Author: Robert Zimmerman

Maryland DJ under attack for not working a homosexual party

9:31 pm

Facists: Because a Maryland DJ refused to work a birthday party for a homosexual couple they have now registered a complaint to the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission.

In this case, Lampiris [the owner of the DJ company] said he had never heard of [Maryland’s anti-discrimination] law, “but it’s important for us to make a stand. We don’t want to go against the law, but we also sometimes are called to do that if it goes against your faith. To me it would be like a synagogue having to cater to a neo-Nazi party or black DJ having to do a KKK dance,” he said. Gay clients don’t pose a “physical threat – it’s a conscience thing, and conscience is very important for everybody. In fact, I think it’s the most important thing.

Once again, the homosexual has not been denied service. There are plenty of DJs in the DC area that would handle this party. By filing the complaint they have instead waved the flag that demands that everyone approve of their behavior, even though it is considered morally wrong by many. (I must note that no one in this case is trying to stop their homosexual lifestyle. The DJ company is merely refusing to endorse it or agree to it.)

Or to put it another way, you will be made to agree.

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The complicated status of Obamatrade in Congress

9:31 am

Link here. To sum up, the fast track trade authority for Obama actually passed, but the companion part of the law, dubbed TAA, failed badly. Since the Senate had passed both, the approved law needs to go back to conference so that both houses pass the same bill, or the House can vote again on the portion that was defeated.

That the House leadership is still fighting for this considering the strong opposition from the voters as well as from their own caucus tells us how little they understand the present political situation.

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SpaceX – The Blue Danube

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This SpaceX video taken by a camera attached to the fairing of the Falcon 9 rocket is cool not because of the video itself. Cameras on rockets have become routine, even for NASA. What is cool is that they have unveiled it using the same Johann Strauss waltz used in the move 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). It shows that SpaceX is aware of the cultural impact of what they do.

Hat tip Tom Wilson, Tom Biggar, and others.

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75% of Russia’s satellite electronics come from U.S.

2:19 pm

It isn’t just us dependent on them: One Russian aerospace industry expert noted today that three-quarters of all their satellite electronics comes from the United States.

According to [Nikolay Testoyedov], up to 75 percent of the electronic components for Russian satellites come from the US. Consequently, if it retaliates should Moscow refuse to sell RD-180 rocket motors to Washington – which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has threatened – Russia’s satellite program would be frozen for at least two years. “The imported electronic components in our satellites represent 25 to 75 percent of the total in communications; in military ones, somewhat less; in commercial ones, more,” Testoyedov says. Of these imported components, approximately 83-87 percent come from the United States thus giving Washington the whip hand.

If we stop providing these electronics he estimates that after their present stock runs out in about a year it would take at least two years before Russia could replace these American-made parts.

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Flashback to ABC’s 2008 climate predictions for 2015

11:53 am

Working for leftist global warming activist community and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself): In 2008 ABC News did a special on what global warming was going to do to the climate in the coming years, and predicted disaster by June 2015.

New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Welcome to June 12, 2015. Or at least that was the wildly-inaccurate version of 2015 predicted by ABC News exactly seven years ago. Appearing on Good Morning America in 2008, Bob Woodruff hyped Earth 2100, a special that pushed apocalyptic predictions of the then-futuristic 2015. The segment included supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, “It’s June 8th, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99.” (On the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39.) Another clip featured this prediction for the current year: “Gas reached over $9 a gallon.” (In reality, gas costs an average of $2.75.)

On June 12, 2008, correspondent Bob Woodruff revealed that the program “puts participants in the future and asks them to report back about what it is like to live in this future world. The first stop is the year 2015.” As one expert warns that in 2015 the sea level will rise quickly, a visual shows New York City being engulfed by water. The video montage includes another unidentified person predicting that “flames cover hundreds of miles.” Then-GMA co-anchor Chris Cuomo appeared frightened by this future world. He wondered, “I think we’re familiar with some of these issues, but, boy, 2015? That’s seven years from now. Could it really be that bad?”

ABC is also the same network that sees nothing wrong with its main news anchor, George Stephanopolos, giving tens of thousands of dollars to aid the presidential campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton. Think of these details the next time you see any news reporting from them.

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Things look bad for Obamatrade fast track

9:45 am

It is early and the vote hasn’t yet happened, but it appears that the House is going to reject fast track trade authority for Obama.

