New Telescope to Take First-Ever Black Hole Photo

SPACE.com 18 January 2012

Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
CREDIT: Alain R. | Wikimedia Commons

A group of astronomers are meeting this week to plan out an ambitious and unprecedented project — capturing the first-ever image of a black hole.

The researchers want to create an Earth-size virtual instrument called the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio telescopes powerful enough to snap a picture of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.

“Nobody has ever taken a picture of a black hole,” Dimitrios Psaltis, of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, said in a statement. Psaltis is a co-organizer of the conference, which began today (Jan. 18) in Tucson, Ariz. “We are going to do just that.”

An elusive target

Black holes are exotic structures whose gravitational fields are so powerful that they trap everything, even light. They were first postulated by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Astronomers have detected plenty of black holes in our galaxy and beyond via indirect means. It’s thought that most, if not all, galaxies harbor a supermassive black hole at their cores.

However, scientists have yet to image a black hole. Researchers working on the Event Horizon Telescope — named after a black hole’s “point of no return,” beyond which nothing can escape — hope to change that.

“Even five years ago, such a proposal would not have seemed credible,” said Sheperd Doeleman of MIT, the project’s principal investigator. “Now we have the technological means to take a stab at it.”

Doeleman and his team want to create a network of up to 50 radio telescopes around the world, which will work in concert to get the job done.

“In essence, we are making a virtual telescope with a mirror that is as big as the Earth,” Doeleman said. “Each radio telescope we use can be thought of as a small silvered portion of a large mirror. With enough such silvered spots, one can start to make an image.”

This artist’s illustration depicts scientists’ new understanding of the giant black hole at the core of galaxy M87. The bright radio ‘core’ of the jet base is located very close to the central black hole no larger than about 10 times the size of the event horizon. CREDIT: NAOJ/AND You Inc.

Imaging a black hole’s ‘shadow’

The team plans to point the Event Horizon Telescope at the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center, which is about 26,000 light-years away and is thought to hold as much mass as 4 million suns.

That’s pretty big, but picking the object out at such a great distance is equivalent to spotting a grapefruit on the surface of the moon, researchers said.

“To see something that small and that far away, you need a very big telescope, and the biggest telescope you can make on Earth is to turn the whole planet into a telescope,” said Dan Marrone of the Steward Observatory.

Researchers hope to get a picture of the black hole’s outline, or “shadow.”

“As dust and gas swirls around the black hole before it is drawn inside, a kind of cosmic traffic jam ensues,” Doeleman said. “Swirling around the black hole like water circling the drain in a bathtub, the matter compresses and the resulting friction turns it into plasma heated to a billion degrees or more, causing it to ‘glow’ — and radiate energy that we can detect here on Earth.”

General relativity predicts that the black hole’s shadow should be a perfect circle. So the Event Horizon Telescope’s observations could provide a test of Einstein’s venerable theory, researchers said.

“If we find the black hole’s shadow to be oblate instead of circular, it means Einstein’s theory of general relativity must be flawed,” Psaltis said. “But even if we find no deviation from general relativity, all these processes will help us understand the fundamental aspects of the theory much better.”

The team hopes to keep adding more instruments to the telescope over time, providing a sharper image of our galaxy’s central black hole as the months and years go by.

Each telescope in the network will record its observations onto hard drives, which will be physically shipped to a central processing center at MIT’s Haystack Observatory, researchers said.

Radio rather than optical telescopes are the right tool for the job, they added, since radio waves can penetrate the murk of stars, dust and gas between Earth and the galactic center.

http://www.space.com/14278-black-hole-photos-event-horizon-telescope.html

Sun spots, solar flares and CME’s

Coronal hole emitting solar wind
Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole hit Earth’s magnetic field during the late hours of May 8, 2012 stirring geomagnetic activity and auroras over parts of Europe. The pair of CMEs en route to Earth (see below) could add to the effect of the solar wind stream, igniting even brighter auroras during the next 24-48 hours. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of geomagnetic storms on May 9th.

