Europe’s new Vega rocket made its second successful commercial launch today, placing three satellites in orbit.
The competition heats up: Europe’s new Vega rocket made its second successful commercial launch today, placing three satellites in orbit.
Year: 2013
Russia has confirmed Sarah Brightman’s tourist flight to ISS, now scheduled for October 2015.
The competition heats up: Russia has confirmed Sarah Brightman’s tourist flight to ISS, now scheduled for October 2015.
Head Start teachers expect Obamacare to severely impact their work and income.
Finding out what’s in it: Head Start teachers now expect Obamacare to severely impact their work and income.
What’s not to like? Obamacare’s got everything: Complex regulation, big fines, and high cost, all rolled up in a single package that just keeps surprising us.
The first Cygnus/Antares demo flight to ISS has been delayed at least one month, to no earlier than August.
The first Cygnus/Antares demo flight to ISS has been delayed at least one month, to no earlier than August.
Overall, this delay is not a big deal. They want to swap out an engine to check a seal, plus they then have to coordinate the flight date with other missions to ISS.
The Obama administration has given up trying to force a bible publisher to pay for contraceptives under Obamacare.
The Obama administration has given up trying to force a bible publisher to pay for contraceptives under Obamacare.
At the government’s own request, a federal appellate court Friday dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped the president from enforcing the HHS birth control mandate against a Bible publisher. The administration’s retreat marks the first total appellate victory on a preliminary injunction in any abortion pill mandate case.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers say the administration is apparently nervous about trying to defend its position that a Bible publisher is not religious enough for a religious exemption to the mandate. “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.”
Video of a successful test firing of Liberator, the first working 3D printed gun.
Video of a successful test firing of Liberator, the first working 3D printed gun.
Not surprisingly, the Democrats in Congress are rushing to outlaw this weapon, as is their typical approach to anything they don’t like: outlaw it, ban it, prohibit it, control it, restrict it.
In other related news, a news paper editor in Colorado has decided that the only fair way to debate the NRA is to send every member of the organization to prison.
No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice? Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in their own mental squalor.
No, no, no. Not the wannabe sick kid who blew up the Boston marathon or the freak that’s mailing ricin-laced letters to the president. I’m talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association. [emphasis mine]
Our modern liberal community: Restrict freedom, dump due process, imprison your opponents.
The Sun shows a bit of life
It is that time again, buckos! Yesterday NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of April 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I have posted this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.
For the second month in a row the Sun’s sunspot output increased. The result is that April 2013 saw the most sunspot activity in more than a year, since December 2011.
NASA Announces Plans To Put Man On Bus To Cleveland
Why gun owners do not trust any anti-gun advocate.
Why gun owners do not trust any anti-gun advocate.
Read the whole essay. It is blunt, honest, and outlines the nature of this growing tragic conflict better than anything I have ever read.
Pink – Try
An evening pause:
Where there is desire there’s gonna be a flame.
Where there is a flame someone’s gonna get burned.
But just because you’re burned doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.
You just gotta get up and try, try, try.
The three phonesats launched piggyback on Antares several weeks ago beamed down images of Earth that have now been released.
The three phonesats launched piggyback on Antares several weeks ago beamed down images of Earth that have now been released.
The three cube-shaped satellites were launched on Sunday, April 21, 2013 atop Orbital Science Corporation’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia. The three satellites were all built around a standard cubesat frame about four inches (10 cm) square, with a larger, external lithium-ion battery and a radio powerful enough to reach Earth. The smartphone components not only provided cameras for snapping pictures of the Earth, but also acted as the spacecrafts’ avionics for maintaining attitude control.
In keeping with the PhoneSat’s mission’s goal of getting into space on a budget, the images were transmitted back to Earth in the form of image-data packets that were received not just by NASA’s Ames Research Center but also by amateur radio operators around the world, who volunteered their services to collect 200 of these packets.
The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that carrying a firearm in an open-carry state does not create reasonable suspicion of a crime.
The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that merely carrying a firearm in an open-carry state does not create reasonable suspicion of a crime.
Nathaniel Black was part of a group of men in Charlotte, North Carolina who local police officers suspected might be engaged in criminal activity. In particular, Officers suspected that after seeing one of the men openly carrying a firearm – which was legal in North Carolina – that there was most likely another firearm present. When police began frisking the men one by one, Mr. Black wished to leave, but was told he was not free to leave. Officers chased Mr. Black and discovered that he possessed a firearm; it was later discovered that he was a previously convicted felon. Mr. Black was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Before the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Mr. Black moved to suppress the evidence against him. His suppression motion was denied, he entered a guilty plea preserving a right to appeal the denial of the suppression motion, and he was sentenced to fifteen (15) years imprisonment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, however, determined that the officers had improperly seized Mr. Black, suppressed the evidence against him, and vacated his sentence.
Read the whole article. Black had visibly been doing nothing wrong, merely standing on the sidewalk talking to friends. And because it is perfectly legal to openly carry a firearm in North Carolina, the court ruled that the police had not been given cause to detain him or search him. In other words, it though it might be illegal for you to be carrying the gun (as it was with Black), the mere presence of the gun does not give the police the right to suspect him of a crime.