Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The rumors are now official: NASA will announce the winners of the commercial crew contracts on Friday.
Getting to ISS faster: a Progress freighter, launched today, is testing a new rendezvous route that takes only 6 hours to reach the station instead of the normal 48.
How the federal government has persecuted a scientist for whistling at a whale.
On the air tonight: I will be doing a special segment with John Batchelor tonight at 11 pm (Eastern) to discuss the Obama administration’s approval of a deal between China and the same private aerospace company that illegally leaked such technology to China in the past. If you can’t tune in live, the segment will be available here by podcast shortly thereafter, as are all my appearances on Batchelor.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
Here’s what it used to be like, when we lived in a free society:
By the 1920s and 30s children had access to substances which would raise eyebrows in today’s more safety-conscious times. There were toxic ingredients in pesticides, as well as chemicals now used in bombs or considered likely to increase the risk of cancer. And most parents will not need to be told of the dangers of the sodium cyanide found in the interwar kits or the uranium dust present in the “nuclear” kits of the 1950s.
Living in a dream world: Another set of pro-Obama polls that oversample Democrats.
Why CBS and the New York Times keep doing this mystifies me. It won’t persuade anyone to vote for Obama, and it might even give his supporters the false impression that he is doing better than he is. For example, contrast these results with this new Gallup poll, which found Obama’s popularity below 50 percent in all but 13 states. These are bad numbers for an incumbent, and they are almost certainly more predictive, as Gallup generally samples Democrats and Republicans more accurately, based on recent voting patterns.
The only explanation I can think of for this oversampling is an unwillingness to face the reality that Obama and his leftwing policies are not popular. It is as if CBS and the New York Times are standing there with their fingers in their ears, chanting “la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!” loudly so they don’t have to hear what they don’t like.
Muslim tolerance: “Get the [expletive] Jews out of my pool!”
Note that this happened in Santa Monica, California, not Iran.
A scientific analysis of a database of over a million songs produced since 1955 has found that modern popular music is louder and has less variety or range than the popular music of the past. Key quote:
Lastly, the researchers detected a trend of homogenization of the timbral palette. Timbre is what makes a particular musical sound different from another, even when they have the same pitch and loudness. It is essentially the difference between different instruments playing the same note at the same loudness. They found that, after peaking in the mid 60s, timbral variety has continued to narrow.
This confirms a suspicion of many fans of modern popular music, that it is less interesting and shows far less creativity than the popular music of the 1960s. This result might also explain why 1960s music remains so popular.
The decision on NASA’s manned commercial crew contracts will be made this week, according to new rumors.
A tranquil spiral galaxy, home to supernovae. And a beautiful image too!
The perspective of one man running for President:
[W]hat exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth. Many significant features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor and oath, our family orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our patriotism. But one feature of our culture that propels the American economy stands out above all others: freedom. The American economy is fueled by freedom. Free people and their free enterprises are what drive our economic vitality. [emphasis mine]
Sounds good to me, though we should all reserve the right to remain skeptical of anything a politician says. It is what they do that matters. Nonetheless, that Romney is making freedom a central part of his platform is further proof that he recognizes the trends and, like any politician, wants to be on the cusp of that wave. Or to once again repeat the words of Milton Friedman, “The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”
Another tea party victory: The Republican establishment choice for Texas senator was resoundingly defeated today by the tea party candidate.
2010 was a trend, not a fluke. And this detail from the article should give anyone with an open mind a good hint at what November will bring.
More than 1 million Texans voted in the runoff, a surprisingly strong turnout for balloting that came during the dog days of summer.
Just like in Wisconsin, Republican turnout was high. Come November, it will be higher.
The connection between a child rapist and climategate.
And that connection is the man who engineered the coverups in both cases, and has now been hired by the Obama administration.
You can’t make this stuff up: A Connecticut man is arrested and has his guns confiscated because he decided to change doctors and demanded that his old doctor provide him copies of all his lab tests.
Read the whole story. It appears that Connecticut officials sided with the doctor, a convicted felon, mostly because the arrested man happened to own a gun.
Happy 100th birthday to Milton Friedman!
Go to the link to watch some wonderful video clips of Friedman clearly and with good humor explaining the benefits of freedom and capitalism. However, for me my favorite Milton Friedman quote is without question this one, on the real way to change Congress:
I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.
Actual video below the fold.
» Read more
A Catholic Cardinal in Chicago asks a pointed question: “Is the City Council going to set up a ‘Council Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities’ and call those of us who are suspect to appear before it?”
The day of reckoning looms: A new budget report released by the Obama Administration on Friday projects the federal debt to rise to $16.2 trillion by the end of the year and $25.4 trillion by 2022.
Back to the Moon: China has announced plans to land an unmanned probe on the Moon next year, the first such planned landing since the 1970s.
And they say they support the 2nd amendment: Two Democrats have introduced legislation to restrict the sale of ammunition to ordinary Americans.
Trying to buy tickets to the London Olympics: A soul-destroying experience.
Repeal it! An Obamacare tax on medical devices has caused one company to cancel plans to build five new factories.
Nor is this the only such medical device company to pull back due to the tax. Read the whole article.
Election fraud, at the NAACP and elsewhere.
An NAACP official is convicted of voting multiple times under many names, many of which were dead, and is now serving five years in prison for the crime. No wonder this organization is against voter id. It would cramp their style!
The most encouraging part of the story is that it was a Democrat who led the prosecution.
The landslides of Iapetus: longer and more frequent than anywhere else in the solar system.
The article describes a new paper which analyzed the reliability of the weather stations in the U.S. and found that NOAA not only favored the data from the more untrustworthy stations — which also happened to have a warming bias — they then adjusted the overall data upward even more.
In other words, any temperature data from the last few decades cannot be trusted.
The full details can be found at Watts Up With That, but I haven’t given that as the main link because the page takes so long to load due to the many comments. You can also go here for additional information.
The Roman Colosseum has been found to be leaning about sixteen inches to the south.
We’re here to help you: After using his truck without his permission in a botched sting operation, the U.S. government is now refusing to compensate the owner for the damages.
Commandeered by one of his drivers, who was secretly working with federal agents, the truck had been hauling marijuana from the border as part of an undercover operation. And without Patty’s knowledge, the Drug Enforcement Administration was paying his driver, Lawrence Chapa, to use the truck to bust traffickers. … Chapa was shot dead in front of more than a dozen law enforcement officers – all of them taken by surprise by hijackers trying to steal the red Kenworth T600 truck and its load of pot. In the confusion of the attack in northwest Harris County, compounded by officers in the operation not all knowing each other, a Houston policeman shot and wounded a Harris County sheriff’s deputy.
But eight months later, Patty still can’t get recompense from the U.S. government’s decision to use his truck and employee without his permission.
Doing everything but the job of President.
Though this data might illustrate how disinterested Obama is in actually doing the kind of job that recent Presidents have done, it also shows how truly irrelevant the Presidency really is. A President can make a positive difference, but in truth, society functions with or without him. It is just a shame that this President sees the job as merely a platform for campaigning.
Success: The Russians today successfully redocked their unmanned Progress freighter to ISS, using a new docking system.
