Tag: government

Senate considers rules change permitting dismissal of House impeachment lacking submission

2:46 pm

The Republican Senate leadership is considering a rules change that would allow them to dismiss the House impeachment of Donald Trump if the articles of impeachment are not delivered in a timely manner.

The resolution would give the House 25 days to send articles of impeachment over to the Senate. After that, a senator could offer a motion to dismiss “with prejudice for failure by the House of Representatives to prosecute such articles” with a simple majority vote, according to Hawley’s proposal.

I should note that the Senate is entirely within its rights to do this. The Constitution does not require the delivery of those articles in any specific manner, as has become customary. All it says, literally, is that the House “shall have the sole power of impeachment,” and that “the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” That’s it. If the Senate wishes to dismiss an impeachment that the House passed but didn’t deliver officially, it can do so.

This Democratic clown show and attempt to overturn an legal election they lost is about to end quite embarrassingly for these Democrats. Hopefully however the embarrassment will be multiplied many fold come November, with a wipe-out landslide for Trump and the Republicans. It is long past time to clean house in the Democratic Party.

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First SLS core stage completed and ready for final testing

2:12 pm

After sixteen years of development, slowed by politics and a confused management at NASA, the first core stage of NASA’s SLS rocket is finally completed and ready for shipping to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for its final full test.

The heart of NASA’s first flight-ready Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket emerged from its factory in New Orleans Wednesday morning for a barge trip to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for an eight-minute test-firing of its space shuttle-era hydrogen-fueled engines.

The 212-foot-long (64.6-meter), 27.6-foot-wide (8.4-meter) core stage of the Space Launch System rolled out of its factory at the Michoud Assembly Facility, signaling a significant, but long-delayed milestone in the SLS program’s eight-year history. Teams loaded the core stage into NASA’s Pegasus barge to be ferried on a half-day journey to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The link has a lot of cool images of the stage. You can also find more cool images and videos of the core stage’s unveiling yesterday here.

Whether this stage will pass that eight-minute test remains unknown. And if it does, it also remains unknown whether it will be ready to fly in November 2020, sending an unmanned Orion capsule around the Moon. Either way, the cost to build that SLS rocket is approaching $25 billion, a cost that only includes two flights, one unmanned.

We could have bought a lot of Falcon Heavies for that price, and be heading for the Moon right now had we done so.

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Iran misses military targets, kill passenger jet instead

11:09 am

How typical for a terrorist nation: Iran, in its claimed revenge for the U.S. strike that killed terrorist Qassem Soleimani, failed entirely with its missile barrage to kill even one American or inflict any significant damage on any military target, managed however to shoot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 innocent civilians.

More here.

There are also indications that the missile barrage was designed to avoid inflicting serious harm to U.S. facilities or troops, suggesting that the Iranians were merely doing it for propaganda purposes. With the mistaken murder of almost two hundred civilians however they have also failed in achieving that propaganda goal. Instead, they have once again shown their willingness to kill indiscriminately in order to maintain their power.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S. the Trump action in killing Soleimani has done a wonderful job of revealing the traitorous perspectives of many Democrats and the mainstream press. They are more concerned for Iran and the fate of this murderous thug then they are for the United States, freedom, or democracy.

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Money finally allocated to replace signs at Glacier that say glaciers to vanish by 2020

4:37 pm

Having gotten the budget to do so, the National Park Service is finally proceeding with removing the absurd signs at Glacier National Park that claim the glaciers would be gone by either 2020 or 2030.

They had announced the decision to fix these silly signs back in June, but didn’t yet have the budget until now.

When I visited the park with Diane in 2017, I reported on these ridiculous signs, which provided a great illustration of the routinely bad predictions of the global warming advocacy crowd. Not only were the predictions absurd and certain to be wrong, the park couldn’t make up its mind, posting signs that either predicted 2020 or 2030 as the moment when all the glaciers would be gone.

The new signs are still pretty bad, stating “When they [the glaciers] will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking.”

This is poppy-cock. How we act is almost certainly not a factor in whether the glaciers shrink or grow, and to say this proves once again how the park service is pushing human-caused global warming, a hypothesis that remains unproven and has in fact failed in every prediction it has made.

