Jack the Ripper identified

3:51 pm

Using DNA evidence from a shawl that is believed to have been at one of the Jack the Ripper’s murders, forensic scientists think they have finally identified the serial killer.

The story is fascinating, but what makes it even more convincing to me is that the person they name is hardly the wild romantic suspect that many books and movies have proposed in past decades. Instead, he was one of Scotland Yard’s prime suspects.

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The American professors who think Israel is the only evil in the Middle East

10:45 am

Want to know which American professors are demanding an academic boycott of Israel? Here is a list.

Even as Islamic radicals and nations commit genocide against Christians, Jews, and Muslims, these so-called intellectuals only have anger at Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and the only place in the Middle East where Christians, Jews, and Muslims can freely practice their religion and be full citizens. As the article notes,

“How can professors who are so biased against the Jewish state accurately or fairly teach students about Israel or the Arab-Israel conflict?” asked Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA Initiative co-founder and faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Students who wish to become better educated without subjecting themselves to anti-Israel bias, or possibly even antisemitic rhetoric, may want to check which faculty members from their university are signatories before registering.”

By signing their names to this boycott, they reveal themselves to either be willfully ignorant of the complexity of the situation, or outright anti-semites.

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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, 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

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.

Indecision in Europe about their future commercial rocket

5:57 pm

The competition is burning them up! With Germany and France unable to come to an agreement about the next Arianespace commercial rocket, the company is considering cancelling a December conference that was supposed to settle the issue.

The basic division remains despite the German government’s alignment with the French view that Europe needs a lower-cost rocket to maintain its viability in the commercial market — which in turn provides European governments with a viable launch industry.

Despite the consensus over the longer term, the two sides remain split on whether European Space Agency governments should spend 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion) to complete work on a new upper stage for the existing Ariane 5 rocket, which could fly in 2018-2019, or abandon the upgrade to focus spending on a new Ariane 6 rocket, whose development would cost upwards of 3 billion euros over 7-8 years. [emphasis mine]

Though SpaceX is not mentioned in this particular article, numerous previous articles on this subject (such as this one) have made it very clear that it is SpaceX’s low prices that are driving the need for Arianespace to cut costs. The problem, as this article makes very clear, is that Arianespace’s partners can’t figure out how to do it, at least in a manner that will still provide them all an acceptable share in the pie. The result might be that the entire partnership falls apart.

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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

More IRS emails lost

3:37 pm

Cover-up: The IRS claimed today that it has lost emails from five more employees that were involved in the agency’s harassment of conservatives.

The article also spends a lot of time talking about a partisan Democratic Senate report issued today that whitewashes the IRS harassment. As far as I can see, that Democratic report confirms only one thing: Senate Democrats are working hand-in-glove with IRS bureaucrats and the Department of Justice to stonewall the investigation and to justify the use of the IRS as a partisan weapon by Democratic politicians. Isn’t that nice?

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Army can’t track spending on $4 billion system to track spending

9:11 am

Our government in action: An inspector general has found that the Army was unable to track the spending on a project designed to help the Army track spending.

As of this February, the Army had spent $725.7 million on the system, which is ultimately expected to cost about $4.3 billion. The problem, according to the IG, is that the Army has failed to comply with a variety of federal laws that require agencies to standardize reporting and prepare auditable financial statements. “This occurred because DOD and Army management did not have adequate controls, including procedures and annual reviews, in place to ensure GCSS-Army compliance with Treasury and DOD guidance,” the IG report concludes.

And some people wonder why I am always skeptical of giving the federal government any job you need done.

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New York gun shop raided by SWAT team, without a warrant

8:55 am

Fascism: A New York gun shop was raided by a SWAT team, without a warrant, and forced to turn over customer sales records.

This raid was supposedly legal under New York’s newest gun control law dubbed the SAFE act. However, under the Constitution no raid can be legal without a warrant. In addition, the store owner has repeatedly requested clarification of the law from officials in his attempt to be cooperative and legal and was still raided. He is suing.

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New York dumps NASA contract because of cost overruns.

8:26 am

New York Mayor de Blasio has fired a team of NASA consultants that had been hired by the previous mayor to lead the overhaul of the city’s 911 system after costs skyrocketed and the project fell far behind schedule.

Up to 20 NASA consultants had spent the past two years working on the project, at average annual salaries of $250,000. They’ve conducted technical designs for new radios and computer dispatch systems. That technology will eventually link police, FDNY and emergency medical system dispatchers and field units to the city’s main emergency call center in downtown Brooklyn, and to a still-unfinished backup call center in the Bronx.

City officials did not say they were dissatisfied with NASA’s performance. They simply believe the work can be done cheaper in-house.

Why does this sound familiar?

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New emails provide more details of the IRS harassment of conservatives

5:35 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: New IRS emails reveal that the agency’s demand for donar lists was unnecessary according to the law and took place almost entirely against conservatives.

Worse, the donor lists were then used by the IRS to compile a list of conservatives to be audited.

Then-IRS Commissioner Miller initially testified to Congress on May 17, 2013 that “instructions had been given to destroy any donor lists,” but donor lists were actually produced to the House Ways and Means Committee four months later. The House Ways and Means Committee also announced at May 7, 2014 hearing that, after scores of conservative groups provided donor information “to the IRS, nearly one in ten donors were subject to audit.” In 2011, as many as five donors to one conservative (c)(4) organization were audited, according to the Wall Street Journal. [emphasis mine]

Apparently, the only reason these people were audited by the IRS is because they were contributors to conservative causes. In other words, the IRS was working to squelch the free speech rights of Americans who opposed the Democratic Party.

