Author: Robert Zimmerman

The Obamacare state exchanges are losing their directors.

11:35 am

The Obamacare state exchanges are losing their directors.

So far, 25 percent of officials in charge of the 14 state-run exchanges, plus Washington D.C., have been replaced, according to Forbes, which compares the turnover rate to professional sports coaching rosters. “More are sure to come as enrollment performance remains poor,” according to Forbes. New Mexico, Massachusetts, Idaho, Washington DC, Nevada and Colorado are posting dismal enrollment numbers, all less than 10 percent of what was expected, the magazine noted.

Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that Obamacare is a turkey that no one wants to buy?

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Cuba is lifting the limit on the number of people allowed to buy a car.

9:45 am

Freedom in the socialist paradise: Cuba is lifting the limit on the number of people allowed to buy a car.

The government has a monopoly on the sale of imported new and used vehicles, and has required any potential buyer to obtain a special card from the Transport Ministry authorizing the purchase of a car. The cards took months or years to obtain, creating a black market in cards in which holders would often sell them for more than the price of the car itself.

Don’t count your blessings, however. The change is only in place “of new regulations, which would be made public in coming days.”

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The real legal issues surrounding the right to openly carry your pistol.

9:41 am

The real legal issues surrounding the right to openly carry your pistol.

Cooke carefully tears apart the typical but nonsensical arguments of the left against open carry, but then discusses intelligently the problems. As he notes, “The open-carry question is a more complex one than some of its advocates like to admit.”

If only the conversation focused on these issues instead of the absurd fear-mongering of the left.

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77% of the uninsured don’t want Obamacare.

9:33 am

But we’re here to help you! 77% of the uninsured — the very people Obama and the Democrats claimed they were trying to get insured — don’t want Obamacare.

Repeal is still the number one favored option of voters:

A majority said they would vote to have the new healthcare law repealed, if they were able, and they wish it had never passed and the old system was still in place, according to the poll taken Dec. 14-16 of 1,027 registered voters across the country.

The Fox News poll was one of two polls published Wednesday that showed the growing unpopularity of the law. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll also showed that a majority disapprove of the new health care law, even the uninsured, who are supposed to benefit from the law.

Obviously all these people are wrong! Obamacare is “the law of the land”, as the Democrats were so fond of telling us in October as they shut the government down to protect it.

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SpaceX has set December 31 as the launch date for its next Falcon 9 commercial launch.

9:17 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX has set December 31 as the launch date for its next Falcon 9 commercial launch.

They are picking up the pace. This will be SpaceX’s second commercial launch in December and its second geosynchronous launch. If they prove they can keep this pace through 2014 they will not only clear away a large amount of the launch backlog, they will establish themselves as a solid player in the launch market, a company that the competition must fear due to its low prices.

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Gaia, a astronomical space probe designed to pinpoint the location of a billion stars to map the Milky Way, was successfully launched today.

9:08 am

Gaia, a astronomical space probe designed to pinpoint the location of a billion stars to map the Milky Way, was successfully launched today.

This is an important spacecraft, but don’t expect to hear anything about its work now for a long time, as it will take a few years to accumulate the data involved and then a years beyond that to analyze it. Nonetheless, when Gaia’s work is finished we will have our first reasonably good map of the Milky Way, with the ability to project that map forward and backward in time.

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The star of cable television’s highest rated show in history has been sacked because he dared criticize the homosexual lifestyle

10:23 pm

The end of free speech: The star of cable television’s highest rated show in history has been sacked because he dared criticize the homosexual lifestyle.

It does not matter whether one disagrees with him or not. He has the right to express these opinions, and should not be punished merely because they are not politically correct in today’s society.

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Reddit bans any skepticism of global warming.

2:57 pm

The certainty of the global warming crowd: Reddit bans everyone from expressing skepticism of global warming.

In a move that has been described by one British academic as “positive censorship”, a Reddit moderator has announced that Reddit is becoming “increasingly stringent with deniers”. The Reddit moderator says climate “contrarians” were too often expressing “uninformed and outspoken opinions”, and so the site decided to adopt a much more “proactive moderation”. Now, whenever a user makes a “potentially controversial submission” on climate change, the moderators issue that user with a “warning”. If the user persists in posting “potentially controversial submissions”, he’s “banned from the forum”.

The worst part of this is the reaction of Reddit’s moderators:

Reddit’s moderators are really happy with the results of their war against the expressers of “outspoken opinions” on climate change. They found that by “negating the ability of this misguided group to post to the forum” (a long-winded way of saying “banning them”), there has been a “change in the culture within the comments”. “Where once there were personal insults and bitter accusations, there is now discussion of the relevant aspects of [scientific] research”, we are told. In short, having expelled outspoken, controversial “deniers” from its forums, Reddit now finds that its discussions of climate change are more measured – that is, on-message, conformist, uncontroversial.

