impulse

After 302,000 in December, a reasonable person could envision a queue each day to allow 5,000 in, then tell the rest to come back tomorrow. Whether they'll wait a day, or simply sneak in between border crossings is anyone's guess. The idea of codifying and normalizing 5,000 unvetted, undocumented entries a day means we really don't have a border.

She's Biden's guaranty against ever getting impeached. Sheer genius selecting her. But not because she's competent. Just the opposite.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., details allegations of misconduct by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack https://www.foxnews.com/video/6345746789112 You guys really need to keep up with the right wing stuff. The MSM is leaving you behind.

Boeing seems to have an issue with loose bolts on the Max production lines. Whether it's Boeing or Spirit... https://samchui.com/2022/07/10/how-a-loose-bolt-caused-china-airlines-boeing-737-haul-loss/ https://themalaysianreserve.com/2023/12/30/boeing-warns-airlines-about-potential-loose-bolt-in-737-max-jets/

The gub'ment had something like 40,000 hours of video from the day, a lot of it exculpatory for some of the defendants. They refused to turn it over until recently. That, by itself would be grounds for a dismissal in a functional judiciary system. A lot of them absolutely deserve to be in prison. But every defendant deserves a fair trial. Even the guilty ones.

I'm waiting to see what the new price is. Really, I haven't bothered doing a search to see how many other vendors on Amazon and EBay are selling them. Maybe on a slack day...

Don't worry dude, with a neurological chip we will be able to speak every kind of language! It will be a wonderful and friendly world! The problem is that everyone thinks they'll be in the 50% that survives. Half of us will be sorely disappointed. For a few nanoseconds.

Me neither. I don't have enough assets to make a contingency lawyer drool. And I won't be running for office against any Dems. But if I every get filthy rich, I may just change my name so Cathy Conley can't find me. The sex was always extremely consensual, with her generally instigating. But you wouldn't have known that from the stories she told her friends after we broke up. Cray Cray is how my nieces describe it... Not unlike naming your cat "Vagina".

What frosts my pumpkin is that the USPS incurs expenses schlepping those packages around the US, subsidizing Chinese suppliers. Great for me because I get stuff cheap. Not so good for US businesses that should be selling me stuff. Or Thai suppliers who can't come close to competing. One more fidiot treaty our globalist bureaucrats signed. Rant over.

That's disappointing, because I ordered a bunch of Amazon and EBay goodies from China where the entire cost, product and shipping combined, was less than $10. Sometimes as low as $2. Had me scratching my head... Thanks for the info...

As I stated, neither fisherman's pants nor Amazon are in my actual plans. But they are close enough that any info about ePacket will be applicable.

Good info. Thanks for those. And as a bonus, they're not blocked where I am, like Google and half of the news sites are. Honest to gosh, I tried to tee this up like I would a bigfoot sighting, and keep the discussion light natured. I know there are some pilots, mechanics and and other aviation people tuned in here from previous threads. I was hoping for their insights. And I am genuinely curious why they chose to fly the plane, but not over water. Was it just the pressurization alarms?

Using my example of fisherman's pants to the USA, any idea of the cost and delivery time? Probably 500g in a 25cm x 25cm envelope... Any strange formalities that would derail the process? Like certificates of origin, need to show a business license, etc?

I'm not doubting you, but I'd appreciate you showing the math. 1 in 25 isn't as lucky as I thought. But that's why I asked for a statistics guru...

I don't guess you've ever served on a jury... The standing joke is that you don't stand a chance, 'cause all the smart people figure out how to get out of jury duty. Which I did for 64 years. Then after I retired, I was called up and I answered the call. I had nothing else on my schedule. Pretty much confirmed. The joke's true. If she doesn't even remember the year that it happened, how does she remember it was Trump? And it wasn't consensual?

That's close to true. Though I was a 45 year mechanical engineer responsible for DIFA's on multi-million dollar systems. That's Disassembly Inspection Failure Analysis. I've done hundreds, but that's in the oilfield. So I don't claim any special skills in the aviation world. Just curiosity... And I still remember the NTSB trotting out parts of TWA 800 that they claimed had explosive residue. (and not just the seat cushions) That's a risk when you jump the gun. Like the lady in his story.

