Interestingly, 85% of the general public knows this basic fact, which might explain why the intellectual elites of our country — from both parties — are continually being blindsided by the rise of the tea party movement and its continued success in elections.

A great heart-warming story.

Actually, the second link above provides better information on where and when to view the eclipse. Definitely click on the map showing the national parks where viewing will be best.

Barring weather or another launch scrub, it looks like Saturday will be launch day for Falcon 9 and Dragon

Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s, coming within five million miles (about eight million kilometers), and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

The new results come from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE. The project sampled 107 PHAs to make predictions about the entire population as a whole. Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 PHAs, plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). So far, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found.

Rather than attack the messenger, the state is looking into the problem. Kudos to them.

Too bad Harry Reid won’t offer up a budget of his own. The only reason this got voted on at all was that the Republicans forced a vote.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government fell another several billion dollars into debt even as the vote was being taken.

All told, this study has already cost the taxpayers almost a billion dollars for the enrollment of only 4,000 children, not the 100,000 envisioned. That’s about $250,000 per child, an amount that seems incredibly high.

In addition to the above problems, it appears there are scientific ones as well:

Separately, turmoil has rocked the study’s advisory committee: two members resigned in March, saying that they weren’t consulted about changes in sampling strategy that they feel will undermine the study’s scientific value.

Because the costs per child are so high, NIH is trying to scale the project back in ways that some scientists are saying will bias the study.

But alas, will the present Congress shut this mess down before more money gets wasted? I doubt it. The article includes soundbites from two Senators, both Democrats, who seem remarkably unconcerned considering the spiraling costs.

Senator Tim Johnson (Democrat, South Dakota) told Nature that he is “disappointed” with the sidelining of the Vanguard centres, including the one in Brookings. He vowed “to ensure the integrity and intent of the study is not compromised”. Senator Thomas Harkin (Democrat, Iowa), chairman of the spending subcommittee that funds the NIH, says: “I am concerned that Congress has appropriated a total of nearly $1 billion for this project and we still do not understand exactly how the NIH plans to implement it. We need some clarity.”

I say we need some common sense. The federal government is bankrupt. It can’t afford this kind of expense right now, especially considering how badly NIH is managing it. Shut it down.

Antonio Breschi on the piano, Mairtin O’Connor, accordion, Johnny MacCarthy, flute, Jane Cassidy, bazouki, and Steve Cooney, bass. Recorded in Belfast around 1990.

Breschi by the way is probably one of the world’s best improvisational pianists.

But make sure you come home when you’re done!

Watch the video. The part where the professor applauds voter fraud because it would hurt conservatives is most revealing.

Next up: the launch of Falcon 9/Dragon on Saturday.

From the beginning engineers were saying that LightSquared’s system would interfere with GPS. The only reason the company lasted as long as it did was because it had the political backing of the Obama administration. And the reason it had that backing is because the company’s CEO was a big supporter of Obama.