zaphod

The show has one non-binary character and a gay couple and suddenly they're relying on "cultural hot topics".

Please.

Disco had a lot of flaws, and most of them were the same flaws we saw in Picard: the writers just couldn't write full season plot arcs that were satisfying and believable. This is made worse because each season had to raise the stakes, to the point where it just got kinda exhausting. Meanwhile the show just took itself way too seriously, without really earning my emotional investment.

Cool, so Hillary and the DNC were such incredible political masterminds that they single-handedly brainwashed GOP supporters into nominating Trump. And all the voters then picked him because, I assume, the DNC also tricked them into tacking toward fascism through, I guess, sheer force of political will.

Truly amazing.

Or course, it makes sense. Certainly when I think of the DNC and the Dems more broadly, I think of an incredibly effective organization with an all-powerful and unstoppable mind control apparatus demonstrating unparalleled powers to manipulate an unwitting electorate in order to achieve their nefarious goals.

And the GOP and their voters? Obviously simply sheep, following the lead of their Democratic puppet masters.

I'd call it a left-wing conspiracy theory, but if there's anything I know about the Dems, it's that they're such incredible strategic politicians that this can't be anything but the stone cold truth. Right?

Certainly that explains why, after the 2016 election, all those poor GOP voters woke up, confused and hung over, and realized what they'd done while under the spell of those nefarious Democrats, and why in subsequent years they rejected Trump wholeheartedly and certainly never goose stepped right along behind him.

Never ceases to amaze me how often I see this canard:

both parties share culpability in creating the opening for MAGA and Trump

So Dems, who are never elected to represent those poor, forgotten souls in the rust belt or former coal mining towns, and therefore are not in a position to actually do anything to help them, are somehow culpable for those folks, what, voting against their interests?

Fuck off with this both sides enlightened centrist bullshit. Folks in Virginia and Alabama voted for right wingers who fucked them over, then those people successfully channeled the resulting anger and resentment at the "establishment".

It's the political consequences of starve the beast politics.

Random turbulence that maims the flight crew just wouldn't be practical as a "thing that just happens" on regular longhaul flights.

I never said it happens often but it absolutely does happen. Here was a particularly spectacular example that happened to folks a few years back on their way to Australia (and note, if you want more examples, the article lists a couple of other past incidents that also resulted in crew and passenger injuries):

https://apnews.com/article/49db2788d04d4e11bcbb1a63dbae4199

Passengers on a flight from Canada to Australia said they had no warning about turbulence that suddenly slammed people into the ceiling of the plane and injured more than three dozen — a phenomenon that experts say can be nearly impossible for pilots to see coming.

One passenger on that flight noted:

“The plane just dropped,” passenger Stephanie Beam said. “When we hit turbulence, I woke up and looked over to make sure my kids were buckled. The next thing I knew there’s just literally bodies on the ceiling of the plane.”

So again, I cannot emphasize this enough: wear your damn seatbelts, people.

Fair enough. Notably, that quote isn't in the Reuters article, which is what I was commenting on.

No arguments about the need for an investigation, particularly if that quote from the pilot is genuine.

All that says is they're investigating.

At this time, unless something new comes to light, there's little reason to believe it's anything but an unusual episode of turbulence.

Edit: and according to a different article, there is at least one passenger who claims the pilot said their controls "blanked out" which would qualify as "something new".

Headline is clickbaitey, the fact it's a Boeing is irrelevant. This can just happen.

I was on a flight to Colorado from Canada, flying over the Rockies, and we hit a mild patch of turbulence that, without warning, suddenly turned into a quick, long drop that threw folks who weren't belted in out of their seats and sent drinks flying.

The lesson is simple: wear your damn seatbelt and avoid walking around the cabin unnecessarily.

The QAnon Anonymous podcast, which critically explores conspiracy movements in general, is worth checking out if you want a deeper dive into Didulo and the broader conspiracy movements she's connected with. They have a couple of episodes dedicated to her particularly, but also cover things like the sovereign citizen conspiracy theory that she trafficks in.

She's been around for years and has been thriving in QAnon/sovereign citizen/COVID conspiracy theorist circles without the media coverage.

Shining light on this nutjob is not going to make things any worse, and it's about time normies came to understand the crazy in their midst.

You know what Wesley's mistake was? He wasn't born an Irishman.

I stand corrected. One project in Italy and two proofs of concept that never went anywhere.

Truly revolutionary.