Kimberly Burke

Is Musk's SpaceX angling for its own Louisiana Purchase? What we know. msn.com/en-us/news/tec…

@rachelvscott Fight on, @rachelvscott ✌️

I asked the president why focus on these projects now amid the backdrop of the war in Iran and as gas prices soar. He said the question was “stupid” and a “disgrace to the country” saying he’s “fixing” the reflecting pool.

I don't think so. South of Vermilion is the Yucatán. A due south shot from Pecan Island goes straight into Veracruz and Campeche. The Cape's polar corridor runs through the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba. Reaching it from Vermilion at 92°W would mean a much steeper dogleg and brutal payload penalty. And SpaceX is already getting hammered by PROFEPA over Starship debris washing up on Yucatán beaches. Routine overflight on top of that is a political non-starter. Plus, the tax incentives don't fit a government contractor. Federal property is constitutionally tax-exempt, and federal sites already have sovereign immunity against nuisance suits. The whole bill package — sales tax rebate, ITEP exemption, anti-SLAPP shield to keep the NIMBYs quiet — only makes sense for a private filer paying state taxes who doesn't want to get sued. My money is on @SpaceX Raptor test site. They're over it in McGregor.

@KeatyRealEstate On the contrary, that's an acceptable primary launch site for polar trajectories. Launches due South with landings through uninhabited corridors from the North. Defense and AI payloads implicated.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: SpaceX may have quietly bought 136,000 acres in Pecan Island, LA — bigger than the City of New Orleans. Hunting leases pulled. Exxon walked. 10x offers landing in Vermilion Parish mailboxes. Full report 👉 keatyblog.com/spacex-pecan-i… #SpaceX #Acadiana #ElonMusk

Also, to answer your question. Why do I “WANT” to believe vaping is bad? Not sure what you are insinuating (as the tobacco lobby is essentially a stakeholder in both), but it is likely because I don’t smoke, eat anything with a face, do drugs (prescription or recreational), drink soda or (much) alcohol, consume artificial sweeteners, and I exercise every day and drink enough water to cool a data center. I’m just not the right person to be like “yeah, light this shit on fire and inhale it, IT’S TOTALLY FINE.” Also, I watched my dad die of lung cancer at age 59 — he smoked since he was 13. After his lung cancer resection surgery, he lifted his white pulseoximeter on his finger to his lips and actually tried to smoke it. In his post-anesthesia, sundowning state — following an 8-hour surgery that removed a vertebra and scooped out half his lung — all he could think of was smoking a cigarette. It’s a scourge and a horrible addiction. And I realize this may your line of work and your job may be to promote the off-ramp of smoking to vaping, and perhaps there is something to that (statistically), but it feels like a tallest midget contest to me. Think about it — you’re not just promoting the alternative, you are promoting a habit some kid hasn’t even picked up yet. But he reads this and thinks…it’s all good Vaping is totally safe. Irresponsible. I’m a mother, and I’m out.

Okay, well since you are clearly an expert, and I am definitely not, which of the following are overstated risks of vaping, so I can tell my friends who went to medical school and did pulmonologist fellowships what I learned on Xitler today: - Heavy metals from the coil — nickel, chromium, lead, copper, cobalt, cadmium, aluminum. Studies show structural components leach Ni, Cr, Pb, Co, Cd, and Cu into the aerosol as tiny particles , and leaching gets worse with device age, higher operating temperatures, e-liquid pH, and viscosity . Sub-ohm / high-power devices are the worst offenders. - Carbonyls — formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein. These form when propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin get cooked, especially in “dry puff” / overheated conditions. - Volatile organic compounds and reactive oxygen species — the oxidative stress drivers that beat up bronchial epithelium. - Flavoring chemicals — diacetyl (popcorn lung), cinnamaldehyde, benzaldehyde. Safe to eat ≠ safe to inhale.

Vaping is much safer than traditional smoking. By replacing traditional smoking, it has likely prevented thousands of deaths. And yet, three-quarters of Englishmen now think that vaping is at least as bad or worse than cigarettes. How did this delusion spread?

@LesterJMilton @SapperWarrior @DMichaelTripi The nicotine is what hooks them, it’s not what gives them popcorn lung. It’s the heavy metals in the coils and how when you heat propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, you don’t get harmless vapor — you get formaldehyde and a bunch of other toxic shit.

@Siversen44 @SapperWarrior @DMichaelTripi Only saying she was mistaken. There is no evidence that vaping *nicotine* causes those problems. Maybe those kids are vaping illicit THC, which, via the vitamin e acetate has caused serious issues. Too many examples to count of lung health improvements. x.com/ClovisSangrail…

NEW: FDA approves first fruit flavored vapes after Trump pressure & previous vows to “save vaping.”

