Tag: freedom

Ratings plunge for network news shows

3:40 pm

All three networks have lost significant viewers since it was revealed that NBC’s lead anchor, Brian Williams, routinely embellished or lied in describing past events in his life.

Not surprisingly NBC has lost the most. However, the reason all three networks have been hit can best be illustrated by this quote at the link by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough:

I’m just hopeful, because I can’t be objective here, I’m hopeful that when all of the madness that’s going on, investigations that need to be going on, when the fury dies down and when we get through the storm and the decision is made to judge what Brian Williams’ future should be, that that decision will be based on the entirety of his career and not on one or two or three mistakes.

Scarborough reveals that he is willing to excuse lying by a news anchor. To him, finding out that Williams was a liar is “madness.” He also reveals that, in his television new community, such behavior should be excused, and that it isn’t that unusual and should in fact be tolerated.

As I’ve said many times before, if you depend on the media for your news information you are not only uninformed, you are misinformed. The entire Brian Williams story only provides further evidence of this.

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What happens if Homeland Security shuts down?

6:03 pm

Not much it appears.

Salmon and a few other conservatives are the only ones saying it publicly so far, but the reality is that a department shutdown would have a very limited impact on national security. That’s because most department employees fall into exempted categories of workers who stay on the job in a shutdown because they perform work considered necessary to protect human life and property. Even in a shutdown, most workers across agencies, including the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Customs and Border Protection, would continue to report to work. Airport security checkpoints would remain staffed, the Secret Service would continue to protect the president and other dignitaries, the Coast Guard would stay on patrol, immigration agents would still be on the job.

Indeed, of the agency’s approximately 230,000 employees, some 200,000 of them would keep working even if Congress fails to fund their agency. It’s a reality that was on display during the 16-day government-wide shutdown in the fall of 2013, when national parks and monuments closed but essential government functions kept running, albeit sometimes on reduced staff.

In other words, the cries of disaster, mostly from Democrats and from a few in the wimpy Republican leadership, are the same bull we heard prior to sequestration and the previous government shutdown. From a political point of view, the Republicans have nothing to lose politically by letting this agency run out of funds, and everything to gain.

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Weather 90% go for Falcon 9 launch today

9:14 am

The weather looks almost perfect for tonight’s Falcon 9 launch.

The Falcon 9 will put a solar observation satellite into orbit. While many left wing media outlets will wax poetic about this is Al Gore’s satellite, it is hardly that. It might have been built initially under his misguided idea of creating a propaganda satellite to take daily images of the Earth (images that are essentially of little use for climate studies), DSCOVR has been very carefully redesigned to give it a real purpose, monitoring the solar activity of the Sun and providing a replacement/back-up for ACE, which is now more than a decade overdue for replacement.

The Falcon 9 launch will also attempt again to land intact its first stage on a floating barge. If this attempt succeeds the entire future of space travel will be reshaped.

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“It is ironic a sign warning of the liberal thought police was potentially stolen by the liberal thought police.”

1:45 am

Leftwing facists: A sign advertising a talk being given by Jonah Goldberg about his book Liberal Fascism at the University of Michigan was apparently stolen by liberal fascists who don’t like freedom of speech.

The sign was bright red and declared: “Warning: Liberal thought police. Jonah Goldberg on his best-selling book Liberal Fascism.” It included a picture of a smiley face with a piece of tape over its mouth and the word “censorship.” “The biggest irony is on the front of the poster it says ‘thought police,’” Audia said in an interview with The College Fix. “So a warning on thought police was censored. It’s pretty ridiculous.”

Now of course, we really don’t know exactly who stole the sign, but somehow I don’t believe it was tea party protesters offended by Goldberg’s subject matter. Moreover, such actions have become the typical behavior leftwing students and administrators on college campus.

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Republicans to stand firm on blocking Obama’s illegal over-reach on immigration?

