Tag: politics

Blacklisting in academia has been going on for decades unseen

1:04 pm

The output from modern academia
The triumphant result of academia’s long blacklisting of conservatives

Blacklists are back and academia loves ’em: Though the return of blacklisting by Democrats has only become evident and blatant in the past two years, this blacklisting culture against conservatives has been aggressively blackballing such people from academia for decades, largely silently and without any news coverage.

That no one has noticed this blackballing is because until recently this effort hasn’t tried to get conservatives fired. Instead, administrators and faculty heads in colleges nationwide have simply made it a point to not hire conservatives. They blackballed them, and did so silently so that it was difficult to accuse them of any unfair discrimination.

How do I know this? A recent series of surveys performed by the College Fix proves it unequivocally. The data from Cornell University, though extreme, was hardly unusual:
» Read more

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Government to Musk: “Nice business you got here, shame if something happened to it.”

11:46 am

The government to Elon Musk: Nice business you got here.
The press and the feds negotiate with Elon Musk

Over the past week a series of events relating to the Ukraine War, Elon Musk, and Starlink illustrated starkly the growing corrupt, aggressive, and unrestrained power of our federal government and the administration state and press that supports it.

Our story begins in early October when Elon Musk put forth his own proposed solution to the Ukraine War, suggesting that to end the war the Ukraine should cede the Crimea to Russia and forgo its attempts to join NATO, making itself a neutral power instead.

Not surprisingly, Ukrainian officials responded to this somewhat naive though sincere proposal with great hostility. So did the press, the Biden administration, and many in social media.

Then, on October 14, 2022 Elon Musk said that his company Starlink cannot continue indefinitely providing service to the Ukraine, without some reimbursement. At the beginning of the war Musk had made Starlink available for no charge, and it has been an important factor to the Ukrainians in their recent military successes.
» Read more

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Russia launches military satellite using Angara rocket; new global record for launches

9:00 am

Russia today successfully launched a classified military satellite using its new Angara rocket in its Angara-1.2 configuration.

Like ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6, Angara is modular, so depending on the payload’s launch needs, it can have additional strap-on boosters, from none to four. This launch had no side boosters at all.

The launch was the 135th of 2022, passing the record set last year of 134 successful launches for the entire world in one year. In 2022 the record was broken in the last week. This year the record has been broken two and a half months before the end of the year. Based on the number of planned launches for the rest of the year, 2022 is likely to easily exceed 150 launches.

And the reason this number going through the roof is because of the advent of private enterprise, private ownership of rockets, and intense competition. New rocket companies are sprouting up everywhere worldwide, each with their own rocket competing aggressively for business by lowering costs. The lower costs make it possible for more satellite companies to find financing because making money will be easier. This in turn results in more customers for the rocket companies, which encourages more competition which pushes the price down further.

The cycle feeds on itself, and will only end when the full potential of space exploration is reached. And since that potential is literally endless, this growth for the human race is also endless. The only thing that could stop it is if human civilization decides to stop it, intentionally, either from willful ignorance or fear.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
45 China
15 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 67 to 45 in the national rankings, but now trails the rest of the world combined 68 to 67.

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China launches military satellite

8:31 am

Using its Long March 2D rocket, China today successfully launched a satellite in its classified Yaogan series, suspected to be for military reconnaissance.

In fact, so little is known about the Yaogan satellites that we aren’t even sure how many were placed in orbit today. Normally a Yaogan launch puts three satellites into orbit (which is what this Space.com article assumes). The story from China’s state-run press above however does not say this at all. Instead, it implies that only one Yaogan satellite was launched.

Regardless, the leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
45 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 67 to 45 in the national rankings. It is now tied with the entire world combined 67 to 67. This launch today also brings the launch total this year to 134, which ties the record for the most successful launches in a single year, set last year. With two and a half months still to go, 2022 should end up breaking that record significantly.

5 comments

Pushback: Central Florida U forced to end censorship and blacklisting

12:31 pm

University of Central Florida: Hostile to free speech
University of Central Florida: Its hostility to free
speech had better change soon!

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In a settlement late last month [pdf] resulting from an April ruling against it by the courts, the University of Central Florida agreed to end its programs and policies designed to censor and even blacklist students who expressed opinions the university did not like.

