Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos believes that humans will one day spend most of their time away from planet Earth and is keen to cash in on this vision by colonizing one of the key future locations of heavy industry: the moon.

At the Space Development Conference in Los Angeles,Bezos, owner of a private spaceflight company called Blue Origin, said he can see the moon one day becoming the manufacturing sector of the universe, according to Geekwire.

Over the coming years, the billionaire predicted that heavy industry, the manufacturing of large, heavy articles and materials in bulk, will move to other planets, the moon and even asteroids, leaving Earth as a place for "residential and light industrial.

The Earth is not a very good place to do heavy industry, he said. Its convenient for us right now. But in the not-too-distant future Im talking decades, maybe 100 years itll start to be easier to do a lot of the things that we currently do on Earth in space, because well have so much energy. We will have to leave this planet. Were going to leave it, and its going to make this planet better.

Bezos went on to describe the moons surface as perfect for heavy industry because it has sunlight 24/7 for solar cells, plenty of water to create fuel and lots of solid materials to build with.

The technology entrepreneur hopes to one day partner Blue Origin with Nasa and the European Space Agency to colonize the moon. Until then, his rocket company will press ahead with plans to launch ships that carry people into space.

We will have to leave this planet, Bezos said. Were going to leave it, and its going to make this planet better. Well come and go, and the people who want to stay, will stay. (See also: SpaceX to Build Mars Rocket Factory in Los Angeles.)

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) CEO Elon Musks venture SpaceX plans to send two private citizens around the moon later this year.

Here is the original post:
Jeff Bezos Wants to Colonize the Moon - Investopedia

However, these Moon caves could help with more than just shelter. Scientists have long been in the search for signs that life existed on the moon at some point. With how exposed to the elements the exterior of the moon is, any remnants of life would have been highly damaged.

But any other life forms that did once live on the Moon likely also had the wherewithal to seek shelter, which means if there were going to be fossils or anything else that showed signs of life, they would likely also be in the caves.

Ironically, the cave that has been discovered was right in the vicinity of where Apollo 11 first landed in 1969. That means astronauts were likely within walking distance of making this discovery decades ago. But with confirmation coming now, scientists are positive that many other moon caves exist that could also be explored.

Here is the original post:
Moon Cave Discovery Key To Lunar Colonization? - Giant Freakin Robot

Astronomers and space explorers have made a groundbreaking discovery on the Moona cave at least 100 meters deep that could serve as an excellent location for establishing a lunar settlement. This finding marks a significant step forward in the plans for lunar colonization, providing a potential solution to the challenges posed by the Moons harsh environment.

The cave, located in Mare Tranquillitatis, or the Sea of Tranquility, was discovered by two engineers from the University of Trento, ItalyLorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer. They utilized space radar to shoot a radar signal through an entrance-like hole in the wall of a pit on Mare Tranquillitatis, a site visible from the Moons surface and close to the Apollo 11 landing site. This technique revealed the presence of a substantial underground cavity, confirming long-held hypotheses about the existence of lunar caves.

Read More: NASAs Juno mission unveils fiery lava lakes on Jupiters Moon Io

The newly discovered cave is seen as a promising site for a lunar base. Its size and structure offer natural protection against the Moons extreme surface conditions, including radiation, temperature fluctuations, and space storms. The caves overhanging walls and gently declining floor make it an ideal candidate for future human habitation. This discovery is particularly significant as it aligns with the plans to protect future lunar settlers from the harsh surface environment.

Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut in space, highlighted the caves potential for future colonization, predicting that within twenty to thirty years, humans could be living in these lunar pits. She noted the challenges posed by the caves depth, suggesting that future explorers might need to use abseiling techniques, jet packs, or elevators to access it.

The discovery was made using NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which captured radar images of the lunar surface. Analysis of these images with advanced signal processing technologies confirmed the presence of an empty lava tube beneath the Moons surface. This finding provides the first direct evidence of an accessible rock tunnel, which researchers believe could serve as a natural shelter for astronauts.

The closest terrestrial resemblance to these lunar caves is found in the volcanic caves of Lanzarote, Canary Islands, which researchers visited for comparison. These caves, formed by flowing lava, offer insights into the formation and potential uses of lunar caves. The stability and protective qualities of these caves make them suitable for long-term human exploration and habitation.

Read More: Chinas Change-6 probe makes historic return from the Moon

While the discovery is exciting, significant challenges remain. Accessing the cave involves descending a steep, debris-laden slope, which poses risks to explorers. Researchers are considering various methods to ensure safe entry and exit, as well as strategies to reinforce the caves walls and ceilings to prevent collapse.

See the rest here:
Cave discovered in the Moons hidden depths - Global Village space

Warning! This article contains spoilers for A Murder At The End Of The World.

Although A Murder at the End of the World does not explicitly mention which guests were invited by Andy and which ones by Lee, one can guess who was invited by whom based on some hidden clues and details. In A Murder at the End of the World's episode 1, Martin, Sian, and David speculate whether Darby was invited by Lee or Andy as they make their way to the retreat. While Martin believes that Andy must have invited her, David disagrees and claims that Andy would only invite people who have built something from the ground up. Martin also explains that Andy Ronson invited five of the nine guests while his wife, Lee, invited four.

Episodes 1 and 2 of A Murder at the End of the World do not resolve this mystery, and it remains unknown whether certain characters were invited by Lee or Andy. However, the episodes drop several subtle clues that allow viewers to become armchair detectives and deduce who was invited by whom. Given how Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij's shows and movies are written intricately with attention to every little detail, the guest list alone could offer answers to several underlying mysteries.

RELATED: New Murder Mystery Show Is The Perfect Replacement For Hit Netflix Drama Canceled 4 Years Ago

In A Murder at the End of the World, Sian is introduced as a Brazillian woman who started her career as a doctor but later went on to become an astronaut. When Darby first meets her on the plane to the retreat, she mentions that Sian even stepped on the Moon. Later, in A Murder at the End of the World's episode 1, Andy Ronson commends Sian by saying that she could be the one saving humanity's future with her research on the colonization of the Moon. Given how Andy Ronson takes the time to specifically mention Sian's achievements during the welcome dinner and even calls her a close friend, it seems evident he invited her.

Considering that Bill Farrah is known for being an artist who criticizes technological advancement with his artwork, he likely would not have received an invitation for the central retreat in A Murder at the End of the World if it wasn't for Lee. Andy and most of his guests are proponents of technological developments, especially AI. This puts Bill at odds with them, making him unworthy of being on Andy's guest list. However, for hacker Lee Andersen (Brit Marling), Bill seems to be the perfect guest for the retreat not only because they used to be close friends but also because Lee has faced the dire consequences of unchecked technological developments in the past.

As her backstory reveals, she was doxxed after she published a critical manifesto about how misogyny was destroying the early promise of the internet. Her haters even posted fake AI-generated videos of her to ruin her online reputation. Given how Bill creates activist art that denounces technology, it makes sense for Lee to invite him.

A Murder at the End of the World does not initially reveal much about Lui Mei. Andy Ronson also does not explicitly mention that he invited her to the retreat. However, since Lui Mei is one of the biggest players in the world of AI technology, it would be logical for Andy Ronson to invite her to the retreat and show her the advancements he and his people have made in recent years.

Darby seemingly gets a last-moment invitation to the retreat in A Murder at the End of the World after she mentions Lee Andersen as one of her inspirations in her book, "The Silver Doe." This alone establishes that she was invited by Lee. However, there could be a deeper reason why Darby was called to the retreat because it seems strange how her ex-boyfriend, Bill, was also invited and murdered on his first night at the venue. Although the exact reason why Darby received an invitation remains a mystery, Lee likely had some hidden motives when she decided to call Darby to the retreat.

