#Public Safety aircraft

[nocternalrandomness]

Huntington Beach PD departing KSNA

[wat3rm370n]

The drones, Orion’s Belt, and distracting propaganda.

The things that comes to mind with the drone media are that it’s got a very diversionary feel, and that we really need more investment in night sky and aviation education so people can recognize planets, constellations, satellites, and aircraft.

Please support and advocate for your local astronomy club.

youtube podcast:

The New Jersey Drone Panic 404 Media Dec 18, 2024 This week Jason, as both a drones and aliens reporter, tells us what is most likely happening with the mysterious drones flying over New Jersey.

article:

WTF Is Going on With the New Jersey Mystery Drones? Maybe Mass Panic Over Nothing Jason Koebler · Dec 12, 2024 - 404 Media

My local astronomy clubs:

Lackawanna Astronomical Society - NEPA Astronomy Club

Astronomical Society of Harrisburg

[tornadoquest]

Tornado Quest Top Science Links For November 2 - 9, 2024 #science #weather #climate #climatechange #hurricane

Greetings to all. I’m glad you stopped by. As of this post, Rafael is stirring the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and is proof positive that even a hurricane can quickly reach major status in November. There’s always a chance for another one, so I’ve plenty of hurricane preparedness information for you. Along with this week’s US Drought Monitor update there are several good reads, so let’s get…

[reportwire]

Biden's trip to Kyiv delivers the starkest rebuke possible to Putin | CNN Politics

CNN  —  There is no more powerful symbol of Vladimir Putin’s failure. A year ago, the Russian leader launched a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, mocking its history and sovereignty, sending his tanks churning toward Kyiv to obliterate the democratically elected government led by a former comic actor. His purpose was clear: To crush once and for all Ukraine’s dreams of joining the West and to force…

[komsomolka]

To sit in the comfort and safety of the West and condemn acts of armed resistance that the Palestinians choose to carry out – always at great risk to their lives – is a deeply chauvinistic position. It must be stated plainly: it is not the place of those who choose to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians from afar to then try and dictate how they should wage the anti-colonial struggle that, as Frantz Fanon believed, is necessary to maintain their humanity and dignity, and ultimately to achieve their liberation. Those who are not under brutal military occupation or refugees from ethnic cleansing have no right to judge the manner in which those who are choose to confront their colonisers. Indeed, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause is ultimately meaningless if that support dissipates the moment that the Palestinians resist their oppression with anything more than rocks and can no longer be portrayed as courageous, photogenic, but ultimately powerless, victims. [...]

As a result, large swathes of the Western left express solidarity with the Palestinian cause in a generalised, abstract way, overstating the importance of their own role, and simultaneously rejecting the very groups who are currently fighting – and dying – for it. All too often, those who have refused to surrender and steadfastly resisted at great cost, are condemned by people who, in the same breath, declare solidarity with the cause. Similarly, it is common for these same people to either ignore or demonise those external forces that materially aid the Palestinian resistance more than any others – most notably Iran. If this assistance is acknowledged, which is rare, the Palestinian groups that accept it are typically infantilised as mere ‘dupes’ or ‘pawns’, for allowing themselves to be used cynically by the self-serving acts of others – a sentiment that directly contradicts Palestinian leaders’ own statements.

A specific criticism of Hamas that is frequently deployed in this context is the ‘indiscriminate’ nature of its missile launches from Gaza, actions which both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International regularly label ‘war crimes’. As observed by Perugini and Gordon, the false equivalence that this designation relies upon ‘essentially says that using homemade missiles – there isn’t much else available to people living under permanent siege – is a war crime. In other words, Palestinian armed groups are criminalised for their technological inferiority’. After the latest round of fighting in May 2021, al-Sinwar stated clearly that, unlike Israel, ‘which possesses a complete arsenal of weaponry, state-of-the-art equipment and aircraft’ and ‘bombs our children and women, on purpose’, if Hamas possessed ‘the capabilities to launch precision missiles that targeted military targets, we wouldn’t have used the rockets that we did. We are forced to defend our people with what we have, and this is what we have’.