The lawsuit [pdf] was brought by the legal organization Speech First, a student membership organization which acts to stop colleges from squelching the first amendment rights of students.

UCF officials agreed to pay $35,000 in legal fees, rewrite a harassment policy and discontinued the bias response team in a settlement with Speech First.

…The settlement “led to the elimination of UCF’s Stasi-like bias response team and ensured that the university’s policies actually consider the fundamental rights of their students,” Cherise Trump, the group’s executive director, wrote in a news release [pdf]. “Our win in the Eleventh Circuit not only set precedent in all of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, but it also guarantees that universities recognize that the law is not on their side when they want to violate their students’ rights and shut down dissenting ideas.”

The college’s bias response teams were structured to report and punish any student for…
» Read more

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Final decision: Arecibo will not be rebuilt

3:34 pm

The National Science Foundation has made it official: It will not rebuild the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, though it will fund the facility as an education center instead.

Now, the National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns the site, has determined that despite scientists’ pleas, Arecibo Observatory won’t be getting any new telescope to replace the loss. The new education project also doesn’t include any long-term funding for the instruments that remain operational at the observatory, including a 40-foot (12 m) radio dish and a lidar system.

…Instead, the NSF intends to build on the observatory’s legacy as a key educational institution in Puerto Rico by transforming the site into a hub for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, due to open in 2023, according to a statement. The observatory is also home to the Ángel Ramos Foundation Science and Visitor Center, which opened in 1997.

It seems unclear how this education center will function. Will it be a school that students attend? Or simply a type of museum with a visitors center? This new plan appears to call for about $2 million per year in funding, which does not appear enough to do much of anything, other than to keep the lights on and hang some pretty astronomy pictures on the walls.

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Pushback: Chants of “Vote them out!” overwhelm school board meeting

12:11 pm

Roxanne McDonald thinking she is in charge.
School board president Roxanne McDonald,
thinking she is in charge.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A school board meeting in Dearborn, Michigan, had to be shut down when a mostly Muslim crowd of parents (with some Christians as well) became outraged by what appeared to be resistance by the school board to their demand that various books advocating the queer agenda be removed from the public school libraries.

As the meeting progressed, interruptions from the crowd became louder and increasingly frequent, despite calls from board members for decorum and respecting the right of others to speak.

Chants of “vote them out,” broke out when school board president Roxanne McDonald said a three-minute limit per speaker would be strictly enforced. The room was also far over its occupancy limit, and after the crowd ignored multiple orders for people to move into two overflow rooms, board members ended the meeting prior to the public comment period.

The video below shows the situation leading up to the board shutting down the meeting. Watch it and tell me if you do not think board president Roxanne McDonald is a self-righteous petty dictator who has utter contempt for the parents who are there.
» Read more

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China launches Earth observation radar satellite

9:13 am

Using its Long March 2C rocket, China today successfully launched a new Earth observation radar satellite.

As is usual for Chinese launches from interior spaceports, the rocket dumped its lower stages somewhere within China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
44 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 66 to 44 in the national rankings. It is now tied with the entire world combined 66 each.

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Pushback: Teacher suspended for not submitting to queer agenda immediately reinstated when hundreds protest at board meeting

12:16 pm

Total victory

Bring a gun to a knife fight: This story begins in late September when the South Side Area School District in Pennsylvania decided it and all its teachers must comply with the insane queer agenda. According to the new policy, outlined in a letter, all of its teachers were ordered to use the pronouns that any student demanded of them. To the district, it didn’t matter if the student was eight or eighteen, if any student on a whim wanted to identify as a boy, then a girl, or then maybe even a tiger, the teachers were required to comply.

Daren Cusato, a biology teacher in the district for 30 years, refused. He sent a letter back to the district, explaining this violated both his Christian beliefs and his first amendment rights.

“Love the sinner but hate the sin,” said RJ Cusato, Daren’s son. “We don’t support what they’re doing but still love the person. He doesn’t have any problem with the students. We have no problems with the kids at all, he just doesn’t want to support what they’re doing. He doesn’t want to give them a pat on the back if they’re doing something he doesn’t think is right.”

