Centauri Dreams has two posts that particularly interested me, the first one regarding the use of masers to propel interstellar probes at substantial fraction of light speed, the other one speculating...of Liechtenstein's very complex collection of communes . Wis(s)e Words features a news story explaining how, if the Nepalese royal family doesn't pay its bills, the new government will cut them off.
This Christian Science Monitor article caught my attention. India's 39-year-old space program is perhaps unique. In a country of great need, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has long...government push to integrate Indians into a progressively wealthier and healthier environment. I don't know enough about this to judge its accuracy, but it sounds like something I'd like to believe
36 years after China's aborted 1972 Shuguang manned spaceflight program, the Chinese space program can claim another landmark achievement . A Chinese astronaut Saturday became the first in his...States, Russia, and now China have space agencies capable of launching (and returning!) people to low Earth orbit. Who will be next, do you think? (My money's on either the ESA or India's program.)
I got this news item from james_nicoll . Two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star [of BD +20°307 ] some 300 light-years from Earth recently suffered a violent collision, astronomers...our sun," Henry said. "If this dust does indeed point to the presence of terrestrial planets, then this represents the first known example of planets of any mass in orbit around a close binary star."
Bear Left writes about how soccer can be a vehicle for international amity, whether between Cubans and Americans or Turks and Armenians (this last also described by Douglas Muir at A Fistful of...who suggests that Georgia should model its armed forces on those of Hezbollah, combining light and highly mobile infantry with modern weapons. As if that would work in the face of an upset Russia.
Amused Cynicism reports on Sarah Palin's belief that God told the United States to invade Iraq. Is it wrong for me to not be especially surprised at this sort of thing anymore? At 'Aqoul, The Lounsbury...the ability of the rural majority of the country to choose wisely. Parallels with Ataturkism and Turkey, anyone? Spacing Toronto says that Torontonians should be happy that we don't live in Detroit.
The Canadian Press, among other news agencies, carries the news article "Astronaut Steve MacLean named new head of Canadian Space Agency" . The country's space program is at a crossroads and decisions...we're at a crossroads now where we need to make some decisions," he said. For more on the Canadian Space Agency, see the Canadian Space Agency's official website and the relevant Wikipedia page
I disagree with Amused Cynicism's Phil Hunt that Medvedev's Russia is a totalitarian regime --it seems more authoritarian to me. His argument that Russia is run by the local equivalent of neocons...set). Norman Geras takes a look at Doris Lessing's take on war. Strange Maps examines Denmark's Kingdom of Elleore. Wis(s)e Words has excellent coverage of the Georgian war.
Barbara Hand Clow's 1995 The Pleiadean Agenda: A New Cosmology for the Age of Light makes the claim on the back that superior beings in the Pleiades star cluster have been guiding our future for the...containing lithium in the cluster can give an idea of its age. Applying this technique to the Pleiades gives an age of about 115 million years. Doubtless the above is just Wikipedia's lies. Really .
