Adventures in Manned Spaceflight

Today, a two man crew heading for the International Space Station(ISS), experienced a launch vehicle failure near 30 miles altitude.  In watching the launch video, you can see there is a problem and the disconnect between the American sounding narrator and the launch commentator carries on for a few moments.

I am glad I am not stuck on the ISS.  The Soyuz escape capsule expires in around the end of this year and the crew would have to use it by January or remain on station.  The next available capsule is in mid-2019, maybe.

"On Thursday morning, Ovchinin and Hague stuffed themselves into a tiny space capsule atop a 150-foot-tall (45 metre) rocket.
The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft system, as the rocket and capsule is called, lifted off from a launch pad in Kazakhstan around 8:40 am UTC and zoomed toward space.
But about two minutes after liftoff, when the rocket was mostly out of sight from the ground, a second-stage booster on the rocket failed as four large side boosters were jettisoned.

This is the moment of today's Soyuz rocket failure. It happened as the 4 side boosters were being jettisoned. That's where the investigators will be looking. pic.twitter.com/97mVV6xhi3

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) October 11, 2018

That's when an "ABORT" light appeared in the cabin and, about a second later, the system automatically ejected the capsule, Kenny Todd, the space station's Mission Operations Integration Manager, said during a press briefing on Thursday.
Todd couldn't say whether the second-stage rocket exploded or simply lost thrust, but estimated the crew ejected some 30 miles (48 km) above Earth, which is halfway to the edge of space."
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-s-rocket-failure-leaves-them-grounded-and-the-iss-crew-marooned-on-the-edge-of-space?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1

From the previously linked article, an epic photo:


"German astronaut Alexander Gerst was photographing the launch from aboard the ISS when the Soyuz failure occurred. He managed to capture a view of the capsule as it ejected from the rocket."

Here is the launch video:

A Republic If You Can Keep It

If anyone will listen, I tell them that I think the 17th amendment to the Unites States constitution  should be repealed as it undermines the republic.

Over the course of time, you will hear often that the U.S. is a democracy.  This is not so, our founding fathers appreciated the volatility of democracies and ensured that the United States was not.

"That's why as originally enacted, the individual voter elected a total of one man to the federal government directly: his congressman, and no other. You didn't elect your senators, the state's legislature picked them to preserve the interests of the entire state, based on the deliberations of the state's legislature and governor. (This is why the XVIIth Amendment which undermined that concept should be repealed forthwith; it was one of the cornerstones of Progressivism, and has, at last, completely undermined the government, and invested us with a house of millionaire Lords, unaccountable and at odds with the states they nominally represent. But I digress). You didn't vote for the President directly either; the electoral college did, based on your votes, but not immediately subject to it, and the states got electors for the state, just like they got senators to represent the state's interests. For which long-suffering wisdom you may thank a merciful deity or an unconcerned natural universe that Felonia von Pantsuit is still not your president, nor was Albert Gore Jr. when planes began to smash into the World Trade Center. That's two simultaneous proofs that the Founders were far smarter than you think they were, and for the existence of an involved and compassionate deity. Otherwise, it would require Powerball odds to have been so fortuitously saved twice in this century already from the excesses and lunacy of direct democracy."

https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-its-all-about.html

HT: https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/

Senator Lindsey Graham

I could not have said it any better myself.

"That’s not stage anger, Gentle Reader. That’s the real thing, the sort of fury that once led to pistols at dawn. And from Lindsey Graham! The man most likely to pour oil on troubled Senate waters when “my Democratic colleagues” pretend that something perfectly reasonable is outrageous and unpardonable...or vice versa. It’s like watching the slow-motion video capture of a great explosion."

f
http://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-mighty-wind.html

Socialism is Evil

" Socialism is an evil and immoral social economic system. No matter what kind of adjective someone today tries to decorate socialism with, it won’t change its evil nature.
It’s like trying to put lipstick on a pig, although it’s not fair to pigs to compare them to socialism. Let’s just call it as it is: democratic socialism is a scam, and it’s the same tyranny the world has seen over and over again. Anyone who loves liberty should be ready and be well prepared to vigorously push it back into history’s dust bin."
http://thefederalist.com/2018/09/28/heres-successfully-debate-democratic-socialist/

Confirm Kavanaugh or get Slaughtered

This circus in the senate is a scandalous embarrassment for the United States.  All of the men and women involved should be ashamed of themselves for allowing it to continue for so long.

"In case the election of one Donald J. Trump was not enough to compel the D.C. Republican establishment swamp creatures to wipe the muck from their eyes and see what’s happening with their own constituents, Republican voters have had enough of feckless do-nothings whose careers consist of little more than not doing everything they promised to do."