As established in A Murder at the End of the World's episode 1, Ziba is among the few guests Andy specifically acknowledges during the welcome dinner. He praises Ziba for pioneering the use of end-to-end encryption during her activism in Iran, confirming that he invited her after being impressed by her work. Ziba, however, seems immensely critical of rich folks like Andy Ronson who hoard money. She claims she would not have attended the retreat but only showed up because she wanted to meet a like-minded activist like Bill.

Lui Mei mentions that she is a big fan of Martin's movies, which establishes that he is a gifted filmmaker with an impressive line of work. Unlike most other guests invited by Lee, Martin seems relatively neutral about technology. In A Murder at the End of the World's episode 2, he even takes Andy Ronson's AI assistant's help to create a movie, which portrays how, despite being invited by Lee Andersen, Martin is the kind of person who can get along with both proponents of technology and its critics.

RELATED: Is The Silver Doe Based On A True Story? A Murder At The End Of The World's Real Inspirations Explained

David's initial interactions with Darby and other guests on the plane to the retreat suggest that he is an arrogant businessman who takes immense pride in his high net worth. Although Andy Ronson does not explicitly mention that he invited David, David seems sure that it was Andy's idea to have him at the retreat because, according to him, the distinction between the people who build real businesses in the world and the ones who don't is important to Andy. David's pompousness and pride confirm that Lee Andersen would not have invited him since her guest list includes more grounded people like Rohan, Darby, and Bill.

A Murder at the End of the World introduces Rohan as a climate scientist, which is enough to confirm that he was on Lee Andersen's guest list. While Rohan does not openly criticize technology like Bill and Ziba, he likely has deep concerns about its long-term impact on the planet because of his profession. Rohan's reaction to Bill's death in A Murder at the End of the World's episode 2 also suggests that he had a history with Bill.

Oliver is another guest at the retreat who gets acknowledged by Andy Ronson at the welcome dinner. Ronson says that Oliver's work in robotics is beyond what he read in science fiction as a kid. Ronson's admiration for Oliver's work in A Murder at the End of the World's episode 1 not only establishes that he invited him to the retreat but also suggests that he has been following his work in robotics for quite some time and has even collaborated with him to develop relevant technologies that could save the planet in the future.

Visit link:
A Murder At The End Of The World's Retreat Guests Explained: Who ... - Screen Rant

Perhaps entirely by accident, Sofia Coppolas Marie Antoinette (2006) turned into one of the best and most prophetic films about celebrity decadence, rampant income inequality, and the widening gulf between elites and everyone else that defines contemporary America. Ostensibly a sardonic, womens history retelling of the last queen of ancien rgime France, the movie unfolds more like a costume party than a costume drama. Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Marianne Faithful, Asia Argento and a host of other actors prance around playing their more-or-less-clueless selves, drenched in champagne, eating gateaux, and trying on Manolo Blahnik shoes to an anachronistic punk soundtrack. The party scenes look gloriously unscripted, like were watching royals just hanging outthe film even predated (barely) Keeping Up With the Kardashians. This is how it felt to be young, glamorous, and afloat on seas of unearned wealth and celebrity during the early 2000s. Watching it is akin to experiencing a translation or transposition of time periods and mores: Was the whole purpose of the French Revolution to replace the aristocracy of birth with the aristocracy of celebrity? What was the difference?

A similar gestalt characterizes the outset of Adam Thirlwells fourth novel, The Future Future. Celinethere are no last names or titlesis a young aristocrat, wed at 18 to the abusive and violent Sasha, who is 27 years her senior; when the novel opens she is the subject of prurient rumors and flat-out pornography, which circulate in the form of pamphlets. One of them imagines her and several Jewish billionaires conspiring to take control in America during their orgies. Defenseless, Celine at first responds in the only way she knows how: to dress with an increased sense of alertness, her private idea of armour. Shed started to sew little slogans into the sleeves of her dressesfragments like AS IF or IF YOU MUSTor to add extra folds and loops multiplying a system of false openings.

Thirlwell refers to these as punk outfits, part of an array of intentional anachronismsbillionaire is another, as is the epithet fascist applied to Sasha, and the endearment babyeach of which serves to unsettle and displace the readers sense of time and place, even though its gradually revealed that we are somewhere in France, in or about the year 1775, in a universe similar but not identical to both the universe of Coppolas Marie Antoinette and our own.

In one of many highly recondite jokes played on the historical record, Thirlwell has Celine hatch a conspiracy to bring together the first lady, Antoinette, with her friend, a Jewish stockbroker called Rosen. This is done by staging a drawing room theatrical with the successful aim of getting Rosen appointed finance minister. Rosen here stands in for the historical figure of Jacques Neckerthe banker tasked with saving Louis XVIs tottering state from bankruptcy in 1777and the father of the noted salonnire and early feminist novelist Germaine de Stal. The joke in this case is that Necker, a Swiss Protestant, was subsequently labeled a Judeo-Mason by reactionary Catholic conspiracy theorists after the Bourbon restoration, which in turn fed various streams of 19th-century European Jew hatredthe myth of shadowy Jewish bankers controlling capitalthat would later stimulate the 20th-century Jew-hating ravings of the French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Cline, namesake of Thirlwells maligned heroine, who becomes a de Stal-like figure of literary resistance.

None of this, however, is directly mentioned in the novel. Whether from residual modesty, good comic instincts (jokes are only funny if they dont have to be explained), or a reluctance to avoid anything that might look like mansplaining in a work that tries very hard to prove its male authors feminist bona fides (more on that later), Thirlwell doesnt risk the sort of knowing footnotes that appear in David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest ormore relevant to this kind of counterfactual historical novelVladimir Nabokovs late masterpiece Ada, or Ardor.

Its this latter novel that The Future Future finally resembles most. Ada is set in an alternate historical universe where Russia never sold Alaska to the United States, time is reversible, and death is imagined as just one more form of emigration. The novel is also an old aristocrats last fantasy of good breeding in every sense, an overstuffed Faberg egg into which the aged exile poured all his multilingual wordplay, genealogical obsessions, passions for butterflies and other pretty things, along with his enduring consanguineous sexual fantasies. Thirlwell, likewise, comes across much of the time as a sensualist. His previous novel, Lurid and Cute (2016), was indeed both: a tale of a marriages unraveling after a one-night stand gone wrong, but also an enthusiastic homage to the partying habits of Britains gilded, Euro-hopping bright young things of the pre-Brexit 2010s. The setting was a vague no-place place that combined elements of London, Oxford, and Berlin with various Mediterranean holiday destinations into a trans-European, radiant city of the privileged.

Behind every historical novel, even a counterfactual historical novel like The Future Future, is a philosophy of history and an implied politics.

Facebook

Email

Thirlwells prose can feel like being tickled, precious and pointed at the same time: He had brought a giant pale green ice cream as a present. It was already melting and subsiding ... This is how the head of the secret police shows up to visit Celine to discuss the matter of the revenge-porn pamphlets. The scene goes on in this register, advancing through a series of staccato, short sentences where Thirlwells mid-20th-century precursors would have gone with longer, lugubrious legatos: "[Celines] dress felt sticky. A plate of pastries had gone stale. A congealed bowl of pici cacio e pepe was on the floor, being licked by Martas dogwho Marta had left behind while she went out of town for a while. In packing crates around her was a newly delivered set of porcelain, a series of circles and rectangles, severely painted in an international blue. Each of these figures, the melting ice cream, the stale pastry, the overly precise Italian pasta dish being eaten by the friends lap dog, the porcelain, are more than just signifiers of class or atmosphere, but also allusions to a saturated, thickly descriptive style that has come to feel out of reach in recent novels: either reduced, staled, congealed, or, quite literally, chintzy.

