Tag: oppression

Today’s blacklisted American: Instagram bans pro-life student group at Auburn for being pro-life

4:45 pm

Orwell's 1984: Instagram's instruction manual
Instagram’s instruction manual.

The modern dark age: After the Students for Life at Auburn University posted an announcement on Instagram promoting the annual March for Life anti-abortion protest in Washington, DC, Instagram immediately banned the organization, claiming simply that “Your account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines on business integrity.”

When the students appealed this decision — noting that the accusation made no sense — Instagram responded with an even more bogus and absurd explanation.

Auburn SFL, in a statement provided to The College Fix on Tuesday, said that on Oct. 13, their social media director appealed Instagram’s decision and asked for further clarification. The next day, Instagram responded saying that a potential reason for the ban was that the group “pretended to be someone else,” student President Gwen Charles said via email. [emphasis mine]

Note the highlighted word. Apparently Instagram itself doesn’t know why its banned the Students for Life account. Or more probably, it does know (“We can’t allow these Republicans *yuch!* free to say anything they want!”) but recognized it couldn’t admit this publicly.
» Read more

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FCC chief proposes agency reorganization of its space-related bureaucracy

3:15 pm

At an industry conference today the head of the FCC announced her plan to reorganize and enlarge the agency’s space-related operations.

In a speech at a Satellite Industry Association event, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced her intent to reorganize the commission’s International Bureau into a new Space Bureau and a standalone Office of International Affairs. That reorganization, she said, would give satellite licensing and regulatory work greater prominence and access to more resources. “The organizational structures of the agency have not kept pace as the applications and proceedings before us have multiplied,” she said, saying that the FCC has applications under consideration for systems totaling 64,000 satellites. “You can’t just keep doing things the old way and expect to lead in the new.”

Having a bureau devoted to space, she said, would go hand-in-hand with efforts to increase staffing and develop new regulations for space systems. “This organization will help ensure that the new Space Bureau and the Office of International Affairs stay relevant, efficient and effective over time.”

As noted at the article at the link, this reorganization appears tied to the FCC’s to expand its regulatory scope, including an attempt recently to regulate satellite operations and space junk that is clearly beyond its statutory authority. The agency’s chief counsel, Umair Javed, denied this in a quote in the article, but anyone who believes this denial is quite naive. Government agencies always try to increase their power, and if no one challenges them they are always willing do so, even into areas the law doesn’t permit them to go.

It is also clear that no one in the Biden administration has any plans to challenge Rosenworcel’s empire-building.

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Sunspot update: The pause in the ramp up to solar maximum continues

11:34 am

NOAA has once again published its monthly update of its monthly graph that tracks the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. Below is that November graph, annotated by me with some additional details added to provide context.

Though sunspot number continued to be much higher than the prediction (almost double), October saw almost exactly the same number of sunspots as seen in September, which is why this new graph seems almost identical to last month’s.

In other words, the pause in the ramp up to solar maximum, first noted in August, continues.
» Read more

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Crash prediction for Long March 5B core stage narrows

9:44 am

Crash prediction
Click for original image.

List of the largest uncontrolled re-entries

This morning’s report by the Aerospace Corporation has narrowed the crash time and location for China’s out-of-control Long March 5B core stage to six orbits, about 8 hours, on November 4, 2022, with the prediction centered over a point in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The company’s graphic to the right shows the orbital tracks. Note that this prediction puts many habitable locations under risk, including parts of the United States, Spain, Africa, and Australia.

Since the crash is now expected tomorrow, expect further updates later today.

The second graphic to the right has also been created by the Aerospace Corporation. It shows the top 20 largest man-made objects that have fallen out-of-control from orbit. Four of the top six were dropped on the world by China, all within the past two years. All but one of the others occurred prior to 1987, before the U.S. and Russia took positive action to prevent such things. The one exception, Phobos-Grunt, was an unexpected failure, its rocket putting it into an unstable orbit rather than sending it to Mars.

China, like the U.S. and Russia, has signed the Outer Space Treaty. That treaty requires each signatory to control the objects it puts in space, and makes it liable for any damage caused by such objects. The U.S. and Russia have both tried very hard to abide by that treaty. China however has thumbed its nose at it.

