Space Construction (6)

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SPACE WATCH (history) · Shuttle and Station · 360° Virtual Tour

View from Shuttle Endeavour, STS-97-5
NASA – STS097-704-071 (9 December 2000) — This picture is one of a series of 70mm frames exposed of the International Space Station (ISS) following undocking at 1:13 p.m. (CST), December 9, 2000. This series of images, as well as video and digital still imagery taken at the same time, represent the first imagery of the entire station with its new solar array panels deployed. Before separation, the shuttle and space station had been docked to one another for 6 days, 23 hours and 13 minutes. Endeavour moved downward from the space station, then began a tail-first circle at a distance of about 500 feet. The maneuver, with pilot Michael J. Bloomfield at the controls, took about an hour. While Endeavour flew that circle, the two spacecraft, moving at five miles a second, navigated about two-thirds of the way around the Earth. Undocking took place 235 statute miles above the border of Kazakhstan and China. When Endeavour made its final separation burn, the orbiter and the space station were near the northeastern coast of South America.

View from Shuttle Endeavour, STS-97-6
STS097-704-080 (9 December 2000) — This picture is one of a series of 70mm frames exposed of the International Space Station (ISS) following undocking at 1:13 p.m. (CST), December 9, 2000. This series of images, as well as video and digital still imagery taken at the same time, represent the first imagery of the entire station with its new solar array panels deployed. Before separation, the shuttle and space station had been docked to one another for 6 days, 23 hours and 13 minutes. Endeavour moved downward from the space station, then began a tail-first circle at a distance of about 500 feet. The maneuver, with pilot Michael J. Bloomfield at the controls, took about an hour. While Endeavour flew that circle, the two spacecraft, moving at five miles a second, navigated about two-thirds of the way around the Earth. Undocking took place 235 statute miles above the border of Kazakhstan and China. When Endeavour made its final separation burn, the orbiter and the space station were near the northeastern coast of South America.

View from Shuttle Atlantis, STS-98
STS98-E-5314 (16 February 2001) — The International Space Station (ISS) backdropped against the Rio Negro, Argentina, following undocking. The photo was taken with a digital still camera.

View from Shuttle Atlantis, STS-98-2
STS98-E-5314 (16 February 2001) — The International Space Station (ISS) backdropped against the Rio Negro, Argentina, following undocking. The photo was taken with a digital still camera.

Time Out for Federal Regulation

By Wayne Crews – At the moment, the Federal Register stands at 61,247 pages–for 2011 alone. You can see the Code of Federal Regulations from space.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is proposing a freeze via her “Regulatory Time Out Act, which she recently outlined in the Wall Street Journal.

The “time out” would be a year-long moratorium on “significant” rules, typically defined as those expected to cost $100 million annually.

We could use this idea. more> http://twurl.nl/q8qa0q

Related articles

• Susan Collins: The Economy Needs a Regulation Time-Out (online.wsj.com)

New domain name system could draw threat to trademarks

By Jennifer Brown -The new gTLDs means an almost unlimited expansion of the current system,” explained James Davis of Washington, D.C.- based Arent Fox LLP, speaking as part of The Legal and Practical Guide to Protecting Your Brand on the Web and in Social Media program at the Osgoode Professional Development session in Toronto on Sept. 26.

“The last thing ICANN wants is for criminals and people who are ill-prepared to create these new gTLDs and then flounder, or create an environment where scammers or phishers can show up,” said Davis.

ICANN has implemented some policies and mechanisms brand owners should take advantage of to mitigate the risks. The Trademark Clearinghouse is one of them. more> http://twurl.nl/r1iuum

Related articles

• Internet Domain Name Management, StrategyGroup
• Blushing brands: protecting trademarks before and after ‘.xxx’, Kristof Neefs, International Law Office
• The ICANN gTLD Battlefield – The Fog of War (circleid.com)
• A Made Up Fantasy and the ICANN gTLD Reality (circleid.com)
• The Association of National Advertisers Blinders on New TLDs (circleid.com)
• New generic TLDs: Association of National Advertisers throws a tantrum (ipkitten.blogspot.com)
• .london, .scot, .what? How to work out whether to seek a generic TLD (guardian.co.uk)
• Dot brand versus dot com (bbc.co.uk)
• Are You Willing to Pay the Price for a Dot-Brand Domain? (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
• UK-US corporate world slams ‘dot-brand’ domain plans (go.theregister.com)
• Would an ICANN ethics policy break the law? Kevin Murphy, DomainIncite

Euro Zone Troubles Could Lead to a ‘United States of Europe’

By Michael Hirsh - The euro crisis that began two years ago in Greece has shown the folly of thinking that, despite a common currency, stronger countries such as Germany can remain untouched at the center of the European system, and that problems can be confined to weaker countries on the periphery. The fractures in the euro zone now run right up its spine to Spain and Italy, which are both under market assault.

Signs coming out of Germany indicate that, despite the dithering of Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s government and the persistent grumbling among bankers and industrialists, the political tide is shifting toward creating an even deeper remake of the Continent–possibly even a “United States of Europe.”

The best bet is that the Europeans will head off a new existential crisis. After all, Europe isn’t just a continent of dithering bureaucrats and politicians, or of failed conquerors. It is also the continent of Bismarck, Descartes, Einstein–and Galileo. more> http://twurl.nl/clnww4

Related articles

• Seven Currencies Since 1914 Is Enough for Germans Rescuing Euro, Leon Mangasarian, Bloomberg/BusinessWeek

THOMAS Top Ten – compiled on Oct 2 2011

Library of Congress -

1. H.R. 1351 [112th]
   United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011
2. H.R. 1268 [109th]
   Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005
3. H.R. 2608 [112th]
   Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012
4. H.R. 4646 [111th]
   Debt Free America Act
5. H.R. 2017 [112th]
   Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012
6. H.R. 1249 [112th]
   Leahy-Smith America Invents Act
7. H.R. 2401 [112th]
   Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011
8. S. 1549 [112th]
   American Jobs Act of 2011
9. H.Res. 365 [112th]
   Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress should cut the United States’ true debt burden by reducing home mortgage balances, forgiving student loans, and bringing down overall personal debt
10. H.R. 1473 [112th]
    Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011