A close look at another government program to try to lower the cost to orbit.

A close look at another government program to try to lower the cost to orbit.

The latest program is know as the Experimental Spaceplane — or XS-1. The objective “is to demonstrate a reusable first stage launch vehicle capable of carrying and deploying an upper stage that inserts 3,000 to 5,000 lb. payloads into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), designed for less than $5M per launch for an operational system.” The system has to be able to perform with aircraft-like operations. And demonstrate the ability to fly 10 times in 10 days. It needs to reach Mach 10 at least once. And provide the basis for next-generation launch services and “global reach hypersonic and space access aircraft.”

Forgive me if I am skeptical. Despite DARPA’s reasonable success (It helped make possible SpaceX’s Merlin engine), these government efforts generally fail because they are unattached to the prime reasons for lowering cost: competition and profits. Consider this very accurate historical summary in the article above:

In the era of bell bottoms and Richard Nixon, there was the space shuttle. When Ronald Reagan ruled the roost, all hope rested in the National Aerospace Plane. During the Bill Clinton era, there were the X-33 and Venture Star. In Barack Obama’s first term, the Air Force pursued its Reusable Booster System (RBS).

Five programs. One objective: to radically reduce the cost to orbit. More than $14 billion spent on development. And the result? A super expensive shuttle program. Four vehicles that never flew. And access to space just kept getting more expensive.

Only when every effort in the aerospace industry is focused on making itself more competitive will we see the kinds of technical advancements this new DARPA program wishes to achieve.

Newly released emails provide more evidence that IRS official Lois Lerner was lying when she said the IRS scandal was confined to the low-level employees in Cincinnati.

Working for the Democratic Party: Newly released emails provide more evidence that IRS official Lois Lerner was lying when she said the IRS scandal was confined to the low-level employees in Cincinnati.

An IRS official blasted Lois Lerner for her attempt to blame the agency’s targeting scandal on low-level employees in Cincinnati, according to newly released emails. “Cincinnati wasn’t publicly ‘thrown under the bus’ (but) instead was hit by a convoy of Mack trucks,” wrote Cindy Thomas, former director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Cincinnati, in a May 10, 2013 email to Lerner obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Thomas wrote the email on the very day that the IRS targeting scandal broke when Lerner, a senior agency official based in Washington, D.C., admitted that her exempt organizations division engaged in improper targeting of conservative groups.

The truth was that the low-level employees in Cincinnati were getting their orders to harass conservatives from high up the chain in Washington.

The Census Bureau apparently faked the unemployment numbers prior to the 2012 election to make it appear more people were employed.

Working for the Democratic Party: The Census Bureau apparently faked the unemployment numbers prior to the 2012 election to make it appear more people were employed.

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington. The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it. Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy. And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.

Dukakis and the tank.

Dukakis and the tank.

An excellent article on what is probably one of the worst photo-ops ever attempted by a political campaign. My one disagreement is how the article focuses on how silly Dukakis looked in the helmet. This wasn’t what made the photo-op a disaster. What really made it fail was how absurd it was for him to think that riding in a tank would make people forget his deep and longstanding opposition to the military. Watch the Reagan campaign’s response ad, which used the tank ride to point this out. This is what made the photo-op a failure.

An Obamacare supporter begins to see the light.

An Obamacare supporter begins to see the light.

None of the surprising disasters he describes should have been a surprise to him, but for the fact that he likely considered any criticism in 2010 of Obama or Obamacare by his conservative friends pure racism and not worth listening to. Thus, he never heard them tell him that these disasters were exactly what was going to happen.

Will he change his voting allegiances come November? I doubt it. Too many of the liberal voters I have met in my life are downright bigoted when it comes to politics. To them, Democrats are “the good people who protect the weak and poor” while Republicans are “the evil racists who want to starve little children.” With this simplistic view of the world, they are generally unable to consider the possibility that they have this wrong.

The new head of the Russian Space Agency has requested that the government impose a ban on the sale of any foreign made satellites in Russia.

