Blackbeard's Recap 1

I actually got to the Bahamas as planned this trip. Was up at 0300 driving in the rain to get to the airport and happily there were no mechanical issues on this flight. Made it to my connecting flight at LaGuardia Airport with no problems and one heckuva long walk between the flights.

Made it in on Friday and stayed at the Bayview Suites on Paradise Island, which is a darn nice hotel. 

At the hotel, I repacked for live-aboard mode as opposed to flying mode so I was ready.

I then had a nice 10-minute walk in the sun to Anthony's restaurant, where I had an outstanding Bahamas style curry and a local beer.

After a good night, I assembled everything and checked out, and waited for my ride to the boat.  In the lobby, I met up with another diver, Jay, who was also heading to Blackbeard's.

We got picked up and were dropped off at the Marina where a large number of divers waited as both  Blackbeard's Morning Star and Sea Explore as well as All Star's Cat Ppalu were getting ready to head out. It was a nice time chatting with a whole bunch of divers.

We then boarded the Morningstar.

I was going to sleep in the Galley cabin whcih has upsides and downsides.

Upsides:

a Bigger bed, twin sized even!

Further upside, the coffee pot was in arms reach from my bunk, which was also a downside as the cook had that thing chunking and burbling along loudly starting at 5:30 am.

I also had a great view of the phone booth from within which the cook made amazing meals.

I claimed and labelled my mug and got to unpacking.

Downside to the galley bunks is that the galley also had the shower, and when the shower was in use, the toiler was unavailable.   It also had less privacy than the other bunk areas so you typically had to change lying down in your bunk with the curtain drawn. 

A further upside is the galley area was one of the two social centers of the ship so there was always something going on and it was a fun bunch of people.  I must say I enjoyed it more than the bow, even with the challenges in changing.

We had a nice cold-cut lunch and after the excellent and thorough boat and dive safety briefings, we headed out to sea.

We had sufficient time to do a checkout dive and the location would be Periwinkle reef, that had been the last dive on the December trip.

Jay and I decided to be dive buddies, and we were a good pairing with similar outlooks on safety and diving in general.

We dove in and found ourselves inside a school of fish:

 

Quite a neat dive. The Yellow Snappers are always a happy sight.

It was a great first dive. 

Max depth 22.8 feet and 43 minutes.

We then had our first dinner on board, socialized with some after dinner beverages and hit the hay for what would be a big day.  We would start heading to the Eleutheras, as the weather in the Exumas was going to be not as favorable for diving.

High School Level: Completed

Today was the Senior Clap-Out to celebrate the very last day of High School for the graduating seniors.

They would walk through the school being cheered by the other students and then to the door.  Leah would be walking among them, graduating summa cum laude.

Parents awaited for the door to open and the seniors to come out and to cheer them on.  This included a parent in a T-Rex suit to mark the festive occasion - wish I'd thought of that myself.

So, at 2:30pm they walked out the door for the last time as students to the cheers of their parents.

Quite an emotional moment, many of the female students (and moms too) were tearing up. A very proud moment as well to see these kids walk forward into their futures.

All that remains are her IB exams, and then she's done with high school completely.

Back From Blackbeard's

Just back from an excellent week on a Bahamas dive live aboard again with Blackbeard's and on the mighty Morningstar.

Even while a couple of the dive sites were the same, it was a different trip from December.  The Morningstar had a completely different crew on this trip, and they were fantastic.  I also got to meet and be friends with a great new fun bunch of divers.

Weather was actually cooler and wavier than in December, with chilly winds and chillier evening dives. As a result, I got to dive the Eleuthras as well as the Exumas this time.

Saw lots of cool things and cool fish including the friendliest parrotfish ever:

 

I also had multiple neat shark encounters - and not just during the shark feeding dive.  I'm talking closer than during the shark dive.

More blogging on the trip to follow.

Sure China, We'll Discuss Doing That Right After Recognition Of An Independent Taiwan, Ok?

Reuters:  China's foreign minister says admitting Palestinian state to UN is move to rectify injustice

China's foreign minister Wang Yi on Saturday said efforts to admit a Palestinian state into the United Nations were a move to rectify a prolonged injustice, state media Xinhua reported.

. . .

"A prompt admission of Palestine into the United Nations is a move to rectify a prolonged historical injustice," Xinhua quoted Wang as saying.

 At least the Biden Administration did cave to the Islamist Democrat vote and actually did the right thing and vetoed this latest bit of rewarding ongoing acts of Hamas terrorism.

But sure thing Wang, right after recognition of Taiwan's independence is made by China and Taiwan gets a seat in the United Nations, I'm sure we can discuss rectifying "injustice", as counterfactual as that is,  in the Middle East.

 I'll note Taiwan that Taiwan has a far better claim to independent statehood and hasn't been firing rockets at, committing acts of terrorism, mass murder, or rape of its neighbors while China backed Hamas sure hasn't been holding back in those areas.

That's Quite The Rationalization There

Remember folks there's a socialist in National Socialist. And just as in the opast the Progressives are again finding common ground with national socialist ideas, acts, and symbols.

Frontpage: Swastikas Are Progressive Now: Vandalizing synagogues with swastikas is good, leftists argue.

Malcolm Harris, a former Occupy Wall Street activist and author of ‘Palo Alto’ and other books published through Hachette, explained that swastikas were progressive now.

