Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
Russians to display a new rocket and manned spacecraft design at an international air show in Russia today.
According to Russian space officials today, the next Soyuz tourist flight to ISS will be in 2014.
The article above contradicts yesterday’s story where the head of the Russian space agency suggested that Russia is going to shift its focus from manned space. I suspect both stories reflect an underlying political battle going on within the Russian government.
Serious questions raised about the EPA process that designates a species as endangered.
Saving a failed orbiting satellite with engineering.
Remarks by the head of the Russian space agency on Thursday suggested Russia is going to shift its space effort away from manned space.
Though it is not yet official, it appears the sun is blank of sunspots today, for the first time since January 16.
Solar scientists have concluded that the solar minimum of the past four years has ended and that the sun is now moving towards solar maximum. The recent activity in August has seemed to confirm this. However, once the minimum has ended, the sun should not have any further blank days until the maximum is over and the sun is ramping back down to solar minimum. That the sun should appear blank again during its ramp up to solar maximum is quite unusual, probably unprecedented, and is further evidence that the sun is heading towards a period of little or no solar activity.
Another anniversary: Thirty years ago today IBM introduced its first PC.
Fifty years ago tomorrow the Berlin Wall went up. Two stories:
The appeals court for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta today ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional.
The mystery of Vesta’s south pole depression.
Video: Who’s the real reporter?
Archeologists have discovered a 2,600-year-old wall mural used as a wall decoration during the Iron Age.
The abuse of power: A legal rabbit farm raided and destroyed by Colorado police.
“They’ve destroyed me emotionally, socially and professionally,” Bell said, listing numerous ways in which local animal rights activists have publicized information about the case in an effort to make her and her four children — all adults who haven’t lived under her roof for several years — look bad. But that’s not all.
“They’ve made 4-H kids all across Colorado just sob,” she said, “because I am their 4-H connection.” Bell noted that 12 of the seized rabbits belong to 4-H kids who were planning to show them at upcoming fairs — two at the Jefferson County Fair that begins Thursday and the remaining 10 at the Colorado State Fair which runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 5 in Pueblo.
It turns out that Joe Wilson was right when he accused Obama of lying about Obamacare.
From a Tea party activist: “The left is going to have to compromise and cut some domestic welfare spending, and the right is going to have to compromise and cut some military spending.”
Contact was quickly lost today soon after a hypersonic glider was released by its rocket launcher during a test flight. More here.
Japan has revised its tsunami warning system following the March 11 earthquake/tsunami.
So you think Obamacare isn’t about power and control? 83% of Obamacare grants were awarded to states that supported Obama in 2008.
Thugs: TSA lawyers argued yesterday they did nothing wrong in arresting a protester who removed his shirt and pants at a security checkpoint to reveal the fourth amendment of the Bill of Rights written on his chest.
Diving inside a glacier in Switzerland. With pictures.
A new study of the glaciers of the Himalayas by the Indian Space Research Organization and the Geological Survey of India has found that, based on satellite data, 2184 were retreating, 435 were advancing, and 148 showed no change.
It is refreshing that the scientists and politicians involved in India refused to cite global warming as a cause, referring instead to the “natural cyclic process”. As India’s former environment minister Jairam Ramesh noted, “There is no doubt that the general health of the Himalayan glaciers is worsening, but the truth is incredibly complex.”
A bat stowaway on a Wisconsin to Georgia airplane flight forced the plane to return to Wisconsin.
There’s no doubt that we’re in for a high level of personal nastiness and invective. This election is not going to be about some minor adjustment to spending, or some trifling adjustment of tax rates, or some nibbling at the edges of the regulatory state. What is at stake in the 2012 election is the continuation of a world-view; a political philosophy that sees ever-larger government as the cure to whatever ails us. This next election is the first big battle for the survival of that worldview as the majority view of the political class, or the survival of the insurgent TEA party idea that government has become to large, too intrusive, and too expensive, so therefore must be radically reduced. There is little room to compromise between these two visions of government. Indeed, in most ways, they are worldviews that are mutually exclusive. Over the next decade or so, we are going to learn which of these two views will prevail, and if the US, as presently composed, will remain a united polity.
Kansas becomes the second state to return a large federal grant awarded to them by Obamacare.
‘Every state should be preparing for fewer federal resources, not more,’ Governor Brownback said in a statement. ‘To deal with that reality, Kansas needs to maintain maximum flexibility. That requires freeing Kansas from the strings attached to the Early Innovator Grant.’
Wisconsin Republicans have held off the Democrats in the first round of recall elections.
The sun unleashed its largest solar flare in years on Tuesday.
Repeal it: Chain restaurants struggle with Obamacare regulations requiring all menus to include calorie information.
Under the new rules, if [a chain] wanted to introduce a new item, such as a crab cake pizza, [they’d] have to replace the signs in all of [their] stores, sucking time and money that could otherwise be used to build [the] business.
And:
“So what it comes down to is this: The federal government has passed a law requiring us to build new signs, or buy new menu boards, and to put on those signs and menu boards information which we already provide, even though it is unlikely to change eating habits, at a cost of over a million dollars we will divert from and be unable to spend on jobs,” cautioned Puzder.
