IRS officials, including Lois Lerner, used their private email accounts to illegally transmit confidential tax information.

7:39 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: IRS officials, including Lois Lerner, used their private email accounts to illegally transmit confidential tax information.

“[W]e have uncovered a troubling pattern of IRS officials sending official documents to non-official email accounts as well as the use of non-official email accounts to conduct official business,” the September 30th letter to acting IRS Commissioner Dan Werfil reads. “In some instances, IRS officials have sent taxpayer protected information to non-official email accounts.” The officials were identified as then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, Lois Lerner, who headed the office at the center of the scandal, Judith Kindall, and Nikole Flax, who worked in Lerner’s office.

In the letter to Werfil, Issa said that the committee had found over 1,600 pages of emails and documents related to official business in non-official email accounts. Nearly 30 pages of the material contained confidential tax information. The revelation raises serious questions about privacy and the security of the confidential data transmitted to the private email accounts. There is also a question of what might have been done with the data after it was sent to the private accounts. Those records would not be subject to the normal rules of transparency or freedom of information requests.

The only reason I can think of for these IRS officials to do this is because they wished to hide what they were doing, which also suggests that what they were doing was downright wrong.

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The public appears to be increasingly defiant about the National Park Service’s closure of parks.

7:27 pm

The public appears to be increasingly defiant about the National Park Service’s closure of parks.

Meanwhile, from a commenter here describing the situation at Great Smoky National Park since we left that area on Friday:

I was at the Smokies this weekend (Saturday and Sunday). The parking lot a Newfound Gap was completely open. The road to Clingman’s Dome was open. I did not travel down the North Carolina side of the park. Major trailheads were blocked at the Chimneys and Alum Cave Bluff. Chimneys picnic area closed. All other trailheads along 441 were open and there were plenty of people parked and enjoying the park. Little River Road was closed. We parked a couple of quiet walkways and took some short walks. Never saw an ranger anywhere.

If you are planning a trip to the Smokies then I would say to go for it. You may not be able to access some of the more popular areas of the park but there are plenty of areas that are accessible. I am planning a horseback riding trip (my own horses) in a couple of weeks and I am not going to let the dictatorial government in Washington ruin my plans.

The Chimney Top trail has been closed anyway during the week because of trail work, and the Alum Cave Bluff parking area is located at a spot where road work is presently going on and therefore might have been closed anyway as well.

And then there’s this: Yorktown restaurant owner defies the federal government, “occupying” his restaurant.

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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

If you sign up for Obamacare in Maryland you are required to agree to make your personal data available for “law enforcement and audit activities.”

7:11 pm

Finding out what’s in it: If you sign up for Obamacare in Maryland you are required to agree to make your personal data available for “law enforcement and audit activities.”

The terms also note that any emails you send will also fall under Maryland’s Public Information Act, the equivalent of that state’s freedom of information act, suggesting that those emails might also become public knowledge, against your wishes.

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The government shutdown is forcing House lawmakers to reuse their towels in the House gym.

6:55 pm

The horror! The government shutdown is forcing House lawmakers to reuse their towels in the House gym.

The important question is why this gym is even open, or even exists. I can think of a lot better uses of taxpayer dollars, especially considering how much money these elected officials make.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has decided that the shutdown prevents them from paying the death benefits to the families of military soldiers killed in action.

Compare and contrast.

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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.

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

Ramping down from solar maximum

6:55 am

Yesterday, despite the government shutdown, NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, and as I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

My interpretation of this data tells me that almost certainly the solar maximum has ended. We might see some later fluctuations whereby the sunspot number jumps, but the Sun is clearly beginning its ramp down to solar minimum.
» Read more

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“The difference between competence and incompetence.”

6:38 am

USA Today, an Obamacare supporter, compares the Obama and Bush administrations: “The difference between competence and incompetence.”

Guess who they are criticizing?

As honest as the editorial is in noting the website failures of Obamacare, it dishonestly states that “as the incompetence drones on, however, it hands ammunition to those who want to kill the law regardless of the broad interest in it.” [emphasis mine] “Regardless of broad interest”? The public is “broadly interested” in the law for sure, but that is a weird way to describe the disgust and opposition that every poll has shown the law has generated.

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Despite a threat of arrest by the Obama administration, veterans from Ohio plan to visit the World War II memorial on Wednesday.

6:00 am

Despite a threat of arrest by the Obama administration, veterans from Ohio plan to visit the World War II memorial on Wednesday.

I suspect that the park service employee who said the vets risked arrest if they crossed the barricades regrets that statement. I also almost hope that the Obama administration does try to arrest someone, as such action will quite starkly illustrate how fascist the administration is behaving.

And then there’s this story: ‘Gestapo’ tactics meet senior citizens at Yellowstone.

Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard. The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

Read the whole story. It should make you ashamed.

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In a newspaper interview Richard Branson today claimed that Virgin Galactic is “just three months away from having a fully-functioning rocket that is capable of taking passengers into orbit.”

