What happens to your journal if you're tombstoned?

:shrug:

At least billyskank's Journal was still there after he got eaten by the spam filter.

...that subsequently gets deleted?

:7

What have the admins created? :cry:

Of course, that's the worst case scenario. If we're lucky, the damage will be confined to our own galaxy.

:thumbsup:

Dunno. :shrug:

:D

He posted a good night thread and responded to one too many people who responded to the original post. Tripped the spamometer

:wtf:

To protect DU from spamming, the computers have an automatic trip-point then they prevent that poster from posting, and a tombstone shows up on their profile.

It happened to Will Pitt on time and that was funny as hell!

I don't know who Will Pitt is. Is he a high muckity-muck here? Or, was he?

and get it sorted out. If it is the spam filter, seems they get it taken care of pronto.

And Will is a very good journalist/author who comes here for help with concepts and to bring us info. He is also a trickster and teller of about a brazillion worn out jokes :evilgrin: Check out http://www.truthout.com/ for an idea of what his efforts are about. It is a great source for news and opinions that may not be popular with the neocons ;)

I was posting merrily away and then *poof* ! I was a dead man. :scared:

and is given a harp and a little pair of angel wings and gets to associate with all the other journals belonging to the other banned freepers and trolls that it used to love. :)

:hi:

:shrug:

magellan (1000+ posts) Sat Mar-18-06 06:13 AM
Original message

BushCo's war on science

Anyone read the March 13 New Yorker? It contains an article called "Political Science: The Bush Administration's war on the laboratory" by Michael Specter. I highly recommend it if you're in the mood for tearing your hair out in rage. Here's one excerpt from Specter's very revealing and sobering report:


"I am very respectful of faith, belief, and any principled stance on abortion," Steven Hyman, the provost of Harvard University and a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, said recently when we met in his office in Harvard Square. Hyman was appointed to run the National Institute of Mental Health during the Clinton Administration and remained in his job after Bush took office. He is still troubled by what he saw as the intrusion of church onto state territory.

"The first inkling that things were different under Bush was when I put in a slate for my national advisory council," Hyman said. "I got a call from one of the people I had nominated and he said, 'Steve, is this normal? I was just called by somebody saying he was a White House liaison to the Department of Health and Human Services. He asked me whether I made political donations, and if so to whom, and who did I vote for.'"

Hyman said that he had "no context" in which to understand this kind of enquiry. It turned out to be an experience that others had shared. "People went to Marburger {Bush's science advisor} to complain about it and his answer was pretty much 'What are you guys complaining about? This is normal.'" (Marburger recently told me that he doesn't think scientists should be asked whom they voted for. He has also said, however, that "it's perfectly acceptable for the President to know if someone he's appointing to one of his advisory committees supports his policies or not."

Hyman disagrees. "This is not normal," he said. "It has never happened in anyone's memory at N.I.H., and, frankly, the guy who called me was a molecular biologist. I swear to you that there is no such thing as right-wing or left-wing molecular biology."

Apparently there is in Bush**World.

What a chilling, in-your-face double-standard. Government scientists and advisors are being actively and intrusively screened by the WH for their political leanings...and yet daring to ask Bush**'s SCOTUS nominees how they feel on matters of science (like medical abortion) is out of bounds!

Two-Stage-to-Orbit 'Blackstar' System Shelved at Groom Lake?
By William B. Scott
03/05/2006 04:07:33 PM


SPACEPLANE SHELVED?

For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system, and top Pentagon officials have hinted that it's "out there," but iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive. Now facing the possibility that this innovative "Blackstar" system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we've learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into "black world" history, known to only a few insiders. U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance, satellite-insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery. It could be a victim of shrinking federal budgets strained by war costs, or it may not have met performance or operational goals.

This two-vehicle "Blackstar" carrier/orbiter system may have been declared operational during the 1990s.

A large "mothership," closely resembling the U.S. Air Force's historic XB-70 supersonic bomber, carries the orbital component conformally under its fuselage, accelerating to supersonic speeds at high altitude before dropping the spaceplane. The orbiter's engines fire and boost the vehicle into space. If mission requirements dictate, the spaceplane can either reach low Earth orbit or remain suborbital.

The manned orbiter's primary military advantage would be surprise overflight. There would be no forewarning of its presence, prior to the first orbit, allowing ground targets to be imaged before they could be hidden. In contrast, satellite orbits are predictable enough that activities having intelligence value can be scheduled to avoid overflights.

Exactly what missions the Blackstar system may have been designed for and built to accomplish are as yet unconfirmed, but U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) officers and contractors have been toying with similar spaceplane-operational concepts for years. Besides reconnaissance, they call for inserting small satellites into orbit, and either retrieving or servicing other spacecraft. Conceivably, such a vehicle could serve as an anti-satellite or space-to-ground weapons-delivery platform, as well.

;)

I was thinking of that earlier.

;) :D :silly:

jpgray HATES shruggie - i think it's shruggie's passive-aggressive nature. i totally understand it. :hi:

Like *real* heavy....

just guessing.

:silly:

:scared: