The Democrats are Searching for Better Bloggers
Big Mike (right) crashed and burned behind the microphone, and the company is looking for replacements for the dismal ratings and viewer numbers of its podcasts and blogs. I heard it reported that they’re looking for “their” Joe Rogan – somebody who will advocate (with a straight face) for keeping murderous illegal aliens on American soil, for men competing in women’s sports, and for maintaining open borders and uncontrolled immigration – thereafter, cradle to grave payments to those aliens. Even traditionally left people are abandoning cherished political positions of the woke.
President Trump threatens the uniparty with the promise of disruptive politics continuing after his time in the White House. The Uniparty strikes back with Obama’s shrill, nasty, ungrateful, unhappy husband interviewing people and simply ranting about their aggrieved discontent and hatred for 80% of the American public.
The old trope, “You have to string a pork chop around your neck to make the dog lick you,” applies to the democrats – and it bothers them that they always have to pay to play. It’s like hiring protestors to show up and carry signs rather than relying on popular support.
Bullet Points:
** Taiwan has agreed to eliminate all tariffs on U.S. goods, joining India, Israel, Vietnam, and Cambodia—each now pledging to zero out their trade barriers.
** The woke have a lot to tell you. Let’s start here. Sen. Bernie Sanders owns three homes. He’s an Oligarch. Is he willing to give two of those homes to the homeless to walk the walk he’s talking?
** (WSJ) The world’s technology revolution is leaving Europe behind. Europe lacks homegrown alternatives to Google, Amazon, or Meta. Apple’s market value is bigger than that of the entire German stock market. The continent’s inability to create more big technology firms is seen as one of its biggest challenges and is a primary reason its economies stagnate. The issue is even more urgent with the prospect of higher tariffs threatening further curb economic growth. Investors and entrepreneurs say obstacles to tech growth are deeply entrenched: a timid and risk-averse business culture, strict labor laws, suffocating regulations, a smaller pool of venture capital, and lackluster economic and demographic growth. Having largely missed the first digital revolution, Europe seems poised to miss out on the next wave, too. The U.S. and China, flush with venture capital and government funding, are spending heavily on AI and other technologies that hold the promise of boosting productivity and living standards. In Europe, venture capital tech investment is a fifth of U.S. levels.
** (Fox News) The Trump administration lifted a stop-work order issued last month on a $5 billion wind project planned off the coast of New York, the project’s developer said. Equinor, a Norwegian energy company, said construction activities could resume on Empire Wind. This $5 billion project is expected to someday provide power for half a million homes in New York. The company warned that it could lose billions of dollars in response to the order issued on April 16, raising concerns that fully permitted developments representing billions in investment are not safe. It said it spent $50 million weekly to keep the project afloat during the suspension.
** Can you keep up with the Left’s terminology? I don’t care, but it’s a thing in some quarters.
** FAFO
** (ZeroHedge) It’s an interesting article. DOGE (advisors, not dictators) is going as far as it’s able, but $170 billion is far short of the $2 trillion that MUST be cut from government spending to bring the US to a balanced budget. It’s up to Congress to carry the ball; they don’t seem up to the task. Were they ever? So long as they can vote to borrow money, they will.
** Foxconn in Play—The Apple plant, which will be operational in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh by 2027, will manufacture Foxconn’s display driver chips used in consumer electronics. The deal comes as Apple suppliers increasingly look towards India to reduce their reliance on China amid tensions between Beijing and Washington. The tensions between China and the US are not ‘necessary’ in an abstract view, but they are something that China wants to push, and they’ll lose. If they’d been able to keep the Biden Crime Family or Kamala-the-stupid-whore in power, it might have turned out differently.
** Military recruiting is up across the board now that President Trump is in office. The left is mystified. Mentally healthy people don’t want to join a tranny/homosexual/DEI/Critical Race military. The mentally ill people who flocked to the tranny/DEI service were not the sort of people typically fit for military service.
