A place were I can write...

My simple blog of pictures of travel, friends, activities and the Universe we live in as we go slowly around the Sun.



September 30, 2013

IRS Scandal

The IRS Scandal That Wasn’t


A few days ago, Lois Lerner, head of the tax-exempt division of the Internal Revenue Service, retired. But her story will go on because, as Politico’s Lauren French wrote, the thirty-year civil service veteran “is the political piƱata that Congress still loves to whack months after she awkwardly acknowledged that the IRS wrongly scrutinized conservative groups for years.”

Three congressional investigations are ongoing and yes, mistakes were made, as the late Republican president and conservative icon Ronald Reagan once said. But in reality, this is a story about how bureaucratic bungling was turned into scandal by right wing politicians desperate to spin gold from straw.

They have sought to create a splash, to score points with their allies, make converts, seize the publicity spotlight and pull in some quick campaign cash while they’re at it. But far worse, their staged controversy has distracted from a real Washington scandal, our inability to rein in the outrageous amounts of money used by the rich and powerful to secretly broker elections and buy our government.

The target of opportunity landed in the right wing’s lap, gift-wrapped and tied with a bow. After all, who doesn’t love to hate the IRS? No one likes paying taxes and an audit is about as welcome as multiple root canal. So when a chance came to go after the dreaded IRS for meddling in politics, the right jumped at it.

If true, it would not have been the first time the IRS had been used for political skullduggery. When Richard Nixon was in the White House and wanted to go after his enemies – such as the Chandler family, owners of the Los Angeles Times – he picked up the phone and called Attorney General John Mitchell. “We’re going after the Chandlers,” Nixon announced. “Every one. Individually, collectively. Their income taxes… Every one of those sons of bitches, is that clear?”

During Nixon’s reelection campaign in 1972, he had an enemies list of some 200 names that John Dean, the White House counsel, took to IRS Commissioner Johnnie Mac Walters, hinting that Walters should look for wrongdoing and even pack some of them off to jail. Wisely, Mac Walters locked the list in his safe and kept it there.

Fast-forward forty years and once again the IRS is a political football. But what’s the real story?
If you’re just tuning in, some basics: Among its other duties, as outlined in a tax code first passed a century ago, the IRS keeps an eye on nonprofit organizations that are exempt from paying taxes. They’re called 501(c)s and the groups we’re specifically concerned with are called 501(c)(4)s. They’re defined as social welfare organizations, meant to be civic groups looking out for the common good. But – and this is key – donors to a 501(c)(4) don’t have to reveal who they are.

So along comes the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, which in the name of free speech unleashes unlimited campaign contributions. But suppose you’re a corporation or a tycoon and want to keep all the cash you’re pouring into the election of your favorite candidates under wraps? IRS rules say that 501(c)(4)s – those social welfare groups – can spend money on politics and campaigns, as long as it’s not their primary activity. Where that line gets drawn, however, is somewhat of a mystery – even to the IRS. So far, the general rule of thumb has been that political activities must constitute 49 percent or less of 501(c)(4) activities.

In the wake of Citizens United, and with the realization that 501(c)(4)s could be used like bagmen for anonymous political bucks, applications for social welfare status at the IRS almost doubled in the years 2010 to 2012 – from 1,735 to 3,357. By the time November 2012 rolled around, those so-called social welfare organizations had poured more than $300 million into the election. According to the investigative journalism group Pro Publica, 84 percent of that money came from conservative groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity.

All the applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status were sent to the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati. The task was overwhelming, not only because of the sheer numbers but because the IRS regulations were so vague and contradictory. Trying to cut corners and red tape, the Cincinnati office decided to determine which groups were legit and which were covers for political mischief by implementing a keyword search – targeting words like “patriot” and “tea party.” All hell broke loose.
For a week this past May, it was as if the IRS and the Obama White House had committed murder most foul, or at least the most heinous crime since the heyday of Watergate and Nixon’s dirty tricks.

The Beltway media went into a feeding frenzy, the embers of suspicion and paranoia fanned by a powerful congressman who never met a photo opportunity he didn’t like: Darrell Issa, Republican of California, the richest member of Congress and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He has used that position as a political cudgel to hammer away at anything that might hurt the opposition (and consequently help his party), or, most important, elevate the visibility of Darrell Issa. “We don’t know how high it went,” he claimed to CNN. “What we know, and this is the disturbing part… it was discovered and stopped and it continued.” Similar charges were made by Issa as he rode the circuit of Washington talk shows.

Not coincidentally, USA Today reported that during this time, Congressman Issa had the best fundraising quarter of his entire political career. A total of nearly $740,000 poured into his campaign chest from April 1 to June 30, more than two and a half times what he pulled in during the first three months of the year.

Issa launched an investigation into the IRS, promising the press, pundits and the rabid right that there would be blood. Yet slowly but surely, the scandal narrative began to unravel. Corruption and conspiracy started giving way to fumble-fingered reality: that the whole thing was a colossal, bureaucratic screw-up on the part of IRS employees and that in fact, their word search for BOLO’s – cop talk for “be on the lookout for” – included liberal groups as well as conservative. This was underscored by the revelation of IRS training materials that surfaced a month into Issa’s congressional investigation.

In addition to conservative groups, the IRS workers had been told to be on the lookout for ACORN successors – a reference to the left-wing community-organizing group that folded under congressional pressure three years ago. Another key word was “emerge.” As The New York Times reported, Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts were groups set up to back Democratic women candidates. All applied to the IRS for 501(c)(4) status and all were denied because their primary work is political.

Meanwhile, news of the IRS scandal that wasn’t so much of a scandal fell from the headlines into the back pages. Coverage of the IRS story by The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico took a nosedive as the less exciting truth was revealed. The media big wheels of the right had to shift gears, too, while still insisting there was a monster hiding in the closet.

Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center mourned the dying down of media coverage. The IRS scandal was real, he said – the press was covering it up. Back in late July, Graham told Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, “…We have a news media that’s just as corrupt as the administration, because their definition of how to cover things is, what does the president want us to do today?”

When the story first broke, conservatives claimed that scrutiny of right wing non-profits by the IRS would have a chilling effect. But if anything, the purported scandal has given the Tea Party and others a new lease on life, handing them something fresh to be mad about and reenergizing their cause – witness the current crusade to defund Obamacare.

The purported IRS scandal remains at the top of the right wing’s litany. In preparation for the 2014 midterm elections — and the fundraising that goes with them – the IRS is being cast as a boogeyman.
Reforms are being put in place at Internal Revenue. According to the Treasury Department, the IRS is working on new guidelines for 501(c)(4)s, including clearer information on how to measure political activity. And while it may have fallen from the front pages, stories continue to appear. USA Today has been particularly diligent obtaining internal IRS documents, including a 2011 list that flags political groups “based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about ‘anti-Obama rhetoric,’ inflammatory language and ‘emotional’ statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status.” Of the 162 groups cited, more than 80 percent were characterized as conservative. But in fact, this is roughly proportionate to the amount conservative 501(c)(4)s contributed in the 2012 elections.

Far more troubling is that the current brawl over the IRS may make the agency too gun shy to properly police tax-exempt groups. (A few days ago, it was announced that the IRS has agreed to grant tax-exempt status to “True the Vote,” the organization that has gone after groups attempting to register minority votes — although as a 501(c)(3), rather than a c4).

And much worse, the contretemps will prevent real reform; that in the rush to placate the right, the desperate need for overhaul of our campaign finance system — the fight against “dark money” and the anonymous, deep-pocketed power and control that come with it — will be backburnered once again.

Then we’ll see the real victim in all of this: what’s left of an increasing frail democracy.

Looting Public Pensions

Matt Taibbi on Wall Street’s Campaign to Loot Public Pensions


“Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy,” writes Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi. “Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions.”

