Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

China launches first unmanned freighter in test flight

7:03 pm

China today successfully launched its first unmanned cargo freighter, Tianzhou-1.

After entering orbit, according to CCTV-Plus interviews with Chinese space officials, Tianzhou-1 is slated to conduct a first docking with Tiangong-2 in a few days. The two spacecraft will then have a two-month in-orbit flight to test the liquid-propellant refueling as well as the cargo spaceship’s control of the combined vehicles, CMSA officials said.

The two spacecraft will also fly separately for three months, during which time the cargo spaceship will complete its own space science experiments. Then the two will have the third docking to test the automatic fast-docking technology, a test to complete the docking within 6 hours.

This was also the second launch of their most powerful rocket, Long March 7, and the second launch from their new spaceport at Wenchang.

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Berkeley backs down to Coulter, partly

4:11 pm

Fascists: The University of California-Berkeley today backed down on its demand that Ann Coulter’s speech there, scheduled for April 27, be canceled.

Instead, they offered May 2 as a new date, which it appears does not satisfy either Coulter or the college group that invited her.

But on Thursday, the university said it had found a venue where it could hold the speech on May 2, instead of the original April 27 date. However, a leader of the college Republican group that originally invited Coulter said the university was placing strict conditions on the event, and he said his group intended to reject the new terms.

Before the reversal was announced, Coulter had vowed to go ahead with an appearance anyway.

The article outlines some of the absurd conditions the university is trying to impose.

Coulter said the university insisted that her speech take place in the middle of the day, that only students could attend and that the exact venue wouldn’t be announced until the last minute. She said that she agreed with the conditions but that apparently wasn’t good enough. “They just up and announced that I was prohibited from speaking anyway,” Coulter said, noting that her speech topic was to be immigration, the subject of one of her books. “I feel like the Constitution is important and that taxpayer-supported universities should not be using public funds to violate American citizens’ constitutional rights.”

I repeat: Coulter should just come on April 27. It is not her job to cater her free speech to the university’s needs. It is their responsibility to protect her right to speak. If they can’t, then maybe their government funding should simply go away.

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Scientists release geological map of potential landing site for 2020 rover

3:51 pm

Researchers have released a detailed geological map of Northeast Syrtis Major, one of the prime candidate landing sites for NASA’s next Mars rover, scheduled for launch in 2020.

Within Northeast Syrtis are the mineral signatures of four distinct types of watery and potentially habitable past environments. Those minerals had been detected by prior research, but the new map shows in detail how they are distributed within the region’s larger geological context. That helps constrain the mechanisms that may have formed them, and shows when they formed relative to each other.

The lowest and the oldest layer exposed at Northeast Syrtis has the kind of clay minerals formed when rocks interact with water that has a fairly neutral pH. Next in the sequence are rocks containing kaolinite, a mineral formed by water percolating through soil. The next layer up contains spots where the mineral olivine has been altered to carbonate—an aqueous reaction that, on Earth, is known to provide chemical energy for bacterial colonies. The upper layers contain sulfate minerals, another sign of a watery, potentially life-sustaining environment.

Understanding the relative timing of these environments is critical, Mustard says. They occurred around the transition between the Noachian and Hesperian epochs—a time of profound environmental change on Mars.

This press release is very much an effort by these scientists to influence the final landing site choice. They like this site, and they want to convince other scientists that are part of the project to agree with them.

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First results from Breakthrough Listen’s search for alien radio signals

3:44 pm

Breakthrough Listen has released its first results from its search for extraterrestrial radio signals using the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia.

Breakthrough Listen – the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe – has released its 11 events ranked highest for significance as well as summary data analysis results. It is considered unlikely that any of these signals originate from artificial extraterrestrial sources, but the search continues. Further, Listen has submitted for publication (available April 20) in a leading astrophysics journal the analysis of 692 stars, comprising all spectral types, observed during its first year of observations with the Green Bank Telescope.

