Author: Robert Zimmerman

The increasing harassment of their members by Homeland Security has caused the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) to begin a political campaign against the agency.

11:54 am

Gotta have your KGB: The increasing harassment of their members by Homeland Security has caused the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) to begin a political campaign against the agency.

The link above takes you what looks like a fundraising letter sent about by the AOPA to its membership. The significance is that they are centering their campaign around the harassment by Homeland Security, which suggests that this harassment has become a very big issue within this community.

5 comments

When will SpaceX launch the upgraded Falcon 9? We have competing news stories:

9:57 am

When will SpaceX launch the upgraded Falcon 9? We have competing news stories:

  • The Canadian Space Agency sent out a press release today saying Cassiope will launch on September 15 on its Falcon 9 rocket.
  • Elon Musk sent out a twitter report of yesterday’s static fire test, noting there were anomalies and that the launch date is still to be determined.

This is very puzzling. That the Canadian release was sent out today suggests that they have information we don’t have about the static fire test and thus knew they could announce the launch date. That Musk is more circumspect however suggests that the information the Canadians have is not correct.

Update: Stephen Clark at Spaceflight Now has more information. It appears the launch will not happen on Sunday, as SpaceX plans a second launchpad static test tomorrow to iron out the unexplained “anomalies” in yesterday’s static test.

2 comments

Before the Minnesota Obamacare health exchange has even officially opened there has been a security breach of the private health records of more than 2,400 individuals.

9:27 am

That didn’t take long: Before the Minnesota Obamacare health exchange has even officially opened there has been a security breach of the private health records of more than 2,400 individuals.

Stay tuned for more screw-ups and the misuse of private health records for political purposes. The Obamacare health exchanges are inherently insecure.

Leave a comment

Fifteen so-called journalists have made their political preferences official by joining the Obama administration.

9:23 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Fifteen so-called journalists have made their political preferences official by joining the Obama administration.

That almost all of these media types have ended up working for a Democratic administration illustrates the one-sided culture in the mainstream media. If you aren’t for the Democratic Party, you won’t survive as a journalist at these news outlets. In fact, it is likely that you won’t even get a job there.

More here. This second article is absolutely worth reading because it dissects the leftwing and partisan culture of the mainstream press by looking at the employment history of these mainstream media journalists as well their history of bad and biased reporting.

Leave a comment

It is now eight years since a major hurricane made landfall in the United States.

9:13 am

It is now eight years since a major hurricane made landfall in the United States.

[N]ot a single major hurricane, defined as a Category 3 storm or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale —with minimum wind gusts of at least 111 mph (178 km/h) — has directly hit the United States in nearly eight years. That’s twice as long as any major hurricane landfall “drought” since 1915, and by far the longest on record since data began being collected prior to 1900. As of today (Sept. 12), it’s been 2,880 days since Hurricane Wilma, the last major hurricane to strike the United States, made landfall on Oct. 24, 2005.

And guess what? The reasons have nothing to do with global warming!

One comment

SpaceX successfully completed a static test of the 9 first stage engines of its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket today.

6:50 pm

SpaceX successfully completed a static test of the 9 first stage engines of its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket today.

SpaceX’s upgraded Falcon 9 rocket briefly fired nine Merlin 1D engines on the launch pad Thursday, but engineers will review data from the prelaunch static fire test before confirming the mission’s targeted Sunday launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, sources familiar with SpaceX’s launch preparations said.

One comment

Indiana University is laying off 50 maintenance workers to avoid Obamacare costs.

4:34 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Indiana University is laying off 50 maintenance workers to avoid Obamacare costs.

The employees will now work for an independent company, which I am sure will either make sure its total staffing is under 50 or those employees work less than 30 hours per week in order to also avoid Obamacare.

The numbers here aren’t gigantic, but the story is notable in that these employees and the university that had employed them almost certainly supported Obamacare and Obama blindly this last five years. The sad thing is I doubt they will finally face reality and link their troubles with his policies.

And then there’s this: Trader Joe’s to drop health insurance for part-time workers because of Obamacare.

One comment

NASA has announced a press conference for later today about the Voyager spacecraft.

9:26 am

NASA has announced a press conference for later today about the Voyager spacecraft.

The rumors are that all the scientists involved with this data from this spacecraft now finally agree that Voyager has left the solar system. More to come.

The rumors were true: NASA has confirmed that Voyager 1 is out of the solar system and in interstellar space, and has been since last summer.

3 comments

Astronomers have compiled the first detailed 3D map of the inner regions of the Milky Way.

9:08 am

Astronomers have compiled the first detailed 3D map of the inner regions of the Milky Way. More here.

They find a box/peanut shaped bulge with an elongated bar and a prominent X-structure, which had been hinted at in previous studies. This indicates that the Milky Way was originally a pure disk of stars, which then formed a thin bar, before buckling into the box/peanut shape seen today.

Leave a comment

Today’s static fire test and launch rehearsal of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was scrubbed.

12:00 am

Wednesday’s static fire test and launch rehearsal of SpaceX’s Falcon 9R rocket was scrubbed.

