Tag: politics

Midnight repost: How the localized nature of Democrat vote tampering will influence the 2022 election

11:55 pm

I first published this essay back in mid-July, because I thought it important to outline in detail the nature of the election tampering we should expect to see on Tuesday, November 8th, and how that tampering might be used by the corrupt urban Democratic Party to create undeserved victories in several states.

That analysis remains spot on, though it does appear that in some states, such as Wisconsin and Arizona, enough work as been done to mitigate or prevent the worst fraud. Republicans and other independent organizations in these states especially have taken actions comparable to what I recommended, and are aggressively monitoring the election process to make it much more difficult for election tampering to take place.

I think Americans however need to reread this essay, so that they understand well exactly what is going on when the results are delayed (as predicted by Joe Biden in one of his many ugly speeches last week) in states like Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota, and Michigan. And if it looks like Democrats will lose in Oregon and Washington expect delays there as well. Those delays will be aimed at changing the results so that the Democrats do not lose.

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How the localized nature of Democrat vote tampering will influence the 2022 election

Based on the ample evidence of election fraud, corruption, and vote tampering done repeatedly by Democrats nationwide during the 2020 election, we can expect these politicians and their minions to commit similar election crimes in the upcoming 2022 mid-term elections, especially because the effort by some Republicans to reform their state election systems in the key purple states was so effectively blocked by Democrats, by many quisling Republicans, and by a willing leftist press.

It is however important to understand where that election tampering was done in 2020 in order to understand the election fraud to come, as well as creating a strategy to prevent it. As real estate agents like to say, “Location is everything!”, and it appears this applies to election fraud as well.

Summary slide outlining Powell voter fraud allegations
The 2020 fraud in Democratically-controlled Fulton County (Atlanta), Georgia.

In 2020, in states that were purple and where the final result was in doubt, the Democrats took advantage of their total control of the local urban voting districts in those states — where there are very few Republican voters — to tilt the results. In such places (Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix) the government is essentially a one-party Democrat operation. Many election districts in these cities have no Republican election judges at all. If the Democrats wish to commit election fraud, there is no one looking over their shoulder to question them, with some districts actually taking aggressive action in 2020 to illegally keep Republican poll watchers out.

Thus we saw strong evidence in all of these cities of pro-Democrat ballot-stuffing, of all types, from fake ballots to ballots counted multiple times to evidence the votes on the ballots themselves were changed by computer. The fraud however was strongly localized to these urban centers controlled by Democrats. The vote tampering was able to tilt the statewide results. but not the local contests.

For example, Democrat mayors in Wisconsin teamed up to have drop boxes placed illegally in unsupervised locations, where Democratic Party mules could stuff them with thousands of harvested ballots. The Wisconsin Supreme Court finally ruled on July 8, 2022 that these boxes were illegal, and violated the plain language of the state’s election laws:
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Iran test launches first stage of new solid-fueled rocket

8:57 pm

According to Iran’s state-run press, on November 5, 2022 it successfully completed a test launch of the first stage of its new Ghaem-100 solid-fueled rocket.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division which developed the Ghaem 100, said the rocket would be used to launch Iran’s Nahid satellite for the telecommunications ministry, state media reported.

Saturday’s operation tested the first sub-orbital stage of the rocket, the reports added.

There are so many unknowns about this story it would be foolish to speculate.

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Long March 3B launches communications satellite

8:52 pm

China’s Long March 3B rocket today launched a communications satellite from one of its interior spaceports.

No word on where the first stage landed. The satellite replaced one that had failed in 2019 immediately after launch.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

51 SpaceX
48 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 72 to 48 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 76 to 72.

A scheduled Antares launch of a Cygnus capsule from Wallops Island in Virginia was scrubbed today because a fire alarm when off in the capsule’s control center in Dulles, Virginia. It has been rescheduled for wee hours of tomorrow.

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Pushback: “I do not consent to your attempt to blacklist me.”

1:00 pm

Victory
Image by freepik

Last night I discovered personally that every blacklisted person in America has a great deal of power. You need only exert that power to make the bullies who are trying to destroy you helpless and confounded.

First some background. In December 2021 I was blackballed by most of the Arizona caving community because I had disagreed with their decisions to discriminate against anyone who had not gotten a COVID shot. I and a number of other people had objected to the demands of these clubs that we be jabbed in order to come to a caving event. We considered such a rule discriminatory, even as it illegally demanded private medical information. We also tried to explain to the organizers that this policy made no sense because the evidence last year had already showed that the shots provided no protection against the virus.

Their answer: I along with two others were blacklisted from all further organized caving activities for the next two years.

