Category: Points of Information

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

Tennessee and North Carolina have agreed to reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

3:23 pm

Tennessee and North Carolina have agreed to reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Like other states, they will pay the operating costs of the National Park Service, then get reimbursed when the government shutdown ends.

I wish they weren’t paying anything. They could have made sure the parks were open and available to all using state resources, and let the National Park Service throw a temper tantrum when it discovered it couldn’t control the parks.

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A bogus scientific paper, with numerous errors, was accepted for publication by more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific journals.

12:36 pm

A bogus scientific paper, with numerous errors, was accepted for publication by more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific journals.

The scientist purposely wrote a paper that should have been unacceptable for publication in order to see if peer-review would spot the problems. What he found was that more than half the journals to which he submitted didn’t notice or care, and accepted the paper as is.

The journals in this case were open-access, meaning that they are free to readers but charge authors money for publication. Thus, rejecting papers is against their financial interest. Nonetheless, the number of journals willing to be unethical is quite disturbing, and reveals a rottenness lurking in the heart of the science field that no one wants to talk about.

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A new woman’s land speed record was set this week.

8:42 am

A new woman’s land speed record was set this week.

Back in 1965, Lee Breedlove set the women’s land speed record on Utah’s Salt Lake Flats with an average speed of 308.51 mph (496.49 km/h) over four runs. That record stood for 48 years until this month, when Jessi Combs smashed it in her 52,000 hp North American Eagle Supersonic Speed Challenger with a speed of 392.954 mph (632.39 km/h).

I am puzzled why the gender matters in driving these high speed vehicles.

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Scientists have found a fossil of a mosquito with traces of blood in its engorged abdomen.

8:30 am

Scientists have found a fossil of a mosquito with traces of blood in its engorged abdomen.

Although scientists have found fossils of suspected blood-sucking insects, the creatures’ feeding habits have mostly been inferred from their anatomy or the presence of blood-borne parasites in their guts. But Greenwalt’s fossilized mosquito contains molecules that provide strong evidence of blood-feeding among ancient insects back to 46 million years ago. It is a fortunate find. “The abdomen of a blood-engorged mosquito is like a balloon ready to burst. It is very fragile,” says Greenwalt. “The chances that it wouldn’t have disintegrated prior to fossilization were infinitesimally small.”

Some news reports have implied that the scientists had found actual blood 46 million years old. This is not the case. They found “large traces of iron and the organic molecule porphyrin — both constituents of haemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying pigment found in vertebrate blood. These molecules were either rare or absent in the abdomen of a fossilized male mosquito (which does not drink blood) of the same age, found at the same location.” Still, even though this isn’t actual blood, the evidence is good and so the result is quite cool.

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In a negotiated settlement, Arizona police will pay the widow of Jose Guerena, murdered during a SWAT raid, $3.4 million.

1:38 pm

In a negotiated settlement, Arizona police will pay the widow of Jose Guerena, murdered during a SWAT raid, $3.4 million.

The police settled because they knew that if the case had ever reached a jury, they would have lost hands down. I feel for the widow, as she probably had to settle now because she couldn’t wait the years necessary for a full victory in court.

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A company that employes a large number of temporary workers is now going to have to drop health insurance for all of its employees, because of Obamacare.

1:07 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A company that employes a large number of temporary workers is now going to have to drop health insurance for all of its employees, because of Obamacare.

Aside from its full-time staff, the company also manages about 400 temporary workers, and is hoping to add another 200 in the next year. Those employees can buy into a separate health insurance program North Georgia Staffing signed up with. Under new ObamaCare rules, many of those “temps” will count toward the Underkoffler’s full-time staff. Larry Underkoffler calculates their full-time employee count will instantly surge from 18 to around 200. They will go from boutique operation to “major employer” overnight.

And that means, under the health care law, they’d have to provide insurance coverage to all, or pay a $2,000-per-worker fine. In the Underkofflers’ case, the fine might be the more affordable option. “We would have to provide the same program for all the employees — including the temps — to everyone employed by us. And we just couldn’t do that,” Larry Underkoffler told Fox News. They argue that providing insurance to all the employees would bankrupt the company. Instead, they’ll eat the cost of the fine, and dump the employees they can’t cover into Georgia’s federally run health insurance exchange.

“It looks like we will have to just pay the penalties,” Debbie Underkoffler told Fox News. Those penalties could add up to $400,000 in just the first year. That comes right off their bottom line. Still, it’s a fraction of what providing health care could cost them. That tab could top $2 million per year. What’s more, because ObamaCare does not allow separate plans for the full-time employees and the temporary workers they manage, their full-timers will lose their current benefits.

The cost of the fines themselves is so high that I expect that they will soon begin destroying business left and right. Get prepared for the arrival of a large underground black market, working illegally under the radar to avoid the unbearable financial burdens of Obamacare.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Aetna insurance moans the complete failure of the Obamacare website to function.

Asked if he would have delayed the launch of the exchange given its earlier problems, Bertolini said, “I would have, if I’d been in their seat.”

But don’t worry, the Democrats have your back! Having Obamacare the law of the land now is so important to them that they are willing to shut down the government, for as long as necessary.

