Tag: politics

Freedom speaks: An interview with Pamela Geller

12:07 pm

Muhammad bomb cartoon

Link here. As she bluntly notes right at the start of the interview:

We incited no one. We didn’t call for violence, justify violence, or approve of violence. The people who were inciting were the ones saying that we should be killed for exhibiting Muhammad cartoons. There is no automatic or unavoidable response to being insulted. No one is forced to kill for being insulted. Those who choose to do so are responsible for their actions. No one else is.

When asked about the criticism that pundits and reporters on both the left and the right have been leveling at her for provoking the attacks, she was equally blunt, though she saved her harshest criticism for the quislings on the right.

This is the problem with the conservatives. This is why we can never nominate qualified, brave, true conservative candidates. The conservative movement has trimmed to accommodate the leftist media so much that they’ve trimmed themselves out of principle. They attack me because they’re desperately afraid that the leftist media will smear them by association with me. It is an act of sheer cowardice.

It has been disgusting these last few days watching the so-called intellectuals of our society, including many reporters who should know better, rush over themselves to blame Pamela Geller and the victims in this Islamic terrorist attack, merely because they exercised their first amendment rights.

The Islamic State has not only claimed credit for the attack, it says it plans to do more, targeting people in as many as 15 states, with Geller as one of those named to its kill list.

And we should blame Geller for the violence? How divorced from reality has our society’s intellectual class become?

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Federal government demands NY strip Times Square of billboards

5:01 pm

We’re here to help you: Federal officials have ordered New York to remove the billboards that make Times Square famous or else the state will lose $90 million in federal highway funds.

The edict comes from a 2012 law that makes Times Square an arterial route to the national highway system. And that puts it under the 1965 Highway Beautification Act, which limits signs to 1,200 square feet. It took the feds until now to realize that Times Square was included.

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Conservative journalist obtains evidence the IRS audited him because of his political views

9:46 am

Working for the Democratic Party: A conservative journalist and strong critic of the Obama administration has obtained evidence through a Freedom of Information request that strongly suggests the IRS audits against him were ordered by the Obama administration and possibly a Democratic senator because of his political views.

My IRS auditor wrote into the margin of my file that he spent hours researching my political views. How chilling is that revelation? It sounds like the KGB, Stasi or even the Gestapo.

An IRS audit that required researching my political views clearly wasn’t a “normal random audit.” I was targeted for my political views. My civil rights were clearly violated.

The reason it may have taken the IRS fourteen months to turn my IRS files over to Judicial Watch [despite being required to do so in 30 days] is that they state a United States senator from Oregon was involved. At the time both senators from Oregon were Democrats. But only one, Ron Wyden, was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee with oversight over … the IRS. Could Ron Wyden have been the Democrat senator involved in my case?

There is a lot more at the link. Read it all.

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Scientist abandons research due to protests and lack of support

9:32 am

The fascists win again: Tired of the constant abuse from animal rights activists as well as the unwillingness of his institution and colleagues to support him, a researcher has decided to abandon his neurology work.

The researcher was cleared of any wrong-doing in his treatment of his research monkeys. Nonetheless, he has written a letter to a number of scientists who did support him, explaining his decision.

“I am no longer willing or able to accept the never-ending stream of abuse from animal activists toward myself and my co-workers while seeing them encouraged to increase their aggressive activities by the tolerance and very slow reactions of scientific organizations. There is a clear lack of consequences for illegal actions such as infiltration, violation of privacy, theft of documents, and even intentionally caused distress to animals in order to film supposed animal torture or abnormal behavior,” the letter states.

Logothetis’s letter also faults his scientific colleagues in Tübingen for distancing themselves from the controversy. The neighboring Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology posted a disclaimer on its website emphasizing that there are no monkeys at the institute, he notes, and colleagues at the nearby Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research refused to issue a declaration of support.

