Weekend In The Wine Country Next Door

Tash and I decided on a weekend getaway this past weekend.  The first getaway without kids in tow in 14 years.

So with Leah happily ensconced in Abby's dorm room over the weekend due to a school break, we headed off to Essex County, Ontario.

The best part - no more fakakta ArriveCan App needed!  Even the Canadian Border people expressed that they were rather happy to see it gone.  Apparently it sucked for them just as it sucked for the users.

I had not realized that there was some beautiful wine country just a bit over an hour from our house, but there is, and it is truly lovely in autumn.

It was not the high season at all, so getting an AirBnB was easy right across the road from the CREW winery, with a short walk from there to the North 42 Degrees Winery, and a short drive from other wineries as well.  This made wine tasting rather convenient.

We arrived late on Friday night and awoke and then started to explore the area.

After breakfast we headed to Point Pelee National Park and hiked the nature trails there, seeing beaches on both the bay side and Lake Erie side of the point.

The bay side was calmer, even with large trees down from storms on the beach:

The Lake Erie side had some good wind and wave action going:

We walked further along into the marsh area of the Park, saw some ducks and some informative boards about he wildlife in the area.

Interestingly enough, the Beavers around here are bi-national:

An neat quirk of language, that.

Having suitably exercised, we decided to reward ourselves with a wine tasting at Oxley Winery. 

Oxley, like CREW and North 42 Degrees are all small, family-owned and operated Estate wineries.  Estate meaning the grapes used in their wine are grown on their properties. We did the Swanky Wine tasting, which featured their rarer and finer wines that they have produced. Some of them, for example, only have 50 cases produced of some of these particular vintages. 

Their master taster, Yvonne, did a nice job telling the history of Oxley Winery and the wines they produce, and the story of these wines in particular. We had a nice couple across from us and we got to chatting during the wine tasting and had a very pleasant time.

As to the tasting itself, the Bianca to start with was really great, I had never had a Bianca before, and it was smooth, crisp, semi-dry, and refreshing. 

Next up, the Barrel fermented Chardonnay was superlative.  I normally really dislike Chardonnay, but I could drink theirs all day if given the chance - no sour or gasoline aftertaste with this stuff, it was deliciously smooth without being sweet nor bitter and with a delightful finish.  

The Merlot and Merlot Cabernet were very good but their 2019 Syrah Reserve is delectable.  A really lovely full bodied wine that is simply awesome. I got an extra pour of that from Yvonne and sipped it in appreciation accordingly.

We then had a light lunch at the winery and the food, accompanied with more wine, of course, in this case a Winter Wowza - their white heated mulled wine, as we were dining outside and the wind was a tad chilly. Very tasty food and wine both.

We then walked the grounds for a bit, looking inside at the shops, and then headed off, checking out some local fruit stands, including one where they have test apples.

What are test apples?   Test apples are new varieties farmers are growing to develop the next great commercially successful apple.  Quite interesitng and tasty with interesitng varietal focus - some sweeter, some crisper, some of both. They are certainly developing some interesitng apples, and some may soon end up in an orchard near you.   Had to eat them there, as you can't cross the border with fruit.

Then we had a nap and after waking up changed into dinner clothes and walked across the road to CREW Winery and had a tasting and dinner there.

Tash loved their Gewürztraminer,  and I found their Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon to be mighty fine indeed.  Their Merlot felt a little watery and was too light for my taste, but their cab varieties are terrific.

Well wined and dined we walked back to our AirBNB and that was Saturday.

So on Sunday we got up, had a light breakfast at the AirBnB, packed up and checked out, wandered around the area for a bit and then headed over to North 42 Degrees Winery for brunch.

Lovely to see their vines as you pull up.

Lots of grapes remain on these particular vines, to hopefully become ice wine.

 

 

Inside, for brunch, we were seated on the top floor of their lovely main building.

 

The view from the room is amazing and had the weather been warmer, we would have eaten outside on their large deck with a lovely view.

