Walk off the Earth – Somebody that I used to know
An evening pause: Nicely performed, especially as the performers were all playing the same guitar.
Hat tip James Mallamace.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
March 9, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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Meet the fascist professors at Middlebury College
Following the violent protests at Middlebury College in Vermont that injured a professor during a speaking event by author Charles Murray last week, two professors issued a “statement of principles” in favor of free speech and expressing opposition to such violence. The following, only an excerpt, gives a flavor of the whole statement:
Exposure to controversial points of view does not constitute violence.
Students have the right to challenge and to protest non-disruptively the views of their professors and guest speakers.
A protest that prevents campus speakers from communicating with their audience is a coercive act.
No group of professors or students has the right to act as final arbiter of the opinions that students may entertain.
No group of professors or students has the right to determine for the entire community that a question is closed for discussion.
The purpose of college is not to make faculty or students comfortable in their opinions and prejudices.
So far 79 professors at Middlebury College have put their names to this document. What is interesting, however, is a list of those professors who have not signed this basic statement in favor of free speech. An academic at a different college took a close look at the signatories, and found not surprisingly that no teachers from certain departments had signed. Before you click to see, I am willing to bet you can guess many of the departments and their teachers who oppose the idea of free speech. There are surprises however:
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Rand Paul introduces his Obamacare replacement
Competing crap: Senator Rand Paul, who opposes the Obamacare replacement introduced by the Republican leadership, introduced his own bill today to replace Obamacare.
I’ve looked at the summary [pdf] of his bill, and it contains most of the same problems contained in the Republican leadership’s proposal. Neither repeals Obamacare really, since both keep the ability of everyone to wait until they are sick before they buy health insurance, thereby guaranteeing that every health insurance company will go bankrupt.
We need Congress to repeal Obamacare, clean and simple. The tinkering by Congress in this business has only caused problems. The more tinkering they do, the more problems they will cause. They need to get out, now.
Blue Origin signs second contract for New Glenn
The competition heats up: One day after announcing its first launch contract, Blue Origin announced today a second contract for its New Glenn rocket.
In a tweet this morning, Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos said OneWeb has reserved five launches using the rocket, bringing to six the number of missions in the New Glenn manifest.
So far I can find no information about the prices being charged by Blue Origin for these launches. I suspect they are giving their customers discounts for being the first, but this is not confirmed yet.
Noble Sissle and his Ciro’s club dance orchestra – Little White Lies/Happy Feet
An evening pause: Recorded in 1930.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
March 7, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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At the crest
Cool images time! The image above, cropped and reduced to show here, is a panorama that I have created from the most recent images sent down from Opportunity yesterday. The rover sits on the crest of the rim of Endeavour Crater, and this panorama looks north at that crest, back in the direction where the rover has come. The rovers tracks can be seen fading away into the distance slightly to the left of the crestline..If you click on the picture you can see the full resolution image.
The crater floor is to the right, the plains that surround the crater are to the left.
Below is another panorama, created by me from the same images sent down today, this time looking south at the crest in the direction Opportunity is heading. Once again, if you click on the picture you can see the full resolution version.
The full set of today’s images from Opportunity suggest that the science team took them to assemble a full 360 degree panorama before they begin the journey south to the gully that is just now becoming visible at the southernmost edge of the most recent overhead traverse image. To get to that gully they will now have to descend off the crest and down outside the rim of Endeavour Crater, moving to the right in the panorama below. This is therefore their last opportunity for awhile to get a good view from a high overlook.
Local Vermont voters dump mayor who pushed accepting refugees
What a surprise! A town mayor in Vermont who had advocated accepting a hundred unvetted Middle East refugees has lost his re-election bid.
It appears this guy, who had been mayor for about a decade and had twice defeated his opponent in earlier elections, had pushed his plan without consulting anyone else in the government. In this election he got trounced.
