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A Rather Significant Footnote, On That NASA Hosted UAP Summit/Study/Report…

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The final paper version won’t be out until late Summer 2023, and it remains true that nothing at all definitive… may be said about these events. We simply lack adequate data, well calibrated.

Even so, it should not be lost in the mix that perhaps two to five per cent of all such events studied by the blue ribbon panel are considered “truly anomalous” — i.e., very difficult to explain based on known physics/phenomena.

With between 50 to 100 reliable reported sitings per month now… that means as many as two to five of these events. . . defy conventional explanation — per month.

That is by no means to say they are extra-terrestrial in origin… just that such a possibility is not easily ruled out, in those two to five per cent of reports. Here’s a bit from BBC:

…”We have 50 to 100-ish new reports each month,” said Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), part of the US Defence Department.

But he said the number of those sightings which are “possibly really anomalous” are 2% to 5% of the total database.

A Pentagon report in 2021 said that of 144 sightings by military pilots made since 2004, all but one remained unexplained. Officials did not rule out the possibility that the objects are extra-terrestrial….

Of course, extraordinary claims must submit to extraordinarily rigorous examination. Thus far, none have cleared that hurdle, primarily due to lack of calibration in (the by their very nature) random observations. Onward, grinning….

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Cannot Understand That Far Right Rioters Destroying Target Retail Outlets… Is Not A Good Look For The GOP.

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I will link only one story, with video — but it collects the dozens of police reported incidents. All by John’s “very fine people”.

Boycotting would be fine, if that was all these losers did. That’s a tried and true American protest right.

But keep in mind that this is what John’s people think of as “boycotting“: violent, unseemly destruction. [Here is John’s latest overnight post, celebrating this wanton lawlessness.]

In a splash of extreme irony, it was just about six months ago that Hinderaker falsely accused people of color as being the main driver of Target’s “shrinkage” losses in Q2 2022. He did it from a place of pure racists’ evil, and without any basis. In fact, Target put out a counter release at the time.

But will John tell “his people” to stand back, and stand down… on wanton vigilante vandalism sprees inside in deeply rural Targets in the nation?

Of course not.

What an embittered, deluded (but ultimately impotent) old whyte coot he is.

[U] Later Today, NASA Should Host A Press Briefing On What Used To Be Called… UFOs. A “UAPs” Blue Ribbon Panel Report…

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Updated @ 4 PM EDT: Probably the most that may be fairly said… is that more data is needed. Calibration is a daunting issue, as to all “random, in the wild” observations. So, as responsible scientists, the sensible outcome is not to leap to conclusions, at least not without very compelling evidence. And that we do not (yet) have. End update.

Now they are called something else, in polite scientific circles.

Y A W N.

UAPs — to highlight the fact that this is not just your grandads’ wild eyed folklore.

In truth, it doesn’t really matter what we call them, the fact is… that several of the incidents, caught by multiple military pilots, cannot be readily explained.

We will update this, when/if we have some solid NASA-type science — to explain what is (or is not) known to be going on. Smile….

नमस्ते

Scott Johnson — And The Far Right — Are Absolutely… Desperate. They Know 2024 Is A Disaster.

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As Exhibit A, do note that the Powerline boys have now offered no fewer than five columns that favorably review one rather loony scion of the Kennedy clan. A guy who is virulently (?!) anti-vax. A guy whose conspiracy theories about the death of his father have been endlessly debunked.

A guy who is a Democrat in name only. A guy with zero chance of ever winning.

Why? Because the far right knows Trump will run third party if he doesn’t win the 2024 GOP nomination. And he won’t. So — the GOP will lose by wide margins in the general due to a split vote of MAGA, and non-MAGA GOP loons.

The only desperation play left, is to push forward a third party style candidate, inside the Democratic supposed primary races, to hope to siphon at least some votes away from Biden/Harris. And these loons think Kennedy will be able to do that?! Hilarious.

Dream on, kids.

Hinderaker Sees A Sadder, Meaner World — For Lawyers — Than The One He Was In.

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Tonight, John speaks of his former practice of law as though he was… a drone, when he practiced. An automaton. A widget.

He was no such thing. He (based on my own first hand knowledge) specifically shunned clients that didn’t want to represent. [Strip club owners, as one example that vividly stands out in my mind.]

No, he (and, candidly, I both) generally chose/choose whom we will (or will not) represent.

But when the Salutatorian of NY’s City University, College of Law proposed that she and her graduating classmates should do the same last week, the frothy hard right, and Hinderaker… had conniption fits.

On top of it though, he labels any opposition to the hard right factions in Israel… as antisemitism. Poppycock.

As the Salutatorian did, one can oppose Bebe on principles, and still believe firmly in the better dream that is Israel (or what she at least could be), post 1945.

