The religion of peace! An Islamic cleric offers a $6000 reward to anyone who will kill a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy against Islam.
Images of a snowbound England.
I know it’s weather and not climate, but Europe is experiencing its second cold winter in a row, despite predictions by many in the global warming community that such things would never happen again. My point here is that their claims in the late 1990s that hot streaks and big storms were proof of global warming were patently dishonest, and it is worthwhile to remind ourselves of this fact.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This must not happen! There are hints that the White House is asking the lame-duck Congress for the authority to transfer appropriations from one account to another, without Congressional approval. As Ed Morrissey notes
[This request] all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power. Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it. In fact, every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims.
Focused like a laser on the really important stuff! Congress today passed a bill requiring the FCC to regulate the volume of television commercials!
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Sadly, the pigs appear to be winning. Obama’s deficit commission has failed to pass its recommendations.
Astronomers are proposing that an early-warning system be built to warn us a week in advance should an asteroid be heading our way.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
Is this what we hired the TSA for? A CNN Reporter was put on the TSA’s security watch list after he criticized the security agency.
SpaceX is putting together its own plans to provide NASA a heavy-lift rocket. Key quote:
Fast-track development, multi-use and low cost are key, says [SpaceX owner Elon] Musk. “The development timeframe is on the order of five years and would come to fruition before Obama’s likely second term ends. It has got to fit within a NASA budget that fits in 2008 levels, and it’s got to have operational costs when functioning that is as close to zero as you can make it. That latter point demands that whatever components are in use for super-heavy lift must be in use for launching other satellites for say, geostationary commercial and government customers. If not, then the likelihood of success in my opinion is zero.”
Bad news for the space shuttle: The root cause of the cracks on Discovery’s external tank is still not identified.
After more than seven months in orbit, the unmanned X-37B space plan has successfully returned to Earth. Key quote:
“Boeing and the Air Force are building another X-37B vehicle scheduled for launch in the spring of 2011.”
Update: Since several different reports are listing slightly different totals for the number of days in orbit, I’ve edited my note above to be less precise. I could add up the days myself, but that involves more math than I prefer to do!
And damn, do I want to rappel into them!
This week’s release of images from the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter included these spectacular photos of two deep pits, approximately 180 and 310 meters in diameter and located aligned with a series of depressions that suggest additional passages at their base.
The first image shows the pits in the context of the surrounding terrain. From the caption:
These pits are aligned with what appears to be larger, degraded depressions. The wispy deposit may consist of dark material that has been either blown out of the pits or from some other source and scattered about by the local winds.
The next two images are heavily processed close-ups of each pit in order to bring out the detail within. From the caption:
The eastern most and smaller of the two pits contains boulders and sediment along its walls and brighter aeolian dune sediments on its floor. The larger, western most pit contains sediment and boulders with faint dune-like patterns visible on the deepest part of the floor. Both pits have steep eastern walls and more gently sloped western walls that transition gradually into the pit floor. Steep resistant ledges containing boulders that overhang and obscure the pit floors form the eastern walls.
White House initiates a study on whether astronaut corps should be trimmed.
This story is more evidence that I was right when I said Obama was lying when he claimed he loved manned spaceflight. If he was serious about sending humans to asteroids and beyond, he wouldn’t be so eager to find ways to shrink the astronaut corp.
Update: I should emphasize that I am not criticizing the idea of trimming the astronaut corp. I just want it clear that Barack Obama is clearly not a supporter of manned space, and that I believe his proposals (the commercial space subsidies) are merely window-dressing to placate his opponents while he dismantles the program.
More TSA abuse: A woman strips down to her lingerie and still gets a TSA pat down. And it happens twice, the first time forcing her to miss her flight!
The pigs are everywhere! Members of the so-called Tea Party Caucus requested about one billion in earmarks during the now ending 111th Congress.