Kon Tiki – 1947
In 1947, Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl came ashore in French Polynesia. He’d sailed across the Pacific, setting out from Peru on a 4,300-mile journey in a homemade raft made only with balsa logs and hemp rope. Heyerdahl intended to prove that pre-Columbian South Americans could have made this same journey using their primitive seafaring technology several centuries before, allowing them to spread their culture to the remote islands of the Pacific. After 101 days at sea, Heyerdahl completed his so-called Kon-Tiki expedition, leaving the world in awe.
Sometimes, you have to think it up and do it. He later crossed the Atlantic twice in his Ra Expedition. After several weeks, Ra took on water. The crew discovered that a key element of the Egyptian boatbuilding method had been neglected, a tether that acted like a spring to keep the stern high in the water while allowing for flexibility. Water and storms eventually caused it to sag and break apart after sailing more than 6,400 km (4,000 miles). The crew was forced to abandon Ra, some hundred miles (160 km) before the Caribbean islands, and was saved by a yacht.
The following year, 1970, Bolivian citizens Demetrio, Juan, and José Limachi of Lake Titicaca built a similar vessel, Ra II, from Ethiopian papyrus. It likewise set sail across the Atlantic from Morocco, this time with great success. The Ra II is now in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway. I saw it in the company of JohnD.
The Politics of Medicaid
(NY Post) It’s a political tar baby, and President Trump doesn’t want to tackle it (yet). This implies that we are unwilling to consider reform to the most wasteful and corruption-riddled category of the Federal Budget. In that case, one must wonder how serious the GOP and the Trump Administration are regarding meaningful spending reform.
According to the article: “He (Pres. Trump) paints with some colorful phrases, maybe that we hear more often here than we do in South Dakota,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) told The Post about Trump’s message to Republicans. “When he says don’t touch things … he means don’t make adjustments to the bill as drafted. “The president is the world’s best salesman,” Johnson added. “You could tell that he moved the room.”
The bill’s current version features a mandated 80-hour-per-month work requirement on able-bodied adults ages 19 to 64, set to take effect in 2029. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) suggested Monday that the work requirements be adjusted to take effect in “early 2027” before the full House votes. Some fiscal hawks wanted the requirement to take effect even sooner.
Medicaid, which provides health insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans, had a federal budget of about $618 billion last fiscal year.
Additionally, the mega bill currently requires Medicaid beneficiaries with annual incomes over the federal poverty line of $15,650 to pay up to $35 per medical service, lowers the Affordable Care Act expansion reimbursement rate for states that include illegal immigrants in the program, and restricts state Medicaid programs from reimbursing health care providers more than Medicare does.
In the Middle East
It is not whether Donald Trump gets a plane. It’s the emergence of the Gulf region as a locus of change in the world, and in most respects, a locus of positive change. These are flawed states, evolving governments, divided families, and complicated people; uncomplicated positives are a fantasy. Three countries are leading that change: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. To a lesser but not insignificant degree, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman are also part of the mix, all of which are graced with vast oil and natural gas resources.
What makes Qatar so extraordinary is that it has some of the largest natural gas resources in the world (almost 15% of the global total reserves), owned by the Qatari royal family and shared by fewer than 350,000 Qatari citizens and another 2.5 million residents. It also has close to $2 trillion in oil reserves.
The UAE has a million citizens and another nearly 9 million residents, with massive oil deposits in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah and a city in Dubai that has become a global financial and commercial hub.
Saudi Arabia has the world’s second-largest oil reserves behind Venezuela, but its oil is “lighter” and less expensive to refine, meaning that it is more profitable. It is supported by nearly 20 million Saudi citizens and an immigrant population of more than 15 million people.
When you visit these countries, the pulsating energy of change is palpable. It’s the same feeling as the United States and Western Europe in the 1990s after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s the same feeling as China after 2001, when it joined the WTO and foreign investment flooded in. It’s the same feeling as India in the 2010s and, to some degree, now. In the Gulf region today, it’s a youth-infused burst of affirmation that now is our time, bolstered by trillions of capital extracted from the soil. That fusion of cultural efflorescence married to money is potent.
