The Perseids are the remnants of Comet Swift-Tuttle and stretch all the way around its 130 year orbit because it’s falling apart.  First historically recorded about 2,000 years ago the main current debris source is a chunk that fell off more or less 1,000 years later and a stream from 1862.  This year’s display is expected to be exceptionally active because of the numeric density of the material the Earth will pass through.

Perseid meteor shower: NASA explains why it’ll be the year’s best

By Rene Lynch, Los Angeles Times

August 10, 2012

But the Perseid meteor shower is only part of the treat in store for stargazers, NASA says.

“The brightest planets in the solar system are lining up right in the middle of the [Perseid] display,” NASA says. Specifically, “Jupiter, Venus and the crescent moon are gathering together just as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak.”

The red giant star Aldebaran will also be visible, “adding a splash of color to the gathering,” NASA says.

The three celestial orbs will make for a brilliant, three-point line in the sky, all surrounded by shooting stars. The display is expected to be best seen in the eastern skies and in the early morning hours before sunrise.

The show will get better as the weekend winds down. Early Monday, the increasingly narrowing moon will pass even closer to Venus, as Jupiter “hovers” overhead, according to NASA.

…

“Star-watchers say there’s nothing prettier than a close encounter between the slender crescent moon and Venus. Nothing that is, except for the crescent moon, Venus and a flurry of Perseids.”

Viewing conditions might not be the best, especially in the Northeast, but should get better by sunrise.

Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight, best places to view it

David Epstein, Boston.com

August 11, 2012

Much of Texas, the Ohio Valley, Tennessee, the northern parts of Alabama, Mississippi and the Rockies look to have favorable sky conditions. parts of Florida and a good deal of the West Coast will also be mainly clear.

…

If you live where it is expected to be cloudy, like here in the northeast, it is still worth looking up later tonight. Last evening we had big thunderstorms in the area but early this morning it cleared enough to see some of the meteors in the Massachusetts area. The same thing could very easily happen across the northeast later tonight.

…

On Saturday the 11th, leading into the 12th, expect about 25-60 meteors per hour. You won’t see the meteors evenly spread out over time. You may see nothing for five minutes and then four or more in a row a minute later. Lie on a blanket and look up rather than stand. If you stand with your neck tilted up, you will have neck issues in the morning. On Sunday night, heading into the morning of the 13th there will be fewer meteors per hour, but still a nice show. The best time to see this will be around 2AM-3AM, but if you don’t want to wait till then it’s still worthwhile once it gets dark.

Well, I’m almost sure you’re not up to watch Taekwondo.

C’mon, sing along.  You know you want to.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Last  Day of competition starts at 6 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

Olympic losers – the misery of past hosts

Lee Wellings, Al Jazeera

August 6, 2012

The most senior Australian member of the International Olympic Committee, former Olympian Kevin Gosper has said the failure to win gold medals results from cuts to government funding of Olympic sports in 2009.

‘You’ve got to put money in there. That pays for coaches, it pays for international competition. It’s the difference between gold and silver.’

But Australia are not the only nation suffering funding cuts in these austere times.

Spain’s Olympics so far has been grim – 39th in the medal table at the time of writing. I’ve seen and spoken to Spanish supporters in the Olympic Park and spirits remain high amongst people whose football team dominate the world.

At these Olympics their football team was eliminated without scoring a goal – summing up their first 10 days at the Games where no golds and just three medals came their way.

…

Which brings us to Greece. Hosts eight years ago they have just two bronzes to show for their efforts so far and are out of the top 50 in the medals table. They brought a team weakened to just over 100 members by the crippling economic problems and their modest performances are completely unsurprising.

So bad were their finances after the Athens games that the IOC have had to acknowledge the part of the Olympics in their demise. They told me the problems in Greece are less than two per cent because of them hosting. Less than two per cent of Greece’s debt amounts to a big problem.

…

Greece, Spain, Australia. Three of the last five Olympic hosts with one gold between them.

