Tag: politics

Brownshirts try to silence conservative speaker

11:48 am

The coming dark age: Ben Shapiro speaks at California State U, despite fascist mobs, violent threats, and an attempt by the college president to silence him.

Be sure to watch all three video clips at the first link above. One shows Shapiro speaking as the fire alarm goes off. The other two clips show the hostile mob outside. The contrast is striking. All the mob needs are pitchforks and torches to complete the picture.

That it was possible for the left to harness such a large mob so quickly in an effort to silence Shapiro’s dissent suggests strongly to me that we are heading for very bad times. In a few short years, the students in that mob, who far outnumber the peaceful students who came to listen to Shapiro, are going to have powerful jobs and influential positions. And these fascists are going to be eager to use that power to squelch their opponents.

Addendum: Be sure to read this comment at the link from someone who was there. It is really frightening. As she notes,

I know from this site and others that this is what goes on. But actually being there and being shoved and taunted and blocked from hearing a speaker … it’s just another dimension. You can’t believe the insanity. You can’t believe the completely undeserved sense of moral superiority coupled with the simmering threat of violence. Really, really disheartening. …

The Young Americans for Freedom gang are a brave, brave group. Just completely outnumbered. Talked with one of them from the Reagan Center and she’d met Professor Jacobson and Mrs. Jacobson when they were at the center last year.

Seeing that in person, I think we’ve passed the point of no return. It’s not something you fix. It’s a stain you can’t get out … a complete mess. You cannot reason with people who refuse to listen to reason. At one point, one of the protestors was telling the guy next to me that Ben Shapiro was a racist and a supremacist because he was an Orthodox Jew, and thus should not be allowed to speak.

Tolerance. Behold.

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Our glorious Democratic leaders!

9:44 am

Dumb and dumber: When told that one of the Gitmo terrorists released by the Obama administration is now working for Al Qaeda recruiting more terrorists to attack the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry had a real smart answer: “He’s not supposed to do that.”

The link also provides some nice background, describing other absurd efforts of Kerry’s State Department to counter terrorism, such as when he enlisted a 1960s singer to serenade world leaders.

John Kerry was the Democratic Party’s choice to run for president in 2004. He is now the Obama administration’s choice to run the State Department. What does that tell us about that party? Could it be that they are all as dumb and incompetent as he is?

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The coming collapse of Obamacare

9:31 am

Finding out what’s in it: Link here.

I haven’t described this time any specific discovery about this monstrous law because the article at the link describes too many different examples where the law is failing. Here’s just one to give you a taste:

Insurers say they’ve also been hurt by customers who appear to be waiting until they become sick to buy coverage. The companies blame liberal enforcement of the ACA’s special enrollment exceptions. The law provides an annual enrollment window for several weeks starting in the fall. This is the main chance most people have to enroll or change coverage. But customers can enroll outside that window if insurance needs change because they’ve moved, gotten married or had a child, among other exemptions.

Exchanges have not been asking for birth certificates, marriage licenses or other proof of these life-changing events. Insurers say that leaves them vulnerable. The Montana Health Co-Op had a severely ill customer in a hospital sign up for its coverage in October and then drop a $250,000 bill on the insurer. CEO Jerry Dworak said he asked the exchange operator for details on whether the patient had a legitimate reason for the special enrollment. The exchange would only say that the patient changed ZIP codes.

“They’ve got to do something about the special enrollment because we just got killed on that,” Dworak said.

Read it all. The story also describes how the law’s health exchanges are failing, how healthy people are not signing up, how the law has caused health costs to skyrocket, and how it is causing heath insurance businesses to go bankrupt.

Other than these minor details, however, we all have been able to keep the insurance plans we like, and costs per family have dropped by $2500, just as Barack Obama promised! Let’s hire as our next President his former Secretary of State, who actually first conceived a similar Hillarycare proposal in the 1990s!

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Lexington proposes gun confiscation

10:18 am

Fascists: The town of Lexington, Massachusetts, where the American Revolution was started by Minutemen armed with rifles, has proposed confiscating legally owned firearms from its citizens.

One such town meeting member, a Harvard professor named Robert Rotberg has taken it upon himself to enact, what he hopes will be “a movement against assault weapons that would capture the state and therefore maybe explode to reach the country.” He has seized upon the recent ban enacted in Highland Park, IL, and has modeled his own ban, almost copying the language verbatim. Filing it to the town meeting warrant as Article 34.

