Is it in the public interest to allow Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos et al. to control space?

Book Review: Launching Capitalism Into Space

By Sarah Scoles

https://robrogers.com/

Ashlee Vance’s “When the Heavens Went on Sale” chronicles the scramble among profit-seekers and idealists to create a new economy far above the Earth.

In the beginning of the Space Age, going to orbit — or beyond — was the province of governments. But as the 21st century began liftoff, so, too, did the commercial space industry. 

Private companies now take on tasks that have historically been left to national space agencies and defense organizations, using satellites to observe Earth, facilitate communication, and transport things to and from the planet. These rocket makers, spacecraft builders, and dreamers have become an integral — if not always profitable — part of the space sector.

And it all began, writes Ashlee Vance in “When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach,” with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its Falcon 1 rocket. The first Falcon attempted (and failed) to launch from Omelek Island in 2006. 

SpaceX made the countdown without any luck two more times before finally succeeding on its fourth try, in 2008. “That machine set the action that takes place in this book in motion — and quite likely changed the course of human history,” according to Vance, a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek.

SpaceX gave people a dream to dream: that they themselves could have access to space. Musk “proved that a driven individual aided by a company full of bright, hardworking people could match, and maybe one day best, entire countries,” Vance writes.

In the years since, the private space economy has blossomed, with companies offering space internet, radar data and images from orbit, tracking of satellites and debris, and rides off the globe. In 2020, more than a thousand commercial satellites went to space, compared with just a few a decade before. 

Hey Golf fans, welcome to the Bonesaw Classic

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Death spiral

 

Sosnowski bill changes hiring process for CRMC administrator

New law changes how CRMC administrator is appointed 

Legislation introduced by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski (D-Dist. 37, South Kingstown) and Rep. Arthur Handy (D-Dist. 18, Cranston) that changes the manner in which the administrator of the Coastal Resources Management Council is appointed has been signed into law.

Under the legislation (2023-S 0203, 2023-H 5966A), the governor, rather than the council, will appoint an executive director of the agency. The law also adds the requirement that the gubernatorial appointment be subject to the advice and consent of the Senate. The executive director of Coastal Resources Management will coordinate with the director of the Department of Environmental Management. The law also redefines the purpose of the director to add the planning and management of coastal resources.

Scientists Discover New Benefits of Eating Fatty Fish

The already known benefits were pretty good

By UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND 

A new study from the University of Eastern Finland has found that consumption of fatty fish lowers the lipophilic index, indicative of improved cell membrane fluidity, in individuals with impaired glucose metabolism or coronary heart disease. 

This lower lipophilic index, linked to larger HDL particles and reduced cardiovascular risk, was not seen in participants consuming lean fish or camelina sativa oil.

A recent study conducted by the University of Eastern Finland has discovered that consuming fatty fish can lower the lipophilic index in individuals with impaired glucose metabolism or coronary heart disease.

Anti-vaxxers cause deaths by raising doubts about all vaccines

How the mixed messaging of vaccine skeptics sows seeds of doubt

Darius Tahir 

It was a late-spring House of Representatives hearing, where members of Congress and attendees hoped to learn lessons from the pandemic. Witness Marty Makary made a plea.

“I want to thank you for your attempts at civility,” Makary, a Johns Hopkins Medicine researcher and surgeon, said softly. Then his tone changed. His voice started to rise, blasting the “intellectual dishonesty” and “very bizarre” decisions of public health officials. Much later, he criticized the “cult” of his critics, some of whom “clap like seals” when certain studies are published. Some critics are “public health oligarchs,” he said.

Makary was a marquee witness for this meeting of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. His testimony had the rhythm of a two-step — alternating between an extended hand and a harsh rhetorical slap. It’s a characteristic move of this panel, a Republican-led effort to review the response to the pandemic. Both sides of the aisle join in the dance, as members claim to seek cooperation and productive discussions before attacking their preferred coronavirus villains.

One target of the subcommittee’s Republican members has drawn concern from public health experts: covid-19 vaccines. Because the attacks range from subtle to overt, there’s a fear all vaccines could end up as collateral damage.

Trump Checks All Five Boxes of a Fascist

Call Him What He Is

ROBERT REICH in Robertreich.Substack.Com

The Washington Post calls Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian.” That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs, and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce and charging leakers.

“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference and repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

How do we describe what Trump wants for America? “Authoritarianism” isn’t adequate. It is “fascism.” Fascism stands for a coherent set of ideas different from — and more dangerous than — authoritarianism. To fight those ideas, it’s necessary to be aware of what they are and how they fit together.

Borrowing from cultural theorist Umberto Eco, historians Emilio Gentile and Ian Kershaw, political scientist Roger Griffin, and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, I offer five elements that distinguish fascism from authoritarianism.

Lipstick on a pig

 

Busting the “Paid What You’re Worth” Myth

 

Implants made of jelly (and it's not what you think)

Engineers develop a soft, printable, metal-free electrode

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Do an image search for "electronic implants," and you'll draw up a wide assortment of devices, from traditional pacemakers and cochlear implants to more futuristic brain and retinal microchips aimed at augmenting vision, treating depression, and restoring mobility.

Some implants are hard and bulky, while others are flexible and thin. But no matter their form and function, nearly all implants incorporate electrodes -- small conductive elements that attach directly to target tissues to electrically stimulate muscles and nerves.

Implantable electrodes are predominantly made from rigid metals that are electrically conductive by nature. But over time, metals can aggravate tissues, causing scarring and inflammation that in turn can degrade an implant's performance.

Now, MIT engineers have developed a metal-free, jelly-like material that is as soft and tough as biological tissue and can conduct electricity similarly to conventional metals. 