Harris claims that he viewed vandalizing a synagogue with a swastika as “an anti-zionist condemnation of Israeli genocide.” And if vandalizing synagogues with swastikas, the ultimate symbol of Nazi behavior is only “anti-Zionist”, not antisemitic, then there really is no difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and between leftist anti-Zionists and Nazi antisemites.

 Verily, the article shows many of the ideas of the progressive left and the Nazis aren't all that distinguishable, especially when it comes to Jews:

The Democratic Socialists of America, which has led the campaign for Hamas, had invited a representative of Melenchon’s Communist allied party from France, who claimed that when a “man of the left” is “called an anti-Semite, it means he’s not far from power.” That same party became the only one to refuse  to condemn Oct 7 and political figures from the party accused Israel of killing its own children.

 It past time Harris and the other "progressive" pro-Hamasniks looked in the mirror and asked themselves :"Are we the baddies?"

The Liberty Aviation Museum - Part 2

There's lots to see at the museum:

If you have interest in the naval side of World War 2, they have not one, but two PT boats undergoing restoration.  Once restored, they plan to give tours on Lake Erie in them.

 

To defend the airfield and the PT Boats they have multiple German small arms:

And if that's not enough they have some German Flak guns:

That's a 20mm to the left and a 37mm to the right of it.

 

If you get hungry, they have a German field Kitchen, complete with a mounted machine gun, though the Tin Goose diner next door has far better food.

They also have multiple World War 2 Vehicles on display:

 

 

 

It's a very impressive collection, and that's not all of it.

Well worth a visit to see these amazing historical artifacts in person.

The Liberty Aviation Museum

At Port Clinton airport, while waiting for the eclipse we toured the Liberty Aviation Museum.

The Museum has been growing steadily since it was opened at the airport in 2011. It has a very friendly staff and enthusiastic docents wandering around sharing their love of hisotry and knowledge of the artifacts on display.

It has a rather eclectic range of exhibits and restoration activities, and it is not all aviation related.

This range includes informs and costumes. 

Early airline uniforms:

The original uniforms worn int he series Hogan's Heroes:

The uniform Charlie Sheen worn as the Wild Thing, Ricky Vaughn in Major League:

The bathrobe worn by Alan Alda in MASH:

Pretty cool stuff.

Of course there are airplanes:

Georgie's Gal, a B-25 in flying condition.

A PBY Catalina undergoing restoration:

The PBY is a lot bigger in person than you would think from this picture. It's huge.

There's also a couple Ford Trimotors undergoing restoration to flying status.

A beautiful Stearman was on display:

A beautifully restored TBF Avenger, with its wings folded, was in the hangar:

Lots of things to see, with more pictures to follow.

Hamas Health Ministry Admits Their Casualty Numbers Are "Flawed"

The credulous and anti-Israel world takes Hamas Health Ministry causality reports as gospel.

Even though this is the same Hamas-run Health Ministry that outright lied about the casualty count when the Hamas rocket hit the Al Shifa Hospital parking lot (500 claimed when they tried to pin it on Israel when in reality it was less than 50).  The same Hamas-run Health Ministry whose casualty reporting is statistically rather suspect - with casualty numbers that increase perfectly linearly daily throughout the conflict.

Well, the Hamas Health Ministry just admitted they have some flaws.  As in a lot of flaws, as in massively overstating casualties sort of flaws.

FDD: Hamas-Run Gaza Health Ministry Admits to Flaws in Casualty Data

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said on April 6 that it had “incomplete data” for 11,371 of the 33,091 Palestinian fatalities it claims to have documented. In a statistical report, the ministry notes that it considers an individual record to be incomplete if it is missing any of the following key data points: identity number, full name, date of birth, or date of death. The health ministry also released a report on April 3 that acknowledged the presence of incomplete data but did not define what it meant by “incomplete.” In that earlier report, the ministry acknowledged the incompleteness of 12,263 records. It is unclear why, after just three more days, the number fell to 11,371 — a decrease of more than 900 records.

Prior to its admissions of incomplete data, the health ministry asserted that the information in more than 15,000 fatality records had stemmed from “reliable media sources.” However, the ministry never identified the sources in question and Gaza has no independent media.

In other words, potentially half of the 33,000 Health Ministry reported casualties that the Arabs and the world uses to claim Israel is committing "genocide" may be entirely made up propaganda by the Health Ministry.

This would reduce Israel's terrorist to civilian death ration to below 1:0.5 from the current 1:1.8.

Global average ratio of terrorist to civilian death in urban combat is around 1:9, with the US military being  around 1:5 or 1:7 by comparison.

In short, Israel is likely now running the most civilian-safe intense urban combat campaign in recorded history - against an enemy using civilians as human shields, deliberately emplacing itself and fighting from civilian locations, and providing no shelters for the civilian population.  

The Islamists and their fellow travelers claims of genocide in this conflict are simply so much bushwah, and should be treated as such.  Those making such claims are either an outright pro-Hamas idiot or just a credulous idiot - pick one.

Anyone that claims there is a "Gazacaust" or "genocide" occurring in Gaza needs to go find the nearest tree and apologize for being a waste of oxygen.

I Believe That's What Is Called A Clue

Heading into court today and after passing through the metal detectors I got to watch the deputies stop a fellow after he had gone through to let him know he could not take the handcuff key on his key ring into the building.

They nicely agreed to hold onto it for him as it was raining out.  

They don't want just anyone wandering about the courthouse with a handcuff key, as there is often handcuffed prisoners around the facility and having people wandering around with they keys could get interesting. Good on them for paying attention and seeing it.

When asked where he was going, the fellow stated he had an appointment to see his probation officer.

