Tag: politics

Muslim students found guilty of conspiring to disrupt Israeli ambassador meeting

9:30 pm

Eleven Muslim students have been found of guilty of conspiring to disrupt a speech of the Israeli ambassador.

The defendants, who are all in their early twenties, were convicted of one count each of conspiracy and disturbing an assembly and could face jail terms of up to a year, probation or community service at sentencing.

As I’ve said previously, I think it a mistake to prosecute these students for their impolite and disgusting behavior. It only makes them martyrs, something they surely don’t deserve.

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Senate rejects House funding bill; shutdown looms

2:38 pm

Senate rejects House funding bill; shutdown looms.

While we chatter about superficial election debates and a falling satellite, the federal budget continues to crash and burn. What I find disturbing about the events in the Senate is this quote:

Democrats in the Senate, who are in the majority, oppose Republican efforts to roll back “green” energy programs to pay for aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. They say disaster aid, usually a bipartisan issue, should not require cuts elsewhere — especially to programs creating green jobs — as the GOP majority in the House now demands. [emphasis mine]

So how do the Democrats expect to pay for this disaster aid? Will the money grow on trees?

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House unexpectedly defeats spending bill

12:05 am

The House unexpectedly defeated a spending bill today.

The bill would have funded the government at an annual rate of $1.043 trillion, in line with a bipartisan agreement reached in August. Many conservatives want to stick with the lower figure of $1.019 trillion that the House approved in April. The measure failed by a vote of 195 to 230, with 48 of the chamber’s most conservative Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The vote demonstrated the continued reluctance of Tea Party conservatives to compromise on spending issues, even as the public grows weary of repeated confrontation on Capitol Hill. [emphasis mine]

I have highlighted the last line of the quote above to illustrate an example of Reuters inserting its own political agenda into a story, based not on facts but on fantasy and leftwing wishful thinking. Not only is there no indication that the public is “weary of repeated confrontation,” polls and recent special elections suggest that the public is instead quite weary of politicians unwilling to cut the federal budget. It is for this reason these conservative Republicans feel so emboldened. They know the political winds are at their backs.

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With the Kyoto treaty expiring in 2012, Australia and Norway propose extending it until 2015

11:57 pm

With the Kyoto climate treaty expiring in 2012 and with almost no chance of a new treaty being agreed to this December at the next climate meeting in Durban, South Africa, Australia and Norway have proposed extending Kyoto until 2015.

The Australia-Norway submission calls for a new timetable to finalize an international treaty that would extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2015. Kyoto, which requires nearly 40 developed nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5.2 percent less than 1990 levels by 2020 during the years 2008-12, is scheduled to expire in 2012. . . . The 2015 timetable is intended to “scale-up” international efforts on climate change to attain a global goal of limiting temperature rises below 2 degrees Celsius, the Australia-Norway proposal said.

What this tells me is that the chances of a new treaty are getting slimmer and slimmer. And I think that is good news, as we really have no idea what the climate is really doing, therefore making it very premature to write any treaty that limits human freedom. For all we know, the sun might be going quiet, which in turn could lead to global cooling.

But then, we don’t really know yet, do we? And without knowing a new climate treaty might do more harm than good.

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Senate panel trims NIH budget

6:17 pm

Now for some good reporting: A Senate committee today approved an NIH budget that trimmed the health agency’s budget by $190 million.

This report actually gives us an accurate description of the proposed budget, which offers a 2012 budget of $30.5 billion compared to the $30.7 that NIH got in 2011. For further context, note that the 2012 budget is still more than the agency got in 2009 ($30.2 billion), and more than a billion above what it got in 2008 ($29.2 billion). Anyone who cries poverty at this budget cut immediately discredits themselves.

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Senate appropriations committee has capped Webb Telescope budget

9:20 pm

The Senate appropriations this week recommended capping the budget for the James Webb Space Telescope at $8 billion, less than the $8.7 billion that NASA now thinks is required to finish the telescope.

The committee also recommended a budget of $17.9 billion for NASA, about $1 billion less than the House recommendation and about a half billion less than NASA’s 2011 budget. If the Senate numbers are adopted, it would bring NASA’s budget back to the budget it received in 2008.

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Washington union held in contempt for terminal violence

10:04 am

Union civility: A union in Washington state has been held in contempt for the violence that took place during a protest at a grain terminal. Some testimony:

Security guard Charlie Cadwell, employed by Columbia Security for patrols at the Longview grain terminal for the past two months, told the judge of the harrowing experience: Every protester he saw that night was carrying a weapon – baseball bats, lead pipes, garden tools. “I didn’t see a longshoreman who didn’t have something in his hands,” he said.

