That is not a "NASA plan"; it is the proposed budget from the White House. It will likely be revised by the Congress. I am for NASA doing either true Research, or doing forefront Exploration, with taxpayer $.

Ares/Orion is more of a Development program than a Research program, so I am not depressed to see it disappear. I am concerned to see NASA manned spaceflight disappear, since they provided world leadership in the 60s and part of the 70s. The result was America's universities being the leader in Science/Engineering PhDs.

Many American kids will be depressed by the thought that our accomplishments will not be continued and thus America will fall deeper away from our previous leadership in Engineering/Science/Math. I believe our future success depends on our ability to motivate our youth.

I would support a restructuring of goals and funding so NASA can be allowed to perform like the 60s on space Research and on Exploration. There is not a shred of evidence that the President sees any value in those goals.

Burt Rutan

Oh, shut up already!

Some enterprising Belgian military spokesperson has decided to announce to the entire world that of the two sets of 11 hardened shelters at Kleine Brogel Airbase, the activists were in the one without nuclear weapons

…

Just take your lumps, because you can't pretend Belgian security didn't fail. The activist incursion is an alarming anecdotal demonstration of a systemic security problem that was well documented before the February incident.

…

I continue to think that if the Belgian government (and other NATO governments) refuse to provide adequate security at Kleine Brogel, the weapons should be placed at US base where we will.

And a note to our Belgian friends. I was going to keep these to myself, but since Ms. Baeck decided to help out, there isn't much point. But please don't try to get into area A. If the Belgian security is inadequate, the SACEUR has almost certainly assigned additional US security personnel. They will most likely respond very differently than the Belgian sort you are used to.

Jeffrey Lewis

The governor had harsh words for commercial truck drivers, urging them to slow down and "not drive like idiots" while traveling through New Jersey.

"We saw numerous accidents on the way down here (from northern Jersey), and we saw some commercial truck drivers driving like idiots," he said. "They need to stop, stop going so fast, stop driving in a stupid way. They endanger road crews who are working and other drivers on the road."

AP

Reading cuts stress levels by 68%

Well now we've solved the difference in approach to the world of Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Juan Cole

Iran's aerospace program has been so active in the last few years it should be possible to say something about their development philosophy: the technological arc or trajectory they are following. For instance, why did they "jump" from SCUD-type missiles to the Shahab-3-type? Why didn't they put a higher priority on clustering engines in order to achieve greater ranges before moving on to the Shahab-3? Many of my friends believe they should have. A large portion of their argument is centered on the fact that they believe Iran would have established a missile capable of hitting Israel much sooner if they had done that, perhaps as early as the mid-1990s. Of course, such arguments place an extraordinary amount of emphasis on such a military objective, especially when Iran's nuclear program was much, much less advanced.

I've always thought, however, that Iran did make a strategic decision about the direction its missile development program was going in. But it was not a military-strategic decision but an industrial-strategic decision even if there were military advantages to be had further down the road. I believe Iran decided they needed to assimilate the technology for producing large engines indigenously and that this was a much higher priority for them than early production of a longer range missile.

Geoffrey Forden

Yemen's poverty is by now well-known, but its vibrant indigenous civil society is not. As a result, relatively modest international development assistance can have a significant impact, if designed to empower local actors. And over the long run, such efforts will be far more important than counterterrorism measures in undercutting the extremist narrative and improving Yemen's future. The Obama administration's new assistance strategy, focused on the drivers of Yemen's instability, is an important starting point.

But international efforts need better co-ordination. For its neighbours, the stakes in Yemen are high. The assistance efforts of countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates dwarf all other donors. Gulf states understand Yemen's intricate tribal politics in ways America and Europe can't hope to match. That is why a crucial objective of the "Friends of Yemen" group formed at the London conference should be to begin crafting mechanisms that match local resources and knowledge with global technical and development expertise.

However, a return of Gulf jobs could be even more significant than their assistance. For centuries, Yemen has been a source of migrant labour. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis were expelled from overseas jobs when Yemen foolishly supported Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait. Most of today's Yemenis weren't even born then. Convincing Gulf states to turn the page and allow Yemen's migrant workforce - rigorously screened - to return could be a vital pressure valve for Yemen's unemployed youth.

John Kerry

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

…

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama's nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

• A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: "Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals." Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.
• An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: "[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won't build" the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based "at the Army's Redstone Arsenal."

Though a Shelby spokesperson would not confirm that these programs were behind the blanket hold, the Senator expressed his frustration about the progress on both through a spokesperson to both CongressDaily and the Federal Times.

