Ixion Archives - Page 8 of 10 - Alex's Asteroid Astrology

February 5th, 2021 at 10:41am by Alex Miller

AAA Profile: Marjorie Taylor Greene

Not since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 has a freshman congressperson made such a stunning impact in the House of Representatives as Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), quickly emerging as an avatar for the extremist fringe of her Party. Greene latched onto the Trumpist base with all the furor of a Sarah-Palin-inspired “pit bull in lipstick”, hawking every conspiracy theory to come within range while endorsing the lynching of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the assassination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump strongly supported her candidacy, calling her “a future Republican star.” Since his departure from the Oval Office, he and Greene have exchanged phone calls frequently, with the newly minted Representative planning a visit to Mar-a-Lago soon, to kiss the ring: “Great news is, he supports me 100%, and I’ve always supported him,” tweeted Greene.

July 20th, 2020 at 11:00am by Alex Miller

Stranger Rings in the Kuiper Belt

Guest blogger Sue Kientz gifts us with some celestial jewelry in the form of her thought-provoking, groundbreaking article on planetary rings in the Kuiper Belt, that icy region past Neptune which may be populated by thousands of dwarf and minor planets. And so, without further ado, here’s Sue!

Saturn’s rings have been explored close-up by robotic spacecraft and found to be small moonlets marshaled into ring shape by nearby moons. Separating the rings are distinct gaps, also made by lunar influences, both examples of how small bodies can be surprisingly influential and in beautiful ways.

This design structure repeats. Saturn is not the only one with rings; Jupiter has gossamer rings as do Uranus and Neptune. Centaur Chariklo and Dwarf Planet Haumea have them. Even the Sun has a huge ring — the main-belt asteroids, corralled by Jupiter and Mars.

So it should not surprise that there is ring-like structure in the Kuiper Belt, itself the Sun’s “outer” ring, maintained by Neptune, but not without gravitational coaxings from Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter. These giants use gravity to “bully” big Dwarf Planets into safe zones where they peacefully orbit. If they stray from these zones, they’re thrown clear of our solar system or pulled inward and broken into asteroids.

June 18th, 2020 at 10:19am by Alex Miller

Here We Go Again – the Rayshard Brooks Murder

Late Friday evening, June 12, 2020, Atlanta police were called to a Wendy’s restaurant, where 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was passed out sleeping in his car, blocking the drive-through. Police gave him a sobriety test, which he failed, and talked with him cordially for over half an hour, while he cooperated and consented to a weapons search of his car, which came up clean. Brooks suggested he be allowed to walk the few blocks to his sister’s home, but the officers decided to arrest him for DUI.

At this point Brooks resisted, broke free of the officers as they attempted to cuff him, was tackled, struggled and grabbed an officer’s taser before breaking free once again and drunkenly lumbering across the parking lot. At one point he turned and shot the taser wildly in the officers’ general direction, continuing to run away; Officer Garrett Rolfe shot him twice in the back, killing him. As Brooks lay prone on the ground, struggling for his life, Rolfe approached and kicked him, asserting, “I got him!”, while his partner stood on Brooks’ shoulder; he then waited more than two minutes before offering medical assistance.

May 30th, 2020 at 02:39pm by Alex Miller

The Murder of George Floyd

On Monday evening, May 25, 2020, Memorial Day, police were called to a small shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota following a report of a man trying to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Four officers took a black man matching the description of the suspect into custody, handcuffed him, then laid him down in the street, where one white officer held him prone with a knee on his neck for almost nine minutes, while he begged for air and called out to his deceased mother, and the other officers watched or assisted.

Passersby and EMTs pleaded with the officer to relax his stance, but he persisted, for almost three minutes after the man beneath him became unresponsive. Taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, EMTs worked to revive him for almost an hour before he was pronounced dead at 9:25 PM CDT. Protests began the night after the incident, escalating to violent confrontations with police and looting over the ensuing four nights, as demonstrations spread to urban centers across the country. All four officers were terminated from their employment with MPD the following day, and four days later the arresting officer was himself arrested and charged with third degree murder and manslaughter.

January 14th, 2020 at 11:57am by Alex Miller

Asteroid Sleuth: The Case of the Holiday Horror

On Christmas Eve 2019 a Grindr hookup went horribly wrong, when 25-year-old Kevin Bacon (no, not that one) was killed and cannibalized by his date, 50-year-old Mark Latunski. Bacon, a hair stylist who was studying psychology, travelled 25 miles to Latunski’s home, where he was stabbed in the back, then had his throat slit. After his death, his corpse was strung up by the heels from the ceiling, his testicles were removed and eaten by Latunski, whose lawyer is claiming an insanity defense (gee, d’ya think?).

January 6th, 2020 at 10:45am by Alex Miller

A Death in Baghdad: Soleimani’s Assassination

If you recall, it was an assassination that began World War I. Is history about to repeat itself, in the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, killed by a US drone as his convoy exited Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020? Soleimani was head of Iran’s elite Quds force, a division of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, primarily involved with extraterritorial military and clandestine operations. Soleimani had coordinated with proxy and client terrorist groups in anti-US actions outside Iran, across the Mid-East, had pioneered the IED attacks, and was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of countless Americans and local civilians.