It’s a warning to governments in any host nation from Britain to Brazil.

The Elusive Economic Lift of the Olympics

By JOSHUA MILLS, The New York Times

August 10, 2012

Playing host to the Olympics rarely turns out to be an economic benefit for a country or city, and sports economists have convincingly documented how silly the expectations sometimes are, as Nick Watanabe of the University of Missouri did with regard to the London Games (“Yeah, so if we don’t include costs, there is a profit”).

Part of the faulty calculation is a disposition to focus on revenue and ignore many of the costs – particularly the indirect ones, needed to address increases in traffic and thus pollution; crime, littering and so on.

…

When the Bloomberg administration was pushing hard for New York City to get the 2012 Games, it insisted that a new Olympic stadium would need to be built on Manhattan’s West Side – despite the presence in the metro area of three major stadiums. It also wanted to build a multimillion-dollar equestrian arena on Staten Island (which would be used for what after the Olympics?) despite the presence of Belmont and three other horse-racing tracks.

…

Chicago, with the enthusiastic support of Barack Obama, pushed for the 2016 Olympics, and its officials said a new Olympic stadium was needed, despite two major-league baseball stadiums and Soldier Field, a football stadium (home of the Chicago Bears) that was recently renovated.

…

Another piece of the faulty calculation of Olympic benefits is they often fail to acknowledge the displacement of other economic activity. The Greek government and Greek businesses invested billions of dollars to hold the 2004 Games – and while they drew full houses, tourism in Greece was down for the year, because so many people stayed away and many promised improvements were never made (though Athens did gain a much-needed subway system).

…

In effect, rather than creating new economic activity, spending is shifted from one segment to another. Sports economists have been documenting this for decades.

And that’s to say nothing of the cost overruns that come with almost every major construction project and the upkeep needed in subsequent years to keep athletics facilities clean, safe and functional. Sydney is spending millions each year. The wonderful velodrome built in London will undoubtedly be used by cyclists – but how many and how often and at what cost?

…

As public schools are increasing class sizes and dropping music and arts programs, firehouses are being closed and infrastructure is failing, how does being the host of the Olympic Games makes economic sense?

Gold in Women’s Water Polo and Football, UConn gets a scare.

Women power U.S. Olympic team

Aubrey Cohen, Seattle Post Intelligencer

August 9, 2012

U.S. victories Thursday in the women’s soccer and water polo finals followed a notable trend at this year’s Summer Olympics: American women are winning most of the country’s medals.

American women have hauled in more than one-third more medals than U.S. men, including twice as many gold medals. And that’s despite the fact that 10 percent fewer women’s medals have been awarded so far.

My memories of Flint are as a fairly substantial urban center with lots of Arenas and Halls put up by the Manufacturers and Unions and a ring of Factories (all GM).  Some dense housing but mostly 1 story brick ranches with barely a basement for storms.  Now of course Rabbits for Pets or Meat post-apocalyptic Road Warrior.  It is also flat, dry, and dusty.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 8 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

C’mon, sing along.  You know you want to.

They still have one game to play, but today we’ll be saying goodbye to Women’s Football and Women’s Water Polo where the ladies have Gold Medal prospects.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at a am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

(h/t Kevin Gosztola @ Firedog Lake)

Anti-Leaks Proposals Protect ‘Leak’ Powers of Congress

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Wednesday August 1, 2012 12:32 pm

Yesterday, I extensively detailed most of the proposals the Senate intelligence committee has approved. Two of the proposals, which are exceptionally crude in their nature, involve forcing intelligence agency employees to surrender their pension benefits if they are found to have disclosed information without proper authorization and prohibiting former intelligence agency employees, who want to take a job as a “consultant” or enter into a contract with a media organization.

