Tag: politics

New daily record for search engine DuckDuckGo

1:22 pm

DuckDuckGo, the search engine that respects the privacy of its users, has set a new record for use with more than a 100 million daily search requests for the first time.

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo reached a major milestone in its 12-year-old history this week when it recorded on Monday its first-ever day with more than 100 million user search queries.

The achievement comes after a period of sustained growth the company has been seeing for the past two years, and especially since August 2020, when the search engine began seeing more than 2 billion search queries a month on a regular basis. The numbers are small in comparison to Google’s 5 billion daily search queries but it’s a positive sign that users are looking for alternatives.

The numbers are still too small. Why is anyone who reads this still using Google? It is incredibly trivial to switch. More important, you will find that you are getting better information in your searches, as DuckDuckGo does not play favorites nor does it squelch results from some websites because it disagrees with their politics.

And best of all, your privacy will be better protected.

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Today’s blacklisted conservative: Lawyer who represented Trump fired by university

1:03 pm

They’re coming for you next: A lawyer who both represented Trump in his legal challenges to the November 3rd vote count as well as gave a public speech in support of Trump has been fired by his university.

Chapman University President Daniele Struppa promptly denounced Eastman for engaging in constitutionally protected free speech. Struppa accused Eastman in a Jan. 8 statement of playing “a role in the tragic events in Washington, D.C., that jeopardized our democracy. … Eastman’s actions are in direct opposition to the values and beliefs of our institution. He has now put Chapman in the position of being publicly disparaged for the actions of a single faculty member, and for what many call my failure to punish and fire him,” Struppa wrote.

Struppa also said, “This week has also demonstrated that this country has a great deal of work to do for social justice and equity.”

Lisa Leitz, a professor of peace studies at Chapman, was one of 169 faculty members who signed an open letter addressed to the university demanding Eastman be fired. She told a local media outlet that Eastman’s appearance at the rally and his Trump campaign activities have damaged the university. “It associates us with a racist insurrection against the U.S. democracy, and it undermines the credibility of every faculty member,” she said.

On Jan. 13, Struppa announced that a settlement had been reached with Eastman and that he would be leaving his post “effective immediately.”

And what exactly did this man do? Nothing illegal, that’s for sure. All he did was express his opinion, in public, and then take action as a lawyer to represent his client.

I plan on posting one of these “newly blacklisted” stories daily for as long as they keep happening. Sadly, I already have a backlog. I could be reporting these stories of oppression and blacklisting I think for the next four years, daily, without any trouble at all. That is assuming of course they don’t come after me and get this website shut down, something I fully expect is a possibility in the next four years.

And remember, these attacks against outspoken conservatives are only a precursor for when these thugs come after you, no matter who you are. You might not be speaking out publicly, but you have had the temerity to read this material, something that the cultural dictators who now rule us cannot allow.

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Chang’e-5’s lunar samples less dense than expected

8:59 am

Because the lunar samples retrieved by China’s Chang’e-5 probe were less dense than expected, it ended up recovering only 3.8 pounds of material rather than the targeted 4.4 pounds.

The probe had estimated the lunar rocks to have a density of 1.6 grams per cubic millimetre, based on data from past missions by other countries, said Pei Zhaoyu, the mission spokesman. Going by that figure, the probe stopped taking samples after just 12 hours, apparently assessing that the target had been reached. “However, from tests, the actual density might not be that high,” Pei told reporters.

This is not a failure, but a discovery. In order to make sure the lander did not recover too much material, weighing too much, they needed to set limits based on the expected weight of the material recovered. That these samples taken from the Mons Rümker volcano complex are lighter than expected reveals something about them. It suggests the lava here was different than lava samples taken elsewhere.

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Today’s new member of the blacklist: conservative radio host Robert Pratt

3:44 pm

Without warning the marketing heads of the corporation that manages the radio stations that air the conservative Pratt on Texas radio show for the past fifteen years announced today they were cancelling the program, despite its profitable status and high ratings.

Robert Pratt’s comments on this decision:

Since I began the program, in April of 2006 taking the time slot of the syndicated Michael Reagan show, Pratt on Texas has more than paid the show’s way increasing TM’s take during the time slot significantly. It was setup that way with Clear Channel in 2006; if successful it was to be a complete win-win proposition and if not it would fold.

And thanks to each of you, I had it confirmed Friday night, that ratings for Pratt on Texas are as great as ever. We have consistently been not just the top talk or news program in our base KFYO market in “afternoon drive,” we have generally been the top, second, or third spot with our intended adult demographic, in all radio formats, in each ratings book for 14 years – almost unheard of. But those things are not valued in Cancel Culture because the goal is to have fewer hear differences of opinion, not more.

Despite what one TM employee has intimated this weekend to a former TM employ, there has been no contractual or other dispute between TM and Perstruo Texas, Inc. (Perstruo Texas, Inc. is the entity that owns and contracted with TM to provide Pratt on Texas and of which I am an employee and officer.)

So no, there is no money losing, no sagging ratings, nor business disputes (other than the cancellation executed Friday night of course.)