5:46 am

In a newspaper interview Richard Branson today claimed that Virgin Galactic is “just three months away from having a fully-functioning rocket that is capable of taking passengers into orbit.”

At this moment I am sadly very skeptical. The company has only done two powered flights of SpaceShipTwo, and the highest it has gone is about 70,000 feet. To make it fully-functioning, they need to fly it 70 miles high. And the rumors about their engine problems suggest they won’t be able to do this until next year, at the soonest.

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A drone that can fly continuously for five years at 65,000 feet.

6:34 pm

A drone that can fly continuously for five years at 65,000 feet.

The Solara series are designed to be a fraction of the cost of a satellite, but operate many similar tasks, such as surveillance, crop-monitoring, weather and disaster oversight, or any other monitoring that low-altitude satellites track. The Solara aircraft could cost less than $2 million, according to Forbes, which quotes Dustin Sanders, Titan’s chief electrical engineer, as saying, “We’re trying to do a single-million-dollar-per-aircraft platform. And the operation cost is almost nothing — you’re paying some dude to watch the payload and make sure the aircraft doesn’t do anything stupid.”

As with any new invention, the use of this drone carries with it both good and bad possibilities.

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The world that works vs the world that doesn’t.

6:18 pm

The world that works vs the world that doesn’t.

In Washington, penalties for failure are few: Has anyone been fired over the Obamacare launch debacle? Problems are always the fault of circumstances, or the Evil Opposition, or are simply swept under the rug. Of course, that means there’s not much learning from mistakes, and “more of the same, only we’ll try harder!” is a common response. As in The Hunger Games, life is always posh in Capital City; suffering is for the poor schlubs out in the provinces.

In the world that works, on the other hand, mistakes are painful: They cost people jobs, they cost investors money, they result in bad publicity that’s harder to explain away. Thus, people learn from them. Unsurprisingly, the world that works is where the money that Washington spends ultimately comes from.

The problem is that the bigger Washington gets, the less room is left for the world that works. As more and more of American life is taken over by the world of politics — in which wealth is not generated, but taken from one’s opponents and distributed to one’s supporters — a smaller share is left for the world that works.

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Making Martian clouds — on Earth.

5:20 pm

Making Martian clouds — on Earth.

They’ve recreated Mars-like conditions within a three-story-tall cloud chamber in Germany, adjusting the chamber’s temperature and relative humidity to match conditions on Mars — essentially forming Martian clouds on Earth. While the researchers were able to create clouds at the frigid temperatures typically found on Mars, they discovered that cloud formation in such conditions required adjusting the chamber’s relative humidity to 190 percent — far greater than cloud formation requires on Earth. The finding should help improve conventional models of the Martian atmosphere, many of which assume that Martian clouds require humidity levels similar to those found on Earth.

The required high humidity seems very counter-intuitive, considering Mars’s presently dry environment. I suspect it implies that there are other unknown factors about the Martian atmosphere that the scientists have not yet considered.

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“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today.”

1:28 pm

Finding out what’s in it: “I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today.”

That’s what a knee-jerk Obamacare supporter said when he discovered how much the cost of his health insurance was going up after Obamacare takes effect. Here’s another good quote from another knee-jerk Obamacare supporter:

“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.” Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level — the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.” [emphasis mine]

Who did he think was going to pay for it? The tooth fairy?

5 comments

22 privately run campsites in New Hampshire are being told to close by the Forest Service, even though they get no money from the federal government.

12:07 pm

Obama fascism: 22 privately run campsites in New Hampshire are being told to close by the Forest Service, even though they get no money from the federal government.

According to the Union Leader, while the campsites are situated on federally owned land, they are entirely run by a private company, which has a contract to operate the sites and which pays the federal government a cut of the fees it collects. That means the closure will not only prevent thousands of campers from using the facilities, it will actually cost the federal government money it would have collected if it had simply done nothing.

These campsites were always allowed to operate during previous shutdowns. I should add that they have a legal contract with the government, which it appears the government is now breaking without real cause. If I were them I would be suing the Obama administration for loss of income and a violation of contract.

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The National Park Service is permitting a leftwing rally for illegal immigrants to take place on the National Mall, supposedly closed because of the government shutdown.

12:03 pm

Working for the left and the Democratic Party: The National Park Service is permitting a leftwing rally for illegal immigrants to take place on the National Mall, supposedly closed because of the government shutdown.

Much like the favoritism exhibited by the IRS, the park service is now clearly favoring leftwing protest. Want to gather at the World War II monument to celebrate the courage of Americans to free the world from Nazism and fascism? No! Want to gather on the National Mall to celebrate illegal immigrants? Yes!

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The sadism of Harry Reid.

11:52 am

The sadism of Harry Reid.

