Friends, support for Nigel Farage's anti-woke, anti-immigration, anti-establishment Reform Party in the UK continues to grow, and he's getting interest now from a seemingly unlikely quarter: Elon Musk. Musk is considering donating to the upstart movement, which certainly threatens the Conservative Party from the right, and may even become a contender to rule the country. The disruptive effects of the Trump-Musk alliance, it seems, know no bounds...
Meanwhile, the fall of the House of Trudeau in Canada seems imminent, as even Justin Trudeau's own Liberal Party balks at supporting him. He's become a major drag on the Liberals, and I feel confident that, sooner rather than later, we will have sane, responsible partners up north. That's good. We want the 51st state to be well governed, do we not?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn54elwep72o
President Biden is reassuring the American people that there's nothing "nefarious" about all those drones that have been spotted in the northeast. Maybe there isn't. Maybe this is another case of UFO hysteria. Time will tell. All I know is that I haven't seen any malevolent drones stalking me...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2q1e238lo
Lastly, the time is coming when humans will live -- permanently -- on the Moon and Mars. What's equally interesting is how many countries, and companies, are part of this new and improved "space race". India is chomping at the bit to make waves in space. Could the first manned habitat on another planetary body smell like curry? It wouldn't shock me...
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I would not put it past Musk, should Comrade Starmer enact measures to prevent him from using his formidable wealth to directly benefit Farage's (I would venture , inevitable)rise to power, to establish a quasi "Radio Free Britain" . The left everywhere flourishes only in dark reaches, like mold does. It cannot stand the light of day. It would be redeeming to see the modern world's prototypical democracy helped so by this budding Prometheus, Musk. He was, after all, once one of the Queen's Commonwealth subjects, yes?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Canada:it may well be that the far left is wearing out its welcome in very many places which have given it a chance and which regret having done so.
ReplyDeleteOh my, we are by PM Trudeau chastised for having refused to dutifully elect as President two women with obnoxious overbearing personalities and reflexive condemnation of all views opposite to theirs, simply because they are women. So sorry!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I've never seen anything like this : a President -Elect with this much influence on policy.
ReplyDeleteThe 1500 page Federal porkfest derailed by DJT and , apparently, with much say so from Musk (are we going to have a Prime Minister?) manifested a cynical practice very familiar to anyone who been a supervisor in government. Usually it is celebrated at the end of a fiscal year; this time its at the prospective end of an era. "Find something, anything, to spend the rest of it on or we'll lose the money next year!"was the usual directive. Maybe this time, if you are the one who mandates it it could cost you your job.
Far left and surviving rump RINOs: their desperation is building with ever increasing velocity; "why this guy actually means what he says.What the hell are we going to do?"
I wonder how much the imposition of "wokeness" depends on funding. Taking the moola away from it might be a good way to deep six it.
One of the first things this GOP Congress should do is give this President the line item veto and let him set Musk and Ramaswamy loose to BUSTLE!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: India is not a totalitarian dictatorship like the USSR was when it made such monumental advances in space.The Soviets simply subordinated their subjugated population's standard of living to financing their effort.
ReplyDeleteOne of the great stories of our time is the rise of India to greatly increased economic vitality. Destitution in India was a terrible, seemingly intractable curse. I wonder if a far stronger private sector is involved in India's space effort. I hope the apparent fact that India has the financial wherewithal to do this is indicative of a corresponding continuing rise in Indian quality of life. I think that perhaps 50 years ago India's deliverance from desperation was not widely foreseen.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: MSNBC has sounded the stirring clarion call! Why the watch is on for lanterns in the belfry of Old North Church! "The Trumpians are on their way. Get ready to resist the oppressors!" they bleat most bitter.
ReplyDeleteThey know all about that stuff. After they won in 2020 they resolved to seal the deal and the "by any means necessary" machine swung into line, throttle to the fore! "Trump had his nerve getting in our way, he did, him and his deplorables. When we are done with him that trash will never try to stop us again! We are the vanguard of justice, equity and perfection".
In having directed their amoral onslaught on him, really ever since he dared heresy to express doubt about them 2015, they grossly misused our legal system, employing all manner of flimsy pretexts to engulf DJT in a Laocoon like suffocating embrace of endless legal procedure. "The verdicts don't really count that much, its all the hassling it will cause him , that's why we do it. We'll wear him down. And if we do get a conviction or a judgement, we'll make the most of it. Hey, criminals do this all the time; they know how to "game" our system and it works, so lets use it. "
It may well occur to them that in this now terribly failed tactic they have committed creditably actionable offenses (eg. civil rights violations, official misconduct etc.) Naturally they fear MAGA working vindictive retribution on them; why its just what they did too. But they used indefensible legal arguments, which have been almost completely discredited, both by the courts and the electorate (eg. Fani Willis and her ersatz prosecutor paramour off the case; good bye).
What must cause the far left innumerable Maalox moments and truly tempestuous sleep is the distinct possibility that they may be taken to legal task for very plausible and prosecutable reasons.
Let them take to their political barricades. They are in for a richly deserved reckoning for their incipient totalitarian actions, which, just incidentally, fairly predict how they would RULE had they the chance.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I treasure the unique fascination for our advances in space which may only bless those of my generation or before, for whom it was all once science fiction. It will always be astonishing to me. But . .
