Small Plane Crashes In Gaithersburg, Maryland

Around 11:00 a.m. this morning, an Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 twin-engine jet crashed into a neighborhood in Gaithersburg, Maryland, killing three people on board, and destroying or badly damaging three homes.  The crash site is about a mile northwest of the Montgomery County Airpark, reported to be the plane's intended destination.  Whether anyone on the ground has been injured is not yet known.

Read more at NBC Washington, MyFoxDC, The Washington Post, WUSA and WTOP.

UPDATE:  As reported by AOL, a woman and her two sons were killed in their house when it was struck by the plane.

Links For Pearl Harbor Day

For the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, here is a bit of history, and some things in the news today:

From Business Insider, photographs from Pearl Harbor during the attack.

From Seattlepi, survivors of the attack gather to remember.

From Bloomberg Politics, American racial divisions have worsened during the Obama presidency.

From Fox News, as typhoon Hagupit hits the Philippines, three people have been reported dead, while over 900,000 have been evacuated.

From Skift, autistic children are given a chance to rehearse travelling on an airplane.

From BBC News, a Taliban leader has been turned over to Pakistan.

From NBC Chicago, several churches in Chicago have made plans for after-service protests.

The Rowan Free Press asks if tiny houses could "help lift Salisbury, NC out of poverty."

From Breitbart TV, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) calls Common Core a "bait and switch".

From CNET, a taxi driver in India has been arrested for the alleged rape of a woman who booked her ride using the online service Uber.

From Twitchy, a feminist likens skeptics of the recent Rolling Stone rape story to people hypothetically denying that the Titanic actually sank, and gets rebutted.

From CBS Sports, the four playoff contenders for the NCAA football national championship have been announced.

From the NWF Daily News, the executive director of the Okaloosa County (Florida) Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge faces trial for bringing hyenas into the county.

And from Yahoo, the show Saturday Night Live spoofs Al Sharpton.

Mary Landrieu Loses Senate Seat

Three-term Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has lost in her state's runoff election to Bill Cassidy (R), who is currently in the House of Representatives.  Cassidy has also been a physician and a state legislator.  His victory will increase the Republican majority in the upcoming Senate to 54 seats.  The runoff was held because no candidate garnered 50% of the vote during the regular election on November 4.

Read more at the National Journal and NBC News.

UPDATE: Fox News reports the margin as 56% for Cassidy, 44% for Landrieu.  (via Gateway Pundit)

Tempe, AZ Postpones "Run From The Cops"

The very name of this race deserves a "you can't make this stuff up" label.  From azcentral:

The Tempe Police Department's "Run From The Cops 5K," which was scheduled to take place Saturday morning around Tempe Town Lake, has been postponed due to civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo., New York City and elsewhere.

In a statement released Thursday evening, Tempe Police Department's Chief Tom Ryff explained that a lot of consideration went into canceling Saturday's event.

"I have determined that out of sensitivity, respect and support for all sides of an important debate taking place all across our great country, it is necessary to proactively postpone this year's race," Ryff said.

Read the full story.

Orion Spacecraft Undergoes Test Flight

At 7:05 this morning, NASA launched a Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying an unmanned Orion crew vehicle into earth orbit.  The Orion is intended to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond.  Here's NASA's video:

As reported by USA Today, the launch was originally intended for yesterday, but was scrubbed.  Read about today's successful launch at Yahoo News, NPR, The Guardian and Fox News.

Here's an interesting tidbit.  According to Computerworld, the Orion's computer is about as smart as your smartphone.

Chinese Economy Surpasses American

My fellow Americans, it is with deep regret that I pass on this news.  For the first time since the presidency of U.S. Grant, the United States no longer has the world's largest economy.  That distinction has been handed over to China, which has undergone tremendous growth during recent decades.  For example, in 2000, the American economy was almost three times as large as the Chinese.  For 2014, the score is China $17.6 trillion - USA $17.4 trillion.

Read more at MarketWatch, Vanity Fair, AOL and Quartz.

