Camille Saint-Saëns – La danse macabre
An evening pause: Performed with spirit by the Radio France orchestra, in anticipation of Halloween.
Hat tip Danae.
Year: 2015
Moon buggy saved from scrap heap
The Apollo-era prototype lunar rover that had been thought lost when it was sold for scrap has been found and is actually possibly going to go up for public auction.
Cassini survives unharmed its close flyby of Enceladus
With images expected in the next day or two, scientists have confirmed that Cassini survived without damage its close flyby through Enceladus’s plumes on Wednesday.
Oxygen in Comet 67P/C-G coma
The uncertainty of science: Unexpectedly scientists using Rosetta data have discovered oxygen in the coma of Comet 67P/C-G.
It was not immediately clear where the oxygen came from. The team discovered that water and oxygen were often found together — an indication that similar processes released both molecules. But Bieler and his colleagues ruled out many scenarios in which oxygen arises as a by-product when energetic particles such as photons and electrons split apart water. Instead, the researchers argue that the oxygen is a remnant from when 67P formed billions of years ago, a process that may have trapped the gas in small grains of ice and rock that coalesced to create the comet’s solid core.
But many models of the early Solar System rule this out because most oxygen tends to pair off with hydrogen. Given this affinity, it is tricky to adjust models of the early Solar System to allow for the survival of gaseous O2, says Mike A’Hearn, an astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park and a co-investigator on Alice. But he adds that it may be possible with the right chemical abundances and temperature conditions.
Boots Randolph – Yakety Sax
An evening pause: Hat tip Danae.
45 Republicans vote against Paul Ryan nomination
The Republicans have nominated Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) for Speaker of the House with only 200 of 245 votes.
Those 45 members are enough to block him from getting the Speakership during the partisan floor vote on Thursday — if the 45 GOP legislators maintain their opposition, and if Ryan is not aided by a last-minute bloc of Democratic votes.
During the closed-door conference, Ryan won just 200 votes for the nomination. Former Florida House Speaker Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) earned a whopping 43 votes. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — who isn’t officially running for Speaker — received one vote. House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who dropped out of the Speakership race a couple weeks ago, got one vote as well.
The failure on Ryan’s part to win 218 votes—the threshold for anyone to win the Speakership on the House floor assuming every member of the House is present and voting for a person—is a major embarrassment on his part.
If those who opposed Ryan in this Republican vote maintain that opposition when the whole House votes, the only way Ryan can become Speaker is if he gets Democratic votes. If that happens than either he won’t become Speaker or the Republican Party faces a breakup.
Based on recent events with the budget deal, it might make sense for some of these fake conservatives in the Republican Party to admit their real loyalty and join the Democrats. The conservatives would then probably lose control of Congress, but at least we would know where people honestly stood.
A mother and father is still the best for kids
Science discovers the obvious: Several new studies have found again that children generally do better in a stable family with a mother and a father than in any other combination.
In recent weeks, a barrage of new evidence has come to light demonstrating what was once common sense. “Family structure matters” (in the words of my American Enterprise Institute colleague Brad Wilcox, who is also the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia). Princeton University and the left-of-center Brookings Institution released a study that reported “most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes.” Why this is so is still hotly contested.
Another study, co-authored by Wilcox, found that states with more married parents do better on a broad range of economic indicators, including upward mobility for poor children and lower rates of child poverty. On most economic indicators, the Washington Post summarized, “the share of parents who are married in a state is a better predictor of that state’s economic health than the racial composition and educational attainment of the state’s residents.”
I think it amusing that some scientists wonder “why this is so.” I also realize that by stating this obvious fact of nature I and these scientists are being racist homophobes who want to oppress minorities, but who am I to argue with reality?
Another Obamacare co-op fails
Finding out what’s in it: Utah’s only Obamacare co-op has announced it is shutting down at the end of the year due to lack of funding/income.
Arches, the only co-op health plan in Utah, began offering insurance through the Affordable Care Act in fall 2013, beginning coverage in January 2014. The nonprofit group says it’s ceasing operations because of a lack of funding from the federal “risk corridor” program, which was built into the Affordable Care Act and intended to protect insurance companies from their losses. “As one of the carriers on the (health care) exchange, we stood to benefit by our calculations in excess of $30 million for those ‘risk corridor’ payments,” Tricia Schumann, chief marketing and communications officer for Arches, told KSL. “We did anticipate those cash payments coming in … this quarter.”
