DUNE BUGGY MOON BUGGY COMPETITION: “[NASA] has selected three private teams […] to develop their versions of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), the rover that Artemis astronauts will drive around the moon’s southern polar region beginning in 2030. […] NASA will buy rover services, not the actual LTV(s).” LTV will be like those electric scooters you see littering urban landscapes (and favored by a certain writer at TOS). This also opens the possibility that private moon voyagers or the space program of another country, could rent the buggy once NASA is done with it. Full disclosure: I am a huge fanboi, and very minor investor, in Intuitive Machines (LUNR), one of the competing teams. If IM wins the final contract, I’ll have a nut on the LTV.
YOU WANT IT, YOU PAY FOR IT: “Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in trophy hunting dispute.” I love this new trend of developing countries telling developed countries to fuck right off with their neocolonialism, as the president of Guyana recently did with a BBC (state media) journo.
BECAUSE DOING NOTHING IS THE CHEAPEST, EASIEST MOVE: “Panama and Colombia fail to protect migrants on Darien jungle route, Human Rights Watch says.” It’s your typical third-world shitshow with nobody to like.
WHERE CARGO SHIPS DIVERTED FROM BALTIMORE ARE DOCKING: I’m personally glad to see Port of Norfolk getting the lion’s share. That’s jobs and revenue for Virginia, and is a logical choice for any ships in or near the Chesapeake Bay.
DESERT SMITH: “Stunned archaeologists probe claims of giant skeletons in Nevada caves where they found a 15-inch sandal that had been worn down as well as massive handprints across the walls.” Huh, huh-huh, they said “probed.” And we all know what big feet mean. But, seriously, early reports of pygmies were dismissed by europe-based scientists, and only in this century have we come to learn about Homo floresiensis. If tribes of very small people exist(ed), why not very big people?
YOU DON’T SAY: “Ohio’s photo voter ID law took effect a year ago. Since then, the share of provisional ballots rejected for lack of ID has more than tripled.”
NERD NEWS: “The world’s semiconductor industry hinges on a single quartz factory in North Carolina.”
READER SERVICE: Earlier in the week, RC Dean was curious about the origin the name of SpaceX recovery droneship, the Of Course I Still Love You. Because we are all about fanbase maintenance here at Thursday Afternoon Links, here is the answer. If you already knew this, wedgie yourself. Everyone else get up and dance.
They should just haul a Tesla cybertruck to the moon. Maybe Elon will sponsor them.
On the plus side, I would think the vacuum would be kinder to the stainless steel finish too.
Did they get Patrick Stewart as a test driver? He has expertise on dune buggies on other planets after all…. (and movies that kill franchises from scenes like that…)
We’ve all been drinking our own piss when we could have been bitch slapping these dunes!
“Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in trophy hunting dispute.”
Excellent.
Bonus points if they have to transship them through the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire.
What you did there… sees it I does.
The Houthis will send them all to the bottom of the Gulf of Aden.
They should find a guy named Hannibal to ride them across the Alps.
Just don’t forget to pack the vinegar.
I got yer white man’s burden!
It is fantastic. (Should be) Up next: Thailand and more in Southeast Asia. Elephants are fucking expensive to ‘maintain’ and ‘allow’ near humans.
They’re nowhere near as bad as pandas. Dear World: I get it; they’re cute. They’re quite useless animals that refuse to eat properly or even attempt to fuck for fun in a vain effort to preserve their species. They’re large, fickle window-pets for rich people to pay themselves on the backs for. Smugness radiates forth in nauseating plumes.
Are you talking about pandas or Gen Z?
Yes.
(Gen Z has plenty of humans, cuties alike!, who are well worth my time and attention. They look back…because they like what they see.)
Reminds me of the description of “Gumnut the Koala.”
https://www.dolovelive.com/blogs/news/gumnut-a-masterpiece
Reginald! He’s cute as a button!
That (hopefully joking?) escalated quickly: “[The Koala] raped and killed my wife’s cat “Miss Kitty” (Honestly, I wanted to put this in the good section because I’ve been trying to find a way to get that worthless cat out of the house for two years, thanks to GumNut.)
Ewwwwwwwwww!
Geez, Tonio…. I know the Internet is full of all kinds — but busting a nut on a lunar rover is out there even for this site.
Masisi said that elephants were trampling people to death, eating crops and causing damage to villages, and a ban on the import of hunting trophies would only impoverish Botswanans.
Needs more “without evidence”.
I got your evidence right here!
Another example of a law abiding citizen being killed by an undocumented elephant.
That was in today’s paper. Maybe elephant attacks will become the new shark attack story?
