Tag: freedom

Iridium switches two upcoming launches to reused Falcon 9 first stages

9:35 am

Capitalism in space: Iridium has revised its launch agreements for two upcoming launches using the Falcon 9 rocket to have both use previously flown first stages.

While the article provides a lot of good background on SpaceX’s increasing sales of reused first stages, including the fact that 20% of SpaceX’s launches this year might end up using re-used first stages, an amazing number consider this is also the first year they are doing so, this quote from the article however is even more astonishing:

Importantly for Iridium, and for the launch market as a whole, Iridium revealed in its announcement that the cost of insuring the Iridium NEXT-4 and -5 missions did not change with the switch to flight-proven boosters. “Iridium confirmed with its insurers that there is no increase in premium for the launch program as a result of the use of flight-proven Falcon 9 rockets, further supporting Iridium’s conclusion that the risk profile is unchanged,” noted the release.

Overall, this is an excellent sign that the all-important insurance market element of spaceflight continues to see no increased risk with launching atop flight-proven boosters.

One of my sources close to SpaceX says that the company will likely not fly these reused first stages intact more than twice, but will still salvage the engines for additional reuses. Considering the engines are the most expensive component, this makes great sense. Even if SpaceX doesn’t fly a first stage intact, it has developed an efficient and effective method for recovering the engines for reuse.

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Thomas Jefferson’s legal reading list going on line

3:24 pm

The almost four hundred legal books that Thomas Jefferson recommended all lawyers should read are about to go on line for everyone to read.

The book list goes back to the creation of the University of Virginia, a project Jefferson took on after he finished serving two terms as America’s third president. A voracious reader himself, Jefferson believed the school’s library would be the heart of the new university, which opened in 1825. So he drew up a list of about 7,000 books ranging in topic from agriculture to zoology that he believed the school should have in its collections. At the time, books were pricey, and Jefferson thought part of the duty of the university was to make great works available for study. “Great standard works of established reputation, too voluminous and too expensive for private libraries, should have a place in every public library, for the free resort of individuals,” Jefferson wrote of the list of works he drew up.

The books were the starting point for the university’s collection, but they didn’t last. Most were destroyed in an 1895 fire that gutted a historic campus building called the Rotunda, the same building that was the endpoint of an August torch-light rally by white nationalists whose demonstration in the city the following day over the removal of a Confederate statue descended into chaos.

It was a law librarian at the university who, 40 years ago, got the idea of re-creating the collection of law books Jefferson recommended. Since then, the university has collected 336 of the 375 legal works listed by Jefferson, a lawyer himself. It’s those works that are now being put online.

I guarantee that a reading of these books would also teach any lawyer about the philosophical foundations of western and British culture, based on individual rights, freedom, and the rule of law.

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UK health system considers banning surgery for smokers and the obese

9:29 am

Coming to a single-payer plan near you! Great Britain’s nationalized health system has proposed banning surgeries for anyone who smokes or is overweight.

In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients – with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time they are expected to try to lose weight or stop smoking.

But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional. The criteria also mean smokers will only be referred for operations if they have stopped smoking for at least eight weeks, with such patients breathalysed before referral.

East and North Hertfordshire CCG and Herts Valleys said the plans aimed to encourage people “to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, wherever possible, freeing up limited NHS resources for priority treatment”. Both are in financial difficulty, and between them seeking to save £68m during this financial year. [emphasis mine]

This is what happens when you centralize control of an industry into the hands of government. Rather than compete and find ways to better serve their customers while saving money, as the competitive private market does, a centralized top-down government operation rations services so that fewer people can get them.

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Turkey will establish space agency this year

8:26 am

The new colonial movement: According to one Turkish official, Turkey is aiming to establish its own space agency within a year in order to better coordinate its aerospace effort.

Arslan also said that once established, the Turkish space agency shall oversee all Turkish satellite manufacturing and needs, the development of Turkey’s own indigenous space launch capability and launch centre, all other aerospace requirements, and even a human spaceflight programme.

Like many of these third world space efforts, it is the country itself that is running the space program, not private companies. While the competition between these different countries (and the private American companies) will fuel the growth of the industry and the establishment of space colonies, in the long run this is not the best way to do things. It would be far better to establish policies that encourage private, competing, and independent companies within each of these third world countries. In that way, they will eventually have a larger economy and can better compete on the open market.

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Russian bribes funneled to Clinton foundation in 2009

9:55 am

Some real Russian collusion finally found! FBI investigations in 2010 found evidence of numerous Russian bribes that funneled millions to the Clinton foundation in 2009, just prior to Hillary Clinton’s decision to hand over control of a significant portion of the U.S. uranium industry to Russia.

