Author: Robert Zimmerman

Off to Israel

6:00 am

For the next week my posting might be lighter than usual. Today I am heading to Israel to visit family and do a bit of sightseeing. Whether I have sufficient access to the internet to keep up with events as well as continue to post will not be clear until I get there and get settled in.

In the meantime, I will also be celebrating my sixtieth birthday while in Israel. If you have been a regular reader of Behind the Black and would like to help me celebrate this milestone with a donation to the website, I would be most grateful. The tip jar is located at the bottom of the right column, just below the search box.

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Kepler is back in operation after a ten day rest to safe the mission.

9:26 pm

Kepler is back in operation after a ten day rest to save the mission.

When Kepler launched in March 2009, it had four reaction wheels — three for immediate use, and one spare. But one wheel (known as number two) failed in July 2012, so a major problem with the currently glitchy wheel (called number four) could spell the end of the $600 million Kepler mission. It’s unknown at the moment if the 10-day rest period will bring wheel number four back into line. “Over the next month, the engineering team will review the performance of reaction wheel #4 before, during and after the safe mode to determine the efficacy of the rest operation,” Hunter wrote.

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Norwegian scientists admit that the climate has shown no warming since 2000.

10:28 am

Norwegian scientists admit that the climate has shown no warming since 2000.

They then spend a lot of time trying to explain this — and failing — in the context of the theory of global warming. The bottom line remains, however. All the predictions and models of the global warming advocates have been shown to be wrong. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has continued to rise, without causing any increase in global climate temperature.

Or to put it plainly: We don’t know what’s going on.

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Shakespeare – The Wind and the Rain, music Ben Toth

6:01 pm

An evening pause: How about a bit of real Shakespeare this time, this time his song, “The Wind and the Rain” from Twelfth Night, set to music by Ben Toth and sung by Zak Resnick. Undeniably one of the most beautiful versions written.

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain, it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain, it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain, it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain.
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.

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An appeals court has unanimously decided that Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he tried to make appointments to the NLRB when the Senate was not in recess.

10:29 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: An appeals court has unanimously decided that Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he tried to make appointments to the NLRB when the Senate was not in recess.

The Constitution is very clear on this issue (see article I, section 5). It is up to the Senate to decide when it is in recess, not the President. Obama’s attempt to ignore the clear words of the Constitution here is an ugly example of his willingness to place himself above the law, something no American citizen of either party should take lightly.

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The seasons change on Mars.

3:14 pm

The seasons change on Mars.

With three years of data in hand the researchers report on the sequence and variety of changes that take place over the spring, including outbursts of gas carrying sand, polygonal cracking of the ice on the dunes, sandfalls down the slipface of the dunes, and dark fans of sand propelled out onto the ice. Gas escaping from under the seasonal layer of dry ice erodes channels in the dunes, reminiscent of the erosion that carves more permanent “spider” channels in the southern hemisphere polar region.

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Polio virus from Pakistan has been found in Egypt.

11:15 am

Bad news: Polio virus from Pakistan has been found in Egypt.

The importation of the virus into Egypt is another setback for the global program, which has finally been making significant progress in the past 2 years, with polio cornered in just three endemic countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. (India has now gone 2 years without a single case of polio.) Of the three, Pakistan was doing especially well in knocking out the virus, but the program there has recently been disrupted by the targeted assassination of nine polio workers in December and early January. Those killings, widely condemned, have stoked fears the virus will regain strength in Pakistan and then reinfect polio-free countries. “This is proof positive of long-distance importation from Pakistan, and there may be more,” Aylward says.

But don’t worry: the Muslim Brotherhood have us covered! “Experts are worried, Bari says, because Egypt has scaled back its national polio vaccinations campaigns from twice to once a year during the turmoil of the revolution.” [emphasis mine]

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A research plane has crashed in a remote area of Antarctica, stranding three.

11:12 am

A research plane has crashed in a remote area of Antarctica, stranding three.

Once the beacon had sounded, a U.S. LC-130 aircraft was sent to the crash site, but it was unable to establish radio contact with the Twin Otter, while a thick layer of low-lying clouds prevented those onboard from seeing the plane. Later, a DC-3 aircraft spent hours circling above the crash site, but it also came away empty-handed.

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Engineers at Lockheed Martin are adding structural braces to fix the cracks found in the first Orion capsule.

11:07 am

Engineers at Lockheed Martin are adding structural braces to fix the cracks found in the first Orion capsule.

Engineers have designed a “doubler” to place over the cracks to ensure the craft can sustain loads from pressure, launch and landing. Geyer said two of the structural aids, similar to devices regularly used on airplanes, could be added to the spacecraft. “We’ve come up with a great plan to basically bridge over those cracks to distribute the load so we don’t see any issues on orbit,” Geyer said.

How reassuring.

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