You would think that a Supreme Court nominee hearing in populated by US Senators would be the sort of thing that would merit a security screening at the least, and most likely only allow in specifically invited members of the public. If that’s the case, someone should answer for allowing in the screaming nincompoops. And why can’t they just shut off the mikes for the likes of Harris and Vietnam Veteran Blumenthal?
The director of the USGS is a former NASA scientist who flew on the Shuttle 3 times. This bodes well. Getting the USGS to begin characterizing the natural resources of the asteroids available for commercial exploitation is not only useful for the pure data of it, it also indicates that the US Federal Government is finally starting to accept that commercial exploitation of the heavens is not only probably inevitable, it’s also something that the US should be deeply involved with.
Of course, if the US or American corporations begin harvesting asteroids and collecting billions or even trillions of dollars worth of resources (anything from water to be used in space, to rare elements to be used in Earthly manufacturing to energy collection and transmission), then it’s a safe bet that other nations will try to get in on it. And when you have people competing for resources, you’ll have conflicts. It would thus be in Americas best interests to create a force capable of keeping the peace and enforcing the rule of law. A “space force,” if you will. And once that is created, a good use of that force would be to head out to the frontier and set up advance bases.
If Trump gets all this to happen, then all his idiot-child tweets are forgiven.
Mattel is having a hard time selling “Thomas the Tank Engine” toys and whatnot (I suspect because… who the hell rides trains anymore?), so they’ve gone to the United Nations for some sort of Wokeness Partnership. What’s particularly weird is that “Thomas” was apparently originally written as a sort of “rah rah British Imperialism” propaganda, coupled with “know your place in the social order.” Now it will focus on
education, sustainable communities, responsible consumption, gender equity and “life on land,” about healthy ecosystems – will be featured in a total of nine of the 26 episodes and related short-form content this season.
One of the new characters is an African migrant train. Because, sure, why not. Some of the existing “Euopean” train characters have been replaced by “foreign” characters, a fact sure to thrill the bejeebers out of the “white replacement/white genocide” fans (on both sides). “Thomas” is not something I’ve ever paid much attention to, but it will be interesting to see if this new direction results in more Get Woke, Go Broke. As the article point out, Mattel is in a world of hurt due in no small part to the changing nature of toys today, so they may be doooooomed regardless. If that’s the case, I guess it may make sense to try just about anything, including hooking up with organizations that want to see your culture ruined.
So Nike as decided to make failed NFL sportsballer Colin Kaepernick the face of their next ad campaign. If the campaign focused on Kaepernicks stellar athletic performance, that would make sense, but instead they’re shooting for some sort of weird political message:
“Sacrifice everything,” huh? Poor, poor Colin…
…over six seasons in the NFL, his career earnings are $43,479,216, or a little less than $7 million per year. Colin’s net worth is $20 million as of this writing.
Yeah, he didn’t make as much money as he could have… but he’s made a *hell* of a lot more money than the lifetime earnings of many people who do *real* jobs.
As for “sacrificing everything,” Nike’s ad campaign has attracted the attention of those who can put together better ads:
The plane had to divert around this.
Wow. Just… wow. I know, I know, “It Was A Different Time,” but holy donkeyballs, I can’t begin to comprehend the mindset that decided… “You know what would be fun? Let’s do THIS:”
Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto survived the bombing of Hiroshima and came to the US in 1955 to help other survivors get some plastic surgery. He appeared on “This Is Your Life,” which did some *really* questionable things. In describing the bombing they throw in some sound effects; the good Reverence looks like he’s about to jump directly out of his skin when the air raid siren fires up. And then they bring out Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, to shake his hand (at about 16:22; he was reportedly dunk and it shows).
Dude.
DUDE.
The middle of the 1950’s was a very different time for television, of course. There was a determination to be as chipper and upbeat as possible, something that no longer really exists. There was also a widespread understanding that the United States was in the right in nuking Japan (which, of course, it was, but it’s not a *good* thing, just a “least bad” thing), and in general seemed pretty happy about it… a happiness that is pretty damn cringe-worthy when put up against a feller who himself got nuked. A feller who, pretty clearly, didn’t really understand just what the frak he was doing on that show, and what the show was. They seemed to spring the whole thing on him.
Sure, the source of this article is RT, so I now doubt the existence of drills, the vacuum of space and epoxy, but still…
In short: it seems that a worker on the ground mistakenly drilled a hole through a Soyuz capsules pressure vessel and rather than reporting the error, he patched it. With something not much better than bubblegum, from the sounds of it.
…National Park, from about 35,000 feet. Just freaky to see that thing out the window.
From ebay a while back, a B&W PR image of a Sikorsky Skycrane operating as a commercial passenger transport. Sikorsky wanted this to happen in the 60’s, and several attempts to do just this were tried, but it just didn’t really come together. Inter- and Intra-urban commercial passenger helicopters operating as a flying “bus,” often to take people from city centers to nearby airports, were tried but due to cost, noise and safety issues, it never… ah, took off. In contrast, smaller helicopters have done a fair business flying rich folks (and injured folks) round cities, but larger helicopters like this are a thing of the distant past.
This is the sort of thing you just don’t like to see:
Twenty million items in the museum collection… and it’s a total loss. It’s the rough equivalent of the Smithsonian being reduced to ash.
If it turns out that some arsonist started this… hoo boy, not enough years in the calendar for a just sentence. if it turns out to be accidental… there is *still* room for a raft of trials. It seems the museum had been left in a bad way for some years, and didn’t even have a decent fire suppression system installed. If you have the funds to hold an Olympics, you have the funds to properly care for your national museums.