NASA is scheduled to launch space shuttle Endeavor for the STS-126 mission tonight at 7:55 P.M. EST. You can watch it live on NASA TV.
Personally, I plan to cart out to a nearby golf course, cast my eyes to the south-east and watch Endeavor blast off into the night sky. It's an impressive sight to behold ... unless there is too much cloud cover. Shuttle launch control has a 30% no-go chance due to possible negative weather conditions.
STS-126 mission is impressive
Endeavor will dock with the International Space Station and deliver needed equipment and supplies to increase the ISS capability to host more ISS expedition members. The STS-126 crew will also EVA (spacewalk) to repair the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ) which allows the huge ISS solar arrays to track the sun to provide maximum energy to the station.
Previous missions have built the ISS out. Node 2, Columbus, and KIbo modules added the basic livable space to the station. Now, the STS-126 crew will install the needed equipment into that new space.
"It's the most jam-packed logistics module we have ever carried up there. We're taking a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house and turning it into a five-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a gym."
One of the most impressive pieces of equipment (besides the spare space toilet) is the Environment Control and Life Support System (ECLSS). The ECLSS recycles all the liquid waste water on the ISS that normally gets dumped.
Although it may sound distasteful to some of you, this system basically captures moisture in the air from crew members breathing and their urine in the waste system. It then purifies all of it into drinkable water.
After installation, the ECLSS will go through a number of tests before anyone drinks the water produced by it. Recycling water and not wasting it is an important step toward long term space exploration goals, such as going to Mars.
[quote of the moment] If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. – Henry David Thoreau
The New York Times published a special edition for July 4th, 2009. It is a must read for anyone who believes in a sane future. People on the street seem to like it.
If you really want to feel happy about the end of the disastrous Bush/Cheney regime in the United States, read some of the articles in the NY Times Special Edition. Here's a list of headlines linking to the articles on nytimes-se.com:
The internet is the vast collective digital mind of the puny humans living on our pathethic spinning ball of mud called Earth. It is a growing electronic organism of unimaginable size and shape. Even powerful governments and multi-national corporations can't fully control it.
We are all part of it as contributors and spectators: buying and selling, listening and telling.
Every grand dream and dark nightmare in human history can be found within a few moments of your desire to know it. It can be a path to enlightenment and a little box of horrors.
If you're curious where the U.S. police state is headed that Bush/Cheney amped up with their post 9-11 Shock Doctrine, check out the extensive conference program offered to law enforcement professionals at this event.
• Implementation of Intelligence Led Policing - Centralized Investigations with support of all area commands is transitioning to an Intelligence Led Policing model. To accomplished this goal, a BJA grant was obtained and infrastructure was put into place to ensure its success.
• Combat Stress Injuries: Stigma, treatment and implications for police work after combat - The severity of combat stress injuries ranges from expected reactions to combat trauma and return to functioning, to severe PTSD. It is important to realize that the majority of those exposed to combat trauma will not develop a syndrome that will impair their functioning in their military jobs or jobs in law enforcement.
• Radicalization in the West - This presentation will involve discussion of the evolution of the threat to the United States; how it has changed over the past 20 years, and how the data on terrorists refutes conventional wisdom. Additional discussion will describe the process of radicalization as well as outline a typical trajectory of a terrorist career. This session will be closed to the press.
• Honor Israel National Police for Counter Terrorism Exchanges - (This program had no description, but I suggest it might be called "How to occupy a country for 60 years")
• Following, Forfeiting and Sharing the Money - The U.S. Department of Justice's Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section (AFMLS) will present a workshop focusing on (1) following the money of criminal enterprises through financial investigations and (2) sharing forfeited funds with state and local law enforcement.
• Addressing the IED Threat: Enhancing Bombing Prevention and Response Efforts by Harnessing Partnerships, Training, Information-Sharing, Public-Awareness, and Planning
That last selected workshop is for your local law enforcement officers to learn about improvised explosive devices (IED). The Shock Doctrine not only works on the average citizen, it works on the law enforcement community too. Nothing like filling your local traffic cop's head with visions of you possibly exploding your car when he pulls you over for speeding on the highway. Somehow I want to say something like "Bush wants Boston to be like Baghdad" now.
