Tag: government

“A real Nobel Laureate takes pity on a fake Nobel Laureate.”

4:34 pm

Mark Steyn takes a look a one of Michael Mann’s many false claims and tears it to shreds, while also making Paul Krugman look somewhat foolish at the same time.

Michael Mann, a bad scientist who created the discredited hockey stick graph that supposedly proved global warming, is suing Steyn and others for daring to criticize him. In the process Steyn and others are finding ample material for making a great deal of fun of Mann while also finding more examples of his dishonesty and fraudulent behavior.

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Maliki steps down in Iraq

4:28 pm

Good news: Iraqi prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has agreed to step down as per the legal demands of the country’s government.

Maliki was a poor and weak ruler who even tried to engineer a coup when the government decided to legally remove him. He has found that the army wants to support the rule of law (something we might have taught them) and would not back him in his coup attempt. He is now gone, and maybe the new leadership in Iraq, chosen legally, can unify the country in its battle against the Islamic fascists that are attacking them from Syria.

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IRS lets contractors rummage through taxpayer data

2:43 pm

Does this make you feel secure? An inspector general report found that the IRS allowed contractors access to personal taxpayer information without doing the required background checks required by IRS policy.

Contractors who have access to sensitive information, which also includes employee and law enforcement data, must undergo a background check if they’re with the IRS for more than six months.

But the inspector general’s audit found five contracts where contractors had not had any background checks out of the 28 total contracts reviewed. In one of those cases, a contractor working on printing and mailing tax forms was given a disk containing 1.4 million taxpayer names, Social Security numbers and other personal information. A separate contract, for couriers, had given a daily route to an ex-convict who served more than 20 years for arson, the report added. In another 12 cases, IRS staffers had started background checks for contractors, but contractors were allowed to start working before those investigations had concluded.

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“It was the grossest incompetence.”

12:23 pm

The IRS takes more than two years to issue a refund check because of its own stupidity.

This paragraph best sums up the entire idiocy:

Dinesen [representing the citizen] immediately contacted the collection division. He was told they had no record of the return. The identity theft unit was handling it, and the collection division’s computers weren’t capable of interfacing with the identity theft unit’s computers. “I asked if he could just call the identity theft unit to confirm the return had been filed. He said he couldn’t. His explanation for why not boiled down to, ‘We don’t do that,’” Dinesen said.

The agent agreed to suspend collection actions against Boka Gonzalez while Dinesen tried to resolve the case. “He also asked me to give him a call if I got any information from the identity theft unit. It seemed ridiculous to me that one part of the IRS would ask an outside person to keep him informed of what another part of the IRS was doing, but that was the level of dysfunction we were dealing with,” Dinesen said.

Read the whole story. It is horrifying. And remember, this is a case where the IRS was simply incompetent. Imagine the harm they could do if they wanted to do harm, or were ordered to do so by our political leaders. Thank God such things never happen!

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The IRS stonewalls a judge

10:27 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Required by a judge to explain in detail in 30 days the destruction of its emails, the IRS has instead provided nothing more than shallow platitudes.

The author of the article above is very confident that, based on his past history, the judge will come down very hard on the IRS for its stonewalling. I pray that he is right.

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Russia to build new satellite communications cluster

10:06 am

The competition heats up: The Putin government’s newly released draft plan for Russia’s space industry includes the development of a new communications satellite constellation.

In addition to encrypted mobile communications, the Ellips satellites will support air-traffic control and traditional fixed communications. Reflecting its dual (civilian and military) application, the Ellips project would be funded jointly by the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, and by the Russian Ministry of Defense at a price tag of 65.6 billion rubles to develop and deploy the constellation.

The article then goes on to detail at length the problems the Russian communications satellite industry has had for the past two decades, including their inability to build satellites that will last in orbit as long as their competitors.

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Another look at why ULA’s CEO stepped down

9:52 am

Why did ULA’s CEO step down, and did SpaceX or the Atlas 5’s dependence on Russian engines play a part?

Very worthwhile reading, as it suggests that not only is the competition from SpaceX a major factor, so was ULA’s effort to monopolize the military launch industry as well as monopolize its access to the Russian engines, denying their use by Orbital Sciences.

And to this I say, thank god for competition. It always shakes things up in a good way.

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NASA headquarters staff votes to unionize.

4:56 pm

NASA’s bureaucracy marches on: The staff at NASA headquarters today voted to unionize.

“This successful vote will allow us to work with management to improve working conditions for NASA support and administrative staff here at NASA headquarters, thereby improving operations, saving money, and retaining an engaged and professional workforce,” said Tifarah Thomas, a program specialist within NASA’s Office of the Chief Health & Medical Officer. Professional support specialists at NASA headquarters include budget analysts, policy analysts, administrative specialists, secretaries, and others.

NHPA currently represents nearly 200 engineers and scientists at NASA in Washington. The combined unit, including the professional support specialists who voted today for IFPTE representation, will now represent more than 500 workers at the headquarters of America’s space agency. IFPTE also represents engineers and scientists at NASA labs and research facilities from coast-to-coast.