A commenter to one of my other posts, ZZMike, asked this question today: ” What is NASA’s Secret Astrobiology Announcement?” and quoted this from another website, “Science fans across the Internet are eagerly awaiting an announcement from NASA’s astrobiology team. All NASA will say about the press conference is that it will “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”
Unfortunately, Mike, this great discovery is not the big news that everyone is hoping for, such as the discovery of life on Mars. Instead, it is about the discovery that a certain microbe can eat and digest arsenic, using it as one of the six vital basic components of life (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus) in place of phosphorus. This is very significant since it tells us that alien life could very well be far more alien than previously imagined.
What makes this story interesting, however, is not the discovery itself (which is important). Instead, because NASA was so vague in its press announcement it allowed a large number of irresponsible reporters and bloggers to go nuts trying to guess what the story was about. When these rumors began to get out of control, the magazine Science finally sent out a notice to journalists noting the specific paper and discovery so that they at least would know in advance what the conference was about.
As Mike above as well as several other people noted to me in emails, I had written nothing about this story on behindtheblack. This was intentional. Without knowing what the conference was about, I wasn’t going to speculate about it. Once I knew, I still remained silent because the story was under embargo by Science and I respect these embargos. Now that the embargo has been lifted, I can speak.
What I want to speak about is the danger of speculation, especially among journalists. This is a serious problem today. Too often journalists speculate off the cuff, without knowing a goddamn thing about the subject, And all too often, they are downright wrong, and help contribute to misinforming the public. The result: the field of journalism has a terrible reputation with the public. No one trusts what journalists tell us. Worse, this lack of trust is helping fuel the ignorance and anger that seems to be rising in society, as no one knows what to believe about some of the most important issues of our time.
Journalists need to stop doing this. Rather than fantasize what they don’t know, journalists need to focus on what they do know. If they do that, they will significantly help repair the sagging reputation of their field.
Sierra Nevada, one of the new aerospace companies competing for NASA’s commercial crew money, appears to be the frontrunner to use the two X-34 suborbital rockets recently taken out of storage.
There are more stars in heaven and earth than have been dreamt of by scientists, three times more it turns out. And they are all dwarves!
The space war continues to heat up again. In a hearing today in the Senate, several senators complained loudly that NASA isn’t implementing the details of the September authorization act.
What clowns. These same senators haven’t provided NASA (or anyone) with a budget. They have also given NASA an authorization bill that does not provide the agency with enough money while simultaneously demanding that things be done faster. And they’ve done this at a time the federal government is almost bankrupt. Moreover, the bill requires that NASA build things that the Obama administration doesn’t want to build (though in truth, the Obama administration itself is so confused that no one, including them, knows what they are going to do).
All in all, the whole thing is a mess.
As I’ve said earlier, it’s all pork. Even if NASA gets the money laid out in the authorization bill, it will accomplish nothing except spread some cash around to several congressional districts. Nothing will get built. And in the process of sending that money to new aerospace companies NASA will do much to squelch their creativity and innovation.
Better to cut it all, and let the aerospace industry sink or swim on its own. It will almost certainly do better that the government at this point. In fact, how could it do worse?
An evening pause: As it is Wednesday and I am at the gun range, competing in bullseye pistol competitions, let’s look at some Hollywood shooting action.
Battle of the protesters! Three Baltimore-based anti-gun church groups have begun a campaign to harass Maryland gun stores. In turn, the first store targeted has fought back. Key quote:
The religious leaders obtained a Baltimore County permit for an anti-gun demonstration from 2 PM until 7 PM in front of Clyde’s Sport Shop. They reportedly requested a permit for 1,000 demonstrators. The Baltimore County Police limited their permit to 75 demonstrators. In response to the planned demonstration, Clyde’s scheduled a Customer Appreciation Day featuring free hot dogs, hamburgers, soft drinks, side dishes, popcorn and a DJ to provide music.
The church groups were nowhere to be found but over 200 gunnies had a very good time and enjoyed good food. It seems that several local churches took the Heeding God’s Call group to task for harassing Clyde’s, whom they consider to be a good neighbor and law abiding business.
Though they can’t get the votes yet to approve it, the co-chairmen of Obama’s deficit commission today did release their own draft report.
I wonder what he’s afraid of: Citizen journalists forcibly removed from Van Jones “Open To The Public” event.