Bush Crime Family
With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Bush administration merged civilian crime prevention with the military and intelligence communities. It's a familiar theme in the Bush Crime Family.
George H.W. Bush was responsible for merging international drug interdiction, the military, and civilian asset forfeiture domestically while flooding U.S. cities with Columbian cocaine to fund his pet covert ops projects around the planet for his ideological and corporate cronies.
It's all fun and games until the neocon nutjobs start using all that expensive high-tech surveillance and military weapons systems on U.S. citizens domestically. The Terror President has used fear to create a huge domestically-focussed military industrial complex worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Today is Veterans Day. According to the Veterans Administration, there are an estimated 23.4 million living veterans in the United States of America. Of that population, some 17.4 million veterans served during wartime including the last living U.S. veteran of World War I, Frank Buckles.
As the official poster on the left says, Veterans Day is the day to honor all who served. Many people seem to confuse today's holiday with Memorial Day which is intended to honor those that have died during the course of their military service to the country. You probably know someone in your family, or a co-worker, or a neighbor who is a military veteran. Today is the day to thank them for their service.
Most of the retirees wintering here in Florida served in military service because of the military draft. However, many volunteered to serve their country during the draft. There are military veterans from all branches of the service who served in World War II, Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
One neighbor who lived across the street from me was career military. He retired as a First Sergeant. He has sinced moved, but I remember seeing his 82nd Airborne flag proudly flying everyday when he was here. I just called him "Top."
Then earlier this year, I noticed the other neighbor next to him getting up really early and leaving each morning wearing Navy dress whites. He was driving to the nearby Florida national cemetery that I visited on Memorial Day. He was part of a military honor group that would give one last honor to the veteran being buried there.
Gulf War 3.0
Today, there are men and women currently deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hostile areas around the globe. Veterans serving in combat return home with a number of serious issues with which they and their families must contend.
The transition to civilian life can be difficult notwithstanding any of the physical or mental injuries these combat veterans may have to endure. Substance abuse, PTSD, homelessness and suicide are veterans issues the American public haven't seen since the Vietnam era.
I still say to people, "Whether you feel you are from a red state or blue state politically, keep some military green in your heart for the troops serving." I support the work of Veterans for Common Sense who has been a watchdog of the Veterans Administration and an advocate for all military veterans.
Another veterans group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), has just recently developed a social networking site at communityofveterans.org which also has useful information and provides fellowship for their members.
You may have seen the founder and executive director of IAVA, Paul Rieckhoff, giving various television interviews or heard him on Rachel Maddow's radio show. The video above shows him on Olbermann last year.
This year, 15 members of Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW) were in a Nassau County, New York courtroom facing disorderly conduct charges relating to their antiwar protest during the final presidential debate at Hofstra University. This despite the fact that Iraq veteran Sgt Nick Morgan had his face crushed by a Nassau County police horse that night.
[quote of the moment] I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience. – Mitch Hedberg, Best of Comedy Central
Well, it's also time for me to add another category to the blog here. I shall call it "Obama." Some people assume just because I have been Bush bashing for so long that I must be some mindless moonbat liberal. That's probably not true.
You see, when the people in power in my government screw up or act criminally, I'm going to say something about it. There are only 2-1/2 months left of the disastrous Bush/Cheney administration.
Still, that's plenty of time to do something else stupid or criminal. I mean, think about it. Bush goes to Beijing to watch the Olympic Games and the neocons in the Republican party nearly start a frackin' war with Russia. Remember Russia?
Of course the new job approval rating for Bush came out today and hit an historic low at 17%:
"The challenge Obama faces has never been greater. No president has ever come to office during a time when the public's mood has been this low. In the 34 years that this question has been asked, the number who say things are going well has never fallen below 20 percent." — Keating Holland, CNN's polling director
Now, I always like to turn things around. I have to play Devil's Advocate. 17% of the people polled actually approve of the job Bush is doing.
Who are these people that think that Bush and Cheney are doing a good job? Where the frack do these people live? Did they think John Dean was lying when he wrote "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush" or are these mouth-breathing Bush supporters not into fancy, high filluting book learning?!
I just realized who these morons are. They are the people who still think Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim. So what if he is?
[quote of the moment] "Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos." – George W. Bush
