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POPSSoviet Defector Warns of Socialism of Democratsby
dl211 Yesterday 11:54 PM "Alas, now the virus of Marxism with its fatal governmental takeovers has started infecting our shores. If the Democratic Party has its way, it will transform the United States into a socialist country in all but name. The 2010 elections could prevent that catastrophe from happening.
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POPSMore Obama Nuttiness – CIA Spying on Icebergs and Polar Bears Since CIA satellite data is secret, those opposing the Cap and Trade Tax and anthropomorphic climate change may have no access to any data quoted by the Democrats. The article by William J. Broad went on to say, Secrecy cloaks the monitoring effort, as well as the nation’s intelligence work, because the United States wants to keep foes and potential enemies in the dark about the abilities of its spy satellites and other sensors. The images that the scientific group has had declassified, for instance, have had their sharpness reduced to hide the abilities of the reconnaissance satellites. Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the C.I.A. opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, Has President Obama reassigned CIA assets .....
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POPSAt 31,000 mph, Space Probe Gets Halfway to Pluto in Record Time; ETA: July 2015 Should make for good visuals... During that time, the probe will capture 4.5 gigabytes of data, which it will have to keep sending the four-and-a-half hours back home for months. With its main mission accomplished, the craft will keep moving away from the sun, following in the extrasolar footsteps of the earlier Pioneer and Voyager missions, drifting ever farther away from us.
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POPSBusy Week for Chavez "I guess that Chavez has never heard of satellites. We don’t need “spy planes” to fly over his stupid military bases. Also today, the Venezuelan government released it’s latest list of Venezuelans who are ineligible to run for public office - including two former governors who opposed Chavez during their tenures. Meanwhile, oil production and manufacturing continue to fall. A national police force will probably fix all of that - well, it’ll at least fix dissent."
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POPSOshkosh Award Raises Questions
Agree w/J. Gansler that job creation shouldn't be a criteria for Gov contracts--would result in labor intensive, inefficient bids (oink, oink!). BUT the DOD can't continue to ignore the drastic market shift over 20 years that has virtually destroyed the ability to conduct truly competitive bids for large contracts. Since Bill Perry's "Last Supper," we find only 1 company can build large acft, 2 or 3 can build satellites, 3 can build heavy duty trucks, etc. Budget realities mean that if a firm loses a big contract like this, the next opportunity may not come along for 5, 10, even 20 years. Few firms can afford to stay in the market on the hope that they'll win "next time." Unfortunately, the govies just don't get it, as evidenced in these 2 articles: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1289/1 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aIrSOQpbzRfc I haven't seen serious discussion of structural causes, and acquisition strategies to combat them anywhere.
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POPSThe Most Surprising Results of Global Warming
.....stand a better chance at having offspring that survive and thus pass on their genetic information, thereby ultimately changing the genetic profile of their entire population. 4. Shrinking Specimens The shift to the small seems to be happening on the scale of whole communities as well as individual animals. 3. Speedier Satellites molecules in the upper atmosphere collide less frequently and tend to radiate their energy away, cooling the air around them. With more carbon dioxide up there, more cooling occurs, causing the air to settle. Thus, the atmosphere is less dense and creates less drag on satellites 2. Rebounding Mountains the Alps and other mountain ranges have experienced a gradual growth spurt thanks to the melting of the glaciers 1. Forest Fire Frenzy In western states over the past few decades, more wildfires have blazed across the countryside Scientists have correlated the rampant blazes with warmer temperatures and earlier snowmelt
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POPSCut Military Spending in Half By Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow in defense and homeland security studies at the Cato Institute and a PhD candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From comment at the site: ... From 2000 to 2008, Texas defense contactors raked in $255 billion, according to federal data compiled by governmentcontractswon.com ... but 2008 yielded the highest profits of the decade. Halliburton, the Houston-based oil-field services company once headed by Dick Cheney, has been the state’s most notorious war profiteer. KBR, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton and also headquartered in Houston, is the U.S. Army’s largest construction and contracting group in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aerospace giants clustered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area—Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, CSC Technologies and DynCorp, to name a few—have also swept in huge defense contracts to produce military aircraft, conventional missiles and military satellites.
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POPS"In Search of a Real Spaceship"
More from the article below: "We forget today that the Shuttle system was so advanced every other existing space power wanted one. The Europeans called theirs Hermes. The Russians Buran. Japan was designing the Hope space plane. Germany had a really radical design named after space pioneer Eugen Sanger. But alas what they all discovered was a winged vehicle was a complex design whose development would require a lot of cash-and patience. Both were in short supply. So America would wind up flying alone aboard space wings. The Shuttles would wind up doing many incredible things-among which was saving the Russian Mir space station, because the orbiters brought up more water, food and supplies that a dozen Russian Progress supply ships could carry. They deployed satellites. Returned a few back home. They were-and are-without match in the short history of human spaceflight. But, for now, think of spacecraft worthy of following our Shuttles. We don't need any stinkin' capsules!"
