Tag: politics

Today’s blacklisted American: Anti-Semitic attacks skyrocket on college campuses

2:44 pm

The coming genocide
What American universities are aggressively working towards

They’re coming for you next: According to a recent study, anti-Semitic attacks against Jews have increased drastically on American college campuses in 2021 and 2022, rising in lock-step with the introduction of critical race theory and its anti-white, anti-American, and pro-Marxist agenda.

There were 254 attacks on 63 different college campuses with large Jewish populations, with Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Tufts University, UCLA, and Rutgers University having the highest number of incidents, according to a report by the AMCHA Initiative, a Jewish advocacy group that says its findings expose an “insidious,” never-before-revealed campus trend.
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Slowly the Ukrainians continue to regain their country

1:11 pm

The Ukraine War as of September 11, 2022
The Ukraine War as of September 11, 2022. Click for full map.

The Ukraine War as of November 16, 2022
The Ukraine War as of November 16, 2022. Click for full map.

In the two months since my last update on the Ukraine Way in September, the steady and continuing retreat of the Russians has continued, with the Ukrainians last week finally retaking all the territory north of the Dnipro River, including the city of Kherson.

The two maps to the right, created by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and simplified, reduced, and annotated to post here, show these gains, with the top map from their September 11, 2022 analysis and the bottom from their November 16, 2022 update. Pink areas are regions controlled by the Russians. Blue areas are regions retaken by the Ukraine. Red-striped areas are regions captured by Russian in its 2014 invasion. Blue-striped areas are regions inside Russian-occupied territories that have seen strong partisan resistance. The green lines in the top map mark the locations of important rivers.

Overall, the military actions of the Russians have continued to be haphazard, poorly thought out, and inexplicable, as they have been from the start of this war. For example, even as the Ukrainians were continuing their steady gains in the north, the Russians seemed relatively uninterested. Instead, it continued its attempts to gain ground in the middle, near Donetsk, as indicated by the two green circles. The Russians have been attempting for months to make gains in this area. Though they have captured some territory, those captures have been tiny and very costly. Nor have these captures done anything to impact the Ukrainian gains elsewhere.
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Rocket Factory Augsburg signs deal to use German engine test facility

10:10 am

Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), one of three German rocket startups pushing to begin test launches next year, has signed a contract with Germany’s aerospace agency DLR to use of its engine test facility for static fire tests of its Helix engine.

RFA announced the deal at the Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen, Germany, Nov. 16, which will allow RFA to use the P2.4 test site in Lampoldshausen. DLR provides the basic infrastructure while RFA brings its own test stand and supporting infrastructure.

Test stands in Lampoldshausen have so far only been used by DLR, the European Space Agency and ArianeGroup.

The new test stand will add to RFA engine testing capacity already established in Esrange in northern Sweden, where the company has been conducting testing on the Helix engine for the RFA One launcher. Testing will continue in Sweden but the new development simplifies logistics and bureaucracy related to import and export rules. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence is the news. The German government has decided to break the monopoly held by government related operations of these facilities, and open up their use to private independent commercial companies.

RFA says it already has a dozen customers, and hopes to begin commercial launches by ’24.

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Ten cubesats released by SLS on way to Moon; one has problems

9:53 am

Shortly after SLS’s upper stage completed its engine burn to send Orion to the Moon, it separated and then successfully released ten cubesats on their own deep space missions.

These CubeSats will fly to various destinations including the Moon, asteroids, and interplanetary space. They will study various facets of the Moon and interplanetary travel, ranging from navigation techniques to radiation and biology. One of them is even planned to conduct a soft landing on the lunar surface.

Because of SLS’s numerous delays, there was a chance that many of these cubesats would lose the charges on their batteries and not function after launch. According to the article at the link, communications with six of these cubesats has been established.

The last cubesat above, from Japan and dubbed Omotenashi, was designed as a demonstration test. According to Japan’s space agency, JAXA, however, communications with the spacecraft are “unstable.”

Japan’s space agency said Thursday it has been unable to establish stable communication with the country’s mini moon lander launched on a U.S. rocket the previous day along with a mini satellite. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said it is now trying to control the position of the Omotenashi lander, adding its system of automatically turning to the Sun to gain solar power appears to be not functioning.

Before launch JAXA had rated the mission’s chances of success at 60%, but that mostly referred to the lunar landing. Though intended as a demo mission, it will be unfortunate if it fails for these reasons this early in the mission.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Half of today’s students support the death penalty for some speech

11:41 am

The poll numbers, across all demographics
The poll numbers, across all demographics

This is no longer a land of the free: According to a new poll, half of today’s college students now believe that the death penalty is justified for some people should they dare express an opinion that offends.

Specifically, the students were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement:

Violence in response to offensive speech is not a new phenomenon. In some cultures, some types of offensive speech even merit the death penalty. Some speech can be so offensive in certain cases that it merits such harsh punishment.

As shown in the graph to the right, across the board, 43% to 55% of students from private and public schools, from all types of majors, from all levels of income, and from across the political spectrum, all agreed with this statement. The results were remarkably consistent. Tolerance was not their watchword, but oppression and dictatorship. If you say something that offends, half of today’s students feel justified in calling for your death.
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UK awards launch license to Cornwall airport

9:31 am

After several months delay, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the United Kingdom yesterday issued a license to a Cornwall airport, dubbed Spaceport Cornwall, allowing Virgin Orbit to begin final preparations for the first orbital launch from within the British Isles.

The red tape however is not done.

