Cooley Hurd
Cooley Hurd's JournalSpaceX launches rocket from historic NASA pad in Florida
Source: Reuters
By Irene Klotz | CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.
A SpaceX Falcon rocket blasted off on Sunday from a Florida launch pad once used to send NASA astronauts to the moon, a step forward for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his company's goal of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station.
The 229-foot tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 soared off a seaside launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center at 9:39 a.m. ET carrying a Dragon cargo ship bound for the station.
Nine minutes after blastoff, the main section of the rocket flew back to a landing pad at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the eighth successful touchdown for Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
"Baby came back," Musk wrote on Twitter, celebrating the re-landing, which came a day after SpaceX decided to delay the mission 13 seconds before launch due to concerns about the steering system in the rocket's upper stage, the company said.
Sunday's launch was the first for SpaceX from Launch Complex 39A, originally built for the 1960s-era Apollo moon program and later repurposed for the space shuttles.
</snip>
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-spacex-launch-idUSKBN15Y05Z?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=58a9d04004d3014185447648&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
Yeah man!!!!!!!!!!
Raucous crowd overwhelms Reed town hall meeting
Source: Buffalo News
ASHVILLE -- A huge crowd of raucous progressives and quieter conservatives overwhelmed Rep. Tom Reed's town hall meeting in this Chautauqua County village Saturday morning, with the progressives repeatedly interrupting and shouting down the congressman's comments as he tried to defend Republican plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
The crowd was so large that it was moved out of the senior center where it was scheduled and into the parking lot outside. There, Reed patiently worked -- but failed -- to maintain order.
"We do not always agree," the Republican Congressman from Corning told the crowd at the outset of the meeting. "As we have disagreement, let's make sure we have it in a respectful, safe way."
But decorum broke down as Reed described replacing Obamacare with a conservative plan that would include health savings accounts.
"How can the poor get savings accounts? How can the poor get savings accounts?" many members of the crowd replied in unison.
Read more: http://buffalonews.com/2017/02/18/huge-crowd-progressives-overwhelms-reed-town-hall-meeting/
Wow! Western NY is quite red - go get 'em!
Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump
Source: WSJ
Decision to withhold information underscores deep mistrust between intelligence community and president
Feb. 15, 2017 8:42 p.m. ET
U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
</snip>
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/spies-keep-intelligence-from-donald-trump-1487209351
And he's the President?
White House discussing asking foreign visitors for social media info and cell phone contacts
Washington (CNN)Amid the chaos and confusion of President Donald Trump's new executive order on immigration and refugees, sources tell CNN that White House policy director Stephen Miller spoke with officials of the State Department, Customs and Border Patrol, Department of Homeland Security and others to tell them that the President is deeply committed to the executive order and the public is firmly behind it -- urging them not to get distracted by what he described as hysterical voices on TV.
Miller also noted on Saturday that Trump administration officials are discussing the possibility of asking foreign visitors to disclose all websites and social media sites they visit, and to share the contacts in their cell phones. If the foreign visitor declines to share such information, he or she could be denied entry. Sources told CNN that the idea is just in the preliminary discussion level. The social media posts calling for jihad by San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik -- made under a pseudonym and with strict privacy settings -- are part of this discussion. How such a policy would be implemented remains under discussion.
</snip>
Barbara Hale, Perry Mason's Della Street dead at 94
Barbara Hale, the Loyal Della Street on 'Perry Mason,' Dies at 94
The Emmy-winning actress, a former starlet at RKO Pictures, starred opposite Raymond Burr on the long-running legal drama.
Barbara Hale, who played the steadfast secretary Della Street opposite Raymond Burr on the legendary courtroom drama Perry Mason for nine seasons and 30 telefilms, has died. She was 94.
Hale, a former contract player at RKO and Columbia who made more than 50 films before landing her signature role, died Thursday at her Sherman Oaks home in Los Angeles.
Survivors include her son William Katt, best known as the star of the 1980s ABC series The Greatest American Hero. He reported her death on Facebook.
"We’ve all been so lucky to have her for so long," Katt wrote. "She was gracious and kind and silly and always fun to be with. A wonderful actress and smart businesswoman, she was most of all a treasure as a friend and mother!"
Hale was mulling retirement to raise her three young children with her husband, actor Bill Williams (The Adventures of Kit Carson), when producer Gail Patrick Jackson approached her about playing Della on Perry Mason.
She quickly accepted the gig when she discovered that Burr, her old friend from RKO, was going to star as the fictional defense attorney in the series based on the Erle Stanley Gardner mystery novels.
Hale received two Emmy nominations (winning in 1959) for playing the quiet beauty who was the rock of stability on Mason's team. She liked the fact that Della was unmarried and without kids so it wouldn't confuse her real-life children.
</snip>
Cross gently, Barbara.
