Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Three astronauts were launched to ISS today in a Soyuz capsule the Russians have named Gagarin, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his flight on April 12.
The real disaster in Japan finally reaches the U.S. and it isn’t radiation: Toyota has announced it will shut its North American plants due to the shortage of parts caused by the earthquake/tsunami.
I thought the banning of CFCs was going to change this? March sets a record for ozone loss over the Arctic.
Or to put it another way, climate science is far more complicated than too many climate scientists want to admit.
Russia’s launch capability continues to expand: Not only will they be able to launch rockets from French Guiana this year, it looks like Russia’s western spaceport will be ready for its first launch by 2015.
The Daily Beast reports today that the last flight of the shuttle Endeavour has been delayed due to a schedule conflict with a Russian Progress freighter.
Note that this has not yet been confirmed by NASA.
Update from spaceref: NASA has rescheduled Endeavour’s launch for April 29.
ATK is pushing hard for NASA commercial subsidizes to build a private version of Ares I.
More leftwing civility: New death threat emails sent to New York state lawmakers. You can read the full email here.
Leftwing civility in London: The London rioters and their targets.
It’s a start, though it really isn’t enough: the Republican 2012 budget will call for $4 trillion-plus in cuts over the next decade.
Ryan said Obama’s call for freezing nondefense discretionary spending actually locks in spending at high levels. Under the forthcoming GOP plan, Ryan said spending would return to 2008 levels and thus cut an additional $400 billion over 10 years. [emphasis mine]
Note that no one was starving and children weren’t dying for lack of federal spending in 2008.
The winners of the 18th annual Great Moonbuggy Race.
Last week brought a sober reminder that every religion has its extremists, as Christian radicals burned one copy of the Quran (and Muslim radicals attacked a half-dozen churches, burned dozens of Bibles, and slaughtered 321 people in 26 terror attacks in just 7 days).
Another hero: Defiant Japanese boat captain who rode out tsunami.
So, why did we pass this piece of garbage again? The Obama administration has issued another 129 waivers to Obamacare (almost half to unions), bringing the total to 1,168.
We need more Muslims doing this: A Pakistani actress smacks down a mullah. Be sure to watch the video, also available here!
More idiotic regulations from Obamacare: On Friday the FDA issued new Obamacare regulations, requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus.
More leftwing civility: Investigators look into additional threats allegedly emailed by Wisconsin teacher.
Bernard Lewis: “The tyrannies are doomed.” I hope he’s right.
EPA whistleblower slams global warming science and policy in new peer-reviewed study. The paper’s conclusion:
The scientific hypotheses underlying global warming alarmism are overwhelmingly contradicted by real-world data, and for that reason economic studies on the alleged benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions are baseless.
Yow! Southwest cancels 300 flights to inspect its planes after the fuselage cracks open on a Sacramento-bound flight.
The first permanent building at the South Pole, built by the U.S. in the mid-1950s, has been demolished with dynamite.
The religion of peace: Two beheaded and eight others murdered in Afghanistan today in protest against Koran burning.
Burning the Koran might have been a poor idea, but such an act doesn’t justify murder.
Then there’s this: Penn State students assaulted for putting up a display outlining what they considered Palestinian lies.
Once again, the only answer Islam can give to criticism is violence.
China’s second lunar orbiter, Chang’e 2: still in operation after 180 days.
Unfortunately, little of its scientific results have been released.
It’s a trend! Ohio and New Hampshire have followed Wisconsin, their legislatures passing laws limiting union power.
Note that in New Hampshire, the law still has to be approved by the state Senate.
After seven years of work, the Soyuz launch site in French Guiana is finally ready for its first launch.
This idiotic thing has got to be repealed: Nearly $2 billion already paid to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations under Obamacare.
The program began making payouts on June 1, 2010. Between that date and the end of 2010, it paid out about $535 million dollars. But according to the new report, the rate of spending has since increased dramatically, to about $1.3 billion just for the first two and a half months of this year. At that rate, it could burn through the entire $5 billion appropriation as early as 2012. [emphasis mine]
More on the storms hitting Endeavour launchpad today.
A 26-year-old woman has been charged for sending the email death threats in Wisconsin. More details here. It turns out she’s a teacher with a degree in early childhood education!
A new species of freshwater stingray has been discovered in the Amazon.
