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Archive for 2021
October 30, 2021
ANDREW CUOMO FACES MUG SHOT, FINGERPRINTING — AND ‘OVERWHELMING’ EVIDENCE: SHERIFF.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo will get his mug shot taken and be fingerprinted next month — to face “an overwhelming amount of evidence against him,” authorities said Friday
“He will be arraigned, he will be fingerprinted,” Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told The Post of Cuomo’s Nov. 17 court date involving the misdemeanor criminal forcible-touching charge against him for allegedly grabbing a female ex-aide’s breast.
“He will be photographed and … [presumably] he will be released on his own recognizance,” Apple said of the disgraced ex-governor.
The sheriff insisted at a press conference later Friday that the case against Cuomo is “solid.”
And in other bookend to the train wreck that was 2020: Poll: Majority of voters say Fauci should resign.
JOEL KOTKIN: Elites Are Using Climate Hysteria to Immiserate the Working Class.
For some greens, the current energy shortages plaguing the U.S., China and Europe reflect progress towards a glorious net-zero emissions era. Climate activists see in the draconian pandemic lockdowns a “test run”for future social control, and the middle and working class have reason to fear the policies adopted by this elite. The “great reset” adopted by the Davos crowd identified squashing social mobility and limiting prosperity as perquisites for environmental salvation. We have seen the first flushes of poverty linked to climate policy—what one socialist neatly labeled “eco-Thatcherism”—with clear evidence in California, the U.K. and Germany. In large part due to climate policies, many middle and working class families will face fuel bills that could increase 50 percent this winter.
Such policies barely impact the upper classes who proudly attend events like Glasgow. After all, the uber wealthy—British royals, Hollywood celebrities, super-models, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos—have learned to embrace the climate “emergency” even as they continue to build new estates, hold $2 million weddings, fly their private jets and even take a joyride in space. All this while asking hoi polloi , and the impoverished developing countries, to live ever smaller.
Bringing the deplorables to heel — and making them miserable — isn’t a means to an end, it’s the end. They don’t view worsening working-class lives as an unfortunate price that must reluctantly be paid. They view it as a goal in itself.
October 29, 2021
HOW DESPERATE IS THE MCAULIFFE CAMPAIGN? “This desperate: earlier today a group of Democrats lined up in front of a Glenn Youngkin bus holding tikis, as part of an effort to tie Youngkin to Donald Trump/Charlottesville/white supremacy. Terry McAuliffe’s Communications Director said the men’s presence was ‘disgusting and disqualifying.’ But no one was fooled, and she later deleted the tweet. . . . The escapade dominated Twitter today. It quickly developed that one of the ‘white supremacists’ was the Financial Director of the Young Virginia Democrats. . . . The McAuliffe campaign is now backpedaling furiously, denying any responsibility. But this incident shows that McAuliffe is desperate. His internal polling must be awful, consistent with publicly-reported polls that show Youngkin pulling away. In his desperation, McAuliffe apparently has resorted to one of the lowest, and least successful, smears on record.”
OPEN THREAD: All I want is some peace of mind.
IF YOU CAN’T SPACEFARE, LAWFARE: FCC defends Starlink approval as Viasat, Dish urge court to block SpaceX license: FCC disputes environmental and interference claims made by satellite companies.
They can’t compete, but they can sue. Like with Blue Origin, it’s a bad look for them.
COOL: The Celera 500L Just May Revolutionize Business Aviation. “Otto Aviation, the southern California startup behind the new Celera, is promising new standards for speed, range, and fuel economy that would trounce rivals like the turboprop Pilatus PC-12 and the twin-engine Beechcraft King Air, while stacking up favorably with business jets. The relevant numbers? A cruise speed of 460 mph at 50,000 feet, with a range of 4,500 nautical miles. And, the company claims, it will be five times more cost-effective and eight times more fuel-efficient than bizjets with comparable performance, thanks to the super-smooth laminar flow surfaces, high-aspect-ratio wings, and an innovative, lightweight V-12 diesel engine. It’s more efficient than other turboprops too.”
