Author: Robert Zimmerman

A new study suggests that the variation of the cosmic ray flux during the solar cycle has little influence on the climate.

7:30 pm

The uncertainty of science: A new study suggests that the variation of the cosmic ray flux during the solar cycle has little influence on the climate.

The study seems statistical in nature, which leaves me skeptical. Nonetheless, the link between cosmic rays and climate change remains tenuous, with only one study at CERN providing any evidence that cosmic rays might have an influence.

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The sun goes boom!

11:34 am

It is always best to admit when you are wrong as soon as you find out. Last month, in reporting NOAA’s monthly update of the solar cycle, I unequivocally stated that

My interpretation of this data tells me that almost certainly the solar maximum has ended. We might see some later fluctuations whereby the sunspot number jumps, but the Sun is clearly beginning its ramp down to solar minimum.

Well, I spoke too soon. Last night NOAA posted the newest update of the solar cycle, and it shows that in October the Sun was more active then it has been in two years. In fact, for only the second time this entire solar cycle the Sun’s sunspot activity actually came close to matching the predictions of scientists. This month’s graph is posted below the fold, with annotations.
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Obama now just learning that he is President!

10:14 am

Heh. Obama now just learning that he is President!

“I mean, I knew I was in a position of high importance, but not like THE President and all. I’m just as shocked as you all!” said the President to reporters in the White House’s Rose Garden, Monday. “…A lot of people have been wondering how all these scandals and things could be happening under my watch and I not know about it…” Obama said. “Well, when you don’t know you’re in charge of all these agencies and people, how can you? Think about it. It’s not my fault.”

Read it all. I especially like his response to a gentle and supportive question from a CNN reporter.

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‘This thing has legs.’”

10:00 am

“‘This thing has legs.’”

“One thing that politicians caught in a firestorm such as the current one swirling around the president’s health-care plan can hope for is that the thing will quickly die down once the news value is exhausted,” Hume said. “Unfortunately for the president, that does not seem to be happening. First came the website fiasco, then the stories of hundreds of thousands of policy cancellations. That’s now followed by reports of people losing their doctors as well. Incidents are now beginning to surface of people who managed to log on to the Obamacare website, being shocked at the prices of available health plans or the size of deductibles, or both.”

In the last few days I have been reminded increasingly of the problems Nixon had during his Watergate scandal. Instead of hitting the news in one big swoop, Watergate dribbled out over years, and that slow dribble was what kept it in the news long enough for the entire population to eventually get educated about it. More than anything else, that was what destroyed Richard Nixon.

Obama has had numerous scandals during his five years in office. None has damaged him seriously, because each popped up quickly and than faded as fast (mostly due to the willingness of a loyal press to protect him). With Obamacare, however, that can’t happen. Step-by-step, this disaster of a law is going to impose itself badly on Americans, and every time it does, the lies Obama and the Democrats told to get it passed are going to once again be highlighted. This is Nixon all over again, and it is going to do incredible damage to the Democratic Party come election time.

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Students crash rockets into the ground on purpose! With video.

9:25 am

Students crash rockets into the ground on purpose! With video.

In what at first glance seems like a terrible sense of direction, in March students from the University of Washington fired rockets from kites and balloons at an altitude of 3,000 ft (914 m) straight into the ground at Black Rock, Nevada: a dry lake bed in the desert 100 mi (160 km) north of Reno. This may seem like the ultimate in larking about, but it’s actually a serious effort to develop new ways of collecting samples from asteroids.

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For its next science mission the European Space Agency (ESA) has now decided to give first priority to an X-ray space telescope.

9:17 am

For its next science mission the European Space Agency (ESA) has now decided to give first priority to an X-ray space telescope.

They have demoted a space-based gravity wave detector to second place. As is typical for ESA, the pace here is quite slow, as both missions are now scheduled for launch in 2028 and 2034, decades away.

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“The biggest failure of Obamacare: Increasing the number of uninsured.”

9:44 am

“The biggest failure of Obamacare: Increasing the number of uninsured.”

The author outlines in great detail the numerous failures of the law before noting how it will only increase the numbers who don’t have insurance rather than decrease those numbers as touted by Democrats. And it will do so just before the 2014 elections.

He obviously must be a racist!

And in related news, another expert estimates that only 129 million people will lose their health insurance plans because of Obamacare.

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“This whole experience has converted a lifelong Democrat into a foot soldier for the Republican Party.”

9:21 am

“This whole experience has converted a lifelong Democrat into a foot soldier for the Republican Party.”

The quote comes from an article in a mainstream newspaper, not a conservative new media website, which suggests that those low information Democratic voters might actually be rethinking their voting habits because of Obamacare. That article itself, a reasonably detailed, accurate, and generally negative description of Obamacare, suggests that even the mainstream leftwing press is recognizing the truth of the situation.

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Twitter has repeatedly suspended @mycancellation, an account critical of Obamacare that is gathering images of insurance cancellation letters.

9:11 am

Leftwing tolerance: Twitter has repeatedly suspended @mycancellation, an account critical of Obamacare that is gathering images of insurance cancellation letters.

Higgins speculated about why the account was canceled on the website Ricochet.com. “Since we haven’t abused any of Twitter’s (seemingly quite subjective) standards, either someone at Twitter objects to the real cost of these ‘liked insurance I wanted to keep’ cancellations being given a human face,” Higgins wrote, “or there is an organized campaign by Obamacare-reality-deniers to spam Twitter with false claims of abuse. Either way, keep those photos coming!”