Evan McMorris-Santoro

The abuse, the arrogance, the corruption ... it's just breathtaking. Shelby is proving himself to be little more than a petty, greedy thug, undermining our system of government until he's been paid off to his satisfaction.

Josh Marshall added, "This is more like just a stick up. Gimme my money and I'll give you your Senate back! Worse than a squeegee man and not much better than a bank robber, Shelby is shutting down the president's ability to appoint anyone to anything until he gets his way."

What's more, it's additional evidence, as if more was needed, that congressional Republicans are simply out of control. At a time when the nation needs strong institutions, GOP lawmakers have not only gone mad, they're also tearing down governmental touchstones like the United States Senate.

It's inexcusable and unsustainable. Something's gotta give.

Steve Benen

I'm not sure why anyone at all is surprised about this. First of all, this is just a repeat performance for Shelby. You will remember, of course, during the auto bailouts, Sen. Shelby and Sen. Corker did everything they could to make sure that GM and Chrysler died, and people remember that they were motivated in large part by their insatiable desire to destroy the UAW and weaken the power of unions nationwide. But the other reason Shelby and Corker were so eager to see GM and Chrysler die was because of the large presence of foreign auto manufacturers in their respective states. In other words, they are used to going to bat for foreign manufacturers over the American people and American industry. That is just how they roll.

Second, the other reason he is doing this is because is because he can. He will pay no political price for this whatsoever. The beltway media will not flay him alive like they did Nelson, even though the 100 billion dollar potential contract to a company propped up by foreign governments is ONE THOUSAND times bigger than the 100 million dollar Nebraska sweetheart deal that Nelson received. Not only will he not pay a price, but, in a couple of weeks, you can guarantee that Shelby will be intoning gravely about deficit spending and pork on one of the Sunday shows, and NO ONE will call him on it. Remember his rhetoric during the stimulus debate?

John Cole

The Shelby blanket hold isn't unprecedented, though it's close. But doing this to shake the administration down for a couple of earmarks is pretty unheard of. And given the current electrical charge about 'earmarks' and 'pork' it gives the White House a golden opportunity not just to embarrass the Republicans over Shelby's obstructionism over an earmark, it gives them a second chance to engage the public on Republican refusal to even allow votes -- regardless of what one thinks of the substance -- on critical national issues. Not allowing votes here leads to a discussion or not allowing votes on the Jobs Bill. The headline writes itself: Republicans shut down senate so Shelby can get his earmarks. (Remember, he can't do this himself. He needs to be supported by his caucus.) The GOP leadership sees that it's toxic.

Alas, it seems the White House has already decided it doesn't want to take up the opportunity. Which is probably a good preview of 2010.

Josh Marshall

Google is teaming up with the National Security Agency to investigate the recent hack attack against its network in a bid to prevent another assault, according to The Washington Post.

The internet search giant is working on an agreement with the controversial agency to determine the attacker's methods and what Google can do to shore up its network.

Sources assured the Post that the deal does not mean the NSA will have access to users' searches or e-mail communications and accounts. Nor will Google share proprietary data with the agency.

Kim Zetter

The United States has been attacking within Pakistani land with drones for the last four to five years and is also killing innocent people. Our rulers and parliament regard these attacks as attacks on our sovereignty. A minister says that we do protest but the United States does not listen to us. This will mean that if the invader does not listen to you, you should concede and remain silent and should neither retaliate nor defend yourself. There were 44 drone attacks in 2009 alone in which more than 700 innocent people, majority of whom were innocent children, elderly, and women, were killed. According to the statistics provided by various agencies, those who belonged to "Al-Qa`ida" or the Taliban could not be more than 18. Our government kept on expressing fake concern over the killing of hundreds of innocent people and demolition of dozens of localities, and the nation as a whole remained silent. Mian Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition, remained so indifferent as though all this was happening not in his own country.

…

Having made sure that the wealth of our national dignity has turned to ashes and the last flame has burned down, the US Administration has now announced a program of naked screening for the passengers coming from a few countries. All these countries are Muslim countries, and Pakistan is one of them. Yes, the same Pakistan, which is the frontline US ally in war against terror. Pakistan has danced to death in others` parties and has made fun of itself. It is the same Pakistan, which left its citizens starving and spent $35 billion in others` war. These inhuman laws have not been made for the passengers of all the countries. These laws are for men and women of every age coming from only a few Muslim countries, including Pakistan. These inhuman and discriminatory laws are synonymous with complete violation of human and religious rights. Are these laws respectful or shameful for the people of the United States, which proudly calls itself a religious state and tells the world 92 percent people there believe in God?

