Category: Uncategorized

[U] Surprising… NO ONE, Tangerine Is Likely To Ditch The Agreed Sept. Debate Date…

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Updated @ 7 PM EDT: Hinderaker now weighs in to confirm that Tangerine’s campaign needs the debate; Madame President and the Democrats do not. So, if Tangerine ditches it he will fall more than 7 points behind. Perfect.

End update.

He only now claims he “must” be allowed to be seated, with notes at his desk — and use a hot mic, even when Kamala is speaking.

[He hated not being able to talk over Mr. Biden, as he had done to HRC in 2016.]

But his campaign already agreed that mics for both would be shut off during the other’s speaking time.

We all well knew he would invent an excuse NOT to debate, since it will be a thousand times worse for him, than when he showed up in Chicago at the NABJ.

He saw what happens when someone who’s smart, and not willing to “soft-focus” his lies — and offers him some hard-edged reality, rather than nodding along… takes him apart, piece by piece.

And Kamala will do a much more efficient job of it, if he is stupid enough to show up for the debate.

So my best guess is that his bone spurs (or something!) will prevent his appearance at any debate before election day 2024.

Doesn’t matter — Madame President now holds a solid 7 point lead, nationwide.

He will lose. She will sweep at least five of the seven swing states (garnering about 297 EC votes nationwide), and… he will lose (at around 241). She only needs 270 to win.

Out.

Japan (JAXA) Shares With US (NASA); NASA Shares With JAXA — This Is Solid Space Science!

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There were two recent missions that collected samples from asteroids. And the NASA version brought home more than double the expected weight — so much, that the sample/cargo door wouldn’t initially fully close. But all that got sorted out, and both NASA and JAXA returned pristine samples to Earth.

The two agencies, and thus countries, are now sharing the bounties they brought home. Here’s that latest story, even as OSIRIS-REx heads on back out, to deep space — in an extended mission.

…The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, spacecraft delivered 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from Bennu, more than double the mission’s mass requirement, as well as 24 steel Velcro® pads containing dust from the contact with Bennu. As part of the agreement, the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston transferred to JAXA 0.023 ounces (0.66 grams) of the Bennu sample, equaling 0.55% of the total sample mass, and one of the 24 contact pads.

Hayabusa2 collected 0.19 ounces (5.4 grams) of Ryugu between two samples and, in 2021, JAXA provided NASA with 23 millimeter-sized grains plus aggregate sample material from Ryugu, enabling both countries to get the most out of the samples and share the responsibility of sample curation….

Asteroids are debris left over from the dawn of the solar system. The Sun and its planets formed from a cloud of dust and gas about 4.6 billion years ago, and asteroids are thought to date back to the first few million years of our solar system’s history. Sample return missions like OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 help provide new data on how the solar system’s evolution unfolded.

Initial analysis of the Bennu samples has revealed dust rich in carbon and nitrogen. Members of the OSIRIS-REx sample analysis team have also found evidence of organic molecules and minerals bearing phosphorous and water, which together could indicate the building blocks essential for life.

Both the Bennu sample and the asteroid Ryugu sample delivered by JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission appear to have come from an ancient parent object formed beyond the current orbit of Saturn that was broken up and transported into the inner solar system. The differences between these asteroids are emerging as the detailed chemistry is analyzed….

Now you know — and here’s our backgrounder from last December on the extended OSIRIS-REx mission. Be excellent to one another.

नमस्ते

“Oh! The Humanities!” — Overnight Nonsense, From Mirengoff.

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R-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght.

The “Jews” (apparently a monolithic, single-vision group, to Paul) had to seek “shelter” at the DNC.

Uh-huh.

See, Paul, what happens at a major-party nominating convention is… that various affinity groups hold private “caucus” meetings — to help craft (or more precisely, influence) party-wide platforms. That is also something conventions did, historically (but not the RNC in the age of Trumpism — it simply lets pop pop say whatever he wants).

So, at the DNC — it seems there were some very radical pro-Zionists who felt unsafe around a more nuanced view of the Middle East — and Gaza particularly.

Y A W N.

There is literally no there, there — unless he is willing to torch Candace Owens’ growing of a full Hitler moustache and comb-over — of late.

In sum, clean your own closet, buddy — before complaining about the most pluralistic party in American history — the 2024 Democratic Party.

Out.

We Wish Dr. Fauci A Speedy And Complete Recovery, From Relatively-Rare Case Of Mosquito-Born West Nile Virus…

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This has to be a stunning coincidence — in his mind. What are the odds, given how out of the main this virus is, here in the US — even during hot, wet summers (like this one)?

In any event, this fine man is one of our life-science heroes — so this is simply and mostly a get well card, from us. To be sure though, there is no vaccine — so the trick is never to get it in the first place. Here’s the story:

…Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a longtime public health official who headed up the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic, was hospitalized about ten days ago, he said Saturday. At the time, he was suffering from fever, chills and severe fatigue.

