NASA has finally released the photos of Endeavour docked to ISS, taken from a departing Soyuz.
Fiddling while Rome burns: An Iranian atomic bomb may be only eight weeks away.
Repeal it! The right to issue waivers to Obamacare by the Health and Human Services administration (HHS) appears to be illegal.
Language granting HHS that power was never in the original law. Instead, through new rules and regulations, HHS gave itself the power last summer using a broad interpretation of certain parts of the law.
The abuse of power: Cruise passengers tell of seven-hour security “revenge” nightmare, forced on them by U.S. immigration officials.
But when a handful of them questioned whether the lengthy security checks at the port were strictly necessary for a group of largely elderly travellers officials were not amused. Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete.
Leftwing civility: Comic Chris Titus hints at assassinating Palin “if she gets elected president.”
New poll: Romney 49, Obama 46.
Romney is no joy, but for any poll to show an incumbent president losing at this early stage of the campaign is a strong indication of that incumbent’s weakness.
The day of reckoning beckons: The federal government’s total unfunded financial obligations now exceed $60 trillion.
Scientists cheer the election of a socialist president in Peru. Meanwhile, investors flee the country.
Repeal it! A new survey shows that thirty percent of all companies plan to drop health coverage when Obamacare goes fully into effect.
A new supernova has erupted in the nearby galaxy M51, 23 million light years away.
And still no one has died from this particular failure: Japan confirms that all three nuclear reactors melted down after the quake and tsunami.
The benefits of CO2 increase: The density of the world’s forests has been increasing as they act as a carbon sink.
The authors say most regions and almost all temperate nations have stopped losing forest and the study’s findings constitute a new signal of what co-author Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller calls “The Great Reversal” under way in global forests after centuries of loss and decline. “Opportunities to absorb carbon and restore the world’s forests can come through increasing density or area or both.”
Gotta keep that propaganda machine running: The Congressional Budget Office has hired an Obamacare advocate, Democrat Party operative, and Obama administration official to provide it “objective” health care budget numbers.
Check out the spectacular images of the eruption of this Chilean volcano, its first in 50 years.
In new research at CERN physicists now have captured atoms of antimatter for more than 15 minutes.
An evening pause: Sammy Davis and Anthony Newley perform a medley of Newley songs, from a 1972 television performance.
Police yesterday shut the Jefferson Memorial to clear out a crowd protesting the arrest of five people last week for dancing inside the monument.
One man took to the microphone to demand that all intrusive government policies be overturned, specifically mentioning the need to repeal “Obamacare.” Medea Benjamin [of Code Pink] clarified that some participants also wanted a single-payer system, but that all agreed on the right to dance at the memorial.
On some issues we all agree.
The James Webb Space Telescope: The disaster that destroyed NASA’s astrophysics program.
An evening pause: More here.
Sweet justice: A homeowner forecloses on a bank.
The photography of the first clown in space.
A melanoma cure in sight? Drug combination shows incredible promise in early trial.
Big brother arrives: Starting in June all new cars will have a mandatory black box.
The installation and use of these black boxes can have infinite possibilities for local, state, and federal governments to monitor and record data for a number of other revenue programs that are currently under consideration. In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a proposal to institute a tax on mileage to help pay for the federal budget deficit. Additionally, local cities and counties can download information from these black boxes, and they can be used to issue driving citations after the fact in the case of speeding or not wearing a seat belt.
I think the value of my old used Subaru Forester has just gone up!
A federal appeals court has lifted the ban on public prayer at a Texas high school graduation.
Good thing too, as any attempt by the court or the police to tried to stop someone from praying would have backfired very badly.
It’s a start: The House has trimmed the budget for the Homeland Security Agency by $1.1 billion, including a cut of about 75% from the Obama administration’s request for the agency’s science budget, ($398 million versus $1.2 billion requested). And of course, we don’t have to wait long to hear the pigs squeal:
DHS officials say the decrease in the directorate’s budget will wipe out dozens of programs, stalling the development of technologies for border protection, detection of bio-hazards, and cargo screening.
My heart bleeds.
Some squealing from the journal Science: NSF faces uphill budget battle in Congress.
When he asked the witnesses for ideas on shrinking the government’s $1.6 trillion deficit, Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) [chairman of the research panel of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee] made it clear he was talking about possible cuts to NSF’s entire $7 billion budget, not simply its SBE directorate.
Note that in 2008 the NSF budget was a $6.1 billion. Cutting it back to that number would hardly destroy social science research in this country.
