Robert wrote:
If you've actually read England & Palermo's paper, you'd know that it has nothing to do with alien artifacts. It's a study of the thoroughly natural phenomenon of those dark streaks.

Alex writes:
I thought that Barry would "jump all over" the Palermo et al. Mars Society presentation, not the least of which because of the implication (if not assertion) that liquid water is stable enough at the "seep" surface sites to produce "dark stains" and not immediately sublimate and/or burst out catastrophically to produce the Malin and Edgett-type gullies. Moreover, Palermo et al. specificially reference the Levin and Levin 1998 SPIE abstract.

Humorously, I remember a riposte I once directed at Barry on the MSNBC BBS (where he appeared to "flame" an apparent supporter) that goes something like, "Barry, if it were raining tomato soup you would be standing outside with a fork stuck up in the air."

Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii