Watching a big asteroid zip past the earth, live
Watching a big asteroid zip past the earth, live.
Year: 2012
Ten hotels made of weird things.
Ten hotels made of weird things.
A new study has found strong evidence that compact fluorescent bulbs can harm the skin.
Oy. A new study has found strong evidence that compact fluorescent bulbs can harm the skin.
“The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.”
From the man whose job it was to police the $700 billion TARP bailout:
The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.
The regulatory culture of the banking industry that this book describes possibiy explains why Jon Corzine has not yet been prosecuted. Regulators and prosecutors are afraid to proceed out of fear of hurting their careers.
Worse, Barofsky describes a banking regulatory system that is still in place, and is therefore ripe for another collapse. No wonder the tea party movement was born out of outrage over TARP and the bank bailout, and is still growing.
David Lanz – Water from the Moon
An evening pause: Apropos of the on-going scientific debate, how about David Lanz’s beautiful piano piece, “Water from the Moon.”
If you own that art, it’s not yours. The IRS owns it instead.
If you own that art, it’s not yours. The IRS owns it instead.
The object under discussion is “Canyon,” a masterwork of 20th-century art created by Robert Rauschenberg that Mrs. Sonnabend’s children inherited when she died in 2007. Because the work, a sculptural combine, includes a stuffed bald eagle, a bird under federal protection, the heirs would be committing a felony if they ever tried to sell it. So their appraisers have valued the work at zero.
But the Internal Revenue Service takes a different view. It has appraised “Canyon” at $65 million and is demanding that the owners pay $29.2 million in taxes.
The oldest known color videotape recording: President Eisenhower in 1958
The oldest known color videotape recording: President Eisenhower in 1958.
Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope.
Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT).
Funded privately by the Discovery channel, the DCT has a primary mirror 4.3 meters wide, or about 170 inches, almost as large as the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain. This is a world class telescope which will do real research, and it was built the old-fashioned way, with private money donated to a private observatory in exchange for publicity and good will.
Commemorating the victims in Colorado.
Commemorating the victims in Colorado.
I don’t normally report on these violent events. However, I think Malkin’s point here is valid. Too much press has been given the mass murderer in this crime, and not enough for his innocent victims. And in order to understand the truly evil nature of this crime, it is important to know the kind of people this horrible man calmly killed. For example, “6-year-old Veronica Moser identified as Aurora shooting victim; mom in critical condition.”
“You didn’t build that.”
“You didn’t build that: Readings from the Book of Barack.”
1 In the beginning Govt created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the economy was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the ATMs, and the Spirit of Govt was hovering over the land.
3 And Govt said, “Let there be spending,” and there was spending. 4 Govt saw that the spending was good, and that it separated the light from the darkness. 5 Govt called the spending Investments, and this he did in the first day.
6 Then Govt said, “Let there be roads and bridges across the waters, and let dams divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus Govt made the infrastructure and the patronage jobs for eternity under the firmament from the Potomac which was above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And Govt called the firmament Washington. This Govt did on the second day.
9 Then Govt said, “Let the regulations and the guidlines under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the Bureaus appear”; and it was so. 10 And Govt called the Bureaus demigovts, and the gathering together of them He called AFSCME. And Govt saw that it was good.
Read the whole thing.
Archimedes – Marble Roller Coaster
An evening pause: This is cool.
Mitchell and Webb – Moon Landing sketch
An evening pause: A comedy sketch by David Mitchell and Robert Webb, in honor of today’s anniversary of that moment in 1969.
“Wouldn’t it be great to make everyone think we’d landed on the moon?”
“Why don’t we just release the footage of the Mars landings?”
Some spectacular pictures inside the caves of eastern Austria.
Some spectacular pictures inside the caves of eastern Austria.
Water on the Moon? The battle continues
A little over a month ago I reported here on Behind the Black some recent results from the LEND instrument on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that had found significantly less water in the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles than previously thought. To quote again from that paper’s abstract, which I will henceforth refer to as Sanin, et al:
This means that all [permanently shadowed regions], except those in Shoemaker, Cabeus and Rozhdestvensky U craters, do not contain any significant amount of hydrogen in comparison with sunlit areas around them at the same latitude.
And from the paper’s conclusion:
[E]ven now the data is enough for definite conclusion that [permanently shadowed regions] at both poles are not reservoirs of large deposits of water ice.
Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas and one of the world’s top lunar scientists then commented as follows:
You neglect to mention yet another possibility — that this paper and its conclusions are seriously flawed in almost every respect. The veracity of the LRO collimated neutron data [produced by the LEND instrument] have been questioned on serious scientific grounds. Other data sets (spectral, radar) suggest significant amounts of water at both poles, billions of metric tons in total.
Spudis also discussed this scientific dispute at length on his own blog.
When I read Dr. Spudis’s comment I immediately emailed William Boynton of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, one of the authors of the Sanin et al paper, to get his reaction. Today he sent me the following detailed explanation, describing the basis of the controversy and why he believes the LEND data is valid.
» Read more
The IRS and Labor Department have started investigations into the finances of a Romney campaign contributor who was also named number one on Obama’s enemies list.
Leftwing tolerance: The IRS and Labor Department have started investigations into the finances of a Romney campaign contributor who was also one of the first listed on Obama’s enemies list.
I don’t appreciate it when the right attacks George Soros for supporting the leftwing causes he believes in, and I certainly oppose it when the left does the same. Here, however, it appears the Obama administration is using the force of the law to attack a private citizen, merely because he supports Obama’s opponent in the election. Such behavior is immoral, wrong, and hostile to everything our free country is supposed to stand for.
The next Russian manned capsule and rocket?
This year there will be more cases of whooping cough in fifty years.
Not good: This year there will be the most cases of whooping cough in more than a half century.
The CDC is trying to figure out what’s going on, but Schuchat said a couple of factors are clearly at work. The formulation for the whooping cough vaccine was changed in 1997, and kids hitting age 13 and 14 now are the first to have been fully vaccinated with five doses of the new vaccine. The new formulation causes less of a reaction, but it may also wear off sooner, Schuchat said.
The older vaccine was made using a whole pertussis bacterium. It was very effective, but it did cause swelling in some kids who got it, and sometimes caused a fever — something that scared parents. It also was widely blamed for causing rare but serious neurological reactions, although Schuchat said studies have not confirmed this.
I imagine the formulation was changed because of the uproar in the 1990s about the dangers of the old vaccine.
Beauty and the Beast – Little Town
An evening pause:
Check out this incredible image of a storm last week that took place over New York City, taken by an amateur photographer.
Check out this incredible image of yesterday’s storm over New York City, taken by an amateur photographer.
A Texas woman did not want a smart meter installed in her home, and when the power company employee would not take no for an answer she stopped him — by showing him her legal gun.
A Texas woman did not want a smart meter installed in her home, and when the power company employee would not take no for an answer she stopped him — by showing him her legal gun.
She placed herself between the installer and her old meter but, “He just kept pushing me away.” That’s when she showed him her handgun. “He saw it, and went back the other way.”
The response of the power company is also interesting.
“We are deeply troubled by anyone who would pull a gun on another person performing their job,” reads a statement from the company. “CenterPoint will be taking additional steps – including court actions – because what happened is dangerous, illegal and unwarranted.”
First, the employee was on this woman’s property. Second, it appears the employee pushed the woman. Since when is it illegal to protect both your property and your person from assault?