Thursday, December 31, 2020

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021!!!

DowneastBlog wishes all its readers a Happy and Prosperous 2021!!!





May it be a better one than the absolute STINKER that was 2020!


MFBB.

INSANE AND IMMORAL: CITY OF BOSTON REMOVES LINCOLN STATUE.

Fucking BASTARDS.







Repugnant doesn't even begin to describe it.

"Workers dismantled a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Boston Tuesday, after the city agreed with protesters who say the memorial is demeaning and lacks proper context. The statue depicts Lincoln holding his hand over a kneeling Black man — a figure modeled on Archer Alexander, the last man captured under the Fugitive Slave Act.

"We're pleased to have taken it down this morning," a spokesperson for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement to NPR, noting that the decision followed two public hearings and a petition from artist Tory Bullock in which 12,000 people supported moving the statue."


I looked up Tory Bullock. He's an asshole. No surprise a weakling like Marty Walsh went along.


John Wilkes Booth, a firebreathing anti-abolitionist, blew President Lincoln's brains out because he couldn't bear the end of slavery. He... killed the man who unleashed a war across the continental USA to free slaves, a war which cost the lives of 600,000 Americans... more than any 'American' war before or since.


Today, the statue of Lincoln is being removed. These are insane times.


MFBB.

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

CHRISTMAS EVENING IN ANTWERPISTAN.

As per usual, the eponymous 'youths' - Moroccans, of course - had some fun around Xmas:





It won't end well. More than ever, autochton Belgians are in demographic free fall, while the presence of islam is making itself felt more day by day:





An ad placed by the thousands all across Flanders about one month ago, in Dutch AND French: "Goûtez le choix 100% halal - Proef de 100% halal keuze", or "Taste the 100 per cent halal choice".


Islam is cancer, and it is metastizing all across the planet. Non-muslims will pay a very high price for not stopping it when they still could.


MFBB.

Thursday, December 24, 2020

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2020!!!

DowneastBlog wishes all its readers of good will a Merry Christmas!!!


The Adoration of the Kings, By Gerard David (ca 1460-1523)



There is an awful lot of misery in the world, and you may want to pray for two groups in particular, namely Mozambique's Christians (of whom around 50 were beheaded by Islamic State-affliliated groups last month), and their Nigerian brethren and sisters, who suffer terribly under attacks by muslim Fulani terrorists.


And even though their plight far surpasses that of those hapless truckers stuck in the UK, you may also want to save a prayer or two for them. They have barely water, food or sanitary provisions. What a sad Xmas:





Good night.


MFBB.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT THE STROKES, LEFT SIDE.

The Strokes with The Adults Are Talking. Album The New Abnormal (2020).





American garage rock band from Manhattan, formed in 1998.



Left Side with (Like a) Locomotion. Released as a single in 1973.





Dutch seventies band from Volendam.



Sorry for the light blogging, it's been a very busy couple of weeks. Timactual, hi!



Nite.




MFBB.

Saturday, December 05, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT TAME IMPALA, GRATEFUL DEAD.

Tame Impala with Patience. Released as a single in 2019.





Tame Impala is the Perth,Australia born project (2007) of multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker, who writes, performs, records and produces all the "band"'s music. For tours he is accompanied by Dominic Simper (guitar, synthesiser), Cam Avery (bass guitar, vocals), Jay Watson (synthesiser, vocals, guitar) and Julien Barbagallo (drums, vocals).



Grateful Dead with Box of Rain. From the 1970 album American Beauty.


The Grateful Dead formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. Founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums).


Nite.



MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM DR. WALTER E. WILLIAMS (1936-2020).

A great man has left us. Dr. Walter E. Williams, George Mason University economics professor and syndicated columnist passed away at the age of 84 on DEC 2, 2020.


Via Economic Policy Journal:


"He was the author of over 150 publications which have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Social Science Quarterly, and Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy and popular publications such as Newsweek, Ideas on Liberty, National Review, Reader's Digest, Cato Journal, and Policy Review. He authored ten books: America: A Minority Viewpoint, The State Against Blacks, which was later made into the PBS documentary "Good Intentions," All It Takes Is Guts, South Africa's War Against Capitalism, which was later revised for South African publication, Do the Right Thing: The People's Economist Speaks, More Liberty Means Less Government, Liberty vs. the Tyranny of Socialism, Up From The Projects: An Autobiography, Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed On Discrimination? and American Contempt for Liberty."









Rest in peace and God Blesss, Dr. Williams. You will be sorely missed.


MFBB.

Sunday, November 29, 2020

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: HEINRICH VOGELER (1872-1942).

Heinrich Vogeler (December 12, 1872 – June 14, 1942) was a German painter, designer, architect, and teacher, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. After WW1 he became politically involved, joining the KPD, the German Communist Party, around 1920. With his second wife he emigrated to the USSR in 1931. Upon Germany's invasion in 1941, he was, despite his communist credentials, deemed a security threat. He died in a collective farm in Kazachstan in 1942.


Fruehling (Spring)



Sommerabend (Summer Evening)



MFBB.

Saturday, November 28, 2020

IN MEMORIAM MY COUSIN CHRIS (1938-2020).

Last Monday, November 23, my cousin Chris died. He got to be 82. Today was his funeral.

About three weeks ago he landed in hospital after suffering a stroke, which left him paralysed to one side. Even before the stroke not in stellar condition, he contracted Covid-19 while in hospital. A swallowing problem, no doubt aggravated by loss of coordination due to the stroke, led to saliva entering his lungs, which in turn caused pneumonia. Chris did not have a chance. Less than two weeks after entering hospital, his body gave up.

Perhaps worst of all, due to stringent corona regulations, neither his wife nor close family members were allowed to see him during his time in hospital. Only in his last hours, when hospital staff sensed death was imminent, was Chris' spouse allowed at his bedside - when he was already in a coma. Chris died lonely and miserable, deprived of the consolation his partner and soulmate could have offered him in his last moments.

Other corona regulations stipulate that funeral attendance cannot exceed 15 persons, which meant that only the closest family circle of the deceased can attend. It was a decent enough Mass, and this is one of the musical works that were played, Beethovens Mondscheinsonate:





The only good thing about today was that the weather was decent, so that after Mass we were able to follow the hearse on foot to the cemetery and at least have our minds lifted somewhat by bright sun and azure sky.

I regret that I was not able to greet the body one last time - another consequence of the corona regulations. I regret that Chris' mortal remains were cremated - but if that was his wish, or his wife's, so be it.

With my cousin's passing, yet another huge character from my childhood days disappears, after my father in 2011, and my uncle, my father's brother, in 2018. Chris, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have meant for me.





"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." ~ Psalm 23:4 ~






God Bless. And let us also pray for his wife A., 23 year his junior. By all accounts, it was a happy marriage, and A. is heartbroken.



MFBB.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

RECOMMENDED VIDEO: HARRIER DOCUMENTARY.

I'm currently reading Rowland White's latest, Harrier 809.

It's essentially the story of 809NAS (Naval Air Squadron) during its deployment in the Falklands War.

And it hammers home just how special the little Jump Jet was - and is.

