Tag: policy

Long March 7 heads to spaceport

9:01 am

The competition heats up: The first of China’s new generation of rockets, Long March 7, is now on its way to its spaceport for its first launch next month.

The first flight of the 53-metre-tall Long March 7 will take place in late June, according to CASC’s Yang Baohua, and will test the design and performance indicators. The 600 tonne, 3.35m diameter rocket will carry a scaled-down version of a new Chinese re-entry capsule for human spaceflight, chief designer of China’s human space program Zhou Jianping revealed in March.

The article provides some good detailed information about China’s new rockets, noting that this rocket has been designed to launch manned and cargo spacecraft into orbit, making it the equivalent of Russia’s Soyuz rocket. The more powerful Long March 5, set for launch later this year when it will put China’s next space station prototype into orbit, will be their equivalent of Russia’s Proton. In both cases, however, they will be better than Russia’s rockets, more advanced and upgraded with greater capabilities.

The article also makes note of China’s new Wenchang spaceport on the coast, which took six years to build.

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Trump calls for a minimum wage increase

9:51 pm

Researching the November Democratic primary: Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday called for an increase in the minimum wage.

He did add that this is something the states should decide. However, with him pushing it he is helping to make it a political issue that will force an increase, something that has routinely damaged economies and hurt the poorest and lowest income members of society. He also added that he will negotiate with Democrats on his tax plan (which he now called “only a concept”) which will likely cause increased taxes on the wealthy.

As I’ve said, we now have a choice between a liberal Democrat and an avowed socialist/communist. Ain’t that just wonderful?

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Does Trump have the best space policy?

8:59 am

This opinion column looks at the three remaining politicians campaigning for president, and finds that Donald Trump probably has the most favorable position toward commercial space.

While all three candidates mouth favorable platitudes towards NASA and space exploration, all three also express reluctance to fund a giant government space program. Trump however was the only one to note the positive aspects of commercial space and express

…support for the government partnering with private space companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX. “I think there needs to be a growing partnership between the government and the private sector as we continue to explore space,” Trump told AIAA. “There seems to be tremendous overlap of interests so it seems logical to go forward together.”

Obviously, one can’t and shouldn’t put much faith in what any politician says during the campaign. Nonetheless, this might be a hopeful sign that if elected, Trump would push to dump NASA’s SLS/Orion and have NASA instead focus on buying space exploration services designed and operated by private companies.

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Pima county files motion to dismiss World View lawsuit

8:49 am

In the heat of competition: The Arizona county government that made a deal with the space tourism balloon company World View to help them build their launch facilities in Tucson has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit by the Goldwater Institute that claims the deal is illegal.

I don’t know if the deal was illegal, but I suspect that even if it was the county will win and the deal will go through. Too much money at stake.

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Future Republican battle leans right and anti-establishment

1:10 pm

Three more stories today, in addition to this already posted story (Cruz’s political stature enhanced by campaign) suggest that the Republican Party is going to move rightward and anti-establishment.

The headline of the last story is misleading. What it is really about is how Cruz’s yearlong effort to enlist conservatives who agree with him as Republican delegates will result in giving him and his views a great deal of influence at the convention and within the party. Similarly, Trump as nominee puts him in a powerful position to influence policy. Meanwhile, the old guard establishment of moderate Republicans who specialized in failure theater and giving Democrats everything they want are not showing up.

So, what will we have? We will have a Republican convention dominated by either Cruz conservatives or Trump outsiders. This is good news, even if I myself am not enthused about Trump. It likely means that the days of nonchalant surrender to liberal demands are ending. Though what will happen instead remains unknown, and might very well be as bad, the change is more likely to be a good thing.

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Luxembourg signs deal with asteroid mining company

10:32 am

The competition heats up: As part of its outer space development program, the government of Luxembourg has signed a deal with asteroid mining company Deep Space, Inc. to build an orbital demonstration test satellite.

