New Call Sign: "Pants-Shitter One"

Lindsey Graham is contemplating running for President.

The field of potential Republican presidential candidates in 2016 might have just gained one more name: Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Known for his hawkish foreign policy approach, the South Carolina Republican told the Weekly Standard in a story published Friday that he'll enter the race if he thinks he's the most competent messenger for a more aggressive foreign policy approach.

Just what we need, a frightened little man who has the vapors over almost everything. Graham comes across as one of the most fearful politicians that I have ever seen. Everything seems to scare the shit out of him. His preferred remedy for all maladies is surgical airstrikes.

If Graham could figure out how to remedy traffic congestion and cure diseases with 500lb bombs, he'd be all over that. for it seems that's the only power that Graham things that the Federal government should have: The ability to wage war. Because for Miss Lindsey's nervous condition, explosives work better than Valium.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The Cirrus Jet:

I kind of don't understand it. The Cirrus has a service ceiling of 28,000', which puts it right with the turboprops. Unlike the turboprops, you'll need a type rating to fly it.

The price is quoted about $2 million, but considering that the thing hasn't been certified yet, expect the real price to be higher. Maybe a lot higher. Maybe high enough to make one think about buying a Cessna Mustang, which can cruise at FL 410, or a TBM-900 turboprop, which is 10% faster than the Cirrus.

For I question whether Cirrus is going to be able to bring its jet in at a list price that is cheaper than any of the single-engined turboprops.

Something to Read About While Contemplating Your Next Gawd-Awful Trip on a UAL RJ

What it's like to fly in Singapore Airlines' Suites Class.

Ebola

One of the interesting things to me is to watch the Right Wing Noise Machine all of a sudden decide that, on this subject, they want the Federal government to be omniscient and omnipotent. And they are bitterly upset that it isn't.

Don't Buy an Anti-Gravity Belt?

First, though, watch this:

What makes all that happen is gravity.

Say you are standing outside in your yard. You flip on the anti-gravity belt. You might not want to have a large building immediately to the west of you, for you'd be smashed into the side of it at several hundred miles an hour. Which is going to hurt.

You might clear the building away if you turned on the belt between local apparent noon and midnight. Because the Earth would be moving away from you in its orbit about the Sun at just over 67,000 MPH. That's 18.5 miles per second.

In the time it'll take you to say "oh, shit" and turn off the belt, you'll be 90,000' up. At that altitude, the air pressure is 0.2psi, which, as far as a normally-clothed human is concerned, you might as well be in space. The air temperature is a balmy -90F. Your blood will boil, you'll be flash frozen and if that doesn't kill you, the hypoxia will.

But maybe it wouldn't happen quickly. For while Earth's gravity would cease to act on your body, you would still be moving at the same direction and speed that you were just before you turned on the belt, because you'd still have mass. In essence, for a time, you'd be flying in formation with the Earth.

Caturday

"Gimmie that lanyard!"

Because It's Friday

A very pretty locomotive, "Clan Line".

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I got nothing.

I just don't.

Jerrie Mock, R.I.P.

Jerrie Mock passed away yesterday. She was 88.

She was the first woman to fly around the world, a feat she accomplished fifty years ago in a Cessna 180.

Your Congressman and Your Senators are (a) Whores, (b) Idiots, (c) Thieves or (d) All of the Above

You can make the ones for the other choices, if you wish.

The Daily Show has pointed out that Congress is not willing to come back to debate what to do about ISIS until after the election. The Congressvermin say that the President has to ask them to come back and debate on it. So they've been bleating that they can't do anything without an engraved invitation from the President.

But a number of the Congresscrooks found a reason to rush back to Washington and hold hearing on another matter of grave national security importance: White House fence-jumpers.

So: We're going to war against the Hajii Brothers and Congress cannot be bothered to come back from its campaigning to debate what should be done. But some clown jumps the fence at the White House and they flood the airline ticket counters in their haste to get back and hold hearings, so they can be seen on TV beating up on some hapless government official. Because why, exactly? Because it's easier? Because Congress is composed of a majority of lazy fucks who really don't want to work that hard?

Fuck. We're at the point right now where if you care about your property values, you'd be better off having a registered sex offender as a neighbor rather than a congressman.