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India has begun the countdown for the November 5 launch of its first Mars orbiter.

9:04 am

India has begun the countdown for the November 5 launch of its first Mars orbiter.

Just today, spacetoday.com lists fourteen different stories in the Indian press about this mission, all enthusiastic, thus indicating the excitement in that country over space exploration and this mission in particular. Nor is this event unusual. I’ve noted before how space happy India is. They not only want to catch up and pass their neighbor China, they want to catch up with the United States and Russia. Should be fun to watch.

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You also can’t keep your doctor.

6:28 pm

You also can’t keep your doctor.

Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.

My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

This fact must be repeated endlessly: None of this should be a surprise to anyone. Conservatives and tea party activists were saying that Obamacare would destroy the health insurance system for years, right from the beginning of the debate. They said that, as written, it would mean most people would lose their health insurance plans. They said that, as written, it would mean that many people would lose their doctors. And they said that, as written, it was going to force many doctors to retire or pull out of the insurance pool. All these things are happening. No one should be surprised by it.

What people have to do now is assign responsibility for this disaster on the people who caused it. And those people are the politicians in the Democratic Party, from President Obama down to every elected Democrat in Congress. They wouldn’t negotiate, they wouldn’t compromise. All they were willing to do was to force this piece of crap down our throats, whether we wanted it or not.

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The Obamacare website routinely uploads your confidential personal information for all to read.

8:31 am

The Obamacare website routinely uploads your confidential personal information for all to read.

Tea party and conservatives repeatedly warned that this law would be a security risk. Even if they get the website fixed, the system still exposes your personal data to too many people who shouldn’t see it.

And then there’s this: A reporter calls the Obamacare hotline, is put on hold, and then told by the operator they know he’s a reporter, refuses to answer questions, and that a supervisor will call back.

How did the operator know he was a reporter? And even so, why should a reporter be treated differently? Doesn’t this also suggest that Obamacare could be used by present and future administrations against their critics?

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28 solar flares in the past week.

1:04 pm

28 solar flares in the past week.

The sun has erupted more than two dozen times over the last week, sending radiation and solar material hurtling through space – and scientists say more eruptions may be coming.

This shouldn’t be unusual. After all, we are technically at solar maximum, the peak of the 11-year cycle of the sun’s activity. But this has been a noticeably mellow solar maximum, with the sun staying fairly quiet throughout the summer. So when our life-giving star suddenly let loose with 24 medium strength M-class solar flares and four significantly stronger X-class flares between Oct. 23 and Oct. 30, it felt like a surprise.

October was one of the most active months for the sun this solar maximum, and I expect the sunspot count for the month to be quite high as well, more than we’ve seen in two years. I shall have that update in just a few days.

All of these active sunspots have been in the sun’s southern hemisphere, which indicates that hemisphere is finally gearing up to flip its magnetic field, something the sun’s northern hemisphere did last year. Once that happens the solar maximum will be officially over and we will head for the next solar minimum.

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In his weekly radio address today, President Obama called for new taxes and increased spending.

8:51 am

Broken record: In his weekly radio address today, President Obama called for new taxes and increased spending.

It is always the same. No matter what happens, Obama calls for more spending and higher taxes. It seems quite unimaginative on his part to never propose some other ideas for solving the federal deficit and the government’s other problems.

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Sunrise tomorrow on the East Coast will be interesting, as the sun will rise in the middle of a partial solar eclipse.

8:40 am

Sunrise tomorrow on the East Coast will be interesting, as the sun will rise in the middle of a partial solar eclipse.

Technically speaking, the partial eclipse could be visible as far inland as, say, Tennessee. Sky & Telescope projects that 57 percent of the sun’s diameter could be covered over at sunrise in Boston, 48 percent in New York, 44 percent in Philadelphia, 35 percent in Washington, and 36 percent in Miami. But you’d have to have a clear view of a flat horizon — and no matter where you are on the East Coast, the partial eclipse will be over within an hour after sunrise.

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The only juror in the George Zimmerman trial to go public has lost her job, been shunned by friends, and received death threats to herself and her family.

10:46 pm

Leftwing civility: The only juror in the George Zimmerman trial to go public has lost her job, been shunned by friends, and received death threats to herself and her family.

And then there’s this: Actress who tweeted that she was going to vote for Romney was inundated with hateful mail and even death threats.

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“This is a program that’s doing the opposite of what it was intended.”

10:21 pm

“This is a program that’s doing the opposite of what it was intended.”

Krauthammer hits the nail on the head. Obamacare was pushed hard by Obama and the Democrats as a way to provide everyone healthcare insurance. (How many times did they scream about the 40 some odd million uninsured?) Instead, the law is now forcing the cancellation of literally millions of insurance policies while at the same time it is impossible to sign up for insurance on the Obamacare website. And even if the website gets fixed, the available policies under the law are too expensive and provide the wrong benefits. Large numbers of people are going to refuse to buy (which might explain why the numbers enrolling have been so pitifully low).

The result: Fewer people will have heath insurance under Obamacare than before the law. And you can bet every one of those people who lost their health insurance — against their will — will be very pissed off come election day.

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