Among other things, Article 34 includes any firearm that is semi-automatic and can accept a magazine that will hold more than 10 rounds. It also includes any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The article also has a provision in which Lexington’s licensed gun owners who own firearms included in the ban would be forced to sell, render inoperable, or have them seized and destroyed by the police department

It doesn’t seem to occur to this Harvard professor that this ordinance would violate both the second amendment (“the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”) and the fifth amendment (“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”). But then, who cares about some old document called the Bill of Rights written by some white guys more than 200 years ago? We are Progressives! We know better!

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Successful test of India’s GSLV rocket engine

9:54 am

The competition heats up: India has successfully completed a full duration static hot fire test of the cryogenic engine it is developing for its more powerful GSLV rocket.

The press release is very short and lacking in many details, including any detailed information about the engine being tested. However, this success bodes well for India’s plans to launch a new upgraded GSLV before the end of the year.

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The moment Yeltsin became a capitalist

10:50 pm

In 1989 Boris Yeltsin, member of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and leader of one of what could be considered the equivalent of one of its mid-western states, visited Texas and toured the Johnson Space Center as well as a typical American supermarket. It was the grocery store that impressed him, not America’s space program.

He was dazzled by the fact that grocery stores were everywhere, and that they even offered free samples. A year or so later, a biographer wrote that on the plane ride from Texas to Florida, Yelstin couldn’t get the vision of the endless food supply out of his mind, and lamented how different things were for his own countrymen. According to wikipedia, Leon Aron, quoting a Yeltsin associate, wrote in his biography, “Yeltsin, A Revolutionary Life” (St. Martin’s Press, 2000): “For a long time, on the plane to Miami, he sat motionless, his head in his hands. ‘What have they done to our poor people?’ he said after a long silence.” He added, “On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the ‘pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments.’”

He wrote that Mr. Yeltsin added, “I think we have committed a crime against our people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of the Americans.”

And then, in his own autobiography, Yeltsin wrote about the experience at the grocery store himself, which reshaped his entire view on communism, ultimately leading to his leaving the Communist party. “When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

In writing Leaving Earth, I read all these same sources and was struck as well by how much this moment influenced Yeltsin. Very clearly, what Yeltsin saw that day led him to abandon communism.

If only more Americans could experience the same contrast he did, that of the shortages and poverty of top-down, command economies like socialism and communism vs the wealth and vibrancy and freedom of capitalism. I suspect unfortunately they will have to turn the U.S. into a new Soviet Union before they will realize how bankrupt such systems are.

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GAO finds fraud rampant in Obamacare subsidy program

9:23 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A GAO report has found that the Obamacare bureaucracy gave out millions of dollars in subsidies to more than 35,000 applicants who did not qualify.

Worse, the GAO decided to test the system directly, and created twelve fake applicants whose applications had problems that should have prevented them from receiving subsidies The result?

It was able to secure $2,500 a month subsidies for 11 of those applicants. When CMS [the bureaucracy administering Obamacare] asked for documents to resolve inconsistencies in the files, GAO either sent fake documents or simply didn’t send anything. In both cases, CMS sent letters acknowledging receipt of documents and stating the matter had been resolved. Again, this was the case even when GAO had sent nothing in response to the initial CMS query. In the end, GAO was able to keep all 11 fictitious applicants on subsidies throughout 2014, each one directing about $30,000 in federal funds to an insurer under false pretenses. And it’s worth noting that, later on in the report, GAO makes clear it created this fake applicants with no prior or inside knowledge of any verification procedures that might be applied. This was something that anyone could have done.

There’s more at the link, such as the fact that the bureaucracy also decided, quite arbitrarily, to send subsidies to applicants who claimed they were not in prison, even if those applicants were on the official database of individuals in prison (and thus not qualified for subsidies according to the law).

But hey, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and even Donald Trump want to use the government to administer health care. Trump might say he wants to get rid of Obamacare, but he also wants the government to run the system he will create to replace it. What could possibly go wrong?

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No security at Homeland Security

9:44 am

Does this make you feel safer? Homeland Security has lost 165 firearms and more than 1,300 security badges in the past three years.

The people running Homeland Security are generally the same people who want to prevent ordinary citizens from possessing guns. I would say instead that we all would be safer if we owned the guns and they were banned at Homeland Security.

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America’s ten most oppressive colleges

9:31 am

Fascists: A new review of free speech on campuses across the United States has listed the country’s ten most oppressive colleges, with examples of why they earned this odious status.

