harassment and in the worst cases
murder of journalists. The level of violence against media workers
continues to rise. In many countries the governments really do not take
sufficient efforts to prosecute these cases. So impunity is a key factor
fueling both the violence as well as rising levels of self-censorship by
journalists."

The world's worst rated countries continue to include Burma, Cuba, Eritrea,
Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan.

In the Americas, the study reported a drop in press freedom in Mexico,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

On Sat, 02 May 2009 12:23:35 GMT, "Edmund Fitzgerald"
wrote:

"May 2, 2009"
http://www.spaceweather.com/
"Daily Sun: 02 May 09 Sunspot number: 0"

The visible face of the Sun is without blemish:
http://www.spaceweather.com/images20...ubiia436 hk56
snip...

http://www.spaceweather.com/

" BLANKETY-BLANK SUN: Sunspot 1016 has vanished. Yesterday it rotated
over the western limb of the sun where it can no longer be seen from
Earth. But has it really vanished? According to NASA's STEREO-A
spacecraft, the sunspot still exists. It is circled in this extreme UV
image just beamed back to Earth:"

"STEREO-A is stationed above the western limb of the sun. From that
vantage point, the spacecraft can track sunspots for days after they
leave the range of terrestrial telescopes. Back on Earth, the sunspot
number has dropped to zero, but STEREO-A is still counting.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images20..._195_strip.jpg

So is the sun blank--or not? For more than 200 years, astronomers have
counted spots on the Earth-facing side of the sun and called that the
sunspot number. Farside spots couldn't be seen and didn't count.
Continuing this tradition makes sense because it allows us to compare
data across the centuries. So, today, the sun is officially blank even
if STEREO-A knows better."

On May 2, 5:28*am, T. Keating wrote:

" BLANKETY-BLANK SUN: Sunspot 1016 has vanished. Yesterday it rotated
over the western limb of the sun where it can no longer be seen from
Earth. But has it really vanished? According to NASA's STEREO-A
spacecraft, the sunspot still exists. It is circled in this extreme UV
image just beamed back to Earth:"

"STEREO-A is stationed above the western limb of the sun. From that
vantage point, the spacecraft can track sunspots for days after they
leave the range of terrestrial telescopes. Back on Earth, the sunspot
number has dropped to zero, but STEREO-A is still counting.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images20..._121530_n7euA_...

So is the sun blank--or not? For more than 200 years, astronomers have
counted spots on the Earth-facing side of the sun and called that the
sunspot number. Farside spots couldn't be seen and didn't count.
Continuing this tradition makes sense because it allows us to compare
data across the centuries. So, today, the sun is officially blank even
if STEREO-A knows better."

What a crock of ****. Here we are in the deepest solar minimum since
the Maunder Minimum and "T. Keating" is pushing the party line of how
cool NASA is. Smartie pants NASA has all it launch assest located
below the most southern extent of last glaciation.

What does asshole Al Gore have to say about property values in
Michigan?

On Sat, 2 May 2009 05:43:32 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On May 2, 5:28*am, T. Keating wrote:

" BLANKETY-BLANK SUN: Sunspot 1016 has vanished. Yesterday it rotated
over the western limb of the sun where it can no longer be seen from
Earth. But has it really vanished? According to NASA's STEREO-A
spacecraft, the sunspot still exists. It is circled in this extreme UV
image just beamed back to Earth:"

"STEREO-A is stationed above the western limb of the sun. From that
vantage point, the spacecraft can track sunspots for days after they
leave the range of terrestrial telescopes. Back on Earth, the sunspot
number has dropped to zero, but STEREO-A is still counting.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images20..._121530_n7euA_...

So is the sun blank--or not? For more than 200 years, astronomers have
counted spots on the Earth-facing side of the sun and called that the
sunspot number. Farside spots couldn't be seen and didn't count.
Continuing this tradition makes sense because it allows us to compare
data across the centuries. So, today, the sun is officially blank even
if STEREO-A knows better."

What a crock of ****......

snip..

Only moronic troll's hide behind multiple fake ID's..