Watch this great documentary on how Great Britain's perhaps greatest aerodynamic design came into being:





MFBB.

Saturday, October 31, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT NICOLAS MICHAUX, EAGLES.

Nicolas Michaux with Harvesters. Single released this year, to be featured on the upcoming album Amour Colère.





Belgian singer/songwriter from Esneux, that's to the south of Liège. Did some nice walking there. Boucle de l'Ourthe, Rocher aux Faucons, ha!



The Eagles with Tequila Sunrise. From the album Desperado (1973).





Legendary American rock band, formed in 1971 in LA. Still around, depsite a 14-year hiatus between 1980 and 1994.


Nite.


MFBB.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

SUNDAY ART SNACK: ALGERNON NEWTON (1880-1968).

Thoroughly underrated British landscape artist whose works have a whiff of Edward Hopper in them. Apart from landscapes, favorite subjects were also canals, so much so that he earned himself the nickname "Canaletto of the Canals". The quasi total absence of people and the exhausted colors lend an eerie, almost post-apocalyptic quality to his paintings.


The Surrey Canal, Camberwell (1935).


The House by the Canal (1945).


A Country Path



The backs of houses, Harley Street, London (1925).



"There is beauty to be found in everything, you only have to search for it; a gasometer can make as beautiful a picture as a palace on the Grand Canal, Venice. It simply depends on the artist's vision." ~Algernon Newton



Good night.


MFBB.

Saturday, October 24, 2020

OSIRIS-REx COLLECTS BENNU SAMPLE AT OVER 2AU.

Space history was written last week when OSIRIS-REx, third planetary scout in the New Frontiers programme (after Juno exploring Jupiter and New Horizons checking Pluto), collected a regolith sample on asteroid belt inhabitant 101955 Bennu. Given the abundance of asteroid candidates, why this one? For starters, it's 'close', sometimes even cutting inside Earth's orbit. It's not rotating too fast, making it far easier to touch down and grab up some dust. And it's a C-type asteroid, in which the C stands for carbonaceous, meaning they are relatively pristine time and space travellers from long passed aeons - Bennu may even contain material from before the Solar System's existence. A more comprehensive list of why Bennu was so sexy can be found here.





OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return spacecraft, launched from Cape Canaveral in SEP 2016 on top of an Atlas V rocket. Some specs:

* Dimensions: Length 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in), width 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in), height 3.15 m (10.3 ft) * Width with solar arrays deployed: 6.17 m (20.2 ft) * Power: Two solar arrays generate 1226 to 3000 watts, depending on the spacecraft's distance from the Sun. Energy is stored in Li-ion batteries. * Propulsion system: Based on a hydrazine monopropellant system developed for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, carrying 1,230 kg (2,710 lb) of propellant and helium. * The sample-return capsule will reenter the Earth's atmosphere for a parachute assisted landing. The capsule with encased samples will be retrieved from Earth's surface and studied, as was done with the Stardust mission.





And here is the iconic moment of OSIRIS sampling Bennu's surface. What's utterly amazing is the distance from Earth at which this happened, some 320 million kilometers. Or, as the distance from Earth to Sun is about 150 million kilometers, or 1 Astronomical Unit, this tiny human-made spacecraft did what it was supposed to do at more than 2 AU! As radio signals to steer the craft would take too long - 15 minutes - to reach it, the entire process was fully automatic.





Also via Twitter:





In order to get a relevant sample, OSIRIS-REx had to collect at least 60 grams. If the first attempt's yield at the designated "touch and go spot", dubbed 'Nightingale', was less, a second attempt at another spot was scheduled. However, it turned out that was not necessary:





OSISRIS-REx will now return to Earth and its precious cargo is expected to be available for study somewhere in 2023. That's... a thrilling prospect. As Bennu is over 4.5 billion years old, it means that humanity will be able to study material which already existed from before... the creation of our own Solar System!


MFBB.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: JOHN ATKINSON GRIMSHAW (1836-1893).

John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was an English Victorian-era romanticist indebted to some extent to the Pre-Rafaelits. The 'Painter of Moonlight' is best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes.




The Chill of Autumn (1881).






Scarborough Lights (1877).



Good night, have a good start of the week tomorrow.


MFBB.

Saturday, October 17, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT KATE BUSH, LENNY KRAVITZ.

Kate Bush with Cloudbusting. Album Hounds of Love (1985).





The video, by Terry Gilliam no less and featuring Donald Sutherland, was shot on Dragon Hill, a hillock in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire. Actually the Uffington White Horse, which my wife and I visited during our honeymoon in 1999, is only a little bit further up.



Lenny Kravitz with I'll be waiting. From the 2008 album It is Time for a Love Revolution.





I suppose I'm not alone when I say that Kravitz first caught my attention on MTV with Let Love Rule. In 1989 that was. Jesus how time flies.



Slaap wel.


MFBB.

Friday, October 16, 2020

CONFLANS-SAINTE-HONORINE, FRANCE: MUSLIM MURDERS TEACHER WHO SHOWED MOTOONS IN CLASS.

Via Euronews:


"A teacher was beheaded on a street near Paris on Friday afternoon after hosting a class discussion with secondary school students about cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The suspected killer, who was armed with a knife and a plastic pellet gun, was later shot dead by officers in a nearby town, police said. French authorities have launched an anti-terror investigation. President Emmanuel Macron called it an "assassination" and an "Islamist terrorist attack". The victim, a history and geography teacher, was decapitated near a school in the commune of Conflans Saint-Honorine, northwest of the French capital, at around 5pm local time. Police told the AFP agency that the teacher had shown cartoons depicting the prophet to his class. His alleged attacker was reported to be 18 years old, of Chechen origin and born in Moscow. Officials said he was shot dead in the neighbouring town of Éragny after he acted in a threatening manner and failed to respond to an order to put down his weapons. President Macron visited the Bois d'Aulne school and met the history teacher's colleagues on Friday evening. He said afterwards: "One of our citizens was assassinated tonight because he was a teacher, because he taught students about the liberty of expression, the liberty to believe or not to believe. "Our countryman was the victim of a cowardly attack. The victim of an Islamist terrorist attack." He added the attack should not divide France because, he said, that is what the extremists want. The incident came as the French government works on a bill to address Islamist radicals who authorities claim are creating a "parallel society outside the values of the French Republic"..."






The teacher, Samuel P. was by all accounts a decent and well liked citizen, who taught history and geography in a high school in Bois d'Aulne. The perpetrator is one Aboulakh A., 18 years old, of Chechen origin, born in Moscow, and residing in Yvelines.


Count on the scoundrels in politics and media to downplay the islamic angle and find arguments to rationalize this umpteenth horrific islamic murderfest. It wouldn't surprise me if the initial 'shocked' reactions give way, two days hence, to 'he shouldn't have provoked it'.


Meanwhile, all of the ummah is rejoicing, and muslims, in particular in the West, are doubtlessly feting Aboulakh's defense of Ole Mo's 'dignity'. But perhaps worst of all is that the murder is also a dire warning to anyone who still toys with the idea of showing motoons. Anyone contemplating it will think twice again. And so, the dark curtain of islamization is slowly but irressistibly lowered over the West.