"Anyone who thinks pulling the Kavanaugh nomination after a last-minute smear campaign whipped up out of thin air by the Democrats would be anything but an extinction-level event for the GOP is not a serious "political analyst" and is probably trying to engineer that outcome.

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) September 24, 2018"

Republicans Have A Simple Choice: Vote To Confirm Kavanaugh Or Get Slaughtered In November

 H/T: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

Felonious Feather

"The Migratory Bird Treaty Act goes even further, making it a misdemeanor to possess a feather from any of more than 1,000 species, without regard to intent or knowledge. The upshot is that a bluebird feather your kid picked up in the yard theoretically could earn you six months in jail."

"During a visit to the Adirondacks last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recalled retrieving a feather shed by an eagle that "swooped down right next to us with this beautiful, graceful glide" as he was canoeing with his family on Lake Saranac. Cuomo did not realize he was confessing to a crime."

Andrew Cuomo’s Accidental Crime

Gunfighting

"Cocking and firing mechanisms on new revolvers were almost invariably altered by their purchasers in the interests of smoother, effortless handling, usually by filing the dog which controlled the hammer, some going so far as to remove triggers entirely or lash them against the guard, in which cases the guns were fired by thumbing the hammer. This is not to be confused with fanning, in which the triggerless gun is held in one hand while the other was brushed rapidly across the hammer to cock the gun, and firing it by the weight of the hammer itself. A skillful gun-fanner could fire five shots from a forty-five so rapidly that the individual reports were indistinguishable, but what could happen to him in a gunfight was pretty close to murder."

Wyatt Earp on Gunfighting Interview

No more Noogies

According to the report, Moorlach “told investigators he frequently engages in noogies,” and pointed out that he is well-known for doing so. And indeed, pictures of the senator delivering noogies can be found on social media. (The image above is one of those, and does not depict the incident that resulted in the complaint.) While it appears that no one has complained until now, in this case the noogie made the target feel sufficiently uncomfortable that she filed a complaint.
http://loweringthebar.net/2018/09/lawmaker-agrees-not-to-noogie.html

Immigration Without Assimilation is Invasion

There are elements who wish to sow strife and factionalism throughout the Union. As of 2016, around 1 in 7 people residing in the United States are immigrants, legal and otherwise.  The melting pot used to ensure a shared identity as Americans.  However, now the impacts of "diversity" and "multi-culturalism" are undoing this by Balkanizing the Republic.

This is no accident and we must each do all we can to combat this error in United States policy and education of our nation will continue on a short road to collapse.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/hialeah/article218395910.html

Pedagogue of the Day

I could hardly believe that I what I was reading was not a practical joke.

“Tracking students based on ability fuels academic apartheid in mathematics education, as tracking often includes reproduction of social class by creating modern systems of segregation,” he expounds, adding that tracking further fuels “settler colonial ideas.”

To fight this, Wells outlines a number of ways math teachers can resist. Schools can start by “de-tracking” their students, placing all students in the same math class regardless of difficulty. Schools could also do away with classes like “Algebra 2” and “Geometry,” and instead call them “Math 1” or “Math 2” to reduce the stigma experienced by students in the easier classes.

Math teachers could also “teach math for social justice,” he suggests."

https://pjmedia.com/trending/study-claims-gifted-math-classes-promote-academic-apartheid/

HT: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

How to Train Your Bureaucrat

Congress should take note.


"In response to lack of information on the possible sale of LUS electric, Lafayette councilman Bruce Conque says one way to control the process of reviewing candidates is to eliminate the salaries of the two open positions.

On Thursday night, the council agreed unanimously to set the salary for the LUS director and 

potential LUS Fiber communications director to $1.
Conque says that he and the council are waiting to here from the administration about what is going forward with the Bernhard Group.

“If the funding is not there, then that essentially puts a prohibition or it doesn’t allow the mayor-president to proceed because he has no money with which to address or approach any potential candidate,” said Conque."


https://katc.com/news/around-acadiana/lafayette-parish/2018/09/07/lafayette-city-parish-councilman-addresses-potential-lus-salary-cut/

R.I.P. Burt Reynolds

I watched these movies growing up and enjoyed them all, even the ones I thought were stupid.

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/burt-reynolds-6-best-performances/

The Modern Drunkard

A post from one of my bookmarks.

"Today's Reason to Drink"

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

https://drunkard.com/september-2/

The Press Monkeys

If you were wondering how the press has always worked, and not always for the Democrat party.

"We hear a lot about the “politics of division” these days. Indeed, that phrase was used in a few quarters as a criticism of DeSantis’s words. But I can think of fewer more “divisive” actions than falsely telling millions of people that the man who may well be their next governor believes that African Americans are monkeys. Those who did so should be ashamed."

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ron-desantis-press-gins-up-outrage-disgraces-itself/

Lest You Forget

The justice system in the United States is not here to protect you from criminals, rather it is the other way around.

