Category: Points of Information

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

EPA only archived 86 out of 3.1 million agency texts in 2015

12:21 pm

Cover-up: The EPA and its employees only archived 86 out of 3.1 million agency texts sent during 2015.

The EPA Office of Inspector General (IG) released the report requested by Texas Republican [Lamar Smith], which described enormous text message retention problems within the EPA. One unnamed senior official configured his phone to automatically delete texts after 30 days. The IG claimed EPA officials never “intentionally” violated the Federal Records Act and did not include the low number of archived texts in the body of its report, relaying it instead to congressional staff.

Multiple federal laws and regulations require that officials preserve all documents — including email and text messages — created in the course of conducting official business of the U.S. government.

Like the Pentagon officials I noted earlier today, how stupid does this inspector general think we are? When a government agency, in clear violation of numerous laws, archives less than 0.000003 percent of all texts, you either have to be willfully blind, stupid, or a participant in the cover-up to claim that this behavior was “never intentional.” Furthermore, the report included these juicy details, all clear evidence that the failure to archive was for at least two senior officials very intentional indeed:

The anonymous senior official who configured his phone to delete texts may have deleted vital information, the IG found. “The senior official responded that he did not have any text messages on the device for that (three-month) period,” IG auditor Teresa Richardson said in a podcast. “The device had been set to automatically delete text messages every 30 days. So it is likely that any text messages that were substantive and should have been preserved were deleted.”

The report found another senior official claimed to have zero texts, despite EPA’s quarterly mobile device usage report showing frequent texts from that person. Another official, a regional administrator, potentially lost federal records by failing to transfer or otherwise preserve texts after replacing an old phone.

The more people fired at the EPA, the better. It is presently being run by dishonest political hacks who are very willing to do things in direct violation of the law.

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Fake Hate Crimes

12:06 pm

A new website has been created to keep track of the numerous fake hate crimes that are being committed by crazy people on all sides of the political spectrum.

I generally don’t post stories about “hate” crimes, because almost invariably they are either fake or staged in the reporting for the express purpose of creating disinformation or discrediting a political movement, on either the right or the left. Rarely are they real hate crimes. Moreover, I detest the very term “hate crime”. A crime of violence is a crime of violence. To add a further condemnation to the motives or emotions involved can too easily shift into squelching freedom of speech and religion. In fact, this is exactly what has happened.

However, this entire list is instructive. First of all, the distribution of fake hate crimes is not even. A vast majority are being committed by leftists or Muslims aimed at discrediting the right or western civilization. Thus, the claim that the election of Donald Trump has sparked more rightwing racism against minorities or the left is shown to be bogus, right from the start.

Second, this uneven distribution gives us all a sense of the kind of people who are being attracted to the left and to Islam. While you can find this kind of craziness in any political, racial, or religious group, at this time in history the majority of this craziness is gravitating to liberal, islamic, and leftwing movements.

Think about that. There is a strong element of madness that is gaining power on the left, and in Islam. To ignore this fact is to ignore reality.

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Pentagon makes believe Iran isn’t using $1.7 billion for military

10:56 am

Does this make you feel safer? General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress last week that the Pentagon does not believe Iran’s military development is being funded by the $1.7 billion given to them by the Obama administration.

“Intelligence assesses that the $1.7 billion transferred to Iran probably was allocated predominately to Iran’s economic sector, in accordance with Tehran’s stated emphasis on economic expansion, modernization, and diversification,” Dunford said in response to multiple questions from lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and 17 other senators.

Lawmakers suspect that Iran has used this cash infusion to boost its military operations in the region, including in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

However, Dunford maintained this is not the case. “Iran continues to seek improved missile systems and the replacement of aging military equipment, particularly aircraft and naval vessels,” he wrote. “However, there is a lack of information to suggest Iran is attempting to use the $1.7 billion towards these interests.”

Either this guy and everyone in the Pentagon is downright stupid, or they think everyone else is. The Obama administration handed Iran $1.7 billion, and almost immediately Iran announced it was going to spend $1.7 billion more on military development. And that means there is “a lack of information to suggest Iran is attempting to use the $1.7 billion” for military purposes?

I think this guy, and his cohorts at the Pentagon, should find work they are better qualified to do, such as serving burgers at McDonalds.

