Tag: politics

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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February 2, 2016 Batchelor podcast

10:48 pm

Below the fold is Tuesday’s podcast of my appearance on the John Batchelor show. In addition to discussing Falcon Heavy, Ariane 6, and the question of rocket re-usability, I also lambasted the glacially slow pace of NASA’s Orion project, producing four capsules for a mere $17 billion in only 19 years! And speaking of glaciers, I also noted in the science segment the stonewalling at NOAA that prevents scientists from analyzing the rational behind their “adjustments” to their climate data, all of which cool the past and warm the present.
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Carter would pick Trump if he had no other choice

4:26 pm

Heh: When asked by a reporter about the Presidential campaign, former President Jimmy Carter said he’d pick Donald Trump over Ted Cruz if they were his only choices. And why would he do that?

If he had to choose between Cruz and Trump for the Republican nomination, Carter chuckled, “I think I would choose Trump, which may surprise some of you.” (It did, judging by the loud laughter from the audience.)

“The reason is, Trump has proven already he’s completely malleable,” Carter explained. [emphasis mine]

I think this might one of those very rare moments when Jimmy Carter has correctly analyzed the situation.

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Luxembourg to establish space property rights

10:34 am

The competition heats up: The government of Luxembourg today announced an initiative to establish a legal framework that will ensure property rights in space for private investors.

The Luxembourg Government announced a series of measures to position Luxembourg as a European hub in the exploration and use of space resources. Amongst the key steps undertaken, as part of the spaceresources.lu initiative, will be the development of a legal and regulatory framework confirming certainty about the future ownership of minerals extracted in space from Near Earth Objects (NEO’s) such as asteroids.

Luxembourg is the first European country to announce its intention to set out a formal legal framework which ensures that private operators working in space can be confident about their rights to the resources they extract, i.e. rare minerals from asteroids. Such a legal framework will be worked out in full consideration of international law. Luxembourg is eager to engage with other countries on this matter within a multilateral framework.

The announcement is a bit vague about what exactly Luxembourg really plans to do. For example, it is unclear if this framework will only apply to Luxembourg citizens, or will be used to bring the private efforts from other countries to Luxembourg (the more likely scenario). It also does not tell us how the initiative will deal with the UN Outer Space Treaty, which essentially outlaws countries from establishing their own legal framework in space. Individuals can supposedly own private property in space under that treaty, but no country can claim territory or impose its own legal framework on any territory, thus making any private property claims unclear and weak.

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North Korea announces planned satellite launch

10:19 am

North Korea today revealed plans to place a satellite in non-geosynchronous orbit sometime in the next two weeks.

News of the planned launch between Feb. 8 and Feb. 25 drew fresh U.S. calls for tougher U.N. sanctions already under discussion in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United Nations needed to “send the North Koreans a swift, firm message.”

Pyongyang has said it has a sovereign right to pursue a space programme by launching rockets, although the United States and other governments worry that such launches are missile tests in disguise.

It is horrifyingly hilarious to read the bluster put forth by Obama administration officials about this new North Korean effort to develop ICBMs that, as the article says, “could reach the U.S. West Coast.” Besides wanting to send “a swift, firm message,” they call the North Korean launch announcement a “slap in the face”, “another destabilizing provocation,” and “an egregious violation.” They then say they are working “cooperatively and effectively with the Chinese to counter this threat.”

It is laughable, but terrifying at the same time. North Korea, led by the worst kind of power-mad tyrant, is developing the ability to launch nuclear weapons to any place on Earth, and all our leaders can do is whine how mean they are.

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National debt tops $19 trillion

12:37 am

The coming dark age: The national debt has hit $19 trillion, and the increase from $18 trillion was the fastest on record.

It took a little more than 13 months for the debt to climb by $1 trillion. The national debt hit $18 trillion on Dec. 15, 2014. That’s a slightly stepped-up pace compared to the last few $1 trillion mileposts. It took about 14 months for the debt to climb from $17 trillion to $18 trillion, and about the same amount of time to go from $16 trillion to $17 trillion.

The facts here also illustrate the complete failure of the Republican leadership to do what they promised when the voters gave them control of Congress.

But increasingly, Congress has instead allowed more borrowing by suspending the debt ceiling for long periods of time. That allows the government to borrow any amount it needs until the suspension period ends. Back in November, the debt ceiling was suspended again, after having been frozen at $18.1 trillion for several months. As soon as it was suspended, months of pent-up borrowing demand by the government led to a $339 billion jump in the national debt in a single day.