The Solar System For Your Christmas Tree

Via Nerd Approved and Geek X Girls:

Putting a star on top of a Christmas tree is a longstanding tradition, but now you can put the planets and even the sun on your tree, too.  A new set of ornaments from Glass Sculpture Org. includes "Earth" and "Mars", each with polar caps, "Jupiter" with a red spot, and "Saturn" with rings.  The "Sun" is not a plain yellow sphere, but a multicolored orb that includes sunspots.  Some purists might object, but "Pluto" is included, even through it's no longer classified as a planet.  If I have one complaint, it's that "Uranus" is not tilted on its side.  Perhaps a tinsel garland made of "asteroids" might be worthy of future consideration.

Read more at either link above, or Glass Sculpture's product page at Amazon.

Ashton Carter To Be Nominated For Secretary Of Defense

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is expected to be nominated by the president to replace his former boss Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.  Carter had also served as Deputy Secretary under Hagel's predecessor Leon Panetta.  Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who also has been the General Counsel at the Pentagon, had also been under consideration.

Ashton Carter has an impressive academic record, including degrees in physics and medieval history from Yale and a doctorate in physics from Oxford.  He has been on the faculty at Harvard and has lectured at Stanford.  Carter has worked at the Pentagon in a civilian capacity as a technical analyst and as its chief weapons buyer.

Read more at CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, The New York Times and Yahoo News.

UPDATE:  According to gotnews, Carter wrote articles in the Yale school newspaper calling for reforming the CIA.

Court Ruling Has Implications For Executive Action On Immigration

From Watchdog(dot)org via Fox News:

In a ruling that could short-circuit one of President Obama's executive actions on immigration, a federal court has allowed U.S. tech workers to challenge extensions of foreign laborers' status here.

The case of Washington Alliance of Technology Workers v. the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has "major implications" for the president's ability to expand the number of work visas and the terms or durations of those visas, said Dale Wilcox, executive director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

From another section of the Watchdog article:

“The Obama administration and its congressional allies have repeatedly stated that they believed the president’s executive memos were immune from judicial review in federal court,” Wilcox said.

The decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia “demonstrates that this is not true,” Wilcox stated.

This case raises an ominous possibility, even though it does not directly address the president's recent executive action on illegal immigration.  If the administration and its allies are right, their actions cannot be reviewed by the courts, while those of Congress can be reviewed, and even struck down.  Do we want the president to be able to enact de facto laws by executive order, without any meaningful checks and balances?  Whatever you think, read the full story.

Rams Player's "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" Gesture Yields Irony

Yesterday, before their game with the Oakland Raiders, five St. Louis Rams football players decided to walk onto the field holding their hands up in a "don't shoot" gesture, apparently in protest of the grand jury decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.  As Jammie of Jammie Wearing Fools has discovered, one of them has some real-life experience in the art of placing his hands where police officers can see them.  Wide receiver Kenny Britt, when he played for the Tennessee Titans, had some trouble with the law in his home town.  From Fox Sports, as quoted by Jammie:

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt was arrested on three charges Tuesday afternoon after a car chase in his hometown of Bayonne, N.J., FOXSports.com has learned.

A Bayonne police spokesman told FOXSports.com that Britt was charged with eluding a police officer, lying to an officer/hindering apprehension and obstructing governmental function. Eluding an officer is a third-degree felony; the other two charges are misdemeanors.

Britt has had other encounters with law enforcement, including being arrested.  Also from Fox Sports via JWF:

Britt has had run-ins with the law three times in the past 16 months, which could make him susceptible to NFL suspension once the lockout ends. He was arrested in January 2010 after failing to pay $865 for three outstanding traffic warrants. Britt was scheduled for a hearing Feb. 22 in Bayonne on a misdemeanor charge of theft by deception after being accused by two bail bond companies of not paying the bail money he had promised on behalf of a friend.

Britt also was questioned as part of an assault claim from a bar fight in October in Nashville. Before being exonerated by a grand jury, Britt was benched for one quarter of a game as punishment by then-head coach Jeff Fisher.

Note the further irony in the last paragraph.  Like officer Wilson, Britt himself was cleared by a grand jury investigating an alleged offense.  Read more at the links above.