Calculating a Fearful Evolution of Godzilla

found online by Raymond

 
From The Journal of Improbable Research:

A movie monster, appearing in different forms in a series of movies, proves inspirational to two calculating scientists. They explain their calculations, in this study:

A Movie Monster Evolves, Fed by Fear,” Nathaniel J. Dominy and Ryan Calsbeek, Science, vol. 364, no. 6443, May 31, 2019, pp. 840-84.

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Jet Flight Safety

found online by Raymond

 
From Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

Flameouts Are No Fun

There is this stuff called “diesel exhaust fluid”. It’s not supposed to be used as a fuel additive. Diesel engines don’t like that.

But Murphy being the bastard that he is, DEF has been added into fuel stocks. it is really bad when it is added to Jet-A, which is essentially diesel fuel that is made to a higher purity level.

DEF has been found in Jet-A. What seems to be happening is that instead of adding anti-icing additive to Jet-A, the guys at the fuel farms at airports have added DEF.

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The Big Question on Impeachment

found online by Raymond

 
From Dave Dubya:

Polls show a majority against impeachment, but what does that mean?

I would be interested in knowing what the breakdown would be in those opposing impeachment. How many are just Democrats afraid of the process backfiring, compared to Trump loyalists?

Why do people think impeaching Trump will make him more popular?

Just because his toadies in the Senate love him, doesn’t mean anybody else will join the cult. Either way, Trump will gloat about not being impeached, as much as he would crow about the senate’s non-conviction.

I wonder if there are really that many independents who would shrug and say, “Gee, Trump’s fellow Republicans in the Senate voted not to convict. I’ll have to side with them.”

If that is the state of our democracy, we are doomed.

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Revolution at the ballot box

found online by Raymond

 
From Infidel753:

This is a political earthquake. Labour and the Conservatives are the two traditional major parties, like our Democrats and Republicans, and the Conservative party is in power in the actual British government right now. The Liberal Democrats are the long-standing third party, which usually gets a substantial share of the vote but much less than the big two. The Brexit party is a single-issue party formed just a few weeks ago, which has barely had time to get organized, yet it won far more votes than the big two combined. Add in the votes for UKIP (UK Independence Party, an older anti-EU party which I didn’t realize was still around), and about 35% of the vote went to single-issue pro-Brexit forces which the mainstream media in Britain have relentlessly tried to marginalize and ridicule. And the voters massively repudiated the political establishment, especially the party in power.

Perhaps the results aren’t surprising. It is almost three years since the original referendum in which the people voted to leave the EU (by a margin, please note, of four percentage points, twice as large in percentage terms as the margin by which Hillary won the popular vote here against Trump), and the country still does not have an agreed-upon plan or schedule for getting out.

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We Would Have Said So

found online by Raymond

 
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

Robert Mueller’s comments today in resigning from DOJ were brief but important. What he said wasn’t actually new or unexpected to anyone who read his report, but unfortunately, in a world where a lot of people take a “TL;DR” approach to important news stories, speaking publically aloud what should already be obvious matters a lot. (This doesn’t mean that what he said won’t still be misrepresented.)

To me, the five words that matter the most are the title of this post:

The order appointing the Special Counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. And we conducted that investigation and we kept the Office of the Acting Attorney General apprised of the progress of our work.

And as set forth in the report after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.

The report doesn’t actually say that the president didn’t commit a crime. It lays out a case regarding multiple instances of potential obstruction of justice for others (congress) to pick up because DOJ opinion was that this was the correct thing to do. The report also doesn’t say that no evidence of “collusion” exists, rather that insubstantial evidence for criminal conspiracy exists.

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To Exonerate or Not to Exonerate

Shorter Mueller:

  • We are not allowed to say the President is guilty.
    Not even if there is overwhelming evidence.
  • We are only allowed to say the President is innocent.
    And we would if it was so.
  • So we are not saying.
     
  • Here’s the overwhelming evidence without comment.


Shorter Barr:
     See? No evidence.

Shorter Trump:
     See? Totally Innocent.

It’s Alright – Matt and Kim

Music I happen to like
– Aria

Probably NSFW

Matt is Matthew Wesley Johnson.
Kim is Kimberly Ann Schifino.

They’ve been a duo since 2004.

This has been around for five years or so.

Aunt Tildy was a little reluctant to approve it at first.
Then she figured out they’re just dancing horizontally.
Besides, Buick owners seem to like it.

Nobody really cares about the words.
But in case you’re kind of lyric-obsessive:
Continue reading “It’s Alright – Matt and Kim”

The ‘Dixie Chicks President,’ Only Worse

found online by Raymond

 
From Dorian Estuardo de Wind at The Moderate Voice:

When you thought it just could not get any worse, it did. When one thought this president could not bust any more norms of decency, morality and patriotism, he did, and on foreign soil, making the Dixie Chicks look like choir girls.

After insulting his Japanese host, and the Japanese people, by playing down the threat North Korea’s short-range ballistic missiles pose to Japan, and after once again heaping praise on and crooning about his love affair with the murderous North Korean dictator, Trump smeared a former U.S. Vice President almost in the same breath.

“Paraphrasing” Kim Jong-un, Trump tweeted: “…also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan [sic] a low IQ individual, & worse….”

It is not clear whether Trump was referring to the despot “smiling” or, worse, to himself sneering.

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Before It Is Lost To History…

found online by Raymond

 
From driftglass:

…let us pause to remember one of the most cherished rituals of the Conservative media during the Obama Administration:

For eight years, tracking Obama’s use of the personal pronouns “I” and “me” has been a cherished ritual in the conservative media — one small way to promote the idea that the president is self-centered and therefore out of touch with all the decent, hard-working folks out there.

On Tuesday, the Drudge Report linked to an American Mirror story that criticized Obama for “repeatedly talking about himself” — 40 mentions in 22 minutes! — when he welcomed the World Series-winning Chicago Cubs to the White House. The American Mirror noted that Obama said stuff like this: “I will say to the Cubs: ‘It took you long enough.’ “

What a narcissist.

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Gun Owning Legislator Gets Reckless In Statehouse

found online by Raymond

 
From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:

Sortwell Owes Answers on Gun Incident

Gun owners are often their own worst enemies. At the national level, the scandals surrounding the National Rifle Association may do more to hurt the organization’s ability to defend the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners than any particular election, court ruling or terrible mass shooting tragedy.

But it isn’t just the big incidents that ill-serve gun owners. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) allegedly decided to show his gun to a Democratic legislative staffer, Savion Castro, to (allegedly again) demonstrate the supposed silliness of the sign banning guns outside the office Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison). Sortwell was visiting the office of Stubbs on an unrelated matter when the alleged incident supposedly occurred.

Stubbs, for whom Castro works, is demanding an apology from Sortwell. Sortwell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he wouldn’t answer their questions. After disputing the Journal Sentinel’s account, Sortwell told WKOW he would not give his side of events because, he allegedly told the reporter, his constituents don’t care.

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