Under current law, the debt ceiling is suspended until March, 2017, meaning the government can borrow without limit until then. Obama is expected to leave office with a total national debt of nearly $20 trillion by the time he leaves office.

It was the Republican leadership that suspended the debt ceiling and allowed spending to rise so fast. This is also the reason that their favorite candidates for President, led by Jeb Bush, have done so poorly, and why the outsiders (Trump and Carson) and the new generation of tea party politicians (Cruz and Rubio) dominated the Iowa caucuses. And I expect that domination to continue in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond.

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The candidates’ take on science

9:30 am

The journal Science today posted this somewhat useful review of the positions that the presidential candidates have taken on a variety of science issues.

One must read this article while recognizing that Science is not trustworthy on many of these subjects. For one, its position is always for more funding. If a politician even suggests that the rate of budget increases should be trimmed, Science will frame that suggestion as if the politician wants to slash all spending for science.

For another, Science is quite biased and agenda-driven when it comes to climate change, and illustrates that bias in this article in its reporting on Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and his position on this subject. To quote:

Cruz has used his position as head of a Senate subcommittee that oversees climate research to question recent temperature trends. Last fall Cruz called climate change a “religion.” Voted no on a measure affirming that humans contribute to climate change. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words above is a misstatement of what Cruz has said and serves to trivialize his position. He hasn’t questioned the “temperature trends”, which for almost two decades have been stalled. If anything, he has noted these trends as evidence that the theory of human-caused global warming has a problem. What he has questioned is the data that NOAA and NASA have been publishing. If anything, Cruz’s positions on the science of climate change have indicated that he has educated himself well on the subject, and has taken some thoughtful positions on it.

Nonetheless, this article is worth reviewing, as it reveals a great deal about the candidates. A close look for example at Rubio’s position on climate change reveals that he might not be consistent, and that his stated positions now might not match what he does should he become president.

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Iowa results suggest strong Cruz future

10:18 pm

Ted Cruz’s strong win in the Iowa caucuses tonight, combined with a record turnout of Republican voters (180K+) indicates that his support is far deeper than any poll or expert had predicted. Every prediction had insisted that if the turnout was big, Donald Trump would win. As noted at the second link, “By Team Cruz’s own admission, turnout of 175,000 tonight would strongly favor a Trump win.”.

Instead, the turnout was 180,000, and Trump lost to Cruz handily and was almost beaten by Marco Rubio.

On the other side of the aisle Clinton appears to have barely squeaked by Sanders. To me the more significant number is that the Democrats could only marshal about 10,000 voters, far less than in the past and suggesting that the enthusiasm for either of their candidates is weak.

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A look at the emerging dark age in California

10:20 am

The coming dark age: Victor Davis Hanson took a journey through California recently and what he learned he found quite depressing.

The state bears little to no resemblance to what I was born into. In a word, it is now a medieval place of lords and peasants—and few in between. Or rather, as I gazed out on the California Aqueduct, the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Luis Reservoir, I realized we are like the hapless, squatter Greeks of the Dark Ages, who could not figure out who those mythical Mycenaean lords were that built huge projects still standing in their midst, long after Lord Ajax and King Odysseus disappeared into exaggeration and myth. Henry Huntington built the entire Big Creek Hydroelectric Project in the time it took our generation to go to three hearings on a proposed dam.

His analysis is cogent and worth a careful read. I think the most depressing point he makes is how the priorities of liberal elites of California have no connection with the real needs of the general population, and are thus causing the quality of life for those without gobs of money to decline precipitously.

Stranger still, the infusion of hundreds of billions of global tech capital created a new, politically active, multimillionaire elite, completely insulated from the consequences of their own therapeutic ideologies. The reason why California’s gas and electricity prices are among the highest in the nation, why its income, sales and gas taxes are likewise among the steepest, and why the price of housing per square foot soars over $1,000 while nearby tens of thousands of acres of open ground sit sacrosanct—essential open viewing space for those who can afford $1.5 million, 1,500 sq. feet 1970s houses—is this new rich elite.

California is No Place for the Middle Class

Easy money translated into a utopian view of living. Higher taxes were a small price to pay for the psychological reassurance that a millionaire was still liberal. Professions of abstract progressive piety make guilt-free grasping materialism possible. I suppose if you make $800,000, having your legislature outlaw dogs chasing bears and bobcats instead of building a reservoir makes you feel as if you make $80,000.