The first link is the actual report, while the second provides a good quick summary. In either case, the behavior of college officials in attempting to squelch dissent is quite disgusting. Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views. They are the future, and that future does not look pleasant.

Some good news: In South Carolina students are suing their college for interrogating them for daring to hold an event in support of free speech that offended some students.

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University President shuts down speech because it is conservative

11:38 am

Fascist: The president of California State University-Los Angeles (CSULA) has cancelled a speech by a conservative journalist because equal time would not be given to liberal positions.

CSULA president William Covino announced Monday that the event would not be allowed to continue without opposing speakers: “After careful consideration, I have decided that it will be best for our campus community if we reschedule Ben Shapiro’s appearance for a later date, so that we can arrange for him to appear as part of a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity. Such an event will better represent our university’s dedication to the free exchange of ideas and the value of considering multiple viewpoints.”

As noted by the speaker and the conservative club that asked him to speak, this university president never required left wing speakers to provide air time to conservatives. What he is really doing is coming up with a fake reason to censor conservative thought, merely because he doesn’t like it.

What I like best about this story however is Shapiro’s response. He has said that the event is going on regardless. He is refusing to let them prevent him from expressing his opinions, a right guaranteed by the first amendment.

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Trump threatens private citizens for opposing him

9:08 am

Fascist: Presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday threatened the owners of the Chicago Cubs because they have been donating to a political action committee that is running campaign ads opposed to his candidacy

His exact words: “I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”

As the link above notes,

This follows on him threatening Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) with a lawsuit for running an ad using old footage of him talking about abortion. And that follows on him threatening to sue a reporter who wrote about the failure of the Taj Mahal Casino. All of this has happened within the last four weeks.

I don’t like fascists, whether they are on the left or the right.

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The Obama-like promises of Trump

10:52 am

During an interview on CNN yesterday, Donald Trump was asked about Obamacare and the insurance mandate. The first words out of his mouth were “I like the mandate,” which is what most conservative websites are focusing on.

I think it is more important to focus on Trump’s entire answer, which goes on for about two and half minutes. (I have posted the video below the fold, so you can listen for yourself.) As noted at the first link above,

Trump doesn’t have a freakin clue as to what he’s talking about. What he’s obviously done is extract a few focus group tested themes, like “dying on the street,” and “get rid of the lines,” and he simply says these over and over with connecting verbiage. The plan Trump refers to, the one that apparently suspends the idea of supply and demand and guarantees everyone a free lunch, simply does not exist. In the tech field it is a concept known as vaporware.

During Trump’s answer, he notes the dishonesty of Obama for making wild promises about Obamacare that were outright lies (‘If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period.” and “Obamacare will cut costs by $2500 per family.”). Trump then proceeds to spout his own wild and unrealistic promises about what he will do about healthcare when he is President. And they sound to me as dishonest and incoherent as the promises Obama made. Both set of promises remind me of school elections when I was in junior high school, where candidates would promise free ice cream at every break and soda machines in the halls. Such promises are silly, childish, and unrealistic, and the voters should try to be mature enough to see that.

Trump might be a better choice than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, but for Republicans to pick him as their nominee is insane. We can certainly do better.
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Bureaucrats fight over the regulation of commercial space

9:37 am

Battle of bureaucrats: The FAA’s office that regulates commercial space (AST) and the National Transportation Safety Boad (NTSB) are fighting over the procedures AST should use to control and manage the work of private space companies.

The issues deal with how the FAA inspects the work of space companies, prompted by the NTSB’s investigation into the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crash in 2014. The kerfuffle also illustrates the absurdity of the regulatory responsibilities that Congress forced on AST when it amended the commercial space act in 2004. Somehow it is expected that bureaucrats in Washington will know better how to make sure a private company’s new space designs are safe than the very engineers who are building them. The disagreement here is merely about how the bureaucrats keep watch. The NTSB wants AST’s bureaucrats to hover over them like a worried mother. AST wants to hover from a little farther away, like a proud father.

In either case, the hovering will accomplish little to make the cutting edge engineering more safe except create fake jobs in the government for hovering bureaucrats, while squelching risky innovation since such risks go against the instincts of every bureaucrat.

Though Congress has recently revised the law to ease its regulations, they didn’t really do much to remove them. Expect these kerfuffles to get bigger in the coming years as the Washington bureaucracy moves to impose its will on this industry while simultaneously manipulating the press and Congress to create more useless jobs for themselves.

