Quasimoto’s Certificate of Recognition from the city of Los Angeles
Madlib’s stoned, brick carrying cartoon alias Quasimoto got a certificate of recognition from the city of Los Angeles, signed by mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the 13-person city council, including mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti. They cite his “excellence in masonry.” Some city governments spend all their time worrying about financial problems, education and transportation — props to the City of L.A. for keeping their priorities straight.
This Hubble image shows the galaxy cluster Abell S1077. Galaxy clusters are large groupings of galaxies, each of them including millions of stars. They are the largest existing structures in the Universe to be held together by their gravity.
The amount of matter condensed in such groupings is so high that their gravity is enough to warp the fabric of spacetime, distorting the path that light takes when it travels through the cluster. In some cases, this phenomenon produces an effect somewhat like a magnifying lens, allowing us to see objects that are aligned behind the cluster and which would otherwise be undetectable from Earth. In this image, you see stretched stripes that look like scratches on a lens but are, in fact, galaxies whose light is heavily distorted by the gravitational field of the cluster.
Astronomers use tools like the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the effects of gravitational lensing to peer far back in time and space to see the furthest objects located in the early Universe. One of the record holders is MACS0647-JD, a galaxy seen by Hubble (heic1217) and the Spitzer Space Telescope with the help of a gravitational lens much like this one in the galaxy cluster MACS J0647.7+7015. Its light has taken 13.3 billion years to reach us.
This image is based in part on data spotted by Nick Rose in the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.
On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped explosives containing C-4 on the roof of a house where members of the black liberation & social justice organization MOVE lived. Right before, police attacked the house with 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes, knowing that children were inside. The house burned for 45 minutes before hoses were turned on.
Eleven people, including founder John Africa, five adults & five children were killed. The incident also destroyed 65 homes in the area, leaving 250 homeless. Witnesses reported police officers shooting at those trying to escape from the fire that ensued.
MOVE continues to advocate for prisoners’ rights & for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal & nine MOVE members who were found guilty of the murder of a police officer in 1978.
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