Space Rock

I Guess The Most High-Profile Proponents Of Same -
 - would be Hawkwind, those lovable drugged-up purveyors of all things psychedelic.  The first group Conrad ever saw live, actually, where Simon King the drummer hung out before the gig with fans, talking to them and anwering questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U48jLp47Q6Y

     A link to their "Dust Of Time" which has an absolutely magic instrumental break

Hawk.Wind.  Close enough.

  Conrad also, in something of an aside, remembers reading some article in a magazine for either Modern Parents or Liberated Mothers, some nonsense like that, where they described various bands or artists and what kind of audience attended their gigs, and what kind of substance abuse might be encountered, and how wholesome (or otherwise!) they were.  The article didn't cover Hawkwind as I recall, as it would have highlighted their name in flashing red and yellow warning font, then had as the description "AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!  DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! UNLCEAN AND DEPRAVED - AND ENGLISH TO BOOT!!!*" Their "Warrior On The Edge Of Time" LP gatefold was a thing of wonder.  Art?

Viz.

     Predictably, this Intro has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the post, as you might expect from a trickster like Conrad.

Space Rocks
"Oh no it doesn't!" I hear you reply, as in traditional British pantomine.
     You misunderstand me.  I mean rocks in space, and Further Instructions In How To Avoid Them Falling On Your Head.  Yes, we are back to Danger Astronomy and the Near Earth Objects, which we wish to remain Near and not Actually Upon.
     I began the previous article with the more Brutal methods of blamming an NEO out of an impact trajectory, and now move onto a sort-of Brutal method, that of lasers.
     SPACE LASERS OF DEATH!
     Er - no.  Sorry, nothing that dramatic.
     Method The Third:  Orbiting Laser Battlestations Spacecraft.  The idea is quite simple, you locate the NEO well before it impacts and, using a laser mounted on your spacecraft, you fire it at LV-462.  This will heat up the surface, which then ablates, creating outgassing that will redirect the NEO from it's impact point.  If you want faster results, simply use two spacecraft.

BLAM!  BLAM! BLAMBLAMBLAM! BLl - oh, sorry.
"Ablative rediraction methodology via laser"

     Now we move onto the Subtle approach, and these methods require a long lead time, of the order of years in fact, so you have to have LV-462's orbit plotted way ahead of time.
     Method The Fourth:  Solar Sails.  You'd need to deploy a couple of acres of solar sail, anchored to the NEO, and this would very slowly - very very very slowly - alter the trajectory, thanks to the small but continuous pressure exerted by solar radiation on the sails.  With steerable sails you could ensure LV-462 ends up on a one-way trip into the sun, hence that blog title of several days ago.

Rocking it there with the solar sail flair

Korean Politics
BOOJUM! and Conrad** typically avoid the Big 3 - Current Affairs, Religion and Politics.  However, your humble scribe is perfectly willing to break these rules if i) He feels like it, or ii) It might bring in more traffic, and then there is iii)  Extenuating circumstances, as in this case.
     "The case of what?" I hear you ask.  How apt!
     "Ask A Korean".  The blog, don't you know, which I have mentioned before.  Allow me to add a link:

http://askakorean.blogspot.co.uk/

     TK (for "The Korean") has a couple of operating rules that your modest artisan also observes - Be arbitrary and capricious.  If in doubt, ask yourselves whose blog it is?
     TK has been detailing the frenetic and unusual circumstances going on at the very top of South Korean politics recently.

South Korea, where there are politics.
North Korea just has The Rantings Of The Fat Sulky Lad

     Briefly put, the SK President, Park Guen-Hye is going to be impeached.  This is nothing to do with soft fruit, rather it is a trial process, which - just to complicate things still further - is dealt with by a separate entity called the Constitutional Court.  It's actually more like a panel, being 7 justices who decide only on matters relating to the SK constitution***.  The complications don't end there, as 2 of this panel have their term of appointment finish before the legal limit of the impeachment expires.
     This was all before the President pleaded her case.  Apparently her response compared herself to Socrates - detailed here months ago as having to commit suicide by hemlock - and Jesus^.  The justices were amused, not impressed, and mocking laughter was their response.

SK Political protest

     As you can see from the above photo, supplied by TK, South Koreans are not backward in letting their political leaders know what they think.  Those above were parading to demand the resignation of Ol' Parky, to the number of about a million.
     Right, having breached the guidelines for all of the Big 3 in a single item, I am now off to go punish me by forcing me to drink a pot of loose leaf Darjeeling.



*  That's us British, exporting only the best to you.
**  The two are not necessarily the same.  Take Mister Hand, for example.
*** Thank heavens Britain doesn't have one of these!
^  I think you know how that one went.