Quote:To the Moon and “Free” Ride Home

On the remainder of the trip, astronauts will continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s systems, including demonstrating Earth departure and return operations, practicing emergency procedures, and testing the radiation shelter, among other activities.

The Artemis II crew will travel approximately 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the Moon. From this vantage point, they will be able to see the Earth and the Moon from Orion’s windows, with the Moon close in the foreground and the Earth nearly a quarter-million miles in the background.

With a return trip of about four days, the mission is expected to last about 10 days. Instead of requiring propulsion on the return, this fuel-efficient trajectory harnesses the Earth-Moon gravity field, ensuring that—after its trip around the far side of the Moon—Orion will be pulled back naturally by Earth’s gravity for the free return portion of the mission.
Two Missions, Two Different Trajectories

Following Artemis II, Orion and its crew will once again travel to the Moon, this time to make history when the next astronauts walk on the lunar surface during Artemis III.

Quote:(March 18, 2025) -- The official Artemis II mission crew patch. The Artemis II test flight begins when a mighty team launches the first crew of the Artemis generation. This patch designates the mission as “AII,” signifying not only the second major flight of the Artemis campaign, but also an endeavor of discovery that seeks to explore for all and by all. Framed in Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise photo, the scene of the Earth and the Moon represents the dual nature of human spaceflight, both equally compelling: The Moon represents our exploration destination, focused on discovery of the unknown. The Earth represents home, focused on the perspective we gain when we look back at our shared planet and learn what it is to be uniquely human. The orbit around Earth highlights the ongoing exploration missions that have enabled Artemis to set sights on a long-term presence on the Moon and soon, Mars.

Quote:Jay C. Hormel was the SPAM Man. Head of Hormel Foods, he was the canny heir to his father’s canned-meat business. Under him, the company introduced the smooth, spiced pork product known as SPAM right on the cusp of the Second World War. But there was a problem. By wartime’s end, 90 percent of Hormel’s inventory was shipped overseas, as food for American troops and allies. The company now needed to market wartime, tinned food to a peacetime audience.

So, in 1946, the Hormel Company started hiring for the Hormel Girls, a drum and bugle corps of female musicians who had served in the war. As a veteran himself of World War One, Hormel was concerned for his employees who served. During the war, according to authors Jill M. Sullivan and Danelle D. Keck in their paper The Hormel Girls, he had sent letters to enlisted male employees assuring them that their jobs were waiting. When two managers devised a marketing strategy of an all-female, military-style band to promote Hormel products, Jay Hormel was quick to support it. As Sullivan and Keck point out, it was designed to push a “quasi-patriotic” button for consumers, who associated Hormel with the American military.

The requirements to be a Hormel Girl reflected the times. Most of the performers were white, and all were unmarried. They also had to play instruments.

Twenty girls from the original 48 agreed to stay on, and those numbers soon grew. They marched in parades, played in shows, and sold Hormel products (especially SPAM) door-to-door. Advertisements proclaimed that when “talented ex-G.I. Drum and Bugle Girls” came to town, they distributed free SPAM or chili in stores. Driving 35 matching white Chevrolets, the performers proceeded like a caravan, drawing attention wherever they went.

In 1948, the Hormel Girls went to Hollywood and took to the airwaves. According to Sullivan and Keck, they changed their style for radio. While before they had played a mix of military and popular music, the Music with the Hormel Girls show featured big-band music, punctuated by regular reminders that Hormel’s chili and ham was the best. It proved a good combination. By 1953, the show was “number four in the yearly [Nielsen] rankings.”

In the early 1950s, the show expanded to include dance. The Hormel Girls wore elaborate costumes and performed for locals and grocers. Jay Hormel, channeling his inner bandleader, decided who would sing and play which instrument. (Some of the musicians considered him nitpicky, but he may have just been passionate about music. Several of his children and grandchildren became performers.) As the group reached its peak, many newer Hormel Girls were photogenic professional musicians, instead of G.I.’s.

But in 1953, the show came to an end. The caravan was costing the Hormel Company $1.3 million dollars a year, and Jay Hormel was sick and would die in 1954. As television proved to be cheaper advertising, the last performance was held on December 13, 1953. Laverne Wollerman, one of the final performers, told Sullivan and Keck that the curtain was quickly pulled to hide that many of them were crying.

Hormel Girls went on to other jobs at the company, or in music. But there was no denying their effectiveness. In the years that the Hormel Girls performed, Hormel’s sales doubled, and SPAM successfully made its transition from food of necessity to classic Americana. Still, in a 2010 interview, Hormel Girl’s announcer Marilyn Wilson Ritter noted that SPAM wasn’t even her favorite. “I liked the chili con carne,” she said.

The Rise and Fall of the Hormel Girls, Who Sold America on SPAM

Quote:Inside the "Men's Club" -- Secrets of the Patriarchy by HAWTHORNE ABENDSEN of A-albionic Research.

sex and death

love and war

Slayer and Slain

(Caesar and Christ)

God and Satan

religion and politics

(Church and State)

Aryans and Semites

and

much more ......

PATRIARCHAL ORIGINS

There is at least circumstantial evidence in support of the hypothesis that the peoples whom we describe as patriarchal were once a special caste or "guild" in earlier Near Eastern civilizations. They seem to have been a 'taboo' group, 'branded" and set apart, like Cain --whose name, by the way, means 'expelled"-specializing in the risky skills of smelting (fire) and slaughter of arimals (bloodletting) for ritual purposes.