Moreover, it is not certain that “the glaciers in the park are shrinking.” Research from 2010 to 2014 indicated that the shrinkage had ceased. I have not seen an update since, but the fact that no measurable shrinkage occurred so recently suggests that nothing is “consistent” or certain here.

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China releases data and images from Yutu-2 and Chang’e-3

9:44 am

Yutu-2 on the far side of the Moon
Click for full image.

The new colonial movement: To celebrate the completion of a year on the lunar surface, China has released the bulk of the data and images produced by the lander Chang’e-3 and the rover Yutu-2.

The link includes a nice gallery of images. I especially like the image to the right, cropped to post here. It shows Yutu-2 moving away from Chang’e-3 early in the mission. It also shows how truly colorless the Moon is. The rover proves this is a color image, but if it wasn’t in the shot you’d have no way of knowing.

And then there is that pitch black sky. I wonder what’s behind it.

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India releases Vikram failure report

9:30 am

India’s space agency ISRO has released its investigation report on the failure of its lunar lander Vikram on September 7, 2019 to soft land on the Moon.

The Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander ended up spinning over 410 degrees, deviating from a calibrated spin of 55 degrees, and making a hard landing on the moon, according to ISRO scientists. The anomaly, which occurred during the second of four phases of the landing process, was reflected in the computer systems in the mission control room, but ISRO scientists could not intervene to correct it as the lander was on autonomous mode, using data already fed into its system before the start of the powered descent.

According to the report, they are using what was learned to incorporate changes in Chandrayaan-3, their next attempt at putting a lander and rover on the Moon, presently scheduled to launch 14 to 16 months from now. That launch date, about six months later than previous reports, also seems more realistic. Initially the agency was saying it planned to launch Chandrayaan-3 in less than a year from project inception, by November 2020, a schedule that seemed rushed and ripe for mistakes.

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Webb telescope remains on schedule for March 2021 launch

9:22 am

Good news: According to NASA and Northrop Grumman officials, the James Webb Space Telescope remains on schedule for its March 2021 launch by an Ariane 5 rocket.

This might be the first update on Webb in years where no new delays were announced. Instead, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, which will manage the telescope, is preparing to release in two weeks its first call for research proposals.

Proposals will be due May 1, with the institute making selections later in the summer. …[I]nstitute officials said they expect to receive 1,000 to 1,600 proposals, seeking some fraction of the 6,000 hours of observing time that will be available in that initial round of observations. About 300 proposals will be selected for Cycle 1, which will begin once spacecraft commissioning is complete about six months after launch.

Let us all pray that all goes well during launch and spacecraft deployment.

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SpaceX crew Dragon launch abort test delayed another week

9:15 am

NASA and SpaceX have delayed the launch abort test flight of the company’s crew Dragon capsule one week, to January 18, in order to allow “additional time for spacecraft processing.”

SpaceX has made it clear for the past month that their hardware is ready to go and that they could have launched by the end of December. That makes me suspect that the processing delay relates to NASA’s bureaucracy and paperwork requirements.

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China now predicts more than 40 launches in 2020

9:13 am

The new colonial movement: China has increased its launch prediction for 2020 from 30 to more than 40 launches.

The key planned achievements:

The highlights of the space activities include the launch of China’s first Mars probe, the Chang’e-5 lunar probe, which is expected to bring moon samples back to Earth, the final step of China’s current lunar exploration program, as well as the completion of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System constellation.

Three new types of carrier rockets including the Long March-5B, Long March-7A and Long March-8 will make their maiden flights in 2020.

It sure looks like 2020 is shaping up to possibly be the most spectacular year for space since Sputnik.

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U.S. kills leader of Iranian Quds Force

11:17 pm

In response to Iran’s attack against the U.S. embassy several days ago, the U.S. today killed several key leaders in Iran’s Quds Force, central to that nation’s terrorist attack network.

Hajj Qasem, the “shadow commander,” Israel’s “most dangerous enemy,” has been killed in Iraq alongside his key disciple Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. An airstrike near or at Baghdad International Airport targeted a motorcade with the men in it just days after their followers stormed the US Embassy compound and scrawled “Soleimani is our leader” on its walls. US President Donald Trump approved the airstrike. The Pentagon confirmed the US killed the Iranian Quds Force leader. The US said Iran was responsible for killing 608 US troops during the Iraq war.

