Tag: policy

The actual state of the Ukraine War

2:28 pm

Though nothing at this moment is certain, this update report yesterday from the Institute for the Study of War is likely the best quick summary, including a very informative map.

Russian operations to continue the encirclement of and assault on Kyiv have likely begun, although on a smaller scale and in a more ad hoc manner than ISW expected. The equivalent of a Russian reinforced brigade reportedly tried to advance toward Kyiv through its western outskirts and made little progress. Smaller operations continued slowly to consolidate and gradually to extend the encirclement to the southwest of the capital. Russian operations in the eastern approaches to Kyiv remain in a lull, likely because the Russians are focusing on securing the long lines of communication running to those outskirts from Russian bases around Sumy and Chernihiv in the face of skillful and determined Ukrainian harassment of those lines. The battle for Kyiv is likely to continue to be a drawn-out affair unless the Russians can launch a more concentrated and coherent attack than they have yet shown the ability to conduct.

The Russian military is clearly struggling to mobilize reserve manpower to offset losses and fill out new units.

Russia appears to be very very very slowly gaining ground, but meeting heavy resistance everywhere, while struggling with its own lagging logistics and cumbersome military.

What strikes me as most strange about this entire war is the relatively little use of air forces by either side. Russia’s air bombing efforts have paled compared to other recent wars.

The Ukraine’s has even been less active. Consider: Russia had a forty-mile-long convoy in plain sight backed up for days on the main road from Russia to Kiev. What a sitting target! The Ukraine apparently had no air force capability to hit it.

Based on the present known data, this war will drag on for a very long time, even if Russia eventually takes control of the Ukraine. In the meantime it has made itself a pariah with the rest of the world’s nations for its unjustified invasion of a neighboring country, not unlike Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. This in turn is crashing the Russian economy.

All in all, even at its best a victory in this Russian war will be a Pyrrhic victory.

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Today’s blacklisted American: FBI drops trumped up charges that caused January 6th protester to commit suicide

11:23 am

Matthew Perna, dead because he expressed his opinion
Matthew Perna, now dead because he simply expressed an opinion

They’re coming for you next: After demanding that conservative protester Matthew Perna be sentenced to many years of imprisonment for daring to peaceably walk through the Capitol building for less than ten minutes on January 6, 2020 — demands that caused Perna to commit suicide — the FBI has now quietly dropped those trumped up charges, without comment.

Perna was looking at 51 months in federal prison for entering the Capitol for five to ten minutes, snapping selfies, and chanting “USA” in an apparently seditious way. He also tapped a window with a pole but didn’t break it or anything else. He didn’t hit a cop.

The FBI magnanimously decided to drop their charges against Perna on Wednesday.

» Read more

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UK bans all space-related exports to Russia

8:52 am

In response to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, the United Kingdom yesterday announced new sanctions, banning all space-related exports as well as increased sanctions on aviation.

For Russia, this component of these new space sanctions might be the most painful, should something go wrong on one of its launches:

The space export ban includes all related services, including insurance or reinsurance services, U.K. officials said. “This means cover is withdrawn on existing policies and UK insurers and reinsurers will be unable to pay claims in respect of existing policies in these sectors,” wrote in the statement.

This restriction also means that any satellite customers will not be able to claim damages. Thus, customers like South Korea, which still has two launches planned on Russia rockets, will lose everything if the launch fails. Because of this, it is almost certain that it will cancel these launches,

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Today’s blacklisted American: Protesters force Obama’s Homeland Security head to withdraw as speaker at Vassar

12:18 pm

Vassar College: now run by clowns

Eating their own: Leftist protesters at Vassar College have forced Jeh Johnson, who was Secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, to back out of giving the college’s May 22nd commencement speech.

Johnson was replaced by an actor, illustrating once again the growing vapidness of modern academia. The accusations against Johnson also illustrate this bankruptcy by their empty slogans and shallow cliches:

The switch in commencement speaker has sparked heated online debate among students and alumni, with one camp opposed to what one student called Johnson’s “violence on marginalized peoples” and the other camp complaining of runaway “woke” politics.

The controversy deepened after a story that had quoted students referring to Johnson as guilty of “war crimes” — and which warned of “protest and disruption” should he speak — was deleted from Vassar’s student newspaper website, the Miscellany News. [emphasis mine]

The deleted article appears to be available here. This quote in particular from it demonstrates the empty-headed and intolerant thinking in today’s academia, aided by the intellectual dishonesty of an agenda-driven reporter:
» Read more

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Georgia voters kill Camden spaceport project

9:41 am

The residents of Camden County in Georgia yesterday voted by a margin of 72% to 28% to end the county’s project to build a project there.