We must wonder what China will do if this core stage kills someone when it comes down tomorrow.

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American freedom sets a new yearly record for rocketry

11:08 pm

Liberty enlightens the world
Liberty has now also enlightened the exploration of space

Capitalism in space: In 1966, more than a half century ago, the United States government was in a desperate space race to catch up with the communist Soviet Union, which for the previous decade had been first in almost every major achievement in space, from launching the first orbital satellite, the first manned mission, the first two- and three- manned missions, and the first spacewalk.

In 1966, the NASA and the U.S. military successfully launched 70 times in their effort to catch up, a number that has remained the record for more that five decades as the most American launches in a single year.

All but one of those seventy launches were either for NASA or the military, paid for and built not for profit but for achieving the political ends of the federal government. Many of those seventy launches were also short duration technology test satellites, whose purpose once achieved ended those programs.

By the end of the 1960s, this aggressive effort had paid off, with the U.S. being the first to land humans on the Moon while matching or exceeding the Soviets in almost every major technical space challenge. The need for such an aggressive government launch program vanished.

Thus, for the next half century, the United States rarely exceeded thirty launches in a single year. This low number was further reduced by the decision in the 1970s by the federal government to shut down the entire private launch industry and require all American manned and satellite payloads to be launched on NASA’s space shuttle.

Come 2011 and the retirement of the space shuttle, all this finally changed. The federal government began a slow and painful transition in the next decade from building and launching its own rockets to buying that service from the private sector. It took awhile, but that transition finally allowed the rebirth of a new American private launch industry, led by SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket.

Tonight, that SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket completed the 71st launch in 2022, breaking that 1966 record by placing in orbit a commercial communications satellite. And it did it with almost two months left in the year, guaranteeing that the record has not only be broken, it will be shattered.
» Read more

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Vermont news outlet blacklists its own story to protect the queer agenda at a local school

12:58 pm

WCAX: A modern news outlet, dedicated to censorship
WCAX: A modern news outlet, dedicated to censorship

Today’s blacklist story is a follow-up on an earlier blacklist story. In September officials running Randolph High School in Vermont banned all the girls from the school’s volley ball team from the girls locker room, so that a cross-dressing boy would have that girls dressing room all to himself.

At the time I noted how this action by the school was “so absurd that at first glance it is hard to believe.”

Well, the story has become even more absurd. The news outlet that first reported the story, WCAX-TV, decided in mid-October to blacklist its own story in order to protect and promote the queer agenda in the local schools.

But [on October 11th], links to the controversial story and a recording of the newscast from that night went instead to a page that read “404/Not Found.” When … asked about the missing content, WCAX news director Roger Garrity said the station took it down last week “to prevent others from using our reporting to attack people in the transgender community.

“We didn’t announce it then for fear it might further inflame the situation,” Garrity wrote in an email. “We are now working with LGBTQ advocates on a message to the community acknowledging the harm that was caused.” In response to follow-up questions, Garrity said the station was working with Outright Vermont and GLAAD to craft its message and would put it on the 6 p.m. newscast “as soon as we have it ready to go.”

» Read more

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The crash of China’s Long March 5B core stage: first rough prediction

10:35 am

Long March 5B reentry prediction as of 11/2/22

The Aerospace Corporation has made its first rough estimate of the uncontrolled reentry of the core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket that launched the Mengtian module to its Tiangong-3 space station on October 31st.

The prediction at present is very uncertain, covering about 20 orbits (about 30 hours) centered on November 5, 2021 over the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Brazil, as shown in the graphic to the right. Though this prediction will eventually narrow down to less than one full orbit, it will never be possible to predict in advance the core stage’s exact impact point. As the margin of error shrinks, the predictions will come more frequently.

At this moment, however, the core stage’s orbit crosses over most of the habitable areas of the Earth, and thus all those regions are under threat.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Amazon blacklists book because it says something someone at Amazon doesn’t like

12:04 pm

Book banned by Amazon
Banned by bookseller Amazon.

