EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Short post, as the Internet is down, again. Rah, rah Charter. 

And some fucking miscreant boosted my Sunday paper.  The teevee still works, but I'd rather drill holes in my head than watch CNN. 

So I have no idea what's happening. Kind of nice, actually.  I think the cat likes it. 

I did go see Star Tek: Beyond today. Better than the 2nd one. I wonder if they'll slip into the cycle of every other ST movie blowing chunks. 

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

727 sprayer:

Nine Years On

That's when I began doing this.

This was the subject of maybe post #3:

One of my early readers and commentators, Lurch, died in 2008. I wish that his stuff had been archived somewhere. Jon Swift, Jeff Huber, William the Coroner, Frank James were bloggers whose stuff I enjoyed reading and who have gone west.

It's been a good ride. Lord willing and low water, I'll be around for awhile yet.

The Inevitable Editorial Cartoon, plus More

I haven't seen this yet: The cartoon would of one of those Russian nesting dolls ( a matryoshka doll). The outer doll would be Donald Trump; the cartoon would show a hand lifting the top of the outer doll to show that the inner doll is Vladimir Putin.

---------------------------------------

Sumdood is going to skydive from 25,000' into a net, without a parachute.

Right. A skydiver reaches terminal velocity in less than 2,000'. But there wouldn't b much drama in that, I suppose. Or much margin for error, in case he jumped a second or two out of time.

Still, while it may be the first time that somebody willingly jumped out of an airplane without a parachute, it won't be the first time that someone fell from an airplane without a parachute and survived.

Caturday

"This is my plant (nom, nom, nom)"

I took it away from him.

Mike Pence Needs a Brain Transplant

For the wooden one that he has is filled with dry rot.

On Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, President Obama referred to Donald Trump as a “homegrown demagogue.” On Friday, Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, argued that this display of discourtesy was beneath the hallowed office that Obama holds.

“I don’t think name-calling has any place in public life, and I thought that was unfortunate that the president of the United States would use a term like that,” Pence told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday.

Reall, Mikey? You said that with a straight face? For the love of Your Dear and Fluffy Lord, your running made is Donald the Insult Candidate. He does little else other than hurl insults and threaten to punch out those who speak ill of him.

Trump is a thin-skinned little bully and Pence is a walking, talking version of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

Racist Donald and Brainless Mike-- a match made in Hell.

Well, Bundy is Half-Right.

Apparently from his more recent court filings:

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupier Ryan Bundy filed a series of court motions late Thursday, declaring himself a sovereign citizen who isn’t subject to federal laws.

Bundy, who is representing himself in the conspiracy case against the refuge occupiers, declares himself an “idiot of the ‘Legal Society’” and not subject to federal law, according to the documents.

Where has this sort of puke-filled argument ever worked?

When this case goes to trial, if the jury is out for more than an hour, it'll likely be because it took them 45 minutes to stop laughing.

Russian Oddity

Infidel753 noticed this first: There's been a big uptick in blog traffic from Russia. (It shows up in the Google Stats page for blogger.com users.)

Pageviews from Russia are running four times as many as from America.

That tells me something, but I don't know what.

Trump-Putin Alliance

Donald Trump has openly called for the Russians to interfere in our electoral process.

Donald Trump appeared to call on Russian hackers Wednesday to find 30,000 of Hillary Clinton's deleted emails, adding a stunning twist to the uproar over Moscow's alleged intervention in the presidential election.

"They probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted because you'd see some beauties there. So let's see," Trump said at a news conference, referring to emails that Clinton judged as personal and did not hand over to the State Department from her private server, which she used to conduct official business.

The billionaire businessman then went even further, in remarks that left open the possibility that he would be open to Moscow staging a new hack against the United States to find the emails.

Then Trump donned his idiot hat and proclaimed that he has no idea who Vladimir Putin is.

Trump once said that he could kill somebody and be elected. He's pretty much betting, now, that he can also be elected after conducting himself as though he is a Russian tool.

On this issue, at least, the Republicans in the Congress who would look into such things are content to sit back and keep their yaps shut. Which absolutely would not have happened in the candidates' roles were reversed.

That's Going to Be Expensive- Accident Edition

The nose gear collapsed on an A-26 landing at Oshkosh for the fly-in.

Teardowns and overhaul for a R-2800 engine runs about $75K or so, so $150K for two. That's not figuring the need to overhaul the prop hub and replace the bent blades, nor the airframe work for when it was ground down by sliding on the runway. And one of those engines was fresh; it was just hung on the airplane less than two weeks ago.

Don't be too shocked if that A-26 eventually leaves KOSH by truck.

"No Fucking Shit, Sherlock!"-- Mass Killings Edition

The horrifying rash of massacres during this violent summer suggests that public, widely covered rampage killings have led to a kind of contagion, prompting a small number of people with strong personal grievances and scant political ideology to mine previous attacks for both methods and potential targets to express their lethal anger and despair.

No shit, you geniuses, you're only now figuring this out?

Add to the motivation, I might add, that these assholes gain themselves a measure of fame (or infamy) that they otherwise would never achieve.

Hence the "Some Asshole Initiative" or the point that Your Humble Scribe began suggesting that these asswipes not be publicly named, oh, seven fucking years ago.

