Rick Perry’s amazing rise to the top of the GOP field

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Romney, Palin, Bachmann, Paul all drop since his entry

From Eric Dondero:

A super-interesting new compilation of polling figures from Nate Silver at the NY Times. Who's up, and who's down since Rick Perry's announcement for President. He writes:

Now there have been five surveys conducted since Rick Perry announced his presidential campaign — one each from Gallup, Rasmussen Reports and Public Policy Polling, and two from YouGov. Each shows Mr. Perry having vaulted into a lead over Mitt Romney.

Silver adds:

Mr. Perry’s results are yet more impressive if you account for his name recognition — which although increasing very rapidly remains behind that of Mr. Romney and some of the other Republican contenders.

Meanwhile, Gallup has Perry now firmly in the lead as the GOP frontrunner ahead of Romney 29% to 17%.

Huntsman attracting younger "libertarian-minded" GOP voters?

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From Eric Dondero:

Former Utah Governor, and moderate Republican candidate for President, Jon Huntsman was in Georgia recently on a campaign swing. He visited the State Capitol and met with legislators. Later that night (via AJC.com Behind the red carpet treatment of Jon Huntsman - Jim Galloway):

A Buckhead fundraiser for Huntsman turned out perhaps 60 people on Tuesday evening, including former House speaker Terry Coleman, a Democrat. Many of those who attended, in private conversations, wondered whether they were meeting a 2012 presidential candidate, or a leader of the next, more libertarian-minded generation of Republican voters.

Photo credit - MLive.com

Rick Perry; Ron Paul without the baggage?

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Two Texans Splittin' the Tea

Excerpted, column, Bud Kennedy, Perry, "Paul compete for Tea Party vote" Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 23:

Paul, a Lake Jackson obstetrician, former Libertarian candidate and favorite of some Tea Party groups, has already joked to crowds that Perry's early Texas tough talk "makes me sound like a moderate."

[2010 Perry GOP primary opponent Debra Medina]... "when [Perry] talks about smaller government and stabilizing the economy -- that's what Ron Paul has talked about all along."

Paul's supporters organized the first Tea ("Taxed Enough Already") Party rallies here in 2009, before Perry campaigners and Republican organizers co-opted the name at Tax Day rallies. Their books even have echoing titles: Fed Up! (Perry) and End the Fed (Paul).

Jerry Polinard, a political science professor at the University of Texas-Pan American, said Paul is "very attractive" to a party shifting rightward.

"Right now, they see Paul as a pure conservative, but they think Perry might be both ideologically pure and electable," he said. "Perry can't be the most right-wing candidate in the race. That's Ron Paul. But all Perry has to say is that he's the most right-wing candidate who can beat Obama."

The two will meet -- for the first time, Paul has said -- at a campaign forum Sept. 5 in South Carolina.

They might split the Tea.

Indiana Libertarian Candidates for 2011

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2011 Mayoral Candidates Office Candidate Website Facebook page Email Anderson Rob Jozwiak Facebook Columbia City Scott Wise Website Facebook Elkhart Oscar Gibson Greenfield Phil Miller Website Facebook Greenwood Jeff Spoonamore Website Facebook Indianapolis Chris Bowen Website Facebook Email Jeffersonville Bob Isgrigg New Albany Thomas Keister Website Facebook Rushville Debbie O’Neal Facebook South Bend Pat Farrell  [...]

LNC Donates $50,000 to the Re-Election of Ed Coleman

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The Libertarian National Committee has voted to make a significant contribution to Re-election of Indianapolis City-County Councilor Ed Coleman. The LNC will contribute $50,000 to the highest ranking Libertarian official in the United States seeking to stay on the Council. Coleman was elected in 2007 to office as a Republican to an At-Large seat on [...]

Ed Coleman’s Big Weekend

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Ed Coleman is an Indianapolis City-County Councilman. He won election four years ago as a Republican running at-large, but before long, he grew very disenchanted with the Republican Party and the dictatorial leadership on the Council that wanted him to vote contrary to his principles and conscience, and toe the line. So, he defected to the [...]

