The WISE space telescope results go online

The WISE infrared space telescope results are now online, for anyone to search.

Data from the first 57 percent of the sky surveyed is accessible through an online public archive. The complete survey, with improved data processing, will be made available in the spring of 2012. A predecessor to WISE, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), served a similar role about 25 years ago, and those data are still valuable to astronomers today. Likewise, the WISE legacy is expected to endure for decades.

You can hunt for new asteroids, comets, and galaxies here, with instructions on how to do it here.

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Taxing the rich will not solve the problem

Because it is often claimed that we can solve our federal budget problems by closing loopholes and increasing taxes on the wealthy, I thought I’d share this video from Bill Whittle, dramatizing this Iowahawk essay.

We can argue all day about whether we should increase taxes on the wealthy, but that is not going to solve our debt problem. Even if we confiscated every penny of profit from every person or corporation earning more than million dollars a year, we would still not make the slightest dent in the federal deficit.

Our federal government is simply spending money it doesn’t have. We need to cut spending, and cut spending drastically, in order to gain some control over this problem.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to me the American people or Congress are yet willing to face this fact.

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