Late Show Convention Openings

"The RNC Is Like Christmas In July"

"Death, Taxes and Hillary"

The Muscovian Candidate?

The evidence is beginning to seem pretty good that the DNC hack came from Russian intelligence services, and that "Guccifer 2.0" is a Russian sock-puppet.

Given that, then can anyone trust that the Russian spooks didn't alter any of the emails?

Having said that, imagine, if you will, that the Chinese hacked into the RNC and published things to embarrass the GOP and Trump. You can bet your next paycheck that the same media outlets who are studiously downplaying the Russian angle would be waving their bloody flags of outrage.

The Russians have interfered in our electoral process. There needs to be an official response beyond strong words.

Would a President Trump Pull on His Jackboots? And Will Fox News Turn on Him?

An argument that he would, based on his past attempts to suppress dissent.

And given that Christie has signaled that President Trump's first order of business will be to purge the government of anyone who is not loyal to him, right down to the GS-2 level, it gets a little scary.

What's next, having the military swear a personal loyalty oath to Trump?

And now, this:

Donald Trump upped the ante Sunday in his war on free trade deals—and companies that take jobs overseas. [He] suggested that under his watch, the U.S. might just leave the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Don't forget this: Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News. Murdoch has business interests around the globe. If he comes to the realization that a Trump presidency would threaten those interests, then look for Fox News (including Lumpy) to drop Trump as though The Donald had contracted AIDS and rabies.

And yeah:

Floatplanes and Dry Land

One way to do it!

This is a common technique, as you can see here and here.

Landing is usually done on grass, better in the early morning when there is dew. Then you lift it up with a crane and onto a dolly.

Wasserman Got Smart, Finally

Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz won't open her party's convention, following a chaotic scene earlier in the day at a meeting of Florida Democratic delegates where critics and Bernie Sanders supporters loudly jeered at the congresswoman.

"I have decided that in the interest of making sure that we can start the Democratic convention on a high note that I am not going to gavel in the convention," Wasserman Schultz told the Sun Sentinel newspaper in an interview.

Good move, for the last thing the Dems want is to be compared unfavorably to the Trump Shitstorm of a convention.

I'm not opposed to the idea that it was the KGB FSB or the GRU that hacked into the DNC's servers and stole their emails in order to help Trump. But it is a hell of a claim and the proof for that needs to be made public. Maybe the Feebies will find something.

For Haters of Classical Music

In What Alternate Universe Does This Make Sense?

US internet firm Yahoo will be sold to American telecoms firm Verizon Communications for nearly $5bn (£3.8bn) in cash.

Microsoft has to be pleased that its bid to buy Yahoo eight years ago for nearly nine times as much cratered.

In which lunatic asylum was this deal hatched? I have had one Yahoo account; to call it "spam-ridden" would have been an understatement. The last time that Yahoo mattered as a search engine was when a Clinton was president.

Some troll of a banker is getting filthy rich from this deal. That's the only way it makes sense-- another corrupt bit of financial chicanery.

Wonder if Goldman Sachs is involved....

The Muscovian Candidate?

I'm not sure if this just bullshit or if there is some strength to the argument that Trump is the candidate of Vladimir Putin.

The premise is that Trump's business empire would have collapsed without Russian money. After his string of commercial bankruptcies and dealings boring from shady to deceptive, American banks probably wouldn't make an auto loan to The Donald. So he turned to Russian money.

When you add in that bit of information, Trump's stated willingness to abrogate the North Atlantic Treaty makes sense. So does the fact that several of his advisors have ties to the Putin regime (or its lackeys).

Beyond that, Trump's deep ties to Russia and his admiration of Putin's authoritarian style of rule (among other thugs) should give thinking conservatives some stomach pains.

For if there is one thing that authoritarians don't like, it's the proles owning weapons.

Update: Not just liberals wonder about the Putin-Trump entanglements.

Get Back to Me in a Decade; New Cartridge Edition

The 7.5mm FK. Only available in one oversized pistol, at least that's been shown.

I don't know what "FK" stands for in Moravian, but to the Germans, it was the abbreviation for "field cannon".

For a government, one can see the attractiveness of a proprietary cartridge. But for everyone else, not so much. As far as I can tell, the cartridge is not available anywhere.

My gut feeling is to not to expect to hear a lot about this round. Especially once BRNO stops running multi-page ads in the gun press.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Arresting gear tests.

Damn Zoomies sure do have a long rollout after they snag the wire.

(H/T)

Standard Cop Defense: "I Was in Fear fo my Life"-- Fail

An Atlanta cop who claimed that he killed a guy for trying to run him over was fired and indicted for murder when video showed nothing of the kind happened. Still made bail.

An Alabama cop is out on bail on murder charges. His lawyer wanted the bail reduced, anyway. If the story is right, the standard bail for an Alabama cop murdering people is about $15K for tasing a guy three times, beating him with a baton and then shooting him five times.

As much as people have snarked about Alabama and Georgia, at least they seem to be taking some steps to hold cops accountable for murdering people.

While Everyone is All-a-Twitter About the Mass Shooting in Germany

80 people were killed by two suicide bombers in Kabul, in an attack so horrific that even the Taliban condemned it.