The modern dark age: Amazon has without explanation removed a book about Islam, The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology and written by ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq, essentially blacklisting it from sale.

A search at Amazon confirms this fact. The book is no longer available there.

The publisher, New English Review, said this in its press release:

Amazon’s banning of the Warraq book follows on the heels of their earlier banning of another NER Press title, “Easy Meat: Inside Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal” by Peter McLoughlin, which chronicles the actions, or rather the inaction, of the police, social services, justice system and government in the face of the widespread phenomenon of very young British girls being groomed and then pimped out and held in virtual sex slavery by gangs of grown men.

…As usual, no specific reason has been given for this latest book’s removal. NER Press appealed and that appeal was denied within two hours. “The Islam in Islamic Terrorism” had been on sale since May of 2017 and “Easy Meat” since March of 2016. Both had over 85% five-star ratings and both sold well. Mr. Warraq is the author of 17 books and “The Islam in Islamic Terrorism” was also translated into Korean.

Nor are these two books the only books Amazon has banned. » Read more

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Today’s blacklist victim: Distinguished scientist and long-time journal editor forced to resign due to threats

12:40 pm

Jose Domingo, blacklisted scientist
Dr. José Luis Domingo, blacklisted scientist

The modern dark age: Dr. José Luis Domingo, an often cited expert on toxicology and editor for the last seven years of the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, has been forced to resign his position because of threats and slanders directed at him after he approved the publication of a peer-review paper that documented the potential harmful effects of the mRNA COVID shots.

About a month after the paper was published, Domingo said, he began receiving angry emails and messages. These included insults, calls to resign, demands to retract the paper, and even threats. One email asked him how he could sleep at night, knowing that the scientific paper that he had allowed to be published would lead to the death of millions of people.

The angry messages, he said, were filled with ad hominem attacks against him and against the paper’s co-authors, but did not specify their scientific objections to the contents of the paper.

…Since then, pro-vaccine factions have increased their personal campaign against him, going so far as to adding false information to the Wikipedia entry about him, as well as attacking the Wikipedia page of the journal itself. Both, he said, were negatively modified by pro-vaccination activists. Indeed, an Oct. 4 version of his page, accessed via internet archive, included a subheading entitled “Antivaccine controversy” that accused Domingo of “spreading disinformation during the pandemic.” That paragraph has since been removed.

Domingo even offered — in a gesture of open-mindedness and good will — to publish one of the more-detailed attack messages, if the writers would agree to peer review. They did agree, and then discovered that with peer-review you need to have some facts to back up your accusations. They did not, and their paper was rejected.

No matter. These individuals then found another journal, Stem Cell Reviews and Reports, to publish their attack essay, demanding once again that Domingo retract the paper while once again accusing him of causing the death of millions by its publication:
» Read more

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Paypal losing customers at an alarming rate, even as it blacklists Hong Kong pro-democracy group

12:47 pm

Paypal: hostile to freedom

In the past few days there have been some unconfirmed Twitter posts claiming Paypal has reinstated its proposed policy to confiscate $2,500 from any account that spreads “misinformation.”

These reports are not quite accurate. Paypal leaves itself the option to confiscate money from customers, but it has not directly reinstated its policy of doing so for spreading “misinformation.” Instead it makes that justification harder to find and difficult to pin down, though it apparently still exists.

While Paypal’s current Acceptable Use Policy contains no mention of “misinformation,” its user agreement essentially does—and has since at least February 12, 2022. The agreement reads that PayPal users may not “provide false, inaccurate or misleading information,” in connection with PayPal, its website, services, or “third parties.” Those who do so may see their accounts suspended, limited, or closed, and PayPal may take legal action.

In short, no surprise changes have been made to PayPal’s policy this week. While the company does levy punishments toward users for certain forms of “misleading statements” under its user agreement (and has for months), a $2,500 fine is not explicitly one of them.

And yet, should anyone trust Paypal with their savings? Its reputation for blacklisting conservatives and pro-liberty organizations says otherwise, and that reputation was confirmed last month when Paypal terminated without explanation the account of a pro-democracy group in Hong Kong.
» Read more

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Increasing push back against NYU’s firing of a chemistry teacher for demanding excellence from students

12:30 pm

NYU: proud to graduate substandard students!