FBI Organizes Almost All Terror Plots in the US

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Are you surprised? I'm not.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.

If you think that’s a few spies too many – spies earning as much as $100,000 per assignment – one doesn’t have to go too deep into their track record to see their accomplishments. Those agents are responsible for an overwhelming amount of terrorist stings that have stopped major domestic catastrophes in the vein of 9/11 from happening on American soil.

Another thing those agents are responsible for, however, is plotting those very schemes.

The FBI has in recent years used trained informants not just to snitch on suspected terrorists, but to set them up from the get-go. A recent report put together by Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkley analyses some striking statistics about the role of FBI informants in terrorism cases that the Bureau has targeted in the decade since the September 11 attacks.

The report reveals that the FBI regularly infiltrates communities where they suspect terrorist-minded individuals to be engaging with others. Regardless of their intentions, agents are sent in to converse within the community, find suspects that could potentially carry out “lone wolf” attacks and then, more or less, encourage them to do so. By providing weaponry, funds and a plan, FBI-directed agents will encourage otherwise-unwilling participants to plot out terrorist attacks, only to bust them before any events fully materialize.

Additionally, one former high-level FBI officials speaking to Mother Jones says that, for every informant officially employed by the bureau, up to three unofficial agents are working undercover.

The FBI has used those informants to set-up and thus shut-down several of the more high profile would-be attacks in recent years. The report reveals that the Washington DC Metro bombing plot, the New York City subway plot, the attempt to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and dozens more were all orchestrated by FBI agents. In fact, reads the report, only three of the more well-known terror plots of the last decade weren’t orchestrated by FBI-involved agents.

The report reveals that in many of the stings, important meetings between informants and the unknowing participants are left purposely unrecorded, as to avoid any entrapment charges that could cause the case to be dismissed. Perhaps the most high-profile of the FBI-proposed plots was the case of the Newburgh 4. Around an hour outside of New York City, an informant infiltrated a Muslim community and engaged four local men to carry out a series of attacks. Those men may have never actually carried out an attack, but once the informant offered them a plot and a pair of missiles, they agreed. Defense attorneys cried “entrapment,” but the men still were sentenced to 25 years apiece.

"The problem with the cases we're talking about is that defendants would not have done anything if not kicked in the ass by government agents," Martin Stolar tells Mother Jones. Stolar represented the suspect involved in a New York City bombing plot that was set-up by FBI agents. "They're creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror." For their part, the FBI says this method is a plan for "preemption," "prevention" and "disruption."

The report also reveals that, of the 500-plus prosecutions of terrorism-related cases they analyzed, nearly half of them involved the use of informants, many of whom worked for the FBI in exchange for money or to work off criminal charges. Of the 158 prosecutions carried out, 49 defendants participated in plots that agent provocateurs arranged on behalf of the FBI.

Experts note that the chance of winning a terrorism-related trial, entrapment or not, is near impossible. "The plots people are accused of being part of – attacking subway systems or trying to bomb a building – are so frightening that they can overwhelm a jury," David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, tells Mother Jones. Since 9/11, almost two-thirds of the cases linked to terrorism have ended with guilty pleas. “They don't say, 'I've been entrapped,' or, 'I was immature,’” a retired FBI official remarks.

All of this and those guilty pleas often stem for just being in the right place at the wrong time. Farhana Khera of the group Muslim Advocate notes that agents go into mosques on “fishing expeditions” just to see where they can get interest in the community. "The FBI is now telling agents they can go into houses of worship without probable cause," says Khera. "That raises serious constitutional issues."

From the set-up to the big finish, the whole sting operation is ripe with constitutional issues such as that. A decade since 9/11, however, the FBI is reaching through whatever means it can pull together to keep terrorists – or whom they think could someday become one – from ever hurting America.

Reprinted with permission from Russia Today.

