You can’t make this stuff up! A vulture, tagged by Israeli scientists to study the bird’s migration patterns, flew into Saudi Arabia where it was arrested as a spy.
The image below was taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on New Year’s Eve. It shows the rover Opportunity on the rim of stadium-sized Santa Maria Crater, where scientists plan to spend the next two months exploring the crater.
Opportunity has truly been an astonishing success for NASA’s planetary science program. The rover has operated on the Martian surface since 2004, almost seven years beyond its original mission length. It is presently about halfway on its long journey to the much larger Endeavour Crater (14 miles in diameter), still several miles away.
More progress: The House plans to vote Thursday on a five percent cut in office salaries and expenses.
Another government-operated business that is losing money: Arianespace is requesting financial aid from the member nations of the European Space Agency to avoid a loss in 2010. This despite the fact that “the current request comes at a time when Arianespace might be expected to be in prime financial health.”
If anyone had any doubt that the global warming movement is undergoing a serious collapse, this so-called news article from Spiegal Online, entitled “Naked bodies and a new Messiah: Green groups are trying to sex up climate change,” probably lays that doubt to rest. Key quote:
Environmentalists and scientists are concerned about the massive drop in public interest in the topic over the last year. Now they are looking for new strategies to turn the tide. They’re searching for so-called “mind bombs” — highly emotional images that reduce a complex problem down to one core message.
Sadly, the article never asks the fundamental question: What do “mind bombs” have to do with facts, data, and proving your theories are correct in the real world?
The answer of course is obvious: Nothing.
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Repeal the damn bill! Obamacare ends the construction of 45 doctor-owned hospitals.
Progress! The Republican bill to repeal ObamaCare is now online [pdf]. It’s only two pages long, and is bluntly titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”
I doubt Mark Twain would approve: The publisher of a new edition of Twain’s classics is going to rewrite the book to remove the racial slurs.
Sickening. Rather than face facts, our modern intellectual culture seems to want to run from them.
According to Wikileaks cables, the United States and Germany plan to develop a secret constellation of spy satellites. Though Germany denies the story, their denial is somewhat puzzling:
German Aerospace Center spokesman Andreas Schuetz said that such a project for a high-resolution optical satellite has been in discussion for the past two years under the name HIROS. “HIROS is neither a spy satellite, nor a secret project,” Schuetz said. He insisted that the project was to be used only for government purposes, “for example crisis management during natural catastrophes and for scientific uses.”
He refused to give any further details, saying the plan was still in the project stage and could not be discussed.
Ninety years ago today: The first religious broadcast. It is interesting to note that at the time, not only did no one protest or was offended by such a broadcast, the technicians who set up the broadcast were not of the same religious denominations as the broadcasting church.
Want to know what airports are using the new backscatter body scanners, and thus avoid them? TSA Status has the answer.
Good news, if we can believe them: The Republican leadership in Congress vows to cut spending and roll back ObamaCare.
The 97% “Consensus” is only 75 Self-Selected Climatologists. Key quote:
Close examination of the source of the claimed 97% consensus reveals that it comes from a non-peer reviewed article describing an online poll in which a total of only 79 climate scientists chose to participate. Of the 79 self-selected climate scientists, 75 agreed with the notion of AGW [anthropogenic global warming]. Thus, we find climate scientists once again using dubious statistical techniques to deceive the public that there is a 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming; fortunately they clearly aren’t buying it.
This winter is the Stalingrad in the ‘Climate War’.
A Charlottesville man was arrested for protesting airport security searches. Key quote, written on his chest and abdomen:
“Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”
I wonder if liberal Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein needs someone to explain what this quote means.
Laws matter: The federal appeals court in Washington, DC, today blocked EPA’s takeover of Texas carbon-emmission regulation.
Repeal the damn bill! Maine has asked the Obama administration to be exempted from certain provisions of ObamaCare.
The pilot who was threatened by the TSA because of his YouTube video goes public.
Nor am I alone is wanting the damn bill repealed: Support for the repeal of ObamaCare remains at 60%.
Repeal the damn bill! Health plans for high-risk patients under ObamaCare are attracting fewer customers while costing far more than expected. Key quote:
Last spring, the Medicare program’s chief actuary predicted that 375,000 people would sign up by the end of 2010. In early November, the Health and Human Services Department reported that just 8,000 people had enrolled.
The war between Texas and the EPA over carbon-emission rules heats up.
Numbers to scare you: The just ended 111th Congress added more debt than the first hundred Congresses combined.
As I’ve said, it’s all pork: NASA’s Ares rocket is supposingly dead, but the continuing resolution from Congress requires NASA to spend $500 million more for it.
It is also a mess, but I’ve said that before also!
The lawless Obama administration. Key quote:
Obama uses his control over Executive Branch agencies to do what Congress or the courts have forbidden. It’s worked, sometimes, for him over the past few years. But he’s out of time now: the GOP-led House can defund many of these efforts, even if it can’t put a stop to them completely.
Just so no one has any doubts, doing something that both Congress and the courts say is forbidden is breaking the law. And it appears that the Obama administration has a fetish for this sort of thing.
Democratic tolerance: Al Sharpton, in his effort to get the FCC to outlaw conservative speech on the airwaves, says it is arrogant to “allow people to say what they want.”
Oink! Scientists rail against senator who belittled research.