State and local governments were hit hard in the crash as tax revenues dwindled. At the same time, public pension funds across the United States had been heavily invested in Wall Street’s AAA-rated “toxic securities,” and when the house of cards fell it left significant gaps in their funding.
But Wall Street would not be shamed for the economic pain it had inflicted. At the same time as leading hedge funds financed a campaign advocating cuts to the benefits retirees expected to receive, they lobbied lawmakers to relax the rules governing pension fund investments so that they could siphon off a chunk of the $2.6 trillion that remains under public pension funds’ management.
And, as Taibbi writes…
This war isn’t just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it’s also about blame. In state after state, politicians are… using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America’s states and cities.
Moyers & Company’s Joshua Holland caught up with Matt Taibbi last week to discuss this vexing story. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Joshua Holland: Matt, this is a maddening piece. I am going to bill you for my blood pressure medication. I mean you better hope that Obamacare gets implemented.
What I find truly outrageous about this is that we’re in the midst of an awful retirement crisis. Teresa Ghilarducci — she’s a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research — she says that in 2010, 75 percent of Americans who were nearing retirement age had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts.

Matt Taibbi: Right.

Holland: And she says that almost half of all middle-class workers — 49 percent — will be poor or near poor in retirement, living on a food budget of about $5 dollars a day.

A big part of this has been driven by the shift from traditional defined benefit pensions to 401(k)s. Among the very few people who still have traditional pensions are public sector workers, and here we have these Wall Street hustlers basically coming in and trying to loot their retirement savings.
Matt, a lot of states and localities do have big gaps in their pension funding. Let me start by asking you, whose fault is that?

Taibbi: Well, there are primarily two reasons why most states’ pension funds are depleted. One huge reason is that a lot of states and municipalities have not been making their required contributions into the funds every year. They’re mandated by law to throw in a little bit of money. Most of the funds are actually funded by the workers themselves — they make a small percentage contribution of their incomes into the funds – but there’s also a taxpayer contribution, and the states were supposed to have put that money in for years and years and years. What they’ve been doing, in many cases, is just not doing that. Politicians have been taking that money and spending it on other stuff — building things, stadiums, swimming pools, new athletic complexes, giving out tax breaks to influential donors, things like that. So that’s one problem.

The other huge problem is that a lot of pension funds were targeted as institutional investors by financial companies and banks in the pre-crash years and they bought mortgage-backed securities, which subsequently blew up. So they were buying a fraudulent product, which ended up depleting the fund.

Holland: And this is one of the key issues: the rating agencies were in cahoots with Wall Street, and they would bless these piles of toxic securities as triple-A rated securities. A lot of pension funds are required to invest only in highly rated investments. So they were basically cooking the books so that pensions could buy into this junk.

It blew up in their face, and now we have this so-called pension crisis, and it seems that there’s a push to run in there and loot it. And it strikes me, reading your piece, that there’s kind of a confluence of ideology and greed going on here. For some time, the right has been making public sector workers into the new welfare queens, living large off the public teat — never mind that, according to economist Dean Baker, the average public employee’s pension was just $22,000 dollars in 2007, and a lot of them aren’t even eligible for Social Security.

So there’s that ideological component, and then there’s a kind of shock doctrine going on, where we have this contrived crisis and then these sharks just move right in to feed.
How extensive is this campaign to convince the public that bloated public employee pensions are to blame for the budget crunch that these states and localities are dealing with?

Taibbi: Well, there are organized campaigns going on in almost every state in the country. There are foundations like the Arnold Foundation, which is run by a former Enron commodities trader and billionaire named John Arnold. He’s sort of the Koch brothers figure in this tableau. The Pew Charitable Trusts have a partnership with the Arnold Foundation. The Manhattan Institute — which is kind of a finance sector think tank — they’ve done a lot of work on this stuff. Students First New York is another group that has been campaigning against defined benefit plans.

Almost every state you go to, there’s some kind of organized campaign that essentially says, states are broke, the reason is that these benefits are unsustainably high, and the solution is a combination of cuts going forward and then a move toward sort of a 401(k)-style plan that includes — and this is really the important part — that includes investing a large parcel of this public money in “alternative investments,” which ends up putting the money right back into the hands of Wall Street.

Holland: Tell us a little bit more about that angle. Aren’t hedge funds supposed to just outperform the world?

Taibbi: No. In fact, even BusinessWeek just had a great cover called “The Hedge Fund Myth.” I can’t even describe the cover because it’s too off color, but essentially, what people are coming around to is that hedge funds don’t outperform the market over time. And one of the sources I talked to for this story summed this up for me the best. He’s the guy who manages public monies in the State of Illinois, and he was saying essentially, ‘look, the real question is how much inefficiency is there in the market to be taken advantage of? If you believe that there’s a lot, then that’s a good reason to go with hedge funds. If you believe that there’s a lot of money to be made not just by putting your money in a broad index investment, then, yeah, you’d want to put some money in a hedge fund.’
 But remember, when you invest in a hedge fund, that hedge fund has to do essentially three to four percent better than an ordinary index fund just to get back to even, because it costs that much more to invest with a hedge fund. So you can invest in a standard index fund for like 1/100th of a percent, whereas it costs sometimes 2 percent or even 3 percent to invest with a hedge fund, so you’re talking 200, 300 times the cost. So that’s really the question.

And of course, famously right now, Warren Buffet had bet against a hedge fund in New York five years ago that a random bet on the S&P would outperform hedge funds, and five years later he’s winning by nine points. So, you know, there’s your answer right there.

Holland: And it’s not just the 2 percent fees to get in. They also take a big chunk on the way out, in terms of profits. It was when I was writing about Bain during the last election that I learned about these ‘2 and 20’ arrangements.

These funds are charging exorbitant fees while we’re pushing these deep cuts on public sector workers who put their entire careers into serving their communities and end up with relatively modest pensions. I mean, you hear anecdotally of some sheriff with a $300,000 dollar pension, but again, the average is $22,000 dollars.

Matt, why do they keep it secret? Why can’t these workers find out where their money is invested?

Taibbi: Well, I think there are two reasons. Number one, if they knew what the fees were, I think people would be out in the streets, because it’s even worse than what you say. You know, the standard formula is two and 20 – you get two percent just for showing up, so if you put $100 million into a hedge fund, [the fund] gets $2 million dollars right away, before it even performs. Then it gets 20 percent of all the profits.

Then there’s a thing called “fund expenses,” which is typically half of a percent and can cover just about anything, travel expenses for the people running the fund, dinners, whatever. Then there are trading costs, which typically add up to another percent or more, so every time the hedge fund trades it pulls those fees out — it doesn’t actually show up as a line item. It just shows up as less money in the fund later on.

And then the final thing is, if you want to withdraw money, if you want to redeem your funds, you have to pay a fee for that.

So there are five different fees that you’re paying for that kind of alternative investment, and that ends up to being three, four, even five percent that you’re going to pay, which, again, might be 500 times what you’d pay for a typical S&P index fund.

And then the other question is what are they invested in? In a lot of cases you don’t know, but it could be something horrible. I mean we’ve had ridiculous examples. We’ve had workers compensation founds that have turned out to be invested in Beanie Babies and rare coins. We’ve had people who were invested in payday lenders. There are other funds that are invested in factories overseas, so you’re a worker here at home, you’re a union worker, but you’re funding the construction of a Chinese factory. You know, all kinds of horrible stuff, and I think union workers have a right to know what’s being done with their money.

Holland: Yeah, I agree with everything you write, but I think Beanie Babies are a really solid investment, actually.

Matt, if I bring a bagful of $50 dollar bills to a pension administrator and I say, “I’ll slip you this bag of cash under the table if you invest with my hedge fund,” I feel like I’d end up in jail. What’s a placement agent?

