Tag: oppression

FAA approves license for launchpad in Camden, Georgia

9:58 am

Capitalism in space: After years of review, FAA yesterday finally approved a license for building a space launchpad in Camden, Georgia.

The approval however does not mean rockets will begin launching, even in the near future. First, there is the opposition to the spaceport, an opposition based on the simple fact that the rockets have to fly over seven miles over land before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

About 3,800 people have signed a petition calling for a referendum that would let voters decide whether the county can buy the property. “Virtually from the start, the FAA’s review of Spaceport Camden has been fraught with factual mistakes and legal errors,” Brian Gist, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a statement Monday. “We will carefully review the FAA’s decision to ensure that it fully complies with all applicable laws.”

The National Park Service and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, also have expressed concerns.

In a July 22 letter to the FAA, the Interior Department said a chance of rockets exploding — with fiery debris raining down on wilderness land on Cumberland Island — creates an “unacceptable risk.” Cumberland Island, with its wild horses and nesting sea turtles, is a popular tourist area off the Georgia coast.

The threat to wildlife by the rocket launches is certainly bogus, as we have more than a half century of evidence at Cape Canaveral that space launches not only do no harm to wildlife, they actually help because they stop development.

The environmental opposition however is actually being used as a weapon by many local residents who really fear the launches because the spaceport seems to them too close to residential areas. They also fear it will also likely interfere with tourism to the coastal beaches and parks that the rockets will fly over, causing them to be shut down during launches.

Because the fears about the nearness of residential areas and the harm to tourism are somewhat legitimate, they illustrate a second reason why this spaceport will likely fail. Why should any rocket company choose this launch site, so close to residential areas and so opposed by many locals, especially when there are now so many other less risky and controversial spaceports to choose from? I suspect very few will do so, and this project will eventually die, even if it finally gets full approval and is built.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Denver elementary school brings back segregation

12:43 pm

Segregated playgrounds return in Colorado!
Segregated playgrounds return in Colorado!
Click for original image from Christopher Rufo.

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Administrators at a Denver public elementary school eagerly and enthusiastically organized a monthly playground night in which whites were apparently banned. The photo to the right is of the school’s sign, announcing this public event.

The school administrators claimed the evening was organized at the request of the school’s black families so that they could get to know each other, but that families from all races were also welcome.

The sign says otherwise. It suggests that this playground event is intended only for “people of color”, which usually means everyone but whites. This conclusion is reinforced by looking at the “Equity” pages at the school’s website. On this webpage the school proudly announces that “many of our staff have participated in Creating Connections and a CRT and the Brain Study group.” Another Equity page touts their links to the Marxist and bigoted Black Lives Matter movement, and touted segregated programs for:
» Read more

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Pushback against blacklists: Harvard students relaunch conservative newspaper

10:59 am

Among some of Harvard's students, freedom of thought might still exist.
Among some of Harvard’s students, freedom of
thought might still exist.

In an effort to push back against the effort by leftist students at Harvard to silence and blackball conservatives, a group of students have revived the publication of a conservative college newspaper, The Salient, that had folded sometime around 2010.

Harvard student Jacob Cremers, spokesperson for the Salient, said in an email to The College Fix on Nov. 30 that the revival of the paper is meant “to fill the vacuum and to encourage diversity of opinion on Harvard’s campus.”

“The Salient has traditionally served as a source and platform of independent and contrarian thought at Harvard; it seemed to us a shame that it had vanished without leaving another newspaper to take its place,” Cremers said.

About 5,000 copies of the new edition were distributed, he said, including under the doors of every student dorm and over 800 faculty offices on campus. The November 2021 edition was titled: “Revising America: The Deconstruction of the American Commonwealth and the Patriot’s Reply.” It featured eight articles written by students using pseudonyms.

“Pseudonyms are used in order to encourage freedom of expression and attract contributors who would otherwise be too shy of public exposure. The pseudonyms also allow readers to focus on the ideas communicated, rather than the writer behind them,” Cremers told The College Fix. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted quote should be translated: “We allow authors to publish anonymously because we know the intolerant left that dominates Harvard will immediately move to destroy anyone who writes for us, once they find out who they are.”

Significantly, it appears this effort is being funded by alumni and “others” who apparently want to encourage freedom of speech at Harvard while working to break up its monolithic and oppressive leftist culture. After years of sleepy disinterest, it looks like those dedicated to free thought have finally decided to fight.

Right now the plan is to publish The Salient two to three times per year. When the next issue is distributed throughout the college, do not be surprised if the leftist thugs who run Harvard to have organized a plan to steal and destroy all copies. It is the left’s playbook to silence all debate and opposition.

The publishers of The Salient had better be prepared for such thuggery, and arrange the distribution in order to defeat it.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Google to fire anyone who refuses COVID jab

12:30 pm

Google: a company of oppressive clowns
Google: a company of oppressive clowns.

They’re coming for you next: In a memo to all its employees, Google has announced that it intends to fire any employee who refuses to get any of the COVID shots.

“We expect that almost all roles at Google in the US will fall within the scope of the executive order,” the memo said, according to CNBC. “Anyone entering a Google building must be fully vaccinated or have an approved accommodation that allows them to work or come onsite,” the memo said, adding that “frequent testing is not a valid alternative to vaccination.”

