A scuba mask that allows you to breath underwater as if you were a fish.
Cool: A scuba mask that allows you to breath underwater as if you were a fish.
The Obama administration now harasses the military chaplain who sued them because of their actions during the government shutdown.
The Obama administration now harasses the military chaplain who sued them because of their actions during the government shutdown.
Father Ray Leonard, the Catholic Navy Chaplain who sued the Department of Defense and the Navy after he was barred from celebrating Mass at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia during the recent the Government shutdown, is now the target of Government retaliation even though the Department of Justice indicated the day after the lawsuit was filed that he could resume his duties as a Navy Chaplain.
The retaliation involves repeated Government assertions that the employment contract under which Father Leonard was working is no longer “valid”, demands that he must sign a new contract containing several pages of onerous new terms if he wants to be paid and refusals to pay for services he had already performed.
I probably have posted an example of this kind of harassment by the Obama administration against innocent citizens about once per day for the past year. And as I said earlier today, the abuse of power by this Democratic administration makes Chris Christie look like a amateur.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Jimmy Kimmel savages Obamacare and ignorant young who support it.
Jimmy Kimmel savages Obamacare and ignorant young who support it.
Read and watch it all. Quite entertaining, in a painful sort of way.
The article also notes that while young people should surely be criticized for their blind faith in Obama and the Democrats, the media is as much to blame.
Without question, if America’s media had behaved responsibly in 2009 and 2010, the calls and emails to Congress opposing this legislation would have been so voluminous it never would have passed.
But instead, with the exception of the conservative outlets, America’s media were 100 percent behind this legislation, aiding and abetting the President and his Party to enact something that virtually all late night comics agree is a total joke.
Why the sequester had to die.
It worked.
It did not work perfectly, and it did not balance the budget or put us on course for a balanced budget. But it did play a critical role in nudging the deficit away from “catastrophic existential threat” territory and toward “terrifying money-suck.” It did this in part by forcing Republicans to accept cuts in military spending, which they are not normally much inclined to do. (It goes without saying that the Democrats are categorically hostile to spending reductions.) Because we cannot rely for very long upon the better angels of congressional nature, these statutory limits are always destined to be short-lived, which should be of some concern to us: Experience shows that when Congress agrees to a budget-control deal, the first thing it does is begin looking for opportunities to undermine that deal.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Orbital Sciences outlines the upgrades it plans for Cygnus and Antares.
Orbital Sciences outlines the upgrades it plans for Cygnus and Antares.
Replacing Antares’ Russian engines is their biggest problem, but along the way they are installing a number of improvements to Cygnus that will up its cargo capacity.
A detailed look at how the budget deal effects the NASA budget.
A detailed look at how the budget deal effects the NASA budget.
As Messier notes, the budget is generally flat, with little significant change either up or down.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
A House investigation has found that the Obama administration acted to make the sequestration cuts as “painful as possible” for rural schools.
A House investigation has found that the Obama administration acted to make the sequestration cuts as “painful as possible” for rural schools.
I have made no excuses for Chris Christie and the abuse his underlings heaped out in New Jersey against innocent citizens. It was wrong, and it makes me much less likely to support Christie in future campaigns. At the same time, it is also important to note that this one event pales in comparison to the number of similar abuse-of-power stories I’ve noted coming from the Obama administration. When it comes to improperly using the power of government to hurt innocent citizens, Obama and his underlings make Christie look like an amateur.
After drilling four shafts and sending in one man to look, engineers still don’t know what is blocking the giant tunnel drill Bertha in Seattle.
After drilling four shafts and sending in one man to look, engineers still don’t know what is blocking the giant tunnel drill Bertha in Seattle.
The next step, not simple, is to send workers to inspect the drill face itself.
The House is about to vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that no one has really read.
This sums it up: The House is about to vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that no one has really read.
It might include some specific cuts, but in general this budget plan is a surrender to more spending.
The only real solution to this madness, however, really rests with the voters. The spenders in both parties have to be fired, and the only way to do that is to fire them. Sadly, I see no sign of that happening in the hardcore Democratic states such as New York, California, and Illinois, to name just a few. There, the voters are so partisan that they’d rather die than vote for a Republican. And die they will.
Among Republican voters at least there is pressure from the right to spend less. To make it effective, however, the voters still have to do some firing, as far too many Republicans elected officials are willing to go along to get along.
On the air tonight
I will be appearing with David Livingston on the Space Show tonight, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific). The show is webcast live as well as podcast. Feel free to call in and ask questions or make comments.
Should be fun, especially considering the good start private space has had in 2014.
The sound of pi
An evening pause: The sound of pi.
A federal court has thrown out the net neutrality rules imposed by Obama’s FCC appointees, stating that the commission had overstepped its authority.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: A federal court has thrown out the net neutrality rules imposed by Obama’s FCC appointees, stating that the commission had overstepped its authority.
Have you noticed how the left always comes up for these meaningless terms — “net neutrality”, “single payer”, etc — any time they want to expand their power over our lives?