How convenient. You don’t like the opinions of those who disagree with you, so you ban them. Sure solves the problem of winning debates, doesn’t it?

I wouldn’t object if the moderators just banned insulting and offensive comments. I do that here at Behind the Black. What they’ve apparently done instead is to ban all opposing opinions, which is far different.

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A non-paleontologist documents significant errors in the work of several noted paleontologists.

11:46 am

Dinosaurgate: A non-paleontologist documents significant errors in the work of several noted paleontologists.

About two and half years ago, Dr. Myhrvold came across a 2009 paper by Dr. Erickson as he was trying to answer the question, “Why were dinosaurs big?” He said data in two of the graphs, one plotting the length of the thigh bone versus age, the other mass versus age, conflicted with each other. “I instantly knew that this couldn’t be correct,” Dr. Myhrvold said.

Dr. Myhrvold said he contacted Dr. Erickson, asking for the original data. While Dr. Erickson answered some questions, he said the data was on a computer he had gotten rid of and later that he did not have time to answer more questions, Dr. Myhrvold said.

Dr. Myhrvold was able to obtain some of the data from other researchers and thought he could do a better statistical analysis. Last year, he submitted a paper with his calculations — a fairly esoteric scientific disagreement about how best to extract reasonable generalizations from a limited number of fossils.

Dr. Erickson was one of the reviewers and argued strongly against publication. While praising Dr. Myhrvold’s accomplishments and saying the calculations appeared to be numerically correct, Dr. Erickson said the paper would not advance scientific understanding.

“In fact it will hurt our field by producing inherently flawed growth curves, misrepresenting the work of others, and stands to drive a wedge between labs that are currently cordial with one another,” he wrote. [emphasis mine]

Shades of Phil Jones of Climategate fame, who when asked for his original climate data first stalled, then stonewalled, then admitted that the data had been “lost.” Similarly, like the Climategate scientists who tried to squelch the work and careers of anyone who challenged them, the paleontologist being accused here attempted to prevent the accusation from been published.

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A judge has blasted the Obama administration for attempting to keep non-classified materials secret and ordered their release.

9:49 am

A judge has blasted the Obama administration for attempting to keep non-classified materials secret and ordered their release.

From the judge:

The government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight, to engage in what is in effect governance by ‘secret law.’

This is the second legal ruling this week that has ripped the Obama administration for its illegal willingness to abuse the law.

But hey, why is anyone objecting? Barbara Walters thought Obama would be the next messiah, so anything he wants to do should be okay with us!

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The media’s ten worst predictions for 2013.

9:04 am

The media’s ten worst predictions for 2013.

Most of these predictions involved major issues — Obamacare, climate change, the federal budget. In every case, the media either was either starkly wrong, badly misinformed about stuff they should be experts at, or participated in political lies to prop up their partners on the left. Thus, this list of news sources is a good guide for the news sources no one should rely on for information.

Not surprisingly, the list includes bad reporting from the news divisions of NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Interestingly, the one media cable news outlet not mentioned at all in this list is Fox. It appears that this news outlet avoided making any of these foolish predictions, and thus avoided looking like a fool.

Update: Just to confirm the above conclusions: CNN’s top five credibility catastrophes in 2013.

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A company fires an employee because he put out a fire.

9:47 pm

Madness: A company fires an employee because he put out a fire.

Bowers knew that his actions were going against company policy, but he believed that in this instance the customers urgent need came first. “When the guy came in and said his dashboard was on fire I grabbed the fire extinguisher and I followed him outside and sure enough his dashboard was on fire,” Bowers said. They quickly put out the fire and Bowers returned to his post.

He was later called into the store director’s office where he was suspended for his actions. “The one supervisor told me that my heart was in the right place, but my brain wasn’t,” Bowers said. Later that week, he was fired from his job for not following company policy.

The company is Meijer’s, which is going to discover this is a major public relations disaster. Just read the comments at the link.

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More than half the U.S. is covered with snow this November, the most in ten years.

8:08 pm

More than half the U.S. is covered with snow this November, the most in ten years.

The certainty of climate scientists:

Kevin Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, agreed the surprising amount of snowfall is a separate issue from climate change. “If you warm up the atmosphere, you can actually get heavier snowfalls in winter,” Trenberth said. “That’s one of the ironic things about global warming. Maybe we can say that without climate change, it would be colder still. [emphasis mine]

In other words, according to Trenberth the increased snow cover and cold temperatures are evidence of global warming.

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NASA engineers have decided to go ahead with a series of spacewalks to repair the ISS cooling system, thereby delaying the Cygnus cargo mission until January.

3:12 pm

NASA engineers have decided to go ahead with a series of spacewalks to repair the ISS cooling system, thereby delaying the Cygnus cargo mission until January.

The EVAs will take place on December 21, 23 and 25 followed by a Russian Spacewalk on the 27th and a Beta-Angle Cut-out beginning on December 29. That means that the earliest launch opportunity for Cygnus is January 9, 2014 (local time) – pending the successful execution of the contingency EVAs.

