Year: 2015

Annual Sept 11 event banned at University of Minnesota

5:42 pm

More insanity: The student government at the University of Minnesota has rejected doing an annual moment of silence in memory of Sept 11 because it might make Islamic students feel “unsafe.”

At-large MSA representative and Director of Diversity and Inclusion David Algadi voiced severe criticism of the resolution. He also made sure to emphasize 9/11’s status as a national tragedy in his response. “The passing of this resolution might make a space that is unsafe for students on campus even more unsafe,” said Algadi, “Islamophobia and racism fueled through that are alive and well.” Algadi added that holding a moment of recognition over a tragedy committed by non-white perpetrators could increase racist attitudes on campus, asking, “When will we start having moments of silence for all of the times white folks have done something terrible?”

I suspect Algadi would have no problem with any event that made whites or Europeans uncomfortable. In fact, by his very comments it appears he would celebrate it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he would celebrate the destruction of two skyscrapers and the killing the 3,000 innocents, merely because the act was committed by brown people against white perpetrators.

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EPA rewards Gold King contractor with more contracts

3:09 pm

Shut them down! The EPA has given an additional $2.7 million to the contractor who caused the Gold King Mine spill in Colorado.

That’s in addition to a $1 million bonus awarded the day before the spill itself.

The level of corruption here is astounding. Read the whole article at the link, as it outlines a number of other examples of corrupt actions by the EPA, both in wasting taxpayer dollars for their own personal benefit as well as routinely working with environmentalists to shut down businesses, without any objective review.

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Florida school district threatens homeschool parents with arrest

11:40 am

Fascists: A Florida school district is threatening to arrest and prosecute homeschooling parents if they do not register their children for public or private school immediately.

This threat was issued despite the fact that state law does not require such registration. The home-schoolers plan to attend the next school board meeting on November 17. That should be another interesting school board meeting.

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Decline to solar minimum continues

11:26 am

It’s that time again buckos! On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the Sun’s sunspot activity in October. As I have done every month since 2010, I am posting it here, with annotations to give it context.

The decline in sunspot continue steadily, matching the red prediction curve except that, as it has for this entire solar maximum, the number of sunspots continues to be less than expected. Not only did the ramp up start later and not quite reach the levels predicted, the ramp down started early. Overall, this now ending solar maximum is the weakest in a century. The big question remains: Is the Sun about to head into its first Grand Minimum since the 1600s, or is this weak maximum a one-time event to be followed by stronger activity in later cycles.

No matter what anyone tells you, no one knows.

October 2015 Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

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Vizio smart televisions watch YOU

10:12 am

If you are going to buy a smart television, don’t buy one by Vizio, as they by default track your viewing and provide the information to advertisers.

The feature, “Smart Interactivity,” is already turned on as a default setting for millions of people who have purchased the device. Viewers are able to turn off the setting, that is, if they know it even exists. “Non-personal identifiable information may be shared with select partners… to permit these companies to make, for example, better-informed decisions regarding content production, programming and advertising,” Vizio said in a statement.

Vizio seems to be taking a new approach by tracking viewers by default, while competitors like San Jose-based Samsung or LG Electronics leave it to customers to turn the setting on. Vizio’s sharing with advertisers also reportedly lets them target devices like your phone, which other companies do not.

Somehow this seems to be a direct violation of privacy, which also might be quite illegal.

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Student reporter files complaint against teacher

10:04 am

Pushback: The student reporter who was pushed and threatened with violence by a professor at the University of Missouri has now filed a police complaint.

The student, Mark Schierbecker, had been videotaping students and teachers as they acted to eject an ESPN photographer from a so-called “free-speech zone” on the campus. The teacher, Melissa Click, then tried to grab Schierbecker’s camera and threatened him with violence if he didn’t leave also. You can watch the video below the fold, with the confrontation in question beginning at 7:00 minutes. Click appears to be in charge of the mob in its effort to eject all reporters from the area. Near the end of the video she circles the area, yelling “Don’t let those reporters in!”

Though Click has resigned from one position at the school, she remains a professor of communications. That she does not really regret what she did is illustrated by this quote:

Schierbecker said he met with Click at her office on Tuesday, but that he found her apology “lacking.” He said that he’s made further attempts to contact Click to speak to her about his grievances with her, but she has refused to engage him. “I am just left with the feeling that she doesn’t care,” Schierbecker told USA TODAY.

More people have to file complaints like this when they are attacked by the leftist fascists on campus. Maybe then we might be able stop these bullies from running things and regain some civility in our schools.
» Read more

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More mob college protests, now in New York

9:40 am

The mob moves on: Fascist bigots at Ithaca State College are protesting and demanding the resignation of the school’s president because he doesn’t favor blacks.

