He’s Baaaack!

Burr Deming, fresh from an attack by Russian trolls. Drop by, if you please.

H/T

The Gutless Wonders at Apple

Apple notified Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Friday that it will remove all of the broadcaster’s apps from the Russian App Store in response to a demand from Russia’s federal censor, Roskomnadzor.

In its letter to the U.S.-funded agency, Apple said it’s deleting the apps because they “contain content that is illegal in Russia and that doesn’t comply with app review guidelines,” RFE/RL said. The statement also reportedly noted that the apps contain materials from organizations declared “undesirable” by the Russian authorities.

Not everyone who speaks Russian lives in Russia, but that makes no difference to the cowardly gutless weasels in Cupertino.

(I'm sure that Google is no better and probably worse.)

Investigate, Indict, Arrest, Try, Convict, Imprison and Deport This Clown

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said he will give away $1m (£766,000) a day to a registered voter in the key swing state of Pennsylvania until the US presidential election in November.

I'm pretty sure that paying voters to vote is rather illegal. But he's so fucking rich that he pretty much thinks he can do whatever the hell he wants, from buying votes to blowing shit all over South Texas.

It's not as though he'll spend a day in jail, anyway. He'll just go somewhere else, as he has a few other times.

Implicit Confirmation That the TOFF Has Issues With His Dong

He began a rally by talking about Arnold Palmer's penis.

Feelings of inadequacy about the shape and size of his own penis, maybe? Maybe he's a severely repressed closet case?

The TOFF is a weird guy. Less that three weeks before the election, when he should be trying to put together an argument as to why he should be trusted with the nuclear codes for a few months, he's talking about a dead guy's dick.

Your Sunday Morning Prop Noise

The Bumble Bee:

Caturday

World War III is Underway

British counterterrorism police are investigating whether Russian spies planted a bomb in a parcel that caught fire at a delivery warehouse after arriving on a plane to the United Kingdom.

Fire crews and staff tackled the blaze on July 22 at the DHL warehouse in Minworth, near Birmingham.

No-one is thought to have been injured in the incident first reported by The Guardian and German broadcasters.

The package – said to contain an incendiary device – is believed to have arrived at the DHL warehouse by air but further details about the plane and its flight path are unknown.

A similar incident reportedly took place in Germany in the same month and investigators are looking at links between the two.

The Russians have been hinting for awhile that they are at war with the West. We should take them at their word.

In this war, we have the New Axis of Evil: Russia, Iran and North Korea. The only reason that China hasn't formally joined the Axis is because of the risk to their economy. North Korea, besides sending old military stock, is now sending troops. They are the equivalent of the "little green men" that Russia sent to fight in Ukraine in 2014.

This is important because the Republicans are running a candidate who seeks to join the Axis. Neville Chamberlain may not have been eager to go to war, but he knew, at least, who the enemy was. But, as in the late 1930s and early 1940s, we have a good amount of a political party which identifies with our enemies. They seek, as do the Russians and the Chinese, to make the world safe for another global conflict.

Oh, they say different, but anyone with six functioning brain cells recognizes that not doing everything possible to stop Russia now risks a wider war. Just as it did when the Western Europeans and, yes, the Americans, failed to do what could have been done in 1936 to stop Nazi Germany from igniting another world war.

Russia is not going to stop with Ukraine. Anyone who has paid a smidgen's worth of attention to Putin's rhetoric knows that.

Failing to stop the Russians in Ukraine will effectively greenlight a PRC invasion of Taiwan.

If we don't outlast and stop the Russians now, then by the end of this decade, if not sooner, we will be fighting Russia and possibly China. If you have kids who are between the ages of ten and twenty, now, they will be drafted into the Army to fight the Third World War.

And we will be damned lucky if it doesn't end with the flight of a few thousand ICBMs and SLBMs.

Save the planet. Save civilization. Stop Russia. Whatever it takes.

And, for all that is holy, do not vote for a Republican in this election.

Because It's Friday

"Caroline", built by the Stephenson Locomotive Works in 1861.

A Use for the Kola Borehole

The Kola superdeep borehole was a Soviet/Russian research project. Hole SG-3 reached a depth of 40,000+ feet.

It is still not deep enough to dump Randall Terry into.

Spiking These Down, Here

"Anybody who is undecided in this election would get killed crossing the street, because they would stop on the yellow line and go into brain-lock."

The War Crimes Database

This one is of American alleged war crimes in the Wars of the Chimperor.

