Tag: policy

Hawaii’s Supreme Court kills TMT

8:53 am

The coming dark age: As I expected the Hawaiian Supreme Court today ruled that the construction permit given to the builders of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is invalid, putting all construction on Mauna Kea on hold indefinitely.

It is very clear that the very liberal government of Hawaii is on the side of the protesters and is doing what it can to stop construction. Will the builders of TMT recognize this and try to find a new site for the telescope, or will they continue the legal battle to build it in Hawaii? I think they stand no chance of winning in Hawaii, but they might not have any other choice.

I also ask: What about the decisions to decommission other telescopes to make room for TMT? Do those telescopes still get removed, even if TMT isn’t built?

All in all, this decision probably puts an end to new cutting-edge science in Hawaii. Like the Catholic Church’s attack on Galileo (which essentially killed the Renaissance in Italy), astronomers, and in fact all scientists, will likely go elsewhere now to find a friendly haven for the search for knowledge.

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Money is worthless in 2016 Presidential campaign

4:40 pm

A graph of the amount of money spent by candidates on television ads reveals the utter worthlessness so far in 2016 for spending a lot of money. The big spenders are doing poorly in the polls, while the frugal candidates are doing great.

The campaigns and allies for three establishment presidential candidates – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and John Kasich – have spent a combined $47.5 million in TV ads in the 2016 race so far, according to ad-spending data from NBC News partner SMG Delta.

By contrast, the campaigns and allies for the three Republicans who have been leading or surging in the most recent polls – Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz – have spent just $2.9 million.

The full list at the link is even more astonishing. The three bottom Republican candidates in spending (Carson, Cruz, and Trump) are in the lead, while the four top spenders (Bush, Rubio, Kasich, and Christie) have gotten little for their money, with their campaigns mostly doing poorly. Rubio might be the only one with any traction, but I suspect he will crash and burn once Republican voters actually begin voting. They feel betrayed by him after he decided to make immigration amnesty his most important issue after his election, taking a position completely opposite to the positions he campaigned on.

What this graph tells us is that the geography of elections had changed drastically. Big money means much less. Other things are more important, including the reliability and trustworthiness of the candidates.

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NY’s Obamacare co-op failure forces doctors to demand cash up front

12:37 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Facing the possibility that they won’t be paid because of the failure of the New York Obamacare health insurer, doctors there are now refusing to see patients without an upfront cash payment.

Though the article describes examples where patients were turned away, what is really happening is that the doctors would be glad to treat them, as long as the patient pays for the treatment first. Their insurance ain’t worth anything, and the doctor rightly does not wish to work for free.

Meanwhile, our reality-challenged president, who somehow thought Obamacare would cut health premiums by $2500 and wouldn’t require anyone to change their health plans or doctors, is in Paris this week (which experienced a mass shooting only two weeks ago) telling the world that mass shootings only occur in the United States.

Sadly, the entire Democratic Party generally agrees with him on all issues. Let’s vote for them again!

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Russia describes its planned first manned Moon mission

8:46 am

To accomplish its first manned lunar landing, tentatively set for 2029, Russia will have to launch six Angara rockets.

According to the source, the launches are planned to be carried out in pairs from the Vostochny cosmodrome (the Amur region in Russia’s Far East) and the Plesetsk cosmodrome (Archangelsk region in the northwest) with small intervals between the blast-offs. Under the proposed scheme, after the orbit placement, the complex with a total weight up to 70 tonnes will be docked with the manned spacecraft, after which it will fly to the Moon. A payload of 18-20 tonnes will be delivered to the lunar orbit by the end of the mission.

According to a preliminary plan, Russia’s first manned flight to the Moon is possible in 2029. One year ahead of that it is planned to conduct a flight around the Moon, the testing and qualification of space systems for the future manned landing. However, this project may become a reality only if the work to create a new-generation manned transport spacecraft, the Angara-A5 rocket, lunar boosters and other needed rocket and space technology and infrastructure is included in the draft Federal Space Program for 2016-2025.

