1 The Venera landers were some pretty impressive feats of engineering.  Getting any technology to work in that environment, let alone 60's-era cameras and radio transmitters, is an amazing achievement.

2 Via Sankaku:

A senior Diet member involved in a discussion on piracy in the waters off Somalia (the DPJ generally opposes any dispatch of Japanese forces overseas) famously had this to say earlier in the year:

“Well, I have seen ‘pirates’ in manga, but I don’t really get it. Have there really been any instances of pirates attacking Japanese ships?”

This politician, Kenji Hirata, is currently the secretary-general of the DPJ.

Yay Japan.

3

I have a feeling that the Japanese voters will regret voting into power the DPJ very, very soon.

And of course, the moment Tom Cruise's name came up in the first lady's comments, was the moment it established her as Cloud Cuckoo Lander...

C.T.

4 I'm not sure there'll *never* be anything alive on Venus. . . but thats just because I'm sure someday, somebody will have the temptation to try and terraform the thing, or at least launch some microbes to the place to hopefully prep it for eventual terraforming someday.

Lord knows its just about the worst place in the solar system to place any kind of human habitation.

5

Hah.  I re-read that article in the Telegraph just now, and spotted this: "Mr Hatoyama is due to be voted in as prime minister on September 16 after his party defeated the iron grip of the Liberal Democratic Party after more than five decades of near-interrupted power. "

ORLY?

Yes, I know it's just a typo.

 

6 THE LIE IS EXPOSED!!!! JAPAN IS GOING TO REMOVE THE VEIL OF COVERUPS AND FRAUD...VENUS IS A LUSH JUNGLE PARAdise populatedwith d1nosaurs Burroughs knew..he was there! THEY ALSO CAN HaS MAJIKS THAT CAN REDUCE the melting point ofd steel to the same temerature as fire...and SWITCH nirth certificates...The antarctic space nazis and the reptoids even now fight over its lush greenery while we are led to believe that it is not habitable but we mudst learn becausde whoever wins will take venus as their own and then cause a pole shift on the earth the earth with the Mayan theramin in 2012 and we will all be fed upon or enslasved by the Dero if we dont listen to people like Miyuki Hatoyama and Tom cruise.

(Oh and SRSLY....Black Lagoon  was an NHK documentary...teh pirates really are 3 Americans and a disgruntled Japanese salaryman with Stockholm syndrome. )

7 I know what you're all thinking, and I have nothing to do with Brickmuppet's derangement.  I'm innocent, innocent, I tell you!

8

Since the Telegraph did not get to the quote about Tom Cruise, and Toren has already posted an excerpt from Sankaku Complex, here is the link to the article about Japan's new First Lady, along with the original source:

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/09/03/japans-first-lady-i-was-abducted-by-aliens/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/i-have-been-abducted-by-aliens-says-japans-first-lady-1780888.html

Yeah, she really goes out there.

C.T.

9 Brickmuppet, the lie about Venus was already exposed in The Sky People by S.M. Stirling...

10

I actually did do a little bit of basic math to see if it would be possible to suspend a sky-city over the tops of the sulfuric acid clouds of Venus, maybe a zeppelin design involving envelopes full of hydrogen extracted from the sulfuric acid.

Pretty much ended up being "not likely at all." The atmospheric pressure and temperature above the acid clouds are such that any known material capable of containing the hydrogen for any length of time would be too heavy to successfully enclose a large enough volume to remain buoyant; the break-even point was about 10km below the cloud tops. Interestingly, within that zone the temperature and pressure would actually be suitable for relatively lightly protected humans to survive (about 1/2 atm and 80°F), but even glass or wax would gradually be eaten through by the acid, and all water would have to be imported.