A Ted Cruz telecon
Last night I did a long radio appearance with Robert Pratt in Texas. While I was on the air with him he received a notice from Senator Ted Cruz’s office, announcing a press telecon today on the just-passed NASA authorization bill. Pratt asked me if I would be willing to attend that telecon as his press correspondence. I agreed.
The telecon has just ended. Cruz’s statements about that NASA authorization were very uncommitted and vague, though he clearly wants to encourage private space. He also was careful not to say bad things about SLS/Orion, since it sends a lot of money to Texas.
I asked him about the lack of any mention of Earth science research in the authorization bill. He noted that during the Obama administration NASA’S climate research had become politicized, and it is his hope that this will now end, that NASA will continue to do this research but that “it will no longer be used for political purposes.” Like his comments about SLS/Orion, this was a careful answer that avoided setting off a firestorm of controversy.
Cruz did say two things of note however during the press teleconference.
- Cruz and family is having dinner with Trump tonight
- Cruz has reservations about the Republican proposal on Obamacare
It appears that Cruz is putting aside the ugly events of the campaign in order to try to exert influence on Trump now. It also appears that he intends to discuss the bad Obamacare replacement bill with Trump, pushing for changes to it.
Anti-Trump protesters who threatened violence during inauguration get off scott free
The three protesters who were filmed planning violence during the Trump inauguration by undercover agents of Project Veritas have all pleaded guilty and gotten off with no jail time.
An anti-Trump protester pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy for his role in plotting to shut down an inaugural ball by setting off stink bombs and sprinklers. Scott Ryan Charney, 34, was sentenced to community service after agreeing to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit assault after he was caught on videotape discussing the scheme by Project Veritas.
Charney was the third of three members of the D.C. Anti-Fascist Coalition charged with conspiracy after being captured on hidden-camera video at the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. Paul “Luke” Kuhn and Colin B. Dunn were sentenced Thursday to community service but no jail time after entering guilty pleas in D.C. Superior Court on unlawful conspiracy to commit an offense.
This is par for the course. Leftwing and Democratic protesters can do whatever they want, including planning and even committing life-threatening violence, and receive no punishment. Rightwing and Republican protesters can sneeze in the wrong direction and end up spending years and their life savings trying to avoid heavy prison sentences or the destruction of their lives.
A Kuwaiti space agency?
The competition heats up: At least one scientist in Kuwait, after attending a conference where the UAE’s space effort was highlighted, thinks her country should form its own space agency also.
Establishing a space agency/program is not a fantasy, it is the way of the future, which will bring numerous economic and scientific benefits, Assistant Professor at the Physics Department of Kuwait University (KU) Dr. Hala Al-Jassar said during an interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
While attending the recently held Abu Dhabi Space Congress, Dr. Al-Jassar said that she was amazed and intrigued by one of the participants’ contributions to the event. The participant laid out that the ingredients of a successful space program, which must include strong leadership, a sizable budget, available talents, and thorough training programs, said the academic.
“We have the budget, the talents, the expertize, and outstanding graduates from the best universities,” said Dr. Al-Jassar who pointed out that the lack of clear leadership was one of the main challenges for the establishment of a space agency.
Isn’t competition wonderful? One Arab country in the Middle East puts together a space program, and now others wish to follow. It is almost like night follows day. It has to happen.
Blue Origin gets its first orbital customer
The competition heats up: Blue Origin today announced its first orbital contract for its New Glenn rocket, planned for a 2021 launch at the earliest.
The contract is with Eutelsat, which probably gets a bargain basement price for being New Glenn’s first paying customer. The rocket will also land its first stage vertically, on a barge, for reuse, just as SpaceX does with its Falcon 9.
New Glenn will be a big and very powerful rocket, capable of putting 45 tons into low Earth orbit, only slightly less than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy.
Boeing 747 brake test
An evening pause: A brake test for possibly the greatest plane ever built, and one that is now being phased out.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
House approves NASA authorization
The NASA authorization act that the Senate passed on February 21 was approved by the House today.
