Scott Walker wins big in Wisconsin
Scott Walker has won the recall election in Wisconsin by a large margin, 53-46 percent, more than predicted and exceeding his vote total in his 2010 election victory.
Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) has backed down and modified the language he had inserted in the NASA budget bill that would have limited the number of commercial space companies NASA could subsidize.
Good news: Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) has backed down and modified the language he had inserted in the NASA budget bill that would have limited the number of commercial space companies NASA could subsidize.
From Clark Lindsey:
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) , who is Chairman on the Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations committee, put language into the recent House budget for NASA that requiree NASA to down-select immediately to one primary contractor in the commercial crew program. This would obviously eliminate competition on price and rule out redundancy in case one system is grounded. He has now relented and is willing to allow for “2.5 (two full and one partial) CCiCAP awards”.
As I wrote earlier, the success of Dragon is putting strong political pressure on Congress to support the independent commercial space companies over the NASA-built and very expensive Space Launch System (SLS) that Congress had mandated. Expect to see more elected officials back down in the coming year, with the eventually elimination of SLS from the budget.
Watch the Venus transit live
Watch the Venus transit live:
From space, from Solar Dynamics Observatory.
From Universe Today, on Youtube.
“So come and get me if you must, Mr. President. I will not bow to your wicked regulation.”
We’ve only just begun: “So come and get me if you must, Mr. President. I will not bow to your wicked regulation.”
James Dobson is not to be taken lightly. Under the Obamacare HHS contraceptive mandate, his organization, Focus on the Family, would not qualify for any exemption and would be required to pay for contraceptives and abortion drugs. And if Dobson’s organization defies the federal government here, expect very loud fireworks, as Focus is very large with a very large following.
Congressional investigators now have documents that prove senior officials in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice approved Operation Fast and Furious, whereby the DOJ allowed guns to be purchased illegally and then smuggled back to Mexico.
Congressional investigators now have documents that prove senior officials in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice approved Operation Fast and Furious, whereby Justice allowed guns to be purchased illegally and then smuggled back to Mexico.
Hey, so what that Eric Holder committed perjury before Congress? So what that people, including an American Border Patrol agent, have been murdered using these smuggled guns? So what that the Department of Justice, whose task it is to enforce the law, worked to aid Mexican drug cartels in obtaining illegal guns?
What’s the big deal? Mitt Romney was mean to someone when he was in high school forty years ago!
Want to own your own island? Now you can have it built, and put it wherever you want!
Want to own your own island? Now you can have it built, and put it wherever you want!
Watching the transit of Venus – from Saturn
Watching the transit of Venus – from Saturn.
Tone deaf: The union representing maintenance crews at Belmont is threatening to go on strike on Friday, just prior to the Belmont Stakes where the horse “I’ll Have Another” has a chance to win the Triple Crown.
Tone deaf: The union representing maintenance crews at Belmont is threatening to go on strike on Friday, just prior to the Belmont Stakes where the horse “I’ll Have Another” has a chance to win the Triple Crown.
With more than 100,000 fans expecting to attend the race as well as millions more watching on television, a strike will do wonders in sealing the union’s image in the public’s eye.
In order to do a fifteen minute campaign photo-op on Memorial Day, Obama shut down the Vietnam Memorial down to everyone, including veterans, for seven hours.
Tone deaf: In order to do a fifteen minute campaign photo-op on Memorial Day, Obama shut down the Vietnam Memorial to everyone, including veterans, for seven hours.
The trustee of the customers whose money was stolen by MF Global has indicated in a report that he might sue Jon Corzine for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
The trustee of the customers whose money was stolen by MF Global has indicated in a report that he might sue Jon Corzine for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
If they can’t get the government to prosecute him, at least they can go after him in civil court.
The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced Tuesday.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office announced Tuesday.
This CBO report actually supposed to be encouraging, as it indicates that the day of doom has been pushed back a whopping two years! Yowza! Let’s pop the corks on the champagne bottles and start celebrating!