The United States is bent on treating us shamelessly. Moreover, we pay too much regard to anyone coming from the United States. The Blackwater operatives, who committed heinous and inhuman crimes in Iraq, come wherever they please in Pakistan without visa or travel document. They keep on roaming around in vehicles with fake number plates with dangerous weapons. These US officials point guns at the security people if asked to reveal their identity. During a few minutes debate, there is a series of phone calls from the high officials, and they, who consider Pakistan as their playground, are allowed to go with honor.

Hussein Ahmed Paracha

If you watch this video on YouTube it is very clear that a group of Belgian peace activists not only got inside the wire at Kleine-Brogel Airbase -- where some US nuclear weapons may be stored -- but they also got into the area where the hardened shelters are located (within the shelters are aircraft and WS3 storage vaults with US B61 nuclear gravity bombs.)

Between the Youtube video, a pair of stories on the Der Standard and Neusblad websites, their Facebook page and website, and Google Earth, it is pretty easy to recreate their path. (Hans K came to the same conclusion.)

…

The "security force" appears to comprise one moderately annoyed-looking Belgian guy with a rifle. (Which RAJ47 observes is unloaded.) The effect would only be more comedic if he had some powdered sugar on his face and maybe a little bit of waffle stuck to his uniform.

Jeffrey Lewis

"It's the 'kick the can down the road' approach," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "It's putting off to another Congress what really needs to be done comprehensively. I don't think you'll ever have energy independence the way I want until you start dealing with carbon pollution and pricing carbon. The two are interconnected."

…

But Graham pledged to fight back against Senate Democratic leaders if they ultimately heeded the moderates' call to just pass the Energy and Natural Resources Committee bill (S. 1462) that establishes a nationwide renewable electricity standard, along with a raft of other energy incentives, including a provision that could bring oil and gas rigs closer to Florida's Gulf Coast.

"If the approach is to try to pass some half-assed energy bill and say that's moving the ball down the road, forget it with me," Graham said, adding that the energy-only proposal does not do enough to promote nuclear power and it ignores revenue sharing for states that agree to offshore oil and gas exploration.

…

While Graham would not name names, he insisted that the closed-door negotiations have actually started winning over lawmakers and interest groups. But he warned that now comes the even harder part of keeping everyone together while still netting more votes.

"We've done things on the energy side, we've got some buy-in from people on the left and the middle that I never dreamed of," he said. "I just hope we don't blow it. And from a Republican point of view, you've got the best chance you'll ever have to get meaningful energy independence. From the Democratic left point of view, you've got the best chance you'll ever have to have carbon pollution controls. Don't let it pass."

Darren Samuelsohn

The whistleblowing site Wikileaks has apparently raised the money it needs to continue operating for the time being, according to a message the organization sent out Wednesday night on Twitter.

"Achieved min. funraising [sic] goal. ($200k/600k); we're back fighting for another year, even if we have to eat rice to do it," read the tweet, without specifying whether it had raised the full $600,000 or just $200,000.

The site announced last December that it was ceasing day-to-day operations to focus on raising money. It said contributors could still send documents and tips through its anonymous submission tool. Last week, it was ceasing operations indefinitely because it had raised only $130,000 of the $200,000 it needed to maintain base operations annually. The site says it requires $600,000 to operate if it pays its staff of technologists and curators who sift through submissions to provide context for documents and other information valuable to its users.

The announcement page, beginning with: "We protect the world -- but will you protect us?" has not changed, except to add that Wikileaks "will be back soon."

Kim Zetter

0. BadToast's base came under fire repeatedly, but we were able to repel them each time.
1. We saw more dryads on Turtle Rock then I've seen on any map, ever.
2. A double NE team harassed me for a bit before laying siege to Toast's base w/ the sort of incompetence I'm legendary for.

A century ago, futurists predicted that pneumatic tubes would be the transportation systems of tomorrow. That idea never came to fruition - until recently. Stanford University's medical center uses a 4-mile-long pneumatic tube delivery system. And it saves lives.

Before the tubes were installed in the mid-1990s, Stanford had a team of 20 people who ran samples from doctors' offices and operating rooms to the lab. But as the hospital expanded, it became impossible for humans to run fast enough - especially with delicate blood samples that can't change temperature before analysis. So the university turned to yesterday's futuristic technology. With an 98.8 percent uptime and packet speeds of 18 mph, this pneumatic tube system is a physical information network that is invaluable for surgeons who need samples analyzed in real time during operations.

Annalee Newitz

Prof Slobodchikoff details the experiments he has done to reveal the hidden structure of the prairie dog's language within the BBC natural history programme "Prairie dogs, talk of the town," broadcast as part of the Natural World documentary series.