Yet another good reason to relieve him of his handcuff key, that.

So, a good thing to keep in mind for law enforcement is felons they stop on the street may be carrying around handcuff keys to get out of handcuffs after they are arrested, so it pays to check for it.

Ah, Detroit Uglification Strikes Again

The nature of Detroit doesn't really change.

For $425,000.00, Detroit got the following sign and a couple others like it installed along Highway 94 in time for the NFL draft - note the difference between the original conception and execution:

A tad less grand than expected.  It's rather underwhelming, and with a coloration that blends into the grass and barely stands out from the background along the highway. In short, score another one for Detroit uglificaiton rather than beautification.

The Detroit News: Gmac Cash on Detroit's new 'Hollywood' sign: 'You can take it back'

One must wonder at the amount of grift and kickbacks that may have involved in the contracting for this sign for the city to spend so much to get so little, and for it to be so ugly as well. Expect any criticism to be that one doesn't understand art, or something similar.

As one anonymous wag on the Internet dryly noted:  "This is what happens when you order your Hollywood-style sign from Temu."

NPR: Filtering And Flavoring The News Will Lose You The Trust Of Your Audience

The article is a good read about how NPR tilted ever farther leftward, did the diversity dance in everything but political diversity, and lost trust as it filtered and flavored news to meet its left-wing agenda:

The Free Press: I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.

After all, as they say at NPR: "We have both kinds of political opinion - Left! and hard Left!"

The resulting loss of audience trust from this shift is pretty apparent. 

Once trust is lost it's rather hard to regain - especially as in the case of NPR you just navel gaze and not address and remedy the actions that caused the lack of trust.

I rather liked how the article noted with pride that NPR was trusted above CNN, the New York Times, and gas station sushi.

Ok, the article didn’t actually say gas station sushi, but it might as well have done. Beating out CNN and NYT in the trustworthiness department is awfully similar to winning the award for being the tallest midget at the fair. 

At least this one senior editor at NPR actually realizes and acknowledges that there is a problem. Hopefully, the other bien pensants at NPR will clue into the issue, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to do so.

Trip To The Totality

Originally, I was going to fly my eldest daughter and her boyfriend to Bowling Green, Ohio to see the totality.

That fell through as our maintenance officer grounded the Dakota yesterday after finding the left main landing gear had an issue and needed to be shimmed likely due to some of our flying club pilots being dumb and being on the brakes during landing.  Drat.

So, I got invited to go along as co-pilot with Scott, who had the other plane checked out.  Unfortunately, he had a guest, so I couldn't take the kids as we didn't have the seats available. He wanted me along to help handle the flight as he expected the airspace to be all sorts of busy.

Got to the airport this morning, and we got ready to go.  Scott would fly down and I would handle the radio, and we would switch on the way back.

Scott had filed IFR ahead of time which was a good idea. I got our clearance and we then headed out.  We planned a route from Pontiac to Adrian to Port Clinton to both keep out of what was going to be a busy Detroit Bravo airspace and to follow along the Lake Erie shoreline and not trying to cross the Lake.

It was a smooth flight out, I had fun handling a lot of radio traffic, and we were able to cut the corner of our route as Detroit Approach cleared us into the Bravo south of Ann Arbor, and then we bypassed Adrian and went direct to Port Clinton along the shoreline.

We passed by the Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station.

 Arriving at the terminal area for Port Clinton it got all sorts of busy.  Lots of IFR and VFR traffic all coming in to land and enjoy the eclipse festivities.  We approached from the east and Toledo approach had us divert from the approach for spacing.  We then got vectored back and then cancelled IFR and went VFR for a visual approach.  We then got into the traffic pattern and had a nice landing.

We then headed to the terminal and got marshaled to a parking spot.

 

Lots of other planes were there and many more were arriving. They did a good job keeping the terminal parking area organized.  We checked in, bought some fuel, paid a landing fee and then headed to the Liberty Aviation museum on the field to both tour the museum and enjoy the festivities.

Much more on the Liberty Aviation Museum shortly.

We had a good time, toured the museum, got lunch, and saw the eclipse.

 There was a good layer of clouds so the totality while visible was not super sharp but it was still cool.

Birds stopped chirping, the temperature measurably fell, the airport runway and taxi lights came on automatically and it was an extremely cool experience.  Well worth the trip.

After that, we packed up and got ready to head back.  Pretty much everyone was leaving at the same time so we waited a bit to let the rush clear and then headed out.

I was flying this leg and did the departure from Port Clinton and climbed to 5,500 feet. We got flight following on the way back, and they first had us change course for traffic, and then let us into Detroit's Bravo having us descend to 3,500. We stayed in the Bravo all the way up to Ann Arbor where they kicked us out of the Bravo, and had us fly a bit west and then on to Pontiac.

On the way back, we could see traffic way backed up on the highways below us. 

Got a little bumpy at 3,500 compared to how smooth it was at 5,500 but no worries.

Then Detroit Approach instructed me to descend to 3,000, and they handed us off to Pontiac Tower.  I got to do an extended downwind and then follow other traffic in for landing on 27R.

I made a darn nice crosswind landing with winds right out of the south at 9 gusting 12 knots with no issues. 

Both Detroit and Toledo Approach handled the throng of air traffic very well, and Detroit clearing aircraft into the Bravo really helped a lot with traffic flow.

That was my first trip out of state in the Flying Club's aircraft and it was a ton of fun. Need to do more of that. 