If they succeed, we should also expect them to succeed in making innovative commercial development in space become increasingly impossible.

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Harper Collins bans a sci-fi book because it isn’t sufficiently liberal

4:29 pm

Fascists: A science fiction author had his book removed from the publication schedule, effectively banning it, because his editor didn’t like the conservative leanings of one chapter.

[A]pparently advancing the thought that a brand new life form might see us, humanity, as dangerous because we terminate our young, apparently… that’s a ThoughtCrime most heinous over at Harper Collins. Even for one tiny little chapter.

Here’s what happened next. I was not given notes as writers are typically given during the editorial process. I was told by my agent that my editor was upset and “deeply offended” that I had even dared advanced this idea. As though I had no right to have such a thought or even game the idea within a science fiction universe. I was immediately removed from the publication schedule which as far as I know is odd and unprecedented, especially for an author who has had both critical and commercial success. This, being removed from the production schedule, happened before my agent had even communicated the editor’s demand that I immediately change the offending chapter to something more “socially” (read “progressive”) acceptable. That seemed odd. How could they possibly have known that I would or would not change it? It seems reasonable to ask first. … They merely demanded that I rewrite that chapter not because it was poorly written, or, not supportive of the arc of the novel. No, they demanded it be struck from the record because they hate the idea I’d advanced. They demanded it be deleted without discussion. They felt it was for… the “greater good.” That is censorship, and a violation of everyone’s right to free speech. They demanded it be so or else… I wouldn’t be published. That’s how they threatened a writer with a signed contract.

He refused, and has made his book available by publishing it himself as an ebook. Go and buy it!

I should note that his experience matches exactly with my own experience as a nonfiction writer as well as with other authors I have known in the past two decades. Book editors have become exceedingly oppressive, and now routinely demand that your work conform to their political beliefs (always liberal) or they will make your life hell, or get the book squelched.

It is this reason I now focus my writing on BtB, as I grew really really tired in the past five years having book proposal after book proposal blacklisted because editors were offended I did not kowtow to their left wing orthodoxies.

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Ukraine’s aerospace industry in collapse

9:39 am

The Russian government’s takeover of its entire aerospace industry, plus its war in the Ukraine, has caused an 80% crash in Ukraine’s aerospace industry.

The two largest enterprises are the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau and the PA Yuzhmash manufacturing company, which work closely together on Ukrainian launch vehicles. Yuzhmash produces the first stages of the Zenit and Antares boosters and a fourth stage for Europe’s Vega launch vehicle. The company is also involved in the conversion of retired ballistic missiles into Dnepr satellite launchers as part of a joint program with Russia.

However, Russia is phasing out use of the Zenit and Dnepr launchers. Russia is shifting over to using Angara and Soyuz-2.1v, newer rockets the nation produces domestically. Russia is also switching to domestic manufacturers for space components to reduce their dependence on foreign suppliers.

This destruction by Russia of its neighbor’s aerospace industry doesn’t necessarily bode well for Russia’s own aerospace industry. Consolidated as it is into one giant entity, with no competition, it is very likely it will not produce much that is very innovative or creative at a reasonable cost. Russia was better off with the competition.

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Congress is now in recess until February 22

1:04 pm

If President Obama wants to bypass the Senate approval process for getting a new Supreme Court judge approved, at least for the rest of his term, he has the opportunity right now.

Both bodies of have adjourned until later this month for the President’s Day recess. The Senate last met on Thursday. When doing so, it approved a “conditional adjournment resolution” for the Senate not to meet again until Monday, Feb. 22. The House met on Friday and at the close of business adopted the same adjournment resolution to get in sync with the Senate. The House is out until Tuesday, Feb. 23.

So, the House and Senate will not be meeting in the coming days. This is an adjournment and is not challengeable in court the way the NLRB recess appointments were because both bodies have agreed with each other to adjourn. This is a true recess and an opportunity for the president should he elect to take it — considering the political realities of the Senate and the position of its majority leader to potentially make a recess appointment.

In other words, unless the Senate, led by Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) decides to end its recess early, Obama has until February 22 to make an appointment to the Supreme Court that will be in effect through the end of his term.

The article assumes that once this recess ends in February, the Senate will not give Obama another chance. Based on Mitch McConnell’s past history however, I would not be so confident.