Once existing in their billions, prairie dog numbers have now plummeted as ranchers view them as vermin competing for resources with livestock.

But those remaining still live in huge colonies of hundreds of animals, digging complex underground burrow systems.

Whenever a predator approaches, the small rodents let out a series of barks, squeals and squeaks.

…

The researchers found that the prairie dogs are confronted by so many predators that they have evolved different "words" to describe them all.

Matt Walker

Bohr noticed that the man who drew first invariably got shot, and speculated that the intentional act of drawing and shooting was slower to execute than the action in response.

Here was a hypothesis that could be tested, and with the aid of cap guns hastily purchased in a Copenhagen toyshop, duly proved it.

In a series of mock gunfights with colleagues Bohr always drew second and always won.

According to Manjit Kumar, the author of Quantum, Bohr's prowess as a gunslinger was such that his victims wrote a ditty about him.

On pistols and lead, now Bohr had to prove
The defendant is quickest to move.
Bohr accepted the challenge without a frown
He drew when we drew, and shot each one of us down.
This tale has a moral, tho' we knew it before.
It's foolish to question the wisdom of Bohr.

In developing his theory of the shootout Bohr went on to suggest that the logical conclusion was a negotiated settlement.

Since neither protagonist would want to draw first, there was nothing to do but talk.

Tom Feilden

Ahmadinejad may be an evil prick, but his black, kinky sense of humour is undeniable. Obama just cut the nuts off NASA, and Iran (it claims) puts a capsule in orbit.

Warren Ellis

I made another chart from data from Haiti's budget. (The Port-au-Prince government, it turns out, posts its budget documents online.) Last year, it shows, Haiti spent around $37 million servicing its debt. (I looked up the numbers in Haitian Gourdes, and performed a current-day currency conversion -- note that the currency has cratered recently.) That's more than the government spent, say, on agriculture -- despite the fact that a massive proportion of Haitians are subsistence farmers. It's more than it spent on its ministry of tourism, despite the fact that tourists once posed the best way for Haiti to bolster its economy in the short term. Had Haiti not had to repay external debt, it could have boosted its education budget by nearly a third.

…

Haiti's debts remain significant. Moreover, it has garnered new ones, including a $100 million emergency loan from the IMF -- which comes with strings attached, including, for instance, a requirement to freeze government-employee pay. The country's debt has been a millstone around its neck for too long. It has a horrible history of economically encumbering the country. Why, with the outpouring still ongoing, though not for long, let that legacy remain?

Annie Lowrey

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been quick to denounce a bid by Democrats to stop foreign corporations from pouring money into U.S. elections, claiming current law already bars such spending. As we've reported before, it's not nearly as simple as that -- but McConnell should know: The GOP Senate leader has raked in campaign cash from a subsidiary of a major foreign defense contractor that's currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery.

As we reported yesterday, McConnell, a longtime foe of efforts to get money out of politics, last week took to the Senate floor to pooh-pooh the notion that the court's decision could allow a flood of foreign money to sway our elections, citing an existing law that prevents foreign nationals, including corporations, from spending on U.S. elections. But that ban doesn't cover the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, or to foreign-owned corporations that incorporate in the U.S.

…

Since 2005, McConnell has received $21,000 -- spread between his campaign and his leadership PAC -- from a PAC run by BAE Systems Inc., according to federal campaign disclosure records examined by TPMmuckraker. BAE Systems Inc. is the American subsidiary of BAE Systems, the world's second largest defense contractor, headquartered in Britain.

…

McConnell has been good to BAE, which owns a facility in Louisville, Kentucky. For fiscal year 2010, the senator requested earmarks for the company worth a combined $17 million.

Zachary Roth

Following the Supreme Court decision implicitly granting corporations the right to free speech (by determining that political spending is a kind of speech), a corporation has decided to take what it believes to be "democracy's next step": It is running for Congress.

With more than a twinge of irony, Murray Hill Incorporated, a liberal public relations firm, recently announced that it planned to run in the Republican primary in Maryland's 8th Congressional District.

Catherine Rampell

And Evan Bayh again bashed "left-wing blogs" for criticizing the budget freeze idea. I guess left-wing blogs include Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman, along with Bayh's own colleagues like Sherrod Brown. Also, left-wing blogs must have made Evan Bayh vote to eliminate the estate tax and give hundreds of millions of dollars to super-rich trust fund kids. We're all-powerful.

