NASA officially expresses concerns about proposed private communications constellation

For what appears to be an unprecedented action, NASA has officially expressed opposition to a proposed private satellite constellation by the company AST & Science.

NASA’s position was released in a comment to the FCC, where the company has requested a communications license to operate its satellites.

At issue are plans put forth by AST & Science, which intends to build a constellation of more than 240 large satellites, essentially deploying “cell towers” in space to provide 4G and possibly 5G broadband connection directly to cell phones on Earth. The company, based in Midland, Texas, calls its constellation “SpaceMobile” and has raised an estimated $120 million.

The space agency felt compelled to comment on AST’s proposal for several reasons. Most notably, the proposed altitude for the SpaceMobile constellation lies near the “A-Train,” a group of 10 Earth-science monitoring satellites operated by NASA and the US Geological Survey, as well as partners in France and Japan. “Historical experience with the A-Train constellation has shown that this particular region of space tends to produce a large number of conjunctions between space objects,” the NASA letter states.

The satellites are also very large. In order to provide service, AST plans to build spacecraft with large phased array antennae—900 square meters. According to NASA, in planning for potential conjunctions with other satellites and debris in this orbit, this would require proscribing a “hard-body radius” of 30 meters, or as much as 10 times larger than other satellites.

Maneuvering around the proposed SpaceMobile constellation would be extraordinarily taxing, NASA said. “For the completed constellation of 243 satellites, one can expect 1,500 mitigation actions per year and perhaps 15,000 planning activities,” the space agency stated. “This would equate to four maneuvers and 40 active planning activities on any given day.”

The company has said it is willing to work with NASA to ease its concerns. For NASA to take this particular step however is most strange, especially considering the size of this constellation, 240 satellites. This number is tiny compared to the multi-thousands being proposed by SpaceX, Amazon, and OneWeb. Their large size footprint certainly could be a factor, but it does seem puzzling for the space agency to pick out this particular constellation for opposition, and none of the others.

Vote for Trump, but even more, vote Republican across the board

Trump

I’ve said it before but I will say it again. Donald Trump is the right candidate for president, and everyone who hasn’t yet voted should vote for him tomorrow, both because he kept his promises and has actually done a decent job as president.

However, it is even more important to vote for Republicans across the board. If Trump is re-elected but the voters do not give him strong majorities in both houses of Congress, his ability to do what the voters want will be seriously circumscribed. And if the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress, expect that their first order of business will be to impeach Trump and then try to remove him from office. The goal will be to quickly nullify your vote for Trump, by the party of segregation, slavery, riots, looting, and stolen elections.

And on the local city and state level things are quite simple. » Read more

Climate scientists are science’s biggest frequent flyers

From the people who want to shut down all fossil fuel technology: A newly published survey of 1,400 scientists from 59 countries has found that climate scientists fly more than researchers in any other field.

Climate experts — who accounted for about 17% of respondents — take five flights per year on average, the study found, whereas researchers who specialize in other fields took four. Climate scientists also fly more often for work than their peers, but take fewer international flights for personal reasons. Air travel becomes more frequent with job seniority across all disciplines, with climate-change professors flying on average nine times per year, and those in non-climate disciplines flying eight times.

Although the difference isn’t enormous, it adds up to a “colossal amount of flying”, says Lorraine Whitmarsh, an environmental psychologist at the University of Bath, UK, who led the study. “These figures are really quite stark, I think, and should be a wake-up call for all of science.”

The survey took place prior to the Wuhan panic, and thus does not tell us about the new fear-driven flying patterns of scientists.

That this story comes from the journal Nature,. which in recent years has become increasing controlled by the leftist propaganda machine, suggests the data is quite convincing. Nature wouldn’t allow any publication of any paper that throws a bad light on global warming or its researchers, unless the data was overwhelming and impossible to ignore.

It also tells us that climate scientists themselves don’t really believe their own doomsday predictions about global warming. Before the Wuhan panic they would routinely run numerous international conferences, often in wonderful warm-weather vacation spots in the midst of winter, and would flock there in the thousands to enjoy that warm weather even as they repeatedly called for government restrictions on everyone else. The article quotes one scientist, who tries to justify this travel:

International conferences might also have an influence, says Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Meetings to coordinate global mitigation efforts — such as of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — involve hundreds of researchers from different countries. “You need to have a frequent series of meetings to keep up with the data, to advance our findings, to make sure that they are disseminated across the community,” says Cobb. [emphasis mine]

I highlight her quote because her reasons for attending such conferences are unadulterated garbage. While it is important to personally get together periodically with other scientists in the field to exchange results (something that is unfortunately no longer happening because of fear of COVID-19), you don’t need to do this “frequently” in today’s intenet society. Nor do you need to do it to “keep up with the data” or to distribute it to everyone else. If anything, such conferences are very inefficient for achieving these goals. The internet does it far better.

No, the purpose of many of these very big climate conferences had nothing to do with science. I’ve attended a few, and noticed how little real science was discussed. Instead, these conferences were political gatherings, aimed at organizing political action and regulation, as determined by these high-flying climate politicos. And they were always in nice warm weather locations, in winter.

To sum up: Until the climate field acts like it believes its own pontifications about the evils of fossil fuels, no one else should.

