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 LXXII

First, from my NASA PAO feed:

July 13, 2009

Mark Hess
Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md. 301-286-6255
mark.s.hess@nasa.gov

Tina Tate
The Newseum,
Washington 202-292-6620
ttate@newseum.org

MEDIA ADVISORY: M09-125

NASA HOLDS BRIEFING TO RELEASE RESTORED APOLLO 11 MOONWALK VIDEO

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a media briefing at 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 16, at the Newseum in Washington to release greatly improved video imagery from the July 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk.

The release will feature 15 key moments from Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's historic moonwalk using what is believed to be the best available broadcast-format copies of the lunar excursion, some of which had been locked away for nearly 40 years. The initial video released Thursday is part of a comprehensive Apollo 11 moonwalk restoration project expected to be completed by the fall.

The Newseum is located at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's Internet homepage.

Participants in the briefing will be:
-- Richard Nafzger, team lead and Goddard engineer
-- Stan Lebar, former Westinghouse Electric program manager
-- Mike Inchalik, president of Lowry Digital, Burbank, Calif.

For NASA TV downlink information, schedule information and streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

This should be an interesting fight. A U.S. judge is debating whether to force a Swiss bank to violate Swiss law and hand over the banking records of 52,000 American customers in an effort to find tax cheats. Aside from the blatant illegality, bullying, and witch-hunting of this action, I must repeat that it is against Swiss law to turn over customer bank records, even in criminal cases. I wouldn't bet against the Swiss. If tax rates weren't so confiscatory here, there wouldn't be so many rich folks trying to move their money overseas. The last line in the story made me gag for its sheer blindness, effrontery, and stupidity:

"It's an injustice to the Treasury at a time when the country is scraping for money, to let these people get away with it is outrageous."

Inustice? Injustice is a government overspending beyond the ability of its taxpayers to afford it. Injustice is political and financial witch hunting. Injustice is a willingness to break another country's privacy laws to get your way. "The country is scraping for money?" Outrageous indeed.

I've posted this before, but it's still worth seeing.

Here's a proposal that combines laser propulsion, reusable launch vehicles, and space solar power for a grand total of $58 billion. Donations welcome, I presume...

Banking Here and Abroad

The Swiss care more about your privacy than the U.S. Government does...even when you break the law!

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5236OL20090304?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

More Random Reading

Obama vows to cut the budget deficit by two-thirds by raising taxes. Good lawd, man! Stop the spending! But then there's this CNN story, stating that Obama wants to cut taxes to 95% of Americans. Oh, right. This is the $13 tax credit per week people are supposed to get.

1. Let's start with the first fallacy: 48% of Americans don't pay income taxes. They get a full refund of all those taxes.
2. Next fallacy: only the rich benefit from tax cuts. This actually isn't a fallacy, but something that Obama just leaves out of his speeches. The top 25% of wage earners pay 86% of the income taxes. Obama is engaging in pure class warfare on this issue. One might complain about "tax cuts for the rich," but how disingenuous is that complaint when the rich pay the majority of the taxes? Also, income taxes are on wages, not trust funds and other things that keep folks like the Kennedy kids fed, so the folks who are born lucky enough to inherit a ton of money don't get socked by many of the taxes that are out there.
3. Fallacy #3: a tax credit to people who do not normally pay income taxes is not a tax cut, that's a giveaway from someone who does pay taxes.

A Swiss political party wants to retaliate against a U.S. government probe into Americans who sent their money to Switzerland to protect that money from intrusive U.S. banking laws. I wonder how much trouble I'd get into if I opened a Swiss bank account. Never mind, I don't have enough money to be worth confiscating anyway.

Chicago's Mayor Daley wants a surveillance camera on every street corner. With very strong gun control laws, the Windy City has ensured that only the criminals and the government has guns. So now you're an ordinary, law-abiding, non-gun-carrying citizen. How safe do you really feel?

Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and following the 12th Imam.

Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative (Likud Party), again Prime Minister of Israel. There are also conservative-leaning governments in France, Germany, and New Zealand...just around the time America has gone liberal. Interesting world.