Of the three wineries we visited, Wineries North 42 Degrees had the best food. 

Not to say the others were bad, as they were really very good, but this was a cut above.  The steak and poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce was cooked to perfection, and Tash's Smoked Salmon (smoked right on the premises)  Eggs Benedict was similarly outstanding.  I had a glass of their delectable Cabernet Sauvignon to accompany the Steak and Eggs. Tash had a French 75 made with their sparkling wine and an addition of some essence of lavender they grow on their estate. The brunch finished with a Belgian chocolate pots de creme. To say it was an awesome brunch would be an understatement.

We then toured the grounds of the winery and spent some time in their garden in the sun planning for the upcoming week.  After that, we headed to Amherstburg, a nice town with quite a bit of history, especially involving the War of 1812, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River.

So there are indeed Cannons to be seen.

They're some rather nice British 24-pounders, pointing across the river towards the US side, aimed to shoot over Bois Blanc Island, just in case of a rematch.

It's also a monument to the men of Amherstburg who lost their lives in World War One and World War Two.  

The monument is rather well done, with the names on plaques on the main monument, and then each of the stands describing the men who fell serving their country complete with their picture and a short synopsis of their service and loss.  Two of the boards are below:

 It's a very well-done memorial honoring the heroes of this town.

After viewing the memorial we explored the town, visited a local bookshop and bought some books, and visited a coffee shop to caffeinate before departing. We then headed off, and crossed back into the USA, picked up Leah, and went home after a great and restful weekend.

I had not visited Point Pelee before nor known about this neat wine region right next door to us.  It is now on the must visit again list and considering we could easily make a day trip of it, visit it again we shall do, as there are many more wineries there to visit, and the ones we visited already are also worth another trip.

Gov. Whitmer Getting Nervous?

After Republican challenger Tudor Dixon more than held her own in the governor's debate, it seems Whitmer has gotten nervous and called for reinforcements.

The Detroit Free Press: Former President Obama to hold Detroit-area rally for Whitmer, other Democrats

Probably to get out the Detroit, Benton Harbor and Flint voters as that voting base has been rather less than enthusiastic about her.  

That they have former President Obama coming to town may mean they don't quite believe the polls showing Whitmer leading the race.

Given the horrendous job Whitmer has done as governor, even her outspending Dixon (complete with lots of progressive money from California and 41% of her funding coming from out of state - so much so that her fundraising site includes a California Privacy Notice) may not be enough given her record.

Athletic Privilege And Progressive Prosecutor Hypocrisy

Ah, progressive Washtenaw County Michigan, where a sports star at age 18 can get two serious felonies, along with driving under the influence of marijuana dropped down to a single misdemeanor which will then be completely expunged without any record upon completing a diversion program.

The felonies happen to be carrying a concealed weapon without a license (you can't even get such a license until you're 21 in Michigan btw),  and a felony of said firearm having defaced serial numbers (likely stolen with serial numbers removed to hide its origin).

The Detroit Free Press: Emoni Bates felony charges to be dropped, Eastern Michigan suspension lifted

We will note this deal is made by the very woke Washtenaw County prosecutor, the same prosecuting office that proudly states on their website:

The Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office is committed to ending the scourge of gun violence in our communities. Towards that end, we are committed to supporting efforts to stop the flow of illegal firearms onto our streets, and to prevent gun violence from occurring. Learn more about our efforts by reading our briefs and statements below. 

So, instead of prosecuting two slam dunk illegal firearm felonies after catching someone flowing with a very illegal firearm onto their streets, they have arranged for him to walk and be eligible to continue playing basketball.  

This may be in line with their stance on "equitable justice" as the criminal here is Black, but it sure as heck conflicts with their professed anti-gun stance.

New York Progressives And The Justice System They Have Sowed

From New York City comes a charming if not incredulous tale of what happens when progressives run the criminal justice system.

