Author: condor

This. Is. Barbaric. And. Unlawful. Full Stop. Texas Is A Lawless “Local Dictatorship”, Now.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

The briefing on the case was completed now almost 10 days ago.

Injunctions by their very nature… are emergency actions — and it is time for the federal district court in the western district of Texas to rule.

Tomorrow would be good — even if too slow, given the nature of the emergency — life threatening injuries, to humans entitled to legal protection, when seeking asylum under our federal laws. Here’s the latest compiled data, from the Houston Chronicle’s Texas state level FOIA requests:

…The medical data, obtained by Hearst Newspapers through a public information request, offer the most complete picture yet of injuries along the border, where Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande. [At least 133 asylum seekers were treated for laceration injuries by state troopers.] The actions have drawn concerns, including from [federal agents at] Border Patrol, about an increased risk of injury and drownings….

Both GOP Gov. Abbott and GOP AG Ken Paxson need to be out of office. As fate would have it, the latter’s trial opens tomorrow — on wide ranging criminal charges of official corruption. He may well be disbarred, shortly as well (he cannot remain AG without a valid Texas law license, BTW). Out.

नमस्ते

And… PSA: Please — Do Wear Your Sunscreen, Today — And Always.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

I don’t care which brand — just get the SPF 30 or higher… and… use it.

He’s a poignant reminder of why you should.

And, our Dragon capsule splashed safely into the warm Atlantic waters, off the coast of Florida last night — so all is well, with my soul.

If you are in a position to do so, please speak for, and support, labor — especially lower wage labor — support all “living wage initiatives“. Out, smiling.

नमस्ते

The Better Question: Why Is Hinderaker… Obsessed With Whose Culture Is “Highest”?

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John brings this nonsense topic up at least twice a year, in one form or another, every year — for now well over… two decades, running.

His (largely false) thesis is that Euro / Whyte culture was the highest on the planet from around 900 CE… to the present.

But putting aside the quibbles — about whether the Aztec long count calendar pre-dates much cruder Euro- efforts, or the fact that Arabs / Persians / Asian Indians had the calculus long before Europe did… or all that Chinese dynasties taught Europe about gunpowder and tea and art…

The more salient question would be: why does John forever (and insecurely so!) need to beat his chest about whytes’ supposed “greatness”?

After all, we all arose from the Nama tribe / people, in sub-Saharan Africa, and walked all over the globe (all of us) over the last 132,000 years, minimum. Every current human on Earth. We come from brown Africans, all of us.

What a sad, insecure old man he’s become — despite all his unearned privileges.

Out.

De-Orbit And Splashdown, Late Night, Tonight — SpaceX…

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The weather is finally favorable, to bring our people home, from the ISS.

So it should happen around 11 PM EDT, this evening. Here’s that bit, from NASA:

…11 p.m. EDT – Coverage of SpaceX Dragon spacecraft deorbit burn, re-entry, and splashdown. Splashdown scheduled no earlier than 12:17 a.m. Monday, Sept. 4. Ahead of the broadcast, follow the real-time mission audio between Crew-6 and flight controllers on NASA’s Mission Audio stream….

Now you know — here’s to hoping / looking forward to… a 5×5 re-entry, and soft, wet landing, under the billowing white sheets / parachutes. Onward, grinning….

नमस्ते

[U: No Ebola At Burning Man.] And — A Smallish Follow-Up, On India’s Polar Lunar Rover…

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While the base station stays in steady communication, now that the lil’ rover has conducted its two weeks of science, it has been powered down, into a sleep mode.

The solar panels are fine, and the battery is fully charged, but it is smarter to let it sleep until mission control at ISRO / India decides on, and maps out… further science operations, for the lil’ rover. No need to waste battery charge cycles, idling.

All of this was disclosed by the agency in an “X”(formerly known as Twitter) post, overnight, local time.

So — a trifecta, of sorts for the people and nation of India. All is well on this Sunday morning — warm and… grinning!

UPDATED: And, in a rather odd footnote, there was an entirely false rumor that the single death, in the muddy mess at Burning Man right now… was the result of an ebola outbreak. That is categorically not the case. Some people may get water borne infections, there — but it will NOT be… ebola. I will not even credit that nonsense, with a link.

So, believe in true life science, and… be excellent to one another… out.

नमस्ते

A Second Success, In As Many Weeks: India Launches A Solar-Observing Craft — Called Aditya-L1…

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So… there will now be an Indian counterpart, watching the Sun (and NASA’s Parker solar probe, flit about the near vicinity of our home star). Though to be clear, the Indian mission will observe from quite a distance away from Sol… in a largely stationary orbit, as compared to Parker’s dynamic close ellipses. [The latter remains the fastest human made craft… ever.]

This must be quite gratifying, for the fine people of India — and all her diaspora. We are going to keep tabs on this lil’ one, to be certain:

…India launched its first spacecraft dedicated to studying the sun, building on a month of historic successes for the country’s civil space efforts.

The spacecraft, called Aditya-L1, launched from Sriharikota, an island off the Bay of Bengal, at 11:50 a.m. Saturday local time (2:20 am ET). And it’s headed to a parking spot in orbit about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth.

The successful liftoff of Aditya-L1 comes less than two weeks after India’s space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization, made history by landing its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the lunar surface. The achievement made India only the fourth nation in the world — and the second in the 21st century — to land a vehicle safely on the moon….

We will keep you informed — about this lithe copper clad beauty, indeed. Grinning, out….

नमस्ते