Category: Behind The Black

The Orbcomm communications satellite put in a wrong orbit in the Falcon 9 launch has fallen to Earth.

10:15 pm

The Orbcomm communications satellite that was put in the wrong orbit by the Falcon 9 rocket Sunday has fallen to Earth.

According to the company insurance will cover most of the loss. They also said that “had Orbcomm been the primary payload on this mission, as planned for the upcoming launches, we believe the OG2 prototype would have reached the desired orbit.” This appears to be a strong endorsement of the Falcon 9 rocket from the company, which has a contract with SpaceX to launch 17 more satellites on two Falcon 9 launches, scheduled for 2013 and 2014.

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“A profound disdain for the Constitution.”

9:17 am

“A profound disdain for the Constitution.”

The article quotes numerous Constitutional scholars, cites numerous examples of abuse by Obama, and repeatedly makes this same point:

Multiple experts interviewed for this article cited the Obama administration’s willingness to disregard laws for the sake of his policy goals as evidence that the president is disregarding the Constitution.

The last thing a free nation needs is a leader who has contempt for the law.

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A super Earth, made of diamonds

8:55 am

A super Earth, made of diamonds.

Astronomers also thought 55 Cancri e contained a substantial amount of super-heated water, based on the assumption that its chemical makeup was similar to Earth’s, Madhusudhan said. But the new research suggests the planet has no water at all, and appears to be composed primarily of carbon (as graphite and diamond), iron, silicon carbide, and, possibly, some silicates. The study estimates that at least a third of the planet’s mass — the equivalent of about three Earth masses — could be diamond. “By contrast, Earth’s interior is rich in oxygen, but extremely poor in carbon — less than a part in thousand by mass,” says co-author and Yale geophysicist Kanani Lee.

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A new survey of 13,575 physicians had found that doctors are fleeing the field.

6:45 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A new survey of 13,575 physicians had found that doctors are fleeing the field.

The survey also found that over the next one to three years, more than 50 percent of physicians will cut back on patients seen, work part-time, switch to concierge medicine, retire, or take other steps likely to reduce patient access.

But don’t worry, “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.” Not!

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“The end of the media’s infatuation with Obama may be the greatest casualty of the debate.”

1:09 pm

“The end of the media’s infatuation with Obama may be the greatest casualty of the debate.”

This analysis is fascinating, as it notes a significant shift in the press’s normally lapdog Democratic Party spin effort to a much more hostile approach. If this is true, that the leftwing press has decided to stop protecting this administration, than Obama and the Democrats have no chance come election day.

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“There is no statistical case to be made for a global temperature increase in the past 15 years.”

8:32 am

“There is no statistical case to be made for a global temperature increase in the past 15 years.”

The database is the one created by the Met Office in Great Britain. Also this:

None of these adjustments are, considering the errors of measurement, statistically significant, but they do affect the ranking of years, which is important if the associated errors are not considered, as is often the case in the media. The overall conclusion is that global temperature datasets are fluid and change from month to month, and this must be taken into account in any analysis. It would be nice to have explanations for such changes.[emphasis mine]

Because of the unexplained adjustments, 1998 is no longer the hottest year on record, a “fact” trumpeted loudly by global warming scientists for more than a decade.

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A dying woman, refused a private screening at a TSA checkpoint, was patted down in public and forced to remove her bandages.

3:54 pm

Does this make you feel safer? A dying woman, refused a private screening at a TSA checkpoint, was patted down in public and forced to remove her bandages.

They also destroyed some of her medicine. Worse, she called ahead to make sure she was doing everything correctly in order to get past the TSA thugs as easily as possible. Obviously, it didn’t work.

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To avoid the cost of Obamacare, companies are reducing their full time stuff and switching as many employees to part-time as possible.

9:18 am

Finding out what’s in it: To avoid the cost of Obamacare, companies are reducing their full time staff and switching as many employees to part-time as possible.

It is very simple. The regulatory cost of Obamacare is so high companies are doing anything they can to avoid it. It is for this reason that they stopped hiring almost the instant the law was passed, and are now scrambling to find other ways to survive outside its influence.

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Resurrecting the chestnut tree.

9:15 pm

Resurrecting the chestnut tree.

As chief scientist of the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF), a group of chestnut enthusiasts and scientists, Hebard has bred thousands of hybrids at the organization’s research farm in Meadowview, Virginia. He crosses descendants of the original American chestnut with the much smaller Chinese variety (Castanea mollissima), which has some natural immunity to the Asian fungus. And after decades of work, he is within reach of his goal, a tall American tree with enough Chinese traits to keep it healthy. Other researchers are trying to attack the blight with viruses or are creating trees that are genetically modified (GM) to resist the fungus, and could be the first GM forest trees released in the wild in the United States. Progress with all three approaches is raising hopes that chestnuts will soon start to flourish again in the forests of the American east. “We’re starting to pull the American chestnut tree back from the brink of extinction,” says Hebard.

This work is an example of human behavior at its best, using our ability to adapt as well as our brains to help another species come back to life. And we aren’t doing just to help the trees. Bringing the chestnut tree back will benefit us as well as other species.

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