Twelve graphs prove masks are useless against COVID-19

Link here. The graphs, covering many more regions, countries, and states then the similar graphs I have posted previously, show that masks have zero effect on preventing the spread of the Wuhan virus. In some places infections rose after mask mandates were imposed. In others they declined. And the pattern showed little difference between places with or without mask mandates. As the author notes quite correctly,

Masks are not merely a small inconvenience. They have inadvertently become a key impediment to returning to a more normal life, a desirable goal for those seeking to twist the pandemic for political and electoral purposes.

Masks dehumanize us, and ironically serve as a constant reminder that we should be afraid. People can now be spotted wearing masks while camping by themselves in the woods or on a solo sailing trip. They have become a cruel device on young children everywhere, kindergarten students covered by masks and isolated by Plexiglas, struggling to understand the social expressions of their peers. Face coverings are causing real harm to the American psyche, provide little to no medical benefit, and distract us from more important health policy issues.

The mask dogma had many cracks in it from the start. For one, the U.S. surgeon general and the Centers for Disease Control both previously said that “masks are NOT effective in preventing [the] general public from catching coronavirus,” so they were already starting with a credibility deficit. Furthermore, many officials have been frequently caught without masks when they think the cameras are off them. Dr. Anthony Fauci, for example, has been caught doing this multiple times.

Take a look at the article and the graphs. They will make you feel really silly and stupid when you next put that mask on.

I say, throw the mask away. I don’t wear one, and won’t. I won’t bow to the scare tactics of politicians and incompetent and lying health officials. I have also found I pretty much can go anywhere I want without that mask. Almost no one questions me, and the few times someone has, I simply tell them I don’t wear for medical reasons, and they back off, leaving me alone.

If more people did as I do, so that those more timid began to see more people maskless and free, more people would be willing to do that same. We might actually begin to see people’s faces again, and live in a manner humans were meant to live.

More evidence the number of COVID-19 deaths is greatly exaggerated

The video report below notes that, according to CDC published data, almost all deaths now listed as COVID-19 deaths were actually caused by other factors.

Specifically, of the approximately 220,000 COVID-19 deaths listed so far, almost 94% were likely not caused exclusively by COVID-19, but by other chronic illnesses. While many of these other maladies, such as a variety of respiratory illnesses, probably worked closely in conjunction with the coronavirus to kill the patient, other illnesses were clearly the real cause of death. For example, the CDC says the 51,000 of today’s 218,000 COVID-19 deaths were caused by heart attacks or heart failure, not COVID-19.

If we subtract these coronary deaths, we are left with about 167,000 COVID-19 deaths. The CDC notes that of these, 88,000 were probably caused not by the coronavirus but by the flu and pneumonia. Hospitals listed them as COVID-19 deaths because the CARES act passed by Congress in the spring gives those hospitals a 20% bonus if they claim the death was COVID-19. This fact might also explain the almost complete lack of flu deaths this year, as listed by hospitals.

Based on this data, it appears that the coronavirus probably caused about 79,000 deaths, on top of the 88,000 flu and pneumonia deaths this year. These Wuhan virus deaths are probably excess deaths this year, but with an average age of 78 the deaths are still occurring almost exclusively among the aged sick, rather than the general population. For everyone else, COVID-19 remains relatively harmless, like the flu.

Interestingly, the CDC recently reported that in 2020 the total number of excess deaths is presently estimated at 300,000. Most significantly, the CDC also stated that
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“That is a blatant lie.”

In a long fifty minute public interview tonight on the Tucker Carlson Show, embedded below the fold, a businessman outlined in great documented detail how Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, was lying when he said he had no knowledge and never participated the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden, including a partnership with a Chinese company connected to the Chinese Communist Party.

More details here. The businessman, Tony Bobulinski, was quite clear and convincing. Bobulinski outlined in detail two meetings he had with Joe Biden in connection with those Chinese business dealings.

[Carlson]: The former vice-president has said that he was not involved in his son’s business dealings and had no knowledge of them at all. But this sounds like direct involvement in them.

[Bobulinski]: That is a blatant lie. When he states that, that is a blatant lie.

Apparently this man has come forward because he knows Biden is lying, and in the process is smearing his name by accusing him of being a party to Russian disinformation. Bobulinski however is a Navy veteran who had top secret clearance. To be accused of literally being a traitor was too much for him to take, which is why he has gone public with his knowledge.

Watch the interview below. It is worth your time, especially now only a week before election day. Joe Biden is not only a liar, he has been willing to make deals with Chinese businesses that work for the Chinese Communist Party, and as Bobulinski notes, is very seriously compromised by all standards of national security. As president it will be very difficult for him to defend the nation’s interests, exposed as he is now as someone with deep financial ties to Chinese government interests.

Even worse, the willingness of almost every major news organization to bury this story condemns them forever as true partisan hacks with zero loyalty to the United States itself. They deserve nothing but of utter contempt and disgust from every American.

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Joe Biden is just not qualified, for health reasons


Biden as he forgets what truths we hold as self-evident.

I have previously argued that people should vote for Trump and Republicans across the board for two reasons:

Today I want to take a look at Joe Biden himself, to show that the man is simply not qualified to be president. I will not be arguing however that this lack of qualification is because his policies are wrong, despite ample evidence that they are.

