Rumble at the Airport

Canceled flights led Spirit Airlines passengers to scream, shout and throw punches at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Cellphone video shows a crowd of riled-up passengers swarming the ticket check-in counter for Spirit Airlines Monday evening after nine flights were canceled, leaving hundreds stranded. In one clip, at least two women start swinging at the Broward sheriff’s deputies. Anothert video shows one of the woman being led away and someone held on the ground by deputies.

Airline travel is frustrating, no doubt. Passengers are treated like livestock, only without USDA supervision.

But really, people: Punching out a cop is not OK. You're likely going to get jail time for that.

I'd like to snark about "this is what you get for flying El Cheapo Airlines", but passengers don't seem to be treated any better on the majors these days.

Bambi Strikes Back!

In an unprecedented finding, researchers spotted a deer chewing on a human rib during a study aimed at examining how human remains decompose in the wild.

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Nevada's new private-party background check law is a nullity.

Seems that the anti-gun crowd there wrote their referendum to require that Fart, Barf and Itch do the background checks. They did it that way because they believed that their proposal would have failed if the state did it, because the state would have passed the cost along to the parties.

Thing is, the Feebies aren't going to do background checks unless Federal law says they have to. And since Federal law doesn't require background checks for transfers between residents of the same state, the Feds are effectively telling the Nevada anti-gunners to go shit in their hats.

Which means that Nevada's private-party background check law is a dead parrot.

(H/T)

We'll See if 41 Pages of Legalese Will Protect Them

An Icon A5 crashed in California earlier today, killing both people aboard.

Icon is infamous for its 41-page sales agreement. They trimmed it down somewhat after they got lambasted. But it's going to be interesting to see if they can make it stick against the bereaved.

Il Est de Rire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday sent a congratulatory message to French President-elect Emmanuel Macron after his victory on Sunday.

In a statement, Putin wished Macron “good health, well-being and success” as president, adding that “overcoming mutual distrust and joining efforts to ensure international stability and security is especially important.”

I'm pretty certain that the French are going to find that at least mildly amusing, since the Russians and their pet toady, Wikileaks, pulled off another hack/data dump just before the French went to the polls.

Only this time, the Russians and Wikileaks paid no attention to French law. They should have, because the French impose a media blackout the day before an election, so news of what those scum were trying to do didn't spread effectively inside France.

Scott Pruitt Wanted to Hire Thomas Midgley, Jr., Only He's Dead

The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research.

A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast.

Midgley, in case you've forgotten was a chemist who arguably did more damage to the planet than any other single person in human history. He promoted the use of tetraethyl lead in gasoline, while blatantly lying about its effects on people (effects that were understood by scientists even then). He also invented Freon, the chemical that was linked to severe damage of the ozone layer.

In short, Pruitt is seeking to populate the EPA with the same sort of scientific sellouts who helped the tobacco industry for decades. Pruitt is a well-known shill for the oil industry. As the AG of Oklahoma, he basically turned his office into a free litigation service for them. So none of this should be much of a surprise

Move Over, Doug Feith (with Tab-Clearing)

Trump's got competition in the quest to replace Doug Feith as the title-holder:

A conservative Republican congressman from Idaho is drawing criticism for his response to a town-hall attendee’s concerns about how his party’s health-care bill would affect Medicaid recipients.

“You are mandating people on Medicaid to accept dying,” the woman said.

“That line is so indefensible,” said Rep. Raúl R. Labrador, a member of the influential House Freedom Caucus. “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

The boos instantly drowned him out.

Worse for this challenger to be the Dumbest Fucker on Earth, the comment was caught on video:

That is so contradicted by reality that it was a gob-smackingly stupid thing to say. You will not have to search far, Dear Reader, to find stories of women who didn't get a lump in their breasts looked at because they couldn't afford to. Or people who die of hypertension or other medical issues because they couldn't afford to go to a doctor for a checkup.

Of course, Labrador is whining about how everybody is blasting him for one comment he made. The poor man must have severe organic brain damage, for he clearly doesn't understand the game of politics. If he doesn't have brain damage, then he is a fucking sociopath who allowed his mask to drop.
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In other news, conservatives are proceeding with Operation Butthurt. The last time I looked into things, the percentage of complaints to the FCC that were traceable back to the Parents Television Council were in the upper 90-percentile rage, maybe as high as 99%. In short, the FCC essentially operates as a tool of a wingnut pressure group.
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Condoleeza Rice is making the round to flog her new book, here, on Sunday Morning. She's dropped her Iraq War defense down to "we went with what we knew," which was pretty much "we went with the lies that Dick Cheney's stooges told up." The historical record is revealing that Bush-43 and his team were focused on Iraq before the smoke had stopped rising from Ground Zero. They knew what they wanted and they were not willing to give credence to any contrary information. They saw what they wanted to see, heard what they wanted to hear, and there were plenty of people, including an alleged Iranian agent, willing to give them what they wanted.
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The French Nazi Party is going to have yet another makeover. Le Pen didn't get trounced as badly as her father did fifteen years ago. But she is little more than a pretty face masking the same old antisemitism, Holocaust denialism and xenophobia that has always been a hallmark of her party.

Yes, I Know It's a Commercial

It's still funny.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Crosswind operations

Wish I had the tire concession there!

(H/T)

Caturday

Chip is settling in for a nap.

I bought that cat tower six months ago. Only now has Chip decided that the top level (which is padded) is a good place to sleep.