It may have died in Congress, but a tax credit for small businesses creating jobs is a good idea. There are pros and cons, but overall Main Street needs this. Companies need a little more financial flexibility, especially if they legitimately need to add employees, and people out there just need more jobs.

From the link:

President Barack Obama’s push to create jobs includes a new tax credit for small businesses that add employees, an idea that fell flat in Congress last year and continues to have skeptics this year.

The idea has appeal as the nation struggles with an unemployment rate topping 10 percent. But House Democrats left out Obama’s proposal when they passed a jobs bill in December because they didn’t know how to target the credit effectively. The Obama administration still hasn’t provided details on how the tax credit would work, and some tax experts question whether it would.

Via KurzweilAI.net — If you’re not familiar with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life) program, it’s an effort to do just what its name implies. A major part of the effort is the SETI@home screensaver that uses home computer CPU downtime to crunch numbers from Earth-bound radio telescopes in a distributed computing project. I ran SETI@home on a box several generations ago (computer-wise on my end) and found the data analysis weirdly fascinating to watch.

Putting a radio observatory on the far side of the moon would provide a lot more benefits than seeking alien life forms, but that would be a pretty cool byproduct.

SETI founder Dr Frank Drake outlines ambitious plans

Wired Science, Jan. 25, 2010 A radio observatory on the far side of the moon to eliminate Earth-based radio interference and gravitational microlensing to view alien planets are among the projects for detecting extraterrestrial intelligence proposed bySETI pioneer Dr. Frank Drake. Read Original Article>>

Customers are a precious commodity and the business climate is rough. Just the time for some of those specialized tools from the biz toolbox. Not to get too buzz-wordy, but predictive analytics gets very granular when parsing incoming data about your business. Of course you need to have a business that takes in a fair amount of information about customers,  markets, competitors, etc. to even begin to apply predictive analytics.

From the link:

Traditional business intelligence (BI) might point you in a direction, but predictive analytics aims to uncover a treasure map, says David White, a senior research analyst at Aberdeen Group. That’s because BI identifies relationships between a few data points, while predictive analytics evaluates how many factors work together. BI vendors are now offering predictive analytics tools that used to be available only from niche vendors such as SAS and SPSS.

White knows of a department store chain using predictive analytics to formulate more profitable coupon campaigns by targeting the right customers. If a store sends a coupon to a customer who was going to make a purchase anyway, the store is no further ahead. But send the same coupon to a shopper who wouldn’t have otherwise come in, and you’ve made money, White says.

I’m going to let the subhead for this Physics arXiv blog post say it all:

The behavior of Congress can be modeled by the same process that causes avalanches in sandpiles.

And with that, hit the link and read the entire short bit. It is worth it.

An early entry in the modern info tech world:

The first print advertisement for the Xerox 914 Copier, the first automated copy machine, introduced to offices in 1950. In introducing the new machines, the president of Xerox said in a news release: “Our girls love to use the 914 and have discovered many new copying jobs for it to do.”

By Stephanie N. Mehta, executive editor

Here’s some of the options on the table:

The initiatives were developed by the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, led by Vice President Joe Biden. The proposals would:

* Require companies that do not offer retirement plans to enroll their employees in direct-deposit retirement accounts unless the workers opt out.

* Increase the “Savers Credit,” a tax credit for retirement savings, for families making up to $85,000.

* Change some of the rules for 401(k) employer-sponsored retirement savings accounts to make them more transparent.

* Increase the child tax credit rate to 35 percent of qualifying expenses from the current 20 percent for families making under $85,000 a year. Families making up to $115,000 would be eligible for some increase in the tax credit.

* Increase child care funding by $1.6 billion in 2011 to serve an additional 235,000 children.

* Boost government spending by $102.5 million for programs aimed at helping families who provide home care for an aging relative.

* Ease the burden for student loans by limiting a borrower’s payments to 10 percent of his or her income above a basic living allowance.

Tax forms pre-filled with the information the IRS has on your taxpayer ID.

From the link:

Requiring taxpayers to file returns without being told what the government already knows makes as much sense “as if Visa sent customers a blank piece of paper, requiring that they assemble their receipts, list their purchases — and pay a fine if they forget one,” said Joseph Bankman, a professor at the Stanford Law School.

Many developed countries now offer taxpayers a return containing all information collected by the taxing authority — to “get the ball rolling by telling you what it knows,” Mr. Bankman says.

It’s a stunningly reasonable idea. When you prepare your return, why can’t you first download whatever data the Internal Revenue Service has received about you and, if your return is simple, learn what the I.R.S.’s calculation of your taxes would be? You’d have the chance to check whether the information was accurate, correct it as needed and add any pertinent details — that you’re newly married, for example, or have a new child — before sending it. Far better to discover problems early with the I.R.S., whose say matters more than third-party software’s best guess.