The new head of the Russian Space Agency has requested that the government impose a ban on the sale in Russia of any foreign made satellites.

The idea is that Russian industries should build these satellites instead, and that this ban will encourage the rebirth of the Russian satellite business.

I doubt it. If the Russian satellite business could do it better, they would get the business anyway, especially since their labor costs are generally much lower.

So, when does Ted Cruz get his apology?

So, when does Ted Cruz get his apology?

Cruz, recognizing that Obamacare is a disaster, tried to stop it. The Democrats, in love with Obamacare and oblivious to its impending problems, fought back and forced the government shutdown rather than agree to any of Cruz’s proposals. At the same time, Cruz was called all kinds of names by people on both the left and the right. (Consider John McCain, who was vicious in his attacks on Cruz but now is calling for a full repeal of Obamacare.)

Cruz was right however. Obamacare is a disaster. It must be repealed. And the Democrats must be forced to agree or pay the penalty at the ballot box.

Obama announces he will veto any bill that changes Obamacare, including the “Keep your plan” offers from both parties in Congress.

Good news! Obama announces he will veto any bill that changes Obamacare, including the “Keep your plan” offers from both parties in Congress.

For once I agree whole-heartedly with Obama. The bills in Congress now are foolish, and only serve to make Obamacare more permanent and even more flawed. Let us have a full repeal, and let him veto that. At least then the next election will be on this issue, clearly.

And in related news, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) states that he is going to introduce repeal legislation.

Lockheed Martin announced today that it is closing down five facilities and laying off 4,000 employees.

Lockheed Martin announced today that it is closing down five facilities and laying off 4,000 employees.

This is actually good news for the company (reflected in a rise in its stock price today) as well as the taxpayer. Faced with less easy money from the federal government, the company is trimming some of its waste and unneeded fat. I am confident these cuts will have zero impact on their ability to operate and compete. If anything, they will improve the company’s abilities.

The cuts are also a recognition that the federal cuts from sequestration are not going away, even though those cuts have resulted in literally no visible problems in any federal program. To me, this is another demonstration that there was (and continues to be) plenty of fat in the federal government that can be trimmed away, without serious harm to any federal program.

Comet ISON brightens to just within naked eye visibility.

Comet ISON brightens to just within naked eye visibility.

“[T]he little but intensely condensed, globular cluster-looking comet was a whopping magnitude 5.4 — two full magnitudes brighter than just 24 hours ago! This makes for a three magnitude total rise since my observation on Monday.” In just 72 hours, Comet ISON increased nearly 16 times in brightness.

Don’t get too excited. Magnitude 5.4 would make it comparable to one of the dimmer stars in the night sky, while the description above indicates it looks less like a comet and more like a blob.

It appears state insurance regulators are also telling Obama to go to hell with his lawless announcement that the parts of Obamacare causing him political troubles are temporarily suspended.

It appears state insurance regulators are also telling Obama to go to hell with his lawless announcement that the parts of Obamacare causing him political troubles are temporarily suspended.

Commissioner Mike Kreidler said Thursday he won’t allow insurance companies to extend their old policies that didn’t meet the requirements of federal health care reform. An estimated 290,000 Washington residents have received notices that their old insurance policies will be canceled. “Trying to do what the president has proposed would be very disruptive to the insurance market in the state of Washington so no, we will not be allowing insurance companies to extend these policies,” he said. “You’d have to go back and re-rate all of the policies, and the premises for what they originally proposed rates would all change.”

That is Washington. Arkansas has also issued a similar ruling.

I repeat: The Republicans should introduce today a bill to repeal Obamacare in full.

Update: “Insurers are furious about the White House’s new Obamacare plan.”

“The lawlessness of Obamacare, root and branch.”

“The lawlessness of Obamacare, root and branch.”

The author details one by one the numerous lawless aspects of this law and the administration that created it, illustrating bluntly that, as damaging as Obamacare is to the health insurance industry, it has been far more harmful to the rule of law and the American system of justice and Constitutional government.