Anyone with the slightest objectivity knows that the working conditions for federal employees in Washington is glorious, with pay about double what everyone else in the country makes and benefits far exceeding even the best private packages. In addition, the hours are great and just slightly longer than what my generation would have called bankers’ hours. Moreover, if I can be blunt, these engineers are mostly paper pushers. They are not the one’s designing and building anything that might fly in space. Their only reason to unionize now is because they see a threat to their cushy jobs with the advent of private space and are organizing to secure their unneeded positions.

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Iraqi Muslims celebrate persecution of Christians

9:31 am

The bigoted religion of peace: An Christian Iraqi refugee describes how the Muslims in Mosel celebrated the arrival of ISIS and the expulsion of Christians.

An Iraqi Christian who fled for his life from Mosul says that his Muslim neighbors welcomed the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) and told him “this land belongs to Islam.”

“We left Mosul because ISIS came to the city. The (Sunni) people of Mosul embraced ISIS, and drove the Christians out of the city,” the unnamed Christian refugee, who reportedly fled from Mosul to Lebanon, told Lebanese LBC/LDC TV in a July 30 interview translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

And then there’s this: A mob of Muslims on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem force the closure of that site to Jews.

Watch the video below the fold and tell me who you think is bigoted and expressing hatred. As one of the Jews notes with humor near the beginnin of the video, “Look, three Jews, how many Arabs; they are calling to G-d, they are praying to G-d because of us, it’s wonderful. You see what we did?”

Things get more and more heated, beginning around 9:00, as they begin to approach the Temple Mount itself. Note that all these guys are doing is trying to take a tour of the site.
» Read more

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NASA admits that it is struggling to meet the 2017 launch date for SLS

11:13 pm

Delays in the construction of Orion’s European-built service module as well as cracks in the spacecraft’s heat shield are threatening the planned 2017 launch date for Orion’s first test flight, unmanned, beyond Earth orbit.

Note that this program, costing anywhere from $10 to $20 billion, is only building a handful of capsules for flying three or four test flights. Beyond that, there is no money.

I have predicted this before, and I will predict it again: SLS will never take any humans anywhere. The cost is too high, the bureaucracy too complex, and the schedule is too slow. It will vanish when the new private companies begin flying humans into space in the next three years.

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An Obamacare typo costs family $1.2 million

10:28 am

We’ve only just begun: Because of a typo in a family’s Obamacare healthplan, their insurance company is refusing to pay more than a million dollars in claims in connection with the premature birth of their daughter.

[T]he Review-Journal reports that the Anthem Blue Cross insurance they got through the Nevada Health Link — an ObamaCare exchange — is not paying claims. The payments are being denied, reportedly because the mother’s birth year is incorrectly listed on the insurance card. It should be 1979, but is listed as 1978. The newspaper reports the family is also struggling to get their baby daughter Kinsley added to the insurance. They are facing $1.2 million in medical bills.

They have been unable to get the bureaucracy to fix this simple little problem, which is typical of bureaucracies. Expect a lot more of this in the coming years as the government apparachiks who run Obamacare tighten their grip on our lives.

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The count now more than 20

11:43 pm

Corruption: More than twenty Obama officials have lost or destroyed emails after learning that Congress wanted to see them.

[I]n each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) said of [the] lost e-mails. “It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record-keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails.”

Actually, it doesn’t defy logic. It is perfectly logical. This administration is corrupt, has broken the law numerous times, and is now aggressively destroying evidence to cover-up its corruption.

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An Obamacare official deleted her emails in violation of federal law

1:50 pm

Ever get a feeling of deja-vu? The official in charge of the rollout of the failed Obamacare website regularly deleted her emails and will thus not be able to comply completely with House investigation subpoenas.

First, this is a lie. Just because she deleted them on her computer does not destroy the emails. Every IT guy in the world is probably laughing his head off at the blatant dishonesty being illustrated here. Second, isn’t it interesting how these Democratic Party politicos think it is their right to ignore the law. Third, isn’t this also typical of the Obama administration itself, the supposedly most transparent administration in history that has probably produced more scandals and coverups per man hour than any administration since Emperor Nero.

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Christians flee Islamic jihadists in northern Iraq

10:46 am

The religion of peace strikes again! Hundreds of thousands of Christians flee northern Iraq as Islamic State take over the region and jihadists tear down churches and destroy Christian manuscripts.

This analysis of the situation now in northern Iraq asks some pointed questions of President Barack Obama, who withdraw American troops from that country far sooner than any military or local expert advised.

This analysis explains why President Barack Obama seems so unconcerned about the fate of these Christian refugees. To use his words, this kind of violence and terrorism and genocide is just an example of these groups acting with “extraordinarily irresponsibly”.

I ask: When are the American people going to finally get tired of electing children to office and have the courage to elect an adult?