It was a great trip to see the totality, and it was totally worth it.

That's 1.3, 1 landing, and one totality experienced.

Remember When Gretch, Biden, And Co. Condemned WSJ For Saying Dearborn Was The Jihad Capital Of The US?

Yeah, about that.

Daily Mail:  Muslim protestors chant 'death to America, death to Israel' at rally in Michigan's Dearborn after city was branded 'Jihad capital' of the U.S by WSJ

Today:

Chants of 'death to America!' and 'death to Israel!' rang out during a protest in a Michigan city that was recently dubbed the 'jihad capital' of the United States by a Wall Street Journal columnist. 

Yep, Muslims chanting Death to America on the streets of an American city.

Go to the article for video of it occurring, including Hezbollah supporter Tarek Bazzi leading the chants.

Methinks Gov Whitmer and Biden owe the WSJ an apology. 

Don't count on that apology happening any time soon, but expect more appeasement by Biden and co as they fish for Islamist Democrat votes in Michigan.

The World's Two Smallest Violins

Are busy playing for this sad state of penal affairs:

The Detroit Free Press: Michigan prisons plan 'normal operations,' no protective glasses, for Monday's eclipse

Yep, some prisoners are sad that in prison they don't get to enjoy viewing an eclipse. 

Much sadness.  

Then again, they are in prison, after all, which is not supposed to be a day at the beach complete with eclipse-filled views.

Some prisoners in New York are suing over not being able to view the eclipse:

The prisoners who have sued over the lockdown say the eclipse has religious significance and denying them the right to view it is unconstitutional claiming it is violating their religious freedom

 I wonder how many of them will on Monday will be chanting:

Here's to the sun god;

He's such a fun god;

Ra! Ra! Ra!

Because if they don't, it's clearly not a sincerely held religious belief. Just sayin'.

Progressive Advocate: Michigan County Governments Shouldn't Return The Money They Stole Because Reasons

Michigan Counties, most notable Wayne County in which Detroit is sited,  were stealing money from people in foreclosure for not paying their property taxes by selling the homes and keeping not just the property taxes owing but all the equity in the house that resulted from the sale.

The Michigan Supreme Court finally and property put an end to this practice.

So of course, progressives state that making the counties give back their ill-gotten gains to the homeowners is bad.

The Detroit Free Press: This Michigan Supreme Court ruling could help speculators, not homeowners

Much hand-wringing ensues, with the article claiming that many of the homes foreclosed on for lack of property taxes were owned by "speculators"  and not "home owners", as if that is a reason why the government should not disgorge its ill-gotten gains that it got in these sales. 

Then the argument is that giving the money back to the owners is too complicated.

Indeed, if anyone but a government did this they would be charged with theft, and they wouldn't get away with failing to pay it back by saying it is too complicated.

An interesting look at the progressive mindset:  Theft is good, so long as it is the government that is doing it.

Omoplata in Portuguese Does Not Translate To

"A monkey making sweet love to a football."

But it probably should, at least in regards to the Omoplata in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Instead, Omaplata is Portuguese for the scapula, derived from the ancient Greek word for shoulder rather than the Latin word scapula.  The Omoplata in BJJ gets its name as it is a shoulder lock, and a very effective one it is, too, once you actually maneuver in place to lock it in.

Here's a video demonstrating the Omoplata:

 As you can see, there's a fair bit going on.  Once locked in place however, the Omoplata is a pretty surefire way to get your attacker to give up or disable themselves.

With my hip still not being 100%, my finish was more of a pull myself up to the opponent's other side shoulder than the graceful hip flip to upright you see in the video.  The video makes it look easy - for me learning it the first time, not so much.  

In short, me and the monkey were having a romantic time with a football learning this technique. I made it work, but it wasn't pretty getting there.

There are variants, and we learned a few of them.  I found I could get into the Omoplata a lot easier when holding the attacker in 3/4 guard, and it's a great opportunity to do the move if you're in that position and the attacker turns their head the wrong way, thus creating an opening for the move.

We then learned the Go Go Plata, which is the response you use when the attacker tries to sit up and pull away from the Omoplata - you adjust your feet and they get choked out rather quickly from your feet fully choking their neck.   Rather fun, if a tad vicious as it sets in real quick and hard.

You can also shift the opponent into a triangle choke if they try and move their arm to protect it from the Omoplata, and then shift back to the Omoplata when they try and defend the triangle.

BJJ, after all, is all about leading your attacker down a path to worse and worse options to make them regret their bad life choices, with attacking you being one of those bad life choices.

So yep, I need a lot more practice with the Omoplata to make it effective and I'm rather sore from my initial lesson learning it  as my hip is not appreciating moving that much, but will be doing a lot more practice with it later this week.

Michigan Greenies Begin To Realize They Need Nuclear Power

The Pallisades Nuclear Plant should never have been shut down to begin with, but Michigan's Democrats wanted it shut down as "nukes bad".

The Democrats then realized that if they're going to go to an electric car heavy transportation grid and cut out coal power generation at the same time, their renewable project was not going to be able to cut it and provide reliable power in the face of increasing demand. Do recall that Governor Whitmer was all for shutting it down until she claimed to be against doing so at the last minute when it was too late to prevent the shutdown so she could be on both sides of the fence.

So we get:

The Detroit News: Palisades nuclear plant gets $1.5B federal loan in bid to reopen, a national first

It should never have been shut down in the first place, and Michigan is going  to need more nuclear power generation, not less, if the Democrats persist on getting rid of reliable baseline power and replacing it with  unreliable solar and wind that can't meet the demand.