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Lace on Mars

10:30 am

Lace on Mars

Cool image time! The image on the right, cropped and reduced in resolution to show here, was taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter June 21, 2016. It shows a region in the high northern latitudes, 80 degrees.

Some seasonal ice on Mars is transparent so that the sunlight penetrates to the bottom of the ice. Heat from this sunlight can turn the ice directly into a gas in a process called sublimation and this gas can scour channels in the loose dirt under the ice. Channels formed by sublimation of a layer of seasonal dry ice are so dense in this area that they look like lace. Gas flow erodes channels as it escapes to the surface of the overlying seasonal ice layer seeking the path of least resistance.

The resolution of the full image is 9.7 feet per pixel. This means that if Curiosity was driving across this surface we would see it. I guarantee however that Curiosity would not find driving here very easy. The ice surface is likely very delicate, and would likely cause any vehicle to bog down. The surface is also likely very alien-looking, which makes me very much want to see what it looks like, up close. This look will unfortunately have to wait, as we as yet do not have the right technology to do it. We would need I think a drone, capable of flying in Mars’s thin atmosphere.

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Close-up of Pandora

10:19 am

Pandora

Cool image time! The image on the right, cropped and reduced to show here, is that of Saturn’s small moon Pandora. The full resolution image was taken on December 18, 2016 during Cassini’s closest fly-by of the Moon ever. It was taken from a distance of 25,200 miles, and has a resolution of 787 feet per pixel.

Note the pooling of dust-like material in the crater. Note also the brighter exposed surfaces on the inner crater rim above that pooled material. It appears to my eye almost as if the dust that had coated the higher elevations of this inner rim has for some unknown reason suddenly settled into the crater’s floor.

Pandora orbits just outside Saturn’s F ring, which means it is well exposed to the material in the ring. I would also expect that much of its surface is well coated with particles from the rings.

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Fatal clinical drug trial failed because company did not review all data

9:56 am

The company that conducted a fatal French clinical drug trial that killed one and left four permanently damaged has revealed that it did not review all the available data before administering increased dosages to patients.

Not only is it astonishing that they failed to use all the available data, it is even more amazing that the company itself admits to this.

As I noted when this story first broke in February, this is a big deal, and should get major coverage by news organizations.

…it is disturbing that a research company could be so cavalier about the lives of the human beings it is using as test subjects.

This story also illustrates indirectly the significant decline in the state of today’s modern mainstream press as well as the greater interests of the general public. This is a major science story. For a clinical drug study to kill one of its test subjects is a big deal. Yet I am certain that this will get no coverage in any cable news outlet. (If anyone see a video story about this, please let me know.) The written news outlets on the web will likely do a story, but it will not give it wide exposure.

As far as I can tell, this story got no coverage in the press then, and I expect none now. A dark age is surely coming.

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China and the UN open future Chinese space station to international research

9:43 am

China the the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs will soon announce a partnership for soliciting proposals from the international community for research projects to be performed on China’s upcoming space station.

UNOOSA and CMSA will work together to solicit proposals for payloads and experiments for the space station from scientists all over the world, with projects to be decided by international selection committees. UNOOSA Director Simonetta Di Pippo, in comments provided to gbtimes, stated that: “We expect that the first announcement for project proposals should come in late 2016 or early 2017. Other activities will be undertaken as the environment for their implementation becomes ready.”

The 20-tonne core module of the Chinese Space Station (CSS) is expected to be launched in 2018, with the addition of two experiment modules to complete facility around 2022. “While the space station is being made operational, UNOOSA and CMSA will prepare to call for technical proposals from entities worldwide for the design of experiments to take place on-board the station,” Ms Di Pippo said.

While open to all, the initiative will focus especially on developing nations as part of the UN’s Human Space Technology Initiative (HSTI) which aims to involve more countries in space activities and encourage non-spacefaring countries space research and to benefit from space applications.

The agreement is a good one, but its goal is not entirely altruistic on China’s part. In the article it is clear they are trying to score some propaganda points against the U.S., which by law bars China from ISS and any other U.S./China space partnership because of their bad habit of stealing technology for military purposes. With this UN partnership they are immediately claiming that they are “more open and democratic” than the U.S., as stated in the article. The claim is a lie, however. Just like the U.S. they will surely reject any international proposals they consider a security risk. They simply will, with the UN’s cooperation, be less public about it.