Since then I have been mulling how I should react. I never accepted this vindictive action. Not only had it been done in violation of the actual bylaws of these organizations, it was especially vicious because it was done by people whom I had thought were close friends. I had now discovered they were not my friends, but responding in hate goes against my nature. The true oppose of hate is utter disinterest, and it has my goal over the last ten months to put aside my baser emotions and reach this more civilized state of mind.

Anyway, last night one of the Tucson cave clubs that had blacklisted us was having its monthly public meeting, in a pizza place. Since the president of that club had sent out a public invitation saying that all were welcome, I decided it was time to show up. Essentially, I had decided to follow the advice of journalist Matt Walsh, who when attacked for criticizing the purveyors of the queer agenda for their campaign to mutilate and castrate little kids, told them this:
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Long March 5B core stage crashes in Pacific

8:47 am

According to a tweet from the U.S. Space Force, the out-of-control core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket has come down in the Pacific Ocean sometime around 4 am (Mountain).

#USSPACECOM can confirm the People’s Republic of China Long March 5B #CZ5B rocket re-entered the atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean at 4:01am MDT/10:01 UTC on 11/4.

The exact location has not yet been revealed, nor do we know yet if any pieces landed on any habitable islands. The odds however of the re-entry causing any damage or injury now appears nil, which is a fortunate thing considering the risks China asked everyone else to take.

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

4:45 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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FCC chief proposes agency reorganization of its space-related bureaucracy

3:15 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

11:34 am

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

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

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

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Mengtian moved to its permanent port on Tiangong-3

10:01 am

Tiangong-3 station, when completed

Chinese engineers today successfully shifted the new Mengtian module from its docking port to its permanent port to the side, thus completing the assembly of the major components of the Tiangong-3 space station. Shortly thereafter the six astronauts on board the station opened the hatch and entered the module.

The graphic to the right shows the station’s final arrangement, T-shaped. The station however is not fully complete, as the large vertical solar panels have not yet been installed. Based on past station work, these will probably have to be shipped up later, and installed during space walks.

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NASA delays first manned Starliner mission again

9:53 am

NASA today announced that it has rescheduled the first manned demo mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule to ISS from February to April, 2023.

The agency attributes the two month delay to scheduling conflicts with other visiting spacecraft at ISS. This might be true, but it also could be that Boeing wanted a little extra time to finish out the work it still needs to do to fix the anomalies that occurred on the unmanned demo mission, as well preparing the new capsule for launch.

This flight will carry two astronauts to ISS for about two weeks. The press release also noted this interesting tidbit:

The previously flown crew module, named Calypso, will be connected to a new service module later this year.

Apparently Boeing has decided to give names to these capsules, like SpaceX has. It also appears that the company and NASA are satisfied enough with the condition of the capsule after flying the unmanned demo flight to use it again for a manned mission.

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Crash prediction for Long March 5B core stage narrows

9:44 am

Crash prediction
Click for original image.

List of the largest uncontrolled re-entries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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American freedom sets a new yearly record for rocketry

11:08 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12:58 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

» Read more

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

10:35 am

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

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

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

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

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Two Saudi passengers to fly on Axiom’s second commercial flight to ISS

10:21 am

According to one NASA official, Axiom now plans on launching two as yet unnamed Saudi passengers on AX-2, its second commercial flight to ISS scheduled to launch in May 2023 on a Dragon capsule.

The names of the two Saudis on the flight have not been released, she said, but that “we are working very hard with them on training already.” A slide for her presentation noted the two would be named after formal approval by the ISS program’s Multilateral Crew Operations Panel. That slide also stated that crew training for the mission started Oct. 17.

The Saudi Space Commission and Axiom Space separately announced Sept. 22 plans to fly two Saudi citizens on a future Axiom Space mission. However, while it was widely rumored the two would fly on Ax-2, neither announcement stated a specific mission. The Saudi statement said that one of the two people would be a woman but did not disclose how the astronauts would be selected.

Neither Axiom nor the Saudis have revealed the ticket price, though it probably runs somewhere in the range of $20 to $50 million per ticket, based on past known purchase prices by NASA and others.

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

12:04 pm

Book banned by Amazon
Banned by bookseller Amazon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mengtian module docks with China’s Tiangong-3 space station

8:54 am

Tiangong-3 station, when completed

The new Mengtian module has docked with the main port of China’s Tiangong-3 space station.

The graphic to the right shows the planned design of the station. Mengtian however is not yet in its side port as shown, but in the main docking port in line with the core module where a Shenzhou crew capsule is shown docked. At some point soon the astronauts on board will use a small robot arm to move Mengtian from the main port to its side port. (This system is very similar to one the Russian’s used on Mir.)

Furthermore, the large vertically oriented solar panels have not yet been installed on the station. These will likely need to be delivered, and require spacewalks to deploy.