Here, too, Thirlwell echoes late Nabokov in the desire to carve out a space for intimate and sensual aesthetic experience in the midst of a literary moment and publishing climate oriented to the supposedly engaged and ethical. Everything that is flippant in this novel is also serious, and vice versa: Its a fearful thing to fall into the hands of something this supernatural ... the way its also fearful when youre left alone at a party with a celebrity and suddenly cant see your friends, so Celine thinks during a comic set-piece voyage to the moon where the lunatic inhabitants are tall with darkly colourful skin, dine on pills, have transcended gender and say things like Hang out with us. The objects speak in human voices and engage Celine in philosophical dialogues on the nature of reality and appearance. The episode is a mashup of 18th-century interstellar voyages (in the style of the Adventures of Baron Munchausen) with the later Alices Adventures Underground, and a revision of both. Ada, its first line an infamous inversion of Anna Karenina (All happy families are more or less dissimilar, all unhappy ones are more or less alike) also shares this meta-literary playfulness, offering a counterhistory of the modern Russian novel the way Nabokov would have preferred it, with the strictures of 20th-century socialist-realism neatly excised, along with the troublesome moral melodramas of Dostoyesky and late Tolstoy.

Thirlwell comes across as less grandiosely revisionist but is up to something similar with respect to both literary and political history. It all began with writing, is the novels first sentence. Another chapter begins, There was literature everywhere. The world was a jungle called writing. In this world writers became politicians and politicians wrote for newspapers and meanwhile everyone wrote to each other every day, as if an experience were not an experience until it had acquired its own image in words ... Thirlwell is describing the atmosphere of late-18th-century print culture: an era in which Thomas Paines democratic pamphlets Common Sense and The Rights of Man coexisted alongside aristocratic epistolary novels like Choderlos de Laclos Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which mimicked the everyday living art of intimate letter writing of a kind found in the 17th-century correspondence between Madame de Sevign and her daughter. But his description is blurred in a way that could just as easily refer to the Twitter-saturated culture of Thirlwells native time and place, 21st-century Great Britain, where a foppish journalist-politician or politician-journalist (Boris Johnson) eventually became prime minister.

Even though Celine and her adventures remain always at the center of the novel, Thirlwell also uses her to stage an exhibition and clash of literary subcultures: the salona space governed by women where people perform plays and write letters and novelsagainst the caf"a space governed by misogynists who write the libels and tracts that become journalism. One of these antagonists, Yves, is an improbable portmanteau of the incendiary Jacobin journalist Camille Desmoulins and the cold-blooded lawyer, Robespierre, along with every caricature of a cultural commissar in every possible historical iteration thrown in for good measurean ugly man devoted to stamping out beauty wherever he sees it.

In addition to trying to abolish privacy and establish a perfect system of information retrieval (fans of Terry Gilliams Brazil will enjoy Thirlwells evocation of the cubicles at the new Ministry of Information), Yves also targets literature itself. At a conference in a room that smells of terrible meatpork skin and hot sauce a detail with more than a whiff of Cultural Revolution ChinaYves accuses the playwright Beaumarchais (of The Marriage of Figaro fame and one of several real historical personages in the novel) of having produced counterrevolutionary work in part because he has been friends with too many women. Yves ultimate public sanction of Beaumarchais plays the typical activist tune about novels and literature that are somehow too feminine, too focused on private experience and the interior, there was no sense of the revolutionary army as an entire mass, there was no attempt to represent thousands of armed soldiers advancing like lava, he yells, just individual people, with their own neuroses.

Behind every historical novel, even a counterfactual historical novel like The Future Future, is a philosophy of history and an implied politics. Sometimes its laid out in the open: Sir Walter Scotts early Whig Progressivism animated his Waverley novels, the prototype of the first modern historical novel, and Tolstoys War and Peace offers several explicit refutations of Hegelianism. Thirlwells philosophy and politics are harder to track. On the one hand, The Future Future might be the first novel written explicitly from the standpoint of writing systems or discourse networks, a way of looking at literary history in particular and history in general that enjoyed a brief vogue in British and American literature departments during the mid to late 1990s, spearheaded by the German critic Friedrich Kittler. Literature as well as events, in this view, were as much a creation of social networks, informal institutions, and techniques of dissemination (the post office, the news kiosk, etc.) as any single authorial consciousness. A timely zetz to the patient scholarship of the Germans was then delivered by the Franco-American literary critic Pascale Casanovas World Republic of Letters (1999), which reframed literary history both in terms of network systems and as a struggle for institutional domination in an endless war of positioning and posing that criss-crossed national and linguistic boundaries. Literature for Casanova wasnt a politics by other means, just another institution subject to a logic of petty politickingan argument familiar to anyone who has ever spent time in a university literature department. What had begun as an attempt to write the history of sociability, as carried out in writing, had taken the cynical form that has come to color so much contemporary criticism of literature and the arts, where everything is seen through the lens of careerismand careerism is then elevated to a necessary realpolitik of artistic and even physical survival.

Thirlwell, then, as an aesthete making a case for aesthetics in an age of near total cynicism about the arts, has nonetheless made the choice to write from within the perspective of one of the more cynical theories of literary production currently in circulation. Literature is just another power game, with the cultivation of certain writers and the demoting of others being part of that game. At the beginning of the novel, Celine is a woman trying to make her way in a mans world, so her instrumentalization of literature and the authors she patronizes to get what she wants makes a certain sense. But the more power Celine acquired, the more she realised how little she actually had. It was possible, she was discovering, to have power in one context and in another to have none. To make moves was a very delicate process.

And heres where Thirlwells distant mirroringthe past as present, the present as past, the future as repetitiontakes a fascinating turn that elevates the novel out of the realm of ordinary curiosity into something, well, truly new. On the surface, at the level of plot and jacket copy, The Future Future can sound like a dutiful post-#MeToo novel by a man trying rather hard to show that he knows how to write women. The novel pleads a case for its author: He, just like poor old Beaumarchais on trial, should be allowed to continue publishing in a climate in which male writers (the zoologism male is telling on its own), especially so-called cis-white-male writers, face historically unprecedented skepticism about the social utility and market viability of their work. (That Thirlwell and many of his white male contemporaries happen to be Jews is a distinction without a difference to most publishers; and for some it is no doubt worse.)

Thirlwells feminist novel thus returns us to another moment in time when women effectively ruled the literary world, that of the late-18th-century French salons. He chronicles Celines intense female friendships, sometimes turned into love affairs; the men are secondary characters, abusive husbands, absent fathers, including the man with whom Celine eventually has a daughter. This allows Thirlwell to display his ability at scenes of intense mother-daughter bonding. Men are obstacles: Sasha, Yves, eventually Napoleon; writerly allies like Beaumarchais and Lorenzo Da Ponte, another famous Judeo-Mason; moneymen like Rosen; or loyal servants.

To make this setup even more complicated, the novels progressive feminist politics comes with a dose of apparently reactionary class politics. Celine and her friends are all aristocrats, and the feminine space of the literary imagination is that of the salon, the boudoir, or the beautiful country houses where Celine takes refuge from persecution. The enemies of this beautiful world are apostles of the Enlightenment andnominally, at leastgreater equality: They are measurers, improvers, explorers, and would-be engineers of history, like Napoleon, who gets a star turn in the novels final act. To further stir the political pot, Thirlwell includes two weird parallel subplots: the first about a Mohawk translator and his daughter, who Celine meets when exile takes her to America, and the second about the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture. These dangle in short chapters, pseudo-meaningfully, as if to suggest that neither aristocracy nor Western Enlightenment liberalism are truly sustainable once you take out colonization and slaverybut its pretty clear which party or parties have the authors sympathies.

Yet Thirlwells focus on censorship, the post-revolutionary reprisals of the terror and the states control over literature and lives cant help but awaken parallels to contemporary cancellations and decanonizations of male writers. In the contemporary reputational economy of the internet, where anyones life can be made miserable by a rumor or tweet, Thirlwell seems to be saying, we are all women nowor, perhaps, writers are women, too, meaning writers of any gender. The Future Future teaches you to read it as both a historical novel and an act of literary transvestism. The surrogate or analogue of the sensitive aesthete and nominally not-queer male author who would still try to get published in 2023 turns out to be a woman from the 18th and early 19th centuries whose life resembles Madame de Stals. Only by putting on this costume can the novelist appear as himself.