The inaugural project of this exciting new partnership is Prospector-X™, an experimental, low Earth orbit technology demonstration mission, designed to test the company’s innovative deep space technology. These key enabling technologies will be instrumental to the success of the company’s first deep space resource exploration missions in the near future. The Prospector-X spacecraft will be built at Deep Space Industries’ new European headquarters, in Luxembourg, in conjunction with the company’s international and American partners, including the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg.

It essentially appears that Luxembourg is creating its own space program, focused entirely on profit by acting as the venture capitalist for private commercial companies. Most interesting.

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Cruz’s political stature enhanced by campaign

10:06 am

Good news: Ted Cruz’s strong campaign has positioned him to likely be “a leading GOP voice for the foreseeable future.”

Read it all. The article’s main point, which I had noticed earlier when Cruz was doing the hard work to forge allies throughout the grassroots Republican Party, is that Cruz’s success during the campaign, becoming a strong #2 while all establishment picks (Bush, Rudio, Walker, Huckebee, Christie) did poorly, places him in the position to dominate the loyal opposition against either Trump or Clinton.

Note also that the conventional wisdom, that shutting down the government would hurt a candidate and the Republican Party, did no such thing for Cruz. In fact, it helped him. The anger the public feels because of the Republican Party’s unwillingness to stand up to Obama and the Democrats, was reflected in the fact that in the end Trump and Cruz were the top vote getters.

Sadly, I do not expect the rest of the Republican Senate to learn this lesson.

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Obamacare includes 171-word definition of menu

9:54 am

Finding out what’s in it: The Food and Drug Administration has released its final regulations on how restaurants must write their menus as mandated by Obamacare.

The final guidance includes a 96-word definition of “combination meal” and a 163-word definition of “restaurant-type food.” The government also goes into when “Aunt Cora’s French toast breakfast” must have its calories listed and tells restaurants not to use plus or minus signs on their menus because they are too “confusing” to Americans.

But drawing the biggest criticism is the government’s definition of menu and strict rules for calorie labeling of toppings. The government considers a menu to be the “primary writing of the covered establishment from which a customer makes an order selection, including, but not limited to, breakfast, lunch and dinner menus; dessert menus; beverage menus, children’s menus, other specialty menus (such as catering), electronic menus, and menus on the Internet.” The full definition is 171 words. Merriam-Webster has a 12-word definition for menu.

The phrase “from which a customer makes an order selection” opened the door for coupons and advertisements to be included in the mandate. The FDA said calories must be listed on coupons if they have the restaurant’s phone number, and advertisements can be “considered a menu.”

There’s more at the link. Read it all to find out how deeply Obamacare is working to organize and regulate our lives.

But don’t worry. The same people who wrote the law are going to be running things after November. They will surely fix it!

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Trump’s new finance chief donates 2x more to Democrats than Republicans

9:37 am

Researching November’s Democratic primary: The man Donald Trump just appointed as his finance chairman routinely donates twice as much to Democrats than he does to Republicans, and has deep ties with the Democratic Party’s most liberal wing.

Beyond his contributions, Mnuchin’s past employers don’t fall in line with Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs partner and worked for liberal mega-donor George Soros’s hedge fund. He also contributed to a group called America Coming Together, which was largely funded by Soros and unions.

But don’t worry. We now have two candidates who will fix Obamacare and make sure the foreign policy of the United States is run by the same people that have been doing it for the past eight years.

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Putin signs Russian homesteading act

9:26 am

On Monday Russia’s president Vladimir Putin signed a new law that is a variation of the American homesteading acts that helped settle the west in the 1800s.

Trutnev’s initial suggestion was to “create a mechanism for the free allocation of a 1 hectare (2.5 acres) plot of land to every resident of the Far East and to anyone who is willing to come and live in the region so that they could start a private business in farming, forestry, game hunting or some other enterprise.” He added that the agreement could be signed for five years, and then it should either enter full force if the new landlord follows the plan, or be declared void if the land is not used.

They might be doing it wrong in aerospace, but if this story is correct Putin’s government has got it right when it comes to land ownership.

