Category: Behind The Black

Anti-maskers invade Target, demanding everyone “Take off that mask!”

9:54 pm

We need more of this: Anti-maskers this week marched through a Florida Target shouting “This is the United States of America, take off that mask!”

They didn’t harass anyone, they simply went down the aisles cheerfully calling for people to get rid of the mask. Watch the video below the fold.

The sad part is how few people in the store remove their masks. Many clearly agreed with the protesters, but still kept the mask on.
» Read more

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Nashville authorities cover up proof bars & restaurants do not spread COVID-19

9:44 pm

Local authorities in the mayor’s office and health department in Nashville, rather than release the data and open things up, kept secret evidence that showed there was no reason to close bars or restaurants. [The quote below comes from a local Fox TV news story that has since been taken down.]

Emails between the mayor’s senior advisor and the health department reveal only a partial picture. But what they reveal is disturbing. The discussion involves the low number of coronavirus cases emerging from bars and restaurants and how to handle that and most disturbingly, how to keep it from the public.

On June 30th, contact tracing was giving a small view of coronavirus clusters. Construction and nursing homes causing problems more than a thousand cases traced to each category, but bars and restaurants reported just 22 cases.

Leslie Waller from the health department asks “This isn’t going to be publicly released, right? Just info for Mayor’s Office?”

“Correct, not for public consumption.” Writes senior advisor Benjamin Eagles. [emphasis mine]

In other words, these corrupt officials, who appear quite typical of today’s government rank and file, had found in June that closing bars and restaurants was pointless, that their focus should be nursing homes and construction (though I suspect a deeper dive in the data would discount construction as well). Instead, they kept this data secret so that the lockdown of bars and restaurants could continue, putting thousands out of work.

The fact that they should have been focusing on nursing homes once again confirms the nature of this virus. Like the flu, it attacks the sick elderly, with everyone else barely noticing their symptoms, or if they do, recovering without serious harm.

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ULA reveals Chinese-owned company attempted to steal rocket data

3:42 pm

In an interview yesterday ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno revealed that a Chinese-owned software company tried to infiltrate the supply chain being set up to build their next generation Vulcan rocket.

Bruno said the Chinese-owned vendor identified in ULA’s supply chain was a provider of software for tools used to manufacture the company’s next-generation rocket Vulcan Centaur. Because the issue was detected quickly, no sensitive information was extracted by that supplier, Bruno said.

The company flagged as a risk was a tool supplier working with KUKA Robotics. According to ULA, KUKA had no access to ULA’s intellectual property. “ULA envisions no further future work involving KUKA or KUKA products,” the spokesperson said. “There was no evidence they attempted to obtain data, however, we have an obligation to our customers as well as our company to ensure we have taken all necessary steps to protect our IP as well as information the government has entrusted us with.”

The Pentagon has shown growing concern about Chinese ownership of U.S. suppliers and continues to impose cybersecurity requirements on contractors. “But I have to tell you this is just shocking in terms of the scale and ubiquity of this threat and this effort on the part of China to not only gain access to intellectual property through traditional means — hacking or espionage — but through infiltration of the supply chain,” Bruno said.

The article also notes that while the top tier subcontractors ULA might hire are almost all American owned, foreign companies own 70% of the smaller subvendors, and the number of Chinese-owned subvendors has grown 420% since 2010.

China’s effort to steal American technology has been a serious problem that has been ignored for too long.

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Astronomers detect the first exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf

3:33 pm

Astronomers announced today that they have detected the first exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf, meaning that it somehow survived the star’s expansion into a red giant.

The way a white dwarf is created destroys nearby objects either by incineration or gravitational destruction. White dwarfs form when stars like the Sun near the end of their life cycles. They swell up, expand to hundreds and even thousands of times their regular size, forming a red giant. Eventually, that outer, expanded layer is ejected from the star and only a hot, dense white dwarf core remains.

So how did a planet, known as WD 1856 b, that is Jupiter-like get into such a close proximity that it completes an orbit of the white dwarf (that is only 18,000 km / 11,000 miles across) every 34 hours?

“WD 1856 b somehow got very close to its white dwarf and managed to stay in one piece,” said Andrew Vanderburg, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The white dwarf creation process destroys nearby planets, and anything that later gets too close is usually torn apart by the star’s immense gravity. We still have many questions about how WD 1856 b arrived at its current location without meeting one of those fates.”