This is indeed an ingenious solution to the perils and pitfalls of contemporary male writing, but at what price? The Future Future is a work of doubled assimilation: on the one hand, an assimilation to the ethical demands of the woke novel to provide us entertainments featuring virtuous women and awful dudes in settings critical of the limits of the near enemy that is Western Enlightenment liberalism. On the other hand, the novel performs a counterassimilation, by borrowing the tropes and trappings of feminism to stage the precarious balancing act that a would-be contemporary Beaumarchais must pull off in order to succeed and be recognized (or be misrecognized and therefore succeed) in todays virtue-driven world of arts and letters.

It helps that Thirlwell is a British Jewish writer and already comfortable with this kind of self-effacement. Unlike American Jewish writing, postwar literary novels by native-born British Jewish writers, with the exception of Howard Jacobsons comedies, have been mostly assimilated from their origins. Anita Brookner, Muriel Spark, Will Self, Alain de Botton, are all British Jewish novelists, but you wouldnt necessarily know it by reading them. Literature, for British Jews, has mainly been a way to suppress or submerge the Jewish aspects of their authorial identity, rather than, as with the masters of the postwar American generation, a means toward its vibrant assertion.

Jewishness in British literature, and also in Thirlwells novel reimagining of the literary sphere, functions instead as a kind of privileged ontological status, like the inhabitants of Thirlwells lunar pavilions, who have been cured of desire and other lesser human emotions through sexless, omniscient voyeurism. It should go without saying that these abstracted moon people are stateless cosmopolitans of the highest refinement, true aristocrats of the spirit, and all quite happy in their own way.

View original post here:
The Moon People: Assimilation and the Jewish Literary Transvestite - Tablet Magazine

Overview:

The Apollo astronauts are elderly and dwindling, and the Artemis astronauts haven't yet left Earth's atmosphere. There's only a narrow window of time remaining when different generations of space explorers have a chance to meet.

[Previous: NASAs Artemis: Its time to walk on the Moon again]

Frank Borman has died at the age of 95. Borman was the commander of Apollo 8, the first crewed spaceflight to orbit the Moon, which happened on Christmas Eve, 1968.

Although they didnt land or walk on the Moon, Borman and his fellow astronauts took one of the most famous photographs ever: the Earthrise image that showed our pale blue-and-white marble hanging above the lunar horizon, surrounded by the infinite void of space.

As Borman said of the experience:

The Earth looked so lonely in the Universe, Borman said in a NASA oral history. Its the only thing with color.

With Bormans passing, there are only eight Apollo astronauts still alive, out of an initial 24. Five of them are in their 90s.

After a fifty-year gap, NASA has begun new lunar missions under the banner of Artemis. And its not a moment too soon.

Artemis 1 launched in November 2022. It was an uncrewed mission, testing the new Space Launch System and the Orion capsule. The mission went off as smoothly as we could have hoped for, successfully orbiting the Moon and making a safe return to Earth.

Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch in November 2024 with a crew of four. Like Apollo 8, the mission plan is to orbit the Moon and return to Earth without landing. Artemis 3, scheduled for 2025, will land astronauts at the Moons south pole. But these dates are still tentative, and theyre at the mercy of weather, technological problems, cost overruns, and bureaucratic schedule slip.

In one sense, theres no rush. The Moon has been our companion for four billion years. It isnt going anywhere. No mission objectives are at risk if we wait a little longer.

But on a human scale, there is a reason for urgency. Namely, its been five decades since any human orbited or walked on the Moon, and the surviving Apollo astronauts are elderly. Statistically, we only have a few years before none of them are left.

The United States is the only nation thats landed human beings on the Moon. Although China and others are catching up, the U.S. is still the only one that has any chance of making a return voyage in that timeframe.

If two generations of Moon explorers are ever going to meet, this is our only shot. Will the Artemis astronauts get a chance to shake hands with their predecessors? Will they be able to swap stories and anecdotes? Will they be united by that shared experience that only a tiny handful of human beings have ever had?

If we delay, well be letting that heritage lapse. The thread of memory and continuity that connects one generation to the next will be broken. That wouldnt be the end of space exploration, of course. But it would be like a runner in an Olympic relay finding no one to hand the torch off to, and watching the flame die out. You can always relight it later and continue but its not the same.

Humans are great explorers and travelers. Thats part of what made us successful as a species, what drove us to spread out across the planet. By taking the next step into space, wed be heeding that spirit of adventure and discovery thats beckoned us throughout the generationsfrom Africans who walked into other continents, to Polynesians who crossed the ocean on outrigger canoes, to Native Americans who braved the Bering land bridge.

Colonization is a term thats acquired ugly connotations. But the fault of past colonizers isnt that they wanted to explore or travel or discover new places. Its that they discovered places where people were already living and then proclaimed the right to conquer them.

This isnt a concern in space exploration. The Moon, Mars and the rest of the solar system are true terra nullius, in a way that Australia and the Americas werent. Mars might have its own native microbesand if so, that would be an epochal discovery, with profound significance for the question of our uniqueness in the universe. But other than that, these worlds have no ecosystems to despoil, no inhabitants to subjugate. Theres no harm we can do there.

Besides, were nowhere close to establishing a permanent presence on any world other than our own. For now, at least, wed only be making brief visits. If we go, it will be to learn and to explore, not to settle.

You could argue, as you can always argue in any question of priorities, that it would be better to spend this money on things that more directly benefit humans. On the other hand, if nations have to compete for prestige, this is the right way to do it.

Rather than pouring our intelligence into coming up with new ways to kill each other, or new things to sell to each other, we can spend that energy on science and the quest for knowledge. There are no weapons in space, nor are there riches. If we go, it will be purely for explorations sake.

The dream of space unites us. It draws our gazes upward. It fires our imaginations with a sense of unbounded possibility. It makes tangible what we instinctively sense every time we look up at a starry sky: Were not just part of nature, or part of the Earth. Were part of the cosmos. And its our destiny to return there some day.

Excerpt from:
Will two generations of Moon walkers shake hands? - OnlySky Media

This morning, SpaceX is set to launch its revolutionary Starship vehicle for its second ever test flight. The highly anticipated launch is scheduled to take place at SpaceXs Starbase site in South Texas. The window for liftoff opens at 8 a.m. EST, with coverage expected to start at 7:25 a.m. EDT. You can watch the live action on Space.com or directly through SpaceXs website.

The Starship, touted as the largest and most powerful rocket ever, is a key component of SpaceXs ambitious plans for interplanetary travel. With aspirations to send humans and cargo to the moon and Mars, as well as undertake various spaceflight missions closer to home, SpaceX is revolutionizing the way we approach space exploration.

NASA has already selected Starship as the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program, highlighting the spacecrafts capabilities and potential for future missions. Additionally, several private moon missions are in store for the Starship.

Comprised of two main parts, the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage, this towering vehicle stands at approximately 400 feet tall. Both components have been designed for full and rapid reusability, a groundbreaking feature that ushers in a new era of space travel efficiency.

Saturdays test flight is a pivotal moment for the Starship program, aiming to overcome the challenges encountered during its maiden voyage. The previous flight experienced difficulties when the two stages failed to separate as planned, leading SpaceX to terminate the mission. SpaceX hopes to rectify those issues and accomplish a successful launch and landing this time around.

If all goes according to plan, the Super Heavy booster will make a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, while the Starship upper stage will achieve orbital velocity before descending into the Pacific near Hawaii. These critical test flights pave the way for future missions and bring SpaceX one step closer to realizing its vision of human habitation on other planets.

What is the purpose of the Starship vehicle? The Starship is being developedSpaceX to facilitate human and cargo transportation to the moon, Mars, and other destinations in our solar system.

What makes the Starship unique? One of the notable features of the Starship is its fully and rapidly reusable design, which allows for increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Has the Starship flown before? Yes, this upcoming launch will be the second test flight for the Starship. The previous flight encountered issues during separation of its stages and ended in termination.