The final draft Federal Space Program, however, has not yet been approved. This story is obviously a lobbying effort within Russia to get this lunar mission included in that master plan.

What strikes me most about all this is the timing. The big national space programs, Russia, China, and NASA’s SLS, are all aiming for big lunar missions in the late 2020s. All will spend a lot of money for a very limited number of flights, mostly single stunts that merely demonstrate that they can do it. None of these programs will have much staying power on the Moon.

Private space is likely aiming for the Moon as well, and will likely be capable of getting there about the same time. However, private space will be cheap and designed to go many many times (for profit). Watching this race between nations and private companies is going to be quite fascinating. And unlike the 1960s space race, which was a race between two different top-down government programs, this 2020s space race will be between bottom-up capitalism versus top-down government.

I think in the end the governments will be very embarrassed. They will either lose, or act to squelch their private competition.

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The global warming conference’s gigantic carbon footprint

9:24 am

Why are people skeptical of the global warming fear-mongers? Because they do not practice what they preach, flying to huge unnecessary conferences and producing 23,000 times more carbon dioxide then an average American in a year.

Yes, these conferences are unnecessary.

It’s 2015. We have incredibly advanced telecommuting systems. All of the political and scientific work behind a climate conference is performed using such global computer networking, long before the conference is held. Climate confabs are an excuse for politicians to soak their taxpayers for luxury junkets to exotic vacation destinations, where they stay in five-star hotels and dine on the finest gourmet foods.

(Lunch at the Paris climate conference on Monday, according to Politico: special turnip soup, scallops in a climate-symbolic “modern” sauce, stuffed celery confit with veined spinach cream, and then a trilogy of freshwater trout roe caviar, vegetable jelly, and coltsfoot, plus Reblochon au jus scented with myyrh, caraway wood, and a salad of wild undergrowth and tree beans. And yes, of course there will be dessert – citrus compote and light cream with praline.)

Climate conferences are pricey photo ops with no valid purpose beyond influencing media coverage, a fact the grandees at the Paris event have emphasized with their insulting blather about how holding the conference will somehow “rebuke” the Islamic State.

The hilariously obvious truth that no one attending the event actually believes the apocalyptic predictions they dump on their constituents makes these conferences into the equivalent of a “safari” at Disney World – a chance to laugh, hang out with friends, and enjoy a little shiver of play-acting fear as animatronic wild animals lunge at your robot-piloted jungle cruise boat.

The article researches the carbon footprint of the Paris conference, and finds it to be quite significant. If these leftwing global warming activists (they are not scientists, as this conference has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics) really believed their lies about how fossil fuels and global warming was going to destroy humanity, they would never agree to their periodic parties in five-star hotels in beautiful cities throughout the world.

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Mainstream media outlet notices possible news!

9:40 am

Last week President Obama signed the revisions to the Commercial Act that is being touted as allowing Americans property rights in space.

I have been following the news coverage of this event, and even though there have been many articles incorrectly pushing the above spin, only today was there a news story that finally noticed that these touted property rights would violate the Outer Space treaty.

The content of the second link above, though it notices the possible violations to the Outer Space treaty, is also still a pitiful example of journalism. It is very clear from reading the article that no one involved in writing it (the article’s byline is CBC News) ever read the newly passed law. I have, and found that nowhere in it does it actually grant Americans property rights in space. What it does do is demand that the executive branch support that idea and write a number of reports and studies to demonstrate that support.

The goal I think of this new law is to begin the political process towards the U.S. eventually pulling out of the Outer Space treaty. Congress is essentially stating that it doesn’t agree with the language of that United Nations treaty, and it wants the U.S. government to begin the process of either getting it changed, or preparing to pull out. (The treaty does provide language allowing nations to pull out. You give one year’s notice, and then do so.)