@ChaunceyGardner @intuitivealy @cremieuxrecueil pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10…

@intuitivealy @cremieuxrecueil You might be wrong. US adult vaping has skyrocketed, smoking plummeted... and both lung cancer and COPD continue to drop. Lung cancer + COPD = 50% of all tobacco-related deaths. 18 years IS enough time to start to see health benefits like this.

Also @LesterJMilton, you’re not going to get any disagreement about the MAGA-MAHA grifters from me. I’m an equal opportunity hater of being gaslit and lied to so someone can turn a profit, but remember this whole entirely worthless and shamefully time-consuming conversation was started when I shared a story from a pediatric pulmonologist after discussing the effects she is seeing from kids vaping. I guess I should have led with her anecdotal evidence based on still growing, developing young adults in whom she is seeing a reduction in the oxygen exchange in their lungs (athletes having to quit sports), and an uptick in some seizure disorders which I didn’t even realize could be related. Importantly, I was quoting an MD and not a chiropractor, wellness guru, or someone trying to peddle peptides and ayahuasca

@Siversen44 @SapperWarrior @DMichaelTripi I hate cigarette smoke, too, but saying that vaping is an equal drain on the healthcare system is as fact-based as saying that raw milk is healthy & vaccines cause autism. x.com/ChaunceyGardne…

Also if smoking drops from 10 people to 8, and vaping surges from 0 to 6, then I suspect we would see less nicotine-related illnesses, having nothing to do with vaping being safer. Right? And, yes — I’m being overly reductive here to make a point, and the devil is always in the data, but at the 50,000-foot level, I’m not wrong.

@LesterJMilton @SapperWarrior @DMichaelTripi And actually, I lied. I do have a dog in the fight. I despise smelling cigarette smoke - so vape away. They are both equally a drain on the healthcare system, so it might be a wash.

@Siversen44 @SapperWarrior @DMichaelTripi That pulmonologist is misinformed and the gold standard for medical science, the Cochrane Review, disagrees with her.

@LesterJMilton @SapperWarrior @DMichaelTripi I did not say they were on the take. They were accurately aggregating data from studies that were early, poor quality, or conducted by those “on the take.”

You had that locked and loaded, huh? Are you one of the 1,500+ tobacco-affiliated lobbyists registered in D.C.? Not that I have any dog in this fight, but many of those quotes strip away context, ignore already refuted claims (including the “95% less harmful” bit from a 2014 study of literally 12 people), or predate any long-term studies. Just follow the money for a second. Big Tobacco rakes in about $ 900B in revenue -- NIH spends ~$ 500M across every institute on tobacco research combined. That's a 1,000:1 fight. So who exactly is funding peer-reviewed studies to show the damage of vaping when no one profits from those results? There isn't a single major vape brand operating at scale that isn't owned by, partnered with, or funneling cash back to a combustible cigarette company -- the same companies that spent the 20th century gaslighting us about cigarette safety. To say vaping -- the marketing rebrand of cigarettes as their sales began to crater -- is safer is like saying it's better to fall down the stairs than jump out the window. But I'm sure Juul appreciates your pep rally.

Her "lung capacity has healed"? I hope you warmed up before that stretch. I spoke to a pulmonologist recently about the difference, medically, between cigarettes and vaping. She said cigarettes cause long-term damage -- cancer, congestive heart failure, emphysema -- shit that usually takes years to materialize from a pulmonary standpoint (FTR, I am married to a surgeon who hates operating on smokers because their tissue and blood supply are crap, and they have a higher risk of infection, but let's just address your "healed" lungs pipe dream for a sec). Vaping, she told me, causes immediate burns in the lungs. "Think of it like burning off your hair with a curling iron -- and it never grows back." The cells in the lungs are actually destroyed. "Kids who vape now will be winded going up the stairs by the time they're 30," she told me. Setting that aside, it IS the government's business when the cost of uncompensated care in the U.S. or healthcare outside the U.S. (where there is socialized medicine) is a publicly shouldered and shared financial burden.

My wife, who smoked for years, who could barely hike the Appalachians with me due to lack of lung capacity, switched from cigarettes to fruit flavored vapes. Her health has improved drastically. Her lung capacity has healed. Should she quit all of them? Sure. And, fat people should quit French fries. But she won’t quit nicotine, so I’d rather she vape than smoke cigarettes. And frankly, it’s none of anybody’s - especially the government’s - fucking business.

@schulzb589 @BrendanCarrFCC @JRosenworcel NTIA runs the BEAD program, not FCC.

Given the outcome, it is obvious that providing internet service to the poorly served was not the goal of the program. Had she been honest and forthright, millions of people would now have internet. The total current fiber connections through the 42,000,000,000 BEAD contract is....ZERO.