The district’s response was immediate.
» Read more

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NASA sets November 14th as next SLS launch date

9:38 am

NASA today announced that it will make its next attempt to launch its SLS rocket just past midnight on November 14, 2022.

NASA is targeting the next launch attempt of the Artemis I mission for Monday, Nov. 14 with liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft planned during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. EST. Artemis I is an uncrewed flight test to launch SLS and send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before flights with astronauts.

This is the second launch opportunity in the November launch window, as shown in this graph [pdf]. It will result in a 26-day mission for the Orion capsule to and from lunar orbit, returning on December 9th.

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Russia’s Proton rocket successfully launches communications satellite

9:32 am

Russia today used its Proton rocket to successfully place an Angolan communications satellite into orbit.

The satellite’s launch had been delayed for several years, first because of the Wuhan panic and second because the sanctions against Russia over its invasion of the Ukraine prevented delivery of American components (eventually “resolved”, whatever that means).

Proton, developed in the 1960s, is winding down operations, and will soon be replaced by Russia’s Angara rocket.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
43 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 66 to 43 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 66 to 65.

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Japan’s Epsilon rocket fails during launch

9:24 am

Early this morning Japan’s Epsilon rocket failed during a launch intended to put eight satellites into orbit.

Live coverage by JAXA of the launch showed what appeared to be a stage 3 ignition failure, followed by a callout that the flight termination system (FTS) was activated. It’s the first Epsilon launch not to reach orbit.

This rocket was developed by Japan to offer a lower cost option to his H2 and new H3 rockets. The first launch of the H3 is set for March 2023 after several long delays due to problems with the rocket’s engine.

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The dam is about to break on the COVID shots

12:02 pm

Democrats might soon enter the Truth booth
Advocates of the jab are about to be forced, against their will,
to enter that door.

The research continues to pour in every day showing increasingly that the COVID shots that Democrats and Joe Biden forced down the throats of ordinary Americans are not only relatively ineffective at stopping COVID, they are downright risky to take, especially for the young and healthy.

One story however — having nothing to do with this scientific research — suggests strongly that the left’s fantasy-world about the jab is about to break, and break in a big way. These mind-numbed robots are suddenly discovering directly and personally how harmful the jab can be, in the worst possible manner.

Before I tell you about this one story, however, we first must review some of the new research and data that has popped up in just the past week. (For the substantial previous research about the harmful risks and uselessness of the COVID shots see Part 1 of my three part series on the COVID lie from the end of September, with parts 2 and 3 here and here.)

First, the uselessness of the jab:
» Read more

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Soyuz-2 launches new Russian GPS-type satellite

8:41 am

Russia early today launched another satellite for its Glonass GPS-type constellation, using its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk launch site.

After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Russia’s Glonass constellation withered, with the country for years unable to replace the satellites as they aged and died. Only after free enterprise was encouraged in the 1990s and 2000s and the economy began to boom did the Russian government finally have enough tax dollars to begin launching replacements.

The Russian invasion of the Ukraine will certainly put a crimp in this recovery. As has Putin’s policy of using the government to nationalize many industries, such as its aerospace sector.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 66 to 43 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 66 to 64.

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China launches solar science telescope

1:46 pm

China today used its Long March 2D rocket to launch its first solar science telescope, Advanced Space-borne Solar Observatory (ASO-S), also known as Kuafu-1.

The probe, which was first proposed in 1976 (!), has a four year nominal mission and is designed to monitor the Sun as goes through its next sunspot maximum. More information can be found here.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
43 China
12 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 66 to 43 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 66 to 63.

5 comments

China’s Long March 11 launches from floating sea platform

11:26 am

China today successfully launched two “navigation satellites” from a floating sea platform in the Yellow Sea, using its Long March 11 rocket.

The platform was only about two miles off shore at launch, so the view from the beach drew a large crowd. Video at the first link.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

45 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 65 to 42 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 65 to 62. These numbers will change again later today, with a SpaceX commercial launch scheduled for 4:06 pm (Pacific).