Since early October, when the story broke about New York University firing organic chemistry teacher Maitland Jones because a student petition claimed his course was too hard, there has been a growing push back from the college’s faculty as well as at least one pro-free speech organization.

The petition itself was signed by 82 of Jones’ 350 students (less than a quarter of the class) and complained that “too many [students] were failing and that this was unacceptable” and that the course’s challenges caused “emotional and mental health” issues.

The course in question however is organic chemistry, traditionally designed as a very tough entry-level course in order to weed out students not capable of becoming doctors or doing the real work necessary in the hard sciences. Under normal circumstances one third to one half of all students who take the course fail, which means this petition was likely signed by those who were failing.

Rather than push themselves, these spoiled students wanted the course made easier. They might then have passed, but if they became doctors later in life their patients would certainly be under risk.

What made Jones’ firing more horrifying however is that the university instigated the action. The students themselves hadn’t asked for his firing, they only wanted his course made easier.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: School officials in Florida and Michigan retaliate against parents for being involved in their kids’ schooling

11:02 am

As I did last week on October 20 and 21, today’s blacklist column will cover two stories, both of which are similar and show a pattern of abuse by those in power.

The October 20th story focused on hospitals blacklisting nurses, either for being white or Christian. The October 21st story told the story of teachers being fired for opposing the introduction of the queer agenda in toddler daycare and in elementary schools.

Today’s story describes how school officials in two different states instigated investigations designed solely to destroy the livelihood of parents, simply because those parents questioned the way those officials were doing their job.

Note that in all three cases, the nurses, teachers, and parents were blacklisted simply because they had expressed in public a disagreement with the policies of those in charge. Apparently, to those now in charge, the first amendment has been suspended, so that any dissent against them can be punished harshly.
» Read more

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Pushback: Nationwide group fights university blacklisting of those who refuse COVID shots

11:49 am

No College Mandates logo

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A new group, dubbed No College Mandates, is now campaigning nationwide against the effort of universities to blacklist anyone who has not gotten any COVID shots.

Formed in December 2021, the organization recently launched a protest letter campaign to colleges that still require the vaccine and boosters and have “forced these young adults into compliance,” according to a news release.

“We decided to target colleges because they were among the first educational institutions mandating vaccines,” Lucia Sinatra, co-founder of the group, told The College Fix via email. “Colleges have known since August 2021 that the virus can transmit equally between unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals yet they mandated boosters and some have begun to mandate the bivalent booster,” she said.

The organization has sent its protest letter to over 300 colleges. The letter to Yale is typical, noting in detail how the CDC has now admitted that the jab does not stop transmission and that the mandates were pointless. Yet the college still insists that teachers, students, and visitors all must get the jab, plus at least one booster. As the letter notes, these senseless rules do nothing to prevent the Wuhan flu, while normalizing blacklisting.
» Read more

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China’s Long March 5B rocket with new space station module is now at launchpad

10:16 am

China’s Long March 5B rocket had now been rolled out to its launchpad, carrying the new Mengtian module for China’s Tiangong-3 space station.

The launch is presently scheduled for October 31, 2022. Assuming China has not upgraded the engines on the rocket’s core stage, that stage will tumble back to Earth, uncontrolled, sometime in the following week. Since it is large enough to survive re-entry, it will hit the ground, thus threatening every habitable location under its orbital path. By allowing this to happen China violates the Outer Space Treaty, to which it is a signatory.

Nor will this likely be the last time China does this. Though this module completes China’s station, as presently designed, this will not be the last Long March 5B launch. China plans to use it put its Hubble-class space telescope into orbit, as well as other things.

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ISS dodges space junk from Russia’s November 2021 anti-satellite test

9:46 am

In order for ISS to avoid one of the approximately 585 pieces of space junk still in orbit that were produced when Russia destroyed its defunct Cosmos 1408 satellite in a November 2021 anti-satellite test, engineers fired the engines of a docked Progress freighter yesterday for just over five minutes.