[The FBI] obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

It also appears that the Obama administration sat on this evidence for four years, and then worked out plea deals for those involved that managed to hide the bribery from pubic scrutiny.

In fact, they buried the probe even after indicting some Russian principals in the operation. They only announced in 2015 that they had reached plea deals in a case involving money laundering, saying nothing about bribery, extortion, or the intent to corrupt the US nuclear industry. That information was so compartmentalized that even the FBI’s top criminal-investigation officer had no idea of the extent of the case, and no one in Congress was ever briefed on the national security concerns raised in the case. In fact, House Intelligence chair Mike Rogers claimed to the Hill that no one ever mentioned the case at all to him, despite already-extant concerns over the Uranium One deal on Capitol Hill.

Don’t expect the mainstream press, partisan Democrats all, to report on this.

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Suppression of academic freedom a global crisis

10:35 pm

A new report the charity Scholars at Risk (SAR) reveals that the attacks on academic freedom and free speech are part of a growing global crisis.

SAR’s report Free to Think 2017 summarises a year of data collected by SAR’s monitoring project; it includes 257 reported attacks in 35 countries. ‘Attacks’ include killings, violence and disappearances; wrongful prosecution and imprisonment; loss of position and expulsion from study; improper travel restrictions; and other severe or systemic issues including, for example, university closures or military occupation of a campus.

There is a growing trend that, in societies experiencing armed conflict or extremism, higher education communities are perceived as symbols of state authority or sources of potential opposition to radical ideologies. Attacks are generally intended to punish or deter inquiry, or even expression, on unpopular topics. During the past year, SAR found evidence of large-scale violent attacks on campuses in Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria, while targeted killings of individuals were reported in Pakistan, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Thousands of people in the higher education sector have been targeted in Turkey where state and university authorities continue to take sweeping measures in retaliation for alleged political links or content of research, publications or teaching. Punitive actions by the Turkish state have included imprisonment and prosecution; dismissal and expulsion of scholars and students; and restrictions on travel and institutional autonomy.

Incidents of violence against organised student expression were reported in increasing numbers this year. In Venezuela, South Africa, Niger, Cameroon, Turkey and India, state authorities responded to nonviolent student protests with force, including with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. In some cases, however, students engaged in violent or coercive conduct, including incidents in South Africa, where campus facilities were damaged, and in the US, where physical force was used to intimidate and disrupt certain speakers on campus.

It is shameful that American campuses, once the world’s shining beacon of freedom of speech, have now become part of this oppressive trend.

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Iraq moves to take control of Kurdish area

3:05 pm

The old world rolls on: With the defeat of ISIS almost complete in Iraq, Iraqi forces have now moved into Kirkuk, aiming to retake control of that region from Kurdish forces.

The overnight advance was the most decisive step Baghdad has taken yet to block the independence bid of the Kurds, who have governed an autonomous tract of northern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and voted three weeks ago to secede.

Kirkuk, one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse cities in Iraq, is located just outside the autonomous Kurdish zone. Kurds consider it the heart of their homeland; they say it was cleansed of Kurds and settled with Arabs under Saddam to secure control of the oil that was the source of Iraq’s wealth.

As is usual in these typical old world waves of ethnic conflict, there are now thousands of Kurdish refugees fleeing Kirkuk.

The problem here is the desire of the Kurds to create a country based solely on ethnicity. Such a nation by definition, in the end, must be bigoted and must oppress everyone of the wrong ethnicity. Nor are the Iraqis innocent, as there is ample evidence that they have responded in the past in kind, trying to wipe out the Kurdish population because of its ethnicity. Thus, the Kurdish refugees now.

Once again, the real solution is to not define people by their race, ethnicity, gender, or religion, but by what each person does individually. Build a nation where each person can live and follow his or her dreams, irrelevant of these issues, and you will have justice, freedom, and prosperity. Build a nation based on these racist issues, and you will instead have war, bigotry, and hate. History has shown this repeatedly. It is tragic that we imperfect humans have trouble seeing it.

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Another critical look at new Republican gun control bill

10:17 pm

The video below the fold outlines in detail, from a gun expert, why the law gun control law proposed by Republicans is “the worst piece of gun control legislation … in our lifetime,” as noted by the narrator on the second video at this link.