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Today’s blacklisted American: Black playwright blackballed because he honestly told the story of racism in the Jim Crow south

11:17 am

Carlyle Brown, censored for writing truthfully
Carlyle Brown, censored for writing truthfully

The modern dark age: Close-minded students at the black student association at Texas Wesleyan University have forced the cancellation of a play celebrating the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the 1960s — written by black author Carlyle Brown — because it included realistic dialogue of the time, including the word “nigger”.

Students objected to the use of the n-word in a play that tries to capture the environment of hate and racism of the period. Texas Wesleyan’s Black Student Association declared the reference to be harmful and “triggering.” Calling for a boycott, the Association declared that allowing the play to be heard would “further hurt Black students and possibly students from other marginalized communities.”

The Rambler student newspaper reported that school and theater officials killed the production after a 90-minute campus discussion: “The main concern the students voiced was the ‘triggering’ effect of using the racially explicit word, which is repeated 11 separate times throughout the play, and how it can cause trauma to the black students in the audience.”

The play, Down in Mississippi, can be read here [pdf]. From the play’s summary:
» Read more

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Endurance docks at ISS

9:16 am

Like clockwork SpaceX’s Endurance capsule successfully docked at ISS yesterday, delivering four astronauts to the station for a six month mission.

The most interesting aspect of this launch and crew is Russian Anna Kikina.

Kikina is the first Russian to fly aboard a U.S. spacecraft in nearly 20 years. She and Rubio were launched under a new agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, that ensures at least one astronaut or cosmonaut is always aboard the space station even if a Crew Dragon or Soyuz is forced to depart early, taking its crew with it.

Without the seat-swap arrangement, a medical emergency or some other major problem could leave an all-Russian or all-NASA crew aboard without the expertise to operate the other nation’s systems.

The agreement had been stalled almost entirely by the former head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin. He is now gone however, sent by Putin to take over the fake occupation government in parts of the Ukraine. It appears his bellicose manner, that caused the loss of a billion dollars in launch contracts with OneWeb, was more than even Putin could handle.

With him gone, the new head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, quickly finalized this astronaut barter deal. He has also publicly acted to try to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russian space agencies.

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Startup smallsat rocket company signs spaceport deal with Brazil

9:02 am

The new colonial movement: A Canadian startup smallsat rocket company, C6 Launch Systems, has not only signed a spaceport deal with Brazil to build its own launchpad at that country’s Alcantara Space Center, it has also won its first launch customer.

First, the launchpad is for C6’s rocket, which is unnamed and designed to launch cubesats. The company webpage says they are aiming for suborbital flights in 2021 and orbital flights in 2022, but it is unclear if it has launched anything at this point.

Nonetheless, Brazil is very clearly teaming up with C6. The Brazilian air force hired it to build a launch pad, a Brazilian company, Concert Technologies, has awarded it a launch contract.

Concert Technologies S.A. who are developing a new small satellite constellation have signed a a non-exclusive letter of intent to launch three small satellites with C6 Launch. The broad agreement allows for Concert Technologies to schedule more launches to maintain and expand their high-resolution Earth Observation (EO) constellation.

It appears Concert’s satellites will be targeting both the Earth imagery market as well as communications services in the “internet of things.”

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Important Roscosmos official endorses continuing cooperation with US in space

12:28 pm

In a clear sign of the distinct change in atmosphere since the removal of Dmitry Rogozin as head of Roscosmos, the executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, Sergei Krikalev, yesterday endorsed the longstanding cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in space.

Krikalev’s comments came after the launch yesterday of Endurance with one Russian astronaut as part of its four-person crew.

At a briefing after the Oct. 5 launch of the Crew-5 mission from the Kennedy Space Center, Sergei Krikalev, executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, emphasized long-running cooperation between the United States and Russia in civil space, cooperation that has been strained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

“We just continue what we started many years ago in 1975 when the Apollo-Soyuz crew worked together, and now we continue our cooperation,” he said after mentioning a “new phase of cooperation” with the exchange of seats between NASA and Roscosmos.

To understand the importance of Krikalev’s comments, you must also understand the context. First, Krikalev is a very significant figure in the history of Russia. He was called the last Soviet citizen, having been stranded on Mir an extra few months when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Then he was the first Russian to fly on the shuttle, followed later by being on the first mission to ISS, when it was only two modules.