You can posit your own reasons why some punk-ass kid shooting nine people in Munich is more newsworthy than is 80 people being blown to smithereens in Kabul.

Caturday

A new-resident Shelter kitten makes his own fun while he and his littermates wait out the intake quarantine.

Look at the size of his paws. He's a polydactyl kitten on all four paws. And before you ask, he has a prospective home.

Give Officer Fife a Nerf-Gun, Updated

(Earlier post)

So now the story is that Officer Fife shot the Black guy who was lying in the street with his hands in the air because he thought that the white autistic man, who was playing in the street with a toy truck, had a gun. This is from Barn's union mouthpiece rep, no less.

Yepper, that's some world-class police work going on in North Miami Beach.

OK, guess we need to hold more training, like before.

Chemtrail Humor

Photo credit goes here, if I knew who created it.

Because It's Friday

Moving about the railyards.

The Word of the U.S.A. Under a Trump Presidency Will Be No Good

CLEVELAND — Donald J. Trump, on the eve of accepting the Republican nomination for president, explicitly raised new questions on Wednesday about his commitment to automatically defending NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance.

Asked about Russia’s threatening activities, which have unnerved the small Baltic States that are among the more recent entrants into NATO, Mr. Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing if those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.”

So, Russian tanks roll over the border of Lithuania. Sometime between when they have occupied Vilnius and before they bang a hard left and advance on Warsaw, maybe a President Trump might have decided whether or not he will agree to keep our commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty.

It doesn't take a hard look to realize that the history of Trump is that his word is no good. If he were to be president, our country could not be counted on to fulfill its commitments under any treaty or agreement.

Wars have begun as a result of that much uncertainty.

Gov. Pence Inadvertently Exposes the Hypocrisy of the Right

From the written text of his speech:

And let me thank Speaker Paul Ryan for that gracious welcome. Paul, you’re a true friend and a great American leader. But Paul knows me well, and he knows that the introduction I prefer is much shorter. I’m a Christian, a Conservative, and a Republican, in that order.

Now imagine, if you will, changing the religion that he identified with in that speech. There would be riots in the convention center and uproar all of Fox News and their ilk.

But there's not. Pence is a card-carrying member of the Christian Taliban, best known for signing a "no wedding cake for faggots" bill into law. So it's OK, as far as he and his people are concerned, to write their particular bits of religious-based bigotry into the statute books.

But nobody else gets to.

Give Officer Fife a BB-Gun, Please!

When a 23-year-old autistic man carrying a toy truck wandered from a mental health center out into the street Monday, a worker there named Charles Kinsey went to retrieve him.

A few minutes later the autistic man was still sitting cross-legged blocking the roadway while playing with the small, rectangular white toy. And Kinsey was prone on the ground next to him — a bullet from an assault rifle fired by a police officer having struck his leg.

“He throws his hands up in the air and says, ‘Don’t shoot me.’ They say lie on the ground, so he does,” Kinsey’s attorney Hilton Napoleon said Wednesday. “He’s on his back with his hands in the air trying to convince the other guy to lie down. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Cellphone video footage obtained by Napoleon clearly shows the heavy-set autistic man sitting and playing with his toy while Kinsey, dressed in a yellow shirt and shorts, obeys police orders to lie down on his back.

To recap, the guy who was shot by police did everything that he was ordered to do by the police and still got a bullet for his trouble. And if the timeline is close to correct, one might assume that the cops were hoping that the shot guy would bleed out before the paramedics showed up. For there seems to be zero evidence that anybody rendered first aid.

The therapist said police then rushed him, patted him down and put him in handcuffs. Kinsey said what police did after the shooting is what upsets him the most. “They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come. I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding — I mean bleeding, and I was like, ‘Wow.'”

North Miami Beach had better warm up its checkbook.

The Brand of Yellow Alcohol-Infused Horse Piss You Drink Doesn't Matter

SABMiller's board will review its $107 billion merger deal with Anheuser Busch InBev once all regulatory approvals have been secured, its chairman said on Thursday.

The two companies received approval on Wednesday from U.S. antitrust regulators, after they agreed to sell assets and preserve competition from independent craft brewers. The companies are now waiting for China's approval.

Trump Would be a Potemkin President?

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before. As a candidate, Kasich declared in March that Trump was “really not prepared to be president of the United States,” and the following month he took the highly unusual step of coordinating with his rival Senator Ted Cruz in an effort to deny Trump the nomination. But according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

So Trump would make Dubya, who was famously disengaged from the job of presidenting, look like a micro-manager in comparison?

UPDATE: Read and heed.

Was Melania Trump Ratfucked?

Infidel753 thinks it's possible. For another part of it seemed to come from another source.

Her lines:

He will never, ever, give up. And, most importantly, he will never, ever, let you down.

I guess he's not promising that he won't run around and desert you.

The Evil Trolls of Microsoft Never Quit

They're still trying to cram the Win10 stealth update, KB3035583, down people's throats as "an important update".

Well, No Shit, Ace, Look Whom She Married!

So, not only did Melania Trump plagiarize Michelle Obama's speech, she also has been lying about graduating college.

But hell, look at her husband. He's so loosey-goosey with the truth that his name should be a synonym for being a bald-faced liar.

