What Caught My Eye Today - Venezuela, Ecuador, Iowa, Yachting, Asteriods

Venezuela - Venezuela is running out of newsprint. For those of you who have been paying attention, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  These guys have a difficult time managing to get their hands on lots of stuff (click here). The government has been consistently denying import permits to importers who what to sell newsprint to opposition papers. Five newspapers have already shut down, and many more have only a few weeks' worth of paper left. State-run newspapers which parrot a pro-government line, are flush with paper. So to be fair, Venezuela isn't technically running out of newsprint. Rather the government is restricting access to newsprint.  And you have to applaud the creativity of the regime.  The government isn't stopping the press from reporting the news. The press just doesn't have anything to print the news on. Here in the U.S., that probably isn't as big of a deal, what with most folks getting their news online. 

Ecuador - Ecuador has given up on its first attempt at keeping a surveillance satellite in orbit. Seriously, these guys managed to launch a satellite? Who knew. The 3-pound nanosatellite was launched in April from a Chinese space center and had a great run for a couple of weeks, sending back live video of Ecuador and the surrounding region as it passed overhead. But in May, it bumped into some space debris for an old Russian rocket and went offline. Don't you just hate when that happens? Ecuador's space agency said it admitted defeat in trying to revive the satellite and has presented the appropriate claim to its insurance company. How much would you give to look over the shoulder of the insurance processor who has to handle that claim?

Iowa - Iowa grants gun permits to blind people. I don't make this stuff up, I merely mock it. State officials concede that being unable to see what you're shooting is not ideal, but say that failing to grant the permits would violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. "...Being unable to see what you're shooting is not ideal." There's an understatement if ever there was one. Other states impose a vision requirement or require applicants to take a field test to prove they can hit a target. Does anyone else wonder why Iowan lawmakers seem incapability of applying common sense like other states to avoid a situation like this? I guess this sort of "out of the box thinking" is a foreign concept to them.

Yachting - What do you do when you have $44 billion? Pretty much anything you want.  In the case of Larry Ellison, you stage a historic boat race and win the America's Cup for a second time. Oracle Team USA have won the America's Cup with one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. Oracle's space-age, 72-foot catamaran sped to its eighth straight victory over Emirates Team New Zealand  by 44 seconds in the winner-take-all Race 19 on San Francisco Bay to keep the oldest trophy in international sports in the United States. The team won 11 races to score the 9 points required for victory due to a penalty imposed by the International Jury. On September 18, Oracle Team USA trailed the series 8-1. With the challenger on match point, the defender closed out the series with eight consecutive victories. This is the second America’s Cup win for Oracle Team USA which won the 162-year-old trophy in Valencia, Spain, in February 2010. What do you do if you don't have $44 billion? Take an extended lunch hour and watch a historic boat race, and then...take the rest of the day off to celebrate. Don't get me wrong. I know less than nothing about boat racing, but I am a world class genius when it comes to avoiding work.

Asteroids - Yes, friends, time for another update on the possibility of Armageddon.  I know we've had some near misses recently. Dec 21, 2012...what a letdown. But let's not lose faith just yet.  It appears there is a rock speeding towards Earth. Sounds promising.  (35396) 1997 XF11 is a near-Earth and Mars-crosser asteroid which has been predicted to make an exceptionally close approach to Earth  on October 26, 2028, at a distance of 580,000 miles, about 2.4 times the Earth-Moon distance. Doesn't the name just send shivers up your spine? Researchers have concluded XF11 has no reasonable possibility of an Earth impact, and vastly less than the probability of impact from the as-yet-undiscovered asteroids. Hold on a second. No reasonable possibility is not the same as no possibility. So there's still a chance it could hit us. And even if it does miss us, it sounds like there's a better chance of us getting blind sided by something we haven't even detected yet. Rock on!