Paul Mauriat & Orchestra – La pie voleuse
An evening pause: I especially like the use of digital sounds mixed with the standard orchestra.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Year: 2016
Trump doesn’t care if Republicans hold Senate
Update on the November Democratic primary: Donald Trump was quoted in a news article today that he really doesn’t care that much it the Republicans retain their majority in the Senate.
When I asked him recently whether the party’s maintaining its majority in the Senate meant anything to him, he replied: “Well, I’d like them to do that. But I don’t mind being a free agent, either.” Trump has shown similarly little interest in helping his party’s committees build the sort of war chests typically required in a campaign year. After winning the presidential nomination on a shoestring budget and with fewer paid staff members than the average candidate for governor, he has been visibly reluctant to help build much in the way of national campaign infrastructure, sending a clear message to his fellow Republicans: This fall, you’re on your own. [emphasis in original]
I strongly advice all my readers to read the analysis at the link. From all accounts, Trump’s campaign effort sure does look like he is a Democratic wolf in Republican sheep’s clothing, and that this prediction describing an actual Trump administration will prove amazingly accurate.
Another Obamacare co-op fails
Finding out what’s in it: The third Obamacare co-op in the past two weeks has failed. .
Illinois regulators took steps Tuesday to shut down Land of Lincoln Health, a 3-year-old startup that lost $90 million in 2015 and more than $17 million through May 31. Illinois Department of Insurance officials announced they are seeking a court order allowing the state to take over Land of Lincoln Health and prepare the company for liquidation. The department’s acting director, Anne Melissa Dowling, will work with the federal government to establish a 60-day special enrollment period for Land of Lincoln policyholders to find and purchase new health coverage.
This leaves the count at 16 failures out of 23 Obamacare co-ops. And there will be more. The economics of the co-ops never made sense, dependent as they were on gigantic and unaffordable subsidizes from the government. In fact, none of the economics of any of Obamacare make sense, which is why the whole monstrous law has raised costs for everyone and made being a doctor a far worse bureaucratic nightmare than it was before the law was passed.
It is a good thing the American people have woken up and decided to nominate candidates for President who are avowed conservatives with proven track records for limiting the power of government. Oh wait…
Why no one should be surprised by AG Lynch’s failure to uphold the law
This story, about how Attorney General Loretta Lynch refused during testimony to Congress this week to admit the clear illegality of giving classified information to people without clearance, should not surprise anyone. Nor should her partisan willingness to protect Democratic politicians like Hillary Clinton.
Before she was even ratified by the Republican-led Senate in 2015, she was exposed as someone who was easily willing to ignore the law during her nomination hearings. As I wrote then,
The video of Lynch’s non-answer to Cruz’s question is quite shocking. I dare you to watch it and tell me afterward that this administration and Democratic Party is not a threat to your freedom and rights.
Cruz was not afraid to buck the trend and vote against her. The majority of the Republicans in Congress however were, as always, wimps, and let the Democrats get her approved. We are paying for this now.
Dormant volcano near Rome reawakens
A volcano near Rome that last erupted 36,000 years ago is now showing signs of re-awakening.
Scientists previously assumed Colli Albani, a 15-kilometer (9-mile) semicircle of hills outside Rome, was an extinct volcano since there was no record of it having erupted in human history. But in recent years, scientists have observed new steam vents, earthquakes and a rise in ground level in the hills and surrounding area. These observations, along with new evidence of past eruptions and satellite data, indicate Colli Albani is starting a new eruptive cycle and could potentially erupt in 1,000 years from now, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Privately built smallsat designed deep space communications
The competition heats up: A partnership between two British space companies, a smallsat manufacturer and a space antenna operator, will team up to build and test a new smallsat communications satellite in lunar orbit.
The SSTL-GES Lunar Pathfinder team are already working on the initial baseline design, with technical assistance from the European Space Agency (ESA). SSTL are designing a series of lunar communication satellites and will be building on their heritage of small satellite platforms in Low Earth orbit and Medium Earth orbit to go beyond Earth’s orbit for the first time. GES are upgrading one of the famous antennas at their Goonhilly site in Cornwall, UK, into a deep space ground asset, which will be the first element in a commercial deep space network. In addition, GES will provide a dedicated mission operations centre situated in Cornwall.
What is interesting about this is that this is a private effort to develop a modern commercial deep space communications network for future planetary missions. It would be competitive with NASA’s Deep Space Network, which presently is the only game in town and is generally made up of upgraded 1960s based technology. This new network would also eventually include a dedicated network of smallsats scattered through the solar system to act as communications relays. This is something that NASA does not provide, depending instead on the communications instruments of the planetary missions themselves.
ESA contract for hypersonic engine research
The competition heats up: The European Space Agency has signed a research contract for 10 million euros with Reaction Engines to build a ground-based prototype of its hypersonic rocket engine.
While ground testing is always necessary, I am not sure what they gain by building a solely ground-based prototype. Hypersonic engines use the oxygen in the atmosphere, much like jet engines. Their operation however is dependent on altitude as well as the speed in which they are traveling, neither of which is easily tested on the ground.
This project is also one part of the United Kingdom’s new space agency program.
July 12, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. I spent a large portion of the podcast talking about the medical problems caused by long-term weightlessness, and how it might limit our ability to send humans to other planets. We also touched on the possible consequences to space policy should Donald Trump pick Newt Gingrich as his VP.
» Read more
Rocket Lab gets new launch contract
The competition heats up: Rocket Lab has signed a three launch contract with the smallsat Earth resources satellite company Planet (formerly Planet Labs).
The contract covers three dedicated launches of Dove satellites built by San Francisco-based Planet, formerly known as Planet Labs, on Electron vehicles. The companies did not announce terms of the deal, although Rocket Lab quotes a list price of $4.9 million per Electron launch on its website.
Mike Safyan, director of launch and regulatory affairs for Planet, said in an interview during the International Space Station Research and Development Conference here that the number of satellites that each launch will carry is still being determined, but will likely be between 20 and 25. Each Dove is a three-unit cubesat with a mass of about five kilograms.
If this report as well as previous ones are correct, the first Electron rocket launch will happen before the end of this year.
Toilet failure on U.S. segment of ISS
According to this report, the American-built toilet on the U.S. part of ISS has broken down.
The story has few details, and is based on anonymous sources. Nonetheless, I suspect it is true, as the American toilet has had problems in the past, was originally designed for easy transport up and down from ISS on the space shuttle, and is thus difficult to repair in space.
Breakthrough on battery life?
New research might have discovered engineering that could significantly increase the efficiency of the batteries we use.
This is where Mya Le Thai’s magic gel comes in. Typically, a Lithium Ion battery can go through between 5000 and 7000 recharge cycles before it dies and will also gradually lose its energy storage capacity over time. When researchers applied Thai’s plexiglass-like gel to gold nanowires in a manganese dioxiode shell, it increased that number to over 200,000 and the battery didn’t lose any of its power or storage capacity over a period of three months.
Mary Travers – Follow Me
An evening pause: Live performance from a 1980 Peter, Paul, & Mary concert.