Taibbi: A placement agent is a guy who gets paid — it’s an amazing phenomenon — essentially, he gets paid to introduce pension boards to alternative investors. So it’s just a middleman. Typically, it’s a former member of a board. He might, for instance, have formerly served on the board of something like CalPERS or CalSTRS in California. And he gets paid a gigantic fee, that sometimes can be millions of dollars, just to introduce the board to what he believes is an attractive hedge fund.

What’s so interesting about this is that in some cases there are restrictions on how much this placement agent can be paid by the pension fund, but there are no restrictions on how much he can be paid by the hedge fund. So he might be getting paid both coming and going, by the state — by the pension fund — and by the hedge fund they end up hiring. So this is just a middleman who sits in between and is essentially legally collecting money as part of a kickback scheme. And this goes on all over the country and it’s legal, and it’s another thing that eats into the pension fund costs, and it’s another reason why people have to tighten their belts and take lower benefits.

Holland: Who is Gina Raimondo?

Taibbi: Gina Raimondo is the treasurer of the State of Rhode Island. She’s a Democrat. She’s thinking of running for governor. She pushed through a model pension reform plan in her state. When I say a model plan, it’s a plan that was advocated for by groups like the Manhattan Institute, you know, these Wall Street-friendly groups. There was a group in Rhode Island called Engage Rhode Island, which turned out to have taken a lot of money from the aforementioned John Arnold, the Enron guy. And she crafted a pension reform plan that kind of fit the parameters of what Wall Street wants to do with public pensions.

They hybridized the plan and turned part of it into a 401(k) type of plan, and then she went from having zero percent of the fund invested in hedge funds to having over 15 percent of the fund invested in hedge funds.

And just a couple of days ago she announced that they’re going to be paying $70 million dollars in fees for alternative investments just for last year, which roughly matches the amount of money that they’re going to save by asking workers to freeze their cost of living adjustments. So this is sort of a microcosm of what’s going on all over the country. Workers are being asked to take cuts, but those savings are being plunged right back into hiring hedge funds. And she’s in the middle of that.

Holland: Now, here’s something that I just don’t understand. These pensions are the result of negotiations with the unions, right? I mean they’re contractual obligations.

Taibbi: Right.

Holland: Let me quote briefly from the United States Constitution. I hear conservatives talking a lot about this document — I hear it’s a good thing.

Article I, Section 10 contains what’s known as the Contract Clause, and it reads, in part: “No state shall…pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing Obligation of Contracts.”
It’s really simple. It seems pretty straightforward. How is that working out? I mean how are they getting away with this?

Taibbi: In Rhode Island there was a group that went on a roadshow to push the pension reform plan that Raimondo and some other people had cooked up, and they had a PowerPoint presentation, and one of the parts of the presentation involved potential objections to this plan. And on one of the slides it notes that, ‘The US Constitution forbids the abrogation of contracts; the Rhode Island State Constitution also forbids it. So you might get that objection when you’re pushing this…’  So even those people were aware of it. But they went ahead anyway, and, that’s what’s going on.
That was part of what happened in Rhode Island that was different. Initially, before the courts forced them to go back and negotiate the new pension reform, the pension reform in that state was done unilaterally, without going back to the unions and re-bargaining the contracts, which you would think is unconstitutional, but that’s exactly what happened. And that’s what they want states to have the power to do now is just to go back and change these arrangements that might have been made 15 or 20 or 30 years ago.

Holland: And that’s certainly what they did in Detroit, where the emergency manager unilaterally — they didn’t go back and renegotiate contracts — they unilaterally cut benefits.

Taibbi: Right. Exactly.

Holland: So what about the effort to push back on this? Is there a campaign to right this wrong? What’s going on on that front?

Taibbi: Yes, there definitely is. I think unions everywhere are only beginning to catch on to the intricacies of what goes on with pension finance. You know, it’s funny, one of the union workers I talked to, he was kind of laughingly comparing being at a pension board meeting to watching the movie Windtalkers. He said, “You can sit and listen to these guys for a half an hour and you won’t have any idea what the hell they’re talking about.” And this is a huge obstacle because there’s no rule in most states that the people who sit on pension boards have to have any background in finance, and yet, this kind of finance is about as complicated as it gets. I mean if you’re just a layman sitting there, you won’t have any idea what anybody’s talking about, and if you’re looking at these spreadsheets, you won’t have any idea what the fees are. So they’ve had to get up to speed.

I think union reps now realize that they have to educate themselves about how all this stuff works, and they’re starting to push back and they’re starting to demand answers. And we’ve seen the results in places like Rhode Island, where initially they didn’t disclose anything about fees, but now they’re getting that information. And initially they didn’t even consider the issue of hiring hedge funds that had taken anti-labor positions, but they’re considering it now. So there is some movement on it, but the problem is that there’s just so much more money on the other side.

Dawn

As NASA's Dawn spacecraft travels to its next destination, this mosaic synthesizes some of the best views the spacecraft had of the giant asteroid Vesta. Dawn studied Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. The towering mountain at the south pole - more than twice the height of Mount Everest - is visible at the bottom of the image. The set of three craters known as the "snowman" can be seen at the top left.

Fishing?


Weekend at the beach...


When we arrived
We had a plan to go fishing for Salmon and Cod, plus crab, then maybe dig for clams. We had rented a house on the beach in Netarts, besides the fishing we would do some hiking and just relax for a few days. Sounds great. But reality… A storm was coming in and I checked the weather report. Small craft advisory all weekend, gale force winds, heavy rain was what was predicted. I thought there was no way we were going fishing, but some had more optimism and we still were on.

The drive to the coast wasn’t bad, a little light rain but nothing that would be so bad we couldn’t fish in it. Found the house and it was over looking a great spot on the north Oregon coast. Already the wine was open and food was out, the others were there already having a great time. I still didn’t think we would be fishing in the morning. But the optimism was still going strong.

Within a few hours, the wind was up and the rain was falling. By nine o’clock the wind was blowing the rain sideways and the sky was lit up by lighting. We were not going fishing…. During the flashes, we could hardly see the trees out side because the rain was so heavy. The windows were being pelted by rain and the sound was like a fire hose was spraying the house. I am sure the fish were happy since no one would be fishing for them this weekend.


At Lincoln City
Saturday morning broke with incredible amounts of rain and wind. Fishing was off but we decided to drive down the coast a few miles to visit a local beach. We had no illusion of sitting on the sand, but wanted to just have a look and get out and do something. Our group climbed into a couple of cars and off we went, we hoped the road was open…


Stormy weather
Though there was a lot of debris on the road, it was passable and drivable. As we drove the rain let up a bit but the wind was still strong. Our destination was the town of Lincoln City, a small beach town just a few miles south of where we were staying. Well the rain kind of stopped when we arrived but the wind was blowing the sand on the beach so hard it was like being sand-blasted. We all went into the only restaurant on the beach for a drink, but the beach was not the place to be.


A lull in the storm
We though that we might be able to hike since it stopped raining so we climbed into the cars and headed off to a state park. A very good hiking trail was on a point and we thought we would see how it was. Well the wind was still very strong, in reality it was like hurricane force. The trees were blowing so much we thought they would break, some did. We walked about 100 yards down a trail and decided that it was just not worth the risk, so back to the cars and a drive up the beach.

   
On the hike

We stopped one more time to see how the beach looked and we found monster waves, blowing foam, blowing sand, flying debris. OK we had enough, back to the house and get dry. It was too bad the weather was so bad, the area is very nice and can be a wonderful place to visit, but not when it is raining so hard. Actually it ended up raining more than 6 inches over the weekend. That’s a lot of rain!


Stupid is as Stupid does.... America's great political system in action...

