US Mercury Astronaut Scott Carpenter Has Died At 88

I always liked Scott Carpenter, he was a bit of a fool.

"You're looking out at a totally black sky, seeing an altimeter reading of 90,000ft and realise you are going straight up. And the thought crosses your mind:  

What am I doing?"

Like him, I'm shaking my head. 

Not only the second American to orbit Earth, Carpenter exemplified what became known as The Right Stuff after his capsule overshot the landing point by almost 300 fucking miles. 

He left our still-new-to-space-travel nation without communication and frantic with worry he was alive. 

But the Navy eventually found their astronaut, chillin' in the Caribbean, floating on his raft with his feet propped up.

He went around the globe three times in 1962. 

And as the backup pilot for the first Mercury mission, his was the  voice that famously said, "Godspeed, John Glenn." 

Carpenter was born in Boulder, Colorado, commissioned in the Navy in 1949, and served as a pilot in the Korean War. 

In 1959 he was selected as one of seven Mercury astronauts, training with NASA and specializing in communications and navigation. 

After retiring in 1969 he took up oceanography. As part of the Navy's (now famous and trendy) SeaLab program, in 1965 Carpenter went to California and spent 30 days under the sea.

He lived in Vail, Colorado and upon retiring founded Sea Sciences with the famous French researcher, Jacques Cousteau.

His second wife, Patty Barrett, said he suffered a stroke in September, and died not long after in hospice care.

Let it be known:

Scott Carpenter was easily the most badass #2 in history.

And John Glenn is the Mercury team's last surviving member.

When This Man Is Your Hero I'm Proud To Be A Pariah

He's made millions, spouting sciencey-sounding malarky, and all because they'd eat it up:

“However, instead of completely melting away, the polar icecap is at now at its highest level for this time of year since 2006. 

Satellite photos of the Arctic taken by NASA in August 2012 and August 2013 show a 60 percent increase in the polar ice sheet, more than half the size of Europe, despite “realistic” predictions by climate scientists six years ago that the North Pole would be completely melted by now. Instead of shrinking, the NASA photographs clearly show that the Arctic ice sheet is much larger than it was at the same time last year. 

The thick layer of summer ice, which currently stretches from Canada to Russia, is preventing ships from using the North-West Passage.”

I remember almost being thrown out of someone's house, for trying to calm a woman as she screamed about the polar bears - a result of misinformation, few consider, as the claim it's all so harmless revolves. It's not. These fools think they're just talking but, in ways large and small, society stops working. Lives are put in peril.

Ha! Listen to me. I forgot - this is post-Syria America now:

Nobody has to care about any of that anymore,...

 

I'm O.K. - You're O.K. (O.K., You're Not O.K.,...)

A quick question after glancing at Drudge: 

If almost 1,000 doomsday cult members have been arrested in China - and it's Drudge, and the BBC, who are calling them cultists - why don't we identify the fearful 'end of the world' callers flooding NASA or the folks gathering in Australia, Mexico, France, or Serbia, by the same title?

 I swear, if I wasn't so gosh darn happy right now, I'd be getting pretty pissed about it,…

 

Starship Troopers

They think my friend has meningitis, which I knew little about until this happened. Nasty stuff. They're hitting him with 5 different antibiotics now, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. There doesn't appear to be any brain damage, which is good, and hopefully he'll make a full recovery.

Thank You for everyone's kind words.

Why isn't there more talk about institutionalizing the mentally ill?

That was Ann Althouse after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The question strikes me as disingenuous, or even maybe naive, in light of the recent events in my immediate vicinity:

We're a freedom-loving people, and we labor to allow others (and ourselves) as much autonomy as possible - which allows, whatever troubles the afflicted, a lot of leeway.

Plus, in this culture, who are the mentally ill?

"What kind of country is this? There's a disconnect, between the country we think we are, and the country we actually are. And that only gets you so far, as you coast on the investments of the previous generation. But if you think you're there and you're not, that's called 'delusion,' and stuff catches up with you."

-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

One popular presidential candidate thought trees grow to a "right height," and is now the proud owner of The Plain English Campaign's 'Foot in Mouth' award for speaking gibberish, with this:

 

'I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love.'

Problem? And what about Jesus coming "back" to Missouri? Or, say, Westerners who think the Dalai Lama is reincarnated? In the NewAge, madness is more difficult to diagnose, apparently.

And that's where we careen into the side rail, right? Whoopee - bumper cars with the Feds:

Does NASA seriously think someone who's sold all their worldly possessions and run off to Serbia is capable of understanding facts? Or even cares?

If you ask me, everybody needs to do some reframing - fast. This is the NewAge. So we shouldn't be hearing about a "Mayan prophecy" but a NewAge prophecy - the Mayan are as confused by the nature of these events as anyone else. I think we should be investigating that.

What is NewAge? What effect is it having on people? On society?

This preposterous cosmology, that has believers gathering in "power spots," awaiting rescue spaceships as others die. Is that mental illness? What else is going on? I'll tell you - again:

 

Naw, forget that - I think you can figure it out for yourselves,....

 

"Some, Inspired By New Age Philosophies, Expect A Day Of Universal Peace And Spiritual Transformation"

That's always been the promise - but even NASA and I are kinda on the same page:

"The greatest threat to Earth in 2012, at the end of this year and in the future, is just from the human race itself."

And another quote for a lot of what many find important is:

"There is no true issue here. This is just a manufactured fantasy."

Which has never mattered to those in NewAge/Nazi Land. I mean, sure, "it's evil for people to propagate rumors on the Internet to frighten children," but has that stopped them from doing it? Nope. All that's ever mattered is making their vision real - including by shaming, silencing, or getting rid of, those who don't fit and/or will not go along. It has nothing to do with the Maya:

Only a couple of references to the 2012 date equivalency have been found carved in stone at Maya sites, and neither refers to an apocalypse, experts say. 

Such apocalyptic visions have been common for more than 1,000 years in Western, Christian thinking, and are not native to Maya thought. 

'This is thinking that, in truth, has nothing to do with Mayan culture,' said Alexander Voss, an anthropologist at the University Of Quintana Roo, a state on Mexico's Caribbean coast. 'This thing about looking for end-times is not something that comes from Mayan culture.' 

No - it's all about these loving white "spiritualists" in the West. But who cares? So it is written, so it will be done:

 Fire up the ovens!

Oh Great: Now Fucking NASA's Involved,...

"WASHINGTON — The world is not coming to an end on December 21, 2012, the US space agency insisted Monday in a rare campaign to dispel widespread rumors,..."

-- AFP

Mars, You NewAge Bitches

Tell me all about your fucking "beliefs" now,...