No, I’m not kidding. We all know that everything is bigger in Texas, and that in the middle of Texas is X er, oil. As a matter of face, Our Good buddy, Walt (when he bothers to show up) is something of an oil man himself these days (When good bloggers go bad and pillage our mother the Earth). As a matter of fact, there is a saying (that I just made up) that says, scratch a Texan and you’ll find an oilman.

Where am I going with all of this? Well, not to Texas, where they are (apparently) trading in their HummVees for electric cars.

You Know Gas Prices Are High When Texans Start Driving Golf Carts Low-Speed Electric Vehicles Catch On;

By ANA CAMPOY

July 31, 2008

HOUSTON — In the garage where chiropractor Rick Peters once parked his Dodge pickup, two tiny electric cars now sit back-to-back next to his wife’s small SUV.

For trips to work, to run errands or visit friends, Dr. Peters, 43 years old, and his wife, Kris, hop into the munchkin-size cars while their old gas guzzlers gather dust. Admittedly, it’s cramped inside the miniautos, which move along city streets at just 25 miles per hour. But the Peterses are converts to their low-speed vehicles.

(Via the Wall Street Journal)

See what I mean? What hope is there for the rest of us now?

The Perfessor

No, I’m neither being paranoid, nor am I being Chicken Little. I happened across this very cool slide show yesterday, and I figured that I’d share it with you all.

It seems that we here on Earth are in this great big space ship, traveling through the great vastness of space and, well, so too are other stuff — and, well, sometimes they hit us. No, really, check it out. Just watching it might make films like Armageddon and Deep Impact, not so much fun entertainment, as a harbinger of a deadly reality.

Go ahead, laugh now.

The Perfessor

Here is (yet another) Mars post, apparently a few million years in our past, our nearest neighbor in space (the Red Planet) was bitch-slapped by a cosmic event, causing a deep gash in the planet. You see, according to Scientists (who should know this sort of thing, apparently) there is some evidence that a huge object struck Mars at some point in its distant past, leaving behind what may be the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.

Below is an artist’s rendition of what that impact could possibly could have looked like:

LOS ANGELES (June 25) - Why is Mars two-faced? Scientists say fresh evidence supports the theory that a monster impact punched the red planet, leaving behind perhaps the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.

Today, the Martian surface has a split personality. The southern hemisphere of Mars is pockmarked and filled with ancient rugged highlands. By contrast, the northern hemisphere is smoother and covered by low-lying plains.

Via AP

I’m posting this because, well, as we all know Walt’s screwy for this sort of stuff, and I figure if I keep posting crap stuff like this, he’ll come back and let me go back to doing stuff that pays.

The Perfessor

…not so fast kids, it seems that Scientists have indeed found some Aqua on the Red Planet. According to :

Water ice has been discovered on Mars by the Phoenix probe which landed on the planet last month, scientists confirmed.

Mission controllers had been excited by chunks of white material in the Martian soil exposed by the craft’s robot arm.

On Saturday scientists confirmed what they had hoped - that the material was frozen water.

The Press Association

So you all know what this mean, don’t you? Well Walt will have a place to make a rest stop on his way to Senda

So as I was beating the bush looking for our lost leader, I think that the problem that I’ve been having is that I’ve been looking, well in the bush, not the heavens. You see, knowing not only what a geologist (rock nerd) that ol’ Walt is, I nearly forgot what a science nerd he is as well.

Hence, Rocks + Nerd + Science + Nerd = well, a pretty far gonzo space rock nerd. Needless to say, I think I found him on a well what can only be described as a Vision Quest for Planet X, the missing 10th planet of our Solar System. To wit:

If I’m reading this correctly, According to Space.com there is apparently a large planet-sized object three times as far from Earth as is Pluto. The new body (called Sedna):

The hidden world — thought to be much bigger than Pluto based on the model — could explain unusual features of the Kuiper Belt, a region of space beyond Neptune littered with icy and rocky bodies. Its existence would satisfy the long-held hopes and hypotheses for a “Planet X” envisioned by scientists and sci-fi buffs alike.

Via Space.com

I mean, we all know how goofy Walt gets for this stuff, so it is perhaps not entirely impossible that he made his way to the Houston Space Center in an effort to sneak aboard the space craft so that he can be the first person to step foot on Senda in 2015. So, I know that you all will join me in wishing Walt well on his desire to find new means of fuel subsidies, even if it means he has to go to the ends of the Earth, er, the Solar System to find them.

(Here is where I was going to insert a faked quote by Alison saying something like “I always knew he was out of this world,” but I figured that was pushing it, even for me, so, I figure I’ll just wind it up here, and move on to, you know, important stuff.)

Hey, it could happen. I mean, the part about Senda is real, and well, we do all know that Walt is a bit, ah, off (especially these days, diggin’ around in the dirt, takin’ pictures of cows, and talkin’ all crazy like there’s Black Gold (Texas “T”) out there in them thar hills or sumptin’)

Or, I could just be hallucinating again, like that time in college when my hair caught fire, and I was chased down the street by that dinosaur…and got Debbie Gibson pregnant with my two-headed love child…

Mmmm…Let me get back to you on all of this, eh?

The Perfessor

I can’t verify this guys’ numbers on Algae-to-Fuel, but if I had the investment money, this is where I’d be placing it.

Click to play movie

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