Hours before a threatened government shutdown, the Senate has the next move Monday on must-do budget legislation that has fueled a bitter congressional dispute over President Barack Obama's signature health care law. But the Senate won't be riding to the rescue, at least not immediately. When it convenes at midday, the Democratic-led chamber is expected to reject the latest effort from House Republicans to use a normally routine measure to attack "Obamacare."
 
If no compromise can be reached by midnight, Americans would soon see the impact of a government shutdown. National parks would close. Many low-to-moderate incomes borrowers and first-time homebuyers seeking government-backed mortgages could face delays. About 800,000 federal workers would be forced off the job without pay. Some critical services such as patrolling the borders, inspecting meat and controlling air traffic would continue. Social Security benefits would be sent, and the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for the elderly and poor would continue to pay doctors and hospitals.
 
Senate rejection would send the measure back to the House, where conservative Republicans want to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law and repeal a tax on medical devices as the price for avoiding a shutdown. A House GOP leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, said the House would rebuff the Senate's efforts to advance the short-term funding bill as a simple, "clean" measure shorn of anti-heath care reform provisions.
 
Since the last government shutdown 17 years ago, temporary funding bills known as continuing resolutions have been noncontroversial, with neither party willing to chance a shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn't otherwise win. But with health insurance exchanges set to open Tuesday, tea party Republicans are willing to take the risk in their drive to kill the law, so-called "Obamacare."
"You're going to shut down the government if you can't prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable care," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. A leader of the tea party Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insisted the blame rests with Senate Democrats.
 
"The House has twice now voted to keep the government open. And if we have a shutdown, it will only be because when the Senate comes back, (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid says, 'I refuse even to talk,'" said Cruz, who led a 21-hour broadside against allowing the temporary funding bill to advance if stripped clean of a tea party-backed provision to derail Obamacare. The effort failed.
The battle started with a House vote to pass the short-term funding bill with a provision that would have eliminated the federal dollars needed to put Obama's health care overhaul into place. The Senate voted along party lines to strip that out and sent the measure back to the House.
 
The latest House bill, passed early Sunday by a near party-line vote of 231-192, sent back to the Senate two major changes: a one-year delay of key provisions of the health insurance law and repeal of a new tax on medical devices that partially funds it. The steps still go too far for the White House and its Democratic allies. Senate rules often make it difficult to move quickly, but the chamber can act on the House's latest proposals by simply calling them up and killing them. A senior leader vowed the House would not simply give in to Democrats' demands to pass the Senate's "clean" funding bill.
 
"The House will get back together in enough time, send another provision not to shut the government down, but to fund it, and it will have a few other options in there for the Senate to look at again," said McCarthy, the No. 3 House Republican leader. He suggested that House Republicans would try blocking a mandate that individuals buy health insurance or face a tax penalty, saying there might be some Democratic support in the Senate for that. On the other hand, Democrats said the GOP's bravado may fade as the deadline to avert a shutdown nears.
 
Asked whether he could vote for a "clean" temporary funding bill, Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said he couldn't. But he added, "I think there's enough people in the Republican Party who are willing to do that. And I think that's what you're going to see." A leading Senate GOP moderate called on her fellow Republicans to back down. "I disagree with the strategy of linking Obamacare with the continuing functioning of government — a strategy that cannot possibly work," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
 
McCarthy wouldn't say what changes Republicans might make. He appeared to suggest that a very short-term measure might pass at the last minute, but GOP aides said that was unlikely. Republicans argued that they had already made compromises; for instance, their latest measure would leave intact most parts of the health care law that have taken effect, including requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions and to let families' plans cover children up to age 26. They also would allow insurers to deny contraception coverage based on religious or moral objections.
 
Tea party lawmakers in the House — egged on by Cruz — forced GOP leaders to abandon an earlier plan to deliver a "clean" stopgap spending bill to the Senate and move the fight to another must-do measure looming in mid-October: a bill to increase the government's borrowing cap to avert a market-rattling, first-ever default on U.S. obligations. McCarthy appeared on "Fox News Sunday," while Cruz and Labrador were on NBC's "Meet the Press." Van Hollen appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Pillars of dust.........

The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Pictured is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy. This fairy, however, is ten light years tall and spews radiation much hotter than common fire. The greater Eagle Nebula, M16, is actually a giant evaporating shell of gas and dust inside of which is a growing cavity filled with a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming an open cluster of stars. The image in scientifically re-assigned colors was released in 2005 as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Lift... Not Yet...

NASA astronauts recently experienced what it will be like to launch into space aboard the new Orion spacecraft during the first ascent simulations since the space shuttles and their simulators were retired.

Ascent simulations are precise rehearsals of the steps a spacecraft’s crew will be responsible for – including things that could go wrong – during their climb into space. They can be generic and apply to any future deep space mission, or very specific to a launch that’s been planned down to the second. For now, Orion’s simulations fall into the first category, but practicing now helps ensure the team will have the systems perfected for the astronauts in any future mission scenario.

"Simulations like these provide valuable experience by giving astronauts and our operations team an early look at what going to deep space in Orion will be like," said Lee Morin, an astronaut and supervisor of Johnson’s rapid prototyping laboratory, who has been working on the Orion displays. "Rehearsing launch and ascent--two of the most challenging parts of Orion's mission -- also gives us an opportunity to work toward optimizing how the crew interacts with the spacecraft."

Designing a spacecraft’s cockpit for ease of use and efficiency is no easy task. Each space shuttle had 10 display screens, more than 1,200 switches, dials and gauges, plus hundreds of pounds of procedures printed on paper. Orion, which is designed for deep-space exploration and autonomous or piloted rendezvous and docking, will use new technology to distill all of that down to just three computer screens, each the size of a sheet of paper.

“It sounds promising and saves a lot of weight, but designing it is challenging,” said Jeff Fox, the Orion crew systems integration lead. “We don’t want the crew to have to search through a lot of dropdown menus when they need to quickly access key systems and information.”

It will take about eight minutes for Orion to get from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center to the altitude where the rocket’s main engines will cut off, the milestone that marks the spacecraft’s arrival in space. In that time, if everything goes as planned, the commander and pilot will have few actions to perform; if anything goes wrong, that quickly changes, and the crew must be able to quickly access all the relevant procedures and displays they need.

The Orion team has been working to develop ideas on how to make that possible, and has developed a working prototype that’s been installed in a life-sized Orion mockup at Johnson Space Center. But no one is better able to judge how well it works than an astronaut.

“No one knows how to fly Orion yet – the hardware doesn’t exist yet in some cases,” Morin said. “But these crews have a lot of flight experience and a lot of test flight experience. They can help us design the displays and build a better product.”

Over the course of two weeks, 10 crews of two astronauts apiece performed two normal launch simulations and two launch abort simulations inside the Orion mockup. As they made their way through the various actions they were called on to perform, engineers took careful notes of every comment they made and question they asked. That data will be evaluated as engineers continue to fine-tune the design and build requirements for the displays and controls.

In a few months, the same crews will come back and try a new and improved version, and the process will repeat itself as Orion’s mission requirements evolve and the vehicle design is refined. In the end, the engineers and astronauts will rest assured that the system will work exactly as it should. Orion’s data and software will be made available to NASA’s commercial partners for use in vehicles being built to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Although the final product will be different because the vehicles travel to unique destinations, NASA’s partners can choose to use it and build off of Orion’s foundation.

“It’s very rewarding work, knowing the displays we are creating and testing now will be what future astronauts will be looking at as they rendezvous with an asteroid, orbit the moon, and even travel to Mars,” Morin said. “Getting this right is key to making Orion and other future vehicles safer and easier to use.”