Not only this, but, because of their indifference to pain and death, they provided manpower for the first militias of early Near Eastern Empires, developing eventually into a distinct warrior caste. Careful reading of texts from 2000 BC suggest that, from male-bonded and therefore exclusive solidarity among themselves, they became an autonomous power and at last rose in revolt against their own rulers, who were temperamentally unprepared to resist storms of violence. (Archeologists examining the corpses of their victims note that they seem to have submitted passively, without resistance.)

Abraham's departure from Ur coincides with the collapse of its 3rd Dynasty in civil war -- an event equivalent in its time to the fall of Rome. At the same time, in the northern colonies of Babylon, the ancestors of the Indo- European tribes were also rebelling against foreign rule. Indeed, given evidence of widespread communication amongst all Near Eastern peoples, it is apparent that there was a international revolution as all these warrior bands made common cause -most likely at the crossroads of Harran, where Abraham sojourned-- and one by one overthrew the bull-worshipping "matriarchal" Near Eastern empires.

Those empires not destroyed were transformed, assimilating the first wave of invaders or adapting to the new threat of violence. In Egypt, for example, there was a priestly civil war (marking the beginning of the Middle Kingdom) after which, in defense against the Hyksos invaders, the Pharaohs evolved into warlords. (The Hykaos, a Semitic tribe, were finally driven out around the time of Moses.)

The fragmentary manner in which ancient history is usually presented obscures these connections between "local" events existing on an international context.

One of the facts proving contact and the intermingling of Indo-European and Semitic populations is that the Sanskrit alphabet developed from the Phoenician during this period.

Other such data may be found in the work of historian Cyrus Gordon, The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations.

Quote:The prime minister of Hungary Victor Orbán posted this morning:

Quote:    Today, the Brusselians are crossing the Rubicon. At noon, a written vote will take place that will cause irreparable damage to the Union.

    The subject of the vote is the frozen Russian assets, on which the EU member states have so far voted every 6 months and adopted a unanimous decision. With today’s procedure, the Brusselians are abolishing the requirement of unanimity with a single stroke of the pen, which is clearly unlawful.

    With today’s decision, the rule of law in the European Union comes to an end, and Europe’s leaders are placing themselves above the rules. Instead of safeguarding compliance with the EU treaties, the European Commission is systematically raping European law. It is doing this in order to continue the war in Ukraine, a war that clearly isn’t winnable. All this is happening in broad daylight, less than a week before the meeting of the European Council, the Union’s most important decision-making body, bringing together heads of state and government. With this, the rule of law in the European Union is being replaced by the rule of bureaucrats. In other words, a Brusselian dictatorship has taken hold.

    Hungary protests this decision and will do everything in its power to restore a lawful order.

The EU used the Article 122 of the treaty to make the freezing of the Russian assets in Europe permanent by the vote of a qualified majority in the Council of Europe where each nation has a vote. Previously that freeze was voted on every six month and required unanimity. Any country could thus veto further sanctions. Putting the freeze under Art.122 in effect deprives Hungary and others of their veto power.

The whole issue came up because Belgium, where most of the assets are frozen, has fears that any use of the Russian assets for an EU ‘loan’ to Ukraine would in the end require it to pay Russia if the sanctions were lifted. Making the freeze permanent are supposed to shield it from EU member veto.

It is very doubtful that the use of Art. 122, which is for economic emergency “in particular if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products, notably in the area of energy”, is applicable. The decision will likely be challenged in court:

Quote:    On Wednesday, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever cast doubt over the suitability of Article 122 and the existence of an economic emergency to justify its activation.

    “This is money from a country with which we are not at war,” De Wever said, speaking to reporters at the Belgian parliament. “It would be like breaking into an embassy, taking out all the furniture, and selling it.”

Russia’s response to the EU shenanigans did not take long:

Quote:    MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The Bank of Russia has filed a lawsuit against the Euroclear depository in the Moscow Arbitration Court for damages caused to the Bank of Russia, the regulator’s press service reported.

    The amount of the claim against the depository was not specified in the statement.

    “In connection with the illegal actions of the Euroclear depository, which are causing damages to the Bank of Russia, as well as in connection with the mechanisms officially reviewed by the European Commission for the direct or indirect use of Bank of Russia assets without the consent of the Bank of Russia, the Bank of Russia is filing a lawsuit in the Moscow Arbitration Court against the Euroclear depository for damages caused to the Bank of Russia,” the statement reads.

    The regulator stressed that the actions of the Euroclear depository caused damage “due to the inability to manage cash and securities belonging to the Bank of Russia.”

    The majority of Russia’s sovereign assets frozen in Europe (over €200 billion) are blocked on Euroclear’s platform in Belgium. The depository repeatedly opposed the expropriation of the assets, warning that it could lead to Russia seizing European or Belgian assets elsewhere in the world through legal action.

    Earlier Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the global financial and economic order would be destroyed, and economic separatism would only intensify, if the West stole Russia’s frozen assets. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that Moscow would definitely respond to the theft of its assets in Europe. He stressed that the Kremlin intends to organize legal proceedings against those involved in this scheme.

Russia is following the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) procedure through arbitration courts. This helps it to avoid seeking judgment in any potentially hostile national jurisdiction. ISDS procedure have been  successfully used by Russian billionaires who had been sanctioned. The details of how they function is beyond my pay grade though Yves Smith covers a bit of it. She closes her piece with this:

Quote:In any event, pass the popcorn. Things are about to get ugly. The long-standing erosion of national rights in favor of stateless investors is being turned against its neoliberal creators.

When the war in Ukraine started it was quite obvious that it would damage NATO and probably lead to its demise. But I did not expect how much damage it would do to the EU. Brussels is de-legitimizing itself. That damage will last and may well lead to significant changes in whatever is by then left of the European Union.