…Reports emerged after four in the morning, Iraqi time. A mysterious airstrike near the airport had led to rumors of its closure hours earlier. Two flights were inbound at the time. A Pegasus and Iraq airways flight. Three or four rockets impacted near the airport. US helicopters were reported buzzing in the distance.

It appears a cryptic tweet from US Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the US policy to begin pre-emptive strikes against Iranian adversaries or their proxies. “To Iran and its proxy militias: We will not accept the continued attacks against our personnel and forces in the region. Attacks against us will be met with responses in the time, manner and place of our choosing. We urge the Iranian regime to end malign activities.”

The article at the link provides a lot of good information about who these men were and what they have done for the past few decades to initiate violence and terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East.

Here’s the deal: We are still struggling with these bad guys because George Bush Jr. was a disaster as president. Had he been in charge after Pearl Harbor in 1941 he would have invaded France, but then stopped at the German border and declared victory, allowing Hitler and the Nazis to remain in power.

The simple fact is that unless you intend total victory you will lose every war you fight, and Bush demonstrated this fact starkly.

He was then followed by Barack Obama, who’s loyalties were aligned more with Iran and the Islamic terrorists than with the United States and its allies.

I have no idea if Trump understands this. I doubt it. However, it does appear that he is willing to meet violence with violence in the Middle East, the only negotiating tactic these thugs understand.

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The new pogrom in New York

1:57 pm

This story provides a thorough listing (including videos) of all the recent anti-Semitic attacks in the New York City metropolitan area in the past year.

Those attacks included the mass shooting in a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City (killing four), and the machete attack in a Rabbi’s home (injuring five).

It appears that the majority of the attackers are black, which likely also means they are Democrats, spurred by the irrational and bigoted identity politics of that party, that celebrates all minorities except those who happen to be considered either white or conservative in its eyes. They are also probably spurred by the generally hateful and emotional rhetoric of that party, which today bases its entire policy platform on hating Donald Trump and anyone who supports him.

Still, the people who should be punished for these attacks are the people who committed them. Sadly, in New York the Democratically-controlled legislature has changed the law so that these violent individuals now have an almost automatic “Get out of Jail” card.

Much of this violence is closely related to the violence we have seen on college campuses the past three years, all aimed at conservatives. It comes from the left, and it comes as an attempt to strike fear into people’s hearts so that they will no longer be willing to publicly express their opinions.

Sadly, I think it is working. I wonder how many of my readers have found themselves silencing themselves out of fear that expressing their opinion might get them ostracized. I would not be surprised if most have done so.

The ballot box however is private. You can express your opinion there quite safely. I think it is time to do so.

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India picks its first astronauts; confirms new lunar rover

8:49 am

The new colonial movement: The head of India’s space agency ISRO yesterday confirmed that their plans to build and land a rover on the Moon in 2020, while also announcing that they have chosen the first four astronauts to train for their first manned mission in 2022.

He also confirmed that the land acquisition for a second launch site is proceeding.

The astronauts, whose identity has not been revealed, will be trained by Russia.

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White House slashes National Security Council staffing

11:20 pm

No more leaks of Trump phone conversations: Under the leadership of National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien,the White House is reducing the staffing of the National Security Council, returning it to numbers similar to what it was prior to the Obama administration.

Under President Obama, the NSC staff mushroomed to as many as 450 people. Mr. O’Brien plans to cut the staff to fewer than 120 policy officials by early next year. The downsizing will be carried out by consolidating positions and returning officials to agencies and departments such as the CIA, the State and Defense departments and the military.

Mr. O’Brien noted that the NSC had a policymaking staff of 12 in 1962 when President Kennedy faced down the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. During the 2000s and the George W. Bush administration, the number of NSC staff members increased sharply to support the three-front conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism.

However, it was during the Obama administration that the NSC was transformed into a major policymaking agency seeking to duplicate the functions of the State and Defense departments within the White House. “The NSC staff became bloated during the prior administration,” Mr. O’Brien said. “The NSC is a coordinating body. I am trying to get us back to a lean and efficient staff that can get the job done, can coordinate with our interagency partners, and make sure the president receives the best advice he needs to make the decisions necessary to keep the American people safe.”

Though unstated by O’Brien, a side benefit of these cutbacks is that it will remove Obama holdovers from the NSC, many of whom have been implicated or even admitted to leaking the contents of several of Trump’s private phone conversations with foreign leaders.

