Another Obamacare co-op fails

10:34 am

Finding out what’s in it: Ohio’s Obamacare co-op announced this week that it is shutting down, making it the 13 of 23 co-ops to fail.

The company recorded an underwriting loss of $80 million in 2015 despite the $129 million in taxpayer-backed loans granted to the co-op by the federal government. InHealth Mutual was also placed under “enhanced oversight,” one of three tools the Department of Health and Human Services has to monitor co-ops in financial distress. When a co-op is placed under enhanced oversight, it means the company is consistently underperforming and allows the department to give detailed and more frequent reviews of the loan recipient’s operations and financial status. According to Columbus Business First, medical claims were coming in at a rate of $3 million per week and the company would have had to raise premiums by 60 percent in 2017 to keep up. If InHealth Mutual were to stay in business through the end of 2016, projections show that the company would have posted losses of $20 million.

Ohio’s failed co-op is added to the list of 12 co-ops that have already failed in Arizona, Michigan, Utah, Kentucky, New York, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina, and a co-op that served both Iowa and Nebraska. [emphasis mine]

Gee, it sure would have been helpful if, before Obamacare was shoved down our throats by Obama and the Democratic Party, there had been someone to point out that this Obamacare co-op model could not work financially and was bound to fail. Oh wait! Wasn’t that exactly what every conservative pundit and politician was saying back in 2010?

Obviously, this all means we must vote Democratic again, as they are the only ones who really know what must be done!

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Liberal editor calls for riots against Trump

10:12 am

Fascist: An editor at the liberal news website Vox is calling for more riots and violence against Donald Trump and his supporters.

Vox’s “deputy first person editor” Emmet Rensin took to Twitter last night to declare that, since Trump is a racist and a fascist (in Rensin’s opinion, at least), then all forms of violence short of murder have become completely legitimate.

I hope the trend is becoming obvious to everyone: Despite their claims, it is the left and the Democratic Party who support more violence against people who are merely exercising their first amendment rights to free speech.

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Genesis cover

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 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

FEC Democrats vote to punish Republican for a political joke

10:02 am

Fascists: Two Democrats on the Federal Election Commission have voted to punish a Republican presidential candidate for cracking a joke.

Over mocking objections from their own staff, two top Democrats on the politically divided Federal Election Commission voted to investigate one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for joking that he hoped supporters would shower him with million dollar contributions.

In the latest display of FEC Democratic efforts to regulate speech and target Republicans, Commissioners Ann Ravel and Ellen Weintraub backed a complaint against Huckabee, who made the joke during his May 2015 presidential candidacy announcement.

The vote failed, because all three Republicans and one Democrat on the commission voted to dismiss the complaint. However, the vote does tell us that two-thirds of the Democrats on this government panel — designed to regulate federal elections — believe it is proper to regulate the actual words of candidates.

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NASA signs Blue Origin for suborbital missions

9:53 am

The competition heats up: NASA has contracted with Blue Origin to use its New Shepard suborbital spacecraft for suborbital research missions.

The company hasn’t actually won any contracts, but is now certified to bid on any of NASA’s suborbital research work, as are Masten Space Systems, Near Space Corporation, UP Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, and World View Enterprise. The difference is that of all these companies, only Blue Origin has a ship built and already flying.

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Conscious Choice cover

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.

Why the Goldwater Institute sued to block Tucson space deal

9:39 am

Link here.

The fundamental reason is that the Institute believes that, in signing its deal with World View to build its headquarters and launch site in Tucson, Pima County violated several laws as well as Arizona’s constitution. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, and thus government officials should not be allowed to violate those laws, even if they have the best of intentions.

I must say that, though I have no doubt that putting World Views space tourism balloon company in Tucson would be financially good for the city and Arizona, allowing elected officials to break the law to make deals with private companies is a very bad way to do it, and will in the end lead to far worse consequences.

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Leaving Earth cover

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

Falcon 9 first stage returns to port, with a noticable list

1:02 am

The competition heats up: The first stage from SpaceX’s most recent Falcon 9 launch returned to port today, showing a visible lean.

Musk said that the stage was probably OK, but there was some risk of tipping. This was due to the fact that the contingency “crush core” was used up. He described on Twitter that the crush core was an aluminum honeycomb for energy absorption in the telescoping actuator. Once the stage was within sight of land, it became clear that the booster had a noticeable lean to it, due to the aforementioned contingency crush core being used up. The ramifications of this are still unclear, but Musk’s tweet implied that the crush core is easily replaceable.

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California effort to make climate dissent illegal fails

12:51 am

The Democratic fascists in the California Senate have lost their bid to pass a law that would have made it a crime to express skepticism of human-caused global warming.