Open government groups sent a letter to the Senate arguing this “extreme approach…would imperil the few existing safe channels for those in the intelligence community who seek to expose waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality.” It would dissuade “conscientious” or former employees from reporting wrongdoing to Congress or an agency’s Inspector General because individuals would not want to risk losing their pension through a process with no judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies condemned the proposed measure against employees entering into media contracts and wrote in a letter to the committee, “The over-breadth of this provision in prohibiting commentary and analysis even when no classified information is disclosed would violate the First Amendment. Indeed the provision seems drafted in order to chill public discussion of information that is not classified, rather than being narrowly tailored to simply target disclosures of classified information.”

…

What has most upset senators all along is the fact that government employees talk to journalists. For example, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Jeff Sessions went through the New York Times article written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane on Obama’s “kill list” and questioned Attorney General Eric Holder about this article. He highlighted the individuals that the journalists who wrote the article interviewed. He said “these” people “were all talking to the New York Times. Somebody provided information that shouldn’t have been provided. These are some of the closest people you have in government to the President of the United States. So, this is a dangerous thing.” He went on to note that the Times was talking to senior officials at the Justice Department. He added this is a “matter of seriousness.”

It is the free flow of information, not leaks, which they wish to halt. They wish to halt this flow because they are ideologically opposed to the idea of government employees openly discussing national security matters. They are legislators that have transformed their oversight role over intelligence agencies into one that serves to shield the public from interfering with an agency’s daily affairs by raising objection to policies or programs. They are a faction that wants it to be more difficult for reporters to piece together stories like the story New York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen published on Bush administration warrantless wiretapping. They do not want national security journalists to expose corruption that will make it difficult to serve agency heads without looking complicit. As sycophant senators, who have taken advantage of a crisis they have manufactured through the spread of unmitigated hype, they are willing to faithfully oblige those in power who wish to impose strict and likely unconstitutional regimes on lower level employees.

More Executive Branch End Runs, This Time With Cybersecurity

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Monday August 6, 2012 10:26 am

The Obama Administration will consider an executive order on cybersecurity in the wake of a defeat in the Senate on a bill to deal with the issue. This is another example of the executive branch taking action when the legislative branch bogs down in gridlock.

…

Carney did not bother to elucidate the authority on which Obama would enact cybersecurity regulations. …  I’m sure the executive branch will somehow find a way, as they did with No Child Left Behind waivers and changes to student loan rules and deferred action on DREAM-eligible immigrants. And nobody is likely to raise much of an objection beyond a stage whisper.

…

We’re really talking here about a breakdown of democracy. I’m not a big fan of the cybersecurity bill because it uses that threat of cyber attacks as a back door to information sharing of private communications. In this instance, executive action would be preferable, since it would probably only lead to the core goal of increased standards for critical infrastructure facilities to guard against cyber attacks. But this is really no way to run a democracy, where the executive branch has to end-run around Congress because they find themselves unable to get anything done. It damages democratic accountability. These end runs don’t deal with the core problem of unnecessary and unworkable supermajority requirements in the Senate. That’s where an executive branch that wants the American system to work needs to target.

NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake on ‘The Daily Show’

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Tuesday August 7, 2012 9:24 am

A “Daily Show” clip with correspondent Jason Jones aired last night on “super spy” Thomas Drake, who worked for the National Security Agency as an analyst until he was ultimately charged as “a spy” under the Espionage Act for blowing the whistle on the NSA. The segment nicely plays up the fact he did not commit espionage and, instead, was a “cost-benefit analysis expert,” who had examined two intelligence gathering programs and decided one was cheaper and would lead to less fraud, waste, abuse and illegalities.

…

Drake leads Jones through the act he committed describing why the government decided to prosecute him. Jesselyn Radack, a lawyer for Drake and National Security & Human Rights Director at the Government Accountability Project, appears in the segment with Drake and gets in a good line before the segment concludes.

What’s shown basically affirms what Jon Stewart says in the introduction, “When it’s information the Obama administration no likey, they’ve been sonsofbitches on government whistleblowers.” And it ran right after Stewart skewered former New York Times columnist Judith Miller for going on Fox News to rail against Obama administration “leaks.” [Here’s that segment, which made for a great lead-in to the segment with Drake.]

