Tag Archives: Science

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NASA Chief Moons the Space Program

Three items relating to this piece of total Obamamaniacal insanity:

NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA’s orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

I could have thought that the foremost mission of the chief administrator of NASA was to…(maybe?) administer what little is left of our space program?

Silly me! But at least My opinion shared in good company:

Former NASA Director Says Muslim Outreach Push ‘Deeply Flawed’

The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as “deeply flawed” the idea that the space exploration agency’s priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.

“NASA … represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity,” Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com.

At least somebody is stills sane!

Griffin said Tuesday that collaboration with other countries, including Muslim nations, is welcome and should be encouraged — but that it would be a mistake to prioritize that over NASA’s “fundamental mission” of space exploration.

“If by doing great things, people are inspired, well then that’s wonderful,” Griffin said. “If you get it in the wrong order … it becomes an empty shell.”

Griffin added: “That is exactly what is in danger of happening.”

He also said that while welcome, Muslim-nation cooperation is not vital for U.S. advancements in space exploration. “There is no technology they have that we need,” Griffin said.

Dang! Does this mean that we won’t be able to use camels on Mars after all?

The former administrator stressed that any criticism should be directed at Obama, not Bolden, since NASA merely carries out policy.

That last bit hits the nail on the head. This rot begins at the top!


Allah’s final frontier
NASA races to reach the crescent moon
This editorial comment from the D.C. Times makes a decidedly non-PC but true observation:

The Muslim world has nothing to offer the United States as a space-faring nation. If anything, America should be discouraging Middle East space programs. Iran has the most advanced space initiative in the region and claimed to have launched a satellite in February. It’s a short step from putting satellites in space to being able to do the same with warheads. Given that Iran is on the verge of nuclear-weapons capability, the upbeat message from NASA seems ill-advised

It doesn’t take rocket science to figure this out…but hey, nobody except B.O. and his KoolAid crew could mistake Bolden for having any real understanding of non-pharmaceutical experience of space.

In addition, there is an explanation why Islam may be in need of some technological strokes:

Islam’s meager contribution to human technological advancement is no accident. In his new book “The Closing of the Muslim Mind,” former Voice of America director Robert Reilly describes the brief flourishing of intellectualism in Muslim Spain 1,000 years ago before it was brutally suppressed by religious extremists. They imposed a continuing Islamic orthodoxy that is hostile to rational thought and to the scientific method. According to this view, the only knowledge required for human existence is contained in the Koran and the life and sayings of Muhammad. Pursuing any knowledge beyond that is at best a waste of time, at worst a capital offense. Classical books of knowledge were burned, the few Muslim philosophers and scientists were banished and the stage was set for centuries of scientific decline. The small number of discoveries credited to that part of the world since the Middle Ages came principally from conquered peoples.

Where is JFK now that we REALLY need him!

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Sense and Non-sense

A step to artificial life: Manmade DNA powers cell
Well…not exactly, as noted by Ken Blanchard posting over at SD Politics.

Ms. Neergaard is lucky that bad science writing isn’t a crime; otherwise she would be in shackles by now. The word “enduring” in the first sentence is puerile puffery. The much worse sin against scientific literacy is that DNA doesn’t “power” living cells, nor does it “take over and drive” them. DNA is the fundamental repository of information for most of its operations and for the essential business of reproduction. DNA is a very powerful map, but the cell itself does the driving.

These distortions have clearly been encouraged by Venter, who is both a scientist and an entrepreneur. This is how he sells his science:

“This is the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer,” Venter told reporters.

Well, not yet. Venter’s team built the genome of one kind of bacteria from scratch, using fragments of DNA. In doing so, I gather they were plagiarizing the Lord’s work by precisely copying the DNA of the cattle germ. Then they transplanted the artificial genome into a different kind of cell (a goat germ). The new cell was able to function and I gather it has reproduced. But the parent of the new cell is clearly the recipient cell, not the computer.

Go read the rest of KB’s post…it’s well worth it.

By the way, the Chief heartily concurs with KB on this…and you can put 4 quarters with that and get a can of pop!

Glowbull Warming, Junk Science

Bill Gates Claims Godhood?–Assumes Right to Change Global Climate at Will!

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Can you say H-U-B-R-I-S? Hubris means extreme haughtiness or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one’s own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power.

When I first saw this, I had trouble believing it was serious…Gates et al have to be totally convinced of their status as übermenschen, if not demigods, who are uniquely qualified and endowed to assume on their own authority, the power to  play dominance games with the planet that we all live on. Not even the most arrogant polluting industrial managers (say, of the ChiCom steel industry for example) don’t openly and proudly proclaim a stated goal to consciously and deliberately change the climate of the Earth!

Bill Gates pays for ‘artificial’ clouds to beat greenhouse gases

The first trials of controversial sunshielding technology are being planned after the United Nations failed to secure agreement on cutting greenhouse gases.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.

The British and American scientists involved do not intend to wait for international rules on technology that deliberately alters the climate.

The arrogance here is breathtaking…especially considering the actual state of the art of much of what passes itself off as “climate science”, but has been proven by the Climategate and other similar revelations to be based on conspiratorial coordination of faked, distorted, and fatally limited data.

Silver Lining, a research body in San Francisco, has received $300,000 (£204,000) from Mr Gates. It will develop machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles capable of being blown up to the cloud level of 1,000 metres. This would whiten clouds by increasing the number of nuclei.

Uh…rain and clouds mostly result from evaporation. The salt mostly stays dissolved in the sea. With Gate’s plan, NOW we can be the lucky recipient of precipitation in the form of salt water…won’t THAT do wonders for maintaining the soil!

Stephen Salter, Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh, said that there was no need to wait for regulations because the trials would not add chemicals to the atmosphere.

…uh…having taught Chemistry for over a quarter-century, I can assure the learned professor that water (H2O) and salt (NaCl) are in fact chemicals, and that water in it’s vapor phase is a MUCH more powerful greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide.

But Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the Government, said that experiments with potential consequences beyond national borders needed international regulations. He told The Times: “I do not see any geoengineering solution which does not have unintended consequences or is not far too expensive.”

At least HE has retained some situational awareness concerning unintended consequences!

Let’s hope that this particular form of megalomaniacal insanity is squelched before it afflicts us all.

At times, when mentally cursing yet another BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) from a Windows crash, it was easy to attribute diabolical intent to Bill Gates. Now it looks like he’s in need of crashing the climate like it was a cheap PC.

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Basic Science: Positive Water!

Weird Water in Space is Electrically Charged

A new ‘phase’ of water that is electrically charged has been discovered in space for the first time.

The weird space water vapor was discovered in an interstellar dust cloud by the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory.

Unlike the three more familiar phases of water – namely solid ice, liquid water and gaseous steam – this newfound ‘phase’ doesn’t occur naturally on Earth.

In the birth clouds surrounding young stars, ultraviolet light is pumping through the gas, and this irradiation can knock an electron out of the water molecule, leaving it with [positive] electrical charge.

After teaching H.S. sciences for 27 years, finding something new that is so fundamentally basic is just too cool!