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The stupid party

6:47 pm

The nickname for the Republican Party for the past few decades has been that of the “stupid” party. Why it has this reputation can be explained in numerous ways, from how its leadership in Congress routinely gets hosed in negotiations with Democrats, from how its Presidents since Reagan have routinely allowed liberals from the Democratic Party to dictate policy, from how the party since 2000 has routinely picked losers as its Presidential picks, and from how it has squandered every election victory it has earned since the day Ronald Reagan retired in 1988.

I think two stories today demonstrate that the stupidity is not limited just to the party’s leadership. In the first, we find that in every poll taken comparing a head-to-head election with Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz does better than Donald Trump.

Polling has consistently shown Cruz to have an advantage over Trump in this regard: Fox News found that Cruz would fare 4 points better than Trump, beating Clinton by 7 points (50 to 43 percent) to Trump’s 3 (47 to 44 percent). NBC News and the Wall Street Journal found that Cruz would fare 6 points better than Trump, losing to Clinton by 4 points (49 to 45 percent) to Trump’s 10 (51 to 41 percent). And Quinnipiac found that Cruz would fare 5 points better than Trump, tying Clinton (at 45 percent apiece) while Trump would lose by 5 points (46 to 41 percent).

Nor should we be surprised by this. Trump might sound good now, but when he has to face Clinton (or anyone) in the election, his negatives, which are yuge (to coin a phrase) will sink him. Meanwhile, Cruz’s smart campaign strategy and his remarkable skill at debate make him a wonderful candidate. To paraphrase what he has said numerous times on the campaign trail, I can’t wait to get him in a head-to-head debate with Clinton or Sanders. He will make them look like fools.

In the second story, we find that Trump is crushing all opposition in South Carolina. Cruz comes closest, but even his best poll there so far has him losing by a good margin.

It appears no one is considering the eventual election. Instead, Republicans appear posed to pick a cool reality television star who happens to have a lot of money, merely because he is a cool television star that happens to have a lot of money.

There is madness here, and that madness can only lead to the kinds of villainy that eventually led to the deaths of millions, in places that also put their faith in strong personality cults.

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Obamacare to increase costs 60%

6:23 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A new report from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, because of Obamacare, the cost for employment-based health insurance will rise by 60% by 2025.

These increases are on top of the increases we’ve seen in the past five years, since the law was passed. Moreover, the increases are going to cost the federal government trillions in the coming years, as the law requires the government to pay large subsidies for those in the lower income brackets who can’t afford these insane premiums. In fact, last year the tab was about $300 billion. And that’s only the start. Worse, these estimates by the CBO are routinely low.

Obviously, we should vote for one of the Democrats, who are promising to fix the problem by waving they arms and making it vanish, while also promising to provide everyone with free healthcare. Or maybe we should vote for the Republican named Trump who has made similar promises though not quite as ludicrous. Why not? What does reality have to do with anything anymore?

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The politics of high fantasy

12:19 am

Link here.

Beyond railing against the wreckage, the other commonality between the two big New Hampshire winners is in the nature of the cure they offer. Let the others propose carefully budgeted five-point plans. Sanders and Trump offer magic.

Take Sanders’ New Hampshire victory speech. It promised the moon: college education, free; universal health care, free; world peace, also free because we won’t be “the policeman of the world” (mythical Sunni armies will presumably be doing that for us). Plus a guaranteed $15 minimum wage. All to be achieved by taxing the rich. Who can be against a “speculation” tax (whatever that means)?

So with Trump. Leave it to him. Jobs will flow back in a rush from China, from Japan, from Mexico, from everywhere. Universal health care, with Obamacare replaced by “something terrific.” Veterans finally taken care of. Drugs stopped cold at the border. Indeed, an end to drug addiction itself. Victory upon victory of every kind.

How? That question never comes up anymore. No one expects an answer. His will be done, on Earth if not yet in heaven. Yes, people love Trump’s contempt for the “establishment” — which as far as I can tell means anything not Trump — but what is truly thrilling is the promise of a near-biblical restoration. As painless as Sanders’.

I would say that this above all is my biggest problem with Trump. As good a deal maker as he claims he is, he really seems to have a very childish and naive understanding of what he’ll be able to do once in the White House. Worse, he might very well decide that following the Constitution is too much of a bother, and that though he might think that Obama had the right idea to chew hard at its limits along the edges, maybe it would be better if President Trump tore it apart with his teeth.

Even more frightening to me is the apparent naive belief the electorate seems to have in these pie-in-the-sky promises. Our civilized society cannot stand if our citizenry has become so muddled-brained that it sees these promises as realistic.