Mercury’s Rembrandt Crater

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Mercury's Rembrandt crater from the Messenger spacecraft on August 7, 2011. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Yes, in case you were wondering and even if you weren’t the Messenger spacecraft orbiting around Mercury is alive and well and still returning very nice images.

The ESA is planning their own mission to Mercury with their Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) which is going through a bit of testing at the moment.  I’ll tell you more about the ESA mission in a day or two.

Here’s the Messenger informational caption for the image:

This limb image shows Rembrandt, the second largest impact basin on Mercury after Caloris. Discovered during the second MESSENGER flyby, Rembrandt is one of the youngest impact basins on Mercury, as indicated by the relatively low density of impact craters on its rim. A large lobate scarp trending from the southwest to the north crosscuts Rembrandt and several of the smaller craters that have impacted the smooth interior plains.

Communication With Progress 44 Lost

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Ironically not long after we closed the door on the shuttle program a Progress resupply ship is lost.  Perhaps they can find it.

UPDATE:  They found it – crashed

From NASA HQ:

Mission Control Moscow reported that communication with the Progress 44 cargo craft was lost 5 minutes, 20 seconds after its launch at 9 a.m. EDT today. Preliminary data from the Russian Federal Space Agency indicate there was a problem with the propulsion system, and that the vehicle did not reach its desired orbit.

International Space Station Program Manager Michael Suffredini will hold a news conference on NASA Television at noon EDT.

Just after 11 a.m., Mission Control Moscow radioed a report to the crew on board the station:

“At 1300 (GMT), we lifted off, following 320 seconds of flight there was a failure in the upper stage of the launch vehicle. We lost communications after a while with the launch vehicle and we did not report stage separation,” said Maxim Matuchen, the head of the Russian Mission Control Center.

“In the previous communications pass we attempted to contact the vehicle through every possible channel. Orbital monitoring telemetry and we have just finished our second communications pass where we invoked all of the communications facilities. We sent commands to activate the communications pass on board, unfortunately it failed.”

“Understood,” replied Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko.

“This is it for the moment, we’ll try to figure out what has happened and what the cause was. I just wanted to keep you informed.”

“Thank you for letting us know so quickly,” Borisenko added. “Thank you from the entire crew.”

Progress 44 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome into a cloudless sky at 7 p.m. Kazakhstan time bound for the International Space Station and a docking on Friday. At the time of launch, the space station was flying 230 miles over Equatorial Guinea on the west coast of Africa. The spacecraft is carrying 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies for the space station.

In the Bullseye

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Hurricane Irene from the ISS last Monday. Click for larger. Image credit: NASA

I am in hurricane Irene’s bullseye, not good.  Fortunately I am inland a ways.  Depending on the model I look at things go from bad to worse. Likely, no,  almost certainly I will loose power and internet connection for an extended period. Tomorrow is the “get ready” day outside, Saturday will be get some milk and maybe some food although I should be pretty well set for that.

If you live along the east coast – anywhere along the east coast from the Carolinas north, do what you have to to be safe and fool with this one – be ready as much as you can be.  Trudy -  Be safe!

The image I have above was taken from the International Space Station on Monday morning.

Oh speaking of the ISS, yesterday I told of the Progress 44 crash and I am heartened to know my lamenting of the US space program direction is shared by some of the “powers that be”.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) (and a senior member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology) issued the following statement in reaction to today’s failure of the Russian Progress Soyuz cargo rocket (source: Rep. Rohrabacher) :

“Today, Russia’s Soyuz launch vehicle failed to boost the Progress M-12M cargo ship into orbit to deliver needed supplies to the International Space Station. This failure should be a cause of grave concern, and a moment of reexamination of America’s space strategy,” said Rohrabacher.

“Today’s Russian rocket failure will interrupt ISS cargo deliveries, and could threaten crew transportation as well. NASA needs to conduct an investigation before another Soyuz spacecraft with new ISS crew members can be launched, and it is unknown how long such an investigation will take.”