Update: The Orbital Sciences press announcement says their launch can happen no earlier than January 13.

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Thirteen insane projects funded by our federal government.

9:49 am

Thirteen insane projects funded by our federal government.

I especially like #5: “NASA spends $3 million looking for signs of intelligent life…in Congress.”

These idiotic programs, which certainly only scratch the surface of the wasteful and corrupt spending in Washington, prove once again that the most recent budget deal is a fraud, that there is no reason to support any increase in federal spending, that we probably could cut the budget in half and not notice anything.

Sadly, that budget deal appears about to pass the Senate.

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The Obamacare contraceptive mandate is struck down again, and here are six reasons why.

9:34 am

The Obamacare contraceptive mandate is struck down again, and here are six reasons why.

At the heart of this mandate is the amazing contempt the Obama administration and the left has for religious belief:

In an astonishing display of anti-religious sentiment, the administration argued that forcing religious organizations to designate a third party to provide contraception coverage to their employees isn’t a big deal (legally: de minimis) because it’s “just a form” to fill out, “a purely administrative task.” The district court rightly found that whether a violation of religious freedom is small or large isn’t for the courts to decide. It would be too easy to simply sweep away deeply-held religious beliefs under the claim that government action is merely “de minimis” infringement of rights.

I am not religious, but I will defend to the death the right of a religious person to practice their religion freely, even when we disagree, as long as they don’t act to limit me in my beliefs. Apparently, Obama believes it is okay to trample on those beliefs if they happen to contradict things he believes in.

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Arianespace has ordered the construction of an additional 18 Ariane 5 rockets.

4:07 pm

Arianespace has ordered the construction of an additional 18 Ariane 5 rockets.

This construction order, if it reflects actual launch contracts, gives Arianespace some margin while it works to find ways to compete in the launch business, as expressed by the last sentence of the above article: “Astrium managers recently called for a thorough overhaul of the Ariane contractor mix with a view to reducing prices to stay viable in the competitive world commercial launch market.”

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Aerojet has successfully completed engine tests for the launch abort system on Boeing’s CST-100 manned capsule.

4:03 pm

Aerojet has successfully completed engine tests for the launch abort system on Boeing’s CST-100 manned capsule.

“In the past several weeks, the Aerojet Rocketdyne team conducted a series of eight tests on two Launch Abort Engines meeting or exceeding all test parameters,” said Aerojet Rocketdyne Program Manager, Terry Lorier. “The tests demonstrated engine performance for multiple mission duty cycles and proved operation and durability under extreme operating conditions. The success of this most recent test series clears the way for our team to proceed into qualification and production of the engine in the next phase of the program.”

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A campaign ad that says it bluntly: “You lied.”

12:09 pm

A campaign ad that says it bluntly: “You lied.”

It is… remarkable, the way that the Democrats were so bald-faced in that lie. It’s like they thought that the rules simply didn’t apply to them, or something. Apparently, the plan was to simply bull on through and expect nobody to call them on the fact that their entire policy position was based on things that everybody knew just weren’t so.

The Democrats must be called on these lies, strongly and often.

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Paul Ryan says House Republicans are going to demand something in exchange for raising the debt ceiling again in February.

9:07 am

We shall see: Paul Ryan says House Republicans are going to demand something in exchange for raising the debt ceiling again in February.

Though I’m glad he’s saying this, forgive me if I am skeptical. The Republican leadership in the House has proven itself weak and willing to back down all too often. For example, they have allowed the lie that they alone caused the government shutdown to become accepted as truth, merely by acting as if it were true. The result: they were unwilling to demand any concessions in the just completed budget negotiations, even though they had a strong hand and could have easily obtained concessions, especially on Obamacare.

Then there’s this: Ten quotes that explain why conservatives do not trust the Republican Party.

His conclusion is most pertinent:

Incidentally, the solution to all of this is not to leave the Republican Party. To the contrary, it’s to treat the Republican Party like a puppy that’s having difficulty with house training. When Republicans do the right thing, praise them, support them and do what you can to help them out. When they do the wrong thing, rub their noses in it. Attack Republicans who betray their principles relentlessly, primary them at every opportunity and take over the Republican Party so we can shove the politicians who won’t listen to us to the side. While we will never be able to build an entire party full of men like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul, we can make it miserable enough for bad actors that the go-along-to-get-along Republicans will conclude it’s better to work with us than face primaries and incessant attacks from their own side in the new media. Most people don’t realize it, but we have already started moving the Republican Party to the Right and the time will come when Republicans are just as afraid of their base as Democrats are of Planned Parenthood and the unions. It’s not going to happen overnight, but if we keep going after Republicans who sell us out, even the ones that are as hostile as John McCain, Peter King and Lindsey Graham will eventually have to get on board if they want to keep their jobs.

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