catdynamics | February 10, 2007Coturnix made me do it...
Which leader are you?
What Famous Leader Are You?personality tests by similarminds.com
catdynamics | February 10, 2007Chloe, the senior feline catus domesticus member of the family, passed away friday afternoon.
Chloe was a very proper grand old lady cat.
She showed up in our garden in Aptos one spring and stayed with us for very many years through mutliple moves.
For the last four months she had been getting progressively more sick, general old age related problems, which required more and more medication. This week she became reluctant to eat and very withdrawn, and friday morning she refused water. We took her in, had her sedated and then put down, the alternative was too painful for her.
The Big Kid is…
catdynamics | February 9, 2007President's proposed 2008 NASA budget all glorious 623 pages, in full colour PDF.
So, where to begin:
Here is the slide version for lite readin'
NASAwatch has a good summary of links, including Griffin's spin
Science opines
The bottom line is roughly as Science notes - the story is in the out year projected budgets, where there is a cumulative shortfall of ~ $2.5 billion over the next 5 years. (That is about 70 tons for those keeping count).
Science attributes these to STS and ISS cost overruns, but that is not quite accurate. The shortfall is because of the rapid development of the "…
catdynamics | February 9, 2007Friday, and it is still freezing.
Much has happened since last friday, so we humbly approach the mighty iPod and implore it respectfully to guide us...
What, oh mighty iPod, is now going to happen with the Hubble Space Telescope?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Atomic - Blondie
The Crossing: Run through the jungle - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Crown: Aginst Th' Law - Billy Bragg & Wilco
The Root: Maria - Tonight - Three Tenors
The Past: Here Comes Santa Clause
The Future: Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits
The Questioner: Hrogning eru að Koma - Bubbi
The House:…
catdynamics | February 8, 2007Effect Measure has an interesting entry on cancer deaths (down) and incidence (up), which got me theorizing...
So cancer is a mess - there are multiple causes - smoking, diet, heredity, chemicals, viruses and radiation.
Treatment has improved, and some environmental insults have been reduced - like smoking - so one would expect to see improvement, on the other hand people live longer and the population is older on average (in the developed world), viruses are more widespread and some environmental insults are increasing.
So... bear with me.
If I recall correctly, mostly from having lunch…
catdynamics | February 8, 2007unverified blog link to a Greek story about an Israeli Air Force strike package buzzing the Greek Islands
Distance from Israel to Greek Islands is a bit shorter than to parts of Iran, but not by much (~ 1200km vs 1600km if my map reading skills don't fail me).
Interesting contingency exercise.
Hm, www.diplomatia.gr looks to be the real thing.
Their news section does not have english translation yet but the article is at http://www.diplomatia.gr/news.php and the translation looks plausible, up to the extent of my limited ability to transliterate.
Now, if I only knew someone who was fluent in…
catdynamics | February 7, 2007Mmm. With 48 hours to go for the extended Hubble proposal deadline, about 360 new proposals have been received.
A lot of these will be reworked ACS proposals, noting that if they only get 4-10 times more orbits, they could mostly do what the ACS could do with, but with WFPC2...
And some will be innovative and important proposals to use NICMOS or WFPC2 to do science of lasting value... ;-)
UPDATE: if I read the latest correctly, they offset the phase I proposal numbers, so that the late proposals start at 1000 - in which case only just over 100 were in wednesday night. Which seems plausible.…
catdynamics | February 5, 2007Talking Points Memo is not impressed with the Presidential Signing Statement either...
In a nutshell: President Bush is claiming extraordinary authority to circumvent Congressional restrictions on defence appropriations through a signing statement on the DoD appropriations bill.
A read of it suggests the president claims the right to divert funding to do things not covered by the appropriations, and even things explicitly forbidden by subsequent Congressional amendments.
This includes initiating classified programs and actions, and doing so without notifying Conress, as required by law.
Ok…
catdynamics | February 4, 2007First time in at least 5 years I am not on a plane or babysitting during the superbowl, and it is a decent game.
Sorry to say, Mr Smith, that it looks like Good Manning and Bad Grossman showed up.