10:01 am

“There is no plan B”

The Republicans, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), are vowing to hold the line on tying funding for the Homeland Security Department to language reversing Obama’s executive actions on immigration — even after Senate Democrats blocked their bill from being considered in the upper chamber. “There’s not a Plan B, because this is the plan,” Scalise said minutes after the Senate vote, according to Fox News’s Chad Pergram. Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) echoed that message, saying “many of us agree that we should stand behind the one bill that we sent over there.” “Most of us feel that way,” he said just before the Senate vote. “Anything less than that, we’re not going to get any better result anyway. So why not just go for what’s really right?”

Tuesday’s Senate vote was 51-48 to end debate on the House-passed Homeland Security bill — far shy of the 60 supporters GOP leaders needed to move to a vote on final passage. Every Senate Democrat voted against proceeding to the package, as did Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).

If no agreement is reached than funds for Homeland Security run out on February 28. And I say amen! Homeland Security provides us no safety or security in the war against violent Islam, and has instead worked to destroy the very things that make us different from the dictators of the Old World: freedom and the power of the individual over the power of the state. Let it shut down. We had no shut KGB-type agency for the country’s first 225 years and we don’t need it now.

Whether the Republicans will have the courage to actually let Homeland Security shut down, however, is the real question. Since the government shutdowns in the 1990s they have shown themselves to be very fearful of the blowback from any government shutdown, even though there is no evidence in recent years that these shutdowns have hurt them. The liberal press might scream that the public blames the Republicans only, but that is ridiculous, since every shutdown was a team effort by both parties.

In fact, the shutdown two years ago probably contributed to the Republican midterm election triumph in November. If anything, it certainly did them no harm.

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Paul introduces bill to rein in government property seizures

8:51 am

Good news: A new bill introduced this week by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) would put strict limits on the use of civil forfeiture by both state and federal agencies.

I normally don’t post links to stories about bills that have merely been introduced, not passed, but I think the trend that this bill indicates is important. It was only a short time ago that politicians ran around touting their achievements in establishing civil forfeiture laws. Now the cool place for politicians to be is to show how they are acting to end this practice.

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Air Force to open bidding on launches

9:00 pm

The competition heats up? An unnamed Air Force official has said that they intend to open up competitive bidding on as many as 10 military launches through 2017.

This might be part of the agreement between SpaceX and the Air Force that included SpaceX dropping its lawsuit and the Air Force giving a spy satellite launch that SpaceX wanted to bid on to ULA. In exchange, the Air Force will allow SpaceX to bid on a number of GPS satellite launches.

Then again, this is not an official announcement. Until it actually happens officially, I would not trust the Air Force to do what it should or promised.

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Senate Democrats consider boycotting Israeli leader’s speech

12:03 pm

Whose side are they on? When polled, almost no Democratic senator would commit to attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint speech to Congress in March.

Essentially, these partisan hacks are telling us that they are willing to put their party ahead of the nation and the threat from Islam. I think every liberal Jew who has voted with knee-jerk regularity for Democratic politicians should read this very closely and open their eyes.

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Ted Cruz introduces bill outlawing political targeting of citizens.

11:00 am

Link here.

As Jazz Shaw notes at the link, “You mean that wasn’t already illegal?” Though Shaw does carefully analyze the political ramifications of making Democrats vote for or against these bills, ramifications that will likely weaken the power-hungry in government, my first thought when I read this was instead, “This is more evidence why I am increasingly not a big fan of Ted Cruz.”

You see, how does one really increase freedom and weaken the power of government by passing another law? You really don’t. This law might be politically effective, but if it should happen to pass and Obama actually sign it, all it will accomplish is create another law that can be used as a wedge to pry more power into government.

Cruz does this kind of showboating a lot. Though I almost always agree with him, the behavior illustrates why a senator is not the best choice for President. We don’t need a showboat right now. We need a conservative President who understands how to run a hostile executive branch even as he cuts its power and influence and still wins elections.

