Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Tonight is the night to look at the sky, as the solar storm that hit the Earth today could produce spectacular aurora in lower latitudes.
Fifteen questions the mainstream press would ask Barack Obama if he were a Republican.
While many of these questions are simply intended as a way to attack Obama (which of course is what the press does to Republican candidates), the last three are perfectly reasonable and do address directly the actual failures of his administration.
13) Why should the American people reelect you when your 10 year budget saddles America with more debt than all previous Presidents combined?
14) Your stimulus bill cost more in real dollars than the moon landing and the interstate highway system combined. What do we have to show for all of that money spent?
15) Members of your administration promised that the trillion dollar stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 percent. Instead, we’ve had 35+ months of 8% and above unemployment. Doesn’t that mean we wasted a trillion dollars on nothing?
Members of the Democratic Congressional Black Caucus on Monday charged that voter ID laws are intended at preventing blacks from voting and are specifically aimed at defeating Barack Obama.
“It is clear to me that whether racially based or not, this is a direct attempt, not only to undermine the election process, but a specific attempt to derail what surely would be and ought to be the re-election of Barack Obama,” Rep. Donna Christensen (D-VI) said on the floor.
So, according to these Democratic elected officials, blacks are either too stupid to carry ID, or are all criminals who fear being identified. What bigotry.
Or maybe these Democratic elected officials simply want to maintain the possibility of voter fraud.
Romney and Gingrich and their contrasting space policy views, as stated during in Florida debate last night.
A 33,000-year-old dog skull found in a Siberian cave, when compared with other ancient dog remains found in a Belgium cave, suggest to scientists that the domestication of dogs took place separately in many different places.
Cavers in West Virginia have returned a stalagmite to its original cave home after nearly fifty years above ground.
The biggest coronal mass ejection to be aimed at the Earth in seven years is expected to reach us by Tuesday.
No need to panic. Not only is the storm still relatively mild compared to past eruptions, the airline and electrical industries are actually well prepared for this event. However, if you want to see the aurora, this will probably be a good opportunity.
Gingrich has announced that he plans to give a “visionary” speech on space this week in Florida.
To me, this does not bode well. The last thing the American aerospace industry needs right now is another politician dictating a “new” path. The best thing Gingrich could do is to endorse the effort to have private companies do the work, and to then outline how he will get the government out of their way.
This year’s hunt for meteorites in Antarctica bagged more than 300.
Act quick! The deadline to apply to join the next astronaut class at NASA is Friday.
Though if you ask me (and no one is), it probably makes more sense to apply to Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites, SpaceX, or Stratolaunch if you want to be a space cadet, as these are going to be the guys in charge in coming years.
A victory for freedom: The Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that police must have a warrant before they can attach a GPS tracker to anyone’s vehicle.
A woman skier has become the first person to ski solo across Antarctica under her own power.
U.S. Senator Rand Paul has been detained by the TSA for refusing a pat down.
Has the TSA now made you feel safer?
Rasmussen: Gingrich polls nine points ahead of Romney in Florida.
Islamic election politics: Egyptian Islamists torched the homes and businesses of Christian Coptics this week in an effort to prevent them from voting in the next election.
Want to know who leads in the Republican candidate delegate count? Go here.
A former Obama staffer has been arrested in false ID scheme aimed at implicating a Republican office-holder in unethical behavior.
“So on its face, Edwards’s identity theft appears to be part of a coordinated effort by the Iowa Democratic Party to bring down the Republican Secretary of State so he can be replaced with a Democrat. We hope that Edwards will get the long jail term that he deserves, but the more important question is, from whom was he taking instructions? Circumstantially, one would guess from his boss, Jeff Link. But if so, who was instructing (and paying?) Link’s firm? The White House? Tom Harkin? Iowa’s Democratic Party?”
Of course, hoards of mainstream journalists are now gathering in Iowa to cover this story.
Bankrupt and owing the taxpayers half a billion dollars, Solyndra has been caught destroying brand new parts.
Stratolaunch announced yesterday the groundbreaking of its production facility and hanger at Mohave.
Bill Harward has some details on the cause of the Dragon/Falcon 9 launch delay.
Essentially, nothing seems critical. They found a few minor issues that they felt needed more testing, and are simply making sure these issues are resolved before launch. All in all I find this report very encouraging. Stay tuned.
A group of researchers have failed to reproduce the earlier NASA result that suggested arsenic-based life was possible.
One interesting aspect of this story is that the research results were discussed openly, with regular updates as the work was on-going, on one of the scientists blogs.
Redfield and her collaborators hope to submit their work to Science by the end of the month. She says that if Science refuses to publish the work because it has been discussed on blogs, it will become an important test case for open science.
European safety officials are about to order safety checks on the Airbus A380 jumbo jet after two different inspections found cracks in the plane’s wings.
The Dragon/Falcon 9 test flight is now set for no earlier than late March.
In a letter published jointly [pdf] in Science and Nature today, the researchers who have discovered how to easily transmit avian influenza — commonly called bird flu — have agreed to a sixty day voluntary pause in their research.
Despite the positive public health benefits these studies sought to provide, a perceived fear that the ferret-transmissible H5 HA viruses may escape from the laboratories has generated intense public debate in the media on the benefits and potential harm of this type of research. We would like to assure the public that these experiments have been conducted with appropriate regulatory oversight in secure containment facilities by highly trained and responsible personnel to minimize any risk of accidental release. Whether the ferret-adapted influenza viruses have the ability to transmit from human to human cannot be tested. We recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks. We propose to do so in an international forum in which the scientific community comes together to discuss and debate these issues. We realize that organizations and governments around the world need time to find the best solutions for opportunities and challenges that stem from the work. To provide time for these discussions, we have agreed on a voluntary pause of 60 days on any research involving highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses leading to the generation of viruses that are more transmissible in mammals. In addition, no experiments with live H5N1 or H5 HA reassortant viruses already shown to be transmissible in ferrets will be conducted during this time.
The situation is difficult. This research is important as it helps scientists understand how flu is transmitted. At the same time, this research is very dangerous, as it could be used by evil people to kill millions.
Taking the fifth: The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona has refused to testify to Congress about the Obama administration’s policy of allowing guns to be illegally smuggled to Mexican drug lords.
As his attorney, Tobin Romero, wrote:
“Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly,” the letter to Issa says. Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the Department of Justice in Washington is making him the fall guy, claiming he failed to accurately provide the Oversight Committee with information on the execution of Fast and Furious.
In other words, give me immunity and I will fry Eric Holder and the Obama administration.
The defense strategy of Democratic party officials under arrest for voter fraud: “Voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections.”
Going to college? Here are five useless college degrees to avoid.
The article focuses a bit too much on agriculture while leaving out ethnic and gender studies, but that’s probably because to criticize these politically correct but totally useless degrees is very politically incorrect.
