The Parker Solar Probe
Marina Koren has the story, with a quote from Yours Truly. It launches at 3:30 in the morning, not sure if I’ll have the gumption to get up to watch from Palm Beach (or worse, drive up to the Cape). On the other hand, if it’s clear, should be lots of Perseids visible then, since it’s a new moon.
Rocket Report
Eric Berger has a roundup of interesting news.
The ISS Commercialization Studies
Neither our proposal or the Space Studies Institute’s proposal for a gravity lab was awarded by NASA. It’s just the usual suspects, no newcomers allowed. As I noted on Twitter, they could have funded every proposal for less money than they pour down the SLS/Orion rat hole in a week. No one knows how much potential innovation they just avoided.
The Great White Culture War
An important piece from David French.
On a related note, it occurs to me that one could probably find things that Hitler said about the Jews that are analogous to things that the current leftist fascists say about whites (and Jews).
Back To Florida
No posting until this evening, when I get there. Open thread, be good in comments.
[Update at 2300 EDT]
In Florida, survived both flight and the drive from Miami to West Palm Beach on surface streets, though it took a while (it was rush hour, and my rental car couldn’t affordably deal with turnpike tolls, 95 would have been a nightmare, and I saw some interesting territory between here and there that I never had). Anyway, back in the land of heat, humidity, and flat.
[Update a while later, before going to bed]
I was catching up on the news, including the too-narrow Republican win in Ohio, and I heard a strange noise outside. I went and opened the door and realized that it was something with which I had been recently unfamiliar, being from southern California. I think it’s called “rain.” In fact, the last time I’d heard it, a couple weeks ago, was the last time I was here in Florida.
Elon And Mars
It appears that he’s getting more serious. I wonder if the topic of ability to gestate in partial gravity will be a topic?
Duck Duck Go
Why you should use it instead of Google.
Chicago’s Crime
It’s time to hold Democrats responsible. But the media won’t.
And as Glenn says, if Trump were to use the Insurrection Act to do something about it with federal troops, the media would call him a dictator.
I heard a Democrat give the standard line this morning that this is about lack of gun control, not in Chicago, but in the surrounding areas, and that (of course!) the only solution is nationwide gun control, to keep the guns out of Chicago. Unfortunately for this “argument,” we aren’t seeing these levels of violence in Gary, or Milwaukee, or even Detroit, which have just as much access to those same guns.
[Late-morning update]
As dozens are killed or wounded in Chicago, Illinois celebrates “Barack Obama Day.”
The History “Profession”
Something is badly amiss in it:
A big theme of MacLean’s book is that Buchanan inspired an effort to promote an anti-democratic putsch by the Koch Brothers. As Ilya Somin has explained, her conception of democracy doesn’t make any sense, at least if one assumes that she supports standard limits on democracy widely supported by progressives. But other historians have come to the rescue, arguing that the United States is a democracy when it follows the will of the people, as opposed to the will of organized reactionary interest groups. The U.S., for example, was democratic in the 1930s and 1960s, but not in the 1950s or 1980s. Democracy, in other words, means “progressive politics are winning out.” Lack of democracy means “progressive politics are not winning out.” Because in a true democracy, the will of the people wins, and the will of the people is naturally liberal-democratic-socialist. So Roe v. Wade is a “democratic” decision, even though it overturned the abortion laws of almost every state, because progressives approve of it. I kid you not.
The leftist narrative must triumph over truth or logic.