This Topic Was Inevitable
Bowler Hat Science from Matthew R Francis
This Thursday is Thanksgiving in the United States, so it's an abbreviated work-week in which I must nevertheless pack a full normal amount of work. As a result, this issue of the newsletter will itself be abbreviated.
Shocked But Not Surprised
Let's get this out of the way first: I have written quite a bit about Elon Musk over the years. As a result, when two big news items hit—that his SpaceX has failed to report hundreds of severe injuries and even one death, and he endorsed the antisemitic Great Replacement "theory" that motivated the murderous "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—I was shocked but not surprised (to use the common phrase).
Rather than summarize everything, I'm just going to dump some of the stuff I've written about Musk, his ideology, his "vision", and the damage he's done.
Musk and Bezos Offer Humanity a Grim Future in Space Colonies (Scientific American, June 26, 2023)
Our Vanishing Sky (comic in The Nib with Maki Naro)
Elon Musk’s Plans for Mars Colonization Lack Vision (comic in The Nib with Maki Naro, March 22, 2018)
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Elon Musk Thinks So (comic in The Nib with Maki Naro, December 5, 2016)
This is nothing close to comprehensive: I haven't written about his personal misogyny and abuse of his partners, his desire to have as many children as possible because of his belief in his own (white) genetic superiority, or his stated plan to have more women than men in his Martian colony for (to put it euphemistically) reproductive reasons. I also don't cover the space or automotive beat, so I don't report on SpaceX or Tesla as companies.
But as a final point, NASA is locked into contracts with SpaceX to launch rockets, ferry satellites into orbit, and carry astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station. Since NASA belongs to us as a government agency, it is extremely troubling to have an increasingly open fascist, racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-worker, and anti-democracy child of Apartheid slave-labor wealth receiving taxpayer money with no accountability for his actions.
Enjoy Every Churu
And now for the only part you all care about: the cat picture.
Pascal is 16 years old, and unfortunately his health is declining rapidly. I don't think we have much longer together, but I am determined to enjoy it when he demands my attention all the time, and he certainly intends to enjoy every tube of Churu he gets to eat.
Bowlerhattishly thine,
Matthew
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