How does this launch contribute to space exploration? By successfully testing and refining the Starship, SpaceX is pushing the boundaries of space exploration and paving the way for future human space travel and colonization of other celestial bodies.

Where can I watch the launch? You can watch the launch live on Space.com or directly through SpaceXs website.

Read the rest here:
SpaceX Prepares for Second Starship Launch as it Eyes Moon and ... - OPP.Today

In Invincible Season 2 Episode 3, This Missive, This Machination, Mark is off to college. Last episode, he shares his grief with his mother, confronts his fear of becoming his father, and shows that he can be a good boyfriend to Amber so long as hes being honest. Weve seen glimpses of Marks social life and relationships at the start of the season. With Amber and William in on his secret identity, hes able to talk with them about his superhero escapades but also gets a chance just to be a college freshman. This is how Invincible Season 2 Episode 3starts.

Things between Mark and Amber are heating up, and the audience gets a chance to see them just being college freshmen in love. But truthfully, Invincible Season 2 Episode 3is about the people around Mark and not him specifically. More importantly, its effectively split into two episodes, the first focusing on Allen the Alien, the Unopans, their colonization by the Viltrimites, and Allens role in the Coalition of Planets.

Dont know who the Unopans are? Well, its Allens (Seth Rogen) people. Remember the guy who talked with Mark on the moon? Yup. The first section of the episode is about their resiliency and ultimately stands to build Viltrum into something more than just what weve seen with Nolan as Omni-Man. Through Allen, the audience gets the chance to see the brutality of the Viltrumites and how Nolans choice to flee at the end of Season One was one that went directly against his mission from Viltrum.

It would be easy forInvincible Season 2 Episode 3to just be an exposition, but it isnt in the least. Allen is charismatic, and the story around the Coalition is intriguing and tense, with large implications that will ripple forward through the season. Superhero origins, a dive into the Coalition and mission of the Viltrumites, some romance, and finally, betrayal are all on display in This Missive, This Machination!

It all amounts to a story within a story that adds context to the world of Invinciblefantastically. Despite being shown through Allen and the Coalition, Mark is still at the center, and the hope he brings to destroying Viltrum and its control in the universe is undeniable. Not to mention, Allens place and fate in it all are surprisingly emotional.

The second part of the episode deals with the Guardians of the Globe and its growing pains and shows small romance blossom and acted upon by Rudy (Ross Marquand) and Monster Girl (Grey Griffin). But more importantly, Invincible Season 2 Episode 3highlights Debbie and her struggle to find normalcy after Nolans crimes. This episode is astonishingly emotional.

Debbie joins a support group for those who have lost loved ones, and when she goes to a bar with one of them, she realizes that the reason he is a widower is because of Nolan. Its hard to watch, and the moment plays out in an intimate way. You can feel the hole that that revelation blows in Debbies heart. Nolan disrupted Debbies life brutally, and now, she cant even heal from it because of the harm those who would understand her to blame her for their pain.

InInvincible Season 2,Debbie is given such a huge role and burden to carry and Sandra Ohs performance perfectly captures every emotion. She is vulnerable, she is lonely, and she is stuck perpetually thinking that she should have stopped Nolan, that she should have known, and because he is not dead, she cant even grieve and move on.

With a tight 46-minute runtime, its amazing how much the series can pull off in so little time. We see science fiction and superheroes but we also see real human emotion and fear. It even ends with Mark flying to a new planet to save a race of bug people who have embraced a man they call the Monarch, his father. There is an astounding amount of ground covered in such a small amount of time that you have to commend the writers for pacing the developments and emotional crescendos perfectly.

Invincible Season 2 Episode 3is a kick in the chest, but it also captures the superhero elements that the series has come to be known for. Adult animation at its best, Invincibleis an emotional triumph as much as its a bloody good time.

Invincible Season 2 Episode 3is streaming now exclusively on Prime Video.

9.5/10

TL;DR

Invincible Season 2 Episode 3is a kick in the chest, but it also captures the superhero elements that the series has come to be known for. Adult animation at its best, Invincibleis an emotional triumph as much as its a bloody good time.

See more here:
Invincible Season 2 Episode 3 Review - But Why Tho?

FXs limited series A Murder at the End of the Worldis now streaming on Hulu. This murder mystery follows Darby Hart, a Gen Z Sherlock Holmes, as she finds herself invited to an exclusive retreat by a tech mogul, offering her the chance to meet her hero. But not long after she arrives, someone in the group of free thinkers bites the dust. Join me as I recap each of the seven episodes, starting with the premiere.

(Chris SaundersFX)

Chapter 1: Homme Fatale Written by Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij

Darby Hart (Emma Corrin) doesnt look ready for the spotlight as she enters a bookstore in a hoodie with headphones on. Her debut novel, The Silver Doe, tells the story of how she caught a serial killer. In her introduction, she brings up her upbringing in Iowa as the daughter of a county coroner, which is how she got involved in her first Jane Doe case. I cant tell you my story without telling you about Bill, she adds, talking about her fellow armchair detective who helped her on the case. After mentioning that they met on an amateur sleuthing forum, she introduces a section from the books final chapter, prefacing that she and Bill had tracked down the killers first known address.

Its really hard to fall in love for the first time while tracking a serial killer. As Darby reads, we see the events through flashbacks. We find Darby and Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson) hiding out at the Whispering Sands Motel, with Bill having cold feet about the plan to break into the serial killers former home, which is listed as for sale. Bill wants to call the cops to let them know theyre going there. So they can stop us from proving that one of their own was a killer?, Darby asks. But Darby gets Bill to cave in, driving them to the home. On the way, she plugs in an old click-wheel iPod and plays No More I Love Yous by Annie Lennox. They both sing along, and it breaks the tension. When they arrive at the house, Darby opens her laptop and connects an old toy, telling Bill she learned this hack from her favorite coder, Lee Anderson, a woman who wrote about misogyny online and was doxed for it, disappearing afterward. Bill asks Darby why she hasnt tried to find Lee. She doesnt need my help, Darby responds as she unintentionally opens every garage door on the block. They quickly pull in and close them all.

(Eric Liebowitz/FX)

In the basement, Darby and Bill put on safety equipment, using a drill and sledgehammer to break open the cement flooring, which seems to have been redone. They tire themselves out and eventually lay down for a break, falling asleep. The sunlight through the windows and dogs barking in the neighborhood wake Darby up. And now, with more light, she can see that the stairs appear to have been taken apart and reassembled. She points this out to Bill, and they get to work breaking the stairs apart. Underneath, the concrete had been broken up. Wiping away a little topsoil reveals skeletal remains. Darby pulls an evidence bag out of her pocket and takes out a silver ring. It fits with a wedding band on the corpses finger. But the moment of victory is interrupted by footsteps upstairs. The door to the basement opens. A mans silhouette looks down at them. Hes holding a gun. Patricia Bell, Darby says, the name of one of the victims. Carmen Perez, Bill joins her. They alternate saying the names of his victims. And then the gun cocks. Bill steps in front of Darby as we hear a shot fired.

I think thats all I can handle for one night, Darby says, unable to finish reading the rest of the final chapter. A moderator (Maria Taylor) opens the floor for questions. The first is from a man with dark hair (Louis Cancelmi) who points out that the book is dedicated to Lee Anderson. Darby explains that Lee was one of the few female coders she was aware of when she got into the hobby and adds that Lee got victory after being doxed by marrying Andy Ronson, The king of tech. A woman (Alexandra Seal) asks Darby what happened to Bill, adding that they seemed so in love. We dont get to hear Darbys response.