Remember, It's April Fool's Day Today, Not April Absolutely Moronic Criminal Idiot's Day

Some people clearly can't distinguish the difference between being a fool and being a complete and utter criminal moron. 

The Detroit News: Macomb County schools receive bomb threats; at least 1 cancels classes Monday

Bomb threats are never acceptable as an April Fool's Day prank. They never have been -- and with good reason.

Idiots.

Some April Fools Jokes Are Hard To Distinguish From Reality

The Road Commission for Oakland County posted this on Facebook today:

 

The problem with this April Fool's post by the OCRC is that it is not at all out of the realm of possibility and indeed probability for the now DEI- and Democrat-driven Oakland County Road Commission to actually do something this stupid.

In The Place Where Great Britain Used To Be

In Great Britain, where speech deemed to be offensive or hateful can get you thrown in jail there's apparently an unwritten exception to permit hate speech by Islamists and their supporters.

Express: Moment Met Police officer tells Jewish woman swastikas 'need to be taken in context'

A video has captured the moment a Met Police officer tells a Jewish woman that the use of swastikas during a pro-Palestine march needed to be "taken into context".

The footage shows an activist at Saturday's protest in London embroiled in a heated exchange with the officer over the Nazi symbol being displayed by protesters.

The officer is filmed debating the use of the symbol, that will forever be associated with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany.

 Determining who gets free speech is a very subjective thing in formerly Great Britain.

Great Customer Service From Hydrapeak

My Hydrapeak bottle, which has been excellent in keeping cold water available, and I use regularly at jitsu, developed a problem. It somehow got water in between the inner wall and the outer wall of the bottle.  It wouldn't drain out and added a bit of weight to the bottle, not to mention water stuck in there sloshing around and probably mixing with the drinking water inside probably wasn't very healthy.

Turns out Hydrapeak has a great warranty on their bottles and they stand by it.  I contacted them and after sending them some pictures they sent me a new bottle at no costs which is rather impressive.

So yep, I can definitely recommend Hydrapeak as a water bottle.

So, This Means The University of Michigan Will Likely Do Nothing

The Detroit News:  UM weighs policy to halt protests, disruptions at school events

The University of Michigan is asking Ann Arbor campus students, faculty and staff for input on a proposed policy to halt school event disruption, four days after a group of students interrupted one its most important academic ceremonies and was protesting again outside the building where the Board of Regents met Thursday.

When they announce they're looking for a policy to deal with disruptive protestors - it probably means they're not going to do anything to the pro-terrorist protesters  that disrupted the honors ceremony.

Even better, the policy would, in fine progressive ivory tower fashion, begin with a strongly worded letter.

No kidding:

 Under the proposed policy, the university would issue written notices to students who violate the policy. They would then be able to meet with school officials to either ask for a formal hearing or accept responsibility and a sanction. Students could face either suspension or expulsion.

We will note that the current student disciplinary policy that already exists can already punish disruption of University events (See Section IV.N)  so they don't need a new policy to handle this incident.   So this announcement is just pretending to do something, while not actually doing anything and sheltering the progressive pro-terrorist students.

Biden Claims He Travelled On The Francis Scott Key Bridge Many A Time By Train

The problem with that statement is that the now destroyed Francis Scott Key Bridge has NEVER HAD RAIL LINES ON IT, much less a train running passenger service - ever.

The New York Post:  Biden claims he commuted over collapsed Baltimore Key Bridge by train ‘many times’ – but it doesn’t have any rail lines  

I'm sure this is fine that Biden is so cognitively sharp and mentally fit that he is claiming he did something that he could not possibly have done.

Damn, but Democrats do love their choo choo trains, even the ones that have never existed.

Detroit's Q-Line Gets A Nice State Taxpayer Bailiout

Democrats do love their toy trains.

I've blogged quite a bit on the Q-Line, a private-public partnership with losses socialized and profits (which don't exist) privatized, producing a train in Detroit that moves at the speed of a walk for 3.3 miles and costs millions to operate.

Now the State of Michigan is stepping in to forgive a 3.5 million dollar loan to keep the Q-Line in the black in return for . . . advertising rights on the side of the Q-Line streetcars.  Oh joy. This is on top of another $85 million in taxpayer subsidies given to the Q-Line courtesy of Governor Whitmer.

This is being done as the non-profit operating the Q Line gets folded into the Regional Transit Authority. So, moving forward, the entire region including Macomb and Oakland Counties and not just Detroit can be on the hook to pay for this streetcar to nowhere.

The Detroit News: State forgives $3.5M loan for Detroit's QLine in exchange for ad rights on street car

Just more choo-choo cronyism at work, paid for with your tax dollars. Note that its the taxpayer and not the users that pay for the Q-Line as the rides are free as people won't pay to ride it.

If The University Of Michigan Administration Had Any Moral Fibre, Suspensions Would Fall Like Rain

At the University of Michigan's Honors Convocation, Hamas supporters decided the appropriate thing to do was to disrupt the ceremony to get out their pro-terrorism message, along with their false claims of genocide.

Jewish Insider: Jewish leaders call out University of Michigan for inaction against anti-Israel threats, disruptions

Jewish leaders in Michigan are calling out the University of Michigan’s administration for its response to anti-Zionist protesters who disrupted Sunday’s Honors Convocation. 

The event, an annual celebration where undergraduate students are recognized for their academic achievements, came amid heightened tensions on the campus. 