This failure to support legitimate armed struggle is a part of a wider problem with the framing used by many supporters of the Palestinian cause in the West, that obscures its fundamental nature and how it must be resolved. Palestine is not simply a human rights issue, or even just a question of apartheid, but rather an anti-colonial fight for national liberation being waged by an indigenous resistance against the forces of an imperialist-backed settler colony. Decolonisation is a word now frequently used in the West in an abstract sense or in relation to curricula, institutions and public art, but rarely anymore in connection to what actually matters most: land. And that is the very crux of the issue: the land of Palestine must be decolonised, its Zionist colonisers deposed, their racist structures and barriers – both physical and political – dismantled, and all Palestinian refugees given the right of return.

[cod-imagines-fanfiction]

Jealous Alejandro kidnaps Valeria's girlfriend (1.6k words part 4)

Summary: Valeria breaks into the headquarters of the Mexican Army in search of her wife.

TW: implied sexual violence, violence more generally (and Google Translated Mexican Spanish)

Note: I'm back from my home country y'all and free to write gay fanfiction once again. I'm working on the next part ASAP but I wanted to post this because you guys have been waiting forever. Thank you for all the lovely comments and the interactions!! means a lot to me that you guys enjoy reading this :>

Link to A03 Link to part 1, part 2, part 3. Next part: part 5

'Army soldier' was more than a type of occupation, more than any other job title; it was a lifestyle. It is truly a different way of life, a way of life that most people are simply not built for. A soldier's form - their straight back, their way of taking in the world around them within a second, their way of assessing everything as either hostile or neutral, their battlefield instinct - it all became an inseparable part of who they are. There is a certain instinct that gets drilled into soldiers, the instinct to act immediately and fast. The instinct to not think twice about running into danger. It is triggered immediately and triggered intensely. So when the emergency siren at the Mexican Army Headquarters wailed, the whole place came alive. No time was wasted before troops placed themselves in position. Snipers grabbed their rifles and headed for the rooftops, Captains and sergeants tuned into their mics, barking orders to their subordinates, assembling their troops as quickly as possible. Guards ran to their posts and pilots rushed to where their aircraft were getting readied by flying personnel, prepared to take off to gain an advantage in the airfield and a much-needed vantage point of what was happening. The armoury opened as many hands reached within for ammo and other equipment.

From the outside, it was a perfect scene of military efficiency and readiness. But from the inside, anxiety bubbled, threatening to cut loose.

"Why did this have to happen today of all days?" A soldier grumbled as he tightened his weapon belt.

"Someone planned this. It's the most popular day for annual leave," another responded as he grabbed his shoes.

"Dia de los Muertos," the first one said, his voice low and grim.

The Day of the Dead. Celebrated annually around November 1st but spanning over the course of multiple days. A day of celebration for life and death, a day to pay respects to those who have passed on. A time of parades on squares and community gatherings, with crowds of people in traditional costumes and painted faces taking to the streets to rejoice with others. A time when many troops were stationed outside the headquarters for public safety. A time, therefore, of relatively little staff being left behind to man the fort.

It was so perfect, Valeria almost giggled as she withdrew her knife from someone's body and let them drop to the floor.

She had infiltrated the headquarters from the underground tunnels that connected to some fields further out, which were created to be used in emergencies but had been long forgotten over the years. These were the same tunnels she took many years back when she wanted to see you on a day that she hadn't booked off. She would wait until most of the barracks were asleep before slipping away in the shadows, passing the guards and quietly unscrewing the lid that separated the tunnels from the world above ground. It was even more exciting once she taught you when and where to wait for her, at the end of the tunnel, among greenery and orange trees. Among the fields that you would lay on for the rest of the night underneath your blanket, touching each other's bodies and talking to the stars. Whispering how badly you'd missed each other, hearing the hum of insects in between short gasps and warm moans. Now, she had unscrewed these same lids and stabbed the person in front of her, dragging them out and passing the body along to the staff that followed her. They dumped the body back in the fields. Part of her found it annoying that these tunnels were always standing between her and her wife. And yet there was some charm, too. Travelling the bowels of the Earth for her love.