The press release tries to make a big deal about this data, but essentially what it boils down to is that so far they have found nothing that could indicate artificial radio signals coming from any of these stars.

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Private company builds high resolution space radar facility in Texas

6:36 pm

Capitalism in space: A private company, Leo Labs, has built a high resolution space radar facility in Midland, Texas, aimed at providing satellite companies precise location information of their orbiting satellites as well as the space junk that might threaten them.

It is not clear from the article or the company’s webpage whether they are funded by the federal government or by private capital investment. Up until now this data has been routinely gathered by the U.S. military, though obtaining it has I think been somewhat difficult due to security concerns. It seems this company is trying to compete with the government in offering a better data stream that is also easier to obtain.

Posted over Poland during my return flight from Israel.

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UC-Berkeley tries to silence Coulter speech

6:23 pm

Fascist Berkeley: Fearing violence and unwilling to protect the free speech rights of conservatives, UC-Berkeley has refused to allow Ann Coulter to give a speech at the campus on April 27.

The problem is that the university, a public institution, does not have the right to ban her from speaking, and Coulter knows it.

Miss Coulter took to Twitter to denounce the public university with her usual verve and said she would speak in Berkeley next week no matter what. “I acceded to Berkeley’s every silly demand (never made of lib speakers). Called their bluff & they canceled anyway,” she posted, adding that “no school accepting public funds can ban free speech.”

“If I were going to Berkeley to get an abortion, this would be a national scandal,” she tweeted.

Miss Coulter said she was “instructing Berkeley student group to spare no expense in renting my speaking venue — part of my legal damages,” the last phrase likely a reference to damages she expects from a possible lawsuit against the University of California. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she elaborated that “they can’t stop me. I’m an American. I have constitutional rights.” [emphasis mine]

I hope she goes, and I hope a lot of conservatives show up prepared to defend her right to speak, with whatever means possible. We know from last week’s violence during pro-Trump demonstrations that the Berkeley authorities, on campus or off, will do nothing to protect her.

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Israeli student cubesat launched from Atlas 5

6:04 pm

When the Cygnus capsule was placed in orbit yesterday, it also released a number of nanosats, one of which was a cubesat built by Israeli high school students.

More than 80 pupils in grades 9-12 at schools in Herzliya, Ofakim, Yeruham, Ofra, and the Bedouin town of Hura helped to construct Duchifat-2, which weighs just 1.8 kilograms (four pounds), and is just 20 centimeters (eight inches) tall and 10 centimeters wide. Due to its small size, the satellite has no motors and instead uses the earth’s magnetic field to keep itself correctly aligned in space.

Cubesats have generally been built and launched as college projects to help teach students the engineering behind satellites. This however was the only nanosat released by the Atlas 5 that involved high school students.

Note also that the project did not simply involve Jewish students.

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New poll says most Hawaiians favor TMT

5:53 pm

It won’t matter: A new poll suggests that a large majority of Hawaiians strongly favor the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island.

When it comes to the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea, 72 percent of likely voters said they supported it. On the Big Island, 68 percent of residents said they favored it, 15 percent more than two years ago.

“Even on Hawaii Island, support is over 2-to-1 that this is a project that they don’t want to see an opportunity lost for local kids there,” said Kyle Chock, interim executive director of Pacific Resource Partnership, which conducted the poll.

I am not surprised by this poll. Nor do I think it makes a bit of difference. I right now do not believe TMT will be built on Hawaii. The state government, controlled by the Democratic Party, is entirely sympathetic to the position of the small minority that is hostile to this project. This minority is opposed mostly because of a bigoted dislike of non-natives and a close-minded ignorance of modern technology. And because today’s Democratic Party cares only for racial and ethnic minorites, it supports them entirely. That government has been slow-walking the permitting process so much that it will decades to get through it.

Posted about 36,000 feet in the air over Hungary, returning from my week-long visit to Israel.