These two segments aired in the first ten minutes of the program last night, the opening of the show. It gave Americans a flavor of the hypocrisy driving “leak hysteria” and the Obama administration’s war on whistleblowing. Few Americans are likely familiar with Drake-and they should be-so the “Daily Show” engaged in a kind of public service by choosing to satirize his case.

Here’s a pretty good summary of Bankster crime.

This summer.

In London.

String of summer scandals tarnishes reputation of London’s financial industry

By Associated Press

Published: August 7

First came U.K. bank Barclays. Its chief executive, Bob Diamond, was forced to step down last month after U.S. and British authorities fined the bank $453 million for manipulating a key market interest rate. Other banks are being investigated for their part in the scandal.

Then there was HSBC, another big London-based bank. It faces fines of up to $1 billion after the U.S. Senate issued a damming report last month alleging it had failed to stop the laundering of Mexican drug money.

Back in May, JPMorgan Chase & Co. disclosed a surprise $2 billion trading loss – later upgraded to $5.8 billion – racked up by its London office in a portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money.

…

And now Standard Chartered, that most predictably profitable of British banks, has been accused by a regulator in New York of laundering Iranian oil money for years.

And what is the problem with this?

“We will get out of it, but it is a blow that means regulators will have a greater say in life, which means that economic growth will be slower.”

Jon Stewart’s extended interview with Fred Guterl.

Well the Olympics is winding down to Closing Ceremonies on Sunday which you can tell from the length and breadth of the coverage.  I wonder if we’ll have another unlisted Greco-Roman Final Monday and if so will anyone notice?

Yesterday I watched two really extraordinary contests and if they both happened to involve the USA team I must admit I’m not immune to the kind of jingoistic nationalism that pervades the Olympics (and international sporting in general, let’s talk Formula One).  However it’s also my philosophy that sports are more understandable and enjoyable if you have a rooting interest in the result.  Thus my scramble around Series time to find the team I hate least, goodness knows I’ll never see my Mets on that field but I’m not above picking based on cute mascots and jersey color.

And in my defense they are both distaff teams.  Men’s Basketball doesn’t need my help, their heads can fill a stadium.

In Water Polo the women advance after double overtime (it’s always a double overtime).  They scored 2 in the first overtime that went unanswered but the critical moment was a literal last second time out (which was idiotic and they didn’t need) called by USA and without clear possession.  The resulting penalty shot tied the game.

It’s the first time the USA Women’s Water Polo team will be in the finals in ages.

In Basketball it was Lady Huskies 2000 as Geno and the UConn All-Stars doubled down on Team Canada.  I’d pay good money to see them play the men, bet they’d kick their ass.

Back to the Women’s Football ‘victory’.  Canada is very depressed.  The game was sent into overtime on a penalty kick from a 6 second goalie holding violation.  Well, Team USA had been holding all day and it was never called.  Of course it’s Canada that’s being investigated for letting this slip to the public.

Finally from the halls of bad officiating.  It seems that despite getting his loss over turned, Spence fails to advance and the USA is sent home medal less for the first time ever.  Women’s team has two guaranteed.

Team USA Dressage was only able to muster a 6th place finish yesterday and Rafalca’s performance wasn’t good enough to qualify for individual competition.  This means they can strap her to the roof of the Gulfstream and have her back for the announcement of Consul any time.

Broadcast Schedule

All this is sourced through the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule.  Competition starts again at 8 am tomorrow.  

Competitions designated by (Medal) will award winners that day.  ‘all’ means not specified.  Sometimes NBC especially does mashups and doesn’t include event or competitor information.  Elimination means no round robin, one and done.

These schedules are a place for you to make sure you don’t miss a sport you like and share your observations.  Have fun today!