The change in Saudi Arabia is almost entirely a function of the radical break that Muhammad Bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, engineered after 2018. After decades during which the Saudi ruling family had tethered its political legitimacy to the Wahhabi religious establishment, MBS ended that marriage and instated sweeping social reforms that brought women into the workforce and out of segregation. He denounced the backwardness of the Wahhabis and their religious myopia that had fomented civil wars and terrorism throughout the world. Any meaningful political reform did not accompany the humbling of the zealots; the Saud family still rules as a royal autocracy, and dissent is brutally punished. In his attempts to wipe out the Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, MBS was willing to see hundreds of thousands (of lesser mortals) die.
MBS articulated a vision of Saudi Arabia as a global force in the 21st century—most evident in its heavy investments in sports and next-generation technologies—not as an innovator, but as a provider of capital.
Is Chicago Broke?
The rest of Illinois will bail them out…
When Brandon Johnson won the Chicago mayor’s race, most of his donations came from organized labor, half from the teachers’ union where he once worked. Unions have long played a strong role in Chicago politics. And they get political payback from those they help elect. But critics say that dynamic adds to a crisis that’s bankrupting the city.
Today, 80% of property taxes paid by Chicago residents are allocated to retirement funds and pensions for public workers, including police officers and firefighters, and even that amount falls short of what’s needed. When unions negotiate higher salaries and better benefits, it boosts the pensions they’re promised later. But Chicago doesn’t have the money to cover those future costs, so the pension funds run short. It’s like promising a big retirement bonus without putting enough cash aside to pay for it.
The Chicago Teachers Union is a massive problem for Chicago. They strike every two to four years, make enormous demands, and tend to win. What’s education like in Chicago? It’s the worst in the nation.
They’re not taking taxpayer money into pension funds, but they have been giving it to workers to get even bigger salaries and make even bigger pensions. So the hole keeps getting bigger. They keep giving out more benefits to buy off the unions and get votes. So you’ve got this kind of marriage between the politicians and the unions to take care of each other, and it’s the ordinary people who are left out, having to pay higher taxes. Chicago’s pension funds are a shocking $53 billion short. That equates to about $45,000 per household of debt.
To help fix the shortfall, the city has doubled property taxes over the past ten years. But that hasn’t done more than stop the immediate bleeding.
Red light cameras. Not only do they slow people down, but they also raise a lot of money. There’s a dollar fee on every tire you buy. Bottled water, they have fees on everything because that’s the way the city has been trying to raise money, effectively nickel and diming you. They’re finding money, but it’s not real. Chicago is finding money, but is there any real fix to the larger problem of unions and pensions?
Identify the Aircraft
1
Two views – 260 built
2
33 built
3
4
Parting Shot
Yes, I’m a dinosaur. There emerged (from Afghanistan and Iraq) an “operator look” that included beards and greasy, long hair. I understand that it’s often difficult to shave or get a fresh haircut in the field, but the look was somehow adopted and incorporated into the culture. In the Navy, facial hair and long hair interfere with the apparatus, but the Navy somehow (to get “in the fight”) departed from being naval and became land warriors.
The same is true of the Marine Corps, which departed from amphibious and expeditionary. I realize there is a readjustment (apart from facial hair in the case of USMC) and think that’s smart.
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Vought SB2U Vindicator
2. Vought F6U Pirate
3. Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III
4. Vertol VZ-2
In five minutes — fast.
A.I. never sleeps.
But does, occassionally and if lucky, nap.
When you nap, do you dream of Electric Sheep?
What else could he count?
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Although not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.
#4 is a good example of using tufts for aerodynamic flow visualization. It’s hard to stuff a helicopter into a wind tunnel.
Breaking-
Two Israeli embassy staffers killed in D.C. by a gunman screaming, free Palestine! Disgusting!
This shooting parallels the shooting of the two government employees in Mexico City that Mr. Lambert mentioned yesterday. Both assassinations took out individuals that should have rated some level of protection or security.