The letter was not intended to be made public, Logothetis told ScienceInsider, and he regrets that it has been circulated beyond the people to whom he addressed it. He stresses that the problem of inaction is not specific to the Max Planck Society. “In my view organizations worldwide must change strategy immediately. Filing charges against infiltrators should be a ‘must’ whether or not radical activists manage to escape consequences in the first trials. In our case, there was more than enough evidence to support a number of accusations,” he says.

This kind of reminds me of a lot of situations these days, where obvious law-breakers — from minority rioters to feminist rape accusers to Islamic terrorists — are allowed to get away with abuse and illegal behavior simply because their “cause” is considered righteous in some way by our modern leftwing state religion.

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Obamacare exchanges in trouble

10:03 am

Finding out what’s in it: Nearly half of the Obamacare exchanges that were set up by state governments are in financial trouble.

Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which is now working smoothly.

Note how the only solution suggested is to raise fees, which will end up raising the costs for consumers. These exchanges cost billions to set up, and even now do not have enough money to work right? I am not surprised, as they are a government monopoly, just like the entire Obamacare law, with no competition or incentive to do better. The result is increased cost of medical treatment, with no benefits for anyone.

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Indecision at Virgin Galactic over engine design

9:53 am

In the heat of competition: Sources at Virgin Galactic suggest that the company has still not made up its mind on the type of engine it will use on SpaceShipTwo.

Messier sums up the situation perfectly:

The lack of clarity about SpaceShipTwo’s main propulsion system is highly unusual. It’s difficult if not impossible to think of another space project that was uncertain about its primary propulsion system after nearly a decade of development.

Increasingly I do not see this spaceship ever flying, which saddens me. They had a ten year head start over everyone else, and have squandered it.

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Hawaii agency withdraws support for TMT

9:47 am

Maybe it is time to get out: The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), which had approved the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in 2009, has formally withdrawn its support.

I think the testimony to OHA by the opponents of the telescope says it all:

Thursday’s vote followed a day of emotional testimony at OHA’s offices in Honolulu.


“We have compromised and negotiated 13 times already, and enough is enough,” said testifier Mehana Kihoi. She said scientists did not understand the significance of the mountain to Hawaiian people. “These are people with no sacred place, no connection, no culture,” she said. Kihoi had spent more than 28 days occupying the mountain with other protesters and choked back tears as she described the spiritual experience of being there. “When you place your hands and your bare feet into the soil, you feel that warmth, you feel her heart. At 3 a.m., when … you feel her breath come down and sit on your bones, you know that she is alive.” She called on trustees to oppose the project: “Money comes and goes; our aina [land] is forever.”

Longtime Native Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte said stopping the TMT was no longer enough and that Hawaiians needed to take a stronger stand on the mismanagement of the mountain summit. “They’ve misused it to the point that they need to get all of those telescopes off Mauna Kea,” he said. “It’s a matter of principle.” [emphasis mine]

The comments of the first woman reveal an underlying bigotry and hatred of non-Hawaiians. The comments of the second person reveal a hostility to science and the advancement of knowledge that is most striking.

My instinct is to tell them to go to hell and to pull out all the telescopes, and financial support, to the islands. Maybe a tourist boycott should be started, since they obviously find non-Hawaiians and Western culture so offensive. We’d suddenly discover that these self-righteous claims are as shallow as I’ve described, bigoted and small-minded. Suddenly Hawaiians would be begging Westerners to return to the island.

My second and stronger instinct is to also tell them to go to hell, and to push through construction so that we do not bow to this kind of bigotry.

Unfortunately, our society no longer has the courage to do either. We will bow to these demands, and bigotry will win again.

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An update on Sarah Brightman’s astronaut training

9:30 am

The competition heats up: New detailed photos of Sarah Brightman’s training for her September tourist trip to ISS have been released.

The photos appear to dispel the rumors that Brightman might be replaced with her backup tourist for the flight to ISS.