Here we go again: This news story, as well as all of the press releases for this announcement (here, here, here, and here) — in their effort to hype this release — all conveniently forget to mention that the very first exoplanets ever discovered back in 1992 actually orbited a pulsar, the remains of a star that had not only died but had died in a cataclysmic supernova explosion. Moreover, that discovery was not of one exoplanet, but three, forming a solar system of three rocky terrestrial exoplanets all orbiting the pulsar at distances less than 43 million miles, which would put them inside the orbit of Venus.

How those terrestrial planets survived a supernova was a mystery. Today’s discovery only heightens that same puzzle, as this Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbits much closer to its white dwarf.

Regardless, the press releases from these universities and NASA should have made these facts clear. Instead, they pump up this discovery as if it is the very first ever. Today’s discovery might have unique components (the first hot Jupiter exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf) but it isn’t the first of this kind, not by a long shot.

Expect the press by tomorrow to compound this failure. Modern reporters seem completely uneducated about the subjects they write about, and also seem all-to-willing to accept on faith whatever public relations departments tell them.

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California wildfire threatens Wilson Observatory

10:03 am

One of the many wildfires raging across California has now come with 500 feet of the Mt. Wilson Observatory.

Officials at the observatory said all personnel had been evacuated as the fire was “knocking on our door.”

Firefighters battling the blaze had made slight headway in recent days in trying to control the flames that erupted September 6, but containment shrank from 6 percent to 3 percent Tuesday, according to the Angeles National Forest. “They are in a firefight right now, because it is so close,” LA County Fire Captain David Dantic told the Los Angeles Times, referring to crews positioned at Mt. Wilson.

He said the fire, located about 16 miles (25 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los Angeles, had grown to 40,000 acres (16,200 hectares). “It’s a bigger area now,” Dantic said. “Before, we had 6 percent containment when it was about 30,000 acres, but now the fire has gotten bigger. It’s a bigger footprint. That’s why the containment is down.”

KNX radio said the fire was also threatening broadcast towers in the area worth more than a billion dollars.

If destroyed I doubt seriously there would be money to rebuild Wilson, especially because its location near the bright lights of Los Angeles limits its astronomical value. Astronomers have shifted its use to other purposes that are not as badly affected by the light pollution, but once gone it will be hard to raise the cash to bring it back.

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Martian crater filled with lava

9:06 am

Lava filled Martian crater
Click for full image.

Cool image time! Unlike most of the recent images I’ve posted from Mars, today’s has nothing glacial about it. Instead, the photo to the right, cropped to post here, shows us a crater where lava broke through the southern rim to fill its interior.

The picture was taken on July 15, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The crater is located within what I call volcano country on Mars, just inside the Athabasca Valles lava field, what some scientists believe [pdf] is the youngest lava field on Mars, estimated have occurred less than 600 million years ago.

The overview map below provides context.

Overview map

The tiny white box south of Elysium Mons indicates the location of this crater. The dark blue areas indicate the extent of the Athabasca lava field. The Medusae Fossae Formation is the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars.

The Athabasca lava field is about the size of Great Britain, and is thought to have been laid down in only a matter of a few weeks. When it spread it clearly reached this crater, the lava pushing through to fill it. If you look at the full image you can see that the north-trending lava flow even continued past the crater a considerable distance on both sides, the crater acting like a big rock in a stream, blocking the flow.

Since this happened more than half a billion years ago, a lot of erosion has occurred, mostly between the crater’s rim and the edge of the ponded but now solidified lava.

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Seven weeks after mask mandate, 40% of Ohio counties show an INCREASE in COVID-19

8:28 am

Seven weeks after the governor of Ohio imposed a mask mandate, it now appears that 40% of the state’s counties show an increase in coronavirus cases.

35 of 88 counties (40 percent) experienced a net increase in cases. … A total of 47 of 88 counties, or 53 percent, saw either a net increase or no more than a 20 percent reduction in cases. Fourteen of 88 counties saw a 50 percent to 70 percent reduction. Only five of 88 counties saw a 70 percent or more reduction.

This data confirms what has been seen in other states as well. Mask mandates have completely failed to stop the spread of COVID-19. While some places saw a reduction in cases, most did not. Worse, the data above as well as elsewhere suggests that the mask mandates might actually be contributing to the disease’s spread, mainly because almost no one in the general public uses them properly. Instead, everyone uses them over and over without washing, while touching them with unwashed hands continually. They thus act to collect pathogens, at exactly the place you breathe.

