Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Time is running out: Government reaches debt limit, borrows against federal pension funds to pay obligations.
I guess they finally found out what’s in it: Twenty percent of the new waivers to ObamaCare are in Nancy Pelosi’s district.
Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.
Then there’s this new poll: By 17 percentage points, Americans support repeal.
Repeal is supported by men and women; by those in their 30s, 40s, 50s to mid-60s, and mid-60s on up; and by all income groups (ranging from under-$20,000 to over-$100,000 a year).
Senate Democrats: Where is your budget?
With the statutory committee deadline having been missed by six weeks, and with 744 days gone by since the Democrat-led Senate passed a budget, it was reported that this week Senate Democrats would finally produce a budget and hold a markup. But no budget was produced and the markup was delayed yet again.
The Republicans might not be very serious about spending cuts, but the Democrats are a downright joke. At least the Republicans have made some effort to deal with the problem, tepid as that effort is. The Democrats not only oppose any suggestion, they can’t even do their job.
Former “alarmist” scientist says human-caused global warming is based on false science.
The Islamic education system: Taliban mullahs are now recruiting nine-year-old suicide bombers. More here. Key quote:
“Our mullah told us that when we carried out our suicide attacks, all the people around us would die, but we would stay alive,”
But we’re told that today’s Islam is just another religion, morally equivalent to modern Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism. How could this be?
Not good: Google shuts off blog, then cuts off people who criticize Google.
A review of India’s troubled GSLV rocket has put a hold on its next moon probe.
The solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse, made its maiden international flight on Friday.
Bill Clinton yesterday called for the creation of a government agency, either by the U.S or UN, to discredit bad political reporting and quash Internet rumors.
Doesn’t that sound just peachy keen: giving the government the power to correct and control political reporting.
Members of the world’s first mobility scooter display team, the Red Wheelies, are attempting to set a new world 24-hour distance record this weekend.
Why not give us all waivers and make the country happy? The White House issued another 200 ObamaCare waivers late Friday, bringing the total to almost 1400.
The IPCC announced this week it has established new procedures in an effort to avoid the problems that occurred with the last report.
I remain very skeptical of these reforms, as well as anything this UN organization publishes. Consider this quote for example:
On the issue of citing non-peer-reviewed literature, such as reports from nongovernmental organizations and climate activists, the new procedures say that IPCC report authors can include such documents “as long as they are scientifically and technically valid. [emphasis mine]
How convenient. Decide that something written by Greenpeace is “scientifically and technically valid” and you can use it as evidence.
Surprise surprise! Social Security and Medicare are running out of funds sooner than expected.
From Jeff Foust: Another sign of tight budgets ahead.
The possibility that NASA’s budget might cut by several billion doesn’t bother me a bit. Unlike it seems everyone else, I ain’t gonna be one of those who says “We need to cut the federal budget, but just don’t cut MY favorite program.” NASA shouldn’t be immune to cuts. In fact, NASA could easily lose the several billion dollars per year that’s going to be wasted on the program-formerly-called-Constellation.
And if Congress decided to cut the subsidies to the new commercial space companies as well, I probably wouldn’t cry that much over that either. I think these companies can make it on their own. I think there is a market for their product. By taking NASA’s money up front, they are then forced to take NASA supervision, something I think will be very damaging in the long run.
The countdown has begun for Monday’s shuttle launch.
If all goes well, I will be there to watch it (albeit from 11 miles away). Right now mission controllers estimate a 70% chance of liftoff, depending on the weather.
The House budget for the TSA has deleted funding for more body scanners.
Though I think denying the TSA this money is a good thing, this paragraph from the article stood out to me:
The measure includes $7.8 billion for the TSA, which Republicans said was a $125 million increase from current levels but $293 million less than the administration’s budget request.
In 2008 the TSA’s budget was approximately $6.99 billion. Considering how the Republicans wanted to bring spending back to 2008 levels, how can we take them seriously about getting control of the deficit if they agree to an overall budget increase for the TSA?
More debt ceiling negotiations: GOP senators focused on entitlement cuts in a meeting with Obama on Thursday. I found this quote quite intriguing and a refreshing change from previous such meetings:
Obama was careful not to dominate the meeting, according to Republican senators who attended. The president opened the session with brief remarks and spent most of the session listening to lawmakers’ concerns and responding to their arguments.
According to a new Gallup poll, Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling by 47% to 19%.
But are those same Americans willing to accept the spending cuts that will be required at the same time? I wonder.
Another successful test flight of SpaceShipTwo took place on Tuesday. Via Clark Lindsey.
It was revealed today that one of Fukushima’s nuclear reactors did suffer a nuclear meltdown.
As serious as this truly is, please note that the world hasn’t ended. Nor has anyone yet died from this nuclear power plant failure.
Truly alien: The strange egg-shaped dwarf planet Haumea is apparently also covered with crystallised ice.
“Since solar radiation constantly destroys the crystalline structure of ice on the surface, energy sources are required to keep it organized. The two that we have taken into consideration are that able to generate radiogenic elements (potassium-40, thorium-232 and uranium-238) from the inside, and the tidal forces between Haumea and its satellites,” [explained] Benoit Carry, co-author of the study and a researcher at the ESAC Centre of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Madrid (Spain).
Not good: The House GOP has apparently abandoned its pledge to force agency-by-agency budgeting.
Climate science meets Islam! A climate scientist was immediately banned from Saudi Arabia when he showed a picture of dog with Saudi dress during a lecture there.
Why don’t we just repeal it? “An umbrella group representing premier organizations such as the Mayo Clinic wrote the administration Wednesday saying that more than 90 percent of its members would not participate, because the rules as written are so onerous it would be nearly impossible for them to succeed.” There’s also this lovely quote:
[The Obamacare regulations] are overly prescriptive, operationally burdensome, and the incentives are too difficult to achieve to make this voluntary program attractive.
Pork and more pork: NASA is considering turning Congress’s heavy-lift rocket requirement, the program-formerly-called-Constellation, into a shuttle-derived rocket that would cost $10 billion and only fly once.
The first tourist in space was not Dennis Tito, but this woman from Britain.
ISRO, India’s space agency, pushes to get funding for a reusable spacecraft.
In mid-April the Crab Nebula erupted for six days, repeatedly emitting the most powerful flares ever recorded from the supernova remnant.
Scientists think the flares occur as the intense magnetic field near the pulsar undergoes sudden restructuring. Such changes can accelerate particles like electrons to velocities near the speed of light. As these high-speed electrons interact with the magnetic field, they emit gamma rays.
To account for the observed emission, scientists say the electrons must have energies 100 times greater than can be achieved in any particle accelerator on Earth. This makes them the highest-energy electrons known to be associated with any galactic source. Based on the rise and fall of gamma rays during the April outbursts, scientists estimate that the size of the emitting region must be comparable in size to the solar system.
