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Yup, this sums it up nicely.

9:07 am

Yup, this sums it up nicely.

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has now accomplished the astonishing task of pushing House Republicans substantially to the left of the Senate GOP. His budget deal, announced Tuesday night, was achieved by shutting conservative Senate Republicans out of negotiations, by resorting to the old trick of spending now while claiming savings later, by ignoring a symbolically important budgetary red line, and by treating as Democratic “concessions” things to which even Democratic budgeteers already had agreed.

The chess equivalent of Ryan’s deal would be trading a castle for a mere pawn. No wonder conservatives are feeling rooked.

The absurdity of this deal is highlighted especially by the ongoing disaster of Obamacare. The Republicans have a very strong negotiating hand right now. They could have actually demanded a repeal of Obamacare in budget talks and thus pushed the Democrats into a corner for which there really is no escape. What would the Democrats do, shut the government down again so that more people could lose their health insurance?

Instead, Ryan behaved as if the Democrats have a Royal Flush and he only had a pair of twos. The stupid party strikes again!

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Trying to hide the disaster that is Obamacare.

8:56 am

Trying to hide the disaster that is Obamacare.

Most of Washington seems to have bought the White House claim that the 36 federal exchanges are finally working, and glory, glory, hallelujah. But if that’s really true, then what explains the ongoing secrecy and evasion?

On Wednesday the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act’s “enrollment” for November. Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they’re so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment.

Then there’s this:

In other nondisclosure news, the House Oversight Committee turned up letters Wednesday showing that [the Obama administration] ordered the private contractors partly responsible for the Healthcare.gov fiasco not to cooperate with congressional investigations or hand over documents.

Meanwhile, Obamacare has so far resulted in more than 4 million people having lost their health insurance, a number that includes those whom the Obama administration claim have at least selected an Obamacare plan.

As the writer above said, glory, glory, hallelujah!

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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, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

If a US spacewalk on ISS is necessary to repair its cooling system, the spare parts are there, but the spacesuits are not.

8:35 am

If a US spacewalk on ISS is necessary to repair its cooling system, the spare parts are there, but the spacesuits are not.

Prior to retiring the shuttle NASA, aware that cargo supply would be limited once the shuttle was gone, shipped up to the station as many spare parts as possible. Thus, there are three spare pump modules on ISS that could be installed during a spacewalk to replace the module that has the valve problem.

However, because of the water leak problem that occurred in one American spacesuit during a July spacewalk, NASA has halted all American spacewalks until replacement suits can be shipped up to the station.

Since then, NASA has been conducting extensive investigations into the water leak issue, with… “the crew performed a series of tests on EMU 3011 [the faulty spacesuit] as part of an ongoing effort for returning the suit back to service. The tests included water leak checks, communication checks, and suit pressure leak checks. EMU 3011 passed all tests.”

However, NASA had been planning to wait to return another EMU, serial number 3015, to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon vehicle and deliver a new EMU in its place before clearing EVAs to resume. However the next Dragon vehicle is not scheduled to arrive at the ISS until at least late February next year.

The Russians might be able to do this spacewalk, but they are going to demand payment for the work. And they won’t come cheap, considering the circumstances.

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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.

The Ryan budget deal includes a provision that limits the ability of the Senate minority to block tax increases.

10:49 pm

The stupid party: The Ryan budget deal includes a provision that limits the ability of the Senate minority to block tax increases.

The bill includes language from the Senate Democrats’ budget that voids senators’ ability to raise a budget “point of order” against replacing the sequester cuts with tax increases. The process is quite complicated, but in practice it grants Harry Reid the authority to send tax increases to the House with a bare majority, rather than the 60-vote threshold that would be required under a point of order.

In other words, another example of a Republican getting hosed in negotiations.

Though I have read several conservative reports about this deal that outline some of its positive benefits, on the whole it appears to be another defeat for the right.

