The new America: The impending shrinkage in the healthcare industry because of Obamacare.
The day of reckoning looms: Harry Reid said Thursday that the Democrats intend to raise the debt limit another $2.4 trillion.
The new America: Wall Street stocks plummeted today for the second day in a row.
I wonder why. What happened two days ago that might have shaken the confidence of the business world?
Worlds without end: Astronomers have found a super-earth exoplanet inside its star’s habitable zone.
The planet is large enough that it might be more like Neptune, but if it should have any earth-sized moons they will definitely be capable of supporting life.
Update: The science paper included a wonderful graphic comparing the solar system of this star with that of our own solar system. I have posted this graphic below the fold. HD40307g is the potentially habitable planet.
» Read more
An evening pause: In case you don’t recognize her, Nataly Dawn is the lead singer of Pomplamoose.
The new America: The maker of “Innocence of Muslims” has been sentenced to a year in prison for parole violation.
It might have been a crappy film and the filmmaker might have been a bum and a liar who did violate his parole. No matter. That is not really why he was arrested. In the new America he was arrested and sent to prison because he dared make a film that offended Muslims and that the Obama administration did not like.
In the new America don’t offend the government, or they will find a reason to jail you.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot continues to shrink.
Sea Launch is considering moving its base of operations out of the United States.
Hm. The timing of this story, right after the election, is intriguing, is it not?
Boeing to cut 30 percent of its management ranks.
This could be good news for the company. If they do this right, they will reduce their costs without hurting their ability to produce. That they made this announcement today, the day after the election, and that the cuts mostly involve their defense work also suggests it is linked to sequestration, despite the company’s denial.
Five big stories the media will ‘discover’ after the election.
It appears that Barack Obama has won another four years in office. Despite what many consider to be one of the weakest and most incompetent presidencies in history, the American people have decided to stick with this man. Even worse, the Democrats look like they will gain seats in the Senate, even though it was the Democratic majority in that Senate that has refused to pass a budget — as required by law — for the last three years. For that dereliction of duty, the American people have decided to reward them with more power.
Overall, it appears that the polls that favored Democrats in their sampling were actually capturing the tone of the country. The public wants big government and a restriction in freedom. 2010 was a fluke, not a trend. I was wrong.
We are stuck with Obamacare. We are stuck with trillion dollar deficits. We are stuck with bankruptcy. I have little hope now for the near future. It will probably take fifty years or more to fix the problems that the past four years and the next four years will create.
This is not even a conservative perspective. No policy can survive, even good leftwing policy, when the government is bankrupt. And with trillion dollar deficits the new normal, we are guaranteed that the government will go bankrupt. And it will take everything else down with it.
Even worse, this willingness of the American public and its intellectual class to ignore this reality, to make believe that trillion dollar deficits don’t matter, suggests an intellectual bankruptcy that is even more appalling. For you can’t fix a problem if you refuse to face it.
An evening pause: In honor of today’s election, a little history lesson from Schoolhouse Rock from 1975.
We’re gonna elect a president! (No more kings)
He’s gonna do what the people want! (No more kings)
We’re gonna run things our way! (No more kings)
Nobody’s gonna tell us what to do!Rockin’ and a-rollin’, splishin’ and a-splashin’,
Over the horizon, what can it be?
Looks like it’s going to be a free country.
The day of reckoning looms: The federal government is expected to hit its debt ceiling before the end of the year.
The federal government is bankrupting the country, and it will take hard sacrifices to rein in that federal government. I fear that, regardless of how today’s election ends, neither party will be willing to propose those sacrifices, mostly because they will believe the voters are not willing either.
Big Brother arrives: A federal judge has approved the installation of surveillance cameras by the police — on private property without a warrant.
Let me repeat that: The judge said that the police have the right to enter private property, without a warrant, in order to secretly install surveillance cameras so that they can record whatever happens on that property.
Doesn’t that make you feel safe?
The article is focused on the destruction by the Eritrean dictatorship of the country’s scientific and medical communities. I see this act of barbarism as merely a symptom of that country’s overall descent into tyranny.
Sierra Nevada is moving its mini-shuttle, Dream Chaser, into its own facility.
This article isn’t really as positive as I’d like. For one, they haven’t even signed the lease for the building. Instead, it appears that the company is using this announcement, and the subsequent media coverage, to pressure the local city council to provide them subsidies. For another, the article mentions that drop tests of Dream Chaser will occur next spring, a significant delay from previous announcements. Both points make things appear far more tenuous than they should be.
An evening pause: I posted this video song the evening of election, 2010. I think its point remains the same today, the eve of election day 2012. The people do not go away, no matter how much the elite leadership of society wishes they might. Even in a dictatorship they hover over everything.
The latest monthly update the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun has been published today by NOAA. Once again, the trend suggests that the Sun’s ability to produce sunspots is fading, and fading fast.
I have posted this latest graph, covering the month of October, below the fold, with additional analysis.
» Read more
It took Amazon a bit longer than everyone else, but the ebook edition of Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 is now available for Kindle at amazon.com.
And of course, it can also be purchased at all other ebook bookstores, as well as here at Behind the Black.
Update: My Tuesday appearance on John Batchelor has been moved up to tonight (Monday) from 11 to 11:30 pm, during which we will be discussing Genesis, the election, and some space news of the day,
It is very simple: the electorate is no longer tilted Democratic. Sadly, too many pollsters — and liberal pundits — refuse to recognize this fact.
Look for the union label: “We don’t want you unless you’re part of the union.”
The result: no power for people in New York and New Jersey for far longer.
The next launch of the X-37B has been delayed again.
