Category: Points of Information

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

Another look at the BLM’s range war with the last remaining rancher in Nevada.

10:23 am

Another look at the BLM’s range war with the last remaining rancher in Nevada.

“Years ago, I used to have 52 neighboring ranchers,” [rancher Cliven Bundy] said. “I’m the last man standing. How come? Because BLM regulated these people off the land and out of business.” This is why the whole question of whether he “paid his fees” is a red herring. The government changed the rules in an effort to drive people like him out of business. Even if he had paid them, he’d still have had to break their rules to survive. That’s the position they put him in. Obey our silly, arbitrary rules designed to protect a desert tortoise that no one can show he’s hurting in any way or give up your way of life.

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New research suggests that, in general, Mars has always been too cold to harbor liquid water on its surface.

9:35 am

The uncertainty of science: New research suggests that, in general, Mars has always been too cold to harbor liquid water on its surface for long periods.

Mars’ atmosphere was probably never thick enough to keep temperatures on the planet’s surface above freezing for the long term, suggests research published today in Nature Geoscience1. Although the planet’s topography indicates that liquid water has flooded Mars in the distant past, evidence increasingly suggests that those episodes reflect occasional warm spells, not a consistently hospitable phase of the planet’s history.

The research does not say that liquid water never flowed on the Martian surface, only that such events were short-lived. They looked at craters and noted that the surface has impacts from meteorites that would not have survived to the surface had the atmosphere been thick enough for liquid water.

The research however did not address Mars’ relatively smooth northern hemisphere, where there are not a lot of craters and where some scientists think there might once have been a shallow ocean. If Mars never had liquid water for long periods, why does this area lack craters?

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The backup computer that helps operate ISS’s robot arms is not responding to commands.

11:23 pm

The backup computer that helps operate ISS’s robot arms is not responding to commands.

The timing could not be worse.. Though the number one computer is functioning fine, this unit is essential for controlling the robot arm that will berth Dragon to ISS this week.

Side note: The article above described this problem in its headlines as a “glitch.” I despise this word, as it is generally used by government bureaucrats to minimize the seriousness of a failure. The Soviet era bureaucrats in Russia loved it. I have noticed it popping up in American news reports relating to space more and more, and it is never a very accurate description of the situation. This computer failure is not a “glitch,” it is a serious failure of an essential piece of hardware.

Update: Because a spacewalk will be required to fix the backup computer, NASA has okayed the launch of Dragon. They need it to arrive first because it carries a new spacesuit and other parts needed to replace the suit that almost drowned an astronaut during a spacewalk last summer.

Note: I was in the back country of Arizona this past weekend, caving, which is why I am only now getting up to speed on this weekend’s news.

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A comprehensive list of Lois Lerner’s partisan effort to use the IRS to attack conservatives.

10:09 am

Working for the Democratic Party: A comprehensive list of Lois Lerner’s partisan effort to use the IRS to attack conservatives.

The Democrats in Congress, who have been circling the wagons to defend Lerner, really do remind me here of the Republicans in Congress in 1973. At that time, the Watergate scandal was unfolding, and Republicans were doing everything they could to defend Nixon, even though the evidence was very much against him. The consequence then for the Republican Party was election day 1974, when they experienced devastating losses.

In the end those loses forced reform in the Republican Party. The time has come for the Democratic Party to undergo the same reform process.

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Forecasters at Colorado State University are predicting the 2014 hurricane season will be quieter than normal.

9:50 am

Uh-oh: Forecasters at Colorado State University are predicting the 2014 hurricane season will be quieter than normal.

This is the same team that last year predicted 2013 would be one of the worst hurricane seasons in history. Instead, last year was one of the weakest in history, and as a result they lost their funding. That these same guys are now saying 2014 will be weak makes me fear for the American Atlantic coast. It could be wiped out this time!

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Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.

9:15 am

The competition heats up: Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.

The competition here is not from the spaceship company but from the spaceport. Houston is in a race with Colorado and Florida for the launch business. In fact, it appears that a lot of American cities are scrambling to attract the new aerospace launch companies, suggesting that they all see a new industry aborning and want their share.

Another example: The California legislature has passed a ten year tax exemption for spaceflight companies.

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“The left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation — no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition.”

7:21 pm

“The left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation — no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition.”