The situation is as follows:  a man in a park in a very progressive part of Brooklyn attacked a lady walking her dog, threw urine on them and killed the dog by hitting it with a stick he was carrying. He then left unmolested.    He has since neither been charged nor arrested.

New York Post: No arrest of Park Slope dog killer despite multiple sightings of suspect

A further complication is the assumed to be mentally-challenged man happens to be Black, which has set the progressives in the area around the park in quite a quandary.

Fox News:  Dog's killing leads to Brooklyn progressive civil war over 'social justice,' New York Times reports

Hilariously if not unbelievably, residents there are less upset about the crime and the fact they have a violent mentally-disturbed person wandering about their park free to assault people at will, but are more upset that the man is being sought out of concerns that it could be systemic racism to do so. Indeed they seem busy defending him in the name of social justice:

Weeks went by with no arrest made. Neighborhood sleuths fervently discussed the situation, and many expressed support for Chrustic, but soon a vocal minority asked why the mostly White town seemed insistent on taking down a Black man who seemed homeless and "emotionally disturbed." Others called the man a "psychopath" and a "predator" who needed to face justice," the Times reported.

Martin Lofsnes, a 52-year-old dancer who had moved away from the neighborhood in 2020, saw the discussion on Nextdoor while trying to sell some belongings, and was appalled. He spoke about the "400 yrs of systematic racism which has prevented black people from building generational wealth through homeownership resulting in the extreme disparity we see today." He told residents that throwing the man in jail would solve nothing and urged them to set up fundraisers for him.

Other residents thought Lofsnes naïve, with some even saying he was "mansplaining."

"In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do? How do you protect the public without furthering injustice against this man?" Times writer John Leland asked.

You really cannot make this up. 

Apparently if you're Black and quite a few Froot Loops short of having a full box of cereal, you may, per the New York progressive belief system, attack people in public and kill their pets at will, because social justice.

In short, the NY powers that be will likely do nothing about this person until he kills someone.

Then, there will be much excuse-making over lack of mental health care facilities, and of course, the canard that "the system failed".

The system the woke in New York have setup is deliberately designed to fail.

It is designed to fail to protect ordinary citizens from crime - from hamstringing the police; to ignoring crimes; to letting violent criminals be immediately released without even a requirement for cash bail so they can be out to commit crimes yet again; and a justice system that gives the criminals mere slaps on the wrist if they happen to decide to show up for trial.

Unfortunately, this progressive obsession with letting criminals roam amuck is not confined to New York.

The Air Zoo: The Space Exhibit

In addition to it's fine focus on Aviation, the Air Zoo has an extensive exhibit dedicated to space flight and space exploration.

The exhibit begins with early rockets like a V2,  and full size examples of the RIM-8 Talos missile:

And it moves on to manned spaceflight and they've got a mock-up of a Mercury Capsule:

 

They have an actual Gemini Capsule Trainer vehicle on display:

Notice how small the interior is:

Amazing how astronauts could even fit inside, it barely had room for their big brass ones, let alone the rest of themselves.

And they've got El Kabong! 

Not Quick Draw McGraw but the actual El Kabong that was drop tested as part of the Gemini program to see if they could return the Gemini capsules to land rather than splashing them down into the ocean after re-entry.  It was not a success.

I wonder if it sounded like "Kabong!" or "Kaboing!" or just "Thump!" when it hit the ground during the testing.

There's also exhibits regarding what living quarters look like on the the ISS, and even coke cans that came back from the MIR space station:

Apparently Coke is as refreshing in space as it is on earth.

Lots  and lots of cool space stuff.

Then there's some space fantasy through the ages, including a neat exhibit on how space exploration, aliens, and robots have been depicted in cinema:

And it wouldn't be the future without some might-have-beens, including this actual Milner Motors Air Car, a flying car:

Were were promised flying cars and instead what we got was 144 characters and woke pronouns.  