Harry Reid drags his feet on alleviating the financial anxiety of hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers, and he’s refused to bring to the floor seven continuing resolutions, all passed by the House, all passed by wide and fairly bipartisan majorities (all or almost all of the Republicans, and another 20 or so House Democrats):

  • Authorizing military chaplains to do their duties during the shutdown;
  • Continuing appropriations for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children for fiscal year 2014 (food stamps).
  • Continuing appropriations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
  • Continuing appropriations for veterans benefits.
  • Continuing appropriations for the National Institutes of Health.
  • Continuing appropriations for National Park Service operations, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  • Continuing appropriations of local funds of the District of Columbia.

Not a single one of those resolutions says anything about Obamacare. We know why Harry Reid isn’t bringing them to the floor. If he did, they would pass. Senate Democrats wouldn’t be able to vote “no” on any of those priorities without providing fodder for attack ads next fall (maybe the District of Columbia). And if they pass, the pain of the shutdown is mitigated in part.

Harry Reid doesn’t want to minimize the pain of the shutdown. He wants to maximize it.

Posted from wet and rainy Maryland. And in case you didn’t know it, it is generally wet in the east, even when it isn’t raining. I had lived in the east for most of my life, and now cannot wait to get back to Arizona where I don’t feel sticky all the time from humidity.

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Speaker John Boehner on Sunday said that the House will pass no bills to re-open the federal government or raise the debt limit until President Obama sits down to negotiate.

7:32 pm

Speaker John Boehner on Sunday said that the House will pass no bills to re-open the federal government or raise the debt limit until President Obama sits down to negotiate.

In his first extended TV interview since shutdown Tuesday, a defiant Boehner placed the blame for the fiscal impasse firmly on Obama, who has refused to sit down with House Republicans until they re-open the government at current spending levels. “The president just can’t sit there and say, ‘I’m not going to negotiate,'” Boehner said. Boehner said that there aren’t enough votes in the Republican-led House to simply re-open the government with no other strings attached. “There are not votes in the House to pass a clean (continuing resolution),” he said.

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A nine-year-old boy was able to board a plane in Minnesota and fly to Nevada with no ticket or boarding pass.

6:56 pm

Does this make you feel safer? A nine-year-old boy was able to board a plane in Minnesota and fly to Nevada with no ticket or boarding pass.

The big question in this case is how did this boy get through at least three layers of security at the airport? There are three levels of security he would need to have passed through. The first checkpoint is the screening by the TSA, including metal detectors. Then he would have had to get by the Delta Airlines gate agents before boarding the plane. The last level of security would be the flight crew themselves who should have questioned why the boy had no boarding pass before the plane took off.

This only provides further proof that the entire TSA is a complete waste of money.

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NASA and JPL have now stated that the government shutdown will not interfere with their promised support for India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

6:38 pm

NASA and JPL have now stated that the government shutdown will not interfere with their promised support for India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

Earlier reports had suggested that NASA’s Deep Space Network, used to communicate with planetary probes, would not be available because of the shutdown, and the mission would have to be delayed because of this.

Posted from Columbia, Maryland.

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The Obama administration has ordered 1100 square miles of open ocean off limits to private fisherman and tourists because of the government shutdown.

6:05 am

Shutdown fascism: The Obama administration has ordered 1100 square miles of open ocean off limits to private fisherman and tourists because of the government shutdown.

The article above also has a link to a story where voluntary unpaid Catholic priests have been told by the Obama administration that they will face arrest if they try to serve mass at military chapels or minister to military personnel during the shutdown.

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Because India depends on the American Deep Space communications network — mostly unavailable due to the government shutdown — the launch of its first Mars probe, set for October 28, might have to be delayed for two years.

11:00 pm

Because India depends on the American Deep Space communications network — mostly unavailable due to the government shutdown — the launch of its first Mars probe, set for October 28, might have to be delayed for two years.

This is unfortunate news indeed. However, if I was India (as well as other countries) I would consider this a call to develop their own deep space network.

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“Government shuts down, nation descends into riots, looting and cannibalism.”

11:10 pm

“Government shuts down, nation descends into riots, looting and cannibalism.”

“The government shut down! We can do anything we like,” shouted Sam Hasbley of Grassley, Iowa, while tearing the tag off a mattress despite an explicit warning label forbidding such a dangerous course of action. “Tear yours off. The government is shut down. It can’t stop you.”

Eyewitnesses spoke of further horrors. On a quiet street in suburban Massachusetts, a man brought out a set of highly illegal lawn darts. In Maryland, there were allegations that an entire family had begun digging ditches to collect rainwater runoff. With the fall of the government, citizen activists took it upon themselves to chronicle the culture of lawlessness. Men played Gibson guitars made of wood imported from India, but not finished by Indian workers. Women bought cold medicine without a photo ID. Children went hours without hearing lectures about the environment.

Heh. Read it all. You will be horrified.

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Stratolaunch has now released some preliminary details about its commercial rocket, including images.

11:00 pm

Stratolaunch has now released some preliminary details about its commercial rocket, including images.

Work has also begun on assembling the giant carrier airplane that will be used to take the rocket aloft.

Posted from lovely Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Tomorrow I will be busy visiting old friends as well as poking around an old Pennsylvania ghost town, so posting should be light.

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