A small cargo plane lost a wheel during a hard landing, then continued on to fly for a while before finally doing an emergency landing that seemed to go about as well as you might hope for a cargo plane with a third of its landing gear gone. But the co-pilot *seems* to have decided to chuck himself out of the plane well before then, crashing in a yard some thirty miles from the final airport. Friggen’ *WHY*?
Was he stressed out? Was he on something? Was the initial hard landing his fault, and he knew that it would go bad for his career?
So some friends and I are watching through “Star Trek Discovery.” We’re Trek fans from *decades* back, so it might surprise some that it’s taken us this long to get around to wading through all of STD. We’re well into season three… and we’ve made an important decision.
Star Trek, whether the episode was good or bad, was always pretty much *fun.* But STD is *not* fun. A lot of it is downright painful. So while we’re generally interested to see where the plot goes, the characters themselves are often just nightmarish. So the decision was made to stand by on the Fast Forward button. Someone starts crying? Fast forward. Someone starts a monologue about how awesome someone else is, or any form of emotional validation? Fast forward. That cringy Trill/human “couple?” They show up… fast forward.
We’re getting through episodes *really* fast now. More than anything, this cringe-edited version of STD reminds me of those Super 8 versions of sci-fi movies that were available in the late 1970s.
I remember seeing, circa 1979-1981 or so, a desktop “unit” that had a film cartridge that showed Star Wars boiled down to maybe five minute on a display just a few inches across. Until VHS, that sort of thing was the only way to watch Star Wars on demand. And fast forwarding is the only way to watch STD *at* *all.*
Matt Frewer is said to be onboard to play Max again. One wonders if the way to go this time will be to use *actual* computer generated characters. That seems obvious… but maybe it’d be appropriately weird to stick with prosthetics.
The guy with the pox here is said have likely gotten it from going to a bar and “kissing another person.” That’s… a little vague. Fortunately, he’s one of those attention-seekers who goes out looking for clout and ends up being a cautionary tale. Behold:
“I knew what it was, I knew I was at risk,” he says. “I tried to get the vaccine, but I couldn’t. I thought I was being careful. Clearly, I wasn’t being vigilant enough.”
Over the July Fourth weekend he went to several bars and, while he was shirtless, hugged and kissed a few men. The following weekend, he started seeing little white bumps under his chin.
That’s… that’s just *stupid.* But wait! There’s more!
Wallace is going on a month of prescribed quarantine, but he thinks his lesions will be healed in a week and he will at least be able to leave his house again.
FFS.
So, yeah. Another case of someone going out and actually *working* at catching the latest fashionable disease, then acting shocked. And if it stayed strictly within people who have no sense of self control – men, women, gay, straight, whatever – then… who cares, that’s on them. But these yahoos could well come into contact with, say, children. And children come into contact with *other* children. And viruses mutate, and the more people who have a virus, the more opportunities for mutation.
This incident appears to have occurred while the plane was still on the ground (what looks like ground crew dealing with it). Some sources say Spirit Airlines, some Allegiant. It seems to me that this sort of thing used to be a lot rarer.
It bans the sale and transfer of standard capacity magazines and weapons that are in common use. It’s chances in the Senate are slim, though not nonexistent; Biden will of course sign it. If it gets that far hopefully the Supreme Court will tear it apart before it can foment a civil war.
There were a few Dems who had some sense:
Democrats Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Kurt Schrader of Oregon voted against the ban.
And there were sadly some backstabbers:
Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Chris Jacobs of New York voted for the bill.