Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Good news: A judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of the part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that allows for the indefinite military detention of American citizens.
Based on further analysis of the data from WISE, the infrared space telescope, astronomers have now made a better estimate of the population of potentially hazardous asteroids.
Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s, coming within five million miles (about eight million kilometers), and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.
The new results come from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE. The project sampled 107 PHAs to make predictions about the entire population as a whole. Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 PHAs, plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). So far, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found.
Good news: North Carolina’s State Board of Elections has begun an investigation into the voter fraud exposed in the most recent Project Veritas videotapes.
Rather than attack the messenger, the state is looking into the problem. Kudos to them.
Fiddling away: The Senate today rejected President Obama’s proposed budget 99-0.
Too bad Harry Reid won’t offer up a budget of his own. The only reason this got voted on at all was that the Republicans forced a vote.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government fell another several billion dollars into debt even as the vote was being taken.
Don’t throw away your broken electronics! There’s money to be made from them on ebay.
Guess who: “This is legalized theft.”
What might have been: “The Eagle has crashed.”
An overview of what will happen on Dragon’s first flight to ISS next week.
What does this tell us? In a poll of one congressional district in Arkansas, Obama receives support from just 45% of Democratic Party voters, and is only seven points ahead of his unknown primary challenger.
But make sure you come home when you’re done!
More voter fraud, this time in North Carolina, including a professor who applauds it.
Watch the video. The part where the professor applauds voter fraud because it would hurt conservatives is most revealing.
Building a spaceship engine fueled by antimatter.
We’ve only just begun: A Catholic University has dropped its health coverage for students due to Obamacare and the contraceptive mandate.
Theft by government: A Tennessee policeman takes $22,000 cash from a driver, because he wants to.
Hitching a ride: The Russians last night launched a new crew to ISS.
Next up: the launch of Falcon 9/Dragon on Saturday.
Another Obama tech wonder company dies: LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy.
From the beginning engineers were saying that LightSquared’s system would interfere with GPS. The only reason the company lasted as long as it did was because it had the political backing of the Obama administration. And the reason it had that backing is because the company’s CEO was a big supporter of Obama.
Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) on Monday attacked the House version of NASA’s budget that required the agency to make a quick decision on its commercial manned launch company.
Nelson faces a difficult election campaign from the right. Thus, I suspect he has realized that he is better off promoting free enterprise than local pork. It is unfortunate that the Republicans in the House haven’t yet realized this.
Competition wins again: Faced with high prices and a near monopoly by China, the mining of rare Earth metals is once again rising worldwide.