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U.S. space law versus UN Outer Space Treaty

10:26 am

In its effort to provide legal protections to private companies attempting to do asteroid mining, it appears that the U.S.’s most recent space law directly contradicts the UN Outer Space Treaty.

The United States recently passed a law that contains an article that directly concerns asteroid mining and legalizes it. This law is the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA), which was signed into law by President Obama in 2015. The CSLCA addresses resource extraction in Article IV, and states, “A U.S. citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell it according to applicable law, including U.S. international obligations.”

The issue here is that US law is in opposition to a UN treaty, to which the US is a signatory. The Outer Space Treaty is one of the oldest and most important agreements in the history of international space policy. Under the Outer Space Treaty, asteroid mining is illegal, since it is an appropriation of a celestial body by a State. Since the human being or organization that is doing the resource extraction is under the purview of some State, that State is responsible for the actions that are done by the nationals or organizations that are doing the mining.

This responsibility was given to the State by the sixth article of the OST and is strengthened by the Liability Convention of 1972. Since the State is responsible and liable for the actions done by their nationals, this means that the State could be interpreted as appropriating the asteroid.

I am surprised and encouraged to see two different articles about the problems of the Outer Space Treaty appear in the press less than a week after my op-ed on the very subject. I am sure there is no connection, other than the subject is increasingly topical, and others are recognizing the same things I am. Still, that these stories are appearing suggests that the chances are increasing that something will finally be done to either change or abandon the treaty.

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Want your food kosher in space?

9:57 am

While some of the food can be kosher, it is presently not possible for an astronaut on ISS to maintain a completely kosher diet.

It has nothing to do with the space station per se; it has to do with our food production facility,” Kloeris told Space.com. “We have a single packaging room on the U.S. side. All of the food that’s part of our standard menu that we provide — from what I understand, in order for them to be kosher and halal, they have to be done in separate, unique facilities. Therefore, everything we package would not meet that requirement.”


Kloeris noted that it’s possible to travel with a limited allotment of kosher or halal foods, in order to honor an astronaut’s heritage; every astronaut is allowed a certain number of crew-specific containers sent to the space station, which can account for about 10 percent of their diet.

The same limitations also apply to halal food for Muslims.

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Luxembourg rejects proposed space legislation because of Outer Space Treaty

9:37 am

Luxembourg’s legislature has rejected a proposed space regulatory framework because it did not address the legal restrictions on property rights imposed by the United Nations Outer Space Treaty.

Schneider, the deputy prime minister and minister for economy, presented a bill whose objective was to set a legal framework and give legal security to the property of minerals and other valuable resources in space, in particular on asteroids, and to regulate the authorisation and surveillance of both exploration and mining missions.

In a formal opinion published on 7 April, the council noted that private property claims are illegal or at least not legally binding in most of the international treaties and agreements relating to space and celestial bodies.

Neither the UN treaty on principles governing the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies of 1967, nor the agreement governing the activities of states on the moon and other celestial bodies of 1979 (which was not ratified by Luxembourg) answer the question of private property of space resources.

What is most important here is that the Luxembourg government now intends to “to ask for a revision of the question of property in the Outer Space Treaty.” As I said in my op-ed in The Federalist on Monday, nations are increasingly recognizing that the Outer Space Treaty is a problem for property rights, and needs to be revised. Otherwise, private development will be difficult if not impossible.

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Landslides on Ceres reveal presence of ice

4:37 pm

An analysis of data from Dawn has shown that Ceres’s landslides are distributed in greater numbers towards the poles, which suggests the presence of water ice just below the surface.

Georgia Tech Assistant Professor and Dawn Science Team Associate Britney Schmidt led the study. She believes it provides more proof that the asteroid’s shallow subsurface is a mixture of rock and ice. “Landslides cover more area in the poles than at the equator, but most surface processes generally don’t care about latitude,” said Schmidt, a faculty member in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “That’s one reason why we think it’s ice affecting the flow processes. There’s no other good way to explain why the poles have huge, thick landslides; mid-latitudes have a mixture of sheeted and thick landslides; and low latitudes have just a few.”