Masks are useless. They don’t do what too many foolish and ignorant politicians claim. Take them off. Throw them out. Claim you have legitimate medical reasons for not wearing them and stand firm. You will find that almost everyone will agree, and let you be. And the few control freaks that try to harass you can and should be ignored.

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Robots playing soccer

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This is a clip from a robot competition in 2019 of what are called “kidsized” robots. Short but entertaining, especially because it demonstrates the relative stupidity and slow incompetence of state-of-the-art robots. Future versions might someday get to the level of Terminator, but these robots show that we are fortunately nowhere that close today.

Hat tip Roland.

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Unexplored Mars

1:18 pm

Strange crater on the edge of Argyre Basin
Click for full image.

The constant stream of images and data that our orbiters and landers are feeding down to us from Mars can sometimes give the impression that the red planet is being thoroughly explored. Today’s cool image illustrates how this impression is false, and instead shows a hint of what remains untouched on the fourth planet from the Sun, a planet with the same land area as on Earth.

The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 10, 2020, and shows a strange crater on the north interior edge of Argyre Basin, one of Mars’ largest basins located in the southern hemisphere. Not as deep or as large as Hellas Basin, what I call the basement of Mars, Argyre is still the second largest such basin on Mars, about 1,100 miles in diameter with its lowest elevation 17,000 feet below the surrounding southern cratered highlands. Like Hellas, it is thought to be the remains of major impact.

The point of this post is not to try to explain the geology of this crater. Located at 45 degrees south latitude, it might or might not be showing us glacial evidence. The nature of the terrain is inconclusive. To figure out the geology here would require a lot more data, and a focused interest in studying it.

Instead, this image shows us how little we know of Mars. For example, this photo was not requested by any scientist doing specific research. It was requested instead by the science team for MRO’s high resolution camera because they need to take images at regular intervals to maintain the camera’s temperature, and if no one has requested an image for a specific time period, they make their own choice, picking a spot that might be interesting without knowing sometimes what they might find. Often such “terrain sample” images are somewhat boring. Other times they reveal some surprisingly interesting geology.

The map below gives a sense of how little of the Argyre Basin has been explored by MRO’s high resolution camera.
» Read more

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Scientists declare solar minimum over, with next sunspot maximum coming

10:47 am

Scientists from the government agencies of NOAA and NASA today announced that the solar minimum of the past sunspot cycle occurred in December 2019, and that the ramp up to the next solar maximum has begun, which they predict will be as active as the last weak maximum.

The announcement and prediction was put forth by “the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel, an international group of experts co-sponsored by NASA and NOAA.” While this group is made up of legitimate scientists studying the Sun, its press releases tend to be lobbying efforts for government programs, which nicely describes today’s release as well. The release not only touts the importance of their work, it links this work to the Trump administration’s Artemis program to get back to the Moon.

Note also that this announcement only makes official what has been obvious for months, as I have noted in my monthly sunspot updates. See for example this quote from my September 7th update:

What is clear is that the activity does herald the next maximum. As in the past few months, the sunspots in August all had polarities that assigned them to the new maximum. While it is not impossible for there to be a handful of sunspots in the next few months that belong to the last maximum, it now appears that the last cycle is pretty much over. We are entering the ramp up to the next maximum, presently predicted by a portion of the solar science community aligned with NOAA to be a weak one.

The only change is that it appears they are upping their prediction for the next maximum slightly. Before the prediction panel had said that the next maximum would be weaker than the past maximum. Now they it appears they are saying it will be the same.

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Trump: He kept his promises

10:09 am

Trump at a recent rally
He does what he says.

In my long life, I have seen many politicians come and go. The one abiding constant for them all was that you could expect them to break their promises once elected.

Until 2000 Democrats routinely spouted moderate and even conservative ideas during campaigns, only to quickly move left once elected. Some, like Bill Clinton, lied routinely on all matters, simply to please whoever he was talking to. After he left office Democrats have since been more public about their socialist and even communist ideologies, but still they have often lied whenever they found it convenient, such as Barack Obama’s support for normal marriage, until he found he could support perversion and get away with it.

