THIS is why we should have built new space shuttles

I'm a Baby Boomer.  I was fascinated when Alan Shepard became the first American in space.  And I stayed fascinated until December of 1972 when the Apollo 17 crew came home.  The Space Shuttle didn't grab me the same way.  However, I sat sadly, as the last shuttle landed in 2011.  I wondered that day, how long it would be before the decision to kill the shuttle program and not replace it with some platform, would come home to roost.

The answer is 2 years, 9 months and 8 days.

Russia warned Tuesday that American astronauts on the International Space Station could be hurt by new US-led sanctions over the escalating crisis in Ukraine, where pro-Moscow militants seized more public buildings in the east.

Washington was resorting to "Iron Curtain" policies from its Cold War-era playbook with the new Western sanctions, which were driving the Ukraine crisis towards "a dead end", Moscow raged.

Washington was resorting to "Iron Curtain" policies from its Cold War-era playbook with the new Western sanctions, which were driving the Ukraine crisis towards "a dead end", Moscow raged.
 
The International Space Station is operated jointly by Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada. Astronauts and cosmonauts depend on Russian Soyuz rockets to ferry them between it and Earth, ever since NASA scrapped its space shuttles in 2011.

There is a lot more to the article, but nothing about HOW the astronauts could be harmed.  But the most obvious answer is that they could be denied a return trip to the ground.  Let me say finally, I do not think the gov't is the answer here.  People like Elon Musk or even Richard Branson are.

D.D Harriman!!  Where are you!!!

BTW, I found this article via Yahoo News.  As of 14:00 DST today, not one major media outlet is carrying this story.  And the only American TV station carrying it is WDRB, outta my hometown of Louisville, KY.  That seems sad to me.


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Elk Hunting on a Friday

Two rednecks, Bubba and Jim Bob, are sitting on the front porch of their hunting cabin in Colorado. 

It's the day before Elk Season opens, and as luck would have it, a huge male elk walks right up the drive way, stands about 15 feet from the porch, and starts trumpeting loudly for a female. 

Jim Bob grinning from ear to ear, shakes his head then punches his hunting partner on the shoulder, and says, "Bubba, I hope old big boy there finds himself a girlfriend and knocks off a couple today, 'cause tam'arah he's mine!"

Bubba looks at him and says, "Aw hell, he'll do more'n that! Didn't you know that elks have sex 10 to 15 times a day?"

"WHAT!!", says his Jim Bob, "and just last week, I joined the damned VFW!"
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Schteveo

I'm often amazed at the cascade effect...

For me, one of the coolest things that happens or from which I learn things, is while I'm surfing or doing some kind of look-up or research, and one thing leads to another, and another and another.  I've heard it called the cascade effect. I love it when, each of the jumps uncover some new or interesting topic, but what I really like, is when I find some nugget of truth so profound I go "WOW!".   I like it too, when my stumbling research solidifies something I'd suspected, but couldn't prove.  It would be selfish to keep it to myself, so here's one from today.

Here's the set-up, and before I go on, I don't care a gnats fart about anyone's sexuality.  Gay sex doesn't appeal to me...but I know heterosexuals I don't like taking a shower near...meaning if they're in the same county as my bathroom.  But I digress. 

This morning, I was watching a show I recorded on BBCAM last night, about science fiction, in particular, this episode was about robots.  One of the 'experts' was a scifi writer named [and I shit you NOT] Charlie Jane Anders.  It seems Ms. Anders...Mr.Anders...this Anders person is a writer of scifi herself...himself...yeah, I had to look it up too.

So, ultimately, I can't tell IF this person is a dude or  babe, there is no single marker for male or female...I'm old and hetero...so I go to look up the person herself...himself...themselves...I TOLD you I had to look it the hell up! 

It seems that Charlie Jane Anders, was born male, but is self described as genderqueer and a trans woman, and you'll just HAVE to look 'em up, I did and I've said so repeatedly!

But that aside, Wikipedia bounced up near the top.  But guess what little bon mot popped up down below?  An article, where Ms. Anders was at odds with a Bisexual Women's group called Chasing Amy Social Club of San Francisco.  But here's what I thought was odd about all of them, being, well, at odds.

Ms Anders thought that it was unfair, wrong, not nice that the bi-ladies at Chasing Amy Social Club, didn't 'allow' transgender women to join their club.

WHAT!!!??  HUH??!!  WTF!!!??  HOW, oh HOW, could it BE!!?

Did I even read that shit right?  Hey, haven't we ALL been repeatedly castigated, belittled and shouted down for such things?  It's shouted from the roofs of the all inclusive gay bath houses with regularity, that California in general and San Francisco in particular are all inclusive areas of love, peace and tolerance.  I'm mean seriously, how dare we tell a female gay couple we don't want to make a cake for their gay wedding in our bakery run by narrow minded religious zealots!!!

Anyway, there is an article in the Bay Area Reporter  telling about the fracase.

But, in fairness to Ms. Anders and the bi-ladies of Chasing Amy Social Club, it is from way back in the dark ages of April of 2014...wait, wait, that's NOW!!!!  But I thought...no wait...I was TOLD that there is love and harmony among all these non-hetero groups.  Actually though, I'm just a tad more than hip to that lie, and I have been for years.