The company will give those lacking the jab six months of unpaid leave to get it, after which they will be terminated. It also appears that it will not matter whether the employee is working remotely or is coming into the office. Google wants everyone to get COVID shots, and will use force if necessary to make them do it.

The insanity of this rule is breath-taking. The evidence now shows that the various COVID shots are generally ineffective over the long run in protecting the population from getting the Wuhan flu. Thus, making employees get these shots is silly, and irrational.

It also violates numerous civil rights and privacy laws. First, Google has no right to demand this medical information from its employees. Second, to blackball certain employees because of their personal medical decisions is certainly discriminatory and violates their civil rights.

So, why are you still using gmail? Why are you still using Google as your default search engine? Both are easily replaced, especially the latter, and until you get rid of both you need to be logged into this unethical and oppressive company, which means it is collecting data from you continuously, for its own use.

For the same reason, I beg my readers who like to suggest evening pauses to look at other video sites, like Rumble and Vimeo, before relying on Google-owned YouTube. We need alternatives from a company that not only censors and blacklists conservatives, but now clearly wants to discriminate against some of its employees.

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Enrollment plunges when students are no longer forced to take critical race theory class

11:34 am

Freedom of thought might still exist at St. Joseph's
Among the students, freedom of thought might
still exist at St. Joseph’s University.

A victory for free thought: When students at St. Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania were no longer required to take a class promoting race and the anti-white agenda of critical race theory, enrollment dropped so much that most of the offered classes will likely be canceled.

The university’s campus paper noted:

Multiple sections of the university’s new one-credit diversity course, Inequality in American Society (INT 151), are at risk of getting canceled for the spring 2022 semester due to under enrollment.

As of Dec. 4, only four of the 26 sections offered for the spring 2022 semester are full, according to numbers on the Course Registration website. Twelve of the 26 sections have 50% or more seats still available.

Of course, the teachers who are promoting this racist class want this problem solved by making the class a requirement. More important, these teachers are not really interested in diversity of thought, as illustrated by this comment by professor Brian Yates, the course’s leading advocate:
» Read more

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NASA approves Axiom’s second commercial flight to ISS

9:19 am

In a strangely worded NASA press release, the agency announced that it has “selected” Axiom for the second private commercial manned mission to ISS.

NASA has selected Axiom Space for the second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. NASA will negotiate with Axiom on a mission order agreement for the Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) targeted to launch between fall 2022 and late spring 2023.

As at present there appears to be no other American company planning commercial manned flights to ISS, NASA wasn’t “selecting” Axiom at all. All NASA was doing was approving Axiom’s proposal to fly the mission to NASA’s space station, while confirming that Axiom will pay NASA’s greatly increased charges, raised about 700% more than the older price list.

The language of this announcement, combined with the exorbitant NASA charges, is only going to accelerate the effort of private companies, including Axiom, to build their own independent space stations. It isn’t NASA’s place to “select” any privately funded commercial flight into space, ever. That this government agency is making believe it has that right is only going to alienate the new private space industry, giving them reason to get away from NASA as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, Axiom is already scheduled to fly its first tourist flight to ISS in February 2022. The second flight that NASA “selected” today is to be followed by two more, for a total of four tourist flights. At that point, around 2024, Axiom will then launch its first module to ISS, beginning the process of relying less on NASA and leading to the undocking of Axiom’s station from ISS.

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Mexico signs Artemis Accords

12:33 pm

Mexico on December 9, 2021 became the fourteenth nation to sign the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space.

[Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations,] announced Mexico’s accession to the accords at an event attended by several other Mexican government officials as well as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and José Hernández, a former NASA astronaut. Hernández said in the statement that Mexico’s decision to join the Artemis Accords was evidence that, for this return to the moon, “we are going to do it as a community.”

The full list of signatories at this moment: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

Russia and China have both said they oppose the accords. Both want control to be centralized to the government, and the accords act instead to strengthen the rights of the citizens and private companies in space.

France and Germany remain the two major Western space powers who have not signed the accords. Both undecided on what they will do. Both seem eager to partner with Russia and China, and to do so also seem willing to abandon in space concepts of private property and individual rights in order to make those partnerships happen. At the same time both — especially Germany — have been pushing private enterprise in space.

This policy conflict is making both countries appear very confused.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Whites and Asians at Washington & Lee U

12:55 pm

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed at Washington and Lee University in Virginia
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed at
Washington and Lee University in Virginia

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” A program to teach business practices to college students at Washington & Lee University in Virginia makes it very clear that whites and Asians are not welcome to apply, and will be shadow-banned should they do so.

The program is offered by the Williams Investment Society, or WIS, “a student organization that manages a portion of Washington and Lee University’s endowment in equity securities,” its website states.

“To promote equality of opportunity, the WIS has developed a successful diverse shadow program and we encourage you to apply if you self-identify with any of the following communities: Women, Black, Lantinx, Latin, Native American, LGBTQ+, Veterans, and Students with Disabilities,” the society states in advertising the program.

» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Colorado Democrats move to blacklist all mascots and imagery honoring the American Indian

11:25 am

American Indian banned by Democrats
The American Indian, banned by Democrats

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: After the Democrats controlling the state government in Colorado passed a bill banning the use of any mascot or imagery that makes any reference to any American Indian tribe or cultural icon, a Native American group immediately filed suit, claiming that the policy essentially discriminates against American Indians, banning them from the public sector in all ways.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis [a Democrat], who is listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, in June signed Senate Bill 21-116 into law, which prohibits public schools from using “a name, symbol, or image that depicts or refers to an American Indian tribe, individual, custom, or tradition that is used as a mascot, nickname, logo, letter, or team name.” Schools with American Indian-themed mascots have until June 1, 2022 to cease use or face $25,000 fines each month for noncompliance, according to the law, which doesn’t apply if a school has an existing agreement with a federally recognized tribe.

The lawsuit, which was filed [in early November] in U.S. District Court by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative public-interest law firm, is brought by current and former Yuma High School students and the Native American Guardian’s Association (NAGA), a nonprofit that advocates for the recognition of Native American heritage.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: The American Heart Association censored by Twitter

11:46 am

Twitter: Home for censorship
Twitter: Home for censorship.

The new dark age of silencing: For Twitter, it doesn’t matter that the American Heart Association (AHA) is a respected medical organization. Nor does it matter that the AHA annually runs a conference where researchers present their research under rigorous rules that prevent shoddy work from being submitted.

No, all that matters to Twitter is that a paper happened to document the potential risks of the mRNA shots against COVID-19 to the cardiovascular systems of patients, risks that were significant and that should cause a serious reconsideration about the administration of these experimental drugs.

For Twitter, such research is unacceptable, and it must be banned!

Dr. Steven R. Gundry of the International Heart and Lung Institute wrote an abstract that raised a concern about mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 potentially raising the inflammatory markers in the blood. Gundry’s group has been conducting a long-term study of the risk for a new Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). Patients in the clinic have received a clinically validated measurement of multiple blood protein biomarkers called the PULS score every 3-6 months for eight years. The study began before the pandemic and has accumulated a significant history for participants. But Twitter decided the information that the group found is dangerous. [emphasis mine]

For Twitter, nothing negative can ever be said about the jab. It is godlike, perfect, and must be supported in all publications. For scientists to publish research with the American Heart Association that dares raise questions about the jab’s safety is verboten, and thus Twitter’s all wise moderators, all obviously trained as doctors and scientists, acted to censor such a report, as shown in the screenshot below.
» Read more

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Stop being afraid!

11:30 am

After almost two years the data continues to confirm the very first data in March 2020, showing the same thing time after time after time after time. COVID-19 is merely a variation of the ordinary flu, and the panic that has accompanied its arrival in early 2020 was never justified, not for one instant. Let me do a quick review of some recent data points:

First, the Wuhan flu is harmless to more than 99% of the population. If you are under 70 and healthy and get the virus, you are going to survive it. Period. And I say this from personal experience, as I am 68, have both asthma and a heart condition, and I just survived COVID. It wasn’t pleasant, but after two weeks it is over, and here I am.

More important, the numbers and data prove my anecdotal experience, as I noted in a detailed essay in October 26, 2021 — How deadly is COVID-19, really? — using numbers from the CDC as well as the New York Times. More than 99% of the population survives COVID-19, with no serious long term issues.

CDC estimates as of October 2021

Since then the CDC has updated its estimates of the number of people who have been infected by the Wuhan flu, compared to the numbers who have died, as shown in the screen capture to the right. Based on these numbers, 146 million have been infected by COVID (a little less than half the country) and 921,000 have died, resulting in an overall survival rate for anyone who gets COVID-19 as a robust 99.37%.

And that number is deceiving, because the large bulk — almost all — of those in that 0.63% who died were elderly (average age 78) and very sick (with one to three morbidities). A very few were younger, but were generally in very poor healthy (obese or with diabetes).

If you were part of the general healthy population, COVID-19 was harmless to you. In fact, half the country already knows this, as they have been infected and are alive to tell about it. Most had minor symptoms, though many (like myself) got sick for several weeks and then recovered. All however survived, just like the flu.

COVID-19 simply does not merit any special actions, other than to protect that elderly and very vulnerable population. Ordinary people must stop being afraid of it. Take off the masks. Rip down the plexiglass. Hug your friends. Return to normal life.

And most important, stop being afraid!
» Read more

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Another obvious hoax paper published by peer-review journal

11:13 am

Alan Sokal strikes again! Using fake names whose initials spell out SOKAL III, several anonymous scientists were successful in getting the peer-review journal Higher Education Quarterly to publish a completely fake paper, with numerous errors on every page, no data, absurd math, and whose authors gave themselves fake credentials.

Peer reviewers failed to perform basic due diligence on the paper submitted in April and approved in October, neglecting, for example, to verify that authors “Sage Owens” and “Kal Alvers-Lynde III” were UCLA professors as they claimed. Owens even used an encrypted email service for correspondence with the journal.

They didn’t check whether the conservative foundations named as active funders of higher education actually existed. The “Randy Eller Foundation” is made up, while the Olin Foundation shut down in 2005.