We are seeing this pattern repeat everywhere across the country. We are even seeing it repeat in Europe, with the ordinary citizens finding their lives destroyed by Islamic immigrants forced on them by pie-in-the-sky elite elected officials.

The last link is very illuminating. It shows a German townhall meeting where an elected mayor tells his citizens that rather than stop the physical abuse of women by Muslim immigrants the women should run and hide. The crowd understandably reacts in horror and indignation. Whether they will move to replace this mayor and his ilk remains an unknown. In the U.S. too many Americans remain willing to accept the rule of similar elitists, which is why we still have a viable Democratic Party.

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300 climate scientists demand NOAA explain its global warming climate data

9:32 am

No settled science here: Three hundred climate scientists have signed a letter demanding that NOAA stop stonewalling the Congressioinal investigation of the agency’s repeated adjustments to raw climate data so that the record shows increased warming, when there is none.

Of the 300 letter signers, 150 had doctorates in a related field. Signers also included: 25 climate or atmospheric scientists, 23 geologists, 18 meteorologists, 51 engineers, 74 physicists, 20 chemists and 12 economists. Additionally, one signer was a Nobel Prize winning physicist and two were astronauts.

Seems to me that this letter and the number of climate scientists willing to sign it alone demonstrates that the “97 percent consensus” on global warming is bogus. As for NOAA, the agency is legally in violation of the law by refusing to provide information requested by Congress. Moreover, what are they afraid of? If they haven’t been tampering with the data improperly, they should have no reason to resist the congressional investigation. That they are stonewalling it suggests that they are hiding something. It also suggests that they haven’t the faintest idea what the scientific method is, which requires total transparency so that others can check the results and make sure they are correct.

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Average Obamacare premiums are unaffordable

9:11 am

Finding out what’s in it: Independent studies have found that the average cost for health insurance under Obamacare in 2016 will be about $300 a month for the program’s silver plan.

That’s not the biggest problem, according to analysts. For many, their health insurance has dramatically changed under Obamacare. Deductibles and out of pocket expenses are higher, so many of their medical expenses are no longer covered. Some consumers who say they had good, affordable plans prior to the Affordable Care Act say they can no longer afford the new plans, which are substandard in terms of what they cover.

Obviously, this means the voters should throw their support to the Democratic Party and any one of their presidential candidates, all of whom have promised to fix this disaster of a law with even more government-imposed rules.

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Europe settles on Ariane 6 design

6:47 pm

The competition heats up? Airbus Safran and the European Space Agency have settled on the design of their next generation rocket, Ariane 6.

It will not be re-usable, and though they say it will be 40-50% cheaper to produce than Ariane 5, it is very clear from the quotes in the article that they are instead depending on trade restrictions to maintain their European customers, even if it costs them a lot more to put satellites in orbit.

For its part, Airbus Safran does not envisage making Ariane 6 recoverable, not in the short term. Mr Charmeau [the company’s CEO] believes that different market conditions apply in Europe and the US, which means there will not be a single, winner-takes-all approach. He cites, for example, the restricted procurement that exists in all major political blocs, which essentially bars foreign rockets from launching home institutional and government satellites. Nowhere is this more true than in the US, but in Europe too there is an “unwritten rule” that European states should use European rockets.

From an American perspective this lazy attitude is fine with me. Let American companies compete aggressively. They will then leave the Europeans and everyone else in the dust.

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Using Roman tactics to quell riots

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The following was a drill by South Korean police to practice the techniques they use to control demonstrations and riots. Anyone who knows anything about Roman military tactics will instantly recognize what they are doing.

While this is not a real world situation, in an actual riot these techniques are certainly going to be effective. They also illustrate who is the civilized side in these disturbances.

Hat tip Rocco.

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New York oppresses opposition to gay marriage

5:35 pm

Fascists: A New York state court has decided that the state has the right to punish a couple who refused to allow a homosexual wedding on their private property.

The court also sanctioned the state’s requirement that the couple submit to “re-education training” to learn the error of their ways.

“After the agency ruled that the Giffords were guilty of ‘sexual orientation discrimination,’ it fined them $10,000, plus $3,000 in damages and ordered them to implement re-education training classes designed to contradict the couple’s religious beliefs about marriage,” a press release issued following the court decision stated. In order to comply with the order, the couple will have to attend those “re-training” classes or have a “trainer” come to them, according to ADF.