David Dayen

This to me is one of the larger failures of the progressives and Democrats in general: we never talk about what it is your tax dollars do for you! It's never explained in simple, easy to understand terms like, picking up the trash, keeping your streets safe, providing security and health care in your old age. We never talk about the benefits. It's always some kind of abstract, statistical gobbledey-gook. It's very similar to repeated Democratic failure when it comes to income taxes. Instead of saying, "we're going to raise taxes on people who make more than $300,000 a year, they always default to "we're going to raise taxes on the top 3% of earners." It's stupid. Most people in America really believe they are in that percentage.

Progressives and Democrats have ideas that consistently poll above those of the Republicans. But the Democrats fail to enact good policy and fail to communicate it in an easy and understandable way. Instead falling into technocrat speak. And this is what happens.

Sean Paul Kelley

My local transit authority is making a fairly major change to its regional rail system. Without boring you with all the history, roughly speaking, a few decades ago they connected up the two "sides" of the system. Part of the motivation was so that they could create more suburb-to-suburb routes, with each line going inbound into the city from one outer suburb, and then back out to another outer suburb. Whatever the merits of this idea, in recent years changing train routing needs have meant that a lot of trains aren't actually one seat rides from one outer suburb to another, and the trains change their route designations when they hit the city.

So they're going back to a pure hub and spoke system now. I'm not entirely sure why train routing needs required a lot of trains to change rout designations, but presumably this does provide for some additional flexibility in changing train frequencies. For example, it might make it easier to run relatively more outbound trains at night, or perhaps have more trains which only travel a truncated route, providing greater frequencies over shorter segments.

All very exciting!!

Atrios

Little programs are delightful to write in isolation, but the process of maintaining large-scale software is always miserable. ... Technologists wish every program behaved like a brand-new, playful little program, and will use any available psychological strategy to avoid thinking about computers realistically.

Jaron Lanier

Even by the shortest reckoning, the Byzantine empire survived for eight centuries (from the fourth to the twelfth)--longer than any other in history. Although the Byzantines were supremely tenacious in combat, their strategy--invented in response to the unprecedented threat of Attila's Huns in the 5th century--relied on diplomacy, evolving into a body of rules and techniques that is still relevant today.

Unlike the Romans, the Byzantines wrote official guidebooks on statecraft, foreign relations and espionage: writings I find especially fascinating, as I once helped compose the main field manual of the US army. These ancient techniques centred on a single, paradoxical principle: do everything possible to raise, equip and train the best possible army and navy; then do everything possible to use them as little as possible.

With Afghanistan, the west faces a simple strategic calculus: too costly to stay in, too risky to leave. A Byzantine response would be, first to withdraw the west's scarce, expensive troops, and arm local proxies instead. This was the standard remedy for turbulent, worthless lands where no taxes could be collected, but which were to be denied to enemies: an improvement over the Romans' fondness for battles of attrition and annihilation.

Edward Luttwak

As hinted at earlier, his recommended solution for Afghanistan is to use proxies to spoil an enemy victory (in short the same strategy that defeated the USSR years before). Unfortunately, the article ends there. If he had gone on to write a more complex application of Byzantine strategy to the US situation he would have probably concluded:

• Move from mass to elite forces. The US military is built for overwhelming an enemy by the application of superior resources. That's a path to failure merely given the inability of the US to finance it. Mass is in contradiction with the major trend of the 21st Century: technological super empowerment.
• Avoid COIN, the use of military forces to build functional nations, like the plague. This type of effort is extraordinary expensive (in money and manpower and time) and therefore can't scale to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving threat environment.
• The ability to conduct complex diplomacy and effectively manage/incentivize a plethora of small proxies (open source defense) is critical to survival.

John Robb

A couple of weeks after the failed Christmas plot, when the recidivism issue was at the fore again, Obama administration official started quietly making a bold claim: the recidivists exist, but most, if not all, were released by the shockingly incompetent Bush/Cheney administration.

…

In his correspondence, Brennan specifically made the claim that "all" of the detainees who returned to terrorist activities were "released during the previous administration."

The ineffective review process Bush/Cheney relied on has been replaced, Brennan added, by a task force established by President Obama. It consists of "60 career prosecutors, agents, analysts and attorneys from across the government, including civilian, military, and intelligence officials." Before anyone is transferred or released, the decision must receive the unanimous endorsed of "all agencies involved with the review process after a full assessment of intelligence and threat information."

I can appreciate why this may seem hard to believe, but it's really not -- the way Bush/Cheney handled this issue was almost comical in its ineptitude. In some cases, the Bush administration released some detainees who turned out to be pretty dangerous. In other cases, the Bush administration refused to release other detainees who weren't dangerous at all, and were actually U.S. allies. The gang that couldn't shoot straight just didn't know what it was doing, and the results of their incompetence put lives in danger.

Steve Benen