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Leftist and Muslim student organizations make demands at University of Maryland

9:42 pm

The fascists team up! 25 totalitarian student organizations at the University of Maryland have issued a list of 64 demands.

The project, known as ProtectUMD, is a collaborative effort between 25 student organizations at the University of Maryland, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Bisexuals at Maryland, and the Black Student Union. There are 64 demands across 8 subsets of students—Marginalized, American Indian, Black, Latinx, LGBTQIA+, Muslim, Pro-Palestine, and Undocumented—including scholarships for “students of marginalized communities,” a ban on Columbus Day, beginning every on-campus event with an acknowledgement that “this is Indigenous Land,” that African American professors get tenure, that preferred pronouns are included on rosters, and that “queer diversity training” is required.

Muslim students also want “one room in each major building designated for prayer” and “shuttle services to [the local mosque] for Muslim students to have access to a place of worship.” Among the Pro-Palestine demands, students want the administration to condemn the “conflation of Pro-Palestinian activism with Anti-Semitism,” claiming that “Pro-Palestinians do not reject the human rights of any group of people.” [emphasis mine]

I have highlighted the important words that indicate the totalitarian and fascist nature of these groups. They do not wish to negotiate. They aren’t interested in diversity or tolerance. They have no interest in compromise and learning to live with their neighbors. No, they demand, ban, require, and condemn. They are also racists and bigots, despising anyone who does not belong to their favored minority groups. They also expect free scholarships and tenure for those same groups, merely because of their race, gender, sexual preference, or leftwing political beliefs.

Note also how the leftists here have no problem allying themselves with Islam, a religion that routinely murders homosexuals and oppresses women. This should reveal to everyone their priorities, which isn’t protecting the rights of “marginalized communities” but is instead the acquisition of power, which once obtained they will then use to brutally oppress anyone who opposes them.

I fully expect the administration of the University of Maryland to agree to all their demands, mainly because most modern academic administrators are just as bigoted and totalitarian and leftist as these fascists.

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Computer modeling suggests light fluctuations at Tabby’s Star are natural

10:16 am

A computer analysis of the light fluctuations of Tabby’s Star suggest to astronomers that the changes are not caused by objects blocking the star (such as an alien Dyson Sphere under construction) but are instead natural variations caused as the star evolves.

This conclusion is decidedly uncertain. They do not know the nature of this stellar evolution. And they are applying avalanche models to the star to come to this conclusion.

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What happened at SpaceX the first time they landed a first stage

10:10 am

Cool image time! The National Geographic Mars series is combining fiction with high quality documentary footage of real events. The clip below shows the first ever vertical landing of a used rocket first stage in December 2015, and includes footage taken of SpaceX engineers and Elon Musk during that launch and landing. The landing ranks as one of the most important events in space history. And it still gives me goosebumps. Seeing that it also caused goosebumps to those who made it happen only emphasizes the significance of the moment.

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Pressure on Trump to shift NASA transistion team towards private space

1:49 pm

The competition heats up: Several of Trump’s most listened-to advisers are trying to convince him to put more commercial space advocates on his NASA transition team.

The appointments, which are expected to be announced shortly, partly reflect Mr. Thiel’s influence, the people said. The billionaire investor, who is Mr. Trump’s most prominent Silicon Valley supporter, is among more than two dozen people on the executive council overseeing the government-wide transition.

Along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Republican Congressman Robert Walker—two other champions of commercial space endeavors—Mr. Thiel has argued forcefully inside the transition that the original team sent to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was skewed toward appointees closely identified with legacy space projects run by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the people said.

This is good news. While my previous post, The squealing of pigs, focused on Trump’s environmental policy at NASA and elsewhere, his approach to commercial space remains unclear. These changes will help move his administration away from the pork of SLS and toward the competitive commercial space sector.

Let me add that this story reaffirms my belief that the best way to get Trump to shift to the right is to surround him with conservatives. Interestingly, it appears that Trump himself has chosen to do this. His first instincts might not be conservative, but he apparently is quite willing to take the advice of those who instincts are.

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JAXA signs agreement with private lunar mining company

9:16 am

The competition heats up: Japan’s space agency JAXA has signed an agreement with ispace inc, a private lunar mining company that is also behind Japan’s only competing team in the Google Lunar X-Prize competition.

