Weekend Open Thread

It’s time for a snowbound weekend open thread. I’m going to put up my Christmas tree and drink eggnog this weekend. I’ve still got a little bit of Christmas shopping to do, but I guess that will have to wait until Monday.

This is interesting: physicists may have detected dark matter in a Minnesota mine.

Detectors in the mine, part of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment, were tripped recently by what might be weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

WIMPs are among the most popular candidates for dark matter, the invisible material that scientists think makes up more than 80 percent of the mass in the universe.

Recently detectors in the mine recorded two hits with “characteristics consistent with those expected from WIMPs,” according to a statement posted on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Web site.

There is a one-in-four chance, however, that the particles detected are not dark matter but ordinary subatomic particles such as neutrons, the team cautions. (Related: “Dark Matter Proof Found Over Antarctica?”)

A quick primer on dark matter can be found at Wikipedia. It’s a theoretical material thought to contain most of the mass of the universe, yet had never been detected. Until now?

In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is hypothetical matter that is undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter.[1] According to present observations of structures larger than galaxies, as well as Big Bang cosmology, dark matter and dark energy could account for the vast majority of the mass in the observable universe.

TPM follows the fate of the Franken anti-rape amendment. A modified Franken amendment was included in the defense appropriations bill that was passed last night. Jamie Leigh Jones will get her day in court!

A senior administration official explains to TPM: The White House was concerned about the original language, which would have prohibited the DoD from using companies whose employment contracts contained an “arbitration clause,” which would keep employees from taking the company to court for Title VII offenses, which include rape, sexual assault, harassment and false imprisonment. That language, the official said, may have forced the government to reneg on multi-billion-dollar contracts. Because of a clause in many of those contracts, the government would still have to pay the contractors, even though the work wouldn’t be performed.

Another concern: The Pentagon deals with a massive number of contracts and would never be able to make sure the arbitration clauses were stripped in all those contracts.

So White House staff, after a week or so perusing contract and grant law, came up with a “clever construct,” the official said. The contractors, in order to stay in the lucrative government contract business, don’t have to remove the arbitration clauses. But they can’t enforce them.

Thank you Senator Franken!