Hubble Limping Along

NASA engineers managed to get power restored to one of three detectors on the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble telescope. If power remains stable for a period of time, observations will resume. Meanwhile, NASA is holding a meeting to determine if they can safely send a shuttle to the telescope to keep it operational until a replacement can be launched.

Power was restored to one of three detectors on the Advanced Camera for Surveys after an electrical relay suspected as the cause of the shutdown was toggled on and off. NASA engineers believe the debris interfered with the electrical contact, the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement.

The institute said the performance of the detector will be monitored for the rest of the week. Observations will resume next week if its performance remains stable.

The Baltimore-based institute coordinates use of the orbiting telescope, launched in 1990 by the space shuttle, which has revolutionized astronomy with some of the most striking images ever seen in space.

NASA has scheduled a meeting Oct. 27 on the safety of a shuttle mission to service the Hubble to keep it working until a replacement is launched in 2011. The agency canceled a previously scheduled Hubble mission following the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003. That decision prompted an outcry from scientists and the public and forced NASA to reconsider.

It would be a real shame to lose this telescope. It has been the source of astonishing pictures of space since they got it working properly. Here's the Hubble website where you can see the amazing legacy of this instrument. You can also get really cool wallpaper for your computer screen.

Equine Equality Eviscerated!

The Port O'Call pub in Marshfield, England is setting itself up for the mother of all discrimination lawsuits. The new owners there are ignoring precedent and banning one of the regular, paying customers.

Morning Mist has been kicked out.

The new landlord of a pub has said he had no choice when he took over but to ban one of the regulars - a two-year-old pony called Morning Mist.

The mare with a penchant for John Smiths beer was a regular customer at the Port O'Call pub along with owner Tony Manton.

But when Graham Wheatley and Craig Thomas took over the pub, Morning Mist was given her marching orders on the grounds of health and safety.

Mr Manton, 62, is not happy about the changes at the pub, in Marshfield, situated between Cardiff and Newport.

He said: "I don't blame them for what they are doing but it's becoming a 'yuppie' pub.

"Not only have they done away with the pony, but they have got rid of the bar stools and tables and brought in settees and the like.

My God. Settees! What next? Lava lamps? Oh the humanity. Anyway, the new owners have completely ignored the strides made in equine equality. For example, there's Peggy, a regular at the  Alexandra Hotel in Jarrow, South Tyneside. She's a proper lady according to all accounts. Well, there's only one account, but it's positive! So the new owners of the Port O'Call are playing with fire. We can't help but wonder what they'll do when the two nuns and the guy with a parrot on his shoulder walk in.

Dang!

This is terrible news! Probably the worst news of this election cycle, or the next! George Clooney has definitively ruled out entering politics.

Clooney told reporters at a dinner honoring him on Friday night that he had no intention of entering the political arena. "I'm not running for office. I like my life," Clooney said.

And why not.

The Oscar-winning actor, director and social activist was feted by a who's who of Hollywood from studio executives to stars like Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Morgan Freeman, Salma Hayek and Ellen Barkin as he became the recipient of the 21st annual American Cinematheque award. Former President Bill Clinton, California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) taped messages of congratulations.

The award was given to Clooney by Julia Roberts, who declared that before she met her husband he was the best man she knew. "You can't imagine the things he can do with shaving cream and Neosporin (an antiseptic)," she said mysteriously.

Now what are we going to do with this stockpile of Clooney photoshops we've been working on? No we'll never get a chance to work on that shaving cream and Neosporin line, either! There is no justice in the world. None at all. And I guess that means we're back to waiting for that definitive proof.

The Real Problem

David Shribman has an interesting analysis up over at Real Clear Politics about the prospects of a Democratic takeover of at least one chamber of Congress. It is definitely something to think about. Because, as he points out, nothing is going to change until Congress changes itself, regardless of who controls what chamber.

Since you're wondering — wondering how likely a Democratic takeover of the House is right now — I'll provide you the answer one of the shrewdest political analysts around might give. "Momentum," says Jim Leyland, "is as good as your next day's pitcher."

Jim Leyland, of course, is the manager of the Detroit Tigers, and momentum is what the Democrats have in the wake of the Mark A. Foley scandal and the apparent remarkable Republican crackup of autumn 2006.

So the smart people are saying the Democrats have a lock on the House right now and are competitive in the Senate. Maybe they're right. Top Republicans worry they could lose as many as 30 House seats, twice as many as the Democrats need to take back control of the House. The latest USA Today/Gallup Poll shows Democrats with a 23-point lead over Republicans, the largest Democratic lead in 28 years, but a misleading one because the contest for House control is conducted in 435 individual contests and not in one national referendum.

That said, this is a Democratic moment, which is a huge advantage for a party that has been out of power a dozen years and rudderless for perhaps even longer.