Then the MSM will use the fear of elephants to try to scare the public on the GOP? “Of course, the GOP decided to use the elephant as their party symbol! They are also deadly beasts”
“Native Americans’ oral history offers clues to a red-haired barbarian race of men
These invaders were supposedly trapped in a cave where they were all killed off”
Impossible. Native Americans lived peacefully and in harmony with nature and their neighbors.
“The natives obviously knew philosophy centuries before Plato and tricked the Evil Ginger Colonizers into attempting to disprove the Allegory of the Cave. Take that, Western Civilization!”
I’m sorry — but when exactly is it anyone’s job to protect a bunch of people illegally crossing borders in a massed group? (Yeah, yeah… general peace keeping, yadda yadda… but I’m sorry — you get a mob together to break the law, all bets are bloody off in my mind. And that’s all these “caravans” are… NGO sponsored mobs to break the laws.)
So Human Rights Watch can f right off — and my answer to them would be “Stay the hell home instead of wandering who knows where and expecting everything to work out for you, assholes.”
But then I’m bitchy as hell today with allergy migraine that won’t go away. Thank goodness I have no real power beyond griping on the internet.
About the only thing I can come up with is maintaining rule of law. But their own citizens will then rightly ask where is their protection.
I’m just thankful I don’t live in a third-world shithole.
Sorry about the migraine.
Hey, at least they’re blaming the countries the migrants are going through instead of saying it should be the US’s responsibility to protect them.
That is my thought too. Shouldn’t we be encouraging these countries to capture and deport the illegals trying to cross this Gap?
I’d almost enjoy seeing the IRS weaponized to audit the fuck out of these NGO’s to see how much money they are spending to get the illegals here.
Remove their tax exempt status.
Of course, they get most of their money from the federal government, so . . . .
“I love this new trend of developing countries telling developed countries to fuck right off with their neocolonialism”
Me too. In high school they had the idea of “Being a good citizen of the world.” Which was probably bullshit at the time. But now that I’m older, it seems to me that we shouldn’t treat people like shit, even the less visible ones on the other side of the world. And probably the thing I hate most is people who see themselves as better or more important than others. The whole globalist crowd is like that. “Sorry poor brown people, you have to suffer so we can feel self righteous.”
The White Man’s Burden never went away.
Nope.
American Indians as noble savages. Enslaved Africans in the US South as happy little children. Dan Quayle’s infamous “happy campers” speech. The garden of eden myth. These things all are part of narrative that brown ppl are in an inherent state of innocent grace and oneness with nature, and that it is wrong to corrupt those innocents with any of the fruits of civilization beyond perhaps a smallpox vaccine or eradicating dracunculiasis.
This thing has been rattling around in my head since back at TOS when I used to mix it up with White Injun. I really need to flesh it out and write it up someday. Keep on me, will you, ppl?
Don’t you have a boyfriend now?
My wife most certainly wouldn’t like me to….
[Imagines Bob Ross painting happy little campers]
Ok… now I’m a little curious why Baltimore was favored over Norfolk (not enough to actually research it, mind you… just enough to comment on it). With the Naval Yard there, you know they’ve got heavy rail lines and transshipment points (you’d need to for assembly / provisioning of Atlantic Fleet, right?) — and yeah, still right off the Chesapeake easily enough… plus you’d be a little more central in NoVA than Maryland so you could send down to the South a trifle easier….
Is it just that the Navy is usually messing around enough it causes delays for commercial shipping coming in?
Again… I care enough to speculate randomly, but not enough to go look it up… so don’t bother pointing me to links. 😉
I’m too lazy to look it up too, but I’m guessing that Baltimore is closer to more urban centers and the I-94 corridor as Lara Logan likes to call it.
“just enough to comment on it”
You little tease, you. Good way to try to preempt my asking for a writeup. But I still want a writeup.
BTW, Norfolk is in far southeast Virginia, at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Roughly four hours from NoVa by car, on a good day with no traffic on I-64 or I-95 (LOL).
The Presidents of the United States of America – Dune Buggy
Yeah, the words “dune buggy” in my post link to that song.
That’s a flying wedgie for you.
In the office and train I won’t click YouTube links.
Great minds and all…
Bro.
Incredibly underrated band. Funny, clever songs with damn tight musicianship.
Terrible band name for searches. Perhaps the tongue in cheek’s intent or Streisand Effect, regardless, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. They’re a fun, surprisingly(?) talented band with a sense of humor.
A good start as the joke goes is all that leaps to mind….
Suppressing the necro vote.
Look, it’s really hard to go and get a free state issued ID, why should I need that to vote?
“I’ll have those….for the next 200 years.”