The author who goes by Owens told The Chronicle of Higher Education that the journal didn’t even ask to see their data: “Every page has some glaring errors.”

The paper was quickly retracted by the journal, but appears so fake that the entire editorial board of this journal should resign.

Alan Sokal by the way did this exact same thing in 1996, proving that most social and gender study journals were utter bunk. Not that his hoax accomplished much, as these brainless departments marched on until they have permeated all of academia with their nonsense, with Critical Race Theory now leading the way.

Read the whole article. Based on some comments by Owens, it is very possible that these hoaxers have gotten a slew of similar papers published, and are only waiting to pull the string.

37 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired for mistakenly confusing the names of two black students

11:43 am

Fordham: A Jesuit University where racism rules
Fordham: A Jesuit University where racism rules.

The new dark age of silencing: An English professor at Fordham University in New York, Christopher Trogan, was fired shortly after he made the unforgivable sin of accidently mixing up the names of two black students.

The name mix-up occurred on Sept. 24 in a Composition II class taught by Trogan. The two students whose names were mixed up sent Trogan an email after class expressing that they felt disheartened and disrespected, and believed the mistake occurred because they were both Black.

Later that day, Trogan sent an email addressing the situation to all of his students in both sections of his Composition II course. He referred to the name mix-up as an “innocent mistake” and said he had a “confused brain” because the two students arrived late while he was reading the work of another student at the lecturer podium. “The offended student assumed my mistake was because I confused that student with another Black student,” Trogan said in his email to students. “I have done my best to validate and reassure the offended student that I made a simple, human, error. It has nothing to do with race.”
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Kyle Rittenhouse temporarily forced out of ASU

1:31 pm

How the left views someone found not guilty: GUILTY!
The contempt leftist students at ASU have for the law

It appears being found innocent of a crime no longer is sufficient for the jack-booted storm-troopers on the student left. Heavy protests at Arizona State University against Kyle Rittenhouse‘s attendance at the university as an online student has now apparently forced him out of ASU, at least temporarily.

From the first link:

Students groups like MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán), Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition are organizing a rally this week to “get murderer Kyle Rittenhouse off [the] campus.” He is not on campus since he is enrolled as an online student. (Indeed, some reports indicate that he may not be currently enrolled for any classes at ASU). However, Rittenhouse has expressed interest in in-person attendance at ASU. Students and faculty are being called to the rally to “protect students from a violent, blood-thirsty murderer.”

How tolerant of them. As far as these brownshirts are concerned, Rittenhouse will always be guilty, no matter what, and should fry in hell. Or at least, he should be sent to a concentration camp where these leftists believe all their opponents should be sent. Gas chambers next if possible.

When this anti-Rittenhouse demonstration did occur on December 1st, it suddenly found itself overwhelmed by conservatives chanting “Let’s Go Brandon!” and “Self-Defense!” The videos at this link are fun to watch, as the leftists keep advocating positions of hate and bigotry (“All whites are bigots”) while the protesters stand for self-defense, freedom, and fair play. And there do appear to be as many pro-Rittenhouse protesters as anti.

Many of the conservatives crashing the leftist protest were also apparently supporters of Kari Lake, who is a former Arizona television news anchor running for governor, with Donald Trump’s endorsement.

It appears that Rittenhouse might still attend ASU, even in person. From the last link:

“Amid his most recent semester, Kyle’s professors at Arizona State University recommended a compassionate withdrawal of his online classes. Now that the trial is behind him, Kyle is eager to enroll in more classes. He is hopeful that attending Arizona State in person will soon be an option,” Hancock [Rittenhouse spokesman] said.

If he should do so, Rittenhouse should be prepared for violence against him. Arizona however is an open-carry state. He will be within his rights to walk around openly armed. I also suspect that many of the conservatives who crashed the leftist protests will be eager to stand by him in support, equally armed.

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Astronauts successfully complete spacewalk, replace broken antenna

12:37 pm

After a two day delay caused by the danger of impact from debris from the Russian anti-sat test, two astronauts today successfully completed a six-hour-plus spacewalk to replace a malfunctioning antenna on ISS.

NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron concluded the first Expedition 66 spacewalk at 12:47 p.m. EST, after 6 hours and 32 minutes. Marshburn and Barron successfully installed an S-band Antenna Subassembly (SASA) on the Port-1 truss structure and stowed the failed antenna. Additionally, the pair completed get-ahead tasks on the Port-4 truss structure, including resetting the torque on a set of bolts.

This was the fifth spacewalk for Marshburn, the first for Barron, and the 13th spacewalk at the International Space Station this year. Marshburn has now spent a total of 31 hours and one minute spacewalking, and Barron’s spacewalking time is now 6 hours and 32 minutes. Space station crew members have now spent a total of 64 days, 12 hours, and 26 minutes working outside the station conducting 245 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory.

It is unclear if any debris that canceled the spacewalk earlier in the week ever came close to the station. It is just as likely that NASA was overly cautious.

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Russia threatens to destroy U.S. GPS satellites

10:03 am

During a telecast on Russia TV, the television host claimed that Russia could destroy the entire American GPS satellite constellation, using its anti-satellite missile technology, should the U.S. or NATO “cross our red line.”