Weep for our country if Obamacare stands.

Insurance companies are already saying that they cannot go along with Obama’s decision to suspend the cancellation of insurance policies.

Surprise, surprise! Insurance companies are already saying that they cannot go along with Obama’s decision to suspend the cancellation of insurance policies.

As stated by an insurance representative:

This a new insanity.

I do not know how the insurance carriers and federal government are going to be dealing with this. First, many states require a 60-day notice of a change in plan or a cancellation. It’s November 15! How can they comply with this new element of federal law, and with their state laws?

As I said, if I was an insurance company I would continue to simply follow Obamacare as written. This action carries the least legal risk.

Which means Obama’s proposal today is mere show and will accomplish nothing. The Democrats remain politically exposed. If the Republicans had any brains, they would move now to propose a full repeal of Obamacare.

With a wave of his hand, Obama has declared that insurance companies need not cancel policies forbidden under Obamacare.

The law is such an inconvenient thing: With a wave of his hand, Obama today has declared that insurance companies need not cancel policies forbidden under Obamacare.

In remarks at the White House today, Obama said, “I completely get how upsetting this can be” lose insurance plans that I promised Americans would be able to keep. “To those Americans, I hear you loud and clear.”

But there’s a catch with president’s proposed solution. The president is not proposing that the law be changed to allow all health insurance plans grandfathered into Obamacare’s eligibility requirements.

No, instead the White House is saying that it will use “enforcement discretion” to allow illegal health insurance plans to be able to still be sold. That is, the Obama administration will not enforce the penalty on individuals for not having eligible health insurance plans and they’ll allow the insurance companies to still sell so-called bad plans — plans they technically can’t sell under Obamacare.

If I was an insurance company I would not take Obama at his word. If they don’t cancel these forbidden policies, they might find the administration coming after them later for not obeying the law.

Also, this action by Obama solves none of the political problems facing the Democratic Party for its creation of Obamacare. Even if it happens, it is merely a one year delay in the cancellation of these policies, which would place their final cancellation to just before next year’s election.

Obamacare and the unstoppable project.

Obamacare and the unstoppable project.

On multiple occasions over the past 18 years, I have been that IT consultant yelling “Stop!” to a client (sometimes a software developer, sometimes a customer) who very much does not want to hear that. In one instance, the executive vice-president in the charge of the project I had just spent a few months reviewing walked out of the meeting in which I was presenting my findings in order to track down and destroy all copies of the report containing those findings. Likewise, I’ve had a few engagements that have ended abruptly due to my insistence on honesty and reality, but I sleep well at night, so the trade-off is excellent.

Stick around till the end, because the Dilbert cartoon there encapsulates everything we know about how today’s federal government operates: “You should buy twice as much.”

The Obama administration has had to issue 254 corrections to its own Obamacare regulations.

You think their website is bad? The Obama administration has had to issue 254 corrections to its own Obamacare regulations.

The damage wasn’t limited to little-used regulatory language that needed to be fixed of careless mistakes. The medical loss ratio requirement has been hotly debated as a tool to limit insurance companies’ profitability. Billed by The Washington Post as the “provision that terrifies insurers,” the policy forces insurance companies to spend a mandated percentage of patient premiums on patient care in order to keep premiums artificially low. Twenty-four corrections were issued to the Medical Loss Ratio rule alone. Some parts of the regulations were “technically inaccurate and [conflicted] with language elsewhere,” according to Batkins. Some corrections had to be corrected again later on.

The report pointed to the real-world effects of mistakes in the dense regulations, specifically federal officials’ assumption that it would take 28 minutes to complete an online application via the federal exchange, which turned out to be drastically wrong. [emphasis mine]

Remember, the word “regulation” is really about control and power. One entity, the government, gets to regulate the behavior of others. The problem is that this particular government, whether run by Democrats or Republicans, is wholly incompetent.

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