And speaking of The Donald, take a look at the chairs from his house:

Somebody once joked that Trump had hired Saddam Hussein's interior decorator (which might explain Trump's affinity for the dead dictator). But it matters not.

The Donald has managed to pull off both being rich and having no class whatsoever.

UPDATE: Melania's keyboard:

Fox News Maskirova?

Roger Ailes's tenure as the head of Fox News may be coming to an end. Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James — co-chairmen and CEO, respectively, of parent company 21st Century Fox — have settled on removing the 76-year-old executive, say two sources briefed on a sexual-harassment investigation of Ailes being conducted by New York law firm Paul, Weiss. After reviewing the initial findings of the probe, James Murdoch is said to be arguing that Ailes should be presented with a choice this week to resign or face being fired. Lachlan is more aligned with their father, who thinks that no action should be taken until after the GOP convention this week. Another source confirms that all three are in agreement that Ailes needs to go.

The real tip-off will be when Roger's minions at Fox begin switching sides or letting people know that "I only was supporting Roger because he'd fire me if I didn't".

If this is true, Ailes will sink faster than the HMS Hood.

Why I've Been Using That Tag

Hear, hear!

"Seeker" and Ye Shall Find.

The Seeker is for sale in the U.S.A.

(Photo cred)

I mentioned this airplane in a post about the Optica a number of years ago.

A dealer says it's a STOL bird, though a prior owner disagrees. Supposedly, it will be "manufactured" in this country, whatever the hell that means.

If an agency or a pipeline/powerline company doesn't need the ability of a helo to land in very small spaces, then this aircraft might have a role to play.

Linkage From the Infidel

I learn amazing stuff from Infidel753's links.

1. Housecats are not the solitary animals that most people think they are. They're not exactly pack animals, but kinda sorta.

2. Remember all the complaints about ISIS destroying historical sites? Seems some Christians are no better.

3. Macy's has been acting as their own judge, jury and executioner. With any luck, they will be infested with a plague of lawyers.

And Now There Are Two!

There are now two B-29s flying.

UPDATE: Doc may not fly again for awhile. One of her engines may have shit the bed.

The flight itself lasted approximately 15 minutes encompassing one takeoff, climb out to pattern altitude, and a return and landing. The crew chose to land after circling the field when a precautionary "chip light", indicating the possibility of metal pieces in one of the engines illuminated.

UPDATE #2: There were three chip lights, not just one. But nothing was found. The chip lights are helicopter ones, they're very sensitive. IIRC, HSL-34 used the call sign "Green Checker ###" for their aircraft. One was informally known by the host Knox FF's crew as "Chip Light 240", because a lot of that bird's flights ended that way.

Got Off Light, He Did.

A man who has appeared on Fox News as a guest "terrorism analyst" was sentenced to 33 months in prison on Friday on charges that he fraudulently claimed to have been a CIA agent for decades, U.S. prosecutors said. ... [Wayne] Simmons admitted that he defrauded the government in 2008 when he got work as a team leader in an Army program, and again in 2010 when he was deployed to Afghanistan as an intelligence adviser. ... Simmons also admitted to defrauding an unidentified woman out of $125,000 in a bogus real estate investment. When he was arrested, Simmons illegally possessed two firearms, which he was barred from having because of prior felonies, including a state conviction and two federal firearms violations.

Last time I checked, possession a firearm after a felony conviction is good for a five to ten year stretch. Between that and the other charges, it's hard to imagine that if Tyrone Hernandez had committed those crimes, that ol' Tyrone wouldn't be going away for a lot longer than 33 months.

Simmons should send a nice gift basket to his lawyer.

(H/T)

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Turkish F-16s

Some of them may have been flying over Turkish cities on Friday night.

T-P logo = Hand-J0b?

From the comments:

I liked the note that if you turn it upside down, it looks like a handjob...but I warn you, you can never unsee that after you looked at it.

Let's test that, shall we?

The logo, may it rest in peace:

And it inverted:

I dunno, I'm not really seeing it.

But this? Yeah.

Breaking the mattress of America. pic.twitter.com/M4Cq62YS2c

— Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) July 15, 2016

Trump-Pence.... T-P

"T-P: Make America Shit Again!"

"T-P: They're on a Roll!"

Man, didn't anyone think this through?

Well, Somebody has to be the Ambassador to Chad

“I think if Trump wins, Trump will find something for [Christie],” Mr. Murray said. “He’ll take anything, as is kind of obvious.”

Besides picking up The Donald's fast-food orders, I really think that Christie would have whacked somebody if Trump told him to.

Almost everybody hates Christie now in Jersey. Maybe if he sucks up hard enough to Roger Ailes, he can climb aboard the Wingnut Welfare Gravy Train.

Caturday

Chip is snuggled in between me and the couch cushions.

The other day, he ate his dinner a little too fast (he can down a can of Fancy Feast in under 4 minutes). A little bit later, he horked some of it back up. Once he was done, he inspected the mess and ate the pieces of food that he deemed to be worth of salvage.

I had forgotten how entertaining it can be to watch a young cat at play. He throws the toy mice and chases them. Sometimes he gets some good air on them and he'll twist around to grab them.

Coup in Turkey?

An army group in Turkey says it has taken over the country, with soldiers at strategic points in Istanbul and jets flying low in the capital, Ankara.

