Liz Callaway – It might as well be spring
An evening pause: You might never heard of her, but you will almost certainly recognize Liz Callaway’s voice, as she has been the singer in several of Disney’s animation features, including Anastasia (1997).
The just released Pew poll which shows Obama with a 10 point lead oversampled Democrats by 19 points.
Here we go again: The just released Pew poll which shows Obama with a 10 point lead oversampled Democrats by 19 points!
This is disgraceful work, and should discredit Pew as a pollster. There is no chance in hell that Democrats are going to outvote Republicans by 19 points come November. They didn’t even do that in 2008, when Obama won handily. For Pew to release a poll with a sampling that badly skewed smacks of incompetence, fraud, political manipulation, or a willingness to deny reality.
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
The TSA has agreed to allow its workers to unionize.
Does this make you feel safer? The TSA has agreed to allow its workers to unionize.
A pro-life Catholic group announced today it will openly defy the new pro-abortion mandate imposed by the Obama administration.
We’ve only just begun: A pro-life Catholic group announced today it will openly defy the new pro-abortion mandate imposed by the Obama administration.
“The unjust and unconstitutional HHS mandate, against which Priests for Life and 57 other plaintiffs have sued the federal government, takes effect today. We at Priests for Life do not qualify for the year that the government has offered certain groups to ‘adapt’ to the mandate. And we are not ‘religious’ enough for this Administration,” he explained. “But regardless of all that, we do not adapt to injustice; we oppose it.
“Therefore today, on behalf of our organization and on behalf of myself personally, I announce our conscientious objection to this mandate,” he said. “Priests for Life has the highest respect for civil government and advocates the observance of all just laws. But this policy is unjust, and today I reaffirm our intention to disobey it.”
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.
A federal appeals court has now ordered the TSA to explain by August 30 why it has defied an earlier court ruling on the use of the backscatter x-ray scanners.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: A federal appeals court has now ordered the TSA to explain by August 30 why it has defied an earlier court ruling on the use of the backscatter x-ray scanners.
A new report predicts that the demand for suborbital spaceflight, both manned and unmanned, will rise by one third in the next ten years.
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
Fooling the media
“I knew that bloggers would print anything, so I thought, what if, as an experiment, I tried to prove that they will literally print anything?” he says. “Instead of trying to get press to benefit myself, I just wanted to get any press for any reason as a joke.”
He used Help a Reporter Out (HARO), a free service that puts sources in touch with reporters. Basically, a reporter sends a query, and a slew of people wanting to comment on the story email back. He decided to respond to each and every query he got, whether or not he knew anything about the topic. He didn’t even do it himself — he enlisted an assistant to use his name in order to field as many requests as humanly possible.
He expected it to take a few months of meticulous navigation, but he found himself with more requests than he could handle in a matter of weeks. On Reuters, he became the poster child for “Generation Yikes.” On ABC News, he was one of a new breed of long-suffering insomniacs. At CBS, he made up an embarrassing office story, at MSNBC he pretended someone sneezed on him while working at Burger King. At Manitouboats.com, he offered helpful tips for winterizing your boat. The capstone came in the form of a New York Times piece on vinyl records — naturally, Holiday doesn’t collect vinyl records.
He started out trying to prove that bloggers don’t do the proper background checks on their sources, and instead ended up proving that it is professional journalists who don’t.
On the air revised
For those interested, my appearance tonight on John Batchelor has been shifted forward to 10:45 pm.
Update: the interview was shifted again, to 10:30 pm.
The Russians have successfully docked their Progress freighter to ISS, using a fast route that took only 6 hours.
The Russians have successfully docked their Progress freighter to ISS, using a fast route that took only 6 hours.
NASA will announce the winners of the commercial crew contracts on Friday.
The rumors are now official: NASA will announce the winners of the commercial crew contracts on Friday.
The house of the future, as predicted in 1957
An evening pause: It is fascinating how much, and little, of what was dreamed of in 1957 came true.
a Progress freighter, launched today, will test a new rendezvous route that takes only 6 hours to reach the station instead of the normal 48.
Getting to ISS faster: a Progress freighter, launched today, is testing a new rendezvous route that takes only 6 hours to reach the station instead of the normal 48.
Why are liberals so intolerant?
How the federal government has persecuted a scientist for whistling at a whale.
How the federal government has persecuted a scientist for whistling at a whale.
on the air tonight
On the air tonight: I will be doing a special segment with John Batchelor tonight at 11 pm (Eastern) to discuss the Obama administration’s approval of a deal between China and the same private aerospace company that illegally leaked such technology to China in the past. If you can’t tune in live, the segment will be available here by podcast shortly thereafter, as are all my appearances on Batchelor.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
Here’s what it used to be like, when we lived in a free society:
By the 1920s and 30s children had access to substances which would raise eyebrows in today’s more safety-conscious times. There were toxic ingredients in pesticides, as well as chemicals now used in bombs or considered likely to increase the risk of cancer. And most parents will not need to be told of the dangers of the sodium cyanide found in the interwar kits or the uranium dust present in the “nuclear” kits of the 1950s.
Another set of pro-Obama polls that oversample Democrats.
Living in a dream world: Another set of pro-Obama polls that oversample Democrats.
Why CBS and the New York Times keep doing this mystifies me. It won’t persuade anyone to vote for Obama, and it might even give his supporters the false impression that he is doing better than he is. For example, contrast these results with this new Gallup poll, which found Obama’s popularity below 50 percent in all but 13 states. These are bad numbers for an incumbent, and they are almost certainly more predictive, as Gallup generally samples Democrats and Republicans more accurately, based on recent voting patterns.
The only explanation I can think of for this oversampling is an unwillingness to face the reality that Obama and his leftwing policies are not popular. It is as if CBS and the New York Times are standing there with their fingers in their ears, chanting “la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!” loudly so they don’t have to hear what they don’t like.
“Get the [expletive] Jews out of my pool!”
Muslim tolerance: “Get the [expletive] Jews out of my pool!”
Note that this happened in Santa Monica, California, not Iran.
A scientific analysis of a database of over a million songs produced since 1955 has found that modern popular music is louder and has less variety or range than the popular music of the past.
A scientific analysis of a database of over a million songs produced since 1955 has found that modern popular music is louder and has less variety or range than the popular music of the past. Key quote:
Lastly, the researchers detected a trend of homogenization of the timbral palette. Timbre is what makes a particular musical sound different from another, even when they have the same pitch and loudness. It is essentially the difference between different instruments playing the same note at the same loudness. They found that, after peaking in the mid 60s, timbral variety has continued to narrow.
This confirms a suspicion of many fans of modern popular music, that it is less interesting and shows far less creativity than the popular music of the 1960s. This result might also explain why 1960s music remains so popular.
The decision on NASA’s manned commercial crew contract will be made this week, according to new rumors.
The decision on NASA’s manned commercial crew contracts will be made this week, according to new rumors.