How did they get ballots (to be rejected later) in the first place without ID?
Of course, ID is irrelevant to junk mail ballots, so it can’t be any of those.
The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Without ID, you shouldn’t be allowed to cast a ballot at all. And how do they know later when they are reviewing provisional ballots which ones came from somebody without ID?
I had the general idea — I did not know the specifics. Thanks for the info, Tonio!
BRRRRRRRRRRRR
Eight nonprofit institutions will administer $20 billion in federal funds designated for combating climate change and reducing pollution.
——-
“The grantees announced today will help ensure that families, small businesses, and community leaders have access to the capital they need to make climate and clean energy projects a reality in their neighborhoods,” Harris said in a written statement.
The organizations have helped thousands of people, businesses and community groups get access to funding for climate-friendly projects, the Biden administration said in a press release.
It added that the federal capital will allow tens of thousands more projects to be built.
There is not even a hint of pretense anymore. They’re just shovelling money to their co-conspirators.
Pretty sure I’ll be getting a taste of that.
Thanks everyone!
Welcome to the Carter years again.
Get yer malaise on!
And your cardigan too.
Your avatar is so often completely appropriate.
This is one of those times.
I read that as “combating climate change and reducing population” which I’m pretty sure is the actual goal.
No government should operate on giving grants to anyone, even other governments. It’s all a bunch of boondoggles that ends up enriching people who got ‘studies’ degrees.
“This is an unprecedented investment in climate action and in communities,” said Adam Kent, director of blended and inclusive finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbqMD7YrGGQ
Time’s Moon rover proposal
https://youtu.be/39EsNumG3Fc
Moon Patrol Baby!
Wow… haven’t thought about that game in decades… I remember loving it….
Breakthrough study
The vast majority of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions since 2016 can be traced to a group of 57 fossil fuel and cement producers, researchers said on Thursday.
From 2016 to 2022, the 57 entities including nation-states, state-owned firms and investor-owned companies produced 80% of the world’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement production, said the Carbon Majors report by non-profit think tank InfluenceMap.
The world’s top three CO2-emitting companies in the period were state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco (2222.SE), opens new tab, Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM), opens new tab and state-owned producer Coal India (COAL.NS), opens new tab, the report said.
——-
InfluenceMap said its findings showed that a relatively small group of emitters were responsible for the bulk of ongoing CO2 emissions, and it aimed to increase transparency around which governments and companies were causing climate change.
“It can be used in a variety of cases, ranging from legal processes seeking to hold these producers to account for climate damages, or it can be used by academics in quantifying their contributions, or by campaign groups, or even by investors,” InfluenceMap Program Manager Daan Van Acker said of the report.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Of course nobody uses their products. They are producing fuel and cement just for the hell of it.
They should make the moon buggy out of a VW Beetle as nature intended.
Even though I disagreed with him on most things, this type of Democrat doesn’t really exist anymore.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-setting-of-the-sundown-kid-joe-lieberman-senate-sabbath-rest-jewish-1486a628?st=aqs0cnt7s7hb10t&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
He was a maverick.
The silicon dioxide quarry in NC is not as critical as it seems. They have a low contamination level, but it just saves money in refinement later on.
You can wedgie yourself now. But thanks, that’s just the type of subject matter expertise I expect from my readers.
“Biden demands ‘immediate ceasefire’ in hour-long call to Netanyahu after IDF airstrike killed seven aid workers: White House warns U.S. could yank support if Bibi doesn’t make changes in next ‘hours and days'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13273039/biden-threatens-netanyahu-israel-policy-humanitarian-crisis-gaza.html
Why don’t we do that for Ukraine, and every other country using our weapons?
“Don’t eat runny yolks! Health experts advise Americans to avoid eggs sunny side up because of BIRD FLU fears”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13272273/runny-yolks-eggs-bird-flu-symptoms.html
No.
Americans should avoid runny yolks because they are disgusting. But “health experts” can fuck off about their bird flu fears.
Bloody eggs are the best!
Nothing better than sopping up yolk with your toast.
Wait when did the government switch back to eating eggs was ok?
No sunny side up? Then raw in a glass it is…fuck these goddamn pussies, I swear to god.
Health experts
I just substitute the word PRIEST for expert – and then I can ignore them.
Experts exist, and we need them.
Our problem is not experts. Our problem is that we don’t know which to trust. Which are being straight, and which are just establishment mouthpieces.
Been eggs for 14 days to slow the spread.
Poached. On toast, with Canadian bacon and Holandaise sauce.
Had runny yolk eggs for lunch today.
Spruce Pine, North Carolina
Which is it? Does it oscillate between the two?