Coalition deadlock as Nick Clegg and David Cameron veto each other

Patrick Wintour, The Guardian

Monday 6 August 2012

Nick Clegg’s plan for constitutional reform and David Cameron’s scheme to shift parliamentary boundaries in the Conservatives’ favour both lay in ruins on Monday as victims of the prime minister’s inability to persuade his backbenchers to support an elected House of Lords.

A subdued and depressed Clegg announced he was abandoning all plans to reform the Lords in this parliament, adding as a result he will also be instructing his MPs to vote down revised parliamentary boundaries designed to reduce the number of MPs to 600.

…

The announcement represents a personal blow to Clegg, who had championed widescale political reform as a distinctive Liberal Democrat contribution to the coalition but has been thwarted at virtually every turn.

It leaves the deputy prime minister increasingly reliant on an upturn in the economy, progress on social mobility and a broader liberal agenda to justify the original decision to form the coalition with Cameron.

…

Clegg was eager on Monday to limit the damage from the collapse of Lords reform – insisting the government would still be anchored in the centre ground, and focused on delivering a revival of the economy, the reason the coalition agreement was made in the first place. He said a relationship of mutual trust and respect could be maintained with his partners.

Sucker or Liar?

UK coalition in crisis over parliamentary reform

By Tim Castle and Mohammed Abbas, Reuters

Mon Aug 6, 2012 2:56pm

The scuppering of Lords reform, a key plank of the coalition agreement struck in May 2010 with Cameron’s Conservatives, is particularly damaging for Clegg as it fuels the perception that the Liberal Democrats have gained little from going into government with a party that was not their ideological ally.

…

However, neither governing party is eager to sink the coalition and spark an election during a recession, and while polls show both parties are unpopular.

…

Dropping Lords reform is especially difficult for his party because he backed an unpopular proposal to increase university tuition fees as part of the coalition deal, a move that saw the Liberal Democrats hemorrhage support in opinion polls.

…

Jeremy Hunt, a Conservative minister, said Clegg’s announcement was disappointing but said the coalition would remain focused on its economic program.

“There isn’t a cigarette paper between us on that. That is what we are focused on getting the gold medal for. Nothing is going to change that focus,” he told Sky television.

Electoral Victory?  Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah.  They don’t care about that any more over there than they do over here.

Here’s what Nick Clegg sold his soul and his party for that he’s not going to get-

Cracks in British Governing Coalition as House of Lords Overhaul Falls Apart

By JOHN F. BURNS, The New York Times

Published: August 6, 2012

As the perennial third party in British politics, the Liberal Democrats have long regarded an elected upper chamber as a potential steppingstone beyond the marginal role the party and its historical progenitor, the Liberals, have played in British politics since the 1930s.

…

(T)he Conservatives’ push to change the electoral rules to bring parliamentary constituencies closer to a nationwide norm in terms of overall voter numbers, from the present system that requires many more votes to win a Conservative seat, on average, than a Labour one.

The change was one that political experts saw as capable of delivering 20 or more seats to the Conservatives at the cost of the opposition Labour Party, a potentially decisive margin in a close contest.

The proposed changes in the House of Lords would have nearly cut in half the size of the upper chamber, from its present membership of 826 to 450, and made 80 percent of the body elective by 2025, with one-third of its elected membership chosen at each of three successive general elections beginning in 2015.

Instead of the current practice of peers gaining appointment on the recommendation of the prime minister or other political leaders, 360 of the 450 House of Lords’ members would have to compete for seats in regional elections. Proportional voting rules for the contests would have favored smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats more than the current system used in elections to the House of Commons.

…

The abandonment of the reform package has been a deep personal blow to Mr. Clegg, exposing him ever more starkly as a man caught between a strong commitment to sustaining the coalition until the election and a gathering revolt among a powerful bloc of Liberal Democrats who have come to regard the partnership with the Conservatives as dragging them away from their core political beliefs on social issues like education, health, immigration and justice.

Exceptional.