The Mexican Federal government is seriously pissed off and moving quickly to arrest/kill the assassins.
I’m sure the Israelis has Mossad working their own investigation while coordinating with DHS and the FBI.
Well, supposedly DC is supposed to be safe. But we all know better.
The DC police caught the assassin. He is a member of the Communist front Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Thank you, I just saw that they have him in custody.
Let’s see which Democrat/Socialist he donated. Guessing we will know little about this guy and the story will drop from the MSM Propaganda machine by tomorrow….just like they brushed past PDJT’s $5M settlement with Ashley Babbitt’s family for her murder…took Trump to do this as a way to [sort of] assuage the travesty. Waiting for Patel/Bondi to indict Byrd.
good luck with that. patel and bongino have clearly been threatened into inaction. appears bondi as well. the deep state can/will get to anyone against them. everybody talks big stuff until they wake up with a dead hooker in their bed.
The old dead hooker in the bed trick with a kilo of cocaine spread around on every flat surface in the house – and a search warrant is conveniently served to capture every selacious moment. It’s now admissible in court. Murder, sex, drugs – sounds like a weekend at Epstein’s Island, doesn’t it
“BUT I’m INNOCENT,” you explain as they zip up the hooker in the body bag. “Tell it to the Obama appointee judge.”
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Welcome to the Swamp.
“patel and bongino have clearly been threatened into inaction. appears bondi as well”
Nonsense! Non possumus!
I’m sure they were merely told that, if the stress of their jobs was too much, they’d have the opportunity to take a “mental health rest” at Bethesda Naval Hospital (Walter Reed). On the 16th floor in the James Forrestal Memorial Suite.
Your thought-exercise for today is, find more than 1 assassination in the US done by a conservative. I’m not talking Hollywood assassins (still remember the first episode of the remade “SWAT” where the #1 problem for Los Angeles was, survey says, white neonational Christian conservative males) but real actual shooters.
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Do the same with bombers.
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Do the same with any attack for political reasons.
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It’s scary. The people that condone violence and guns are the very ones doing the violence and using the guns.
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So far, even with all my dark thoughts, my guns have not run out of the house and killed anyone. Neither have I actually killed anyone. But, according to the leftists I am the dangerous one.
How to fix (at least part of) the mess in Chicago? (Hint: the fix can also help with a lot of problems we have in other States, DC and especially Federally)
BAN and Outlaw any and ALL Public sector Unions. We have seen that there are Massive conflicts of interest when Union demands go to politicians who pay for those demands with other people’s money, while also getting bribes, kick backs and/or support from those same Unions.
It is a Negative feedback loop that re-enforces the power of the Unions and the Politicians while Draining and weakening the Tax payers who are forced to pay for results of Union “negotiations” that are hidden and corrupt.
I do support the rights of Unions to exist in the free enterprise system. That system provides the freedom of the consumer to veto products and practices they don’t like or trust.
The Public sector Unions can never provide that to the Tax payers they fleece.
But the Public Sector Unions grow ever larger.
Because the more the Politicians fleece from Tax payers the more support, bribes and kick backs the Unions give to those same Politicians.
Is it any wonder we see the Behemoth Unionized Work Force that can only grow larger and Must Never be Cut.
MSG Grumpy
x1
Oregon’s Democratic political machine is certainly in bed with the unions. There’s a measure being considered in the House of Representatives that would give unemployment benefits to striking workers.
Great.
Is being paid a daily stipend from Union funds for walking a picket line insufficient?
Only Big Mike’s hairdresser knows for sure about that hairstyle. It’s like a stereotype of a stereotype. Tres chic, in a very sarcastic way of speaking.
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Europe’s other problem is they’ve worked real hard for a long time to turn themselves into Northwest Shitstainistan, a venture at which they’ve been quite successful. That won’t end well.
Mickey Mouse ears are in style!
Maybe so, but Big Mike had the “stegosaur” hairstyle.