A statement read on TV said a "peace council" now ran the country and there was a curfew and martial law.

It is unclear who the army group is. There are reports some senior army officials have been detained.

Count me among those who are not terribly surprised. The Turkish military is largely secular and very respectful of the memory of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who is the father of modern and secular Turkey.

Some in the Turkish military might have taken the view that President Erdogan's moves to make turkey into a religious state was an implicit defiling of the memory of Atatürk.

We shall see what happens.

Newtie Gets Fitted for a Custom Pair of Jackboots

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday called for the U.S. to test every person with a Muslim background to see if they believe in Sharia law, and deport those who do.

Well, if we're also going to test every Christian and deport those who believe that Biblical law is superior to the Constitution and the U.S. Code, then fine, let's do it.

The first guys marched onto the deportation ships will be Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, plus that jerkoff of a judge on the Alabama Supreme Court.

So, Gingrich wants to give people a religious test, whether or not they are naturally-born citizens, with no regard to how many generations that their family has been here, and then strip citizenship from those who don't pass his test.

Let me think a minute. Who was the last guy who did that?

Dear Dumbasses: When the Po-Po Pull You Over and Point Guns at You....

... Do what they tell you to do and when they tell you to do it. If they're wrong and they violate your rights, you can talk to a lawyer afterwards.

If they tell you to stick both hands out of the window, don't get out of your fucking truck.

Don't wander around, put one hand behind your back, and then walk towards them.

You're just asking to get shot and they'll probably oblige you.

Bastille Day Horror- Scores Dead in Terrorist-Truck Attack

A truck has crashed into a crowd gathered for France’s Bastille Day fireworks on the seafront of the southern city of Nice, killing at least 60 people, French media have reported.

The sub-prefect of the local Alpes-Maritimes area, Sébastien Humbert, told French rolling news channel BFM TV: “The death toll is extremely high.”

He said a truck had ploughed into a crowd over a long distance on the beachfront Promenade des Anglais “which explains the extremely high toll”.

And more:

Prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre said the lorry drove two kilometres (1.2 miles) through a large crowd, the AFP news agency reports.

Other reports put the distance through the crowd at a lot less.

This is a breaking story and expect much confusion. As an old captain once advised me: "Never believe anything until the third report."

Las Vegas is Full of Patsies (and Ethically-Challenged Politicians)

Two wealthy grifters, Al Davis and Sheldon Adelson want to move the Oakland Raiders to Vegas and into a $1.4 billion football palace.

The kicker is that they want the taxpayers to pay for half of that. Which the dain-bramaged politicians are eager to do.

Davis is a rich man, but even he looks like a poverty case compared to Adelson. Adelson could pay for the whole thing out of his walking-around money.

But why should he if he can con persuade the bozos and saps in Vegas to? And the biggest sap there is Mayor Goodman.

I've watched this play out in city after city, and most of them are basically too retarded (or too corrupt) to not fall for the con job that is having a pro sports franchise. And given that Al Davis moves his team more often than Scott Brown changes his residence to run for Senate, only a complete and utter fool or a tool would agree to putting up public money to host the Oakland Pirates.

Whether Mayor Goodman is a fool or a tool is better commented upon by those who live there.

Coming Soon, to a Police Department Near You

The APKWS, a 70mm IR-laser-guided rocket. Designed for firing from helicopter gunships, it's also capable of being used by jets, which is why the Zoomies are buying them.

The cops now use armed drones to kill people. There's no real distinction between sending in a robot with a bomb and using a precision-guided munition.

Caving In to Bigotry; Fla Ed.

For years, the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, Fla., served as a polling station for Palm Beach County voters.

Since at least the year 2010, citizens have cast their votes within the pastel green walls of the mosque, whether it was for a presidential primary, a municipal election or a special primary.

Last week, however, the mosque was removed as a polling site.

The decision was made by Susan Bucher, Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County, after she received complaints, and threats, about the use of the mosque in the upcoming Florida primary in August and general election in November.

Doesn't seem to bother those Floridan boobs that counties use churches and synagogues as polling stations.

The complainers are rooted in bigotry and fear. Promising to call in bomb threats is an exercise in terrorism.

Brickbats to Palm Beach County for caving in to (presumably) Christian terrorists.

À Bastille!

Today is the French National Day.

A version that is more familiar to American audiences:

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé
Entendez-vous dans nos campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras.
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!

Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons

(Full translation, which makes The Star-Spangled Banner look pacifistic.)

The Bastille was torn down very soon afterwards. Very little of it survives. The key to the fortress was given by Marquis de Lafayette to President Washington.

Deflaters Never Prosper

NEW YORK (AP) -- Quarterback Tom Brady's last best chance to avoid serving a four-game "Deflategate" suspension to start the new season was flatly rejected Wednesday by an appeals court.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued a one-sentence rejection of requests by the National Football League Players Association and Tom Brady to reconsider an April decision that reinstated the suspension.

Where Does Police Militarization Stop?

As you probably know by now, the Dallas cops used a robot carrying a bomb to kill an armed suspect.

I find this to be objectionable on a number of different levels.