MFBB.

Sunday, October 11, 2020

CHAMPIGNY-SUR-MARNE: 40 "INDIVIDUALS" ATTACK POLICE PRECINCT.

Champigny-sur-Marne, a southern suburb of Paris, witnessed an attack by 40 "individuals" on its police precinct last night.








Via François Desouche:
"Vers 23h55, alors que deux policiers fument à l’extérieur, une quarantaine d’individus ont voulu pénétrer dans la commissariat, en tapant à coups de barres de fers dans la vitre de la porte d’entrée, qui s’est brisée. Les policiers ont tout juste eu le temps de s’enfermer dans le sas, à l’entrée du bâtiment.
Les assaillants ont également effectué plusieurs tirs de mortier. Huit ont été retrouvés sur place. Deux feux de poubelles ont été repérés à proximité du commissariat et plusieurs véhicules de police ont été dégradés. Aucun policier n’a été blessé mais les deux fonctionnaires sont “choqués”."



Two police officers could barricade themselves inside the foyer in the nick of time.


Import the Third World, become the Third World.


MFBB.

Saturday, October 03, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT QUEEN, PETER GABRIEL.

Queen with Radio Ga Ga. Album The Works (1984).





Like it or not, it's an iconic song and an iconic video. And one day I really have to see Fritz Lang's Metroplis.



Peter Gabriel with I go swimming. Album Peter Gabriel Plays Live (1983).





Actually compiled from four different concerts in the US's Midwest. Plus some additional recording elsewhere it seems, but have no info on that.


Nite.


MFBB.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

THE EU'S UNELECTED PRESIDENT, URSULA VON DER LEYEN, ANNOUNCES EU MIGRATION PACT - EFFECTIVELY MARRAKESH 2.0!

A statement by the unelected EU "President" Ursula von der Leyen, a couple of days ago:





Read and shiver:


"Migration has always been a fact for Europe – and it will always be. Throughout centuries, it has defined our societies, enriched our cultures and shaped many of our lives. And this will always be the case. Migration is complex. The old system no longer works. The Commission's Package on Migration and Asylum, which we present today, offers a fresh start. Many legitimate interests have to be brought into balance. We want to live up to our values and at the same time face the challenges of a globalised world. Europe has to move away from ad hoc solutions and put in place a predictable and reliable migration management system. I am convinced that the Commission's proposal is a good foundation for that. This Package reflects a fair and reasonable balance between responsibility and solidarity among Member States. We all share the benefits, we all share the burden. This Package also reflects a pragmatic and realistic approach. We know that we have to build trust between the Member States and citizens' confidence that we can manage this as a Union. The Package reflects the complexity of the issue as it brings together all aspects of migration: border management and screening, asylum and integration, return and relations with external partners..."



For about 1,500 years, migration in Europe was confined within its borders, and encompassed comparatively small numbers: Viking tribes settling in the north of the British Isles, William the Conqueror crossing the Channel, Huguenots fleeing France to neighboring countries, Flemings to The Netherlands etc. In many cases, these movements constituted a boon for the receiving country, as the people fleeing their native lands did so not because they had made a mess of them but because religious intolerance forced them out.

This is not what we are witnessing today. We see migrations on a hitherto unrivaled scale of peoples whose very culture, lifestyle and religious convictions practically ensured that their homelands went bust... yet, with them, apparently clueless about their own responsibility for their mayhem, they bring the exact same mechanisms that led to the conditions they are now fleeing. The hundreds of thousands of subsaharan Africans crossing the Med en route for Europe are not Huguenots, who in the 16th and 17th Century crossed the Channel to England bringing with them their considerable skills such as papermaking, woodcarving, clockmaking, clothing design and cutlery manufacture.

Yet, apparently, Ursula von der Leyen and the cohorts of our Moral Betters want us to believe that these arrivals will bring with them the modern equivalent of David Compigné crafting Guildhall Clock in Winchester, or Flemings fleeing Spanish Rule to Holland and fueling in no small part the Dutch 'Golden Age'.

BEFORE Europe's internal migrations, there were indeed other massive migrations on the continent. We are talking Visigoths, Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals...

Their invasions destroyed what was arguably the world's most advanced civilization at the time.


It takes no sharp mind to make a distinction between those two types of migrations. Between what the Vandals did to the Roman Empire - destroying it - and what William The Conqueror did to England - transforming it into a 'model' (for the time) Kingdom.


Ursula von der Leyen does not make that distinction. Either she does not have a sharp mind - wholly possible, given her disastrous tenure of the German MoD during seven years - or she has darker motives.


In any case, here we are. In early 2019, the UN Migration Pact aka Marrakesh Pact, was forced down the throats of Europeans. Almost two years down the road, it is clear that the "Pact" (Diktat, rather) made good on its promises a.o. "regulation" of what is now effectively an organised influx of welfare seekers. Taking The Netherlands as an example, these are some stats re the weekly arrival of culture enrichers - numbers coming straight from a Dutch government website, no less:





Week 35, about 400. Week 36, 500. Week 37, 500. Week 38, 400 again. For a country of 17.5 million, these are considerable numbers. To put things in perspective, it would mean that weekly, the US would receive, wholly unchecked, some 10,000 immigrants.

It's not 1,000 one week and 50 the week thereafter. Then 230, then the week after that zilch, and/or the following week 750. No, it's always 400 - 500 - 500 - 600 - 400 - 500. These are no random figures. There is an organization behind the influx. There are powers at work fully intending to flood the old continent with peoples and cultures which are so alien to the continent that they only thing they can do is destroy what is good, decent, functioning and organized. We are witnessing the Marrakesh Pact unfold.

Now, as if the ramifications of this witches brew of a pact aren't bad enough, the EU has decided to up the ante and INTRODUCE WHAT IS EFFECTIVELY MARRAKESH 2.0!!! This is nothing short of insane.

I regret that I cannot offer a translation of the following video, wherein Thierry Baudet, leader of the Dutch rightwing FvD party (Forum voor Democratie) trashes Marrakesh 2:




These are terrifying times.


MFBB.

Saturday, September 05, 2020

THE BITTER FRUITS OF ISLAMIZATION AND MULTICULTURALISM ON FULL DISPLAY IN BELGIUM.

Via HLN, today:





"Omstreeks 21.20 uur zaterdagavond kreeg de Brusselse politie oproepen dat jongeren de ruiten van een kinderkribbe aan het inslaan waren aan Nieuwland in de Marollen. Wat later staken ze in diezelfde buurt meerdere vuilnisbakken en voertuigen in brand. “Wanneer de brandweer toekwam rond 21.35 uur werden ze bekogeld met zeker één molotovcocktail. Gelukkig waren er geen gewonden”, zegt de woordvoerder van de politie Olivier Slosse."

Translation: "Around 9.20pm Saturday evening Brussels Police got warned that youths were busting in the windows of a kindergarten at Nieuwland in the Marollen neighborhood. A bit later they set fire to several dumpsters and vehicles in the same area. "When firefighers arrive at about 9.35 pm they were pelted with at least one molotov cocktail. Luckily there were no wounded", says police spokesman Olivier Slosse"


Meant is of course MOROCCAN, MUSLIM youths.