Some might consider this flight nothing more than a publicity stunt. While it surely is that, for Brightman it also is a dream come true. And the publicity will not simply be good for her career, it will do wonders to sell the idea of space tourism and space exploration.

In fact, there is never really any downside to freedom and allowing people to follow their dreams, and this tourist flight to ISS will prove it.

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The IRS targeting of conservatives is ending says inspector general

11:37 am

A new audit by he IRS inspector general has concluded that the agency has taken “significant actions” to end the harassment of conservative groups.

The agency’s inspector general says the IRS is doing a better job processing applications for tax-exempt status. His report said the IRS has eliminated intrusive, unnecessary questions, and has cleared a backlog of applications that had languished for months and years.

One of the reasons these harassment tactics have stopped is that most of the IRS management involved in the scandal has been replaced. I wouldn’t rest easy, however. The majority of federal employees are liberal Democrats, and many would be glad to lend a helping hand to that party if they could. Right now they are being careful because they know they are being watched. The second we stop watching them is when we can expect them to start some form of harassment of conservatives again.

And anyone who thinks I am being paranoid I think is being naive.

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“American cities are by and large Democratic-party monopolies [and] the results have been catastrophic.”

12:13 am

Link here. As the author bluntly notes, in referencing Baltimore in particular,

Yes, Baltimore seems to have some police problems. But let us be clear about whose fecklessness and dishonesty we are talking about here: No Republican, and certainly no conservative, has left so much as a thumbprint on the public institutions of Baltimore in a generation. Baltimore’s police department is, like Detroit’s economy and Atlanta’s schools, the product of the progressive wing of the Democratic party enabled in no small part by black identity politics. This is entirely a left-wing project, and a Democratic-party project.

When will the Left be held to account for the brutality in Baltimore — brutality for which it bears a measure of responsibility on both sides? There aren’t any Republicans out there cheering on the looters, and there aren’t any Republicans exercising real political power over the police or other municipal institutions in Baltimore. Community-organizer — a wretched term — Adam Jackson declared that in Baltimore “the Democrats and the Republicans have both failed.” Really? Which Republicans? Ulysses S. Grant? Unless I’m reading the charts wrong, the Baltimore city council is 100 percent Democratic. [emphasis mine]

Like Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, and a host of other major metropolitan cities that are disasters for the middle class and the poor, Baltimore has been run by Democrats as a one-party monopoly for literally generations. The disasters we are seeing there have nothing to do with Republican policies, and everything to do with the terrible and failed policies of the progressive left. They are to blame, but they keep trying to spread that blame around.

It is time for Americans to see them for what they are — failures — and to stop voting for them. Republicans certainly don’t have all the answers, and should certainly be fired quickly if they fail to serve the public, but Republicans also have had nothing to do with the failures of the inner cities.

The most important thing a free person has is the freedom to choose. I pray that inner city Americans, both black and white, finally realize that it is time to choose differently.

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IRS Inspector General finds another 6,400 lost Lois Lerner emails

7:07 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: Emails by Lois Lerner that IRS head John Koskinen has sworn were lost forever and could never be recovered have miraculously been rediscovered by the IRS’s inspector general and will be turned over to Senate investigators.

Or as one of the leaders of one of the conservative groups that the IRS (and Lerner) had deliberately targeted for harassment noted, “I wouldn’t believe John Koskinen or Lois Lerner if they told me the sky was blue.”

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Two thirds of Obamacare recipients have to repay subsidies

2:12 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Two thirds of taxpayers have had to repay a significant portion of the subsidies they received through Obamacare this year when it came time to do their taxes.

And it ain’t gonna get better, only worse.

But don’t worry, it is really the Republicans’ fault for not writing or voting or even conceiving of this Democratic Party law. The Democrats are perfectly innocent of any blame at all for writing it, forcing it through (against the wishes of a majority of the population), and doing so without even reading the damn bill in the first place. If we vote for more Democrats and more laws like this, things have just got to get better!

