Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The spaceport at Wallops Island, Maryland has unveiled its rocket assembly building to be used by Orbital Sciences in launching cargo to ISS.
Surrounded by incredible hazards on all sides, ranging from obscene currents capable of dislodging houses from their moorings, sharp twisted metal that could easily have punctured his oxygen line (at best) or impaled him (at worst), and with giant fucking cars careening through the water like toys, he pressed on. Past broken glass, past destroyed houses, past downed power lines arcing with electrical current, through undertow that could have dragged him out to sea never to be heard from again, he searched.
Hideaki maintained his composure and navigated his way through the submerged city, finally tracking down his old house. He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived.
And that’s only the beginning. Read the whole thing.
Repeal the damn bill! The top ten failures of ObamaCare after one year.
Kepler, out of commission for six days, is back in operation.
Repeal the damn bill! An industry report has revealed that consumers may be paying billions of dollars more in out-of-pocket health care expenses due to Obamacare.
If you think the state of the federal budget is irrelevant, read this: House prices predicted to drop another 20%.
The data in the article above is depressing, and suggests the consequences for the unrealistic craziness of the past decade have not yet played out entirely.
Three days of data has confirmed that Messenger is in orbit around Mercury and is doing well.
On March 29, 2011, the Mercury Dual Imaging System will be powered on and will take its first images. The year-long science observation campaign will begin on April 4, 2011.
The war between Texas and the EPA continues: Texas is accusing the EPA of doing bad research about gas drilling.
The real disaster in Japan: Scores of factories (including Sony and Toyota) remain closed due to power shutdowns and the inability to get supplies and power.
My idiotic congressman: Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) today called the $100 billion in cuts to the $3.7 trillion federal budget “A meat-axe approach.”
Way to go, Steny! Show us all how you can’t add or subtract. Somehow, to your childish brain, cutting less than three percent of a budget that was doubled (increased by 100 percent) in the years you and your party were in charge in Congress is “reckless.”
What a fool.
You can’t make this stuff up: The socialist leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, said today that he thinks capitalism is to blame for the lack of life on Mars.
O horrors! Hamas is protesting the UN’s plans to teach Gazan children about the Holocaust. Key quote:
[UN] officials were hesitating because they feared Hamas would incite loyalists to damage UN schools or harm their teachers if they introduce the materials. He requested anonymity because he was barred from discussing the matter with the media.
Mining and jobs versus radio astronomy.
Repeal the damn bill! The death panel that is part of Obamacare.
The board would cap the total amount of money Medicare recipients could get for care. Roe, a practicing doctor before he entered politics, said that means health care decisions will end up being based solely on cost, instead of what the best possible option is for Medicare patients. . . . Congress can recommend different spending amounts, but has to offset any increase in one area with a decrease in another. If Congress doesn’t change anything in the board’s “recommendations” for how much money should be spent per Medicare recipient, their recommendations become law – even without congressional approval or the president’s signature.
Want to know why that judge in Wisconsin ruled against the anti-union legislation? Well, it wasn’t because she was interpreting the law: Her son is a union activist and her husband is a leftwing environmentalist.
The program-formerly-called-Constellation moves forward: Lockheed Martin yesterday unveiled the Orion spacecraft and the test center to be used to prepare it for space.
Though this press announcement was actually intended to encourage Congress to continue funding, it also illustrated how this portion at least of Constellation had made significant progress before it was undercut by both Obama and Congress.
Boeing’s biggest-ever plane makes its maiden flight.
Lockstep liberalism. Key quote:
First was the hostility. People were really tearing into me and one common accusation was that I was a conservative troll. In fact, many suggested that I’d pretended to be liberal – like I was in a sleeper cell. These sort of accusations are a common argument.
The other shock was a really antipathy to facts. I mean, actual facts – like John Edwards was caught by reporters who saw him firsthand. My critics did all sorts of backflips to get around this; the reporters were lying, the Enquirer can’t be trusted, they are going after Edwards because of his stance on poverty and so on. I pointed out that while the Enquirer will stretch the truth, it seemed highly unlikely they would outright lie about seeing Edwards firsthand – especially since he was a successful attorney – and that tellingly, Edwards hadn’t denied the facts. I made phone calls to the Beverly Hills police to confirm facts…and still the mob on DailyKos went ballistic.
Now this change I can support! Several Democrats have broken ranks with their party and appear willing to consider some sort of Social Security budget reform.
The Russians have set the new date, April 5, for next manned Soyuz launch to ISS.
Power has been restored at all six Fukushima reactors in Japan.
Overall, the situation appears completely under control, so much so that in a rational world it probably would be possible to put several of these reactors back in operation. The Reuters story above, however, is amusing to read in one sense, as it struggles mightily to make things sound worse than they are.
All systems go! Dawn did a camera and instrument checkout last week, in preparation for its summertime arrival at the asteroid Vesta.
Certain IRS officials should go to prison for this: The IRS now admits it specifically targeted the political enemies of Bill Clinton for audits and harassment.
Power reconnected to Japanese reactor site.
Increasingly, the panic over the Japanese reactor problems appears to have been overblown and childish. Meanwhile, the real disaster continues, with thousands dead and large areas of the Japanese northeast coast devastated by the earthquake and tsunami.
Fifty mortars fired into Israel from Gaza, injuring two; Israeli military responses.
This is from Gaza, remember, a place that Israel unilaterally retreated from several years ago, leaving it entirely to the Palestinians. By what justification then do they have to continue to fire missiles into Israel, unless their real goal is simply to kill Jews?
More leftwing civility in Wisconsin: “Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?” Also this:
So you Tea Bags want to take away my hard earned blue ribbon bennies. Well guess what you scum sucking Tea Bags, I got your kids all day long in my classroom and with just a few slick questions I know who the little tea bags are! And you think you’ll have the last laugh HA-Ha-ha
Subsidies to the Ariane 5 rocket to keep it afloat.
Something is seriously wrong with any operation (like Ariane) that dominates the market and still loses money the past two years.
New Horizons has passed the orbit of Uranus on its way to Pluto.
The first death in space.
