Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson
reaches space in test flight, part of
furious space tourism race
Posted By: DVC, 7/11/2021 12:23:37 PM
Richard Branson reached space on a test flight for Virgin Galactic before gliding back to earth and touching down safely Sunday, the latest salvo in the burgeoning space tourism business led by high-profile billionaires. The Virgin Group founder launched Sunday with three company employees, flying 53 miles above the earth in a final test mission before kicking off commercial space flights next year. Branson – who earned his pilot’s license – tested the astronaut cabin experience. Branson tweeted a photo of him with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk Sunday morning, saying he is "feeling good, feeling excited, feeling ready." "Big day ahead," Branson wrote. "Great to start the morning with a friend."
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GOP congressional candidate for New Jersey’s ninth district Billy Prempeh is taking a patriotic approach to his campaign, stressing the value of red, white and blue.
Prempeh joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Sunday to outline the grounds of his campaign, explaining that being in the military taught him the true symbolism of the American flag.
"When I decided to join the military and fight for the country, I understood that that flag meant more than just red, white and blue on a piece of cloth," he said. "It actually symbolizes the unification of our nation and the many things our country has gone through up until this point."
Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson
reaches space in test flight, part of
furious space tourism race 8 replies
reaches space in test flight, part of
furious space tourism race 8 replies
Richard Branson reached space on a test flight for Virgin Galactic before gliding back to earth and touching down safely Sunday, the latest salvo in the burgeoning space tourism business led by high-profile billionaires.
The Virgin Group founder launched Sunday with three company employees, flying 53 miles above the earth in a final test mission before kicking off commercial space flights next year. Branson – who earned his pilot’s license – tested the astronaut cabin experience.
Branson tweeted a photo of him with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk Sunday morning, saying he is "feeling good, feeling excited, feeling ready."
"Big day ahead," Branson wrote. "Great to start the morning with a friend."
I can imagine our friends in the other 49 states muttering, "Lots of luck!" after reading the headline just above. California is, as the old quip goes, "the land of fruits and nuts." But with Gavin Newsom facing a recall election, the plan to shut down the nuclear power plant that provides almost 10% of the state's electric power is obvious madness. Just the News reports:
California's push for clean energy has already created hardship for consumers, from a 40% decade-long climb in electricity costs to rolling blackouts that loom as a threat every heat wave. Now the state is poised to exacerbate
Raymond Ibrahim’s 2018 book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, was recently translated into French and published in France. In connection, Arnaud Imatz of the French website La Nef, interviewed him. An abbreviated, English version of that interview follows: The American Raymond Ibrahim has just published a fascinating and erudite history of the centuries-old conflicts between Islam and Christianity: L'épée et le cimeterre (Jean-Cyrille Godefroy Editions). This book is the almost exhaustive account of the fourteen centuries of antagonisms and fights, major or minor, which took place…. A historian, linguist and philologist, and a specialist in oriental languages, Ibrahim
Toxic fumes and smoke from a burning former paper mill in northern Illinois that officials had believed was long abandoned but actually contained massive amounts of lithium batteries prompted officials to extend an evacuation order into Thursday for residents in the area.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday also asked the state’s attorney general to pursue legal action against Superior Battery, the property owner, for contaminants released into the air and water as well as for improperly handling waste.
The fire that started in Morris around midday Tuesday prompted city officials to order the evacuation of 3,000-4,000 people in some 950 nearby homes, a school, church and small businesses.
In 1999, two Chinese officers explored potential strategies that militarily inferior nations might use against a superpower like the U.S. In their book Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, they expounded on alternatives to direct military confrontation -- often defined as “gray-zone” or indirect war, and including tactics such as assaults on economic and financial systems, gaining control of infrastructure, disrupting networks, cyberattacks, political propaganda, and replacement of populations. Of course, China has employed this strategy, reminiscent of Sun-Tzu’s conviction that wars should be won without firing a single shot, against other adversaries. But nowhere is this more evident than in its actions against U.S. ally India.
What Was California Thinking?
11 replies
Back in 2014, the political leadership of California became alarmed at the rapidly rising prison population in the state. The state was also under court order to reduce the overcrowding in state prisons. The people of California set a grand objective to reduce the number of convicts in the state. Fewer people going to prison has to be a good thing -- right?
The first thing they did was pass Proposition 47 -- the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act. That sounds like something everyone would want. 58% of Californians voted in favor of the measure. There was just one problem. Reduced prison population
K.T. McFarland: A D.C. COVID Cover-Up?