Without the burn the debris would have flown within three miles of the station, too close for comfort or anyone’s margin of error.

According to a report in September, of these 585 pieces, most will burn up in the atmosphere by ’25, with only 38 pieces left afterward to pose a threat to other operating satellites and manned spacecraft.

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Virgin Orbit gets UK marine license for its Cornwall launch

9:26 am

Virgin Orbit has been issued its marine license from the United Kingdom for its planned October 29, 2022 launch from Cornwall, the first such orbital launch from the British Isles.

Virgin Orbit proposes to conduct a maximum of one launch in 2022 and approximately two launches per year over the next 8 years (January 2023-December 2030).

The licence issued by MMO covers the 2022 launch, the first of its kind in the UK. As there is material to be deposited into the sea that will be loaded in the UK, the activity requires a marine licence from MMO, as required by The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.

The ever-growing reach of government bureaucracy is worldwide. Though Virgin Orbit’s airplane, carrying the LauncherOne rocket and its seven smallsats, is taking off from Cornwall, the release of that rocket will not occur until it is over the Atlantic, with the expendable first stage falling into the ocean west of Portugal. Yet somehow the company must get permission of these UK bureaucrats — as well as American ones — to fly.

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Who and What to vote for in Arizona in 2022

12:01 pm

Liberty enlightening the world
The citizen is sovereign, and your vote demonstrates that power

I first posted my election choices in Arizona on October 11, 2022, the day before the start of early mail-in voting in this state. However, I am now posting my choices again because there were two propositions (#128 and #130) then that I was unsure about how I wished to vote. I have now done a bit more research, and made my choices. I think my analysis will be useful to my readers.

I have also included more information about the candidates running.

I want to once again emphasize that though I am not partisan, based on the steady decline of thought in the Democratic Party combined with its increased passion for arresting and violently harassing its opposition, I cannot at present vote for anyone in that party. I wish this was not the case, but I also believe strongly that if American voters throw out as many Democrats as possible in November, it will allow for that party to reform itself. With the defeat of its present leadership, the party will be faced with a stark choice: find new leaders, shift gears, or die (allowing a new party to replace it). With any of these options, the voters would be provided with a new choice in future elections, coming from a different direction.

As a perfect example of the mindless corruption that has now taken over the Democratic Party, witness President Joe Biden’s statement this past weekend throwing his full support behind the castration and mutilation of children in order to change their sex, as advocated by the “trans” movement — which in plain English is a movement of cross-dressers demanding more power over everyone else.

The president denounced Republican states that have passed laws attempting to ban or limit sex change surgeries and transition treatments – like hormone blockers – for children who identify as non binary or transgender. Biden spoke with a panel of six progressive activists for the NowThis News presidential forum on Friday, which aired on Sunday. One of the six panelists was TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney who is documenting their transition from a male to trans woman.

When asked if red states should have the right to pass laws limiting access to gender-affirming treatments, Biden said: ‘I don’t think any state or anybody should have the right to do that.’

‘As a moral question and as a legal question, I just think it’s wrong,’ the president added.

This corruption in the Democratic Party has also made the Republican Party unreliable, which is why the Republican slate in Arizona is so important. All of the state’s major candidates (governor, senate, secretary of state, attorney general) are not from the established party. They are mostly Trump outsiders, who are running on platforms calling for major reform. Giving them all a win will send shockwaves throughout the political landscape, on both sides of the political aisle. The establishment controlling both parties might finally realize they must pay attention to the citizens of the country, not their own wishes.

All these factors suggest that this is a truly significant election. or as Doug Ross noted in this excellent essay:

This is our generation’s fork in the road and the stakes of our decision could not be higher. If we are to protect our society from the inevitable decline and despotism that has infected so many societies since the beginning of time, in whom should we trust? If we are to shield our children from the tyranny against which our founders fought and so many Americans shed blood, in whom should we put our faith?

I contend that we must fight the anti-Constitutional counter-revolution using every political tool at our disposal. We must pledge to return our country to the rule of law, as it was originally defined by our founders and codified in the Constitution. For anything less condemns our descendants to the fate that Thucydides described. The choice is clear. The question is simple.