Understand that Cancel Culture doesn’t care about money. Cancel Culture is about advancing a political agenda and operates outside of the idea of making money and being successful financially. The goal is to marginalize, at minimum, and to de-platform and destroy the ability of opposing viewpoints from reaching an audience.

Post election certification, Cancel Culture has rapidly grown beyond its roots in social media to include all forms of media and political thought sharing. It will flourish without mass opposition.

I have no doubt this is the reason behind this decision as well, based on numerous discussions I’ve had with other conservative media people. They are scared, they have ample evidence that the fascist left is coming for them, and they don’t know what to do about it.

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Pioneers and the future

1:31 pm

The asteroid mining ship Dream Watcher docked on the Mars space station.
From Pioneer: The asteroid mining ship Dream Watcher docked
on the Mars space station Landville, c2183.

When I first wrote my sole science fiction book, Pioneer, back in the mid-1980s, I strongly believed (and still do) that for the human race to prosper in space and truly build new civilizations on other worlds, freedom, private enterprise, and courage would be required.

It was for this reason there is absolute no mention of NASA in the book. Unlike most modern movies that idolize this mostly dysfunctional government agency and see it as the only solution for accomplishing anything in space (watch The Martian again to see what I mean), I knew that while government will be strongly involved in space exploration for the foreseeable future, for anything to get done quickly those governments will best step aside and figure out how to let their citizens both freely do it and also own what they do.

This weekend’s aborted SLS static fire test illustrates my point perfectly. Rather than depend on private enterprise to get this rocket built, both George Bush Jr. and Congress decided to give the job to their government bureaucrats. The result has been nothing for now over a decade.
» Read more

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SLS core stage static fire test aborts after only one minute

9:23 pm

During the crucial first static fire test of SLS’s core stage yesterday — meant to last a full eight minutes — the booster aborted the test after only one minute.

It’s still too early to know exactly what caused the early shutdown in Saturday’s engine test.

Flight controllers could be heard during the test referring to an “MCF” (a major component failure) apparently related to engine No. 4 on the SLS booster. John Honeycutt, NASA’s SLS program manager, added that at about the 60-second mark, cameras caught a flash in a protective thermal blanket on the engine, though its cause and significance remain to be determined.

Honeycutt said it’s too early to know if a second hot-fire test will be required at Stennis, or if it can be done later at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the SLS is scheduled to launch the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission around the moon by the end of this year. Similarly, it’s too early to know if Artemis 1 will still be able to launch this year. “I think it’s still too early to tell,” Bridenstine said of whether a 2021 launch for Artemis 1 is still in the cards. “As we figure out what went wrong, we’re going to know kind of what the future holds.” [emphasis mine]

If this engine abort had occurred during a launch, with the two strap-on solid rocket boosters still firing (and no way to turn them off), the entire rocket would have been lost. Thus, for NASA to even consider shipping this core stage to Florida before figuring out the problem and fixing it is downright insane.

They need to figure out what went wrong, fix it, and then test again, even if if means the first unmanned Artemis flight experiences a serious delay. If they don’t then this whole program is proved to be an idiotic sham (something I have believed for about a decade), and should be shut down by Congress and the new President, immediately.

I am reporting this late because this weekend I was out in the country on a caving trip, taking a very much needed break from the truly horrible news of modern America.

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Another professor arrested for hiding ties to China

9:11 pm

An MIT professor has been arrested for hiding his extensive ties to the Chinese communist government, even as he took almost $20 million in grants from the Department of Energy.

According to prosecutors, Gang Chen, a mechanical engineering professor at MIT, has held various positions on behalf of the PRC aimed at promoting China’s technological and scientific capabilities. He allegedly shared his expertise directly with Chinese government officials, “often in exchange for financial compensation,” said prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston.

The Chinese consulate in New York allegedly requested that Chen, a naturalized U.S. citizen, act as an “overseas expert” for the PRC. He was also a member of two talent programs that the PRC has used to place Chinese students at American universities.

This is not the NASA scientist who pled guilty to similar charges yesterday.

It appears to me that the Trump Justice Department is trying to wrap up as many of its cases of academics spying for China as it can before Joe Biden takes over.

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Leftist activist arrested for inciting riot at Capitol

9:03 pm

A leftist activist who is very anti-Trump and heads an organization founded in support of Black Lives Matter causes has been arrested by the FBI for participating and inciting the riot that occurred at the Capitol Building on January 6th.

[John] Sullivan, the founder of “an activist group formed after the killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020” entitled Insurgence USA which “calls itself anti-fascist and protests police brutality,” insisted he was only inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6th to “record.”

…The 18-page affidavit reveals that Sullivan allegedly incited violence by exclaiming “we gotta get this [expletive] burned” and “it’s our house mother[expletive].” … During one of his interactions with others, Sullivan can be heard in the video saying, “We gotta get this [expletive] burned.” At other times as he is walking through the Capitol, Sullivan can be heard saying, among other things, “it’s our house mother[expletive]” and “we are getting this [expletive].”

At this link you can see a video of Sullivan speaking at what appears to be a DC rally, threatening violence and insurrection against Trump.

He is not the only one arrested, and his leftist agenda only illustrates that the politics of the individuals who attacked the Capitol Building were not all the same. It also adds weight to the possibility that many who were there were not there in support of Trump, as has now become the accepted but very unproven wisdom, but might actually have been there to help slander those Trump supporters.

