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Cal to ban sale of gasoline powered cars + Orion spacecraft's stink: New space toilet

#1
C C Offline
Will NASA's new space toilet pass the malodorous test for moon-bound astronauts?
https://www.businessinsider.com/toilet-n...lem-2020-9

EXCERPTS: NASA is actively preparing to send astronauts back to the moon [...] But on those missions, the astronauts will need a way to go to the bathroom. This presents a unique challenge for Jason Hutt, engineering lead for the Orion capsule. Hutt is responsible for ensuring that Orion's toilet, called the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), can function within the confines of the spacecraft without creating excessive mess or smell. Given that Orion is only the length of a small powerboat and must house four waste-expelling adults for nearly a month, the system has to be compact, efficient, and not too stinky.

"If you want to recreate that used spacecraft smell, take a couple dirty diapers, some microwave food wrappers, a used airsickness bag, & a few sweaty towels, put them in an old school metal trash can and let it bake in the summer sun for 10 days," Hutt wrote on Twitter in August. "Then open the kid & breathe deep."

A version of the new toilet is launching to the International Space Station next week [...] The UWMS design isn't too different from other space toilets. Because there's no gravity ... it uses motorized fans to suction away astronauts' urine and feces. The poop would remain stored on Orion ... But there won't be room to store pee, and the spaceship can't recycle it ... So the plan is for Orion astronauts to vent their pee into space, where it could float frozen forever ... (MORE - details)

Why NASA designed a new $23 million space toilet

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hdzz6tfXvX0



California Gov. signs order banning sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environm...5-n1240878

INTRO: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday to end the sale of gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035. The order aims to phase out cars with internal combustion engines within 15 years by requiring that all new passenger cars and trucks sold in the Golden State in 2035 be zero-emission vehicles.

Newsom said the move, which comes as California is battling some of the worst wildfires in the state’s recent history, will help California reduce carbon pollution in the transportation sector, which contributes to more than half of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

“For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe,” Newsom said in a statement. “Californians shouldn’t have to worry if our cars are giving our kids asthma. Our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse — and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn’t melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines.” (MORE - details) ..... RELATED: UK Government brings forward ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035(video)


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ggcTSRLq16I
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
Seems like a strange thing for Cal gov to announce when the state’s wildfires contribute a large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Does it mean Cal includes wildfire emissions in their annual calculations and banning gas powered vehicles will reduce overall total?
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#3
Syne Offline
(Sep 24, 2020 12:10 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Seems like a strange thing for Cal gov to announce when the state’s wildfires contribute a large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Does it mean Cal includes wildfire emissions in their annual calculations and banning gas powered vehicles will reduce overall total?

What about all the firetrucks and planes needed to fight the fires?
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#4
C C Offline
(Sep 24, 2020 12:10 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Seems like a strange thing for Cal gov to announce...


Cynical Sindee: There are fifteen years for later politicians to extend the deadline, and extend again. You can placate Green/Woke populations with promises and superficial gestures without much carrying through with them. Most of this summer's anger occurred in progressive cities where leaders have been virtue-posturing and assuring citizens for decades that they are addressing and solving social problems. The anger will be placated by talk and pledges, amnesia will gradually set-in as to what faction failed to produce the vowed paradise; and then in another few years events will trigger an explosion of outrage again. Same old cycle. The secular altruism ploy of Marxism and progressivism was "contrarily" appropriated from Christian missionary strategy for converting inhabitants. 

Police reforms stall around the country, despite new wave of activism
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/23...rms-420799

The Michael Moore-produced ‘Planet of the Humans’ faced a coordinated suppression campaign led by professional climate activists backed by the same ‘green’ billionaires, Wall Street investors, industry insiders and family foundations skewered in the film. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green...he-humans/

NOTE: Moore is a left-wing populist, so this wasn't a conservative film trashing certain environmental groups as self-serving, deceptive frauds.
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#5
Syne Offline
The left has a notoriously short memory for their own politician's promises. There's no real, evidence-driven police reforms being sought...or effective/tenable climate policies, improvement of inner cities, etc. for that matter.
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#6
Zinjanthropos Offline
Is this the gov telling the green ‘activists’ that something’s being done and thus, stop setting the state on fire?
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#7
C C Offline
(Sep 25, 2020 12:19 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Is this the gov telling the green ‘activists’ that something’s being done and thus, stop setting the state on fire?


Given the supposed natural, recuperative ability of West Coast woodlands (and even the animals?), I suppose any eco-terrorists might believe they were only driving out the evil humans, and be receptive to Newsome theatrics. Whereas the blundering category of fire-starter will just keep a'going...

Gender-reveal parties and their pyrotechnics seem out of place in California, where caricature-wise you'd expect parents to be like Jodie Whittaker's in that regard (i.e., raising their kids in a gender-neutral context).

But there are lots of hillbillies living in fragile burn-prone areas (not just affluent, urban escapees from high-tech and entertainment industries). But voting-wise that may not mean the same in California as in flyover country -- could instead be atavistic, a trip back in time.