Which road will you choose?

Thus, below are my updated final election choices. Note too that I have not contributed any money to any of these candidates, nor have I received any money from any candidate or party as well. These opinions are solely my own.
» Read more

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Teachers fired and blacklisted for opposing the queer agenda in childcare and elementary schools

1:01 pm

As I did yesterday, today’s blacklisting column will cover a number of individual stories, this time focusing on the blacklisting of teachers who oppose indoctrinating very young children to the queer agenda. I am reporting more than one story in order to make sure these stories do not fall by the wayside. The harm done to the individuals does not go away, even if the news cycle considers their story stale.

Bright Horizons commitment to Critical Race Theory and the queer agenda, for toddlers
Screen capture from Bright Horizons’ own webpage.
Very clearly, Bright Horizons is determined to teach
Critical Race Theory and the queer agenda to toddlers.

First we have California teacher Nelli Parisenkova, who was fired from her job with the nationwide childcare company Bright Horizons because she for religious reasons refused to read books promoting the queer agenda to 1 to 5-year-old toddlers.

What makes this story especially egregious is the vindictive manner in which Parisenkova was treated. From the lawsuit [pdf]:

The childcare room at Bright Horizons where Ms. Parisenkova works has children’s books on the shelf that promote and celebrate same-sex relationships and marriage. When Ms. Parisenkova first started working for Bright Horizons, her supervisor at the time provided her with an informal accommodation that she would not be required to read books to the children promoting same-sex marriage. However, on or around April 7, 2022, Katy Callas, the director of the location where Ms. Parisenkova worked, discovered Ms. Parisenkova’s religious beliefs in this regard. Ms. Callas, who is lesbian, apparently took personal offense at Ms. Parisenkova’s religious beliefs.
» Read more

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Ukraine officials in direct negotiations with Musk about Starlink

10:22 am

According to the Ukraine’s defense minister, they are now conducting direct negotiations with Elon Musk concerning the cost of using SpaceX’s Starlink constellation as part of its war against Russia.

In an interview, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said “I know that we will not have a problem” keeping the service active, citing the “personal communication” between Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and Musk.

Fedorov “is responsible for the digitalization and he has a direct connection with Elon Musk. They have a personal communication, and Mykhailo was really positive” about the situation in their last discussion of the issue, Reznikov said.

I suspect that at some point, the Ukraine will start paying SpaceX some money out of the $20 million per month Musk says it costs. And it will likely draw the cash for those payments from the approximately $50 billion the U.S. has sent it in aid.

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Nurses fired and blacklisted for either being white or Christian

2:31 pm

In today’s blacklist story, I tell two different tales, both of long-time nurses of great experience were not only fired from their jobs because one was white and the other was Christian, but are now apparently blacklisted from getting new work for the same reasons.

I tell two stories today because I am finding I have so many blacklist stories in the queue that many are getting dropped because they are getting stale in terms of the news cycle. Since none of these stories are stale to the individuals being persecuted, I feel a need to tell more than one per day, for a few days, just to catch up.

Laura Morgan, blacklisted
Laura Morgan

First we have Laura Morgan, a nurse with 39 years experience. Morgan was fired by her employer, Baylor Scott & White Health, when she refused to take a new anti-racism course required by her employer that specifically accused her of being a racist, because she was white.

Morgan said her “ordeal” began in September 2021 when her company, Baylor, Scott & White Health, directed annual training for clinicians that this year included a course called “Overcoming Unconscious Bias.”

After reviewing the course, she requested a meeting with the nursing director and the human resources manager. Both blew her off.

“The idea of implicit bias is grounded in the belief that white people treat those who aren’t white worse than those who are. It’s part of the woke assumption that society, including healthcare, suffers from ‘systemic racism,’” she wrote. “Accordingly, my own supposed implicit bias, which is a euphemism for ingrained racism, must be rooted out. Not only that, it must be replaced with preferential treatment for the nonwhite.”

“I fail to see how real racial discrimination is justified by my nonexistent racism,” Morgan added.

Morgan also added in a Wall Street Journal op-ed,
» Read more

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