I hear rumors that there was a fuel leak, but this is not confirmed. Regardless, this scrub could cause another delay of Sunday’s planned launch of the upgraded Falcon 9R with its first commercial payload, as the company wants to do this test prior to launch.

Leave a comment

The two Colorado Democrats who were key instigators of that state’s new gun control laws were both decisively voted out of office yesterday in recall elections.

10:26 am

Pushback: The two Colorado Democrats who were key instigators of that state’s new gun control laws were both decisively voted out of office yesterday in recall elections.

The election, which came five months after the United States Senate defeated several gun restrictions, handed another loss to gun-control supporters. It also gave moderate lawmakers across the country a warning about the political risks of voting for tougher gun laws.

The recall elections ousted two Democratic state senators, John Morse and Angela Giron, and replaced them with Republicans. Both defeats were painful for Democrats – Mr. Morse’s because he had been Senate president, and Ms. Giron’s because she represented a heavily Democratic, working-class slice of southern Colorado.

The article says almost nothing about Angela Giron’s defeat, which I find intriguing. She was not expected to lose, considering her district was so Democratic, but her margin of defeat was actually larger than Morse’s. See also this article for a very good election analysis which suggests that any effort by Democrats to impose oppressive gun control laws is going to backfire for them very badly.

2 comments

Another large satellite is about to fall to Earth.

10:07 am

Chicken Little report: Another large satellite is about to fall to Earth.

Current estimates suggest this could occur anytime between the end of this month and the start of November. When it does, the one-tonne GOCE will plunge rapidly through the atmosphere, burning up as it descends. “Some satellites take decades to come back after finishing operations; we will re-enter in no more than three weeks,” says Esa mission manager Dr Rune Floberghagen. Modelling work indicates that perhaps up to 25% of the spacecraft may survive all the way to the surface.

The odds of this debris hitting anything significant is very small. It can happen however.

Leave a comment

Despite the significant increase in the Arctic icecap’s size this winter, satellite data of the icecap’s actual volume and thickness suggest that the new ice was quite thin.

9:54 am

The uncertainty of science: Despite the significant increase in the size of the Arctic Ocean’s icecap this winter, satellite data of the icecap’s actual volume and thickness suggest that the new ice was quite thin.

Prof Andy Shepherd, from Leeds University, said: “Now that we have three years of data, we can see that some parts of the ice pack have thinned more rapidly than others. At the end of winter, the ice was thinner than usual. Although this summer’s extent will not get near its all-time satellite-era minimum set last year, the very thin winter floes going into the melt season could mean that the summer volume still gets very close to its record low,” he told BBC News.

It is not surprising that the ice was thin, considering that the icecap was recovering from a record low the year before. The scientific question, however, is whether the cap will thicken in the coming years or continue to thin out. That it has recovered somewhat in size might be a onetime jump as the decline continues, or it might be indicative of a new growing trend.

Leave a comment

SpaceX has again delayed the launch of its first Falcon 9 commercial launch.

9:41 am

SpaceX has again delayed the launch of its first Falcon 9 commercial launch.

This delay appears to be only one day, from Saturday to Sunday, September 15. The static fire test of the rocket on the launchpad appears set for today, and I suspect the one day delay was to give them more time to analyze the results of today’s test.

Also, this quote from the article shows the risks involved with this first launch of the upgraded Falcon 9:

The launch would be the first for the next-generation Falcon 9-R, designed not only to be more powerful but to have the potential for re-use — that would be the “R” in “9-R” (which Harris incidentally said is pronounced “niner” according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk).

Space News’ Irene Klotz talked to Musk late last week and found some nervousness going into the launch. “We’re being, as usual, extremely paranoid about the launch and trying to do everything we possibly can to improve the probability of success, but this is a new version of Falcon 9,” Musk told her. [emphasis mine]

Leave a comment

Why we must remember

6:00 am

I wrote these following words three years ago on the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. I think they are worth repeating again, especially considering the confusing debacle of this administration’s Syria policy these past few weeks, and the continuing violent and oppressive behavior of the Islamic revolutionaries in that country.

My words on September 11, 2010:

The President has asked us to consider today “a national day of service and remembrance”. Though the sentiment seems reasonable, I must respectively disagree.

September 11 should not be turned into a day to celebrate volunteerism or service or American charity. Though these values are profound, important, and an expression of much of what makes our nation great, they are not why we remember September 11.

We remember the evil acts committed on September 11, 2001 in order to remind us that there is evil in the world.

We remember these evil acts so that we will have the strength to fight that evil, with every fiber of our being.

We remember those who died in order to prevent future attacks and further deaths.

We remember so that no one can ever try to make believe these events did not happen.

We remember so that no one can spread the lie that the perpetrators were something other than what they were: Men who had decided to kill in the name of Islam, based on what they believed their religion taught them.

And finally, and most important, we remember the horrible events of September 11, 2001 so that those innocent murdered souls — whose only crime that day was going to work — will not have died in vain.

6 comments
1 … 785 786 787 788 789 … 1,080