Again, Hinderaker is the one vainly trying to tell people how they are allowed to think, even down to insisting that bright lawyers must take every miscreant that walks into the lobby, as a client.

What a sad, deluded old cuss he’s degenerated into.

A 6,000 Mile Plume Of Water Vapor Is Now Streaming From Saturn’s Moon Enceladus…

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We will re-run an older, Cassini-era graphic here — but you may see the newly imaged water plumes at the NASA/JWST story, here.

Here’s the latest bit, from NASA, ESA and JWST:

…A water vapor plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 6,000 miles — nearly the distance from Los Angeles, California to Buenos Aires, Argentina — has been detected by researchers using NASA’s [newest] Space Telescope. Not only is this the first time such a water emission has been seen over such an expansive distance, but Webb is also giving scientists a direct look, for the first time, at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings.

Enceladus, an ocean world about four percent the size of Earth, just 313 miles across, is one of the most exciting scientific targets in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. Sandwiched between the moon’s icy outer crust and its rocky core is a global reservoir of salty water. Geyser-like volcanoes spew jets of ice particles, water vapor, and organic chemicals out of crevices in the moon’s surface informally called ‘tiger stripes….’

Love the tiger stripes… smile. Now you know. Onward.

नमस्ते

Paul Mirengoff Gives Me Unbridled Joy, Tonight. Sweet!

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Paul goes on and on tonight, about how mean some in the GOP are being to DeSantis.

Of course, underneath his unseemly bleating, lies a rather solid point: if the GOP regulars keep tearing DeSantis down, they will make it at least marginally easier for Tangerine to win the GOP nomination. And the regulars hate that thought, more than death.

So… there is nothing about Paul’s blog installment tonight… that I do not love.

Where he goes astray, though — is in assuming that if DeSantis wins the nomination, he might win in the general. [We all agree — Trump will never win this time, in a fair general election. No way.]

But as EmptyWheel cogently points out, there is no scenario where (if Trump doesn’t win the nomination at the GOP convention) Trump goes away quietly. He (being a sociopathic narcissist!) will 100% certainly then launch third party, solely to scorch the DeSantis’ Earth. To salt… ALL GOP fields.

And again, I will cheer.

But there is a small danger, per EmptyWheel now — that Trump is jailed by mid-2024, or at least, convicted of multiple felonies.

That would (unfortunately, for Democrats!) end his bid, as a matter of law, if not a matter of fact. You see, in many states he won’t even be eligible to be on the ballot (with a pending felony, or if incarcerated). And that might just hold enough of the GOP together, to eek out a DeSantis win, in the general.

But the probability of all THAT aligning, by late summer of 2024… is well under 1%.

So — I am grinning ear to ear, as Paul reconfirms that Frum said “the only difference between DeSantis and Trump is that DeSantis arrives at work on time, not watching TV until 11 AM every weekday.”

Gotta’ love that!

And Hinderaker Is STILL Whining About The 2020 COVID-19 Response — And “Muh Freedoms”

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Of course, this is all (STILL) to cover for Hinderaker’s lies (as at right).

And of course, most of the worst mis-steps were due to Trump golfing for about 70 days, while senior citizens died, by the thousands — and he kept saying it will just “magically disappear”. Just as John said it would.

It did not.

And in the end, far more died than needed — approaching the level of the Spanish Flu of 1918, due primarily to the fecklessness of these hard right frothers, running red states.

Damn.

Out.

There Has Been Another Slight Hiccup, With The MIRI Mode, When In Medium Resolution Imaging Phase… Easily Compensated For, Though.

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This was the last time we saw a small issue with MIRI ops, when one of the mirrors took a micro-meteorite hit, last year. But this is a new, internal glitch.

It seems the sensors in medium resolution imaging mode are recording less light, at ultra-long wavelengths than expected. The simple solution is just to take a slightly-longer exposure picture. But the team will continue to bird-dog the issue, even though nothing, science wise, is being impacted.

It is important to know whether it is hardware (a fried circuit from another micro-strike) or software — simply some bad lines of code, in the millions of lines running the rig. Here’s the latest:

…Last week, NASA shared a blog post saying they detected a sensor glitch associated with the… Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). For some reason, the sensor for MIRI’s Medium Resolution Spectroscopy (MRS) is receiving less light than expected at the longest wavelengths.

NASA is investigating the cause, and said that the instrument is not at risk and no effect has been seen for images taken by MIRI. According to agency officials, all other modes of JWST and MIRI remain unaffected, and they are searching for the underlying issue.

The glitch was found this month during regular calibration and monitoring of the telescope’s performance. NASA said they routinely monitor all 17 observing modes of the telescope and when they compared the brightness of standard stars that have been well-cataloged by other observatories to what MIRI was receiving, team members noticed a discrepancy in the data….

So it goes…. And now, onward, to a sunny BBQ with my baby-girls!

नमस्ते