Giant storm on Uranus
Astronomers using the ground-based Keck Observatory have imaged the sudden growth of what they call a “montrous” storm on Uranus.
Year: 2014
Christians flee Islamic jihadists in northern Iraq
The religion of peace strikes again! Hundreds of thousands of Christians flee northern Iraq as Islamic State take over the region and jihadists tear down churches and destroy Christian manuscripts.
This analysis of the situation now in northern Iraq asks some pointed questions of President Barack Obama, who withdraw American troops from that country far sooner than any military or local expert advised.
This analysis explains why President Barack Obama seems so unconcerned about the fate of these Christian refugees. To use his words, this kind of violence and terrorism and genocide is just an example of these groups acting with “extraordinarily irresponsibly”.
I ask: When are the American people going to finally get tired of electing children to office and have the courage to elect an adult?
Ten amazing coincidences.
Link here. By far #1 is the most astonishing.
Free gym memberships for Homeland Security desk jockeys
It’s good work if you can get it: Homeland Security is spending almost a half a million dollars to provide free gym memberships to bureaucrats in Washington.
TSA also announced more gym memberships for its employees in Phoenix.
What this tells us is that the Washington elite still consider the federal budget a blank check designed to make their lives wonderful, even as the rest of the general public struggles to make ends meet and federal government and the general economy goes bankrupt.
Congress applies pressure to ULA and the Air Force
Two congressional committees are holding up approval of a budget revision for the Air Force’s launch program because of concerns about cost overruns and the program’s dependency on a Russian rocket engine.
Such requests must be approved by each of the four congressional defense committees, and so far, the EELV proposal has won the support of only two. The Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee and the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee have green-lighted the plan, while the House and Senate Armed Services committees have deferred approval, according to budget documents dated July 25 and July 31, obtained by Defense News.
[The Senate Armed Services Committee] (SASC) asked the Air Force to draw up a plan, by Sept. 30, βthat leads to the production of a liquid rocket engine by 2019,β according to one of the documents, sent to Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord by SASC Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.
Meanwhile, others legislators are questioning the program’s cost overruns. Though only hinted at in the article, this hold up is also related to SpaceX’s demand that the bidding for Air Force launches be opened up to competition.
Comet 67P on the day of rendezvous
The image above was taken at a distance of 60 miles by Rosetta’s navigation camera on August 6, the day the spacecraft rendezvoused and began flying in tandem with it. It looks at the “backside” of the comet, the side where the distinction between its two components is less pronounced. Once again, no obvious craters, and the surface is pockmarked and corroded.
China to build a new canal in Central America
The competition heats up: With approval from Nicaragua, China has inched closer to beginning construction of a new canal that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
A month ago, a Nicaraguan committee approved Chinese billionaire Wang Jing’s project to create The Nicaraguan Canal. With a planned capacity to accommodate ships with loaded displacement of 400,000 tons (notably bigger than The Panama Canal), the proposed 278-kilometer-long canal that will run across the Nicaragua isthmus would probably change the landscape of the world’s maritime trade.
“The project is the largest infrastructure project ever in the history of man in terms of engineering difficulty, investment scale, workload and its global impact,” Wang told reporters, adding that with regard the project’s financing, which is around $50 billion, Wang seems quite confident, “If you can deliver, you will find all the world’s money at your disposal.”
Postmodern Jukebox – Burn
An evening pause: Make sure you stay for the Flame-O-Phone.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Genocide from ISIS
More peace from the religion of peace: The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) is exterminating the entire population of religious Yezidis.
Rosetta arrives
Rosetta has successfully achieved orbit around Comet 67P/C-G and has transmitted its first close up images. More information here and here about the rendezvous and what science the mission scientists plan to do as they orbit the comet.
The image below is looking down and past the comet’s smaller component as it casts a shadow on the neck and the larger component beyond. As with the earlier images, the comet’s pitted and corroded surface, lacking any obvious craters, is reminiscent to me of a pile of dirty snow that has been dissolving away. In fact, when I lived in New York I would see this kind of look every winter. When the city would get a big snowfall snowplows would push it into large mounds on the side of the road. As time passed these piles would get dirty from the city’s soot and grime, and also slowly melt away. After several weeks it would look almost exactly like the surface of Comet 67P/C-G.