The Kremlin warned it could blow up 32 GPS satellites with its new anti-satellite technology, ASAT, which it tested Nov. 15 on a retired Soviet Tselina-D satellite, according to numerous news reports.

Russia then claimed on state television that its new ASAT missiles could obliterate NATO satellites and “blind all their missiles, planes and ships, not to mention the ground forces,” said Russian Channel One TV host Dmitry Kiselyov, rendering the West’s GPS-guided missiles useless. “It means that if NATO crosses our red line, it risks losing all 32 of its GPS satellites at once.”

The article claims “numerous news reports”, but it appears they all boil down to Kiselyov’s pronouncements on this one broadcast.

No matter. The Putin government is testing the waters, and showing that it is ready and willing to escalate tensions. It apparently thinks the Biden administration is too weak to respond. And who can disagree?

10 comments

Data: Vaccines don’t stop COVID, but COVID is not that dangerous

1:03 pm

UK COVID numbers in late October 2021

The graph to the right was created from the data produced by the United Kingdom Health Agency covering the period from October 25, 2021 to November 21, 2021. It shows the percentages of the vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals who became infected with COVID, were hospitalized by it, and even died from it.

As you can clearly see, it apparently makes no difference anymore whether you received no shots, one shot, two shots, or three shots. Your chances of getting infected with COVID is just as likely if you are vaccinated than if you are not. The shots don’t protect you.

The graph is part of a long article detailing how in the UK, COVID appears to no longer be a virus of the unvacccinated, but in fact is now a virus of the vaccinated. Apparently, you stand a higher chance of getting sick from COVID if you have been vaccinated than if you have not.

The story however distorts the truth badly, since it exaggerates the danger. This graph was produced based on these numbers:

The report reveals that there were 833,332 recorded Covid-19 cases, 9,094 Covid-19 hospitalisations and 3,700 Covid-19 deaths from October 25th to November 21st.

When we run the actual number of deaths against the number of people infected with COVID, whether vaccinated or not, we find that 99.5% easily survive the illness. This confirms previous numbers I have cited covering the entire United States. COVID, like the flu, is relatively harmless to almost the entire population. Only the elderly, the sick, and the chronically ill are threatened seriously by it.

So, what take-away should we take from this information?

1. All vaccine mandates are irrational. They do nothing to reduce the risk of COVID. To impose such rules based on this data suggests that the Biden administration is completely divorced from reality in its policy making.

2. The virus itself is not a serious threat and never was. 99.5% of everyone survives it. Since we now know that the lockdowns, the mask mandates, the vaccines, the installation of plexiglass everywhere, and the social distancing rules did nothing to limit its spread, we should stop all these crazy irrational policies now. Return to normal life, and let the virus finally spread through the population in a way that will allow natural immunity to build up. Only then can we finally choke this thing off for good.

I think the public is finally ready. I think that most everyone is sick and tired of stupid rules and irrational policies and will resist strongly any attempts at new rules. You might see them imposed in fascists states like California and New York, but in general the country, even the world, is ready to tell power-hungry politicians to go jump in a lake.

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NASA postpones ISS spacewalk due to debris from Russian anti-sat test

9:41 am

NASA today postponed a planned ISS spacewalk to fix an antenna because of a threat from debris from the Russian anti-sat test.

On Tuesday, about five hours before the astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron were due to venture outside the space station, Nasa said on Twitter that the spacewalk to fix a failed antenna had been cancelled. “NASA received a debris notification for the space station. Due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk it could pose to the astronauts, teams have decided to delay the 30 November spacewalk until more information is available,” it tweeted.

This problem is only going to get worse. The Russians did something with that anti-satellite test that was either so stupid as to defy logic, or intentional in the worst sort of way. Russia’s actions actually suggest the Putin administration wanted to sabotage ISS.

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Chicken Little update! A new COVID variant!

9:50 pm

The announcement by a South African doctor yesterday of several “mild” cases of a new variant of COVID-19 has sent governments throughout the worldwide scrambling in utter panic. Israel has shut itself down again. Joe Biden banned all traffic from most African countries.

From the doctor’s report:

On Nov. 18, four family members all tested positive for COVID with complete exhaustion and Coetzee said she reported the findings to South Africa’s vaccine advisory committee. She said about two dozen of her patients have now tested positive for COVID with symptoms of the new variant — mostly healthy men who turned up “feeling so tired,” the Telegraph reported. About half were unvaccinated.

“We had one very interesting case, a kid, about six years old, with a temperature and a very high pulse rate, and I wondered if I should admit her,” she told the news outlet. “But when I followed up two days later, she was so much better.” Coetzee said she was worried the new variant could still hit much harder in older people with co-morbidities like diabetes or heart disease.

And of course, death-head Anthony Fauci immediately declared the U.S. should “be prepared to do anything and everything” to stop it, even though at this point it has not even entered the U.S. and once again, its effects appear “mild.”

The first four cases in Botswana were all vaccinated, so once again the vaccines are proving ineffective in stopping COVID.