And in Antwerp the drug wars, which also involve mainly muslims, are escalating to such an extent, with daily grenade attacks and shootings which so far have luckily only claimed victims among the gangs themselves, that the Antwerp PD has launced 'Operation Night Watch' to quell the turmoil. This marks the first operational deployment of their Bearcats:





Multiculturalims is destroying our countries and the evidence is there for all to see. Yet the lunatics in the traditional parties are still fine with welcoming tens of thousands Third Worlders every year.


MFBB.

Sunday, August 30, 2020

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: SIR ALFRED MUNNINGS (1878-1959).

Sir Alfred James Munnings, KCVO PRA RI (8 October 1878 – 17 July 1959) was one of England's finest painters of horses. A member of the Newlyn School, he was an outspoken critic of Modernism. Although he had no formal training as such, he also established himself as a sculptor.

Tagg's Island



The Clark Sisters


Good night.


MFBB.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

SPRING 2021: A BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATE AT GHENT UNIVERSITY, BELGIUM!

A tweet by Frank Verstraete, Physics Professor at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and specializing in the application of quantum entanglement which may one day lead to quantum computers, caught my eye:





And indeed:





The BEC will be realized under the auspices of Dr Karel Van Acolyen, of the UGhent's Physics and Astronomy Department.

Matter can exist in a number of states, of which solid, gas, and liquid are the most common and the only stable ones are. There's plasma, observable in everyday life when we see for example a welding arc, and there are very exotic states of matter such as neutron-degenerate matter (which occurs in a situation of extreme density), and quark–gluon plasma (extremely high energy).

And then there is a seventh state of matter, a Bose-Einstein condensate.

The lowest possible temperature is minus 273.15 degrees Centigrade. Zero Kelvin. When atoms are cooled to within a whiff of that, they clump together and can hardly move relative to each other. They enter the same energy state and, from a physical POV, the bunch of atoms starts behaving as if it were a single atom. A Bose-Einstein condensate has been created.



Some background here:


"On 14 July 1995 a paper in Science reported the first observation of the exotic state of matter predicted in the 1920s by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein in an ultracold gas of rubidium atoms. It was the culmination of over a decade of refinement of atom cooling and trapping technologies. It was also one of the occasions when news pieces could be titled ‘Einstein was right’. In fact, Einstein was wrong. In a 1925 paper, building on Bose’s ideas, Einstein developed a quantum theory to describe a monoatomic ideal gas, but concluded that the theory provided a paradox because it predicted a state with indistinguishable particles occupying the same volume. “But, this appears to be as good as impossible,” Einstein wrote on the last line of his paper. A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), as the collective low-energy state of bosons has come to be known, is very much possible and has been found to exist not only in ultracold atomic gases, but also at higher temperatures in materials hosting bosonic quasiparticles such as magnons, excitons and polaritons. The first BEC, made of 87Rb atoms, was reported by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman’s team at JILA. A few months earlier they had broken the temperature record in atom cooling, reaching 200 nK. The feat was possible thanks to a so-called time-orbiting potential trap providing a deep enough confinement to allow evaporative cooling (the process of letting hot atoms leave the trap) without losing too many atoms. The JILA team cooled the atoms further down to 20 nK, but already at 170 nK they started to see the first unmistakable signatures of the Bose–Einstein condensation among which is the narrow peak in the velocity distribution of the atoms (pictured). A few months later Wolfgang Ketterle and colleagues made the first sodium BEC. In 2001, Cornell, Wieman and Ketterle shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Despite the recognition of the discovery it was unclear what BECs were good for. In the early 2000s on an educational website called ‘Physics 2000’ created and originally hosted by the University of Colorado, the question was answered in a digestible way. Imagine you are someone who has never seen ice before, it would take a while before you would realize that it can be used to make ice cream. BEC ice cream comes in many surprising flavours. “Quantum mechanics rules over the physics in two regimes: the very cold, and the very small. Insights derived from one regime can apply in the other,” notes Cornell. Over the past 25 years BECs have been the workhorse of ultracold atomic gas experiments, advancing our understanding of quantum many-body phenomena through quantum simulation (see also the Technical Review in this issue). They enabled the study of exotic systems such as the emission of Hawking radiation from an analogue event horizon and fundamental tests of quantum mechanics with macroscopic superposition states. BECs have also been used to create atom lasers, atomic clocks and gravitational, rotational or magnetic sensors with excellent sensitivity. In terms of the experimental techniques, making atomic BECs in the lab has become routine. Today there are commercial table-top BEC systems available and there are compact systems that can be used for portable sensors or free-fall experiments. The next stage of such experiments was reported in a paper published last month: the first BEC made in space in the Cold Atom Laboratory on board the International Space Station. “it predicted a state with indistinguishable particles occupying the same volume. “But, this appears to be as good as impossible”” The first BEC experiments 25 years ago led to many unexpected directions in terms of both the science and applications. The field of ultracold atomic gases has been expanding ever since with no sign of slowing down. As Ketterle put it “maybe the best is yet to come”."


Nite.


MFBB.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

MULTICULTURALISM IS DESTROYING EUROPE.

I won't even elaborate on the situation in my own country, but here's a small sample of the evil fruits of multiculturalism in The Netherlands: riots in Utrecht and The Hague, a 55-year old cream white Dutchman from Nijmegen beaten unconscious by "youths", a younger man from Assen who got a skull fracture from a "lichtgetintiër" (euphemism for a lightly brown colored i.e. Middle Eastern man).
Yet another Bio Dutchman, Bas Van Wijk, tried to foil the theft of a watch by a group of 5 "lichtgetintiërs" and was killed for his trouble with 5 gunshots in broad daylight. White Lives Don't Matter At All.





To top it all off there have been riots for four consecutive nights in Schilderswijk, a heavily islamicized and multiculti enclave in The Hague. Already in 2008 a staggering 90 per cent of (registered) inhabitants were foreigners, mostly Turks, Moroccans and Surinamese. The overwhelming majority (>70 per cent) live off welfare. The excuse for the riots seems to be the death of a man in police custody - I'm sure he was an outstanding, law-abiding and hardworking citizen - but if it wasn't his death while under arrest they'd have found something else.
Anyway, it's complete and utter chaos. Police has litterally FLED for throngs of hundreds of "youths", so many fire hydrants were opened that water pressure fell away and drinking water fouled, and for a while there wasn't water for the fire services, which could have had catastrophic consequences in case of a fire breaking out.
Look for yourself:



If you import the Third World, you become the Third World.

Rope. Tree. Politicians.

MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT ROBERT PLANT, VISAGE.

Robert Plant with Big Log. From the album The Principle of Moments (1983).





After the disbandment of Led Zeppelin in 1980 Plant briefly considered becoming a teacher, but luckily he changed his mind and embarked on a solo career, releasing his first album, Pictures at Eleven, in 1982.



Visage with Fade to Grey. Album Visage (1980).





British synthpop band, early eighties, new wave. Formed in London in 1978. Founding members were Midge Ure (later Ultravox), Rusty Egan and Steve Strange, a.o.