Fauci said he left the hospital three days ago and is expected to make a full recovery at home.

The West Nile virus is primarily spread by mosquitoes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention….

There are no vaccines to prevent West Nile virus or medicines to treat its symptoms, but most people infected with the disease do not feel sick, according to the CDC. About one in five people infected develop a fever and other symptoms. About one in 150 infected people develop a “serious, sometimes fatal, illness,” the CDC said….

Even so, with the even rarer EEE virus now turning up in New England, and causing at least a few small towns to impose curfews, from dusk to dawn — since they cannot afford a municipal mosquito spraying programs. . . we should all be careful — and do wear repellant, as at least some protection — when venturing into the deeper boggy woods. Onward.

नमस्ते

[U! Rigby Adds!] Weird Sh!t “Pop-Pop” Johnson Said, Volume 698…

~ condor ~ 2 Comments

This… is weird.

UPDATED — Rigby hits it out of the park, thus:

It’s impossible for me to believe that Scott has so egregiously misunderstood Walz’s joke here. Walz isn’t making fun of J.D. Vance for having gone to Yale (well, maybe a little); he’s making fun of Republicans for their hypocritical and silly disdain for Yale as a bastion of leftist dogma, indoctrinating its students with its nefarious liberal agenda.

In other words, Scott, like the babysitter in “When a Stranger Calls,” needs to heed the terrifying warning: “The call is coming from inside the house!”

See, for example, Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho, whose idiotic and performative refusal to hire Yale Law graduates was celebrated by Scott himself. So, when Scott writes in this post, ” I never understood [going to Yale] was something to be ashamed of,” he’s lying through his teeth. He’s expressed the exact same level of derision towards Yale as Walz did at the DNC.

That’s the joke, you maroon…. End, updated portion.

Scott wrote it all Saturday morning, weirdly, to allow him to mention how many Ivy degrees he, and his high school classmates amassed. [Funny he doesn’t bother to mention any of his co-blog authors’ Ivies.]

Weird.

[Perhaps he wrote it all to project/protect his imagined-persona as an “intellectual” — even though he has helped nominate a man who can barely read, to again hold office at 1600 Penn. This is the THIRD time he has chosen an illiterate reprobate as his nominee. Yikes.]

That’s all this is — some weird sh!t “pop pop” (again) said.

Out.

Tonight, Hinderaker Claims It Is Primarily Rich DemocratsThat “Bleed” Govt. Programs. Hah!

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

So… as to hypocrisy — John Hinderaker has few peers.

Tonight he blames Michelle Obama for making an admittedly fine retirement nest egg, with the sweat of her own brow.

That is fact. Not fiction. Her parents were working class Chicagoans. Hers were also saddled with the discrimination of the 1940s and 1960s. Barack’s too.

John fails to mention that his father was a very wealthy Dakota bank lawyer. Owned nearly the largest law firm in the Dakotas in the 1960s. His family may have even owned several banks there when he was growing up.

Yet as we documented, after he made his own millions in Big Law, in Minneapolis, he had his think tank take over $200,000 in PPP loans he never paid back.

During Covid. Federal money meant to help struggling blue collar small businesses — not elite hard right PAC-fronting propaganda non-profits.

That too is a fact.

John himself is in fact a welfare queen / loser and a fraud.

What a stupid liar he is.

Out.

[U] Breaking: NASA Just Said Suni And Butch Will Come Home In February ’25 — In A SpaceX Ride…

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This means Boeing will fly the Starliner back on auto-pilot — to see if it holds together, on de-orbit.

Now the press conference is over — so, here’s the update, in full:

…NASA will return Boeing’s Starliner to Earth without astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the spacecraft, the agency announced Saturday. The uncrewed return allows NASA and Boeing to continue gathering testing data on Starliner during its upcoming flight home, while also not accepting more risk than necessary for its crew.

Wilmore and Williams, who flew to the International Space Station in June aboard NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, have been busy supporting station research, maintenance, and Starliner system testing and data analysis, among other activities.

“Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine. A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine. The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “I’m grateful to both the NASA and Boeing teams for all their incredible and detailed work.”

Wilmore and Williams will continue their work formally as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew through February 2025….

Space is hard, man. It does not cooperate. Onward, still. So it goes.

नमस्ते

Moving Mpox Vaccine Stock Into DRC And Burundi: A Series Of Regulatory And Logistical Hurdles… And Some Bureaucratic Delays.

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The time is now. Past now, actually (the vials could have been purchased and delivered over a year ago).

