Author: Robert Zimmerman

According to a new poll, only 11% of doctors believe that the Obamacare health exchanges will be open for business on October 1, as mandated by the law.

11:24 am

Finding out what’s in it: According to a new poll, only 11% of doctors believe that the Obamacare health exchanges will be open for business on October 1, as mandated by the law.

I found this tidbit from the article, however, far more disturbing, as it describes a detail of the Obamacare exchanges that will surely cause doctors incredible financial pain, and will likely cause them to demand all payments up front:

Jackson said that doctors who don’t have an understanding of those coverage terms could be in for a nasty surprise once the new plans go into effect. That’s because under the rules of the exchange, a patient can go up to three months without paying premiums and still not get their coverage formally dropped by an insurers—but the insurer isn’t obligated to pay claims incurred during the second and third month if that person isn’t paying their premiums for that time, Jackson said. Those rules could mean that doctors end up eating the cost of the care they have already provided, or have their receivables stay unpaid for longer stretches of time. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the law is tilted to allow patients to stiff both their doctors and their insurance companies. How precious.

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An Arizona nursing student was suspended from school and called a bigot because she requested one of her classes be taught in English.

9:08 am

An Arizona nursing student was suspended from school and called a bigot because she requested one of her classes be taught in English.

The student, Terri Bennett, 50, initially complained in April to school officials because she said the Spanish-dominated discussions in her class room were preventing her from learning, Townhall reported. The college nursing program director, David Kutzler, then allegedly called her “a bigot” and an expletive, and suspended her.

She has sued. The article also notes that the Arizona constitution requires schools to use English.

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The routine lowering of past climate data to make today’s temperatures seem hotter.

9:22 pm

More climate fraud: The routine lowering of past climate data to make today’s temperatures seem hotter.

Almost all past temperatures have been adjusted downward, compared with the temperatures that were actually recorded at the time. During the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, when many record high temperatures were recorded, the readings have been adjusted downward by, generally speaking, one to one and a half degrees. These adjustments stop abruptly in the late 1990s. The effect of the adjustments is to make the past look cooler in relation to the present.

This kind of manipulation of data, changing the historical record after the fact, is done ALL THE TIME by the climate alarmists who crank out all of the data that are reported on in the newspapers. And the adjustments are always the same: they make the past cooler, so that the present will look warmer, in order to support their power-grabbing climate hysteria agenda. Whenever you hear on the radio that a temperature reading is the “warmest ever” in a particular place, you can reasonably assume that the “warmest ever” title was conferred by falsely reporting temperature readings from past decades.

And as Hinderaker properly concludes, “This is, in my view, the biggest scandal in the history of science. I can’t think of any competitor that could even come close.”

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NASA is trying get some spare spacesuit parts onto a Russian Progress freighter, scheduled to launch Saturday, in its effort to fix its American spacesuits on ISS.

7:14 pm

NASA is trying get some spare spacesuit parts onto a Russian Progress freighter, scheduled to launch Saturday, in its effort to fix its American spacesuits on ISS.

It must be emphasized that NASA still doesn’t know exactly what caused the water leak into that spacesuit during a spacewalk last week.

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The plundering of NASA

3:30 pm

From one of my readers: The Plundering of NASA: an Expose, How pork barrel politics harm American spaceflight leadership. You can buy the ebook edition here, and the print edition here.

I just finished reading it. Boozer’s introduction and opening two chapters provide one of the best detailed summaries explaining clearly why the United States today cannot launch its own astronauts into space, and why we are threatened with the possibility that we won’t be able to do it for years to come. And while his perspective is mostly from an engineering perspective, he also gives some of the political background behind this situation.

His later chapters are not as effectively written, but the opening is still worth it.

I will give a hint about his thesis: it involves comparing the Space Launch System (SLS) with private commercial space. And SLS does not fare well.

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Two days before IRS White House appointee William Wilkins established the guidelines for reviewing IRS applications of conservatives, he met with Obama.

9:02 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Two days before IRS White House appointee William Wilkins established the guidelines for reviewing IRS applications of conservatives, he met with Obama.

IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, met with Obama on April 24, 2012, according to White House visitor logs.

On April 25, 2012, Wilkins sent Hull and fellow Washington-based IRS official Lois Lerner “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS’ inspector general’s report.

It is quite possible that the two events are unrelated. This also could be the smoking gun linking Obama to the IRS scandal. Fortunately, the story notes that thirteen people attended this meeting, which means it should be possible to find out what actually happened there.

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Robot engineers have successfully built a fleet of small flying robot helicopters that can fly individually or as complex large arrays.

8:50 am

Robot engineers have successfully built a fleet of small flying robot helicopters that can fly individually or as complex large arrays. With video.

