From the State of the Union speech yesterday:
And fourth and last, let’s end cancer as we know it.
Cancer is the number-two cause of death in America, second only to heart disease.
Our goal is to cut cancer death rates by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years. And I think we can do better than that: turn cancers from death sentences into treatable diseases, more support for patients and families.
To get there, I call on Congress to fund what I called ARPA-H — (applause): Advanced — Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Patterned after DARPA in the Defense Department, projects that led — in DARPA — to the Internet, GPS, and so much more that make our forces more safer and be able to wage war more — with more clarity.
Thanks to Facebook, we know that Gladys West, Ph.D. in Public Administration, invented GPS:
But did DARPA fund Dr. West, as Dr. Biden’s spouse told the American people last night? “GPS History, Chronology, and Budgets” says that it was the mainstream Department of Defense, lead by the U.S. Air Force:
Finally, in April 1973, the Deputy Secretary of Defense designated the Air Force as the lead agency to consolidate the various satellite navigation concepts into a single comprehensive DoD system to be known as the Defense Navigation Satellite System (DNSS). The new system was to be developed by a Joint Program Office (JPO) located at the Air Force’s Space and Missile Organization, with participation by all military services. Colonel Brad Parkinson, program director of the JPO, was directed to negotiate between the services to develop a DNSS concept that embraced the views and needs of all services.
(Let’s not forget Gee from World War II, a British predecessor to LORAN, which was itself the predecessor to satellite-based navigation systems. See “The Origins of GPS, and the Pioneers Who Launched the System” (GPS World) for some photos of the early developers (below) and confirmation that it was not DARPA that funded GPS.)
The audience is thrilled to imagine a new federal agency (ARPA-H). But we already have the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with an annual budget of $52 billion. If NIH is doing its job, why would a new agency be needed to fund medical research? After all, the ordinary Department of Defense, merely doing its job in the 1960s and 1970s, managed to get GPS off the ground (so to speak).
Readers who watched the speech (I merely skimmed the transcript): What was your impression of our 79-year-old Commander in Chief? (and was Uncle Joe merely reading from a teleprompter or did he have to think on his feet?)
An additional point that I noticed: the speech did not begin with a land acknowledgment and, indeed, there is nothing in the transcript about Native Americans. LGBTQ+ (but not 2SLGBTQQIA+?) Americans are mentioned. Transgender Americans are mentioned twice. Asian Americans will be protected. “Women” (an undefined category) are mentioned three times as victims requiring government assistance. “Veterans are the backbone and the spine of this country. They’re the best of us,” is just a portion of the attention devoted to veterans. But nothing about Native Americans, who are apparently at best second-rate (unless a Native American becomes a veteran).
Finally, Biden said “we must prepare for new [SARS-CoV-2] variants.” For those who believe that ordering the general public to wear masks is effective at stopping the spread of an aerosol respiratory virus, how is this statement consistent with what Biden’s fellow Democrats are doing, i.e., dropping their mask orders? And with Biden’s own statement in the same speech: “Under the new guidelines, most Americans in most of the country can now go mask free.” Wouldn’t the best way to prepare for new viral variants be keeping mask orders in place until there is a simple cure for COVID-19?
Loosely related… pictures of Americans who were involved in the early years of satellite-based radio navigation (from GPS World):
What was your impression of our 79-year-old Commander in Chief? (and was Uncle Joe merely reading from a teleprompter or did he have to think on his feet?)
This bird brain thinks Joe Biden is a demented ass hole. He just read from the teleprompter but frequently got that wrong as well. He ever read “go get them” after the speech that was clearly a message to him and not meant to be read out loud. So in summary Joe Biden is very bad and I still don’t care about Black Lives Matter !
The decider also called Ukrainians “Iranians”:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-errs-calls-ukrainians-iranians-during-state-of-the-union
To learn everything about Google you ever wanted to know type “american inventors” in Google search.
This is no longer a useful search engine. It’s veritable brainwashing engine.
…Facebook are the same people.
Glady’s West at least has a Masters degree in Math and worked at a Navy facility in VA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_West
“West then returned to VSU to complete her Master of Mathematics degree, graduating in 1955
“In 1956, West was hired to work at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, (now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center), where she was the second black woman ever hired and one of only four black employees
Compare her creds to one Zelensky. I am assuming former actor and comedian doesn’t include courses in Russian military history, geopolitics, logistics, engineering, etc.
Conscripting old people to fight the Russian army sounds very sub-optimal even if they can manage to hoist a 50 pound Javalin without throwing their back out or wheezing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy
“Ukraine elections: actor and comedian poised to win crushing victory”. The Guardian. 18 April 2019. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
> Compare her creds to one Zelensky
Zelensky allegedly owns a $35M mansion on Florida and has $1B in Costa Rican bank accounts. Not too shabby for a former actor and comedian.
One argument for multiple funding agencies with overlapping coverage (e.g., NIH cancer and the proposed ARPA-H) is that without overlapping, what a program manager worries about when felling asleep is “did I funding something that won’t work out, or that can be made to sound stupid in the press?” Whereas if there is overlapping, what they worry about is “did I reject something that the other agency will fund and which will turn out to be a big success?”
This is a big strength of the US system. Try this one trick risk-averse bureaucrats hate!
> Compare her creds to one Zelensky
Zelensky allegedly owns a $35M mansion on Florida and has $1B in Costa Rican bank accounts. Not too shabby for a former actor and comedian.
Anon: What is the evidence for this? And does it pass the common sense test? A person with $1 billion safely offshore stays in a besieged city and risks death? Why?
some people are stubborn, irrational and unpredictable and off shore assets and retiring to a florida beachside house may not be as motivating as playing hero and poking the russian bear and begging NATO for high tech military hardware while conscripting old men. Besides, there is hurricanes and mosquitoes and alligators in Florida, and those are scary.
Paul: Certainly I would not want to argue that Zelenskyy is as heroic as my Facebook friends who “stand with Ukraine” (holding a flag while safely on the ground in some U.S. state where the fights are about how many abortions the government will pay for, how many gender reassignment surgeries a teenager can get without parental consent, etc.). Nor that Zelenskyy is as heroic as Joe Biden, who defeated Corn Pop. But doesn’t it seem too convenient that Zelenskyy is a successful looter? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden#Burisma_Holdings says that the money transfers to the Biden family predated Zelenskyy’s presidency. What, exactly, is Zelenskyy supposed to have done that would render him a billionaire?
Sounds like kompromat from some pathetic Russkie source.
No idea if Zelenskyy offshore assets is legit or conspiracy theory. He does have better marketing skills then the Russian army though. And often times perception is reality, particularly if NATO can be persuaded to step in.
I didn’t pay that much attention to the Hunter Biden / Ukraine connection back yonder (with the allegations of addictions, strippers, pregnant strippers, and abandoned laptops, etc) but
clicking into the wiki link above, it is rather suspicious that Biden got paid $50,000/mo USD to help with “corporate governance best practices” and “anti-corruption”, in a corrupt third world country where median salary is $775/mo, and military pay for gray beard conscripts with cigarette habits is even less. Or was. They may be getting a pay increase these days with those that Stand with Ukraine and make bitcoin donations.
The lion kingdom still has a vintage Trimble GPS receiver. That was once a big name with many buildings in silicon valley. Today, all GPS receivers come from ublox & the Trimble buildings have been turned into more valuable home equity. There is still draconian licensing requiring all RTK GPS to cost $300 even though the hardware is a buck.