The shifting lights of the Aurora Borealis can take on many shapes and forms as they are moulded by the Earth’s complex magnetic field. Sheets and planes of glowing gas appear to be twisted into a giant vortex above Grøtfjord in Norway. Courtesy of Amazing Space Photos: Royal Observatory's Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013.
The quote below from Rand Paul isn't pure science, but it is a good example of the entire, know-nothing, anti-science hysteria that has taken over wingnut extremists these days bleeding over into new fields of
wishful thinking:
I'm promising to the American people and to the markets to Wall Street that we will always pay the interest on the debt as a priority. Do you know how we do that? We bring in $250 billion in tax revenue every month. The debt payment is about 30 billion. We just promise we will always pay it. What's going on is interestingly the Democrats are scaring people and saying, we might not pay it because Republicans don't want to raise the debt ceiling. If you don't raise the debt ceiling, what that means is you have a balanced budget. It doesn't mean you wouldn't pay your bills. We should pay the interest and we should never scare the markets. So, if I were in-charge, I would say, absolutely, we will never default. I would pass a law saying that the first revenue every month, the first revenue, has to go to pay interest.
Maybe Paul was trying to cram too much info into the confines of commercial TV constraints. But it sounds like he thinks all will be fine if he
personally promises bondholders will be paid. A bond is by definition a promise by debtors to pay creditors on time and in full. It's about as serious as a promise can get, and if the debtor delays or misses a single payment they have by definition broken that promise and the bond is in default. There is no second-do-over-personal-promise get-out-of-jail-free card for junior senators who say "we'll pay later I promise no really this time" in that deal.