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Progress freighter in big trouble

10:09 am

A Progress freighter launched by Russia to ISS on Tuesday was placed in the wrong orbit, has not deployed its radar antennas needed for rendezvous, and is not responding properly to commands on the ground.

Whether it is in the wrong orbit might be an incorrect report, but other sources demonstrate clearly that the spacecraft is tumbling out of control. Based on all these reports, it does not look good for this vehicle. The crew on ISS, including the two astronauts on a year-long mission there, might have to do without these supplies.

Meanwhile Russia is proceeding with its plans to consolidate control of all aspects of its aerospace industry under the banner of a single government “super-corporation” run by Roscosmos. Considering the number of technical failures they have had with spacecraft and rockets in the past five years, it seems to me that this is the worst approach for solving these problems. Then again, Russian culture strongly favors a top-down authoritarian approach, so it might work better under this Soviet-style approach.

I don’t believe it, but we are going to find out in the coming decades.

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Supreme Court rejects Obama’s contraceptive mandate again

9:25 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Supreme Court has thrown out another lower court decision that had favored the Obama administrations’ Obamacare contraceptive mandate imposed on Catholic businesses.

What is telling about this is that the Obama administration keeps fighting these cases, even though it is very clear from all its rulings that the Supreme Court has rejected the mandate as hostile to religious freedom. What they should do is sue the court for dismissal and stop trying to impose the mandate in all cases. But they don’t. This is not only a waste of resources, it indicates that Obama and his administration really don’t wish to follow the court rulings, and instead want to impose their will regardless. By fighting this case by case, they are hoping to wear down the religious.

In essence, the Obama administration is thus reveals itself hostile to the law itself.

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IAU contest to name 20 exoplanets moves forward

9:08 am

Under pressure from many circles to open up its processes for naming objects in space, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has started a contest to allow non-profits and “registered clubs” to compete to name 20 exoplanets.

Each organisation can submit one naming proposal, for one ExoWorld only. The number of names that need to be submitted depends on which system is selected. For single- and multiple-planet systems, a name for each planet must be submitted, as well as one for the host star. In the 20 ExoWorlds list, five stars already have common names. Consequently, these five stars cannot be considered for public naming. There are 15 stars and 32 planets (47 objects in total) available for naming. The name of the 20 host stars are explained and personal messages from some discoverers are also available here.

To participate in the contest, clubs and non-profit organisations must first register with the IAU Directory of World Astronomy. The deadline for registrations has been extended to 23:59 UTC on 1 June 2015.

You will note that this contest is not open to the public, but to clubs and organizations that the IAU approves. This is typical of the IAU, which wants to retain its power to name everything in space. They are thus keeping this whole process close to the vest and tightly controlled.

In the end it won’t matter, as the names will eventually be chosen by those who go there, or by those who make the discoveries. It would be nice, however, if the IAU would simply recognize this fact.

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Next Falcon 9 launch set for Monday

8:56 am

The competition heats up: The next commercial Falcon 9 launch is now set for tonight, Monday, less than two weeks after the last Falcon 9 launch.

The next two weeks will be especially busy for SpaceX, as they also have scheduled the first launch abort test of Dragon on May 5. The launch will also be the fifth for Falcon 9 this year, putting it in the lead as the busiest rocket in the world for 2015, ahead of the Russian Soyuz.

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Russians cancel effort to fly humans from Vostochny by 2019

8:51 am

The heat of competition? In order to meet a government deadline to launch humans from their new spaceport at Vostochny, the Russians had planned, though now cancelled, a single manned launch there in 2019, using a new rocket.

Their cancelled plans had included two prior test flights of the rocket with Progress freighters.

If cargo missions were successful, the one brave crew would ride into orbit from the new spaceport, knowing that in case of a serious problem with the rocket, the descent module of the spacecraft would parachute into deep forest of the Russian Far East or somewhere in the Pacific.

