Category: Points of Information

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

According to one online hacker/security expert, no security was ever built into the Obamacare website.

8:04 pm

O joy: According to one online hacker/security expert, no security was ever built into the Obamacare website.

The issue is not so much that the website is a dangerous place to enter personal information (bad as that is) but that no one should be surprised by any of this. Allowing the equivalent of the Motor Vehicle Administration to run the whole health insurance industry was guaranteed to produce these problems, as conservatives repeatedly noted in 2010.

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Russia consolidates its space industry into one giant government-owned corporation.

5:20 pm

Russia consolidates its space industry into one giant government-owned corporation.

While the U.S. is working to increase the number of space companies and thus the competition to get into space, Russia is returning to its Soviet-era roots. This second story about this consolidation includes this telling quote:

The country is set to radically centralize its space industry in a bid to combat major inefficiencies and cut down on the misuse of funds under plans unveiled by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the defense and aerospace sectors.

This decision does not really bode well for Russia’s effort to compete on the open market. You never solve inefficiencies or cut costs by eliminating competition. Instead, the lack of competition encourages inefficiency and increased cost.

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A Canadian disabled woman was denied entry to the United States after a customs agent cited her supposedly private medical details.

9:20 am

Does this make you feel safer? A Canadian disabled woman was denied entry to the United States after a customs agent cited her supposedly private medical details.

“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others. The Weston woman was told by the U.S. agent she would have to get “medical clearance’’ and be examined by one of only three doctors in Toronto whose assessments are accepted by Homeland Security. She was given their names and told a call to her psychiatrist “would not suffice.’’

At the time, Richardson said, she was so shocked and devastated by what was going on, she wasn’t thinking about how U.S. authorities could access her supposedly private medical information.

If Homeland Security can get access to a Canadian woman’s confidential medical records, how easy do you think it is for them to get access to your Obamacare records?

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No more seasonal hurricane predictions from Colorado State University.

9:49 am

No more seasonal hurricane predictions from Colorado State University.

They lost their funding, which is no surprise.

At the beginning of this year’s season, the team predicted 18 named storms. Nine of those, it said, would become hurricanes. Four would be major hurricanes. Here’s how it shook out: There were 13 named storms. Only two became hurricanes. Neither was a major hurricane.

They, like NOAA, expected an increase in extreme hurricanes and were wrong. In fact, they were so wrong that they illustrated clearly how much a guess all of these climate predictions are. You might as well flip a coin.

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The Federal Trade Commission goes after piano teachers.

11:06 am

We’re here to help you: The Federal Trade Commission goes after piano teachers.

[T]he MTNA has existed since 1876 solely to advance the cause of music study and support music teachers. The 501(c)(3) has about 22,000 members, nearly 90% of them piano teachers, including many women who earn a modest living giving lessons in their homes. The group promotes music study and competitions and helps train teachers. Not exactly U.S. Steel.

The association’s sin, according to the feds, rested in its code of ethics. The code lays out ideals for members to follow—a commitment to students, colleagues, society. Tucked into this worthy document was a provision calling on teachers to respect their colleagues’ studios, and not actively recruit students from other teachers.

Such evil. Thank god we have Washington bureaucrats around to stamp it out!

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Scott Walker’s epic battle to beat the unions in Wisconsin.

10:30 am

Scott Walker’s epic battle to beat the unions in Wisconsin.

When they and Democratic legislators failed to prevent passage of Act 10 [the law that defanged the unions], they tried to defeat — with a scurrilous smear campaign that backfired — an elected state Supreme Court justice. They hoped that changing the court’s composition would get Walker’s reforms overturned. When this failed, they tried to capture the state Senate by recalling six Republican senators. When this failed, they tried to recall Walker. On the night that failed — he won with a larger margin than he had received when elected 19 months earlier — he resisted the temptation to proclaim, “This is what democracy looks like!”

Read it. It describes the way our country can defeat the fascists.

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A Progress freighter was manually docked with ISS today when its automatic docking system suffered a malfunction 200 feet from the station.

8:21 am

A Progress freighter was manually docked with ISS today when its automatic docking system suffered a malfunction 200 feet from the station.

This freighter was using a new rendezvous radar system, and had spent two extra days approaching the station to do rendezvous tests. What failed has not yet been released.

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The Falcon 9 rocket had an abort at launch today at 5:39 Eastern.

3:42 pm

The Falcon 9 rocket had an abort at launch today at 5:39 Eastern.

The rocket is safe on the launchpad. They are assessing the situation. SpaceX has a remarkably good record of launching quickly and successfully after a launch abort, sometimes within an hour.

The countdown has been reset for a 6:44 pm Eastern launch, the latest they can in their launch window, and has resumed. You can watch it live here.

It appears that they have resumed the countdown, even as they continue to assess, so that if all is well they will be able to launch within their window. This means however they are not yet go for launch.

They now say they are go for launch, even as they assess. In addition, their customer, SES, has given them 20 more minutes on their launch window.

I just love how SpaceX seems to always have an abort-at-launch whenever I am free to watch. I think this is the fourth abort-at-launch nail-biter I have seen.

They have aborted the countdown again at T-48 seconds. They have also scrubbed for the day. It appears they had not completed their assessment of the original abort and decided to scrub. The next launch attempt date is not yet known.

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Though this conclusion is not final, it appears that Comet ISON was destroyed today in its close fly-by of the Sun.

2:11 pm

Though this conclusion is not final, it appears that Comet ISON was destroyed today in its close fly-by of the Sun.