Sounds like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker or Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, doesn’t it? Both have the right qualifications, winning elections even as they were being slimed by the left wing union, media, and Democratic Party attack machine for actually cutting the power of these power-hungry groups.

As a senator Ted Cruz does not have and cannot get that track record. Worse, he has made me doubt his tea party sincerity with his talk of rebuilding NASA and going to Mars. Instead of trimming the waste in NASA, it appears he wants to keep feeding the Texas pork that NASA sends his way.

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SpaceX animation of Falcon Heavy launch

8:56 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX has released a short animation showing the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, with all three of its Falcon 9 first stage boosters returning to the launchpad and landing vertically.

I have posted this animation below the fold. When NASA makes these kinds of animations, which the agency has been doing for more than forty years now, I pay little heed. They don’t signal any achievement, merely the dreams of the engineers there. In the case of SpaceX, however, I pay close attention, because the company’s track record is that they are likely to make this animation quite real in a surprisingly short period of time.

Enjoy!
» Read more

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SpaceX moving forward on manned flight

11:10 pm

At a briefing today SpaceX outlined its plans for testing its manned Dragon capsule as well as the rough schedule for the two launch abort tests it must first fly before putting humans on Dragon.

The first test, a launchpad abort test, is expected to take place in about a month. The second, an abort test from an in-flight Falcon 9, is also expected to occur this year.

If all goes well, NASA hopes to have both SpaceX and Boeing flying American astronauts to ISS by 2017.

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The left wing pundit press makes fools of themselves

9:53 am

Link here. Be sure to watch the video and then read the article. As the author notes quite correctly,

Every one of these “pundits” have spent the last six years extolling the virtues of President Obama’s brilliant foreign policy. Every single one of these panelists have written columns, given opinion, and appeared on TV shows telling the consuming sheeple how brilliant President Obama was. Now they sit around presenting themselves as some form of disconnected gallery observers talking about how the consequences of those same policies they exalted are abject failures.

Insufferable does not begin to explain the level of hypocrisy within the U.S. Obama Praetorian guard media.

I must also note that this video clip does a great job of revealing how the entire panel on Face the Nation are all supporters of Obama and the Democrats. Repeatedly, as they described the President’s string of failures in foreign policy, they were forced to note that it was Obama’s “critics” who were right about every issue, “critics” that happen also to not be present on this Face the Nation panel. So, who are these mysterious “critics” that none of these pundits can name? They are conservatives, including Republicans, journalists, and tea party leaders, none of whom Face the Nation thought worthy of including on its panel.

This shows us again how completely worthless it is to depend on television for intelligent and objective reporting and analysis of the news. Mainstream television is working for the Democratic Party. Know that when you watch it.

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SpaceX drops Air Force lawsuit in new deal

10:19 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX has dropped its lawsuit against the Air Force in exchange for the opportunity to bid on more military launch contracts.

“Under the agreement, the Air Force will work collaboratively with SpaceX to complete the certification process in an efficient and expedient manner,” the statement from the two parties said. “The Air Force also has expanded the number of competitive opportunities for launch services under the EELV program while honoring existing contractual obligations.” The statement did not make clear how many competitive launch opportunities would be available or when. The Air Force has committed to seven launch awards by late 2017, but has said that number could grow to at least eight.

Each additional launch contract the Air Force puts out for competition gives SpaceX or ULA another opportunity to win about $100 million or more in business.

This is a big win for SpaceX. It is also not a surprise. As much as some Air Force officials have wanted to maintain the ULA monopoloy, their position has been weak, for both political and economic reasons. SpaceX’s costs are just too much lower, and the company continues to demonstrate its reliability and competence in launch after launch. Thus, it was practically impossible for Air Force officials to justify maintaining the block buy non-competitive contract award to ULA.

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A drone for Mars

10:12 pm

Engineers at JPL have begun testing prototypes of a drone that would be used on Mars to aid future rovers.

