Category: Behind The Black

Healthcare premiums have climbed almost $3,000 since 2009.

9:28 am

Healthcare premiums have climbed almost $3,000 since 2009.

The important point however is this:

And while annual premium increases have moderated over the past two years, that’s due to trends in the insurance market largely unrelated to ObamaCare, and trends the law could actually reverse.

To save money on insurance people had been shifting to plans with high deductibles. Obamacare however has outlawed such plans, thus requiring health insurance coverage in cases where people really don’t need it or can’t afford it.

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Sierra Nevada’s engineering test vehicle of its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle completed its first capture carry flight test yesterday.

8:50 am

The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada’s engineering test vehicle of its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle completed its first capture carry flight test yesterday.

The test, which saw the lifting body space vehicle lifted by a Sikorsky S-64 to around 12,400 ft above the dry lakebed, follows completion of tow tests earlier this month. … During the Aug 22 flight the Dream Chaser’s flight computer, guidance, navigation and control systems were tested along with its landing gear and nose skid, which were deployed during the sortie.

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The University of Virginia is cutting health insurance coverage for spouses.

9:59 am

Finding out what’s in it: The University of Virginia is cutting health insurance coverage for spouses in order to avoid the cost of Obamacare.

Though the article doesn’t say, I would not be surprised if the university is also cutting the work hours of some teachers to make them part-timers as well, for the same reasons. And as Moe Lane notes, it is almost certain that this is what these university people voted for, as almost every single academic in the country is a partisan Democrat. I wonder how they will spin this disaster to blame it on conservatives.

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NASA will reactivate the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) next month to use it to look for more near Earth asteroids.

4:48 pm

NASA will reactivate the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) next month to use it to look for more near Earth asteroids.

This decision raises two thoughts.

  • Why did they shut it down in the first place if it was still viable and could still do important research? If the cost wasn’t worth the benefit then, how has this equation changed now? And if the cost was worth the benefit, it then was foolish to shut it down in the first place. Though it costs money to operate these things, it is always cheaper to keep something running than to build something new. The press announcement above doesn’t really address these issues, and I wish it did.
  • I wonder if this decision is somehow related to the end of the Kepler mission. With Kepler out of service, maybe NASA decided to shift the funds to run that telescope over to WISE. They do not say, but the timing is interesting. This decision could be a hint that Kepler doesn’t really have another mission it can fulfill, and thus the money to run it has already been put elsewhere.
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UPS announced today that it is dropping the spousal coverage for 15,000 employees because of the cost of Obamacare.

2:40 pm

Finding out what’s in it: UPS announced today that it is dropping the spousal coverage for 15,000 employees because of the cost of Obamacare.

To the Obama administration and the Democrats, this is proof that Obamacare works. According to a spokeswoman for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “The health care law will make health insurance more affordable, strengthen small businesses and make it easier for employers to provide coverage to their workers.” Well, obviously!

Orwell called this kind of thinking doublethink, the ability to hold two completely contradictory statements in your brain and see nothing contradictory about it.

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Space agencies of the world unite!

9:48 am

On Tuesday NASA released what it calls a new “space exploration roadmap,” outlining the agency’s goals for the human exploration of space over the next few decades.

Normally I’d say, who cares? The space agency puts these kinds of PR roadmaps together periodically. None of them really ever mean that much. And in truth, this particular report doesn’t mean that much either. However, what makes this “Global Plan” interesting and worth mentioning is the participants who wrote it. It seems that NASA and the Obama administration didn’t do it alone.
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Japan’s unveiled its new Epsilon rocket yesterday, scheduled for its first launch next week.

9:10 am

The competition heats up: Japan’s unveiled its new Epsilon rocket yesterday, scheduled for its first launch next week.

Epsilon is a low-cost, high-performance, solid-fuel rocket co-developed by JAXA and IHI AEROSPACE Co.,Ltd. and designed to launch scientific satellites. Epsilon features the world’s first innovative launch system called “Mobile Launch Control” which allows for built-in checks to be conducted autonomously within the rocket’s system. This allows staff to focus on high-level monitoring, making overall performance very smooth. A spokesman joked that it is so easy to control that staff could monitor the rocket on their laptops while at Starbucks.