Unhinged Donnie and the Wannabee Tyrants Who Are Using Him

First, go read this by Heather Cox Richardson. I'll wait.

While you're reading it, know that Trump says that he is the father of IVF. Which, of course, is a lie that is so blatant that it is bizzare. He is getting more and more unstable.

Done?

It is not beyond the realm of possibility is the reason that Murdoch, Thiel and Musk (the Three Evil Foreigners) are pouring their money and influence into the Trump campaign because they see him as temporary. Trump's dementia is progressing. He can't maintain a coherent line of thought. He rambles, blathers, and cannot understand basic concepts.

If he wins, then what? I would guess that, before 2025 has run out, that Trump will either resign because of his health or be pushed out. Vance will then become president, a completely untrained and unready president. Yes, it's kind of amazing that Republicans, who claimed that President Obama was unqualified. They ignore that Obama was a state senator for seven years and then a U.S. Senator for tour years. Vance, in comparison, has only been in the Senate for less than two years.

Vance's campaign for Senate was pretty much funded by Peter Thiel. So it is not a stretch to say that Thiel owns Vance. With the additional money of Musk and the influence of Murdoch's press empire, we now have three foreigners who are aiming to take control of the Federal government with an avowed goal of destroying our democracy. Vance is a religious ideologue of the worst kind. Thiel simply hates democracy. Musk is nothing more than a rich thug who is like Trump on steroids; it's all about him and fucking everyone who is foolish enough to work for him.

All four of them basically hate this country. They want to bring it back to the 1880s, when families were large, non-rich kids went to work at a very early age, there were no taxes on the rich, no unions, and voting was effectively restricted to white men whether by law (for women) or terror (for minorities).

Defrosting These Down, Here

Welcome to the Party, Pal; NYT Ed.

The New York Times has finally flatly observed that Trump is declining cognitively.

Does this mean that the era of sanewashing his blatherings is over?

A Question For Those Who Say That Trump Will Be Better for Gun Owners

Tell me this: What did he do for you when he was the president?

He thought that the government should take people's guns away and then maybe have due process. He banned bump stocks.

Nationwide CCW reciprocity? Not even close to being enacted. The Hearing Protection Act, to remove suppressors from Title III? Never went anywhere. The Republicans had the Congress for the first two years of his term and they did nothing. Trump didn't push them because, if he's not making a buck off of something, he has the attention span of a senile goldfish.

In conclusion, if you say that Trump would be good for gun owners, that assertion is not supported by any evidence.

Donnie and His Cultists Belong in Prison for Encouraging Terrorism

ETA: A stupid-ass jackhole was arrested.

Meteorologists tracking the advance of Hurricane Milton have been targeted by a deluge of conspiracy theories that they were controlling the weather, abuse and even death threats, amid what they say is an unprecedented surge in misinformation as two major hurricanes have hit the US.

A series of falsehoods and threats have swirled in the two weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through six states causing several hundred deaths, followed by Milton crashing into Florida on Wednesday.

The extent of the misinformation, which has been stoked by Donald Trump and his followers, has been such that it has stymied the ability to help hurricane-hit communities, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).

They are having a real effect and their antics are adversely impacting their communities.

Aid to several communities impacted by Hurricane Helene was temporarily paused in parts of North Carolina over the weekend due to reports of threats against Federal Emergency Management Agency responders, amid a backdrop of misinformation about responses to recent storms.

Some FEMA operations were paused in Ashe County out of an abundance of caution Sunday, Ashe County Sheriff B. Phil Howell said on Facebook. This includes in-person applications for aid in at least two locations “due to threats occurring in some counties,” according to the county’s emergency management office. That assistance is expected to resume Monday.
...
On Saturday, FEMA workers had to halt their work in Rutherford County, southeast of Asheville, due to reports that National Guard troops saw “armed militia” threatening FEMA workers, according to the Washington Post, which cited an email to federal agencies helping with the response, verified by unnamed federal officials.

It takes some real low-wattage Trumpanzees to go around threatening workers who are there to help people. This is what we get with the COFF spewing his lies and bullshit into the ears of dimbulbs who only get their news from Fox and similar outlets.

Funny thing: The die-hard Trumpy cultists I know all say that they watch both Fox and CNN. Which just goes to show that lying is endemic to that ilk.

Non-PC Snark for This Morning

Actually, the proper way to commemorate Columbus Day is to go somewhere you've never been, kidnap a couple of people who live there, take them home to be your slaves, and infect the rest with lethal diseases.