Plus: “This airplane has direct operating costs of $328 per hour, which basically includes all your fuel and maintenance for both the airframe and the engine. That allows you to offer private transportation at prices that are competitive with commercial airfares.”
MUSK’S GAME-CHANGER: Starship is Still Not Understood.
Two years ago, Raptor was unproven, aero flaps had never been demonstrated, and stainless steel rocket construction was still troubled. Today, these major programmatic risks are largely retired. SpaceX has qualified their full flow staged combustion engine. They’ve done a full system test of the landing process, and they’ve ramped up QA in construction. There are still major risks on the critical path between now and a fully reusable Starship, but no miracles are required to solve them. For example, many mature heat shield (TPS) designs already exist. SpaceX can try to make a better, cheaper, lighter one but if it doesn’t work out, they can always trade some mass and just use PICA, like Dragon. In just two years, practically all the low TRL science projects have been solved. . . .
Starship matters. It’s not just a really big rocket, like any other rocket on steroids. It’s a continuing and dedicated attempt to achieve the “Holy Grail” of rocketry, a fully and rapidly reusable orbital class rocket that can be mass manufactured. It is intended to enable a conveyor belt logistical capacity to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) comparable to the Berlin Airlift. That is, Starship is a powerful logistical system that puts launch below the API.
Starship is designed to be able to launch bulk cargo into LEO in >100 T chunks for <$10m per launch, and up to thousands of launches per year. By refilling in LEO, a fully loaded deep space Starship can transport >100 T of bulk cargo anywhere in the solar system, including the surface of the Moon or Mars, for <$100m per Starship. Starship is intended to be able to transport a million tonnes of cargo to the surface of Mars in just ten launch windows, in addition to serving other incidental destinations, such as maintaining the Starlink constellation or building a big base at the Lunar south pole. The fact that Starship flown expendably would be perhaps 10 times cheaper, in terms of dollars per tonne, than even Falcon is not relevant. For the last two years, space community responses to Starship can often be summarized as “Starship would be awesome! I can customize one or two and do my pet mission for cheap.” This is true, but it misses the point. First, SpaceX is unlikely to spend a lot of engineering effort doing custom one offs for otherwise obscure science missions. Find a way to fit the mission in the payload fairing and join the queue with everyone else trying to burn down their manifest as quickly as possible. Second, and more importantly, shoehorning Cassini 2.0 or Mars Direct into Starship fails to adequately exploit the capabilities of the launch system. Not to pick on Cassini or Mars Direct, but both of these missions were designed with inherent constraints that are not relevant to Starship. In fact, all space missions whether robotic or crewed, historical or planned, have been designed with constraints that are not relevant to Starship. What does this mean? Historically, mission/system design has been grievously afflicted by absurdly harsh mass constraints, since launch costs to LEO are as high as $10,000/kg and single launches cost hundreds of millions. This in turn affects schedule, cost structure, volume, material choices, labor, power, thermal, guidance/navigation/control, and every other aspect of the mission. Entire design languages and heuristics are reinforced, at the generational level, in service of avoiding negative consequences of excess mass. As a result, spacecraft built before Starship are a bit like steel weapons made before the industrial revolution. Enormously expensive as a result of embodying a lot of meticulous labor, but ultimately severely limited compared to post-industrial possibilities. Starship obliterates the mass constraint and every last vestige of cultural baggage that constraint has gouged into the minds of spacecraft designers. . . . The Artemis program to the Moon requires a Gateway and separate Human Landing System (HLS) because even the SLS doesn’t have enough lift capacity to be execute the mission on its own. The HLS request specified performance requirements that only make sense if the launchers are not Starship, and are objectively inadequate for any kind of serious base building or long term sustainable presence. Starship changes this paradigm. Starship won the HLS contract because of the three bids only it delivered a system that actually closed. But more than that, Starship could be used for the entire Artemis program, and probably will if the program continues. Indeed, for the same annual cost Starship could deliver perhaps 100x as much cargo to and from the Moon, meaning that instead of two or three dinky 10 T crew habs over the next decade, we could actually build and launch a base that could house 1000 people in a year or two. We probably won’t, but we could. This cuts to the core of the problem. Why won’t we upgrade Artemis to actually use the capacity of Starship? Because Starship is somehow less proven or likely than SLS and Vulcan? Please! No, Artemis is still trapped in a pre-Starship paradigm where each kilogram costs a million dollars and we must aggressively descope our ambition. This approach is evidently self defeating.
