Black Matter

This is a NASA picture. I love the material they put out: "How do we know that dark matter isn't just normal matter exhibiting strange gravity? A new observation of gravitationally magnified faint galaxies far in the distance behind a massive cluster of galaxies is shedding new dark on the subject. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope indicates that a huge ring of dark matter likely exists surrounding the center of CL0024+17 that has no normal matter counterpart. ...Next, a close inspection of the cluster center shows several unusual and repeated galaxy shapes, typically more blue. These are multiple images of a few distant galaxies, showing that the cluster is a strong gravitational lens. The relatively weak distortions of the many distant faint blue galaxies all over the image, however, indicates the existence of the dark matter ring."

The story continues:

"The past was one of surviving on the street as young men have always survived, of never having sex without a gain, usually material, shifting through endless relationships and casting himself loose in gay bars. Sydney had acted as a spectacular backdrop to this own wild adventures, the dazzling light of the bays and the beaches silhouetting his own enthusiasms. He emerged before the moustachioed clones and the claims of pride. In those whispering furtive t imes it had been like endering a secret, underground society.

"There was a sense of adventure, of singularness, a belong in their outrageousness among the crowds he met. But so many of the figures that cut a swathe through those bars and late-night coffee shops were doomed. Happy endings were few. Successful couples unkown. Love, which he did not seek, was chaotic, dark.

"His was an age-0ld curse. Limp wrists and perversions, a lingering self-hatred. Gay men weren't strutting the sidewalks and sweating it out in the gyms, but perched on bar stools, convinced they were aberrant, not true men. They swallowed the lie, the beliefts of their taunters. Their faces did not glow with health or confidence. They reached dep inside, and waved in everyone's face their own deviance. Michael passed among them, seeking experience, in love with all their personal demons."

THE BIGGER STORY:

Hamilton Spectator:

Two leaders on their way out of office -- one sooner, one later - patted each other on the back in the Rose Garden yesterday and expressed no doubt about the war they rode to unpopularity among their people.
President George Bush and retiring British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they had no regrets about the decision to go to war in Iraq, saying the country has become the main battleground in the war against global terrorism.
"It is an important part of protecting the United States," Bush said. Blair said he was proud of the close partnership the two leaders forged after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"And sometimes it's a controversial relationship, at least over in my country," Blair said. "But I've never doubted its importance."
Blair leaves office next month, a premature resignation forced in part by Britons' increasing dissatisfaction of their prime minister's support for the war.