But it is only a moment. You will notice that the word momentum consists primarily of the word moment — which brings us back to the wisdom of Mr. Leyland, the magus of Michigan. Moreover, the Bush family, which faced a 17-point deficit in 1988, when George H.W. Bush was running against Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, almost certainly remembers that Democrats have peaked early before and might do so again.

….

But a Democratic takeover would embolden the forces who have been thirsty for power since their last sip of it in 1994. The Democrats have a pent-up demand for progressive programs, to be sure, but they also have a pent-up demand for revenge, which in politics is not usually a feast for the gods. That could ensure two more years of ever more bitter bickering between the parties as the Republicans, who took out their anger at 40 years of exclusion in the Democratic years, once again become the victims. Turnabout is fair play, but it is not necessarily productive play.

The key to a productive Democratic reign is to rein in the human impulse to pulverize those who have pulverized you, and also not to overreach.

The last time there was a big switch in power, the president whose party was repudiated (Bill Clinton) found himself in the mortifying, mouse-like position of arguing that the presidency was still relevant. That was a humiliating spectacle to endure and to witness, and it came when the nation was not at war. This time America is at war, and so the dynamic is different.

And the last time there was a big switch in power, the president whose party was repudiated found himself the target of all sorts of irritations, investigations and impeachment efforts, most of which he brought on himself, simply by acting like himself. You can fill in the rest of this paragraph and see what we might be facing, though those who yearn for the impeachment of President Bush should probably sober up. There isn't enough time.

But there's enough time for paralysis of the Congress. I've seen several analyses lately that say basically that if you thought this last Congress was a "do-nothing" operation, just wait until you see the next one. But as Shribman points out, the election isn't over yet. But Congress has to change itself and the way it operates no matter who is in power. Otherwise, we'll just get more of the same regardless of who is nominally in charge.

Animals Conquering New Orleans

The animal uprising saw an opportunity and grabbed it. When people fled New Orleans, they animal legions moved in and occupied the territory. So now, whether it's alligators in the swimming pools, opossums in the houses or rats overrunning everything, the animals are taking over.

NEW ORLEANS - Alligators have been dragged from abandoned swimming pools. Foxes had to be removed from the airport. Coyotes are stalking rabbits and nutria (a sort of countrified rat) in city streets. And armadillos are undermining air conditioning units.

In the year since Hurricane Katrina drove out many of the people of New Orleans, wild animals have been moving in. Some were blown in by the winds or redistributed by the floodwaters. Others were drawn by the piles of rotting garbage and by the shelter afforded by all the abandoned homes and tall weeds.

"In 20 years of trapping animals here, I've never seen anything like it," said Greg duTreil, who is licensed by the state to remove nuisance wildlife in the metropolitan area. "I'm getting calls night and day."

Marilyn Barbera said opossums are living under her home and in her garden, and one moved into her house, a white 1859 Greek Revival in the city's Riverbend area.

"It was about the size of a big cat and it just made itself at home," she said.

At Charlotte Anderson's house in the city's Uptown section, a neighborhood where wildlife usually means squirrels scampering across busy city streets, raccoons quickly cleaned out a dozen expensive, 6-inch goldfish from her backyard pond.

In suburban Kenner, Cherry Robinson found snakes in her yard, while a man in another part of town found deadly brown widow spiders, a cousin of the black widow.

….

Complaints about rats have soared.

"They have more to eat than before the storm. Just look at all the piles of garbage, the stuff lying around, the empty buildings. This is a rat's paradise," Erick Kinchke, owner of Audubon Pest Control.

Claudia Riegel, assistant director of the New Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board, which handles rodent complaints, said the problem is not as bad as people think.

"People are also seeing them in areas they did not see them in before the storm," she said. "That makes them think it's worse than it is."

As an aside, if the rats are in places they weren't before, doesn't that mean the problem IS worse? Gotta love bureaucrats. Anyway, the animal reconquista of New Orleans is well underway.

Russia And China Raise Objections To NK Sanctions

At the least moment, Russia and China have raised some objections to the resolution placing sanctions on North Korea. US ambassador to the UN John Bolton says that the objections are technical and a vote may still be possible today.

The five permanent council members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — and Japan were to meet in the morning before the full 15-member council convenes to discuss the changes.

"I'm still ready to go for a vote, and we'll just have to see what the instructions are overnight, in particular from Moscow and China," Bolton said late Friday.

The latest draft demands North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons but expressly rules out military action against the country, a demand by the Russians and Chinese. The Americans also eliminated a complete ban on the sale of conventional weapons; instead, the draft limits the embargo to major hardware such as tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles.

But the resolution would still ban the import or export of material and equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles, and would authorize all countries to inspect cargo leaving and arriving in North Korea to prevent any illegal trafficking.

In another key change to gain Chinese and Russian support, the resolution now says local authorities will cooperate in the inspection process, which covers shipments by land, air and sea. Both China and Russia share borders with North Korea and are uncomfortable with the possibility of the U.S. interdicting ships near their coasts. Bolton said he expected most actions would be performed at ports.