As I discussed in reviewing the act on February 21, the bill’s overall focus is to shift NASA from running “a space program” to facilitating the success of competing private enterprise. It also eliminates all of NASA’s climate budget so that the money can be spent instead on space exploration.
Trump is expected to sign it. Then will come the hard work, actually writing the budget for NASA.
Republican leadership endorses Obamacare
Yesterday the Republican leadership in Congress unveiled their proposed replacement for Obamacare.
This is not a repeal. It proudly keeps many of the Obamacare provisions that have made health insurance unprofitable, which is why Obamacare and the entire health insurance industry is going bankrupt. First, the Republican proposal keeps the Obamacare requirement that forces insurance companies to accept applicants with pre-existing conditions at no extra charge. Insurance cannot work under this condition. Second, the plan forces insurance companies to cover the children of customers until they are 26.
Several articles today outline the stupidity of this new plan:
- RINO-Care: A more insolvent version of Obamacare … except this time GOP owns it
- Republicans Cave On ObamaCare
- Conservatives pan House Obamacare repeal bill
- Added: The GOP’s Obamacare Repeal Bill Is Here. Is This Just Obamacare Lite?
- Added: AFP, FreedomWorks, Heritage Action all against this bill
- Added: Texas Public Policy Foundation: This proposal “falls short” and “fails” [pdf]
- Added: The House GOP Leadership’s Health Care Bill Is ObamaCare-Lite — Or Worse
From the first article above:
The first thing to understand about the GOP healthcare bill is that it is not merely Obamacare-lite or a bad “replacement” bill. It doesn’t repeal the core of Obamacare in the first place. In fact, the few parts that it repeals or tweaks within a few years will actually intensify the death spiral of Obamacare when mixed with the core regulatory structure, exacerbated by the subsidies that they do keep. And this time, the GOP will own it politically. All of it.
As I say, this is downright stupid. By trying to “fix” this horrible law, all the Republican leadership accomplishes is to poison themselves with it, something Republicans have so far been able to avoid.
The Republicans shouldn’t be passing a different version of Obamacare, they should be trying to repeal it entirely. If the Democrats continue to obstruct, they will then have to face the voters in 2018 in an election that does not favor them to begin with.
Blue Origin unveils first completed BE-4 rocket engine
The competition heats up: Blue Origin today unveiled to the public its first completed BE-4 rocket engine, being built for its New Glenn orbital rocket as well as ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
More important however was that the company expects the second and third engines to come off the assembly line very soon.
Dream Chaser flight tests upcoming
The competition heats up: According to Sierra Nevada officials, drop tests and glide tests of the engineering test ship of its Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft will begin this spring.
The partially-assembled test craft arrived at the California test site, located on Edwards Air Force Base, on Jan. 25. Technicians are adding the ship’s V-shaped tail fins and other equipment before kicking off ground and flight tests in the coming months, according to Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president of Sierra Nevada’s space systems division. “We’ll do a series of ground tests,” Sirangelo said in a recent interview. “That will include towing the vehicle down the runway, and that allows us to see how it stops and how it moves, but it also allows us to test all the sensors on the vehicle because we can get it up to a high enough speed where that will happen.”
…After the ground tests, Sirangelo said the Dream Chaser test article will perform “captive carry” tests suspended under a helicopter, using the exercises to verify the movements of the craft’s aerosurfaces and navigation instrumentation. “When that’s done, we’ll move into a series of flight tests, where it will be dropped for approach and landing like the shuttle Enterprise,” Sirangelo said, referring to the vehicle NASA used for landing demonstrations in the 1970s before the first full-up space shuttle mission.
This all sounds great, but Sierra Nevada has been promising these test flights now for more than a year. It is time they got started already.
Vega launches European research satellite
The competition heats up: Arianespace today successfully used its small Vega rocket to launch a European Earth observation satellite.
Vega gives Arianespace a rocket capable of competing with Orbital ATK’s Pegasus as well as some of the new rocket companies.
Scandal – Goodbye To You
An evening pause: I will think of this song whenever we see huge cuts in the federal bureaucracy.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.