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The state of the global rocket industry in 2019

12:31 pm

With 2019 ending, it is time once again (as I did for 2016, 2017, and 2018) to review the trends in the global launch industry for the past year.

Below is my updated graph, showing the launch numbers for 2019 as well as for every year going back to 1990, just before the fall of the Soviet Union. That range I think covers all recent trends, while also giving some perspective on what happened in 2019.

The graph is worth reviewing at length, as it not only gives a sense of recent trends, it also summarizes well the history of the entire global space industry during the past thirty years. For example, it shows the transition in the U.S. in the past two decades from government-owned launchers to private rockets, a change that has revitalized the American space industry in more ways than can be counted.
» Read more

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NY, Illinois, California populations in decline

9:22 am

According to several different analyses of census data, all released in the past few days, the Democratically-controlled liberal states of New York, Illinois, and California are seeing either historic drops in population or historic drops in population growth.

For these major states to experience reductions in population growth or declines at this time, during an economic expansion, suggests that other factors are driving people from them. Could it be their leftist socialist policies, which routinely bring high taxes, heavy regulation, and an oppressive political climate? I suspect so, especially because in the past century such socialist/communist policies have routinely caused the same result repeatedly in other countries. People fled the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in Europe (controlled by the Soviet Union), they fled North Korea, they fled China for Hong Kong, they fled Cuba, and they have been fleeing from Venezuela.

And where do they go? Foreign refugees in large numbers clamor to enter the U.S., but if that destination is unavailable they then favor other capitalist nations, where freedom and private enterprise are honored. And in the U.S. the populations continues to generally shift toward more conservative states, places where those same concepts are also honored.

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U.S. embassy in Iraq attacked

9:01 am

Militia linked to Iran today attacked the U.S. embassy in Bagdad, breaking into the compound while chanting “Down, Down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters as they marched to the heavily-fortified Green Zone after a funeral held for those killed in the U.S. airstrikes, letting them pass through a security checkpoint leading to the area.

The mob of marchers, many of them in militia uniforms, shouted “Down, Down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” outside the compound, hurling water and stones over its walls. The mob set fire to three trailers used by security guards along the wall. AP journalists saw some try to scale the walls.

Others then smashed the gates used by cars to enter and dozens pushed into the compound. The protesters stopped in a corridor after about 5 meters (16 feet), and were only about 200 meters away from the main building. Half a dozen U.S. soldiers were seen on the roof of the main building, their guns were pointed at the protesters. Smoke from the tear gas rose in the area. [emphasis mine]

The protests were apparently in response to the Sunday U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed militia in Iraq, launched in retaliation for the killing of an American contractor by those same Iranian militia.

That Iraq security allowed the protesters through their security checkpoints is a very bad thing. It suggests that Iraq, caught between the U.S. and Iran, is shifting its alliance toward Iran.

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Russia’s population to shrink?

10:26 am

The coming dark age: According to a report from Russia’s national statistics office, the country’s population could drop by as much as 12 million by 2035.

The report outlined three scenarios, based on present trends, with only the most optimistic predicting any population increase, though even that saw population growing by only about four million by 2035. Meanwhile, the numbers the last two years were stark:

Russia’s overall population dropped for the first time in a decade last year, totaling 146.8 million as migration inflows hit record lows. It totaled 146.7 million so far in 2019, the State Statistics Service Rosstat said this month, as Russia experienced its highest natural population decline in 11 years.

These numbers are very disturbing, for they carry terrible consequences for both Russia and the rest of the world.

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Protesters continue to shut down TMT

5:12 pm

Mob rule: Though an agreement has been reached between the anti-telescope protesters and the mayor of the Big Island to move a tent blocking the access road to Mauna Kea, the deal also provided that no construction will proceed, even though the consortium that is building the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has gotten legal permission to do so.

They agreed to move the so-called “kupuna tent,” referring to the Hawaiian word for elder, as part of a deal announced by Big Island Mayor Harry Kim.

In exchange, Kim promised protesters there will be no attempts to deliver construction equipment to the telescope site “anytime soon,” according to Kim’s offer letter to Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, one of the protest leaders who is considered a kupuna. “I, Mayor Kim give you my personal assurances that no attempt will be made to move TMT construction equipment up the mountain for a minimum of two months,” his letter said.