And I still want to know more about that woman in the pink hat.

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These rioters in the Capitol are not Trump protesters

11:39 am

Below is a video taken inside the Capitol building on January 6th, apparently right after protesters have broken a window and gotten inside. It opens with one of them asking someone outside “Where’s the floor plan?” Later a woman in a pink wool hat outside sticks her head through the window, shouting military-like commands with a bullhorn.

Watch. I have been to numerous conservative demonstrations. I have never ever seen Republican protesters act like this. Never. Their behavior has almost always tried to stay within the law, and when someone begins to act unlawfully, usually there are cries everywhere to stop, with several quickly moving in to prevent it. Conservative protesters also are never organized in this manner. They come to the protest randomly, and mill about randomly.

A second video at this link is from outside before they have broken the window, and shows the woman in the pink hat apparently in command and helping to use a battering ram, clearly prepared beforehand, to smash a window.

As far as I am concerned, these rioters are not supporters of Trump. Their techniques, behavior, and approach all scream Antifa, in every way, dressed up to look like Trump supporters.

I might be wrong. There is no evidence right now one way or the other. Finding and interrogating that woman in the pink hat would be especially illuminating, because this footage clearly shows her breaking the law and leading the attack.

Too bad we no longer have a legitimate police force in DC willing to honestly investigate this.

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Scientist pleads guilty of lying about ties to China

8:50 am

A NASA scientist yesterday pled guilty of lying about his participation in China’s Thousand Talents program, designed to recruit scholars for stealing U.S. intellectual property.

On or about October 27, 2020, MEYYAPPAN was interviewed by the FBI, NASA OIG, and the USAO, in New York, New York. During that interview, MEYYAPPAN falsely stated, among other things, that he was not a member of the Thousand Talents Program and that he did not hold a professorship at a Chinese university. In truth and in fact, MEYYAPPAN was a member of the Thousand Talents Program and held a professorship at a Chinese university, funded by the Chinese government.

This guy is one of a slew of scientists the Trump administration has caught spying for China. There are certainly many others, as our academic community generally has more loyalty to communism and China than it does to the U.S.

Unfortunately, he will likely be one of the last such spies caught, as we can surely expect the Biden administration, with its own ties to China, to shut down this national security work.

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Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em

9:50 pm

The Bill of Rights, cancelled

They’re coming for you next: Oh boy, it’s the 1950s again and its time for witchhunts from Congress and big corporations.

Unlike the 1950s, however, the question will not be whether you have ever been a member of the Communist Party. No, now the question will be much more effective and to the point. It will be “Have you ever been conservative or a member of the Republican Party?”

And as always, today’s progressive Democratic Party is on the ball! Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed members of the House are planning to form a commission to “rein in” conservative media, to prevent them from “spewing disinformation and misinformation.”

During a lengthy Instagram Live on Tuesday evening where she revealed that she feared for her life during the siege, the “Squad” member accused the mainstream media of “spewing disinformation” ahead of the deadly riot in which five people died.

“There’s absolutely a commission that’s being discussed but it seems to be more investigating in style rather than truth and reconciliation,” she said. “I do think that several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy because that is part of what happened here,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went on. “We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation,” she said.

Hey, Alexandria, I’ve got the perfect name for your congressional commission. Why not call it the House Un-American Activities Committee? You could subpoena right-wing writers and journalists to testify against their will in Congress, demanding to know their party affiliations. You could also set up lists of these proven conservatives so that businesses nationwide can blacklist them and keep them from working.

In fact, many of big corporations, their boards dominated by Democrats, are already ahead of the curve, cutting off all donations to all Republicans who simply wanted to find out if there was election fraud in the 2020 election. Other businesses in turn have begun firing anyone who worked for Trump.

It is obvious, Alexandra, that the work will be rewarding and productive. Get that committee going. Send out those subpoenas. Harass those witnesses.

We can’t have those evil Republicans poisoning our glorious socialist paradise, can we?

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Space Force picks Alabama for its future headquarters

1:21 pm

In a victory for Alabama and its politicians, the U.S. Space Force has chosen the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the location for its future headquarters.

The selection of Redstone Arsenal is a huge win for Huntsville, nicknamed “Rocket City.” U.S. Space Command is currently based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Alabama was considered a long shot and Colorado was the front runner, given its incumbent status and concentration of military installations and space industry contractors.

U.S. Space Command was established in August 2019 as the military’s 11th unified combatant command. The future headquarters will have approximately 1,400 military and civilian personnel.

While there are many good reasons to pick Huntsville, I guarantee a major factor was the clout exercised by Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), head of the Senate appropriations committee. He will no longer be in charge of the committee with the new Senate, but in his final act as head he likely used it to get the Space Force to move to his state.

This decision however is not yet final. According to government officials, it will take six years (!) to make the move, and already the politicians in Colorado, where the Space Command is presently based, are lobbying to rescind it.

Republican congressman Doug Lamborn, who represents Colorado Springs, sent a letter to President-elect Biden urging him to reverse what he called a “political decision” to move U.S. Space Command to Alabama. “I am disappointed by the horrendous decision to rip U.S. Space Command out of its home in Colorado Springs and move it to a new location,” said Lamborn.

