Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The Russians have announced that the loss of Phobos-Grunt was due to the failure of an onboard computer to be properly hardened against cosmic rays.
Could this be the actual violin that played the last song on the Titantic?
White nose syndrome, the fungus that has been killing bats in the northeast United States these past five years, has now been definitively found on bats in Europe.
With this information, scientists now know that it is the differences between North American and European bats that can explain why European bat colonies can survive the fungus while North American bats cannot. Furthermore, this information should show us how future North American bats will adapt to the fungus.
The day of reckoning looms: The CBO now predicts another trillion-plus deficit for 2012, the fourth year in a row the U.S. government has produced such a deficit.
For those who like to blame Bush for everything, it must be noted that these deficits, all during the Obama administration, are three to four times larger than any previous single year deficit of any previous administration. As bad as the deficits were in the Bush years — and they were bad — they don’t hold a candle to what Obama has done.
The fall of Rosat last October, which ended up in the Bay of Bengal, might have instead landed on Beijing had the spacecraft remained aloft a mere seven minutes longer.
The Russians now say the next manned flight to ISS will be delayed a month, until the end of April, due to defects found in the Soyuz capsule.
The story suggests some confusion over what caused the cracks, either defects to the capsule itself or a mistake in the testing process.
A commission set up to probe the setback said violations of the testing procedure caused the damage to the reentry vehicle incident, earlier reports said. Either excessive pressure was applied by the personnel, or the shell of the reentry vehicle had defects or was improperly welded up.
Democratic Party campaign tactics: A West Virginia sheriff has pleaded guilty to falsifying ballots in close election.
Lincoln County, West Virginia Sheriff Jerry Bowman admitted falsifying absentee ballots in a case stemming from an investigation by federal authorities, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. Also pleading guilty to lying to investigators was Lincoln County Clerk Donald Whitten, the U.S. Attorney said.
Both are Democrats. I also like the article’s last paragraph, which tells us more about Democratic Party in Lincoln County, West Virginia as well as the consequences of one party rule:
Several years ago, Lincoln County’s Circuit Clerk and Assessor were convicted of felonies for vote buying after tampering with the 2004 Democratic primary. That same assessor, Jerry Weaver, is running for sheriff, despite being a felon.
A victory for free speech: The Dearborn, Michigan Christians who were arrested for handing out Christian literature at a Muslim event have won a $100,000 settlement from the city.
“The highway is the tenant … and actually pays rent.” With pictures.
A Republican has announced he is running for the Congressional seat in Arizona being vacated by Gabrielle Gifford.
As it turns out, I moved from Steny Hoyer’s (D-Maryland) district in Maryland to Gifford’s district in Arizona, so this is an election I will have a say in. Time to start learning something about the candidates, as the primary is now set for April 17 and the special election for June 12.
Government in action: New York to get new … typewriters!
How Obama encourages transparency: Six former and current employees have sued the FDA agency under the Obama administration over its secret surveillance of their private emails.
According to a release by the law firm representing the group, the FDA targeted the employees with a “covert spying campaign” that lasted for two years after it learned they had written a letter to President-Elect Obama in early 2009. … The plaintiffs allege the agency used spyware to read the their personal emails and take screenshots while they used government computers. But whether such reconnaissance is illegal is not quite clear. According to the Washington Post, “the startup screen on FDA computers warns employees, ‘you have no reasonable expectation of privacy,’ ” including any communication accessed or sent from the machine.”
According to the law firm representing the current and former FDA employees, the monitoring continued even after the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General “denied the FDA’s request to take any criminal and/or administrative action against the whistleblowers” and noted the whistleblowers’ communications with Congress were protected under law.
Newt and scientists: A long, complicated love affair.
The article gives you the science community’s take on Gingrich. And since that community is almost entirely Democratic in make-up and routinely hostile and almost bigoted in their hatred of Republicans, it is not surprising that this take has a certain schizophrenic air about it. They want to like him because of his passionate interest and support of science, but how can they? He’s a Republican (whispered softly like one was saying a curse word.)
“We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”
Not surprisingly, the law is Obamacare, as now being imposed by the Obama administration.
GOP voters are sending a clarion call to the party establishment, but it seems GOP leaders are not getting the message. The statement being sent to the GOP elite isn’t about Newt, and it goes beyond even Romney. It is about a deep dissatisfaction that has been building for years within the Republican rank and file.
The inquisition is alive and well: A campaign by global warming activists is seeking to purge ‘deniers’ among local weathermen.
So far, the campaign has identified 55 “deniers” in the meteorologist community and are looking for more. They define “deniers” as “anyone who expressly refutes the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change: that it is real, largely caused by humans, and already having profound impacts on our world. … We track the views of meteorologists through their on-air statements, blog posts, social media activity, public appearances, interviews, and interactions with viewers,” the campaign explains.
In other words, they should be fired because of their opinions.
Investigators now think that MF Global, the company run by former Democratic governor Jon Corzine, Obama adviser and fundraiser, lost $1.2 billion of its customers’ money in “a labyrinth of shady trading and raids.”
In the end, Jon Corzine faces the serious possibility of prison time for his part in this scandal. And he was the go-to guy of the Obama administration for economic advice.
Better go while you can: The National Park Service is considering several plans to limit the number of hikers per day on the Half Dome hike in Yosemite.
Data issued last week without fanfare by both the UK’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
The article also discusses at great length the additional influence the sun and its sunspot cycle might have on the climate, something I have discussed here at great length. However, the above factoid is the article’s most important data point.
“This re-entry capsule now cannot be used for manned spaceflight.”
This postponement of the next two Russian manned missions to ISS looks like a serious problem. For cracks to form in a finished capsule when tested under pressure suggests significant production failures that had gone unnoticed during assembly. In fact, this problem is far more serious than the launch failure that occurred last year. The Russians have to not only find a capsule they can trust to use on the next flight, they have to track down the errors that allowed a capsule to be built that is so obviously flawed it cracked when put in use.
Fender bender: A cargo ship carrying rocket parts crashed into a bridge in Kentucky yesterday.
No serious damage to the ship or cargo, but the bridge has collapsed.
The North Star may be wasting away.
Persecution for the sake of global warming.
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
The quote is part of an op-ed signed by sixteen prominent scientists describing why there is no need to panic over global warming.
Want to play with some old computers? You can, at the Vintage Computer Festival East 8.0.
DNA research suggests that “Native Americans” actually came from a tiny mountain region in Siberia.
I added the quotes above. It is really hilarious to see the headline’s use of the politically correct term “Native Americans” while simultaneously describing proof that the American Indians were as much immigrants to the New World as everyone else.
The Soviet Union’s gigantic nuclear equipped Ekranoplane, rusting on the shores of the Caspian Sea. With pictures.
Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV). A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings.
Because of technical problems with the Soyuz spacecraft it appears the Russians are going to postpone the next two manned launches to ISS.
So, in one breath Americans whine about how we are dependent on the Russians to get into space, while in the next breath they lambast the only Presidential candidate (Gingrich) willing to aggressively do something about it without spending billions of dollars. You would think they’d at least be interested in what he had to say.
