An evening pause: “It doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.”
The uncertainty of science: Scientists are considering revising the guidelines for heart risk as determined by your cholesterol levels.
The ATP IV committee has pledged to hew strictly to the science and to focus on data from randomized clinical trials, says committee chairman Neil Stone, a cardiologist at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. If so, Krumholz argues, LDL [cholesterol] targets will be cast aside because they have never been explicitly tested. Clinical trials have shown repeatedly that statins reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, but lowering LDL with other medications does not work as well. The benefits of statins may reflect their other effects on the body, including fighting inflammation, another risk factor for heart disease. [emphasis mine]
In other words, the assumption that’s been pushed for more than a decade that lowering your cholesterol will lower your risk of heart attack has never been tested or proven. If this isn’t science by myth I don’t know what is.
Who woulda thunk it? A new GAO report says that Obamacare will increase the federal government’s long term debt by $6.2 trillion.
The worse part of this is that these government predictions of debt are always wrong, but in the wrong direction. If this is the prediction, the actual increase in debt caused by Obamacare is likely to be far higher.
Note also that this is no surprise to the Republicans who opposed this bill. It also proves just how much Obama was either incompetent or simply lying when he said this:
“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future,” Obama told a joint-session of Congress in September 2009. “I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.”
The world’s largest panoramic image.
The 320 gigapixel image, taken from the top of the BT Tower in London, comprises 48,640 individual frames which have been collated into a single panorama by a supercomputer. It breaks the previous record set by a 281-gigapixel electron micrograph of a zebrafish embryo taken in 2012.
Incompetence: Even as Democratic lawmakers scream for more gun control laws, the enforcement of the current laws by the Obama administration has declined by 40 percent.
The Syracuse study found the number of federal weapons prosecutions fell from about 11,000 in 2004 to about 6,000 under the Obama administration in 2011 — and ticked up to 7,770 in 2012. The GOP letter also cited data from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), which found in 2010, of 6 million Americans who applied to buy a gun, less than 2 percent — or 76,000 — were denied. Of those, the ATF referred 4,732 cases for prosecution. Of them, just 44 were prosecuted, and only 13 were punished for lying or buying a gun illegally.
Gee, if these idiots really care about “the children,” maybe the first thing they should do is handle the responsibilities they’ve already given themselves?
Boom! A newly discovered comet has an orbit that might have it collide with Mars in October 2014.
Surprise surprise! Hamas breaks truce and fires rocket from Gaza into Israel.
Don’t they have better things to do ? The House yesterday voted to rename the Dryden Flight Research Center after Neil Armstrong.
As I noted previously, I disagree strongly with this action. To honor Armstrong properly we should name something really important after him. But it is shameless and wrong to steal the honor from Hugh Dryden in doing so. Armstrong, a modest and honorable man, would have surely protested this action himself.
We’re here to help you: Homeland Security seizes a man’s boat because they made an error on his custom’s paperwork.
That he eventually got it back is completely beside the point.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has reported that its static fire test today of the Falcon 9 rocket was a success.
The launch of Dragon is now set for Friday.
“Vulcan” and “Cerberus” win the poll to name Pluto’s two unnamed moons. Key quote:
Vulcan was a late addition to the Pluto moon name contenders, and pulled into the lead after Shatner, building on his Capt. James T. Kirk persona, plugged the name on Twitter. Vulcan, the home planet of Kirk’s alien-human hybrid first officer Spock, is not just a fictional world in the Star Trek universe. It is also the name of the god of fire in Roman mythology, and officials at SETI added the sci-fi favorite to the ballot for that reason.
The competition heats up: India successfully launched seven satellites into orbit today on a single launch.
The question is worth asking, based on the described series of attacks. Too bad it is considered racist to ask it.
Pushback: Beretta has threatened to leave Maryland over the state’s proposed new gun bans.
Note that this was not said by a conservative, but by a very liberal commentator with whom I generally disagree. He should know, however, as he was fired by a leftwing “big media institution” for not toeing the line.
Pushback: Public pressure is now being applied to gun manufacturers who are trying to weasel out of the boycott against gun-banning states.
In other words, Armalite is trying to play both ends against the middle. They want to say they are on-board with the boycott (sort of) to placate gun owners, but they aren’t; they’re still going to continue selling to individual police officers… just not to the departments. Armalite will sell to every individual officer in the department that wants an AR-15, but they won’t sell to the department’s official purchasing agent. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
Owens suggests spending your money with other companies and I agree. We are reaching the moment where you are either for freedom or against it. And if you act against it you are not my friend and will get none of my support.
The man who taught the air forces of the world how to fly.
Twenty-three terrifying airport runways.
And the list doesn’t even include LaGuardia Airport in New York, with its runway in the middle of New York harbor.
The world’s smallest optical space telescopes to launch on Monday.
Mammoth Cave is now officially longer than 400 miles.
This official announcement is a bit old, as the survey work that brought Mammoth over 400 miles was probably done during the October or December 2012 expeditions.
Update: I contacted some of my caving friends who survey in Mammoth regularly, and they have confirmed that the survey reached 400 miles during the October 2012 expedition.
Does this make you feel safer? “All you need to know to get on a plane these days is the color of your house.”
I realize that this is actually an example of the TSA trying to be helpful to a U.S. citizen, but it also illustrates the complete uselessness of all TSA airport security.
“I shall never surrender or retreat.” William Travis’ letter of defiance returns to the Alamo.
Pushback: The number of gun companies who have decided to stop selling to anti-second amendment state governments has grown to 44.
None of the companies listed include any of the big gun or ammo manufacturers, but give it time. The government is sometimes their biggest customer, so to sacrifice that income requires a level of commitment they might not yet be ready to make. Nonetheless, I expect it is only a matter of time before some of the heavy players join this effort, if only to apply pressure to state governments. And when a few do, all will feel pressure to join in.
A jetpack that takes off like a plane.
With a name right out of Thunderbirds, Skyflash is, if nothing else, ambitious. The wing, which is worn like a backpack, is designed to take off from the ground and, if successful, will be the smallest twin engined plane ever built.
The competition heats up: The Antares hot fire test of the rocket’s first stage was successfully completed tonight.
The 29-second hot fire test took place at 6:00 p.m. (EST) on February 22, 2013 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s (MARS) Pad 0A, which was designed and built over the last several years to accommodate liquid-fuel space launch vehicles. The primary goals of the test were to ensure that the launch complex’s fueling systems and the Antares stage one test article functioned properly in a fully operational environment, that engine ignition and shut down commands operated as designed, and that the dual AJ26 first stage engines and their control systems performed to specifications in the twin-engine configuration. The test included a full propellant loading sequence, launch countdown and engine ignition operation. The pad’s high-volume water deluge system flowed throughout the entire period of the test to protect the pad from damage and for noise suppression.
The first stage will now be prepped for a full scale test launch of Antares, expected in about six weeks. If that is successful, Orbital Sciences will then follow with a flight of the Cygnus capsule to ISS.
An evening pause: In honor of George Washington’s birthday, here is his farewell speech, in which he outlined his advice for the citizens of this country to sustain a free America into a long and prosperous future.
The wisdom of these words is astonishing. More so is their predictive quality. Washington knew, possibly better than anyone, the greatest risks that threatened liberty. Woe to us all if we choose to ignore his warnings.
We are doomed: A new poll finds that the public opposes cuts to virtually all types of spending.
We can make believe we can keep spending as we have, but reality always wins.