We must move very large boluses of palletized doses of the vaccine (however we do it) into sub-Saharan Africa, right now. Four nations so far… and we need about 3 million doses, immediately — probably about 10 million within a year. Here’s a bit from Reuters’ (free) reporting (the NYT also has a piece behind its paywall):

…Among the hurdles: It took the World Health Organization (WHO) until this month to start officially the process needed to give poor countries easy access to large quantities of vaccine via international agencies.

In response to Reuters questions about the delays in vaccine deployment, the U.N. health agency said on Friday it would relax some of its procedures on this occasion in an effort to now accelerate poor countries’ access to the mpox shots.

Buying the expensive vaccines directly is out of reach for many low-income countries. There are two key mpox shots, made by Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic and Japan’s KM Biologics. Bavarian Nordic’s costs $100 a dose; the price of KM Biologics’ is unknown….

The long wait for WHO approval for international agencies to buy and distribute the vaccine has forced individual African governments and the continent’s public health agency – the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – to instead request donations of shots from rich countries. That cumbersome process can collapse, as it has before, if donors feel they should keep the vaccine to protect their own people….

[N]o shots have been available in Africa outside clinical trials. A key reason: Vaccines needed to be greenlit by the WHO before they could be bought by public healthcare groups including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Gavi helps poorer countries buy shots, supplying childhood vaccines in this way routinely. It administered a global scheme for all vaccines during COVID-19 and has up to $500 million to spend on mpox vaccines and logistics….

To be certain, this is no COVID style event — and nothing like ebola (at only 10% lethal compared to about 85%). Still, it could in time be a much larger problem — if we don’t get aggressive with funding and manufacturing reserves, even at MSD Europe, for example — as a contract manufacturer, very quickly (as I suggested at the head of the week).

We all — collectively — must do better. People’s lives are dependent upon… us. Onward.

नमस्ते

Hey Scott/John/Steve: I Don’t Think Deja Vu Means What You “Hope” It Means…

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As we wait patiently for the post-weekend polling — which will estimate the size of the Harris | Walz post convention “bump” in popularity (if not necessarily swing state electoral votes, yet)… [but we do know that TV-viewership of the four-day festivities in Chicago drew an average of 21.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, eclipsing the audience of the Republican National Convention by nearly 15 percent].

I am pretty sure the Powerline boys will come to regret labeling this as a “deja vu” campaign. The echos are strong, to be sure: McCain (very old, albeit far more honorable than Tangerine, in demeanor) v. brilliant, young, vital, idealistic Mr. Obama… then in desperation, Mr. McCain added a wildly-unpopular, inexperienced, unserious running mate in Sarah Palin (sounds a lot like JD Vance!)… and lost in a landslide.

In his own national elections, Mr. Obama never lost. Not once, stretching back to his Senate run. He served two full terms, and was term-limited out. His greatest offense (apparently — according to Fox and the GOP!) was… wearing a tan suit. [They lost their minds.]

In national elections, Trumpism has gone 0-3 of late. Soon to be 0-4. And he’s a convicted felon and widely-notorious reprobate. Oh — and he’s 78 years old (karma is a b!tch — the age barb / bomb he lobbed at Mr. Biden, is now his own albatross). Kamala is nearly thirty years younger than he is — just like Sen. Obama, compared to Sen. McCain ’08.

So guys… by all means, calling Madame President a re-run of Obama (’08 — or even 2012!) really isn’t going to find any new votes or voters, for Tangerine.

I hope to G*d he dumps Vance, and in an ersatz “Apprentice” moment, adds Kennedy as his new running mate, reopening and closing his convention — as a Zoom call. Chaos is his only remaining brand equity.

Chaos.

Buckle up boys. American adults want steady, serious leadership — even if they occasionally disagree with her, they’d rather see a steady hand — than the “scandal of the week” and chaos — of the Tangerine fever-dream 2.0.

Cheers.

Just To Amplify John’s — And Paul’s — Realizations (That Tangerine Cannot Win, Now)…

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So, even Hinderaker now realizes… that MAGA is a tired, old, dead… and yes, hate-filled… brand.

And Tangerine is falling apart, day by day… showing every bit of his 78 years. And as bitter, small, and mean and self-absorbed — as ever.

So, he will lose. People here, just north of Chicago, in these deep blue lands, are making their own high end but non-official signs.

This is not from any sanctioned campaign office. But it is… genius.

Yes — this “Barbie” is… the non-Trump, John. And she is also… a lethal prosecutor running against an… unserious loser of a buffoon. And, a convicted felon to boot. She is nearly 30 years younger than he is, too. And the energy level shows it.

Watch boys, and see… what comes next.

This is the same movement as Obama 2008 — and just as it buried the ancient but far more honorable John McCain candidacy, “¡Si Puede!” will bury the odious, felonious, decrepit, misogynistic Tangerine hatred-festooned “brand”.

Out.