The tyrants in the Soviet Union would be proud. New York is doing this kind of oppressive stuff as well as the communists did!

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Two thoughtful endorsements of Ted Cruz

10:11 am

While cable television and the general media goes nuts of the childish feud between Donald Trump and Fox News, Ted Cruz today got two different endorsements that not only supported his nomination for president, but also outlined in detail two completely different reasons for supporting him.

The first, at the website Legal Insurrection, outlined Ted Cruz’s consistent and long term history as a trustworthy constitutional conservative. Not only does the article review Cruz’s history in the Senate, where he did whatever he could to fulfill his campaign promises (often prevented from doing so by his own Republican caucus), the article also looks at his background before becoming a senator. Its conclusion?

In short, Cruz has a long (dating back to his early teens) record of being a conservative in both principle and action.  He didn’t bound out of bed one day, put his finger to the wind, and decide to become a conservative (as was charged against Mitt Romney, among others); he’s always been a conservative. [emphasis in original]

Conservatives have been complaining for decades that they can’t get a reliable conservative nominated to run for president. With Cruz, we actually have that chance, and he will be running against the weakest Democratic candidate since George McGovern.

The second article outlines Cruz’s particular advantages for cleaning out the bureaucratic corruption in the Justice Department and elsewhere in the federal government.
» Read more

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Hawaii’s governor expresses empty support for TMT

7:04 am

The coming dark age: In his state of the state address on Monday the Democratic governor of Hawaii, David Ige, expressed weak support for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the summit of Mauna Kea.

“In its recent ruling, the Supreme Court did not say don’t do this project,” Governor Ige said. “What it did say was that the state didn’t do the right things in the approval process.  It told us we needed to do a better job of listening to people and giving them a real opportunity to be heard.

“I am committed to pursuing this project and I hope its sponsors will stay with us.  And this time, we will listen carefully to all, reflect seriously on what we have heard and, whatever we do in the end, we will do it the right way.”

These are empty words. Listening to the protesters means the telescope doesn’t get built at all. The protesters made it very clear during their protesters this past year that their’ objective is to stop the telescope, to return to the illiterate native culture that existed before the arrival of the white man and his western civilization. They also made it clear that they are bigots, who want all not-native Hawaiians removed from the island. By saying he wants to “do a better job of listening” to them means that Ige is willing to go along with some of their ideas.

Right now, I am very doubtful TMT will ever get built on Mauna Kea.

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Trump: “I can be the most politically correct person you’ve ever seen.”

6:09 am

For those who support Trump because they think he is an outsider who will change Washington and the leftwing politics that dominate it, I think the quote above demonstrates that these hopes are false ones. He will do nothing significantly different once he is in power. Or as the writer at the link notes:

He’s aggressive and anti-PC on the trail, in a knife fight with 15 other candidates, because that’s what it takes to win, but if winning at the job of the presidency requires a different tone, then that’s the tone he’ll take. This must be the first time in American history where it’s impossible to predict not only what a major-party frontrunner would do as president — given Trump’s volatile political history, all we can count on is that there’ll be “deals”.

Be warned. Picking Trump as the Republican candidate for president might be the worse decision conservative voters ever made. He might be better than Clinton, but he certainly will not be what conservatives want.

Posted from Tucson International Airport. I am on the way to very cold Michigan to give a lecture for the AIAA, and will be back Wednesday night..

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Thirty Meter Telescope’s future in Hawaii in state’s hands

8:54 am

The coming dark age: The executive director of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Friday made it clear that the future of the project in Hawaii is waiting on the state government.

Ed Stone, the project’s executive director, said telescope officials don’t have enough information to decide. “We’re waiting now for the instructions from the courts through the Department of Land and Natural Resources … which they can convey to us what this new process needs to be, what the schedule is and then we can take it into account in deciding what we do next,” he said. “So we can’t really do anything until we have an idea what it is the state’s requiring to see if that’s going to be consistent with what we can do.”

State officials are not holding up the process, state Attorney General Doug Chin said in a statement. “On Dec. 29, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the circuit court to further remand to the Board of Land and Natural Resources so that a contested case hearing can be conducted,” he said. “As of today, the circuit court has not remanded the case. BLNR cannot take action or provide instructions to anyone until this happens.”

The excuse of Hawaii’s attorney general above is garbage. If the governor pushed, he could get the court to move. They are instead allowing the case to languish, which once again tells us that the sympathies of this liberal Democratic Party government lie entirely on the side of the protesters.