Orion’s first crewed launch, Exploration Mission-1, is scheduled for 2021, when NASA plans to send two astronauts to an asteroid in lunar orbit, with the help of NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. It will be the farthest humans have traveled in more than 40 years, and Orion will ultimately allow us to go even farther, including to destinations such as Mars

Lift and Drag

Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., use all sorts of tools and techniques to learn more during the development of aircraft and spacecraft designs.

In this photo, engineers led by researcher Greg Gatlin have sprayed fluorescent oil on a 5.8 percent scale model of a futuristic hybrid wing body during tests in the14 by-22-Foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel.

The oil helps researchers "see" the flow patterns when air passes over and around the model. Those patterns are important in determining crucial aircraft characteristics such as lift and drag.

Cygnus finally at the station..

A week after its original approach date, Orbital Sciences’ commercial cargo craft Cygnus has arrived at the International Space Station. The Expedition 37 crew captured Cygnus with the Canadarm2 at 7 a.m. EDT Sunday. Cygnus launched Sept. 18 aboard an Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Orbital Sciences uploaded a software fix for a navigation data mismatch that occurred during its approach Sept. 22. NASA managers opted to wait until after Wednesday’s Soyuz launch and docking to restart capture and berthing activities.

Cygnus was operating safely behind the space station by about 1,491 miles while mission managers and ground controllers tested the software patch and planned Sunday’s second approach attempt. Cygnus began a series of thruster burns towards the orbital laboratory Thursday night after station managers gave their final approval.



As Cygnus met its demonstration objectives and moved closer to the space station, Expedition 37 Flight Engineers Luca Parmitano and Karen Nyberg watched and worked in tandem with Mission Control. Parmitano was in the cupola at the Canadarm2 controls monitoring its approach. Nyberg was his back up at the secondary robotics workstation inside the Destiny laboratory.

When Cygnus met its final demonstration objective of pointing a tracking laser at a reflector on the Kibo laboratory it moved to its capture point about 10 meters from the station. Cygnus turned off its thrusters, operated in free drift, and Parmitano maneuvered the Canadarm2 to grapple and capture Cygnus.

Parmitano operated the Canadarm2 to move Cygnus and attached it to the Harmony node at 8:44 a.m. The hatches to Cygnus will be opened Monday afternoon after leak checks and power connections.

Orbital Sciences is the second company to send a commercial cargo craft to the space station. SpaceX was the first company to send its own cargo ship with two successful commercial resupply missions and two demonstration missions under its belt.

Why Oracle won...

1. It is well recognized that Oracle was having serious foiling stability difficulties at the outset of the regatta and that their performance could not match that of ETNZ.

2. Half way through the series it was acknowledged that Oracle had fitted an automatic control to their hydrofoil trim, and that this modification was approved by the measurement authorities.

3. Since this modification Oracle’s performance has almost unbelievably improved. This has been “explained” by skipper Jimmy Spithill as being due to the superhuman efforts of the crew to improve their handling skills. However, in view of the intensive training Oracle were able to do, prior to the regatta, with their highly skilled team partner, it seems unlikely that only now have they discovered the “magic bullet” they clearly have. It is much more likely to be the result of the modifications, possibly enabled by their surprising decision to use their lay day card and the subsequent lucky postponements.

4. It must be remembered that this is the first time that this contest has been sailed by yachts “flying “ on Hydrofoils and it is probable that new and different criteria should have been applied.

5. In the aeronautical world it has long been known that the stability of swept wing aircraft can rapidly be lost by uncontrolled yaw leading to a dangerous situation known as “Dutch Roll”.

6. A device known as “Little Herbie” was developed during the commissioning of the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jets over 40 years ago, to overcome this tendency. Little Herbies, or “Stability Augmentation Systems” (SAS) as these are now designated, are equipped with sensors such as Accelerometers and Gyros which can detect and instigate corrections to stability with a speed and accuracy which exceeds the ability of even experienced airline pilots. They are therefore now installed in virtually all swept-wing aircraft.

7. The “legality” of this device has been justified and accepted on the basis that it does not actually “drive” the trim of the foils…..this is still performed by the muscle power of the crew, via hydraulic linkages. That may be so, but the device, using its sensing and directives, has been described as “automatic”. This implies that the trim of the foils is determined by what can only be described as “superhuman” technology. If this technology has been used to overcome the foiling stability difficulties of Oracle it will have enabled the use of higher speed/lower drag foils which the crew would otherwise be unable to manage. This would give a significant speed advantage during foiling. This has been clearly in evidence since the modification. Improvement in stability and speed has been staggering.

8. The high speed/low drag foils do have a downside in light conditions where, due to their lesser lifting characteristic, foiling is difficult or impossible. This was also clearly seen in the abandoned Race #13 when ETNZ were only 4 minutes from the finish, with a lead of over 1000 metres.

9. ETNZ appears to have worked within the constraints of accepted yacht racing rules and the special America’s Cup 2013 racing Rules to achieve foiling with these craft. This has been at the cost of using foil characteristics and controls which can be successfully managed by a skilled crew while having to make some concession to pure speed.

10. Although there is risk of being derided for being a “poor loser”, or a “bad sport” it cannot go unnoticed that Team Oracle have already been penalised for cheating, that previous Defenders have been noted for sailing very close to the wind of rule compliance. The recent outpouring of bluff and arrogance from Jimmy Spithill may well be part of a plan to trail red herrings and to draw the attention off the real technological reason for their quite literally astounding comeback.

11. The question is whether the use of a device which can enhance performance in excess of that achievable by human endeavor should be allowed in a sporting contest?

12. Is this grounds for protest? At least we should all be aware that this is how desperate sporting entertainment has become.

Proposed changes tot he next America's Cup... Unofficial of course..

The Boat:
1. 60′ foiling cat out of a common symmetrical female mold. Each team can reinforce the hull for shrouds & centerboard locations as they please (goal is cost savings – Hull no longer touches water much so design is largely irrelevant).
2. Cross beams must disassemble from hulls for shipping (cost saver).
3. Mast two sections for ease of shipping (cost saver)
4. Wing mast. Contemplate a Spec spar (cost saver).
5. Standardize the centerboard bearing to a new common spec centerboard trunk/mechanism (cost saver).
6. Foils: Max four sets, possibly carbon only construction vs. Ti & carbon.
Advantages: easy shipping, build three hulls to have two and a spare in case of damage. Common centerboard trunks creates ability post event for teams to experiment and advance.

The Event:
1. Traveling roadshow to 4-6 city venues for 2 consecutive weekend events at each venue. Points from each event count to the challenger and defender selection, but not so many points can be achieved that anyone is mathematically badly handicapped before challenger finals in SF.
2. As boats are eliminated, activate fleet races for the ones that are out so those boats are still on the water – avoids one race/day problem and delivers guaranteed full summer of visibility for sponsors rather than visible until eliminated. The key to making golf interesting on TV is there are 18 holes going at once – lots more for the director to choose from. Great AC coverage in the past had the same thing, a rounding over here, a battle over there, back to another rounding, etc.
3. Finals in San Francisco – great venue for land viewing. Extend one leg to send the boats to a upwind mark 500 meters past the Gate. Iconic photo op and great viewing opportunity.
4. F1 has 4-5 other class races leading up to the big race each weekend – get the 45′s out every day first, followed by the big kahuna main event each day. Absurd to drive into the city for one 35 minute race during the trials and then the day is over.

Rules Changes:
1. Nationality – 60% crew from nation of challenge
2. Eliminate or broaden course boundaries – have to be able to achieve true splits to different winds (both sides of Alcatraz would have been awesome).
3. Boat must finish with all crew members (absurd to be able to leave overboard members behind)
4. Change penalty to 100 meters if ahead and 50 meters if behind. Current two boat lengths is too painless; sailors will figure out that the risk/reward ratio favors pushing too far because the penalty is low.
5. Expand wind range and time limit.