In the immortal words of John Malkovich, “Leave Mickey out of it”.
https://clip.cafe/red-2-2013/you-think-im-going-roll-over-you-hegemonic-mickey-mouse-loving-americans/
“Chicago is finding money, but is there any real fix to the larger problem of unions and pensions?” It surprised me the first time I heard this, but even FDR was opposed to government workers being unionized. I always thought FDR was the closest anyone ever got to being considered a god to the left.
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As for DOGE, they were too easily thwarted. I guess they hit so fast that the left had no idea what was going on. When DOGE started doing things like getting USAID cut and breaking all those ways money gets fed back to the politicians, they started getting attacked by the administrative state.
DOJ Civil Rights division is going after Chicagos mayor over hiring discrimination.
They’re all felonies.
So are those who signed with the autopen…this one is already gaining traction…as the rats scurry for the dark corners in order to hide from prosecution.
The pardons won’t hold up. Whether DOJ has the stones to pursue them for their high crimes is something else. We’ll see.
Pivotal Helix = a manned drone
Yes, please. I’ll take two (plus 10 parking spaces)
Oh Hell NO! Just what I want flying around. Flaming sparky aircraft! Yay!
Tranny fluid. Heh, my old school brain immediately defaults to ATF. No, I don’t drink that either. I do run Marvel Mystery Oil in our ageing internal combustion engines, even our lawn mower. It’s good stuff, keeps those hydraulic lifters and piston rings clean and working like they should.
Marvel Mystery Oil…is a marvel on older motors and engines.
Does anyone still use slick 50?
Bill Clinton?
– Kle.
The Democrats cannot see past their collective noses, they have NOBODY to capture the hearts of Americans. They are trying to derail the BB Bill (which is more like a howitzer), even if we only got $4k in SSA tax relief…because the House knew ‘We will do nothing to help Trump, and by extension, American’s” Senate would not get 60 votes if ‘no SSA tax’ was in there. All they need is 51 now…do clean up later. The games these people play with our money and lives…out of spite and hatred.
👍
“The World’s Technology Revolution…”
from the very beginning we were a nation of risk-takers, the people who came here (up ’til recently), the same; there were no limitations to what we could do, the government didn’t get involved (or at least minimally); there were no paper-pushing nannies dreaming up regulations “for our safety and well-being” and fines to discourage exploration of the limits
Europe (the “European Union”) has placed itself in handcuffs (based upon the German model, IMHO); new regulations and limits (and fines for disregarding them) being promulgated daily – and, very unfortunately, we, the U.S.A., are racing to catch up.
children (in public schools) are being taught “hottentottische Sprache” in lieu of standard English, as well as an unspeakable method of learning simple mathematics designed to confuse the brightest of students (IMHO) – (and most public school teachers defend this abomination yet); homeschooling and/or private education has become the only way to escape this morass if you value your (grand)children
personally I’d watch what MbS will probably do with the Saudi education system over the next 5/10 years (unless he’s deposed) – unless I mistake my guess, it’s likely to begin resembling the Israeli’s
I have to throw my two cents in about public sector unions. As a fire fighter I was a member of the IAFF. Though I hated being a Union member I was also aware that without the Union we would have been paid pennies and treated like shit. Administrations love to balance budgets on the backs of Public Safety.
In Sleepy Joes’ ‘home town’ of Scranton, they had a Mayor who hated the Police and Fire services. Read on and hopefully realize that in some sectors the Unions are needed. Also take note that he was first elected as Mayor in 2001. The budget crisis he’s wining about was caused by him!
https://www.firehouse.com/leadership/news/10737498/scrantons-fire-union-files-lawsuit-to-over-turn-mayor-chris-dohertys-slashing-of-salaries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Doherty
There is a way to address public sector unions. Make it illegal for a politician to accept a campaign contribution or other funds from anyone (no matter how far derivative) whose salary they approve. Public sector unions use contributions to “fund” candidates who vote their salaries. Absent that, the union should work.
