Cripes, did the Chinese build this?
Could be *hundreds* of people in there. Reports of screams from the rubble.
More footage. pic.twitter.com/xKtTZkP6GE
— Jamal Akakpo 🇬🇭 (@AkakpoJamal) June 24, 2021
More footage and a different angle from another guest of the hotel. pic.twitter.com/kkdsjO2s9l
— Jamal Akakpo 🇬🇭 (@AkakpoJamal) June 24, 2021
So apparently some kids set fire to a fireworks display at a HyVee in Eagan, Minnesota. I’ve seen fireworks fires before; when I lived in Colorado many, many years ago I came across the raging inferno that was a truck loaded with fireworks. It was a sight to behold, and the firefighters on scene did the only thing they could: stood the hell back. Fireworks come complete with their own oxidizer; you ain’t putting that ᛋᚻᛁᛏ out with water, believe you me. So when the HyVee fire started, an employee was spotted not doing a whole hell of a lot about it. Maybe because he couldn’t be bothered. And maybe because he was smart enough to know that there wasn’t jack he could do about it.
Side note: the news article I linked to points out that “youths” have been arrested for this. Hmmm. Eagan is part of Minneapolis, home of the Fentanyl Floyd Fires.
What *can* one say? Other than “mumble grumble something something society is going to hell argle bargle.”
Shooting at Oakland CA Juneteenth celebrations last night, leave 1 dead and 5 injured. This is how people reacted when the EMTs arrived. pic.twitter.com/AcFPciJuzq
— Anthea (@Anthea06274890) June 21, 2021
Add this to the holiday traditions of fireworks on the 4th of July, turkey on Thanksgiving, gifts on Christmas…
You don’t get a choice.
Completely not to my surprise, the Ninth Circuit issued a stay on making the state of California recognize the Constitutional rights of its citizens. The Ninth has not actually ruled on this issue yet, but the fact that they’ve come down with this “go on and keep infringing basic rights” decision is a pretty clear sign of where they are likely to go.
The Ninth will start hearing oral arguments on June 22 (tomorrow). Whichever way the Ninth ends up ruling, the case will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Now this is interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_UN271
2014 UN271 is a trans-Neptunian object on a cometary-like orbit from the Oort cloud. It is currently approaching the Sun at a distance of 20.2 AU (3.02 billion km) and will reach its perihelion of 10.9 AU (just outside of Saturn‘s orbit) in January 2031. Announced in June 2021, it was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey.[1] When first imaged in October 2014, the object was 29 AU (4.3 billion km) from the Sun and almost as far as Neptune‘s orbit.
2014 UN271‘s absolute magnitude of 7.8[2] suggests the body could be in the range of a 100 km in diameter. However, if there is undetected cometary activity[6] from supervolatiles such as CO and CO2, it could be significantly smaller. Cometary activity has previously been observed as far as 25.8 AU (3.86 billion km) from the Sun on a few comets, for example C/2010 U3 (Boattini).[7]
2014 UN271 took around 1.5 million years to complete half an orbit from its furthest distance of 40,000 AU (0.6 ly) in the Oort cloud.[4] It will come to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) around 20 January 2031 at a distance of 10.95 AU[5] which is just outside of Saturn’s orbit. The outbound orbital period will be approximately 3.5 million years with an aphelion distance of about 55,000 AU (0.9 ly).[4] The object is only very loosely bound to the Sun.
Basically a *gigantic* comet will come within the orbit of Saturn in nine and a half years. Time enough for SpaceX to build and launch a flyby probe?
Doubtful that this will be something visible even with sizable “personal” telescopes, but it’d certainly be interesting to see such a thing up close. It’s the size of a “dwarf planet” and has spent the bulk of its existence far from any star.
Used to be, readin’, writin’, ‘rithmatic. Many complained – not without cause – that it was a machine that only served to prepare kids for a lifetime of drudgery in industry. But now it often doesn’t even seem to do that; instead, the focus seems to be on instilling a sense of worthlessness and guilt and failure and fatigue. The worldwreckers want anything but kids who are enthused and proud and well educated in science and math and skeptical thinking.
— George Alexo-BOO-los 🎃 (@GPrime85) June 14, 2021
One bonus of the world grinding to a halt to deal with the CommiePox has been that a lot of parents have seen what nonsense their kids are getting fed at school thanks to a lot of schooling having been done via Zoom. As schools return to normal a lot of that will end… but with luck a lot of kids will record their teachers and the insane political indoctrination that goes on. There is a debate on the legality of recording a teacher in a classroom, and it seems to vary from state to state; but if a teacher is promoting vicious ideologies like socialism or critical race theory or creationism in a public school classroom, then a good argument can be made that the law is an ass. If a teach was physically abusing students, who would really file charges if a student recorded that?
Many long years ago I wrote a sci-fi story titled “Mass Disappearance,” a little bit of space opera that was the first of the “Zaneverse” scribblings I wrote. I posted it hereabouts free for the downloading; go ahead and take a look, either to be entertained by some high quality science fiction, or by some craptacular dreck, depending on your point of view.
Anyway, at a certain point in the story a few characters use “fanpacks” to get around. These devices generated a small bit of discussion in the comments. And as it turns out, someone went ahead and built something quite like them. Larger, fewer blades, non-stowable… but recognizable in terms of purpose and functionality.
🚨Please Share@NYPDDetectives need your help identifying & locating the 2 men seen in this video shooting another man near 1551 Sheridan Ave. in the Bronx.
Yes, those are children with the victim, who were very fortunately not injured.
Call @NYPDTips at #800577TIPS with info. pic.twitter.com/jiQE9MdKep
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) June 18, 2021
The June 1986 issue of “Air Force Magazine” had a cover article about the next big thing for the Air Force… aerospaceplanes capable of attaining orbit. Those who have been paying attention since 1986 might have noticed a dearth of aerospaceplanes, but at least the article has some spiffy cover art, along with interior art of what it claims is a 1965 McDonnell Douglas aerospaceplane. Two problems, though… McDonnell Douglass didn’t exist until 1967, and the art sure looks more like an SST to me. Shrug.
Anyway, I’ve uploaded a 300DPI scan of the article (and two ads… one depicting what appears to be a neutral particle beam space weapon, the other for a series of space-based nuclear powerplants) to the 2021-06 APR Extras folder on Dropbox, available to all APR patrons and subscribers.
Biden gave Putin a list of high-priority targets for Russian hackers to take down. How did *anyone* think that was a good idea?
1: It comes off as weakness: “Please don’t attack us!” Thus inviting attack.
2: A list of stuff Biden thinks shoudl be off limits not only points out vulnerabilities, it’s the wrong frikken’ message. Instead of “please don’t attack these,” which implies that it’s ok to attack *other* entities, the message should be “we will respond in a way that seems good to us. Remember that you hare highly economically dependent upon things like pipelines. It sure would be a shame if the software controlling your pipelines causes an explosion. Again.”