Slaap wel.


MFBB.

Saturday, August 08, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT GEORGE WHITTAKER, GRAND FUNK RAILROAD.

George Whittaker with I don't believe in "If" anymore. Released as a single in 1970.

I wonder if this is perhaps a jab at Kiplings "If"?


Grand Funk Railroad with Some Kind of Wonderful. From the 1974 album All the Girls in the World Beware!!!

Crucial seventies hardrock band from Flint, Michigan which formed in 1969. Original members were Mark Farner (guitar, keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Don Brewer (drums, vocals), and Mel Schacher (bass).


Sorry for the light blogging. Several factors. No need to explain, it's not important.

Nite.

MFBB.

Friday, July 10, 2020

80 YEARS AGO: THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN BEGINS!

July 10, 1940, marks the start of the Battle of Britain.

After having swept before them the combined armies of Britain, France, Belgium and The Netherlands, and either chased them across the Channel or else forced their surrender, the Nazis ruled firmly over Western Europe. Only Britain remained defiant. To be sure, they had the advantage of the most impressive anti-tank ditch in the world. But with the BEF having lost all its matériel in the previous months, and the land forces in the UK either in hopeless disarray or else woefully unprepared to face Hitlers panzers, it was absolutely imperative that this barrier not be crossed.

Hitler counted on the Luftwaffe to neutralize the RAF. Once this task accomplished, his victorious armies would be able to cross the Channel at will, and when on the other side, the British Army and Home Guard would be no match for them.

It was therefore imperative that the RAF retained the upper hand. For two months, a fierce air battle raged, a battle of which the outcome would determine whether Nazi rule would stretch over all of Western Europe and plunge the continent in another dark era.

In the end, the RAF won, a feat which gave birth to perhaps Winston Churchill's most famous quote:


'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'





In 1970 the movie The Battle of Britain was released. When it was made, the real Battle only lay three decades in the past. A further half-century separates us from Michael Caine and fellow actors re-enacting the glorious deeds of the 'Few' in that long, hot summer of 1940 so fraught with danger and angst. But to this day, no better picture has been made honoring the young RAF pilots:







Essential info here.



MFBB.

Friday, July 03, 2020

MEET THORNE AND ZYTKOW!

Stars with a supergiant luminosity are called Red Supergiants (RSGs). They have an enormous luminosity class (Yerkes class I) of either spectral type K or M. They are the largest stars in the universe in terms of volume, although they are not the most massive (that's R136a1) or luminous. Antares and Betelgeuse are the brightest and best known red supergiants (RSGs), indeed the only first magnitude red supergiants.



Betelgeuse, about 700 lightyears from our Sun in the Orion Constellation. It has near-infrared wavelenghts and a mass estimated to be between a little under ten, and twenty times the mass of the Sun.




And neutron stars are the collapsed cores of a giant stars. Before collapse such a giant star had a mass of between 10 and 29 times that of our Sun. Neutron stars are the smallest and densest stars, not counting the (still hypothetical) white holes, quark stars, and strange stars, and neither counting Black Holes of course. To make it clear, a neutron star is also certainly far smaller than a White Dwarf, which still has a volume akin to that of Earth. Indeed, neutron stars have a radius of approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) and a mass of about 1.4 solar masses. They come into being as a massive star goes supernova, followed by with gravitational collapse, which compresses the core past white dwarf star density to that of atomic nuclei.



(via https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/)




In 1975, physicist Kip Thorne (who recently was scientific adviser to Christopher Nolan when he was making Interstellar) and Polish astronomer Anna Zytkow proposed a new type of star, one which would originate by the merger of a red supergiant and a neutron star. These as yet hypothetical mergers became known as Thorne-Zytkow Objects (TZO's). Via Astronomy dot com:



"Nearly half a century ago, physicist Kip Thorne (now a Nobel laureate) and astronomer Anna Żytkow suggested a strange, Russian-nesting-doll-type star might be hiding in the cosmos, just waiting to be found by those who knew how to seek it. Astronomers named these theoretical stellar hybrids Thorne-Żytkow objects.

The possible existence of Thorne-Żytkow objects came to light when their namesake researchers ran early computer simulations. When they did, they found that a neutron star — a tiny, ultra-dense stellar remnant left behind when a star goes supernova — could be gobbled up by a red supergiant star.

According to the simulations, if the “Twins” (in the Danny DeVito-Arnold Schwarzenegger sense) get too close to one another, instead of one star getting ejected, the two stars can merge together. The city-sized, solar-mass neutron star would carry on living inside its much larger host, almost like a cosmic parasite.

In a study published in 1975 in The Astrophysical Journal, Thorne and Żytkow suggested these stars would look almost identical to red supergiants like Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. Supergiant stars are relatively common and are some of the youngest and largest stars in the universe. Thorne-Żytkow objects (TZOs) would look very similar to red supergiants, but are suspected to survive up to 10 times longer.

Ordinary red supergiants, like other stars, are powered by nuclear fusion in their cores. So when that energy runs out, their uncontested gravity causes them to implode before erupting as a supernova. But TZOs can live such long lives because they do not rely on sustained nuclear fusion in their cores to avoid collapse. Instead, a TZO’s neutron star core, which is already extremely compressed, largely prevents the rapid and uncontested gravitational collapse of the surrounding supergiant layers.

Astronomers have two different theories for how TZOs form — and they both depend on the initial objects starting their lives as two gigantic stars in a close binary system. In one theory, the bigger of the two stars would explode as a supernova first, leaving behind a neutron star. But over time, the remaining supergiant would continue to balloon outward, growing until it fully swallowed the nearby neutron star remnant.

Another possibility for the formation of TZOs is that when one star explodes as an asymmetric supernova, its remnant core could get a powerful “kick.” That could potentially fire the neutron star into the belly of the remaining red giant..."





Check out this video:





So now you can go to sleep in the secure knowledge that you're a somewhat smarter person!



MFBB.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT CAN'T MEET GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION TARGETS, BLAMES COLD WEATHER.

You can't make this stuff up:





From The Herald, Scotland:


"THE FAILURE of the Scottish Government to meet its own climate emissions target has been blamed on the “beast from the east” bringing cold weather to the nation in 2018.

New statistics show that by the end of 2018, Scotland was unable to reduce its emissions by the 54 per cent requirement from levels in 1990, with a Scottish Government report stating that “the target for 2018 has not been met”.

The Scottish Government has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, including aviation, to net zero by 2045 but plans for Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee to set up low emission zones have been delayed due to the Covid-19 crisis. The latest climate change action plan will now not be published until the end of this year, after the Scottish Government announced a delay due to the pandemic.

Last year, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation setting the target for 2018 emissions at 54 per cent. The legislation set a target on 2018, which had passed by the time MSPs voted on the Bill in September 2019.The target for 2020 is currently set at 56 per cent."



And:


"Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said the annual increase is “certainly disappointing” and stressed that the bar has been “intentionally been set to provide an extremely stretching pathway to net zero”.

She added: “By being ambitious and by stretching ourselves in pursuit of net zero, we will go a long way to reaching our destination.”