In the past Japan has not been very good at building cheap and efficient rockets. We shall see how this one does.

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A draft of the next IPCC climate report has arrived, and it is more of the same: We are all gonna die!

9:56 am

A draft of the next IPCC climate report has arrived, and it is more of the same: We are all gonna die!

An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace. The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors. The report emphasizes that the basic facts about future climate change are more established than ever, justifying the rise in global concern. It also reiterates that the consequences of escalating emissions are likely to be profound.

I love the way the journalist here uses the term “climate change doubters.” Throughout the story it is applied to skeptical scientists in such a way as to imply that any doubt about these conclusions is obviously something to snicker at and to ignore.

As for the claim that the seas will rise three feet in the next 90 years, note that the level of sea rise has been consistently between 2 and 3 millimeters per year for the past half century, even as we have been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the climate has supposedly warmed. At 3mm per year, the seas will only rise 270 millimeters by the end of the century, or just under 11 inches, not three feet as claimed by this new IPCC report.

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The oldest globe to show the New World may have been discovered.

9:29 pm

The oldest globe to show the New World may have been discovered.

The globe, about the size of a grapefruit, is labeled in Latin and includes what were considered exotic territories such as Japan, Brazil and Arabia. North America is depicted as a group of scattered islands. The globe’s lone sentence, above the coast of Southeast Asia, is “Hic Sunt Dracones.”

Those words mean, of all things, “Here be dragons.” The globe is dated from 1504, only a dozen years after Columbus’s first voyage.

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“Impeach Obama” protesters arrested for peaceably assembling.

3:54 pm

Freedom in today’s America: “Impeach Obama” protesters arrested for peaceably assembling.

With video, which is definitely worth watching. I would have done exactly as these protesters did, been arrested, and would be on the phone with my lawyers this instant putting together a lawsuit. The cop who made the arrest in this case broke the law and should pay for that.

And I agree with one of the comments at the website: If the protesters had labeled themselves “Occupy Wall Street” the cops would have probably brought them donuts instead while allowing them to shut down traffic illegally.

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The launch today of India’s homemade Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) was scrubbed when a fuel leak was spotted at T-74 minutes.

2:16 pm

The launch today of India’s homemade Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) was scrubbed when a fuel leak was spotted at T-74 minutes.

India has had trouble getting this powerful rocket off the ground successfully, with four previous launch failures. If they succeed this time, however, they will then have the ability to build their own rocket, capable of putting commercial payloads into geosynchronous orbit.

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A star that went nova last week is now visible to the naked eye.

2:07 pm

A star that went nova last week is now visible to the naked eye.

“Nova Delphini 2013 is among the 30 brightest novae ever recorded,” says S&T editor in chief Robert Naeye. “It’s a wonderful target for backyard observers, given that it’s visible to the naked eye and relatively easy to find. But it’s also attracting the intense interest of scientists, who are using a wide assortment of telescopes and astronomical satellites to better understand these enigmatic explosions.”

Though related scientifically to certain kinds of supernovae, this is not a supernova. Nonetheless, it is rare for these events to be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. Go outside tonight and take a look!

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The Obama administration has failed to meet more than half of the deadlines mandated by Obamacare.

9:36 am

Ignoring what’s in it: The Obama administration has failed to meet more than half of the deadlines mandated by Obamacare.

Meanwhile, here’s another example of a company switching all of its workers to part-time to avoid Obamacare. The result is that those employees will not only earn less, they will lose their company health insurance. So much for Obama’s promise, “If you like your healthplan you keep your healthplan.”

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Formation flying in space, without propellants.

8:52 am

Formation flying in space, without propellants.

Electromagnetic formation flight (EMFF) gets around this propellant problem by turning the satellites in a formation into electromagnets. By using a combination of magnets and reaction wheels, spacecraft in formation can move and change their attitude and even spin without propellant. Satellites can change their polarity to attract or repel one another, turn, or shift their relative positions in any manner that doesn’t require changing the center of gravity for the entire formation.

A prototype is going to be tested inside ISS in the near future.

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