Democratic Congressman Peter Stark (D-California) reportedly threatened the family of another California politician after learning that politician was endorsing Stark’s primary opponent.

9:54 am

Leftwing civility: Democratic Congressman Peter Stark (D-California) reportedly threatened the family and livelihood of another California politician after learning that politician was endorsing Stark’s primary opponent.

But the conversation quickly got ugly, as the Congressman launched into a bitter and angry diatribe. “(Stark) called me a turncoat and said, ‘Are you sick?’” Torrico recalled. “He was yelling and yelling….he kept going and going. He asked me if I was mentally well.” The furious [Stark] then added, “Maybe I should send a social worker to your house. Your kids need to be safe. You’re not well,” a horrified Torrico recalled.

Read the whole article. It is appalling if true, which is likely because it is consistent with Stark’s past behavior.

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Using today’s most advanced climate models Indian meteorologists were still unable to correctly predict this year’s monsoon rainfall.

9:39 am

The uncertainty of science: Using today’s most advanced climate computer models and data, Indian meteorologists were still unable to correctly predict this year’s monsoon rainfall.

The rains during the four-month-long monsoon season (June to September) – accounting for more than 80% of India’s annual rainfall – is crucial for the agricultural economy. In April, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had predicted that the monsoon season would see normal or above-average rainfall. On 2 August, however, it confessed that more than half of India has received “deficient or scanty” rains, and that the monsoon rainfall for the entire country is likely to be 19.7 % less than normal.

Because they were trying to predict a long term weather pattern, the overall rainfall produced by the yearly monsoon, this prediction was not unlike most of the climate temperature predictions produced by the IPCC’s global warming climate scientists. Moreover, this monsoon prediction likely used similar algorithms and the same data as the IPCC models.

Thus, this failed prediction of monsoon rainfall gives us another peek into the accuracy of those global warming climate models. And that peek is not encouraging. It suggests once again that we should not yet put much faith in the predictive accuracy of the IPCC’s models. The science is simply not advanced enough yet.

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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

The scramble in Congress to head the House committee on Space, Science, and Technology after November’s election has begun.

9:28 am

The scramble in Congress to head the House committee on space after November’s election has begun.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) have begun to quietly campaign to replace Rep. Ralph Hall as chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology next year, according to Stu Witt, General Manager and CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port.

If Rohrabacher gets the chairmanship it will be very be good news for commercial space, and bad news for the NASA-built and very expensive Space Launch System (SLS). He has been a strong supporter of private space, and will likely want to funnel money to it from SLS.

I’m not sure giving private space more cash is necessarily a good thing, as that will encourage these new companies to be less efficient, more expensive, and more dependent on the government. However, getting SLS shut down will certainly help the federal budget deficit.

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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 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 price of pizza is set to rise because of Obamacare.

11:32 pm

Now we have to repeal it: The price of pizza is going to rise because of Obamacare.

Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter says that Obamacare will result in a $0.11 to $0.14 price increase per pizza, or $0.15 to $0.20 cents per order.

The fact is that these kinds of price increases are going to occur across the board in almost all service industries, since higher regulation always leads to higher prices.

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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

Alvino Rey – St. Louis Blues

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the youtube webpage:

Alvino Rey is as important to the development of the electric guitar as Les Paul was, but has been criminally uncredited for it–until now. More and more photos, recordings and film clips like these are coming out of the woodwork to show what a genius Alvino was.

This film clip is from 1944 and shows Alvino demonstrating not only his amazing work on the steel guitar, but also his “singing guitar” effect, similar to the Sonovox, manifested in the persona of “Stringy” the talking guitar puppet! Enjoy this and whatever you do, DO NOT TAKE ACID BEFORE VIEWING….we warned you….

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“The ABC News product increasingly ceases to be journalism. It is sensationalism. It is reprehensible. It’s time to let ABC News feel the sting of public disapproval.”

12:49 pm

One journalist’s opinion: “The ABC News product increasingly ceases to be journalism. It is sensationalism. It is reprehensible. It’s time to let ABC News feel the sting of public disapproval.”