After “satisfying” this political goal with a single crew, all manned Soyuz and cargo Progress missions would then revert back to Baikonur for a safe ascent trajectory. The Soyuz spacecraft would continue flying two missions annually from Baikonur, until the veteran spacecraft’s final launch in 2025. In 2021, Soyuz spacecraft missions originating from Baikonur would switch from Soyuz-FG to Soyuz-2-1a rocket.

The Russians have now decided, rather than rush this first flight on the new rocket, to hold to the slower schedule.

This story is important to the United States. I think we must definitely end our dependence on the Russians before they make the switch to the new rocket. Based on the levels of poor quality control and corruption seen recently in Russia, I have grave doubts the new rocket will fly reliably at first. It would be a mistake to buy its use to put Americans in space.

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Top scientists to review data adjustments of temperature data

5:44 pm

The uncertainty of science? A panel of five scientists has been formed to review the adjustments to the global temperature data at NOAA and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) that have consistently cooled the past but warmed the present, thus creating the illusion of more warming than the raw data suggests.

Careful analysts have come up with hundreds of examples of how the original data recorded by 3,000-odd weather stations has been “adjusted”, to exaggerate the degree to which the Earth has actually been warming. Figures from earlier decades have repeatedly been adjusted downwards and more recent data adjusted upwards, to show the Earth having warmed much more dramatically than the original data justified.

So strong is the evidence that all this calls for proper investigation that my articles have now brought a heavyweight response. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry into just how far these manipulations of the data may have distorted our picture of what is really happening to global temperatures.

The global warming scientists at NOAA and GISS are finally going to challenged to explain their adjustments, something they have so far refused to do. For my part, I will be very surprised if they can come up with a scientifically justified explanation.

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Seven big failed environmentalist predictions

3:49 pm

Link here.

Like the author, I remember every single one of these doomsday predictions. I also remember how every single one of these predictions was wildly wrong. Until these fear-mongers can reliably predict things, I see no reason to believe them.

His article however does provide one entertaining tidbit:

You know how old I am? I’m so positively ancient that I remember when one of Jimmy Carter’s big answers to the impending shortage of oil was to increase federal funding for research on how to extract oil from shale. It ended the way you would expect: it went nowhere. But some decades later, private oil companies did find a way to more economically extract oil from shale—and environmentalists promptly made it public enemy #1.

All true. And just one more example of how the government fails at something while private enterprise, fueled by the profit motive, finds a way to make that exact same thing happen.

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Russia launches criminal investigation at Vostochny

4:42 pm

The Russian government has launched a large-scale investigation into the disappearance of 300 million rubles ($6 million) at their new Vostochny spaceport.

The criminal case was opened on the charges of large-scale embezzlement, the interior department said. According to a pre-investigation check, an agreement was signed in October 2014 between the client represented by the state special construction company and a contractor on fulfilling contractual work for building roads as part of the Vostochny cosmodrome infrastructure development, the interior department said. “The client under the contract made an advance payment of 300 million rubles to the contractor. However, the contractor did not start work and did not return the advance payment,” the interior department said, adding the investigation was continuing.

It appears the Russian government is finally tightening the screws at what appears to be widespread corruption at Vostochny.

I suspect the real problem here is not that the contractor pocketed some money illegally, it is that the contractor pocketed too much money illegally. Had he simply skimmed off a bit off the top but made sure construction proceeded, Putin and his gang would have gladly looked the other way. They skim off enough of their own too y’know, on numerous other projects. Skimming off so much that the project isn’t even built, howver, is unacceptable!

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FBI found to have routinely faked incriminating data

3:00 pm

Does this make you feel safer? For more than two decades before 2000 the FBI’s forensic unit gave flawed and misleading testimony in almost every case in which its experts testified.

