The next Jupiter probe heads to the launchpad
Juno, the U.S.’s next Jupiter probe, headed to the launchpad on Friday for a planned August 5 launch.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
The Muppets – Movin’ right along
An evening pause:
Conservative revolt in the House over GOP plan
A conservative revolt in the House over the GOP debt ceiling plan.
Based on the article above, it doesn’t look like any plan has sufficient votes to pass, which means the federal government is going to have to figure out what it’s like to live under a budget. What a concept!
Better constants in science
More precise constants in science.
The numbers include reduced uncertainties for several key constants, which physicists say is encouraging because these will allow for better tests of theory. The more precise figures will also aid plans to redefine familiar units of measurement, such as the kelvin and the kilogram, in terms of unchanging fundamental constants rather than relying on a material object that might not be stable (as for the kilogram standard).
Some background on Rick Perry
Downgrade could come as soon as Friday
The day of reckoning looms even closer: Credit rating downgrade for the U.S. government could come as soon as Friday. Key quote:
It’s not the debt ceiling that’s triggering a potential ratings change — it’s the trajectory of debt generated by the federal government.
And this:
The problem, as [the ratings agencies] see it, is not that America can’t pay its debts next month, but that America has grown its debt to such a degree that we can’t pay them in the long run without serious restructuring of the federal government — and this administration refuses to consider it:
Baby Talk
Then there’s this: “Petulant and Inept”
Conservatives bridle at trillions in ‘phony’ cuts
The devil is in the details,” says a Republican strategist closely involved in the debt fight. “When you’re talking about $1 trillion [over ten years], you’re talking about $100 billion a year, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be evenly distributed among the years.” Does that mean it might be loaded mostly at the end of the decade, when it might not even happen? “That’s where you get into the details,” the strategist says.
Mom faces prison for jaywalking during drunk hit-and-run that killed son while the drunk driver only served 6 months
Travesty of justice: A mother faces three years in prison for jaywalking during drunk hit-and-run that killed son while the drunk driver was only sentenced to six months.
A conservative sensitivity class for liberals.
Enceladus rains water onto Saturn
The Herschel space telescope has discovered that the water expelled from the tiger stripes on Enceladus eventually rains down on Saturn.
Enceladus expels around 250 kg of water vapour every second, through a collection of jets from the south polar region known as the Tiger Stripes because of their distinctive surface markings. These crucial observations reveal that the water creates a doughnut-shaped torus of vapour surrounding the ringed planet. The total width of the torus is more than 10 times the radius of Saturn, yet it is only about one Saturn radius thick. Enceladus orbits the planet at a distance of about four Saturn radii, replenishing the torus with its jets of water.
The periodic table of irrational nonsense
Volcanoes on the far side of the moon
Driving cross country in four minutes
An evening pause: In four minutes.
China readies its first space station
China’s first space station module, Tiangong-1, has been shipped to the launchpad for final checkout, in preparation for its launch later this year.
Thank the Gods for Climategate
Thank the gods for climategate.
We are certainly in a far different world vis-a-vis global warming than 21 months ago. The [global warming] climatologists are, to a very large extent, being ignored. Yes, there is an IPCC coming up, and perhaps we should wait until that is over. But I will predict that no matter what hoohah comes out of it, it will not have 50% of the energy of the previous IPCCs, because governments just aren’t listening with baited breath anymore. If there is any place where the mojo counted, it was with governments. But it ain’t there any more.
CERN collider sees tantalizing hint of Higgs particle
The CERN Large Hadron Collider has seen a tantalizing hint of the Higgs particle.
Did Obama refuse a bipartisan deal on the debt ceiling?
From Ed Morrissey: Did Obama refuse a bipartisan deal on the debt ceiling?
Over-optimism in Forecasts by Official Budget Agencies and Its Implications
Science discovers the obvious: Government agencies are routinely over-optimistic in their budget forecasts. From the abstract:
The paper studies forecasts of real growth rates and budget balances made by official government agencies among 33 countries. In general, the forecasts are found:
- to have a positive average bias
- to be more biased in booms
- to be even more biased at the 3-year horizon than at shorter horizons.
This over-optimism in official forecasts can help explain excessive budget deficits, especially the failure to run surpluses during periods of high output: if a boom is forecasted to last indefinitely, retrenchment is treated as unnecessary. Many believe that better fiscal policy can be obtained by means of rules such as ceilings for the deficit or, better yet, the structural deficit. But we also find [that] countries subject to a budget rule, in the form of euroland’s Stability and Growth Path, make official forecasts of growth and budget deficits that are even more biased and more correlated with booms than do other countries. [emphasis mine]
In related news, it is now more than 800 days since the Democratically-controlled Senate has passed or even proposed a budget, as they are required to do by law.
Opportunity closes in on Endeavour Crater
Opportunity has cut the distance to Endeavour Crater to only 3,600 feet.