Legally Kim doesn’t really have the right to do this, unless Hawaii has decided to completely abandon the rule of law. Then again, Hawaii has decided to abandon the rule of law, as it now lets mobs, not the law, determine who can build where and when.

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ExoMars2020 passes new parachute tests

9:07 am

Revisions to Europe’s ExoMars2020 parachutes have successfully passed tests at JPL in California.

Working with Nasa, ESA made modifications to the way the parachutes are released from the bag, which avoids creating so much friction. Using a special rig at JPL, the parachutes have now been tested up to their expected extraction speed of just over 200km/h with no sign of damage. Further confirmatory tests will now take place.

Time remains very short however. The launch window for ExoMars2020 is this coming summer.

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Rockot launches three communications satellites

8:53 am

The last Russian Rockot this morning successfully placed three communications satellites and a cubesat into orbit.

The Russians are abandoning Rockot, a repurposed ballistic missile, because it uses Ukrainian hardware.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

32 China
22 Russia
13 SpaceX
8 Arianespace (Europe)

China still leads the U.S. 32 to 27 in the national rankings. At this moment no other launches are scheduled for 2019, though an unannounced military launch could still happen.

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Landslide primary win for Netanyahu

9:22 pm

In a primary election today for the leadership of the conservative Israeli Likud Party, in advance of another general election on March 2nd, Benjamin Netanyahu won a landslide victory over his party challenger.

The primary election saw 49% of all Likud party members show up to vote in spite of the stormy weather, a slight increase over the last time a primary election was held by the Likud. Of the nearly 60 thousand people that cast a ballot, 72.5% did so for the incumbent Netanyahu and 27.5% for his challenger Gideon Sa’ar.

Netanyahu’s win was expected, but the landslide proportions of it were not and thus the primary challenge itself had most assuredly worked to Netanyahu’s advantage. It reaffirmed his complete hold over the Likud party and gave him a reason to re-energize his base ahead of the March 2nd general election.

While the article touts the election victory as an indication that Likud’s position is strong in the coming election, I would not be so sure. This is the third general election in Israel in less than a year, all because the voters have refused to chose a clear leader. Though they have favored the conservative parties, those parties have not been able to form a government because one party refuses to join a coalition that includes the orthodox religious parties.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu faces a court fight, as he is under indictment and there is the possibility that the high court in Israel will rule that under those conditions he cannot form a government.

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China has a shortfall of jet engines

4:28 pm

Apropos of the engine problems on the Long March 5, it is reported today that China has a serious manufacturing shortage of the jet engines it needs for its new stealth fighters and bombers.

Aviation website Alert 5 spotted a stock-exchange filing by the Hebei subsidiary of China’s Central Iron & Steel Research Institute. The filing including production projections for military engines for the next decade, and reveals some startling shortfalls. Production and development gaps could result in the latest Chinese warplanes flying with older engine models, including imported Russian motors that might be underpowered and unreliable. The mismatch between airframes and engines could be a drag on the overall performance of Chinese military aircraft.

Perhaps the biggest shortfall is in the production of WS-15s and WS-19s, the custom motors respectively for J-20 stealth fighters and FC-31 export stealth fighters. “Data provided by Hebei Cisri Dekai Technology Co. Ltd. shows a maximum of only five WS-15 and WS-19 engines each year from 2020 ‘til 2026,” Alert 5 reported.

Apparently China will be flying these jets and bombers using inadequate Russian engines for the next five to eight years, as the country’s own industry seems unable to make them.

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Russia’s Proton launches weather satellite

8:51 am

Russia today used the Proton-M version of their Proton rocket to place a geosynchronous weather satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

31 China
21 Russia
13 SpaceX
8 Arianespace (Europe)

China still leads the U.S. 31 to 27 in the national rankings.

Right now there are only two more launches scheduled for 2019, a Russian Rockot launch and China’s third launch of its big Long March 5 rocket. Look for my global launch report for 2019 soon after the New Year.

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The Navy’s horrible software and the crashes it caused

10:55 am

Apropos to Starliner: This article outlines in detail the causes behind the crash in 2017 of the USS McCain and an oil-tanker that killed ten sailors and injured many others.