I need to provide some clarification. This fast track authority is not an actual trade bill, but a procedure that has been used since FDR to make the negotiation process on trade bills easier for the president. For some reason Congress needs to now renew it for Obama.

That Congressmen from both parties are reluctant to renew this grant of presidential power indicates a shift of political power back to Congress. The argument, that this power has been routinely granted since FDR, is not carrying the weight it once did. Instead, there is movement to refuse the president this extra power, partly because there is distrust of Obama because of his abuses of power and executive authority and partly because the voters have elected a lot of new congressmen who in general just don’t like giving presidents more power.

Expect this shift to increase in the coming years. It appears to me that this battle over fast track might be a very positive sign for the future.

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NASA to launch first interplanetary cubesats

9:13 am

The competition heats up: When it launches its next Mars mission, a stationary lander, NASA will piggyback two cubesats, designed to fly past Mars and relay communications during the landing.

As I’ve noted earlier, standardized small cubesats are the future of unmanned satellite operations. Expect them to increasingly replace all types of larger satellites. And because they are small and cheap (both to make and launch), expect them to lead to a burst of new capitalistic activity in space.

Update: In related news, a small private company has delivered to NASA the first thrusters designed for cubesats. Up until now, cubesats have not been maneuverable. These thrusters will change that.

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New images from New Horizons of Pluto

7:29 pm

Images taken by New Horizons over a four day period at the end of May show Pluto to be a planet with distinct areas of bright and dark.

The images are still very fuzzy and require a great deal of processing to tease out the detail that is seen. If anything, they resemble images of Mars taken from Earth before the space age. Thus, one must treat these the dark and light areas with great skepticism. We are seeing evidence of different surface topography and geology, but to pin it down more precisely at this time would be a mistake. The spacecraft has to get closer for us to know better what we are seeing.

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Death by 1000 lashes for writing a blog post

12:30 pm

The religion of peace: The sentence of 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for a Saudi blogger who wrote some mild criticisms of Saudi Islamic rule has been upheld by that country’s supreme court.

Words fail me when faced with this kind of barbarism. But hey, here in the states we have to deal with some real oppression, like the fact that women in business are sometimes addressed by the phrase “you guys!”.

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“It’s declassified and made public once it’s agreed to.”

9:43 am

Does the quote above, said by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) during debate over the secret Obamatrade bills, remind you of anything? Weren’t we forced to try this dubious legislative approach by Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and the Democrats with Obamacare?

Finding out what was in it after Obamacare was made law has very clearly turned out to be a disaster. The last thing the Republicans should be doing now is to repeat this corrupt practice themselves.

Update: Support for this foolishness in the House appears tepid at best:

According to The Hill, only 116 Republicans and 19 Democrats in the House are committed or leaning to supporting the bill, while 130 Democrats and 29 Republicans are committed or leaning to opposition. That leaves 139 up in the air, most of them Republicans. To get to 218, Boehner and Pelosi will have to find at least 82 more votes out of the 139, a tall order indeed.

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Is this Philae?

9:14 am

Philae?

Cool image time! The Rosetta science team has spent much effort trying to locate Philae, which attempted to land on Comet 67P/C-G in November. The image on the right shows what they think is their best candidate, the bright feature in the center. It was not there prior to Philae’s landing attempt.

Because there are many uncertainties, however, this might not be Philae.

Ultimately, a definitive identification of this or any other candidate as being Philae will require higher-resolution imaging, in turn meaning closer flybys. This may not be possible in the near-term, as issues encountered in navigating close to the comet mean that the opportunity to make flybys at significantly less than 20 km from the surface may be on hold until later in the mission. But after the comet’s activity has subsided, Rosetta should be able to safely operate in close proximity to the comet nucleus again.

The other possibility of further refining Philae’s location would come if the lander were to receive enough power to wake-up from its hibernation and resume its scientific study of 67P/C-G. Then, CONSERT could be used to perform additional ranging measurements and significantly reduce the uncertainties on the lander’s location. At the moment, Philae is still in hibernation, but the mission team remain hopeful that, as the comet moves closer to the Sun along its orbit, the lander will receive enough power in the coming weeks or months to wake up and transmit a signal to Rosetta.

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The crooked politics behind the Obamatrade deal

11:13 pm

And the crooked politics are coming mostly from Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin).