As always, pork is the goal, not defending the U.S. in the most effective manner.

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U.S. and Japan formalize partnership on Gateway

8:53 am

NASA announced yesterday the signing of a formal agreement between the U.S. and Japan detailing exactly how the two countries will partner in the building of NASA’s lunar space station Gateway.

Under an arrangement with Northrop Grumman, Japan also will provide batteries for the Gateway’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the initial crew cabin for astronauts visiting the Gateway. Additionally, Japan is investigating enhancements to its HTV-X cargo resupply spacecraft, which could result in its use for Gateway logistics resupply.

…The agreement also marks NASA’s intent to provide crew opportunities for Japanese astronauts to the Gateway, which will be determined following additional discussions, and documented in a future arrangement.

Japan is one of the seven countries that has also signed the Artemis Accords, which covers the legal and international rights under the project. This new agreement is more technical in nature, outlining who will do what during construction.

Of course, much of this assumes that money will be forthcoming from Congress for Gateway. Right now that budget does not really exist, and its allocation remains quite uncertain.

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Starlink begins rollout in United Kingdom; blocked in Russia

8:43 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s Starlink internet service has now begun providing its service in the United Kingdom, following approval by the government there.

Because the British government is now also an owner of Starlink’s direct competitor, OneWeb, this creates an interesting conflict of interest that fortunately has so far not impeded SpaceX. We shall have to see whether this changes with time.

Meanwhile, in Russia a similar conflict of interest has resulted in some government action against Starlink.

Russia’s legislative body, the State Duma, is considering fines for individuals and companies in the country that use Western-based satellite Internet services. The proposed law seeks to prevent accessing the Internet by means of SpaceX’s Starlink service, OneWeb, or other non-Russian satellite constellations under development.

…In the Russian-language article, translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell, members of the Duma assert that accessing the Internet independently would bypass the country’s System of Operational Search Measures, which monitors Internet use and mobile communications. As part of the country’s tight control on media and communications, all Russian Internet traffic must pass through a Russian communications provider.

It is not surprising that Russia would take steps to block Starlink service—the country’s space chief, Dmitry Rogozin, views SpaceX as a chief rival in spaceflight. Rogozin has been critical of both NASA and the US Department of Defense for subsidizing SpaceX through government contracts. (While it is true that SpaceX has received launch contracts from the US government worth several billion dollars, it has also provided launch services at a significant discount compared to other providers.) More recently Rogozin has said Starlink is little more than a scheme to provide US Special Forces with uninterrupted communications.

That the legislation is also aimed at blocking OneWeb however is strange, considering that OneWeb is quite literally Rogozin’s only remaining commercial customer for Roscosmos’s launch services.

In the end, such laws will only end up doing more damage to Russia than to SpaceX. When you don’t allow competition you basically don’t allow any achievements at all. Russia will sink into a second-class status, not because its people are second-class but because its government is.

Tragically it appears the U.S. federal government is now in a race with Russia to the bottom.

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NASA moves up static fire test of SLS core stage

10:50 pm

NASA today announced that it has rescheduled the full duration static fire engine test of the core stage of SLS’s first stage, moving it up one day to this coming Saturday, January 16th.

During the test, engineers will power up all the core stage systems, load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic, or supercold, propellant into the tanks and fire all four engines at the same time.

If all goes right, that test will last about 8 minutes, the full time those engines are intended to fire during launch.

For SLS a lot rides on this test. Should anything go wrong, it will likely delay the launch, presently scheduled for November (though there are rumors this date is no longer likely). And since we now have a new administration taking power that is also linked politically with the previous Obama administration that was generally uninterested in SLS, a failure during this test could very well signal the death knell for this vastly over-budget and far behind schedule project.

For SLS to survive, this test must succeed, and fire for its full duration.

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We are about to find out who our real friends are

1:59 pm

Sergei Krikalev on the space shuttle
Russian Sergei Krikalev on the space shuttle, February 1994.

When in 2002 I was writing my space history, Leaving Earth, I spent more than a month interviewing Russian astronauts in Moscow. Many of those individuals had also flown on the American space shuttle during the initial Mir-Shuttle joint missions followed by the start of the assembly of ISS, which had given them a unique opportunity to get an outsider’s perspective on American culture.

One man Sergei Krikalov, was especially unique. He not only was the first Russian to train at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, he was the first Russian to fly on the space shuttle, and the first to enter ISS’s first module after launch. Because of that experience, he also spoke excellent English, which meant he could describe his experiences to me directly, and not through an interpreter.

When it came to American culture, he noted how as a Russian, he was appalled at the empty nature of American friendships.
» Read more

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Congress frees Europa Clipper from SLS

9:10 am

It appears that Congress has at last removed its requirement that the unmanned probe Europa Clipper must be launched on the continually delayed and very expensive SLS rocket.

Almost unnoticed, tucked into the 2021 fiscal NASA funding section of the recently passed omnibus spending bill, is a provision that would seem to liberate the upcoming Europa Clipper mission from the Space Launch System (SLS).

