RIP to the lovely and talented Melanie Safka who left us recently. Her most famous song has been one of my faves since childhood, long before I understood the innuendo.

 

 

WHAT I AM WATCHING: Netflix series Kleo (watch the trailer) about a female Stasi assassin who reminds me of our own dear KK. The series is set at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and features lots of gunplay, synthpop, and Trabant-hating. I thought I detected a note of ostalgie in the series, but S1E6 contains an excellent takedown of communism at 37:37. I also learned that Margot Honecker was an early adopter of the purple-tinted hair which is now de rigueur for leftist matrons.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS CANCELS CULTURE-SPECIFIC GRADUATION CEREMONIES: “Several culturally specific graduation ceremonies scheduled to take place at the University of Texas at Austin this year have been canceled after the school’s Multicultural Engagement Center was forced to cease official operations in compliance with anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion legislation passed in the state legislature.”

NOBODY TO LIKE: Navajo geneticist and bio-ethicist shakes down ASU for $700,000 and the return of Navajo genetic samples for which proper consent may not have been obtained to re-use the samples in studies of alcoholism and schizophrenia. Navajo nation then bans genetic research on tribal lands. Glibs will remember that this is the same tribe that tried to shake down NASA because some private companies tried to transport human ashes to the moon as a form of burial. (Link is to archive since Science News walls their content.)

FEDERAL JUDGE RULES CALIFORNIA AMMO RESTRICTIONS UNCONSTITUTIONAL: “A federal judge struck down California’s background check requirement for each purchase of ammunition and ban on importing or carrying in ammunition to the state, setting the case up for an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court, where two other California gun rights cases are under way.” And, for once, the Commerce clause did something useful.

FLORIDA MAN TRANSPORTS ALASKA BEAR CUBS TO FLORIDA WHERE THEY ESCAPE CAPTIVITY: This story made my day. It has everything.

CRASH TESTS INDICATE GUARD RAILS UNABLE TO HANDLE HEAVY ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Nobody could have seen this coming, just like nobody could foresee electric vehicle charging placing additional load on the electric grid. To quote the Iron Laws (thanks RC Dean), “foreseeable consequences are not unintended.”

ORBITAL DEATH RAY TO LAUNCH IN 2027: Last week I covered how this was possible. Today they announced plans for a 1 kW demonstration in 2027.

 

Japan’s SLIM lander did indeed achieve a soft landing, but came to rest upside down on the lunar surface, which means the solar cells are often in shadow. The brave little lander is now known as Slim Shady.