The New Oath for the American Armed Forces (if Putin's Poodle Wins)

"I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the United States and its people, Donald Trump, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfil my official duties, so help me God!"

If you think that is far-fetched, then I implore you to think again:

During his first term as president, Donald Trump tested the limits of how he could use the military to achieve policy goals. If given a second term, the Republican and his allies are preparing to go much further, reimagining the military as an all-powerful tool to deploy on U.S. soil.

He has pledged to recall thousands of American troops from overseas and station them at the U.S. border with Mexico. He has explored using troops for domestic policy priorities such as deportations and confronting civil unrest. He has talked of weeding out military officers who are ideologically opposed to him.

Loyalty tests for military officers? How's that going to work? Are they going to troll the FEC's webiste to see who donated to what? Put them on a lie detector and ask whom they've voted for? Put MAGA zampolits in each unit? Court-martial those who are not Trumpies? Putin can tell him how to do that.

The scary thing is that Trump, who has been getting more and more racist in his blatherings, is all but promising a military dictatorship and most Republicans seem to be on board with that.

Which brings me back to a point that I have made time after time: Republicans are loyal to their party and its leader, not to their country. In short, at the current day and age, you can be an American or you can be a Republican.

You cannot be both.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

M-02J:

Caturday

Chip is waiting for his lupper.

Plowing These Down, Here

Seems that Emperor Alexander (NSA, Ret.) Was Just Your Garden-Variety Trump-Grade Grifter

If you've been a long-time reader of this blog, you may recall that I have been rather critical of Keith Alexander, the former head of the NSA. He was a Giulianist, in that every justification he uttered for increasing the power and decreasing the oversight of the NSA was "non, verb, 9-11" in its construction. he was pretty much an authoritarian to his bone marrow, decrying freedom of the press and dedicated to protecting the United States at the cost of destroying everything that made us different from the USSR.

As he left the job a decade or so ago, it seemed somewhat clear that he was filling his pockets with stuff that would make him rich. He started a company that burned through a shitload of venture capital money and now it's gone tits-up.

Alexander was/is just a garden-variety grifter, using his reputation and fuck-all else to get the venture capitalists to shower him with billions to invest in his operation, a company that had no discernable value. I have little doubt that he raked in a few shit-tons of cash during the lifetime of his little grift. Allegedly.

My outrage is tempered by the apparent fact that he allegedly swindled the venture capitalists, a group of people that, in part, are responsible for the hollowing-out of American industry. So there is that.

Because It's Friday

There is something special about the big Northerns.

Clubbing These Down, Here

BREAKING: Donald Trump is currently speaking at an arena with LOTS of EMPTY SEATS in Reading, PA. You can see him on stage and hear him speaking in this video. pic.twitter.com/UwIqN2WYCA

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 10, 2024

Kremlin Confirms Donnie Sent Covid Testing Machines to His KGBFF

They've confirmed that, as the pandemic took hold, Trump cared more about Putin than he did Americans.

But you and I know that they're cult members who deny reality at every turn.

" Update: Some anacephalic in the RWNM called it "diplomacy.

Pro-Fetus Bullshit in Georgia

Georgia wide receiver Colbie Young was arrested Tuesday on charges of battery and assault on an unborn child.

Athens-Clarke County jail records show Young was booked at 4:18 a.m. on the misdemeanor charges.

He's not being charged with assaulting his girlfriend, only with assaulting her fetus. I guess by Georgia law, she's merely a carrier, a by-stander, someone of no legal consequence.

Like slaves were.

H/T

A Russian Joke

Q. What is the difference between a skeleton in the woods with a bullet hole in the back of its head and Vladimir Putin?

A. Time.

If the Roberts Court Was Around in the Middle of the 20th Century: Segregation Forever!

A very long time ago, I read some history about the runup to Brown v.Board of Ed. You may recall that was the case which first tossed out segregation.

The way the NAACP and others got there was by case after case, each demonstrating that "separate by equal" was in nowise equal. In each case, the Supremes tried to fix the issue at hand. Finally, it got to the point where it became obvious that there was no way to fix "equal," that the segregationists would not comply in good faith. So the Court sucked it up and tossed out Plessy for good.

And don't forget that it was the Suprme Court in the second Nixon term which made him turn over the tapes.

Neither would have happened in the current day. The Supremes are guided by ideology, not by such things as statutes or precedent. They decide what they want to have happen and then they twist the law and the facts to reach their desired outcome. If the Roberts Court were riflemen, they would shoot at a blank wall and draw circles around the bullet holes. Like this joke:

One of the best marksmen in the FBI was passing through a small town. Everywhere he saw evidences of the most amazing shooting. On trees, on walls, and on fences there were numerous bull's-eyes with the bullet hole in dead center. The FBI man asked one of the townsmen if he could meet the person responsible for this wonderful marksmanship. The man turned out to be the village idiot. "This is the best marksmanship I have ever seen," said the FBI man. "How in the world do you do it?" "Nothing to it," said the idiot. "I shoot first and draw the circles afterward."

So if the Roberts Court was around back in the day, we'd still be dealing with segregation and Nixon would have finished out his term. He is going to go down as one of the worst Chief Justices since the Civil War, if not of all time.

What I don't know, as others have have stated, is how a law school professor teaches Constitutional Law in the era of the Roberts Court. There is no legal principle underlying their decisions, only political and ideological ones. It'll all get twisted to fit. For them, 2+2=3, if the value of 3 can be twisted. Or, to put it another way: Might makes right.

Which is a very long way of say that, as the Spremes start this term, don't expect anything from them other than decisions which conform to right-wing ideology. And, of course, more stories about Thomas's "legal" corruption and grifting.

Maybe He Is Just That Stupid; USSC Ed.

[Chief Justice John] Roberts was, we are to believe, caught off guard by the vast majority of legal scholars and public non-scholars seeing it as an egregious and crooked attempt to immunize the coup-attempters and describe a path by which they could best succeed in their ongoing attempts this time around.

That claim, if it is indeed accurate, leaves us with only two possible interpretations of events. Either Roberts is, truly, among the most vapid, hollow-headed and stupid Americans to ever be appointed to the bench, to be caught so unawares, or the man has crawled so far up his own colon that he no longer can see the sky. Dear God, he was surprised by this outcome?

Go read the whole thing, it is just delicious.

Hurricane or No, If Biden Did This, the Press Would Lead With It

Trump thinks that the governor of Maine, Janet Mills, is a man.

Former President Donald Trump made a string of false statements on a Monday call to Maine supporters during which he repeatedly referred to Gov. Janet Mills as “he” and conflated issues affecting the lobster industry.

He also thinks that he went to Gaza, when there is no evidence that he ever did.

If Mar-a-Lago has a memory-care unit, it's time to move the poor man into it, bless his blasted and corrupted heart.

Never Forget That Meatball Ron is the Sort of Fascist Ruler That Trump Dreams of Being

He is threatening to bring criminal charges against groups who run campaign ads that he disagrees with.

Florida is pretty much an authoritarian wasteland. Those who Ol' Shrimp Boots disagrees with are threatened with criminal prosecution. That includes people who sign petitions that he does not approve of.

Trump’s Chinese Bibles

His "patriotic Bibles" are printed in China for about $3 apiece.

His Bibles are cheap pieces of Commie garbage. Just like his watches.

Never Forget: Trump and Putin are Besties

Donald Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving office and secretly sent the Russian president COVID-19 test machines during the height of the pandemic, Bob Woodward reported in his new book, “War.”
...
Woodward reports that Trump asked an aide to leave his office at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, so that the former president could have a private call with Putin in early 2024. The aide, whom Woodward doesn’t name, said there have been multiple calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left office, perhaps as many as seven, according to the book, though it does not detail what they discussed.
...
Woodward reports that Trump sent Putin COVID-19 test machines for his personal use as the virus began spreading in 2020.

Putin told Trump not to tell anyone because people would be mad at Trump over it, but Trump said he didn’t care if anyone knew, according to the book. Trump ended up agreeing not to tell anyone.

So, when COVID testing machines and other supplies were in really short supply, Putin's Asset was sending that stuff to his master in Moscow. And, when the TOFF was stewing in Mar-a-Lago after being booted from office, he was having private conversations with his KGBFF Putin at the same time he had boxes of classified documents in his bathroom.

Does anyone have any doubt, at this point, that the Trump family is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Putin, Inc.?

Lock them up.

Lock them all up.

Confusing These Down, Here

This Is Bad; Milton Ed.

Hurricane Milton has intensified into a category five storm.

it may weaken by the time it hits the West Coast of Florida, but that is just relative. It is still going to be a significant storm. If you're in its path, it could be bad. if you're on the West Coast of Florida, where it comes as shore, it could be very bad.

The Russians Have Been Buying European Politicians

A Russian-backed "propaganda" network has been broken up for spreading anti-Ukraine stories and paying unnamed European politicians, according to authorities in several countries.