September 26, 2013

Cygnus Rendezvous Postponed

Cygnus Rendezvous Postponed to No Earlier Than Saturday

Managers from Orbital Sciences and NASA decided Monday morning to postpone the approach, rendezvous, grapple and berthing operations of Orbital's Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft with the International Space Station to no earlier than Saturday, Sept. 28. Cygnus' rendezvous now will follow the launch and arrival of three crew members of Expedition 37/38 on Wednesday, Sept. 25. Michael Hopkins of NASA and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will depart from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:58 p.m. EDT and arrive at the space station at 10:47 p.m.

The Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus commercial cargo craft lifts offOrbital has confirmed that over the past 24 hours, the Orbital team developed and tested a software fix for the data format mismatch that necessitated a postponement of the first rendezvous operation that was scheduled for the early morning of Sunday, Sept. 22. However, that process, together with the impending Soyuz crew operations, resulted in a tight schedule to the point that both Orbital and NASA felt it was the right decision to postpone the Cygnus approach and rendezvous until after Soyuz operations.

An exact schedule for Cygnus will be determined following the successful completion of Soyuz operations. For the latest information about Cygnus and Orbital's demonstration cargo resupply mission.

Expedition 37 crew members aboard the space station now will have an off-duty day in advance of a busy week ahead. This includes Tuesday's Cygnus rendezvous, followed by preparations for the arrival of three new crew members Wednesday. Michael Hopkins of NASA and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will depart from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:58 p.m. EDT aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

Cygnus launched Wednesday aboard an Antares rocket at 10:58 a.m. EDT from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia after a 24 hour delay due to poor weather preventing its roll-out to the launch pad.

It has several demonstration objectives it must complete before NASA approves its capture by the Canadarm2 and its berthing to the Harmony node. The Cygnus has already achieved three of its demonstration objectives during its first two days in orbit. The vehicle first demonstrated its position and control ability, or its ability to orient itself in space; second, the vehicle turned off its engines and operated while in free drift; third, Cygnus conducted a demonstration abort maneuver.

Before any new cargo craft can approach and rendezvous with the station for the first time it must meet a set of objectives to prove its capabilities before it is finally captured or docked. The resupply craft is followed closely by mission controllers on its way to the station. When the spacecraft reaches certain points along its trajectory the flight director polls mission controllers before giving the “go/no-go” decision to proceed to its next point.

As Cygnus meets its demonstration objectives and moves closer to the space station, Expedition 37 Flight Engineers Luca Parmitano and Karen Nyberg will be watching and working in tandem with Mission Control. Parmitano will be in the cupola at the Canadarm2 controls monitoring its approach. Nyberg will be his back up at the secondary robotics workstation inside the Destiny laboratory.
When Cygnus meets its final demonstration objective of pointing a tracking laser at a reflector on the Kibo laboratory it will move to its capture point about 10 meters from the station. Cygnus will turn off its thrusters, operating in free drift, and Parmitano will maneuver the Canadarm2 to grapple and capture the new resupply craft.

After capture, Parmitano will operate the Canadarm2 to move Cygnus and attach it to the Harmony node. The hatches to Cygnus are planned to be opened following leak checks and power connections.
Orbital Sciences is the second company to send a commercial cargo craft to the space station. SpaceX was the first company to send its own cargo ship with two successful commercial resupply missions and two demonstration missions under its belt.

M31 and M33

Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 ,left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This wide-angle, telescopic mosaic captures colorful details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away. Mirach, just 200 light-years from the Sun, lies well within the Milky Way, along with the dim clouds of dust drifting through the frame only a few hundred light-years above the galactic plane. Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are locked in a mutual gravitational embrace. Radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.

Expedition 37 arrives..

New Expedition 37 crew members Oleg Kotov, Mike Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy were welcomed aboard the International Space Station Thursday at 12:34 a.m. EDT. They docked to the Poisk mini-research module Wednesday at 10:45 p.m. EDT aboard a Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft.

They launched just four orbits earlier at 4:58 p.m. from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. After the hatches opened the new residents were greeted by Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano.

Kotov, Hopkins and Ryazanskiy are scheduled for a 5-1/2 month stay in space living and working inside the orbital laboratory. They are due to return home in March 2014 landing in Kazakhstan inside the same Soyuz spacecraft they arrived in.

This is Kotov’s third space station mission. He served as a flight engineer for Expedition 15 in 2007. Kotov was also commander in 2010 for Expedition 23. Hopkins and Ryazanskiy are both on their first space mission.

Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano have been aboard the space station since May 28. They have seen the arrival of two international resupply ships and one commercial cargo craft.

Since they began their mission, Yurchikhin has participated in three Russian spacewalks. Parmitano conducted two U.S. spacewalks. Nyberg captured Japan’s Kounotori-4 resupply ship while at the controls of the Canadarm2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GN5LQh3q08s

New from Old... Reactivation of an old Pulsar.

Astronomers Uncover a 'Transformer' Pulsar

An international team of scientists using a fleet of orbiting X-ray telescopes, including NASA's Swift and Chandra X-ray Observatory, has discovered a millisecond pulsar with a dual identity. In a feat that has never before been observed, the star readily shifts back and forth between two mutually exclusive styles of pulsed emission -- one in X-rays, the other in radio.
The discovery, say scientists, represents a long-sought intermediate phase in the life of these powerful objects

"This transitional object took us decades to find, and it provides us with a unique opportunity to observe a pulsar's intense magnetic field in action," said Sergio Campana, an astronomer at Brera Observatory in Merate, Italy, and a co-author of a paper on the object that appears in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Nature.

What flips the switch from X-rays to radio and back is the rise and fall of gas streaming onto the pulsar from a normal companion star.

A pulsar is a magnetized neutron star that emits regular pulses of light. A neutron star is the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, compressing half a million times Earth's mass into a ball no larger than a city. Once the core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova, a neutron star is so dense that a teaspoonful weighs as much as a mountain.

Millisecond pulsars combine incredible density and powerful magnetic fields with extreme rotation. The fastest one known whirls at 43,000 revolutions per minute. Astronomers think they achieve such speeds because these pulsars reside in binary systems with normal stars.

During part of their stellar lives, gas flows from the normal star and falls onto the neutron star, heating to millions of degrees and emitting X-rays in the process. The pulsar's magnetic field directs the infalling gas onto its magnetic poles, producing hot spots that rotate with the neutron star and give rise to regular X-ray pulses.

The gas rains onto the pulsar's surface with incredible force, producing X-rays in the process, and ultimately coats the neutron star in a layer of hydrogen and helium fuel. When this layer reaches a certain depth, the fuel undergoes a runaway thermonuclear reaction and explodes, creating intense X-ray bursts. Over time, the gas stream also gradually speeds up the pulsar's rotation.

After about a billion years, the gas flow from the normal star declines and eventually stops, putting an end to X-ray pulses powered by the accretion of gas. But thanks to its increased spin and intense magnetic field, which together produce radio emission, the neutron star could continue operating as a radio pulsar.

On March 28, the European Space Agency's (ESA) International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory detected a flash of X-rays from a previously unknown source. This object, dubbed IGR J18245-2452, was observed by Swift's X-Ray Telescope (XRT) the following day, resulting in a more precise position. This enabled astronomers to place the source at the core of the globular star cluster M28, which is located about 18,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius.

"Swift provided the first accurate, subarcminute localization of the X-ray burst, which allowed for the additional discovery of the pulsar's radio waves by the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA)," said Jamie Kennea, a Swift team member at Penn State.

A week after the discovery, a team led by Alessandro Papitto of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain, directed ESA's XMM-Newton satellite toward the object. It detected X-ray pulses, which indicated a neutron star spinning once every 3.9 milliseconds or at about 15,000 rpm. By analyzing changes in the arrival times of these pulses, the scientists established that the pulsar was joined by a small companion star less than one-fifth the mass of our sun. The two stars orbit each other every 11 hours.