In prep for a new lunar mission, NASA is redesigning the spacesuit.

From the link:

If NASA returns to the moon in 2020 as planned, astronauts will step out in a brand-new space suit. It will give them new mobility and flexibility on the lunar surface while still protecting them from its harsh environment. The suit will also be able to sustain life for up to 150 hours and will even be equipped with a computer that links directly back to Earth.

The new design will also let astronauts work outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and will be suitable for trips to Mars, as outlined in NASA’s program for exploration, called Constellation. “The current suits just cannot do everything we need them to do,” saysTerry Hill, the Constellation space suit engineering project manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We have a completely new design, something that has never been done before.”

NASA has proposed a plug-in-play design, so that the same arms, legs, boots, and helmets can be used with different suit torsos. “It’s one reconfigurable suit that can do the job of three specialized suits,” says Hill. The space agency has awarded a $500 million, 6.5-year contract for the design and development of the Constellation space suit to Houston-based Oceaneering International, which primarily makes equipment for deep-sea exploration. Oceaneering has partnered with the Worcester, MA-based David Clark Company, which has been developing space suits for the U.S. space agency since the 1960s.

And, most importantly, the picture:

To infinity and beyond: David Clark Company, in partnership with Oceaneering International, is designing a new U.S. space suit for missions to the space station, moon, and Mars. It has interchangeable parts, so the arms, legs, boots, and helmet can be switched. The first configuration, shown here, is designed for launch, descent, and emergency activities, while the second design is meant for lunar exploration.

Credit: Brittany Sauser

Could have fooled its citizens, and companies forced to comply with government censorship demands to operate in the nation, I guess.

This is a hole Chinese officials might as well stop digging.

From the link:

China on Friday slammed remarks made by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promoting Internet freedom worldwide, saying her words harmed U.S.-China relations.

China resolutely opposes Clinton’s remarks and it is not true that the country restricts online freedom, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site.

Clinton’s speech and China’s response both come after Google (GOOG) last week said it planned to reverse its long-standing position in China by ending censorship of its Chinese search engine. Google cited increasingly tough censorship and recent cyberattacks on the Gmail accounts of human rights activists for its decision, which it said might force it to close its offices in China altogether.

China blocks Web sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and has long forced domestic Internet companies to censor their own services. Blog providers, for instance, are expected to delete user posts that include pornographic content or talk of sensitive political issues.

The Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints advance to Super Bowl XLIV two weeks from now on February 7, 2010, in Miami.

Going into the Indy/New York game I figured 21 points would be enough for the Colts. Turns out I was right, but it certainly didn’t look that way at halftime where the Jets led 17-13.  In fact until the two-minute drill of the first half, the Jets dominated with a little bit of luck and a lot of good play. Especially from rookie QB Mark Sanchez. In the second half the Jets fell to earth, and after three solid quarters Sanchez finally looked like a rookie quarterback in the fourth. The Colts efficiently controlled the entire second half for a 30-17 win.

Just two words are needed for the NFC Championship game: roller coaster. The New Orleans Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 in overtime to send the franchise to it’s first Super Bowl. The teams traded punches through an alternately offensive and defensive battle. The Vikings were beset with fumbles, losing three and mostly dominated the second half — particularly the fourth quarter — aside from the crippling mistakes. In field goal range to win the game in regulation, Brett Favre threw an interception with less than 10 seconds remaining in what may well be his final NFL pass.

The NFC Championship game was about as exciting as playoff football can get. The Super Bowl should be an interesting match-up. Hopefully the Saints’ offense from the first half of this season will make the trip to Miami.

Interesting study from the Cato Institute ( by David Boaz and David Kirby) to find out just how many libertarian voters are out there in the wild pulling levers on election days.

Looking at the loosest possible definition — fiscal conservative/social liberal but won’t self-identify as libertarian — the number is a huge 59 percent. Add the self-definition to the equation and that drops to 44 percent.

The Cato’s stringent definition of libertarian — “correct” answers on three political values questions — still found 14 percent of voters are libertarian. A fairly healthy figure. For the record I consider myself in the second group of the second graf. Didn’t take the Kirby-Boaz survey to see if I fit a higher level of purity. I typically self describe as a “little l” libertarian.

And the ostensibly libertarian Tea Party movement? From everything I’ve read the movement has a lot of libertarian rhetoric, coupled with a lot of anarchic actions. Honest libertarianism isn’t against government. It’s just against needlessly intrusive, large and bad government.

From the first link:

In our new study, David Kirby and I round up various estimates on the number of libertarian-leaning voters. Our own calculation, 14 percent, is actually the lowest estimate.

