Cory Booker begins his drive for the presidency today

Sen Cory Booker is going to do something today that has never happened in US Senate history......testify against another sitting Senator in confirmation hearings. He opposes the appointment of Jeff Sessions from Alabama as Trump's AG.

Booker fancies himself the next President Obama and he figures this is the best way to raise his profile with democrat voters around the country......being a race crusader against a white guy from Alabama.

Check all the boxes Cory, I'm sure another aggrieved race hustler is just what the democrat party needs.

Here Sen Booker demonstrates for the cameras how he would have thrown the winning TD pass last night agianst Sessions' home team Alabama.

 

My run-in with black ice

I was getting a little stir crazy last night so I ventured out to the grocery store to grab some dinner, check out the roads, etc.

The drive was fine until I chose an alternate route home, whereupon I found myself on a sheet of black ice, on a small 100yd hill. With tires spinning, my momentum carried me to within literally 5 feet of dry pavement.....then I stopped and began sliding backward.

Luckily the crown of the road guided my car into the gutter and my back right tire into the grass, stopping my slide, rather than careening back down the hill into a crash.

I thought about abandoning my car and hiking home but it would have taken at least 45 minutes, with groceries, in 19F weather, in the dark. Wisely I called my friend Darrell instead.

Darrell and his son Charlie showed up a little while later in their big 4WD Dodge Hemi PowerWagon and pulled me the final 5 feet onto dry pavement. (Man, I gotta get me one of those)

It's noteworthy that I saw people in 3 different houses peek out their window at me sitting on the ice unable to move and not one of them came out to ask if I was ok, maybe make a call for me, or offer a warm beverage......what is wrong with you people?

So I'd like to thank Darrell Vines and his son Charlie who left their warm home and rescued me last night. That was cool.

Across the pond, they have the guts to mock Islam and ISIS

If any group deserves mockery it's ISIS, but moonbat politicians and the western media revere Islam too much to allow it without sanctimonious cries of racism and bigotry. Thank goodness the BBC ignored them and made this hilarious parody of ISIS. I only wish SNL or other comedy troupe in the US had the guts to do it. Enjoy!

             

Our carelessness let the Russians in

Why is everybody getting the vapors over Russia trying to "undermine our democracy" and "commit this cyber act of war" and "influence our free election"?

There are maybe 40 countries who are sophisticated enough to hack other countries and we all try to hack each other....all the time.

There was no propaganda disseminated, disinformation peddled, psychological ops perpetrated, or fake news trotted out as real news. The only thing that happened as a result of the Russian hack was that dark, disturbing truths about Hillary, Podesta, Huma, Weiner, Donna Brazile, and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz were revealed. Nothing was made up and no lies were told. No American voters were tricked into voting for Trump or not voting for Hillary.

Most importantly, none of it could have happened if Hillary and Huma hadn't communicated via her rinky-dink bathroom server, Podesta hadn't used "password" as his password, or Huma hadn't used her pervert husband's laptop for secure communication.

Putting the blame on Russia when you handed them the information on a silver platter is like blaming the guy who stole your car out of a city alley when you left the windows down and the keys in the ignition.

Good doggie

Heh heh heh.....who's a good doggie?

Bruce Springsteen beclowns self

I've never heard of Marc Maron or his stupid podcast, but recently Bruce Springsteen went on for an interview in which he continued to rage against Trump for promoting racism, bigotry, and intolerance.....all standard, manufactured complaints about the right from the dopey left.

Hey Bruce, you're little more than a silly jester who we pay absurd amounts of money to amuse us from time to time. We don't care what you think, or even IF you think, your role in our lives is essentially that of "clown". So shut up and get back to singing and dancing.

Ed's movie review and bonus editorial

So we just finished watching "Snowden". I thought the story as I understood it was laid out well and Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a terrific job as Snowden. Importantly, they made the point in the movie that Snowden went out of his way, to the extent that he could, to make sure no US assets were endangered by his actions.

Now, I realize that a lot of my friends here despise Ed Snowden as a traitor, and predictably an Oliver Stone film will always take the side opposite the US government, as this one pretty much did but, objectively if your government is authorizing itself in secret to do things it probably shouldn't, clearly outside of its purvue of fighting terrorism, is it really treason to reveal that?

The argument for domestic surveillance and data collection is always, "Well, if you're not doing anything wrong, then what are you worried about?"

Look, I operate an inconsequential, two-bit blog that is highly critical of the government. What happens when criticizing our government becomes, not illegal, but just "anti-American"? Can the NSA trawl back 10 years for every negative statement I made in order to intimidate me into silence, the same way the Clintons used targeted IRS audits to intimidate their critics into silence?

I don't know if Snowden is a traitor or not, I'm just saying the unaccountable bureaucrats in government don't have a good record of honesty, ethics, and responsibility and I don't trust them as far as I can kick them with what is otherwise benign data on me.

The Russians did it

The next human epoch

Meet Lilly, a french robotics technician who 3D printed this anthropomorphic robot herself, then fell in love with it(him). They've been "cohabitating" for a year and she intends to marry it when human/robot marriage becomes legal. Apparently she has some mental disorder by which intimate contact with male human flesh makes her skin crawl so this is her refuge.

I'm kind of surprised that this story isn't from those robot-obsessed weirdos in Japan. Still, objectophilic marriages are probably not that far off, especially as A.I. improves to the point that the human/robot line becomes more blurred and reproductive options become more technological and less traditional.

When this happens, I think it'll mark the beginning of a new epoch on the timeline of human experience in our, pardon the expression, brave new world.

F4's to be retired after 50 years of service

Regular reader Dave gave me this heads-up. After 50 years of service, the last McDonnell/Douglas F4-Phantom in the US inventory will be retired in Alamagordo today. It is still in service in allied countries but the US will not be flying it.

It was THE cold-war workhorse aircraft for the AF, even though it started out as a Navy platform.

Shortly after I joined the Georgia Air Guard in 1980, we got a squadron of F-4's at Dobbins.....one of them is pictured here.

As a weapons loader, working under that plane was the worst job in the AF, but it was an honor to work on an airplane that served the US military for so long.