Having officially stepped on ground owned by the Mexican Army, El Sin Nombre and her people spread like a virus, taking down certain key spots and hiding bodies. Not enough damage to create immediate alarm, but good enough progress to feel confident about the next step. Her heart sped up in excitement as she thought of her wife, who was only one building and a lock away from her. And right in front of that building, was him.

Valeria looked out from one of the windows and saw Alejandro standing with his back straight, his face possessing a deep scowl as he conversed with Rudolpho. It had been many years since she last saw him, which was nothing memorable. There was no goodbye, no farewell. She had simply gotten up in the middle of the night and gazed at his face one final time; he glistened beneath the moonlight. He was younger then, his face smoother, his voice gentler; not yet hardened. A mass of muscle on a standard issue Army bed, he was unaware that the woman he loved was slipping right through his fingers. Unaware that by the time he woke up, she'd be gone.

There'd be nothing left behind to prove that she even existed. All of her things just went missing alone with her. She didn't even leave a picture behind to immortalise their love, to have something to look at during those nights when his heart almost gave out, when he realised that he was starting to forget what she looked like. That he could no longer remember her voice. Now, as she looked at him, she wondered why they even started a relationship in the first place. He was attractive, sure, but nothing special. Not like the woman in the box.

He was older now, his face more wrinkled. Valeria was raised with the idea that in women, this quality had the same visual effect as decaying fruit. When Valeria looked in the mirror and saw her signs of age - the smile lines that wouldn't smooth out when her smile fell, the lines around her mouth that could not be covered by cosmetics, the wrinkles around her eyes - it reminded her of something that was starting to fade. But in men, the quality was different, more merciful. More like maturing. It enraged her to see him getting older. To see him in the exact same place that she left him. The memories attached to this place were too much to handle. Memories of her younger years kept materialising at the edge of her vision, like a trick of the light; a shadow figure that kept pursuing. It used to be her, out there in the yard. Talking with Alejandro and Rudy, passing along jokes during a long day. But right now it was just the two of them, talking with ease like she had never been there at all. And right at that moment, as she gazed down at them, the alarm went off. What a glorious opportunity to have a front-row seat to witness Alejandro's reaction once she pulled the rug from underneath his feet. There was no more time to waste. She forced herself to stop gloating at these shadows of the past and to move forward. With each step, she got closer to her wife, her sweetheart. Valeria felt weightless, she felt herself glide through the space between herself and Y/N. She would pause here and there to ensure she did not reveal herself to her enemies. At times, she stealthily murdered someone who could have easily been her roommate back when she was a cadet. But that was another lifetime, a lifetime of making the wrong friendships and choosing the wrong lovers. She wasted no time on these obstacles. At last, her hand encircled the handle of the container. She pushed her weight into it and entered, ready for anything. Be it to murder a guard, or to embrace her love; her instincts were on the front seat. She could kill a hundred men if it came to it.

“Valeria. Bienvenida.”

The metal door crashed into the threshold behind her, the echoes reverberating, she felt, for eternity. There was nothing beyond these metal walls anymore, the whole world went silent. The wrath that burned in her eyes met the hatred that dripped out of his. Darkness met darkness; loathing encircled within their dark glares like an ouroboros, its dark scales flashing where the light hit it. Valeria and Alejandro were a perfect mirror, they were tuned into the same frequency, a frequency of violence. They were built of the same clay; two destroyers meeting at last.

He was right in front of her, waiting. Standing tall and armed to the teeth, Colonel Alejandro Vargas. Her jealous ex-lover, the kidnapper of her wife, the annihilator of peace, the snake that infiltrated the garden. The evil eye incarnate. And here was she, the abandoner, the backstabber; the woman lover.

“Y/N.” Valeria spoke with steel in her voice.

“Is no longer with us, I’m afraid.” The lines of his mouth fell into a pout, feigning sadness. Mocking her. “She’s not a fighter, like you or me. You know what happens to the weak here,” he scoffed. “What was it that you used to say? That the weak exist to serve the strong and die? Yeah,” he said diabolically, a grin etching itself on his face. “That’s what happened.”

