An ad for a British insurance company, with following commentary by someone rather unimpressed:
The ad tries to be woke, but it ends up making Trans Kids look like undisciplined, ill-behaved sociopaths. Who is this ad aimed at? And what insurance company would pay for damage caused by a child whose parent(s) refuse to discipline him?
William Shatners flight on Blue Origin to the edge of space seems to have gone off without a hitch.
Looks like he had fun… at least for the tiny few minutes he had.
This was the voyage of the RSS First Step today. Its mission: encounter Earth from incredible views at apogee pic.twitter.com/Gzsnkv97K9
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 13, 2021
A film made circa 1965 by Con Pederson of Graphic Films for the USAF. It depicts the future of space operations as seen from the mid-1960’s, before the optimism about space came crashing down after Johnson cancelled Saturn V production in 1968. Pederson influenced Kubrick’s work on “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and that is visible in this film… the failure of the AE-35 unit is clearly seen, as is a rather chunky space pod prototype.
Former New Mexico State Representative Sheryl Williams Stapleton is accused (and charged 28 times) with embezzling millions of dollars. In Juky she got a visit from a number of officials packing assault rifles (*real* ones no doubt, with actual select fire capability) and her home was searched in what has to be the most polite home inspection of this kind I’ve ever heard of. I’m sure any random civilian who had a warrant served on them like this would experience something a bit more enthusiastic, but at least this happened.
Now… to take a look at the Swalwells and the Bidens.
Note that the cops here are, at least in part, IRS.
Fortunately the “foreign contact” he was trying to sell the US out to was an FBI agent. Maybe he can get a cell next to Eric Swalwell.
A photo taken from the first stage of a Saturn I showing the second stage’s six RL-10 rocket engines firings, boosting the S-IV stage towards orbit. Also visible are four orange-yellow exhaust plumes from ullage rockets… solid rockets that provide just enough acceleration to the stage to settle the liquid propellants at the bottoms of the tanks (otherwise the turbines might suck down vapor rather than liquid and that would be a Very Bad Thing).
Photo was from a 1965 magazine advertisement for Pratt & Whitney, manufacturer of the RL-10 engine. The full rez scan of the ad has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-10 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
In 1971 the Dutch rock band “Focus” released an album that had the song “Hocus Pocus.” It gained a measure of fame due to being a bit… well, odd, to say the least, with the lead singer yodeling, among other unconventional techniques. The song did well in the charts at the time. But what will meke it last until the sun goes dark is their 1973 live version on NBC’s “Midnight Special.” They didn’t change the song much, except for one detail. The song was originally nearly 7 minutes long, but NBC only gave them about four and a half minutes. What to do? The usual approach would be to chop bits of the song out. Focus’ approach: do the song twice as fast.
It’s *bonkers.*
The lead singer is *working* here, and as a result pulls some interesting faces. He could well be Chancellor of the Klingon Empire
To compare with the original:
As with the final scene from “Blackadder,” “Hocus Pocus” was improved due to time constraints and imposed limitations.