The accord came as U.S. officials said Friday that an air sampling after North Korea's claimed nuclear test detected radioactive debris consistent with an atomic explosion. However, the Bush administration and congressional officials said no final determination had been made about the nature of Monday's mystery-shrouded blast.

Results from another test disclosed Friday — an initial air sampling on Tuesday — showed no evidence of radioactive particles that would be expected from a successful nuclear detonation, a U.S. government intelligence official said.

The concessions already made in the resolution make the sanctions largely toothless to begin with. This latest round of objections will likely weaken them still more. Iran is watching and laughing. It knows how far it can go now.

All the way.

Foot Dragging Into A Bleak Future

Gerard Baker, writing in the Times of London, foretells a bleak future because of the West's foot dragging and China's double dealing. Allowing North Korea to get a nuclear weapon means the future looks ever less bright.

Stripped of the grandiose claims by Kim’s minions, the objective scientific evidence for a nuclear explosion is sketchy. The explosive yield, according to military analysts, was something less than a kiloton. A plutonium device such as that first used by the US in 1945 produces a yield in the range of 20 kilotons. Some warheads in the US nuclear arsenal now can deliver an impact about 1,000 times that of Hiroshima. Remember too that in July, the Koreans launched an “ intercontinental” ballistic missile that fell into the sea about a minute into its flight and you have a sense of the truly exiguous scale of the country’s capabilities. If the Soviet Union was memorably nicknamed Upper Volta with Rockets, it’s probably fair to think of North Korea as Togo with a Chemistry Set. So why worry? Here’s why. Unlike all previous nuclear nativities, North Korea’s efforts this week have truly propelled the world into a new and much more dangerous age. There’s no good strategic reason for Pyongyang even to claim to have a nuclear weapon, as China, Israel, Pakistan and India had.

It will be the first nuclear power to be headed by a crazed monomaniac who boasts of his commercial interest in shipping nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. The sheer unpredictability of North Korea terrifies everyone in its neighbourhood in a way that none of those other countries ever did. Its actions this week will almost certainly escalate into a nuclear arms race.

In the process this accelerated proliferation will prompt the most important change in US military posture since the advent of the Bomb. A senior administration official told me this week that with nuclear powers in North East Asia and, heaven forbid, in Iran, the nuclear threshold on which the US has operated for the past 50 years will be lowered. Confronted with the growing probability of nuclear attack, the US will reorient its own military nuclear capabilities towards a more tactical stance. The currently sky-high threshold for a US nuclear attack will be lowered sharply to take account of the new threats. That in itself will prompt a beggar-my-neighbour downward global shift in the conditions under which the bomb might be used and an upward shift in the probability of nuclear strikes.

That is, of course, the real danger. The threshold will have to be lowered. An arms race will be initiated as more and more countries fear their neighbors more than they fear international pressures. The UN and the international community have proven toothless and ineffective, anyway. They certainly have not inspired other would-be bomb chasers to even think twice about proceeding. As for who is to blame for this state of affairs, Baker puts paid to the finger-pointing that has already begun. It wasn't George Bush:

How did we get into this scary state? Of course the world’s pundits are sure it is all America’s fault. The US has failed to be sufficiently engaged. The refusal to talk directly to Pyongyang and to focus all its efforts on Iraq have allowed North Korea to cruise unmolested to nuclear status.

This is, essentially, drivel. The problem with North Korea has not been an insufficiency of multilateralist diplomacy in the past ten years but an overabundance. Beginning in 1994, the Clinton Administration started the US down a course of an engagement with Pyongyang that was all carrots and no sticks. Every time the North Koreans thumbed their noses at the US and its allies, they were punished with — what? Sharp intakes of breath and shakes of the head.

Not only was the US unwilling to make good on its threats, but effective multilateral action also required serious efforts by other countries with real leverage over North Korea to do something. But for the past six years China has been playing a dangerous double game. It never wanted North Korea to become a nuclear power but it was quite happy that its ally kept the US, Japan and South Korea off balance with its burgeoning ambitions.

The same story of hand-wringing futility has been played out with Iran. Russia and China have both placed short-term diplomatic and commercial gain over long-term stability. The Europeans were, well, European.

So we are where we are. The future looking less bright. More and more of world resources will have to be directed away from social programs and will instead be spent on weapons and defenses. All the well-meaning or misguided people who insisted we travel this path have helped us arrive at a place where their agendas will no longer be important. It will be ever harder to get governments to spend money on the poor because that money will be used for bombs and missiles instead. It will be useless to scream about the environment when the choice is the survival of some tree versus the survival of the governments. There will be money for guns, but precious little for butter. Well, all those people helped pave this road. Now they'll have to walk it, the same as the rest of the world.