Let there be no confusion about this. On every controversial issue before us the left has decided that any disagreement is unacceptable and that any one who refuses to kowtow to their vicious fascism must be destroyed. While few have linked the IRS scandal with this totalitarian desire, it is part and parcel to it. The left has adopted McCarthyism as their number one tactic for winning the debate.

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An award winning science teacher was suspended when an unnamed school employee thought two student science projects looked too much like weapons.

3:33 pm

Idiocracy: An award winning science teacher was suspended when an unnamed school employee thought two student science projects looked too much like weapons.

Schiller got into trouble after two of his students turned in science projects designed to shoot little projectiles, reports the Los Angeles Times. One of the projects used compressed air (but was not actually connected to any air). The other one was coil gun: a tube surrounded by a coil and powered by a standard AA battery.

An unidentified school employee saw the air-pressure projectile device and got scared because, to her, it looked like a fearsome weapon. The amount of knowledge the employee has concerning science – if any – is unclear.

As a result of the unnamed employee’s fears, Schiller – who actually never got to see either the air-pressure project or the coil project except in photos – was dismissed from the classroom indefinitely. School officials impounded both projects as “evidence,” according to the mother of the kid who did the coil project.

Why am I reminded of this movie scene?
» Read more

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“A lot of investment in green technology has been a giant scam, if well intentioned.”

9:36 am

“A lot of investment in green technology has been a giant scam, if well intentioned.”

The quote, and entire interview, are significant for two reasons. First, the interview is seeped with many skeptical opinions about human caused global warming, is very critical of that movement’s effort to politicize science, and the person being interviewed is James Lovelock, the founder of of the concept of Gaia, a former strong advocate of global warming but now a skeptic.

Most significant however is where the interview is published. It is in Nature, one of the most important and influential science journals, which previously has been aggressively pushing global warming politics for years. That they allowed these politically incorrect opinions within their walls and then broadcast them to their readers signals a major cultural shift within the science community. It is beginning to be acceptable to be a skeptic again!

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On Wednesday Israel launched its tenth satellite, spy satellite Ofek 10.

8:55 am

On Wednesday Israel launched its tenth satellite, spy satellite Ofek 10.

This story is only noteworthy in that the launch shows Israel’s very capable abilities to independently launch its own rockets and satellites into orbit. The country however really isn’t competing with the rest of the world in the race to conquer the universe. Their focus is solely surveillance and reconnaissance for security reasons, plus having the missile capability to deliver payloads long distances.

Culturally, the bulk of Israel’s population is in Israel because that’s where they want to be. Going to the stars is not their priority.

Update: Nor does it matter that there is an Israeli team competing in the Google X Prize contest to land an unmanned private rover on the Moon. While there might be individual Israelis who want to settle Mars, the culture’s focus is still going to be on strengthening Israel itself.

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Emails now show that IRS officials Lois Lerner and Holly Paz fed private tax information of True the Vote to Democratic Congressmen Elijah Cummings.

2:39 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: Emails now show that IRS officials Lois Lerner and Holly Paz fed private tax information of True the Vote to Democratic Congressmen Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland).

True the Vote was aggressively harassed by multiple federal agencies, including the IRS. Cummings is on the House committee investigating the IRS and Lois Lerner.

You think he has a conflict of interest? I do. And so does the head of the committee, Darrell Issa (R-California).

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Scientists have found that Saturn’s hexagon-shaped jet stream is deeply rooted and that its rotation might be revealing the planet’s rotation as well.

11:57 am

Scientists have found that Saturn’s hexagon-shaped jet stream is deeply rooted and that its rotation might be revealing the planet’s rotation as well.

Due to the tilt of approximately 27º of the planet Saturn, its polar atmosphere undergoes intense seasonable variations with long polar nights lasting over seven years, followed by a long period of 23 years of variable illumination. However, the seasonal variations do not affect the hexagon and its jet stream at all, so both are part of an extensive wave, deeply rooted in Saturn’s atmosphere. The UPV/EHU researchers suggest that the hexagon and its stream are the manifestation of a “Rossby wave” similar to those that form in the mid-latitudes of the earth. On our planet the jet stream meanders from west to east and brings, associated with it, the system of areas of low pressure and anticyclones which we have been seeing regularly on weather maps.

On Saturn, a hydrogen gas planet, ten times the size of the Earth, cold in its upper clouds, without a solid surface, and with an atmosphere as deep as that of an ocean, “the hexagonal wavy motion of the jet stream is expected to be propagated vertically and reveal to us aspects of the planet’s hidden atmosphere,” pointed out Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, Head of the Planetary Sciences research group. “The movement of the hexagon could therefore be linked to the depths of Saturn, and the rotation period of this structure, which, as we have been able to ascertain, is 10 hours, 39 minutes and 23 seconds, could be that of the planet itself,” he added. Saturn is the only planet in the Solar System whose rotation period is not yet known.