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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

This detailed look at the budget deal suggests it isn’t as much of a surrender as first implied.

12:23 pm

This detailed look at the budget deal suggests it isn’t as much of a surrender as first implied.

I have to admit this analysis leaves me more hopeful, especially with this point:

That the Democrats would accept a deal like this is a pretty striking indication of how the Republican House has changed the conversation on the spending front since 2010. Think of it this way: In their first budget after re-taking the majority—the FY 2012 Ryan budget, passed in 2011—the House Republicans wanted discretionary spending to be $1.039 trillion in 2014 and $1.047 trillion in 2015. These budgets were of course described by the Democrats and the political press (but I repeat myself) as some reversion to humanity’s barbaric past. Yet this proposed deal with the Democrats would put discretionary spending at $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015—in both cases below that first House Republican budget.

Check out the graph at the link. It does illustrate bluntly that the Republicans are beginning to force the budget curve downward, if slowly. It also suggests that should they win big majorities in both Houses of Congress next November they will be posed to finally push for some real reductions in the size of the federal government, as they will have the votes in Congress and will be doing it with the strong endorsement of the voters.

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The Republican leadership expresses contempt for any opposition to its budget deal that abandons the cuts imposed by sequestration

11:11 am

The Republican leadership expresses contempt for any opposition to its budget deal that abandons the cuts imposed by sequestration.

The Republican leadership are fools. If anything, this is the moment to push harder, to not only demand that the sequestration cuts stay in place, but to demand a repeal of Obamacare.

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After two months, Obamacare has only enrolled less than 400,000 people, even as it has caused millions to lose their health insurance policies.

9:31 am

Fail! After two months, Obamacare has only enrolled less than 400,000 people, even as it has caused millions to lose their health insurance policies.

To get even these numbers the Obama administration is defining “enroll” as someone who went through the process of picking a plan, but hasn’t yet signed on and actually enrolled in it.

Though these low numbers are partly because of the inability of the Obamacare webpage to function, the real reason is sticker shock. Obamacare has raised the cost of health insurance so much that people simply can’t afford it.

Update: It appears that only 5 to 20% of these so-called enrollees have actually purchased Obamacare insurance.

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India’s Mangalyaan Mars probe successfully completed its first midcourse correction maneuver today.

9:09 am

India’s Mangalyaan Mars probe successfully completed its first midcourse correction maneuver today.

As with the images the probe took of Earth, the success of this maneuver demonstrates the ability of the probe’s engineers to control, operate, and precisely point the spacecraft’s engine. It also proves that engine works as designed.

Here’s an interesting cultural tidbit: Of the 200,000 people who have applied to Mars One (see my previous post below) to go on its proposed one-way mission to Mars, India has the second most applicants after the U.S.

Mars One applicants come from over 140 countries; the largest numbers are from the US (24 per cent), India (10 per cent), China (6 per cent), Brazil (5 per cent), UK, Canada, Russia and Mexico (4 per cent), Philippines, Spain, Colombia and Argentina (2 per cent), and Australia, France, Turkey, Chile, Ukraine, Peru, Germany, Italy and Poland (1 per cent).

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A private unmanned mission to Mars by 2018?

9:04 am

A private unmanned mission to Mars by 2018?

Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, Mars One founder and CEO, told reporters the foundation has signed contracts with two major aerospace firms, Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Technology, to develop mission concept studies, a first step toward eventual construction and launch.

The lander will be based on the design of the 2007 Phoenix Mars lander that Lockheed Martin developed for NASA. The communications satellite — the first such “geostationary” comsat in orbit around the red planet — will incorporate technologies developed by Surrey and used in a variety of operational spacecraft.

Mission concept studies are of course essential before you begin construction, but they are also a far cry from actual construction. I’ve seen literally hundreds of similar concept studies about someone’s big space plans with no subsequent follow up. Thus, I will only begin to take Mars One serious when they actually start cutting metal.

