Nov 042020
 

Pennsylvania is still Trumps. But overnight Michigan and Wisconsin kinda magically flipped to Biden; as things currently stand, Biden looks like he’ll win. For some forty or fifty million otherwise law-abiding Americans who have been staring down the barrel of either tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in NFA taxes for the mere privilege of exercising their basic rights – or of spending a decade in Federal prison, a power-grab unheard of in American history –  the prospect of a Biden/Harris Presidency is of course a very bad thing. However: as things currently stand, it looks like the Republicans will maintain control of the Senate, and conservatives currently have a substantial majority in the Supreme Court.

Bidens gun grabbery is of course wildly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court would have been certain to – eventually – hear the case and smack it down (quite possibly after a great deal of damage had been done), so the Biden/Harris plan has been to pack the court. But with the Senate in the hands of the Republicans, this is – at least for the next two years – probably off the table.

What’s left to be seen is what Biden/Harris will do to NASA and the USSF. The USSF seems to be moving along nicely, so one can at least hope that it will be allowed to continue, but it’s impossible to say. As for NASA… it is pretty much traditional for new administrations to tear up the old administrations plans. So don’t be surprised if Artemis gets redesigned, setting back yet more years, if SLS gets shoved back even further. SpaceX – if the incoming administrations plans to punish the successful is stymied by a Republican Senate – should arrive on the Moon long before NASA, and on Mars likely *decades* earlier. So… perhaps that might be for the best. If the USSF isn’t strangled in the crib, and if it is run sensibly, the USSF will likely become a major SpaceX customer.

Now a very likely real positive: the economy tends to do better when there is gridlock in Washington, such that the government can’t “fix” the economy via “intelligent design.” Instead, economic evolution through natural selection is allowed to play out, and things tend to run pretty well because the government is too busy fighting itself to “help” the economy.

But a potential serious negative: Biden/Harris will take over during a pandemic. Expect lockdowns and all kinds of efforts to change society on a permanent basis, including attempts at the Green New Deal and the imposition of actual factual Socialism, all based on the “in this time of crisis…” brand of fear-mongering policy-making.  The US will likely be dragged back into suicidal international efforts to crush the US economy by blaming us for all the carbon in the air, while the Chinese and the Indians get a pass. The Republican Senate will be watched *very* carefully to see if they have the fortitude to stand up to that nonsense.

I’m frankly curious to see if Biden/Harris pulls the US embassy out of Jerusalem.

What about the riots? One would expect them to die down, now that their guy is likely in. Those who burned and looted and drove up the homicide rates will get a pass. But the likes of the McCloskeys and Rittenhouse… expect them to be served up for the dastardly crime of defending themselves against the mob.

 

My main suggestion: watch those videos of SJW meltdowns… and learn from them. Don;t be like them. We survived Obama, we’ll likely survive Harris. But it will require vigilance and stoicism.

 Posted by at 9:17 am
Nov 032020
 

As I type this, Trump looks like he will win the electoral college. One of the remaining question marks that could determine the actual outcome is Pennsylvania, where at this writing 65% of the total votes have been counted, with the bulk of the remainder  likely to be “mail in” ballots. As I type this, the tallies are 2623695 for Trump, 1948417 for Biden. If I’ve done my math right, that means the total votes counted so far are 4572022 and the theoretical total vote count at 100% will be about 7033880. So for Biden to win 50% of the state, he will need to win an additional 1568513 votes, or about 63.7% of the remainder. Given that the mail in votes seem to come largely from urban areas like Philadelphia, winning two out of three of the votes outright does not seem impossible, but it’ll sure seem suspicious.

UPDATE, 2:30 AM (because of course it is): Some updated numbers… PA has 74% reporting, with 2964853 for Trump, 2286865 for Biden. Something like 1845198 votes left to count, of which Biden would need to win 68.3% of. The *trend* has been a steady improvement for Trump. A sudden reversal of fortune at this point would raise eyebrows.

