Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Northrop Grumman robotic MEV-2 spacecraft, in a first, catches active Intelsat satellite

Two aerospace firms accomplished an industry first on Monday, as a small Northrop Grumman spacecraft docked successfully with an active Intelsat satellite to provide service and extend its life.

Intelsat’s IS-10-02 satellite is nearly 18 years old, and operating well past its expected lifespan, but the Northrop Grumman-built spacecraft called MEV-2 will add another five years of life to IS-10-02, essentially re-fueling the satellite and giving it a new engine for control.

The companies hit a milestone in the growing business of servicing satellites while in space.

“Today’s successful docking of our second Mission Extension Vehicle further demonstrates the reliability, safety and utility of in-space logistics,” Tom Wilson, vice president of Nothrop Grumman’s strategic space systems said in a statement. “The success of this mission paves the way for our second generation of servicing satellites and robotics, offering flexibility and resiliency for both commercial and government satellite operators, which can enable entirely new classes of missions.”

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White House announces border agreements with Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala

The White House on Monday said it had reached agreements with Mexico and other Central American countries to step up military presence at their borders in an effort to stem migration to the U.S.

The deals with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala come as the U.S. grapples with historic levels of migration to its southern border.

“The objective is to make it more difficult to make the journey, and make crossing the borders more more difficult,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “We worked with them to increase law enforcement at the border to deter the travel, which is a treacherous journey … where many lose their lives.”

It’s unclear exactly when the U.S. reached the agreements with the three countries, with Psaki only saying they were signed in recent weeks. But her announcement comes on the heels of multiple trips by various administration officials to the region.

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Biden’s Deputy Energy Sec Spoke For Chinese Communist Party.

President Biden’s Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk spoke at a Chinese Communist Party-sponsored energy conference and gave an exclusive interview to a state-run media outlet where he praised the communist country’s efforts in energy development.

Turk, also an alum of the Obama administration, was the Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2018 at the time of the conference. The 2018 China International Energy Industry Expo (CIEI) was hosted in the city of Taiyuan and was “established with the approval of the State Council” and “jointly sponsored” by two Chinese government entities: the Ministry of Commerce and the Shanxi provincial government.  

The event boasts it is”the only state-level, international and professional exhibition in the energy industry field approved by the State Council.” “With the instruction spirit of “striving to be the vanguard of national energy revolution”, ” in accordance with the new concept of innovation, coordination, green, open and sharing actively, the fair aims to become the a new platform for international energy exchange and cooperation,” a summary adds.

A previously unreported article from China Global Television Network (CGTN) reveals that Turk “delivered a speech on the future trends of global energy supply and consumption.”“He says China’s switch to a new economic model and a cleaner energy mix is driving global trends,” the summary continues.

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It’s Not Okay For Corporations To Take Away Our Freedom Just Because They’re Not Government

If you want to take over the world, build an American corporate empire to monopolize the public square and ban dissent. Then, form a corporate coalition of like-minded peers who graduated from the same elite universities where wokeism is indoctrinated as a secular religion to strategize on circumventing republican governance. Over the weekend, more than 100 corporate executives met to do just that.

“More than 100 of the nation’s top corporate leaders met virtually on Saturday to discuss ways for companies to continue responding to the passage of more restrictive voting laws across the country,” CBS News reported, in “a signal that the nation’s premier businesses are preparing a far more robust, organized response to the ongoing debate.”

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South African COVID variant might evade protection from vaccine, study finds

The South Africa variant of the coronavirus might evade the Pfizer vaccine, according to a new study from Tel Aviv University and Israel’s largest healthcare provider.

The study, which was published Saturday and still requires peer review, looked at 400 individuals who tested positive for the coronavirus despite receiving at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and compared the prevalence of the South African variant, B.1.351, with the same number of people who have not yet received a vaccination.

“We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group,” said Adi Stern of Tel Aviv University. “This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine’s protection.”

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