Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

Quarter-mile diameter asteroid to pass only 200,000 miles from the Earth on November 8, 2011

2:06 pm

Get those telescopes out! A asteroid, a quarter-mile in diameter, is going to pass only 200,000 miles from the Earth on November 8, 2011. Key quote:

Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance and an event of this type.

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McIntyre finds more fraud by Mann and Jones

6:12 pm

Hide the decline: Steve McIntyre has found more fraud by Mann and Jones. Key quote:

It’s therefore evident that they had, at one time, plotted the Science 1999 spaghetti graph showing data before 1550, but elected to delete the pre-1550 data as well as the post-1960 data.

If you look at the graph on Steve’s webpage, climateaudit.com, you will see why. The data clearly shows that the tree ring data they used in their Science paper was basically useless as a proxy for estimating past climate temperatures. To make it work they eliminated any data that didn’t fit their theories, a action that is completely unacceptable for any scientists.

Moreover, that a journal like Science permitted them to do this suggests strongly that there must be a great deal of corruption there as well.

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Hideaki Akaiwa: Badass of the week

10:50 pm

What heroes do.

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.

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Hoyer Calls $100 Billion in Cuts to $3.7 Trillion Budget ‘A Meat-Axe Approach’

7:28 pm

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.

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The death panels of Obamacare

11:05 am

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.

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Lockheed Martin unveils Orion spacecraft and test center

10:42 am

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.

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