About 18 Days Of “No Possible Contact”, With MAVEN — Out, ~80 Million Miles In The Night, At Barsoom — Has Begun. Dim Prospects, For Any Future Recovery.

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As of about lunch-time today, we cannot trust that any radio ping, fired from Earth, and aimed out toward where we think MAVEN might be, still circling Mars… will ever be received.

As the schematic at right shows, Mars is slipping behind the Sun, relative to Earth’s vantage point. And that huge fiery ball blocks all line of sight communications — including laser and radio transmissions.

In truth, it is unlikely we will ever hear from that orbiter again.

It likely was struck by a rogue space rock, on the backside of Mars around December 3, 2025. It is likely tumbling in an erratic fashion, and may be missing most of its solar array. So it may not even have power, any longer. We shall see. And yet, we shall keep a good thought.

Realistically, in any event — come January 16, it is not likely that it will be able to reply to our contact-attempts. Here’s that, as we had mentioned a few times over the holidays:

…Mars solar conjunction – a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun – begins Monday, Dec. 29, and NASA will not have contact with any Mars missions until Friday, Jan. 16. Once the solar conjunction window is over, NASA plans to resume its efforts to reestablish communications with MAVEN….

Onward, resolutely, just the same. Smile — it was a great and long mission (wildly exceeding expectations) to be certain.

नमस्ते

And Now, Some Good News On The Sustainable Energy Front — From Italy!

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Being able to store the easy, cheap electricity (generated during midday) — at the hundreds of megawatt/hours scale — for later evening use, has been a substantial hurdle to widespread suburban utility / municipal scale solar deployment.

And just perhaps, it now seems that a Milan Italy company may have solved the conundrum. It does so by simply storing that electricity in a huge bladder of compressed carbon dioxide, which then powers turbines in the evenings, to generate electricity. Here’s the latest:

…[A] Milan-based company called Energy Dome has come up with an intriguing approach that stores energy in enormous domes that are filled with compressed carbon dioxide gas.

The idea behind the “CO2 battery” is simple. By compressing the gas using excess green power, it can later be depressurized to spin large turbines. A fully charged facility can store a formidable 200 megawatt-hours of electricity — enough to power around 6,000 homes for a full day.

To charge, the battery uses a thermal-energy storage system to cool the CO2 down to ambient pressure, and a condenser turns it into a liquid over a span of ten hours. To discharge it, the CO2 is evaporated and heated to power the turbine….

Energy Dome is currently working on a pilot CO2 battery built on five hectares of flat land in Sardinia, Italy….

Now you know. And this reads directly as a means to deflate Elon Musk’s Rare Earth minerals domination dreams. What’s not to like?! Onward, grinning!

नमस्ते

Not Looking Very Promising For MAVEN… As Solar Conjunction Looms.

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The Maven team’s efforts continue, but the likelihood of a positive outcome continues to dwindle, tonight.

There will be no recovery efforts possible between December 29 to January 16, as Earth and Mars are blinded to each other, when on opposite sides of the Sun. Here’s that:

…As part of [the reconnection] effort, on Dec. 16 and 20, NASA’s Curiosity team used the rover’s Mastcam instrument in an attempt to image MAVEN’s reference orbit, but MAVEN was not detected. Additional analysis will continue, but planned monitoring will be affected by the upcoming solar conjunction.

Mars solar conjunction — a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun — begins Monday, Dec. 29, and NASA will not have contact with any Mars missions until Friday, Jan. 16. Once the solar conjunction window is over, NASA plans to resume its efforts to reestablish communications with MAVEN….

Here’s to hoping, on Christmas night. Onward.

नमस्ते

A Stupid Opinion — Again! — From Mirengoff.

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Even though Bari Weiss is a coward… this is all so much ado about… nuthin’.

In the internet age, this is all just silly… in a free nation, censorship is nearly impossible.

The information will all always be set free — on the various torrent sites.

It is unstoppable.

So Paul’s idiotic defense of the coward is, and will be… so much wasted breath.

We’ve all already watched it all, on Limewire, after it aired in Canada.

Get with the 21st Century here, Paul… you’ve been left behind.

Modern life has passed you by.

Out.