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Why Republicans should reject the surrender budget deal rumors say Paul Ryan is negotiating with Democrats.

9:54 am

Why Republicans should reject the surrender budget deal rumors say Paul Ryan is negotiating with Democrats.

Expect more articles like this. There are a lot of conservatives in the Republican House caucus who are no longer willing to lick the feet of Democrats, even if the Republican leadership is. And any deal that gives up sequestration is going to face their wrath.

Also, these kinds of articles serve to pressure Ryan so that he does not agree to a surrender.

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The IRS is now harassing the insurance broker who has helped people losing their insurance under Obamacare.

9:39 am

Working for the Democratic Party: The IRS is now harassing the insurance broker who has helped people losing their insurance under Obamacare.

The man received a visit from a Treasury Department Inspector General who demanded personal information about the cancer patient the broker was helping. When this information was refused, the official instructed the broker

to resolve the issue with the IRS immediately, and that if he did not, “you may be visited again by other IRS representatives in your home and we do reserve the right to garnish your wages and lien your assets.”

How nice. Obey the orders of the Obama administration or they will use the IRS to destroy you.

Note also that this harassment is going on right now, six months after the scandal was revealed and Obama claimed he was outraged by it and would put a stop to it. He lied. As he revealed recently in his interview on MSNBC, he sees nothing wrong with this harassment.

I just realized that my post above left out one important detail: The cancer patient had appeared on Fox to describe how he had lost his health insurance because of Obamacare. Almost immediately thereafter both he and his broker received audit notices from the IRS.

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One scientist’s modeling of the early universe suggests to him that intelligent life could have evolved as early as 15 million years after the Big Bang.

9:23 am

Theories! One scientist’s modeling of the early universe suggests to him that intelligent life could have evolved as early as 15 million years after the Big Bang.

This is fun stuff, but entirely theoretical and not to be taken very seriously. We know with certainty as much about the early universe as a mouse understands Shakespeare. To predict accurately the nature or even existence of life at that time is stretching our knowledge considerably.

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Data from Messenger now shows that as Mercury cooled it shrunk far more than earlier data had indicated.

9:17 am

Data from Messenger now shows that as Mercury cooled it shrunk far more than earlier data had indicated.

A new census of these ridges, called lobate scarps, has found more of them, with steeper faces, than ever before. The discovery suggests that Mercury shrank by far more than the previous estimate of 2-3 kilometres, says Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC. He presented the results today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California.

The finding helps explain how Mercury’s huge metallic core cooled off over time. It may also finally reconcile theoretical scientists, who had predicted a lot of shrinkage, with observers who had not found evidence of that — until now. “We are resolving a four-decades-old conflict here,” Byrne told the meeting.

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An upbeat wimpy maximum holds on

8:00 pm

Today NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in November. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

As in October, the Sun was more active than it has been for this entire solar maximum. November’s numbers dropped slightly from October, but still remained high, though as has been typical for this solar maximum they remained below prediction.
» Read more

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Curiosity has succeeded in dating the age of one of its rock samples, the first time this has ever been done remotely on another planet.

12:33 pm

Curiosity has succeeded in dating the age of one of its rock samples, the first time this has ever been done remotely on another planet.

The second rock Curiosity drilled for a sample on Mars, which scientists nicknamed “Cumberland,” is the first ever to be dated from an analysis of its mineral ingredients while it sits on another planet. A report by Kenneth Farley of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and co-authors, estimates the age of Cumberland at 3.86 billion to 4.56 billion years old. This is in the range of earlier estimates for rocks in Gale Crater, where Curiosity is working.

This is significant engineering and scientific news. In the past the only way to date the rocks on another world was to bring them back to Earth. This was how the moon’s geology was dated. On Mars, dating has only been done by crater counting, comparing those counts with those on the Moon, and then making a vague guess. To have the ability to date rocks remotely means that geologists can begin to sort out the timeline of Mars’s geology without having to bring back samples.

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