The newest solution proposed by JPL is the Mars Helicopter, an autonomous drone that could “triple the distances that Mars rovers can drive in a Martian day,” according to NASA. The helicopter would fly ahead of a rover when its view is blocked and send Earth-bound engineers the right data to plan the rover’s route.

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Look like a Jew in Sweden and get attacked by anti-semitic Arabs

6:38 pm

The religion of peace marches on: A Swedish reporter decided to walk through an Arab neighborhood in a Swedish city and found himself repeatedly attacked.

In one scene, Ljunggren — who, in addition to wearing a kippah was also wearing Star of David pendant — was filmed sitting at a café in central Malmo reading a newspaper, as several passersby hurled anti-Semitic insults at him. Elsewhere, one person hit his arm, the reporter said on camera, though this was not recorded. One of the people who cursed Ljunggren called him a “Jewish devil,” “Jewish shit” and another told him to “get out.”

One person on a scooter approached Ljunggren to warn him to leave for his own safety. In the heavily Muslim Rosengard neighborhood, Ljunggren was surrounded by a dozen men who shouted anti-Semitic slogans as eggs were hurled at his direction from apartments overhead. He then fled the area.

Recently in the U.S. there was a big to-do because a women leftwing radical feminist videotaped herself walking around New York to show how men treat women with disrespect. As usual, for the left this video demonstrated their childish focus on minor abuse when real violence and hate is going on worldwide, under their nose.

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Putin endorses Russian government consolidation of space industry

10:08 am

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday strongly endorsed the decision by the Russian government to consolidate control of that country’s entire space industry into a single, government-run corporation.

Putin said the plan to unite the federal space agency, Roscosmos, with United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC) in a new corporate behemoth that will retain the Roscosmos name was “the right proposal” during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the TASS news agency reported. The union would meld the federal space agency’s strategic oversight function with the industrial might of state-owned URSC — which was itself created from the union of some of Russia’s key space firms in an effort to increase efficiency in 2013.

Shades of the cold war! Even as the U.S. space industry is shifting away from government control to private enterprise, Russia is returning to it. We shall see which model works best as the world competes to get to the stars.

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Why I ignored Obama’s State of the Union speech

9:52 am

Space.com has provided a detailed look, with reactions, of President Obama’s prominent mention of space exploration in his State of the Union speech this week.

I didn’t even watch the speech, nor read it, nor really care much at all about what he said. It is garbage, political propaganda that has nothing to do with getting us into space. The speech’s only real purpose is to puff up Barack Obama and his political allies.

The article above mentions Obama’s April 2010 space speech. What I wrote about that 2010 speech in 2010 focused on this promise by Obama:

[A]s stated in the speech’s fact sheet, that he “will commit to making a specific decision in 2015 on the development of a new heavy-lift rocket architecture.” Somehow this commitment was supposed to convince us that, despite his cancellation of the Constellation program (which already has had six years of development under its belt), his willingness to postpone making a decision for five years more would somehow accelerate the program.

How stupid does Obama really think people are? [emphasis in original]

Five years later, does anyone remember this promise? And is Obama making this decision now, as promised? No to both. The only reason he is building SLS is because Congress required him to. And the purpose of that rocket program isn’t to build a rocket, but to pour ungodly amounts of money into congressional districts.

To me, the real news this week was the big money private enterprise is beginning to pour into real development in space. That will get us to the planets, not the egotistical blathering of politicians.

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Sarah Brightman’s first day of astronaut training

10:03 am

The competition heats up: A press conference in Russia highlighted the first day of astronaut training for space tourist Sarah Brightman.