I’ll show myself out.
An evergreen subject for debate
Fir real, dude…
Topics like this are so sappy.
I’ll leaf now.
Stop needling everyone.
Ya need to get that through your thick cone.
These punsters must be rooted out.
“The White House may soon finalize a long-awaited ban on menthol cigarettes after pressure from special interest groups, with some saying the ban could negatively impact minority communities.
Menthol cigarettes account for nearly one-third of the industry’s market share in the U.S., meaning they are broadly popular with smokers.
They have also long been particularly popular with black smokers, with 81 percent of them opting for the menthol varieties, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The minty flavoring that is added to these products typically appeals to young, first-time smokers, making them dangerous in the eyes of the White House, medical associations and civil rights groups.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13271897/biden-banning-menthol-cigarettes-civil-rights.html
It probably won’t take effect until after the election.
This is probably one of those things they are teeing up for when Trump is president. If Trump repeals the ban, it’s proof he wants black people to die. Likewise if he rescinds the proclamation on The Narcissists’ Day of Visibility, it’s proof that he supports trans genocide.
He should do whatever anyway. He’s already Hitler.
WH: Black folks are too stupid to be allowed to pick their own favorite consumer products.
“Trump says Biden was ‘higher than a kite’ during the State of the Union and demands DRUG TESTS for the presidential debates”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13272023/trump-biden-state-union-drug-tests-presidential-debates.html
LOLOL
The best part of this is that Trump is obviously joking and riffing, but the Dems won’t be able to lay off. They will publish a shit ton of “think” pieces about the danger to democracy when one of the candidates lies about his opponent being a drug addict.
There won’t be any debates but yeah LOL.
‘DUNE BUGGY’
Did not disappoint
“The world’s semiconductor industry hinges on a single quartz factory in North Carolina.”
So when will China buy it?
Good luck getting those elephants to Germany. After that lawsuit by the illegal aliens sent to Martha’s Vineyard, all carriers are too worried about lawsuits.
Even if the settlement is peanuts, Botswana can’t pay it.
I wonder what the elephants would pack in their trunks.
Tusk tusk, another pun thread?
I’m too much of a dumbo to come up with a good one — which is probably wise since if Swiss comes around, he won’t just let this fly by.
It will be a real circus when he sees this.
Its getting a bit long in the tooth.
Dune buggy
Idiocracy is a bipartisan effort. Minnesoda – The Brain Power State! – tried to remove Algebra II as a requirement for high school graduation.
I agree that schools would be better served if they taught more practical math classes, but it seems to me that instead of dumbing down the curriculum, they should do a better job teaching in earlier classes so that Algebra II wasn’t so hard. And that asshole complaining about math anxiety can fuck off.
“because those kids who are suffering from all that math anxiety, we certainly wanna help them”
Get them a diazepam perscription if they’re that freaking skittish. Why not get rid of Algebra I while you’re at it you idiots? Hurrr de durrr…
“ And that asshole complaining about math anxiety can fuck off.”
That ties in with a podcast my wife sent me to listen to in which the guest is Abigail shrier (of bad therapy and irreversible damage fame). She states in one segment “kids aren’t sad any more, they’re depressed. They’re not worried, they’re anxious. They’re not having a hard time, they’re experiencing trauma.”
I just assumed some “equity” nonsense before reading that.
Stories like this are why journalos shouldn’t attempt to use math. Residence hall rapes at highest percentage in recent years
Oh no! My darling daughter staying in a dorm is at extreme risk!!!!!
Hold on…
There is even a fucking bar chart that should make anyone who looks at it slap the journalo who is trying to peddle this rape scare bullshit.
1) Rapes this year are less than half of what they were last year.
2) Looks like even rapes in dorms were down significantly (27 vs 16).
3) Last year looks like an outlier with way more rapes than any other year (possibly an inspiring TA in the Women’s Study’s dept?)
Wait. I may have used my math privilege and jumped the gun.
To be fair this is a student paper. However…
Never reported anywhere in the article: the number of rapes or fondling resulting in criminal prosecution.
I’ll leave why that is (inept, shallow reporting vs. the number of campus “rape” reports that hold up to even mild scrutiny is rather low) to the reader.
“She said often there are other things survivors want to prioritize like school, safety and their well-being. ”
Also, breaking up with the “rapist”.
Fucking Server errors.
I’m trying to ask for help and it eats my comment
Lets try this again.
I got the circuit boards for my clock, the one that works just fine as a breadboard.