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Geologists, using computer models, have reconstructed the size and impact velocity of a giant asteroid that hit the Earth approximately 3.26 billion years ago.

11:51 am

Geologists, using computer models, have reconstructed the size and impact velocity of a giant asteroid that hit the Earth approximately 3.26 billion years ago.

This is a fascinating result, but it is very important to recognize its very large uncertainties. The article for example says almost nothing about how these conclusions were reached, except for this one paragraph:

Lowe, who discovered telltale rock formations in the Barberton greenstone a decade ago, thought their structure smacked of an asteroid impact. The new research models for the first time how big the asteroid was and the effect it had on the planet, including the possible initiation of a more modern plate tectonic system that is seen in the region, according to Lowe. [emphasis mine]

I have highlighted that one word because it reveals a great deal. What they did was to create a computer model of the data they had, which was merely very unusual geology spread over a certain region called the Barberton Greenstone Belt. Note also that this region is not where the impact occurred. “The study’s co-authors think the asteroid hit the Earth thousands of kilometers away from the Barberton Greenstone Belt, although they can’t pinpoint the exact location.”

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Liberal mob rule.

8:59 am

From a Democrat! Liberal mob rule.

Even for those of us who support same-sex marriage, the virtual manhunt of Mozilla chief Brendan Eich was scary to watch. His heresy was a private donation in support of an anti-gay marriage initiative six years ago. Mob rule enforcing groupthink is as illiberal as it gets, and yet it was liberals demanding uniformity of thought — or else.

Another incident of muzzling those without the proper worldview received less attention. Kickstarter, the nation’s biggest crowd-funding site,refused to accept a film about convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell unless descriptions of his crimes were removed.

Read it all. It is refreshing to see a liberal Democrat recognize and condemn the modern oppression of the left.

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An op-ed in Ebony (!) notes that despite getting an Obamacare insurance policy the writer cannot get any doctor to take her as a patient.

8:49 am

Pigs fly! An op-ed in Ebony (!) notes that despite getting an Obamacare insurance policy the writer cannot get any doctor to take her as a patient.

What makes this article even more shocking, coming from a black publication, are the comments, which are almost all strongly critical of Obama and Obamacare, while actually complementing tea party advocates and conservatives for warning that this might happen, beforehand.

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A government investigation has found evidence of numerous IRS employees of performing illegal political activity in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats.

8:41 am

Working for the Democratic Party: A government investigation has found evidence of numerous IRS employees of performing illegal political activity, while working, in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats.

These activities were independent of the IRS’s management effort to harass conservatives, and provide further evidence that the tax agency was aggressively using its power during the 2012 election to get Democrats elected.

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Congress and NASA administrator Charles Bolden battled over ISS, Russia, crew transport, and commercial space yesterday in a hearing before Congress.

8:20 am

Congress and NASA administrator Charles Bolden battled over ISS, Russia, crew transport, and commercial space yesterday in a hearing before Congress.

Not surprising. Congress wants to know what NASA will do if Russia pulls out of ISS and Bolden really has few options if they do. He in turn was trying to get Congress to focus on funding commercial space so that we can launch our own astronauts to ISS and not depend on the Russians. A true confederacy of dunces. More here.

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Brandeis University withdraws planned honorary degree for Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali

12:10 am

Brandeis University withdraws planned honorary degree for Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

More than 85 of about 350 faculty members at Brandeis signed a letter asking for Ali to be booted off the list of honorary degree recipients. And an online petition created Monday by students at the school of 5,800 had gathered thousands of signatures from inside and outside the university as of Tuesday afternoon.

Our modern academic community: Willing partners to violent terrorists and to the oppressors of the innocent and weak.

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An update on the story of the BLM’s attempt to confiscate a man’s cattle in Nevada while outlawing free speech in vast parts of the land the agency administers.

10:02 pm

An update on the story of the BLM’s attempt to confiscate a man’s cattle in Nevada while outlawing free speech in vast parts of the land the agency administers.

From the details in this story, it sounds as if the BLM might have some justification to take the man’s cattle. Voiding the Constitution while they do so, however, is unacceptable.

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