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A Catholic priest at a military base has been prohibited from even volunteering to run Mass and was told that if he violated that order he would be arrested.

8:52 am

Shutdown fascism: A Catholic priest at a military base has been prohibited from even volunteering to run Mass and was told that if he violated that order he would be arrested.

Even more amazing, “Protestant services continue to take place. Only Catholic services have been shutdown.”

A lawsuit has been filed.

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A college that bans any guns on campus has also decided to ban any speech that mentions guns.

8:43 am

Liberal free speech: A college that bans any guns on campus has also decided to ban any speech that mentions guns.

Officials at the private university–which prohibits guns on campus–told The College Fix that literature promoting guns in any way, shape or form is strictly forbidden. “Gun promotion is contradictory of the university’s policy to carry on campus,” wrote Lisa Albert, director of communications for TCU, in an email to The College Fix.

The fascist nature of the left reveals itself more and more. They start out banning behavior that might be construed — if you are naive — as contributing to violence. Then they move to banning speech. Next, they will follow by banning anything they disagree with.

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Thousands of Americans have stormed the World War II memorial, as well as other barricades monuments in DC.

10:50 am

Occupy America! Thousands of Americans have stormed the World War II memorial today, as well as other barricaded monuments in DC.

More here. The first link above says that there was some “pushing and shoving” between protesters and the police at one location. This is not confirmed however. This story says the protesting vets were carrying the barricades to the White House.

Update: It appears the veterans are bringing barricades from all over and are using them to “barricade the White House.”

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The test pilots who have been flying SpaceShipTwo report on their work at a test pilot symposium.

3:42 pm

The test pilots who have been flying SpaceShipTwo report on their work at a test pilot symposium.

Lots of interesting engineering details about the ship’s flight capabilities, including one near disaster that was saved by SpaceShipTwo’s robust design. No details, however, on the state of the ship’s engine, or when further test flights at higher and higher altitudes will be attempted.

Posted from home, Tucson, Arizona.

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“Obama lied, my health care died.”

10:30 am

“Obama lied, my health care died.”

Remember the presidential talking point? If you like your current health plan, Barack Obama and his allies repeated over and over again, you would get to keep it. There would be no change. Things would go on as before even if Obamacare became the law of the land. The letter that came Thursday put the truth to the president’s lie. I would not be allowed to keep my current plan because it did not conform to the dictates of the new law and it was going away. And there was nothing I could do about it save enroll in a new plan because, as the letter also said, “you will be required to select a new ACA-compliant plan in order to continue your coverage.”

There are no two ways about it: Barack Obama stood up in front of the Congress of the United States and lied the nation into a new health care insurance system. Given that, it is now clear what the origins of the current contretemps between the executive and the legislative branches clearly are.

By insisting the Congress give him a continuing resolution to sign that includes funding for Obamacare, and by willing to engage in a phony shutdown of the federal government to make his point, President Obama is trying to undo nearly 10 centuries of the democratic process – going all the way back to the Magna Carta – to regain the power of the purse for the executive. Though the current crisis may, to some, seem silly or petty, it has as its basis a critically important point. The U.S. House of Representatives is the representative of the people of the United States, the same people in whom the U.S. Constitution invests national sovereignty. And they have determined that Obamacare should not be funded.

Note again that Obama and the Democrats have shut the government down in order to make sure Obamacare goes into effect.

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Privatize the National Park Service.

8:12 am

Privatize the National Park Service.

This recommendation will anger NPS employees. Well, for that, they can thank White House schemers for overplaying their heavy hand and unwittingly shedding ominous light on the abusive possibilities of this agency. That’s not a sentiment that the president and allies intended to foster when they began agitating and orchestrating their shutdown campaign. Rather than convincing us of the alleged evils of congressional Republicans, they’ve unveiled the roguish tendencies of some federal employees who blindly follow orders. Let’s respond by taking power away from those employees, so this cannot happen again. Easily maneuvered into providing propaganda for a president or party, these NPS workers have proven themselves unworthy of the mission entrusted to them. They are the embodiment of the dangers of unaccountable, big government.

To this I say amen! I spend a lot of time visiting the national parks, and more often than not have been consistently disgusted with the National Park Service and its possessive and dictatorial attitude. In the past two decades the park service has changed. Once it considered its job that of a mere custodian, administering these parks for the benefit of the American public, the parks’ real owner. Today the park service instead sees the parks as their private little playground, and the public as annoying trespassers whose access should be limited as much as possible.

It is time to fire these thugs and give the job to someone else.

Note also the ease in which state governments are taking over operations of the major parks out west. For less money too. This illustrates how bloated and unnecessary most of the park service actually is. It can be replaced.

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“Obamacare has raped my future”

7:41 am

From a college student: “Obamacare has raped my future.”

This budget fight exists because Republicans are trying to delay or repeal Obamacare while Democrats are doing everything to keep the law in place. If the Republicans had any brains they would focus on this point, as I do, all the time. Obamacare is a disaster, everyone sees it, and by showing how the Democrats are willing to even shut down the government to endorse it can only work to the Republicans’ political advantage.