It is not clear if what this agreement entails. X-Prize competitors have to announce a contract with a launch company before the end of 2016, and this announcement does not say whether JAXA will provide that service to Japan’s competitor.

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“Anomalous readings” detected during testing of Webb telescope

9:09 am

During standard vibration testing to simulate launch, engineers have detected what they call “anomalous readings” in the James Webb Space Telescope.

During the vibration testing on December 3, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, accelerometers attached to the telescope detected anomalous readings during a particular test. Further tests to identify the source of the anomaly are underway. The engineering team investigating the vibe anomaly has made numerous detailed visual inspections of the Webb telescope and has found no visible signs of damage.

It is a good sign that they have found no damage. It is also a good thing that they detected these issues now, on the ground, where they can fix them. Webb, almost a decade behind schedule and $8 billion over budget, will be placed at a point a million miles from Earth, where no repair crew will be able to reach it.

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Japan’s Epsilon rocket launches successfully

9:02 am

The competition heats up: Japan today successfully launched its new Epsilon rocket on its second flight, placing in orbit a Japanese satellite designed to study the Van Allen belts.

The rocket is designed to launch Japan’s smaller satellites at a lower cost. During its first launch in 2013 JAXA made a big deal about how this rocket could be used to launch commercial satellites, but now I sense no interest in marketing it to the private sector.

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John Glenn and Charles Lindbergh

8:48 am

A bit of history not generally known. Hat tip to reader Peter Fenstermacher.

When I wrote Genesis, the Story of Apollo 8, I learned that Lindbergh was a big fan of the 1960s space program. He and his wife Anne, who in the 1960s was an established writer of note, visited the Apollo 8 astronauts just before launch. They were both amazed at the amount of fuel the Saturn 5 rocket burned. Lindbergh calculated that in the first second of flight it would burn “ten times more fuel than I did all the way to Paris.”

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OneWeb raises $1.2 billion in investment capital

9:53 pm

The competition heats up: OneWeb, in its effort to build a constellation of 900 satellites to provide internet services worldwide, has raised $1.2 billion.

Japan-based SoftBank invested $1 billion of the total $1.2 billion, and has also become a strategic partner, with one of its directors, Ronald Fisher, joining OneWeb’s board of directors. Combined with the $500 million OneWeb raised in June 2015, the total amount gathered now stands at $1.7 billion out of an expected total cost of $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion for the full constellation of 900 small satellites. OneWeb Founder Greg Wyler told SpaceNews that thanks to SoftBank, the company has raised more from investors than originally anticipated, allowing OneWeb to forgo a third investment round.

They plan to build a factory in Florida capable of building 15 satellites per week.

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Betelgeuse might have eaten a star

10:31 am

Because the red giant star Betelgeuse rotates far faster than it should, astronomers are now theorizing that when it expanded into its present red giant phase about 100,000 years ago it swallowed a companion star which contributed its own angular momentum to the system to speed up the rotation.

This theory is bolstered by evidence of a shell of matter surrounding Betelgeuse that is possibly a remnant of that destroyed star.

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Death threats and harassment from Democrats to members of Electoral College

8:58 am

Fascists: Even as the Electoral College gathers today to confirm Donald Trump as the next President, its members are being overwhelmed with death threats, hate mail, harassing phone calls, and boycotts, all part of a campaign to get them to vote against Trump.

The nation’s 538 presidential electors have been thrust into the political foreground like never before in American history. In the aftermath of a uniquely polarizing presidential contest, the once-anonymous electors are squarely in the spotlight, targeted by death threats, harassing phone calls and reams of hate mail. One Texas Republican elector said he’s been bombarded with more than 200,000 emails. “I never can imagine harassing people like this. It’s just f—– up,” said Jim Rhoades, a Republican elector from Michigan who runs a home inspection service. “I’ve lost a bunch of business.”

It is important to highlight the tactics that the members of the left and the Democratic Party use to push their agenda. They don’t try to persuade. They instead intimidate.

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Swiss Space Systems declared bankrupt

5:35 pm

Swiss Space Systems, which only a few years ago appeared to be on the cusp of competing successfully in the new space industry, was declared bankrupt on December 14.

The biggest factor to the company’s failure could be the attack that occurred against the company’s president in September, of which it appears he has not completely recovered. The attack itself remains unexplained, but before the attack the president had received threats, and the company’s offices were broken into and vandalized.

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