“I hope this is a minor problem with a quick and simple fix,” said Rohrabacher. “But this episode underscores America’s need for reliable launch systems of its own to carry cargo and crew into space. The only way to achieve this goal is to place more emphasis on commercial cargo and crew systems currently being developed by American companies.

“We need to get on with the task of building affordable launch systems to meet our nation’s needs for access to low Earth orbit, instead of promoting grandiose concepts which keep us vulnerable in the short and medium terms. The most responsible course of action for the United States is to dramatically accelerate the commercial crew systems already under development.

“I am calling on General Bolden, the NASA Administrator, to propose an emergency transfer of funding from unobligated balances in other programs, including the Space Launch System, to NASA’s commercial crew initiative. Funding should be used to speed up the efforts of the four current industry partners to develop their systems and potentially expand the recent awards to include the best applicants for launch vehicle development.

“NASA could potentially transfer several hundred million dollars from this long term development concept, since the SLS project has not even started, to the more urgently needed systems that can launch astronauts to ISS, reliably and affordably. This transfer will boost the development of American controlled technology and greatly reduce our dependence on the Russians.”

Martian Mountain Range

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Ohpir Chasma of the Valles Marineris -- check out the enlargement of this image

Ophir Chasma

During its examination of Mars, the Viking 1 spacecraft returned images of Valles Marineris, a huge canyon system 5,000 km, or about 3,106 miles, long, whose connected chasma or valleys may have formed from a combination of erosional collapse and structural activity. This synthetic oblique view shows Ophir Chasma, the northern most one of the connected valleys of Valles Marineris. For scale, the large impact crater in lower right corner is about 18.5 miles, or 30 km, wide.

Ophir Chasma is a large west-northwest-trending trough about 62 miles, or 100 km, wide. The Chasma is bordered by high-walled cliffs, most likely faults, that show spur-and-gully morphology and smooth sections. The walls have been dissected by landslides forming reentrants. The volume of the landslide debris is more than 1,000 times greater than that from the May 18, 1980, debris avalanche from Mount St. Helens. The longitudinal grooves seen in the foreground are thought to be due to differential shear and lateral spreading at high velocities.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS

Storm Tracker 5000

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Click here to view the embedded video.

LOL. Not really.   I just like the gimmicks the weather people on TV use to get viewers. We had Storm Tracker 5000, then it was Doppler 5000 with the phony radar like screens and now it’s back to just plain Storm Tracker 5.  What I really dislike is the TV guys/gals using those touch screens.  You can’t tell a darned thing because they are waving their arms around a hundred miles an hour like some crazy person possessed drawing nonsensical lines and boxes and such…geesh.

Yep, the TV folks do all that marketing and then when the time comes they kind of babble on and lull the viewers into a kind of stupor so they miss the forecast.  This, I suspect happens  so it’s hard to prove when the forecaster gets it wrong.  Ever happen to you?

Oh yeah the video, the STEREO spacecraft can watch CME’s all the way from the Sun to Earth which is pretty amazing.

Speaking of storms, I can hear the first line of thunderstorms moving on in so time to get off line.

Source

PS: If YOU are a TV weather person, no offense intended, merely an observation.    :mrgreen:

NCBI ROFL: Frequency of pubic hair transfer during sexual intercourse. | Discoblog

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“This study measured the frequency of pubic hair transfer between a limited number of consenting heterosexual partners. The results derive from controlled experiments with a number of human subjects rather than forensic casework. Standardized collection procedures were observed, situational variables were tracked. Participants (forensic laboratory employees and their spouses) were six Caucasian couples who collected their pubic hair combings immediately following intercourse. Subjects provided informed consent in accordance with the protocol for human subjects approved by the U.A.B. institutional review board. The experiment was replicated ten times for five couples, and five times for another couple (total n = 110). Transfer frequencies were calculated from instances where foreign (exogenous) hairs were observed. Results showed at least one exogenous pubic hair in 17.3% (19/110) of combings. Transfers to males (23.6%, or 13/55) were more prevalent than transfers to females (10.9%, or 6/55). Only once were transfers observed simultaneously between both male and female. A total of 28 exogenous pubic hairs were identified. Subjects reported intercourse duration of 2-25 min, intervening intervals of 1-240 h, pre-coital bathing intervals of 0.25-24 h, and predominantly missionary position (76%). No clear relationship among these other ...