Then again, given how I've seen most people drive, a flying car for the general populace raises lots and lots of issues.

The Space Exhibit at the Air Zoo is worth the price of admission for the entire museum all by itself.

Democrat Coalition Showing Some Definite Strains In Dearborn

It's always hard having a coalition with some members who want to do their thing and push their agenda, and another portion that wants to throw them off rooftops or behead them for doing their thing and pushing their agenda.

That tension was on display in Dearborn Michigan recently when at the School Board meeting, Muslims wanted homosexual-related books removed from schools.

The Detroit Free Press: Protesters shut down Dearborn school board meeting over LGBTQ books

One of Michigan's most prominent faith leaders, Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, urged people during his Friday sermon to attend the protests.

"Some of those books are completely inappropriate for our children to read," Al-Qazwini said. "Some of those books promote pornography. Some of them promote homosexuality. We don't need this. Go and attend this meeting."

Qazwini as a popular Democrat supporter has issues, including a history of anti-antisemitism that came to light (at least among Democrats) during his very vocal support and campaign for for Bernie Sanders.

Qazwini then went on to note that as Muslims are the majority in Dearborn they should get to decide what gets taught in schools and in school libraries.

Qazwini isn't the only rather well known fellow leading this charge:

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), gave a talk Sunday at the American Moslem Society in the south end of Dearborn, one of the largest and oldest mosques in metro Detroit, about how Muslims can protect their religious rights in Dearborn public schools from materials or practices that conflict with their faith, such as using transgender pronouns. 

Adding to the fun, there was outrage among the Muslim community in Hamtramck when the city flew a gay pride flag.  It also likely didn't go over well when one proponent publicly compared the pride flag to a Muslim call to prayer.

Democrats are going to have a lot of fun with trying to keeping Islamists, Groomers, and Wokesters placated and kept in line.

Air Zoo: World War 2 Aviation Display

Leaving the Guadalcanal exhibit, the museum takes you to the excellent display of multiple World War Two aircraft in their collection.

The Grumman FM-2 Wildcat, a higher-performance and the most numerous variant of the F4F Wildcat.

 The F6F Hellcat, the sucessor to the Wildcat on the Navy's larger aircraft carriers, whike the FM-2 and other Wildcats continued serving on the light and escort carriers:

 The FG-1D Corsair

The Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless

The Slow-But-Deadly dive bomber that hammered the Japanese aircraft carriers at Midway.

There's also trainers from the period, including the first aircraft acquired for the museum, a Boeing Stearman:

There's not only Naval and Pacific theater aircraft, there's lots more on display, including a rare  original WACO CG-4 Hadrian Glider, a displayed in the colors of one of the four that was sponsored by the Greenville Schools in Michigan from student funding during World War 2 and built by the Gibson Refrigerator Company of Greenville.  

The Glider it is painted in the colors of the 45th glider that landed during the Normandy invasion.

There's a also a C-47 on display and interestingly, some of the dummy paratroops that were dropped to confuse the Germans during the early hours of D-Day:

It's a Bird, It's A Plane, It's A Decoy!

Rather neat.

Tons of things to see in that room alone.

When Good GFCIs Go Bad

A couple weeks ago after a big storm came through, I found a circuit breaker had popped on the panel.  Reset it and it did not fix the problem - the lights in the guest bathroom, laundry room, hallway, and garage were all non-functional, as were al the plugs on the other side of that wall including the printer, and cable modem. Much fun.

Happily, the fridge, washer, and dryer in the laundry room still worked as did the garage door itself.

Clearly beyond my limited capabilities, I moved the modem via an extension cord to a working plug, and I sought an electrician to further diagnose and fix the issue.

Sadly, finding an electrician willing to work was hard. 

Finally found one and had an appointment set for last Thursday at 9:15 am, about a week after the outage, but it was the earliest I could get someone there.

So last Thursday 9:15 rolled around; then 10:15; then 11:15, and  no call -- no show.  I then called and got voicemail followed by a text message that he would call me right back.

As you might guess, no, no, he did not bother calling back at all.

Nor was there any response to my follow-up text asking if maybe he was too busy to come that day and if we could reschedule.

Then, since he clearly didn't want the work, I started looking for an alternate electrician.  Hard to get people to want to work today I suppose. Got a name from another friend yesterday, called him today, and he came over this afternoon right after finishing another job.

He then started diagnosing it and traced the cause to the GFCI outlet in the garage.  

There were three hot wires connected to the GFCI. One had gotten just loose enough to knock out that part of the circuit while leaving the rest of the circuit on the same breaker, including the Garage door working.  Rather tricky.

So wires got stripped, re-connected, and re-wired, and as a precaution we installed a nice fresh GFCI there as the old one was looking kinda dodgy, and it all works now.

The Air Zoo: Find The Sniper!

The Air Zoo is not solely dedicated to Aviation.

It also has a detailed exhibit regarding the Campaign at Guadalcanal.

Why?  Because the founder of the museum, Preston "Pete" Parish served as a Marine Lieutenant during the campaign, and his best friend was killed there. 

There are detailed dioramas of the naval battles around Guadalcanal, exhibits of uniforms and many other  informational items that make the past come alive.

 

 

The museum has the only extant piece of the USS Juneau, part of Task Force 67 and sunk by a Japanese submarine during the campaign.  The five Sullivan brothers died in the sinking of USS Juneau:

As to spotting the sniper:

Can you find him before he gets you?

 

He's right there somewhere.

 

He's right there.

He's There!

 

A very impressive and educational (good addition juvat) exhibit about one of the most hard-fought battles and pivotal campaigns in the Pacific in World War II.

Sunday USPSA Day

So today I headed to Brighton this morning for a USPSA match,

Turnout was impressively small - just one squad worth of all of seven shooters but the match went on anyways.  It appears another club just started matches on the same day close by, which is pulling shooters away from the Brighton match.  It's also nearing the end of the competition season here in Michigan, so turnout is low because of that as well.

On the plus side, we had a lot of fun with just one squad moving through all five stages.  A good bunch of people indeed, and I was the secondary RSO so I got to run about half the small squad while the primary did the other half. That way we weren't being ROs when in the hole or on deck to shoot.

I'm overall quite happy with my performance - certainly I've gotten better at stage planning and my shooting is definitely showing improvement.   Had a couple magazine feeding issues that slowed me down, which was weird, and the first time that has happened.  It started in the later half of the match and was rather annoying.  Time to tear down and clean everything.

On the one classifier stage, I was the only one to shoot it clean and hit all Alphas, including 4 head-shot Alphas.  This classifier might not be actually used for classification - it's on trial at various clubs and is a lot of fun it's Classifier 22-04 "Calm Before The Storm".  You start seated outside the shooting box, with toes touching the shooting box.  You then get up at the beep, get your gun off the table in front of the shooting box then shoot 4 rounds at two targets of your choice, and then do a mandatory reload from the table and do 4 rounds on each of the remaining two targets. 

Each outside target has hardcover diagonally through it, and the center third and fourth target are one above the other with a no-shoot target in the middle.  Oh, the 4th and topmost target has a no-shoot covering the lower A-Zone, thus my 4 head-shot alphas. 

Quite a bit of fun to shoot, and I hope it does become an official classifier.

Still waiting for the result but I had a good time, and my speed and accuracy have both improved. I had some rather good runs with decent hit factors and not a single missed target nor missed shot in the entire match, which is happy-making.  

Update: Results sorta came in.  I can't see it on the Practiscore site that gives overall rankings, but only on a site that gives it by division.  So out of three Carry Optics Shooters, I came in 2nd, not bad considering the guy who came in first was really, really, good. I also had zero misses, no Deltas, 93 Alphas and 17 Charlies. Not too bad, and had I not had the malfunctions the times would have been better.  

