Before and after images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have discovered the formation of a new gully on Mars sometime between November 2010 and May 2013.

Before and after images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have discovered the formation of a new gully on Mars sometime between November 2010 and May 2013.

The winding gully seems to have poured out from an existing ribbon channel in a crater in Marsโ€™ Terra Sirenum region. The leading hypothesis on how the gully formed is that debris flowed downslope from an alcove and eroded a new channel. Though it looks water-carved, the gully is much more likely to have been formed when carbon dioxide frost accumulated on the slope and grew heavy enough to avalanche down and drag material down with it.

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Obamacare worked so well some Senators want to do the same for the real estate industry.

Obamacare worked so well some Senators want to do the same thing for the real estate industry.

Top Senate Banking Committee members released plans this week to wind down mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace them with a complicated apparatus disturbingly similar to Obamacare. While the proposal by Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), the chairman, and Mike Crapo (R-ID), the ranking member, was announced with great fanfare, it simply follows the outlines of another bipartisan bill, offered last year by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA). The idea is to get rid of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that provide mortgage financing today for most American homes and replace them with a system of private lending with securities explicitly backed by the federal government.

In going through contortions to reinvent the housing finance system, the senators have avoided the obvious solution: keep the basic platform that has generally served American homeowners well but reform it to reduce risks. Instead, Johnson and the others have come up with a contraption that resembles the Affordable Care Act in its convolutions and its potential for unintended consequences.

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โ€œThere were women and children inside our retail establishment when the (ATF) agents came in with guns drawn.”

Fascist thugs: โ€œThere were women and children inside our retail establishment when the (ATF) agents came in with guns drawn.”

The ATF raid was also in defiance of a court-ordered temporary restraining order against the ATF, telling them to leave the business alone. But hey, they’re the government, it’s up to them to decide what laws to enforce!

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According to an audit, the former chief financial officer of the Mojave Air and Space Port provided 24 straight months of inaccurate accounting reports.

According to an audit, the former chief financial officer of the Mojave Air and Space Port provided 24 straight months of inaccurate accounting reports.

That officer also resigned abruptly the morning this audit began, and had “cleared out her apartment” just beforehand. Still, there is no hint yet of any theft or loss of funds, only incompetence.

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The leftwing feminist professor who thought she had the right to use violent force to steal a anti-abortion protestor’s sign and destroy it has now been charged with vandalism, battery, and robbery.

Leftwing civility: The leftwing feminist professor who thought she had the right to use violent force to steal a anti-abortion protestor’s sign and destroy it has now been charged with vandalism, battery, and robbery.

Video below the fold. The teacher even admits on camera that she is a “thief.” Somehow, she thinks that because she disagrees with these protestors it gives her the right to do anything she wants.
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According to the former CEO of Arianespace, now head of the French space agency, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 costs significantly less to launch than the Ariane 5

According to the former CEO of Arianespace, now head of the French space agency, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 costs significantly less to launch than the Ariane 5.

How big is the difference? Jean-Yves Le Gall, who until mid-2013 was chief executive of Evry, France-based Arianespace and is now president of the French space agency, CNES, addressed the point in Feb. 25 testimony to the French Senate. According to Le Gall, launching a satellite on an Ariane 5 costs around 100 million euros ($137 million). After subtracting the amount of European Space Agency subsidies to Arianespace, the per-satellite cost drops to about $100 million, he said.

Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, he said, would charge $60 million to $70 million to launch the same satellite aboard the Falcon 9. In fact SpaceX has charged even less than that to its first few commercial customers.

It is for this reason that Arianespace is struggling to decide how to build its next generation rocket. They have find a way to do it cheaper, something that is very difficult for this multi-headed European conglomerate to do.

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