For Space Nerds, This is Yuuge!

The first full-duration test-firing of a recovered SpaceX booster.

It costs $60 million or so to make that booster stage. Being able to reuse them, reliably, will shave the cost of putting stuff into space.

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The Thin-Skinned, Short-Fingered Bully

Donald J. Trump’s unabashed and continuing hostility toward the parents of a slain Muslim American soldier, and his attacks on Republican leaders who have rebuked him for it, threaten to shatter his uneasy alliance with the Republican Party at the outset of the general election campaign.

Ignoring the pleas of his advisers and entreaties from party leaders in Washington, Mr. Trump only dug in further on Tuesday. He told a Virginia television station that he had no regrets about his clash with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq. And in an extraordinarily provocative interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Trump declined to endorse for re-election several Republicans who had criticized him, including the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who both face primaries this month.

The Donald just can't let anything go. He can't be a mensch about anything. Anybody that arouses his ire has to be attacked, even if doing so only lessens his own stature.

And this is the guy that about 30% of the GOP primary voters would trust with the power to order around Federal LEOs and the armed forces.

The bind moggles.

If he wins, he'll probably make it a Federal crime to insult the size of his hands.

Just the sort of thing that a short-fingered vulgarian would do.

Does Trump Know He's Going to Lose?

He's already complaining that the election will be rigged.

Which is funny since voter fraud seems to be a GOP thing.

The underlying thing is that Trump would rather be labeled a "victim" than a "loser". Which is a reason to hope for an Obama-grade blowout.

Remember When the Republicans Lambasted Bill Clinton for Being a "Draft Dodger"?

Bet they won't have shit to say about The Donald's five deferments. Just as they said nothing about Romney's or Cheney or Ashcroft or Quayle or Dubya or Limbaugh not going to fight.

Other than the points that (a) Trump can't keep his story straight as to why he wasn't drafted and (b) GOP hypocrisy, the "he didn't serve in Vietnam" is sort of a bogus charge. If you were alive and sentient at the time, you might recall that draft dodging was a very common endeavor, especially among middle-class and upper-class white boys.

Still, they all seem to become chickenhawks in the end.

Even if it was common as all fuck, Trump sort of stands out, though, as somebody who both dodged the draft and then didn't feel an ounce of guilt or remorse at the fact that somebody else had to go and fight in his stead. Because the meatgrinder that was the Vietnam War was always kept supplied with fresh cannon fodder.

Betrayal of Trust, British Army Edition

This is bullshit of a type that can only come from the honorless bastards who tend to populate the senior officer ranks in a military:

SAS soldiers believe they have been betrayed after military police were called in over a huge haul of ammunition, grenades and guns handed in during a weapons amnesty.

Senior commanders became alarmed by the vast stockpile despite “no questions asked” assurances given to members of the elite special forces regiment to encourage them to dump souvenirs collected during missions.

The soldiers have a right to feel outraged.

And as to the senior officers: Smart move, shafting an entire organization of trained killers. Sleep tight, you bastards.

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0300 Phone Call

As imagined by The Simpsons:

Wow, Donald, What a "Sacrifice"!

“I’ve given up a tremendous amount to run for president,” Trump told Blitzer. “I gave up two more seasons of Celebrity Apprentice.”

Kind of hard to equate that with having a limb blown off or being killed in combat, but he keeps trying:

In his first response to a searing charge at the Democratic National Convention from Khizr Khan, the father of a soldier killed in Iraq, that he "sacrificed nothing" for his country, Donald Trump claimed that he sacrificed by employing "thousands and thousands of people."

Yeah, getting rich is a real "sacrifice".

One thing that is becoming clearer and clearer about The Donald as this electoral season drags on: He has no sense of decency, only cruelty. There is not a spark of humanity in him, whatsoever.

Even people who have been GOP party operatives for three decades can's stand him, and anybody who worked for the Bush family had to have had a high tolerance for a lack of humanity in candidates.

I don't know how low Trump can go, but we have 99 days in which to find out. At some point, the desertion of Republicans from the Trump candidacy will look less like principled dissent and more like rats fleeing a sinking ship. And I suspect that the changeover point will be sooner rather than later.

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And this:

Not All of the Bundy Gang are Idiots

Some of them see the writing on the wall and are pleading out.

Anyway, since Ammon and his family are denying that they are American citizens, then why not brand them as terrorists and send them to cool their heels at Gitmo?