Another day off. Another excuse for the Post Office to not deliver my Wall Street Journal.

News Alert June 16, 7:32 p.m. EDT

Congress votes to make Juneteenth, or June 19, a federal holiday. The day commemorates the end of slavery in Texas in 1865. The House vote was the culmination of a long effort to commemorate Juneteenth, the day that enslaved Black people in Galveston, Tex., received news in 1865 that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln had signed it. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent on Tuesday. President Biden is expected to sign it into law. Read more

An interesting fact: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. They both were strongly against slavery.

This blog has 31 posts about Abraham Lincoln at Abraham Lincoln.

This blog has 394 posts about Charles Darwin at Charles Darwin.

Idiot Texas has made it easy to own a gun, and they made it difficult to vote.

New York Times

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign a wide-ranging bill that would allow virtually anyone over the age of 21 to carry a handgun — no permit required. It’s part of a string of Republican-led initiatives that the State Legislature has pushed through during its most conservative session in modern history. Next up: a voting bill that critics say will make Texas “the most difficult place to vote in the country.”

President Biden wants to protect my favorite creatures. That's a good thing.

Environment Alert May 26, 2:57 p.m. EDT

Biden administration proposes new protections for threatened bird in Southwest, a move that could restrict oil and gas drilling U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are proposing to list under the Endangered Species Act the part of the lesser prairie chicken’s population living in Texas and New Mexico, whose range overlaps with the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin. The agency stopped short of calling for the same protections for the birds’ northern population, in Oklahoma and Kansas, on the grounds that their numbers were more stable. Read more

The United States has a Bill of Rights which includes keeping church and state completely separate. But Fucktard Texas has thrown out our constitution so they can force school children to suck up to the Magic Man. What a bunch of stupid fucking assholes.

I found this at the New York Times:

“I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God.”

That’s how schoolchildren in Texas start their day, every morning.

The New York Times. Lots of stuff about the Coronavirus.

May 19, 2021

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

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The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

India recorded the pandemic’s highest known daily death toll for a single country. A vaccine maker in India signaled that it wouldn’t export doses before year’s end, slowing aid to the world’s poorest countries. More than 100 million vaccine doses manufactured by Emergent BioSolutions are now on hold as regulators check them for contamination. The company gave top executives massive bonuses last year. Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and a vaccine tracker.

New York City’s reopening

After 14 months of sacrifice and suffering, New York City finally lifted most coronavirus restrictions today. The occasion was less a free-for-all and more a soft opening, as New Yorkers gingerly explored their reshaped city.

Most businesses, including restaurants, stores, salons and gyms, are now able to open to 100 percent capacity, but only if they can still maintain six feet of distance between people or groups. The same is true for houses of worship. Vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks in most circumstances — indoors or outdoors — but individual businesses are free to set stricter rules. Masks are still mandatory on public transit and in schools, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, nursing homes and health care settings.

Daily reported cases in New York CityThe New York Times

Overall, the first day back in business was very New York City: messy, inconsistent and confusing.

Despite the new statewide rules, behavior was regulated by the personal comfort levels of the city’s millions of residents. Masks remained firmly in place for a majority of people, whether in big-box stores, on the streets or in parks. Many businesses were also maintaining the status quo.

“We’re doing everything the same here,” said Elisabeth Ocasio, 51, a server at the restaurant La Isla in the Bronx. “We don’t know who’s vaccinated and who’s not.”

Even so, the day was a milestone after more than a year of being savaged by the coronavirus. One year ago, testing was limited, hospitals were full and thousands were dying every day. New Yorkers confined themselves to their apartments, and the city became a shadow of itself. In total, the known death toll in the city has topped more than 33,000.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he planned to keep mask rules in place at city offices because there would be a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated people there, and that he planned to wear a mask in most situations out of an abundance of caution.

“When you’re not sure, my personal advice is wear a mask,” the mayor said, adding, “We’ve done it, for god’s sakes, for a year. We can do it a little bit longer to finish the job.”

Scenes of unease played out across the city. Byong Min, the owner of du Pont dry cleaners on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, spent 90 days in a hospital battling Covid-19 last year and has a scar from his tracheotomy visible above his collar. This morning, a customer arrived and asked if she could she enter without a mask.

He said yes. But he regretted it moments later.

“She told me she was vaccinated and I am vaccinated, but wow, maybe I should be more careful,” he said. “I wasn’t really thinking. I just said OK.”

It wasn’t the food. Pete Wells, The Times’s food critic, writes that what Americans really missed most about going to restaurants was the random thrill of seeing other people.