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Free gym memberships for Homeland Security desk jockeys

9:25 am

It’s good work if you can get it: Homeland Security is spending almost a half a million dollars to provide free gym memberships to bureaucrats in Washington.

TSA also announced more gym memberships for its employees in Phoenix.

What this tells us is that the Washington elite still consider the federal budget a blank check designed to make their lives wonderful, even as the rest of the general public struggles to make ends meet and federal government and the general economy goes bankrupt.

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Congress applies pressure to ULA and the Air Force

8:58 am

Two congressional committees are holding up approval of a budget revision for the Air Force’s launch program because of concerns about cost overruns and the program’s dependency on a Russian rocket engine.

Such requests must be approved by each of the four congressional defense committees, and so far, the EELV proposal has won the support of only two. The Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee and the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee have green-lighted the plan, while the House and Senate Armed Services committees have deferred approval, according to budget documents dated July 25 and July 31, obtained by Defense News.

[The Senate Armed Services Committee] (SASC) asked the Air Force to draw up a plan, by Sept. 30, “that leads to the production of a liquid rocket engine by 2019,” according to one of the documents, sent to Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord by SASC Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.

Meanwhile, others legislators are questioning the program’s cost overruns. Though only hinted at in the article, this hold up is also related to SpaceX’s demand that the bidding for Air Force launches be opened up to competition.

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China to build a new canal in Central America

10:49 pm

The competition heats up: With approval from Nicaragua, China has inched closer to beginning construction of a new canal that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

A month ago, a Nicaraguan committee approved Chinese billionaire Wang Jing’s project to create The Nicaraguan Canal. With a planned capacity to accommodate ships with loaded displacement of 400,000 tons (notably bigger than The Panama Canal), the proposed 278-kilometer-long canal that will run across the Nicaragua isthmus would probably change the landscape of the world’s maritime trade.

“The project is the largest infrastructure project ever in the history of man in terms of engineering difficulty, investment scale, workload and its global impact,” Wang told reporters, adding that with regard the project’s financing, which is around $50 billion, Wang seems quite confident, “If you can deliver, you will find all the world’s money at your disposal.”

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The VA pattern of lies

9:37 pm

Let me count the ways: VA officials have lied to Congress repeatedly in connection with multiple different investigations in a variety of different states and administrations.

The most egregious example for was the last item of the story above, where VA officials repeatedly told Congress that the employees who had falsified records to cover up long patient wait times had been fired, when in truth no one had been fired at all.

As I like to say, the VA is a perfect example of what government healthcare will be like. And it is coming soon to a hospital and doctor near you!

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An Hamas officer, captured by Israel, admits he led the kidnapping and murder operation of three Israeli teenagers

7:35 pm

Israel has captured the man who was in charge of the operation that kidnapped and then murdered three Israeli teenagers, who also admits that (surprise!) he is a squad commander for Hamas in Gaza.

So, let’s get this straight. Hamas organizes the killing of Israeli children. Hamas launches rockets from schools so that Arab children are endangered. Hamas also prevents Gaza citizens and their families from seeking safety during war. And Hamas also calls for the genocide of all Jews, women and children included.

But Israel is the one condemned for committing war crimes? As Thomas Sowell recently noted, “In an age when scientists are creating artificial intelligence, too many of our educational institutions seem to be creating artificial stupidity.”

Even the most superficial but honest observer of the Gaza War would have conclude that Hamas is just one step removed from a child abuser. And since when do we as civilized people lend aid and comfort to child abusers?

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Obamacare poll numbers crash

9:56 am

Finding out what’s in it: New polls show that the more the public becomes familiar with Obamacare, the more they hate it.

Hey, what’s not to like? Obamacare gives you higher premiums, less availability of doctors, less insurance coverage, more bureaucracy, more paperwork, and — best of all! — increased government interference in your life.

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An Amtrak train abandons all of its passengers

6:18 pm

Government-run transportation: An Amtrak high-speed train left New York City this weekend without its passengers, who were instead waiting to board on a different platform where railroad employees had sent them.

“They literally sent us to the wrong platform, and the conductor took off without any passengers,” Damien Miano, a stranded passenger told The Daily News. “The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. It’s just so bizarre.”

Amtrak might make believe that it is a private company, but it has been a government entity for decades. Like the post office, it has no real incentive to make a profit and operate efficiently since all losses get covered by the federal government.

Coming soon to a hospital near you!

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Hamas propaganda becomes Israeli comedy

6:07 pm

At the start of the Gaza war four weeks ago Hamas released a propaganda music video calling for the destruction of Israel and for Palestinians to “exterminate the roaches.”

The problem was that the video was in Hebrew, not Arabic, and Israelis have found it hilarious and have made it a summer music sensation!

Surprisingly, though, Israelis found the tune of “Attack! Carry Out Terror Strikes” extremely catchy. Making it even more fun was the flowery Hebrew, dotted with nonexistent words sung in a heavy Arab accent, all of which led to the song’s becoming a summer hit. It has since spawned numerous covers and tributes.

Videos at the link. I especially like the Smurf version.

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