50 years ago today: Tragedy on the Apollo 1 launch pad
Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was the first manned mission of the United States Apollo program, which had as its ultimate goal a manned lunar landing.[1] The low Earth orbital test of the Apollo Command/Service Module never made its target launch date of February 21, 1967. A cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test on January 27 at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White II, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the Command Module (CM). The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was officially retired by NASA in commemoration of them on April 24, 1967.
Immediately after the fire, NASA convened the Apollo 204 Accident Review Board to determine the cause of the fire, and both houses of the United States Congress conducted their own committee inquiries to oversee NASA's investigation. The ignition source of the fire was determined to be electrical, and the fire spread rapidly due to combustible nylon material, and the high pressure, pure oxygen cabin atmosphere. The astronauts' rescue was prevented by the plug door hatch, which could not be opened against the higher internal pressure of the cabin. A failure to identify the test as hazardous (because the rocket was unfueled) led to the rescue being hampered by poor emergency preparedness.
During the Congressional investigation, then-Senator Walter Mondale publicly revealed a NASA internal document citing problems with prime Apollo contractor North American Aviation, which became known as the "Phillips Report". This disclosure embarrassed NASA Administrator James E. Webb, who was unaware of the document's existence, and attracted controversy to the Apollo program. Despite congressional displeasure at NASA's lack of openness, both congressional committees ruled that the issues raised in the report had no bearing on the accident.
Manned Apollo flights were suspended for 20 months while the Command Module's hazards were addressed. However, the development and unmanned testing of the Lunar Module (LM) and Saturn V Moon rocket continued. The Saturn IB launch vehicle for Apollo 1, AS-204, was used for the first LM test flight, Apollo 5. The first successful manned Apollo mission was flown by Apollo 1's backup crew on Apollo 7 in October 1968.
Happy Birthday Bessie Coleman! A remarkable person and aviator
Bessie Coleman and the women pilots history shouldn't forget
(CNN)Bessie Coleman broke multiple barriers when she took flight in 1921, and became the first African-American woman to earn a pilot's license.
Today's Google Doodle commemorates the 125th anniversary of her birth. Coleman was among a small group of female aviators in the early 20th century who successfully flew around the detours of racial prejudice and sexism to become queens in the air.
Worldwide, only 3 percent of airline pilots are women, the Royal Aeronautical Society said last November.
Recently, there's a move to change that.
The obvious place to begin is by highlighting the achievements of those long-forgotten -- the women who ignored the men who scorned them, broke through the restrictions society placed on them, and paved the way for Amelia Earhart.
</snip>
Happy Birthday, Bessie and Thank You!
MSNBC abruptly cut from the WMoW coverage to cover Drumpf in church and Joy sounded PISSED!
Joy said, "I'm told we have to bring you MORE of the National Prayer Service."
Then, briefly, we heard a hot mike of someone sounding exasperated.
Eugene Cernan, last man to walk on the moon, dead at 82
Remembering Gene Cernan
"We leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." -- Cernan's closing words on leaving the moon at the end of Apollo 17
Euguene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died Monday, Jan. 16, surrounded by his family.
Cernan, a Captain in the U.S. Navy, left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon. He also holds the distinction of being the second American to walk in space and the last human to leave his footprints on the lunar surface.
He was one of 14 astronauts selected by NASA in October 1963. He piloted the Gemini 9 mission with Commander Thomas P. Stafford on a three-day flight in June 1966. Cernan logged more than two hours outside the orbiting capsule.
In May 1969, he was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 10, the first comprehensive lunar-orbital qualification and verification test of the lunar lander. The mission confirmed the performance, stability, and reliability of the Apollo command, service and lunar modules. The mission included a descent to within eight nautical miles of the moon's surface.
In a 2007 interview for NASA's oral histories, Cernan said, "I keep telling Neil Armstrong that we painted that white line in the sky all the way to the Moon down to 47,000 feet so he wouldn't get lost, and all he had to do was land. Made it sort of easy for him."
Cross like a jet, Gene!
Controversial megachurch pastor Eddie Long dies at 63
Source: CNN.com
(CNN)Bishop Eddie Long, the controversial Georgia-based head of one of the nation's largest megachurches, has died, according to the church he presided over. He was 63.
Long died after a battle with an aggressive form of cancer, according to a statement by the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
"Bishop Long was known as one of the most influential faith leaders in the world," the church said in the statement. "He stood strong as a Kingdom Builder, pioneering leader, and revolutionary mind changer."
"Although his transition leaves a void for those of us who loved him dearly, we can celebrate and be happy for him, knowing he's at peace," his wife Vanessa Long said in the statement.
At its peak New Birth Missionary Baptist Church had about 25,000 members.
But Long had a controversial past. In 2010, he and his church settled a lawsuit filed by four young men who accused him of pressuring them into sexual relationships while they were teenagers and members of his congregation.
Long, who preached passionately against homosexuality for years, denied the allegations.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/15/us/bishop-eddie-long-dead/index.html?adkey=bn
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 26,877
