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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:34:07 GMT -8
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
If You Think Traffic is Bad on Earth ...
In September 2021, Rwanda announced that it was planning to launch over 300,000 satellites. Three months later, a Canadian company, having previously launched two dozen CubeSats, said it would launch an additional 100,000. Then, a French company did likewise. And SpaceX, which has already launched around 5,000 satellites, now has plans for over 60,000 more.
There are currently only about 8,000 active satellites in orbit. What’s going on?
Before a satellite is launched, a nation state must file its proposed satellite system with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to coordinate radiofrequency spectrum on behalf of the satellite operator, which could be a company, university or government agency.
These filings are made years ahead of the satellite launch, so the ITU can oversee coordination between different satellite operators and ensure that new satellite signals don’t drown existing ones out.
In a new Policy Forum article published in Science, we found that, between 2017 and 2022, countries collectively made filings for over one million satellites across more than 300 separate systems of multiple satellites working together, known as constellations.
This creates two intertwined problems. Either many of these satellites will actually be launched, causing an environmental crisis through thousands of rocket launches into increasingly crowded Earth orbits, or operators are filing for more satellites than they intend to launch, perhaps with a view to hedging their bets, getting investor attention or selling the portions of radio spectrum for profit.
A closer look shows that the latter option is more likely.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:35:57 GMT -8
He's a Loser, and He's Not What He Appears to Be.
Engoron made clear who is in charge, and it knocked Trump for such a loop that he didn’t realize he was crushing his own case by making devastating admissions on the stand — including that he intended to use the company’s financial statements to induce lenders like Deutsche Bank to give more money. Trust that Engoron, who will decide the fate of Trump and his prized business empire, didn’t miss that.
If that dramatic courtroom smackdown wasn’t enough, voters had more bad news for Trump.
Characterizing this week’s election results in states like Ohio, where voters gave state constitutional protection to reproductive rights, as merely a referendum against antiabortion proponents misses the forest for the very important trees. It was about so much more than abortion. It’s about freedom and democracy.
Democrats have found a winning strategy by hammering home the importance of protecting actual liberty, real freedom, and legitimate choice for all Americans. That’s not just about reproductive freedom but also protecting our institutions, bolstering voting protections, having quality schools that teach history accurately, meaningful gun control, and more. That is a stinging loss not just for Trump but also for those who enabled and helped him.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:37:28 GMT -8
Losers, Losers, Everywhere
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin chose a riskier path, putting all his chips on new restrictions on abortion, and on Tuesday, he lost that bet. Democrats have won back control of the state House of Delegates and kept the state Senate, a resounding win that means they can not only block his attempts to limit abortion, but begin the process of putting a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access before voters—a move he can’t yet veto.
The candidates predictably focused on bread-and-butter issues like crime and education on the campaign trail and in most of their ads. But Youngkin’s focus-grouped and poll-tested Big Idea was to neutralize the issue of abortion—a losing issue for Republicans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year—by focusing on a 15-week ban, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
If the plan had worked, Youngkin would have instantly been a national Republican hero, showing the party how to overcome its greatest weakness with suburban women voters in a key state. Already, some big-money donors nervous about Donald Trump’s chances of winning next November had been talking up Youngkin as a potential savior who could swoop into the Republican presidential primary and be offered as an alternative.
That was about as likely to happen as, well, Larry Hogan or Chris Christie beating Trump. But it’s definitively over now, and Youngkin’s abortion plan is a big reason. Voters keep telling Republicans they want to protect access to abortion. In 2022, they rejected anti-abortion measures in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana and backed abortion rights measures in California, Michigan, and Vermont. Earlier this year, they flipped the majority in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court over the issue. And on Tuesday, they enshrined abortion rights in the Ohio state constitution. Virginia proved no different.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:43:11 GMT -8
Poles Vault in Value
Electric cars. The solar build-out. Washington’s rural-broadband initiative. Utilities bracing the grid for stronger storms. They all depend on the same thing: big trees.
The utility-pole business is booming, thanks to a flood of public and private infrastructure spending. So the hunt is on for the tallest, straightest, knot-free conifers, which are peeled, dried and pressure-treated at facilities such as Koppers Holdings’ pole plant in southeastern Georgia’s pinelands.
Employees cruise surrounding pine plantations, marking pole-worthy loblolly and longleaf and making offers. The bigger, the better these days, given how much more equipment and cable poles must hold in the era of fiber optics and electric cars, said Jim Healey, Koppers’ vice president of utility and industrial products.