Chicago can’t survive without a huge influx of money, or by declaring bankruptcy. Theoretically, the pensions should be exposed to the “plan” where the largest creditors decide by vote how little to accept as compensation for their debt. It can be pennies on the dollar, and those with pensions may find their income drying up. The well is running dry, and when it runs out of water, all the wishing in the world won’t yield a drop.
I’m an expert on Chapter 9 Bankruptcy – (shameless plug) https://www.amazon.com/Orange-County-Bankruptcy-Investigative-Summary/dp/1463714157/ref=sr_1_1
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The pensions would stand in first place as the county liquidates its assets. Maybe the airport would belong to the pension system, or maybe Chicago owns other assets that could be sold for the benefit of the union. There is precedent for this.
Go Thor! Mind you, with a name like that you kind of have to be pretty gung-ho. All Thor’s need to be wildly adventurous and fearless. You wouldn’t catch Thor drinking Bud light. Thor drinks moonshine mixed with tequila in a wolf skull.
I thought that Thor drank kumis or airag from the wolf’s skull – (fermented mare’s milk blended with horse blood). It will put hair on your chest.
Wrong group. Thor drinks ale and mead from the skull of his enemies (giants have big skulls, Thor has big thirsts.)
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Guys named ‘Chingis’ or ‘Kubla’ drink kumis and airag from the wolf’s skull.
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Thor – Tall white guy with beard and long hair in braids who doesn’t ride on a horse.
Chingis/Kubla – Tallish tanned/yellowish guy with some beard and long hair in braids who rides a horse to get from the gyr or yurt to the outhouse.
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Both have long hair in braids. Both sing epic sagas and songs while drunk. Both have huge followings.
LL – are you saying Jules wants a hairy chest????
I can’t speak for Jules or her preferences. I suspect she’d prefer to drink a margarita from the wolf’s skull, or if not that, a glass with salt crusting the rim.
** Do you drink tranny fluid?
The underlying message with ‘lite’ beer is you can get just as drunk, but with fewer calories. We all know alcohol itself has no calories, don’t we?
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Big Mike’s hairstyle. You need to be creative when overcoming male pattern baldness.
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** Flying with MRSBRM.
Just because you can, should you? If it doesn’t look ‘right’, I’m not going near it. That creation has so many components that can fail and the glide ratio of a cinder block.
What goes up, must come down.
Conversely, if it’s really bad, what goes down must come up.
Every takeoff, eventually has a landing. The problem is that not every landing is a Happy one.
Notable exception for the two Voyagers.
Also known as the winners of the in-Frequent Flyer
[only one take off for each]
High mileage club).
MSG Grumpy
where the heck is balochistan and why should we care if they declared independence? …..unrelated note- intel saying al-q/isil october 7 style attack due in 2025 to avenge bin laden. his birthday, death day and moohamid’s bday all have passed. the 12th month of islam is about to start 28may, the month of sacrifice. supposedly any sacrifice for islam will reap more better plus good points, especially the first ten days. june 6/7 would be optimum, coming off of the hajj on 5/6. just a heads up. the super snoopers are running routes over sparsely populated colorado rockies, also the destination of truckloads of ammo interdicted lately. enjoy your weekend, remember the fallen, but be alert/strapped at all times.
Historical Balochistan covers the southern part of the Iranian Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the west, the Pakistani province of Balochistan in the east, and, in the northwest, part of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. The Gulf of Oman forms its southern border. Mountains and deserts make up much of the region’s terrain. Most of the Baloch population inhabits Balochistan, predominantly within Pakistan’s borders.
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Geographically, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan (comprising 44% of the country’s total area), but it is the least developed and least inhabited, comprising only 5% of the total population. Sunni Islam is the predominant religion throughout the Balochistan region and they discriminate against the Shia – of course they do.
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Some people call it “Pakistan’s Alberta” with reference to Alberta, Canada, which has a lot fewer Muslims and East Indians living within its borders than reside in Ottawa, for example. As with Alberta, the Balochis want to keep the natural resources present for themselves rather than have them sent to Islamabad. They have decided that it’s a great time to work toward independence. If Canada balkanizes, why can’t Pakistan?