Republicans have been even more dishonest. For decades they would paint themselves as the defenders of small and limited government, of freedom, of balanced budgets, only to throw all those ideas out the window once they gained control. Until 1994 they could make these claims without fear of revealing their untruthfulness, since they had not run both houses of Congress since just after World War II. They were the loyal opposition, whining from the sidelines about Democratic overreach.

After 1994 that excuse disappeared, and the result was blatant lying. Even though the Republican Congress during the latter half of Bill Clinton’s administration managed to balance the federal budget for several years, they did not do this by reducing government. No, all they did was allow inflation to catch up so that a thriving economy would cover their big budgets. No agency got trimmed. No agency got eliminated. Power and money continued to flow into Washington and into the pockets of politicians of both parties.

Under George Bush Jr. this dishonesty became even more obvious. » Read more

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Empty Chinese apartment complex overrun with plants and mosquitoes

9:27 am

The coming dark age: A Chinese apartment complex, designed to be an “eco-paradise,” has instead become an empty jungle overrun with plants and mosquitoes.

An experimental green housing project in a Chinese megacity promised prospective residents life in a “vertical forest,” with manicured gardens on every balcony. All 826 apartments were sold out by April this year, according to the project’s estate agent, but instead of a modern eco-paradise, the towers look like the set of a desolate, post-apocalyptic film.

The problem? The mosquitoes love the plants too. Only a handful of families have moved into Chengdu’s Qiyi City Forest Garden because of an infestation, state media reported.

The pictures at the link are quite incredible. Imagine being surrounded by neighbors who allow their property to fall apart and you have a sense of what these buildings look like.

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College English Department to only accept students studying “Black Studies”

9:15 am

The coming dark age: The English Department at the University of Chicago will next year only accept new students who focus all their literature work on “Black Studies.”

The University of Chicago’s English Department declared it will only accept applicants interested in ‘working in and with Black studies’ for its 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle.

In a statement uploaded to the English department’s website in July, the faculty announced their commitment to the “struggle of Black and indigenous people, and all racialized and dispossessed people, against inequality and brutality. For the 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants interested in working in and with Black studies. We understand Black studies to be a capacious intellectual project that spans a variety of methodological approaches, fields, geographical areas, languages and time periods.”

“…English as a subject, the department says, has provided ‘aesthetic rationalizations for colonization, exploitation, extraction and anti-Blackness.”

The statement goes on to deem the “collective responsibility” of the faculty to be “undoing persistent, recalcitrant anti-Blackness in our disciplines and in our institutions.”

Or to put it another way, the literature of western civilization can go to hell. All that matters now is race. And race comes first in order to groom that next generation of racists and bigots, now educated to hate whites.

I cannot imagine any parent or student wanting to attend such a program, unless their goal is is to learn how to become a Black-Power bigot aimed at oppressing all other races.

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Japan chooses Hayabusa-2’s next asteroid target

8:47 am

The new colonial movement: It appears that Japan has chosen the next asteroid that its probe Hayabusa-2 will visit in 2031, after it releases its samples to Earth in December from Ryugu.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 space explorer will aim to probe the asteroid “1998KY26” located between the orbits of Earth and Mars in 2031 after completing its current mission of collecting samples from another asteroid, the country’s science minister said Tuesday.

It is hoped Hayabusa2 will approach the ball-shaped asteroid, which has a diameter of around 30 meters and rotates about every 10 minutes, in July 2031, Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Koichi Hagiuda said.

It will not obtain samples from this second asteroid, only observe it close up by camera.

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China launches rocket from ocean launch platform

8:41 am

The new colonial movement: China today successfully put nine Earth observation smallsats into orbit using its Long March 11 rocket, and it did it by launching from a floating launch platform.

I have embedded video of the launch below the fold. Notice that the rocket appears to ignite its first stage engines after it is flung upward from the platform, similar to the launch of an ICBM from a submarine. This is not surprising, as the Long March 11 solid fueled rocket is based on ICBM technology.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

23 China
15 SpaceX
9 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)

The U.S. still leads China 24 to 23 in the national rankings.

» Read more

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The frozen and changing mid-latitudes of Mars

12:51 pm

Glacial erosion on Mars
Click for full image.

Using “frozen” and “changing” to describe any single location might seem contradictory, but when it comes to the mid-latitudes of Mars, high resolution images keep telling us that both often apply, at the same time and at the same place.

The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, is a typical example. Taken on May 8, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows what the scientists label as “mesas and ridges.” Drainage is to the south, and it sure looks like some sort of glacial flow is working its way downward within the canyons between those mesas.