This time the story revolves around ABC’s unfounded attacks on a meat producer that has practically destroyed the company.

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Emails by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and others in the Obama administration now show that, under the GM bailout, they purposely terminated the pensions of 20,000 retirees solely because they were not union members, and then lied to Congress about this.

12:29 pm

Emails by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and others in the Obama administration now show that, under the GM bailout, they purposely terminated the pensions of 20,000 retirees solely because they were not union members, and then lied to Congress about this.

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The Sun continues to fizzle

9:56 am

Yesterday NOAA posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. You can see this latest graph, covering the month of July, below the fold.

As we have seen now for almost four years, the Sun continues to under-perform the predictions of solar scientists when it comes to the number of sunspots it is producing. In fact, that the sunspot number did not rise in July is surprising, as July had appeared to be a very active month for sunspots, with some of the strongest solar flares and coronal mass ejections seen in years. Instead, the number declined ever so slightly.
» Read more

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“Washington may have the healthiest economy of any major metropolitan area in the country.”

9:20 am

I wonder why? “Washington [DC] may have the healthiest economy of any major metropolitan area in the country.”

The New York Times article has one explanation:

The main lesson the rest of the country should take from the capital’s prosperity is, per Leonhardt, that “education matters.” D.C.’s “high-skill” economy boasts more college degrees than any other major metropolitan area in America. “If you wanted to imagine what the economy might look like if the country were much better educated,” Leonhardt writes, “you can look at Washington.”

The fact that the federal government is spending trillions of dollars, mostly in Washington, DC, is apparently only a side show to this New York Times reporter.

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An Obama-backed Muslim Group is now blaming Congresswoman Michell Bachmann for Sikh shooting this past weekend.

9:14 am

The civility of the left and Islam team up! An Obama-backed Muslim Group is now blaming Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) for the Sikh shooting this past weekend.

What did Bachmann do? She raised questions the Obama administration’s links with Islamic terrorists groups. And of course, that must obviously explain why a white-supremacist went on a rampage killing innocent Sikh worshipers in Wisconsin.

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A Russian Proton rocket has failed to put two satellites into their proper orbit.

8:51 am

A Russian Proton rocket has failed to put two satellites into their proper orbit.

This failure of one of Russia’s more reliable rockets comes at a very bad time, as the competition with SpaceX and other competitors for commercial launches is right now heating up. As the article notes,

Moscow, which carries out 40 percent of global space launches, is struggling to restore confidence in its industry after a string of mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos and the loss of a $265-million communications satellite. …

“The last failures to a certain extent undermine Russia’s position as a country that provides space launch services,” said industry expert Yuri Karash, a member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.

Such mistakes strengthen Russia’s competitors, such as Europe’s Arian rockets, Karash said, describing Russia’s space industry, struggling to recover after a generation of brain drain and crimped budgets, as “not in the best condition by a long shot.”

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The Muslim leader who was heading an “Tolerance in Islam” conference in Turkey was attacked by one of the attendees.

10:51 pm

Islamic good will: The Muslim leader who was heading an “Tolerance in Islam” conference was attacked by one of the attendees. With video of the attack.

In response to the attack, Morou [sic] said, “I am fine now, the damage is moral… We are here to speak about tolerance, but those people are ignorant of true Islam. I don’t know what his [the attacker’s] political orientation is, and regardless, this is not part of Islam.”

And in what part of Islam do we not see this kind of violence and intolerance?

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Gibson Guitars has struck a deal with the federal government to avoid prosecution for the use of banned wood.

9:48 am

Extortion does work! Gibson Guitars has struck a deal with the federal government to avoid prosecution for the use of banned wood.

The company will pay a $300,000 fine under a criminal enforcement agreement that defers prosecution for criminal violations of the Lacey Act. Another $50,000 fine will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation “to be used to promote the conservation, identification and propagation of protected tree species used in the musical instrument industry and the forests where those species are found.”

Notice the political payoff to an outside environmental group. How nice. I wish my cause could get funding this way, by having the U.S. government threaten companies I don’t like and force them to give me money.

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