It would be nice if journalists who write about this subject did the simple and easy research necessary for reporting it intelligently.

Until they do, however, I guess people will just have to come here (written with a grin).

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Marine court-martialed for displaying Biblical verses

8:51 am

Fascists: Claiming “significant damage could be caused by forcing military employees to work in the presence of a religious quotation,” a Marine was court-martialed when she refused to remove the verses displayed at her work place.

The case centers on an incident two years ago, in which Sterling was stationed at Camp Lejune in North Carolina. A devout Christian, she chose to place at her workstation three slips of paper with the words, “No weapon formed against me shall prosper,” a modification of the Bible verse Isaiah 54:17. Sterling taped the Bible verse in three different places to emulate the Holy Trinity, according to her lawyers.

When her immediate supervisor – Staff Sergeant Alexander – saw the verses, she ordered Sterling to remove them, saying that she did not like the tone. Sterling refused, according to her lawyers, citing First Amendment freedoms and the fact that others in her unit were allowed to have personal items in their workstations. The following day, Sterling found the Bible verses in the garbage. She then reprinted and posted the verses, but found them in the trash again the next day.

On February 1, 2014, Sterling was court-martialed.

She lost the case, but is now appealing to the military’s highest court.

The absurdity of this knows no bounds. No one ever complained about the verses. More importantly, it is her right to express them, even as a display.

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The big money for climate alarmism

7:55 pm

Want to make some big cash? Win some big government grants? Get some corporations to give you money? Become a global warming alarmist!

The article details the long list of government agencies, political organizations, and corporations eager, ready, and willing to provide money to anyone who will say we are all going to die because of human-caused global warming. And the amounts are not trivial.

Shell Oil since 1999 handed out $8.5 million in environmental grants. Like ExxonMobil, many grants flowed to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, but $1.2 million went to the Nature Conservancy; the remainder was spread to several different environmentally-minded groups. According to The Washington Times British Petroleum regularly gave to several environmental groups, such as “Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, the World Resources Institute, various branches of the Audubon Society, the Wildlife Habitat Council.” It’s important to understand that these groups accepted the money BP gave them. The Washington Post confirms the Nature Conservancy pocketed over “$10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations.”

Joanne Nova has documented the massive amount of money pouring from government into the pockets of individuals and groups associated with the environment. “The U.S. government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.” $79 billion.

And how much has the author of this article, a scientist and skeptic of global warming, gotten for his skeptical position from big oil? The same as me.

In the interest of full disclosure, the total amount of any consideration I have ever received from any oil company, or any oil company affiliate, is, rounded to the nearest dollar, $0. But it was in cash. Skepticism of environmental apocalypse does not pay.

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The blackballing of Judith Curry

9:18 am

Link here. Curry is a climate scientists who believes carbon dioxide is warming the planet, but she is also a good scientist who is not afraid of data that counters her beliefs, and who also recognizes what she herself calls “the large uncertainties” in our knowledge of the climate.

The article is worth reading at length, as it outlines quite well the close-minded approach to climate science that permeates the global warming crowd. This quote, describing Curry’s experience, sums it up well:

Curry’s independence has cost her dear. She began to be reviled after the 2009 ‘Climategate’ scandal, when leaked emails revealed that some scientists were fighting to suppress skeptical views. ‘I started saying that scientists should be more accountable, and I began to engage with skeptic bloggers. I thought that would calm the waters. Instead I was tossed out of the tribe. There’s no way I would have done this if I hadn’t been a tenured professor, fairly near the end of my career. If I were seeking a new job in the US academy, I’d be pretty much unemployable. I can still publish in the peer-reviewed journals. But there’s no way I could get a government research grant to do the research I want to do. Since then, I’ve stopped judging my career by these metrics. I’m doing what I do to stand up for science and to do the right thing.’ [emphasis mine]

Curry makes it very clear who is blackballing who. If you don’t toe the global warming line, your career as a climate scientists is squelched.

