It appears that Pluto will survive the recall drive and will retain the title of planet. We thought Brian Marsden would carry the day based on his status as the solar system’s nomenclature maven. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1843914,00.html. But sentiment is apparently winning out over Marsden’s cool logic. Radio Parallax suspects Pluto will eventually lose on appeal and that we will define the solar system as having 4 “terrestrial” planets 4 gas giant planets and x number of Kuiper Belt objects plus a handful of asteroids that will be called “planets” by some people owing to their being round. Eight will eventually be the new number accepted by all no matter what you are reading this week. Then again, don’t bet the farm on any quick resolution of this embarrasing astronomic conundrum.

After you’t read Jim Bamford’s article in Rolling Stone take a minute to review what Sy Hersch wrote 4 months ago in the New Yorker at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact Then read his current story in the August 14th New Yorker on Lebanon. Especially telling quote from a senior intelligence source: There is no way Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion from this. When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.” W is now saying Israel “prevailed”. Hersch thinks Lebanon was a dry run for Iran. For further interesting reading try Larissa Alexandrovna at AlterNet who thinks the same thing based on her soirces. She has some things to say about “the trigger” that will lead to war vs Iran in the near future. Think Gulf of Tonkin incident.

And how many anti-oxidants do you swallow per day? The latest evidence per New Scientist magazine says you should just switch to fresh fruits and vegetables. Not only are anti-oxidant pills not proving their worth they might even do harm. Yikes! Couldn’t find the web address so you’ll just have to listen to the program.Israel and Lebanon Conflict; Pluto’s status