According to Space News, the mandate that the Europa Clipper mission be launched on an SLS remains in place only if the behind-schedule and overpriced heavy lift rocket is available and if concerns about hardware compatibility between the probe and the launcher are resolved. Otherwise, NASA is free to search for commercial alternatives to get the Europa Clipper to Jupiter’s ice-shrouded moon.

Not only will this secure Europa Clipper’s launch schedule, which had deadlines imposed by orbital mechanics that SLS was not going to meet, the more than $1 billion in savings by using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy will allow the probe to do more while giving NASA more money for other planetary missions.

This is excellent news. It signals that Congress’s long love affair with SLS because of the ample pork it sends to many districts might finally be waning. If so, there is a good chance it will finally be killed, freeing up its bloated budget.

Sadly, in a sane world some of those savings would be used to reduce the overall federal deficit even as some was also used to expand NASA’s space effort. We are not in a sane world, however, so expect no reduction in the federal budget, at all.

Still, this is a move by Congress towards some fiscal responsibility that will make NASA’s efforts more efficient. For that small improvement we should be grateful.

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The new dark age of silencing

10:52 pm

Screen capture of Rantingly on January 8, 2021
Click for most recent page.

The dark age has arrived! The screen capture on the right, cropped, rearranged, and color adjusted slightly to fit here, comes from the front page of the conservative news aggregate site Rantingly from tonight, the evening of January 8, 2021, only two days after Congress certified Joe Biden as president-elect and only three days after the Democrats had confirmed that they will have majority control of the both the House and Senate in Congress.

I have highlighted in red the pertinent stories. Very quickly, the Democratic Party’s allies in at Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple have moved to shut down many legitimate and popular conservative and Republican news outlets, including the Twitter feed of the President of the United States. With the Democrats in control of the government, these leftist internet platforms know they have nothing to fear by doing this, that if anything the Democrats controlling Congress will applaud them and encourage them to censor more conservative and Republican outlets, to shut them all down if possible.

Beforehand, these social media platforms had held their fire somewhat out of fear that the Republicans would change their special tax status exemptions that define them as open platforms, not publishers. No longer. Their desire to silence their opponents can now swing into high gear, and they are pushing it for all it is worth, including attempting to silence their direct competitors, such as Parler, a twitter-like platform that prides itself on censoring no one.

It is also very important to recognize that this isn’t being done only by the big corporate bosses. No, sirree, this censorship of conservatives and Republicans is fully endorsed by the workforce at these companies. Today’s young generation, properly indoctrinated in leftist-controlled universities to hate conservatives and view them all as white supremacists, have been eager to do this for the last two years, and have actually been held back by their corporate bosses. The reins are now off, and their modern culture of oppression and intolerance has moved to the forefront. Persecution is now cool!

This is only the beginning. Even as I wrote this post more links appeared at Rantingly of more examples of censorship.

For myself, because I for years refused to do business with corrupt companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, there is not much they can do right now to hurt me. But these actions today point to the future, and I am not confident my immunity will last very long. The leftists doing this have the power and the willing support of a large percentage of the population. They will use that power and support to jam their boot into every one of their opponent’s faces, given time.

The worst part of this horror is that the people who should read it and learn from it, the low information Democratic Party supporters who really don’t understand how evil that party has become, will never see it. My readers generally agree with me. Those that do not generally fall into two categories, those who are strongly partisan and will deny these facts whole-heartedly, or hacks working for the Democratic Party who come here merely to spread misinformation and lies.

The decent and moderate people who are knee-jerk Democrats and who desperately need to read this and to see the intolerance spreading across America from the party they support are just not interested. They will turn away, dismissing what I write with a wave of the hand. This can’t be true! It must be some mad conspiracy claims of the racist alt-right! And maybe those sites are bad and should be silenced!

And I write this from direct knowledge. I have been surrounded by these people my entire life, being a secular Jew who has also been a college teacher, a film maker, and a science journalist. All these communities are dominated by low information Democrats. I have known them all and have I spent my life trying to get them to wake up, all to no avail.

They will not see. They will not hear. And they will not speak up. And so, worse is coming. We no longer live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Soon, it will be a land of oppression and murder and genocide, all because too many Americans decided to close their minds and do nothing.

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Momentus forced to delay its first mission due to FAA bureaucrats

9:34 am

Capitalism in space? Momentus, aiming to provide satellite makers a tug that can move satellites to their preferred orbit, has delayed its first mission because the many bureaucrats in the federal government need more time to review the paperwork.

In a Jan. 4 statement, Momentus said the flight of its first Vigoride tug, which was to be part of the payloads on a Falcon 9 dedicated rideshare mission launching as soon as Jan. 14, will be delayed to later in the year because it was unable to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the mission. “This move will allow for the additional time necessary to secure FAA approval of Momentus’ payloads, including completion of a standard interagency review,” the company said in a statement.

The company did not elaborate on that review, but part of the FAA commercial launch licensing process is a review of the payload that the agency describes as intended “to determine whether its launch would jeopardize public health and safety, safety of property, U.S. national security or foreign policy interests, or international obligations of the United States.” That process can include consultation with other government agencies.

