Update no.1044

 Update from the Sunland

No.1044

10.1.22 – 16.1.22

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

 

            To all,

 

            The follow-up news items:

-- The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) deployment [1041] continues and achieved another major milestone. The JWST completely unfolded all of its elements. The initial alignment of the 18 primary hexagonal mirrors began on Wednesday and is expected to take ten days. As they begin to exercise the telescope, the JWST team expects to make progressively smaller adjustments to the mirror to bring all 18 primary mirrors into focus.  In another two weeks, the team will execute the orbital insertion burn to establish the JWST in its halo orbit around L2. The calibration and certification phase will take several months beyond the orbital stabilization completion.

 

Roughly two dozen state legislatures have passed restrictive voting laws in the name of better voting security under the guise of the BIG LIE. For the record, I see this effort in an entirely different light.

To make sure only true patriotic citizens can cast their vote let us amend the voting laws to the effect that only citizens who can name all 50 states can vote. No, better yet, let us pass a law that only citizens who can name all 50 state capitols can vote. Since we are going that far, how about only a citizen who can write a three-page essay on the constitutional presidential election process with less than five grammatical errors. The fBICP seeks the status quo ante, so hey, let us go all the way back to the founding. The strict constructionist judges would love that; so, only male, white, Protestant, English-speaking, landowners who could read can vote. My goodness, we are making progress. We are restoring this once grand republic to the glory days and greatness of our founding.

 

I offer another extraction from a different group forum.
The instigating message:

“Perhaps I might ask for clarification Cap: Gonna put you on the spot--Do you consider the unvaccinated "dangerous to human life"??? If you communicate back in the affirmative, by logical conclusion, that would seem you identify with the unvaccinated as being categorized as domestic terrorists [??]. Let me take this further, if I am correct (I may be wrong), do you then see those not accepting the COVID VAX as a group needing encampment or to be placed in prisons, or even executed?”

My response:

No, to all your questions; I do not, period, full stop.

I see the unvaccinated as a threat to our health care system. The unvaccinated enable the virus to replicate, multiply, and worse mutate. If the unvaccinated sign and present a DNR-like certified statement that they reject medical treatment should they become infected, then I am good with allowing each individual to choose to make themselves available for infection. The central issue from the get-go of this pandemic has been and remains the saturation of our medical treatment capacity. To me, the unvaccinated do not have the right to deny medical treatment to me or my family by their saturation of the medical treatment establishment. So, as far as I am concerned, stay our of the hospitals, and you, or anyone else, can do what you wish. If the unvaccinated are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices and do their part to protect others around them, then they should not enjoy the freedoms the rest of us enjoy.

 

At 17:10 [M] (local time) {04:10 [Z] GMT}, Saturday, 15.January.2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai underwater volcano violently erupted registering 7.4 on the Richter scale and sent a tsunami across the Pacific Ocean. A Japanese weather satellite captured the explosion:

See the 16.January.2022 edition of spaceweather:

https://spaceweather.com

The satellite video of the undersea volcanic eruption near to the South Pacific Island of Tonga graphically displays the shockwave that was heard thousands of miles away. The resultant tsunami was not as bad as it very easily could have been. The volcano has a history of eruptions and is actually a complex of surface and subsurface elements. This particular eruption appears to have come from the subsurface portion of the caldera at roughly 200 meters depth.

 

            Comments and contributions from Update no.1043:

Comment to the Blog:

“I’m glad the space telescope deployment is going smoothly, and I look forward to scientific advances from it.

“I’m still surprised the ‘Cyber Ninja’ operation didn’t claim fraud in the Arizona election.

“There are a few differences from one election to another since 1992. The biggest one is that in those elections that Republicans won we chose them by a minority of voters. If we had ‘one voter, one vote’ as our guide, we wouldn’t have elected the malignant narcissist or Bush the Younger.

“What happens when Agent Orange’s age and lack of fitness catch up with him?

“I’ll note that mistrust of government has worsened as our government handles the pandemic with so much less competence than any other in the world. That’s more about capitalistic medicine and decades of budget cuts for emergency management than anything else.”