We use three questions on political values from the generally acknowledged gold standard of public opinion data, the surveys of the American National Election Studies, and find that 14 percent of respondents gave libertarian answers to all three questions. But other researchers have used somewhat looser criteria and found larger numbers of libertarians:

The chart:

We summed all that up in this handy but not necessarily helpful graph

… be sure to head to channel 701 for the Australian Open Mix Channel where you can watch five matches at once, or better yet choose just one of those five to watch. You’re not stuck with whatever the Tennis Channel or ESPN2 is offering up and there’s no commercials. Plus the commentary tends to be pleasantly spare.

I’ve already blogged about how the movie “2012″’s viral marketing campaign caused some irrational fear through fake sites purporting to be actual science organizations, and talk about “Planet X”, Nibiru, the Mayan calendar, the year 2012 and other doomsday scenarios continues.

Here’s a nice overview and quick take down of all that nonsense by astrobiologist David Morrison in the December 2009 Skeptical Inquirer.

From the second link:

As the story grows in complexity, many more doomsday scenarios are being suggested, often unrelated to Nibiru. These include a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, severe solar storms associated with the eleven-year solar cycle (which may peak in 2012), a reversal of Earth’s rotation axis, a 90 degree flip of the rotation axis, bombardment by large comets or asteroids, and bombardment by gamma rays or various unspecified lethal rays coming from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy or the “dark rift” seen in a nearby galactic spiral arm. A major theme has become celestial alignments, which fascinate laypersons. Supposedly, the Sun will align with the galactic center (or maybe with the Milky Way Dark Rift) on December 21, 2012, subjecting us to potentially deadly forces.

Also:

I continue to receive several email questions every day about Nibiru and 2012, sent to the NASA Web site “Ask an Astrobiologist”. See the sidebar for some examples received during just two weeks in May 2009. Many questioners are frightened, angry, or both. To my surprise, I have not seen much evidence that other scientists or skeptics are concerned about this growing outbreak of pseudoscience. More than a hundred past replies of mine are posted on the astrobiology Web site and also referenced on the NASA home page. A few news blogs such as Yahoo also provide truthful answers, but these are drowned out by the 2012 hysteria. I give credit to Wikipedia, which has several entries on Nibiru, including a very good overview of the pseudoscience under “Nibiru collision.” But questions keep streaming in, and I fear this will not be my last update on this subject.

Well, there’s a multitude of reasons, but this quote from the recent March for Life makes a pretty strong point:

One Virginia woman I spoke with, Rosemary, held up a massive image of Jesus while echoing Mother Teresa to me. Repeating her claim that abortion is the world’s greatest problem, she said: “It’s the contraception mentality…contraception leads to abortion leads to nuclear war.” She told me that, if she had her way, contraception would be illegal. “It’s bad for women. Life is being sabotaged.”

Abortion is the world’s greatest problem? The exact opposite — overcrowding — is certainly much more of a an actual problem when compared to a quasi-moral posit. And exactly how does abortion lead to nuclear war? That’s quite the chain of logic at work there.

Then there’s this from the March for Life founder:

“No exceptions. No compromise.”

So blared from the lips of Nellie Gray, the founder of the annual March for Life event, which brings hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates to the mall at Washington, D.C. every year on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. “We can’t compromise with the abortionists,” she said — by which she means the Democratic Party and, as she came to explain, anyone who believes in exceptions for rape.

The phrase “no compromise” by definition means debating the issue is pointless.

Here you go:

MSU’s Megan Donahue was part of an international team of astronomers that viewed this rare double-tailed gas cloud. Their paper on the subject is in the publication Astrophysical Journal. Photo courtesy of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Head below the fold for the release accompanying the image.

MSU contributes to new research on star formation

EAST LANSING, Mich. — “Crazy” and “cool” are two of the words Michigan State University astronomer Megan Donahue uses to describe the two distinct “tails” found on a long tail of gas that is believed to be forming stars where few stars have been formed before.

Donahue was part of an international team of astronomers that viewed the gas tail with a very long, new observation made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and detailed it in a paper published this month in the publication Astrophysical Journal.

“The double tail is very cool – that is, interesting – and ridiculously hard to explain,” said Donahue, a professor in MSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. “It could be two different sources of gas or something to do with magnetic fields. We just don’t know.”

What is also unusual is the gas tail, which is more than 200,000 light years in length, extends well outside any galaxy. It is within objects such as this that new stars are formed, but usually within the confines of a galaxy.

“This system is really crazy because where we’re seeing the star formation is well away from any galaxy,” Donahue said. “Star formation happens primarily in the disks of galaxies. What we’re seeing here is very unexpected.”

This gas tail was originally spotted by astronomers three years ago using a multitude of telescopes, including NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the SOuthern Astrophysical Research telescope, a Chilean-based observatory in which MSU is one of the partners. The new observations show a second tail, and a fellow galaxy, ESO 137-002, that also has a tail of hot X-ray-emitting gas.