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Manager resigns as investigation pinpoints issues during first Vostochny launch

9:02 am

The first head rolls: Even as the investigation into the one day delay for the first Vostochny launch uncovers number of issues, including an incorrectly installed cable, the manager of one division has already resigned.

The problem with a cable made in violation of designer documents delayed the launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, the newspaper Izvestia wrote on May 5. “Academician Semikhatov NPO Avtomatiki modeled that situation, saw it with their eyes and certified the results. The rocket’s cable was made in violation of designer documents and lacked a number of vital straps,” a representative of the Roscosmos administration told the newspaper. “Heads of the Yekaterinburg-based NPOA and those responsible for the integrity of methods used in testing the ground control system at the cosmodrome will be definitely held responsible for the contingency,” he said.

They have also found an additional “20 problems”. Expect more heads to roll, which might be a good thing, as it might help fix some of the quality control problems that have become an increasing problem in the Russian aerospace industry.

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Employers hiring freelancers to avoid Obamacare

10:19 am

Finding out what’s in it: A new study has found that almost three-quarters of all employers have decided to hire freelance workers rather than full-time employees in order to avoid the costs of Obamacare.

After surveying 600 human resource employees and 959 freelancers, the results show a whopping 68 percent of employers said the ACA will have a “high impact” on their hiring decision with 74 percent saying they plan to increase freelance contracts.

But don’t worry. Those evil conservatives who opposed Obamacare have been defeated. The next president, one of two liberal Democrats, will work to keep Obamacare, a law Democrats shoved down our throats, working

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You asked for this

10:06 am

The post is short but this is the essence: “Given the choice between a dozen solid conservatives and one Clinton-supporting con artist and game-show host, you chose the con artist.”

Nothing can change the fact that all of Donald Trump’s past and recent history suggest that he is a moderate liberal Democrat. I expect him to rule in exactly that way should he win the presidency. He won’t be as corrupt or as leftwing as Clinton, but considering the power the federal government already wields, his willingness to support and use it will nonetheless contribute to the continuing decline in American freedom.

I hope I am wrong. I sadly do not expect that.

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Eighth-grader arrested for using $2 bill

9:58 am

The coming dark age: School officials had an eighth-grader arrested when she tried to pay for her lunch with a legal $2 bill.

“I went to the lunch line, and they said my $2 bill was fake,” Danesiah told the news station. “They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble.” School officials called Daneisha’s grandmother, Sharon Kay Joseph, and asked, ” ‘Did you give Danesiah a $2 bill for lunch?’ He told me it was fake,” the grandmother recalled.

An investigation into the $2 bill led Fort Bend ISD police to a local convenience store that gave it to Ms. Joseph, ABC reported. Police were then led to a bank where the 1953-issued bill was examined and determined to be real.

Note that both the school officials and the police had no idea that there is such a thing as a $2 bill.

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Congressman proposes major changes to regulation of commercial space

9:46 am

Doug Messier has posted a detailed analysis of Congressman Jim Bridenstine’s (R-Oklahoma) proposed American Space Renaissance Act (ASRA) that is definitely worth reading.

Most of the changes appear aimed at organizing the regulation process of commercial space more completely under FAA control, rather than the hodge-podge of agencies that presently have responsibility. The bill also encourages NOAA and NASA to increase their use of commercial data for weather and Earth remote sensing.

At first glance, the bill looks good, but it also is not likely to be passed as written. Moreover, not surprisingly it calls for a hefty increase in funding for the FAA agencies being given more responsibilities, but I wonder if Congress will comparably reduce the funding of those agencies it takes responsibility from. My instinct tells me no, which means of course that the government and bureaucracy grows again.

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The Oil Seepage Thread

12:10 pm

Because the comment thread to this post, “New research confirms CO2 increase is greening Earth,” has become quite long and somewhat off the original topic, yet still interesting and worth continuing, I have decided to create a specific post where comments relating to these two questions, asked by Wayne DeVette, can continue:

  • How much does Volcanic activity contribute to particulate & “greenhouse gas” emission’s on the Planet ? (I am under the impression contributions by human-activity are dwarfed by natural-events.)
  • What is the natural (non human-activity related) background seepage rate of crude-oil, into the Worlds oceans, across the Planet?