Let’s get real. What all of these stories focus on is the sudden rise in cases, as if that represents bodies lying in the street. NOT. As has been the case from day one, 99% of everyone that gets COVID survives it. Period. I expect based on the mildness reported for this variant things will be no different.

COVID is a respiratory illness like the flu. It might be worse than past versions, but it still is the same. The human race cannot vaccinate itself out of this problem. From the beginning the only solution was to allow the younger healthy population get it, obtain natural immunity, and thus choke the virus out.

We did not let that happen and are paying for it now. Still, we can finally come to our senses and let this play out, protecting the vulnerable populations (the elderly, the chronically sick, etc) while letting this new probably relatively less potent variant quickly spread.

More and endless booster shots are not going to accomplish anything.

36 comments

The NYTimes does real journalism!

4:45 pm

In what might be the most astonishing report from the New York Times earlier this month, one of its reporters decided to take a look at the governance in those states where the Democrats essentially rule with no Republican opposition, and asked this very pointed question: “What do Democrats really do when they have all the power?”

The result is the video below. Watch it. You will be entertained at how the great and all-powerful New York Times suddenly discovers some obvious news.

36 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Army cadet with natural immunity forced from West Point

11:17 am

No longer defended at West Point
The Constitution: No longer defended at West Point.

Despite having had COVID so that she has natural immunity and is better protected from getting it again as well as passing on to others, West Point cadet Hannah MacDonald was forced out of the Army because of its oppressive discriminatory policies against those who refuse to get COVID shots.

The litany of wrongs MacDonald was forced to undergo violated numerous laws, all of which our modern McCarthyites care little about.

  • The Army revealed her medical history to all, in violation of HPPA requirements, with one officer nonchalantly stating “HIPAA isn’t the be-all, end-all.”
  • The mandates forcing the COVID shots on her violated the Nuremberg Code, a signed treaty of the U.S. and the law of the land. When she noted this, she “was told this small legal distinction didn’t matter.”
  • The Army treated her and others who would not get the shots as second class citizens, discriminating against them in numerous ways while re-establishing the worst forms of segregation against them, all in violation of numerous civil rights legislation.

This quote from MacDonald’s story at the link best illustrates the Army’s insane policy:
» Read more

28 comments

Senate Democrats trying to sneak $10 billion payoff to Bezos’s Blue Origin in military budget

10:15 pm

Senator Majority leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) have inserted a $10 billion subsidy to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company in a $250 billion budget bill they are pushing that they claim will address things like the semiconductor chip shortage and the supply chain issues.

The bill, called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, or USICA (pdf available here), is of course mostly filled with payoffs to the friends of Democrats, and will likely achieve nothing that is promised. It is also like all the budget bills being pushed by the Democratic Party in that it treats money as if it grows on trees. They can spend as much as they want, with no consequences at all.

Worse, Schumer and his cronies are trying to hide this pork bill by making it part of the annual military budget bill, dubbed NDAA.

To prove that this is nothing more than corrupt payoffs we need only look at the $10 billion subsidy to Blue Origin. This is a company being directly financed, in the billions, by Bezos himself. It has no shortage of cash. It not only doesn’t need government subsidies, it has never even looked for private investment capital. Bezos has provided it billions from his own pocket, far more cash than SpaceX has ever had on hand.

Yet Bezos is lobbying Democrats for this subsidy, aimed at financing his failed manned lunar lander project that NASA simply doesn’t have the cash to build and also doesn’t want to build because it was a generally weak proposal. From the bill:

This section would require the NASA Administrator to maintain competitiveness within the human landing system by funding design, development, testing, and evaluation for at least two entities. It would also authorize, in addition to amounts otherwise appropriated for the Artemis program, for fiscal years 2021 through 2026, $10.032 billion to NASA to carry out the human landing system program.

In other words, force NASA to award that second manned lunar lander, with Blue Origin almost certainly the winner.

Whether Schumer’s games here will pay off for Bezos remains unknown. I expect most senate Republicans will oppose it (other than the typical RINO fools like Romney). Already Democrats like Bernie Sanders have expressed opposition, as well as at least one children’s lobbying group that appears more aligned with the left than the right.

And even if it passes in the Senate, the House will have to approve, and we can expect ample opposition there from both parties.

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Today’s blacklisted American: School bans all pro-Israeli clothing

12:21 pm

No freedom of speech in New York
No freedom of speech for conservatives in
NY schools. Photo: Leo Reynolds.

The new dark age of silencing: Neal Singh, the principal of a middle school in Brooklyn, forbid a teacher from wearing a t-shirt that said “Proud Zionist” because it was “politically explosive.”

An outraged Park Slope teacher says he learned the hard way that it’s OK to wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts to work at his “woke” Brooklyn school — but not pro-cop or pro-Israel garb.

Jeffrey Levy, an English as a Second Language teacher at MS 51 in the liberal Brooklyn enclave, told The Post that school principal Neal Singh ordered him to stop wearing his “Proud Zionist” T-shirt in the building — even though other staffers have worn shirts touting BLM and women’s rights. Levy filed a discrimination complaint over not being allowed to wear his self-made shirt, which features the Star of David.