Nor am I going to point to the recent pay-for-play scandal surrounding Biden and his family. The evidence is quite clear that Biden has used his position of power in government to exhort money from foreign governments while working against American interests in foreign policy.

I am also not going to talk about Biden’s past proven dishonesty, illustrated best by his first failed effort to run for president, an effort that was quashed because he was found to be a serial plagiarist (something that it appears he still does).

No, my argument is simpler. Joe Biden is exhibiting clear symptoms of failing mental health. It is increasingly obvious he really is unaware of what is going on around him, and this condition appears to be worsening at a frightening pace.
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Seven recent examples of leftists threatening to murder their opponents

They’re coming for you next: If you want to know what is in store for those who oppose the Democratic Party and its leftist storm-troopers, this article outlines just seven public examples of Democratic Party and leftist activists calling for the murder of their opponents, not because they committed crimes, but because they simply did not agree with the agenda of the left.

Here’s just one example, from a CNN contributor:

[O]n Aug. 4, 2019, a supposed religious scholar and CNN contributor Reza Aslan announced on Twitter — a tweet still up as of Oct. 22 — that all Trump supporters “must be eradicated from society” along with Trump, and that there is “no longer any room for nuance.” Aslan has nearly 300,000 followers.

His extremely defamatory and threatening tweet reads verbatim: “The President is a white nationalist terror leader. His supporters — ALL OF THEM — are by definition white nationalist terror supporters. The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And his evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society.”

None of the examples cited are out of the ordinary. Such statements have become increasing typical from all levels of Democratic Party support, from on high and down low. They have been matched by numerous actions reminiscent of NAZI Germany, from rioting to looting to intimidation to attacking innocent Trump supporters whenever they are spotted.

Just remember this when you vote. If the Democrats win, they will expect total obedience and compliance, or they will be coming for you next.

Studies: COVID-19 mortality plunging in hospitals

Two new studies have found that the death rate among COVID-19 patients has significantly dropped since the beginning of the epidemic in March.

[One] study, which looked at over 5,000 patients inside the Langone Health system, discovered that in the study timeframe, the mortality rate decreased from 25.6 percent in March to 7.6 percent in August—an 18 percentage point decrease from the start of the pandemic.

According to the data, the median age was seen to have decreased over time, meaning that as time went on, most patients infected with the CCP virus were younger. Although that change seemed to partially explain the decreased mortality rate, it didn’t account for all of it. “Even after risk adjustment for variety of clinical and demographic factors, including severity of illness at presentation, mortality was significantly and progressively lower over the course of the study period,” the study stated.

Patients of all ages experienced a decreased mortality rate. Among those, patients who were at or over the age of 75 saw the largest decrease, from just under 45 percent in the beginning of March to a under 10 percent in August.

The other study confirmed these results. Both suggest a range of factors, most of which centered on doctors learning more about the disease and thus treating it more effectively.

Overall the data confirms once again that COVID-19 is not the plague, and should not be feared in the same way. Yes, like the flu it can kill, but the conditions almost always require the patient to be very old and already badly weakened from other illnesses. For everyone else, the risks are far less, with the likelihood that if you get it, you will easily recover.

Jewish pro-Trump convoy attacked repeatedly in New York

They’re coming for you next: A pro-Trump convoy of Jewish New Yorkers was attacked repeatedly by hostile anti-Trump protesters during its trip through the city today.

Multiple disturbing video clips of the convoy posted on @NYScanner show crowds not taking too kindly to rows of vehicles with hoisted Trump 2020 flags. In one video, a man can be seen appearing to throw eggs at the convoy in Brooklyn. In another video, pedestrians can be seen appearing to throw rocks at vehicles displaying a Trump flag.

The hostility evidently lingered throughout the day. In multiple clips, people can be heard yelling expletives at the “Jews For Trump” participants.

One man – on a bike, no less – appears so incensed that the “pro-Trump” vehicles have congested traffic on the Brooklyn that he resorts to punching a window. In Manhattan, a woman was arrested for allegedly using pepper spray on the convoy, according to police.

Later, a scuffle broke out between the pro- and anti-Trump crowd in the middle of a street. Masked protesters could be seen in one clip converging on a vehicle doused in red paint as “YMCA” is blasting in the background.

“Go home! We don’t you here!” somebody in the crowd shouts. “Go back to Long Island!” another person shouts.

A video posted on Twitter shows a pro-Trump caravan led by former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani shows being pelted with eggs.

The worst story was the lead attack at the link. A family of seven, including four children, were pepper-sprayed when another car pulled up beside their Trump-festooned vehicle and sprayed them through the open windows.

This is supposed to be America, the land of free speech and free debate, where your right to express your political beliefs are defended by all. Sadly, for the left and those on the side of the Democratic Party, such tolerance is no longer acceptable. Instead, they celebrate storm-trooper tactics against all who disagree with them.

I hope everyone remembers this when they vote. Remember, they’re coming for you next.

Russia launches new GPS-type satellite

Russia today successfully launched another one of its GPS-type Glonass satillites, using its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport.

This was the first launch of this type of satellite in more than five years due to an inability to get parts because of U.S. sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In response, the Russian government instituted an export-replacement program aimed at providing indigenously produced electronics for the nation’s industries. The effort was complicated by the need in some cases to build entire factories virtually from scratch.