TWO INCOMING CMEs: A pair of solar eruptions on May 7th hurled coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. Forecast tracks prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab suggests that clouds will arrive in succession on May 9th at 13:40 UT and May 10th at 07:54 UT (+/- 7 hours). The double impact could spark moderate geomagnetic storms. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

SUNSPOT SUNSET: Sunspot AR1476 is so large, people are noticing it without the aide of a solar telescope. The behemoth appears at sunrise and sunset when the light of the low-hanging sun is occasionally dimmed to human visibility.

http://www.spaceweather.com

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Two M-Class Flares / Sunspot 1476

Solar activity increased to moderate levels thanks to newly numbered Sunspot 1476 (see image above). This new region rotated into view off the northeast limb and has so far produced a pair of M-Class flares. The latest event was an M1.3 at 23:01 UTC Saturday evening (May 8, 2012). Solar activity is again increasing.

http://www.solarham.com/

Mining the asteroids – a good idea?

Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
23 April 2012

Small, water-rich near-Earth asteroids can be captured by spacecraft, allowing their resources to be extracted, officials with the new company, Planetary Resources, Inc., say.

The newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers — including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page — is set to announce plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water.

Planetary Resources, Inc. intends to sell these materials, generating a healthy profit for itself. But it also aims to advance humanity’s exploration and exploitation of space, with resource extraction serving as an anchor industry that helps our species spread throughout the solar system.

“If you look at space resources, the logical next step is to go to the near-Earth asteroids,” Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairman Eric Anderson told SPACE.com. “They’re just so valuable, and so easy to reach energetically. Near-Earth asteroids really are the low-hanging fruit of the solar system.”

Here’s how it would work:

For more information, visit http://www.space.com/15395-asteroid-mining-planetary-resources.html

Neptune, the other blue planet

From Space.com online
April 2012

The eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System, the gas giant planet Neptune takes center stage in a series of sharp new photos snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the blue-green world’s first Neptunian year around the sun since it was discovered in 1846.

On July 12, 2011 Neptune completed its first trip around the sun since being discovered nearly 165 Earth years ago — on Sept. 23, 1846, to be exact, by German astronomer Johann Galle.

Neptune takes about 165 years to complete one orbit around the sun. It is about 30 times farther from the sun than Earth and typically orbits at a distance of about 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers).

Four new Hubble photos show Neptune in stunning detail. The images were taken about four hours apart and show the planet as it appeared between June 25 and 26 over the course of a single Neptunian day, which lasts about 16 hours, yielding a complete view of the distant world.

In a photo description, scientists said the new Hubble photos revealed more high-altitude clouds on Neptune than those seen in recent observations within the last few Earth years.

The clouds are composed of methane ice crystals and hover over parts of Neptune’s northern and southern hemisphere, Hubble scientists said.

Like Earth, Neptune spins on a tilted axis, which gives the planet its own set of seasons. Earth’s axis is tilted about 23 degrees, but Neptune has a more pronounced 29-degree tilt.

More about Neptune from Wikipedia:

Neptune is similar in composition to Uranus, and both have compositions which differ from those of the larger gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Neptune’s atmosphere, while similar to Jupiter’s and Saturn’s in that it is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, along with traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen, contains a higher proportion of “ices” such as water, ammonia and methane. Astronomers sometimes categorize Uranus and Neptune as “ice giants” in order to emphasize these distinctions.

The interior of Neptune, like that of Uranus, is primarily composed of ices and rock. Traces of methane in the outermost regions in part account for the planet’s blue appearance.

In contrast to the relatively featureless atmosphere of Uranus, Neptune’s atmosphere is notable for its active and visible weather patterns. For example, at the time of the 1989 Voyager 2 flyby, the planet’s southern hemisphere possessed a Great Dark Spot comparable to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. These weather patterns are driven by the strongest sustained winds of any planet in the Solar System, with recorded wind speeds as high as 2,100 km/h.

Because of its great distance from the Sun, Neptune’s outer atmosphere is one of the coldest places in the Solar System, with temperatures at its cloud tops approaching −218 °C (55 K). Temperatures at the planet’s center are approximately 5,400 K (5,000 °C).

Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system, which may have been detected during the 1960s but was only indisputably confirmed in 1989 by Voyager 2.