The point of the fund was to mitigate losses among insurance companies and co-ops that suffered large financial risk associated with the Affordable Care Act because of unprecedented enrollment for coverage.
However, federal officials announced Oct. 1 that only 12.6 percent of the expected windfall from that risk management fund would be awarded to insurance companies.
In other words, they — and Obamacare — never had a viable profit model (as predicted by conservatives even before the law was passed). Instead, they were depending on large federal government handouts, as mandated by Obamacare itself. The federal government however simply can’t afford to give out that much money, and thus, bankruptcy.
All the more reason to continue to vote Democrat! They cared, even though they hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were doing and thus pushed through a law that was incredibly stupid and damaging. That they cared however is all that matters.
Ryan to support budget deal
The fix is in: House Speaker-to-be Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) announced today that he will support the two year budget deal worked out by the White House and Republican and Democratic leaders that locks in increased spending and raises the debt limit for the next two years.
I could also say that Ryan’s betrayal of the conservatives in Congress didn’t take long. He didn’t even wait until he was officially elected Speaker. And if you read his reasons for this decision at the link, you will see them for what they are, shallow talking points that mean nothing.
The only good thing about this is — and it isn’t much — is that it will likely provide Ted Cruz some nice ammunition during tonight’s Presidential debate.
That the Freedom Caucus in the House is pissed at the deal and will oppose it also suggests to me that we are getting closer and closer to a split in the Republican Party.
Get 2 out of 10 questions right and pass!
The coming dark age: A California school district has instituted a new grading scale that allows students to pass with a score of only 20 out of 100.
Some teachers have tried to hang on to the traditional grading system but have been tripped up by a blanket new policy that students, even if they do not hand in homework or take a test, get 50 percent. Under the new rule, it’s possible for a student who skips a test to receive a better grade than a student who takes the test and does poorly. “This is just incomprehensible. I don’t have words,” said Lanny Lowery, who has taught English at Rancho Cotate High since 1980
And then there’s this: NYC schools passing failing students, colleges accepting them.
In other words, you can now graduate having learned absolutely nothing. Should make for an interesting future for the student and the society that student helps shape.
Comet 67P/C-G has passed peak brightness
Using both ground-based and Rosetta observations scientists have now measured when the comet reached its peak brightness as well as how much material it lost during this orbit’s closest approach to the Sun.
Based on Rosetta’s pre-perihelion measurements that indicate the dust:gas ratio was approximately 4 , that means roughly 80% of the material being lost is dust, with the rest dominated by water, CO, and CO2 ices. (Note: at the time of that blog post an estimate of 3 was made for perihelion, but the actual data has yet to be analysed.) In any case, using 3 and 4 respectively, the total mass loss rate at its peak is likely in the range of about 100,000–115,000 tonnes per day.
Of course, that’s not a huge amount compared to the comet’s overall mass of around 10 billion tonnes. But nevertheless, a very simple calculation reveals that if, for example, the comet lost that much mass continuously for 100 days, it would correspond to roughly 0.4-0.5 metres of its surface being removed in that time.
In other words, the surface lost about 1.5 feet during close approach.
Peak brightness occurred near the end of August, and has been declining since.
Russia’s ten-year space policy delayed again
The competition heats up: The completion of Russia’s much delayed ten-year space policy plan, originally planned for last year and then planned for November, has likely been delayed again.
The program was supposed to be submitted to the government for approval late last year, but the collapse of the ruble, ongoing launch failures and related mishaps, leadership shakeups at the federal space agency, and an industry-wide reform plan have all conspired to delay the final draft. A draft was expected this summer, but in March a senior Roscosmos official was quoted by the TASS news agency as saying that the proposal had already been significantly altered, and “looks completely different” than it did when originally completed in 2014. The biggest change to the draft was the level of funding dedicated to Russian space exploration over the 10-year period from 2016 to 2025, which was reduced by 10 percent between drafts to 3.4 trillion rubles ($52.5 billion).
Just like the Soviet era’s many repeated five-year plans, expect the goals of this policy statement, once announced, to fail repeatedly. They will have some initial success, but in the end this top-down government program, like NASA’s SLS, will have more to do with creating non-productive jobs than actually building spaceships and rockets.