The sad, strange, and ineffective story of the Canadian Firearms Registry.
The sad, strange, and ineffective story of the Canadian Firearms Registry.
Year: 2013
Predicting snowfall on Mars.
SpaceX is moving its Grasshopper test program to New Mexico’s spaceport.
SpaceX is moving its Grasshopper test program to New Mexico’s spaceport.
The move confirms big plans for the test bed. Flights to date have been conducted at SpaceX’s engine test site in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX received a waiver from the FAA to fly Grasshopper up to 11,500ft from McGregor, but Spaceport America is an FAA-certified spaceport where no where no waivers are required. “Spaceport America offers us the physical and regulatory landscape needed to complete the next phase of Grasshopper testing,” says SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.
Japan’s entire space program faces a major overhaul.
Feeling the heat of competition: Japan’s entire space program faces a major overhaul.
In the last few decades Japan has not done very well in space when compared to other Asian countries like China and India. Thus, this overhaul. Yet, based on this article, it doesn’t seem to me that they are making the real changes they need to do to successfully compete. If anything, it sounds instead like the actions of a bureaucracy that is merely rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship, in the hope that this will somehow save it.
Jonathan Edwards – Sunshine (Go Away Today)
An evening pause:
How much does it cost, I’ll buy it.
The time is all we’ve lost, I’ll try it.
But he can’t even run his own life
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine.
The irony of this song is that it was written during the Vietnam War as a protest against the war and the draft. Today, most of the same anti-war protesters that sung it then, now want that same government to run our lives, even though it can’t run its own.
A new research study finds that every time someone imagines the economic system of Socialism working, it does so as much as 98 percent of the time!
Heh: A new research study finds that every time someone imagines socialism working, it does so, as much as 98 percent of the time!
“There’s no ambiguity about our findings,” said Dr. Halbert Thursday, “we have proved beyond a doubt: every time someone imagines the economic system of Socialism working, it does. Regardless of what time in history, too,” continued Halbert, “if someone imagined that Socialism has worked in the past, it did. If someone imagined it working currently, it does. And if a person imagined it will work in the future, it will. It’s the most amazing thing…Truly remarkable.”
The study consisted of interviewing 5000 economists and ordinary citizens around the world, from socialist and non-socialist countries alike. No matter where in the world, people realized the repeatedly attempted 200-plus-year-old social and economic system operated fairly, efficiently, and humanely nearly every time they fantasized it would. Said Dr. Halbert, “The people in North Korea we were allowed to interview were the most enthusiastic. They not only declared their economic system the best in the world, but the best ever in the solar system.”
Two reports released today show that gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their peak in 1993.
Two reports released today show that gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their peak in 1993.
The drop has coincided perfectly with a comparably steep rise in gun ownership nationwide. What does that tell us?
The 2000th show
Tonight David Livingston will air the 2000th episode of The Space Show, what has become the world’s leading media outlet for the discussion of space exploration and the aerospace industry.
The Space Show began in June 2001, and in the ensuing dozen years David has interviewed almost every single big mover in the business of space exploration. I myself have been honored to appear on his show more than thirty times, a fact for which I am deeply grateful, since there are people far more important than I in this field.
It is difficult to measure the significance to space of David Livingston’s effort during these past twelve years. When the Space Show began, SpaceShipOne had not yet flow, the X-Price had not yet been won, and the idea of private space and space tourism were considered wild and absurd ideas. Twelve years later, these ideas are now common knowledge and are likely to be main path for the human race into space. By giving a forum to supporters of commercial space, the Space Show under David’s leadership made this paradigm shift possible.
Thank you David! When the solar system is finally settled, the colonists should remember that without his important contribution their journey to get there would have been far more difficult.
The European Union’s program to reduce carbon emissions is in disarray.
The European Union’s program to reduce carbon emissions is in disarray.
The article at the link is probably one of the worst written stories in the history of journalism. It is incoherent, disorganized, and confused. Moreover, the authors are so in favor of the regulations to limit fossil fuels that they are unable to even consider any reasons which might explain why Europe’s carbon credit market is collapsing and why the EU’s legislators rejected a rescue plan to save it.
In fact, because of their biases, the authors buried the real story, which is this:
Parliamentarians on April 16 voted 334 to 315 for blocking the carbon market rescue.
“This is the first time I can remember when parliament has put economic survival and jobs ahead of green orthodoxy,” said Roger Helmer, a member of the U.K. Independence Party who has been in the parliament for 14 years and opposes emissions trading. “It marks an absolute watershed.”
The bad economy and high debt in Europe is making the idea of raising taxes and adding more restrictions on fossil fuels very unappealing to politicians.
A second grader in Virginia has been suspended for pointing a pencil like a gun.
A second grader in Virginia has been suspended for pointing a pencil like a gun.
He was pretending to be a Marine (like his father) and going after bad guys.
North Korea has withdrawn two missiles from their launch site.
Good news: North Korea has withdrawn two missiles from their launch site.
The article is very vague, unfortunately, about the rockets themselves and whether either were the orbital rockets that North Korea had been threatening to launch several weeks ago.
R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013).
R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013).