Scientists Closing in on Black Hole at Center of Our Galaxy

I’ve been reading up on stars, galaxies, pulsars, quasars and black holes in the last week or so. A life-long interest in all things space was no doubt “inherited” (by osmosis, sort of) from my mother, who had purchased a telescope and spent many hours staring up at the sky. Here’s a timely, to me anyway, article about black holes from Space.com.

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Clara Moskowitz, Assistant Managing Editor
SPACE.com 05 April 2012

Though scientists have suspected for a while that a giant black hole lurks at the center of our galaxy, they still can’t say for sure it’s the explanation for the strange behavior observed there.

Now researchers are closer than ever to being able to image this region and probe the physics at work – potentially shedding light on the great conflict between the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

At the heart of the Milky Way astronomers see some wacky things. For example, about a dozen stars seem to be orbiting some invisible object. One star has been found to make a 16-year orbit around the unseen thing, moving at the hard-to-imagine speed of about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) a second. By comparison, the sun moves through space at a comparatively glacial 137 miles (220 kilometers) a second.

Based on the laws of motion, these dozen stars’ orbits should be caused by the gravitational pull of some massive object in the center of the galaxy. Yet telescopes observe nothing there.

“The really important thing is that all the orbits have a common focus,” astrophysicist Mark Reidof the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said during the recently concluded April 2012 meeting of the American Physical Society.”There’s one point on the sky, and there’s nothing you can see on images at this position.”

Plus, all this is happening in a region only about 100 times as wide as the distance between the Earth and the sun – very tiny in the galactic scheme of things. [Photos: Black Holes of the Universe]

There is, however, a very faint emission of radio waves coming from this area, which scientists call Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A-Star”). By comparing it against the sun’s movement around the Milky Way, researchers have been able to determine that this object is barely moving at all – less than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) a second, much slower even than the rate that the Earth revolves around the sun.

If Sagittarius A* were any moderate-mass object, it likely would be pulled by the gravity of nearby objects and experience some motion.

Reid said of the object’s apparent stillness: “The only way that this can happen is if Sagittarius A* is tied to a very massive object. When you do the analysis, you get a lower limit of 4 million solar masses.”

The density limit of a black hole

Astronomers can’t see the galactic center well enough to measure exactly how large Sagittarius A* is, but they can say for sure that its radius is no larger than about two-tenths the distance between the Earth and the sun.

The means that in the center of the Milky Way, something packing about 4 million times the mass of the sun is sitting within an area that could fit inside the orbit of Mercury and is basically invisible, producing much less light than any of the stars orbiting it.

Right now, that puts this object’s density at about an eighth of the theoretical limit for a black hole. So while scientists can’t say for sure the object is a black hole, it’s looking mighty likely.

“Although there are alternative explanations, they would actually be even much more fantastic than the rather mundane supermassive black hole that almost certainly is there,” Reid said.

One of these other, exotic explanations is that there exists a ball made of an unidentified variety of heavy fermion particles. But even such a ball would be unlikely to have the density required to explain all the evidence.

Looking closer

To finally solve this riddle, astronomers yearn to image the center of the galaxy directly. Not only is it very distant and faint, this region is hard to see because of all the dust between it and Earth.

Astronomers have recently begun a project called the Event Horizon Telescope. This instrument would integrate many radio observatories around the world, turning them into a giant interferometer capable of very precise measurements. Ultimately, the resolution should be sharp enough to distinguish Sagittarius A*.

So far, the Event Horizon Telescope has integrated only three observatories, in Hawaii, California and Arizona, for an observing time of between 15 and 20 hours. But astronomers hope to add more locations and observing time soon.

“EHT is not a dream, it’s not on the drawing board,” said Avery Broderickof Canada’s University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.”It’s something that works.”

One of Broderick’s goals is not only determining once and for all if Sagittarius A* is a black hole, but probing the physics of the object.

Testing general relativity

Black holes straddle the two most successful theories of physics: one that describes the realm of the very large, and one that describes the province of the very small.