ReplyDeleteAside from the physically miniscule incursions we have made on Antarctica, I see little justification for us to purpose similar habitation on Mars.It may some day be a way station on well thought out further exploration of our solar system (beyond? Gads ,who knows?).
First, if we think we may run out of room on Earth ( that's a hard sell; there is central Asia, the American Great Plains, Northern Canada and Alaska, Greenland, Siberia and Antarctica itself) talk about "Terra forming" Mars should take a back seat. Eg. all the aforementioned places have our atmosphere and a far more salubrious juxtaposition with the sun and the rest of our world. We should at least practice such "fundamental transformation" here on the good old earth first, if we must, before we hazard transporting it to Mars, a place to which we are still incapable of transporting and returning even a very small crew.
There is fascination aplenty already available and increasing exponentially apace.Thoughts of planets around other stars (entirely aside, we can still detect them only in relative near space; that's not yet a sufficient sample from which to deduce a commonality of planets in our galaxy or beyond ); of "planets" beyond the recently demoted Pluto in our own solar system; of a humanly touched machine now in the unimaginable loneliness of interstellar space (!!!), can be more than enough to inspire and justify well thought out space exploration.
Can we one day travel routinely to very deep space? Maybe, but it may be a perhaps indescribably difficult venture, which must be balanced with earthly necessities (?).
Dr. Waddy from Jack: And we have the oceans and since they are readily available, living in or on them seems a more plausible prospect than trying to settle desolate Mars.
ReplyDeleteHi Jack. Alas, South Africa left the Commonwealth long before little Elon saw the light of day.
ReplyDeleteMy own sense is that Musk's cash didn't have a very great impact on the election outcome in the U.S. in 2024, but Musk's "buzz" may have. The same would be true for British politics, I suspect.
Jack, we are seeing the opening rounds in what I assume will be a massive tussle between Musk and Congress over fiscal reform. Translating DOGE's will into legislation will be a process rife with potential complications!
Jack, that is a good point that India's antics in space bespeak an Indian economy that has made enormous strides. How much money has actually been devoted to cause of putting an Indian man (or a woman) in space? Not a ton.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/isros-total-investment-to-date-is-less-than-a-single-years-budget-of-nasa/articleshow/115304347.cms?from=mdr
Jack, holding rogue leftist prosecutors to account for their campaign of lawfare against DJT would be sweet, but it will not be easy to accomplish. Certainly the voters that elected these prosecutors will never punish them. On the contrary, they got exactly what they voted for! Being thrown off a case, or having charges dismissed, is a disappointment for a prosecutor, but it's all in a day's work... Charging a prosecutor, i.e. prosecuting him/her -- now that's a whole other ball of wax. I would imagine the bar is terribly high...unless, of course, one can find a tame grand jury/jury/judge that will do whatever is asked of it/him/her. Stranger things have happened!
Jack, I believe that Musk agrees with you that settling people on Mars is not a viable commercial venture. There just isn't anything there worth the trip. But he views it as a matter of human survival that we MUST inhabit more than one planet -- "just in case" this one goes boom! I can see his point. Maybe it would make more sense to settle us in space stations and/or on asteroids that are packed with valuable minerals?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I cannot see space stations or asteroids as providing the expanse and available resources we have right here on earth.
ReplyDeleteThe far left would have us believe that humanity has the power to destroy Earth or at least make it unhabitable . But we know that Earthly life has experienced several mass extinctions. I've been right at ground zero in Nagasaki and you would not otherwise know that the indescribable heat and power of nuclear blast had touched down there.
I think that , as a cynical power grab, the far left promotes an image of humanity as far more capable of world wide destruction than it really is. And they represent themselves both as the heralds and as the saviors from, such catastrophe. Nature has immense healing powers, as anyone who neglects a rural clearing knows.
Mining in space? Why? Are there substances there which cannot be found on Earth and which would bring us benefit commensurate with the massive effort their harvest would involve?
As way stations for the scientific exploration of space which is a creditable task for any advanced civilization, yes, asteroids and space stations might serve very well. But if existential goals on other worlds are proposed the form they might take must be the object of intensive dialectic in a free society like ours. The expense might well be unimaginable.
We are already learning of hazards we may not have anticipated (eg. Jupiter's astronomically intense radiation, which could rule out any human approach to its environs). This might only be a miniscule hint of what obstacles we have yet to encounter . The Voyager probes, now fantastically beyond our Solar System, are nonetheless said to be 66,000 years away from arrival at the nearest star!
Humanity's advent in space is a redeeming phenomenom,perhaps the most remarkable of our time. But the endlessly astonishing, nearly infinite heavens manifest wonder far from fully grasped by us yet.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Judging by the ever more swiftly compounding of knowledge and capability manifested in modern civilization, we can expect intensely astonishing progress in the future. I enjoy imagining future interstellar travelers making a point of passing a still "plodding" Voyager on their way.
ReplyDeleteBut if we develop the ability to migrate to other planets let that effort be graced by resolve not to reprise the evils which attended geographic expansion from 1500 to 1900. Who knows what manner of habitation we may find on habitable planets? We'll have to be painstakingly careful about introducing ourselves into another living world. This time lets ensure that we do not suffer our technology to overween our humanity.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In NY state doesn't the Governor have the power to summarily remove DAs? Perhaps executive removal of rogue jurists and prosecutors is widely possible (?).
ReplyDelete