Slate, science, and Brian Palmer | Gene Expression

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I’m still scratching my head over the rather atrocious Brian Palmer piece in Slate, Double Inanity: Twin studies are pretty much useless. It’s of a quality which would make it appropriate for WorldNetDaily. Here are the responses of Jason Collins, Daniel MacArthur, and Alex Tabarrok. The comments at Slate were rather scathing too. I observed over at Genomes Unzipped that many of the assertions in the piece were in the “not even wrong/what does that even mean?” class. Palmer is apparently a freelancer at Slate, and they’re doing a bunch of stories on twins this week. I wonder if they just sent him the assignment with instructions on the slant, and he took it a little too far. Even if it was a polemic it was a shoddy and embarrassing one. My main concern is that many people perceive Slate to be an organ which publishes “smart” and well researched pieces, and they’ll take Palmer’s screed at face value.

The scientific problems with the article are legion. But still: how does something like this get published in a relatively high-end publication? Brian Palmer has editors presumably. If the copy was an undergraduate paper the prose would be ...

Republicans more skeptical of astrology than Democrats | Gene Expression

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Someone on twitter was curious about GOP attitudes toward astrology. I left the party breakdown out of the previous post because ideology accounts for most party differences. In other words, conservatives are more skeptical of astrology than liberals, and Republicans more than Democrats, but the second result just seems to emerge from the Republican’s greater conservatism.

Astrology very scientific
Astrology somewhat scientific
Astrology not scientific

Strong Democrat
6
31
63

Democrat
7
30
63

Lean Democrat
4
28
67

Independent
7
37
57

Lean Republican
3
26
71

Republican
4
21
75

Strong Republican
4
20
76

Why are independents so gullible? It probably has to do with their lower average intelligence (this goes for moderates too). So I simply limited the sample to those with at least bachelor’s degrees to control for intelligence:

Limited to those with college degrees or more

Astrology very scientific
Astrology somewhat scientific
Astrology not scientific

Strong Democrat
3
21
76

Democrat
4
17
79

Lean Democrat
2
21
78

Independent
4
22
75

Lean Republican
1
9
90

Republican
0
11
88

Strong Republican
1
10
89

The distinctiveness of independents diminishes somewhat, but Democrats with college degrees or more remain more gullible than Republicans with the same (the difference remains if you control for sex by the way).

Irene sidles up to the east coast | Bad Astronomy

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The first hurricane of the 2011 season hits the U.S. east coast, as seen by a NASA Earth-observing satellite:

[Click to encoriolenate, or grab the nearly one-to-one sized 6000x7000 pixel version.]

This image was taken on August 26, 2011 at 16:30 UTC. For more images and video of Irene, keep an eye on the NASA GSFC Flickr page and follow them on Twitter.

Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

Related posts:

- Putting the eye in Irene
- Come on, Irene
- Attack of the Cyclones
- Hurricane double whammy


“Jurassic Mother” Is Our Earliest-Known Mammal Ancestor | 80beats

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spacing is important

What’s the News: Researchers have now found a well-preserved fossil of the earliest known member of the animal group that encompasses today’s placental mammals, which includes humans. The shrew-like creature, named Juramaia sinensis, or “Jurassic mother from China,” dates back to 160 million years ago, 35 million years earlier than the oldest mammal fossil previously discovered. The Nature study gives some tangible support to genetic evidence suggesting that the two main types of mammals split well before the previous oldest mammal fossils.

How the Heck:

Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and his colleagues analyzed the Juramaia fossil, which was unearthed in China’s northeast Liaoning Province, a hotspot for paleontology. The fossil consisted of an incomplete skull, a partial skeleton, a full set of teeth, and impressions of residual soft tissues like hair.
After comparing the fossil’s features with those of other ancient mammals, the ...