Around 2016, ISS Reshetnev, the prime developer of GLONASS satellites, began re-designing the GLONASS-K variant for the Russian-built components. It is unclear to what extent the original GLONASS-K series relied on foreign components, but the new batch of spacecraft did not come out of assembly until the end of the 2010s.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

26 China
18 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe

The U.S. continues to lead China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.

US sets new record of COVID-19 cases in one day

O no! We’re all gonna die! The United States yesterday set a new record of 77,770 new COVID-19 cases detected in one day.

Thursday’s numbers — 77,640 new cases — eclipsed the previous record set on July 29, when 75,723 new cases were reported, according to a tally by NBC News.

A total of 921 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported on Thursday. [emphasis mine]

I highlight the number of deaths to make the same point I have made repeatedly. Less than a thousand deaths with so many cases demonstrates again how this virus is relatively harmless to practically everyone who gets it. I am quite sure that of those 921 deaths, almost all were over seventy, and all were saddled with other very serious chronic illnesses that even without COVID-19, were on the verge of killing them.

Also, 921 deaths out of 77,770 cases calculates as a death rate of 1.2%. While this is much higher than the flu’s normal death rate of 0.1%, it almost certainly includes almost all flu deaths this year, since the CDC records practically none, something that is just not creditable. Moreover, there is ample evidence that the number of deaths that have been assigned to the coronavirus has been inflated, at least as much as 25%, so that higher number is certainly an overstatement. Moreover, it includes the epidemic’s earlier period, when the virus was more lethal and doctors were struggling to learn how to treat it properly.

To sum up, COVID-19 is merely a variation of the flu. It is weakening in strength. And it never was the plague our fear-mongering political class was claiming it to be.

Sadly, the story above does the same as all mainstream stories about COVID-19. It fails to mention these basic facts, and instead focuses on the increase in cases, as if that increase means millions more will die. It is all a lie, and disgraceful for anyone in a civilized society to do it.

But then, there are a lot of journalists today who have no self-respect, and are quite willing to do many disgraceful things for partisan and emotional reasons, rather than do their jobs properly.

Space officials, from in and out of NASA, meet to plan Biden administration space policy

A group of senior space officials from both inside and outside of NASA held a closed door “war game” on October 20th, designed to plan out what they thought should be the space policy of the Biden administration.

About a dozen officials participated. Attendees included two former astronauts, Charlie Bolden and Pam Melroy, who have worked in space policy since their retirements. Bolden was NASA administrator under President Obama. Also participating were two former senior NASA officials—Mike French, chief of staff under Bolden, and Doug Loverro, a chief of human spaceflight for the Trump administration. Loverro was forced to step down in February and is now under investigation for improper contact with Boeing. The meeting also had participation from industry, including entrepreneur Rick Tumlinson and Marc Berkowitz of Lockheed Martin.

They claim that this is not at the behest of the Biden campaign, but what I see is a group of high-level bureaucrats from Washington gathering together to plan space policy strategy for Biden, with the expectation that should he win they will be well placed to inaugurate his policy for him.

The article did not name all the participants, but if any are presently working in the Trump administration or in NASA their participation in this “war game” was highly inappropriate. It is not their place to set policy, only to implement the policy determined by the elected president now in office.

Should Trump win on November 3rd, the attendance list of participants will thus provide a good guide on who not to hire, as well as who to fire should Trump’s new looser policy on hiring and firing take effect. These individuals have now signaled their partisan loyalties, and it isn’t with Trump or the Republicans. If any are part of his administration now they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, likely acting against his interests when no one is looking.

On this topic, I just bought this book “The Memo: 20 Years Inside the Deep State Fighting for America First,” based on this review, which states:

Higgins’ new book, “The Memo: 20 Years Inside the Deep State Fighting for America First,” is an eye-opening and unique book for a political memoir. It is not heavy on political wonkiness, policymaking stratagems, and personal vendettas typical of Washington, DC tell-alls. It is a refreshingly direct tale of a talented young man’s rise from the enlisted ranks of the military into politics and then policy-making, only to discover the realities of a brutal and seditious opposition fighting to preserve a decrepit, America-destroying agenda that culminated in an outrageous coup attempt against a U.S. president.

And while Higgins does “name names” in his book, when describing the subversion of the Trump agenda by those inimical to it, he does so only to drive home his larger point about the incredible obstacles President Trump has faced in orienting U.S. policies toward advancing his America-first agenda.

Seems very apropos at this moment in time.

New Trump executive order suggests major house-cleaning should he win

The Trump administration has just released a new executive order that would shift many federal managers from civil service positions, where they cannot easily be removed, into a new category that will allow the President to remove them “at-will.”

The order would create a new Schedule F within the excepted service of the federal government, to be composed of “employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions,” and instructs agency heads to determine which current employees fit this definition and move them—whether they are members of the competitive service or other schedules within the excepted service—into this new classification.

…Positions in the new Schedule F would effectively constitute at-will employment, without any of the protections against adverse personnel actions that most federal workers currently enjoy, although individual agencies are tasked with establishing “rules to prohibit the same personnel practices prohibited” by Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The order also instructs the Federal Labor Relations Authority to examine whether Schedule F employees should be removed from their bargaining units, a move that would bar them from being represented by federal employee unions.