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

12:40 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Watching the launch of the final large module to China’s Tiangong-3 space station

12:10 am

UPDATE: The Mengtian module has been deployed, and is now proceeding to a rendezvous and docking within the next day or so. The core stage is in orbit, and we can only wait over the next few days to find out where it will hit the Earth.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

49 SpaceX
47 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 69 to 47, though it now trails the rest of the world combined 74 to 69.

Original post:
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The launch of the final large module for China’s Tiangong-3 space station is scheduled to occur at 12:37 am (Pacific) tonight.

The module is called Mengtian, and once moved to its permanent port will complete the station in its t-shape. The rocket is the Long March 5B, the core stage of which will reach orbit, and then within a week crash uncontrolled somewhere on Earth.

I have embedded the English live stream below. A lot of Chinese propaganda (though not much different from a NASA broadcast). As I understand it, the launch window is instantaneous, so if there are any holds the launch will be scrubbed for the day.

» Read more

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China launches classified technology test satellite

8:56 am

China today successfully launched a classified technology test satellite using its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

No word on where the expendable first stage crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

49 SpaceX
46 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 69 to 46 in the national rankings, though it trails the rest of the world combined 73 to 69.

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

12:47 pm

Paypal: hostile to freedom

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

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

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

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

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

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

12:30 pm

NYU: proud to graduate substandard students!

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

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

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

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

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

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Russian government okays ISS partnership through ’27

9:08 am

The Russian government yesterday approved an order allowing Roscosmos to continue to send its astronauts and spacecraft to ISS through 2027.

“The expected results are as follows: transport and technical support for the Russian segment of the International Space Station in 2023-2027, including the delivery to the station and return to Earth of Russian crews, as well as the delivery to the ISS of fuel and cargo crucial to maintaining the ISS in flight and the implementation of a long-term program for authorized works,” the instruction says.

Putin’s government is essentially admitting that it will not be able to launch its own space station by ’27, so it has to stay on ISS because that’s all it has. Whether ISS can last that long, considering the somewhat delicate state of some of the oldest Russian modules, remains unclear.

The American private stations should all be coming on line in the years from 2024 to 2030, so it appears the U.S. is covered. What Russia will do however remains unknown. I suspect it will be far more difficult politically for it to buy time on the American private stations, compared to Europe. But if it doesn’t get its own station launched, buying time might be its only option, assuming of course the U.S. government allows it to do so. And considering that other Russian officials are threatening America’s private space assets, the likelihood that Russia will be allowed on future American space stations seems remote indeed.

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European nations struggle with the new private commercial space station concept

8:59 am

The European partners that have been doing research and work on ISS are now struggling to figure out their future on the multiple new private commercial space stations American private enterprise is now building to replace ISS.

The ISS today relies extensively on barter arrangements among participating agencies, providing services to cover their share of operations of the station. Such arrangements are unlikely to work for commercial stations, however. “We need to find a new way of cooperating,” said Nicolas Maubert, space counselor at the French Embassy in the U.S. and representative of the French space agency CNES in the U.S., citing the challenges of extending current barter arrangements to commercial stations. “We need to put on the table every option.”

The simplest approach — direct payments from space agencies to the companies operating commercial stations — could face political obstacles. “The taxpayers in Europe don’t want to pay directly to private American companies,” he said. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words illustrate the fundamental problem. Europe on ISS has been for decades like a welfare queen. It has gotten access to space mostly free, since what it has offered in exchange for that access has never come close to matching what its work on ISS cost American taxpayers. Now that it will have to pay for that access in real dollars, some of its member nations are balking.

France for example still wants a free ride. Maubert suggested that Europe build its own space station, which means France wants its other ESA partners to help pay for the station that France wants to use.

I say, too bad. The costs on the private stations — built for profit and efficiency — will be far less that ISS. That cost will also be far far less than anything Europe might spend trying to build its own government station. Europe should bite the bullet and pay up. It won’t regret it.

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

11:02 am

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

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

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

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

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Russian Progress freighter successfully launches to ISS

11:20 pm

Using its Soyuz-2 rocket Russia tonight successfully launched a new Progress freighter to ISS.

The spacecraft will take two days to rendezvous and dock with ISS, thus delivering 2.5 tons of cargo.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

48 SpaceX
45 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 68 to 45 in the national rankings, though it now trails the rest of the world combined 72 to 68.

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

11:49 am

No College Mandates logo

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

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

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

The organization has sent its protest letter to over 300 colleges. The letter to Yale is typical, noting in detail how the CDC has now admitted that the jab does not stop transmission and that the mandates were pointless. Yet the college still insists that teachers, students, and visitors all must get the jab, plus at least one booster. As the letter notes, these senseless rules do nothing to prevent the Wuhan flu, while normalizing blacklisting.
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China’s Long March 5B rocket with new space station module is now at launchpad

10:16 am

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

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

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

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

9:46 am

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

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

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

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