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If there weren’t a People’s Liberation Army, the threat of annihilation, China’s regions would leave Big China TOMORROW. There have been serious independence movements in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Western China. Hong Kong still needs an iron grip to keep it close to the bosom of Communist China. In the US in 1860, the Northern States fought a war of annihilation against the Southern States, which wanted to forge their own destiny. It’s not exactly uncommon.
Despite its critical natural resources (gas, gold, copper, oil, and uranium), the province has the lowest per capita income in Iran. Almost 80% of the Baloch live below the poverty line.
interesting, much appreciated.
Vinland, meaning “Wine Land” in Old Norse, refers to the area of North America explored and briefly settled by Norse Vikings around 1000 CE. In 1825, the Restauration sailed from Stavanger to New York with 52 Norwegian emigrants on board. Norwegians were the first to reach the South Pole and the North Pole. Thor Heyerdahl continued a long tradition of Norwegian explorers https://www.kon-tiki.no/en/home
Yes, and there is the long ship museum in Oslo. You were a magnificent host, my friend.
The congresscritters will NEVER stop borrowing money as long as we let them. Term limits and voting them out of office are the only way to rein them in…IMHO.
I think of government largess to be akin to having a favorite sin. The farmers all want princely subsidies not to grow things; Moguls who manufacture in China want to be able to keep doing it and enriching the Worker’s Paradise so long as they get their cut. Longshoremen want to earn $150.00/hour with a four day work week, etc. Everyone wants to dip their hook into the pot and withdraw a favored cut of meat but they are offended when others want to do the same. And none of them care about the national debt so long as THEY profit.
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Defense contractors are said to provide welfare jobs to the Middle Class and educated who otherwise might not find the same largess for skills not needed in the civilian world, etc.
Can’t speak for farmers today, but my dad wanted as little to do with government programs as possible. He made up the money difference with hard work.
Sadly, the “without a license” that clip promised is… not as true as hoped. A number of years back, the FAA created the “powered lift” category of aircraft in response to the Osprey and Harrier, trying to get regulatory framework in front of the emergence of the technology on the market instead of playing catch-up. It has long languished and been unknown to anyone outside the military pilots who try to convert their experience to civilian certs, only to be told that they’re going to be given commercial & instrument powered lift instead of airplane or helicopter, so they’ll have to do yet more conversion tests and checkrides to get something useful for making a living when they get out.
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However, the FAA has recently (within the last 4 years) announced that it’s re-opening powered lift to more types of aircraft, and will find a way to put all the VTOL and E-VTOL into it, and require proper certification of pilots and instructors, in much the same manner as they killed the explosion of the “fat ultralight” industry with the regulatory framework of Light Sport Aircraft.
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I may have feelings about the VTOL industry being in a race against time, and currently they’re running on borrowed time with their only advantages being bureaucratic inertia, and a regulatory pause brought about by the FAA’s *total* unwillingness to deregulate in order to reregulate under Trump’s “10 out for every 1 in” Executive Order.
What a popular post! Deservedly so. I like this: “The old trope, “You have to string a pork chop around your neck to make the dog lick you,” applies to the democrats – and it bothers them that they always have to pay to play. It’s like hiring protestors to show up and carry signs rather than relying on popular support.”
Yeah, the old trope. What a gang of thieving, lying, hypocritical, shrill, smug satanists.
At what point does astroturf collapse?
The Democrats will need to form a new party or sever themselves from the mentally ill if they wish to survive.
Long haired soldiers: American founding fathers, native Americans, Vikings, Mongols, etc. Wimps all of them. I believe short hair on soldiers was adopted with better rifles, where for cover soldiers laid down in the dirt. Before that fighters always fought standing up: swords, pikes, spears, arrows. Beans?
The Roman Legions wore their hair short.
The great tragedy of science — the slaying of an original, beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.