The problem here isn’t the bill itself, it is the manner in which Obamatrade is being enacted, written in secret and classified so that the public cannot read it. No elected official should vote for any bill or law that is not available for the public to read and review. Yet these guys are pushing it, a law that apparently will cede more power to the President at the expense of Congress. Knowing the language of such a law is critical.

It does appear that a growing number of Republicans in the House are going to oppose this travesty. I pray that enough come forward to stop it. And if the vote is taken and there are any Republicans who vote for it, such as did Cruz and Rubio (who hadn’t even read it), they will reveal themselves to be wolves in sheep’s clothing, not to be trusted.

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The truth about bottled water

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Tonight’s pause is a bit different, in that it has a newsy aspect to it, illustrating the uncertainty of knowledge that makes science so difficult. It is also incredibly entertaining and funny, almost like the 1960s TV show Candid Camera. Would you be fooled like these people were?

Hat tip Phillip Oltmann.

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A compilation of robots falling down at the DARPA Robotics Challenge

12:18 pm

More information here. It seems that on the dry run prior to the start of competition, not many robots fell over. Then on Day 1, when the competition was for real, a lot had problems standing up.

The impressive thing about these falls is that, although they look pretty bad, the robots were just fine (well, most of them). After humans got them back on their feet and gave them a reboot, the machines were ready to run again. Team IHMC’s Atlas fell twice during their run and it still scored 7 points (of a maximum of 8). Team MIT’s Atlas had a bad stumble out of the vehicle and also went on to complete most of the course. So it’s a good thing that robots are falling at the DRC Finals—that’s how we’re going to make them better.

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Judge rules the arrest of a citizen during a local meeting illegal

10:26 am

The first amendment is such an inconvenient thing: A judge has dismissed criminal charges filed against a man who was arrested 40 seconds into his five minute allotted speaking period during a local council meeting when he asked the selectmen to resign.

“The arrest of (Clay) is found by the court to be a violation of (Clay’s) First Amendment right of free speech,” [the judge] Carroll wrote. The arrest amounted to “content-based censorship as the defendant was acting within the very rules promulgated by the (selectmen) as well within his constitutional rights under the U.S. and N.H. Constitutions,” Carroll wrote. Clay “complied with the board’s own protocol, established by the board for public input.”

I have embedded the video of the incident below the fold. Watch it. Essentially, the council didn’t like what Clay was saying and decided to shut him up. Granted, he was being very harsh, but tough, that is what free speech is all about. Note also that though they tell him they have ended the public input session, after he is arrested they then resume public input.

Everyone of these elected officials should be out of office. They have no understanding that their role as elected officials is to be the servant of the people, not their overlords. When a citizen is unhappy, you listen to them, and address their concerns as quickly as possible. As the least, you let the citizen air his or her complaints fully, and loudly, and then if you find they do not have merit, move on.

These thugs clearly do not understand these basic aspects of American culture.
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SpaceX begins planning a 4,000 satellite internet constellation

9:46 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX has filed papers with the FCC to begin testing the design and construction and launch of a constellation of 4,000 satellites for providing global internet access.

Musk’s FCC filing proposes tests starting next year. If all goes well, the service could be up and running in about five years. The satellites would be deployed from one of SpaceX’s rockets, the Falcon 9. Once in orbit, the satellites would connect to ground stations at three West Coast facilities. The purpose of the tests is to see whether the antenna technology used on the satellites will be able to deliver high-speed Internet to the ground without hiccups.

It appears to me that Musk’s constellation will be made up of cubesats, small and cheap to build, and easy to launch in large numbers as secondary payloads on every Falcon 9 launch. In other words, as long as SpaceX can get customers to pay for launches of large satellites on its Falcon 9, Musk will be able to launch and maintain his constellation of cubesats for free.

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New close-up image of Ceres’s double bright spots

9:32 am

close-up of Ceres's bright spots

Cool image time! The Dawn science team has released a some new close-up images of Ceres, including a much higher resolution image of the dwarf planet’s double bright spot, which now resolves itself into a cluster of two larger spots with a half dozen smaller spots scattered nearby.

The region with the brightest spots is in a crater about 55 miles (90 kilometers) across. The spots consist of many individual bright points of differing sizes, with a central cluster. So far, scientists have found no obvious explanation for their observed locations or brightness levels.

