From a former TSA screener: “A lot of what we do is make believe.”
Read the whole thing. It will give you a touch of reality. Everything the TSA does is an abomination to freedom and common sense.
The uncertainty of science: The Russians now say that they have not found any previously unknown life forms in the sample from Lake Vostok.
Sergei Bulat of the genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics had said Thursday that samples obtained from the underground Lake Vostok in May 2012 contained a bacteria bearing no resemblance to existing types. But the head of the genetics laboratory at the same institute said on Saturday that the strange life forms were in fact nothing but contaminants.
It appears that the earlier announcement was either premature, or inappropriate.
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.
"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 competition heats up: Grasshopper flies again, but even higher.
SpaceX’s Grasshopper doubled its highest leap to date to rise 24 stories or 80.1 meters (262.8 feet) today, hovering for approximately 34 seconds and landing safely using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control. Grasshopper touched down with its most accurate precision thus far on the centermost part of the launch pad. At touchdown, the thrust to weight ratio of the vehicle was greater than one, proving a key landing algorithm for Falcon 9.
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.
“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.
Surprise, surprise! The Federal Reserve reports that Obamacare is causing layoffs and a slowdown in hiring.
This is wrong too: Some US communities are trying to make gun ownership mandatory.
As much as I think gun ownership and personal defense a good idea, forcing people to do it is just as bad as denying them that right. In each case it is an act of tyranny, using the power of government to impose the will of the majority on everyone, even those who disagree. Nor does it satisfy that some of these local laws allow for an exemption from gun ownership because of religious or personal beliefs. The use of the law to force people to do things is still wrong, no matter what the cause.
The frightening thing to me is the trend. Everyone, from both sides, seems eager to use the law to solve every problem, when the law is probably the worse tool for solving any problem you could possibly imagine. All it ends up doing is robbing everyone of freedom and their fundamental rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
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.
"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
Does this make you feel safer? The TSA issued security badges to at least eleven airport employees with criminal backgrounds.
According to a Feb. 22 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the TSA’s mishandling of the program caused a backlog of security badges that had yet to be issued. As a result, the TSA permitted airports to issue security badges to employees without conducting federally required background checks between April 20 and June 1 of 2012. The OIG concluded that there still may be individuals with criminal records who are working in secured areas of airports.
A small Russian satellite has been struck and damaged by space junk created from a 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test.
Comet Pan-STARRS will likely be at its brightest for northern hemisphere viewers this weekend.
Look to the west low on the horizon at sunset to see it.
An evening pause: As Arthur Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Good news: A federal appeals court has ruled that the Obama administration does not have the right to search or seize a person’s electronic devices when they cross the border.
The [Department of Homeland Security’s] civil rights watchdog, for example, last month reaffirmed the Obama administration’s position that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.
The San Francisco-based appeals court, ruling 8-3, said that view was too extreme. Under the ruling, border agents may undertake a search of a gadget’s content on a whim, just like they could with a suitcase or a vehicle. However, a deeper forensic analysis using software to decrypt password protected files or to locate deleted files now requires “reasonable suspicion” that criminal activity is afoot. The court left rules intact that a “manual review of files on an electronic device” may be undertaken without justification. [emphasis mine]
Why is it that I sometimes get the feeling that this administration does not know how to read? They certainly seem all too often completely unfamiliar with the Constitution.
Here’s a good idea: South Dakota has passed a law to train teachers to wear guns and provide security.
In South Dakota, supporters of the “sentinel” plan argued that schools in rural areas were too isolated to expect immediate help from police in the event of an attack. They could not afford to pay full time security officers to protect them, so they want to arm teachers and volunteers.
Does this make you feel safer? The TSA screeners at Newark Airport allowed a federal agent with a fake bomb to pass through security.
This covert test of security only proves once again how pointless the whole TSA charade is. Get rid of it. If we simply let the pilots and passengers be armed so they can defend themselves, which was the way we did things until the early 1960s, the chances of a repeat of 9/11 will be considerably less, and we would all have considerably more freedom.
Which is what this country is supposed to stand for, y’know.
A Michigan elementary school confiscated a third-grader’s batch of homemade cupcakes because they were decorated with plastic green Army soldiers.
The Russians have announced that their samples from Lake Vostok, buried deep under the Antarctic icecap, contains life, one of which is never before seen.
Whose side are they on? An anti-semite who also wants to see 9/11 repeated yearly has been chosen by the Obama administration to receive an “International Women of Courage Award.”
Then there’s this: Will the left finally get the Tea Party now?
As [the left] seethes in outrage and confusion that it took a Republican to question the constitutionality of drone attacks, it is important to remind our friends on the other side that it wasn’t just any Republican, but a–gasp!–Tea Party Republican who spoke “truth to power.” Not only that, but the Senators who were first to offer their assistance were also Tea Party Republicans–the so-called McCarthyist Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco “Water Break” Rubio of Florida. All three of these Senators won their primary elections against candidates favored by the Republican establishment. All three have been attacked by the left and smeared as racist and extremist for belonging to the Tea Party. Yet without them, no one from either party would have questioned a policy that the left once saw as a dangerous abuse of executive power.
I personally am disappointed that the filibuster has ended. All told it was just a bit of sound and fury signifying nothing, as John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director will still get approved and our decline towards tyranny will continue.
As a precaution engineers have temporarily shut Curiosity down to protect it from an oncoming solar flare.
They have done this in conjunction with the rover’s recent computer memory problem.
Rand Paul’s proposed non-binding resolution on the use of drones that the Senate Democrats refuse to bring to a vote.
Read it and I dare you to tell me that the Democrats still believe in civil rights and the Constitution.
An evening pause: In honor of Rand Paul’s filibuster today, let’s watch Jimmy Stewart perform a movie filibuster from the (1939) movie, Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
As Mr. Smith says, “Somebody will listen to me.”
Rand Paul has begun a filibuster today in response to the suggestion by both Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA nominee John Brennan that the White House has the right to kill Americans on American soil.
As much as I and many others feel it is important to question, challenge, and be suspicious of government power, we mustn’t let those fears cloud our judgement. This article outlines some truths about the government’s purchase of ammo that will dissipate some of those fears.
A sunstone, used by mariners to judge the position of the Sun when it is cloudy, has been found at a 16th century shipwreck.
A previous study showed that calcite crystals reveal the patterns of polarized light around the sun and, therefore, could have been used to determine its position in the sky even on cloudy days. That led researchers to believe these crystals, which are commonly found in Iceland and other parts of Scandinavia, might have been the powerful “sunstones” referred to in Norse legends, but they had no archaeological evidence to support their hypothesis—until now.
For the past two years NASA and JPL have been under heavy hacker attack from China, according to NASA’s inspector general.
An evening pause: Man, can these people play and sing. Vocals: Michelle Wright, Iris DeMent, Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh. Fiddles: Jay Ungar, Aly Bain. Mandolin: Russ Barenberg. Bouzouki: Donal Lunny. Accordion: Phil Cunningham. Guitar: Molly Mason.
Irresponsible: An email from the Obama administration confirms their effort to make the sequester cuts as painful as possible, even if it isn’t necessary.
The competition heats up: Scaled Composites has done its first test firing of SpaceShipTwo’s engine.
No word yet on the test result, unfortunately.