The timing of this order is most revealing. If approved it will go into effect on January 19, 2021, the day before the presidential inauguration. This suggests that if Trump wins, he does not want a repeat of his first term, when many civil service employees worked to sabotage his administration and its goals. He wants the power to fire people in large numbers, especially those who are in a position of setting policy, sometimes policy that Trump, legally elected by the American people, opposed strongly.

Be sure that this change will be fought hard by the administrative state in Washington, as well as by their backers in the Democratic and Republican parties. And though it would also give increased power to Biden should he win, it would still be an appropriate change, as the elected president should be the person in charge, not some unelected bureaucrats buried in the DC civil service.

Why Barrett’s confirmation went fast: Senate Republicans finally grew a spine

Link here. The author outlines all the ways the Democrats tried to duplicate their slander campaign against Brett Kavanaugh, then notes this:

The biggest difference is that Republicans simply weren’t playing with these attacks. Each and every one of these stories — and dozens of similar ones — was met with swift condemnation or yawns. Every single one.

It took a few decades of the left playing the exact same games with most confirmation battles, but finally, the right figured out how to render those attacks worthless. It’s not just conservative Americans, but the senators themselves who are playing this differently.

Rather than the Senate Judiciary Committee immediately responding to the Washington Post’s anti-Kavanaugh attack by bending to the will of the Democrats, this time they just didn’t care. As Democrats openly said on national television that they would do anything to stop Barrett’s confirmation, rather than act scared, the Republicans were not moved. They haven’t responded with outrage or drama, but just a steely resolve to get the nomination done. [emphasis mine]

Why it took Senate Republicans decades to figure out this basic premise, that the best way to deal with bullies and temper tantrums is to ignore them, is another question. It suggests that for decades those Republicans really liked bowing to those tantrums, because they really didn’t want to achieve any of the conservative goals their voters wanted and that they always campaigned on.

However, fake conservative senators like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker are gone, replaced with senators who are either more legitimately conservative (Marsha Blackburn) or faced with a tough reelection fight that forces toughness (Martha McSally). The result is that no Republican in the Senate is willing to play the Democrat’s game anymore. They can scream and kick and hold their breath, but on Monday Amy Barrett will be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

SpaceX wins partial approval to provide Starlink service in Canada

Capitalism in space: Though SpaceX has obtained permission to provide its Starlink internet service from Canada’s Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, similar to the U.S.’s FCC, it still has not gotten full government approval to begin offering its service to customers.

It appears a different Canadian regulatory body, dubbed Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), has still not given its okay of the “satellite spectrum” SpaceX requires. From the second link:

SpaceQ had previously contacted ISED in June about SpaceX. ISED wouldn’t comment directly on any application, but did tell SpaceQ that the applications and approved website pages were up to date at that time. The website had last been updated in May. Since then, the website was updated in July. And yet there’s still no mention of SpaceX. It’s my understanding that the specific pages with applications and approvals is updated pretty quickly when there is new information to post. Though it took 3 weeks for changes to appear after Kepler submitted their application in June of this year.

With respect to how long it takes to get approval, ISED said the “service standard for the processing of satellite applications, including for those for foreign satellites, is 130 calendar days.” It’s quite possible that it could take longer.

This description carries all the hallmarks of a typical government bureaucracy whose only purpose is to block new companies and new technology. The political swamp of Canada might also be using it as a means of extortion for campaign funds from SpaceX. “Nice business you got there. Sure would be a shame if it didn’t get that license approval.”

I don’t think SpaceX needs to bow to these games. In the end ISED will back down and give approval, especially when the company begins offering its services just over the border in the U.S. The competitive and political pressure to give its okay will then be too great.

The dying COVID-19 epidemic

Daily mortality from COVID-19 in the United States

Daily mortality and number of cases of COVID-19 in California

The time has come for another update on the state of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, mostly because the evidence, as shown in the updated graphs to the right, continues to tell us that the epidemic is dying off, both in its deadliness and in its spread, despite what some ignorant and power-hungry politicians from both political parties might be saying.

There is also no evidence yet of a second wave of the virus, something that these same fear-mongering politicians have been touting. Both the national graph to the right as well as the graph showing California’s numbers below show this.

There is, however, ample evidence that the number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. has been corrupted in order to inflate the totals. CDC data shows almost no flu deaths in 2020, something that is simply not credible. More likely the totals of COVID-19 deaths are a combination of COVID-19 and flu deaths, with all the deaths assigned to the coronavirus because hospitals get more government money by doing so.

This combination suggests that all told this epidemic is essentially comparable to a normal flu season. The 2020 winter season was simply one in which we were hit with two respiratory diseases, one old and one new, and the two combined to make that season worse than normal.

To confirm what I have just written however I will let my new GP doctor speak for me. Dr. Robert Lending is certified in both internal medicine and clinical lipidology. Two years ago he became disgusted with the way his practice was evolving due to Obamacare and insurance requirements, both of which were forcing him to see an endless string of patients quickly, with no time to spend with each in order to make sure their needs were covered properly. As noted at his webpage,

In 2018, Dr. Lending decided to return to his roots of delivering personalized, one-on-one health care in a more intimate professional setting. He has partnered with Cypress Concierge Medicine and is now one of a limited number of physicians in the region offering membership-based concierge medicine to patients. This provides more time, attention, and VIP service than patients would experience at your average Internal Medicine provider.