I thought these were great questions, and ask Wayne and others to do some digging. Gary and Wayne did, and what they found is worth reading.

Please place future comments on this topic here.

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Why Russian aerospace will not compete

8:57 am

The fallout from the scrub and one day delay of the first launch at Vostochny, while Vladimir Putin was there and watching, has generated an investigation and the suspension of one designer.

The official goal of the commission was to find causes of the failed launch attempt and to check the completeness of tests leading to the incident.

However given a minor technical impact of the delay, the investigation likely had the primarily political nature, namely it was aimed to demonstrate to the Kremlin that the industry problems were being dealt with. Moreover, Rogozin also made a decision during the work of the commission to suspend the responsibilities of Leonid Shalimov, the designer general at NPO Avtomatika, which supplied the hardware allegedly responsible for the incident. Rogozin summoned Shalimov to Moscow on May 6, apparently to present the results of the investigation. [emphasis mine]

When you develop any new system or cutting edge technology, things are certain to go wrong. This is the one certainty that I will admit to and gladly embrace, and to which good designers, scientists, and engineers all agree. Vostochny is brand new. It stands barely finished. No launch had ever been attempted there before. For there to be a one day delay because of a minor engineering issue is hardly a sign of poor workmanship. Instead, it suggests the people who built it did a reasonably good job, even as many of their managers ripped them and the project off.

What we see here is an industry that is being run not by people who understand the business, but by distant politicians whose only interest is power and control. Can you imagine any manager in Roscosmos anywhere being willing to approve the start of a radical new engineering project, faced with pressure from Putin and these power-hungry politicians in Moscow? It won’t happen. Until there is a change and the politicians let go of their control of this industry, Roscosmos is going to take the safe route every single time.

Nothing new is going to come from Russia’s aerospace industry for a very long time.

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Russian court calls for arrest of Vostochny suspects

11:15 am

A Russian court has essentially done what we would call “denying bail” and demanded the arrest of two former Vostochny executives who have been charged with taking bribes during the construction phase of the spaceport.

The court ruled to arrest at least until June 20 the former chief of Spetsstroitekhnologii firm at the Federal Agency for Special Construction, Vladimir Shamailov, and his suspected accomplice Renat Syamiullin. The court agreed with the position in prosecution that staying out of prison the suspects could flee investigation as well as try to destroy the evidence. It is expected that today’s court ruling will be challenged.

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First launch from Vostochny a success

10:47 pm

The competition heats up: After more than a decade of construction and more than $6 billion, the new Russian spaceport succeeded in its first rocket launch in the early morning hours of April 28, sending three satellites into Earth orbit.

Several news stories have said that Putin was not happy about the one day launch delay due to a computer issue, as well as the one day delay of a Soyuz launch in French Guiana earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, don’t expect any further launches at Vostochny for a long time. The spaceport really isn’t ready for regular operations. This launch was merely a face-saving gesture to disguise the fact that construction is really more than a year behind schedule, not three months.

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First Vostochny launch scrubbed at T-1.5

9:15 am

The first launch at Russia’s new Vostochny spaceport yesterday was aborted by its computers at T-1.5 minutes.

The head of Russia’s Roscosmos, Igor Komarov, said the launch was halted automatically due to the glitches of the automated control system. He said the system may be restored in a day. “As usual, the responsibility for what is happening in the space sector rests with those people who are in charge of it and head it,” Komarov added.

I love how governments and their minions always use the word “glitch” when the really haven’t the slightest idea what went wrong.

Regardless, based on their plans to try again tomorrow, I suspect that the problem was relatively simple, related to the computer sensing some parameter that was outside expected tolerances, and easily fixed.

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Fascists try to shut down conservative panel at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

10:35 pm

At a conservative panel at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, on Monday, protesters once again screamed and heckled the speakers, trying to silence them.