Since his retirement as an active astronaut, he has become the man in charge of Russia’s manned program, where he clashed with Rogozin several times over policy. His opposition to Rogozin almost certainly was a factor in Rogozin’s removal.

Krikalev’s endorsement of continuing the U.S-Russian partnership only cements that partnership, especially because Krikalev himself is a dyed-in-the-wool communist at heart. At least, he said so emphatically when I interviewed him at length in 2003 for Leaving Earth. I doubt his mind has changed in this matter, though his relentless honesty as an engineer has probably shaken his dedication to that failed ideology in subsequent years.

Nonetheless, his standing in Russia gives any statement he makes great weight. Expect more efforts by the Russians to ease tensions with the U.S., though their chances of success will be limited as long as Russia is continuing its unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine.

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Pushback: Because of Yale Law School’s enthusiasm for blacklisting, more than a dozen judges now refuse to hire its graduates

11:46 am

Yale Law School's instruction guide
Yale Law School’s instruction guide

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Following the public announcement by Judge James Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that he would no longer hire Yale graduates as law clerks because of that school’s enthusiasm for blacklisting and censorship, it appears that a dozen other judges have joined his boycott as well.

“Students should be mindful that they will face diminished opportunities if they go to Yale,” said a prominent circuit court judge, whose clerks have gone on to nab Supreme Court clerkships. “I have no confidence that they’re being taught anything.”

With one exception, the judges made clear this is a policy they are imposing on future—not current—Yale Law School students.

Ho’s public speech was even more harsh.

“Yale presents itself as the best, most elite institution of legal education. Yet it’s the worst when it comes to legal cancellation.” The school “sets the tone for other law schools, and for the legal profession at large. I certainly reserve the right to add other schools in the future. But my sincere hope is that I won’t have to. My sincere hope is that, if nothing else, my colleagues and I will at least send the message that other schools should not follow in Yale’s footsteps.”

Ho’s message to law schools was clear: “If they want the closed and intolerant environment that Yale embraces today, that’s their call. But I want nothing to do with it.”

Nor is Ho exaggerating about Yale’s intolerant track record. » Read more

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Falcon Heavy to finally launch again?

8:57 am

After three years of delays due to payload issues, it now appears that the next Falcon Heavy launch will likely occur near the end of October.

The tentative date is October 28th, but this is not yet confirmed. Though a manifest of a half dozen Falcon Heavy launches has existed since 2019, and most were originally scheduled for launch in 2020-2021, none has taken place, all supposedly because of payload delays not issues with the rocket itself.

SpaceX officials are now saying that it plans to complete six Falcon Heavy launches within the next twelve months. Two are for the military, three for commercial communications companies, and the last is the Psyche mission for NASA. This last launch is delayed because of software issues discovered in June, only a few weeks before launch. Whether it can fix these issues in time for a new July 2023 launch window remains questionable.

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October 5, 2022 Quick space links

1:51 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who reads Twitter so I don’t have to.

 

 

 

 

 

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Pushback: Cornell’s library lifts its blackballing of Abraham Lincoln

12:36 pm

Banned by Cornell

Our modern dark age: Faced with a storm of criticism from donors, alumni, and the public, the removal of a bust of Abraham Lincoln from the library at Cornell University, has been cancelled, and Lincoln will once again be given an honored place at the university.

The bust’s removal, along with a plaque celebrating Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (to the right), were removed in 2021 because some unnamed individual had filed a complaint. As I noted in June:
» Read more

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Virgin Orbit ready to launch from Cornwall, United Kingdom

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit announced today that it has completed its preparations for its first launch from Cornwall, United Kingdom, which would also be the first launch ever from British soil.

An actual launch date has not yet been set, due to the “launch permitting regulatory process” in the UK. At the moment Cornwall is vying with two new spaceports in Scotland for the honor of that first launch.

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SpaceX successfully launches astronauts to ISS

9:40 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched two NASA astronauts, one Japanese astronaut, and one Russian astronaut into orbit for a mission to ISS, with the docking scheduled for tomorrow.

The capsule, Endurance, is making its second flight. This was SpaceX’s eighth manned launch. The first stage, making its first fight, landed successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. This was the first new first stage launched since May 2022, and only the second this year. All other launches in 2022 were completed using SpaceX’s existing fleet of boosters. The company also continues to hold to the pattern of last year for maintaining that fleet, by adding two new boosters each year.

