Fiddling while Rome burned: Iran claimed today that it has produced its first nuclear fuel rod.
“At the end of 2011, America, like much of the rest of the Western world, has dug deeper into a cocoon of denial.”
Tens of millions of Americans have yet to understand that the can can no longer be kicked down the road, because we’re all out of road. The pavement ends, and there’s just a long drop into the abyss. And, even in a state-compliant car seat, you’ll land with a bump. At this stage in a critical election cycle, we ought to be arguing about how many government departments to close, how many government programs to end, how many millions of government regulations to do away with. Instead, one party remains committed to encrusting even more barnacles to America’s rusting hulk, while the other is far too wary of harshing the electorate’s mellow.
Thugs: After being pepper-sprayed by police during their eviction from an Albany park in which they were camping illegally, Occupy Albany protesters have responded by mounting a campaign threatening a police officer and his family.
A “wanted” poster seeking information including the home address, telephone numbers and “map to home” of Officer Richard Gorleski was posted Wednesday on a Facebook page used by Occupy Albany. Gorleski’s address and telephone numbers are not publicly listed. But Gorleski’s father, a Troy resident who has the same first name as his son, began receiving unsettling telephone calls from blocked numbers this week. Troy police said they have taken measures to keep watch on the residence.
This “Occupy Whatever” movement is not the peaceful expression of freedom of speech. It is instead terrorism, the violent effort of a few spoiled leftwing brats who believe in the use of force and violence to impose their will on everyone else, including the right to destroy anyone who disagrees with them.
Any politician who provides this kind of behavior aid or comfort should be voted out of office at the first opportunity, regardless of party.
The first of two Grail space probes has entered lunar orbit.
Why are so many offended by Tim Tebow’s faith?
The author says it’s because people are insecure and feel threatened. I have a simpler explanation: hatred of and bigotry against someone who is religious.
Congress has ended the corn ethanol tax subsidy.
That the taxpayer will no longer be shelling out billions to support this industry is a good thing. However, the news isn’t all good for the free market, as the mandates forcing an increase in ethanol use remain in effect.
Chicago politics ain’t limited to Chicago: In Brooklyn today a fundraiser for Obama and the Democratic Party was convicted of a $21 million bank fraud scheme.
How to self-destruct your PR company with just a few measly emails.
The reason this story has gone viral is that everyone has had to deal with rude and uninformed customer service people who not only don’t answer questions accurately, often downright lie to get you off the phone. And sadly, they can get away with it because companies allow them to. With this story, however, justice triumphed. Thank you Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade.
On January 2, 2012, an asteroid is going to transit across the face of Betelgeuse. And if you live in Europe, own a very sensitive telescope, look close and don’t blink, you might be able to see it!
This is all according to a preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph preprint website, written by scientist Costantino Sigismondi of the Galileo Ferraris Institute and International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics in Rome. You can download the paper here [pdf].
The transit itself will only last 3.6 seconds, and will only be visible along a narrow swath crossing southern India and moving across the Middle East, through parts of Italy, France, and the southwestern most tips of England and Ireland. A map of this path is below the fold.
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In other energy news: Six tired arguments the energy sector needs to stop using.
I like the last best:
Social good alone does not make for a viable business, even if it makes for a darn good trading strategy. For investors, if you’ve been burned, try to remember that feeling good about green energy can still make you feel very nauseous when monitoring your portfolio.
The trends in worldwide energy use.
Overall, North American leads the way, but the rest of the world is catching up. And the increase in residential electric use comes from electronic appliances like computers and televisions.
More volcano news: An eruption today of the very remote Cleveland volcano in the Aleutian Islands has caused an air traffic alert.
Volcanic activity in the Red Sea is producing a brand new island.
The South Pole had its warmest day on record on Christmas Day this year.
Before the global warming crowd starts crowing, note that temperatures for December were actually quite normal, not colder or warmer than the average.
An evening pause: I think this is staged, but it’s worth sticking around for the punchline at the end.
How’s that Arab spring working out for you? Egypt today raided the offices of seventeen human rights organizations.
Egyptian soldiers and black-clad police officers swept into offices, interrogated workers and seized computers across the country. Those targeted included U.S. groups the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, which are funded by Congress to monitor elections and promote democracy overseas.
The science team of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter released a spectacular image of the lunar crater Aristarchus on Christmas Day, looking sideways at the crater’s west wall. The image was taken from only 16 miles above the Moon’s surface. You can see the full image here.
Two things to note from this image:
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A new Rasmussen poll shows Romney beating Obama 45%-39%.
What is more significant about the poll is how poorly Obama stacks up against every other possible candidate. Though he leads all the others, in no case does he get more than 48% of the vote. Even against a non-entity like Gary Johnson Obama only leads 42% to 27%. These numbers suggest that no matter who runs against Obama, the man is toast.
The top ten worst federal rules of 2011.
All are crippling, but this one is plain stupid:
4. The Equine Equality Rule. As of March 15 (the Ides of March, no less), hotels, restaurants, airlines, and the like became obliged to modify “policies, practices, or procedures” to accommodate miniature horses as service animals. According to the Department of Justice, which administers the rule, miniature horses are a “viable alternative” to dogs for individuals with allergies or for observant Muslims and others whose religious beliefs preclude canine accompaniment.
China today issued a white paper on space, outlining its future goals. In addition to additional launches of its manned Shenzhou manned capsule,
China also plans to launch space laboratories, manned spaceship and space freighters, and will start a research on the preliminary plan for a human landing on the moon, the document said.
As an important part of deep-space exploration, the country’s lunar probe projects follow the idea of “three steps” — orbiting, landing and returning. In next five years, the country plans to launch orbiters for lunar soft landing, roving and surveying to implement the second stage of lunar exploration, then it will start the third-stage project of sampling the moon’s surface matters and get those samples back to Earth, the white paper said.
You can download the full white paper here [pdf]. Hat tip to Spaceref.com.
A Russian minister is threatening dire consequences after a group of Russian bloggers were able to wander freely through a rocket plant for literally days.
Jumping into the future: Samoa will skip Friday this week as it shifts across the international dateline to be in synch with its major trading partners in Asia.
“The USA is officially the most charitable nation in the world.”
Damn those rich capitalistic bastards. We should tax them more!.
Good news: A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket successfully launched six satellites into orbit today, less than a week after a differently configured Soyuz-2 rocket had failed.
The kettle calling the pot black: Attorney General Eric Holder today lamented the murders caused by the use of illegal guns in Mexico and the southwest.
Somehow he failed to mention how it was his Department of Justice that helped smuggled those guns into Mexico. In a sane world, Holder would be on trial as an accessory to those murders.