(Eric Liebowitz/FX)

When Darby gets home, she goes to her regular forum, The Doe Files, and begins to look through a folder of evidence from someone seeking help. She falls asleep doing this, but is awoken by a text message from someone claiming to be Ray, Andy Ronsons assistant, which comes with a link to download a VPN. She opens a Reddit thread for hackers and posts a screenshot of the message, asking for advice on if it's legit. She gets a dual video call from two of her hacker friends, Leddewis_07 (Dave Murgittroyd) and Bodega Tom (Eric R. Williams), who convince her to take a chance and click the link. After downloading and opening the app, she hears a voice saying, Darby, Im outside; let me up. She goes to the window, and the courtyard outside the building appears empty. But when she holds up her phone, through the camera, she sees Ray (Edoardo Ballerini) for the first time. She lets him in and opens her door, watching him.

Ray, an A.I. assistant, came to invite Darby to Andy Ronsons 2023 retreat, describing it as A small gathering of minds, a symposium to discuss technologys role in ensuring a human future. All expenses would be paid for the week-long trip. Darby is speechless, to which Ray mentions that Andy has shown him many things that left him speechless. Among the list is The Simpsons, which Darby says she loves. You felt a kinship to Lisa, Ray predicts, saying, Its hard being the smartest person in most rooms. He adds that she wont feel alone on the trip, with other attendees just as fascinating as Lisa Simpson. Darby asks if Lee Andersen will be there. After Ray leaves, Darby calls her dad (Neal Huff) to tell him about the invitation. He asks where the retreat is, and she tells him its a secret for security reasons. He encourages her to go, but she reminds him that she had a panic attack the only time she flew in an airplane.

(Eric Liebowitz/FX)

Arriving at the private plane, Darby is surprised to see a familiar face, the man who asked about her books dedication at her reading. He introduces himself as Todd, Andy Ronsons head of security. The interior of the plane is decorated like a study, complete with books on the shelf and a bar. Darby takes a seat next to a woman named Lu Mei (Joan Chen), who warns her that she gets sick when she flies and warns that Darby is in the splash zone, which doesnt seem to bother her. The man sitting across from Darby, Martin Mitchell (Jermaine Fowler), recognizes Darby and holds up the book hes reading The Silver Doe. Martin is a filmmaker who shares that hes been interested in making a story about the missing Black women in Washington, D.C., where hes from. Lu Mei hears Martins introduction and tells him shes a fan of his films. He tells her she should read Darbys book, referring to her as Gen Z Sherlock Holmes. A snobbish man named David Alvarez (Ral Esparza) brags about how hes one of Andys guests, mentioning that of the 10 invitees, 5 are by Andy, and 5 are by Lee. Back in the day, the distinction between builders and non-builders was very important, he says, referring to builders as problem solvers of Actual value. A flight attendant (Asha Etchison) moves through the cabin collecting cell phones, which is a mandate of the experience. Martin adds that its for Andys security since hes had more attempts on his life than any head of state. A woman, Sian Cruise (Alice Braga), adds that Andy has a flare for the dramatic. Martin points to an image of Bill Farrah in Darbys book and asks if hes the Bill Farrah, the artist known as Fangs. Ithink it is, but we havent spoken in 6 years, she responds. Lu Mei takes a sleeping pill, and Darby asks for one.

During the flight, Darby has a nightmarish flashback. Shes back in the motel, waking up to find herself alone. The keys to the car are on the nightstand. She can hear dripping water from the bathroom, so she investigates. The tub is full of blood-red water. A message has been left for her on the mirror. I think this is both too much and not enough. I left you the car.

Darby wakes up as the wheels touch down in a wintery landscape. The Pilot (Jackson Loo) announces that theyve arrived in Iceland. Darby shares an SUV with Lu Mei, who tells her she builds smart cities in China. The cars arrive at a two-story circular building. Most of the guests arrived in fancy black SUVs, but a guest named Rohan (Javed Khan) drove himself in a beat-up blue truck.

Marius (Christopher Gurr), the hotel manager, welcomes each guest as they step into the lobby. Darby is given a ring key, which will grant her access to her guest room (number 8), plus the spas, baths, and interior/exterior common areas. Inside her room, she discovers that Ray is present throughout the resort. With a pair of Ronson Vision glasses on her nightstand, she can see Ray, and any other information he can share with her. He provides her with a dossier of the guests she will be seated between at dinner David Alvarez, one of the top venture capitalists in the world, and Dr. Sian Cruise, who is pioneering lunar colonization. Before heading to dinner, Darby goes to the bathroom and dyes her hair pink.

On her way to dinner, Darby passes a woman named Eva (Britian Seibert) outside of a room with a vacuum and a plate. A child opens the door and invites her in. As Darby passes, she gets her first glimpse of Lee Andersen (Brit Marling), who is on the floor cleaning up a broken plate. Darby proceeds to the dining room and takes her seat between David and Sian. The seat directly across from her is empty. Sian is engaged in a conversation with a man named Oliver (Ryan J. Haddad) about how he can make her appear to say anything with deepfake technology, showing an example and revealing that he snuck a phone in. This was not an easy group to assemble, so the next few days are going to be very precious, Andy Ronson (Clive Owen) declares as he makes his introduction. The boy Darby saw in the hallway comes running to him, shouting, Dad! Andy introduces his son Zoomer (Kellan Tetlow) to the group as Lee arrives close behind their child, kissing her husband. I hope you all feel at home here, Lee shares. Andy picked this valley for the hot springs, so I hope you all join us for a soak after dinner. As Andy mentions the close friends hes made at these retreats, he motions to Sian, who nods knowingly. He adds that some of the worlds best innovations have come from these meetings. He takes a moment to acknowledge Ray, saying hes in a beta testing phase this week and giving his preferred acronym for A.I. Alternative Intelligence. Andy shares why theyre all in Iceland, referring to it as one of the last great wilderness areas left on Earth and preaching about climate change and his hope for Zoomers future. Everyone sitting here at this table is an original thinker, Andy adds, pointing out the talents among them: Oliver is innovating robotics, Ziba (Pegah Ferydoni) is pioneering message encryption, and Sian is leading efforts to colonize the moon. Everyone Ive invited here has something extraordinary to offer the group, Andy concludes. And if Lee invited you, I have no idea what youre doing here. Andys invitees laugh while Lee looks embarrassed.

(FX)

Someone sits in the seat across from Darby. She looks up from her drink and freezes. She chokes from the shock. Andy asks Lee to make a toast, a speech that concludes with To finding a way out. Darby doesnt clink glasses with anyone but sips water to try and catch her breath. Hello, Darby Hart, the man across from her says. Hi, Bill, she quietly replies. Their uncomfortable reunion is interrupted by Zoomer, who has a toy doctor kit and introduces himself to Bill, who plays along, letting the child check his breathing. Zoomer says Bills heart is beating fast, and he tells Zoomer that hes having trouble with his chest due to the cold. Here, Ill give you something to help, Zoomer says, offering some pretend pills. Andy calls Zoomer to sit down. Bills eyes move to Lee at the opposite end of the table. She looks nervous.

After dinner, Darby goes to the spa and enters the hot springs. Ziba introduces herself, admitting that she only came to the retreat in hopes of meeting Fangs, whom shes a fan of. She tried to connect with him previously, but her messages were ignored. Ziba doesnt think very highly of Andy, scoffing about his extreme wealth, but Martin interjects, calling Ziba a bad influence. He feels like this week is an audition for him. Ziba asks why Andy would be interested in Darby and Martin theorizes that hes a true-crime fan. Martin tells Ziba that Darbys book is about a road trip with Fangs. You knew him?, she asks, suddenly very interested in Darby. A long time ago, Darby clarifies as she excuses herself.