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Trump: “Let’s get to be a little establishment.”

11:32 am

In attacking Ted Cruz today, presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed exactly why I really don’t trust him, and consider him no different than Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney, and all the other fake conservatives the Republican Party has been foisting on us for the last twenty years.

“You know what? There’s a point at which: Let’s get to be a little establishment,” Trump told the crowd at the South Point resort and casino. “We’ve got to get things done folks, OK? Believe me, don’t worry. We’re going to make such great deals.”

In other words, expect from Trump (who still is essentially an old-fashioned liberal Democrat) the same kind of horrible budget and political deals we been getting from the Republican leadership for the six years — doing nothing to stop the Democratic Party’s leftwing agenda.

Trump criticized Cruz for being “strident”, thus preventing him from compromising with the Washington leadership. To that I say, “Amen!,” and loudly. The time has come for some real stridency, not the verbal fake stridency of Trump, who sometimes sounds like a tough guy but in the end is going to endorse everything the Democrats have been pushing, albeit in a less radical way.

Once again, I must add, that should Trump be the Republican candidate, I will still vote for him. Trump is not the radical leftwing ideologue that is Sanders. Nor is he corrupt like Clinton. He will at least act to delay the worst leftwing policies, thus delaying the final collapse slightly. And delay is still good in this context, as it will give us an opportunity to right the ship later before it sinks.

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Angara at Vostochny trimmed

10:16 am

Due to cuts in the Russian government’s ten-year plan for aerospace, the number of Angara launchpads at the new Vostochny spaceport has been slashed in half, with construction delayed as well.

On January 20, 2016, Roskosmos officials admitted that budget cuts at the end of 2015 required to drop plans to build one of the two launch pads for Angara rockets in Vostochny. Previously, the Russian space officials claimed that a dual launch complex for the Angara was absolutely necessary to support the four-launch scenario of the lunar expeditions relying on the Angara-5V rocket. The beginning of the construction of the remaining single pad was now delayed from 2016 to 2017.

Based on all the different reports I’ve read, they have also eliminated in the 10-year plan all lunar missions and the construction of a new space station. Essentially, their budget can only barely sustain what they are already doing. Like NASA, they have too large a labor force — jobs maintained for pork barrel reasons rather than actually accomplishing anything — that makes it impossible for them to afford anything new.

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Orion: construction in slow motion

9:57 am

Today NASA announced completion of the welding of the next Orion capsule, a job that this story said took about three months to do 7 welds. The story also noted this:

After putting on the finished touches, NASA plans to ship the vehicle to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) aboard NASA’s Super Guppy airplane on or about Feb. 1. At KSC, engineers working inside the Neil Armstrong Operation and Checkout Building (O & C) will spend the next two years outfitting Orion for launch in late 2018 by installing all the systems and subsystems for its inaugural flight to the Moon and back.

Overall this is the third Orion capsule that NASA has built, following the Ground Test Article (GTA), which did not fly, and the EFT-1 capsule which successfully launched just over one year ago on Dec. 5, 2014. [emphasis mine]

Three months to do 7 welds. Two years to outfit a capsule. Wow! At that pace they might launch before the end of the century.

Seriously, this is an absurdly slow work pace, illustrating the wasteful nature of the SLS/Orion program. Orion’s budget these days is about $1 billion per year, with a total cost expected to reach $17 billion by the time the fourth capsule is built and launched in 2023, for a project first proposed in 2004.

In other words, it will take NASA and Lockheed Martin almost 20 years to build four capsules for the cost of $17 billion. That is absurd. Compare it to commercial space: The entire budget for all the commercial crew contracts, including both cargo contracts and the manned contract, is about half that, and will produce four different vehicles, all of which will be built and flying by 2019 at the latest. And in the case of Dragon and Cygnus, more than a dozen capsules have already flown.

Is there no one in Washington with the brain power to read these numbers and come to a rational decision about SLS/Orion? It costs too much and isn’t getting us into space. Moreover, at its pace and cost it isn’t doing anything to help the American aerospace industry. Better for Congress to put money into other things, or save it entirely and reduce the deficit and thus not waste it on this pork barrel garbage.

Unfortunately, our elected officials today not only don’t have brains, too many of them are downright corrupt. They prefer to bankrupt the nation for their own petty gain rather than do things that might help the nation grow.

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