Investigators claimed it used the popular Voice of Europe website as a vehicle to pay politicians.

The Czech Republic and Poland said the network aimed to influence European politics.

Voice of Europe did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Czech media, citing intelligence sources, reported that politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary were paid by Voice of Europe in order to influence upcoming elections for the European Parliament.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel said the money was either handed over in cash in covert meetings in Prague or through cryptocurrency exchanges.

We know that the Russians have been paying for a covert media operation in this country. They have paid a number of Right-wing influencers to spout Russian propaganga.

So, is it beyond the realm of possibility that the Russians have been channeling money to American politicians who are willing to take Putin's cash to spread his lies? If so, then I would suggest that some deep investigative attention be paid to the American appeasers who are spouting the same line as Moscow.

You know who they are. And it goes right to the top of the GOP, for, as the old saying goes, fish rot from the head.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

Habu!



I saw one paint on a SPS-40. The radar made something like four sweeps and it was gone.

The Joy of Living in Red States

Lesser pay, lesser rates of education and higher rates of spousal abuse, poverty, teen pregnancies, homicides, suicides, divorce, addiction, poor water, bad air, homelessness and so much more!

It all stems from rich bosses exploiting poorly-paid workers and conning them into voting against their own interests. But sometimes, just sometimes, they don't.

Oklahoma Christian Taliban Sleeps With Trump

The Christian Talibanistas who control the school system there are requiring that the Bibles that will be placed in school are the FOFF's brand. Which sell for $60-90 a copy and you know, don't you, that there is no such thing as a volume discount for Trumpist merch.

Three million taxpayer dollars to buy Bibles from Felon^34 or his drug-addled kid.

Stupid and/or corrupt seems to describe Baja Kansas.

Hypocritical MAGA Republicans: Cut FEMA Funding and then Whine About Disaster Response

That's what they do.

Maybe Elon Musk and the Donald can pay for it all.

A Few Curmudgeonly Words on Those Electric Commuting Helicopters

There has been a lot of press on them over the last week or two. I have some thoughts.

First off, they are going to need helicopter pilots with commercial ratings to fly them. A lot of pilots. Where are they going to get them, unless the companies send their own people through a training mill? Helicopter licenses are expensive to get, far more expensive than fixed-wing licenses.

So they are going to be hiring from the bottom of the barrel, for any pilot with experience is going to go where the real money is,and that's not schlepping two people from lower Manhatten to JFK or laGarbage and back. Yes, I know they claim that they are four seaters, but four seaters with luggage? Nope.

Second, while localities may not be able to stop those things from flying over them, they damn sure can regulate where they land. You aren't going to be able to call an airUber to pick you up from the nearest public park.

Third, if something goes wrong, you likely will die. Adult helicopters have large rotors; if the engine fails, the pilot quickly transitions into autorotation. That uses the airflow over the rotor to keep it turning, which results in a very fast, very steep, controlled descent. If the helicopter goes too slowly, the rotor stops turning and then the helicopter assumes the flight characteristics of a similarly-sized box. (There is a zone of flight, translational flight, from takeoff to cruise (and vice versa) where the helicopter is not going fast enough or high enough to autorotate in the event the engine fails, which means you die.) The electric helicopters have little rotors that are too small to autorotate. So if the electrical system shits the bed, well, you might as well hope you're over a cemetery, because that's where you're ending up.

Fourth, if those things are flying en masse to a large airport, they are going to saturate the air traffic control system. The FAA already has problems hiring, training and retaining enough controllers as it is. Your airLyft might take seven minutes to buzz to the airport, but it might have to wait ninety minutes for its landing slot. You might be better off taking a black car.

Fifth, if there is a way that these things will be able to fly IFR and comply with Part 135.215 et sec., I don't see how.

Sixth, keeping with Part 135, look at 135.209(b). Twenty minutes of power reserve would seem to be a good chunk of the possible range of the things.

And keep in mind that light helicopter flight over land is a fairly hazardous endeavor to start with. The FAA isn't going to care very much if the pilots kill themselves doing it, which is why ultralights are almost unregulated. As the aircraft get heavier and carry more people, the FAA cares more. And when they crash and kill people on the ground, then they care even more. A few crashes near the pickup points and, like the PanAm building helipad, those will go away, too.

I wouldn't be one to invest anything with the eChopper companies that I couldn''t afford to lose. And I damn sure am not sitting my pink ass in any of those flying coffins.

Caturday