Ms Cunningham put the increase in emissions from 2017 to 2018 down to “changes to the national energy mix and freezing temperatures from the beast from the east during the early months of 2018” which led to “a rise in emissions from energy supply and heating use for buildings."








Please help me up - I haven't laughed this hard since before I was born!


MFBB.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT T. REX, METALLICA.

T. Rex with Cosmic Dancer. Album Electric Warrior (1971).





Hat tip 18-year old Outlawdaughter. So proud she's listening to this kind of music. And she ain't no exception! Told me there's some kind of a subculture of young people her age or thereabouts who have discovered and are hooked to the legendary rock of yore.



Metallica with Enter Sandman. From the album Metallica (1991).





Had to happen one day.



Nite.


MFBB.

Sunday, June 07, 2020

BLM SCUM WREAKING HAVOC IN BRUSSELS, LONDON, STOCKHOLM:

Brussels, today, June 7. Black mobs serenely mourning the death of George Floyd:


















London. Cops being chased away. Absolutely horrifying:








Sweden:






MFBB.


Saturday, June 06, 2020

BLM VIRUS CROSSES THE ATLANTIC.

The West has been plagued by the pestilence of leftist thought for a long time, and for at least 6 decades the curriculum of many institutes of higher learning has poisoned the minds of our young people. They lack historical background and have come to accept paradigms that are the exact opposite of reality.

ALL civilizations have practiced slavery or a form thereof, but to the best of my knowledge, the Western civilization is the only one which was capable of acknowledging the inherent inhumanity of it, in no small part - make that the bigger part - because of Christianity. And as a result of that, the West has outlawed and rooted out slavery OF ITS OWN. So, rather than blame us for slavery, we should be lauded for abolishing it.

Alas, the white fools who have gobbled leftist lies hook, line and sinker, know nothing of that.

The black fools who have failed because they listened to LBJ's siren song in the 60s and accepted the destruction of their nuclear families in exchange for the government's teat, know nothing of that either.

I don't have to show Americans the moronic crowds destroying the very mechanisms of wealth creation that, even when they refused to fend for themselves, still gave them plenty of food, transportation, housing that is still the envy of uncounted masses in Africa, Asia and South America, a decent modicum of medical assistance, and much more.

What is worse, is that the nonsense of the BLM racists has made it across the Atlantic.


This is London:





This is Amsterdam:





Here is a still of a populist on the 'Dam' in Central Amsterdam, a certain Akwasi, who LITTERALLY called for killing Whites!!!





This is somewhere in France:






We will have to get our act together, or we will suffer the consequences. These Culture Wars are getting out of hand, and they threaten to tear our countries apart. President Trump called for deploying the Army to quell the unrest, AND he labeled Antifa a terrorist movement. That's a step in the good direction. Nothing like that in moribund Europe however.

I'm certain that China is smirking about all this. It means attention to its responsibility for the global Coronavirus crisis is evaporating, and it also means that the West, and in particular Europe, is weakening to a point where it will not even be able to make a symbolic fist against its imperialist moves in South East Asia and Africa.



MFBB.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

THE CREW DRAGON HAS LAUNCHED.

It's been 9 long years since American astronauts left the planet in an American spacecraft: astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard a Crew Dragon on top of a Falcon 9 rocket...





... appropriately, products of the private sector!



The Crew Dragon is a development of the Dragon 1 cargo spacecraft and is designed to be reused at least 10 times.






This is how Crew Dragon compares to other spacecraft - apart from its reusability, that is:





Lots of hard info here.


The flight to the ISS lasts 19 hours from launch. Docking tomorrow Sunday somewhere in early evening Western European time.



MFBB.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

CORONACRISIS: THE GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY FOR MUSLIMS TO FORCE THE AZAN UPON THE GULLIBLE.

London, Canary Wharf:




Amsterdam:




Mechelen, Belgium




The muslim call to prayer starts with:


āllahu ākbar, āllahu ākbar
āllahu ākbar, āllahu ākbar


... and ends with:


āllahu ākbar, āllahu ākbar
lā ilaha illā-llah (there is no God but Allah)



These days, daily in hundreds of European cities. Courtesy the corona crisis.

We are beating Covid-19. Beating the islamic virus is a challenge of a far bigger magnitude.


MFBB.


Sunday, May 17, 2020

AGAIN: CORONACRISIS ABUSED BY MUSLIMS TO CONSOLIDATE THEIR POSITION.

For the second time on this blog, I will empatically state that muslims in Europe are abusing the Coroncrisis to consolidate their position.

All over the continent - at least in Western Europe - they have been seeking approval from mayors to allow the broadcasting with loudspeakers of the adhan, ostensibly 'to boost morale'.

Unfortunately, in a great many cases those mayors have given their permission.



This is in The Netherlands:





And this is in the UK:





Make no mistake, this horrible practice is here to stay. Give muslims a finger, they will take a hand. There is now a precedent. Those who think that once the coronacrisis emergency is over, the muezzins will keep silent, are fools.



MFBB.

Saturday, May 09, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT EURYTHMICS, THE FRAY.

Euryhtmics with It's Alright (Baby's coming back). Album Be Yourself Tonight (1985).





Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, both ex The Tourists, were a British synthpop duo who formed around 1980 in Wagga Wagga, Australia, of all places.



The Fray with How To Save A Life. From their 2005 debut album How To Save A Life.





US rock band who formed in 2002 in Denver, CO around schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King.



Good night and stay safe.



MFBB.

Friday, May 08, 2020

BAF TO ACCEPT DELIVERY OF FIRST A400M THIS MONTH.

Fooled you! The first one to be delivered is actually the MSN104, the sole Luxembourgian A400M. To be sure, it is being delivered in BAF livery since the plane will be operated jointly by Belgium and Luxembourg. I have no video material of the MSN 104, but the video below does show a Belgian plane, the MSN 106, being rolled out of the Airbus hangar in Sevilla, Spain, upon completion of the paint job.

Belgium purchased a total of 7 A400M's - not counting the MSN104 - to replace its ageing 'fleet' of the 15th Transport Wing's nine C-130H Herculeses. And Luxembourg purchased one, the MSN 104, for the time being to be delivered to Melsbroek AFB near Brussels (four Luxembourgian pilots are being trained in Belgium). It will also be the sole plane in the LUX AF!





The seven 'real' Belgian A400M's will be delivered from 2021 to 2023, by which time the last of the venerable Hercules will be phased out. In 1972/1973 the BAF purchased twelve of these do-it-all cargo planes (and later a thirteenth second hand) to replace the about 32 Fairchild C-119 Boxcars which until then formed the backbone of the BAF's transport wing.


Some background, via airrecognition dot com:


Design

The Airbus A400M will increase the airlift capacity and range compared with the aircraft it was originally set to replace, the older versions of the Hercules and Transall. Cargo capacity is expected to double over existing aircraft, both in payload and volume, and range is increased substantially as well. The A400M's wings are primarily carbon fibre reinforced plastic. The eight-bladed Scimitar propeller is also made from a woven composite material.