As a result, when I called his office to find out if he would consider my own legitimate medical issues that strongly preclude mask use, he very quickly was willing to listen and work with me. For such concierge service you need to pay an annual retainer, which is not cheap, but based on my experience in the past month, it is well worth every penny. For the first time in more than a decade I actually feel I have a real doctor again, who will spend the time to oversee my medical issues and make sure they are taken care of. For example, I can call him anytime, and he answers the phone. With most modern doctors you never get to talk to them directly, except in your short visits. Instead you have to go through go-betweens, who act to protect the doctor rather than treat the patient.

One of Lending’s services is a periodic email he personally writes and sends to his patients, in which he reviews the most recent medical news of the day. Obviously, for the past six months these updates have been focused mostly on the coronavirus, from the perspective of a doctor in the field. I think what he wrote in yesterday’s email about COVID-19 is most pertinent:
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The big lie of “systematic racism” in America

In June, shortly after George Floyd met his tragic death while in the hands of arresting police officers, former vice president and Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden was asked by a television reporter, “Do you believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement?” Biden responded as follows:

“Absolutely,” Biden responded. “But it’s not just in law enforcement, it’s across the board. It’s in housing, it’s in education, and it’s in everything we do. It’s real. It’s genuine. It’s serious.”

The absurdity of Biden’s response is immeasurable. What he says here is a lie, a lie so absurd it is both astonishing and horrifying that anyone believes it. There has been no systematic racism in America for generations, and anyone who thinks so is either lying to themselves, or trying to spread lies to others.

The biggest irony is that those who apparently believe this lie the most, our younger college-aged generation, have grown up in a society where for decades blacks with talent and determination have had no problem achieving success in all sorts of business and fields, with some even becoming the dominate figure in their field. (Think of Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey as only two examples.) They can also marry anyone they want, can go anywhere they want, and achieve anything they want. Nothing stops them but their own limitations.
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Spaceport America in New Mexico fires its head

The board of Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic’s launchsite for its SpaceShipTwo suborbital manned spacecraft, yesterday fired its long time Executive Directory Dan Hicks, at the same time governor of New Mexico removed one board member.

Hicks, the spaceport’s CEO since 2016, has been on administrative leave since June while allegations of mismanagement and abuse of authority have been under investigation by the New Mexico State Auditor and the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, the public body governing the spaceport.

The McHard Accounting Consulting firm, a forensic accounting firm based in Albuquerque, conducted an investigation which was then referred to the state auditor. Keyes informed a state legislative committee this summer the allegations included potential criminal activity.

Spaceport American had been made gigantic promises by Richard Branson back in the mid-2000s, including hundreds of tourist flights per year on SpaceShipTwo, all of which would bring lots of cash to the spaceport and to New Mexico. All came to naught. I suspect those failed promises are somehow connected to the accusations here.

Modern science: Celebrating a “high priestess” instead of data

The corruption of modern science and our intellectual class was well illustrated today by the following headline and article in the peer review journal Science:

Act now, wait for perfect evidence later, says ‘high priestess’ of U.K. COVID-19 masking campaign

From the article’s lead:

In May, when several prominent U.K. scientists pushed back against a Royal Society report recommending face masks to help control the spread of COVID-19, Trisha Greenhalgh was furious. The scientists argued there was insufficient support in the scientific literature for the efficacy of masks, and the U.K. government, following their lead, declined to mandate masks for the general public.

“The search for perfect evidence may be the enemy of good policy,” Greenhalgh, a physician and expert in health care delivery at the University of Oxford, fumed in the Boston Review. “As with parachutes for jumping out of airplanes, it is time to act without waiting for randomized controlled trial evidence.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words have been the typical argument of the global warming crowd for decades. “We can’t wait for evidence! We need to act now before it’s too late!”

Moreover, she — along with the writer of this Science article — also copies another global warming dishonest tactic, posing a false argument by claiming that the opposing scientists requried a “randomized controlled trial” to demonstrate the usefulness of masks. This is an absurd misstatement, as it ignores decades of research that already exists and was referenced by those opposing scientists, that showed that mandating widespread mask use was generally a bad idea, and would accomplish nothing good.
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Study: Almost impossible to contract COVID-19 on an airplane

New research into the air filtration systems on commercial passenger jets has found that it is almost impossible to contract COVID-19 while on an airplane.

A new military-led study unveiled Thursday shows there is a low risk for passengers traveling aboard large commercial aircraft to contract an airborne virus such as COVID-19 — and it doesn’t matter where they sit on the airplane.

Researchers concluded that because of sophisticated air particle filtration and ventilation systems on board the Boeing 767-300 and 777-200 aircraft — the planes tested for the study — airborne particles within the cabin have a very short lifespan, according to defense officials with U.S. Transportation Command, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and Air Mobility Command, which spearheaded the study.

You can read the report [pdf] here. I especially like this quote from their conclusions:

For the 777 and 767, at 100% seating capacity transmission model calculations with a 4,000 viruses/hour shedding rate and 1,000 virus infectious dose show a minimum 54 flight hours required to produce inflight infection from aerosol transmission.