6 replies
It’s by now the conventional wisdom that the Chinese government is covering up — and has consistently covered up — the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan.
But the always indomitable K.T. McFarland, President Trump’s first deputy national security adviser, has posed a blockbuster question over at Fox News. The headline:
Second COVID cover-up – China, we know about but was there another one in the US?
Scientists insisted that anyone promoting the lab leak theory was an anti-science conspiracy theorist
K.T. says, in part, this:
Did America bungle our initial handling of the pandemic because a handful of government scientists and bureaucrats
If Joe Goes, What Next?
12 replies
Everywhere other than in Big Media newsrooms, Americans speak openly of President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and wonder whether he can last out his four-year term. If he cannot last, there are certain things we can be confident will happen and other things about which we can only speculate. The latter will be much more intriguing.
Should Biden leave office, willingly or otherwise, Kamala Harris will become president. This is a given. Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution makes clear that in "case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability
Cruz calls for CDC to 'follow the science'
and scrap airline mask mandate before
July 4 holiday 5 replies
and scrap airline mask mandate before
July 4 holiday 5 replies
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is urging the Biden administration to lift its long-standing requirement for people to wear masks on airplanes and other forms of mass transit ahead of the upcoming Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Airline travelers ages 2 and older currently have to wear face masks in order to fly, despite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines and the CDC's recent declaration that fully vaccinated people can travel safely. "Biden’s CDC needs to ‘follow the science’ and end its mask mandate for vaccinated Americans on airplanes and public transportation," Cruz tweeted Monday morning. This followed a similar post Sunday night in which he added
CNN’s "The Lead with Jake Tapper" has shed a staggering 75% of its audience since the liberal network experienced a January spike in viewers.
Tapper’s program averaged 2.8 million viewers in January but settled for only 706,000 in the 4 p.m. ET timeslot from May 31 through June 23, losing three-quarters of its audience in the process. Tapper’s second-quarter viewership is down 49% compared to the first quarter. While January featured a historic news cycle with the Capitol riot, the inauguration of President Biden and the lead-up to former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, his direct timeslot competition on Fox News
A woman missing in the deadly Florida condo building collapse called her husband as the tragedy unfolded — and said she saw a sinkhole where the pool used to be before the line went dead, according to a new report.
“It was 1:30 a.m., I’ll never, never forget that,” Mike Stratton, husband of Cassie Stratton, 40, told the Miami Herald.
The model, actress and Pilates instructor woke her husband in Washington, DC, and frantically told him that their building was shaking before making the startling comments about a sinkhole, according to the outlet.
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As the Biden administration peddles its plan to send door-knocking missionaries across America to spread 'vaccine awareness' (and keep track of who's vaccinated and who's not), White House-coordinated FEMA "surge teams" are being assembled to reinforce local efforts on the ground.In preparation for the coming campaign, Lake County, Illinois has published 'Helpful Hints' for volunteers taking part in their "Community Health Ambassador Outreach Door Knocking Project to Increase COVID Vaccine Acceptance."
After a year of lockdown, museums, libraries and bookstores across America are reopening. This cultural reawakening’s beginning coincided with both the Juneteenth holiday and the one-year anniversary of the one of the largest protests in American history against racial injustice. (snip) I want to unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” the legalistic wing of creationists loudly insists that their point of view deserves equal time in the classroom.
A Taliban judge has given a terrifying glimpse into life under the Islamist group and the fate that awaits Afghanis if the country falls back under their control. Gul Rahim, 38, spoke matter-of-factly about cutting hands and legs off thieves, issuing permits for women to leave their homes and toppling walls on gay men as a form of execution in his Taliban-controlled district in central Afghanistan. He added that his aim is to introduce the Sharia law punishments across the whole of the country if the Taliban can re-take control once America departs, saying: 'That was our goal and always will be.'
American Airlines passengers were filmed with their hands on their heads on a flight from Los Angeles to Miami on Wednesday. All passengers aboard the flight 2289 “were ordered to put their hands on their heads for 45-60 minutes before landing,” according to passenger Chris Nguyen who filmed part of the bizarre incident:(Tweets/Videos) The unusual order also came with the warning for passengers like Nguyen not to film what was occurring on the plane. After landing in Miami, heavily armed law enforcement officers reportedly boarded the plane and appeared to arrest and remove one male passenger.
