Potpourri CX

From Tracy, a site that tracks trends in scientific research and how many times particular papers are cited.

For those of you accessing NASA TV via direct satellite link, the satellite is changing.

Just to give myself an idea of what Dr. OZMG has decided to put herself through, I did a little reading on what it takes to train for a marathon. I think I'll stick with aerobics, walking, and weight lifting for my exercise. I've had the popping knees and ankles of an 80-year-old man since I was about 10. I can be an energetic cheering section, though...

Yikes! The U.S. has exceeded the congressionally approved ceiling for the national debt--over $12 trillion!

Roy Disney, nephew of the late Walt Disney, has died. A shame. Roy was a decent guy, from all I heard.

A book that's right up Dar's alley: Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making.

Another book of interest: Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering.

Hat tip to Dar for pointing this one out to me: From NASWatch/SpaceRef: A rumored/leaked breakthrough in learning what President Obama's NASA policy is going to be. The original story can be found here.

Potpourri XCVI

Get behind a couple of days, and the content piles up. So off we go: zoom, zoom, zoom...

More on the state of the human spaceflight program:

• From the Houston Chronicle.
• From BangTanjung (who the heck is that?).
• From SpaceRef.
• From LiveLeak.com.
• From SpaceBoosters.co.uk.
• From Space.com.
• From TGDaily.
• From the BBC.

Got a bunch of stuff from Lin:

• A Washington Times editorial on how Bush derangement syndrome has spread, and why.
• A Canadian health official is concerned that their nationalized healthcare program is in danger of collapse. I'm shocked, shocked...
• A mixed-bag Snopes.com review of Obama's position on veterans' healthcare.
• Michelle Malkin on the appropriate way to protest.

Space.com has a good article on the need to update Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

This truly astounds me: the Swiss government has told the UBS bank to hand over financial records on over 4,000 people to the U.S. Government. This is astonishing because the Swiss have the strongest bank privacy laws in the world--or did, anyway. I wonder what the fallout will be from this. My guess is that banks in the Cayman Islands will get more business. The truly terrifying line in the article is this one:

"This announcement today should send a signal, no matter what institution you're with, the IRS is willing to pursue both the institution and the individual," Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman told reporters on Wednesday.

I'd take the cars...a lady winning 25 million frequent flyer miles (think for a moment how many gropings by the TSA she had to endure to rack those up) has a choice of the following prize packages:

• a trip to space with Virgin Galactic and two return flights to Los Angeles with V Australia or
• two Alfa Romeo Spider sports cars plus $5000 petrol vouchers and $10,000 cash or
• the ultimate shopping spree valued at $170,000 or
• a luxury holidaypackage in Blue Holiday vouchers valued at $100,000 plus $50,000 cash

From Martin: a wing-nut editorial on the secret history of our space program.

From Yohon: Facebook breakups.

More from the Singularity front...a video of a super-fast robot.

New from Hu:

• A dual-Orion mission to an asteroid? Sure, why not?
• Could ESA or another space agency send humans to space when they haven't before? If so, let them be friendly. We've got enough problems.
• A reality check on the space elevator.
• Earth might get smacked by an asteroid due to "obtuse, tightfisted bozos." Nothing like a little uplifting rhetoric to raise the tone and seriousness of the issue.

Microscopic traces of the amino acid glycine are reported to have been found by the Stardust probe. However, "We couldn't be sure it wasn't from the manufacturing or the handling of the spacecraft." So while we might find the fundamental building blocks of life beyond the Earth at some point...odds are, it might not necessarily be now.

A chart showing the history of NASA's percentage of the federal budget. It would've been more instructive if they'd included going all the way back to 1958.

A NASA video on the Hubble deep field.

The United States debt clock. Terrifying.

Female swimmers in the UK are encouraged to wear "burkinis" to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities. Wow.

And that should do for now. Thanks for reading--all 17.5 of you, based on my latest metrics. :-)

Potpourri XC

I'm back on duty after visiting with my family over the weekend. I was glad that they came. We just hung out together to celebrate my b-day, and I was able to disconnect a little bit from the usual wackiness that fills my day. Huzzah! Now that I'm back online, I've got a bunch of links and notes to share, so off we go...

Need a sign to hold if you choose to show up at a Tea Party rally or a congressional town hall? Lin recommends this. Some protesting needs to be done, because the healthcare bill the President and Congress want to push is bad for the country. Protest loudly, however, and you're a mob. Protest politely, and you're shouted down or intimidated by union guys or your character and motivations are impugned. Frustrating.

Also from Lin:

• An editorial on some of these town hall meetings, and a video of one of the town halls that turned nasty.
• The Onion has a creepy satire on an alternative means of dealing with the federal debt.
• The Obama Administration hopes to reform the nationwide efforts used to deal with illegal immigrants. Any bets on a presidential pardon?
• A Huffington Post (left-wing) look at the Beer Summit.

New from Hu: another article about the Augustine Human Space Flight Panel. This Wednesday will be the last public meeting of the Panel. We might learn what options the HSF Panel will offer, and maybe not. Their final report will be due August 31. Of course as my buddy Doc pointed out, even if Augustine, et al., issue their report at the end of this month, it'll be a few months before Obama makes any decision, and then longer than that for the effects to be felt within NASA. I'm not so sure about that last point, but we'll see.

From Father Dan:

• Some color therapy.
• Another article on Congress's budget for new private jets.
• A Peggy Noonan editorial on the ugly tone of the healthcare debate.
• YouTube video from NewsBusted. Sounds like it's got a bad laugh track.

From Gwen, a story on a Texas prisoner who was caught hiding a weapon in the rolls of his fat. Yuck.

Former Bush Administration Science Advisor John Marburger testified before the Augustine Panel on the shape of the Constellation Program. His remarks are worth reading, though I must take issue with one of his statements:

NASA decision-making grew increasingly constrained by real budget shortfalls created in part by larger than estimated return to flight costs for the Shuttle.

Marburger overlooks the fact that those "real budget shortfalls" were, in fact, the result of both the Congress and the Bush Administration not requesting the money Constellation needed to do the job it was assigned to do. Oh yeah, and Marburger was part of the Bush Administration making the NASA budget decisions! Mike Griffin paid politically for daring to speak this unpleasant truth aloud, and he no longer holds the NASA Administrator's position.

'Tis the season for the Perseid meteor shower, which is caused by the Earth passing through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet. Look to the skies!

The Kepler telescope has proven that it can find Earth-size planets around other stars. Now it just needs to start finding them around stars we haven't investigated before.

The last of the Futures Channel videos on Ares has been posted. It covers the outreach team that puts together videos, conference papers, collateral pieces, posters, etc., for the Ares Projects. In short, the team Your Humble Narrator works on. While I was not put on camera for this video, my buddies Jason, Camille, and Wayne do a great job of explaining what we do for a living. Huzzah!

That should do for now. 27 days until Europe.