 Posted by at 11:35 pm
Nov 032020
 

Warning: Below is a disturbing video of an injured critter. But it is a wholly remarkable WTF moment, if you can handle such a thing. A human with an equivalent injury would do nothing but scream, but this deer looks like “Sup. Yeah, it’s been a day…”

On one hand: blah, blah, blah, important uplifting message about resilience. On the other hand… GREAT GOOGALY MOOGALY

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 8:10 am
Nov 022020
 

If a politician promises to do wonderful things for you, to do the things you want him to do… it’s safe to disbelieve him. When the politician promises to *harm* you, you’re well advised to take him at his word.

“Assault weapons” here means the AR-15, the most popular rifle in America. “High capacity” magazines mean “standard capacity” magazines used not only in AR-15’s but in most common pistols. Joe Biden wants to make tens of millions of Americans instant felons. he wants to enact laws that will, if he could Thanos-snap his reality into existence, lead to an increase in violent crime. And in the real world, he’d drag the US miles closer to an all-out civil war. He wants a million Ruby Ridges, to replay the Battle of Concord and have the Redcoats win.

Tomorrow will be interesting.

 Posted by at 9:55 pm
Nov 012020
 

More info is coming out about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The password being “Hunter02,” for instance, meaning that Chinese hackers could have gotten in in about ten seconds. What’s on the laptop – which neither Hunter nor Gropey Joe, nor any of their staff or lawyers, have so far denied the reality of – is just a whole heaping helping of blackmailability, as well as security breaches galore. There does not seem to be much to implicate Joe himself – apart from references to get him a sizable cut of various business transactions, which is very likely how Joe Biden, Average Joe, can afford so many homes. But it does show that Biden has been and will continue to be quite susceptible to blackmail via his screwball kid.

EXCLUSIVE: National security nightmare of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop containing phone numbers for the Clintons, Secret Service officers and most of the Obama cabinet plus his sex and drug addictions – all secured by the password Hunter02

He spent 21 grand on a single “webcam” site. Normally I’m a “you be you” kinda guy about what people like to do with themselves and their money, but spending the down payment on a pretty good house for stuff you can get largely for free? That’s simply bad economics.

Assuming Biden wins, the Secret Service is going to get run ragged trying to keep a leash on Hunter.

 Posted by at 1:32 am
Oct 312020
 

YouTube kept recommending videos from “Virtual Railfan,” I guess because I watched one showing a train derailment a week-ish ago. I started noticing the same name popping up: Ashland, Virginia. They seem to have a problem with one of their intersections.

And there are quite a few more. The intersection doesn’t *seem* to be that badly designed, but I guess it must be.

 Posted by at 3:51 pm
Oct 312020
 

5 Big Questions Over SpaceX Declaring Martian Independence

Musk and SpaceX are laying the foundations for independent nations in space. If they can pull it off, that is of course a good thing. But will they be able to do so? Will the US government come in an stomp all over them? Worse, will the ChiComs, who will doubtless be far more powerful and influential on the world stage by the time SpaceX has anything remotely resembling a functional Mars colony, ram though international laws that allow the UN (i.e. the ChiComs and their sycophants) to take over the work done by others?

 Posted by at 2:44 pm
Oct 312020
 

Rewards have just been posted for APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers. Included:

1: “Manned Aerodynamic Reusable Spaceship (MARS) Vehicle Design” a 1962 Douglas report covering a single stage “orbital airplane” of impressive size and design.

2: “Pretest Information 3.3 Percent 624A Aerodynamic Heating Investigation, NASA Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel.” A 1963 Martin report describing a test of the Titan IIIC/Dyna Soar configuration.

3: Official XB-70 General Arrangement Diagram

4: CAD diagram: a 1974 Lockheed concept for a subscale Space Shuttle Orbiter Mach 9 flight test model, to be dragged behind a YF-12C and booster by an “Avanti” rocket (modification of the D-21B’s booster) with an internal SRAM motor in the orbiter.

If this sort of thing is of interest to you, either because you’d like to obtain these documents or you’d like to help preserve aerospace history (or both) please consider signing on to either the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 2:04 pm