She knew he was lying; Y/N walked this earth still. She and her wife’s souls were so intertwined, Valeria would have felt it if her wife was gone. Y/N could never leave without her heart knowing. Valeria would put her hand through fire to prove her conviction.

“If I thought she was dead, I would have shot you on sight,” she said. Her hand gripped a blade tightly, willing herself to stop shaking.

Alejandro laughed. “Oh, I didn’t mean she was dead.” His gloved hands held onto his vest as he looked down at her. “I meant that your wife served me.”

Unable to contain her wrath any longer, Valeria lunged at him with a scream.

tag list: @justmare @silas-222 @m0rganit3 @blarba-girl @sleepiemain @caffeineliker @ashy-kit @00ops1e @lesvii @therapyneeds @lez-zuha @starre-eyes @7smexy7diva @hello-kitty-festival @konigmeu @cassiecasluciluce @gay-ass-country-boy @starwars-theclonewhore @bi-witch-bxtch @somnoslvt @ashthepillow @b3ns0ne  @idiotwrites @danart501 @deakyspuff @mistresssiri @angethehimbosimp

thanks for supporting me!!

[feathered-mushrooms]

Scott Summers ahead Cannons

he is my favorite loser boy

Due to growing up on it, Scott tends to throw himself into the danger room whenever he feels an emotion more than fine. He does not know a limit, which his led to “Scott patrol”. Oh Scott hasn’t left the danger room for five hours? Rouge it’s your turn, I pulled him out last time. 

Scott can’t handle to much down time, or being bored. He constantly feels like there is something he should be doing, and therefore will constantly find something to do. 

Charles has done a number on him. He is the reason Scott is so high strung, why failure isn’t just a lesson to learn from but an entire judgement of his character, why he can’t just breathe. He needs to be the leader and the man everyone can count on, he needs to be everything Charles wants him to be. 

This is not a healthy way of thinking. 

Scott has a special interest in planes. It started when he was young and then had a pause after the plane crash that killed his parents. However he picked it up again and now can tell you the difference between a commercial flight and a jet. He also knows how to pilot seven different types of aircraft and even got official license for each.

He is Bi.

It took him frighteningly long to figure this out. 

Scott has issues with social skills(projecting). He can speak sarcasm just fine and makes many jokes in that medium. However he has a hard time figuring out people are being sarcastic, especially if the joke is around him. 

He would wear a dress. Not in public, but if Jean offered he would try one of her dresses on in the safety of a bed room. He would like it. 

Game nights were originally hidden from Scott who(due to the professors absurdly high expectations) does not handle losing well. He loves to point out the rules and technicality’s, and will not play Uno with any variations. He’s not a sore loser par say, it just gets depressing for everyone watching. 

When he was young he kept only one pair of ruby glasses and one visor. As he has aged(and been influenced by Emma) he know has a collection of ruby glasses in all types and styles. 

Star Wars is his comfort show/movie/universe

Pretty equal on cats and dogs but leans towards dogs. 

His chances of being a toddler dad had been pretty ruined but he thinks it would be nice to raise a kid alongside a dog. Maybe a golden retriever. 

He does not mind cats though. 

He often feels weird in his place as a parent. Nathan is his kid but some much time has been lost that Scott can’t help but yearn for the mile stones that were missed and lost to time. He misses everything he was promised as a father. The same is true for Rachel although it is a little weirder. Yes she is his, but from a future that will never happen. He often feels guilty because in the end he has two great kids, but he wishes he could raise a kid in a normal sense. 

He just wants to be a father. 

When he was their step father, Scott showed the Cuckoos Star Wars. He keeps checking in on them, even after he and Emma are no longer together. 

Scott’s type is a person who will be mean to him, and could probably kill him, but have a soft spot.

Even if that soft spot is very hidden. 

He can make a really good grilled cheese. There was a week in his teens were there was low x-men activities and not a lot to do in the mansion so he dedicated his days to perfecting the grilled cheese. He makes it anytime he thinks someone needs some comfort. 