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Iran deal “not legally binding”

10:15 am

More absurdity from the Obama administration: In a letter the State Department wrote to a congressman, they admitted that the Iran treaty was not a “legally binding” document.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.

In other words, the whole kerfuffle about the Iran deal was garbage. There was no deal. All the Obama administration accomplished was to lay out what they’d like Iran to agree to, even as Iran refused to agree to it. Worse, what the Obama administration wished Iran would agree to was still weak and pointless and would allow them to develop nuclear weapons. They rejected that sweet deal (that Congress approved) and instead are proceeding with nuclear weapon development as fast as they can.

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They mean what they say

5:25 pm

And “they” are the evil murderers of ISIS and other Islamic terrorist killers.

Here we have ISIS, a murderous, genocidal Islamic supremacy group. They have stated quite openly that they intend to carve a caliphate out for themselves by any means necessary, and by “by any means” they mean as violently as possible. They view the West, Christianity, Secular Humanists, Hindus, everybody who doesn’t conform to their brand of Islam as the enemy, and they have only one tactic for dealing with the enemy : kill them and keep on killing them until they are either all dead or their remnant is so cowed that they convert to Islam. They justify this using the Koran and various Hadiths and they will quite happily tell anyone who will listen exactly what they believe is divine rational for their actions.

The author then describes how the left-leaning intellectuals of the west seem to have a fundamental inability to recognize this reality, an inability that has gotten so profound that it now feeds a blindness that makes them willing to even help these killers in order to avoid seeing them for what they are.

Read it all. The author makes a reasonable effort to understand why the intellectual leadership of the west, in the U.S. and Europe, seems incapable of understanding the threat of Islam. In order to defeat these terrorists, we are going to have to overthrow the blind fools we presently consider our intellectual elite. And to do that we need to see them for the fools they are.

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Ex-Im bank: Crony capitalism at its absolute worst

11:25 am

Republican pigs: Not only is this Republican Congress pushing to reinstate the Export-Import Bank so that the federal government can provide cheap loans to their corporate buddies, several senators are pushing to require that there be political litmas tests before those loans are granted.

[S]enators from both parties are pitching a condition: that applicants for loans essentially vouch support for the Israeli economy in order to be approved. The move, described by multiple sources, is meant to counter a pro-Palestinian campaign to undermine Israeli exports because of its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Specifically, the Ex-Im Bank would have to consider whether applicants for loans oppose “policies and actions that are politically motivated” and meant to inhibit “commercial relations specifically with citizens or residents of Israel.” In the past, Ex-Im has taken into account applicants’ stance on human rights and terrorism, prompting advocates of the new language to propose the new qualification.

It is obscene for the federal government to be in the loan business, picking favorites among private companies. It is even more obscene for these elected officials to demand that those favorites adhere to their political whims (no matter that I might agree with those particular whims). The Ex-Im bank should go away, along with the senators who are now pushing for it.

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The climate fraud at NASA

10:51 am

A German scientist has taken a very close look at the climate data being released by NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS) and found significant and unjustified tampering in order to create the false impression that the climate is warming.

A German professor has confirmed what skeptics from Britain to the US have long suspected: that NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies has largely invented “global warming” by tampering with the raw temperature data records.

Professor Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert is a retired geologist and data computation expert. He has painstakingly examined and tabulated all NASA GISS’s temperature data series, taken from 1153 stations and going back to 1881. His conclusion: that if you look at the raw data, as opposed to NASA’s revisions, you’ll find that since 1940 the planet has been cooling, not warming.

Ewert’s results confirm what numerous climate skeptics and scientists have already noticed. The raw data shows a cooling trend in recent years, but the released data unjustifiably cools past records while warming recent records to reverse this into a warming trend.

Either everyone at GISS should be fired forthwith, or its funding must cease. They aren’t scientist there, but propagandists for the Obama administration.

