Year: 2013

Hang Son Doong (Mountain River Cave) in Vietnam

6:01 pm

An evening pause: As I have been out today doing survey work for a cave project of which I am the cartographer, I thought this video of Hang Son Doong (Mountain River Cave) would be appropriate.

Note that this cave is definitely not the largest in the world, as is often claimed. It appears to have the largest single room of any known cave, but the cave itself is relatively small at about four miles, compared for example to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, which is the world’s longest cave at 400 miles.

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An investigation of the Sea Launch launch failure on February 2 has pinpointed the failure to faulty parts made in the Ukraine.

10:54 pm

An investigation of the Sea Launch launch failure on February 2 has pinpointed the failure to faulty parts made in the Ukraine.

The article is interesting in that it seems to reveal some friction between Russia and Ukraine, with the investigators making it a point to blame the Ukrainian components while specifically saying that “there was nothing wrong with the Russian-made equipment.”

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Scientists are considering revising the guidelines for heart risk as determined by your cholesterol levels.

2:36 pm

The uncertainty of science: Scientists are considering revising the guidelines for heart risk as determined by your cholesterol levels.

The ATP IV committee has pledged to hew strictly to the science and to focus on data from randomized clinical trials, says committee chairman Neil Stone, a cardiologist at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. If so, Krumholz argues, LDL [cholesterol] targets will be cast aside because they have never been explicitly tested. Clinical trials have shown repeatedly that statins reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, but lowering LDL with other medications does not work as well. The benefits of statins may reflect their other effects on the body, including fighting inflammation, another risk factor for heart disease. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the assumption that’s been pushed for more than a decade that lowering your cholesterol will lower your risk of heart attack has never been tested or proven. If this isn’t science by myth I don’t know what is.

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A new GAO report says that Obamacare will increase the federal government’s long term debt by $6.2 trillion.

11:45 am

Who woulda thunk it? A new GAO report says that Obamacare will increase the federal government’s long term debt by $6.2 trillion.

The worse part of this is that these government predictions of debt are always wrong, but in the wrong direction. If this is the prediction, the actual increase in debt caused by Obamacare is likely to be far higher.

Note also that this is no surprise to the Republicans who opposed this bill. It also proves just how much Obama was either incompetent or simply lying when he said this:

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future,” Obama told a joint-session of Congress in September 2009. “I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.”

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Even as Democratic lawmakers scream for more gun control laws, the enforcement of the current laws by the Obama administration has declined by 40 percent.

10:36 am

Incompetence: Even as Democratic lawmakers scream for more gun control laws, the enforcement of the current laws by the Obama administration has declined by 40 percent.

The Syracuse study found the number of federal weapons prosecutions fell from about 11,000 in 2004 to about 6,000 under the Obama administration in 2011 — and ticked up to 7,770 in 2012. The GOP letter also cited data from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), which found in 2010, of 6 million Americans who applied to buy a gun, less than 2 percent — or 76,000 — were denied. Of those, the ATF referred 4,732 cases for prosecution. Of them, just 44 were prosecuted, and only 13 were punished for lying or buying a gun illegally.

Gee, if these idiots really care about “the children,” maybe the first thing they should do is handle the responsibilities they’ve already given themselves?

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The House yesterday voted to rename the Dryden Flight Research Center after Neil Armstrong.

9:02 am

Don’t they have better things to do ? The House yesterday voted to rename the Dryden Flight Research Center after Neil Armstrong.

As I noted previously, I disagree strongly with this action. To honor Armstrong properly we should name something really important after him. But it is shameless and wrong to steal the honor from Hugh Dryden in doing so. Armstrong, a modest and honorable man, would have surely protested this action himself.

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