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Bullet hole found in Mauna Kea observatory

Even as protesters continue to block the roads to the top of Mauna Kea to prevent construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), workers at the Subaru Telescope at the mountain have reported a bullet hole in one door that had been put there sometime over the weekend.

No one knows who did it, or even if the hole was caused by a bullet, though that is what it looks like. The leader of the protests has of course denied any participation and condemned it.

I found this quote from the first link above (which spends a lot of time describing the heroic protesters who have been camping on the road) to be very revealing about this whole affair:

In an email Saturday, DLNR spokeswoman Deborah Ward said the area is not permitted for camping but did not respond to the Tribune-Herald’s questions about why the department has allowed the protesters to remain at the site. “Both state and county officials are monitoring the situation,” she wrote.

Gee, don’t we all remember how government officials turned a blind eye to tea party protests? Not! They did however allow illegal trespassing for Occupy Wall Street. In all these cases, the government officials reveal whose side they are on.

I personally think the astronomy community should organize a boycott of tourism to Hawaii. If their island is so sacred that outsiders shouldn’t be there, maybe we should hold them to their word. We would then find out how serious they really are about the island’s sacredness.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • wodun

    “Even as protesters continue to block the roads ”

    Protesters? I guess they are protesting but they are not protesters. They are Democrat party activists doing the work of the Democrat party. The two should never be allowed to disassociate from each other.

  • Michael

    Chile looks better all the time.

    On the way out the astronomy community should leave the sacred mountain look like Occupy Wall Street was there.

    But they won’t.

  • While working in Honolulu in 2000, I experienced open racism and bigotry from Polynesians. Not all, but a sizable percentage. In my experience the ‘protesters’ represent a majority opinion in Hawai’i.

    The tragedy is that King Kamehameha adopted a more constructive approach than most of the native peoples of Africa and North and South America: instead of resisting the technologically superior Europeans, he co-opted them, placing many of them in high positions in his monarchy. He was able to ‘keep his enemies closer’ while maintaining the native cultural identity. It’s too bad modern Polynesians have failed to learn from his example.

  • Maurice Levie

    Get: Pictures, video, post them early and often.

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