In a Jan. 5 document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the form of an interview, Fred Kennedy, president of Momentus, said there was no specific issue that was delaying that review. “The FAA did not express any specific concerns of its own, but rather indicated that more time was needed to complete its interagency review of Momentus’ payload,” he said. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words reveal the truth. There is nothing wrong with the payload or its tasks. The problem is that several government agencies have not completed the paperwork, and so Momentus must wait. I imagine that there is a thick application sitting on some bureaucrat’s desk, requiring a signature, and that bureaucrat has been too busy collecting his or her paycheck at home because God forbid he or she might get the cororavirus by coming into work.

This is modern America. You don’t have the real freedom to do what you want. You must sit, twiddling your thumbs, while your betters in Washington decide whether they will allow you to do it. It doesn’t matter they know little or nothing about your goals. All that matters is that they are in charge, and can boss you around at their whim.

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Yesterday

2:11 pm

Because I have come down with a cold that has sapped my energy, I will let J.J. Sefton sum up my thoughts about what happened yesterday, as well as the last four decades. This is the key quote:

Tragically, a victim who has been identified as a Trump supporter was shot and killed in the chaos and confusion. Now the propagandists, the Democrats, and the GOP are condemning Trump as well as anyone and everyone who voted for or otherwise support him as traitors, engaging in violent treason and sedition. Given everything we have endured this past year and going back into the Obama years and beyond really, that attitude is risible in the extreme. It’s also infuriating beyond my capacity to describe the emotion.

My rage this morning is directed in particular at the GOP. Given everything we have seen and endured, these bastards – with the exception of the handful of patriotic members of the Senate and House who exercised their legitimate Constitutional authority and right to challenge the Electoral College votes – including Vice President Mike Pence stabbed us in the heart. Correction, they along with the state legislatures in question as well as the majority on the Supreme Court stabbed us in the heart weeks if not months ago. Pence et al were just twisting the knife. Meh, it happened the moment President Trump said “so help me G-d” four years ago when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and sabotaged him at every turn for two years, until Paul Ryno delivered the House to Malig-Nancy Pelosi.

Year after year, election after election, we begged and pleaded with that party to stop what is now inevitable and imminent from happening. I blame them for what happened yesterday. For what happened nine weeks ago. For what has happened to this country for the past 60 years by not opposing the overthrow of America as founded and going along to get along, either out of denial, greed or some combination of both.

I was once in Moscow interviewing a Soviet-era scientist. She was curious about America and asked me some questions. Eventually the conversation turned to freedom, the law, and the Constitution. She, in the typical Russia way, extolled the wonders of Mother Russia. I then made it clear to her that I did not care one whit for the country I lived in. What I cared about was the principles that founded it. I said bluntly, “If the United States abandons those principles it will not be my country any longer.”

I fear we have reached that point.

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NASA targets Jan 17th for full static fire test of SLS core stage

8:34 am

After analyzing the data from an aborted fueling dress rehearsal, NASA engineers have decided they understand and have fixed the issue that caused the abort and have now scheduled the full static fire test of SLS’s core stage for January 17th.

NASA conducted the seventh test of the SLS core stage Green Run test series – the wet dress rehearsal – on Dec. 20 at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and marked the first time cryogenic, or super cold, liquid propellant was fully loaded into, and drained from, the SLS core stage’s two immense tanks. The wet dress rehearsal provided structural and environmental data, verified the stage’s cryogenic storage capabilities, demonstrated software with the stage’s flight computers and avionics, and conducted functional checks of all the stage’s systems. The end of the test was automatically stopped a few minutes early due to timing on a valve closure. Subsequent analysis of the data determined the valve’s predicted closure was off by a fraction of a second, and the hardware, software, and stage controller all performed properly to stop the test. The team has corrected the timing and is ready to proceed with the final test of the Green Run series.

…The upcoming hot fire test will fire all four of the stage’s RS-25 engines simultaneously for up to eight minutes to simulate the core stage’s performance during launch. After the firing at Stennis, the core stage for SLS will be refurbished and shipped on the agency’s Pegasus barge to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The stage will then be assembled with the other parts of the rocket and NASA’s Orion spacecraft in preparation for Artemis I, the first integrated flight of SLS and Orion and the first mission of the agency’s Artemis program.

The agency had been hoping to complete this test series before the end of 2020. Whether the delay will effect the planned launch date in November is unclear. I suspect they are already anticipating another postponement, in that this press release strangely makes no mention of that launch date.

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Tianwen-1 to arrive in Mars orbit February 10

4:03 pm

The new colonial movement: China’s space agency, CNSA, today announced that its first Mars orbiter/lander/rover, Tianwen-1, will arrive in Mars orbit on February 10th, with the lander/rover dropping to the surface in May.

After entering orbit, Tianwen-1 will begin to prepare for a landing attempt of the mission’s rover. The orbiter will begin imaging the main candidate landing site within the huge impact basin Utopia Planitia, to the south of NASA’s Viking 2 landing site.

Getting ready for the attempt will take time however, with CNSA stating that the landing won’t take place until May.

At the moment they say that all systems are working as planned, and that they have one more course correction, the fourth, to do before entering orbit.

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China targets 40-plus launches in ’21

3:56 pm

The new colonial movement: China’s space agency announced today that it is aiming to complete at least 40 launches in 2021.

