A Christmas Miracle? The James Webb Telescope Takes Off. It’s quite the undertaking:
Astronomers around the world will be watching (and perhaps biting their nails) as the Webb telescope undergoes a $10 billion, monthlong game of origami.
Tightly packed into a container atop the rocket during launch, the telescope will separate from the spacecraft in orbit after launch and spend 29 days unfolding various limbs and instruments. When it reaches its final form during its trek to a point nearly one million miles from Earth, it will blossom into a tennis court-size observatory, unfurling a large sun shield with a 21-foot-wide mirror in the center.
Who Is James Webb, You Query? Hmmm, his belief in the powers of science raises the question: How soon until the MAGAt’s question whether this entire operation is fake? You know, like the moon landing.
Ruh-Roh: Trump Praises Effectiveness Of Vaccines (That He, Of Course, Created.):
RWNJ interviewer, um, doesn’t take kindly to it:
In a Friday livestream, Owens claimed that Trump’s embrace of the Covid-19 vaccines is the result of his reliance on mainstream news sources, which she said had left him unfamiliar with unsubstantiated theories that question the vaccines from more obscure websites.
“I’ve seen other people that are older have the exact same perspective. Like they came from a time before TV, before internet, before being able to conduct their independent research … and everything that they read in a newspaper that was pitched to them … they believed that that was a reality,” she said…
She added that one of the “things” that was “pitched” to Mr Trump by newspapers in his youth was “this push for vaccines and believing that people were going to die without vaccines”.
Jason was right. Biden praising Trump’s work on the vaccine is one of the greatest mind-fucks of all time. That, and/or somebody told Trump that killing off his supporters does not bode well for a 2024 run.
I was fortunate enough to see Joni Mitchell at Syracuse University around the time of her ‘Ladies Of The Canyon’ album. Probably early 1971. Just Joni. She performed this incredibly moving song (which hadn’t yet been released) that, for many, encapsulates the melancholia of the Christmas season. It has finally(!) gotten a video that does it, and Joni, justice:
“‘River’ expresses regret at the end of a relationship…but it’s also about being lonely at Christmas time… A Christmas song for people who are lonely at Christmas! We need a song like that.” – Joni Mitchell
May your holidays not be lonely.
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