Half-time show was one of the best in a long time, the mimic'd "wardrobe malfunction" by the dancers on Prince, the shadow theatre, the working in of Jimi's stuff ("All along the watchtower" a la Hendrix, brilliant and subversive) and the final "Purple Rain" was sublimely overblown yet appropriate.
Ads kinda sucked though.
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There…
catdynamics | February 2, 2007Two posts on the Presidential signing statement on HR5631 - the 2007 Department of Defence appropriations bill:
Original post noticing it
and second post speculating on the implications.
Any lawyers out there?
I seriously would like someone who speaks legalese to tell me this is ok and that I am being paranoid.
HR 5631
Presidential Signing Statement
I'm making other people paranoid - someone reassure us...
catdynamics | February 2, 2007Oh, mighty iPod one, whose wisdom is as varied as the flakes of snow on my window: what is the story on the second stars?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Little Man, What Now - Morrissey
The Crossing: Vinkonur - Andrea
The Crown: Poppstjarnan - Utangarðsmenn
The Root: Can't Cry Anymore - Sheryl Crow
The Past: Gata Dagsins - Spilverk Þjóðanna
The Future: Cielo e mari - Pavarotti
The Questioner: Tiento - Julian Bream
The House: Peter and the Wolf: Bird Diverts the Wolf
The Inside: Jamming - Bob Marleu
The Outcome: Popsicle - Talking Heads
Well, the Covering is cruel.
The…
catdynamics | February 1, 2007Last month I pondered what was involved in actually sending in those extra combat brigades.
Apparently I am not the only one
Congressional Budget Office plays scale games too
To reflect some of the uncertainty about the number of support troops, CBO
developed its estimates on the basis of two alternative assumptions. In one scenario, CBO assumed that additional support troops would be deployed in the same proportion to combat troops that currently exists in Iraq. That approach would require about 28,000 support troops in addition to the 20,000 combat troops--a total of 48,000. CBO also…
catdynamics | February 1, 2007in case anyone was wondering, the USS Truman is in the Atlantic, doing fligh deck certification;
the USS Roosevelt is apparently due to deploy in March. Presumably to the Med?
The USS Nimitz is in the Pacific - just normal exercising, so they don't go rusty.
No signs of submarines moving out in excess numbers.
PS: an aside comment in the last 24 hours claims the USS Nimitz is now deployed to support GWoT.
This is not confirmed, but worrying if so, since I have not seen an official announcement on it and she is not due to leave for a while.
Could just be someone who equates "at sea" with "…
catdynamics | February 1, 2007Effect Measure has a good post on economics of war and casualties
which comes from this research
sometimes it is intrinsically good to link...
catdynamics | February 1, 2007I've been worrying about the peculiar signing statement for HR 5631, the 2007 Department of Defense Appropriations bill.
Andy Foland asks why the executive needs emergency exception for research
To cut a long story short, and I Am Not A Lawyer, I read the signing statement as a claim that the purported "unitary executive" can:
1) ignore Boland Amendment like restrictions on DoD funding after the appropriations bill is signed
2) initiate new classified actions without clearing it with Congress (claims consultation with Congress is courtesy, not mandatory)
3) and, can initiate new purchases,…
catdynamics | January 31, 2007Congress today takes on an omnibus continuing resolution spending bill for 9 out of the 11 appropriations for the current fiscal year.
The bill proposes to continue funding for agencies at the 2006 level, with all earmarks stripped out.
PS: I was wrong, House used earmark funding to bump a few programs, especially NSF and DoE.
NSF did really well.
NASA not so much.
On the one hand, this is sensible - it bypasses the trap left by previous Congress of dumping impossible draft appropriation bills on the new Congress part way into the financial year; and it cleans house by stripping out billions…
catdynamics | January 31, 2007There is absolutely no truth to the rumour circulated at coffee this morning that the failure of Hubble's Advanced Camera power supply was due to impact from pieces of a Chinese satellite
I have, however, not been able to refute rumour that a golf ball sized object may have been responsible...
That will teach them not to use a six-iron in Low Earth Orbit
catdynamics | January 31, 2007Big Boom.
Just like the Good Old Days!
Sea Launch has a bad day
Via NASAwatch
catdynamics | January 30, 2007Neil de Grasse Tyson on The Daily Show now.
He is very good. Jon is on form also.