Military Hopes to Bring Down Satellite — AP

The U.S. military is hoping to bring down a decaying (falling to Earth) satellite that is expected to make its way to the ground at least partially intact.

The Pentagon counted down Wednesday toward an unprecedented effort to shoot down a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite, using a souped-up missile fired from a ship in the Pacific.

The timing was tricky. For the best chance to succeed, the military awaited a combination of favorable factors: steady seas around the Navy cruiser that would fire the missile, optimum positioning of the satellite as it passed in polar orbit and the readiness of an array of space- and ground-based sensors to help cue the missile and track the results.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates — not a military commander — was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.

The ramifications for either success or failure are great. If it is a failure, some have gone so far as to call for the death knell in the anti-ballistic missile program. If it is a success it will show how far the program has developed, but it will also show the U.S. capabilities in anti-satellite military technology.

UPDATE: Newest info is it is a hit.

UPDATE: Direct hit. Video here.

MLB report outs stars; Selig vows action — AP

There are enough players using steroids, etc., that there is “an All-Star at every position.” Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Eric Gagne, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Gary Matthews Jr., Paul Byrd, Jose Guillen, Brian Roberts, Paul Lo Duca and Rick Ankiel just to name a few. The full list can be found here.

Baseball used to be my favorite sport. Just a few years ago I watched every Braves game, every year. Now, I never watch a game. I haven’t watched a game in three years. Baseball’s appeal was always that it was the most precise, exact sport. You count everything in baseball, and you can compare any player, who played at any time, with any other player.

Now, there is a full list of players who need asterisks beside their names in the record books. How can you compare these players with one another when they are not quite as human as the players that came before them? Unless MLB kicks every one of these players out of baseball (and yes, I know that is a laughable option that would never happen), the league is going to be known as a league full of cheats. And I don’t like to watch cheats.

Republicans Report Much Better Mental Health Than Others — Gallup

The link goes to a very entertaining and informing study, done by Gallup, showing a correlation between being a Republican and better overall mental health (self-reported).

The differences are quite significant, as can be seen. While Democrats are slightly less likely to report excellent mental health than are independents, the big distinctions in these data are the differences between Republicans and everyone else.

[…]

But an analysis of the relationship between party identification and self-reported excellent mental health within various categories of age, gender, church attendance, income, education, and other variables shows that the basic pattern persists regardless of these characteristics. In other words, party identification appears to have an independent effect on mental health even when each of these is controlled for.

The link shows the summaries of the studies, including mental health and party affiliation when controlled with income, gender, church attendance, and a few others. I would be betraying the roots of my scathing rebuke of the science of global warming if I didn’t point out that correlation does not equal causation, but the study still seems to be scientifically sound. It would be interesting to dig further into this study and see what it is about those that identify with the Republican party causes them to consider themselves having better health.

Perhaps the study should just be done again after the next presidential election.

Meet the women who won’t have babies - because they’re not eco friendly — Daily Mail

Here’s Toni Vernelli, a UK woman who sought sterilization for years, and terminated a baby, all because she wanted to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.

He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.

Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”.

[…]

“Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet,” says Toni, 35.

“Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”

[…]

[Or how about Sarah and Mark, a different couple who add,] “[w]hen I see a mother with a large family, I don’t resent her, but I do hope she’s thought through the implications.”

Mark adds: “Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don’t have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly.

“We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food.

“In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.

“That’s why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth.

I agree with their choices; I don’t think they should be having children either. Also, as the title suggests, I’m quite curious how these people vote.

U.S. Customs delays ambulance at border — CanWest News Service

U.S. Customs delayed an ambulance that was transporting a man from Canada to a Detroit hospital. Apparently, the man had been “brought back to life” with defibrillators twice.

“If I’m that person in the booth, and there is an ambulance coming with a critically injured person, I’m not stopping the damn thing,” said Kat Lauzon, Laporte’s girlfriend. “I’m irate. I can’t figure it out. He could have died, and I would have blamed that person for murder.”

Be that as it may, but perhaps the Customs agents were buying into the political arguments on the left telling us how great the Canadian health care system is. Think about it: we’re constantly told by the left that the Canadian health care system is superior to ours in the United States.

If these agents had heard that — and it would be unbelievable if they hadn’t since all of us are inundated by it — then they probably thought that it was a big scam. Perhaps the agents just couldn’t believe it. Perhaps they thought the ambulance was being used to traffic something across the border because why would an ambulance be rushing a Canadian, who apparently, we are told, has a far superior health care system available to him, across the border the United States for health care?

“We have a system set up. We are to be pre-cleared and no problems,” Amlin said.

I’m being a little bit facetious here, and obviously if there is a system in place to transport Canadians across the border to give them access to much-needed health care, not available in their own country, then the ambulance should have been waived through. On the other hand, I’m not quoting the article for that purpose; I’m quoting the article to ask the real question: why does he need to come to the U.S. if the health care in Canada is so vastly superior? And for that matter, if the health care system is so vastly superior, why is it necessary to have a system “set up” to transport people across?

The article says that the Windsor hospital was “ill-equipped to perform live-saving surgery.” The city has a population of 216,473, and if you include the surrounding area (including the towns Amherstburg, LaSalle, Lakeshore and Tecumseh) the population is 323,342. I shudder to think what is available for smaller places, because no hospital should be “ill-equipped to perform live-saving surgery” if it services that many people.