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Spat between senators over Russian rockets

11:11 pm

Pig fight! In response to Senator Richard Shelby’s (R-Alabama) effort, with the lobbying aid of ULA, to slip an amendment into a budget bill that would allow ULA to use Russian engines in its Atlas 5 indefinitely, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has written a scathing letter condemning the effort.

In a Nov. 19 letter, McCain asked Cochran to “respect the well-informed work my committee took” and to avoid the “year-over-year relitigation” of the engine issue.“Recent attempts by the incumbent contractor to manufacture a crisis by prematurely diminishing its stockpile of engines purchased prior to the Russian invasion of Crimea should be viewed with skepticism and scrutinized heavily,” McCain wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by SpaceNews. “Such efforts should not be misconstrued as a compelling reason to undermine any sanctions on Russia while they occupy Crimea, destabilize Ukraine, bolster Assad in Syria, send weapons to Iran and violate the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.”

McCain is no saint when it comes to pork, even if he is right on this issue. Shelby however is and has always been a pork pig. He has always put the needs of local companies ahead of the needs of the country. This story illustrates this perfectly.

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Obamacare regulations to destroy craft beer industry

9:02 pm

Finding out what’s in it: The cost to meet Obamacare regulations requiring beer companies to include specific calorie information on every beer they make is likely going to destroy many small local beer breweries.

As of December 2016, all brewers must include a detailed calorie count on every type of beer they produce. Failure to comply with the new regulations means craft brewers will not be able to sell their beer in any restaurant chain with over 20 locations. Because this is a major market for selling beer, it hamstrings smaller craft brewers if they do not comply.

The Cato Institute estimates the Obamacare calorie labeling requirements will cost a business as much as $77,000 to implement. For larger beer companies, this is a drop in the bucket, but for small, local craft brewers it represents a significant cost that they must pay. As a result, it creates a significant disadvantage compared to larger beer companies who can better absorb the cost of this new regulation.

But hey, who cares if a major thriving industry should be destroyed by Obamacare. The Democrats passed it because they care. And caring is all that matters, no matter what the consequences.

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The uncertainty of climate science

11:54 am

For the past five years, I have been noting on this webpage the large uncertainties that still exist in the field of climate science. Though we have solid evidence of an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we also have no idea what the consequences of that increase are going to be. It might cause the atmosphere to warm, or it might not. It might harm the environment, or it might instead spur plant life growth that will invigorate it instead. The data remains inconclusive. We really don’t even know if the climate is truly warming, and even if it is, whether CO2 is causing that warming.

While government scientists at NASA and NOAA are firmly in the camp that claims increasing carbon dioxide will cause worldwide disastrous global warming, their own data, when looked at coldly, reveals that they themselves don’t have sufficient information to make that claim. In fact, they don’t even have sufficient information to claim they know whether the climate is warming or cooling! My proof? Look at the graph below, produced by NOAA’s own National Centers for Environmental Information.
» Read more

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Obamacare causing large numbers of doctors to flee medicine

6:50 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Because of Obamacare doctors are abandoning their practices in alarming numbers according to a new report.

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says the exodus is alarming, as evidenced by a Physicians Foundation report showing the number of doctors who say they run an independent practice has dropped from 62 percent in 2008 to 35 percent in 2014. The survey of 20,000 physicians also shows only 17 percent in solo practice. Eighty-one percent of doctors are at full capacity or even overextended. Forty-six percent grade Obamacare as a D or an F. Just 25 percent give the law an A or a B.

For those greatly frustrated by the system, Turner said the government is making their lives miserable. “The doctors cannot navigate this incredible bureaucracy,” she said. “They may see 40 patients during a day, and then they have mountains of paperwork to fill out. If they slip up and say something in carelessness or not understanding the rules and make a mistake, they could be subject to tens of thousands of dollars in fines. They just cannot expose themselves to that kind of jeopardy.”

