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Cosmonauts follow some “bizarre” rituals like being slapped in the face with a cross before going to space. American and Russian cosmonauts, and even rockets, all go through an official blessing dished out by a Russian Orthodox priest. Photos from NASA’s official photographer showed that the same cleric has carried out the ritual with gusto for a few years now. As well as getting a visit from a priest, cosmonauts and astronauts contribute to an avenue of trees planted before each mission, and watch the same pre-flight movie before takeoff (a cult Russian “Western” from 1969). The Russian cosmonauts also reportedly urinate on the back right-hand tyre of the bus that takes them to the launch pad, a tradition started by Gagarin himself before his first flight.
2 April 2015
ANI
https://in.news.yahoo.com/bizarre-rituals-astronauts-going-space-102555691.html
Editor:
Note that American cosmonauts have to go into space on Russian rockets. It’s all due to Republican cuts to NASA to free funds for warmongering and tax breaks for the Affluent Effluent. There IS a cost for all the wars and the cossetting of the top Five Percent. Reflect on that as you avoid the ever-increasing potholes (there’s no money to fix those, either)…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
18 October 2018. I Wrote This Four Years Ago… It’s Truer Today Than It Was Then
Tags: 2018 US mid-term election, elections, extreme right, Far-right politics, GOP, political commentary, politics, Republican, Republican Party, Republican Party (United States), Republicans, right-wing, Right-wing politics, United States, US elections, US Republican Party, USA, wingnuts
This is from six years ago… and it still has tread, too. Bain Capital loaded up Toys r’ Us with debt and looted the store before it folded. Trump & Co chortle at this and applaud it. Vote against the Republican Party, for your very life depends on it.
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Editor:
With Trump & Co loudly calling for cuts to Social Security to finance giveaways to the deadbeat Affluent Effluent, what I wrote four years ago has more resonance today than it did then. The Republicans hate you and wish to rape you for the benefit of their rich paymasters. The Democrats hate you as well, and love the rich just as much, but they’ll leave us with more than what the Repugs would. Ordinary people have no option this year. As bad as the Dems are (and they ARE filthy promoters of neoliberal crapitalism), they’re better than the GOP, who’d leave us with nothing.
BMD
With all the chest-beating on the part of the American rightwing… let’s utter a home truth. American cosmonauts have to fly Russian spacecraft to the ISS as the reckless Republican filth wasted the USA’s treasure in useless land wars in Asia that didn’t advance the cause of national defence one iota and on gigantic tax cuts to corporations and to lazy wealthy scummers. That’s a fact, jack…
If you vote for the Republican Party, you vote for anti-patriotism (exporting jobs abroad and nominating cowards who refused to do military service), you vote for anti-life programmes (gutting the social safety net that unwed moms need to raise kids instead of having abortions), and you vote for Might Makes Right (bullying smaller countries and handing the country over to the Country Club Affluent Effluent Set). If you vote against them, you just might have Americans flying American spacecraft again. After all, the money for warmongering and coddling the rich has to come from somewhere…
IT COMES FROM YOU… IT COMES FROM YOUR KIDS… AND THEY DON’T GIVE A GOOD RUBY-RED GODDAMN.
Vote against the Republican scummers… God will bless you for it (and so will His Holiness… he’s a Red, and don’t you forget it!)…
BMD