Overall the terrain has the appearance of a frozen ice sheet, or at least terrain that has a shallow ice table close to the surface. It also looks like chaos terrain in its infancy, the erosion process not yet cutting down enough to make the mesas stand out fully.

The location of these mesas and ridges is shown in the context map below, which also shows that this location is at the same latitude as SpaceX’s Starship prime Martian landing site, and only about 400 to 500 miles to the east.
» Read more

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Next Starship test flight to go to 60,000 feet

9:15 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has decided, after two successful 500 foot hops using its fifth and sixth Starship prototypes, to forego further hops with those prototypes and instead test fly prototype number eight to a height of 60,000 feet, about 11 miles.

Starship SN5 and SN6 were set to become a tag-team, flying 150-meter hops to refine the launch and landing techniques that SpaceX has pioneered with its Falcon 9 rocket. However, with SN5’s hop proving to be a success, followed by a notable improvement with SN6’s leap to 150 meters a few weeks later, it’s likely SpaceX is now confident of advancing to the next milestone.

The company has applied for an FCC license to do the flight anytime from Oct ’20 to April ’21, with October 11th being the first available date.

In the meantime the company plans a pressure tank test to failure of prototype #7, probably later this week.

In other related news at the second link, Boeing and Firefly have also applied for FCC licenses, the former for a Starliner demo mission from November ’20 to May ’21, the latter for its first launch of its smallsat Alpha rocket, also from November ’20 to May ’21.

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Tiny amount of rare chemical found on Venus; it is NOT a sign of life

8:53 am

The coming dark age: Scientists today announced that they had detected a tiny amount of the rare chemical phosphine in the upper atmosphere of Venus, and immediately jumped to the absurd conclusion that this was a sign of life.

The international team, which includes researchers from the UK, US and Japan, estimates that phosphine exists in Venus’s clouds at a small concentration, only about twenty molecules in every billion. Following their observations, they ran calculations to see whether these amounts could come from natural non-biological processes on the planet. Some ideas included sunlight, minerals blown upwards from the surface, volcanoes, or lightning, but none of these could make anywhere near enough of it. These non-biological sources were found to make at most one ten thousandth of the amount of phosphine that the telescopes saw.

To create the observed quantity of phosphine (which consists of hydrogen and phosphorus) on Venus, terrestrial organisms would only need to work at about 10% of their maximum productivity, according to the team. Earth bacteria are known to make phosphine: they take up phosphate from minerals or biological material, add hydrogen, and ultimately expel phosphine. Any organisms on Venus will probably be very different to their Earth cousins, but they too could be the source of phosphine in the atmosphere.

To leap from finding twenty molecules out of a billion of a single rare chemical to claiming this is a sign of life is absurd. And yet, this is what these scientists do, in the European Space Agency (ESA) press release at the link above, as well as this Royal Astronomical Society press release.

This discovery is not giving us “a hint of life on Venus.” All these scientists have done is detect a chemical whose formation in Venus’ very alien environment is a mystery. Yes, on Earth this chemical comes from life related activities, but to claim that the presence of biology must explain it on Venus is not science, but witchcraft and the stuff of fantasy. We know practically nothing about the full make-up of Venus’ atmosphere, its chemistry and environment, which makes it impossible to hint at any theories, no less life.

The worst part of this is that we can expect our brainless media to run with these claims, without the slightest effort of incredulity.

We live in a world of make believe and made-up science. Data is no longer important, only the leaps of fantasy we can jump to based on the slimmest of facts. It was this desire to push theories rather than knowledge that locked humanity into a dark age for centuries during the Middle Ages. It is doing it again, now, and the proof is all around you, people like zombies and sheep, wearing masks based not on any proven science but on pure emotions.

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China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket fails at launch

9:25 am

China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket yesterday failed during launch, though no details have been released.

Kuaizhou 1A and Kuauzhou 11 are rapid response rockets derived from intercontinental ballistic missiles that are capable of placing satellites into orbit on short notice. Launches are managed by ExPace, a commercial subsidiary of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.

The Kuaizhou-1A is the smaller of the two rockets. This was its first failure after ten successful launches.

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Astra’s first orbital launch test fails

9:15 am

Capitalism in space: The first orbital launch test of the smallsat rocket company Astra failed last night shortly have liftoff.

