This, I imagine, is Trumps Fault.
Actress Jennifer Agostini, friends attacked leaving Midtown bar: court papers
Will this story get a tenth as much reporting as Jussie Smollet got for his little hoax? Let’s find out!
Nov 272019
Nov 272019
Nov 272019
A 1978 NASA artists impression (taken from ebay) depicting a “rescue ball” being used. This short-lived product was basically a space suit in spherical form, one that a Shuttle astronaut in shirt sleeves could enter relatively quickly in the event of an on-orbit disaster. Another Shuttle could send astronauts to collect the encapsulated and helpless astronauts and transfer them to a non-doomed shuttle. It was *kind* of a good idea, but once it was realized that the Shuttle takes *weeks* to prep for launch, the idea of using a Shuttle to rescue another Shuttle fell by the wayside. Instead of the crew of a stricken Shuttle relying on another Shuttle for rescue, official policy became la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you and orbital rescue equipment became superfluous.
Nov 262019
Here’s an article from “Future Life” magazine, May 1979, describing a Rockwell concept for a passenger module for the Shuttle. This could carry 74 passengers, a loadout that seems perhaps excessive until you realize that it was meant to transport the crews who would build the miles-long solar power satellites. If this concept is of interest, be sure to check out US Bomber Projects #06, the Solar Power Satellite Launch Special. There, another concept for a Shuttle “bus” was described and illustrated.
Nov 262019
And another case of BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….
Antifa loves to drown people out. Nice to see a proportionate response.
Nov 252019
In 1985, Rockwell considered the possibility of making a business of returning commercial cargoes from orbit. This is a tricky proposition: almost *nothing* in space is worth more returned back to the ground. Humans, of course, and highly hypothetical products made in zero-g… drugs, crystals, electronics. but none of those actually panned out: zero-g and/or high vacuum might produce some small benefit for various chemical processes, but terrestrial manufacture is so much easier and cheaper that nothing has so far come from on-orbit production
The description mentions a “ballistic cargo carrier,” but the piece is illustrated with a lifting body. This appears to be the same vehicle mentioned previously as a “hypervelocity research vehicle.” I don’t know if this means Rockwell gave thought to using the HRV as a cargo return system (if so, it would be an inefficient way to go) or if the HRV diagram was simply conveniently at hand. A ballistic capsule would probably be by far the best way to go for returning payloads that are relatively insensitive to g-forces. Cheaper, smaller, lighter and, importantly, cheaper than a lifting body.
Next up: Space Station Lifeboats.
Nov 242019
It’s video clips like this that can light up an otherwise gloomy day.
Antifa/Extinction Rebellion protester tries to block a street and then starts vandalizing a man's SUV.
The man loses it and it doesn't end well for the protester.
Normal hardworking people have had enough of these left-wing virtue-signalling eco-terrorists#DontBlockRoads pic.twitter.com/X8vupaynnD
— BasedPoland (@BasedPoland) November 22, 2019
I *suppose* the guy int he SUV is probably going to get in trouble for driving forward over the objections of the Masked Fascist. But I remain of the opinion that blocking streets, trapping people in their cars, is a form of false imprisonment or kidnapping, and should be dealt with as such. You want to protest The Man? Knock yourself out. You want to imprison Just Some Guy? Naw. Just naw.
Nov 242019
This one is a bit old (2011),but it’s pretty good. Especially the ending, which includes a notion I’ve long had…
Nov 242019
Huh.
Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Bushfires Destroy 80% Of Their Habitat
Functional extinction is when a population becomes so limited that they no longer play a significant role in their ecosystem and the population becomes no longer viable. While some individuals could produce, the limited number of koalas makes the long-term viability of the species unlikely and highly susceptible to disease.
Ruh-roh.
Australian critters always seemed to me like they were living on borrowed time. The critters from “The Old World” have spent a hundred million years competing against a wide range of other beasts, gaining superiority in arms, armor, tactics and disease resistance. Thus Old World rats and pigs and cats and dogs and snakes and rabbits and humans have done a fantastic job of ravaging Pacific islands. Australia is, compared to Africa/Eurasia, just a big island. Worse, it’s a big island that, at least for koalas, it a whole lot of lifeless sand with only a fairly limited range for koalas. Set that range on fire and send in the rats and dogs, and cute little koalas are as doomed as a village of Ewoks sent up against *competent* Stormtroopers.
Koalas have the bad luck of being dependent upon eucalyptus leaves. This is bad because eucalyptus leaves are basically filled with oil. They don’t just burn, they burn with a vengeance. I’ve seen videos of eucalyptus trees virtually *detonating* when surrounded by wildfires.
Now, as to blame: in this case, the finger points directly at the anti-nuclear activists. Imagine a world in which not only had the US not abandoned nukes, but Australia and New Zealand and the like had adopted rational nuclear polices and were now obtaining the bulk of their electrical power from breeder reactors and thorium reactors. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would be far lower, the temperature would be lower, fires would likely be less dangerous. Better, with a few extra terawatts of power on tap, Australia could at this very moment be well along in a plan to scoop out the middle of the continent and turn it into a new sea. This would open up vast tracts of desert to bloom and greatly expand the range of critters like koalas. But instead… damn dirty Soviet-backed hippies won the day and doomed koalas to functional extinction.
Nov 222019
Some people are of the opinion that civilized folk shouldn’t celebrate or take pleasure int he death of others, no matter how evil. I am not one of those people. You want to celebrate the deaths of bin laden or Hitler or Stalin or Castro or Che, you go right ahead.
Here’s one to add to the list:
Noel Ignatiev, scholar who called for abolishing whiteness, dies at 78
This genocidal Marxist schmuck lent a false gloss of academic favor to racist nonsense, in no small part contributing to the whackadoodle state of race relations today.
Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects are singing his praises:
Al Jazeera: Abolishing whiteness has never been more urgent
Slate: Noel Ignatiev Understood White Privilege and White Supremacy—and How to Destroy Them
“Among the lessons we should learn from Ignatiev’s life and work is that the abolition of the white race is not the matter of the self-satisfaction of white liberals but of the unfinished struggle for human emancipation, which awaits the new kinds of organizations that can aim to reach it.”
To all those who agree with that sentiment: eat me.