“The bright spots in this configuration make Ceres unique from anything we’ve seen before in the solar system. The science team is working to understand their source. Reflection from ice is the leading candidate in my mind, but the team continues to consider alternate possibilities, such as salt. With closer views from the new orbit and multiple view angles, we soon will be better able to determine the nature of this enigmatic phenomenon,” said Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission based at the University of California, Los Angeles.

To my eye, these bright areas resemble a wide flat caldera of a volcano. Instead of being at the top of a peak, the caldera is like a lava pool, almost like a large lake. In this case, the large spots are lakes of frozen ice that periodically melt and flow. The smaller spots are likely smaller vents where water can bubble up from below during active periods. When not active, the water will be frozen. Since ice is white and Ceres is very dark, the pools and vents appear extremely bright in these images.

I am speculating however. We will have to wait for much better images to know for sure.

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The collapse of Russian scientific innovation

9:13 am

Link here. This report documents much of what I have been seeing in the Russian space industry: an aging workforce, a lack of innovation, and concentration of power to Moscow and the central government, and an exodus of the best minds to other countries.

It appears that all of the solutions that have been imposed by Putin’s government are exactly the worst things you could do and will only make the problems grow with time.

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Russia announces revised launch schedule for ISS

10:11 pm

As promised, the Russians today revealed their revised schedule of launches for ISS for the next few months.

The next manned launch will be on July 3, and though it will use a Soyuz rocket, it will not use the upgraded rocket version that had a conflict with its Progress freighter during the April launch. They have still not described what that conflict was, or how they plan to fix it on future launches.

Meanwhile, a Soyuz capsule docked to ISS suddenly fired its thrusters unexpectedly during testing of the station’s radio system. The burn changed the station’s orientation, which required other thrusters to compensate.

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Finding caves on Mars

5:40 pm

A new study of pits on Mars has isolated one particular type of pit that has all the features of an Earth-like cave entrance, with a large number located in the regions around the giant volcanoes where evidence of past glacier activity has been found. From the abstract:

These Atypical Pit Craters (APCs) generally have sharp and distinct rims, vertical or overhanging walls that extend down to their floors, surface diameters of ~50–350 m, and high depth to diameter (d/D) ratios that are usually greater than 0.3 (which is an upper range value for impacts and bowl-shaped pit craters) and can exceed values of 1.8. Observations by the Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) show that APC floor temperatures are warmer at night and fluctuate with much lower diurnal amplitudes than nearby surfaces or adjacent bowl-shaped pit craters.

In other words, these pits are deeper with steeper and overhanging walls that suggest underlying passages. They also maintain warmer temperatures at night with their day/night temperatures changing far less than the surface, similar to caves on Earth where the cave temperature remains the same year-round.

The study’s most important finding, from my perspective, was the location of these pit craters.
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Did some dinosaur soft tissues survive fossilization?

2:36 pm

The uncertainty of science: New research strongly suggests that within dinosaur fossils are found many preserved soft tissues from when the creature was still living.

As early as the 1970s, researchers captured images of what looked like cellular structures inside dinosaur fossils. But did the structures contain actual tissue? Proteins commonly decay hundreds to thousands of years after an organism dies, but in rare cases they have been known to survive up to 3 million years. In a series of studies beginning a decade ago, a team led by North Carolina State University paleontologist Mary Schweitzer reported that they had extracted what appeared to be collagen, the most abundant protein in bone, from a 68-million-year-old T. rex fossil. They sequenced fragments of the protein and concluded that it closely matched that of birds, dinosaurs’ living descendants (see here and here). But other teams haven’t been able to replicate the work, and others suggested that the collagen could be contamination.

The new study, led by materials scientist Sergio Bertazzo and paleontologist Susannah Maidment, both of Imperial College London, has a different strategy for hunting down ancient proteins. Bertazzo, an expert on how living bones incorporate minerals, uses a tool called a focused ion beam to slice through samples, leaving pristine surfaces that are ideal for high-resolution imaging studies. He teamed up with Maidment to apply the technique to eight chunks of dinosaur toe, rib, hip, leg, and claw.

What they found shocked them. Imaging the fresh-cut surfaces with scanning and transmission electron microscopes, “we didn’t see bone crystallites” as expected, Maidment says. “What we saw instead was soft tissue. It was completely unexpected. My initial response was these results are not real.” [emphasis mine]

It must be noted that the new research depends on many uncertainties that still need to be replicated or confirmed.

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