A terse summary of the report in a CASC press release (Chinese) stated that missions related to the Chinese Space Station complex would be among the planned 40-plus launches. Recent reports state that the space station core module will be launched in the coming months, followed by the Tianzhou-2 cargo vessel and Shenzhou-12 crewed missions. The missions will require Long March 5B and Long March 7 launches from Wenchang and a Long March 2F launch from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert.

Other major highlighted activities include the Tianwen-1 Mars spacecraft, which is due to enter Mars orbit around Feb. 10 with a rover landing attempt to follow in May. Development work will focus on the two experiment modules for the Chinese Space Station and, notably, crewed lunar exploration. No further details on the latter were provided but earlier indications are available.

Assuming they experience no major launch failures, 2021 should be a ground-breaking year for China.

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Is the ultimate Republican Party failure theater about to happen?

12:30 pm

The dead Constitution

For the past thirty years the Republican Party has been amazingly consistent in almost every political battle put before it by the increasingly leftist and radical Democratic Party. Almost every single time, the leaders of this so-called conservative political party have put on a big show of resisting the leftist and radical proposals put forth by Democrats, only in the end to back down, making a deal that allows those policies to take effect in some manner or another.

I am not sure who originally coined the term, but in recent years this incompetence has often been called “failure theater.” The Republican Party justifies its failures by citing the big theatrical fight they put on. They then promise they will fight harder next time, only to fail again. And again. And again.

This failure theater has been going on repeatedly for decades, since Ronald Reagan was president. Then Donald Trump came along. Unlike the establishment Republicans who ran for president since Reagan (Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain, Romney), Trump generally does not back down easily. He does not participate in failure theater. When he fights he fights to win, which has made the corrupt leadership in the Republican Party very uncomfortable for the past four years.
» Read more

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Data scientists: In PA more than 400K Trump votes removed during tabulation

9:51 am

A careful review of the tabulation process by data scientists of the tabulation of votes in Pennsylvania during the November 3rd election has found numerous examples, totaling more than 432,000 votes, where Trump’s total went down, even though the tabulation process should never decrease, only stay flat or increase as the votes are counted.

According to an analysis by the Data Integrity Group, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, votes for Trump—from both Election Day and mail-in ballots—were removed from the totals in at least 15 counties. Time-series election data shows Trump’s votes decrementing in various counties at numerous time points instead of increasing as would be expected under normal circumstances.

The group said that Election Day vote removals happened during the vote tabulation process in at least 15 counties, including Lehigh County, Chester County, Allegheny County, Armstrong County, Westmoreland County, Northhampton County, Delaware County, Montgomery County, Lackawanna County, Dauphin County, Pike County, Carbon County, Washington County, Erie County, and Luzerne County. Meanwhile, absentee vote removals happened in Allegheny County, Chester County, and Lehigh County.

At least 432,116 votes—213,707 election day votes and 218,409 absentee votes—were removed in total.

“There were vote movements across all candidates. However, we did not see the same type of negative decrements to any of the [other] candidates that we saw with President Trump’s tallies, and they happened repeatedly with no explanation,” Lynda McLaughlin, a member of the group, told The Epoch Times.

The video at the link shows this widespread activity very clearly.

The removal of a handful of votes here and there might make sense, as election officials review the ballots and reject some for various legitimate reasons. Such action however should only remove a small number, and the changes will normally occur for both candidates. For so many votes to be removed solely from one candidate, Trump, is beyond suspicious. Moreover, election officials have so far failed to provide any reasonable explain these subtractions.

The most damning aspect of these findings, along with similar findings in Georgia and Arizona, is the unwillingness and even outright stonewalling by election officials to investigate anything. If these vote removals are justified, one would think they would move quickly to allow others to examine the data closely, and provide detailed explanations for them all.

Instead, they stonewall, resist, and block any investigation.

And in Georgia, where the state legislature has mandated a forensic audit, shots have now been fired at the auditors.

The election was stolen. Whether you voted for Trump or Biden it matters not. It now appears that government officials can and will manipulate the vote totals to make sure their choice wins every time. Your vote no longer means anything.

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Eleven senators announce decision to challenge election results

11:43 am

A group of eleven senators, led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today announced that they will challenge the election results in the disputed states, demanding that Congress set up a commission to investigate the results and prove them legitimate before certification. From their statement:

To wit, Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

“Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.

This group joins Senator Josh Hawley (R-Kansas), who has already announced he will vote against certification, and about 140 House Representatives, who have said the same.

Their statement is thoughtful and detailed, not an emotional soundbite. It also states the following:

We are not naïve. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue. A fair and credible audit-conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20-would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.

These are matters worthy of the Congress, and entrusted to us to defend. We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy. [emphasis mine]

That election integrity is now a partisan issue is the real problem. There are more than enough reasonable allegations and evidence suggesting widespread fraud in the disputed states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, and no election should be accepted until those allegations are investigated properly. Otherwise no one is ever going to trust any election again.

And it does not matter who wins. If a proper investigation debunks the allegations and calls Biden the winner, then so be it. Our goal should not be keeping Trump in office, but to make sure the voting process is fair, honest, and reliable.

