Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The Navy set a new world record with the firing of an electromagnetic railgun on December 10. Though intended as a military weapon Keith Cowing speculates about the railgun’s off-world applications.
The first report is back of the X-37B following the completion of its first flight.
Scientists have created a computer simulation describing the violent origin of Saturn’s rings, with moons being stripped of their ice as they death spiral into Saturn.
Note that this is only a theory, illustrated by a computer model. Though it is fascinating however!
Oink! Social Security advocates fear payroll tax cut.
American flag banned from condo complex. Key quote:
The 16 or so units are all alike. Beige with white trim and white mailboxes lined up ever so neatly along the main access road. And that, Coombs was told at a condo meeting, is how it shall stay.
With the obvious exceptions, of course.
A quick trip through the development this week showed that some of the condo owners like big wreaths. Some like small ones. Some like bows on their doors or garland on their banisters. Some like welcome signs on their porches and some don’t. Individuality is allowed for flowers in the summer, Coombs said. But there shall be no flags, and it says so right in the condo bylaws.
Defund them! Will GOP take the P out of NPR?
A nano-sized solar sail, built by NASA and launched in mid-November, appears to have been lost. Sadly, this has been the history of almost all solar sail efforts: failure before the sail can even deploy.
The rise and fall of Rocketplane.
In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists think they have detected evidence of volcanic activity on Venus that took place sometime in the past two decades.
A car that runs on air. Literally.
“Elections have consequences.” EPA suddenly delays new rules governing industry emissions.
Feel the love from Islam! Two car bombs go off in Stockholm, Sweden, killing one. Key quote from an email claiming credit for the attack:
“Our actions will speak for themselves. As long as you continue to wage your war against Islam and insulting the prophet and your stupid support of the pig Vilks. . . .” [The email continues by encouraging] all Muslims in Sweden to “stop sucking up and debasing yourselves,” then ends with another exhortation to “all the mujahideen in Europe and Sweden. . . . Now is the time to attack, do not wait any longer. Come forward with whatever you have, even if it’s just a knife and I know you have more than just knives. Do not fear anyone, do not fear jail, do not fear death.”
It appears the climate meeting in Cancun has ended without much success. Unable to get an renewal of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, the diplomats instead agreed to create a $100 billion “Green Climate Fund” that is mostly funded by the First World nations but is mostly distributed by the Third World. See the notes at 10:45 am on this blog and at 12:20 am on this blog. Key quote:
[The fund] will have 25 members of developing countries on its board, compared to only 15 for developed countries. This gives developing countries a much stronger role. The World Bank is a trustee.
The real question is whether the new Congress in the U.S. will appropriate any money at all to this scam.
Court to rule on the constitutionality of ObamaCare on Monday. Key quote:
Normally, all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause: it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional, that portion is severed from the rest of the law — that is, the rest of the law stands. But ObamaCare contains no severance clause. Virginia is asserting that if it prevails on its substantive claims, the whole law is unconstitutional. (If Virginia does not prevail, any one of the twenty-plus legal challenges have the same severance argument available.)
This really isn’t the best way to get rid of this idiotic law, but we should also take any bone we can get.
More squealing, this time from Republicans: several GOP congressmen claim earmarks are necessary for budget negotiations.
The illegal imprisonment of Joel Rosenberg.
More TSA absurdity, with video: Indian ambassador given full patdown by TSA.
Those TSA patdowns sure are working, aren’t they? A unidentified man was arrested (not by the TSA) after bringing a boat — flying a foreign flag with Arabic lettering — into a restricted area of Cape Canaveral.
The Obama administration’s $30 billion cash pledge at last year’s climate summit is in doubt.
Not only do I think this is good, I continue to wonder how any administration (not just Obama’s) can make such a pledge in the first place, considering the fact that under our Constitution all such allocations must first be approved by Congress.
Venus has a Moon?
The new colonial movement, in space! South Africa joins the race, launching its own space agency.
Want to follow the Cancun climate summit come to an end, for good or ill, on this its final day? Check out this blog.
NASA satellite sees an early meteorological winter in the American midwest.
I know this is weather, not climate, but according to the repeated claims of global warming scientists for the past decade, cold winters like this should no longer be happening. But they are, which means there must be holes in their science!
Repeal this stinker! Poll finds that almost half of all doctors plan to retire or close their practices as Obamacare is phased in.
From Ace of Spades: Rosie O’Donnell thinks John Edwards was the victim, not his wife, even though he cheated on her while she was dying from cancer, and she has now died from that long illness. Sounds insane, doesn’t it? How could anyone with any reasonable sense of right and wrong believe that? Read her words (audio available at the link):
He’s in his time of grief, and believe me, I think the person who probably has suffered the most through all of this is him, and there are people who would disagree with me and say, ‘No, it was her, she was the one who was publicly humiliated,’ and blah blah blah blah blah. I just think he has to live with himself every day. Not only survivor’s guilt, but you know? He, I’m sure, has guilt, right? Look, you know, she was in remission, this happened, she got sick again. I don’t know, I’m sure that it’s very hard for him to live with himself and to have to deal with the public condemnation…
In other words, O’Donnell doesn’t have a reasonable sense of right and wrong, which makes her opinions on any issue completely irrelevant, if not damaging to our society.
The uncertainty of science! A top NASA scientist says that the models used by global warming scientists are far too gloomy, leaving out the cooling effects of increased plant production in a carbon dioxide rich atmosphere. Key quote:
It now appears, however, that the previous/current state of climate science may simply have been wrong and that there’s really no need to get in an immediate flap. If Bounoua and her colleagues are right, and CO2 levels keep on rising the way they have been lately (about 2 ppm each year), we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming.
So, what was the top secret payload carried by Dragon on its first orbital mission? SpaceX revealed this secret today: their tribute to Monty Python.
A wheel of cheese.
It ain’t about science: WikiLeaks cables confirm worst fears of climate skeptics.
