science

Finally, Something Good…

by MyBaconPress

1972. That was the last year the United States sent anybody into space. I mean, out of Earth’s influence. By it’s very name, the International Space Station (ISS) should be understood to be in “space.” Don’t go there without a helmet. And air. You’ll want air. But the ISS is still influenced by Earth’s atmosphere. Not much, mind you. It’s why you gotta take your own air. But it’s still, technically, in Earth’s atmosphere.

Now an Artemis II rocket is taking four astronauts out of Earth’s atmosphere and going around the moon, and THAT hasn’t happened since 1972. Fifty-four years. In fact, this crew will travel farther from Earth than any human ever before – 252,000 miles. Humans went to the moon several times. (Oh, stop it, yes we did.) Then we stopped.

I’ve always seen that as a shame. Had we continued going, we could have a permanent station up there by now. We could have been learning more about the moon and the solar system by being there. Not for long, mind you. Each crew would have to get out after a relatively short time, like they have to at the ISS. It seems lack of gravity is rough on the human body. But I still believe humanity could have learned a LOT if we had kept at it

A couple of areas where human beings make zippy-quick advancements are war and space. We’ve gained a LOT of technology from those two pursuits. For the last fifty-four years, and forever before that, the focus has been war. We’ve gained a lot of technology from our various and sundry efforts to kill each other in as quick and creative ways as possible.

We used to gain technologies from the space race, too. Then we abdicated that gain. Now we’re going back. These days, I don’t get to write about very many good things, but this is a good thing…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Make an investment betting the oil market is about to tank. SCREAM about dropping more bombs. The market tanks, you clean up. Make an investment betting that the market is about to pick up. Make an announcement that talks are going great and the war is probably nearly over. The market rebounds, you clean up. See how that works?

Heads, I win, tails, I win again. 47 told us straight up, too. He told us that when oil prices are high “we make a lot of money,” remember? It’s not his fault YOU are not part of his “we…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

According to a report from the Brookings Institution, mail-voting fraud is exceedingly rare. Such cases account for 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, which amounts to roughly four cases out of every 10 million votes. Four cases, every 10 million votes. It simply is NOT a problem and anybody who says otherwise is straight up lying…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m glad to hear the war will be over in another two or three weeks. I know it because Donny said so last night on TV. I’m sure it will be a different “two or three weeks” than the last time he told us it would be over in about two or three weeks. Or the time before that. I feel certain THIS “two or three” weeks is the real two or three weeks, not like those other cheap-ass two or three weeks. It’s either that, or he’s lying again…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently, President Pedo thought maybe he could bring his self-described “magnificent presence” to the Roberts Supremely Corrupt Kangaroo Court and maybe intimidate his boot-licking sycophants into doing his evil bidding yet again. It doesn’t seem to have worked. He wants to end birthright citizenship. Sure, it’s in the Constitution, but he doesn’t like it.

No, he didn’t try an amendment, which is the way he would have to change the Constitution according to the Constitution. He used an Executive Order, which doesn’t even carry the weight of law, even though everyone is pretending it does. Well, apparently, except for the Supremely Corrupt Court. They don’t seem too keen on ending birthright citizenship.

The court WILL rule for him if they can. But in this case, the Constitution reads: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.’ Where’s the wiggle room in that? The Constitution just might win this one…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking on 47’s harmful and destructive tariffs, Dario Perkins, the head of global research at the consultancy TS Lombard said, “If it was possible for Trump to have spent the last 14 months on the golf course, we would be in a better place.” Of course, that’s true of everything he has done, everything he has touched, and everything he even thinks about. He’s just a disaster…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Golden Colander

Have you seen this? It’s called, ‘The Golden Colander.’ It’s a fountain, raining down water on Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend and co-conspirator as a metaphor for how leaky the stupid ‘Golden Dome’ idea is. The umbrella looking thing is a colander, not a dome. Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry’s fame, put this statue up in the National Mall. It depicts a dumbass who thinks he can build a space-based defensive system that will destroy any and all rockets aimed at the US. The dumbass in question calls it a “Golden Dome.” Ben Cohen says it’s more like a “Golden Colander” because it’s just chock full of holes.

The proposed system is expensive. VERY expensive. At a time when Americans are being thrown off of various forms of assistance because nobody can afford anything, we still seem to have come up with lots and lots of money – a nearly endless supply, in fact – for the military. But the cost of the system isn’t the main concern. The most important concern is that such programs don’t work and they never have.