It is a horror story of a bankrupt Navy upper management that seemed more in love with cool computer software and automation than making sure the Navy’s ships and its crews can function efficiently and effectively in any situation. Moreover, the story suggests that this same upper management made lower level officers the scapegoats for its bad decisions, while skating free with no consequences.

And worst of all, that same overly complex computer navigation system remains in place, with only superficial patches imposed in both its software and its user instructions.

This story however is hardly unique. It reflects the general and systemic failures of almost any project coming out of the upper managements of the entire federal government for the past three decades, a pattern of failure that partly explains why Donald Trump was elected, and why he is hated so thoroughly by so many in that federal workforce. He more than anyone in decades has been demanding from them quality work, and firing them when they fail to provide it.

It seems, based on this story, that Trump needs to make a harsh review of the Navy’s upper management as well.

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India aims for about a dozen launches in 2020

8:44 am

The new colonial movement: India’s space agency ISRO is targeting about about a dozen launches in 2020, including the first unmanned test flight of its manned capsule Gaganyaan, the first flight of its smallsat SSLV rocket, and the first test flights of a reusable rocket, the first stage landing vertically and the second stage returning like a space shuttle.

Of these I estimate about seven are orbital flights.

Based on the last few years, this prediction by ISRO is likely high. They tend to over-predict what they will accomplish each year. This isn’t necessarily bad, as it forces them to accelerate their work rather than allowing it to drag on endlessly.

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Starliner lands safely after failed orbital insertion

9:29 pm

Capitalism in space:Boeing’s Starliner capsule successfully landed today in New Mexico, returning to Earth prematurely because of its failure to reach its proper orbit after launch two days ago.

The article quotes extensively from both NASA and Boeing officials touting the many successful achievements of this flight, while trying to minimize the failure that prevented the capsule from docking with ISS properly. And that failure?

The mission elapsed timer issue that cut short Starliner’s planned eight-day mission started before the spacecraft lifted off Friday from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, according to Chilton. “Our spacecraft needs to reach down into the Atlas 5 and figure out what time it is, where the Atlas 5 is in its mission profile, and then we set the clock based on that,” Chilton said in a press conference Saturday. “Somehow we reached in there and grabbed the wrong (number). This doesn’t look like an Atlas problem. This looks like we reached in and grabbed the wrong coefficient.”

“As a result of starting the clock at the wrong time, the spacecraft upon reaching space, she thought she was later in the mission, and, being autonomous, started to behave that way,” Chilton said. “And so it wasn’t in the orbit we expected without the burn and it wasn’t in the attitude expected and was, in fact, adjusting that attitude.”

I read this and find myself appalled. While I agree that overall the mission proved the capsule capable of launching humans to ISS (which is why NASA is considering making the next Starliner mission manned despite this failure), this failure suggests a worrisome lack of quality control at Boeing. I can’t even imagine how the Starliner software could be mis-configured to “grab the wrong number.” This explanation makes no sense, and suggests they are spinning the failure to avoid telling us what they really did wrong.

Either way, I suspect that NASA will approve a manned launch for Starliner’s next orbital flight, but will do so only after dwelling on the problem for at least six months.

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Trump signs defense bill which includes Space Force

11:15 pm

It’s official: Trump today signed the annual NDAA defense authorization bill which also includes the creation of a new military branch dubbed the Space Force.

Whether this new branch will function to make the U.S.’s space military more effective, or merely act as a foundation for a bureaucracy in Washington requiring lots of useless jobs and lots of wasteful spending remains at this moment an unknown.

My instincts favor the latter, based on a lifetime of watching how Washington operates. Every time in the past half century Congress has created a new agency that was supposed to make the federal government more efficient it has instead accomplished the exact opposite. I see no reason at this moment to expect otherwise.

Note that for the immediate future not much is going to change, as this new branch will be operating initially from within the Air Force, where space operations have been based for decades anyway.

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UK parliament moves forward on Brexit

10:56 am

The parliament of the United Kingdom today voted to finally leave the European Union no later than January 31, as per the withdrawal agreement that prime minister Boris Johnson negotiated in October.

Both Northern Ireland and Scotland had voted strongly against leaving the EU. Those parts of the United Kingdom now face a choice. They can choose to leave the United Kingdom to join the EU, or stay with the UK.

I suspect they will pick the former. I believe the latter is the smarter choice, as they have far more in common with England than they do with Europe.

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