Hey, not only has Obama contained ISIS and its violent tendencies, he and the Democratic Party have made medicine affordable and a joy for doctors to practice! Let’s all vote for the Democrats again. They care and they are so smart!

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College students demand professor be punished for expressing an opinion

9:34 am

Fascists: Students at Vanderbilt University are demanding the firing or suspension of a tenured professor for writing an editorial they disagree with.

So far, the chancellor of the university has merely gotten on his knees to apologize to the students, saying “he was sorry if any Vanderbilt students felt hurt or unwelcome” and that some opinions have “no place in this university.” Thus, I expect him to cave to the bullies at some point.

Note that I haven’t mentioned what this professor wrote in her editorial, because it really doesn’t matter. If you think about it you can probably guess, but first, she has the first amendment right to that opinion no matter what it is, and second, the goal of these fascists is to shut anyone up that doesn’t support them blindly, so any opinion they see as a threat will be attacked.

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EPA rewards Gold King contractor with more contracts

3:09 pm

Shut them down! The EPA has given an additional $2.7 million to the contractor who caused the Gold King Mine spill in Colorado.

That’s in addition to a $1 million bonus awarded the day before the spill itself.

The level of corruption here is astounding. Read the whole article at the link, as it outlines a number of other examples of corrupt actions by the EPA, both in wasting taxpayer dollars for their own personal benefit as well as routinely working with environmentalists to shut down businesses, without any objective review.

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Florida school district threatens homeschool parents with arrest

11:40 am

Fascists: A Florida school district is threatening to arrest and prosecute homeschooling parents if they do not register their children for public or private school immediately.

This threat was issued despite the fact that state law does not require such registration. The home-schoolers plan to attend the next school board meeting on November 17. That should be another interesting school board meeting.

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More mob college protests, now in New York

9:40 am

The mob moves on: Fascist bigots at Ithaca State College are protesting and demanding the resignation of the school’s president because he doesn’t favor blacks.

The protest, which began around 1:30 p.m. and attracted at least 750 people, was in response to what organizers said were a series of incidents that demonstrated cultural insensitivity and exclusion of certain groups. Nigel Cyril, a junior at Ithaca College who is studying emerging media and Italian, said he’s never had a black professor. He and other called on college president Tom Rochon to resign. “I’ve never had a black professor,” said junior Nigel Cyril, who was holding a sign asking the students to vote no confidence in the president. “I do feel the racial tensions in this college. I’ve been pretty quiet so far, but it’s time for (the president) to do something.” [emphasis mine]

Other than the fact that this idiot student has never had a black teacher, the article does not provide any other examples of black oppression. However, it does provide us plenty of examples of blacks who are outright bigoted against whites, or in fact any other race except blacks.

Based on the article, I also expect this college president to cave, and possibly resign.

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Bibles banned from school libraries in Tennessee

9:19 am

Fascists: Because of a complaint, a Tennessee school administrator has banned Gideon Bibles from providing free bibles to the school’s libraries.

Superintendent Jennifer Terry would not elaborate on the complaints made. In a statement to Channel 3 News, she said the school system will no longer allow any religious group or material to be distributed. “Bledsoe County Schools do not allow the distribution of religious materials from any religious groups. The distribution of religious materials in a public school is in violation of constitutional provisions and well established federal and state laws and precedence,” Jennifer Terry, Director of Schools in Bledsoe County

This is insane. The government is not establishing a state religion by accepting free bibles from private American citizens for its libraries. It is a library, where books are made available to read. If the school can get some of those books free they should take them. To suggest that a government-run library can’t contain any religious books is the height of stupidity.

The article suggests that the community plans to protest this at the next school board meeting. It will be interesting to see what happens.

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Congress revises law governing commercial space

10:32 am

The competition heats up? Congress this week passed a revision to the Commercial Space Act that they claimed will help encourage the growth of the new industry.