E.U. to welcome vaccinated tourists

The E.U. will open its borders to vaccinated travelers and tourists coming from a list of countries considered relatively safe from a pandemic perspective.

The bloc will accept visitors who have received full immunization using one of the shots approved by its own regulator or by the W.H.O. That includes vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm. The list of safe countries based on epidemiological criteria will be finalized on Friday, and the new measures may go into effect as early as next week.

Member states can tweak the guidelines by requiring negative PCR tests, rapid tests or other measures. The bloc will also maintain an emergency-brake option that will allow it to quickly snap back to more restrictive conditions if a threatening new virus variant or an outbreak emerges.

Travel trend. Far-flung families are combining traveling and togetherness — two of the most longed-for practices during more than a year of pandemic lockdowns — into elaborate new twists on the old-fashioned family reunion.

Vaccine rollout

The United Arab Emirates said it would offer a booster shot for the Sinopharm vaccine at least six months after the initial two doses, Reuters reported. Vaccination brings greater freedoms. That has tempted some people in Germany to try a most un-German activity: cutting in line.

See how the vaccine rollout is going in your county and state.

Thank you for your support. Want to share The New York Times? Friends and family can enjoy unlimited digital access to our journalism with this special offer.

What else we’re following

Australia said it was unlikely to fully reopen its borders until mid-2022. Experts warned that young people could “face a lost decade” because of prolonged economic loss and social dislocation. Gov. Greg. Abbott of Texas issued an executive order banning cities and counties from mandating masks, The Texas Tribune reported. In India, the story of Joefred and Ralfred Gregory, twins who lived together and died together from the virus, has resonated widely. A composer wrote a violin solo inspired by a Times illustration of the Covid genome. You can listen here.

What you’re doing

My husband and I are vaccinated, but our small children are still left vulnerable. We are feeling like the new mask guidance from the C.D.C. has left us out in the cold. Those who never wanted to wear masks and those who never wanted a vaccine are the same group. Now, this group is walking around unmasked and putting our children at greater risk. I haven’t felt this scared since the start of the pandemic. — Adrienne Peterson, Pittsburgh, Pa.

New York Times - SpaceX Successfully Lands Prototype of Mars and Moon Rocket After Test Flight

New York Times

SpaceX Successfully Lands Prototype of Mars and Moon Rocket After Test Flight

After a series of high-altitude test flights that ended in explosions, the new vehicle set down in one piece on a Texas launchpad.

By Kenneth Chang and Michael Roston

May 5, 2021

A prototype of a spacecraft that SpaceX hopes one day to send to the moon and Mars touched down in one piece on a landing pad in South Texas on Wednesday. It was the fifth high-altitude flight test of Starship, a vehicle that in several earlier test flights exploded either during or after landing.

“We are down, the Starship has landed,” said John Insprucker, a SpaceX engineer, during a live video stream of the SN15 launch.

Flames continued to emerge from the base of the rocket after it landed, a result of the fuel used by the rocket, Mr. Insprucker said. Shortly after SpaceX concluded its official video feed, Elon Musk, the founder of the private space company, wrote a tweet calling the landing a success in the jargon of rocket engineering:

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Starship landing nominal!

A future model of the vehicle is central to Mr. Musk’s goal of one day carrying humans far beyond Earth’s orbit. NASA also recently awarded SpaceX a contract to build a version of Starship that would carry astronauts to the moon’s surface later this decade.

In four previous tests, conducted since December, the rockets launched successfully and, after reaching an altitude of several miles, demonstrated controlled belly-flops back toward the ground. But each time, problems during landing or after the rocket touched down resulted in spectacular explosions.

Wednesday’s flight was free of any such excitement. The vehicle, powered by its three engines, raced into the cloudy skies over Boca Chica, adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. It traveled for four minutes to an altitude of about six miles, powering down engines and hovering for a time before beginning its trip back toward Earth’s surface.

During the return to the landing pad, it flipped over into a horizontal orientation to begin its descent. As it neared the surface, it reactivated its engines and brought itself back into a vertical orientation, slowing its approach to the ground in a cloud of smoke. As the vapor cleared, the spacecraft stood upright, plumes continuing to vent from its sides.

SpaceX takes a fail-fast, fix-fast approach, using the tests to identify shortcomings of design and making adjustments on subsequent flights. An announcement NASA made last month is certain to bring more attention to Starship’s progress and setbacks.

A few weeks ago, NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX for $2.9 billion to use Starship to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon. The contract is part of the Artemis program, and NASA had been expected to choose more than one company to build a moon lander, mirroring the approach the space agency has used for hiring companies to take cargo and now astronauts to the International Space Station.