Pretty happy with my performance at this match and it was a lot of fun.

Air Zoo - That Looks Just Like A Messerschmitt

It looks at first glance just like a Messerschmitt BF-109.

 

So much so that this very aircraft even stood in for a BF-109 in the classic film Battle of Britain starring Michael Caine, Sir Laurence Olivier and many others:

It's not a BF-109, it's a Buchon HA-1112, a copy of the Messerschmitt BF-109 produced under license in Spain.

It is now back in Spanish Air Force Livery and on display at the museum, after originally being displayed in it's Luftwaffe paint job it wore during the film.

The Buchon had a different engine than the original due to German inability to supply sufficient Daimler Benz engines and instead used the Hispano-Suiza engine which gave the aircraft a major right turning tendency on takeoff as it has a counter-clockwise propeller rotation, compared to the Daimler-Benz's clockwise rotation that the airframew was designed to handle.  

This last variant of the Buchon uses a 1,600 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin 500-45 engine rather than the 1,300HP Hispano-Suiza and has two 20 mm Hispano-Suiza 404/408 cannons and the Buchons served in the Spanish Air Force until December 1965.

Some Jets From The Air Zoo

The Air Zoo main hall has quite a few notable jets:

An F-14 Tomcat

 

 

An F-8 Crusader, the last gunfighter. 

An F-18

An A-4 Skyhawk in Australian livery:

These are just the jets in the main hall.

There's also one of the world's earliest jet propelled devices on display:  The V-1 Dooodlebug".

Air Zoo - Another Rare Bird - The SR-71B

The largest bird on display in the Kalamazoo Air museum is the SR-71B.

This is the last surviving original SR-71B two-seat trainer.

After It served with the Air Force, it was transferred to NASA before being was used for research by NASA until 1997 when it was retired. The aircraft was then transferred back to the Air Force and then has been with the Air Zoo since 2003 and is now in the newer main building.

It is an impressively large aircraft. Unfortunately given the way it is placed in the museum, you can't get a decent shot of the front of it.

The refueling area is visible from a platform designed to give viewing access to the top of the plane.

Both cockpits are rather cramped and laden with instruments.

 

 

The rear cockpit is similarly cramped.

Even on display, and even knowing she will not fly again, she still looks fast.

Running At Police With A Knife Tends To Lead To A Predictable Outcome

So a fellow, Porter Burks, with known mental issues, and prior run-ins with police, takes a knife and slashes his brother's car tires in Detroit and is roaming around the street.

Brother concerned for safety of Porter and the public considering that Porter  is out wandering the street with a knife and acting psycho, calls the police.

Police then confront the fellow who refuses to drop the knife and who then decides to run towards the officers while still holding the knife and gets to within 6 feet of the nearest officer before being dropped by police, and he dies soon thereafter after being shot multiple times. Most of the incident video available at the link above with the Detroit News, but not the entire event.

So of course Attorney Geoffrey Fieger is suing on behalf of the family. 

The mentally-ill attacker is now, of course, being described as a happy straight-A student that liked to sing and dance (and apparently liked to stab people and things with knives, but that part is being left unsaid, natch).

Fieger is actually and rather very disingenuously suggesting that the police should have let themselves be stabbed rather than stopping the threat:

"Why you can’t figure out a better way to deal with him than executing him by firing squad?” Fieger asked at Thursday's news conference.

"You have all sorts of equipment, all that body armor that police have," he said. "They have helmets, they have arm and chest armor. They have bulletproof vests everywhere. Are you telling me that today, you don't have sufficient equipment to send an officer toward somebody with a 3-inch knife and instead you have to execute him?

"If that’s crisis intervention, God help us all.”

That actually is an effective crisis intervention when dealing with a person psychotically waving a knife around in public that decides to run towards someone with knife in hand after ignoring repeated requests and commands to drop the knife.