Avionics

The two-pilot flight deck crew will have the benefit of an integrated, digital avionics system in the cockpit and a fly-by-wire control system. Additional systems will provide a night-vision-compatible glass cockpit complete with two head-up displays supported by at least five multi-function displays that will allow state-of-the-art avionics developments to be incorporated to the flight-deck design, so greatly reducing crew workload. A modern Defensive Aids Suite will be fitted, incorporating radio and infra-red frequency detectors, electronic-countermeasure equipment and chaff/flare dispensers. The EADS Defence Electronics defensive aids suite will include an ALR-400 radar warner from Indra and EADS, MIRAS (multi-colour infraRed alerting sensor) missile launch and approach warner developed by EADS and Thales, and chaff and flare decoy dispensers. A laser DIRCM (directed infrared countermeasure) system may be added later.

Thales and Diehl Avionik Systeme are developing the A400M's FMS400 flight management system, based on integrated modular avionics modules, an adaptation of systems being fitted on the Airbus A380 airliner. The avionics will include cockpit control and display systems with nine 6in×6in displays and a digital head-up display which features liquid crystal display (LCD) technology and enhanced vision systems (EVS), for enhanced situational awareness, automated CG calculation, automated defensive aids systems, simple EMCOM switching, simplified switching, uncluttered screens, automated tanker and receiver fuel control and auto fuel tank inerting.
The aircraft's independent navigation system comprises an inertial reference system (IRS) integrated with a global positioning system (GPS). The weather and navigation radar is to be the Northrop Grumman AN/APN-241E, which incorporates windshear measurement and ground mapping capability. The radio navigation suite includes a pair of instrument landing systems, VHF Omnidirectional Radio ranging (VOR), radio distance measuring equipment (DME), air traffic control (ATC) transponders, automatic direction finders (ADF) and a tactical air navigation unit (TACAN).


Propulsion

The A400M will be driven by four Europrop International (EPI) turboprop engines, which will be the most powerful turboprops developed to date in the western world, they will be lighter, easy to maintain and will consume 20% less fuel per mission relative to a similar turbofan engine. The A400M's normal operating speed is 555km/h, but it can reach a maximum speed of 780km/h. The normal and ferry ranges of the aircraft are 3,298km and 8,710km respectively. The service ceiling is 11,300m. The take-off and landing distances of the aircraft are 980m and 770m respectively. The aircraft weighs around 76,500kg and the maximum take-off weight is 141,000kg.

Capability

The A400M carries outsize loads such as helicopters, heavy engineering equipment and armoured vehicles that are too large or too heavy for current tactical airlifters.The A400M satisfies the fundamental requirement of recent humanitarian missions and today’s ongoing military operations to airlift heavy and large equipment directly to where it is most urgently needed, and thus enabling cost-effective and rapid response to crisis.



While it is true that an A400M can carry about twice the payload of a Hercules, the fact that only 7 were bought is a reminder of Belgium's unenviable status of the worst student in NATO class. Indeed, it still spends at best a meagre 0.93 per cent of GNP on Defense. The former Michel I government pledged to raise that number to 1.6 per cent by 2030 or so, but you can be damn sure the corona crisis will be used as the perfect excuse to postpone that lofty goal to 2300 instead.



MFBB.

Saturday, May 02, 2020

MAY 2ND, 2020.

9 years ago to the day, my father died.




My father never claimed to be a leader; indeed, he was of a rather individualistic nature, far too much a perfectionist to ever direct, and allow, personnel to do his job.

And yet he was a leader. By example.




"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me."
~ Psalm 23:4 ~



Rest in peace father. You are not forgotten.



MFBB.

Friday, May 01, 2020

BALTIC AIR POLICING AND SWING WINGS.

The BAF has, over the past eight months, again been participating in a Baltic Air Policing mission. In SEP 2019, four F-16s from Florennes AFB arrived in Siauliai, Lithuania, and in JAN there was a change of the guard by four jets from Kleine Brogel AFB. From Siauliai, they regularly conducted missions over the Baltic Republics and their territorial waters.

The week of April 17 was quite a busy one, with interceptions of a host of Russian planes. Among them Su24 Fencers:








It's probably these very same Fencers that had made quite a nuisance of themselves in the preceding week, involving the same US destroyer USN Donald Cook:





One should nevertheless also give some thought to the Russian POV. For them, the presence of strong NATO air elements so close to Russian territory must also be, if not unnerving, at the very least annoying. Yet, given the history of the Baltic Republics at the hands of Russia's predecessor, the USSR, I still think them joining NATO was an appropriate move. It's a solid guarantee they won't be overrun again as happened in 1940. If you think that's unlikely in today's world, think again and ask the Ukrainians about the Crimea. Weakness invites agression.

Be all that as it may, I think NATO's eastward expansion has reached its limit and the organization should respect Russia's sphere of influence. I hear e.g. that Georgia is angling for NATO membership. Sorry; as sympathetic as one might be towards the aspirations of this small republic on the wrong side of the Black Sea, they should politely receive notice that that is out of the question.


As for the air elements deployed by the Russian Air Force, it's interesting to see that apparently the Fencers (with their trademark smokey engines!) remain firmly in the inventory. They can't have flown fast - wings are in the take off/landing position. And those swing wings got me thinking again about something that's been on my mind for a long time: the ordnance, or jettisonable fuel tanks, stored under those swing wings... if the wings turn, so must the pylons on which the bombs, missiles etc are mounted turn too, right? That means automatically that the entire weight is suspended from only one rotational point. I was glad enough that on Twitter, the gentleman known as @PrivateFrazer, who is an aerospace professional, presented me this magnificent scheme of the swing wing/pylon system for the F-111! I'm happy to share it with you:





(Some fleshing out this evening yet)


MFBB.

Saturday, April 25, 2020

SATURDAY NIGHT SUPERTRAMP, THE BLUE NILE.

Supertramp with Take the long way home. Album Breakfast in America (1979).





English rock band, founded in London in 1969 by Roger Hodgson (vocals, keyboards, guitar) and Rick Davies (vocals, keyboards).



The Blue Nile with Tinseltown in the Rain. From their 1984 debut album A Walk Across the Rooftops.





Scottish band formed in the early eighties by Paul Buchanan, Robert Bell and Paul Joseph ("PJ") Moore. The three of them studied at the Glasgow Uni, where they obtained degrees in literature and medieval histor, mathematics, and electronics, respectively.

Hat tip OutlawDaughter.


Good night and stay safe.



MFBB.

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE DISCOVERIES!!!

30 years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope was brought into orbit by Space Shuttle Discovery.





Via Space dot com:


"...In 1946, soon after World War II, astronomer Lyman Spitzer proposed launching a space telescope, which could overcome the limitations of ground-based observatories. It took a couple more decades before the idea garnered enough support for the National Academy of Science to organize a committee of scientists to evaluate the potential of a Large Space Telescope. With Spitzer at the helm, the committee published a document in 1969 that outlined the scientific uses of a Large Space Telescope and advocated for its construction, according to a history of the telescope written by Gabriel Olkoski for NASA.