I've worked around enough gay men, gay women and bi-sexuals from both sides of the restroom to know that the supposed unity is just that, supposed.  There is no group of humans would rather be in a mixed group, than in a group of like minded, similar thinking people.  It's part of our human, survival matrix to want to stand back to back with someone who thinks like you do!!  We trust that group over any other.  And so WHAT!?  Let them have their group.  Imagine a world where anyone who DIDN'T like the rules your group has, going off and starting their own group!!!  I think the Hindus call it Nirvana!  But that's JUST the Hindus, IF, you start your own group, you call it what ever you want!   

But you know what I like the best about this story.  If I ran the internet, from my own twisted and fever fingered lap top, I couldn't make up this kind of crap.  I'm not twisted enough to give it the time it needs to look just this ridiculous.

After all, with all the crazy cool lies I could make up if I ran the interwebs, why would I try to make up a story about a topic on which I have no divisive feelings, about people who's stock in trade, is to tell us how cool, loving, inclusive and thoughtful they are, while talking trash AT those of us in a category THEY call 'breeders', while, all  while, they exclude each other from their own self-important, look at me, look at me, look at MY organization groups, while daring us to do so, and suing us if we have the unmitigated gall to do so.

You can't make this shit up!  You just can't.
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Schteveo

This week's Phriday Phunny, is all about Disney cancelling their next Movie Project

After the success of 2009's "The Princess and the Frog", which included Disney's first African-American Princess, they had tentatively announced a remake of "Snow White", featuring yet another African-American Princess.  

CNN reported today however, that the Disney organization's new film, called "Jet Black: the African-American Snow White”, has been cancelled.

All of the seven dwarfs -- Dealer, Stealer, Mugger, Forger, Drive By, Homeboy, and Shank -- have refused to sing "Hi Ho" because they say it offends and belittles black prostitutes.

They also say, they have NO intention of EVER singing, "It's off to work we go!''

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Schteveo

Some Phun for a Phriday

Rambling, yet thought provoking, mental hijinks.

I'm not saying, let's go kill all the stupid people.  

I'm simply saying, let's remove all the warning labels and let the problem work itself out Darwinian style.

I changed my car horn to gun shot sounds.  

People REALLY move out of the way much faster now.
 

You can't always tell a lot about a woman's mood, just by her hands.  

But, if she is holding a gun, she's probably angry.
 

Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers.  

Now they drink like their fathers.
 

You know that tingly little feeling you get when you really like someone?  

That's common sense leaving your body.
 

I don't like making plans for the day.

Invariably, the word "premeditated" gets thrown around in  courtrooms.

I didn't make it to the gym again today.  

That makes thirty-five years in a row!

Then again, I decide to stop calling the bathroom the 'john', now I call it the 'jim'.

I feel so much better about myself, saying I went to the 'jim' first thing this morning.

I don't understand paranoid people who check under their beds or behind their shower curtains for muggers, murderers or terrorists.

If they find one, what's their plan exactly?

Hypocrisy goes ALL the way, to the BOTTOM of the Barrel!!!

So, one of the things that I know from a partly mis-spent youth is the following.  "Snitches get Stitches!!"   And the epitome of that sentiment today in America, comes from the African-American Community.  Small children on school buses I've driven knew these rules.

I've seen and worked with guys who would cut their mother, if she ratted them out.  White or black.  Groups of young black or Spanish 'youth' have been know to go after priests and ministers who 'wronged' them, or talked to police or who they THOUGHT had talked to the police.

Then, the group most people know that should NEVER be talked about, the Mafia.

That being the case, given all these things among different and divergent groups, then WHY is Al Sharpton still breathing?  Just the idea that he's a rat, you would think, would get him a bad case of lead poisoning, or maybe he'd fall down a flight of steps or two..

The Rev. Al Sharpton admitted on Tuesday that he helped the FBI investigate New York Mafia figures in the 1980s, even making secret recordings that appeared to help bring down a mob boss.

But at a news conference, Sharpton insisted he never considered himself a confidential informant, despite a report identifying him as the "CI-7" referenced in recently released court records.

"I was never told I was an informant with a number," Sharpton told reporters at his Harlem headquarters in response to the report posted Monday on The Smoking Gun website. "In my own mind, I was not an informant. I was cooperating with an investigation."

Personally, again just personally, it seems like a fine line, of nuanced, rhetorical, semantics to make, the difference on being a brat, and in assisting an investigation.  He didn't 'know' he had a number and that he was an informant?  Aw, BS!

Sharpton would NEVER have spokn to anyone in a position of authority, without a lawyer handy.  He had too much to lose by doing so.  It's just more talking point, words said to offset words said, so that Sharpton can keep his paycheck and his lifestyle.  I wonder how Tawana Brawley is doing tonight?

I'm betting she's not worth the Rev's $5M.  I love these clowns and hopefully, there's a special place in hell for them.
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Schteveo

Another Fort Hood shooting!!

Not much known yet, but how MUCH do we need to know to understand that DIS-ARMING the people we train to protect us, is just friggin' stupid!!!

Four people are confirmed dead and at least 14 people are injured following a shooting at the Fort Hood army post Wednesday evening, according to the House Homeland Security Chair and U.S. Representative from Texas Michael McCaul.  CBS News confirms the shooter is among the dead and was killed by a self-inflicted wound.  The shooter has been identified as a soldier.  He has been identified at 34-year-old Ivan Lopez.  The shooting reportedly started as the result of a dispute between soldiers.

Great, we know who did it.  But why the f**k don't these guys carry on the base so thery can defend themselves and others!?

It's about time for a TOTAL change of 'leadership' in this country.  It's more than obvious that they ones we have now, only care about their own @$$es!

Schteveo