It'll be months before they finish their investigation. Even then, it's not unheard of for pilots and experts to contest the NTSB results after they're released. Edit: And if it was sheer luck, my OP asks how lucky was it? Was it 1 in 10 lucky or 1 in 10,000 lucky that those seats were empty.

You don't figure that's what (and who) the media want you to see? Here, why don't you take it from Dean Phillips, a Dem candidate for president. During his trip to New Hampshire. From my previous post in another thread... “Last night I saw a Trump rally outside of mine, I walked up to the line of people a mile long and I simply said hello. I was met with 50 people going to the Trump rally who were friendly, hospitable, thoughtful, some who said they voted for Barack Obama. Some said they were Bernie Sanders supporters. About half of whom had never been to a Trump event before. So for everybody watching right now, Donald Trump is on a big mission to win and Joe Biden is going to get creamed. And I just wish Democrats would wake up and ensure that at least we give it our best shot because right now I’m afraid we are deluded into a nightmare.” https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/22/biden-challenger-dean-phillips-says-president-going-to-get-creamed-says-party-is-deluded-to-think-otherwise/

Good info. Thanks for that because I have a hard time searching where Google is blocked. Leaving Trump aside, that should scare the beejeezus out of any successful guy that has a jilted lover (or crazy stranger) in their past. Arbitrarily opening up a yearlong window to extend the statute of limitation... Especially if you live in a liberal Dem bunghole where the typical jury believes whatever comes out of a woman's mouth, and relishes every opportunity to stick it to the man. Now, back to Trump... It's a shame those 3700 guys got caught up as collateral damage in this obviously partisan attempt to damage the leading opposition candidate.

It may be that simple and innocent. I was just surprised to see the window seat vacant on a scenic route. But the videos from the flight do show it was dark out... So maybe nobody asked for a window.

It's not recent, but Alaska has lost at least one plane due to schlock maintenance to cut costs. There was an incident where a nut on an elevator shaft wasn't lubricated and the plane went down. (someone help me with the terminology...) https://mustreadalaska.com/ah-here-we-go-jan-31-2000-the-day-flight-261-bound-for-seattle-plunged-into-the-pacific-ocean-all-88-lost/ The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board led to problems with a two-foot-long jackscrew, and a lack of grease on the jackscrew, which had caused the threads to be stripped, resulting in the horizontal stabilizer jamming and putting the aircraft in a nose-down position. The aircraft had no backup system to protect it in the event of a loss of the function of the jackscrew. Jackscrew is the word I was looking for...

Just to be clear, my question was mostly tongue in cheek. But I'm looking forward to the investigation results coming out. Because I like a good wingnut conspiracy theory. And I don't work for the airlines, so I don't know what it would take to block off a couple of seats in the computer because, for instance, the seat had problems. I've been on several flights where the seat recliners were broken and nobody was assigned that seat. BTW, the last person I'd suspect is the captain. He doesn't assign seats, and he goes down if the plane does.

Absolutely, I do. But without the rape case, this was a $500,000 defamation suit. If that. Which she filed and withdrew before the rape case. The rape case being enabled by a Democrat change in the statute of limitation that allowed the case to be filed, more than 25 years later. (we don't know how many years because she can't even recall the year it happened). And now, that time window is conveniently closed. What are the odds that the window was contrived for the specific purpose of harming the leading opposition candidate? Just out of curiosity, how many other cases proceeded during that time window? Or was it just Trumps?

I put this in the pub because that's where it probably belongs. I need some help from the statistics wonks out there... Apparently, there are 178 seats in the Alaska Air with the blown door plug. There were 171 passengers on the plane. The plane had been relegated to flights over land because of a cabin pressurization alarm. The 2 seats right next to the blown plug were empty, probably saving a couple of passengers from injury (or worse) Here's the question for the statistics gurus: What are the odds that those 2 seats would be among the 7 on the plane that were empty, given random seat allocation? The wingnut in me suspects the seats were empty because of a whooshing noise on previous flights. And subsequent investigation showed that the 4 bolts holding the plug on that plane were missing. Not loose, apparently...missing. I haven't seen any discussion here of this incident, which I would think would be of interest to the globetrotters here on an Expat website. Please, tell me how wrong I am... Or any other thoughts on the incident... https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/08/us/alaska-airlines-plug-door-found-investigation-monday/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/08/us/what-happened-alaska-airlines-flight-1282/index.html