In other words, you can fly around the world more than twice on the same plane, without stopping, without any real risk of getting infected.

Need I add that the use of a mask will likely make no difference either, while probably increasing your chances of catching some disease simply because the long term use of any single mask is unsanitary and almost guarantees it will be carrying pathogens on your face where you breathe?

The real reason most polls in this election are not trustworthy

Trump at a press conference

An event happened yesterday in our home that I think illustrates forcefully why no one can trust any poll being conducted during this election season.

The phone rings. As I now do on all calls, I pick it up, say “Hello?” and wait to see if it is a live person on the other end. If it is a recording of any kind, spam, political, poll, whatever, I immediately hang up. My life is too short to waste on robots or crooks. (I should add that if Diane picks up she does the same, though she doesn’t even offer them a “Hello.” She also often screens calls with caller ID, and thus often does not even bother to pick up.)

Sadly, a large majority of all in-coming phone calls now are from these robots, with the political and pollster robocalls coming more and more frequently, sometimes ten to twenty times a day.

If it is a live person, I listen to find out what they are calling about. If the call is for a commercial product or a scam, I tell them to stop calling us and hang up.

If it is a from a political campaign office or a survey I also say I am not interested in talking, and say good-bye. If the call is from a survey but specifically asks for my wife, I tell her about the call so she can decide what to do.

This happened yesterday. Her answer: “Please tell them to go away.” I then told the guy on the line her exact words, adding that I agree entirely with her. He laughed, and said good-bye, ending the call.

A lot of political experts have wondered whether the refusal of shy Trump voters to answer poll questions might be skewing the poll totals in favor of Biden and the Democrats. This may be so, but I think something more fundamental is happening that makes all poll results untrustworthy.
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Biden-Harris campaign staffers test positive for COVID-19

Two campaign staffers in the Biden-Harris presidential organization have now tested positive for COVID-19.

Kamala Harris has suspended in-person events until Monday after two campaign staffers tested positive for COVID, reports the Associated Press. Harris was supposed to travel to the battleground state of North Carolina on Thursday.

The campaign insists that Joe Biden was not exposed to the virus, but he and Senator Harris spent several hours together last week while campaigning in Arizona. According to the report, Kamala’s communications director and a traveling staff member tested positive after that trip.

My purpose in reporting this really very non-news story is to make two points:

One: Despite so-called strict regimens to protect its campaign people from getting infected, including masks, social distancing, and any number of other procedures now popular in our fear-crazed society, none worked. The infection still arrived, as such infections are guaranteed to do.

Two: No one will die from this outbreak. In fact, it is not even clear anyone will get sick. The Wuhan virus does not kill healthy people. Like the flu, the worst it does is make a healthy person sick for a week or so, after which they recover completely and return to normal life.

We need to stop being so afraid of this virus. It is not the boogie-man it is made out to be, no matter what some people say. It is a variation of the flu, worse for the old who are already very sick, but more harmless for the young and the healthy. With that knowledge in mind we should focus on protecting that very narrow threatened population, while letting everyone else return to a normal life that involves no masks, no social distancing, and above all, no fear.

Seven countries join the U.S. in signing the Artemis Accords

NASA announced yesterday that seven countries — the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and Italy — have now signed the Artemis Accords, the Trump administration’s effort to create a legal framework that will protect property rights in space and get around the legal limitations imposed by the Outer Space Treaty.

I suspect this announcement was in response to statements earlier this week by Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency, that they will not partner with the U.S. in its Lunar Gateway space station project. Though Rogozin cited other issues for the decision, such at the fact that they would not be treated as an equal partner in Gateway, I suspect the decision was also made because Russia’s government opposes the Artemis Accords and does not wish to sign it. China has said the same.

Since those accords are designed to shift power and control from governments to private enterprise, it is not surprising that Russia and China oppose them. Both are authoritarian top-down societies whose government reflects their culture. To sign an agreement that would take power from the state and give it to their citizens is unacceptable.

So be it. Of the countries that have signed, I expect in future years they will all prosper in space, and eventually force others to accept the ideas of freedom, private property, and capitalism that inspire the accords. Luxombourg is committed to pushing private enterprise and investment in commercial space. The UK, Australia, Canada, and Japan all follow the same principles, and all have robust space industries that should only get stronger.

And the UAE, the new baby on the block, wants to make commercial space a big part of its future. Signing these accords — along with their peace deal with Israel — indicates strongly that they mean business, and that they are trying heartily to separate themselves from the radical Islamic movements that have been poisoning the Arab Middle East for decades.

Moreover, the U.S. is requiring any nation that wishes to participate in its effort to return to the Moon to sign these accords. These nations, and their citizens, will therefore have a chance to contribute to that effort, and likely make a lot of money in the process.

Posting is late today because Diane and I went on an 8-mile hike. My gym now idiotically requires masks while you work out, and I am certainly not going to do that. Therefore, to maintain our cardiovascular systems while strengthening our immune systems (the best defense against all flulike diseases, including the Wuhan virus), we have been doing 6 to 10 mile hikes now twice a week. It means one day a week I need to schedule some posts early, and catch up when I get home. I hope my readers understand.