On April 5, the team detected variable radio emission with ATCA, but then, two days later, the object fired off an intense burst of X-rays carrying the tell-tale signature of a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a neutron star.

"Swift's Burst Alert Telescope was dynamically triggered by X-ray bursts from this star, which allowed its XRT to rapidly confirm the thermonuclear character of this explosion," said John Nousek, professor of astronomy and astrophysics and director of the Swift Mission Operations Center at Penn State, which controls the spacecraft's science and flight operations.

With the pulsar's spin and orbital characteristics in hand, a team led by Alessandro Papitto of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain, compared them to parameters for known radio pulsars in M28 and found a perfect match with PSR J1824-2452I.

Observations later that month using NASA's Chandra observatory pinpointed the location of the X-ray source, but radio observations performed around the same time failed to detect radio emission. Astronomers using the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in Australia, the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia then began an intensive campaign and were able to sporadically detect the pulsar's radio emissions.

Within weeks, the same pulsar showed clear evidence of accretion-powered X-ray emissions, as indicated by thermonuclear explosions, and rotation-powered signals at radio wavelengths. What was going on?

Papitto and his team think the answer lies in the interplay between the pulsar's magnetic field and variations in the gas flow from the companion.

During periods when the mass flow is less intense, the magnetic field sweeps away the gas and prevents it from reaching the surface and creating X-ray emission. With the region around the neutron star relatively gas free, radio signals can easily escape and astronomers detect a radio pulsar.

"At high mass flow rates, the gas squeezes the magnetic field and is able to reach the surface to produce X-ray emission. At the same time, the dense cloud of ionized gas surrounding the pulsar quenches the radio signals, effectively blocking them from our view," Papitto explained.

Astronomers had expected these kinds of changes to occur on million-year timescales. But thanks to an international fleet of space-borne telescopes and support from many observatories on the ground, scientists now have uncovered the truth of IGR J18245-2452, the amazing quick-change artist among pulsars.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPpDTvYL5ik&feature=player_detailpage

"Monday morning helmsman....."

Comeback it will be called, and that isn’t wrong. The underlying story however really is that Oracle has been in the AC game for years, and with their virtually unlimited resources, were simply able to develop a faster boat throughout the series. And as we all know, a faster boat almost always wins. Of course, the dramatic way in which they did that and applied that to 8 straight wins was something never quite seen before, and certainly the feat cannot be minimized, but must be placed in the proper context.

As for the final race, ETNZ could not have been asked to sail a better race – great start, leads at both the turning mark and the leeward gate, they simply, in the words of commentator Kenny Read “Got boatspeeded to death.” Oracle’s upwind pace is now stuff of legend, once again just simply sailing away to turn a close race into a rout.

One has to feel for Dean Barker. A shot of him standing at the wheel after the race, alone, and emotionally devastated was a powerful image and a reminder of the heart that is put into this sport by so many dedicated sailors like him. Gutted to be sure, but with absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You got beat by a faster boat, mate. End of story.

Those crazy French...

If it wasn’t for Franck Cammas, Oracle would likely have never won the DoG match. He owned the Volvo Ocean Race with Groupama 70. He owned the ORMA fleet with Groupama 2. He owned the ocean with Groupama 3. And now he owns the C-Class with Groupama C. Is there anything Franck Cammas can’t do? Well, he clearly can walk on water, so maybe not. Next stop for the French superstar: The America’s Cup?

September 25, 2013

Expedition 37

A new trio of Expedition 37 residents is on its way to the International Space Station. Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineers Mike Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy launched aboard a Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft at 4:58 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

They will join their orbiting crewmates just four orbits later when they dock to the Poisk mini-research module at 10:48 p.m. After the hatches open, the new residents will participate in a welcome ceremony at 12:25 a.m. with Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano.

Kotov, Hopkins and Ryazanskiy are scheduled for a 5-1/2 month stay in space living and working inside the orbital laboratory. They are due to return home in March 2014 landing in Kazakhstan inside the same Soyuz spacecraft they arrived in.

This is Kotov’s third space station mission. He served as a flight engineer for Expedition 15 in 2007. Kotov was also commander in 2010 for Expedition 23. Hopkins and Ryazanskiy are both on their first space mission.

Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano have been aboard the space station since May 28. They have seen the arrival of two international resupply ships and one commercial cargo craft.

Since they began their mission, Yurchikhin has participated in three Russian spacewalks. Parmitano conducted two U.S. spacewalks. Nyberg captured Japan’s Kounotori-4 resupply ship while at the controls of the Canadarm2

Oracle wins!!!!


Yes it is over!!! But WOW! Oracle pulled out a great win and came from behind to win the cup. New Zealand had the better side on the start and Oracle just had to settle with an even race to Mark 1. As Oracle rounded the mark, they were forced to power down and their bow came down hard, they lost a little time but made a quick recovery.

On the fast downwind to mark 2, New Zealand and Oracle were on each other. Oracle was just feet behind and had to maneuver to not contact New Zealand. As they made for the mark, New Zealand still had a lead but it was really nothing.

Around the mark and Oracle went off with speed. A fast tacking duel started but Oracle gained ever so slightly. As they crossed paths, Oracle first had to dip behind New Zealand, they were within a boat length of each other. Then on the next cross, New Zealand had to dip meaning Oracle was in the lead. That was it. Once Oracle was in front they were off. New Zealand tried to tack a few times for better air but just had a bad spot.

Oracle went around Mark 3 with speed, they were foiling on the way up wind. Something they seemed they couldn't do in the first few races. Oracle opened up a huge lead and just crushed, New Zealand had no chance after that. Only a failure could have cost Oracle the win.

Crossing the finish with a lead of 38 seconds, Oracle keeps the cup..... Now lets see what happens.

Subsidies to Big Business.... What you pay...

Average American Family Pays $6K a Year in Subsidies to Big Business


$6,000.

That’s over and above our payments to the big companies for energy and food and housing and health care and all our tech devices. It’s $6,000 that no family would have to pay if we truly lived in a competitive but well-regulated free-market economy.

The $6,000 figure is an average, which means that low-income families are paying less. But it also means that families (households) making over $72,000 are paying more than $6,000 to the corporations.

1. $870 for Direct Subsidies and Grants to Companies
The Cato Institute estimates that the US federal government spends $100 billion a year on corporate welfare. That’s an average of $870 for each one of America’s 115 million families. Cato notes that this includes “cash payments to farmers and research funds to high-tech companies, as well as indirect subsidies, such as funding for overseas promotion of specific US products and industries…It does not include tax preferences or trade restrictions.”

It does include payments to 374 individuals on the plush Upper East Side of New York City and others who own farms, including Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi and Ted Turner. Wealthy heir Mark Rockefeller received $342,000 to NOT farm, to allow his Idaho land to return to its natural state.
It also includes fossil fuel subsidies, which could be anywhere from $10 billion to $41 billion per year for research and development. Yet this may be substantially underestimated. The IMF reports US fossil fuel subsidies of $502 billion, which would be almost $4,400 per US family by taking into account “the effects of energy consumption on global warming [and] on public health through the adverse effects on local pollution.” According to Grist, even this is an underestimate.

2. $696 for Business Incentives at the State, County and City Levels
The subsidies mentioned above are federal subsidies. A New York Times investigation found that states, counties and cities give up over $80 billion each year to companies, with beneficiaries coming from: ”virtually every corner of the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates, technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains.”

$80 billion a year is $696 for every US family. But The Times notes that “The cost of the awards is certainly far higher.”

