The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Today’s protests… January 31, 2015

…the usual skirmishing over numbers…any thoughts on the protests overall from around the state?

Book launches “Fighting for Republican Spain”, Comintern ARCHIVE January 31, 2015

1) McClay Library, Queen’s Belfast, Friday 6 February 4PM
a) Speech by Emmet O’Connor of handing over documents and microfilms
donated by him and Barry McLaughlin about the history of the Communist International
and Ireland to Queens Archives.

b) Talk and launch by Barry McLaughlin on his book and what the Moscow International
Brigade Archives reveal.

2) Saturday 7 February, 2PM, upstairs bar Sandino’s, Derry:
Book launch and discussion

2) Tuesday, 10 February, 6.30PM ,Charlie Byrne’s bookshop,Middle St.,
Galway:
Book launch and discussion

3) Thursday, 12 February, 6.30PM, Tyrconnel Room, School of History UCC,
Perrot Avenue, Cork: Booklaunch and discussion.

CIA=UFO? January 31, 2015

According to this report the CIA has admitted that many sightings of UFO’s were actually of secret advanced aircraft.

The Secret Space Programme? January 31, 2015

This is brilliant – in a way – a fusion of UFO’s, the 1% and secret space programmes.

Though if your taste runs in a different direction, what of this, the Nazi Secret Space programme?

This is a bit more… well, credible… But no less intriguing:

Between 1982 and 1992, NASA launched 11 shuttle flights with classified payloads, honoring a deal that dated to 1969, when the National Reconnaissance Office—an organization so secret its name could not be published at the time—requested certain changes to the design of NASA’s new space transportation system. The NRO built and operated large, expensive reconnaissance satellites, and it wanted a bigger shuttle cargo bay than NASA had planned.
…
“NRO requirements drove the shuttle design,” says Parker Temple, a historian who served on the policy staff of the secretary of the Air Force and later with the NRO’s office within the Central Intelligence Agency.

There’s some hilarious stuff that points to the cosmetic aspects of all this…

The Air Force-NRO control center for shuttle missions was located in Sunnyvale, California. While Houston and Columbia conversed frequently, no one had come up with a way to refer to the classified control center over the open channel. Payload communicator DeTroye recalled a last-minute panic about the mere mention of “Sunnyvale.” “What were we supposed to say? ‘Columbia, this is…Saratoga’? I can’t imagine what [Mattingly] would have done if he’d heard that.”

And:

Another time, Mattingly and three STS-51C crewmates—Onizuka, Loren Shriver, and Jim Buchli—had to take a trip to Sunnyvale. The astronauts were ordered to disguise their destination by filing a flight plan for Denver, then diverting to the San Francisco Bay area. They landed their T-38s at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, rented a “junky old car that could hardly run,” according to Mattingly, and drove to an out-of-the-way motel arranged by their secretary. As they pulled up, Buchli, in the back seat, called a halt. “We made extra stops to make sure we wouldn’t come here directly,” he said. “We didn’t tell our families, we didn’t tell anybody where we are. Look at that motel.” On the marquee was written “Welcome STS-51C Astronauts,” with all four names in big type.

Just reading the piece it’s perhaps telling that despite the efforts to have a military astronaut corps that project -as far as we know – fell apart with only a handful of those selected for it ever flying with NASA supplying astronauts to do secret missions. In a way one suspects that was a product of the contradiction, given that many of NASA’s astronauts were were from military backgrounds themselves. Why duplicate the resources? Furthermore it’s clear that almost from the off the military were utterly unconvinced at the arguments for manned spaceflight. Unmanned launchers served their purposes as well or better. By the time of the Challenger disaster the military had withdrawn and handed over responsibility for classified missions to ‘ordinary’ NASA crews of astronauts.

By the way, interesting too to read that it was the Soviets who offered some insight into what might be going on, even if what they knew was limited and slanted itself one way or another.

‘SYRIZA: Storming the Citadel? Greece’s new governing party: where it came from; where it’s going’ January 30, 2015

The Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class (ICHLC) is delighted to host a public lecture by Prof. Helena Sheehan (Emerita DCU) on ‘SYRIZA: Storming the Citadel? Greece’s new governing party: where it came from; where it’s going’. Prof. Sheehan will discuss the origins of Greece’s new governing party, its policies and perspectives – and its prospects.

Venue and time: Hardiman Research Building Room GO11, NUI, Galway, Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 4pm

‘NEITHER KING NOR KAISER’ EMPIRE, WAR AND REBELLION IN IRELAND, 1912-1919 January 30, 2015

Feb 5

And more in February and March!