Applying this biologically-inspired solution to swarms of robots could enable a wide range of applications. Swarms of robots could be used to explore other planets, or search a large area for a missing person. When a larger payload needs to be lifted, groups of robots would combine to make a larger flying platform and when that job was done, disperse into smaller groups that can cover a larger area. The advantage of distributed control in these scenarios is that there is no vulnerable central control unit which, if taken out, could bring down the entire mission.

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An illegal police raid no different than a home invasion.

11:22 pm

An illegal police raid no different than a home invasion.

He was claiming to be a police officer, but the man she had seen looked to her more like an armed thug. Her boyfriend, Dorris, was calmer, and yelled back that he wanted to see some ID. But the man just demanded they open the door. The actual words, the couple say, were, “We’re the f—— police; open the f—— door.”

And then there’s this, from the policeman:

“She sure shouldn’t be going to the press.”

Read the story and weep.

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With Proton rocket’s most recent launch failure, Inmarsat looks for alternatives.

3:15 pm

The competition heats up: With Proton rocket’s most recent launch failure, Inmarsat looks for alternatives.

The failure and its spectacular nature, all caught on video — oscillating trajectory on liftoff before tipping over, bursting into flames and then crashing — cast a harsh light on Inmarsat’s sole-source decision for the Global Xpress satellites. The company’s stock tumbled on the London Stock Exchange but has since recovered as details emerged about the relatively easily addressed causes of the rocket’s failure.

Inmarsat officials said at the time of the ILS contract award that they received an exceptionally low price in return for booking all three launches on Proton and that the vehicle’s record justified the choice not to include a second vehicle in the Global Xpress mix.

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The IRS chief counsel, now implicated in the IRS scandal to harass conservatives, is one of only two Obama political appointees in the entire IRS.

9:43 am

William Wilkins, the IRS chief counsel, now implicated in the IRS scandal to harass conservatives, is one of only two Obama political appointees in the entire IRS.

Noonan’s review and analysis of yesterday’s testimony in the House is right on the money. The IRS scandal now points directly to the White House. Or as she notes,

It’s almost as if—my words—the conservative organizations in question were, during two major election cycles, deliberately held in a holding pattern.

And this was done deliberately, by Wilkins, Obama’s political appointee, using the IRS for political purposes.

Moreover, the testimony yesterday also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lois Lerner lied when she claimed the harassment was merely the actions of some rogue agents in Cincinnati. The obvious question then is this: Who was Lois Lerner trying to protect by these lies? The obvious answer: her bosses, in the White House.

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“Comet of the Century”? We’ll soon find out.

9:29 am

“‘Comet of the Century’? We’ll soon find out.”

This article, as well as a bunch of others published this week about Comet ISON, suggest to me that the comet is going to be a dud. These articles all are suggesting that we won’t know if the comet will be as bright as hoped until after it flies around the sun. This is absolutely wrong. As the comet drops down towards the sun it should heat up and begin brightening, producing a tail. This is what all comets do. If it doesn’t brighten on its journey in, then it won’t be bright on its journey out.

That the authors of these articles don’t know that, or are hiding it, is simply bad journalism. Moreover, this effort to spin the comet’s dimness now suggests that the comet is now far dimmer than hoped, which strongly suggests it will remain that way.

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In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the launch of Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took its photograph.

8:58 am

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the launch of Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took its photograph.

The image was not merely for PR. It also provides the scientists operating Opportunity some good information about the region the rover is exploring, thus helping them plan out its further adventures on the surface of Mars.

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The Russians admitted today that, due to the Proton launch failure two weeks ago, only five more Proton launches can occur this year.

8:53 am

The Russians admitted today that, due to the Proton launch failure two weeks ago, only five more Proton launches can occur this year.

Before the crash they had hoped to get in about nine launches, more than one per month, all of which were commercial in nature. It was my impression that this launch rate was an effort to provide service to their customers as fast as possible, in order to hold on to them. The crash, like the previous Proton failures in the past few years, has given their competitors a window of opportunity to grab the Russian market share. If SpaceX is successful in its first commercial launch in September the competition in this industry will certainly heat up.

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Under pressure from her fellow legislators, a Maryland congresswoman has withdrawn her proposal to close the Marshall Space Flight Center.

8:45 am

Business as usual: Under pressure from her fellow legislators, a Maryland congresswoman has withdrawn her proposal to close the Marshall Space Flight Center.

As I wrote yesterday, this is government, and our legislators don’t represent us, they represent the small number of employees at these specific government facilities. Gotta protect that pork!

This also illustrates quite nicely why NASA can’t build anything cheaply, which means it can’t build anything at all. The agency is saddled with too much expensive fat which it is not allowed to trim.

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Russia confirms that a Proton rocket failed at launch two weeks ago because three of six sensors were installed upside down.

5:46 pm

Russia confirms that a Proton rocket failed at launch two weeks ago because three of six sensors were installed upside down.

They are going to subject the personnel involved to lie detector tests in order to find out who did what. We should then expect them to prosecute those individuals. Unlike the U.S., they won’t simply fire them.

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