In the old days, the politics of "hillbilly" often meant either Southern Democrat or elsewhere Woody Guthrie brand of southpaw. It wasn't until Lyndon Johnson set into motion alienating the former and the bottom fell out of American communism (and more significantly its sympathizers) that the "other Party" started claiming those "traditionalists" and ex-socialist rednecks slash quasi-red diaper babies. (That includes a percentage of independents who reliably vote a certain way regardless of their nonaligned status).

But that transition might have missed Golden State honkytonk community for the most part -- it's probably stalled in Prairie Home Companion's territory (politically).
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#8
Yazata Offline
Aren't cryptic pieces of bathroom plumbing like these everywhere in France?


[Image: 7TJJbZFZLWFNrUrrPedfKn-650-80.jpg]
[Image: 7TJJbZFZLWFNrUrrPedfKn-650-80.jpg]



Why doesn't Gavin Newsom give up his own cars (plural) right NOW?? Set a shining example for everyone else. Why not Gavin?? You could walk everywhere, take public transportation, ride a bike... or ride a horse back and forth between Sacramento and LA. (I expect that even 19th century steam trains are out in his brave new world.) Commuting the state on horseback would take days, but it would be worth it to save the planet, right?

No, he'll continue to fly around the state in a jet and zip wherever he wants to go with a police escort. (Democrats may want to eliminate the police for the rest of us, but we can be certain that personal protection details will continue for them.)

It's virtue-signaling of the n'th order.
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#9
Secular Sanity Offline
Everything I love is being destroyed. I was born here and thought I would die here. It used to be green and beautiful with plenty of water, gorgeous mountains and breath-taking sea sides.

About ten years ago or so, I started noticing clumps of brown trees here and there. Someone had told me that it was a hack and squirt operation. They said that it was the local timber companies poisoning millions of trees leaving them to die in the forest. Measure V was sought to outlaw this practice but the timber companies claimed they were exempt from local ordinances because of the California’s Right to Farm Act.

Oddly enough though, more and more areas were being filled with dead trees and not on company land. The state and federal areas were starting to take a hit. A friend of mine is a forester. He said that it was the bark beetle. Beetles aren’t normally an issue. They’re great little decomposers. They usually go after unhealthy or dead trees but planting trees is big business. Billions of dollars are allocated every year for more and more trees. Environmental grants are easy to obtain. Our forests are dense, overcrowded, and extremely unhealthy. Trump is right about that. Fast growing pines are popular to plant and highly flammable. The trees are packed so close together that you can't even walk through them. They’re competing for resources making most of them unhealthy and leaving them vulnerable to pest.  Not only that, but the dense canopies prevent ground snow accumulation.  The canopy snow evaporates rapidly in our warm environment. The little that does make it to the ground gets absorbed quickly and never makes into the aquifers or rivers.

I’m afraid I’m worse than C C’s alter ego, Cynical Sindee, due to a personal encounter.

Disillusioned Deb:
We were having a legal battle with a conservation group over a small piece of land up north. They were trying to take half of our land. It was intimidating going up against a large do-gooder organization. Their specialty was land acquisition. They also "partner" with private landowners who voluntarily put restrictions on their own rights of use, e.g., herbicides, logging, subdivision development, water and mineral rights. Basically, they offer the poor landowners free water storage tanks to sign over all their rights to them. Without the water rights, your property value drops drastically. Fortunately, we won the legal battle but they were so aggressive that it made me suspicious. They had bought a piece of property next to us. They thought they owned our piece, as well. When we confronted them, they said that they had it surveyed. We had game cams and we caught them moving the survey markers. One guy seemed like a little sociopath. He approached me with a picture of a trailer on what he thought was their property. He said that someone has stolen some grow containers. It was my property. I didn’t care because I wasn’t planning on growing marijuana but I knew that he was putting in a big commercial grow. I noticed a white marker number on the trailer indicating that it was a rental. You should have seen his face when I pointed that out and told him that I’d look into it and find out who rented it.  A short while later the president contacted me and said that one of their members said that they had taken them and that he was sorry for accusing us. Come to find out, they put in for a sixty-five-thousand-dollar grant for cleanup and planting trees on our property. We didn't allow them access to our piece and theirs turned out to be only 1 1/2 acres. I looked through the grant and it was blown way out of proportion. They were supposed to use some expensive land restoration company to clean the soil and plant thousands of trees. I didn’t want any sneakier shenanigans and so I video taped their cleanup. Two guys on the board showed up with their personal backhoe, rented a dumpster, scooped up garbage, and then stuck about twenty pine starts in the ground. They worked about two-three days. They were taking photos of our property to make it look as if they were cleaning it, too, but they didn't.

One of the staff members has a PhD. in Sociology from Rutgers University. She mediates land conflicts, timber harvest plans and water disputes. I called her and told her that I knew how much the grant was and that there was no way in hell that they did $65,000 worth of work. I told her that it was none of my business, but that if I had anymore problems with them, that I’d turn them in for grant fraud. These fucking grant whores are nothing but common thieves. This sort of thing probably happens a lot. 

Well, anyhow, instead of just admitting that our forests are grossly mismanaged, Newsom blames global warming, bans the sale of gas vehicles, but then moves to close down California's only nuclear powerplant. WTF?  Angry

Oh, and this whole climate change platform with trees being a good source of carbon sinks is far from settled. It’s still controversial. We're probably doing more harm than good.
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