After the announcement, NASA’s decision was challenged by the two other companies that were competing for the contract: Blue Origin, the private company founded by Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon; and Dynetics, a defense contractor in Huntsville, Ala. NASA has now instructed SpaceX to halt work on the lunar Starship until the Government Accountability Office makes a decision on the protests. The challenge does not affect SpaceX’s work on the Starship models currently being tested in Texas.

Mr. Musk’s company has become successful in the launch business, and it is now one of the world’s most valuable privately held companies. Its Falcon 9 rockets have become a dominant workhorse for sending satellites into orbit. It routinely transports cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. In the last month, it has launched four astronauts to the space station for NASA, and later brought home another crew in a nighttime splashdown on Saturday.

However, many are skeptical of Mr. Musk’s assertion that the company is just a few years from sending a Starship to Mars, noting that he has repeatedly set timelines for SpaceX that proved far too optimistic.

In 2019, when he provided an update on the development of Starship, he said that a high-altitude test would occur within months and that orbital flights could occur early in 2020.

Instead, several catastrophic failures happened because of faulty welding. When the propellant tanks stopped rupturing, two of the prototypes made short successful flights last year. Those earlier Starship prototypes resembled spray paint cans with their labels removed, rising nearly 500 feet using a single rocket engine before setting back down at the Texas test site.

Although it has lifted off the ground many times, Starship is a long way from being ready for a trip to orbit. But SpaceX already has its eyes on future tests that will send subsequent Starship prototypes to much greater altitudes. In March, Mr. Musk shared a picture of a prototype of the large booster stage that will be needed for a trip to space. It is over 200 feet tall.

Although this prototype will not itself take flight, Mr. Musk said the company’s goal was for a second model to launch by July.

Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. @kchangnyt

Michael Roston is the senior staff editor for science. He was previously a social media editor for The Times and a home page producer. @michaelroston

I found the YouTube video. This is a beautiful thing. Everyone in the world should watch it.

I'm adding this to my list of favorite quotes. It's about Idiot America. "We literally have informed, rational people living side by side with uneducated idiots."

https://politizoom.com/texas-newspaper-prints-creationist-essay-about-humans-and-dinosaurs-living-together-as-opinion/

Uneducated moron in Idiot Texas explains why humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. A Texas newspaper published the breathtaking stupidity.

https://www.orangeleader.com/2021/03/06/faith-what-do-dinosaurs-behemoth-and-leviathan-have-in-common/

This is about anti-science god-soaked assholes in Texas.

A Creationist is Angry He Can’t Get a Grad School Degree in Creationism

BY HEMANT MEHTA

JANUARY 12, 2021

In 2007, the Institute for Creation Research — yes, that’s really a place — wanted to offer a Master of Science degree with a major in Science Education in the state of Texas. In order for that degree to have more value than a sheet of toilet paper, however, a school needs proper accreditation.

They didn’t get it because they didn’t meet basic science standards. How could they? They don’t teach science. They make up stories that align with their fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible and pass it off as science.

ICR then filed a lawsuit against the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board claiming they were victims of religious discrimination. They lost that case in 2010.

It didn’t take long for ICR to close its grad school. It still offers a Master of Christian Education degree through its School of Biblical Apologetics (because the state doesn’t regulate how Christian schools teach Christian myth).

The year all that drama went down, a man named Chris Ashcroft wrote an article for Creation Ministries International’s Journal of Creation in which he complained about how his attempt to get a graduate degree in Creationism was hampered by Texas refusing to grant accreditation to the school.

The recent court ruling (against the ICRGS) that Biblically based science does not qualify to be called “science” is nothing short of religious discrimination. With similar rulings against Christian institutions being seen around the globe, it is clear that we will soon see the end of Christian education if people do not act.

It’s been a decade since he published that article, and Ashcroft just recycled it for a local website called AllOnGeorgia. Even the citations haven’t been updated… which is just *chef’s kiss* for something written by a Creationist. Why bother updating the story with new information when you’re stuck in an old way of thinking?

In any case, to answer the question at the top of his article — “Is there a future for Christian education?” — of course there is. There’s value in learning about Christianity. But there’s no educational value in treating fiction as fact, or pretending that religious mythology is a valid substitute for science.

No one deserves credit for getting a degree in bullshit.

Senator Fucktard Ted Cruz who lives in Fucktard Texas is equal to Trump, equally stupid.

News Alert Jan. 6, 10:15 p.m. EST

Senate votes to reject Republican lawmakers’ challenge to Biden’s win in Arizona Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), along with a House Republican, had forced the debate and vote, halting the congressional count of electoral votes. But dozens of Senate Republicans joined with Democrats in turning back the challenge. Separately, the House is debating and voting on the objection. Read more