In a more detailed update published on Astra’s website several hours after the launch, officials wrote that the rocket’s guidance system “appears to have introduced some slight oscillation into the flight, causing the vehicle to drift from its planned trajectory leading to a commanded shutdown of the engines by the flight safety system.”

“We didn’t meet all of our objectives, but we did gain valuable experience, plus even more valuable flight data,” Astra said. “This launch sets us well on our way to reaching orbit within two additional flights, so we’re happy with the result.”

This failure was not unexpected. The company has made it clear that it was the first of a three flight program aimed at reaching orbit with the third launch.

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Camille and Kennerly – Metallica’s “One”

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Very nice cover, with both women playing on the same harp. Note however that this is not live, nor are the visuals from a single performance. It appears to me that the players recorded the song in a studio, then shot themselves performing it several times at different angles. Later they edited those visuals to match the studio taping.

No matter. Very well done, and quite hypnotic.

Hat tip Phill Oltmann.

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Another Arab country normalizes relations with Israel

2:22 pm

In a second major victory for the Trump administration, Bahrain has agreed to normalize its relations with Israel, including recognizing the Jewish state.

According to a formal statement issued by the three countries, they agreed to “the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain.”

“This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East. Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region,” the statement said.

The statement said that Israel had also affirmed that all Muslims may visit and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem’s other holy sites will remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths.

This follows the opening of full diplomatic relations with the UAE, as well as the rejection by the Arab League of a Palestinian Authority resolution condemning that UAE agreement. In addition, there have been a slew of other countries in the past few weeks agreeing to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

All in all, a kind of peace is breaking out in the Middle East, rejecting the hate-mongers in the Palestinian territories who only wish to kill all Jews and have thus refused all reasonable offers of neighborly relations. It now appears that many Arabs are finally realizing that their alliance with the Palestinians has brought them nothing but problems, and it will be better to align with Israel.

Stay tuned. There have been rumors that Saudi Arabia will soon recognize Israel as well. If that happens, it will not only signal a true end to the violence in the Middle East, but the failure of the so-called “peace process” since the 1990s. It accomplished nothing while helping to escalate the worst sorts in both the Palestinian territories as well as in the Arab states, leading to Islamic terrorism worldwide. These new deals, engineered by the Trump administration, will hopefully help to put an end to that terrorism.

At a minimum it will help isolate those bad actors, making it far more difficult for them to instigate violence and murder.

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The alien Red Planet and the scientific method

1:05 pm

Spiders, dunes, and strange terrain in high latitude southern Martian crater
Click for full image.

As a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s and an avid reader of science fiction, I was constantly presented with stories about Mars and what people imagined it was like. At the time no spacecraft had as yet gotten a close look at the planet, so the theories of a desert planet, with many canals built by an alien race attempting to stave off death as the planet’s water disappeared, were still considered possible. So were theories that the changing colors across its surface seen seasonally in ground-based telescopes suggested the possibility of some form of lichen-like life that came and went with the seasons.

None of those fantasies have turned out to be true. All attempted to create an alien planet in the model of Earth, and thus were guaranteed to get it wrong. After a half century of increasingly sophisticated research, we now know a bit more about what Mars is like, and have learned that it is much stranger than we had imagined, an icy world quite possibly shaped by slowly shifting glaciers and ice sheets, creating surface features in ways so alien from what we are familiar with on Earth that even now scientists struggle to figure those processes out.

The photo above and to the right, taken on May 25, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), is a perfect example. At first glance it fits what I call a “what the heck?” image. Without knowing more, it is impossible to figure out what we see here.

The wider image below, taken by context camera on MRO, provides our first clue.
» Read more

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CDC admits the uselessness of masks against COVID-19

9:41 am

In issuing its guidelines for dealing with the smoke coming from the numerous forest fires in California, the CDC on August 30th admitted the complete uselessness of masks in stopping the coronavirus.

From the CDC:

Cloth masks that are used to slow the spread of COVID-19 offer little protection against wildfire smoke. They do not catch small particles found in wildfire smoke that can harm your health.

As the author at the first link above notes,

Let’s take a quick look at this info through the lens of actual science. They just told us that smoke particulates are too small to be stopped by a cloth mask. While N95 masks will protect up to 95% of particles, down to .1 microns in size, a quick Google search will tell us that smoke particles and debris are usually .4 to .7 microns in size. According to the CDC, cloth masks are not effective in stopping materials that size.