Sadly, the article also has this ridiculous quote:
CBO’s latest prediction is similar to its 2011 report despite the $2.1 trillion in budget cuts enacted in last August’s debt-ceiling deal between the White House and Congress.
Nothing was cut by that deal. All they did was trim the rate of growth. For any journalist to continue to participate in this fraud is sickening.
According to a new poll, the number of voters who consider themselves independents is now the highest in seventy-five years.
Good news: According to a new poll, the number of voters who consider themselves independents is now the highest in seventy-five years.
If you call yourself independent, it means you intend to keep an open mind about who to vote for. It means you have decided that loyalty to party affiliation is not a reason to vote for a candidate. It means that you have decided to reject conventional wisdom and go your own way.
It doesn’t necessarily mean you will make a wise decision, but it does mean that on the whole the American electorate has decided our government needs a new approach, and that knee-jerk loyalty to the established political parties is not the way to get it.
The surest sign that the Democrats will lose the recall vote there today: “Mainstream media escapes from Wisconsin.”
The surest sign that the Democrats will lose the recall vote there today: “Mainstream media escapes from Wisconsin.”
Taking a look at the test flight planning for Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule.
Next up: Taking a look at the test flight planning for Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has asked the Utah state legislature for permission to scan the license plates of all cars driving on Interstate 15.
What could go wrong? The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has asked the Utah state legislature for permission to scan the license plates of all cars driving on Interstate 15.
Worse, they are already scanning plates in Texas and California, and plan to add Arizona to the list.
I especially like this quote from a Utah legislator in response to the request. “I’ll be quite frank with you. A lot of us in Utah don’t trust the federal government.” Do tell.
Due to cost overruns, NASA has cancelled the GEM X-ray telescope.
Due to cost overruns, NASA has cancelled the GEM X-ray telescope.
Shuttle prototype Enterprise was damaged on Sunday while being transported by barge to its New York City museum home.
The shuttle prototype Enterprise was damaged on Sunday while being transported by barge to its New York City museum home.
Astronomers think they have discovered a distant supermassive black hole that is being ejected from its galaxy at a speed of several million miles per hour.
Astronomers think they have discovered a distant supermassive black hole that is being ejected from its galaxy at a speed of several million miles per hour.
Although the ejection of a supermassive black hole from a galaxy by recoil because more gravitational waves are being emitted in one direction than another is likely to be rare, it nevertheless could mean that there are many giant black holes roaming undetected out in the vast spaces between galaxies. “These black holes would be invisible to us,” said co-author Laura Blecha, also of CfA, “because they have consumed all of the gas surrounding them after being thrown out of their home galaxy.”
This conclusion however is not final. The data could also be explained by the spiraling in of two supermassive black holes.
Fifteen picturesque shipwrecks from around the world.
Fifteen picturesque shipwrecks from around the world.
The military has given NASA two Cold War era spy space telescopes with mirrors comparable to Hubble’s.
Big news: The military has given NASA two Cold War era spy space telescopes with mirrors comparable to Hubble’s.
They have 2.4-meter (7.9 feet) mirrors, just like the Hubble. They also have an additional feature that the civilian space telescopes lack: A maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more focused images. These telescopes will have 100 times the field of view of the Hubble, according to David Spergel, a Princeton astrophysicist and co-chair of the National Academies advisory panel on astronomy and astrophysics.
Since astronomers have over the past dozen years been remarkably uninterested in launching a replacement for Hubble, they now find themselves in a situation where they might have no optical capabilities at all in space. Hubble is slowing dying from age, and NASA doesn’t have the money to build a new optical space telescope, especially since with any new space telescope proposal the astronomical community has had the annoying habit of demanding more sophistication than NASA can afford.
This announcement however might just save astronomy from becoming blind. Because these spy telescopes are already half built, it will be difficult to add too many bells and whistles. Hire a launch rocket, build the cameras and spectrographs based on the instruments already on Hubble, and get the things in orbit quickly.