(Lilja Jons/FX)

Not up for the icebreaker?, Bill asks as Darby passes him in the hall. Her immediate reaction is to punch him in the gut, but she seems to regret it instantly, inviting him for a drink. Instead, he suggests they take a walk. Outside, Bill tells Darby that he loved her book, particularly the parts about her upbringing before she met him. I always worried there was something cheap about what we did together or salacious, he says. I was stupid. You wanted to make sure no one fell through the cracks. I thought the book was art. Darby is surprised. I guess as one of the most celebrated guerilla artists alive, you would be the arbiter, she responds. She asks why Bill came. He mentions an art installation he did that shone a negative spotlight on Silicon Valley. I guess Andy thought I had nerve, he says, but Darby can tell hes lying. Its hard to put anything but the truth past you, he remembers out loud. He tells her he came for Lee. Darby is confused about how Bill knows her. Whyd you leave?, she asks him directly. You scared me, he responds, elaborating that he couldnt be as brave as she needed him to be. He adds that he thought she only really liked women. Bill, all women only really like women, just like all men only really like men, she replies. So they invented all the professional sports, so they could be intimate with each other. Bill laughs and invites Darby back to his room to get warm, adding that he needs to tell her something. She declines. You know you, left me many times before I left you, and I dont even think you know how or why or when, Bill says. It was really hard to be in love with someone like that. As he walks away, he shares that hes in room 11 if Darby changes her mind.

When Darby returns to her room, Ray senses her body temperature and draws a bath for her. After her bath, she opens her laptop and searches the internet for Lee and Fangs together, finding a plethora of paparazzi candid images of them seeming close. She closes her laptop, puts on her headphones, and puts her old click-wheel iPod on shuffle. The song that comes on: No More I Love Yous by Annie Lennox. Its almost like a sign.

(Chris Saunders/FX)

Darby goes down to room 11, passing Marius in the hallway. She knocks on the door. Bill, its Darby. She can hear Bill inside. Hes moaning and breathing heavily. It sounds like hes having sex, and Darby is about to walk away when she hears a crash. Something knocked over. She knocks again. Theres no answer, but it sounds like Bill is in pain. She runs outside, traipsing through the snow until shes standing outside of Bills window. Hes lying on the floor by the glass. Theres a bloodstain on the wall above the fireplace. Bill presses his bloody hand against the glass, looking up at Darby. What happened?, she yells, but he doesnt respond. Darby tells Bill shes going to go get help. Darby, please stay, Bill chokes, smiling at her just before he goes completely still.

The end of Chapter 1, but FX has given us a double-episode premiere, so you can watch and recap the next installment right now.

Chapter 2: The Silver Doe Written by Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij, Melanie Marnich and Rebecca Roanhorse

Darby believes the death she witnessed may, in fact, be murder, but no one believes her. The grief and shock of the events thrust her into remembering her own buried past.

Songs Featured in This Episode:

View original post here:
TV Recap: "A Murder at the End of the World" - Chapter 1: Homme ... - Laughing Place

Welcome to Thursday, November 16, 2023, and National Fast Food Day, which for some people is every day. I do get a hankering for a McDonalds cheeseburger and fries every once in a while, and I noticed in Paris that the McDonalds places were doing a brisk business with the French.

I will soon start putting up readers wildlife photos again, so send em if you got em!

Its also Beaujolais Nouveau Day (the vintage of this quaffable grape juice was released yesterday), World Philosophy Day, National Button Day, the UN commemoration of International Day for Tolerance , and, in Iceland, Icelandic Language DayorDagur slenskrar tungu.Heres a man speaking Icelandic for about 3 minutes. Read more about the language here.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the November 16 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Several big pieces of news on the war: Israel is inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, interviewing patients and staff, there is an ongoing process to trade the kidnapped hostages for jailed terrorists in Israel, and Biden, bless his ignorant heart, is pushing for a two-state solution. (I favor that, too, but at this point I think its futile, and will not stop terrorist attacks on Israel. From the NYT:

The hospital:

The Israeli military was solidifying itshold on the Gaza Strips largest hospitalon Wednesday, after storming the complex overnight. Soldiers were conducting searches and interrogations inside, and Israeli officers said they had found rifles, ammunition, body armor and other military equipment in a radiology building.

In a videofilmed at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, showed about 10 guns, ammunition, protective vests and Hamas military uniforms, some of which he said were hidden behind M.R.I. machines, others in nearby storage units and some behind what he described as a blast-proof door. The assertions made in the video could not be independently verified.

Hamas, which has repeatedly denied using the hospital for military operations, issued a statement calling the Israeli claims a fabricated story that no one would believe. A Hamas official, Bassem Naim, speaking to Al Jazeera, dismissed the video as falsified theatrics.

. . . .In a news conference, the director of hospitals in Gaza, Muhammad Zaqout, said that Israeli forces entered the Al-Shifa medical complex around 2 a.m. on the northern side, specifically targeting the ground floor of the surgery building.

At around the same time last night, the Israeli military announced that it was carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area of the hospital.

No word on whether there are tunnels underneath Al-Shifa.

Heres that one-shot video:

The two-state solution:

President Biden said on Wednesday that the endpoint of the Israel-Hamas conflict has to be aPalestinianstate that is real, existing alongside an Israeli one.

He added that he and his aides have been negotiating with Arab nations on next steps, but did not give any details.

I can tell you, I dont think it ultimately ends until theres a two-state solution, Mr. Biden said at a news conference on an estate south of San Francisco after his summit with Xi Jinping, Chinas leader.

Mr. Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken have been publicly emphasizing the need for a two-state solution in recent days. The establishment of a Palestinian state has long been a U.S. policy goal, but no recent administration has succeeded in making any substantial headway on the issue. The last major push along those lines came from John Kerry when he was secretary of state in the Obama administration.

Mr. Biden said he did not have a specific idea of when to tell Israel it should halt its war in Gaza. He said the fighting would end once Hamas could no longer do horrific things to Israelis. Hamas still has weapons and technology beneath hospitals in Gaza, he said.

Does Biden not know that unless every bit of Jew hatred and desire to eliminate Israel is effaces from the new Palestinian state, it will continue to terrorize Israel. I dont know what the solution is, but I dont think Biden does, either.

The hostages. This is very good news, especially because the hostage-and-prisoner trade, if it occurs, would be one to one, rather than demanding that Israel release all 4500 jailed Palestinians accused of terrorism; and the released prisoners would be women and children, not young male terrorists.

Israel believes that Wednesdays raid on Al-Shifa Hospital will put pressure on Hamas to finish a deal to trade dozens of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners, according to two senior Israeli officials.

Negotiations for a deal are underway, with the various players working on a framework of an agreement, according to the two Israeli officials, who are involved in the Israeli effort to release the hostages through a deal, as well as a third with knowledge of the matter. Under the proposal, Hamas would release 50 women and children abducted during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks for roughly the same number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.

The three officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations as did two other Israeli officials who discussed the hostage negotiations.

The deal, being negotiated by Qatari, Egyptian and American officials, would also include the cessation of hostilities for several days, a so-called humanitarian pause, four of the officials said.

*This comes from yesterday afternoon. The Jewish News Syndicate also reports that the IDF finally entered the dangerous parts of Al-Shifa hospital, said by nearly everyone except the Gazans to harbor Hamas headquarters and built atop a network of terrorist tunnels. The evidence above shows that Hamas was there, but the tunnels, if they exist, havent yet been found.

The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic-speaking soldiers who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields.

A tweet below showing some of the assault as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid. Translation (by Google):

scans for explosive devices and other terrorist infrastructures at the same time as humanitarian aid; The forces continue their targeted activity at Shifa Hospital: IDF forces continue to operate in a targeted manner in a part of the Shifa Hospital area where they are scanning for Hamas infrastructure and terrorist means. Also, the forces delivered humanitarian equipment and placed it at the entrance to the hospital

More from the paper:

The army announced on Wednesday morning thatincubators, baby food and medical supplies brought into Gaza by IDF tanks had reached Shifa, and that the medical teams and Arabic speakers were ensuring that the supplies reached those in need.

The IDF has publicized a safe evacuation route for civilians to leave Shifa and facilitated wide-scaleevacuationsahead of its operation against Hamas. It has also maintained a regular dialogue with hospital authorities.

In recent weeks, the IDF has publicly warned time and again that Hamas continued military use of the Shifa Hospital jeopardizes its protected status under international law, and enabled ample time to stop this unlawful abuse of the hospital, the IDF said on Wednesday. Yesterday, the IDF conveyed to the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not, the statement continued.