The bill only failed because the Senate did not take action before the end of its session, and could reappear agian.

Later this year, however, the same language could be reintroduced under a waiver of the rules or inserted into another bill as part of the gut-and-amend process.

And I fully expect these fascists to try again, especially considering this:

The measure was introduced amid a national push by Democrats and activist groups to use the legal system to prosecute climate change “fraud,” prompting a backlash from skeptics who have denounced the campaign as an assault on free speech. A coalition of 17 state attorneys general, including California Attorney General Kamala Harris, have joined forces to pursue climate change skeptics. At least four prosecutors reportedly have launched investigations into Exxon Mobil for climate change “fraud.”

Introduced by state Sen. Ben Allen, Santa Monica Democrat, S.B. 1161 had strong support from environmental groups, led by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Connecticut moves to ban 2nd amendment

11:52 am

Gun control fascists: Connecticut’s Democratic legislature has have passed a new law, which the Democratic governor has signed, allowing the government to confiscate the firearms of anyone placed under a temporary restraining order.

Temporary restraining orders are routinely granted with little or no examination of the underlying facts and based wholly on one-sided testimony.  Such a process is certainly appropriate in cases of domestic abuse, stalking, and the like.  But with the implementation of this new law the subject of the restraining order is punished without ever having his day in court.  In fact, they are punished without ever even being accused of, let alone convicted of, a crime.  The TRO does not require a crime to have been committed – just a feeling of danger.

Now, if you hate guns and you live in Connecticut, all you have to do is say that you feel threatened by someone, and the government can take that person’s guns. No trial, no evidence, no Constitutional rights. The feelings of a person trumps all!

Note the pattern. Almost all of the people trying to ban free speech and our Constitutional rights are leftists, be it either Democratic politicians, leftwing academics, or communist student groups. Yet, these same people are going to claim that no one should vote for Donald Trump, because he, in league with the Republicans, is going to take away our Constitutional rights.

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California moves to ban climate dissent

11:35 am

Climate fascists: The California legislature is considering a bill that would make it illegal to express skepticism about human-caused global warming.

The bill declares that there is no legitimate disagreement on the causes and extent of climate change, stating that, “There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns, and that the primary cause is the emission of greenhouse gases from the production and combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.”

What I find frightening about this is that the liberal Democrats who are writing and pushing this bill, with the full support of numerous liberal environmentalist groups, no longer feel the slightest shame about their oppressive and tyrannical preferences. They are now out in the open, suggesting that they sense a wide support for their actions. I fear that they are right.

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Yale students demand that the school stop teaching English literature

9:33 am

The coming dark age: Students at Yale University have issued a petition demanding that the English Department stop teaching the poetry and literature of straight, white, wealthy males.

Their reasons have nothing to do with the quality of literature, only the race, gender, or economic status of the writers. In fact, the demands express a complete disinterest in learning anything about the work of these authors, people like Shakespeare and Yeats and Pope and Hemingway. Instead, these fascists add that if their demands are not met, the university could face some violent protests.

As noted here, “The students … seem to think they’re not at college to be educated,” he wrote, but that “they are at college to educate everyone else.” As a result, they come to college with closed-minds, unwilling to learn anything. And they will leave college just as ignorant, but they will leave holding a degree from a Ivy League college that will guarantee them access to future positions of power.

The future does not look good.

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Why I use Linux, part 2

9:20 am

Microsoft has changed its options so that Windows users will no longer be able to refuse an upgrade to Windows 10.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 nagware campaign has entered a new phase, with all options to evade or escape an upgrade finally blocked.

Recently, Microsoft’s policy had been to throw up a dialogue box asking you whether you wanted to install Windows 10. If you clicked the red “X” to close the box – the tried-and-tested way to make dialogue boxes vanish without agreeing to do anything – Microsoft began taking that as permission for the upgrade to go ahead.

Now Microsoft is changing gears. It has eliminated the option to re-schedule a chosen upgrade time once you’ve confirmed it while also removing the red “X” close option from the screen.

The moral dishonesty here is vile, to put it mildly. Microsoft is enforcing these upgrades by offering a series of sneaky bait-and-switch options that are intentionally designed to fool the user into doing something the user doesn’t want to do. And the company is doing this while still claiming that it isn’t forcing anything on anyone.

When you find yourself dealing with a lying snake-oil salesman, you only have yourself to blame if you continue that relationship and get screwed.

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Billionaires propose big space plans

9:00 am

At separate interviews given during a media conference held this week in California, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos each expressed their thoughts about what they hope to accomplish in space over the next few decades.

First, Jeff Bezos outlined his belief that, in order to protect the Earth, humanity is going to have to eventually move its heavy manufacturing off the planet and into space. He thought colonizing the planets was a cool idea, but his focus remained with Earth, and using space as a way to protect it.