How these newly formed stars came to be in this particular place remains a mystery as well. Astronomers theorize this gas tail might have “pulled” star-making material from nearby gases, creating what some have called “orphan stars.”

“This system continues to surprise us as we get better observations of it,” Donahue said.

The gas tail is located in the southern hemisphere near a constellation called Triangulum Australe, in a giant cluster of galaxies called Abell 3627. It is associated with a galaxy known as ESO 137-001 which is about 219 million light years from our own Milky Way Galaxy.

Star formation is a continuous process throughout the universe, where there are estimated to be billions of galaxies, each of which contains billions of stars. Stars are formed from clouds of dusty, cool, dense molecular gas. Molecular gas clouds prefer to inhabit galaxies, particularly the disks of galaxies like the Milky Way.

Our sun, a star located within the Milky Way Galaxy, is an average-size star estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old.

###

Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.

According to a Fox News poll.

From the link:

A new Fox News survey shows that Americans remain deeply wary of the tea party movement, and strongly prefer Barack Obama to a hypothetical tea party candidate.  And it’s a result Fox News chose to bury in its reporting on the poll — choosing instead to highlight “anti-Obama” voter sentiment. The poll, released by Fox News yesterday, shows that if given the choice between re-electing Barack Obama and electing a member of the tea party movement, Americans prefer Barack Obama 48% to 23%, a margin of 25 points.

Fox’s survey, conducted just over a week ago, shows that independents are still uneasy about trusting a member of the tea party movement with a position of power. Indeed, among independents, Barack Obama enjoys a 17 point lead.

Hit the link for head-to-head 2012 presidential race comparisons between Obama against Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Rommey does best among independents with Obama ahead 43 to 28 percent. Gingrich is next with 53 to 23 percent Obama, and predictably Palin is third with 56 to 24 percent Obama. She actually gets more independent support than Gingrich, but also turns off more than she attracts. Interestingly Palin does the same among Republicans — that is she pulls a little more support than Gingrich, but gives up the same number of GOPers to Obama.

Here’s a quick (a little over three minutes) recap on what Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts means in terms of the current political climate.

From the inbox, an introduction for the clip:

Our video team just produced a short video about the Brown campaign that discusses the real meaning of Tuesday’s election. Cato scholars John Samples and David Boaz contend that Tuesday’s election sent a message to Democrats that they have clearly overreached, but Republicans need to be careful and realize that they’re still not very popular either.

It’s not much, but anything ought to feel pretty good right now. Especially with unemployment still dogging the economy.

From the link (bold text is my emphasis):

The number of newly-laid off workers seeking jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, as the economy recovers at a slow and uneven pace, but a forecast of future economic activity jumped 1.1% in December, suggesting that economic growth could pick up this spring.

Layoffs have slowed and the economy began to grow in last year’s third quarter, but companies are reluctant to hire new workers. The unemployment rate is 10% and many economists expect it to increase in the coming months.

Here’s more detail on the good news portion of the link:

Separately, the 1.1% increase in the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators was larger than the 0.7% rise that economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected.

Actually, not a bad idea.

From the link:

Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) top legal official yesterday called on Congress to create new laws that would give data stored in the cloud the same protections as data stored on a PC. He also called for tougher penalties for hackers who access data centers, citing significant damage that’s often done in such attacks.

Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, told an audience at a Brookings Institution forum here today that laws now protecting electronic data were written in the early days of PCs. “We need Congress to modernize the laws and adapt them to the cloud,” he said.

While many consumers have adopted cloud computing by subscribing to e-mail services like Google (GOOG) Gmail, to social networks like Facebook and to Microsoft’s increasing online services offerings, enterprises have been somewhat cautious about moving corporate data to hosted systems due to legal and security concerns both here and abroad. Those fears have been causing problem for IT vendors, forcing some to provide significant protections to large users.

Looks like the focus is small and independent filmmakers who need more than ad-supported revenue. With all the competition between console games, video-on-demand services, web-based content and the rest of the video watching/music listening/game playing/et.al. options out there, the lines between types of media and delivery systems are becoming blurrier and blurrier every day.

This YouTube effort could be quite the boon for independent filmmakers. Since it’s supposedly going into effect today sometime, it is also quite bereft of important details. Little things like cost and, more importantly, how the service is going to work.

From the link:

Starting tomorrow, YouTube will offer video rentals, according to a post on the site’s official blog. The first available content will be five films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festivals, and they will be online until January 31.

Also from the link:

Exact details of how the rentals will work aren’t yet available, but the company says they will post more tomorrow. It has said, however, that money will be collected through Google Checkout.