Black holes’ extremely large masses invoke Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes how mass warps the fabric of space and time to create gravity. But an explanation for black holes’ extremely small spatial dimensions also requires quantum mechanics. [Images: The Big Bang & Early Universe]

So far, quantum mechanics and general relativity are incompatible. When combined to describe black holes, the equations break down and suggest that the density of a black hole is infinite.

Though the Event Horizon Telescope has produced only very preliminary data so far, Broderick and his colleagues have used them to test the space-time predictions of general relativity.

“Even with existing data today we can say something interesting about the higher-order structure of astrophysical black holes,” Broderick said. “We will in principle be able to distinguish deviations from general relativity.

“General relativity is safe for right now, but it’s not going to be safe for much longer.”

http://www.space.com/15166-milky-center-black-hole-sagittariusastar.html

100,000 tons of diplomacy

This and other interesting stories are available at StatehouseReport.com.  I especially liked this one today.

Carrier is a “shining city upon the sea”

By Andy Brack, Publisher
Statehouse Report

FEB. 3, 2012 — You can feel America’s promise and power aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. It’s where foreign policy meets reality.

A carrier is “100,000 tons of diplomacy that doesn’t need a permission slip,” one officer explained over a weekend tour in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. “We’ll go where we want and stay as long as we need.”

With about 5,000 sailors and Marines on the USS Enterprise ramping up for a March deployment to the Persian Gulf, the integrated dance of the ship and its complement of destroyers, frigates and other vessels is a testament to the outstanding training, retraining and more training offered in the most powerful Navy in the world.

What makes the 1,123-foot carrier hum is its young trusted crew that shoulders and thrives on enormous responsibilities and 12-hour to 16-hour days every day that the ship is at sea.

“What makes it go are the 18-year-old kids,” said Capt. Doug Cochrane, a Navy helicopter pilot who now commands Naval Station Mayport near Jacksonville, Fla. “Our competitive advantage is these kids who can do anything and choose to serve their country.”

For Cpl. Terry Wilson, a Queens, N.Y., native who now is an avionics technician at Marine Corps Station Beaufort, the military offered a new beginning. Three years ago when he was 22, Wilson quit his job delivering packages and made what he called a “radical change” by joining the Marines.

“I’ve been nothing but content in the Marines,” he said Sunday over breakfast on the Enterprise. In his three years in the Corps, he said he has gotten a special kind of confidence that replaced a cockiness he had in New York. “You feel you can do anything.

Life on board a carrier isn’t easy. Wilson, attached to the ship as part of a Beaufort jet squadron, and his peers sleep in crowded rooms with bunks stacked three high. They work long hours and multi-task with various duties. But they’re committed to get the job done, day in and day out. It’s an inspiring show of will that more Americans would do well to emulate.

Just about everything that happens on a carrier focuses on supporting her 190 pilots and 60+ jets, including four F-18 squadrons and planes that do electronic jamming and offer in-the-sky radar. About 3,000 people make the ship run — from a 20-year-old enlisted man in Air Traffic Control who guides jets in for night landings to cooks who prepare and serve thousands of meals daily. Another 1,500 people, including Wilson, focus on keeping the airplanes ready for flight.

During a Ready Room briefing for guests, Marine Lt. Col. Nate “Corky” Miller explained how every flight of F/A-18 Hornets took pilots about 14 hours from preparation and flying to debriefing. Miller, part of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251 (the “Thunderbolts,” based in Beaufort), said jets also took about 12 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight to be able to “deploy its diplomacy.”

Visiting a carrier is an awesome experience. When jets take off from the black, rubber-coated flight deck, you can feel the blasts of heat from engines that rumble your body’s core. When they drop a tailhook to grab one of four two-inch cables across the deck, the scream of the landing is loud enough to make you wince, despite two layers of ear protection.

It is this raw power, as well as the dedication of a new generation of Americans to the fundamentals of service to the country, that sticks with visitors to the ship.

Before the United States was a country, Puritan leader John Winthrop described the promise of the new Massachusetts Bay colony as a “shining city upon a hill.” The image has been used for generations as a way to describe American exceptionalism — the notion that the United States is different from other countries because it was the first new nation and a democracy “of the people.”