First off, by the accounts that I've read, the suspect was contained. He wasn't going anywhere. Using a bomb-laden robot to end the standoff was lazy-ass police work, in the same way that the FBI burned 76 people to death in Waco in 1993. The Dallas police chief ordered a summary execution.

Second, where does it stop? If the suspect was barricaded and inaccessible to the robot, would the cops have evacuated the building and blown it up? Are artillery strikes now on the table? Nerve gas? is this how the po-po are going to handle standoffs in the future-- call in an airstrike? (Don't forget that they have done that before and it didn't work so well.) If a suspect is fleeing, will the cops rustle up a gunship and hose down the vehicle?

Third, you're going to find few "conservative" voices who are questioning any of this, other than maybe these two posts. Similarly, the number of "conservatives" who were disquieted by the MOVE bombing were similarly low. By no means is "conservative" disquiet anything like those expressed when an FBI sniper opened fire at Ruby Ridge.

And before you say that Waco and Ruby Ridge were different, allow me to point out that both incidents got rolling when Federal LEOs were killed.

So now we are in a place where a police chief can sit in his office and press a button to summarily execute a suspect, for personally pushing the button and ordering that the button be pushed makes no moral difference.

If you believe that the cops have the right to summarily execute people, then you should question your belief in freedom, liberty and the rule of law.

Questions to the Spirit World

From Life on the Mississippi:

Q. Would you like to come back?

A. No.

Q. Would you say that under oath?

A. Yes.

Q. What do you eat there?

A. We do not eat.

Q. What do you drink?

A. We do not drink.

Q. What do you smoke?

A. We do not smoke.

Q. What do you read?

A. We do not read.

Q. Do all the good people go to your place?

A. Yes.

Q. You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any additions to it, in the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going to some other place.

A. No reply.

Twain's caustic regard for the poisoning of Southern culture by Sir Walter Scott should not be missed.

China's Illegal Land Grab

China's aggressive buildup of artificial islands in the South China Sea has been found to be illegal.

An international tribunal ruled against China in a bitter row over territorial claims to the South China Sea that is likely to ratchet up regional tensions.

“The tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’,” the Permanent Court of Arbitration said in a statement.

China is asserting the traditional prerogative of large powers to do whatever the fuck it feels like doing, international law be damned.

43 Years Ago, a Historical Tragedy

The National Personnel Records Center burned on this day in 1973. Millions of service records for men and women who had served in the Army and the Air Force from 1912 to the beginning of the Vietnam War were lost forever.

Families of men who fought in the World Wars and Korea, who may have wanted to learn what their fathers and grandfathers did in the conflicts, were essentially shit out of luck. Especially if the men never talked about it.

Shorter Cop Rationale: "I Shot the Wrong Guy!"

A lawyer for a suburban Minnesota police officer who killed a black driver says his client pulled the man over in part because he believed he resembled a suspect in a robbery.

Philando Castile had no felony record and authorities have not said he was a suspect in any crime.

But attorney Thomas Kelly tells the Star Tribune newspaper that Officer Jeronimo Yanez thought the 32-year-old Castile looked like someone police had been seeking in a recent robbery.

So the cop thought he was pulling over a bad guy. When it transpired that the guy had a gun, the cop, who still thought that he was dealing with a bad guy, shot him. Even though the guy wasn't reaching for it.

In short, it was a bad shoot. I don't know how they're going to get out of not bringing manslaughter charges against him.

Men have been killed by police because the cops thought that cell phones or wallets were guns.

Seeing what you expect to see and not being open to questioning your assumptions is a hard thing to do. This one cost one man his life, may effectively cost another man his and may cost the people of that municipality many millions of dollars in damages.

(No, I'm not throwing rocks.)

Pokémon Go: Happy Hunting Ground for Criminals

Armed robbers used the game Pokémon Go to lure victims to an isolated trap in Missouri, police reported on Sunday.

At about 2am in O’Fallon, Missouri, officers responded to a robbery report that led them to four people, all local residents aged 16 to 18, in a black BMW in a CVS parking lot. The occupants tried to discard a handgun out of the car when an officer approached, said Sgt Bill Stringer. The officer then identified the four people as suspects of similar armed robberies described in St Louis and St Charles counties.

From Nintendo, the Pokemon company:

"We encourage all people playing Pokémon GO to be aware of their surroundings and to play with friends when going to new or unfamiliar places. Please remember to be safe and alert at all times."

Good advice, regardless of what you're doing.

One of Trump's Bigger Lies

The lie: "Bill Clinton signed NAFTA".

The truth: NAFTA was negotiated during the George H.W. Bush administration and it was signed by him on December 17, 1992. What Clinton signed, a year later, was the legislation to enable the agreement that his predecessor had made.

Maybe Bill Clinton could have gone back on George Bush's word. He didn't. And the other bitter truth is that NAFTA would have not passed without Republicans, who largely supported it, when Democrats did not.

But hey, complaining that "Trump ignores facts" is like complaining that "bears shit in the woods".

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Low-level flying in a B-58.

The B-58 had a relatively short service life. It quite possibly had the shortest operational life of any postwar bomber.

Caturday; Settling In

Chip checks out the cat bed.

When he's sleeping, he goes to Jake's hidey-hole under the bed. I expect he'll eventually settle in and sleep on furniture.