The data also showed that Ceres has far more landslides than expected, which also supports the idea that the shallow subsurface has a lot of water ice in it, as much as 10% to 50% by volume.

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Japan aims for record 8 launches in 2017

3:46 pm

Capitalism in space: If all goes as planned, Japan plans to launch a record of eight launches in a single year in 2017, partly because they will begin launch that nation’s own GPS satellite constellation.

Most of these satellites are government launches. Still, the number and in increase in launch pace indicates that Japan does not wish to be left behind in the increasing competition within the launch industry.

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North Korea missile test fails

9:35 pm

North Korea on Sunday failed to launch another ballistic missile, with the missile apparently exploding immediately upon launch.

This failure once again highlights the fact that North Korea’s communist totalitarian culture, which has made that nation very poor, puts some limit on its ability to build things like intercontinental missiles and nuclear bombs. At the same time, we must never underestimate the ability of madness to achieve irrational things. North Korea continues to be a very dangerous player on the international stage, which is why the Trump administration’s aggressive threats against it have not been protested by China in a strong manner, and instead have prompted that nation to finally apply its own pressure against Pyongyang.

In fact, it appears to me that the only ones with strong misgivings about the Trump administration’s aggressive policy against North Korea’s missile and nuclear program have been leftwing politicians, academics, and journalists here in the U.S.

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NASA to rely more on private space for deep space missions

12:52 pm

Capitalism in space: NASA officials stated this weekthat they plan to rely more on private space companies for its future deep space missions.

NASA’s statement is the most direct agency indication so far that projected U.S. government funding may need to leverage private-sector investments and commercial expertise in order for crews to fulfill the agency’s target of reaching Mars by the late 2030s and establishing settlements there by the 2040s. NASA said it also expected to persuade some foreign governments to participate in crewed voyages to Mars.

William Gerstenmaier, the head of NASA’s human-exploration office, wrote to the inspector general that efforts to use private cargo rockets as part of the overall drive to send crews to Mars “are continual and will also be reflected in the exploration road map” slated for delivery to Congress at the end of 2017.

This story is merely noting NASA’s response to the recommendations of the NASA inspector general report [pdf] that came out earlier in the week that noted the delays and costs of SLS/Orion and suggested alternative approaches. What that response indicates is that NASA is increasingly bending to the cost pressures that they face with SLS/Orion, and are now more willing to consider private and less expensive and quicker alternatives.

The Inspector General (IG) report is itself a sign that the agency and the executive branch is beginning to see the light about the ineffectiveness of SLS/Orion. Previous IG reports in the past five years have tiptoed around the delays and gigantic cost of SLS/Orion. If anything, they were written to allow NASA to prepare Congress and the public for more delays and larger budgets. This report however was much more blunt and critical, and went out of its way to outline alternatives to SLS/Orion.

Another sign that the political winds are shifting is this story about a request by 20 House members to the Air Force to expand its program encouraging the development of competing private launch systems. In the past some of these same House members had tried to force particular companies and products on the Air Force and on ULA. Now they seem more willing to let the Air Force put out the bids competitively and allow the chips to fall where they may.

More important is this quote about two members who did not sign the letter request:

Absent from the list of members who signed the [letter] are Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairmen of the full House Armed Services Committee and its Strategic Forces Subcommittee, respectively. In February, the two sent a letter to Acting Secretary of the Air Force Lisa Disbrow and James MacStravic, performing the duties of the under secretary of defense for acquisition, calling on the government to have “full access to, oversight of, and approval rights over decision-making about any engine down-select for Vulcan (assuming they will be requesting government funding).”

In the letter, they argued that since ULA is accepting government funding to support the development of Vulcan, the government should also have insight into that process, “especially where one of the technologies is unproven at the required size and power.” That was a reference to Blue Origin’s BE-4, which will be the largest rocket engine developed to date using methane as a fuel, rather than the kerosene used by the RD-180 and AR1 engines.