A ten minute video excerpt of the conference is below the fold. The most interesting part of the video, however, has nothing to do with Brightman. Instead, it was what was said by her back-up space tourist, Satoshi Takamatus. Since the age of six he had wanted to be an astronaut. At 22 however Japan’s space agency rejected him because he wore glasses or contacts. He then became an advertising executive who in 2001 arranged to shoot a commercial on ISS using Russian astronauts. While in Russia, he apparently met the right people and, using those contacts, has now come back at 53 as a paying customer. If Brightman has any issues that prevent her from flying, he will step up and replace her. If not, he is tentatively scheduled to fly himself in ’17 or ’18.
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NASA explains why it picked Boeing over Sierra Nevada

9:38 am

In a report released by NASA late last week, the agency outlined the reasons it picked Boeing’s CST-100 manned capsule over Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle for the second contract to provide manned ferry capabilities to ISS.

Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, which would take off on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and land on a runway like the space shuttle, is not as far along in development as the competing CST-100 and Crew Dragon capsules proposed by Boeing and SpaceX, according to a source selection statement signed by Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA’s human exploration and operations directorate. “A winged spacecraft is a more complex design and thus entails more developmental and certification challenges, and therefore may have more technical and schedule risk than expected,” Gerstenmaier wrote in the selection statement.

NASA wants to have the commercial crew capsules operational by the end of 2017 to end U.S. purchases of astronaut seats on Russia’s Soyuz ferry craft. Before NASA permits its astronauts to fly on the CST-100 and Crew Dragon, each spaceship will go through ground testing and complete unpiloted and crewed test flights.

The reasoning seems quite reasonable. It also suggests that Sierra Nevada might have a better shot at winning a contract during the next round for cargo, as scheduling will not be as critical since NASA has other alternatives to get cargo to ISS.

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Planet Labs confirms big investment deal

8:16 pm

The competition heats up: Planet Labs has confirmed obtaining an additional $95 million in investment capital on top of previous investments of $65 million.

Planet Labs has launched 73 satellites to date based on the 3U CubeSat form factor, about 30 centimeters in length and weighing only a few kilograms. Most of its satellites have been deployed from the International Space Station into short-lived orbits to test technology for later systems. That satellite total includes two spacecraft included on the latest cargo mission to the ISS, launched by SpaceX Jan. 10. Planet Labs built those satellites in nine days after 26 other Planet Labs satellites were lost in the Oct. 28 launch failure of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Cygnus cargo mission to the station.

Planet Labs plans to ultimately deploy a constellation of satellites to provide imagery of the entire planet every day. It has announced several partnerships with geospatial information companies to make use of imagery from its satellites for various applications.

What both this deal and the SpaceX/Google deal illustrate is the growing financial interest in space activity. Rather than governments financing the activity, private enterprise is going to do it. And it will do it far more efficiently with far far better results far far far more quickly.

The next decade or so in space exploration should be very exciting to watch. I wish I was forty years younger.

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SpaceX confirms Google deal

8:12 pm

The competion heats up: SpaceX has confirmed that Google as well as a second investor, Fidelity, have committed $1 billion for the company’s satellite project.

In its blog post, SpaceX wrote that the funding would “support continued innovation in the areas of space transport, reusability, and satellite manufacturing.” But Google’s involvement has led many to believe that the funding will primarily back SpaceX’s new satellite venture, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced late last week. At the time, Musk gave some indication as to the epic scope of the project that lies ahead. He seeks to create a network of hundreds of satellites that could not only connect people on Earth to the web, but also people on Mars—if and when people get there. The total cost of such an audacious project? $10 billion.

The satellite venture calls for more than 4,000 satellites. The SpaceX announcement suggests that the capital will also be used for other things, however.

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Next Falcon 9 launch delayed two weeks.

9:19 am

In the heat of competition: The next Falcon 9 launch and attempt to land the first stage has been delayed to no earlier than February 9.

The rocket will carry a NASA solar observatory,

No explanation for the delay was given, but, because there was no indication it is connected to the payload, I stronly suspect it is because SpaceX needed more time to make some modifications to the first stage in preparation for the vertical landing attempt.

It was interesting to get back from a weekend trip to the mountains and find that over the weekend almost every press in the country had published a story about the last first stage landing attempt. SpaceX’s effort to do this has truly captured the interest of a lot of people who normally poo-poo this space stuff.

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