There are hints that county officials might still try to proceed, having already spent more than $10 million on the project. There are also strong indications that if they do, they will be blocked legally on many fronts.

What this vote suggests is that Americans continue to be uninterested in more commerce, and are easily convinced to put environmental claims first in any political battle. The opponents of the spaceport had said that the spaceport threatened local wildlife — something that clearly doesn’t happen based on more than a half century of data at Cape Canaveral — and the voters in Camden were quick to agree. The voters also probably had a bit of not-in-my-backyard behind their vote as well.

Whether Camden would have succeeded as a spaceport of course is unknown. There are a lot of such facilities being proposed and built, and it is unclear if their number fits the actual launch demand.

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Local Texas state/city politicians pressure congressmen to get Starship approved by FAA

11:42 am

Local state/city politicians from Brownsville are applying pressure on their local congressmen to get the FAA to approve its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Starship facility in Boca Chica approved.

Asked if the BND [Brownsville Navigation District] Board of commissioners had made its position known to Reps. Vela and Gonzalez, Lopez said: “Actually, right now, we are in talks with both of them. We want them to help. It is a huge economic impact, having SpaceX here. It makes the Rio Grande Valley and in this case Brownsville more lucrative. It gives global attention to our city, which is something we have needed for a long, long, time.”

A reporter put it to Lopez that the City of Brownsville is hoping to attract thousands of tourists once SpaceX starts sending rockets to the Moon and Mars. “It would be a tremendous loss if we lose that,” Lopez said.

Both Congressmen are members of the Democratic Party, so I doubt seriously if they care that much for the economic benefits brought to Brownsville by SpaceX, no matter what they say in public. For Democrats nowadays it is environmental matters that trump all other issues, and so it would shock me if either Vela or Gonzalez buck their party’s agenda to pressure the FAA to approve the environmental reassessment.

However, the November elections are looming, and the polls do not look good for Democrats. If the FAA rejects the reassessment prior to that election and demands that a full environmental impact statement be written, something I now fear will happen because the FAA cannot get NOAA and the Interior Department to sign on, SpaceX will almost certainly shift its Starship operations to Florida. An impact statement would take years to complete, a delay that SpaceX cannot afford. Such a sequence of events would likely do great harm to the reelection campaigns of both Democrats.

I thus now wonder if the Biden administration will force the FAA to continue delaying its decision, month-by-month, until after that November election, thus allowing these Democrats to mouth support without risking anything.

We shall know I think before the end of the month, which is presently the FAA’s announced target date for making a decision. I am willing to bet they delay again, for the fourth time.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Renowned cancer researcher fired for wearing Halloween costume 13 years ago

11:11 am

Cancer researcher Julie Overbaugh banned
Cancer researcher Julie Overbaugh blacklisted

The new dark age of silencing: A renowned cancer researcher, virologist Julie Overbaugh, was forced out of positions at both the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine because thirteen years previously she had worn a Michael Jackson Halloween costume at a Hutchinson party themed around the singer’s Thriller album.

The accusations at Washington University were especially absurd, though horribly typical of today’s blacklisting culture:

Though the incident didn’t occur at UW Medicine, its CEO and equity officer also waded into the faux controversy. UW Medicine CEO Dr. Paul Ramsey and Chief Equity Officer Paula Houston notified UW Medicine staff in an email that Overbaugh was punished for engaging in the “racist, dehumanizing, and abhorrent act” of “blackface.” During a separate formal review process for UW faculty, the email confirmed, Overbaugh resigned from her UW affiliate faculty member appointment.

Overbaugh released a short statement to me. “I did not know the association of this with blackface at the time, in 2009, but understand the offense that is associated with this now,” she said. “I have apologized for this both publicly and privately and beyond that have no other comments.”

Ramsey and Houston claim that the UW Medicine community was “harmed” by the 13-year-old photo that most staff didn’t know existed until reading about it in the Feb. 25 email. “We acknowledge that our community has been harmed by this incident and the fact that 13 years elapsed before action was taken,” they wrote. “We are convening a series of affinity group meetings in the next few weeks to provide spaces for mutual support, reflection, and response.”