Thornberry has since backtracked on the comments in that letter, telling reporters last month it was not his intent to micromanage subcontracting decisions.

Rogers, in a recent SpaceNews interview, said he was not satisfied with the pace of development of an RD-180 replacement, but also praised the capabilities of commercial launch companies. “My subcommittee, our full committee, this Congress, is committed to not stop until we have an American-made engine that can get our national security space assets launched,” he said. [emphasis mine]

That these congressmen appear to be backing off from pushing their favorite rockets or insisting that the Air Force micromanage the development of these private rocket engines is a positive sign. It appears that there is increasing political pressure to support private development, free of government control.

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Court allows lawsuit against NASA agent who detained elderly couple

12:06 pm

A court has ruled that an elderly couple can sue NASA and the agent that detained them for possessing a tiny Moon rock that had been given to the woman’s deceased previous husband for his work at NASA in the 1960s.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Joann Davis, the widow of an engineer who worked with NASA, was entitled to show that her detention was “unreasonably prolonged and unnecessarily degrading.”

The federal agent “organized a sting operation involving six armed officers to forcibly seize a Lucite paperweight containing a moon rock the size of a rice grain from an elderly grandmother,” Chief 9th Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas wrote for a three-judge panel.

Read the whole story. It is another example of NASA overreach in its false believe that owns all moon rocks from the Apollo missions, even those that had been given away during that time. I hope this woman bankrupts the agent for what he did. I also hope she sues NASA as well, as their policy is wrong.

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Water plumes on Europa plus hydrogen in Enceladus plumes

4:31 am

Scientists have detected more evidence of underground oceans on both Europa (orbiting Jupiter) and Enceladus (orbiting Saturn).

In the case of Europa, the Hubble Space Telescope has once again detected plumes of water ice being shot up from cracks in the moon’s surface. This second detection confirms the first from two years ago.

In the case of Enceladus, Cassini data has detected the presence of hydrogen in the plumes totaling 1% of the total material in the plumes.

The Europa story is significant, in that it confirms that the moon is still active geologically, and that the underground ocean is interacting with the outside world by ejecting material from it to the surface. This increases the odds that there will be some very intriguing chemistry in that ocean, including the possibility of organic life.

The Enceladus story puzzles me. We already know that the plumes there are made of water, which in itself is one third hydrogen. Why should anyone be surprised that a portion of that water gets split so that some of the hydrogen gets released as an atom instead of part of the water molecule. In fact, this discovery does not seem to me to be much of a discovery at all, but simply a confirmation that the plumes have the materials from the water ocean below the surface. That NASA has pushed it this week so hard in conjunction with their future Europa Clipper mission suggests that this part of the press story is really about lobbying for funds and has little to do with science.

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Audit finds SLS unlikely to launch in 2018

4:00 am

A NASA audit has found that it is unlikely that the first SLS test flight will take place as scheduled in 2018, and that the first manned flight is also likely to be delayed from its 2021 launch target.

“NASA’s first exploration missions — EM-1 and EM-2 — face multiple challenges that will likely delay their launch,” the report states. The missions “are not likely to launch by 2018 or 2021, respectively,” it continues.

When might a crew launch? Hard to say.

The report says incomplete NASA information makes it “more difficult for both the agency and external stakeholders to gain a full understanding of the costs of that mission or to assess the validity of the agency’s launch date assumptions.”

If the first manned flight happens in 2023, as now expected, it means that it will occur 20 years after George Bush first proposed the Crew Exploration Vehicle (Orion) and the heavy lift rocket to put it into space. The total cost to fly this one mission will be approximately $43 billion.

Let me repeat that: $43 billion and 20 years to fly a single manned mission. Does no one in government see something wrong with this picture?

Posted from the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.

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China launches advanced communications satellite

9:28 pm

China today successfully launched an experimental communications satellite, outfitted to test the use of ion engine attitude thrusters as well as ground-to-orbit laser communications tests.