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SpaceX has revised the schedule for its next three launches, pushing back two weeks so engineers can review issues with the Falcon 9 upper stage engine.

6:27 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX has revised the schedule for its next three launches, pushing back two weeks so engineers can review issues with the Falcon 9 upper stage engine.

The debut launch of the upgraded Falcon 9 successfully deployed Canada’s Cassiope spacecraft into orbit on September 29. However, after safely deploying its payloads, the upper stage was then set to restart its Merlin VacD engine for a second burn related to SpaceX’s ambitions to create a fully reusable launch system. An anomaly with the restart held no mission impact, but the company’s CEO and chief designer, Elon Musk, did note they expected to implement corrective actions ahead of the next launch. “In the case of the upper stage relight, we initiated relight and the system encountered an anomaly and did not complete the relight. We believe understand what that issue is and should have it addressed in time for the next flight of Falcon 9,” he noted. “We essentially saw the engine initiate ignition. get up to about 400 psi and then it encountered a condition that it didn’t like. We have all of the data from the restart, so I am confident that we will be able to sort it out and address it before the next flight. We just have to iron out some slight differences of it operating in vacuum.”

I find Musk’s vague terminology about the engine issue to be interesting. I wonder if the “condition” the engine “didn’t like” was when the engine exploded, as some have suggested. (I personally am skeptical the engine exploded, however, as such a failure would probably require a much longer delay to deal with.)

Either way, the next few months should be a busy time for commercial space. Not only does SpaceX have two major commercial launches and a Dragon mission to ISS, Orbital Sciences has its next Cygnus cargo mission and Virgin Galactic claims it will be ready to fly SpaceShipTwo with passengers.

Posted on the road heading into the empty wilds of west Texas.

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The Republican leadership folds.

7:56 pm

The Republican leadership folds on the government shutdown. Key quote:

In exchange for meeting, at least momentarily, all of Obama’s demands, the House GOP is seeking a “framework” for future negotiations.

They get a repeal of an Obamacare tax on medical equipment, but lose everything else, plus give up some of the sequester cuts that have actually produced the first real reduction in the size of government in decades.

And the Republican leadership wonders why they keep losing elections? With incompetent friends like this, who needs enemies.

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Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.

7:17 pm

The competition heats up: Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.

Blue Origin is now working on its third version of the New Shepard, which is designed to take everyday people on suborbital journeys. Bezos said that he’s hopeful that this will be the last iteration, and he wants to see the next vehicle ready for commercial operation. “I’m very optimistic about that,” he said. Bezos didn’t give any specific timetables. However, he did say that Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle, designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station and elsewhere, will be tested by 2018. Eventually, the goal is to let anyone fly up into space safely at reasonable prices.

Not a lot of details, but previously we knew practically nothing. That the present ship is being designed for suborbital tourist flights makes it a direct competitor of Virgin Galactic and XCOR. And considering the problems that Virgin Galactic has with SpaceShipTwo, and that XCOR doesn’t have the big bucks of Bezos, Blue Origin might actually be in the lead in the race to put the first tourists in space.

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A remotely operated Russian telescope, located in New Mexico, on Wednesday discovered a kilometer wide Near Earth asteroid.

7:09 pm

Boom! A remotely operated Russian telescope, located in New Mexico, on Wednesday discovered a kilometer wide Near Earth asteroid.

The asteroid, believed to be the 704th largest with an orbit that comes relatively near Earth, does not pose a danger of crashing into our planet, said the head of the observatory that made the discovery. “It’s a big asteroid, but it poses no danger for us,” Leonid Elenin, who lives in the Moscow Region, told RIA Novosti on Friday.

Finding a new asteroid like this illustrates that there might be other such large objects out there undiscovered. Also cool is how the Russians discovered it, using equipment in the United States!

Posted from Midland, Texas, the center of the world for the American oil industry.

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Chris Hatfield describes how a bureaucratic tangle with the space doctor bureaucracy almost grounded him before his ISS expedition.

10:55 am

Bureaucracy in space: In a new book, astronaut Chris Hatfield describes how a bureaucratic tangle with the space doctor bureaucracy almost grounded him before his ISS expedition.

“The secrecy and paternalism really bothered me. They trusted me at the helm of the world’s space ship, but had been making decisions about my body as though I were a lab rat who didn’t merit consultation.” The “they” Hadfield refers to are members of the Multilateral Space Medicine Board (MSMB), a body of representatives from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia who judge the medical fitness of astronauts to go on missions. ….

The bureaucracy wanted Hatfield to undergo an emergency operation to make sure everything was okay. He refused,

triggering what Hadfield describes as a “Kafkaesque” journey through “a bureaucratic quagmire where logic and data simply didn’t count.” … “Internal politics and uninformed opinions were what mat­tered,” he says in the book. “Doctors who hadn’t ever performed a laparoscopic proce­dure were weighing in; people were making decisions about medical risks as though far greater risks to the space program itself were irrelevant.”

I find this interesting in that, of the astronauts I have interviewed over the years, I can’t remember any who had good words to say about the official government doctors they had to deal with, both in the U.S. and in Russia.

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