He said he was told by Singh that students and staffers complained about it — and also the pro-police “Back the Blue” T-shirt he’s previously worn. “Singh told me that my T-shirt with an Israeli flag on it and the words ‘Proud Zionist’ were ‘politically explosive,’” Levy says in his complaint, filed Sept. 30 with the city Department of Education’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity.

The excuse Singh uses to ban the pro-Zionist t-shirt is that it offended some students, which means that Singh hasn’t the slightest idea what freedom of speech entails. To have free speech everyone must be allowed to offend others. Silencing someone because their opinion offends you is blatantly oppressive.

Note too that I am sure Levy was offended by the Black Lives Matter banners and t-shirts, since many of that movement’s leaders are outright bigots and anti-Semites. He however did not call for their banning. He did the right thing, responding with more speech.

The NY Department of Education (DOE) is supporting Singh by noting that teachers are not supposed to advocate political positions while at work. Sounds good, eh? The problem is that the DOE did nothing to stop teachers from promoting BLM and feminist causes, continuously. It clearly has a double standard, designed to silence one side of the debate.

I doubt Levy will win his case. I even expect he will find himself fired for daring to make this complaint. After all, he lives in New York, a place that increasingly resembles the Soviet-style dictatorships of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor defends free speech, is canceled by MIT and attacked by students, yet fights back and wins

11:48 am

No free speech allowed at MIT
No free speech allowed at MIT.

Today’s blacklist story illustrates how it is possible to win the battle against the petty leftist tyrants who now dominate our culture and are trying to silence free speech and destroy anyone who disagrees with them.

Dorian Abbot is an associate professor of planetary geology at the University of Chicago. Beginning in 2020 he began as a side activity posting videos advocating free speech in academia while condemning the growing oppressive movement to blackball anyone who says the “wrong” thing.

For the next year he found himself under increasing pressure from the leftist mob both at his school and outside it. His videos were taken down repeatedly by Google’s YouTube. A group of graduate students from his school wrote a letter denouncing him and demanding the school exempt all students from attending his classes while limiting his abilities to teach to a point where it was impossible. Later, in response to an op-ed Abbot co-wrote for Newsweek condemning the race-based identify politics that now dominate academia, a leftist Twitter mob came after him, demanding he be removed from all venues.

Fortunately, his superiors at the University of Chicago supported him, and refused to bow to these repressive demands. However, when Abbot was scheduled to give a lecture at MIT on his actual field of study, planetary science, “a new Twitter mob, composed of a group of MIT students, postdocs, and recent alumni, demanded that Abbot to be uninvited.”

MIT bowed to the pressure, and blackballed Abbot.
» Read more

41 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: David Horowitz Freedom Center banned from Breakers hotel in Florida

11:10 am

No free speech allowed at The Breakers
No free speech allowed at The Breakers. Photo: David Broad

The new dark age of silencing: The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, Florida has banned the conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) from holding an event there, despite the fact that it has allowed such an event every year without problems for the past twenty years.

The reason?

“After a 20-year relationship with The Breakers resort, the Freedom Center was informed that we would no longer be allowed to have our annual Restoration Weekend event at the resort due to the Center being too controversial,” DHFC President Michael Finch told The Epoch Times. [emphasis mine]

The hotel claims the ban isn’t because of politics, but because the “logistical and operational requirements” of holding the annual event had become more complex. While the hotel was not specific, its statement strongly implied that the increased cost of security against leftist threats of violence caused it to cancel the contract.

In other words, the hotel endorses the heckler’s veto. Threaten violence against someone who disagrees with you and The Breakers will bend over backwards to silence that speaker for you.

I would say that anyone planning to visit Palm Beach should celebrate The Breakers new policy of cowardice and find some other hotel to stay at. It certainly seems that this hotel really isn’t interested in protecting conservatives from violence. It would rather ban them from existence.

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NASA expected to finally certify Rocket Lab’s Virginia launchpad by end of year

9:15 am

It appears that after more than a year of delays, the NASA bureaucracy might finally approve launches at Rocket Lab’s new spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia by the end of the year.

The article at the link is mostly about Rocket Lab’s planned acquisition of another company that builds satellite deployment systems. However, its real story was in the last paragraph:

[T]he company is still waiting for NASA to complete certification of an autonomous flight termination system the company needs to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. Delays in NASA’s certification of that system has, in turn, delayed the use of Launch Complex 2 there for Electron missions. “The current expectation is that it could be done as early as the end of the year,” [Adam Spice, Rocket Lab’s chief financial officer] said of that certification, “which would allow us to commence flight operations out of LC-2 and Wallops in the first half of 2022.”

The company got FAA approval for launches more than a year ago, and had hoped to launch shortly thereafter. NASA however has blocked that launch, refusing for more than a year to approve the flight termination system Rocket Lab uses to destroy rockets should something go wrong just after launch.

The delay is baffling. Rocket Lab has successfully proven that its system works in that it has used it several times to safely abort launches in New Zealand. This success apparently has not been good enough for NASA’s bureaucrats, and the result is that Rocket Lab’s ability to launch rockets has been seriously hampered in ’21.

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Europe joins U.S. in condemning Russian anti-satellite test

8:57 am

Europe’s top space policy chief today joined the U.S. in strongly condemning the Russian anti-satellite test that produced a cloud of several thousand pieces of orbiting space junk.