According to the Senate press release, the bill does the following:

  • Extend the liability waiver for private space launches until 2023
  • Extend ISS operations until 2024
  • Establishes a legal right for U.S. companies to mine resources in space
  • Demands a new more streamlined framework for the government’s regulation of the industry

The last item is probably mostly blather, since a close look at the bill itself [pdf] reveals that most of these demands are merely requirements that the executive branch write a report. The odious rules that will allow the federal government to regulate and restrict the industry all remain. And even though the bill makes a big deal about establishing these regulations in concert with the industry itself, that only means that today’s players can use the government to make it difficult for new players to get started.

The claim that the bill also establishes “a legal right to resources a U.S. citizen may recover in space consistent with current law and international obligations of the United States,” as noted in the Senate press release, is a very big overstatement. The bill’s wording does nothing to get the U.S. out of the UN’s Outer Space Treaty, which forbids any person or nation from claiming ownership of territory in space. All the bill does is express the desire that American citizens should have the right to own what they mine, while at the same time stating that these resources will be “obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States.’’ In other words, the Outer Space Treaty still applies, and you can’t own it.

For what it’s worth, the bill also renames the FAA’s space regulatory agency from “The Office of Space Commercialization” to “The Office of Space Commerce.”

All in all, the bill’s most important overall accomplishment is that it strongly emphasizes and encourages the development of a private space industry, and tries to focus the government’s regulatory efforts in that direction. This ain’t perfect, but it could be considered a step in the right direction.

One more thing to note: Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appears to have been a major player in getting this bill written and passed.

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Yale students demand two administrators be fired for defending free speech

8:13 am

The coming dark age: Students at Yale University on Thursday demanded that two university administrators be fired because they refused to ban certain Halloween costumes that might offend some students.

On Thursday, the students surrounded Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway—a black man—in an outdoor space and chided him for failing to take action against a fraternity that had allegedly prevented black women from attending its party. (It’s not at all clear the allegation is true, according to The Daily Beast)

After giving Holloway his comeuppance, they moved on to Nicholas Christakis, master of Silliman College. What was Christakis’s crime? His wife, an early childhood educator, had responded to a campus-wide email about offensive Halloween costumes by opining that it was inappropriate for the college to tell students how to dress.

There are videos also showing the students attacking Christakis. Watch them, and then weep for the fall of western civilization. Key quote, by one of the students:

It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not! Do you understand that? It’s about creating a home here! You are not doing that. You’re going against that.

In other words, going to Yale is not about going to a place where intellectual ideas of all kinds can be expressed. You go to Yale to feel safe and unbothered.

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Update to commercial space law stalled in Senate

6:26 am

Surprise, surprise! It appears that several Senate Democrats and the trial lawyer organizations that back them are objecting to passage of an update to the 2004 Commercial Space Act that would extend the period that companies would be exempt from liability while they experiment with new spacecraft.

Some Democratic members of the House Science Committee opposed those provisions when the committee marked up a version of the bill in May. “This really is quite an indefensible provision,” said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) during discussion then regarding the federal jurisdiction clause of the House bill, arguing that the bill is “basically providing the launch industry with complete immunity from any civil action.”

The American Association for Justice, a legal organization formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, also spoke out against those sections of the bill in May. “Industries that lobby for immunity from accountability might as well hang up a sign saying they don’t trust themselves to be safe,” Linda Lipsen, chief executive of the association, said in a May 13 statement.

I really hate saying “I told you so!” but more than a decade ago, when the 2004 Commercial Space Act was passed, I opposed it because it gave the federal government far too much regulatory control over this very new and very experimental industry. Many industry people attacked me for doing so, saying that they needed this regulatory framework to raise capital.

Now the industry finds those regulations burdensome and is trying to get them eased, or waived temporarily. Not unexpectedly, there are vested interests in and out of Congress who don’t want those regulations eased. So, instead of focusing their energies on developing new technologies, the industry must instead spend money on lobbying and political dealmaking, which might get them some of what they want but will certainly also come with some political price that will be even more burdensome.