Musk meanwhile revealed his company’s long range plans for Mars, including their firm intention to send a Dragon capsule to the red planet during every future launch opportunity, beginning with 2018. Each mission will provide information needed to improve and develop their engineering so that they can hopefully send humans there by 2024.

A realistic appraisal of both men’s proposals will quickly recognize that they are probably overly optimistic. Bezos might be right that we should move our heavy industries into space, but he is not realistic to think this can happen soon, or is even possible. Musk’s company SpaceX might be laying the groundwork for the eventual colonization of Mars, but to think it will begin happening by 2024 is unrealistic.

Still, what both men are proposing are things that they are personally helping to make happen. Neither man has to get anyone else’s permission or approval to push these dreams. All they need to do is make sure the products they are building for accomplishing these tasks can also make money by providing services to others. Since this is exactly what both men are doing, they will likely achieve far more than anyone can imagine, even if the specific proposals they are putting forth now do not happen in their lifetimes.

This bright and very possible future is far different than the powerpoint proposals that NASA and big government have offered to us over and over again for the past four decades. Those ideas, while also ambitious, could never happen because they were dependent on the approval of too many other players, Congress, the public, the press, the bureaucracy. They were not founded on profits, so they became a drain on the economy instead of a source of wealth. The result was that we have gone nowhere and developed little new space technology in the years since the last Apollo landing.

Only now, with our renewed reliance on capitalism and profits, are we finally beginning to see the dreams expressed in those NASA powerpoint proposals coming to life. And it isn’t the government that is making them happen, but free individuals, with big dreams and the will to pursue them.

Expect there to be privately funded manned missions to Mars in the next decade. And expect there to be factories in orbit, far sooner than anyone expects.

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Manned Soyuz launch delayed

3:50 pm

More Russian quality control issues? The next manned launch to ISS has been delayed for a week because of an issue with the capsule’s control thrusters.

The article is lacking in any details, though it appears that the Soyuz capsule’s system for controlling its roll is the source of the problem. This issue, on top of the fact that the most recent Soyuz rocket launch last week had an unexplained premature engine shutdown, should make everyone a bit nervous about the reliability and safety of the Russian manned system.

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Pluto: the world’s largest lava lamp

12:26 pm

In comparing the New Horizons’ data with computer simulations, scientists have determined that the frozen nitrogen in the heart-shaped Sputnik Planum region rises and sinks as the nitrogen is heated from below.

McKinnon and colleagues believe the pattern of these cells stems from the slow thermal convection of the nitrogen-dominated ices that fill Sputnik Planum. A reservoir that’s likely several miles deep in some places, the solid nitrogen is warmed by Pluto’s modest internal heat, becomes buoyant and rises up in great blobs – like a lava lamp – before cooling off and sinking again to renew the cycle. The computer models show that ice need only be a few miles deep for this process to occur, and that the convection cells are very broad. The models also show that these blobs of overturning solid nitrogen can slowly evolve and merge over millions of years. Ridges that mark where cooled nitrogen ice sinks back down can be pinched off and abandoned, resulting in Y- or X-shaped features in junctions where three or four convection cells once met.

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Longest and deepest rail tunnel opens

9:17 am

After 17 years of construction, the world’s longest and deepest rail tunnel has opened today in Switzerland.

If you take into account the two main tubes that comprise the Gotthard Base Tunnel and its various shafts, cross passages and access tunnels, it actually has 152 km (94 mi) of tunnels in total. It is also said to have virtually no gradients.

The initial idea for the tunnel was conceived 68 years ago, but the plans were redrawn on a number of occasions. Once construction finally commenced, there were 2,400 workers on site at peak times. Nine workers also lost their lives during the build.

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New data challenges consensus on galaxy formation

8:54 am

The uncertainty of science: A new study has found that the accepted consensus for the formation of large elliptical galaxies does not work, and that, rather than forming from the merger of smaller spiral galaxies, ellipticals formed in place from the material at hand.

From the press release [pdf].

“We started from the data, available in complete form only for the closer galaxies and in incomplete form for the more distant ones, and we filled the ‘gaps’ by interpreting and extending the data based on a scenario we devised” comments Mancuso. The analysis also took into account the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, which allows us to observe very distant galaxies belonging to ancient cosmic epochs.

In this “direct” manner (i.e., model-independent) the SISSA group obtained an image of the evolution of galaxies even in very ancient epochs (close, in a cosmic timescale, to the epoch of reionization). This reconstruction demonstrates that elliptical galaxies cannot have formed through the merging of other galaxies, “simply because there wasn’t enough time to accumulate the large quantity of stars seen in these galaxies through these processes”, comments Mancuso. “This means that the formation of elliptical galaxies occurs through internal, in situ processes of star formation.