For landowners, especially the families and individuals who grow much of the South’s pine, the pole boom means higher prices for standout trees than what sawmills pay.
Shareholders of the two firms that dominate the American pole business—as well as railroad ties—have also been winners. Over the past year, Pittsburgh’s Koppers and Montreal’s Stella-Jones are up 38% and 91%, respectively, compared with a 14% rise in the S&P 500 stock index.
“Demand right now in North America for utility poles is outpacing capacity,” said Stella-Jones Chief Executive Éric Vachon.
This summer Stella bought pole facilities in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, where it also opened a new peeling plant. Additional plants are planned for next year in British Columbia and North Carolina. Stella also installed automated drilling equipment at its Eugene, Ore., facility and is looking for other places robots can speed output.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:44:30 GMT -8
Could He Finally Go to Jail?
Attorneys for former Trump chief White House strategist Steve Bannon and federal prosecutors are set to appear in a Washington, D.C., courtroom on Thursday for oral arguments over whether a jury's conviction of Bannon last year should be overturned.
The political strategist was found guilty in July 2022 of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Judge Carl Nichols subsequently sentenced Bannon to 4 months in prison but agreed to suspend the sentence — which also included $6,500 in financial penalties — as he appealed the conviction due to what the judge characterized as unresolved constitutional questions.
Bannon, a private citizen at the time of the Jan. 6 committee's work, was charged after he rejected demands that he sit for a deposition and hand over records relevant to the congressional probe. The congressional investigators were interested in Bannon's work in over a dozen key areas, ranging from his communications with former President Trump to his knowledge of coordination between right-wing extremist groups in carrying out the assault on the U.S. Capitol.
During the trial, prosecutors told the jury that Bannon thought he was "above the law" and "thumbed his nose" at congressional demands. Bannon himself did not testify and his legal team called no witnesses.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:46:08 GMT -8
He's Found Someone Just as Unqualified as He Is.
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he’d consider former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson to be his running mate if he becomes the GOP’s 2024 nominee.
“I like Tucker a lot, I guess I would,” Trump responded to conservative radio host Clay Travis’ question about considering Carlson as a potential vice president on Wednesday’s episode of “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.”
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:47:58 GMT -8
Who Says American Ingenuity is Dead? We Are Still Finding New Ways to Kill People.
Alabama has scheduled the nation’s first execution by nitrogen hypoxia, an alternative to lethal injection, its Republican governor said.
Kenneth Eugene Smith’s execution by lethal injection was abruptly canceled in November after the state couldn’t properly set the IV line before the warrant for execution expired. He asked the state to be put to death by nitrogen gas rather than lethal injection after what he called a botched execution.
Smith’s execution now is set to take place between January 25 and 26, according to a news release from Gov. Kay Ivey.
Death by nitrogen hypoxia deprives the brain and body of oxygen, so the inmate would die by suffocation, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit that monitors, analyzes and disseminates information about capital punishment.
The new development in Smith’s case comes after Alabama paused executions last fall and reviewed its execution process after problems with lethal injections came into the national spotlight.
Alabama finalized the first-ever execution protocols for the new method in August after its legislature in 2018 approved the alternative method to lethal injection, the Death Penalty Information Center said. The state has 165 inmates on death row, according to the state department of corrections.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 9, 2023 9:50:44 GMT -8
The QOP Is Busy With Stuff.
You might think that with another government shutdown looming due to the inability of House Republicans to do even the most basic of their assigned tasks, they might at some point stop throwing pies, towel off a bit, and get to that. Nope. Not going to happen. But there's always time for little performative stunts, which is what we got on Thursday. Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney introduced an amendment to their budget plan that would reduce the salary of Biden administration press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to $1.
It’s obviously not meant to become law. This is one of the stunts that's now a go-to move for any House Republican who has a bone to pick with any government official. "Defund" them all! That'll show them!
So far, House Republicans have attempted to defund the office of the vice president and reduce Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's salary to $1, while simultaneously:
The Pentagon’s director of diversity and inclusion, the head of the department’s equity and inclusion office, the military’s chief diversity officer, and the assistant secretary of defense for readiness — a transgender woman — were all targeted with amendments that would trim their annual salary to less than $1.
House Republicans also approved a measure to reduce Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's salary to $1.
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