The licence means that Virgin Orbit, which is behind the launch (named Start Me Up after the Rolling Stones song), is clear to begin to carry out mission-readiness tasks. But further licences are needed relating to this specific mission before blast-off can happen.

Melissa Thorpe, the head of Spaceport Cornwall, said: “To be the first spaceport in the UK with a licence to operate is a historic moment. Cornwall is now ready to open up the use of space for good.” She added: “The CAA continues to work on several licence applications, including being in very advanced stages with Virgin Orbit on its applications for launch and range licences, as well as the satellite operators, ahead of a proposed first UK launch.

I am reminded of the meme showing a crowd of officials surrounding one ditch digger, with the only one doing any real work that digger. It appears right now that the bureaucrats in the CAA might outnumber the staffing at both Virgin Orbit and Cornwall, and all they have to do is issue a piece of paper.

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NASA awards Starship a second manned lunar landing contract

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday modified its manned lunar lander contract with SpaceX to award Starship a second manned lunar landing for $1.15 billion.

Known as Option B, the modification follows an award to SpaceX in July 2021 under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) Appendix H Option A contract. NASA previously announced plans to pursue this Option B with SpaceX. The contract modification has a value of about $1.15 billion.

…The aim of this new work under Option B is to develop and demonstrate a Starship lunar lander that meets NASA’s sustaining requirements for missions beyond Artemis III, including docking with Gateway, accommodating four crew members, and delivering more mass to the surface.

NASA is also accepting bids for a competitive second manned lunar lander, but has awarded nothing as yet.

Combined with earlier investments and contracts, SpaceX now had garnered about $13 billion for developing Starship and Starlink, about $9 billion from private investment capital and about $4 billion from NASA, with most of the cash used for Starship. In addition, the company plans another investment funding round that will raise its valuation to $150 billion.

SLS might have flown once, but it appears both NASA and the investment community is increasingly putting its eggs in the Starship basket.

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Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy launches five satellites into orbit

9:09 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today used its Ceres-1 rocket to put five Earth observations satellites into orbit.

According to China’s state run press, Ceres-1 is a “small-scale solid-propellant carrier rocket capable of sending micro-satellites into low-Earth orbit.” In other words, it was developed initially by the military for missile use, and the government has allowed it to be upgraded for civilian use.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

52 SpaceX
52 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 76 to 52 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 80 to 76.

The 52 launches by China ties its yearly record, set last year, for the most successful launches in a single year. Like the U.S. China appears set to smash its launch record in 2022.

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Watching the first SLS launch tonight

9:25 am

At this moment, with weather 90% favorable and the countdown underway, the first launch of NASA’s SLS rocket appears go for a 1:04 AM (Eastern) launch tonight.

You can watch the live stream on NASA TV here, which will begin at 3:30 pm today and mostly be NASA propaganda intermixed with descriptions of the rocket, its payloads, its full mission, and updates on the launch countdown.

NASA’s live stream is now embedded below, beginning at 10:30 PM (Eastern) when actual coverage of the final countdown begins. I would still suggest that you wait until at least 12:30 AM (Eastern) before watching, as those first two hours will still be filled with a lot of NASA propaganda blather.
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China launches remote sensing satellite

8:57 am

China today used its Long March 4C rocket to launch a classified remote sensing satellite that will likely be used for reconnaissance.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

52 SpaceX
51 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 75 to 51 in the national rankings, and trails the rest of the world combined 79 to 75.

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NASA managers okay SLS launch attempt November 16th

7:39 pm

NASA managers have given the go-ahead to the scheduled launch of the agency’s SLS rocket for 1:04 am (Eastern) on November 16, 2022, despite the existence of some detached caulking that Hurricane Nicole had pulled free.

Engineers examined detailed analysis of caulk on a seam between an ogive on Orion’s launch abort system and the crew module adapter and potential risks if it were to detach during launch. The mission management team determined there is a low likelihood that if additional material tears off it would pose a critical risk to the flight.

Technicians also completed replacing a component of an electrical connector on the hydrogen tail service mast umbilical. While swapping the component did not fully fix the issue, engineers have redundant sources of information supplied through the connector.

The launch window is two hours long. As this is a night launch, it will be quite spectacular, no matter what happens. I will embed the live stream tomorrow in the early evening, for those who wish to watch NASA’s multi-hour propaganda stream. My suggestion would be to find a better use of your time until around 12:50 am (Eastern). Then would be a good time to tune in.

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Time to face some hard truths about America’s political future

2:04 pm

Doesn't exist any more
This document does not exist anymore. If you rely on its
words to defend your freedom you will lose.

This essay is not one I wish to write. In fact, I stalled for about an hour today before beginning. I am generally an optimistic person, but I also try to be an intellectually honest one. I do not shirk from bad news, but I also do not like reporting it.

Today’s news is so bad it almost makes me physically sick.

On January 4, 2021, shortly before Joe Biden was officially installed as president, I wrote an essay describing that event as the “ultimate [in] Republican Party failure theater.” Though that party controlled all the levels of government designed to control elections and prevent a steal, it had refused to use those tools and had allowed the very questionable election victory of Joe Biden to move forward. I concluded,

The problem will be that no future election will be trustworthy. If the Democrats had stolen the election with voter tampering, they will now know they can do it with impunity. Even if every American voted Republican, the Democrats will use this power to manipulate the totals to guarantee victory forever. They might allow some Republicans to win to create the illusion of a real election, but only for awhile. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Given such power the Democrats will eventually move to eliminate elections entirely. Why bother with the charade when they know they’ll win anyway? [emphasis mine]

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