Two days earlier, a student posted a message on Instagram that threatened “death and worse” for supporters of Israel. The university’s administration has not taken disciplinary action — and announced only after the ceremony that security would be increased on the campus.

 Of course, the University has not disciplined the disruptive and threatening students yet.  After all, it's a progressive university and Jews are permissible targets to leftists as they are considered, in a rather topsy-turvy manner, to be "privileged" and/or "oppressors" vs the terrorists and Islamists who are cast as
"victims" and "oppressed".

The University claims violations of law or University policy will result in appropriate consequences, up to and including expulsion. Conduct that may violate criminal law will be referred to federal, state, or local prosecutors.”

However, the University has not yet reported to the Michigan State Police the student that was making the death threat for any investigation.   

As to discipline being applied against those who disrupted the ceremony, I'll believe that when I see it, but I sure won't hold my breath waiting for it to happen - and the lack of such enforcement of the rules will encourage further disruptions by this pro-terrorist faction.

So Biden Just Threw Israel Under The Bus for Islamic Votes

The Biden administration form the outset wasn't happy about Israel defending itself from the Hamas October 7 attack.

Remember the first tweet after the attack form the Biden administration was a stern notice that Israel was not to retaliate:

Now, fearing they may loose the Muslim vote in Michigan and thereby lose enough votes to have Michigan go to Trump, they just threw Israel under the bus in the UN Security Council. 

The resolution the Biden Administration refused to veto would, if enacted, give Hamas time to rebuild and refortify its positions by requiring a ceasefire during Ramadan - the same ceasefire Hamas had rejected as they refused to release the hostages - and leaves the Israeli hostages (including Americans) in Rafah with their captors.

If it is actually enacted, I bet Hamas will continue to fire rockets at Israel and perform other attacks,  and then  Israel will be blamed for breaking the ceasefire when it responds to Hamas attacks. 

Shame on the Biden Administration and for the other members of the security council that voted for this resolution for this craven appeasement of terrorists for domestic political gain.

Oh Stewardess! I Speak Jive.

The Detroit Free Press: Many Black Americans speak African American English. But is it embraced in schools?

Ebonics is getting a makeover in public schools to be sold as a more palatable sounding "African American English".

 The current crop progressive DEI educators are trying to frame it as "just another way of speaking" and that it is not slang but its own language.  They tried the same approach when calling it Ebonics and they couldn't sell it, now they've repackaged the same progressive garbage as African American English.

Of course, they blame the lack of pandering to "African American English" as a reason why students using "African American English" have literacy issues. The current desire is that instead of schools actually teaching them to read and communicate  effectively, it is more important to value their "identities and experiences".

Maybe they should spend more time teaching kids how to read and communicate effectively, after all, that might help with illiteracy now wouldn't it?

The explanation of the post title for those who haven't seen the movie Airplane! (and if you haven't you owe it to yourself to go watch it):

Sunday Range Day

With snow still on the ground, and temperatures a balmy 20 degrees F, I headed to the range to meet up with Tosh and Spencer.

Started out shooting carbines.  I shot my 300 Blackout with the AAC suppressor and was impressed over how very quiet it is.  Haven't shot it in some time and  it shot well, but needed some added lubrication as it hadn't been shot in quite awhile.  That has now been remedied, as well as it being cleaned thoroughly after the range trip.

After the rifles, we then switched to handguns.

Tosh had a new drill he wanted to try: A variation on this impressively difficult shooting on the move drill.

It was a very challenging drill and we certainly didn't hit the 3.5 second par time, especially as Tosh had declared that only A-Zone hits count.

Doing it in the snow, in the cold, and drawing from concealment with all the winter gear on, was quite time-consuming. I used my Sig 320 to shoot the drill.

We managed to do it in around 5-6 seconds per sub stage and now we have a time to improve on.

We then did a variation of doing a Bill Drill on each of the two targets while moving from cone to cone.  It made for a great drill but it eats a box of ammo to get to all 4 cones. We figured out a reasonable par time for that one is 6 seconds. 

This drill is a lot of fun and leads to some practice in an often overlooked area of shooting on the move and combines speed, movement, and accurate shooting.

After that we then shot some other handguns and I brought out the boat anchor.

The S&W 5946 is a heavy 15-shot 9mm pistol. It is still the standard sidearm of the RCMP and has a very smooth double action only  trigger. This one happens to be an ex-NYPD officer's pistol. The upside from all the weight is the recoil is pretty much negligible and quick accurate multiple shots are easy to do, such as on a bill drill. The heavy weight sucks up the recoil and keeps it on target.

3 hours on the range, and it was getting all sorts of cold for everyone and it was time to head out.

Lots of good practice and that's a fun new drill to try and keep on improving.

So, it was a very fun and challenging, and indeed chilling time at the range.

The Michigan State Mock Trial Competition

As Leah's team had advanced after winning the County finals to the State finals, I drove ugly early this morning to Lansing and the Ingham County Circuit Court Courthouse for the State-level competition.

Leah's team had both a Plaintiff and Defense team and she was on the Varsity Plaintiff team.  Leah gave a great opening, did a solid direct and cross examination and all the kids on her team did a fine job indeed. The Junior Varsity Team also made it to the state finals and did very well too.

We then watched the Varsity Defense side team battle another team's Plaintiff side.

It was a fun fact pattern that had a few annoying holes but was designed to be able to be argued either way.   I believe the fact pattern was weighted a bit towards defense-side but was a fun one to work with, but it had an error regarding one of the exhibits in that it, per the rules of evidence, couldn't be admitted by either side with the way the fact pattern and witnesses were arranged - the fact pattern was missing a witness that could get it admitted.