Faster, please.
BY ANY MEANS FAIR OR FOUL: Tiki-Torch Wielding Virginia Dems Caught Faking White Supremacist Photo Op to Smear Glenn Youngkin.
UPDATE (From Ed): Lincoln Project takes credit for tiki torch stunt McAuliffe campaign passed off as genuine Youngkin supporters.
It does seem awfully on-brand for them:
(Updated and bumped.)
ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A friend messages: “Why would Lincoln Project include a black guy in its fake tiki torch white supremacist lineup? For authenticity, because there actually are conservative MAGA blacks? I mean, I applaud the stab at verisimilitude. But it does kind of undercut the intent.”
Well, the Lincoln Project. Remember when they said they were leaving the Trump GOP to fight for decency?
STUDY: MEAT AND MENTAL HEALTH: “Compared to vegans, meat consumers experienced both lower depression and anxiety. Sex did not modify these relations. . . . The analysis also showed that the more rigorous the study, the more positive and consistent the relation between meat consumption and better mental health.”
ARTHUR CHRENKOFF: Envy – the deadly sin of radical politics. I used to think it was the envy of the poor for the rich, but now I think it’s the envy of the twisted for the normal.
BUT THEIR PRONOUNS WERE PERFECT: Fire, Fire, Fire: How Navy Failures Destroyed the Bonhomme Richard. “Technology has deluded us into believing shipboard fires are no longer a threat. Ubiquitous alarms, complicated fire control systems, and distractions make fire prevention a non-priority. Reviewing the USS Bonhomme Richard fire report shows priorities were placed on completing repairs on time, managing an overwhelming amount of shipyard work, with many projects conflicting. Bonhomme Richard had been in the shipyard for over a year when this fire occurred, and there existed a plethora of shipyard projects, dismantled systems, and confusing priorities. Her crew suffered from lack of clear leadership and direction. Shipboard fires are terrifying; they are the most significant threat to a ship. Well-trained crews keep their ships scrupulously clean, bilges free of oil and grease, trash receptacles emptied before they become full, electrical systems monitored, alarms checked, and a constant roving watch using their sense of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and well-honed training to detect threats which can be remedied immediately.”
LEFTIES WILL HATE IT BECAUSE IT’S FUN: 2022 Mercedes-AMG SL Revealed, Seeking to Recapture the Magic.
STIFF COMPETITION: ABC News Takes the Prize — for Dishonest Journalism. “Having falsely established Steele’s bona fides, George Stephanopoulos allows him to repeat his anti-Trump smears while merely noting here and there that not everyone agrees with his view.”
One quibble: Stephanopoulos is not and has never been a journalist.
Of course, that hardly makes him unique among his peers and coworkers.
MATT MARGOLIS: PETA’s Latest Absurd Demand. “In the wake of revelations that Dr. Fauci’s NIH tortured beagle puppies without any scientific reason, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is keeping its focus on the important things. With the start of the World Series this week, PETA is suggesting that Major League Baseball retire the use of the term ‘bullpen’ because it ‘references the holding area where terrified bulls are kept before slaughter.'”
THIS IS EXCELLENT ADVICE FOR ANYONE THINKING OF MOVING HERE FROM CALIFORNIA: NAACP tells athletes not to sign with Texas teams: “Texas isn’t safe for anyone.”