Foreign-born population in the US from 1850 to 2019.
Note the rather sudden spike starting about 1960, becoming clear in 1973, and a massive wave in just a year or three after that.
Jan 212021
Jan 212021
For all of 2020, protestors have been given virtually free reign to loot, pillage, burn and destroy. People who repeatedly demonstrated that they were textbook domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, and conspiracy nuts, buying into every ill-informed and downright fraudulent story of some poor innocent murdered by some cops, were lauded by the media and given a pass and praise by government officials from mayors to Senators.
But now there has been a change in administrations, and the story seems to have rather suddenly changed. The same jackholes who turned 2020 into year of loss, pain and flames now seem to be on the receiving end of the new administrations militarization of society.
Protesters in Portland and Seattle Shatter Windows and Light Fires
In Portland, Ore., lines of federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown. Some in the crowd later burned a Biden-for-President flag in the street.
Huh. I have vague recollection of many on President Baizuo’s side complaining about the use of “chemical weapons” against “mostly peaceful protestors.” I guess it’s ok now.
The feds have come out and unloaded tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd pic.twitter.com/9S14dspcCj
— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) January 21, 2021
There have been a number of arrests. It will be interesting to see if *these* arrests stick or, as was all too common last year, the terrorists and insurrectionists who managed to get arrested were often simply released uncharged… and others were the beneficiaries of funds raised to bail them out. Remember this?
Kamala Harris-supported Minneapolis Freedom Fund bailed out dangerous criminals along with protesters
Harris not only provided verbal support for insurrectionists, she helped fund them. Hmm. Articles of impeachment, anyone?
Jan 212021
This will doubtless go nowhere:
Rep. Marjorie Greene files articles of impeachment against Biden
Certainly far more valid than impeaching Trump for “Russian collusion.”
Jan 212021
And we have a new idiot-in-chief to mock.
Jan 202021
So majestic. So regal. So many feels.
To protect Biden? Bring Out The Army. To protect cities when they were being burned by thousands of armed insurrectionists and domestic terrorists all through the incessant Moron Riots of 2020? Naw, let it burn.
Jan 202021
As is known far and wide, I’m not well known. What little fame I have is largely bound up is the aerospace history research and illustration I’ve done; I’m *hoping* that when the two books I’m working on now get published things will change a bit (well, I hope my *work* gains a bit of fame; I’ve little use for *me* becoming famous). Still: while I toil in obscurity, I find that the products of my labor do have a tendency to pop up here and there. Usually when the diagrams I’ve created are used by someone else there’s some sort of attribution… but not always. There’s little to nothing that can be done about that, of course. Just sorta grit my teeth and move on.
So I watched this video, gritted my teeth and will, I suppose, move on. Note that it uses diagrams I created for Aerospace Projects Review issue V1N3 and US Transport Projects #07. What I suppose was funny was that when I started watching the video I largely *expected* to see my diagrams to show up in it… and, yup, there they are. As of this writing, the video has had about half a million views, not a one of which read where the diagrams came from.
UPDATE: After comms with the video maker: it seems he received the diagrams from someone else claiming them as their own. There have been revisions to the description including proper attribution. If this all pans out, there may be collaborations in the future.
Jan 202021
Not a complete story, just an idea. Lemme know if this sounds promising. Perhaps more importantly, lemme know if it has been done adequately by others.
An alien spacecraft or entity of immense size and power suddenly appears (emerges from hyperspace, pops in from another dimension, whatever) in the outer-ish solar system. It promptly wanders over to Jupiter and tears the planet to bits, stripping it of deuterium and leaving the rest in a slowly condensing cloud. The planet is chop-shopped down to the rocky core, with an expanding cloud of protium, helium, ammonia and such around it. The Jovian moons all now orbit the sun freely… the ones that the aliens didn’t eat, at any rate. Once done with Jupiter – a process taking at most a few weeks – it turns Saturn into a blinking traffic signal, a light easily visible over substantial interstellar distances. The rings are stripped away, the moons are melting. and drifting outwards. The alien dumps a Mars-mass of fabulously radioactive trash out beyond Neptune and then moves on, back into hyperspace. Doesn’t physically harm us, doesn’t communicate with us, gives no indication that it even notices us… just refuels on a scale we can’t quite deal with. Cultural hijinks ensue on Earth.
Jan 192021
The absolute unconquerable ignorance of those who would rule over us is an evergreen source of dark amusement. Behold the 2014-vintage performance of one Kevin De Leon, politician extraordinaire.
An Oscar award for the cop in the background. Managed to act like he wasn’t in the presence of a world-class ass.
And let us not forget intellectual vacuum collapse Sheila Jackson Lee, who reminds us that an AR-15 weighs as much as ten boxes and fires 50 caliber bullets:
Oy.
Jan 192021
This looks…. maaaaaybe good?
Jan 192021
A ca. 1964 Boeing rendering of an HL-10-derived spaceplane in orbit. Numerous companies – Boeing, McDonnell, Lockheed, Northrop, etc. – contemplated the development of a logistics spaceplane based on the HL-10. The spaceplane itself would, rather like the X-20 Dyna Soar, have been minimally functional in space; most of the propulsion and power would have come from the attached adapter module. The conical adapter would have also carried the bulk of the vehicles payload to be delivered to orbit, and would be used to provide a de-orbit burn for the spaceplane. The adapter would therefore burn up on re-entry, leaving the lifting body to glide to a runway landing. The spaceplane itself would be crammed full of astronauts and the life support they’d need; there would generally be little capacity for anything else, certainly not payload going back downhill. This was fine, though, as there were few enough payloads other than humans that made sense to send *back* down the gravity well.