Twenty fascinating photos from history.
Another innocent patient, having lost his insurance due to Obamacare, is now threatened with death.
Finding out what’s not in it: Another innocent patient, having lost his insurance due to Obamacare, is now threatened with death.
I cannot be more accurate. Read the story. The man is not getting treated because his policy was cancelled because of Obamacare.
Thank you Obama and the Democrats. I am so glad you care.
And there’s this horrible story of a disabled family now out of luck: “We did not put ourselves in this situation,” she told The Daily Caller. “The government put us in this situation.”
And we have only just begun. Stay tuned from more horror stories as Obamacare spreads its wings over the entire healthcare industry this year.
Astronomers have identified a star they expect to go supernova very soon.
Astronomers have identified a star they expect to go supernova very soon.
[SBW2007] 1 (or SBW1) is located 20,000 light-years from Earth and features an enigmatic double-ringed planetary nebula. The rings are gases that have been blasted from the outermost layers of the blue supergiant star in the nebula’s core. The star, which was estimated to be 20 times the mass of the sun before it became unstable, is going through its final death throes before a supernova is initiated. But don’t worry, the supernova would be a safe distance from us, although it will put on an exciting light show.
There is no way to predict when the supernova will occur. On the timescales of stellar evolution, it could happen tomorrow, or in a thousand years. For the full Hubble image go here.
This story is significant in that it shows how much knowledge has been gained in astronomy since Hubble’s launch. In 1987, when Supernova 1987a exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, astronomers had not identified even one progenitor of any supernova, and did not have any clear idea what kinds of stars produced these gigantic explosions. Today, they have identified more than a handful, and are even beginning to pinpoint candidates, such as the star above, that could be the next stars to go boom.
SpaceX has signed a contract with a Japanese commercial satellite company.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has signed a contract with a Japanese commercial satellite company.
The story was first reported on Friday, but I was busy this weekend and forgot to post it. Key quote:
The launch contract award for JCSAT 14, a communications satellite owned by Tokyo-based SKY Perfect JSAT Corp., adds another mission to SpaceX’s backlog, which stands at nearly 50 missions worth nearly $5 billion, according to a company press kit.
As SpaceX rolls these missions out and the money rolls in, it will insure the likelihood that they will build the Falcon Heavy as promised. And when they do, they will have created a heavy lift rocket and done it for pennies, compared to the costs spent on numerous government projects attempting to do the same.
“Over the weekend, it seems as though the national media finally figured out what most ObamaCare critics have predicted all along.”
“Over the weekend, it seems as though the national media finally figured out what most ObamaCare critics have predicted all along.”
And what did these giants of intellectual thought finally figure out? They discovered, as conservatives have been trying to explain for four goddamn years, that Obamacare is a insane mess, it doesn’t work, it is raising costs, it is preventing people from getting health insurance, and it should never have been passed in the first place.
What a shock!
The Spanish language Obamacare website is unreadable to Spanish speakers.
Incompetence beyond belief: The Spanish language Obamacare website is unreadable to Spanish speakers.
The site, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, launched more than two months late. A Web page with Spanish instructions linked users to an English form. And the translations were so clunky and full of grammatical mistakes that critics say they must have been computer-generated — the name of the site itself can literally be read “for the caution of health.”
“When you get into the details of the plans, it’s not all written in Spanish. It’s written in Spanglish, so we end up having to translate it for them,” said Adrian Madriz, a health care navigator who helps with enrollment in Miami. [emphasis mine]
I normal expect the government to do a poor job in most things, but this level of idiocy astonishes even me. For example,
As for the language, Plaza, the New Mexico professor, said a recent examination by her research students concluded that the translations were done “by a computer-generated process” and came across as awkward.
“There are problems with the verbs and word order that make sentences hard to understand,” said Plaza, who helped develop an audio version to help residents in New Mexico sign up. “Sometimes,” she added, “it’s just the terms they use.”
The website translates “premium” into “prima,” but that Spanish word is more commonly used to mean a female cousin, Plaza said. A more accurate translation, she said, would be “cuotas,” ”couta mensual” or “costo annual.”
It is a good thing the Democrats have demanded Obamacare go into effect right away, as they are also the ones in charge of implementing it.
China’s rover and lander on the Moon have both been successfully reawakened after hibernating through the two week long lunar night.
China’s rover and lander on the Moon have both been successfully reawakened after hibernating through the two week long lunar night.
Cygnus was successfully berthed to ISS today.
Cygnus was successfully berthed to ISS today.
This is the first operational station resupply mission carried out by Orbital Sciences under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA calling for at least eight flights and delivery of 40,000 pounds of cargo and supplies.
The Cygnus captured Sunday will remain attached to the space station until mid February. At that point SpaceX will step up with launch of a Dragon cargo ship around Feb. 22. It will be the third operational resupply flight by SpaceX, which holds a $1.6 billion contract to deliver more than 44,000 pounds of supplies over a dozen missions.