Neither Ramsey nor Houston explained how the photo “harmed” anyone. Indeed, beyond one confirmed complaint, it’s unclear if anyone even cared about the old photo. [emphasis mine]

» Read more

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Iran launches military satellite

8:46 am

The new colonial movement: It appears that Iran has successfully launched a small military satellite into orbit, Noor-2, though exactly when remains unclear.

IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] said the Noor-2 satellite reached a low orbit of 500km (310 miles) above the Earth’s surface on the Ghased satellite carrier, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. It described the Ghased as a three-phase, mixed-fuel satellite carrier.

IRGC did not immediately release photos or video of the launch. Putting the second satellite in space would be a major advance for Iran’s military.

The Ghased or Qased rocket uses a mobile launcher design, and was used for Iran’s previous successfully launch in 2020.

In confirming the launch, U.S. Space Command officials called the satellite nothing more than “a tumbling webcam in space,” suggesting it is not very sophisticated. At the same time, the first stage of Qased is essentially a ballistic missile. To be able to use this mobile launcher to get anything into orbit means that same mobile launcher, without the upper stage, could deliver missiles anywhere on Earth, and do so in a manner that is undetectable prior to launch.

This launch, the first for Iran in 2022, does not change the 2022 launch race leader board:

9 SpaceX
5 China
2 Russia
2 ULA

The U.S. leads China 14 to 5 in the national rankings.

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Pushback: Christian HS student sues school for persecuting him because of his religion

12:27 pm

How Mater Academy treats its Christians
How Mater Academy treats the Christian children under its care.

They’re coming for you next: Nicholas Ortiz, then a 14-year-old Christian freshman at the high school level of Florida’s charter school Mater Academy, has sued the school for allowing both students and teachers to slander, harass, and discriminate against him for his religious beliefs, and then punishing him when he reported the abuse to school officials.

Ortiz said he regularly brings his bible to school to read, which he alleges has made him a target for “disparaging comments” from other students, as well as school staff and administrators.

The complaint also outlines what it calls false and defamatory statements that circulated among students claiming Ortiz was planning a school shooting. Screenshots of communications between students show them discussing the rumored shooting and details their plans to physically assault Ortiz as a result.

Due to the shooting allegations, Ortiz was given the maximum allowed punishment of a 10-day suspension.

“Nicholas repeatedly made the school aware of a pattern of pervasive bullying by his fellow students, bullying that was reinforced by the words and actions of the school,” the complaint added. “Yet, the school did not just sweep Nicholas’s bullying claims under the rug — failing to report them as required under the law — they retaliated against Nicholas for reporting the harassment.”

You can read his complaint here [pdf].

Though the whole behavior of the school and its students is intolerant and disgusting, this event — which probably began the persecution — is probably the most egregious:
» Read more

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Bahrain signs Artemis Accords

8:57 am

Bahrain announced today that it has signed Artemis Accords, making it the second Arab country, after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to do so.

The full list of signatories, now seventeen: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

In the past week both Bahrain and Romania have joined the accords. The timing suggests both actions might have been triggered by the Ukraine War. Russia opposes the Artemis Accords, and for Romania, a former Soviet block nation, and Bahrain, an Arab nation, to make such announcements so quickly after Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine suggests both are signalling their willingness to ally themselves against Russia.

For this western alliance in space to be complete however it will require that France and Germany as well as more members of the European Space Agency (ESA) to sign on. Before Russia’s invasion these two nations as well as other ESA partners were considering allying themselves with either Russia or China (which also opposes the accords) in future space endeavors. Such an alliance would have prevented them from signing the accords.

The Russian invasion has almost certainly ended any chance these European nations will partner with Russia in space. Thus, it is very likely Russia’s invasion will force them back into a more firm space alliance with the U.S., and get them to sign the accords. If the American State Department has any competence (something we should not expect) it will be jumping on this situation and ramping up its pressure on Europe to sign on.

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Chinese rocket stage impacts Moon

3:56 pm

What is believed to be an abandoned upper stage from a Chinese launch in 2014 is now believed to have impacted the Moon’s far side, as predicted by the estimates of its orbital mechanics.

None of this story is certain, other than amateur astronomers had identified an abandoned uppers stage that they calculated would hit the Moon on March 4th. While the data strongly suggests it was an upper stage from a Chinese launch, that is not confirmed. And so far we do not have confirmation of the impact either. Expect images identifying the impact site from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in the next few months.

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