Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) may have recently directed his first campaign attack at the left, but it looks like he could soon be facing pressure from the right.
As McConnell was rolling out a web video on Tuesday lampooning his potential Democratic challengers, Louisville businessman Matthew Bevin and his camp were reportedly taking preliminary steps to explore a primary challenge against the longtime Kentucky senator.
In a statement, Bevin spokeswoman Amy Lowe confirmed that Bevin had been in talks with Kentucky tea party activists about the possibility of taking on McConnell:
It may look like bad graphics from an 8-bit video game, but you’re actually looking at asteroid 2012 DA14 as it made its Earth-buzzing flyby, courtesy of the Goldstone Solar System Radar. The blurry footage of the roughly 130-foot long space rock was captured as it was moving away from the Earth on February 15, with the 230-foot Deep Space Network antenna capturing shots of it as close as 74,000 miles away.
As you might expect, that doesn’t add up to a huge amount of resolution, even when you’re dealing with a rock bigger than a house. In fact, NASA can manage a resolution of around 13 feet to a pixel, with the captured shots – combined into a video, below – covering a total period of nearly eight hours.
During that time, asteroid 2012 DA14 moved 195,000 miles away from the Earth, and completed roughly one full rotation. Even though the resolution isn’t great, it’s still sufficient for NASA to make some judgements on the asteroid’s size, shape, and rotation, not to mention the condition of its surface, such as roughness and any protruding features.
Meanwhile, knowing an asteroid is there is obviously better than not having a clue of its whereabouts, and so the Deep Space Network antenna works in tandem with the Near-Earth Object Observations Platform, aka “Spaceguard,” to identify what might one day present a collision issue. Happily that was never an issue with DA14, though the asteroid did come so close to the planet as to pass through the gap in-between it and the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites in orbit.
The drive to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota has received a boost, as a Republican state senator prepares to cross party lines and join the effort.
“At this point, I am concerned about doing the right thing,” state Sen. Branden Petersen (R) told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I have a certain amount of peace about that, and I will let the chips fall where they may.”
If Petersen signs on to the same-sex marriage bill expected to be introduced this week, he would be the first Republican lawmaker to do so. His cosponsorship would be especially significant because he was among a majority of GOP legislators who put a constitutional amendment on the November 2012 ballot that would have banned marriage equality in Minnesota. Voters defeated the measure.
Last week, we made note of the way the hearings on Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of Defense — both within and outside the Senate chambers — had reached an apotheosis of weird, with the discussion now basically centered on how it would be really bad for Hagel if any of the odd rumors about stuff he’d allegedly said or money he’d allegedly received turned out to be true.
Like, what if Hagel said that “the State Department has become adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office?” And what if we all pretended that “adjunct to” meant “under the control of?” And what’s this I hear about Iran “endorsing” Hagel? Isn’t that a bad thing? Shouldn’t we assume that is sincere, and not just some functionary in Iran, trying to bait a bunch of simpleton lawmakers?
One of the more fun rumors of this variety was that Chuck Hagel had received some money from an organization called “Friends of Hamas,” a rumor which, if true, required a number of vastly strange things to happen. For instance, a bunch of guys who were “friends” of “Hamas” would have to be stupid enough to name their Hamas-supporting organization, “Friends of Hamas.” Those people would then have to be stupid enough to give Hagel some money, for some reason. And then Hagel would have to be stupid enough to accept that money. And then a whole industry of agencies dedicated to elucidating the connections between political figures and the special interests that bankroll them would have to be stupid enough to not notice.
Spotify, the ever-popular music streaming service, is apparently in talks with major music labels to negotiate reductions in royalty fees in order to offer free access to the service’s mobile offerings. Currently, users have to pay $9.99 per month in order to access Spotify on their smartphones or tablets.
The Verge reports that “several music industry sources” are saying that Spotify is already in negotiations with Warner Music about lowering fees and changing rights to its music, and Spotify is said to begin similar negotiations with Sony and Universal soon. If such negotiations are successful, Spotify would see a growth in profits, as well as the ability to give more users access to free content.
Spotify’s free offering only gives users access to the desktop app with advertisements, but paying the monthly $9.99 fee will get rid of ads and allow users to access their Spotify library on their mobile devices. Even though, Spotify boasts 20 million users, 5 million of which are paying subscribers, the company is currently breaking even financially.
While free access to Spotify’s mobile offerings would certainly be fantastic, it’s hard to say if the negotiations with the music labels will go well. Streaming music services have a tense relationship with music labels and even individual artists. Several major artists, including Coldplay and Adele, have refused to allow their music to be streamed by Spotify because of extremely low royalty fees and rights to the music.
Mobile World Congress is coming next week and our team is already en route to Barcelona to prepare for the onslaught of mobile content. We’re sure there will be a number of big announcements for upcoming mobile devices at MWC, one of which will come from ASUS as they released a video teasing their upcoming announcement.
The teaser video is called “Ultimate Craftmanship. Today.” and shows a UFO flying over Barcelona while people in the city watch it land on a church. The video then ends with a invitation to its viewers to “join ASUS to embrace the metallic miracle” on February 25, during Mobile World Congress.
We’re not entirely sure what exactly a UFO landing on a church in Barcelona means as we can’t imagine such an act results in the future of mobile technology. If we had to guess based on the video and the message, we could expect whatever ASUS has to unveil will be made of chrome or some other material made of metal. Haven’t the recent leaks of its upcoming Fonepad hinted at a metal back?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Serena Williams has withdrawn from the Dubai Championships because of a lower back injury.
Williams took over the No. 1 ranking last week in Qatar, the sixth time in her career she has been the top-ranked player in the world. She lost in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open last month after injuring her back.
Hammerstein Ballroom may be known for its long history as a concert venue, but tonight Sony’s taking over to unveil the PlayStation … something. All signs point to a reveal of the game console we’ve only known by its codename thus far, “Orbis,” and we’ll be on site liveblogging the whole shindig. But that’s not all! Our intrepid EIC, Tim Stevens, is joining Joystiq‘s EIC, Ludwig Kietzmann, for a little pre- and post-show conjecture / analysis — you can find the former here, and the latter right here. We’ve also got an embedded stream of the event, should you prefer to follow along visually while we break the news apart into so many digestible pieces. Our coverage kicks off around 4PM ET, and the event itself officially begins at 6PM ET — all we expect from you is wonderful, wonderful GIFs. But then you already knew that, didn’t you?
I love vintage Battlestar Galactica as much as I love the more recent version. And I do have a soft spot for old-school Cylons, so I find it awesome that Eugene Haggerty from Clearwater, Florida is building a half-scale, drivable replica of the original Cylon Raider. He started construction in October of last year and the goal is to have it ready by Galacticon 3 this May in Houston, Texas. Eugene estimates that he has about 150 hours of build time to go on this project. He has already spent $10,000(USD) on the project and he thinks that the total cost will exceed $20,000. After Galacticon, he may even take it to Dragon*Con 2013 and other conventions, too.
Man, I would love to see this Cylon Raider driving down the street. If you want to donate to the project, just click here for more details. This thing should look amazing when Eugene is finished.
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