Under President Biden, the FCC revoked an $885 million award that Starlink won to provide high-speed Internet to millions of Americans. Back then, the agency claimed that it was revoking the award because it was unlikely that Starlink could provide 100/20 Mbps service to 40% of locations by year end 2025. I dissented at the time, explaining that the FCC's decision could not be squared with any objective application of law, facts, or policy. The data clearly showed that Starlink was on track. Now, new Ookla data shows that well over that percentage of Speedtest user on Starlink did meet the 100/20 service level by year end 2025. The Biden era decision to revoke the award only slowed down efforts to bridge the digital divide and raised costs for doing so. ookla.com/articles/starl…

Agree that LEO broadband as an unproven technology was scrutinized for an infrastructure program, and Starlink was the only player in that space. RDOF was just not written for satellite and, frankly, neither was BEAD (until Lutnick shoehorned it in), and even then it doesn’t make a lot of sense as an infrastructure plan for taxpayers to subsidize terminals where they are already available unless there are affordability issues, which it does not address. Both programs are highly problematic on a multitude of levels. These things cannot be litigated in a Xeet.

Ah, I was thinking about the Connect America Fund. Not RDOF, but still a clear example of the FCC giving an ETC waiver and give them partial approval. I was thinking about Viasat because of the many ex parte letters they sent combatting Starlink lol. I'm still certain that the FCC applied flexibility to many other companies when it came to ETC or served blocks. Also, they applied the speed data 3 years early. Only on Starlink. Look, just so we are on the same page, I honestly think these subsidies should've never been given at all. Starlink didn't stop it's deployment and was going to continue with or without the grant. But they were clearly singled out. No one else got the speed test applied 3y early. Many other companies are now asking for more money or time, and yet all those were deemed ok at the time...

The FCC literally made up a new rule in 2022 to deny Starlink the $885 million award. They cancelled it because Starlink’s current (2022) real world speeds weren’t already hitting the full 100/20 Mbps benchmark, 3 years before the actual deployment deadlines. Starlink was the only one affected because most other companies didn't have any service in those rural areas to speed test. The only other company that lost its grants was LTD Broadband. Their cancellation had nothing to do with speed tests. The FCC didn’t trust they could pay off their debt or scale from just 15k customers to hundreds of thousands. Also, it looks like other RDOF winners won't reach their deadlines. A group called the “Coalition of RDOF Winners” has been begging the FCC for extra money or an amnesty window so they can walk away without penalties (Ars Technica reported on it). This whole story is another clear example of the Biden admin "giving the green light" to go after Elon and his companies.

You going to post @JRosenworcel’s comments too? Or only those who CARRy water for SpaceX? Again, speed was only one of the issues flagged on the *incompleted* long form. Maybe I’m just more fiscally conservative than most, but as a U.S. taxpayer, I don’t fault the FCC for asking LEO operators their plan for how they will achieve broadband speeds (even if they can’t yet). Also, speaking of federal broadband subsidies, I haven’t seen you rage-Xeet in the last 407 days that “42.5B SPENT (not actually true) and NO ONE HAS BEEN CONNECTED YET!” Funny how the BEAD clock stopped being scrutinized for its sluggish pace speed once a new administration took over. Even though, next to no one has been connected (still).

@Siversen44 @xdNiBoR You are wrong! docs.fcc.gov/public/attachm…

@xdNiBoR Check out the Biden administration years. This doesn't even include SpaceX's IC (NRO) funding, which is a big chunk. This whole "BIDEN BAD for SpaceX" claim is just not supported by the actual data. usaspending.gov/recipient/8a3a…

@Siversen44 Euh no? The article says the same things, except it blindly accepts the reason for cancelation

Viasat didn't even bid on RDOF, so you must be thinking of CAF. And the FCC didn't invent anything in 2022; all they did was apply the Ookla data to the 2020 Report and Order, which required the long-form applicants to demonstrate they were reasonably capable of meeting their selected tier. They technically were only awarded the chance at that funding from the short form -- it was just the first round. The bottom line is that SpaceX bid on the Above Baseline | Low Latency tier across 35 states with a still-scaling constellation. They could have bid Baseline (50/5) and gotten authorized. They likely determined 6+ years of whipping the Musk Mob up into a frenzy was more valuable than the deluge of paperwork required to show their work.

I read the whole thing. The FCC invented a “current real-world speed test” rule in 2022 that wasn’t in the original RDOF rules and only used it on Starlink. 3 years early. Yeah there were ETC issues and some served-block cleanups, but those weren’t dealbreakers for everyone else. I think Viasat only had ETC in non-Tribal areas in Oregon and the FCC waived the full requirement so they could still get authorized on the rest. Plenty of others got partial approvals or extensions too. Now a whole “Coalition of RDOF Winners” is begging for extra cash and amnesty because they’re missing deadlines. The double standard was pretty obvious.