Tootfinder

“Throughout our trip to Germany, most of the conversations I had with other survivors and their families reliably returned to fears and intergenerational traumas in the context of the Trump presidency; the rise of nationalism, authoritarianism and uncertainty in the U.S. and around the world. But although this was at the height of devastating reports of famine and genocide emerging from Gaza, everyone in our group, especially the Jews, seemed to make a concerted effort to avoid mention of Pa…

Remembering ‘Never Again for Everyone’ at Bergen-Belsen
At the height of the war in Gaza, a Jewish activist for Palestine accompanied his mother, a Holocaust survivor, to Germany for a ceremony to mark 80 years since liberation

Military conducts 'lethal kinetic strike' on alleged drug boat, leaving one survivor (NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/military-conducts-lethal-kinetic-strike-alleged-drug-boat-leaving-one-rcna255681
http://www.memeorandum.com/260123/p123#a260123p123

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's and Trump's actions against Anthropic have serious legal issues, and its designation exceeds what the statute authorizes (Lawfare)
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/pentagon…

Pentagon’s Anthropic Designation Won’t Survive First Contact with Legal System
This is designation as political theater: a show of force that will not stick.

"If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail."
And yet: "No plan survives the first contact with the enemy."
#plan #planning #FailToPlan

This is at Selby & Western, between Nina’s and W. A. Frost.
Some context for out-of-towners: this is a fairly affluent neighborhood, fairly white, mix of renters and homeowners, lots of lavishly restored 19th- and early 20th-century brick buildings and popular restaurants. There are old railroad tycoon mansions a few blocks away on Summit Ave. The St. Paul cathedral is just up the street.
If you were trying to preserve a sense of safety and normalcy among the comfortable and the influential in order to survive an upcoming election, this is the sort of place you’d tell your secret police goons to steer clear of.
Photos are from here: https://bsky.app/profile/andrewkarre.bsky.social/post/3melwi55orm2w

Before and after pictures of the rocket test 100 years ago today, from the fantastic #Goddard collection at https://commons.clarku.edu/goddardlaunch/ - articles about the historical event and its context also at https://www.collectspace.com/news/news-031626a-robert-goddard-liquid-fuel-rocket-centennial-where-nell.html (small parts of the hardware may have survived after all), https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-origins/ -> https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-space-craze/ -> https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-legacy/ and https://www.space.com/space-exploration/2-seconds-that-changed-the-world-the-1st-liquid-fueled-rocket-launched-100-years-ago-today

So the new #Kreutz #comet #MAPS is *still* following the constant rapid rise in brightness it has shown since discovery: a dumb extrapolation - https://cobs.si/analysis/?comet=2688&from_date=2026-01-15 00:00&to_date=2026-04-30 00:00&observation_type=V&observation_type=C&plot_x_value=1&plot_y_value=1&fit_option=1&exclude_faint=on&exclude_issue=on&observer=&association=&country=&compare_values=compare - has it get 10,000-times brighter than the Sun at its extremely close perihelion which makes so sense at all, of course, physically.
"It must therefore be assumed that this increase in activity will level off significantly in the near future," writes https://fg-kometen.vdsastro.de/koj_2026/c2026a1/26a1eaus.htm: "More likely are parameters m m0=12.0 mag / n=4 (or even lower), which would still result in a (very short-term) maximum brightness of about –9 mag (but this would probably still be significantly too bright) – always assuming that the comet survives its perihelion passage unscathed."
For other views see http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005600/CBET005663.txt and https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.17626 and https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10236580364221799 and https://cometografia.es/cometa-kreutz-2026-a1-maps-analisis/ - and the actual brightness is tracked at https://cobs.si/obs_list?id=2688 where it has reached ~11.5 mag. now.