3. $722 for Interest Rate Subsidies for Banks
According to The Huffington Post, the US government essentially gives the banks 3 cents of every tax dollar. They cite research that calculates a nearly one percent benefit to banks when they borrow, through bonds and customer deposits and other liabilities. This amounts to a taxpayer subsidy of $83 billion or about $722 from every American family.

The wealthiest five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs — account for three-quarters of the total subsidy. The Huffington Post article notes that without the taxpayer subsidy, those banks would not make a profit. In other words, “the profits they report are essentially transfers from taxpayers to their shareholders.”

4. $350 for Retirement Fund Bank Fees
This was a tough one to calculate. Demos reports that over a lifetime, bank fees can “cost a median-income two-earner family nearly $155,000 and consume nearly one-third of their investment returns.” Fees are well over one percent a year.

However, the Economic Policy Institute notes that the average middle-quintile retirement account is $34,981. A conservative one percent annual management fee translates to about $350 per family. This, again, is an average; many families have no retirement account. But many families pay much more than one percent in annual fees.

5. $1,268 for Overpriced Medications
According to Dean Baker, “government granted patent monopolies raise the price of prescription drugs by close to $270 billion a year compared to the free market price.” This represents an astonishing annual cost of over $2,000 to an average American family.

OECD figures on pharmaceutical expenditures reveal that Americans spend almost twice the OECD average on drugs, an additional $460 per capita. This translates to $1,268 per household.

6. $870 for Corporate Tax Subsidies
We’ve heard a lot about tax avoidance and tax breaks for the super-rich. With regard to corporations alone, the Tax Foundation has concluded that their “special tax provisions” cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year or $870 per family. Corporate benefits include items such as graduated corporate income, inventory property sales, research and experimentation tax credit, accelerated depreciation and deferred taxes.

Once again, it may be even worse. Citizens for Tax Justice cite a Government Accountability Office report that calculated a loss to the Treasury of $181 billion from corporate tax expenditures. That would be almost $1,600 per family.

7. $1,231 for Revenue Losses from Corporate Tax Havens
US PIRG recently reported that the average 2012 taxpayer paid an extra $1,026 in taxes to make up for the revenue lost from offshore tax havens by corporations and wealthy individuals. With 138 million taxpayers (1.2 per household), that comes to $1,231 per household.

Much More Than an Insult
Overall, American families are paying an annual $6,000 subsidy to corporations that have doubled their profits and cut their taxes in half in 10 years while cutting 2.9 million jobs in the US and adding almost as many jobs overseas.

This is more than an insult. It’s a devastating attack on the livelihoods of tens of millions of American families. And Congress just lets it happen.

Well more on our wonderful government.....

Seven Things You Should Know About the Wackiest “Fiscal Crisis” Yet


Sometime in the next week, Congress will either get it together to pass a new budget resolution or the government will shut down (all but essential services). Two weeks after that, the federal government will reach its debt limit. If it is not raised, nobody really knows what will happen. The only sure thing is that it would roil the financial markets and cause some damage to the global economy.

So, we have another fiscal cliff. This contrived crisis is even more irrational than those of the past few years because Republicans in Congress have not only taken a hostage that they can’t shoot, but are demanding that Democrats ditch their signature achievement of the Obama presidency: the Affordable Care Act.

Here are seven things you need to understand about how wacky all of this really is.

1. The plan …
Political observers expect to see some serious kabuki theater in the next few weeks. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) caved in to tea party pressure and passed a budget resolution last week that includes a measure “defunding” the act.

Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have been attacking House Republicans for not passing such a bill. In all likelihood, they will now filibuster the bill they have been begging for in order to try to block Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) from stripping out the defunding language, which he can do with a simple majority.

Because many Republican senators think this is all crazy – John McCain referred to Cruz as a “wacko-bird” a few months back, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said he won’t support the effort — the filibuster will only be a delaying tactic. In the final days or hours before the government shuts down, the Senate will send a budget to the House. At that point, Boehner will either attract enough Republican votes by promising a showdown over the debt limit in a couple of weeks and pass the budget with a bunch of Democratic votes or let the government shut down.
Then there’s the debt limit. Boehner has promised his members that they will get another bite of the Obamacare apple, but he faces a big problem: Obama’s insistence that it is Congress’ duty to pay the bills it ran up, and his refusal to negotiate on the matter.

The Washington Post’s Paul Kane reports that Boehner may hold a vote this week on a bill laden down with conservative goodies — including the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, Medicare means testing, tax reform and a one year delay of all the health care act’s provisions — in order to get his caucus to raise the debt limit through 2014, but it is not clear whether any debt limit hike can attract 218 Republican votes, especially one that would be dead on arrival in the Senate.

2. Everyone knows this is all a scam …
Everyone in Washington knows that these budget shenanigans have zero chance of success because the vast majority of the funding for the health care act is “mandatory spending,” which means that a shutdown will have no effect. Only a bill passed by the (Democratically controlled) Senate and signed by Obama could defund the health care law, which is about as likely as the Loch Ness monster singing the national anthem at this year’s World Series.

But as The Washington Post’s conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin notes, the outside groups pushing the effort — Freedomworks, the Heritage Action Committee and the Senate Conservatives Fund – are raising big bucks from all this drama. In fact, according to The Huffington Post, the Senate Conservatives Fund “raised its largest-ever monthly total for a non-election year this August.” Democrats are reportedly getting in on the action as well.

3. Plan B …
Ted Cruz offered an alternative this week when he urged the House to continue sending bills funding various elements of government to the Senate. “If Harry Reid kills this bill in this Senate, I think the House should hold its ground and begin passing smaller continuing resolutions one department at a time,” Cruz told Fox News this week. “It should start with a continuing resolution focused on the military. Let’s see if Harry Reid is willing to shut down the military just because he wants to force Obamacare on the American people.”

As Roll Call noted, the House approved a defense authorization bill back in July.

4. “Clean” budget isn’t that clean …
The goal here is to get a “clean” budget resolution through both chambers of Congress and onto the president’s desk. But largely missing from the discussion is the fact such a budget would maintain the crushing cuts of the sequester, representing a significant victory for conservatives.

Democratic congressional staffers told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that they would not pick a fight over the sequester-level funding because the budget resolution is temporary — it will only keep the government afloat for three months — and they do not want to shift blame away from Republicans if a shutdown or default occurs.

5. Republicans are deluding themselves about the public’s opinion of Obamacare.
“The American people don’t want the government shut down, and they don’t want Obamacare,” John Boehner said after the House passed its bill. “The House has listened to the American people.” This is a common refrain from Republicans who support the effort to defund the law, and it is a product of being stuck in the conservative media bubble.

The truth is that while Americans are divided on the health care law – with slightly more opposing it than supporting it – poll after poll shows that large majorities disapprove of the effort to defund it by threatening a shutdown or messing with the credit of the US government.

6. No leverage.
John Boehner has all but begged the White House to enter into negotiations to raise the debt limit. But he has no leverage, for two reasons. First, he is on record saying that not raising the debt ceiling would lead to “a financial disaster, not only for us, but for the worldwide economy.” And second, because more than twice as many Americans would blame Republicans in Congress for that disaster than would blame the president.

It’s a weak hand. But he is really caught between a rock and a hard place: He has got little control over his caucus but is set up to be the fall guy if it all goes badly. It is no wonder that it has been widely rumored that he is not interested in another term as speaker.

7. Not raising the debt limit in a timely manner will increase the national debt …
Former Senator and Senate Finance Committee Chair Judd Gregg, R-N.H., explained this irony in an op-ed urging Republicans not to play “Russian Roulette with all the chambers of the gun loaded”…
A default would lead to some level of chaos in the debt markets, which would lead to a significant contraction in economic activity, which would lead to job losses, which would lead to higher spending by the federal government and lower tax revenues, which would lead to more debt.