Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@social.cleverlibre.org

@annejefferson

Repeating something I mentioned on scicomm.xyz and offered as encouragement:

How's the United States Geological Survey doing under the current administration?

Per fresh anecdotal report by USGS lifer geologist and close relative who as a well-functioning scientist can't lie, very well indeed. Things are vastly better, from policies through budget. The past two years much nicer than what immediately came before.

More science is getting done.

#USGS
#ProgressHappens

This license plate

Woot, finally received the last QSO confirmation needed (VT on SSB) for ARRL's triple play - working all states on digital, CW and SSB!

A Civil Emergency Message has been issued in relation to a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

The evacuation zone is 1 mile from derailment located at 1020 E.
Taggart in East Palestine, Ohio. If you are in vicinity of this area, please heed the warning!

This violin was in the car stolen from singer Debbie Davis in New Orleans. Boosting the signal - hoping that it will be recovered. Thanks ❤ This is a photo of the violin before it was worked on. It now has new strings and pegs and it’s cleaned up in full playing condition. The case is hard brown leather and has inscription A2 painted on the bottom of the case in white paint. Please be on the lookout in New Orleans area. #NOLA @noladon

Yale Honors 9-Year-Old Scientist after a neighbor called the police on her. - MSNBC https://apple.news/A9aCVJrL8SFOx3cOBuD8iMg

"The United States is the only large high-income nation that doesn't provide universal #healthcare to its citizens," Reinhart continued "Instead, it maintains a lucrative system of for-profit #medicine. For decades, at least tens of thousands of preventable deaths have occurred each year because healthcare here is so expensive." https://www.commondreams.org/news/physician-for-profit-healthcare

Guy Venables on #LizTruss - political cartoon gallery in London original-political-cartoon.com

Teachers in 1930s Germany hid books to avoid being arrested.

Teachers in republican Florida are hiding books to avoid being arrested.

Any questions?

-- Jeff Tiedrich

What a beautiful sight

Donald Trump presided over not 1, not 2, but THREE Chinese spy balloons, none of which he shot down and all of which he hid from the public.

The 3 #ChineseSpyBalloons exposes the emptiness of #Trump’s tough talk.

Thank you President #Biden for walking the walk.

Rocket Powered Apes

The Galactic Council of Advanced Races regarded the humans from planet Earth with a mix of fear and bemused detachment.

Unlike every other intelligent race in the galaxy, these sentient monkeys had somehow missed discovering the antigraviton. As a result, their technology relied on explosions. Their noisy cars left trails of filth across their planet, and their fledgling space program could barely progress beyond their own moon, using massive, dangerous rockets.

(1/)

Republicans, including Trump, slammed Biden for concealing a Chinese surveillance balloon and not shooting it down. Well, Biden didn't conceal it and did shoot it down. Now we learn that three such balloons spied on the US when Trump was president, and he totally concealed it and did not shoot them down.

Two things are simultaneously true, and we'd do well to stay aware of both:

1) The Former Guy absolutely must be charged and convicted for staging a coup, defrauding the public, stealing classified documents, and about half a dozen other extraordinary crimes.

2) Completing Step 1 won't save democracy in the US.

A seldom discussed aspect of Hitler's leadership of Nazi Germany is that he was... to put it mildly... quite terrible at it. He was an absolutely rubbish military strategist. He did not understand how to inspire loyalty, only how to enforce it. He was egotistical to a fault, and seldom entertained ideas he didn't at least marginally believe were his own. For most of World War II, there were various plots against his life in various stages of conceptualization and execution. Lots of Nazis wanted him gone, but it was dangerous to say that aloud.

There were several attempts that might have been successful. Most people have heard of the bomb that went off, but fewer know that he was also delivered booby trapped alcohol, but the mechanism malfunctioned. There was also an aborted attempt at a suicide bombing. Hitler could easily have died as World War II raged.

Here's the thing. Almost everything the Nazis did was *NOT HITLER'S IDEA." Hitler, like The Former Guy, was not the originator of the Third Reich. He was the useful executor. Almost everything they did, from wolfpacks to death camps, were schemed up by other more competent Nazis.

There's a strong argument that if Hitler had been killed, Germany might have done substantially better, for longer, and many, many more people would have died.

If The Former Guy is removed from play by disqualification or incarceration, DeSantis is waiting in the wings. If he doesn't do it, Margorie Taylor Green will give it a try. If she doesn't do it, someone else will.

While they have power, they are always an imminent threat. Convicting The Former Guy is the minimum for us to be able to say we're still a nation of laws. That's all. We live to fight another day if we win this battle. But somebody else will take charge of the Nazis, and there's a real danger they'll be more capable than TFG.

Stay frosty.