He was was pulled out of his car by one longshoreman, and another man swung a metal pipe at him, he said. “I told him, ‘You have 50 cameras on you and law enforcement is on its way,'” Cadwell said. “He said, ‘(expletive) you. We’re not here for you, we’re here for the train.'”

In the meantime, someone drove off with his car and eventually ran it into a ditch. Cadwell said about 40 to 50 people were throwing rocks at him, and that he was hit between his eyes and in his knee.

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Questions about White House pressure for campaign donor in GPS controversy

3:19 pm

A four-star Air Force general told a congressional committee last week that the White House pressured him to soften his testimony concerning the military’s opposition to the technology being used by the broadband company Lightsquared– a major Democratic campaign donor — because it interfered with GPS signals.

In a related update, LightSquared boss said Wednesday that the company is near an engineering breakthrough that will solve the technical issues that worry GPS users.

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Another look at the cost of building NASA’s heavy lift rocket

9:54 am

Clark Lindsey takes another look at the cost for building the Congressionally-mandated heavy lift rocket, what NASA calls the Space Launch System and I call the program-formerly-called-Constellation. Key quote:

Finally, I’ll point out that there was certainly nothing on Wednesday that refuted the findings in the Booz Allen study that NASA’s estimates beyond the 3-5 year time frame are fraught with great uncertainty. Hutchison and Nelson claimed last week that since the near term estimates were reliable, there’s no reason to delay getting the program underway. That’s the sort of good governance that explains why programs often explode “unexpectedly” in cost after 3-5 years…

In other words, this is what government insiders call a “buy-in.” Offer low-ball budget numbers to get the project off the ground, then when the project is partly finished and the much higher real costs become evident, Congress will be forced to pay for it. Not only has this been routine practice in Washington for decades, I can instantly cite two projects that prove it:
» Read more

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Nobel prize winner resigns from the American Physical Society over its support of global warming

12:34 am

A Nobel prize winner has bluntly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) because of its unquestioning support of global warming.

Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’

Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group’s belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: “In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.” [emphasis in original]

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More bad budget reporting

12:16 am

Once again a journalist as well as a science journal are spinning budget numbers to hide the fact that the present Congress is not imposing draconian cuts to science. If anything, they are not cutting enough, considering the dire state of the federal deficit.

First there is the headline, from Science: Senate Panel Cuts NSF Budget by $162 Million. Then there is the article’s text, by Jeffrey Mervis, which not only reaffirms the cuts described in the headline but adds that “the equivalent House of Representatives panel approved a bill that would hold NSF’s budget steady next year at $6.86 billion.” Mervis then underlines how terrible he thinks these budget numbers are by quoting Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland): “We’ve gone beyond frugality and are into austerity.”

This reporting is shameful. Not only is Mikulski full of crap, Mervis’s description of the budget numbers is misleading if not downright wrong. Here are the final budget numbers for the NSF since 2007, in billions of dollars (sources: Science, the American Geological Institute, and The Scientist):
» Read more

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Senate reinserts money for the James Webb Space Telescope

10:38 pm

The Senate has reinstated money for completing the James Webb Space Telescope.

The allocation in today’s markup does not automatically mean that the Webb telescope has been rescued. The markup will now go to the full appropriations committee for approval before going to the Senate floor for a vote. The approved bill will then have to be reconciled with the House version, which, NASA hopes, will result in a final appropriation that keeps the telescope alive.

The House version also zeroed out funding for Webb, so reconciling the two budgets will not be easy.

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Washington staffers fear pay cuts, layoffs, loss of perks

11:36 am

Well ain’t that a shame: Washington political staffers fear pay cuts, layoffs, and loss of perks. Some precious quotes:

“Salaries are essentially frozen and in some cases going down,” said one former senior House Democratic aide, who recently left the Hill. “That makes it very hard for some people to stay on the Hill and just promotes a culture of underappreciation.”

and

Many chiefs of staff have started with small office perks: water jugs, sodas and orange juice. One Republican lawmaker told POLITICO that aides now take up a collection because the office can’t afford coffee.

What prigs. The rest of the country is experiencing the highest unemployment and lowest income in decades, and they’re unhappy they don’t have a water cooler or coffee machine.

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September 11 memorial says nothing about what happened on September 11

9:16 am

A September 11 memorial in New Jersey says nothing about what happened on September 11.

The stone reads, “Dedicated September 11, 2011/10 year anniversary,” followed by the names of the current township mayor, committee members and administrator. The marker does not mention the terrorists’ nearly 3,000 victims, the attacks that cost their lives or the origins of the steel. “I mean, how freaking narcissistic can you be?” [retired Police Officer Dennis] Ryan said Tuesday.

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