The article also outlines China’s busy launch schedule in April, which will include the launch and first test flight of their Tianzhou-1 cargo freighter. That flight will test the freighter’s ability to rendezvous and dock with their Tiangong-2 test space station module. This article notes that the freighter has been mounted on its Long March 7 rocket in preparation for launch in mid-April.

Posted in the air, now past Nova Scotia and moving into the Atlantic.

I must say that I am very glad to get out of Newark Airport. Though they have recently upgraded the airport, they have done so at the cost of providing affordable services to the traveler. All the restaurants there are very over-priced, and provide tiny portions. I actually ended up eating two dinners at two different restaurants in order to get enough food, and paid almost $40 for the pleasure. In addition, the tip was automatically added to the bill. I had no choice about that, even though the service was routinely bad. (They had installed tablets at every table so that you could order by computer. Getting a waiter to provide water however was practically impossible, and when I did get one they were slow to bring it.)

In addition, there were no fast food restaurants, which I normally avoid but would have been a far better choice in this case.

Newark is part of the New York urban area, a decidedly leftwing Democratic enclave. Thus, I am not surprised that things there cost too much, provided poor service, and also provided few choices.

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First Falcon Heavy side first stage ready for initial tests

9:11 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX prepares for first Falcon Heavy launch this fall, with the first side stage ready for its first hot fire static tests while the company prepares the launchpads.

They need to finish repairing the launchpad damaged in the September 1 explosion so that the Falcon 9 can once again launch from there. Once this is done, they have an estimated sixty days of additional work to do with the Falcon Heavy pad. It is expected the switch back to the old pad will take place by August. meaning that the first Falcon Heavy launch will likely happen no earlier than October.

Posted while in the air over Nova Scotia on the way to Israel.

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Off to Israel + new op-ed!

7:00 am

My April travels continue. It has been too long since I traveled to Israel to visit family, so today I am heading out for the long flight, arriving tomorrow afternoon. I will be there until April 20. I expect I will be able to post, as I have in the past, though my commentary will likely be reduced somewhat.

Note that I will have a new op-ed published sometime this week at The Federalist entitled “What Trump’s space policy should really do.” I am positive that my conclusions will not be what most people expect. The op-ed was inspired by this comment by Edward Thelen, part of comments in connection with this Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast, where I talked about space exploration in the context of the American settlement of the west.

The comparison with the American west is appropriate. There have been other expansions throughout the world, too. In the 19th century, the US was not the only country that had a frontier. We have several examples of expansion from which to learn, but the frontiers in the Americas were clearly the largest, complete with immigration from the Old World straight to the frontier.

An example of a lesson — beyond Robert’s example of the Homesteading Act — is the need for better communication between the US east coast and California. Messages and people needed to move across the continent in far less time and in a safer manner than those that were available in 1860, so government funded a transcontinental railroad, a line longer than had ever been built or operated before. Earthbound or space-born governments may also have needs for similar large projects. Although the needs of We the People has been shown to be best met through private-ownership of free-market capitalist commerce, there will be times when government should also fund projects that solve its needs.

Edward was suggesting that the focus of the federal government — and Trump’s space policy — should be building an infrastructure that will make it easier for private companies and individuals to work in space. My initial response had agreed with him:

What NASA should do is build the kind of infrastructure that private enterprise needs to explore the Moon, the asteroids, and Mars. Build a communications network. Put communications satellites behind the Moon. Set up radiation monitors that private tourists trips will need to monitor solar and cosmic radiation. And even here, the model should be that used in the west with the transcontinental railroad, where the government hired private companies to do the work for it.

I need to think about this more. This needs to be written up properly.

In thinking about it, however, I completely rejected my initial response, and Edward’s suggestion. The infrastructure that the federal government needs to build in space has nothing to do with physical objects. This is the mistake everyone has been making for decades. In my op-ed I argue for something else entirely, and I hope the Trump administration is listening.

Stay tuned. When the Federalist op-ed gets posted I will post the url here immediately.