George, Gracie and Jake were all contemporaries, so it's been a very long time since I had a young and agile cat. George was fairly agile, up until his end. The other day, I found Chip on top of the kitchen cabinets. I raised my voice and he quickly got down. Whether he knows that he's not supposed to be up there or that he's not supposed to be up there when I'm at home and awake remains to be seen.

George had the attitude of "your food is my food", which Chip seems to share. Chip was annoying me as I made lunch the other day, so I gave him a piece of red-leaf lettuce. He took an energetic bite of it, then realized that lettuce wasn't something that he wanted to eat.

When he wants attention, he literally gets in my face for it. He's a cuddler.

My vet said he's healthy.

Cleaning Up the Mess, Brexit Ed.

Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom will battle it out to become the next leader of the Conservative Party after Michael Gove was eliminated from the contest. ... The winner will become the UK's second female prime minister.

All the guys who brought about the Brexit vote have pretty much left the stage.

Meanwhile, following the Brexit vote, the number of hate crimes in the UK have risen sharply. No real surprise there.

The Brits have been part of a European single-market, in one form or another, for over 40 years. The EU came into being over 20 years ago. Which, as I gather, means that all of the trade deals between the EU and other nations have been negotiated by the EU, sort of in the same way that Iowas doesn't negotiate trade deals with Vietnam.

When the UK leaves (or is booted from) the EU, they're going to need to negotiate trade deals with everyone. The Brits will need to get some crackerjack trade negotiators and get them up to speed and on the governor in a pretty short timeframe.

Not my problem.

Trump: Thin-Skinned or an Idiot?

In a speech yesterday, Trump continued his full-throated argument that his Clinton graphic wasn't anti-Semitic.

So, on a day when the news cycle should have been about the Feebies giving a pass to Hillary, he kept this story going. Which is insane. Somebody with some smarts would have known that the thing to do would have been to issue a general denial and then just shut the fuck up and let the story peter out.

But no, that's not Trump's style. He's still got a chip on his shoulder about the "short-fingered vulgarian" insult of the 1980s. So you know he's not going to let this fade away.

Even though that would be the politically intelligent thing to do.

136 Years Ago

Otto Frederick Rohwedder was born in Davenport, Iowa.

I have little doubt that everyone who reads this has benefited from his work.

How to Bribe, err, Persuade Politicians (Yeah, That's the Ticket!)

It'd be a variation of this:

• Day 1: Walk into his/her office and say: "Gee, I think you're a great public servant, please accept this $25,000 donation for your campaign."
• Day 2: Walk into his/her office and say: "I'd like to suggest that you support/oppose Bill No. ###, as that is near and dear to my heart."
• Day 3: Again, walk into his/her office and say: "I don't believe that your timepiece reflects a person of your stature. Please accept a gift of this Rolex."

You might think that is bribery. It apparently isn't to the Supremes. For them, it has to be "vote for/against Bill ###, here's $25Gs."

And so, the American Oligarchy marches on. If you're not rich, the only time most of the politicians want to hear from you is on election day. The other 729/1,459/2,189 days of their term, they really don't give a rat's ass what you think.

(GMTA)

Pass the Popcorn; Fox News Ed.

Gretchen Carlson, a Fox News host, said Wednesday she was fired by the conservative-leaning cable news network and has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against its chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes.

In a statement released through a public relations firm, Carlson, best known for co-hosting “Fox & Friends” until 2013, said she “refused to sleep” with Ailes and “reported disparaging treatment in the newsroom.”

Oh, this is going to be good. Especially since this isn't the first time Ailes has been accused of sexually harassing women.

We Kind of Suspected That All Along; Iraq War Edition

While we've been jabbering about Racist Donald and Crooked Hillary, the British inquiry into the Iraq War has been released.

Basically, the only thing they didn't find was an evil cabal of neocons. But as to everything else, such as over-reliance on suspect intelligence, going to war when other options remained, and faulty postwar planning that could be considered to be criminally negligent, yeah, they found all that.

They found all that despite stonewalling and obstruction from both the British and American administrations, including refusals to release the conversations between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.*

The Iraq War was a lie. Worse than a lie, it likely qualified as a war of aggression, which is a war crime.

Don't hold your breath that any of the architects or deciders of that war will ever be held to account for it.
__________________________________
* Or, "Chimpy and the Pig-Fucker", if you prefer.

The Cowards of Brexit (Plus News From Ft. Fumble)

Another one of the Brexit leaders has quit:

Nigel Farage's slogan during his 20-year campaign to take the UK out of the European Union was "I want my country back".

Now the UKIP leader has achieved his ultimate political ambition, seemingly against all the odds. And he has turned that epithet on himself - telling reporters that he "wants his life back" and is now standing down.

Yeah, sure. It'd be like Prime Minister Tojo saying, on December 8th, 1941 "I've achieved my goal, all y'all can finish up the pesky details."

Meanwhile, the Air Force is refusing to disclose how much their new B-3 B-21 will cost, claiming that telling the American taxpayers how much the Zoomie's new tow would help the enemy. But they say it will cost under $600 million apiece.

Which is poppycock. The Air Force leaders, both civilian and military, who make that assertion ought to be dragged down to the Capitol's holding cells and waterboarded.