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Data Scientists: Outright fraud in Georgia election

11:23 am

Below is the testimony this week in front of the Georgia state senate from three data scientists analyzing the Dominion computer systems and the November 3rd raw vote tally data. Watch it, please. As one of the three scientists bluntly said,

There was fraud in Georgia’s election. We can prove it with data. and because we can prove it with data the voting will of the voters of Georgia is not reflected in what was certified by the secretary of state.

They found three very shocking facts. First and most important, in a system that should only be tabulating votes, so that the numbers only go up, they found more than forty examples where the numbers for Trump went down. As another scientist noted, “There is no reason that at any point that something should be subtracted.”

Worse, they also found that Biden’s numbers would then go up at the same time, by the exact same amount. The total votes affected exceeded 200K.

In other words, votes were being switched.

Second, they found that the computer system too easily allows a human access to the data, and worse, permits that human to make wholesale changes, with no oversight. Their testimony confirmed previous video evidence by one election supervisor in other testimony.

Third, they found that the Dominion system was specifically designed to destroy the original ballot whenever that ballot was reviewed and its vote adjusted or changed by that human. This means that any later audit is worthless, as it cannot go back and compare the original vote with the final software vote.

I found out about this particular testimony from a report by Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams, who after watching it concluded, “Looks like Trump won.”

After this and other testimony, including another computer expert who during the testimony was able to hack into the Dominion systems presently tabulating on-going polling for the senate, even though we have been told this was impossible, it is very clear that the results from the Georgia November election are untrustworthy, likely fraudulent.

At a minimum they must be reviewed entirely. More properly, they should be decertified.

This evidence also raises legitimate questions about the totals tabulated by Dominion machines in any other state.

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The state of the global rocket industry in the 21st century

12:23 pm

With the year of 2020 coming to an end, it is time to look back to see how the world’s rocket industry fared in what was a truly difficult year for most. And with the 21st century now one fifth over, it is also time to take a wider view, to see what the trends have been for space exploration during this new century, and to see where those trends might lead.

Below is my annual updated table showing all successful orbital launches by every nation and company, beginning in 2000. While the table in my 2019 report last year had gone back to 1990, I decided to shorten the graph to just the 21st Century, in order to better focus on that century in particular.

» Read more

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Surprisingly low number of observation proposals from astronomers for Webb telescope

4:03 pm

In preparation for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in ’21, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) that will operate it has begun accepting observation proposals from astronomers, and has apparently discovered that the number of proposals, dubbed the subscription rate, is surprisingly low.

The stats of the James Webb space telescope cycle 1 proposal round came in the other day. In summary: an over subscription rate of 1:4. A little less even.

There was immediate spin how the stats were a good thing. Enthusiasm from around the globe! So many investigators! But that does not change that the 1:4 oversubscription is a disappointment. If I were part of the project, this would and should worry me.

If they got exactly the right number of proposals to precisely use all of the telescope’s observation time, the subscription rate would be 1. An oversubscription rate of 1.4 seems good, but in truth it is tiny compared to Hubble and other space telescopes, and horrible considering the cost of Webb (almost $10 billion, 20x what it was originally budgeted).

The author at the link provides some technical reasons for the low interest, some of which are the fault of the Webb management team (such as a very complicated proposal process) and some that are beyond their control (the Wuhan panic). He also provides suggestions that might help.

Either way, the relatively low interest I think is rooted in Webb’s initial genesis. It was pushed by the cosmological community and its design thus optimized for studying the early universe. Other astronomical fields were pushed aside or given a lower priority so that the telescope does not serve them as well.

The result is that a lot of astronomers have been finding other more appropriate and already functioning telescopes to do their work, bypassing Webb entirely. They are probably also bypassing Webb because it seems foolish to spend the inordinate amount of time putting together a proposal for a telescope a decade behind schedule that carries an enormous risk of failure once it is launched.

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Witness announces his team has hacked Georgia election runoff polling machines

1:53 pm

During testimony today in Georgia investigating the possibility of election fraud on November 3rd, a witness announced that his team at that very moment had hacked into the voting machines being used for the Georgia senate runoff races and was communicating with the machines.

During a Senate hearing in Georgia over fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Jovan Pulitzer told the senate members, “At this very moment at a polling location in the county, not only do we now have access to the devices through the poll pad — the system — but we are in.”

Pulitzer told the senators this should not be able to happen, but his team was has able to hack into the voting system and has documented evidence to prove it. Pulitzer said the machines are connected to the internet and two-way communication is occurring in real-time. “It’s receiving data and sending data,” he said.

When questioned, Pulitzer said the polling place his team hacked into is a physical location, not a mobile station. Pulitzer said his team has access to the data from the Georgia Senate runoff race from the polling station.

The article provides a link to his testimony. This proves that the owners of Dominion have been lying when they say their machines are not connected to the internet. It also shows how easy it would be to falsify the results. As the witness noted, if you can download the data from the machines you can change it and then upload it again, and if no one suspected you were doing it (or was willfully blind to your tampering) no one would ever find out.

All election results in Georgia are thus suspect. If nothing is done, that I would be astonished if either Republican candidates won their run-offs.

In fact, I think this comedy movie clip provides a perfect description of our modern American culture:

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