A sad end to what has been a cometary disappointment. First spotted while it was very far from the Sun, astronomers thus hoped that Comet ISON would blaze brightly when it got closer. Instead, it hardly brightened at all during its journey inward, barely reaching naked eye visibility in the last week. Now it appears to be gone forever.

Scientists will gain some knowledge from this comet, as it was a first time visitor to the inner solar system and thus provides information about the solar system’s beginnings. Nonetheless, for those of us that enjoy watching the beautiful things the heavens give us, this comet will always remain a dud.

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A cancer patient who went on Fox to talk about how Obamacare has made him lose his health insurance is now being audited by the IRS.

12:41 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: A cancer patient who went on Fox to talk about how Obamacare has made him lose his health insurance is now being audited by the IRS.

Another way to describe this despicable behavior by the Obama Administration and the IRS is that they are fascist, jack-booted thugs. But that would be uncivil of me, even if it is entirely accurate.

Update: The insurance broker who saw the Fox news report and then helped the cancer patient keep his insurance is now also being audited.

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A new housecat-sized feline species has been discovered in Brazil.

9:10 am

A new housecat-sized feline species has been discovered in Brazil.

Oncillas are housecat-size felines found throughout much of South America, and are also known as little tiger cats, little spotted cats or tigrinas. But not all oncillas are the same: New research suggests that little tiger cats in northeastern Brazil belong to a different species from those elsewhere on the continent, although they look virtually identical.

Researchers analyzed the genetic material of oncillas in northeastern Brazil, and compared them with nearby populations in the south. They found that there was no flow of genes between the two populations of oncillas, and hasn’t been any for millennia, according to the study, published today (Nov. 27) in the journal Current Biology.

This, along with other genetic differences, led researchers to conclude the two populations do not interbreed and are in fact different species, said study co-author Eduardo Eizirik, a researcher at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

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Two brothers, also college students, have formed a company to build cubesats for researchers

8:52 am

The competition heats up: Two brothers, also college students, have formed a company to build cubesats for researchers.

Mark and Eric Becnel are aiming their company Radiobro at providing turnkey cube satellite services to researchers who have experiments they’d like to fly, but who don’t have the resources to build their own satellites to fly them. “There’s an unfilled niche there in supplying a need if a scientist wants to take an experiment and fly it in space,” Eric Becnel said. “The idea is to provide that researcher with an off-the-shelf solution.”

The solution will encompass both the hardware and software necessary for the research to take place and be monitored, the brothers said. “Maybe you’ve got a launch opportunity and a window to launch,” Mark Becnel said. “We can help you by delivering that satellite in as fast as 12 months.”

This is the kind of creative capitalism the American aerospace industry hasn’t seen from its new engineers in years. In my experience giving lectures at student chapters of the AIAA, aerospace students have routinely been focused on looking for a job, either at NASA or with one of the big aerospace companies. These guys are instead trying to create their own. I say, they have the right idea, and have picked the right venue at exactly the right time. If they do it right, they and their company Radiobro stand to be a big success.

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Comet ISON makes its close flyby of the sun today.

8:40 am

Comet ISON makes its close flyby of the sun today.

Three possible fates await Comet ISON, according to Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“It could be tough enough to survive the passage of the sun and be a fairly bright naked-eye object in the early morning sky in the first week of December,” Yeomans said in a statement. “Or, the sun could actually pull it apart. The tidal forces could actually pull this comet apart and so it becomes several chunks rounding the sun and putting on a great show again in early December. Or, if the comet is very weak, it could break up into a cloud of dust and be a complete bust in December.”

So far the comet has been a big disappointment in terms of brightness. However, its flyby today will be interesting as scientists will get a chance to observe one of the largest sun-grazers they’ve ever seen do this.

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Faced with an almost certain recall over her gun control votes, a third Colorado state legislator has resigned.

11:38 am

Pushback: Faced with an almost certain recall over her gun control votes, a third Colorado state legislator has resigned.

By resigning she allows the Democratic governor to appoint a Democratic replacement, thereby keeping control of the state legislature in Democratic hands. Had she been recalled the voters would have had the option to vote for a Republican replacement, as happened with the first two legislators who were recalled.

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The Obama administration yesterday proposed outlawing political speech by any non-profits.

9:27 am

Working for the Democratic Party: The Obama administration yesterday proposed outlawing political speech by any non-profits.

The IRS would enforce these new rules, which would make official the harassment of conservatives that the IRS did during the run-up to the 2012 election. Though they claim these rules would apply to all political groups, you and I know that they will likely use these rules selectively to squelch the speech of the administration’s opponents.

If you have any doubt, consider the selective manner in which the National Park Service enforces its laws. The leftist Occupy movement was allowed to do whatever it liked during its protests, despite being in clear violation of the law, but veterans were blocked from visiting open-air national monuments during the government shutdown in October.

This decision by the Obama administration also reveals Obama’s total support for that IRS harassment of conservatives. He liked it, and now wants to make it official. Moreover, the failure of his so-called investigation into the IRS scandal to contact any of the groups harassed, even after six months, tells us again that President Obama actually supported the harassment and is acting to stonewall the investigation.

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Using Kepler data, astronomers have discovered a solar system with seven planets and configured similar to our own, with rocky planets close to the star and gas giants farther away

9:20 am

Using Kepler data, astronomers have discovered a solar system with seven planets and configured similar to our own, with rocky planets close to the star and gas giants farther away.

The system is far more compact than ours, with the gas giants in orbits similar to Mercury, Venus, and Earth.

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