A homeless dog rescued
An evening pause: A nice Christmas story.
Year: 2013
WISE, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, sent back its first images in almost three years this week.
Back from the dead: WISE sent back its first images in almost three years this week.
The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer spacecraft, or NEOWISE, has taken its first set of test images since being reactivated in September after a 31-month-long hibernation, NASA officials announced today (Dec. 19). The space agency wants NEOWISE to resume its hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids, some of which could be promising targets for future human exploration.
We should note that NASA had shut down this functional space telescope even though the cost to use it to hunt asteroids would be relatively little. Cost was cited as the reason, but I suspect it was a combination of the vast overruns for the James Webb Space Telescope and the Obama administration’s puzzling hostility to science at NASA.
An update on the Google Lunar X-Prize competition.
An update on the Google Lunar X-Prize competition.
A number of teams have dropped out, narrowing the competition to eighteen teams.
The Obamacare state exchanges are losing their directors.
The Obamacare state exchanges are losing their directors.
So far, 25 percent of officials in charge of the 14 state-run exchanges, plus Washington D.C., have been replaced, according to Forbes, which compares the turnover rate to professional sports coaching rosters. “More are sure to come as enrollment performance remains poor,” according to Forbes. New Mexico, Massachusetts, Idaho, Washington DC, Nevada and Colorado are posting dismal enrollment numbers, all less than 10 percent of what was expected, the magazine noted.
Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that Obamacare is a turkey that no one wants to buy?
The Messenger science team has named ten craters on Mercury after some 19th and 20th century artists, musicians, and writers.
The Messenger science team has named ten craters on Mercury after some 19th and 20th century artists, musicians, and writers.
The list includes Truman Capote, John Lennon, Alexander Calder.
Cuba is lifting the limit on the number of people allowed to buy a car.
Freedom in the socialist paradise: Cuba is lifting the limit on the number of people allowed to buy a car.
The government has a monopoly on the sale of imported new and used vehicles, and has required any potential buyer to obtain a special card from the Transport Ministry authorizing the purchase of a car. The cards took months or years to obtain, creating a black market in cards in which holders would often sell them for more than the price of the car itself.
Don’t count your blessings, however. The change is only in place “of new regulations, which would be made public in coming days.”
The real legal issues surrounding the right to openly carry your pistol.
The real legal issues surrounding the right to openly carry your pistol.
Cooke carefully tears apart the typical but nonsensical arguments of the left against open carry, but then discusses intelligently the problems. As he notes, “The open-carry question is a more complex one than some of its advocates like to admit.”
If only the conversation focused on these issues instead of the absurd fear-mongering of the left.
77% of the uninsured don’t want Obamacare.
But we’re here to help you! 77% of the uninsured — the very people Obama and the Democrats claimed they were trying to get insured — don’t want Obamacare.
Repeal is still the number one favored option of voters:
A majority said they would vote to have the new healthcare law repealed, if they were able, and they wish it had never passed and the old system was still in place, according to the poll taken Dec. 14-16 of 1,027 registered voters across the country.
The Fox News poll was one of two polls published Wednesday that showed the growing unpopularity of the law. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll also showed that a majority disapprove of the new health care law, even the uninsured, who are supposed to benefit from the law.
Obviously all these people are wrong! Obamacare is “the law of the land”, as the Democrats were so fond of telling us in October as they shut the government down to protect it.
SpaceX has set December 31 as the launch date for its next Falcon 9 commercial launch.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has set December 31 as the launch date for its next Falcon 9 commercial launch.
They are picking up the pace. This will be SpaceX’s second commercial launch in December and its second geosynchronous launch. If they prove they can keep this pace through 2014 they will not only clear away a large amount of the launch backlog, they will establish themselves as a solid player in the launch market, a company that the competition must fear due to its low prices.
Bad weather scrubbed a SpaceShipTwo test flight yesterday.
Bad weather scrubbed a SpaceShipTwo test flight yesterday.
It was unclear whether this would have been a powered flight. The scrub also ends any chance of another test flight before the end of the year.
Gaia, a astronomical space probe designed to pinpoint the location of a billion stars to map the Milky Way, was successfully launched today.
Gaia, a astronomical space probe designed to pinpoint the location of a billion stars to map the Milky Way, was successfully launched today.
This is an important spacecraft, but don’t expect to hear anything about its work now for a long time, as it will take a few years to accumulate the data involved and then a years beyond that to analyze it. Nonetheless, when Gaia’s work is finished we will have our first reasonably good map of the Milky Way, with the ability to project that map forward and backward in time.
The star of cable television’s highest rated show in history has been sacked because he dared criticize the homosexual lifestyle
The end of free speech: The star of cable television’s highest rated show in history has been sacked because he dared criticize the homosexual lifestyle.
It does not matter whether one disagrees with him or not. He has the right to express these opinions, and should not be punished merely because they are not politically correct in today’s society.