I solder all the components on, give it power, and nothing happens. I examine the design and find an error which can be fixed by flipping a component around, cutting one trace, and attaching one bodge wire. I do this, now everything has power, but nothing is being displayed. Multimeter says it should be working. I can’t figure out my oscilliscope because I’ve used it all of twice, weeks ago. I reverted to a simpler codebase to take out some features that might be buggy. Nada. I’m still poking around, but I’m out of ideas on where to look for the problem.
I’m not Seeing Anything Wrong!
Check to see if the power pins on every chip are getting power. Disconnect the power, and trace all the ground points back to ground.
Oh, it’s too late, I’ve found the problem.
I wired the power leads backwards.
The problem is I may have toasted half of my display in my faffing about trying to fix the power before I realized I just needed to break a few traces and run bodge wires.
“If tribes of very small people exist(ed), why not very big people?” –> I’m quite sure they did. Height is a pretty sexy characteristic to flaunt. We’re still living in that window. Large organisms, especially with large brains, are very calorically expensive. Much too much work goes into feeding such creatures. Best save the grubs and spread them ’round. Social primates gotta be social.
Homo sapiens should peak at about 5’6″. After the chaff is winnowed, I’ll be a lonely pinnacle at 5’6.5″, yet one the masses can yet aspire to emulate. Clouds tremble at my echo.
*looks down at Evan*
Sorry, it’s not social attitude, it’s geometric.
/6’3″
No troubles, bubbles! Better for uppercuttin’!
Ev Rule: Never underestimate the power of being underestimated.
I’m a fat bastard, I don’t underestimate anyone.
Except maybe babies. They’re sneakier than they have any right to be.
Always fear the Small Assassin.
“On his sixth day away he receives an emergency phone call from Dr. Jeffers, telling him Alice is seriously ill with pneumonia; David rushes home, and a frightened Alice tells him, “It was the baby again”. She claims she got pneumonia because the baby cried all night to keep her from sleeping; she believes he is deliberately trying to weaken and kill her.”
The little fuckers WILL do that. Im convinced- and glad I only have 1.
Youth are mighty sneaky.
@Nephilium: Huh! The short wiki-plot is terrifying!
I am happily without child.
I reckon you always will be. 🫃 Emojis notwithstanding.
err, 🫃🏻
@Tox: Hrm. Am I a pregnant Asian man in the first and more white-white in the second? Or is the second one (somehow) less trans-y? Perhaps it’s the person I hypothetically impregnate.
Otherwise, gotta plead happy ignorance.
It’s a nice little short story, it was adapted for the Ray Bradbury Theater TV show.
Where have I heard this before?
Tesla could “go bust” while its stock could fall to $14, Per Lekander, a hedge fund manager who has been shorting Elon Musk’s electric car maker since 2020, told CNBC on Wednesday.
His comments come after Tesla reported 386,810 vehicle deliveries in the first quarter of the year, significantly below even the lowest market estimates.
“This was really the beginning of the end of the Tesla bubble, which probably, arguably was the biggest stock market bubble in modern history,” Lekander, managing partner at investment management firm Clean Energy Transition, said on “Squawk Box Europe.”
“I actually think the company could go bust.”
I’m not betting on that, either.
What I get out of that article is “I really want to buy stock in Tesla but it’s too expensive.”
Shorting electric cars – c’mon!
Let the sparks fly!
Resistance is useless!
Man, I have no idea what you are talking about. I need to do better keeping up with current events.
I wont impede you.
‘ a hedge fund manager who has been shorting Elon Musk’s electric car maker since 2020’
He’s now living out of a shoe box I assume?
I LOVE SPACE LINKS
SPACE SMITH GIVE YOU SPACE LINK…
BY LINK MEAN…
The problem is that you keep shouting “GIMME SPACE!” and then wonder why we all leave.
Sans cheating and fraud I suspect the Dems except for a handful of places would lose the vast majority of the offices they currently hold in a single election cycle.
Of course that would mean that the Reps would do the dumbest and evil things imaginable ( like the Dems are now) and lost most of their gains in the next election cycle.
This is our political class ladies and gentlemen.
Who are you, who speaks such truths?
Don’t see it, they have overwhelming support in the big urban areas.
Most congressional districts aren’t competitive, so unless you’re positing double digit plus levels of fraud … nah.
“That’s what the drone ships are named for, the late Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels.”
I knew it! When I saw the name, I immediately thought of Banks. My favorite was the warship named No More Mr. Nice Guy.
OMWC will be pleased to hear that he will have a new ride for when he visits the ((lazer)).
These open borders people are nuts. Yeah. Just allow hordes of migrants to freely move through your country. There aren’t any negative externalities to that plan at all.
What the fuck kind of meth are these people on?