Basically, the law is so vague that almost anything can be defined as the newly outlawed “rate-enhancing device,” including semi-automatic guns themselves. The gun expert also explains that there are numerous ways to enhance the fire rate of a semi-automatic, some as simple as using the belt loop on your pants. Worse, the law includes no grandfather provisions, so depending on how Washington bureaucrats interpret it, it could immediately make millions of Americans felons, merely for possessing something they purchased legally.

This what we get from our Republicans in Congress. A few weeks ago they were pushing for eliminating the restrictions on suppressors (to protect the hearing of hunters) and passing nationwide reciprocity of concealed carry laws (so that innocent gun carriers would no longer become felons merely for carrying their guns accidently over state lines). Like a house of cards, as soon as the press screams at them, however, the Republican leadership folded, abandoning those proposals (when this is the time they should push them) and changed sides, instead proposing laws that will restrict our freedoms and our constitutional rights.

Watch the video below. It makes it very clear how badly conceived the law is. If you are in any of the districts of the Republicans who have co-signed this bill, get on the phone and tell them what you think.

One more thing: If the Democrats in Congress think this new push for gun control is going to help them win votes, they are out of their minds. Watch the passion of the speaker in the video below. Note his contempt for Democrats. Note also his contempt for the “turncoat” Republicans (as he calls them) for proposing this bad legislation. He is not alone. The election of Donald Trump and Roy Moore prove this. With this legislation that rage and anger is only growing, and spreading to more people.

As many have said, you want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump.
» Read more

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Victory for right in Austrian elections

9:44 am

The two parties in Austria that want to control immigration, reduce government, and are skeptical of the present policies of the European Union came in one and two in elections today, and will lead the government in a coalition.

The liberal party came in third, with its worst showing in a half century.

The article tries to associate the winning party with the Nazis, but to me that is absurd. The present hostility to immigration in Austria mirrors similar hostility throughout the west, and is fueled not by race hatred but by fury at the incompetent management by previous leaders, not just in the area of immigration but across the board. The leadership class in the past three decades has done a terrible job, and are now reaping the whirlwind they created for themselves.

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Scaled Composites flies experimental plane for mystery customer

9:24 am

Scaled Composites earlier this week completed the first maiden flight of a new experimental plane, the Model 401, for an unnamed customer.

Details of the first flight are sketchy, though Scaled posted a video on Facebook showing the takeoff of Vehicle Number 1. The Model 401 prototypes have an identical outer design with a 38-ft (11.6 m) wingspan and identical performance characteristics. Lightweight construction allows for an empty weight of 4,000 lb (1,814 kg) and a takeoff weight of 8,000 lb (3,628 kg).

The Model 401 uses a single Pratt & Whitney JTD-15D-5D engine punching 3,045 lb of thrust. This provides for a speed of Mach 0.6 (456 mph, 735 km/h) and a service ceiling of 30,000 ft (10,000 m) with a flight endurance of three hours.

Two of these have been built, so far. The picture of the plane at the link suggests it is stealth designed so that radar will have trouble detecting it. The specifications above suggest to me that it is possibly a military training plane. I would welcome the speculations of my many aviation readers

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Motor for ArianeGroup’s next generation rockets ready for testing

9:16 am

Capitalism in space: The first full scale solid rocket motor for ArianeGroup’s next generation rockets, the Ariane 6 and the Vega-C, is now ready for testing.

The P120C is the largest solid-propellant rocket motor ever built in one segment. Each P120C will hold over 140 tonnes of propellant in a carbon fibre casing almost 11.5 m long and about 3.4 m in diameter. It is derived from Vega’s current first stage motor, the P80, which holds 88 tonnes of propellant.

The design builds on existing expertise and lessons learned with Vega’s P80, and it increases Vega performance with Vega-C. Two or four P120Cs will be strapped onto Ariane 6 as boosters for liftoff.

The use of this solid rocket on both the upgraded Vega-C and the larger Ariane 6 illustrates how the privately controlled ArianeGroup is trying to reduce costs. In the past, Arianespace would have had different companies within the ESA build different solid rockets for Vega-C and Ariane 6 in order to distribute the work to different member countries, even though having two different development contracts would have increased costs.

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Mysterious SpaceX launch scheduled for November 10

9:07 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has a launch scheduled for November 10 in which nothing is known about its payload.

The mystery payload is intriguing, but the article revealed something more significant: This launch, set for November 10, will take place on launchpad 39-A, which means that the first Falcon Heavy launch cannot occur until January 10, at the earliest. According to SpaceX, they will need sixty days to reconfigure that launchpad to the Falcon Heavy after they switch launches back to launchpad 40. That reconfiguration thus cannot begin until after the November 10 launch.

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