Now, Abrego’s Dismissal Hearing Will Be Jan. 28, 2026… In Nashville: USDC Judge Crenshaw

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The Noemites are going to get bounced out of court. He has cancelled the “trial” date. That is… telling.

And I’ll laugh about it. Yes, Abrego will be free:

…ORDER:

Before the Court is the government’s Motion to Quash Defendant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s (“Abrego”) subpoenas for Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Acting Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General James McHenry, and Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh to testify at the evidentiary hearing on the government’s motivations for charging Abrego. (Doc. No. [181]; see Doc. No. 217-1).

For the reasons set forth in this Order, the government’s Motion (Doc. No. [181]) is RESERVED pending the evidentiary hearing on whether the government can rebut Abrego’s prima facie showing of a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness. The trial scheduled for January 27, 2026, is CANCELLED.

[UPDATED — From Judge Crenshaw’s reasoned opinion:] …Because Abrego has already affirmatively satisfied the threshold question of whether he is entitled to a presumption that his prosecution is vindictive, his subpoenas of Blanche, McHenry, and Singh serve to support the third step of the vindictive prosecution inquiry, i.e., whether he can establish pretext and actual vindictiveness. (See Doc. No. 240 at 1). But, as Abrego emphasizes, to get there requires the government to successfully rebut the vindictiveness presumption Abrego is entitled to. (See Doc. No. 138 at 15); see also Bragan, 249 F.3d at 482; Zakhari, 85 F.4th at 379. According to Abrego, the Government has already shown that it cannot do so, given what Abrego asserts to be troves of evidence in the record indicating that his prosecution is actually vindictive. (See Doc. No. 275 at 11–15)….

Considering this landscape, and Abrego’s insistence that the current record alone warrants dismissal in his favor, whether the Court needs to hear testimony from Blanche, McHenry, and Singh, is questionable. Still, for the sake of thoroughness and to make sure that all parties are fully heard, the Court finds it prudent to proceed with an evidentiary hearing on Abrego’s Motion (Doc. No. 104). In doing so, it will limit the hearing to only the second step of the prosecutorial explanations for Abrego’s prosecution that rebuts the presumption of vindictiveness. LaDeau, 734 F.3d at 566. If the government can rebut that showing, the Court will revisit the government’s Motion to Quash (Doc. No. 181), as the burden will again shift back to Abrego to establish that the government’s rationale for prosecuting him is pretextual and that his prosecution is actually vindictive. See Bragan, 249 F.3d at 482. This shift may make the appropriateness of Abrego’s subpoenas of Blanche, McHenry, and Singh a pertinent inquiry. If the government fails to carry its burden at the evidentiary hearing, however, the Court need not resolve the government’s Motion (Doc. No. 181) on the merits… [And Abrego’s prosecution will be immediately dismissed. End update.]

The evidentiary hearing will occur at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 28, 2026.

Signed by District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr on 12/23/2025….

So now I will arrive on the evening of January 27, 2026 — and will live blog the likely two days of hearings, starting at 9 AM on the 28th. Excellent — onward, resolutely. Enjoy the holiday now. . . smile.

नमस्ते

Mirengoff Offers Wild Conclusions — In No Manner Supported By Savage’s Op Ed.

~ condor ~ 2 Comments

This is colossally stupid.

Mirengoff jumps to wild conclusions — on almost zero hard evidence.

But there’s nothing remotely surprising about these illogical leaps. Yep, he’s forever been inclined to make such foolish pronouncements.

White men (writ large) are no “lost generation”. [Except for by their own hands, in presuming that everything should just be handed to them on an entitlement basis — the way it always was.]

Even so, I might ask him has he even looked at Wall Street in the last two decades? Has he looked at Trump‘s administration top to bottom, which is nearly devoid of women or men of color?

The man is insane.

Out.

What a… clown.

Gov. JB Pritzker And Mayor Brandon Johnson Have The Right To Tell The Texas Guard It May Not “Invade” Chicago — Not Without Permission.

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As expected, the Supremes agree — these jamokes… understand nearly nothing about how true federalism (as contemplated by the Founders) works.

Trump had no plausible basis to unilaterally send any state’s National Guard to Illinois (and by inference, to California). Here’s that, by a majority of the Supremes — just now:

…[T]he Government has not carried its burden to show that §12406(3) permits the President to federalize the Guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois. We need not and do not address the reviewability of findings made by the President under §12406(3) or any other statute.