Another quick Google search will tell us that the Wuhan Virus is .12 microns in size, about a quarter in size of the smoke and fire debris particulate. Even if we factor for the “respiratory droplets” that are allegedly to blame for the spread of coronavirus, those droplets are as small as .5 microns, or as small or smaller than smoke and fire debris particulate. These factors and figures aren’t hidden in some CDC vault that only their scientists are capable of accessing. Yet another quick Google search will show these figures within seconds.

The masks you are using can’t protect you, period. They are nothing more than an empty feel-good gesture imposed for political reasons. Worse, their improper use, something that people are doing routinely, will increase the chances of infection from all kinds of pathogens, including COVID-19.

Stop wearing these idiotic things. And if anyone challenges you, tell them you don’t wear it for justified medical reasons. Most local rules allow for this exemption, and do not require any explanation. Use it. Stop being a sheep to stupidity.

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September 11, 2001 through the Eyes of a Child

9:27 am

Link here. The horror of that terrorist act, no different than the horrifying acts of rioting and looting dressed up as fake protests today, should not be forgotten. This article gives us possibly the most important perspective, the impact that horror had on the innocent children of the time.

Matthew John Bocci wrote the book Sway as a way to sort out his feelings. He was nine years old when his father died during the collapse of the World Trade Center. It took one week for the family to find out his father was dead. “Even though I knew he was dead, I still needed to find out the how. I became obsessed. I wondered if he had jumped, since he worked on the 105th floor and I saw all the smoke. My thoughts were that if he had jumped, maybe I could see him looking out a window beforehand. Even though I found out my dad did not jump, when I see the footage, it brings a lot of sadness. I look at it and think my father was in that building and he never had a chance to get out. In the book, I wrote, ‘What could you say, especially to a nine-year-old whose father was obliterated?'”

He went on to say, “My dad was selfless. He actually called my mom two minutes after the plane hit the building to tell her he loved her and us. He said goodbye. I now try to look at the positives he left behind. He was honorable, put family first, and was very humble. I think how brave he was, smart, resourceful, funny, determined, hardworking, and caring.”

Because of his father’s death, Matthew’s life spiraled out of control. He searched for answers and a father figure. Unfortunately, his Uncle Phil filled that role. He took advantage of Matthew’s grief by sexually abusing him. To cope, Matthew turned to drugs. But thankfully, after many years of drug abuse, he got himself straightened out, had his uncle arrested and convicted of child abuse, and is now five years sober.

To my mind, the worst result of both 9/11 and today’s riots is our society’s generally weak response. We never really did wipe out the scourge of Islamic terrorism after 9/11, which since then has only worsened. For children like Matthew, who lost his father, there is thus no closure or a feeling of justice.

And today we seem paralyzed to act against the home-grown terrorists in our midst, allowing them to commit some equally ugly acts while doing little to stop them. We must therefore ask ourselves, what are today’s children learning from this failure?

For evil to flourish good men need only do nothing. And sadly nothing is much of what America has been doing for the past two decades.

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Japan delays launch of new rocket one year

8:58 am

Capitalism in space: Because of a problem discovered in the development of its new first stage engine, Japan has now delayed the first launch of its new H3 rocket one year, to ’21.

Mitsubishi is building the rocket for Japan’s space agency JAXA, Since you design and build your rocket around your rocket engines, having a problem with that rocket engine puts a serious crimp on construction. Thus, identifying and dealing with such engine issues early in development is wise.

Still, Japan continues to lag behind the other space-faring nations in the development of its space industry.

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Astra scrubs launch attempt

8:50 am

Capitalism in space: The smallsat rocket company Astra yesterday scrubbed another attempt to achieve its first orbital launch.

They were forced to stand down at T-25 minutes because of a sensor issue. No further details were released, nor have they as yet announced a new launch date.

This launch will be the third for Astra, following two flights from the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in July and November 2018, respectively. These flights were originally believed to be failures. However, Astra stated that the first (designated Rocket 1.0) was successful and that the second (Rocket 2.0) was “shorter than planned.” Neither rocket was designed to reach orbit, as they did not have functioning upper stages.

This scrubbed flight has been dubbed Rocket 3.0, and was part of what the company calls a three launch program aimed at reaching orbit by the third launch. All three launches are orbital, but the company has made it clear that it would not be surprised if the first or even the second failed.

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