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Sunspot update for March 2017

11:32 am

On April 3, while I was in the Grand Canyon, NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, covering sunspot activity for March. As I have been doing every month since 2010, I am posting it here with annotations to give it context.

March 2017 Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

The decline in sunspots continues to run below predictions, suggesting an end to this solar cycle and a solar minimum as early as sometime in 2018. And as I noted in my February update, sunspot activity continues to track the Sun’s 27 day rotation, alternating every two weeks between blank and active hemispheres. We had the longest stretch, more than two weeks, without sunspots in March. This was followed by about two weeks of activity, followed by several blank days and a relatively inactive Sun at present, beginning a little less than a week ago. I expect this period of inactivity to last another ten days or so, and then things will pick up again.

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California professor repeatedly calls for the assassination of Donald Trump

10:23 am

Where’s my safe space? A California professor from Fresno State University has repeatedly called for the assassination of Donald Trump as well as the execution of Republicans.

This professor, Lars Maischak, has said “Trump must hang” and has called for “the execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant.”

Not surprisingly, a preliminary investigation into his statements by the university has found them to be acceptable as they were done in his capacity as a private citizen.

Notice how nothing bad ever happens to leftwing academics who espouse violence and the murder of their political opponents. Even if you were to make believe these kinds of statements are protected under the first amendment (which they are not), they are clearly immoral and unacceptable in a civilized society. Yet, the intellectual academic community does nothing to protest.

And what happened to Obama’s demand for civility? It sure appears that it was only being applied to conservatives, while allowing leftists to act out the most violent behavior undeterred by anyone.

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U.S. refuses to sign G7 statement supporting Paris climate accord

9:42 am

In another indication that the Trump administration is going to completely reshape the U.S.’s environmental policy, Energy Secretary Rick Perry refused to sign a statement issued during the G7 meeting in Italy endorsing the Paris climate treaty.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said the U.S. “is in the process of reviewing many of its policies and reserves its position on this issue, which will be communicated at a future date,” Italy’s industry and energy minister Carlo Calenda said in a statement. Calenda said other G7 members “reaffirmed their commitment towards the implementation of the Paris Agreement to effectively limit the increase in global temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial level.”

The Trump administration would not sign onto a statement mentioning Paris, since the president is still deciding whether or not to keep his campaign pledge. Perry also wanted the G7 to include support for coal and natural gas in its statement. “Therefore, we believe it is wise for countries to use and pursue highly efficient energy resources,” Perry said in a statement after his meeting in Rome with energy ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the European Union.

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China and South Korea agree to counter North Korea’s missile/nuclear program

9:33 am

Under pressure from the Trump administration to do something about North Korea’s out-of-control and aggressive nuclear and missile program, China has worked out an agreement with South Korea to take “strong action”.

It remains a question how serious this response will be, but it is also the first sign in a long time that China is finally taking the threat from North Korea seriously.

Update: China refuses acceptance of coal from a fleet of North Korean ships.

This new story confirms that China was serious about this ban when it announced it in February. Set to run to at least the end of this year, the loss of income to North Korea, very poor already, should have some influence there. Whether good or bad, however, remains unknown. One cannot expect irrational and mad individuals holding great power to come to rational conclusions.

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Turkey moves to create its own space agency

9:22 am

The new colonial movement: A draft bill to create a Turkish space agency has been introduced in that country’s parliament.

The Turkish Space Agency, according to the draft bill, will also be in charge of coordinating, managing, and operating all satellite requirements, design, manufacture, launch, and operations in Turkey, as well as coordinating private Turkish industries towards those goals. Jane’s Defence Weekly reports that the draft bill for the Turkish Space Agency has previously been held up for years due to a dispute between the Turkish military and several Turkish administrations as to who should be the lead within the agency. The draft bill in front of parliament suggests that the military have lost that argument, doubtless because of the aftermath of the July 2016 attempted coup, and instead it will take the lead on technical issues rather than policy and strategy.

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