No better example of that exceptionalism is the strength and dedication exhibited by sailors and Marines like Wilson and Miller on the USS Enterprise, truly a shining city upon the sea.

Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report.  You can read about what it feels like to land and take-off from a carrier here in our sister publication, CharlestonCurrents.com.  Brack can be reached at: brack@statehousereport.com

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The following information about the USS Enterprise is quoted from CharlestonCurrents.com.

Enterprising fun facts

Here are some tidbits of neat information about the USS Enterprise, the Navy’s oldest active aircraft carrier taking part this week in war games off the Florida coast. For more, read Andy Brack’s column about a visit to the ship.

Real estate: The 1,123-foot ship has a flight deck of 4.5 acres that can launch jets from four steam-powered catapults, each of which is 286 feet. The ship’s landing area is 344 feet. Planes drop a tailhook to catch one of four “arresting” cables spaced about 25 feet apart. The hanger bay area is 3.5 acres.

Crew: The crew is about 5,000 sailors and Marines, including some 3,000 who make the ship run and about 1,500 who fly jets and support the squadron. There are more than 400 officers.

Food: The crew’s daily consumption includes 350 gallons of milk, 30,000 soft drinks, 1,000 pounds of lettuce and 500 pounds of tomatoes.

Lodging: Enlisted crew generally sleep in bunks stacked three high in rooms of about 100 bunks each. Petty officers have similar quarters, but only about 30 bunks per room. Officers share rooms with bunks stacked two high. Junior officers may have three roommates, while more senior ones may have one roommate. The ship’s top dozen officers have single staterooms that include en suite bathrooms.

Services: The ship publishes a daily newspaper and offers a store, two gyms, two barber shops, self-service and full-service laundry, and lounges where sailors can keep up with email. Bandwidth is limited. There’s also a television station. Sailors can watch current shows on several channels — including ESPN — that come in via satellite.

CharlestonCurrents.com

Newt Gingrich

I’d like to see Newt Gingrich take on foreign leaders such as Putin, others.

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich participated in the New Hampshire ABC/Yahoo! debate. He discusses the economy, jobs, Middle East, the sacrament of marriage, an American energy plan, and providing for our Veterans.

Learn more at http://www.newt.org

Originally broadcast by ABC on January 7, 2011

Blessed Christmas!

Half a million taxpayer dollars for derelict building in downtown Florence!?

(Murray Jordan’s Letter to the Editor: Not yet carried by the newspaper — why?)

Florence County Council just spent $551,443 of taxpayer money for this 1/3 acre … valued at $45,600 on Florence County Assessor’s books.

Florence County Council just bought the land and building at 254 Baroody Street for the purpose of building a new courtroom addition to the current Florence City County Complex on North Irby Street. This new court room annex is necessary to solve the safety problems created by having hundreds of people 11 stories in the air in the current building. The property is the building just east of the Florence Police Department’s fenced yard on Baroody Street and was once a soda bottling plant.

The building is described as being in significantly deteriorated condition and was not carried on the county assessor’s books; therefore the purchase price is based on the value of the land. This property was carried on the Florence County Assessors books valued at $45,600.00.

The Florence County Council paid the outrageous price of $551,443.00 (check # 480580 dated 11/28/11 US funds) for this one third of an acre property.

I am not criticizing that they bought the property to build the new court room annex; I am criticizing the irresponsible paying 12 times more for the property than it is assessed for. Is there something wrong here?

What about the rest of the land purchases “negotiated” by council? The square footage of the land is 15,200 making the land valued at $36.27914 per square foot. This parcel may be the most expensive land in the state of South Carolina. Who would have thought that?

The upside to this is that apparently Downtown Florence is worth much more than we generally thought that it was worth. All we have to do now to increase the downtown property value assessments is to use this sale as the comparable for the purpose of establishing new appraised values for Downtown Florence. There will be no need to revitalize Downtown Florence, just up the property values based on this sale and we will have a geyser of property tax money rolling in.

An unintended secondary effect is that what is referred to by some as the “undesirable element” will be forced out of Downtown Florence because they will not be able to pay these new higher property taxes.