This was another event in the Milo Yiannopoulos speaking tour that saw the same kind of treatment on Saturday at American University. This time, Yiannopoulos was not alone, joined by Christina Hoff Sommers and Steven Crowder, who when he got the mike proceeded to give an epic 4 minute long put-down of the protesters, to loud applause from the audience. You can see some video of the event at the link above, but I have embedded Crowder’s rant below the fold, as it is absolutely worth seeing. He demonstrates the right way to treat these people, by standing up to them boldly, with humor, and courage.
» Read more

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Congress micro-manages rocket engineering again

9:56 am

In an effort to funnel money to Aerojet Rocketdyne at the cost of every other rocket company in the nation, the House Armed Services Committee has written a bill that tells the Air Force exactly how it will build its future rockets.

“The Committee shares the concern of many members that reliance on Russian-designed rocket engines is no longer acceptable,” the committee said April 25. “The Chairman’s Proposal, as recommended by Chairman Rogers of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, denies the Air Force’s request to pursue the development, at taxpayer expense, of new commercial launch systems. It instead focuses on the development of a new American engine to replace the Russian RD-180 by 2019 to protect assured access to space and to end reliance on Russian engines. The Mark also holds the Air Force accountable for its awards of rocket propulsion contracts that violated the FY15 and FY16 NDAAs.”

…“The funds would not be authorized to be obligated or expended to develop or procure a launch vehicle, an upper stage, a strap-on motor, or related infrastructure,” says a draft of the 2017 defense authorization bill.

As presently written, the bill would leave the Air Force only one option: use engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

If anything demonstrates the corruption or foolishness of our elected officials, it is this proposal. Not only are they telling the Air Force how to design rockets, they are limiting the options so much that they are guaranteeing that it will either cost us more than we can afford, or it won’t be doable at all. As I say, either they are corrupt (working to benefit Aerojet Rocketdyne in exchange for money), or they are foolish, (preventing the Air Force from exploring as many inexpensive future options as possible).

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Soyuz rocket launch scrubbed due to faulty IMU

8:51 am

Uh-oh: A Soyuz rocket launch from French Guiana was scrubbed an hour before launch on Sunday because of detected problems with the inertial measurement unit (IMU) in its navigational system.

Arianespace chief executive Stephane Israel tweeted Sunday that the faulty inertial measurement unit, or IMU, will be replaced overnight in time for a launch attempt Monday. The IMU is located on the Soyuz rocket’s third stage and is used to determine the heading and orientation of the vehicle in the first nine minutes of its mission, feeding critical attitude data to the launcher’s guidance computers, which transmit steering commands to the engines.

The venerable Soyuz booster flies more often than any other launcher in the world, and delays due to technical causes are rare. [emphasis mine]

This is not good news for Russia’s aerospace industry, as it suggests that the quality control problems Russia has experienced with the company that manufactures its Proton rocket are now beginning to appear with the different company that manufactures the Soyuz rocket.

If true, this is also very bad news for American astronauts, who must use this rocket to get to and from space.

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The failed predictions of Earth Day

5:47 pm

On this anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970, it behooves us to once again review the predictions of the environmental experts that even today the environmental movement relies on and continues to worship, men like Paul Ehrlich and David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club.

The Daily Caller today provided us a list of the seven most significant predictions from that day, all of which turned out to be wrong. For example, Ehrlich repeatedly predicted that millions would starve in the coming decades:

Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970 that mass starvation was imminent. His dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The world’s Gross Domestic Product per person has immeasurably grown despite increases in population.

Ehrlich is largely responsible for this view, having co-published “The Population Bomb” with The Sierra Club in 1968. The book made a number of claims including that millions of humans would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, mass famines would sweep England leading to the country’s demise, and that ecological destruction would devastate the planet causing the collapse of civilization.

Brower meanwhile revealed the tyrannical aspect of the environmental movement, stating that “[a]ll potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” He went on to found Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters.

Ehrlich continues to push the same predictions, even though none of his past predictions have come true. But, then, what does that matter? Why should reality have anything to do with anything? It’s that he cares that matters!