The important take-away of this result is that it shows that the present theory of galaxy formation, where smaller spiral galaxies merge to form larger elliptical galaxies, does not fit the data. And if a theory does not fit the data, it must be abandoned.

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Airbus Safran begin Ariane 6 engine tests

9:18 pm

The competition heats up: In its effort to build Ariane 6 by 2020, Airbus Safran has begun testing of that rocket’s upper stage Vinci engine.

This test phase, set to last until September, will include running the engine repeatedly as well as for as long as 1,000 seconds. Once they have determined the engine’s design, behavior, and overall thrust, they will be able to design and build the upper stage.

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Orbital ATK successfully completes Antares test fire

9:07 pm

The competition heats up: Orbital ATK today successfully completed a 30 second test fire of the first stage of its redesigned Antares rocket, using new Russian rocket engines.

The primary goal of the test was to verify the functionality of the integrated first stage, including new engines, modified Stage 1 core, avionics, thrust vector control and pad fueling systems in an operational environment. During the test, a number of operational milestones were met including full propellant loading sequence, launch countdown and engine ignition and shut down commands, as well as multiple throttle settings including full engine power. The test also validated the launch pad’s operation, including propellant tanking and the use of the water deluge system to protect the pad from damage and for noise suppression.

Orbital ATK will now purge and clean the engines of residual propellants and return the first stage used in this test to the Horizontal Integration Facility for full reconditioning prior to its use on the OA-7 mission slated for later this year. The Orbital ATK team will continue to prepare the Antares rocket that will launch the OA-5 mission, which is in the final stages of integration, systems testing and check-out in preparation for launch this summer.

They hope to launch a Cygnus capsule on Antares around July 6.

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Obamacare forces small businesses to drop employee health benefits

9:23 am

Finding out what’s in it: An IRS ruling from 2013, based on Obamacare and now going into effect, will force small businesses that offer alternatives to health insurances to drop those alternatives, or face hefty fines.

This ruling applies to businesses with fewer than 50 employees, who supposedly were going to be unaffected by Obamacare. Previously, they could offer their employees stipends to buy insurance themselves, as individuals. Obamacare bans this, requiring the business to either join Obamacare, which is too expensive, or face fines if they provide the stipends. So, the wonderful law that Obama and the Democrats passed instead leaves these workers with less than they had before.

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Rosetta almost lost during weekend

8:55 am

Because Rosetta’s star tracker became confused by dust particles, the spacecraft lost contact with Earth, went into safe mode, and required the entire weekend for engineers to regain control.

“We lost contact with the spacecraft on Saturday evening for nearly 24 hours,” says Patrick Martin, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager. “Preliminary analysis by our flight dynamics team suggests that the star trackers locked on to a false star – that is, they were confused by comet dust close to the comet, as has been experienced before in the mission.” This led to spacecraft pointing errors, which triggered the safe mode. Unfortunately the star trackers then got hung in a particular sub mode requiring specific action from Earth to recover the spacecraft.

“It was an extremely dramatic weekend,” says Sylvain Lodiot, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft operations manager.”

The spacecraft has been diving to within only a few miles of the surface of Comet 67P/C-G, which means it is flying close to the comet’s coma. The increased dust in that region has confused the star tracker in the past, but this appears to have been the most serious event yet.

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The B-1 Lancer Bomber

6:01 pm

An evening pause: One reason we have a Memorial Day is to honor those who have died to keep us free. We also remember them to remind us that the sacrifice was necessary.

I think it is long past time to repeat the same effort, no matter the cost, and use this plane’s payload a lot more than we are. There are people in the Middle East who are gleefully killing people for the sake of power. We should no longer tolerate them.

Hat tip Rocco.

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Premature engine cutoff on Soyuz upper stage

9:20 am

During a successful Soyuz rocket launch of a Russian Glonass GPS satellite last week, it appears that the engine for the rocket’s upper stage cut off prematurely, requiring the third stage to fire longer to get the satellite into its proper orbit.

This scenario is almost identical to what happened with the most recent Atlas 5 launch. There is as yet no word on why it happened, or if the Russians plan to investigate it.

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XCOR layoffs, ending Lynx?

8:25 am

In the heat of competition: XCOR has laid off the staff working on its Lynx suborbital spaceplane.

The company has apparently decided to focus on those things that are generating revenues. Lynx was years behind schedule, unfinished with no prospect for profit, as it was only a prototype, not the spaceplane that could be used to fly tourists.

As much as I am not surprised (I have been skeptical of XCOR’s Lynx suborbital project since they announced it in 2008), I am saddened, because I really did want them to succeed.

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