"T. Keating" wrote


Only moronic troll's hide behind multiple fake ID's..

A picture is worth a thousand words. Only a complete moron like fake "T.
Keating" would ignore the message of a picture.

On May 2, 5:23*am, "Edmund Fitzgerald"
wrote:
"May 2, 2009"http://www.spaceweather.com/
"Daily Sun: 02 May 09 Sunspot number: 0"

Sunspots? Are those like the canals on Mars?

Idiot.

"Certainly not a sock-puppet" wrote in message
...

Sunspots? Are those like the canals on Mars?

Idiot.

Can't you ****ing read, asshole?

===

"May 2, 2009"
http://www.spaceweather.com/
"Daily Sun: 02 May 09 Sunspot number: 0"

The visible face of the Sun is without blemish:
http://www.spaceweather.com/images20...ubiia436 hk56

Please visit:
http://blog.nj.com/southjersey_impac...SolarCycle.jpg

The right panel shows the visible face of the Sun as it looked on a good day
during the late Modern Warm Period. Sunspots are the apparent size of
craters on the moon. The left panel shows a Sun as it appears today. Please
write to Al Gore so that Al knows that the Sun is not living up to his
religious expectations. Al Gore is a divinity school dropout. George Carlin
had a better grasp of the true nature of God's creation, than does Al Gore.

Please visit:
http://www.co-intelligence.org/newsl...es/sun-etc.jpg
which shows the relative sizes of the Sun and planets. Compared to the Sun,
Jupiter is the size of a pea, earth is the size of a grain of sand.

Global Press Freedom Declines
By Meredith Buel
Washington
02 May 2009

Journalists are facing an increasingly dismal working environment, with a
decline in global press freedom in every region of the world. Those are
among the findings of a report released Friday by Freedom House, a
Washington-based organization that supports freedom around the world.

In the nearly 30 years Freedom House has been rating global press freedom,
2008 is the first year it has reported declines in every region across the
world.

The executive director of Freedom House, Jennifer Windsor, says the
journalism profession is fighting to stay alive, which she warns has
enormous implications for democracy. "Declines have been registered in
established democracies, as well as partly free countries, and the most
repressive regimes have continued to tighten their grip in order to control
the information flows that have become increasingly globalized and out of
their control," she said.

The annual media study says twice as many countries declined in press
freedoms than gained last year.

The gains, the group says, were overshadowed by a campaign of intimidation
targeting independent media, particularly in the former Soviet Union, the
Middle East and North Africa.

Karin Karlekar of Freedom House is the managing editor of the report. "We
found that only 17 percent of the world's population lives in countries that
enjoy a fully free press. While 41 percent live in partly free media
environments and 42 percent, a significant percentage, live in countries
with a not free press," she said.

Karlekar says of the 195 countries covered in the study, only 36 percent are
rated as having a free press.

She says Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states suffered
the biggest drop in press freedom, with Russia's judiciary unwilling to
protect journalists from attacks. "We note that a number of authoritarian
governments are also moving to consolidate control, and in this category I
would note particularly the case of Russia, which has seen a substantial
numerical decline over the last few years, where the space for free media
has significantly shrunk," she said.

Israel, Italy and Hong Kong slipped from the study's free category to partly
free status.

The report says Israel fell due to restrictions on journalists and official
attempts to influence coverage during the conflict with Hamas in the Gaza
Strip.

The study says Italy slipped because the country is limiting free speech
with libel laws and the intimidation of journalists by organized crime.

Freedom House says it downgraded Hong Kong because Beijing is exerting
growing influence over the media there.

Karin Karlekar says the level of violence against journalists is growing.

"The main worry that we have is regarding harassment and in the worst cases
murder of journalists. The level of violence against media workers
continues to rise. In many countries the governments really do not take
sufficient efforts to prosecute these cases. So impunity is a key factor
fueling both the violence as well as rising levels of self-censorship by
journalists."

The world's worst rated countries continue to include Burma, Cuba, Eritrea,
Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan.

In the Americas, the study reported a drop in press freedom in Mexico,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.