The only "enemies" who would be assisted by revealing the true cost of the B-21 are those who are opposed to continually giving those fuckers blank checks.

Harvesting What They Planted; Saudi Ed.

A suicide bomber has killed four security officers and injured five others near one of Islam's holiest sites in the Saudi city of Medina, according to the interior ministry.

The bomber detonated his explosives after being stopped outside the Prophet's Mosque, a statement said.

The Saudi monarchy has been fostering and spreading a fundamentalist sect of Islam for decades. They are, in no small part, responsible for the spread of terrorism around the globe, whether they have funded it (as they have with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS) or morally encouraged it.

Some of it is not surprising, They're not the first kleptocratic monarchy to use religion as a justification for their actions. But it's been an unspoken deal that the Sauids would pay the terror groups and the terrorists would, in turn, not hit targets inside of the kingdom.

Now that deal seems to have fallen apart. About fucking time.

Aviating Assholes

1. Perfect footwear for an emergency evacuation:

2. I see more and more people traveling with "therapy" dogs. I'm 99+% sure it's bullshit. They want to take their little rat-dog with them on the plane, they don't want to put it into a carrier, and so they get a doctor-friend to write them something justifying the little mutt as a therapy dog. You can bet that, as they go about their daily affairs, that they don't take little Pootsy with them.

3. Some guy got a ride in a wheelchair from his flight down to baggage claim area. He's holding a cane between his legs. After he got out of the wheelchair, and the wheelchair attendant disappeared, the guy tucked his cane under his arm and walked briskly out of the terminal.

Caturday; Chip News

I gave Chip his first can of Fancy Feast this afternoon.

I would have needed a vacuum line to have gotten it out of the bowl faster than he did.

When it comes to the litter box, he's a digger.

Can Donald Trump Really Be This Politically Inept?

He swiped an image of Hillary Clinton from an anti-Semitic website and put it on Twitter.

This is the now-deleted tweet:

Trump claims, of course, that it was innocuous and that the "dishonest media" is blowing this out of proportion. He believes that calling him out on his blatant racism and sexism is only "political correctness run amok".

Really. The Donald is so naïve that he doesn't recognize that was the Star of David, because he's so used to seeing it as a "sheriff's star"? He's a frigging Yorker bastard, not a SASS member.

So, on a weekend when the buzz should have been about Hillary's FBI interview and Bill's tarmac meeting with the AG, The Donald is tripping over his own feet. Again.

Is he trying to deliberately blow this election? I don't say that with an ounce of sarcasm, for it certainly seems like the more likely explanation for all of this shit.

Or is he trying to fuck it up so badly that he can quietly (and with plausible deniability) persuade the party to choose somebody else? And if not him, then whom?

Fun Gift Facts

In the U.K, the traditional 90th anniversary present is something made of granite.

The jokes almost write themselves.

The Fourth Plus 240

240 years ago, the Continental Congress quit dragging its feet and realized that the American Colonies, at least the northern ones, were already at war with the British Empire.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Caturday; New Resident Ed.

Meet Chip:

He came home less than an hour ago. He is very affectionate, though right now, he's exploring the place.

You will be seeing a lot more of him!

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The Red Arrows.

A Good Idea, CCW Edition

Top Gun actress Kelly McGillis says she has been issued a conceal and carry gun permit after being assaulted during a break-in at her home on June 17.

That's not a bad idea.

Still, one thing to do is have some awareness of when things are wrong and back up.

McGillis painted a dramatic picture of the June 17 incident in a Facebook post the day after it happened. After noticing an odd light on and finding the front door unlocked when she got home that Friday night, she noticed two pairs of sandals inside the house, one large and one small.

Finding the front door unlocked would have been the time to back out and call in the local po-po.

Even with a gun, going into a building and clearing it single-handed is a very bad idea, even for professionals, or those with a boatload of training.

The Whistles Blew and Over the Top They Went

Right into the face of German Maxim guns and artillery fire.

The Battle of the Somme began 100 years ago this day. The British Army had almost 60,000 casualties on the first day of the battle.

One of the more insanely stupid ideas that the Brits had were to form "Pals Battalions". units made up of men from one area. Their idea was that men would be more inclined to enlist if they were to serve with their friends and neighbors. When one of those units suffered heavy casualties, well, you can imagine the impact back in Old Blighty.

That's just what happened at the Somme.

One of the sadder things of Western military tradition is that flag officers who are incompetents and wastrels of their men are allowed to retire gracefully, instead of being shot.

Boris the Wrecker; Brexit Edition

Boris Johnson has unexpectedly ruled himself out as a candidate for Britain’s next prime minister, after the justice secretary, Michael Gove, sent shockwaves through Westminster with a last-minute bid for the Conservative leadership.

Create chaos and then leave to let other pick up the pieces. That's a very Trumpian thing to do. Boris clearly shares more with the Donald than just a shitty haircut/piece.

"You Furnish the Pictures, I'll Furnish the War."

On this day, 118 years ago, the Battle of San Juan Hill was fought.

The Rough Riders got the glory, but they fought in support of an attack by the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. That was a point that the press pretty much ignored at the time, but that the historians haven't.

The Spanish-American War may not have been the first war that Americans were fed large doses of propaganda and lies in order to gain national support for fighting, but it sure as hell wasn't the last.