Back to Our Moon: Powering Our Return ; a clip from NASA

It’s well past the time that we should have been back to our moon. Make no mistake: This is an existential task for the human race. NASA’s new partnership with Maxar and their propulsion system explained.

via Powering Our Return to the Moon – YouTube

Goodnight, Anti-Indoctrination Bills, and Good Riddance | NCSE

From Glen Branch at NCSE:

Five measures under consideration in these four states in 2019—Arizona’s House Bill 2002Maine’s House Paper 433, South Dakota’s House Concurrent Resolution 1002 (PDF) and House Bill 1113 (PDF), and Virginia’s House Joint Resolution 684—would have required or urged the adoption of a code of ethics for public school teachers, purportedly to prevent them from engaging in “political or ideological indoctrination.”

If these anti-indoctrination measures sound like a solution in search of a problem, it’s because they are. Despite a handful of ballyhooed counterexamples, it’s rare for teachers to engage in indoctrination. They are trained, after all, to educate. And even with regard to socially controversial issues, surveys indicate that, for good or for ill, teachers tend to teach in accordance with the mores of their communities.

Unsurprisingly, the backers of these anti-indoctrination measures rarely offered any evidence that there is a problem. The sponsor of the Arizona bill, for example, claimed that he introduced it after he was “inundated” by complaints about teachers from parents. But a public records request from the Arizona Republic revealed that he received just a single e-mail from a parent—after, not before, he introduced his bill.

And there are already policies and procedures in place to govern teacher conduct in the classroom anyhow. The Arizona bill, for example, would have forbidden public school teachers from expressing a view on pending legislation while on the time clock. But that’s something that is already forbidden by Arizona law, and two Arizona teachers were (controversially) disciplined for violating the law in 2018.

 

via Goodnight, Anti-Indoctrination Bills, and Good Riddance | NCSE

A CONSERVATIVE solution to global warming (Part 1)

Political Correctness in the Republican party consists of denying that global warming exists, or that it’s man made, or that it’s impact to our children’s futures and our nation won’t be monumental. These denials come in the face of science that states unequivocally otherwise.

Political correctness in the GOP demands knee jerk adamant opposition to clean energy because they’ve wrongly become convinced that environmentalism and capitalism are mutually exclusive isms… It means that all GOP pundits must regularly spout myths that most of world knows are not true, and it means that China will be the world energy leader and have the world energy markets dominated within 30 years.

All of this is clearly and concisely covered in Peter Hadfield’s video below.

Nike – Dream Crazy Commercial is Inspirational

I find this commercial both inspirational and true – if you have a problem with Nike’s latest inspirational advertisement maybe the problem isn’t the commercial but rather your preconceptions or bias against people in it. If inspirational commercials fill you with anger, maybe it’s time you confront the fears and biases you were taught that create your anger, your knee jerk responses, that innate willingness to discount primary truths in favor of false bias.

This commercial isn’t divisive: but you can choose to make it so and many will walk that path paved in bile stones.

 

Sarah Sanders continues her “I Know You Are but What Am I?” Press strategy

Sarah Sanders continues with her “I know you are but what am I” press strategy that resonates so well with Trump’s stalwarts.

Sarah Sanders presents the official White House policy: The media is the enemy of the people — Amber Phillips, The Washington Post

When President Trump derides the media as the enemy of the people — as he’s doing more frequently — he’s not just spouting off his momentary frustration. He’s stating official White House policy.

The White House just made that abundantly clear. Four times in two days, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was offered the opportunity by reporters to clarify whether the president really thinks journalists are the enemy of Americans, or that it’s wrong for people to harass journalists doing their job. It wouldn’t be the first time an official White House statement contradicted something the president said or tweeted.

But four times in two days, Sanders refused to say that the media is not the enemy of the people or to condemn people who heckled a CNN reporter Tuesday in Tampa, to the point where he feared someone was going to get hurt.

Instead, the White House press secretary ticked off a list of sometimes-inaccurate and sometimes-unrelated grievances about how these hyperpartisan times have affected her life and the president’s life, and why they blame journalists for that.

via Sarah Sanders presents the official White House policy: The media is the enemy of the people

Gerrymander Much Michigan? New Emails reveal GOP segregating districts by party and race

Demonstrating once more that the GOP only cares about power.

Republicans in the state have denied that they sought partisan gain when they drew new legislative boundaries in 2011. But a federal lawsuit, which argues the maps are unconstitutional, has unearthed records showing Republicans intent on drawing boundaries that would help their party.

The emails, disclosed in a filing on Monday, boast of concentrating “Dem garbage” into four of the five southeast Michigan districts that Democrats now control, and of packing African-Americans into a metropolitan Detroit House district. One email likened a fingerlike extension they created in one Democratic district map to an obscene gesture toward its congressman, Representative Sander M. Levin.

“Perfect. It’s giving the finger to Sandy Levin,” the author of the message wrote. “I love it.”

via New Emails Show Michigan Republicans Plotting to Gerrymander Maps – The New York Times

White House on banning CNN reporter from event

until they ask us a tough question, or unless we are at a campaign rally inciting our audience against them, or unless we are tearing down objective reporting in general by claiming “Fake NEWS!”

Let me translate humorously:

“We support a free press (until they ask us a tough question, or unless we are at a campaign rally inciting our audience against them, or unless we are tearing down objective reporting in general by claiming “Fake NEWS!”, and finally unless we are just in a mood to serially lie to them and the American public.)

The White House on Wednesday pushed back on reports that it banned CNN from a press event, saying it supports “a free press.”

According to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House banned a specific reporter because it expects “everyone to be respectful of the presidency and guests at the White House.”

“At the conclusion of a press event in the Oval Office a reporter shouted questions and refused to leave despite repeatedly being asked to do so,” Sanders said in a statement.

via White House on banning CNN reporter from event: ‘We support a free press’

CNN’s Response:

 

Buyers tied to Russia, Soviet republics made 86 all cash sales

Was it for favors or things beyond the condos, or were they just laundering money?

Was it for favors or things beyond the condos, or were they just laundering money?

— BY ANITA KUMAR

Aleksandr Burman, a Ukrainian who engaged in a health care scheme that cost the federal government $26 million and was sentenced to a decade in prison, paid $725,000 cash for a condo at a Trump Tower I in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. in 2009.

Leonid Zeldovich, who has reportedly done extensive business in the Russian-annexed area of Crimea, bought four Trump units outright at a cost of more than $4.35 million, three of them in New York City between 2007 and 2010.

And Igor Romashov, who served as chairman of the board of Transoil, a Russian oil transport company subject to U.S. sanctions, paid $620,000 upfront for a unit at a building adorned with the future U.S. president’s name in Sunny Isles Beach in 2010.

Buyers connected to Russia or former Soviet republics made 86 all-cash sales — totaling nearly $109 million — at 10 Trump-branded properties in south Florida and New York City, according to a new analysis shared with McClatchy. Many of them made purchases using shell companies designed to obscure their identities.

| McClatchy Washington Bureau
via Buyers tied to Russia, Soviet republics made 86 all cash sales | McClatchy Washington Bureau