This is just a new name for Evil Ronnie’s ‘Star Wars’ system. That one didn’t work, either. Occasionally, a “test” would be presented that showed one missile hitting another to boost support for the wasteful program. Then we would learn the people in charge had pre-programmed the “shooter” missile with exact coordinates or even put a receiver in the “incoming” missile to direct the “defender” missile – just like enemies would not.

If it was up to me – and it’s not – I would put less money into fantasy defense systems and more into benefits for the American people…

Clever, Not Intelligent…

by MyBaconPress

For various reasons, recently I’ve been contemplating the question of human uniqueness in the galaxy. There’s a possibility that we – humans – are the only, um, “intelligent” species currently in existence anywhere in the galaxy. That’s what we call ourselves, “intelligent.” I see a lot of room for questions. We call ourselves “intelligent” because we’ve decided the criteria to our own advantage. I guess that’s clever. I’ll keep using that description, “intelligent,” since there’s no one around to debate the point. Please just understand, I’m not convinced.

Personally, I don’t really accept that we’re the only. I’m also not a big believer in aliens visiting Earth. But they must be out there. The one fact I have – a thing I know for sure – is that life finds a way. One hears scientists speculate that they can’t see how life could exist in such-and-such an environment only to find such an environment, discover life DOES exist there, and then figure out how. They found a lichen that sucks moisture from rocks! Update the records.

I currently subscribe to the idea that there are other “intelligent” species out there. They rise to a certain technological level – about where we are right now, by the way – and then do something spectacularly stupid – confident, at the time, in their own intelligence. They either wipe themselves out entirely, or knock themselves back to their own Stone Age and have to start again.

But if it IS true that we, the species, are, in fact, the only “intelligent” species ever to rise to this level, we’re sure doing a lousy job of representing “intelligence.” I mean, if we ARE the singular example – and there’s no evidence of aliens elsewhere – don’t we have a high obligation to represent better than we’re doing? Don’t we have a moral obligation to be the best we can be? Is that how it looks to you?

We’ve put ourselves directly on a path to our own destruction. We KNOW it. We’re doing it anyway. “Well, sure, Dan, we ARE going to wipe ourselves out of existence day-after-tomorrow, but we really need to maximize shareholder value today.” That suggests we’ve been FAR to generous in our own description of ourselves. We’ve been, here it is again, clever, not “intelligent.” We find solutions to common problems and we use skills in practical ways. But do we have a high level of understanding and cognitive ability?

Would an intelligent species really just continue to abuse it’s own environment, ignoring each and every warning sign as it comes up? Would a genuinely intelligent species really risk wiping itself off the planet using weapons so powerful we can accomplish that feat by accident? No, there are many, many contraindicators regarding our own, self-described “intelligence.”

The current form of human has been around for something like 300,000 years. It makes sense that, early on, we might have settled differences by trying to kill each other. But 300,000 years later and we STILL haven’t figured out a better, more civilized way? How is that “intelligent?” What we DID was come up with better ways to accomplish the same old goal. Clever.

Early on, there weren’t enough of us to affect our environment. There are now, and we’re doing it. We know we’re doing it. We care, just not enough to stop doing it. It would be very inconvenient. A storm just passed over Michigan and the tornadoes that came with it killed at least six people. The storm-front was born down near Texas and maintained it’s strength as it crossed the continent into Michigan. That’s climate change. More powerful storms. We KNOW it.

We also know what causes it. I’m pretty sure an intelligent species would realize the situation, then seek and implement a better way. We even know the better way we need to pursue! Instead, we’re doubling down on the things we KNOW we need to stop doing if we want to survive this thing. That’s a pretty high stakes game we, the so-called “intelligent” species, are playing.

If we were intelligent, shouldn’t we have left the trappings of ignorance behind by now? Shouldn’t we learn from previous mistakes and find ways to keep from making them again? But we don’t do that. We just keep making the same mistakes, over and over again. That’s not intelligent. But we repeat those mistakes more efficiently and effectively, because we’re clever. Lovely.

As a species, we have (had?) tremendous potential. Unfortunately, our potential has been overshadowed by our application. While we call ourselves “intelligent,” we’re actively involved in exactly the kind of spectacular stupidity that will roll us back to our Stone Age or possibly wipe us out, entirely. Hey, at least we’ll be clever about it…