The images and data that will come down from Rosetta over the next year and half as it orbits the comet in its journey around the Sun will be most fascinating. Stay tuned!
The VA pattern of lies
Let me count the ways: VA officials have lied to Congress repeatedly in connection with multiple different investigations in a variety of different states and administrations.
The most egregious example for was the last item of the story above, where VA officials repeatedly told Congress that the employees who had falsified records to cover up long patient wait times had been fired, when in truth no one had been fired at all.
As I like to say, the VA is a perfect example of what government healthcare will be like. And it is coming soon to a hospital and doctor near you!
An Hamas officer, captured by Israel, admits he led the kidnapping and murder operation of three Israeli teenagers
Israel has captured the man who was in charge of the operation that kidnapped and then murdered three Israeli teenagers, who also admits that (surprise!) he is a squad commander for Hamas in Gaza.
So, let’s get this straight. Hamas organizes the killing of Israeli children. Hamas launches rockets from schools so that Arab children are endangered. Hamas also prevents Gaza citizens and their families from seeking safety during war. And Hamas also calls for the genocide of all Jews, women and children included.
But Israel is the one condemned for committing war crimes? As Thomas Sowell recently noted, “In an age when scientists are creating artificial intelligence, too many of our educational institutions seem to be creating artificial stupidity.”
Even the most superficial but honest observer of the Gaza War would have conclude that Hamas is just one step removed from a child abuser. And since when do we as civilized people lend aid and comfort to child abusers?
Hayley Westenra – Pie Jesu
An evening pause: Performed when she was fifteen years old. Hat tip Danae for finding me this amazing singer.
The lingering weak solar maximum
On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in July. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations to give it context.
For the first time in four months the decline in sunspots ceased, though the sunspot count hardly rose either. Instead the numbers stayed almost the same in July as they were in June. This was during a month that began with lots of sunspots, and yet saw the first blank sun in almost three years. In fact, the Sun’s activity in July was a roller coaster, as noted by the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC) of the Royal Observatory of Belgium.
» Read more
Ten very unusual libraries.
The link is here.
Obamacare poll numbers crash
Finding out what’s in it: New polls show that the more the public becomes familiar with Obamacare, the more they hate it.
Hey, what’s not to like? Obamacare gives you higher premiums, less availability of doctors, less insurance coverage, more bureaucracy, more paperwork, and — best of all! — increased government interference in your life.
British medical journal bans Israelis
Modern debate: The British medical journal, The Lancet, has banned Israeli academics from responding to any anti-Israeli papers that it publishes.
You’d think these Israelis were skeptics of climate change or something.
More about the Lancet’s antisemitic attack here.
Religion banned in shopping mall
Fascism in America: A shopping mall in Georgia has outlawed all prayer, even for those about to eat in their food court.
Eta Carinae’s next big show
Astronomers are gearing up to observe the next binary fly-by of Eta Carinae’s companion star over the next few weeks.
A binary system, Ξ· Carinae has two stars that swing past one another every 5.5 years. The bigger star β some 90 times the mass of the Sun β is incredibly unstable, always seemingly on the verge of blowing up. When the smaller companion star makes its closest approach to the primary star, as is happening now, the interaction between the two triggers violent changes in the high-energy radiation pouring out of the system.
Astronomers are watching the show in the hope of learning what drives this enigmatic system. In the 1840s, Ξ· Carinae had a mysterious eruption; in recent decades, it has again brightened unexpectedly. βThe star is in an awfully deranged state, and no one knows why,β says Kris Davidson, an astronomer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Eta Carinae is also famous because it was one of the first objects imaged by Hubble after its repair in 1993, and was thus the first stellar explosion ever caught on camera in a visually sharp and clear manner. (See my book The Universe in a Mirror for that fascinating story.)
How does Comet 67P compare with other comets?
A quick preliminary comparison of the surface features of Comet 67P/C-G, compared to other comets that spacecraft have visited.