There is no merit pay for county employees anymore and county employees have not received a cost of living raise in four years and budgets have been cut and cut, but Florence County Council can always find money to throw up a wild hog’s ### (rear end). The name of the seller of the property is not the issue, but the obscene purchase price “negotiated” by Council is the issue.

As for those of you who are all talk and do nothing, your perpetual silence confirms your approval of Florence County Council’s actions. You should just sign a blank check and send to Florence County Council and let them fill in what they want to spend. You will find out what they took from you after they cash the check.

I believe that the new annex should be named for General William Wallace Harllee, the Founder of Florence. There is nothing significant named for him and I believe that this is an egregious omission. Also, he died in 1897 and it is not likely any opportunist accusers will come forward seeking fame and fortune.

Remember, government is the only entity that can legally steal from you and they can do it without a gun! They do it with your approval because you voted the culprits into office! The vote by Council to pay $551,443.00 was unanimous.

If you detect anger in my words, you are very perceptive. I am P.O. ed (Properly Outraged).

Murray Jordan
Florence

Who do you like for President, part two

Despite his past, I’m beginning to consider former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich more seriously. Here’s what Keith Fournier had to say about him recently. (The entire article can be found on Newt’s website; see link below.)

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Quoted from Catholic Online, by Keith Fournier

Candidate Newt Gingrich: Competent, Consistent, Calm, Convincing and Catholic

I have followed the political career of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich for a long time. There are few Americans unaware of his role as the architect and “idea man” behind the historic “Contract with America”.

His leadership helped to bring the Republicans to victory in the House of Representatives in 1994. As the Speaker of the House he provided leadership which led to a balanced budget amendment and a period of fiscal stability. He was named an “exceptional leader” by Time Magazine in 1995 for this contribution.

Speaker Gingrich is also an accomplished scholar. He is a history Professor with an earned Doctorate. He is a very intelligent man with a grasp of public policy issues like few others in public service. Over the years I have followed his career, I have been impressed with his willingness to propose fresh solutions for ever challenging public needs.

For example, his proposals in the early 2,000′s for person, family and free market based health care reforms, are just now being given the due consideration they deserve. His genuine concern for those who are in need of medical care is one of the areas where he has not received the recognition he deserves.

The man is brilliant. Anyone who has listened to him in the 2012 Presidential debates – if they are being honest – agrees he is well informed on every issue of public policy. The man is articulate- and he is prolific. He has written twenty three books – including thirteen New York Times bestsellers. He is comfortable with creative ideas and unafraid of big picture thinking.

Coupled with all of these abilities, Newt Gingrich has a hopeful vision for the future. This defies the stereotypes too often associated with “conservative” politicians. I recall years ago when the amazing rise in communications technology had just begun, I searched for a “futurist” among the ranks of the then “conservative” leaders. I found just such a “conservative” futurist in Newt Gingrich.

However, I must admit that it was his faith journey in later life which made my respect for him become something more, admiration. I have learned in my own life that the past is either a tutor or a millstone. For Newt Gingrich, a man comfortable in his own skin, the past has become a tutor.

This Professor has learned that we are always students. His response to questions concerning his own past reveal the wisdom borne of experience, infused with real faith. It is not how many times we fall down, but whether we get up and learn how to walk…

It comes as no surprise that Newt Gingrich’s poll numbers are beginning to climb. His performance in the Presidential debates demonstrates that he is competent, consistent, calm and convincing. He is clearly Pro-Life, defends the primacy of marriage and the family and society founded upon it and is a passionate defender of authentic freedom. He is also a man with ideas and the ability to articulate them.

The pundit class is finally beginning to take the candidacy of this intelligent and gifted man seriously. He shows calm in the chaotic displays called debates and stands out. In an age filled with crisis, suffering under ill informed and ineffective leaders, such calm and competence are refreshing. Visit the Gingrich campaign’s web site and see where he stands on the vital issues.

There’s more to this article, well worth reading. Newt’s website includes much more, of course, especially his stands on the issues.

http://www.newt.org/callistas-canvas/candidate-newt-gingrich-calm-compassionate-convincing-catholic