I had ordered in pizzas for the team so we had that for lunch as we waited for the initial results after the end of the second round.

Unfortunately, both the Varsity and JV team failed to advance to the semi-finals, but I'm very proud of their effort, and that they won the county level and they got this far.

That's the last high school competition for 6 of them as they graduate and go on to bigger and better things.

Darn good bunch of kids.

Water Wars: That's Dedication (or Obsession)

Leah was asked to substitute on another water wars team.

Her only task:  Not get caught by the opposing team.

So she was super careful with her movements and even when they came by the house they couldn't time it to get her.  This lasted for quite some time and the other team was getting frustrated that she was being really clever at avoiding them.

Today however, when she went to the Michigan State Mock Trial Finals in Lansing they actually drove all the way there found her in the courthouse, and got her out.

That's a three-hour round-trip drive just to be able to find and get a player on another team out.

So, sadly, she is out again.   But, you gotta admire the dedication it took to drive all that way just to get someone with a squirt gun.

Hopefully The Last Snow Storm of The Season

While it has been declared to be officially Spring, the weather in Michigan decided to call that a lie and declare that instead it was Third Winter.

Over three inches of snow in the morning and its continuing to fall now and it's accumulating quite nicely.

The roads are a shambles with hundreds of car accidents reported in southeastern Michigan due to the conditions, and roads have been closed due to accidents.

It's a great day to work from home.

The Jokes Re "What Did He Know About Hillary?" May Begin Now.

The Detroit Free Press: Arkansas airport executive shot during attempted search warrant, police say

The executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Arkansas was shot at his home Tuesday while authorities were attempting to serve a federal search warrant, according to Arkansas State Police.

Bryan Malinowski, 53, was injured with gunshot wounds around 6 a.m. Tuesday in Little Rock, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was serving a federal search warrant, Arkansas state police said in a statement. He was treated on scene by paramedics before being transported to a local hospital, and his condition is unknown.

It is unclear who shot Malinowski, but Arkansas State Police are calling the incident an "officer-involved shooting."

 So, what was he about to testify about regarding Hillary?

Michigan Liquor Control Commission Under The Democrats : A Million $ In Booze Disappears

This is fine: $961K in liquor went missing from Michigan commission's inventory, audit finds

Quality Democrat competence here, and yes the MLCC is Democrat controlled, almost entirely composed of Democrats, and indeed most of them are Governor Whitmer appointees. 

Michigan’s Liquor Control Commission lacked the proper controls to accurately track its spirit inventory or its licensing program, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing liquor, significant excesses and negative balances in its inventory and the issuances of a handful of liquor licenses in dry communities.

One of the largest findings of the audit released Tuesday indicated the commission was missing 20%, or roughly $961,000, of the $4.9 million recorded in inventory between January and February 2022 — a count not confirmed through a state-led physical inventory of Michigan warehouses, but through distributors at the behest of the state.

The missing liquor inventory was one of three material conditions and two reportable conditions found at the liquor commission, whose overall performance was rated as “not sufficient” in an audit released Tuesday. The audit by Auditor General Doug Ringler’s office reviewed records between 2019 and 2022.

Yep, the Auditor General caught the malfeasance.  You know, the very same  Auditor General's Office that Governor Whitmer is trying to gut because it keeps finding Democrat malfeasance in government.

Interesting  how almost a million dollars in liquor goes missing and the Democrat response is to defund the watchdog that caught it.  Funny that. Be interesting to see if this report  is followed up and they track into whose pockets the funds for the missing liquor went - but don't count on any real follow-up anytime soon.

Seriously Biden?

I mean Biden is known to be a gaffe machine, indeed the Democrats excuse his regular misspeaking and nonsensical statements by claiming he's a gaffe machine on a regular basis.  Who exactly thought that was a good excuse, exactly?

Biden really stepped in the latest one in his bid to shore up Islamic support for the Democrats in key states by, of course, throwing our ally Israel under the bus and cuddling up to Hamas supporters.

But this gaffe on the worlds stage, when he didn't realize he was still on a hot microphone is rather quite something:

abcnews: Biden 'meant what he said' in saying he’ll have 'come to Jesus meeting' with Netanyahu: VP Harris'

In an interview with ABC News Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris reacted for the first time to President Joe Biden's hot mic comment in which he's heard saying he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon have a "come to Jesus" conversation about the war in Gaza.

"He meant what he said," Harris told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce. "Some of us grew up in communities where when a 'come to Jesus talk' is about having a serious talk, based on candor."

After delivering his high-stakes State of the Union address on Thursday, Biden was caught on a hot mic chatting with Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado. Bennet told Biden he needed to "keep pushing" to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, to which Biden responded: "I told Bibi, don't repeat this, you and I are going to have a 'come to Jesus' meeting."

"I'm on a hot mic here. Good. That was good," Biden then says after being warned by an aide.

Let's start off with the obvious: The telling to the Jewish leader of the Jewish state you're going to have a 'come to Jesus' meeting with him is rather a major faux pas.

In fact it is a rather offensive and moronic thing to say.   Hardly appropriate language when dealing with allies, especially if you want them to do things clearly against their own interest.

I doubt he's said anything like that to any Muslim leaders.

Let's add that doubling down after being you;re told you just said something stupid on a hot mike is extra Biden. 