It's true that  mental health care services suck and are overwhelmed, and we lack enough in-patient hospital beds to handle all the mentally ill in Michigan and the US for that matter. That was a choice made by politicians to both save money and the quaint idea that the dangerously mentally-ill were just seeing the world different and it was fine for them to be out and about until they kill someone, then politicians act all surprised that that occurred. So the police and jail become the first line of treatment for mentally ill individuals that choose to act out violently.

But, one could still ask why the family didn't have the fellow getting in-patient treatment or at least regular out-patient treatment, considering he had stabbed at least one family member previously (report is unclear if it was multiple family members or multiple incidents), and was known to have what have been described by the family as "psychotic breaks", but that wouldn't help with the chances for winning the ghetto lottery, now would it?

Yom Kippur

Today is the holiest day on the Jewish Calendar.

A day for introspection, fasting, atonement, and repentance towards both G_d and man.

גמר חתימה טובה
Gmar Chatimah Tova 

May all my friends and readers be sealed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy New Year.

The Air Zoo - Rare Bird

There's a very rare bird at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo.

Looking like something out of Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, this futuristic-looking aircraft was a flying flop.

It was quite simply more a danger to its pilots than the enemy, having really vicious stall characteristics.  Then the coming of the jet age ended the development of this pusher-prop design.

It is the Curtis-Wright XP-55 Ascender.

Of the three prototypes, two aircraft crashed with both aircraft being completely totaled, with one of the two crashes killing the pilot flying it.

This Curtis-Wright XP-55 Ascender, is the only one left in existence, and happens to be prototype number two, as prototypes one and three were both destroyed in crashes.

Currently on long-term loan from the National Air and Space Museum, you can find it now on display in Kalamazoo where it was sent to be restored, and very nicely restored it was.

The Kalamazoo Air Zoo has a very well-deserved reputation for aircraft restoration work.

To No One's Surprise, Democrats' Stock Trade Ban Bill Is Deader Than A Doornail

If you haven't guessed by now, it's dead because the Democrats in Congress killed it.

Rather funny how that happens, especially when the Democrat leadership is making millions off of their insider trading information in stocks.

The Intercept:  House Democratic Leadership Designed Stock Trade Ban to Fail, Negotiators Say

Democrat House Majority Leader Sten Hoyer announced there would be no vote on the bill before the midterms.

 Funny that, isn't it?  The Democrats have a clear majority in the House and could pass this legislation without any Republicans at all if they wanted to do so (as flawed as it is with many seemingly deliberate openings to still permit insider trading among Congressional members).  

But they don't, because that would cut off a major opportunity they have to enrich themselves at our expense, all the while claiming they're "for the little people" and against the rich, while becoming very rich themselves based off stock trades from insider information.

The Air Zoo - The Original Angry Birds

So I took the shuttle to the Flight Innovation Center which is now the main museum.  The Flight Discovery Center is where you park the plane and is where the original museum was until it expanded, and its where they do restorations - much more on that later.

 After you pay your admission fee, you walk in the Flight Innovation Center.

There as you walk in, you can see the original Angry Birds:

A P-38 Lightning.  Hanging from the roof, this twin engine fork-tailed devil struck fear into its enemies' hearts and had such storied missions as the interception and shoot-down of Admiral Yamamoto,

A Bell P-39Q Airacobra.  

Not having a turbo-charged engine hampered its high-altitude performance and it was not liked by US pilots. But, the Soviets in World War 2 on the other hand loved them for low-level fighting and ground attack missions that were common on the Eastern front, and over 60% of P-39s were sent to the USSR.

A B-25J Mitchell.  Because you can never have enough .50 caliber machine guns. This one, part of the 498th Bomber Squadron  (the "Fighting Falcons") was setup as a strafing attack bomber and has 18 fifty cals mounted, with 14 of them facing forward to fire on strafing runs.  Note the P-40 angry bird to the side as well.

Then there was much more to see in just the first room of the museum.