This study was launched after the Post reported that flawed forensic hair matches might have led to possibly hundreds of wrongful convictions for rape, murder, and other violent crimes, dating back at least to the 1970s. In 90 percent of the cases reviewed so far, forensic examiners evidently made statements beyond the bounds of proper science. There were no scientifically accepted standards for forensic testing, yet FBI experts routinely and almost unvaryingly testified, according to the Post,”to the near-certainty of ‘matches’ of crime-scene hairs to defendants, backing their claims by citing incomplete or misleading statistics drawn from their case work.” [emphasis in original]

But hey, let’s extend the spying authority of the National Security Agency, as is being pushed by Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), leader of the Republican Party. What could possibly go wrong?

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Judge rules family should be destroyed for refusing to bake a cake

2:19 pm

The state religion rules! A Oregon administrative law judge has recommended that a family should be fined $135,000 because the parents, who once ran a now shuttered baking business, refused to participate in a homosexual wedding by baking its cake.

Why did the Oregon judge stop there? The crime, of daring to disagree with the homosexual agenda, is so egregious that it seems to merit imprisonment. I think Oregon should maybe even consider concentration camps for these bigoted religious wackos who have the audacity to believe something different than the official state religion of liberalism. And how dare they think they have the right to feed and clothe their own children? We must take those children away immediately and put them in education camps so they can be raised properly!

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Students vote to ban Chick-fil-A from Johns Hopkins campus

10:24 am

Fascists: In an 18-8 vote, the Student Government Association at Johns Hopkins has voted to ban Chick-fil-A from opening a franchise on campus because of the conservative opinion of its CEO towards same-sex marriage.

Most of the news reports on this story have focused on the reasons the students voted for the ban. Having such a restaurant on campus will cause students to experience “microaggressions” that will make them feel uncomfortable. We can’t have that!

I want to focus on the vote itself. That such a large majority of the student government body supports the idea that it is okay to squelch someone’s business merely because of a political disagreement speaks volumes about our future, and it is not good. These are the people that will be running society in a few years, and it is clear that they believe oppression and the use of force against their opponents is appropriate. The cultural norm for them is not to debate their opponents but to smash a boot into their face.

Based on this, if you think modern American culture is getting oppressive now, just wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

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Russia ends effort to build a nuclear-powered rocket engine

9:43 am

The competition cools down! The Russian government has decided to shut down its research project to build a nuclear rocket engine for interplanetary travel in space.

The article doesn’t give a reason, but I suspect Russia’s continuing economic problems is the source.

The idea of using nuclear power for propulsion in space has been around since the 1960s, and has shown great promise. It would provide far more power for less fuel than any existing engine. The U.S. unfortunately abandoned this research in the 1960s, partly because of the cut-backs after winning the space race and partly because of environmental protests that fear anything to do with nuclear. If the Russians had followed through, it would have given them an advantageous position in any competition to colonize the planets.

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Russia slashes spending on space

5:22 pm

In the heat of competition: Economic hard times have forced the Russian government to cut spending on its space program by more than a third.

The cuts have mainly come from abandoning their effort to build a heavy lift rocket to compete with SLS. They might not realize it, but I think this will be a blessing in disguise, as they will no longer be wasting money building a giant rocket that will have little value in the competitive launch market. Instead, they will focus their investment on Angara, which has the possibility of earning them a profit.

Meanwhile, however, they still have to deal with the quality control problems and corruption that appears to permeate Russia`s entire aerospace industry: Russian defense rocket fails and crashes immediately after launch. I have posted the video of the crash below the fold. It appears that the rocket was successfuly propelled from its launch silo, but then its rocket engines never ignited.
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The building rage is not just against Democrats

10:00 am

People who read my website only intermittently might get the impression that I am partisan and specifically hostile to the Democratic Party. This is false. I am an equal opportunity opponent to anyone that likes oppression and the use of government to impose it.

Some stories today, describing the actions or opinions of some of the so-called conservative or moderate leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, illustrate clearly that we still need a major house-cleaning in Congress if we are to get this out-of-control monster under control:
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