The material can be made into a printable ink, which the researchers patterned into flexible, rubbery electrodes. The new material, which is a type of high-performance conducting polymer hydrogel, may one day replace metals as functional, gel-based electrodes, with the look and feel of biological tissue.

Alternative to cutting or scoping

Tiny video capsule shows promise as an alternative to endoscopy

George Washington University

While indigestible video capsule endoscopes have been around for many years, the capsules have been limited by the fact that they could not be controlled by physicians. They moved passively, driven only by gravity and the natural movement of the body. 

Now, according to a first-of-its-kind research study at George Washington University, physicians can remotely drive a miniature video capsule to all regions of the stomach to visualize and photograph potential problem areas. 

The new technology uses an external magnet and hand-held video game style joysticks to move the capsule in three-dimensions in the stomach. This new technology comes closer to the capabilities of a traditional tube-based endoscopy.

"A traditional endoscopy is an invasive procedure for patients, not to mention it is costly due to the need for anesthesia and time off work," Andrew Meltzer, a professor of Emergency Medicine at the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences, said. 

“Of us, by us, for us:” Restoring our waters is restoring ourselves

Using water quality research to bring healing and sovereignty to the Apsáalooke.

JoRee LaFrance in Restoring our waters is restoring ourselves - EHN

Author JoRee LaFrance collects a water sample near the headwaters of the Little Bighorn River. Credit: Talon_Lonebear

It was a cold winter day when my káalixaalia, great-grandmother, sat us down to tell stories.

When the snow sticks to the ground, we, as Biiluuke or Our Side, tell our traditional stories so that they are passed down from generation to generation. One of my favorite stories was about a young boy named Uuwaatisaash, or Big Metal, who was pushed off a cliff by his stepfather after a day of hunting. 

As his stepfather returned to camp leaving him to die, Uuwaatisaash heard our language in the distance, and they spoke of saving a boy who was stuck in a shrub. 

The voices he heard were voices of Iisaxpúatahchee Sahpua, the seven sacred Big Horn rams, who saved him and chose to raise him as their own. He grew up into a prominent warrior and was given seven sacred teachings that he would bring back to my people.

When I was 8 years old, a bilingual afterschool program took me on a trip that left memories I still carry. A boat drove us into the deep canyons of Iisaxpúatahcheewilichke, Big Horn Lake. As we cruised by cliffs incised by Iisaxpúatahcheeaashe, the Big Horn River, we witnessed the power that it held: cliff sides looked as if a knife made a clean cut through a cake, except it was through sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous layers of the Earth. 

I will hold this day with me forever because me, my twin sister and other Apsáalooke/Crow youth saw where Uuwaatisaash was pushed off the cliffs, and where Iisaxpúatahchee Sahpua had saved him.

As Biiluuke people, we revere Iisaxpúatahchee Sahpua and we show our honor and respect for them. One of our Apsáalooke warriors, Bear Crane, taught us that in order to honor and respect the power of Iisaxpúatahchee Sahpua, we need to take care of our mountains and rivers. 

“To this day the Bighorn and Little Bighorn Rivers carry the memory of the Seven Sacred Rams,” he said, “we were told to never change the names . . . they have retained their ancient names, assuring that the land will always be ours.”

More evidence that Trump really is nuts

What do those 'beautiful mind paper boxes' say about Donald Trump's mental health?

By Charles Jay in the Daily Kos

One of the most intriguing references in the DOJ’s 37 felony-count indictment against Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case comes during a discussion about whether to remove some boxes of his papers into a storage room.

According to the indictment, Trump Employee 1 says:

“There is still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is. Is it only his papers he cares about? Theres (sic) some other stuff in there that are not papers. Could that go to storage? Or does he want everything there on property.”

Trump Employee 2, whom The New York Times said was identified by multiple people as Trump’s former assistant Molly Michael, replied:

“Yes — anything that’s not the beautiful mind paper boxes can definitely go to storage. Want to take a look at the space and start moving tomorrow AM?”

So what does that reference to “beautiful mind paper boxes” say about their opinion of Trump’s mental state?

The New York Times reported that the phrase “beautiful mind” material was used by aides during Trump’s years in the White House “to refer to the boxes full of papers and odds and ends he carried around with him almost everywhere.”

And where did the reference to “A Beautiful Mind” come from? The Times made this link:

It was a reference to the title of a book and movie depicting the life of John F. Nash Jr., the mathematician with schizophrenia played in the film by Russell Crowe, who covered his office with newspaper clippings, believing they held a Russian code he needed to crack.

The phrase had a specific connotation. The aides employed it to capture a type of organized chaos that Mr. Trump insisted on, the collection and transportation of a blizzard of newspapers and official documents that he kept close and that seemed to give him a sense of security.

One former White House official, who was granted anonymity to describe the situation, said that while the materials were disorganized, Mr. Trump would notice if somebody had riffled through them or they were not arranged in a particular way. It was, the person said, how “his mind worked.”

Now, Nash was an actual genius who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics in 1994 for his pioneering work in game theory. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at age 31 in 1959. His wife Alicia Nash said he developed the idea that all men who wore red ties were part of a Soviet conspiracy against him. 

In the film, he’s depicted as having the delusional belief that he was doing top-secret work for the government  to look for hidden patterns in magazines and newspapers and deliver his results to a secret mailbox to thwart a Soviet plot. 

Donald Trump is a self-described “very stable genius.” But as The Atlantic pointed out, Trump has an aversion to reading. 

Author Michael Wolff, in his book “Fire and Fury,” quoted Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn as writing in an email: “It’s worse than you can imagine … Trump won’t read anything—not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers, nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored.”

That raises the question of why this non-reader is so obsessed with keeping boxes full of written material, including classified documents.

Nothing to see

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After every shooting