The protest, which began around 1:30 p.m. and attracted at least 750 people, was in response to what organizers said were a series of incidents that demonstrated cultural insensitivity and exclusion of certain groups. Nigel Cyril, a junior at Ithaca College who is studying emerging media and Italian, said he’s never had a black professor. He and other called on college president Tom Rochon to resign. “I’ve never had a black professor,” said junior Nigel Cyril, who was holding a sign asking the students to vote no confidence in the president. “I do feel the racial tensions in this college. I’ve been pretty quiet so far, but it’s time for (the president) to do something.” [emphasis mine]

Other than the fact that this idiot student has never had a black teacher, the article does not provide any other examples of black oppression. However, it does provide us plenty of examples of blacks who are outright bigoted against whites, or in fact any other race except blacks.

Based on the article, I also expect this college president to cave, and possibly resign.

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Bibles banned from school libraries in Tennessee

9:19 am

Fascists: Because of a complaint, a Tennessee school administrator has banned Gideon Bibles from providing free bibles to the school’s libraries.

Superintendent Jennifer Terry would not elaborate on the complaints made. In a statement to Channel 3 News, she said the school system will no longer allow any religious group or material to be distributed. “Bledsoe County Schools do not allow the distribution of religious materials from any religious groups. The distribution of religious materials in a public school is in violation of constitutional provisions and well established federal and state laws and precedence,” Jennifer Terry, Director of Schools in Bledsoe County

This is insane. The government is not establishing a state religion by accepting free bibles from private American citizens for its libraries. It is a library, where books are made available to read. If the school can get some of those books free they should take them. To suggest that a government-run library can’t contain any religious books is the height of stupidity.

The article suggests that the community plans to protest this at the next school board meeting. It will be interesting to see what happens.

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Dubai to use jetpacks to fight fires

8:59 am

Buck Rogers lives! In order to better fight fires among its many high skyscrapers, Dubai officials have purchased 20 jetpacks for use by its firefighters.

Martin Jetpacks have been developed with first responder use in mind. They can be flown by a pilot or via remote control, take off and land vertically, operate in confined spaces (such as close to or between buildings or near trees) and carry commercial payloads of up to 120 kg (265 lb). This functionality means the Jetpacks can provide a variety of first response services. For example, they can be used for surveillance or observation (such as to determine the focus of a fire), transporting equipment to where it is required, rescuing individuals or deploying specialist teams.

Though it sounds cool, remotely controlled drones would make more sense for most of these tasks. The jetpacks might be useful for getting crews in and out of difficult high locations, as well as possibly rescuing trapped victims, but to make this practical will require significant training, something that I don’t see as realistic.

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Failed GPS satellites to test Einstein’s theory

8:52 am

Making lemonade from lemons: Scientists are going to repurpose two GPS satellites — launched into wrong orbits and thus useless for GPS — to conduct a test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

The satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), were mislaunched last year by a Russian Soyuz rocket that put them into elliptical, rather than circular, orbits. This left them unfit for their intended use as part of a European global-navigation system called Galileo.

But the two crafts still have atomic clocks on board. According to general relativity, the clocks’ ‘ticking’ should slow down as the satellites move closer to Earth in their wonky orbits, because the heavy planet’s gravity bends the fabric of space-time. The clocks should then speed up as the crafts recede.

On 9 November, ESA announced that teams at Germany’s Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Bremen and the department of Time–Space Reference Systems at the Paris Observatory will now track this rise and fall. By comparing the speed of the clocks’ ticking with the crafts’ known altitudes — pinpointed within a few centimetres by monitoring stations on the ground, which bounce lasers off the satellites — the teams can test the accuracy of Einstein’s theory.

There actually is little uncertainty here. No one expects this experiment to disprove Einstein’s theory, but the failed spacecraft provide a great opportunity to measure things at an accuracy never previously attempted, which in turn will help improve future GPS design.

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Planning the coming end of Rosetta

8:44 am

The scientists and engineers operating Rosetta have begun planning the mission’s spectacular finale, when they will spend several months orbiting within six miles of Comet 67P/C-G’s surface before very gently crashing the spacecraft on the surface.

Because of many factors, Rosetta is not expected to survive the impact, no matter how gently it lands. However, the data it will send back in its final months as it makes tighter and tighter orbits should be well worthwhile.

In related news, the science team has released an animation, posted below the fold, of their re-creation of the flight and crash landing of Philae on the comet.
» Read more

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