LightSquared actually disrupted 75% of the GPS receivers used during government testing

9:14 am

Actually, those tests weren’t so good after all: LightSquared’s broadband system actually disrupted 75% of the GPS receivers used during government testing.

Morrissey also notes these disturbing facts, considering the Obama administration’s strong support for Lightsquared:

  • The CEO of LightSquared has been a big Democratic Party contributor.
  • Barack Obama was an early investor in LightSquared.
  • The Obama administration has put pressure on military officials to change their opposition to Lightsquared.
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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

A college mate of Obama describes the President’s political beliefs

6:34 pm

A college mate of Obama finally gives us a peek into the President’s political beliefs at that time.

Drew: I’m the only person in Obama’s extended circle of friends who is willing to speak out and verify that he was a Marxist-Leninist in his sophomore year of college from 1980 to 1981. I met him because I graduated from Occidental College in 1979, and I was back at Occidental visiting a girlfriend.

Kengor: Was Occidental known for radical-left politics? Would that have been an attraction to Obama?

Drew: It was considered the Moscow of southern California when I was there. There were a lot of Marxist professors, many of whom I got to know pretty well. … What I know absolutely for sure — and this is where I really sought you out and I really wanted to be helpful in terms of the historic record — was to verify that Barack Obama was definitely a Marxist and that it was very unusual for a sophomore at Occidental to be as radical or as ideologically attuned as young Barack Obama was.

The article as well as this one discuss thoughtfully whether Obama still holds to these beliefs.

While I’m not sure if this guy is telling us the truth, it seems to me that everything that Obama has done fits into this mindset quite nicely.

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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 draft treaty being proposed in Durban

6:20 pm

Some of the madness contained in the draft treaty being proposed in Durban, as reported by Lord Christopher Monckton:

  • A new International Climate Court will have the power to compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”. The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.
  • “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.
  • War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.

There’s more stupidity detailed by Monckton at the link.

All in all, this treaty draft once again reveals these activists for what they are: power-hungry socialists whose real goal isn’t to save the Earth but to take from some to enrich themselves and others. I pray the Obama administration and Congress refuse to go along.

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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

Why Washington is shocked, shocked by Newt Gingrich’s rise over Mitt Romney

10:47 am

Why Washington is shocked, shocked by Newt Gingrich’s rise over Mitt Romney.

Look, Gingrich is by far not a perfect candidate. He has clearly taken positions in the last few years that made my socks roll up and down in horror. And when he was Speaker there were times I thought he was too willing to agree to bad deals.

Yet, he did mastermind the first Republican takeover of Congress in forty years. Yet, when he was Speaker the federal budget was brought under control, producing surpluses for four years in a row.

Finally, unlike every other Republican candidate for President since Reagan, Gingrich can debate. He not only knows how to articulate conservative ideals, he has shown himself capable of effectively pointing out liberal foolishness. In the Presidential debates to come, the country needs that as it will give strength to the conservative candidates running for the House and Senate. And that is where we really need victories. If we get a Congress that is willing to seriously cut the federal budget, it won’t matter that much who is President.

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Higgs announcement from CERN on December 13

9:14 am

CERN will be making an announcement on the status of its search for the Higgs particle on December 13. From this interview of one of its scientists:

The thing I know for sure is that [CERN Director General] Rolf-Dieter Heuer, who must know the results of both experiments, says that on December 13 we will not have a discovery and we will not have an exclusion.

The inteview is fascinating, as he notes how the Higgs research might also have a bearing on the search for dark matter.

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LightSquared touts new tests prove its internet service will not interfere with GPS

10:10 pm

In a press event today, LightSquared announced that just-completed tests prove that its internet service will not interfere with GPS.

According to the company, the three private companies — Javad GNSS, PCTel and Partron — that make GPS equipment have been testing interference solutions and those tests have gone well. “Preliminary results show that GPS devices tested in the lab easily surpass performance standards thanks to these newly developed solutions,” Ahuja said. “We are confident that this independent testing will mirror testing being done by the federal government.”