Read the whole article. There’s a lot more, such as proof that the claim by Lois Lerner and Barack Obama that the harassment was instigated solely by low level IRS employees was an outright lie. They didn’t misspoke. They didn’t misunderstand. They didn’t make a mistake. They lied, knowingly, consciously, and with forethought.

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Sarah Brightman, astronaut

9:01 am

The competition heats up: The start of Sarah Brightman’s astronaut training has been delayed from this fall to the beginning of 2015.

I suspect this delay has more to do with accommodating her schedule and the fact that she is very enthusiastic and well-prepared than any negative issues related to her or the mission. They have probably decided that she just needs less time to train.

Her actual flight to ISS is scheduled for the fall of 2015.

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Mysterious hacking cell towers

9:36 pm

This is intriguing: A secure cell phone maker has uncovered 17 cell towers designed to attack cell phones that have no known owner, all located close to military bases.

The highly self-monitored phone does more than protect itself; according to Popular Science, it found 17 different phony cell towers known as “interceptors,” detected by the CryptoPhone 500 around the United States during the month of July. Interceptors are described to look to a typical phone like an ordinary tower, but once a phone connects with the interceptor, a variety of over-the-air attacks become possible, such as eavesdropping on calls and texts to pushing spyware to the device.

ESD America CEO Less Goldsmith found it suspicious that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases. “So we begin to wonder – are some of them U.S. government interceptors? Or are some of them Chinese interceptors?” Goldsmith told Popular Science. “Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that’s listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don’t really know whose they are.”

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Review panel approves extensions for seven planetary missions.

5:19 pm

In approving extensions of seven NASA planetary missions, a review panel concluded that the Curiosity rover wasn’t doing the best it could, and that the project scientist didn’t work hard enough to change their minds.

The Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity rover landed on the red planet in August 2012. Equipped with a drill to gather surface samples and spectroscopy equipment to analyze the samples, the rover has collected and analyzed five surface specimens so far and, according to the extended mission proposal just approved by NASA, would analyze another eight over the next two years. That is “a poor science return for such a large investment in a flagship mission,” a 15-person senior review panel chaired by Clive Neal, a geologist at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, wrote in a report published Sept. 3.

The report also chided John Grotzinger, the lead Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for neglecting to show up in person during a Mars-focused senior review panel meeting in May. “This left the panel with the impression that the [Curiosity] team felt they were too big to fail,” the senior review panel wrote.

This sounds like a pissing war between scientists. Grotzinger didn’t give them the required deference so they slammed him. No matter happened, however, we know they weren’t going to cancel Curiosity’s funds.

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An ISIS fighter’s previous job was working at American airport

3:07 pm

Does this make you feel safer? One of the Americans killed while fighting for ISIS had previously held a job cleaning airplanes in Minnesota.

Multiple sources tell Fox 9 News that, for a time, he worked at a job that gave him security clearance at the airport, access to the tarmac and unfettered access to planes. Two former employees confirmed working with Muhumed at Delta Global Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines.

But hey, the TSA has us covered, focusing like a laser on sexually abusing American citizens rather than wasting time checking the security background of people who actually work at the airports!

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People abandon obscure languages to gain prosperity

10:01 am

A new study has provided further proof that the main driving force behind the abandonment of obscure languages is the desire of people to gain economic wealth.

Of all the variables tested, economic growth was most strongly linked to language loss, Amano says. Two types of language loss hotspots emerged from the study, published online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. One was in economically well developed regions such as northwestern North America and northern Australia; a second was in economically developing regions such as the tropics and the Himalayas. Certain aspects of geography seemed to act as a buffer or threat, Amano says. For example, recent declines appear to occur faster in temperate climates than in the tropics or mountainous regions—perhaps because it is easier to travel in and out of temperate regions, Amano says.

As is usual for most of today’s modern intellectuals, already prosperous and speaking English, the author of the article as well as the researchers themselves lament the loss of obscure languages.

Although the study is silent on the subject of interventions to help preserve endangered languages, there is a range of revitalization efforts that can serve as examples, such as the incorporation of the Hawaiian language into school curricula and daily government operations, she says.

In other words, ordinary people want to improve their lives by learning the dominant languages that provide a gateway to wealth, and these self-righteous prigs want to do whatever they can to interfere with that desire. How nice of them!

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Vladimir Putin, space cadet

9:38 am

Two news stories today demonstrate without question that Russia’s newly reorganized aerospace industry and its project to build a new spaceport are not merely the efforts of mid-level bureaucrats in that aerospace industry.

No, these efforts have been instituted and are being pushed at the very top of the Russian government, by Vladmir Putin himself. It appears that he has decided, or has always believed, that Russia deserves a strong and vibrant space program, run from Moscow, and is doing everything he can to make it happen, as part of his personal vision for Russia.

The first story described a visit on Tuesday that Putin made to Russia’s new space port, Vostochny, in the far eastern end of Russia. While there he noted that construction is several months behind schedule and that this slack must be made up. He then endorsed the proposal put to him by space agency officials that the number of people working on construction should be doubled.

The second story described Putin’s endorsement of the construction of a new Russian heavy lift rocket, capable of putting 150 tons into orbit. Such a rocket would be comparable in power to the largest version of the U.S.’s SLS rocket, not due to be launched, if ever, until the 2020s.
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