He’s eyes are brown under the visor. 

Never played DnD but very interested in it. Researched it a whole lot and has watched a lot of play throughs. Has even mentioned it to the rest of the squad and most were down to try. However it was forgotten due to the next world ending event. Scott still thinks about it and the character he made. 

He is doing his best but often over exerts himself which leads to sick days. On these days he is forced to cuddle up in a blanket and watches either the Star Wars orignal movies or one of the shows. Most times someone will be designated to sit with him so he doesn’t try and get up and do work. 

On these days Logan often takes the job. 

That all for now!

[mariacallous]

The US Coast Guard’s Titan submersible hearing kicked off with a startling revelation.

“I told him I’m not getting in it,” former OceanGate engineering director Tony Nissen said to a panel of Coast Guard investigators, referring to a 2018 conversation in which CEO Stockton Rush allegedly asked Nissen to act as a pilot in an upcoming expedition to the Titanic.

“It’s the operations crew, I don’t trust them,” Nissen told the investigators. “I didn’t trust Stockton either. You can take a look at where we started when I was hired. Nothing I got was the truth.”

Nissen’s testimony, which focused on the design, building, and testing of OceanGate’s first carbon fiber submersible, was a dramatic start to nearly two weeks of public testimony in the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation’s hearings into the fatal June 2023 implosion of the Titan. Its five occupants, including Rush, all likely died instantly.

Before Nissen took the stand, the Coast Guard presented a detailed timeline of OceanGate as a company, the development of the Titan submersible, and its trips to the wreck of the Titanic, resting nearly 3,800 meters down in the north Atlantic. These slides revealed new information, including over 100 instances of equipment failures and incidents on the Titan’s trips in 2021 and 2022. An animated timeline of the final few hours of the Titan also included the final text messages sent by people on the sub. One sent at about 2,400 meters depth read “all good here.” The last message, sent as the sub slowed its descent at nearly 3,400 meters, read “dropped two wts.”

The Coast Guard also confirmed reports that the experimental carbon fiber sub had been stored in an outdoor parking lot in temperatures as low as 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (–17 Celsius) in the run-up to last year’s Titanic missions. Some engineers worried that water freezing in or near the carbon fiber could expand and cause defects in the material.

Nissen said that almost from when he joined OceanGate in 2016, Rush kept changing the company’s direction. A move to certify the vessel with an independent third party fell by the wayside, as did plans to test more scale models of the Titan’s carbon fiber hull when one failed early under pressure. Rush then downgraded titanium components to save money and time. “It was death by a thousand cuts,” Nissen recalls.

He faced tough questioning about OceanGate’s choice of carbon fiber for a hull and its reliance on a newly developed acoustic monitoring system to provide an early warning of failure. One investigator raised WIRED’s reporting that an outside expert Nissen hired to assess the acoustic system later had misgivings about Rush’s understanding of its limitations.

“Given the time and constraints we had,” Nissen said, “we did all the testing and brought in every expert we could find. We built it like an aircraft.”

Nissen walked the Coast Guard board through deep-water testing in the Bahamas in 2018, during which he says the sub was struck by lightning. Measurements on the Titan’s hull later showed that it was flexing beyond its calculated safety factor. When a pilot subsequently found a crack in the hull, Nissen said, he wouldn’t sign off on another dive. “I killed it,” he testified. “The hull is done.” Nissen was subsequently fired.

Nissen sought to draw a line in the sand between the vessel he worked on and the one that took the fateful voyage to the Titanic. The latter had a replacement hull and a redesigned acoustic monitoring system. “My design was collecting data such that we would prevent a catastrophic failure and ultimately the loss of human life,” he said. “We did that with serial 1. What they did in serial number 2, I don’t know. “

The next witness, Bonnie Carl, worked at OceanGate for less than a year between 2017 and 2018. Carl was hired as a director of human resources and finances and was also training to be a pilot for OceanGate’s submersibles. Carl said that one of the company’s board members, former Coast Guard rear admiral John Lockwood, was brought in for oversight and “to show that we’re talking to the Coast Guard.”