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POPSRussia Outwitted U.S. Strategic Defenses With Missile Test "At the same time, U.S. reconnaissance satellites are unable to detect submarines under thick ice floe in the Arctic," he said. The region around the North Pole is a perfect place for launches of ballistic missiles because it allows the submarines to arrive in a designated area undetected and to shorten the missile flight time to the target. The RSM-54 Sineva (NATO designation SS-N-23 Skiff) is a third-generation liquid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile that entered service with the Russian Navy in July 2007. It can carry four or 10 nuclear warheads, depending on the modification. Russia plans to equip its Delta IV class submarines with at least 100 Sineva missiles. Read related articles http://en.rian.ru/trend/sineva/
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POPS Just Space Junk? What's in Space? Much more than you realize. Since the start of the space age there have been some 4,500 space launches worldwide, & today there are 860 active satellites in orbit, The United States owns and operates roughly half of those satellites. This space activity has resulted in millions of pieces of orbiting debris There are two main sources of orbital debris: (1) Routine space activity and the accidental breakup of satellites and stages placed in orbit by such activity; (2) The testing or use of destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons that physically collide with satellites at high speed . The destruction of a single large satellite such as a U.S. spy satellite could by itself double the total amount of large debris currently in low earth orbit (LEO), where nearly half of current satellites reside. There are currently no international restrictions on the testing or use of military systems intended to destroy satellites.
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POPSGalileo European Galileo with US GPS and Russian Glonass systems : si ça marche pas mieux que le LHC ou l'Airbus ... on passera pour des charlots
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POPSJust Missed: Nov. 7th Asteroid 30x Closer Than Moon It was the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid. But before you turn to another Clipmark note: THIS WAS THE SECOND ONE THIS YEAR. The one in March 2009 was close too. Look at the stats on that one 8 months ago: Asteroid's Near Miss A Cosmic Close Call Heavenly Body Buzzes Earth; Comes Within 48,800 Miles The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 48,800 miles from Earth. That is just twice the height of some telecommunications satellites and about a fifth of the distance to the Moon. CNN video report on that one here. Real footage Video of 1972 asteroid in Canada here --which actually is seen trailing then "bouncing" off earth's atmosphere.
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POPSThe The "The Beat(en) Generation" And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced By the greedy hands of politics and half truths The beaten generation, the beaten generation Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation The beaten generation, the beaten generation Open your eyes, open your imagination We're being sedated by the gasoline fumes And hypnotised by the satellites Into believing what is good and what is right You may be worshipping the temples of mammon Or lost in the prisons of religion But can you still walk back to happiness When you've nowhere left to run? If they send in the special police To deliver us from evil and keep us from peace Then won't the words sit ill upon their tongues When they tell us justice is being done That freedom lives in the barrels of a warm gun? The beaten generation, the beaten generation Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation The beaten generation, the beaten generation Open your eyes, open your imagination
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POPSGalileo's Spyglass Using ever-more powerful telescopes over the next year, Galileo observed that the Moon was not perfectly smooth, as claimed by Aristotle, but cratered and mountainous. He spotted hundreds of stars previously untouched by human eyes. More critically, he discovered the four inner satellites of Jupiter - still known as the "Galilean moons" in his honour - and learnt that Venus, Earth's closest planet, goes through a full range of phases. Put together, his observations validated the revolutionary theory of Nicolaus Copernicus that Earth orbits the Sun, and not the other way round. Galileo understood the implications of what he had seen, but the Catholic Church was not ready to accept such heresy. Only in 2000 did the Holy See apologise for putting Galileo on trial in 1633, forcing him to recant his ideas lest he face imprisonment or worse. The Vatican also pays tribute to him in an exhibition that opened this month. I never knew that it was only in 20
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POPSTop U.S. Scientist Arrested in FBI Sting Attempting to Sell Nuclear Secrets to Israel
The conduct alleged in this complaint is serious and should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation’s secrets for profit,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security. … “From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense,” the Justice Department said. … “In addition, Nozette allegedly offered to reveal additional classified information that directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, and other major weapons systems,” DOJ said. In addition to allegations against a network of moles said to be based at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, Edmonds has also fingered current and former members of Congress, such as Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO),Stephen Solarz (D-NY) and Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased), as well as high-ranking Pentagon and State Dept.
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POPSAsteroid collision threat further downgraded Some of you may have heard of the asteroid Apophis that is going to pass very close to the earth in 2029? The estimates were that Earth's gravity would nudge it enough that it would return a few years later and hit the Earth. Further orbital calculations have shown that the odds of this happening are even less likely than once thought.
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