YouTube deleted a video of former President Donald Trump from the American Conservative Union’s account and prevented the group from live-streaming the former president’s Sunday CPAC speech. In a statement, ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said the group learned that its account had been frozen for seven days over a video from Friday in which Mr. Trump announces his class-action lawsuit against the Silicon Valley titans such as Google and YouTube.
That loss of access to its video account meant the ACU, which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference, could not upload Mr. Trump’s speech or any other live content from its CPAC 2021 Part 2
As we previously reported there are thousands out in the streets across Cuba, from small towns to big cities, calling for freedom from the Communist government and chanting “we are not afraid!”
People are saying it’s the largest mass protest since 1959. If you know your Cuban history, that’s the last time the government changed hands — when Fidel Castro took power. So, that’s an incredibly significant thing to say. From NY Times:
Carolina Barrero, a Cuban activist, went even further. “It is the most massive popular demonstration to protest the government that we have experienced in Cuba since ’59,”
In a last ditch effort, Democrats in the Texas state legislature reportedly plan to walk out of a special session to prevent a number of key Republican-sponsored bills from passing.
At least 58 Democratic state lawmakers plan to leave Texas and fly to Washington, D.C. to rally support for federal legislation, NBC News first reported. Most of the fleeing state lawmakers will travel on a pair of prearranged private jets, the New York Times confirmed.
By exiting the chamber indefinitely, the Democratic lawmakers are denying the Texas GOP quorum, or the minimum number of members that must be in attendance to hold a valid session.
Mount Pleasant, Wis.—The elderly woman who police say was repeatedly punched by a 17-year-old Walmart employee on Wednesday, July 7, is speaking out about the incident, saying this situation could have been avoided.
"It has been quite a journey and why anyone would do that? I don't know. And why no one helped is even more, especially in a Walmart store," said P.K. Shader, the victim.(Snip) Both the employee and Shader indicated that the incident arose over a verbal argument. According to the criminal complaint, Shader asked to speak to a manager after having negative interaction with the employee, Jazareia Velasquez.
FBI Urges Americans To Monitor ‘Family
Members And Peers’ To ‘Prevent
Homegrown Violent Extremism’ 30 replies
Members And Peers’ To ‘Prevent
Homegrown Violent Extremism’ 30 replies
The FBI took to Twitter Sunday to encourage families to watch out for “homegrown violent extremism.”“Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism,” the FBI’s tweet read in part. Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism. Visit https://t.co/bql36iSbig to learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the #FBI. #NatSec pic.twitter.com/ZwJp5h5bWD
Governments should exclude parents who oppose the hormonal and surgical transformation of their children, according to an article published in the establishment Journal of Medical Ethics.
When parents reject their childrens’ claim to be transgender, “parents should lose veto power over most transition-related paediatric care,” wrote author Maura Priest, a candidate professor at Arizona State University. Trained medical scientists should defer to the childrens’ wishes once they decide that the children are “informed and competent”
Get Ready for the Wokest Olympics Ever!
29 replies
As a kid back in the early 1970s, when excessive fighting almost ruined the National Hockey League, there was a running joke that went something like this: “The other night I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out!”
Today, it seems like that joke could be re-written: “The other night, I went to a protest, and a basketball game broke out!”
Political activists in sports are not a new phenomenon. Baseball legend Jackie Robinson was willingly thrust into it by breaking the color barrier in the Major Leagues in 1947. Robinson endured indignities, which included not being able to stay in the same hotels
What's wrong with Kamala Harris?
29 replies
Years ago, the car rental company Avis tried to catch industry leader Hertz by boasting it was No. 2, so it was trying harder. By political convenience Kamala Harris happens to be No. 2 in Joe Biden’s presidential administration. But no one suggests she’s trying harder. Harder than whom for one thing? [Snip] She's in a difficult position that would make succeeding there difficult for any woman, especially so when she’s getting nothing but lip service from the boss’s office and
Comments:
When I was a kid, I read my National Geographic coverage of the X-15 flights with amazement. Those test pilots were heroes of mine. Now I know a number of test pilots, including the one who did the first of these flights. And I stood a few feet from Branson when watching Space Ship One do the first of these private spaceflights.
I watched this launch, flight and return on their livestream. All went smoothly, although the video live feed from the cabin didn't work most of the time. Looked to be entirely nominal. Heck of a ride.
Well done to all those who made it happen.