Category: Points of Information

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

Last shuttle mission could be delayed until fall of 2011

10:35 pm

If Congress does end up appropriating money for that last extra shuttle mission, NASA managers are considering delaying it as long as possible, until the fall of 2011. Key quote:

[Shuttle Program Manager John] Shannon said if the shuttle is retired prematurely, the ISS will not be properly supplied.

In other words, Congress and the President should never have retired the shuttle in the first place, at least not until a replacement was ready to go.

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New Zealand might lose $700 million in movie business due to union

10:26 am

Talk about stupid: New Zealand might lose $700 million in movie production business due to a boycott by an Australian-based actors union. Fun quote:

Fifteen hundred workers, including directors, technicians and crew who [oppose the actors union], met at . . . Miramar Studios at 5pm for an emergency meeting this evening. By 7pm, they were storming the Actors Equity meeting in the city.

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Chinese embargo of rare earth minerals expands

11:11 pm

China is expanding its embargo on exporting rare earth minerals, blocking shipments to Japan, Europe and the United States. Key quote:

China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles. Any curtailment of Chinese supplies of rare earths is likely to be greeted with alarm in Western capitals, particularly because Western companies are believed to keep much smaller stockpiles of rare earths than Japanese companies.

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IPCC meeting ends with few changes or reforms

9:23 am

You call this reform? At the just completed annual meeting of the IPCC in South Korea, the panel refused to remove its controversial chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, while recommending a few minor reforms in how the panel writes its reports. This quote indicates just how unserious the IPCC is about reform:

In the past, he said, IPCC reports sometimes projected the likelihood of potential climate-change effects, such as melting glaciers, without enough evidence. “There were some weaknesses in the application,” said [Chris Field, a U.S. scientist and a leader of the panel’s 2014 report].

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