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TMT might abandon Hawaii

9:10 pm

The consortium building the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) decided last week that, because of the delays forced on them by protesters in Hawaii, they are going to start identifying alternative locations.

I don’t think they have a choice. They want to start construction no later than 2018, which already involves a three year delay from their original schedule and significant additional costs. I doubt there is any chance that the permit process, which took years the first time they did it, can take anywhere close to that.

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NASA bans employees from writing the word “Jesus”

10:04 am

The new fascism: Lawyers at NASA have ruled that the agency has the right to ban the use of the word “Jesus” in any email written by employees.

In a letter sent Monday, the Liberty Institute stated that NASA lawyers pressured a group of employees at the Johnson Space Center to remove the word “Jesus” from a club announcement. This demand took place in May and June of 2015.

These employees had formed a private group within the agency called the JSC Praise and Worship Club, an entity separate from the agency. As part of the group, employees meet together during lunch to pray, and no one is prevented from taking part in the group’s activities. In an announcement email, one of the employees had used the word “Jesus.” A few days after the email went out, NASA lawyers clamped down and said the use of the word was absolutely unacceptable and would not accept the group’s offer to issue any kind of disclaimer to downplay its use.

NASA is now going to be sued by these individuals, as the agency is clearly acting to deny them their first amendment rights. And NASA deserves to be sued, and to lose badly in court. It is absurd that those NASA lawyers can construe the writing of the word “Jesus” by a single employee as an endorsement by the agency of that religion. These same lawyers would have also acted to ban the Apollo 8 astronauts from reading from the Old Testament while in orbit around the Moon in 1968. They are thus no different than the Soviet overlords with whom we were fighting the Cold War at the time.

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North Korea’s satellite tumbling

9:45 am

U.S. Defense officials stated today that the satellite that North Korea launched on Sunday is now tumbling in orbit and is useless.

Do not take comfort from this failure. North Korea has demonstrated that it can put payloads in orbit. From this achievement it is a very short leap to aiming those payloads to impact any continent on Earth. They might not be able to aim that impact very accurately, but if you want to ignite an atomic bomb somewhere, you don’t have to be very accurate.

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One dead, four ill, in drug study in France

10:54 am

A drug study in France has caused the death of one person and the possible permanent brain injury to four others.

A government investigation states that the company running the test committed some major errors when the first person experienced ill effects and was hospitalized. The company, Biotrial, did not pay close attention to that person’s condition before proceeding with tests and giving additional dosages of the test drug to subjects. It also did not, as required by its own disclosure statement to the test subjects, inform them that one patient had been hospitalized so they would have all the information necessary to decide whether to continue.

The investigations third complaint, that Biotrial did not inform the government of these issues, is mostly a complaint by government officials that there weren’t treated with the due respect they deserve, and is less important in my mind.

Read the article, as it is disturbing that a research company could be so cavalier about the lives of the human beings it is using as test subjects.

This story also illustrates indirectly the significant decline in the state of today’s modern mainstream press as well as the greater interests of the general public. This is a major science story. For a clinical drug study to kill one of its test subjects is a big deal. Yet I am certain that this will get no coverage in any cable news outlet. (If anyone see a video story about this, please let me know.) The written news outlets on the web will likely do a story, but it will not give it wide exposure.

Worse however is the reason why these outlets will likely not care much about this story. As I like to say, it is the audience that counts. News organizations cover stories that they think their readers or viewers are interested in, and they, like their audiences, are simply not interested in very much these days. Our society is becoming increasingly close-minded and childish, interested only in shallow reports about subjects that are not very important (such the poll numbers in New Hampshire or whether Marco Rubio wears silly boots).

Any interest in a story about how a drug study killed a person and might have caused permanent brain damage to four others? Nah, that’s no fun! Let’s focus instead on how Donald Trump told Jeb Bush to shut up during last nights debate!

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TMT to repeat hearings before state

9:27 pm

After years of doing everything the state of Hawaii demanded in order to get permission to build the Thirty Meter Telescope, a state judge today ordered that the whole process should start over again.

Since this order was instigated by the protesters, and that it appears the government favors those protesters, I expect that there is no chance TMT will ever get approval to build in Hawaii. Though the university consortium building the telescope says they want to go through the new process to get permission, they are wasting their time. It will never happen. The peasants with the pitchforks and burning torches, terrified of new knowledge while preferring the worship of a mountain, are in control in Hawaii.

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