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Grizzly bear no longer endangered in Yellowstone

4:57 pm

Good news! Federal wildlife officials have determined that the grizzly bear population in and around Yellowstone has recovered so well that they have the option of removing the species from the endangered species list.

The latest count of grizzlies in the Yellowstone region puts the estimated population of the hump-shouldered bruins at just over 750, well exceeding the government’s recovery goal of 500 animals, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That compares with just 136 believed left in the Yellowstone ecosystem – encompassing parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho – when grizzlies were formally listed as threatened throughout the Lower 48 states in 1975, after they were hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction.

Not surprisingly, the article notes how environmental and American Indian groups oppose changing the bear’s status. Want to bet that they win the day and the bear remains endangered? Science really has very little to do with the endangered species act these days. It is all politics.

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Excommunication scene from Becket

6:01 pm

An evening pause: On the eve of this year’s election day, this scene from Becket (1964) expresses well what I wish the American voters would do to both the Democratic Party and the Republican leadership in Congress. They all need to go, for the health of the country and because of their repeated malfeasance in office.

Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of the new edition of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.

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Cruz demands Justice Dept preserve IRS scandal documents

1:46 pm

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today put the Justice Department on notice that he wants all their documents relating to the IRS scandal preserved so that future administrations have the ability to complete their own investigation.

“It is important for you and other officials in this Administration to understand that this administration’s decisions to neither continue this investigation nor appoint a special prosecutor do not represent the conclusion of this matter,” Mr. Cruz said in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “Given this Administration’s refusal to conduct itself appropriately, or take the issue of the potential illegal conduct of IRS employees seriously, any subsequent administration should reserve the right to reopen the matter, conduct its own investigation, or appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation.”

I would not be surprised at all if the Justice Department, now working full time for the Democratic Party, decides to destroy these documents at first opportunity. They know that they will face no criminal charges, even though this would be a blatant act of obstruction of justice, because the Democratic Party in Congress will stonewall any investigation. And unless the next Republican President has the courage to fire the lot of them, they themselves will be able to stonewall the next President as well.

In fact, which Republican candidates running for President would have the courage to fire the lot of them? Cruz for sure. Trump probably. Anyone else? I don’t think so.

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2016 Obamacare premiums to skyrocket 20%

12:38 am

Finding out what’s in it: Health insurance premiums in 2016 will rise more than 20%, three times more than predicted by Obama officials.

The discrepancy is because the government excluded price data for three of the four Obamacare health insurance plans when the officials issued their recent forecast claiming enrollees would face only a 7.5 percent average rate increase in 2016. When data for all four plans are included, premium costs will actually rise on average 20.3 percent next year.

In other words, Obama administration officials purposely manipulated the numbers to hide the actual rate increase. Then, not surprisingly, “The mainstream media was quick to embrace the 7.5 percent number, claiming it reflected the real-world experience of most Obamacare customers,” when it truth the number was a lie.

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Another Obamacare co-op, the largest, collapses

8:45 am

Finding out what’s in it: New York’s Obamacare co-op, the country’s largest and the one that took the most government loans to get established, is now facing bankruptcy and collapse.

It is unclear if the co-op deliberately misled state regulators in its original filings, or if regulators found evidence of financial wrongdoing while they tried to close down the defunct non-profit. The co-op’s insolvency was announced September 25.

The New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates insurers in the Empire State, also revised its earlier announcement to the co-op’s 215,000 policyholders that they had until Dec. 30 to find new insurance coverage. Regulators now advise the co-op’s enrollees, many who are poor, that they have to secure new coverage within the next two weeks. DFS said in a statement late Friday that consumers “must take action to choose a new plan for the remainder of 2015 on or before November 15, 2015.”

It also appears that the co-op has been understating its bad financial condition to government officials. Other than that, things remain peachy-keen!

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