CDC study: Masks do nothing to stop COVID-19 infection

A new CDC study shows that masks appear to have zero effect in stopping the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

An underreported, recently-published CDC study adds to the pile of evidence that cloth masks or other forms of mandated face coverings only contribute negatives to our COVID-19 problem. The study also displays — despite the constant accusations of widespread misbehavior from public health officials — that Americans are adhering to mask wearing, but mask wearing is not doing us any good.

The CDC study, which surveyed symptomatic COVID-19 patients, has found that 70.6% of respondents reported “always” wearing a mask, while an additional 14.4% say they “often” wear a mask. That means a whopping 85% of infected COVID-19 patients reported habitual mask wearing. Only 3.9% of those infected said they “never” wear a face covering.

The graph below from the study is damning. It shows that wearing a mask made no difference between those who got the disease (left column) and those in the control group.

CDC study graph: masks made no difference.

In either case, the number of cases remained the same no matter how much you wore the mask.

I suspect however that a larger study will find more infections among full-time mask wearers, especially if that study delineates between those medical professionals who are trained to wear the mask properly and with care, keeping it anti-septic, and the general public who fingers their mask continually and then sticks it in their pocket between uses.

After months of encouraging lockdowns WHO officials now condemn them

This past weekend officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) came out to publicly condemn the policy of lock downs to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Dr. David Nabarro from the W.H.O. appealed to world leaders on Saturday, telling them to stop “using lockdowns as your primary control method” of the coronavirus.

He claimed that the only thing lockdowns achieved was poverty – with no mention of the potential lives saved.

…Speaking to Andrew Neil of the Spectator magazine, Dr. Nabarro bemoaned the collapse of the international tourism industry and claimed there would be a “doubling” in the levels of world poverty and child malnutrition by 2021 as he warned that lockdowns make “poor people an awful lot poorer.”

“I want to say it again: We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as a primary means of controlling this virus,” Dr. Nabarro said.

This directly contradicts the head of WHO, who since April has been advocating lockdowns.

This disagreement within WHO further highlights the uncertainty of the effectiveness of lock downs, even as those lock downs without question devastate economies.

It does appear strange however for WHO to suddenly change its position, now so close to the election. If one was cynical, one could almost suspect they are now doing this because the election is almost here and once it passes and Joe Biden wins, they will need justification for ending the lock downs.

Of course, this assumes Biden will win. I predict that if Trump wins, WHO will suddenly have second thoughts, and will once again insist that the only cure of COVID is to outlaw all economic activity, as well as any conservative protest or gathering. BLM riots however will of course be permitted, as COVID cannot spread at such events.

Florida proves (again) the stupidity of mask mandates

On September 25, 2020 the Republican governor of Florida, Ron De Santis, lifted all mandates on mask use while ending all restrictions on restaurants

He was immediately lambasted by numerous Democratic Party Florida mayors as well as:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who warned that the change is “very concerning to me. When you’re dealing with community spread, and you have the kind of congregate setting where people get together, particularly without masks, you’re really asking for trouble.”

The mayor of Miami Beach, Democrat Dan Gelber, was especially harsh, stating in a letter to De Santis that
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The Navy’s overreaction to COVID-19

On October 10th the press breathlessly reported that “nearly two-thirds of the Navy’s deployable warships have endured COVID-19 outbreaks”.

What was not mentioned was the number of sailors killed by the outbreaks. Though the NAVY report says nothing about mortality, it does say this:

Sailor rates of infection are generally the same as the rates of infection in the local area. … Within the uniformed Navy population, roughly 35 percent of infected sailors exhibit few to no symptoms. This should build confidence in the ship’s ability to fight through outbreaks.

I strongly suspect that practically no one has died yet from coronavirus on a Navy ship. In fact, this sounds exactly like a typical flu season, where the flu quickly spreads among those confined in close quarters, but then peters out shortly thereafter, forgotten.

In other words, COVID-19 in the Navy (as elsewhere) is really nothing more than a variation of the flu, possibly more infectious to all and more harmful to the elderly sick, but harmless to practically everyone else.

The bad part of this is that, rather than let the disease play out quickly so that crews are promptly immune and the epidemic no longer can effect efficiency — as humanity has done for eons — the Navy is panicking like everyone else, instituting strict quarantines on all those infected, plus social distancing and mask rules. All this will do is prolong the agony, and interfere with the Navy’s operation. You can’t run a ship or a submarine realistically if you require everyone to keep six feet distance at all time.

The idiocy, ignorance, and corruption of California’s Governor Newsom

In the past week the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has demonstrated that in his quest to cement the dictatorial powers he gave to himself with the arrival of the Wuhan virus, he really has no interest in any facts or real scientific data.

First, he announced with great fanfare on October 5th that the country and his state were entering a new terrible outbreak of COVID-19. “This is the second wave,” he declared grimly, adding,

“We continue to have a lot to do on COVID-19 transmission,” he said. “You’re starting to see an increase in COVID cases across the country,” the governor observed. “You’re seeing this not just across the country, you’re seeing this across the world.” Newsom then reported that 21 states across the U.S. are seeing increases.

Newsom then made reference to the Spanish flu pandemic that hit America in 1918, noting that “the second wave in 1918 was the most deadly.”

The problem for Newsom however are the facts, as shown in the graph below.
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