"A MOB in Mexico has burned alive a pair of suspected child kidnappers after dragging them out of a police station.

Locals in the village of San Vicente Boquerón, in the Acatlán de Osorio region, initially handed over the two men to the authorities."
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7136143/child-kidnap-gang-burned-alive-after-150-strong-vigilante-mob-doused-them-in-petrol-outside-police-station/

The Zimbabwefication of South Africa

History may not repeat but it rhymes like mad.

"CNN sugarcoats what the South African government is planning to do, completely ignoring Zimbabwe’s disastrous experience, and omitting the fact that the planned seizures of the farms will be without compensation. It describes it euphemistically South Africa’s policy as “land reform” that “tries to reverse the uneven distribution of land” under which “white farmers still own the majority of land in the country.”"

https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/27/cnns-blatant-dishonesty-about-south-africas-so-called-land-reform/

Judge Michael G. Sullivan

Third Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Michael G. Sullivan, 68, died Tuesday, December 29, 2009. Judge Sullivan earned his BA from Spring Hill College in 1964. He served in the U.S. Army as a Thai translator/advisor in N.E. Thailand from 1966-69. Following his graduation from Loyola University School of Law in 1973 he was in the general practice of law until 1983 and was first elected to the bench as a judge of the City Court of Lafayette in October of that year. He was reelected without opposition in 1985 and 1991. He was elected to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeal beginning in 1995. He was a member of the Judicial Administration Division Traffic Court Committee and the Committee of Ethics and Judicial Responsibility of The American Bar Association. He also served as vice president of the Louisiana City Judges Association. Third Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Michael G. Sullivan

This man was one among those whom I admired most.  He was a quiet force of nature.  From his office drawer, he showed me a document that he kept and read every now and again.  Here is what it read:

DEATH SENTENCE (1881)

The following is a verbatim sentence imposed upon a defendant convicted of murder in the Federal District Court of the Territory of New Mexico many years ago by a United States Judge, sitting at Taos in an adobe stable used as a temporary courtroom.

~~~o~~~

"Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, in a few short weeks, it will be spring. The snows of winter will flee away, the ice will vanish, and the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass, but you won't be there.

"The rivulet will run its course to the sea, the timid desert flowers will put forth their tender shoots, the glorious valleys of this imperial domain will blossom as the rose. Still, you won't be there to see.

"From every treetop some wild woods songster will carol his mating song, butterflies will sport in the sunshine, the busy bee will hum happy as it pursues its accustomed vocation. The gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wild grasses, and all nature, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, will be glad, but you.

"You won't be there to enjoy it because I command the sheriff, or some officers of the country, to lead you out to some remote spot, swing you by the neck from a knotting bough of a sturdy oak, and let you hang until you are dead.

"And then, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, I further command that such officer or officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing shall remain but the bare bleached bones of a cold-blooded, copper-colored, blood-thirsty, throat-cutting, chili-eating, sheep-herding, murdering son-of-a-bitch."

~~~o~~~

United States of America v. Gonzales (1881)
United States District Court, New Mexico Territory sessions

I Love You

When I take leave of members of my family, and sometimes good friends, I will tell them that I love them.  I mean it.

More times than I care to remember, I have heard sudden and unexpected news that I will never see or hear from someone ever again because they have been killed or died suddenly.  This happened twice in my immediate family and a number of times in my extended family and many many other times.

It is the human condition.  As Shakespeare wrote, everyone who is born owes God a death.

(Updated)
I forgot to place the link to the article that prompted this post:

"Among the greatest challenges of life is the struggle, when one is beset by tragedy, to remember to be grateful." (...) "Gratitude is not possible without humility."
http://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2018/08/one-coin-two-faces-sunday-rumination.html

The Coming War with China

There will be war with China, it is nearly inevitable and Taiwan is the hinge.

"Taiwan is urging U.S. airlines to reject Beijing's demand that the companies recognize the autonomous island as part of China ahead of a July 25 deadline for international carriers to comply or face steep penalties. While dozens of foreign-based carriers, including British Airways and Air Canada, have edited their websites to list Taiwan as Chinese territory, several U.S. companies such as American, Delta, and United, say they are consulting with the Trump administration on the issue."

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/taiwan-presses-u-s-airlines-stand-beijing-one-china-policy/

Happy Independence Day

Hate Speech

"America's founding document might be too politically incorrect for Facebook, which flagged and removed a post consisting almost entirely of text from the Declaration of Independence. The excerpt, posted by a small community newspaper in Texas, apparently violated the social media site's policies against hate speech."

Facebook Algorithm Flags, Removes Declaration of Independence Text as Hate Speech

https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/03/facebook-algorithm-flags-removes-declara