My response to the Blog:

Me as well. We will undoubtedly see things we have never seen before. Hubble has imaged astronomical phenomena back to about 10B years. They expect JWST to image things back to nearly the Big Bang, circa 13.7B years. More importantly, from my perspective, JWST will substantially expand the Kepler Telescope data with more precise, detailed, exoplanet observations.

Yeah. As I stated, this whole Cyber Ninjas audit is an odiferous concoction fully intended to validate the BIG LIE, and it did quite the opposite. Even though the audit tallied more votes for President Biden than the original official vote count, I do not place much weight in what they did predominately because of the way it was done—decidedly partisan.

We have debated the Electoral College for some time. Our opinions have not changed. I concede that the reality of the 2016 election is a graphic demonstration of the consequences of the Electoral College process, but the rules have been the same for centuries.

We will witness the end of days for “Agent Orange.” My contention is that moment should come in his isolation prison cell.

The mistrust of government is far broader than the pandemic. Nonetheless, your observations are certainly contributors. President Biden has been unable to right the ship after the disastrous stage setting by the previous administration. With the previous POTUS standing up before us and saying, hey, try this, try that, while he gets the absolute best medical treatment for his infection, hardly instill confidence in the government. If we had 330M N95 masks in strategic stockpile in January 2020, I doubt we would have had such an abysmal response outcome.

 

Another contribution:

“Great description of the latest of our country's many extra-terrestrial victories, named for one of our relatively under appreciated patriots!

“As to the rest of 1043, I find it insightful, if somewhat repetitious for your regular followers, but I wish you would (as I have repeatedly demanded of the doomed GOP beggars who want but won't get my money until they comply) apologize for inadvertently implying early in your message that we good faith Tea Party supporters are generally right-wing nuts. We saw a possible solution to the evils of our sad two-party system, and with over-optimistic hope we shouted warnings!

“There was merit in our intentions and initial actions, and our leaders suffered greatly at the hands of the GOP so-called leadership. I expect you to give credit where credit is due, my friend. Keep up your good work!”

My reply:

Yeah, thanks, I have great expectations for what we will learn from JWST and all the other space endeavors. Under appreciated, perhaps, but his name is permanently on that magnificent machine. The products from JWST will forever have the name James Webb attached.

My apologies for the repetition, but the stimulants continue to instigate my words, and we are a long way from being done with this episode in our history.

If the shoe fits, wear it. To me, the Tea Party is quite akin to communism—a noble concept grossly distorted by bad men. Respectfully, any generalization of human behavior or conduct is by definition flawed, because human beings, especially in a free society, tend to be unique and thus do not lend themselves to generalization. From my perspective, my ire is focused on the leaders, e.g., Jordan, Meadows, et al, and not on the rank & file. Turning to a man as deeply flawed and afflicted as [the person who shall no longer be named] is a sign of desperation. The same desperation led good German citizens to fall victim to the Siren’s Song. I did not point my remarks and observations at you or any other Tea Party member other than those leaders who have commandeered the former GOP and subverted it into the fBICP. The Tea Party was built upon distrust of government. Every time an American citizen publicly states their unwavering commitment to the BIG LIE, we need no more evidence. The BIG LIE is a direct affront to the U.S. Constitution. You and I swore an oath.

Now, that said, I share many of the foundation positions of the Tea Party. I share your aggravation with the conduct of our two-party political system. My criticism of both political parties goes back to years long before the Blog came into existence. But, to me, the Tea Party led directly to [the person who shall no longer be named] and the fBICP. That fact alone yields my condemnation. I am truly so sorry that you and other good Tea Party members are caught up in that denunciation, but I cannot find an adequate filtration algorithm.

With all due respect, if the fBICP is the consequence of the GOP resistance to the Tea Party, then I will content the frustration of the Tea Party has been misapplied.

One last point, Adolf Hitler had many notable accomplishments, e.g. the Autobahn network, increased employment, scientific & engineering achievements; however, his infamous outrages to humanity vastly exceed all the other benefits combined. Such is the conduct of [the person who shall no longer be named]. He did not kill millions of innocent people, but the destruction he has wrought on this once grand republic cannot possibly be overstated; thus, he must be listed with that previous dictator in that rogue’s gallery.

 

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)