That this achievement is now becoming as routine as SpaceX’s unmanned launches proves the company’s success. And SpaceX did it in less than a decade, something NASA with its government-built shuttle was never able to accomplish.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

44 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 63 to 41 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 63 to 61.

8 comments

Today’s blacklisted Americans: UC-Berkeley law school clubs ban Jewish speakers

12:03 pm

The coming genocide
Becoming Judenfrei at UC-Berkeley

Persecution is now cool! Nine different law school clubs at the University of California-Berkeley have now made it their official policy to ban all “pro-Zionist” speakers, and are doing so with the full support of the college administration.

And these are not groups that represent only a small percentage of the student population. They include Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus. Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a progressive Zionist, has observed that he himself would be banned under this standard, as would 90% of his Jewish students.

Zionism has always been used by leftist hate-monger groups as a euphemism for Jew. Its meaning is generally unclear and vague, and in the end usually ends up covering anyone who is support of Israel’s existence. Since this opinion fits the description almost every Jew, banning Zionism essentially bans Jews.

The university’s support and backing of this anti-Semitic ban has come from Dean Chemerinsky himself, who admits he would be banned under these rules but in a rebuttal posted at the link above, expresses full support for the anti-Semitic policy of these clubs.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: All normal girls banned from locker room because one cross-dressing boy demanded it

12:09 pm

Blake Allen, punished for being a normal high school girl
Blake Allen, punished for being a normal high school girl

They’re coming for you next: This story, which broke on September 28, 2022, is so absurd that at first glance it is hard to believe: Officials running Randolph High School in Vermont have banned from the girls locker room all girls from the school’s volley ball team because one cross-dressing boy was using it and the girls had the unmitigated nerve to express strong discomfort changing clothes in the presence of a male.

The quote below tells the tale, but in order to make it more precisely describe reality, I have replaced the meaningless words (“trans”, “transgender” “they”) that our queer dictators have imposed on mainstream news sources with words that actually describe the facts.

[Blake] Allen [one of the girls] says that the dispute started when the [boy who likes to wear woman’s clothing] made an inappropriate comment while members of the volleyball team were getting changed. She says her issue is not with having the [cross-dresser] student on the team or at school, but specifically in the locker room. “There are biological boys that go into the girl’s bathroom but never a locker room,” Allen said.
» Read more

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India’s Mars orbiter mission ends after eight years

6:17 pm

After eight years in orbit around Mars, India’s Mars orbiter mission, Mangalyaan, has run out of fuel for controlling its orientation, ending its mission.

The Rs 450 crore Mars Orbiter Mission was launched onboard PSLV-C25 on November five, 2013, and the MOM spacecraft was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on September 24, 2014 in its first attempt. “Right now, there is no fuel left. The satellite battery has drained,” sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told PTI. “The link has been lost”.

There was, however, no official word from the country’s national space agency, headquartered here.

During its mission it produced more than a thousand images, though the mission’s primary objective was technological, proving that India itself could design, build, launch, and manage a planetary mission to another world. For India, Mangalyaan was thus an unqualified success.

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Head of Commerce’s space office questions new FCC regulations on space junk

10:00 am

Turf war! At a conference yesterday Richard Dalbello, director of the Office of Space Commerce at the Commerce Department, strongly questioned the FCC’s legal authority for its just passed new regulation on the de-orbiting of space junk.

“I think the FCC, for their part, has pushed the boundaries of their authorities pretty aggressively,” he said when asked about what agency should have oversight for issues like that, as his office works to create a civil space traffic management capability. “Although I certainly congratulate them on the depth of their intellectual work,” he said of the FCC and its new order, “a lot of the things that they articulated are probably, arguably, outside their job jar.”

Dalbello’s comments only add to the many turf wars going on in the DC swamp over space regulation. Some in Congress want all space regulation to shift to his office. Others want it to be distributed across a number of agencies in both the military and civilian bureaucracies.

Regardless, Dalbello’s office is the agency that might actually have the legal authority for regulating space junk. And it is certain that the FCC does not have it.

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