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton condemned Russia’s anti-satellite missile system test, which led to the destruction of a satellite in low orbit.

“As European Union (EU) Commissioner in charge of EU Space policy and in particular of Galileo & Copernicus, I join the strongest condemnations expressed against the test conducted by Russia on Monday November 15, which led to the destruction of a satellite in low orbit (COSMOS 1408),” Breton wrote on Twitter late on Tuesday.

The Russians continue to insist the debris poses no threat to ISS, but their own state-run press proves them wrong. This TASS report claims the debris is no threat because it orbits 40 to 60 kilometers (25 to 35 miles) above the station.

That the debris is presently orbiting above the station is exactly why it poses a threat. While mission controllers will periodically raise ISS’s orbit to counteract the loss of altitude due to friction from the very thin atmosphere at that elevation, the various orbits of the satellite debris will continue to fall. Eventually that entire cloud will be drop into ISS’s orbit.

It is likely that the debris spread over time will make it easy for controllers to shift ISS to avoid individual pieces, but the need to dodge will certainly increase with time, raising the odds that something will hit the ISS.

The test seems almost so stupid an act by Russia that one wonders if its purpose was to create a long term threat to ISS itself. At least one private U.S. company, Axiom, plans to attach its own modules to ISS and use it as a base for the next few years for commercial operations. Others want to use ISS as a hotel for private tourists.

The Russians meanwhile are planning to launch their own new station. If the Russians put it in an orbit safe from this debris cloud, this test will have thus conveniently damaged their main competitor in commercial space operations.

8 comments

History Unplugged – The Age of Discovery 2.0: Episode 5

4:21 pm

Episode five of the six part series, The Age of Discovery 2.0, from the podcast, History Unplugged, is now available here.

On this episode Scott Rank interviews Rand Simberg. From the show summary:

The history of exploration and establishment of new lands, science and technologies has always entailed risk to the health and lives of the explorers. Yet, when it comes to exploring and developing the high frontier of space, the harshest frontier ever, the highest value is apparently not the accomplishment of those goals, but of minimizing, if not eliminating, the possibility of injury or death of the humans carrying them out.

To talk about the need for accepting risk in the name of discovery – whether during Magellan’s voyage in which 90 percent of the crew died or in the colonization of Mars – is aerospace engineer and science writer Rand Simberg, author of Safe Is Not An Option: Overcoming The Futile Obsession With Getting Everyone Back Alive That Is Killing Our Expansion Into Space.

For decades since the end of Apollo, human spaceflight has been very expensive and relatively rare (about 500 people total, with a death rate of about 4%), largely because of this risk aversion on the part of the federal government and culture. From the Space Shuttle, to the International Space Station, the new commercial crew program to deliver astronauts to it, and the regulatory approach for commercial spaceflight providers, our attitude toward safety has been fundamentally irrational, expensive and even dangerous, while generating minimal accomplishment for maximal cost.

Rand explains why this means that we must regulate passenger safety in the new commercial spaceflight industry with a lighter hand than many might instinctively prefer, that NASA must more carefully evaluate rewards from a planned mission to rationally determine how much should be spent to avoid the loss of participants, and that Congress must stop insisting that safety is the highest priority, for such insistence is an eloquent testament to how unimportant they and the nation consider the opening of this new frontier.

Definitely worth a listen, especially considering our society’s panic over COVID. Our society appears incapable of accepting any risk at all, even though risk cannot be avoided, and to do great things you must embrace it in some manner.

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Russia confirms and defends anti-satellite test

1:33 pm

Russia today confirmed that it had done the anti-satellite missile test earlier this week that destroyed one of its defunct satellites and produced a cloud of space junk.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence also issued a Russian-language statement defending the test. The minister-general of the army, Sergei Shoigu, said that the test was successful and that “the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities,” according to a machine-generated translation to English.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that the test created a cloud of space debris made up of over 15,000 objects, calling it a threat to astronauts and cosmonauts, and space activities of all countries. The debris could pose a threat for years to come, experts have said. The space station’s crew had to shelter in their return ships on Monday when the debris cloud was first detected.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos wrote on Twitter Monday that the space debris cloud “has moved away from the ISS orbit”, which is roughly 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. The space debris tracker LeoLabs estimates the debris cloud is at 273 to 323 miles (440 to 520 km) in altitude. However, “the station is in the green zone,” Roscosmos added.

The Russian claim that the debris at present poses no threat to ISS could very well be true. The trouble is that it appeared to have posed a threat initially, and will likely be a problem in the future. As a signatory of the Outer Space Treaty, Russia was required to avoid such a situation, and chose not to.

The article at the link notes similar tests by China (2007), the U.S. (2008), and India (2019). Of all these anti-satellite tests, only the U.S. targeted a satellite in an orbit so low that the debris posed no threat to operating satellites or manned spacecraft, and was also quickly pulled Earthward to burn up in the atmosphere. India chose a higher satellite whose debris posed less threat, but took longer to burn up and was initially of some concern.

China and Russia could have done the same thing. They did not, and their irresponsibility has badly worsened a problem that already was considered a serious concern.

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