Let's ask Biden to list all the times the US had provided humanitarian aid to a territory while they were at war with that territory and while attacks form an enemy continued form that territory and said enemy still held Americans hostage.

The answer,   Biden doesn't know it, is never.

Let's further note that in this current operation, Israel continues to have a 2:1 or lower ratio of enemy civilians to enemy combatants killed in urban combat - easily beating out the US Military's current ratio of 5-7:1 when dealing with entrenched Islamic combatants in urban settings.

Still waiting for Biden to apply as much pressure to Hamas and Iran as he's trying to assert on Israel.  I sure won't be holding my breath for him to do so as he throws an ally under the bus to court the terrorist appeasement vote.

Time For 3rd Winter

All that wind on Saturday was from a cold front blowing right on in.  

It has brought much lower temperatures and some snow with it.

Yep, we have snow in the air and enough to accumulate on the ground both yesterday and today.  

Yes right now it is below freezing and snowing here right now.  Not a lot, but enough to remind us it is still winter in Michigan even with the respite of the lovely t-shirt weather the last couple weeks.

That's weather in Michigan for you.

Saturday Flyday - Operation Archer Retrieval

Unfortunately we're going to be waiting even longer for the Archer's autopilot to be done, as the avionics shop can't get to it right now for reasons, namely they are swamped and don;t have the techs available to get it done right now. Argh.

So, the plan was to pick it up this morning at 9am at KADG and bring it back for now.

So I got up early to meet with James and make it happen by flying the Dakota there and he would fly the Archer back. We got to the airport at 7:30, and James had brought his son along, nice kid.

Plan was to get over there and get back quick as the winds were going to really pickup today.

We then ran into a key problem:

Namely, our keys didn't work in the Dakota.

The Dakota has just come out of annual, and as part of that, the lock cylinder was changed as it had deteriorated to the point where you could remove your key in an other than the off setting, which could be potentially bad.  Bad because you could leave the magnetos hot that way and someone turning the propeller could find the engine starting up on them.  Not good so it got changed,

Problem was, they didn't leave the new key behind.

So we had to wait a bit and finally we managed to get in contact with who had the new key as their phone was apparently on Do Not Disturb, and James drove off to get it. We lost a bit over an hour of time with that issue.

I had already done the preflight so we got in and got going.

Called Ground, got flight following, did our run up and I took us off for Adrian and after clearing Pontiac's airspace was directed to contact Detroit Approach.

Used the autopilot and it both connected and disconnected just fine.

Wind had already picked up a bit and we would be having a 22 knot headwind on the way there.

It was a smooth flight there, and since I had another pilot with me I put the foggles on and did the RNAV 23 approach. Detroit Approach was very cool and had us fly direct to a middle fix on the approach, and cleared us into the Bravo to do so, which saved us time.

I then did a great approach and a nice landing as the wind, while gusting was straight down the runway at 230.

We then met with the avionics shop and got the Archer.

We then flew back to Pontiac, James and his kid in the Archer, and I was in the Dakota, and things started getting a tad interesting.

After passing the Ann Arbor  airport, we both hit some decent wind shear and turbulence to bounce us around a fair bit. The turbulence continued towards Pontiac.

Even with the turbulence, I managed to snag a nice shot of The Big House from 3,500 feet.

I had to slow down to remain in safe maneuvering speed, but I was still moving pretty good. A ground speed of 151 knots or 174 mph is rather nice.

Got to Pontiac, and first they had me do a left downwind for Runway 27L.

They then had me turn a tight base and moved me over to 27R which got a bit challenging in what was a gusty crosswind of 10-18 knots from 220 degrees.

I almost had to go around as the wind was pushing me past the run way rather nicely,  but I managed to salvage the approach in good order. I was then lined up on short final, started to land, and then one heckuva gust made it not super pretty.

The wind, just as my wheel started to touch decided to kick up to 25 knots.

Not my best landing, but the aircraft was and is fully usable, so it still counts as an excellent landing, doesn't it?  Had we been back as planned the winds would have been far better.

James arrived awhile after, and also had a fun crosswind landing too in the rather gusty conditions, but they sent him right to 27R and didn't do a last minute switch.

We then put the planes away and that was a rather challenging 19 knot crosswind factor, but I did it, so I'm rather happy about that.

Winds are currently16-30 knots and really whipping around, so glad we got back when we did.

That's 1.7 with 2 excellent landings and one approach in the books.

Speaking of books, I've now filled up my first logbook completely, and these two entries were the first ones in my new logbook.

Proud Parent Moment

So last night was Senior Honors Night at the high school.

Leah will be graduating Summa Cum Laude and was awarded for doing so. She's also going to be honored for leading the Mock Trial Team and multiple other activities that she has done.

Not bad for a kid that went through High School under Covid protocols and all the issues with learning and stupidities and anxieties that it entailed. 

Such stupidities included  having doors and windows in the classrooms open to the outside in winter for "ventilation" when they finally got back to in class teaching, and it was one of the many particularly stupid things that were done.

To celebrate after the awards, we went out for ice cream to celebrate her great achievement.

25 days are left this school year for her, then her exams, and her High School days will come to an end. Still waiting on some university decisions at this point so we don;t know where she'll be going yet.

For some dumb reason the administration has decided not to allow departing senior quotes in the yearbook, even after they had previously been ok'd.  Apparently some were spicy so the boneheads decided to yank them all.

Leah's had been "So long high school, and thanks for all the ulcers."

The kid did real well for all of that. I'm quite proud of her efforts and outstanding results.