The National Academy of Science took their pitch to NASA — the only agency capable of making the Large Space Telescope a reality. NASA was already considering a space telescope of some type, but they were undecided on how big to make it and where to start. In 1971, George Low, the agency's acting administrator at that time, greenlighted the Large Space Telescope Science Steering Group and NASA soon began lobbying Congress for funding for the endeavor."








"...The expensive project was a tough sell, and funding was initially denied by the House Appropriations Subcommittee in 1975. NASA then upped their lobbying efforts and got buy-in from European Space Agency, which shared the costs. Congress eventually granted funding for NASA's portion of the Large Space Telescope in 1977.

Development began almost immediately, and NASA planned to launch the telescope in 1983, but various production delays pushed the launch date back to 1986.


In the meantime, the Large Space Telescope was renamed the Hubble (HST) in honor of Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer who, among other things, determined that the universe extended beyond the borders of the Milky Way.

The HST was delayed once more after the 1986 space shuttle Challenger exploded a minute after takeoff on January 28 of that year, killing all seven astronauts on board. It took two years before shuttle flights could resume and NASA could begin planning Hubble's launch again.

The world's first space telescope finally launched aboard space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. The effort cost $1.5 billion, but there would be ongoing costs — both expected and unexpected...."








"...Initial instruments on Hubble included the Wide Field Planetary Camera, the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS), the Faint Object Camera (FOC), the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) and the High Speed Photometer.

Advertisement

Hubble experienced equipment issues right off the bat. The telescope's images came back so blurry that they were close to useless. Hubble's main mirror had a defect — a spherical aberration caused by a manufacturing error. The flaw was minute, at just 1/50th the thickness of a sheet of paper, but that was big enough to cause major imaging problems.

It took three years before NASA could mount a repair mission. On Dec. 2, 1993, the Space Shuttle Endeavor ferried a crew of seven to fix Hubble during five days of spacewalks. Two new cameras, including the Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) — which later took many of Hubble's most famous photos — were installed during the fix. In December 1993, the first new images from Hubble reached Earth, and they were breathtaking.

Since then, Hubble has continued to provide unprecedented information about our universe and inspire curious minds around the world..."



Indeed.

Probably the most iconic photo provide by Hubble to date is the one showing the 'three pillars of creation', clouds in the Eagle Nebula composed mainly of cool hydrogen and dust, which serve as incubators for new stars. I myself I prefer this astounding image:





That image is called the Hubble Legacy Field, actually a composite image. It's some kind of a “history book” of galaxies in the universe. It's a combination of nearly 7,500 separate Hubble exposures, representing 16 years’ worth of observations. The wavelength range stretches from ultraviolet to near-infrared light, capturing all the features of galaxy assembly over time. The Hubble Leagy Field depicts a wide portrait of the distant universe and contains roughly 265,000 galaxies, which stretch back through some 13.3 billion years of time to just 500 million years after the universe’s birth in the big bang. More info here:







Some HST facts:

Telescope size:

Length: 43.5 feet (13.2 meters)
Weight: 24,500 lbs. (11,110 kilograms)
Maximum diameter: 14 feet (4.2 m)


Spaceflight stats:

Orbit: Average altitude of 307 nautical miles (569 km, or 353 miles), inclined 28.5 degrees to the equator.
Time to complete one orbit: 97 minutes
Speed: 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h)
Data:

Hubble transmits about 120 gigabytes of science data every week. That would be roughly 3,600 feet (1,097 meters) of books on a shelf. The collection of pictures and data is stored on magneto-optical disks.


Power:

Energy source: Sunlight
Mechanism: Two 25-foot solar panels
Power usage: 2,800 watts
Batteries: 6 nickel-hydrogen (NiH), with a storage capacity equal to 20 car batteries


Optics:

Primary mirror diameter: 94.5 in (2.4 m)
Primary mirror weight: 1,825 lb (828 kg)
Secondary mirror diameter: 12 in (0.3 m)
Secondary mirror weight: 27.4 lb (12.3 kg)


Among the most valued discoveries and observations of the HST we count:

a.) Creating a 3-D map of mysterious dark matter.
b.) Discovering Nix and Hydra, two moons of Pluto.
c.) Helping determine the rate of the universe's expansion.
d.) Discovering that nearly every major galaxy is anchored by a black hole.
e.) Helping refine the age of the universe.



Because maintenance missions to the HST stopped when the Space Shuttle program ended in 2012, anything that breaks down is not repaired so Hubble finds itself in effect in a decaying state. There's talk however of using the Orion Capsule to provide a token of maintenance.

And even if that doesn't go through, the HST's successor is in the works: the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be bigger and more sensitive. However, because of budget overruns and technical delays, and also because of the current Corona Crisis, it is practically certain that the planned launch date of Spring 2021 cannot be maintained. Which means that at least for the time being and for the foreseeable future, the Hubble Space Telescope will remain the undisputed workhorse when it comes to cosmological observations!


MFBB.

Friday, April 24, 2020

EUROPE: MUSLIMS ABUSING CORONA CRISIS TO CONSOLIDATE POSITION.

Sheer horror: at the end of March, the muslim call to prayer was for the very first time broadcast from loudspeakers from the Brussels Central Mosque near the Cinquantenaire monument:





Mark my words, a precedent has been set!


Same in Duisburg, in Germany's Ruhrgebiet, where the adhan resounded fromthe minaret of the DITIB-run central mosque:



Duisburg is no isolated case. There are reportedly hundreds of mosques in Germany which did the same.


Same in Amsterdam, this tweet is from muslim police officer 'Mohsin' and shows the El Umma mosque:



This 5th column man in police uniform is actually far more dangerous than the cruelest ISIS member who left The Netherlands to wreak havoc in Syria.



And for those not swayed by these lovely demonstrations of muslim compassion there were more convincing arguments of solidarity in times of corona:





"Rioting started in Villeneuve-la-Garenne on Sunday evening, according to broadcaster France Bleu, and continued on Monday night time with fireworks released at law enforcement.

Numerous other Paris suburbs also noticed violence and rioting such as the infamous no-go location of Seine-Saint-Denis which noticed rubbish cans lit on fire in both Aulnay-sous-Bois and Saint-Denis.

Various parts also reported attacks on police instantly in Asnières, Nanterre, Meudon, Clamart, and Gennevilliers.

The section of Yvelines, which has viewed almost everyday assaults on the law enforcement for the earlier two weeks, reported officers attacked in the town of Noé by a team of about 20 men and women who released projectiles and fireworks at them.

Significantly less than an hour later on in the commune of La Verrière, one more police patrol was attacked by a team of close to five persons. Rocks were being then thrown at officers in Mantes-la-Jolie and a bus was attacked with fireworks in Sartrouville a brief time later on..."



Villeneuve-la_Garenne: police counterattacking muslim youths. YES, they are definitely 'MUSLIM' youths! Ain't no Biofrench youths, no Vietnamese youths, they ain't even Chinese youths:














Aulnay-sous-bois, a well known Dar-al-Islam hotbed and muslim no-gone zone:




Corona may be bad, but we will conquer it, that's for sure.

The ongoing - actually, 'thanks' to corona, *accelerating*, islamization, now, that is another matter.


MFBB.