Here’s another perspective:

Jim Kirkland, vice president of Trimble and a founding member of The Coalition to Save Our GPS, is trying to slow LightSquared’s momentum. “It is obviously extremely premature to claim at this point that these latest tests demonstrate that LightSquared’s proposed repurposing of the mobile satellite band for terrestrial operations is ‘compatible’ with high-precision GPS,” Kirkland says in a statement. “Even if new equipment solutions are fully tested and verified, these existing high-precision receivers will have to be retrofitted or replaced. LightSquared still refuses to accept the financial responsibility for addressing interference to existing devices, and so has not offered a comprehensive solution in any way, shape, or form.”

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An audit by NASA’s inspector general finds that NASA can’t keep track of its moon rocks

3:47 pm

An audit by NASA’s inspector general has found that NASA can’t keep track of its moon rocks.

In a report issued by the agency’s Inspector General on Thursday, NASA concedes that more than 500 pieces of moon rocks, meteorites, comet chunks and other space material were stolen or have been missing since 1970. That includes 218 moon samples that were stolen and later returned and about two dozen moon rocks and chunks of lunar soil that were reported lost last year.

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An update on the climate treaty talks in Durban

2:17 pm

An update on the climate treaty talks in Durban.

I gather from this article that the talks appear to be going nowhere. (The reporter desperately wants a deal, and you need to read between the lines to sense how unlikely the deal is.) Not only is the U.S. reluctant to sign anything, so is India, China, and Brazil. Furthermore, even if the Obama administration agreed to something, it is highly unlikely any treaty could get through the Senate.

Also, it appears that the $100 billion Green Climate Fund is is in trouble as well.

All good news, as far as I am concerned. None of these deals have anything to do with climate or science. Instead, they are designed to redistribute power and wealth, by fiat, from one set of countries to another.

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The trial of seven Italian earthquake experts facing manslaughter charges for not correctly predicting an earthquake continued this week.

2:11 pm

The trial of seven Italian earthquake experts facing manslaughter charges for not correctly predicting a deadly earthquake continued this week.

The prosecution’s argument that the experts had underplayed the possible occurrence of a major quake was bolstered by testimony from Daniela Stati, the former civil protection officer for Abruzzo, who took an active role in the March 31 meeting. Stati confirmed what she had previously told prosecutors in 2010, that one of the indicted said during the meeting that the continuing tremors represented a “favorable signal” because there was a continuous discharge of energy that made stronger tremors less likely. In fact, scientific evidence suggests that groups of small earthquakes tend instead to increase the chances of a major earthquake nearby, even though the absolute probability of such a quake remains low. Stati said that nobody within the commission objected to this statement. She also underlined that the “reassuring message” given to the press by her, L’Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente, and two of the indicted, Franco Barberi and Bernardo De Bernardinis, was based on comments made at the meeting.

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Recent results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found no evidence of dark matter, a result in some conflict with data obtained from several underground research detectors.

12:16 pm

The uncertainty of science: Recent results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found no evidence of dark matter, a result in some conflict with data obtained from several underground research detectors.

The mystery here is that there is no doubt that something causes the outer objects in galaxies to move faster than expected. Scientists have labeled this something as dark matter, guessing that some undetected and unknown mass exists in the outer reaches of galaxies, thereby increasing the gravity potential and hence the velocity in which objects move.

The problem is that they have yet to identify what that dark matter is.

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On the way to its winter haven, Opportunity found more evidence of water on Mars

4:27 pm

On the way to its winter haven, Opportunity found more evidence of liquid water that once flowed on Mars, specifically a geological vein that they think might be gypsum.

The vein examined most closely by Opportunity is about the width of a human thumb (0.4 to 0.8 inch, or 1 to 2 centimeters), 16 to 20 inches (40 to 50 centimeters) long, and protrudes slightly higher than the bedrock on either side of it. Observations by the durable rover reveal this vein and others like it within an apron surrounding a segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater. None like it were seen in the 20 miles (33 kilometers) of crater-pocked plains that Opportunity explored for 90 months before it reached Endeavour, nor in the higher ground of the rim.

According to what project scientist Steve Squyres said at a press conference today at the AGU meeting, “This is the single most significant piece of evidence that liquid water once flowed on Mars.”

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