The [Noem/Trump] application for stay is denied….

Onward. Excellent –yet, in any other epoch, this would never have even been tried — but so go the MAGA-loonies. Good riddance!

नमस्ते

Gilead Begins To Take Advantage Of Its “Global First Refusal” Options, On Assembly Bio’s Phase 1b Candidates, In HSV…

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This is a very solid publicly traded biopharm company — just like Moderna, as we mentioned yesterday. And both have been buffeted by Tangerine 2.0 tariff threats, and by Luddite non-scientific vaccine views, from his loopy underling, Kennedy, Jr..

So we believe both are presently trading well below their true fair values [do your own diligence]. This is a nice endorsement for the Assembly Bio folks’ approach to treating recurrent herpes strains.

Here’s the latest, from Fierce Biotech:

…Two years after Gilead Sciences secured the first option on Assembly Biosciences’ entire pipeline, the pharma has decided to pick the first fruits from the pact.

Gilead is paying $35 million upfront for the rights to two treatments for recurrent genital herpes, dubbed ABI-1179 and ABI-5366. Both therapies are inhibitors of helicase-primase, an enzyme involved in replication of the herpes virus.

Both assets are currently in phase 1b trials, where they have demonstrated “strong antiviral activity and improvements in clinical outcomes, including significant reduction in virus-positive lesions,” the companies explained….

Now you know, and we are definitely giving very big Black Santa energy here, in the desert this year! Hah!

नमस्ते

Second High Tech, High Altitude [@ ~120,000 Feet!] Balloon Launches From McMurdo Station, Antarctica…

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This is the BIG Chill — with daily highs around minus 20 (and nightly lows around minus 50). But it is the coolest of ballooning, too!

We mentioned the first launch a few weeks ago — and this is the second, and final one — for 2025:

…The second scientific balloon flight for NASA’s Antarctic scientific balloon campaign has reached its float altitude of 120,000 feet after lifting off from the agency’s facility located near the U.S. National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station on the Ross Ice Shelf at 5:56 a.m. NZST, Saturday, Dec. 20 (11:56 a.m., Friday, Dec. 19 in U.S. Eastern Time).

The balloon is carrying NASA’s Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) mission, designed to detect radio signals created when neutrinos from space hit ice. Neutrinos are highly energetic particles. The PUEO payload will collect data that give us insight into events like the creation of black holes and neutron star mergers. This is NASA’s first balloon mission to launch through the agency’s Astrophysics Pioneers program, which supports compelling astrophysics science at a lower cost. . . .

Now you know — with the last of my grown kids. . . in to the Saguaro cacti — by this evening! Woot!

नमस्ते

And, At Year End 2025: The WHO Situation Report, On The Global State Of The Mpox Outbreak, Over The Past Two-Plus Years…

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Again — power alley stuff. Do click on the 1.4 Mb PDF if this is of interest.

But we will increasingly rely on global-, and private- institution sources, for more reliable info, free of non-sense political bias — at CDC and NIH, imposed from above, in DC. Here’s the latest:

…This is the 61th situation report for the multi-country outbreak of mpox, which provides details on the global epidemiological situation for mpox, including an update on the epidemiological situation with data on the global situation as of 30 November 2025, in Africa as of 14 December and the operational response updates as of 17 December 2025. . . .

In November 2025, 48 countries across all WHO regions reported a total of 2150 new confirmed mpox cases, including five deaths (case fatality ratio [CFR] 0.2%). About 68% of these cases were reported in the African Region. Four regions observed a decline in confirmed cases in November, compared to October 2025, while the European and Western Pacific regions reported more cases than the previous month…. Romania reported its first case, as well.

Nineteen countries in Africa reported active transmission of mpox in the last six weeks (2 November– 14 December 2025), with 1435 confirmed cases, including seven deaths (CFR 0.5%). Countries reporting the highest number of cases in this period are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Liberia, Kenya and Ghana; while case reports in Liberia still show indications of a rise, weekly case counts in the other countries have been declining in recent weeks….

We will collectively need to work harder, in part to combat mis-information out of the RFK Jr. controlled Beltway. Ugh.

नमस्ते