Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Sixty years late: A North Sea oil pipeline is threatened by a World War II Nazi bomb.
Islam tolerance: A Muslim actress posed for Playboy and is now threatened with death.
More details, including images, of China’s proposed space station.
The countdown for Endeavour’s last launch has begun.
Confirmed: one of two tickets for a lunar flyby on a Soyuz has been sold. More here.
Technology marches on: The last typewriter factory in the world has shut down.
China is asking the public to name its space station.
In Turkey: A hotel carved out of a mountain.
One of the largest statues of an Egyptian pharaoh ever found has been unearthed in Luxor.
Out of funds, SETI has suspended operations while it looks for new investors.
Japan’s tsunami in March produced the largest waves in history.
Some waves grew to more than 100 feet high, breaking historic records, as they squeezed between fingers of land surrounding port towns.
To me, however, this is the biggest takeaway:
Although terrible, the preliminary estimate also finds a better-than 92% survival rate for people living in coastal towns hit by the waves, Bourgeois says. “In that sense, given the magnitude of the unexpectedly large earthquake, things could have been even worse,” she says.
Modern educational theory: Good grammar equals white oppression.
The world’s smelliest flower has bloomed for the first time in 75 years.
A past House GOP parliamentary tactic is proving useless to Democrats.
This article is instructive in giving a sense of where the political winds are strongest. The Republicans stand firm, because they feel the public will support them in their votes. The Democrats, meanwhile, caved frequently in the last Congress out of fear of losing the next election, a fear that was proven justified.
And Obama wonders why oil prices are high? Shell has abandoned its oil drilling plans in Alaska after an EPA regulatory board denied it permits. This after the oil company had spent $4 billion over five years developing those plans. To me, the quote below reveals much about the political agenda behind the EPA’s decision:
The Environmental Appeals Board has four members: Edward Reich, Charles Sheehan, Kathie Stein and Anna Wolgast. All are registered Democrats and Kathie Stein was an activist attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.
An excellent editorial on the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to shutter more caves. Key quote:
The closures . . . seem like an overreaching government solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. The Forest Service could certainly be spending its time in more constructive ways – like taking public comment on the “emergency” closures, which are set to start May 1.
In picking the winners for its commercial manned space subsidizes, NASA gave more priority to the spacecraft — either capsules or spaceplane — above the rockets needed to launch it.
Muslim policemen shouting “Allahu akbar” open fire on Jews praying at Joseph’s Tomb, killing 2 and injuring five.
And yet, it is Terry Jones who is criticized and imprisoned for wanting to stand in front of a mosque in the U.S. with a protest sign.
The world, and justice, is upside down.
More government foolishness: U.S. border guards seize chocolate Easter eggs.
Eric Berger at the Houston Chronicle asks: Will fewer humans in space lead to more robot explorers?
In a word, no. In the past fifty years, every time the budget of the manned space program has been cut, the unmanned program shrank as well. And every time the budget of manned space grew, so did the budget for unmanned missions.
I believe him when he says he’ll launch his first manned mission in three years. However, I think he seriously underestimates the challenges of a mission to Mars, based on our present engineering abilities to build interplanetary spaceships.
A victory for free speech: The NJ Transit worker who was fired for burning a Koran has gotten his job back, plus back pay and $25,000.
Free speech alert: Pastor Terry Jones imprisoned by judge in Deerborn, Michigan to prevent him from protesting against Islam there.
As much as I think Jones is a publicity-seeking fool, his right to speak is sacrosanct. I hope he sues the judge and the city of Deerborn for everything he can get.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo makes its longest test flight yet.
The predictions of disaster from the first Earth Day, 1970. I especially like this one:
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. . . . By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University [emphasis mine]
A consensus was reached and the science was settled!
Remember this the next time some blowhard global-warming pundit tries to claim “the science is settled” today.
The competition plays hardball: The Russians say “Nyet” to letting SpaceX’s Dragon capsule dock with ISS on its next flight.
A Harvard researcher, under investigation for research misconduct, has been banned from teaching next year.
The best images from Solar Dynamics Observatory’s first year in space.
