When the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was built in the 6th century, it was the largest building in the world, an engineering marvel. And the unique acoustics inside inspired composers to write 10 centuries worth of religious music specifically to be sung there. Then the Ottoman Empire invaded in 1453, and the Hagia Sophia became a mosque. Choral music was banned, even the music of BJ Leiderman, who writes our theme music. And the sound of the Hagia Sophia was forgotten until now. Sam Harnett of The World According to Sound podcast has the story.

What we are witnessing in Washington DC this week is a concerted effort — by the establishments of both parties — to remove Donald Trump from the map of politics in the United States, to delegitimize everything done by the Trump Administration over four years as justification for a rollback, to validate all the claims made against him by his opponents in both parties, and to brand his supporters as undemocratic and anti-American in order to fracture the non-traditional coalition of interests he brought together.

This is an effort — by the establishments of both parties — to render Trump and his coalition ineffective as a political movement by making it radioactive to any conservative politician who might try to harness it in pursuing a similar policy agenda in the future. //

Setting aside all claims of fraud — which the Trump campaign has never demonstrated with substantive evidence in a proper forum — the combination of obvious and not-so-obvious efforts by the party establishments to prevent a second Trump term cannot be erased. It will continue to animate the coalition that Trump assembled, and it will continue to give support to the policy issues he pushed to the front of the debate.

That is what both Establishments now fear. Their hegemony over the national political discourse was disrupted by Donald Trump’s Presidency and calls into doubt their ability to maintain themselves as the drivers of the debate, with the issues framed by their interests. //

The issues that animated that coalition are not going away. Hence the need to stigmatize the coalition itself.

History
Two-Fluid MSBR Core Designs
One-Fluid MSBR Chemical Processing
One-Fluid MSBR Core Designs
Denatured MSR Design Efforts

Molten salt mixtures were imagined for use in nuclear reactors by Eugene Wigner during the Manhattan Project. Successful use of uranium hexafluoride in the K-25 gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built confidence in the use of uranium in fluoride form, and in 1950 a mixture of fluoride salts in liquid form was proposed to solve some of the issues associated with the Aircraft Nuclear Program. A small, proof-of-principle liquid-fluoride reactor was built and operated in 1954 at Oak Ridge, and two years later under the encouragement of laboratory director Alvin Weinberg, a more significant examination began of liquid-fluoride reactors for electrical generation at terrestrial power stations. Weinberg also encouraged the examination of the thorium fuel cycle implemented in liquid fluoride reactors, and this work led to the construction and operation of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge. The MSRE operated from 1965 to 1969, when it was shut down under the orders of Milton Shaw of the Atomic Energy Commission so as to free up additional funding for the liquid-metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) program. The molten-salt program continued for another three years at Oak Ridge until it was cancelled in 1972 under Shaw’s orders.

It’s hard to care about bootprints sunk in soil 238,900 miles away as humanity suffers the combined burden of an unforgiving virus and a political unease. But how humans treat those bootprints and the historic lunar landing sites upon which they are found will speak volumes about who we humans are and who we seek to become.

On Dec. 31, the One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act became law. As far as laws go, it’s pretty benign. It requires companies that are working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on lunar missions to agree to be bound by otherwise unenforceable guidelines intended to protect American landing sites on the Moon. That’s a pretty small pool of affected entities. However, it is also the first law enacted by any nation that recognizes the existence of human heritage in outer space. //

But what about a derelict spacecraft, like the Eagle, the Apollo 11 lunar lander? Do we really want to rely on “due regard” to prevent the intentional or inadvertent destruction of this inspiring piece of history? This object memorializes the work of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who worked to put a human on the Moon, the astronauts and cosmonauts who gave their lives in this quest to reach the stars, and the quiet heroes, like Katherine Johnson, who fueled the math that made it so.

The lunar landing sites – from Luna 2, the first human made object to impact the Moon, to each of the crewed Apollo missions, to Chang-e 4, which deployed the first rover on the far side of the Moon – in particular bear witness to humanity’s greatest technological achievement thus far. They symbolize all we have accomplished as a species, and hold such promise for the future. //

The One Small Step Act is true to its name. It’s a small step. It applies only to companies that are working with NASA; it pertains only to U.S. lunar landing sites; it implements outdated and untested recommendations to protect historic lunar sites implemented by NASA in 2011. However, it offers significant breakthroughs. It is the first legislation from any nation to recognize an off-Earth site as having “outstanding universal value” to humanity, language taken from the unanimously ratified World Heritage Convention.

Molten Salt Reactor and origins

Over the last decade, Michael and his colleagues have constructed a new paradigm that views prosperity, cheap energy and nuclear power as the keys to environmental progress. A book he co-wrote (with Ted Nordhaus) in 2007, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism
to the Politics of Possibility, was called by Wired magazine “the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,” while Time Magazine called him a “hero of the environment.”

After citing DC law on incitement and provocation, which was based on a 1969 Supreme Court case, Shapiro pointed out that Trump’s speech fell short of the requirements under DC law:

The president didn’t mention violence on Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it. He said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” //

Another elephant in the room that the Democrats and the media are reluctant to mention is the timeline issue. According to CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, the first pipe bomb was said to have been found at the RNC around 12:45 as Trump was still giving his speech: //

From that alone, along with the rioter who came prepared with zip ties, we can perhaps glean that the storming of the Capitol was likely pre-planned. In other words, it doesn’t seem likely that random rallygoers were just standing around listening to Trump’s speech and then getting “incited” enough to leave and then make and plant pipe bombs.

Kirk Sorensen stumbled across thorium while doing research on how to power a lunar community. Thorium is a cleaner, safer, and more abundant nuclear fuel—one that Kirk believes will revolutionize how we produce our energy.

Kirk Sorensen began his work with thorium while working as an aerospace engineer at NASA. In 2010, he left NASA to work as the chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering. In 2011, he founded Flibe, a company focused on developing modular thorium reactors.

Over the last decade, Michael and his colleagues have constructed a new paradigm that views prosperity, cheap energy and nuclear power as the keys to environmental progress. A book he co-wrote (with Ted Nordhaus) in 2007, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, was called by Wired magazine “the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,” while Time Magazine called him a “hero of the environment.”