A flightless prehistoric bird, about the size of a chicken and found only in Jamaica, used the blunt and thick bones at the end of its wings as a weapon against its rivals.
A Playboy topless calendar pin-up that went into lunar orbit on Apollo 12 is up for sale.
Another government-operated business that is losing money: Arianespace is requesting financial aid from the member nations of the European Space Agency to avoid a loss in 2010. This despite the fact that “the current request comes at a time when Arianespace might be expected to be in prime financial health.”
New research confirms that the Viking landers did find organics on Mars back in the 1970s. Listen also to the September 15, 2010 and September 23, 2010 radio interviews that John Batchelor and I did with Viking project scientist Gilbert Levin and Christopher McKay of the Ames Research Center on this very subject.
If anyone had any doubt that the global warming movement is undergoing a serious collapse, this so-called news article from Spiegal Online, entitled “Naked bodies and a new Messiah: Green groups are trying to sex up climate change,” probably lays that doubt to rest. Key quote:
Environmentalists and scientists are concerned about the massive drop in public interest in the topic over the last year. Now they are looking for new strategies to turn the tide. They’re searching for so-called “mind bombs” — highly emotional images that reduce a complex problem down to one core message.
Sadly, the article never asks the fundamental question: What do “mind bombs” have to do with facts, data, and proving your theories are correct in the real world?
The answer of course is obvious: Nothing.
» Read more
This is the kind of change I like: Firefox has become the number one browser in Europe, beating out Internet Explorer.
Repeal the damn bill! Obamacare ends the construction of 45 doctor-owned hospitals.
A clear danger to free speech.
Note that though I agree entirely with this New York Times op-ed, it is almost humorous how this partisan liberal newspaper only notices these threats to freedom when Republicans are in power.
NASA engineers are considering giving Discovery’s external tank the equivalent of a girdle in order to keep it from developing more cracks during launch. Key quote:
If that decision is made, it is unlikely NASA could complete the work, repair the tank’s foam insulation and get Discovery back out to the launch pad in time to support a launch attempt during the next available window, which opens Feb. 3 and closes Feb. 10. Work to beef up all 108 stringers at the top of the intertank almost certainly would delay Discovery’s launch on a space station resupply mission to the next available window, which opens Feb. 27 and closes in early March.
Start ’em young! A ten year old Canadian girl has become the youngest person to discover a supernova.
Progress! The Republican bill to repeal ObamaCare is now online [pdf]. It’s only two pages long, and is bluntly titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”
Groovy! The rock music group Muse wants to play music in space, and seems willing to buy the tickets to do it.
I doubt Mark Twain would approve: The publisher of a new edition of Twain’s classics is going to rewrite the book to remove the racial slurs.
Sickening. Rather than face facts, our modern intellectual culture seems to want to run from them.
Islamic tolerance: Father Christmas banned at children’s center after Muslim family complained.
Why most published research findings are false. And written by a published but skeptical climate scientist. Key quote:
In global warming research, there is a popular misconception that oil industry-funded climate research actually exists, and has skewed the science. I can’t think of a single scientific study that has been funded by an oil or coal company.
But what DOES exist is a large organization that has a virtual monopoly on global warming research in the U.S., and that has a vested interest in [anthropogenic global warming] theory being true: the U.S. Government. The idea that government-funded climate research is unbiased is laughable. The push for ever increasing levels of government regulation and legislation, the desire of government managers to grow their programs, the dependence of congressional funding of a problem on the existence of a “problem” to begin with, and the U.N.’s desire to find reasons to move toward global governance, all lead to inherent bias in climate research.
One hundred thousand dead fish cover 20-miles of the Arkansas River in Arkansas and no one knows why.
According to Wikileaks cables, the United States and Germany plan to develop a secret constellation of spy satellites. Though Germany denies the story, their denial is somewhat puzzling:
German Aerospace Center spokesman Andreas Schuetz said that such a project for a high-resolution optical satellite has been in discussion for the past two years under the name HIROS. “HIROS is neither a spy satellite, nor a secret project,” Schuetz said. He insisted that the project was to be used only for government purposes, “for example crisis management during natural catastrophes and for scientific uses.”
He refused to give any further details, saying the plan was still in the project stage and could not be discussed.
The repairs to the cracks on Discovery’s external tank continue, with the hope for a February 3 launch.
Can we find trees on other planets?
Ninety years ago today: The first religious broadcast. It is interesting to note that at the time, not only did no one protest or was offended by such a broadcast, the technicians who set up the broadcast were not of the same religious denominations as the broadcasting church.
Want to know what airports are using the new backscatter body scanners, and thus avoid them? TSA Status has the answer.
Good news, if we can believe them: The Republican leadership in Congress vows to cut spending and roll back ObamaCare.
The new colonial movement: China to explore Mars with Russia this year.
The 97% “Consensus” is only 75 Self-Selected Climatologists. Key quote:
Close examination of the source of the claimed 97% consensus reveals that it comes from a non-peer reviewed article describing an online poll in which a total of only 79 climate scientists chose to participate. Of the 79 self-selected climate scientists, 75 agreed with the notion of AGW [anthropogenic global warming]. Thus, we find climate scientists once again using dubious statistical techniques to deceive the public that there is a 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming; fortunately they clearly aren’t buying it.
This winter is the Stalingrad in the ‘Climate War’.