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More evidence you can’t trust anything Donald Trump says

10:57 am

Just go to this link and read it. Trump has increasingly reminded me of Clinton in everything he has said and done in the past few weeks, with only one problem. Clinton has more style and a greater understanding of policy, even if I disagreed with him and considered him a liar in almost everything he said.

More and more I am convinced that this prediction of Trump’s administration will turn out to be exactly right.

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Obamacare bankrupting state governments

9:53 am

Finding out what’s in it: States that agreed to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion are now discovering that it is bankrupting them.

[T] he budget scuffle [in Arkansas over the expansion] has highlighted the harsh fiscal reality emerging in the Obamacare Medicaid-expansion program — and these lawmakers will have to own it. Beginning next year, Arkansas is obligated to share 5 percent of the program’s cost. Doing this would account for a whopping 60 percent of the year-over-year growth in the state’s budget. With a 10 percent state match on the horizon — coupled with the program’s over-enrollment, cost overruns, and waste, fraud, and abuse — Medicaid expansion will devour Arkansas’s budget over the next ten years.

The budget picture is similarly bleak in other states that took the plunge. Only 18 months into Ohio’s expansion, the state’s total Medicaid costs nearly doubled, to $4.05 billion. By next year, Buckeye taxpayers will be on the hook for over $130 million to meet the 5 percent state match, more than double the projected $55.5 million.

The worst part of this story however is that voters in Arkansas clearly indicated in elections that they wanted the expansion to end. Despite this, the governor (a Republican) and elected officials are still maneuvering to maintain the expansion. Like Congress after 2010 and 2014, landslide victories by conservatives seem to have no meaning to these people.

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Shelby blocks Export-Import Bank nominee

9:38 am

In a move that is preventing the recently renewed Export-Import Bank from functioning, Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) has been blocking the nomination of a new board member.

Until the board position is filled, the bank cannot finance any deals greater than $10 million, which essentially prevents it from doing much.

I find this story quite surprising. It says that Shelby has opposed the Ex-Im Bank because he considers it the worse form of “crony capitalism”. Yet, Shelby is also the king of aerospace pork, pushing NASA to fund SLS (thus pouring money into Alabama and the Marshall Spaceflight Center), despite the fact that SLS is a gigantic boondoggle that will never accomplish anything in space.

I suspect that Shelby’s real goals are twofold: 1. He doesn’t like the deals the bank has been financing, and wants to apply pressure on them to instead give deals to his own corporate buddies. 2. He is trying to extort campaign contributions from the parties involved.

Sadly, I can’t believe for an instant that Shelby has altruistic motives.

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San Francisco requires new buildings have solar panels

9:10 am

Another reason to leave California: San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a local law that will require all new buildings, both commercial and residential, that are lower than 10 stories tall to install solar panels on their roofs.

San Francisco’s new regulations add to already existing Californian laws which require 15 percent of rooftops on buildings of 10 stories or less to be unshaded and solar ready. Under the new law, buildings must have either solar photovoltaic or solar water panels installed, or a mix of the two.

As part of a concerted effort to one day run the city entirely on renewables, the mayor set up a taskforce in 2011 to develop policies and programs that steer it in this direction. It hopes to achieve this goal by 2025.

1. This will add a significant cost to the construction of new buildings, guaranteeing that there will be a decline in construction of such buildings in San Francisco.

2. I am certain that the task force that the mayor set up in 2011 was dominated by individuals in the solar power industry, all of whom are going to benefit greatly by this new law. I would also not be surprised if I learned that they donated money to the mayor’s campaign fund.

3. This law, as well as the city’s plan to run itself entirely on renewables by 2025, are pure fantasies based on ideology that no law can dictate. They must evolve, based on the realities of economics and technological discovery. That San Francisco’s political leadership can’t understand this fundamental fact of life indicates that this city is going to bankrupt itself in the near future, especially since its population overwhelming agrees with the fantasies of their political leaders. Expect more stupid laws like this, and except the situation there to become increasingly oppressive as these ideologues increasingly impose their unworkable fantasies on everyone.

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