Category Archives: Blogosphere

Hitchhiking on a comet

Posted on November 15, 2014 | 2 comments

67P 1

One of the many photos the European Space Agency robot spacecraft Rosetta has taken of Comet 67P, with which it rendezvoused last week.

It later dispatched a tiny lander to the surface, which unfortunately landed in a shadow preventing its solar panels from drawing enough ultraviolet to power its batteries for drilling samples and examining them. A good reason for stifling the green weenies and providing radioisotope power next time.

The whole encounter is a reminder of ScFi writer G. David Nordley’s good novella This Old Rock about a far-future family homesteading an asteroid to mine and sell its minerals.

Via Phase Line Birnam Wood

UPDATE:  Losing power from its shadowed solar collector the little lander is having trouble calling home. But Philae might revive itself next August when P67 nears the sun.

MORE: Stupidly, even NASA is backing off nuclear power for political reasons. But still fighting “global warming” like crazy for, wait for it, political reasons.

2 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Space

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Advice to Congress: No new laws

Posted on November 14, 2014 | 2 comments

“It would…be a signal that [the new Republican] Congress understands the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.’

“The authors of the Bill of Rights understood what today’s politicians and pundits often forget, which is that Congressional inaction is an opportunity for state or local governments, for businesses, or for voluntary organizations.”

Pipe dream? Undoubtedly, but we have to start somewhere. We have so many laws now that no one, not the police, lawyers or the courts, can claim to be anything but ignorant of the law. It’s an absolute excuse for official lawlessness and selective enforcement that needs reversing before it’s too late.

And while we’re dreaming, here’s the Congressional Reform Act.

Via Reason

2 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, The Culture, The Economy

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As the worms turn

Posted on November 9, 2014 | 5 comments

Time for the big switcheroo the Progs make every time the Republicans get power:

They “speak up for freedom of speech, but only when a Republican is in the White House and dissent is the highest form of patriotism. When Democrats are in power, dissent and criticism magically morph into hate speech.”

So, even without the Reps in the WH but only controlling the Congress, we can expect plenty of the “highest form of patriotism” for the next two years. Of course because they don’t have the WH, the hate speech dodge will continue.

Opposing Wormtongue will still be raaaaaacist.

And I expect the lapdog Democrat snooze media will go right on ignoring:

“Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, the VA, the JV Islamic State, the nonexistent red line in Syria, the surrenders in  Iraq and Afghanistan, amnesty for illegals, refusal to secure the Southern border, the disgraceful manner in which Obama appeases the Islamic fascists of Iran while throwing the Jewish State into the snake pit, high taxes, lack of jobs, an ever expanding welfare state, the suicidal budget cuts to America’s military even as Russia and China are on the march, and most recently, Ebola. How’s that Ebola czar working out, folks?”

Via Seraphic Secret.

5 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The Culture

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Obama’s aim: toasting the mullahs in Tehran

Posted on November 8, 2014 | 3 comments

Detente with Iran seems to be the Worm’s next big thing. He needed his party’s help in Congress to screw up American health care, costing thousands of people their private insurance and imperiling their health. He can help the Mullahs get the bomb all by himself. He’s already gone a long way towards doing it.

“In case you had any doubts, the White House has thoughtfully made it luminously clear that we restrained Israel on behalf of Iran, and the nasty anti-Israel language provided to journalists would pass muster at Friday prayers in an Iranian mosque,” writes PJMedia’s Iran expert Michael Ledeen.

“The most likely outcome of all this seems to me to be an ever weaker America, an ever more aggressive Iran, quite possibly with nukes ready to launch, and lots of Iranian spittle in our national face. Yet again.”

It may be extreme to paint the Worm as Renfield, Dracula’s enabler, as Weekly Standard editor Lee Smith does in Tablet, envisioning him hoisting a toasting glass of blood to the mullahs at his hoped-for new-alliance summit in Tehran. The new Republican majority Senate would likely never okay any treaty he signed with Iran.

And, of course, he’s a lame duck and one-legged ducks swim in circles. But the Great Divider does have a way of frightening people when they discover the truth behind his continuous, duplicitous lies and broken promises.

Via PJMedia and Tablet.

3 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obsessions, War Without End

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Our Illinois Incitatus

Posted on November 7, 2014 | 4 comments

I am, of course, very pleased at the voters’ “immense repudiation” of Wormtongue, as the Streetwise Professor has it. As a commenter there wrote: “…his base of black, student, Hispanic and cemetery voters stayed home.” Heh.

Indeed, as PJMedia’s Michael Ledeen says, the Worm and his party were rejected and “On your current record, you’re doomed.  Surely you noticed that the good young talent is Republican, and that young voters are getting distinctly reddish?

Likewise I was delighted to see the comeuppance for the smirking pollsters who “rank a close second to Obama in The Biggest Loser results…”

But Akaky at The Passing Parade notes we still are stuck with the adolescent ADHD jackass for another two years. Still time for plenty of mischief.

“…our Illinois Incitatus appears to think of his current office as being akin to being the Mayor of Chicago, except with better golf courses and nuclear weapons.”

Fortunately for us, he only uses the former, not the latter. So far, anyhow.

Incitatus? You could look it up. It was the name of Caligula’s horse and means “swift” in Latin which, as regards Wormtongue, apparently is meant to be ironic. ‘Cause he ain’t too.

Via The Passing Parade & Streetwise Professor.

4 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, The Culture

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Barry’s Temper Tantrum

Posted on November 5, 2014 | 1 comment

I understand his mea culpa over the Republican wave was a doozy. No mea culpa, actually. Of course not. Megalomanical. Narcissistic. Childish. All the usual Wormtongue encomiums. I don’t think he called anyone chickenshit, though.

But I can’t say for sure. I didn’t watch it nor will I read it. I can’t stand the sight of the man, his voice or his lies. Play golf for your last two years, Barry, take the Mooch on expensive vacations. Sign a garbage-bag-full of executive orders. Whatever. I just want to live long enough to see you retire.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Listening is not his strong suit. Or negotiation. Or telling the truth. Meanwhile, his lapdog news media, no doubt fearing having to do some real work, i.e. reporting, with the Republicans in power, are urging him to double-down.

1 Comment

Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The Culture

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Abolish the FEC

Posted on November 4, 2014 | 4 comments

It is, as law professor and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds says, clearly unconstitutional. This regulating of elections, specifically who can donate money to whom and how much. Especially by a partisan agency run by partisans.

“The FEC with Weintraub on board has shown zero interest in investigating the foreign money that the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns are known to have accepted, which is against campaign finance law.”

Just one of the many laws Wormtongue has broken, backed by his federal Democrat bureaucrats, such as the FEC, IRS, and, lest we forget, Fart, Barf & Itch.

Via PJMedia.

4 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The Culture

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