Year: 2013

Today’s spacewalk by two Russian astronauts on ISS set a new Russian duration record though one of the two commercial cameras was unable to transmit its data to the ground.

3:23 pm

Today’s spacewalk by two Russian astronauts on ISS set a new Russian duration record though one of the two commercial cameras installed was unable to transmit its data to the ground.

For reasons that are unclear, the astronauts were then instructed to disconnect both cameras and bring them back inside ISS. This caused the cancellation of a number of other tasks and was the reason the spacewalk was the longest ever by Russian astronauts.

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Were the dinosaurs covered by feathers or scales? Scientists disagree.

9:11 am

Were the dinosaurs covered by feathers or scales? Two scientists find that most had scales.

Palaeontologists Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum in London and David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto created a database of all known impressions of dinosaur skin tissues. They then identified those that had feathers or feather-like structures, and considered relationships in the dinosaurian family tree.

The results, which Barrett revealed at the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology’s annual meeting in Los Angeles in late October, indicate that although some ornithischians, such as Psittacosaurus and Tianyulong, had quills or filaments in their skin, the overwhelming majority had scales or armour. Among sauropods, scales were also the norm.

The uncertainty of science: Don’t bet any money on this result. The number of dinosaur fossils actually known is relatively tiny — making the overall database tiny as well — and further discoveries could change everything.

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Photos taken 33 years ago by a photographer who died in the Mt. St. Helens eruption have been discovered and developed.

9:52 pm

Photos taken 33 years ago by a photographer who died in the Mt. St. Helens eruption have been discovered and developed.

Reid Blackburn took the photographs in April 1980 during a flight over the simmering volcano. When he got back to The Columbian studio, Blackburn set that roll of film aside. It was never developed. On May 18, 1980 — about five weeks later — Blackburn died in the volcanic blast that obliterated the mountain peak.

Those unprocessed black-and-white images spent the next three decades coiled inside that film canister. The Columbian’s photo assistant Linda Lutes recently discovered the roll in a studio storage box, and it was finally developed.

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Obama’s top ten Constitutional violations for 2013.

4:36 pm

The Obama administration’s top ten Constitutional violations for 2013.

The sad thing about this list is that it is incomplete, and it is only for 2013. Moreover, anyone who has been honestly following the news for the past five years will recognize most of these abuses. However, #9 was new to me, and just as egregious.

Responding to complaints about the University of Montana’s handling of sexual assault claims, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, in conjunction with the Justice Department, sent the university a letter intended as a national “blueprint” for tackling sexual harassment. The letter urges a crackdown on “unwelcome” speech and requires complaints to be heard in quasi-judicial procedures that deny legal representation, encourage punishment before trial, and convict based on a mere “more likely than not” standard.

Isn’t it nice how this administration is working hard to recreate Great Britain’s abusive and tyrannical Star Chamber?

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Under Obamacare more than half the counties in the 34 states that use the federal Obamacare health exchange have no affordable insurance plans.

10:58 am

What’s not in it: Under Obamacare more than half the counties in the 34 states that use the federal Obamacare health exchange have no affordable insurance plans.

Don’t worry, your doctor won’t see you anyway!

Aren’t we all glad the Democrats stood firm in Congress to make sure this law went into effect?

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Here come the Obamacare tax bills!

10:02 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Here come the Obamacare tax bills!

The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual. The new taxes and fees include a 2 percent levy on every health plan, which is expected to net about $8 billion for the government in 2014 and increase to $14.3 billion in 2018. There’s also a $2 fee per policy that goes into a new medical-research trust fund called the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Insurers pay a 3.5 percent user fee to sell medical plans on the HealthCare.gov Web site.

This list doesn’t include the hidden tax imposed on medical equipment that will also be passed on to customers.

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