Israel believes that some of the more than 240 hostages captured during Hamass Oct. 7 massacre may be held underneath Shifa. An initial search of the hospital on Wednesday showed no signs of hostages, but the IDF believes that the operation could yield intelligence leading to their whereabouts.

*The BBC, which along with the Guardian publishes the most slanted anti-Israel take on the Hamas/Israel war, has really stepped in it this time. The original Reuters report was on the IDF forces targeting Al Shifa hospital, and said this:

The Israeli military said its forces were carrying out an operation on Wednesday against Hamas within Gazas biggest hospital, Al Shifa.

In a statement, the military said: Based on intelligence information and an operational necessity, IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital.

The military said: The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.

Heres how a BBC reporter mangled the Reuters article simply by changing a word:

Malgorzatas take:

But I dont think its incompetence. The journalist must have been so sure that Jews = bad that she didnt understand what she was reading in Reuters message. I dont suppose she lied. She just couldnt fathom that Israelis were capable of humane action so she assumed that they were shooting doctors and Arabic speakers, not supplying them.

Below is the BBCs inevitable apology, which I retweeted:

Malgorzatas take on the above: A very unconvincing apology. This woman [the reporter] should be fired immediately and a special course of history and journalistic ethics should be given to all working for the BBC.

*Theres the usual bilge at the NYT about renaming birds: an op-ed called North American birds will no longer be named for racistsor anybody else. (I swear, the paper is getting worse every day.)

On Nov. 1, the American Ornithological Society announced that it would be renaming all the birds under its purview that are currently named for human beings. The birds new names will reflect the species appearance or habitat some trait associated with the actual bird, in other words, and not with the colonial explorer who first identified it.

There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today, said Colleen Handel, the president of the society,in a statement. We need a much more inclusive and engaging scientific process that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves. The process of choosing new names will begin next year.

This change, which will affect some 150 North American birds, has beena long time coming. Ornithologists and amateur birders alike have long wrestled with the historical nature of bird names bestowed by early collectors. The norms of that era were themselves problematic, as explorers tromped across an already occupied landscape, killing, collecting and naming after themselves thousands of animals and plants that had already been given human names by people who lived more ecologically responsible lives.

Some of the birds not all, its important to note, but some were named for people who held views considered repugnant today. John James Audubon, the naturalist for whom the Audubons shearwater is named, wasan unrepentant slaveholder who opposed emancipation. Gen. Winfield Scott, for whom the Scotts oriole is named, led theforced eviction of the Cherokee along what is now known as the Trail of Tears.

The idea that some of the most beautiful birds in North America still carry those ugly names is objectionable to a lot of us, a scar from the past still enshrined in the present like a Confederate statue installed in a town square or a robber barons name gracing a university building. Such monuments represent history, its true, and history should not be forgotten. But neither should it be celebrated wholesale, especially when the bigotries and injustices of the past are too often on clear display in our own age.

I discussed this issue in detail just two weeks ago, Listing the pros and cons of renaming versus naming, I concluded that the downside slightly outweighs the upside, one reason being that the act will do nothing to increase the diversity of birders. As I said:

But I have never heard of a single person who has been harmed by a bird named after a racist, and I doubt that renaming ALL birds with eponyms would increase the diversity of birders. Changing such names makes you feel virtuous and look virtuous to others, but is purely for show.

Greg Mayer added this in the comments. By worldwide uniformity, he means uniformity of names among English speakers only, and even that has its problems:

The groups that care about official common names are very much set upon worldwide uniformity (which of course is the point of scientificnames theyre the same everywhere, subject only to taxonomic freedom of thought). The AOS is going to have to convince the BOU, BirdLife Australia, Lynx Edicions, etc. to adopt their principle of no patronyms.

And of course the non-Anglophone countries, which are far more populous than the anglophone ones, will keep their old names, many of which will be offensive under progressive criteria.

*The Graduate Students Union (GSU) at the University of Chicago, new this year, is already taking stands on political issues, and not very wise ones. This doesnt violate our Kalven Principle of institutional neutrality, I think, because the GSU is actually part of a non-University organization, the United Electrical Workers.

The Harvard Crimson reports that a similar union at Harvard, this time part of the United Auto Workers, made similar endorsements:

Harvards graduate student union voted on Friday to endorse national union statements supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel and calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

In the largest non-contract vote in the unions history, more than 60 percent of roughly 600 votes from members of the Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers were in favor of signing two statements.

Approximately 64 percent of the union voted to support a statement signed by UAW rank-and-file members endorsing BDS, a movement advocating for the economic and cultural boycott of companies, organizations, and institutions with ties to Israel. The statement, which calls for the end of occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, has not been adopted by the UAW.

As members of the labor movement, we call on U.S. labor unions to cut all ties with Israeli unions, the UAW rank-and-file statement reads.

Around 69 percent voted to support a second statement primarily signed by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing war in Gaza.

We commit ourselves to work in solidarity with the Palestinian and Israeli peoples to achieve peace and justice, it reads.

Now Im not sure what grad-student unions are even doing taking political positions that apparently represent the views of the union when only 60-70% of its members agree with those positions (and probably not many Jewish students!). It seems to me that unions, like universities, should be institutionally neutral, because not only can a union position chill speech, but it may misrepresent the feelings of a substantial proportion of its members. These stands probably accomplish little except signal the virtue of more than 50% of the members. (I dont know what the vote was for the University of Chicago statement, but the BDS movement is historically and implicitly antisemitic, and certainly wants to eliminate Israel.)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili speaks the truth (so long as theres an observer!):

Hili: Qualia.

A: Where?

Hili: Everywhere

In Polish:

Hili: Qualia.

Ja: Gdzie?

Hili: Wszdzie.

*******************

From Stash Krod:

From Donna:

From somewhere on Facebook. As far as I know, all but one of these is true. No, the mountain goat isnt a goat (not in the genus Capra) and the King Cobra is not a true cobra (not in the genusNaja). But which one is wrong?

Masihs workout routine that, she says, keeps her sane. Theres also a paean to America if you read the whole text:

Sarah Haider had a child, but it seems to have affected her political judgement in a negative way. George Washington didnt have any kids, and heres an excerpt from a 2017 Washington Post article:

The leaders of the top industrialized nations are meeting in Sicily, Italy, for the annual Group of Seven summit, and this year, most of them are united by their lack of offspring. Five of the seven national leaders attending the G-7 summit have no biological children.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni have no children. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has two stepsons, and French President Emmanuel Macron has three stepchildren.

Akie Abe, Japans first lady, and Britains prime minister have spoken about how they struggled with infertility. Its been very sad. It just turned out not to be possible for us, saidMay to Leading Britains Conversation, a British radio program.

What if someone is infertile, as above? Would you be disinclined to vote for them? Of course Im childless, but it wouldnt affect my judgement one way or the other. I suppose Sarah is thinking that someone without kids couldnt be that concerned about the future of the planet.

This is hilarious. An elderly man is interviewed in a Gaza Hospital and tells it like it is. The reporter quickly ends the interview, and the old man kicks the reporter (second video). (h/t Jez). Now of course we cant be sure this is real, but it came from MEMRI, which has a good record of accuracy. This was on an Al-Jazeera live program, so they couldnt cut it out!

Speaking of funny interviews, heres a satire of an interview of a Hamas leader by a BBC correspondent, both played by Israelis, who know well how biased against them the BBC is. Be sure to wait for the moment in history at the end.

Look at all the subtle aerial adjustments. The second one is astounding.

The March, of course, was in favor of Israel (h/t Rosemary):

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a woman who died in Auschwitz at 43:

From Larry the Cat, the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, who lives at 10 Downing Street:

And a predatory worm from Dr. Cobb:

Follow this link:
Thursday: Hili dialogue Why Evolution Is True - Why Evolution Is True