She also echoed Nissen’s testimony that Rush was in complete control of the company: “There might be discussion, but in the end … all decisions were made by Stockon,” she said.

The final witness of the day was an OceanGate contractor and veteran submersible operator, Tym Catterson. Catterson is one of only two witnesses the Coast Guard has called who was among the 42 people aboard the Polar Prince, OceanGate’s support ship, that June. He was operating the floating platform used to transport, launch, and recover the Titan submersible.

The preparations for the Titan’s dive that day went smoothly, said Catterson: “The sun came out, there were no red flags, and it was one of the first times we ever launched on schedule.”

He did have positive things to say about OceanGate’s safety culture, noting that Titan’s predive checklist was longer and more thorough than those used by other submersibles. But Catterson also admitted to contributing to an “uncomfortable” incident on a previous Titan dive, where an incorrectly closed valve caused the sub to tilt, tumbling its passengers together for an hour.

Catterson was able to give only a very spotty account of events following Titan’s loss of communication. He repeatedly referred the board to OceanGate’s operations director Scott Griffith as someone who could provide a more complete account of the dive. Griffiths is not on the Coast Guard’s list of witnesses, nor are any employees of OceanGate’s operations team.

Catterson was there for the recovery of some of the Titan’s wreckage, however. He testified that the inside edge of one titanium ring was sheared off all the way around. One former OceanGate engineer believes this supports the theory that the implosion was allegedly caused by damage to the carbon fiber there, perhaps from freezing water or lifting the sub without using the correct equipment, rather than a failure of the hull from pressure alone.

The hearing continues this week and next.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sam Olley

There are "major gaps" in surveillance of new pathogens from animals and countries should prepare for a pandemic worse than Covid-19 in our lifetimes, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Covid-19 technical lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove also said that New Zealand, being an island nation, was not protected from this risk.

It has been five years this month since scientists believe Covid-19 began to spread from animals to humans, triggering a global pandemic that the WHO estimates to have caused at least 20 million deaths and $16 trillion in lost revenue.

Van Kerkhove told 1News she did not think this pandemic needed to be as bad as it was.

"And in fact, this was not really the big one, we have to prepare for an even worse one."

WHO was not trying to scare people, she said, but instead called on them to be prepared.

"Hopefully we won't have one in our lifetime, but I am sure that we will have another outbreak and another pandemic during our lifetime."

Surveillance of new human infections has improved but the WHO is highly concerned about "patchy" surveillance of pathogens spreading between animals that could be transmitted to humans.

"Right now, we have some major gaps," Van Kerkhove said.

When asked if the loss of some specimens was a problem for pandemic preparedness, Van Kerkhove said: "I don't have direct evidence, because this is not something that's shared quite widely, that some samples that have been collected over time that are stored in freezers, some of those samples are starting to be destroyed."

"If we look at coronaviruses, we want to go back in time."

She said she was also grappling with the impact of geopolitical conflicts taking money from health.

"I do find it striking that there always seems to be money for an aircraft carrier. There always seems to be money for war, but we are yet to provide consistent funding for global health threats."

There was no place for complacency, she said, and island nations were not exempt from the risk.

"These pathogens do not respect borders."

Van Kerkhove addressed New Zealand public health experts this week at the Te Niwha conference to relay the latest updates and research from the work of the WHO.

Those attending included Sir Ashley Bloomfield who is currently the interim chief executive for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). Earlier this year, he co-chaired a working group for 196 countries to agree to amendments to the International Health Regulations to better protect health and safety in response to future outbreaks and pandemics.

These included the introduction of a universal definition for a pandemic emergency, a commitment to solidarity and equity on access to medical products and financing, as well of the establishment of a States Parties Committee and the creation of National IHR Authorities.

Sir Ashley said a theme of these negotiations was that developing countries felt there was "an overreaction" from other countries around travel and trade if there was a new variant reported.

"The other issue that developing countries had is that they would often provide samples that were then used to develop vaccines that they could not access. So these are issues that collectively countries need to address."

The WHO is working alongside New Zealand health leaders to upskill new frontline workers and leaders to reduce burnout.

Sir Ashley said some people in key roles are "quite burnt out".

"They probably don't feel they would be able to make the same effort if they were called upon in the near future."

Te Niwha director Te Pora Thompson (Ngati Hauā) said: "We cannot go through subsequent pandemics — which we will, we absolutely will — with very tired, very broken people, at all."

She also reinforced the importance of a diverse workforce to reduce inequities in pandemics.

"There are a few more seats that we need to be pulling up to this table."

Asked about her own experience with burnout, Van Kerkhove said she was not necessarily the best example of this.

"I'm working through it with my family. I was not present for my kids — I have two little boys — for years."

Around the world in health systems, "we need a deep bench to be able to work with," she said.

Noting the praise New Zealand's Covid response received, she was optimistic Aotearoa could continue at a high standard in future pandemics.

"I think New Zealand can absolutely be a leader."

[bekolxeram]

I heard that there've been alleged drone sightings near airports and military sites in the US. While authorities have proclaimed that there's currently no apparent threat to public safety, none of that stopped misinformation from spread online like wildfire. Some say it's China/Russia, some say it's alien, some even take matters into their own hand.

Those trails of smoke, my friend, are called chem contrails. They're basically lines of clouds created by particles emitted by the exhaust of aircraft engines. The particles act as cloud seeds (nuclei) for water droplets to condense around. You see 2 trails here in the video, but if you're looking at 4 engine aircraft, like the A380 on my blog header, you'll see 4 trails. Thus, the mysterious "drone" our friends here are looking at (and pointing a high power laser at), is most likely a commercial jet airliner at cruising altitude.

And then, you have mainstream media outlet reporting this:

We know it's not aliens, because since when do aliens fly with the exact navigation lights configuration as per FAA regulations?

And since when do drones have not only a tail rotor, but an Airbus trademark Fenestron style tail rotor?

The "drone" in question, is actually a Guimbal Cabri G2 light helicopter. You can compare the positions of the red light on top of the tail and the green light on the right side of the fuselage in these 2 photos.

Apparently it's gotten so bad that the FBI had to release a statement urging citizens not to point lasers at or even attempt to shoot down "suspected drones".

I'm just saying, it'd be interesting terrible if some dumb people decide to mess with Tommy's helicopter while he's working...

You know, in case you're still trying to crash that helicopter.

[whencyclopedia]

Life in an Air Raid Shelter in the London Blitz

Crowded and uncomfortable air raid shelters became a feature of the urban landscape across Britain during the Second World War (1939-45) as the bombers of Nazi Germany systematically hit cities from 1940. The London Blitz was a particularly sustained period of bombing which civilians escaped from by diving into private or public shelters when the sirens whined their warning signal.

People sought refuge in the London Underground stations, in purpose-built community shelters, in their cellars, under the stairs, or in refuges in their gardens such as the Anderson shelter. The danger was real, prior to the autumn of 1942, more British civilians were killed in the war than British military personnel.

The Bombing of Britain

Civilians had a lot to put up with even before the bombing started. The blackout was imposed where no non-essential lights were to show at night and so help enemy bombers. There was a real fear that gas bombs would be used, and so everyone was encouraged to carry gas masks. The Phoney War, the period of relative military inactivity in Britain between September 1939 and the spring of 1940, brought a sense of false security, but the German Luftwaffe (air force) would arrive soon enough.

Hundreds of thousands of children were evacuated from cities, including the capital where one million children were shipped out. Youngsters were sent to the safety of the countryside, but the separation from parents and a familiar environment proved traumatic for many. As the historian J. Hale points out: "By January 1940 about half of all children and nine out of ten mothers had returned to their old homes" (27). Despite this, when the bombing started, the official policy of evacuation was continued.

Bombers of the Luftwaffe and the Italian Air Force dropped both explosive and incendiary bombs, the first type to smash through buildings and the second to set the ruins alight. Britain had an integrated air defensive system, the Dowding System, which monitored incoming aircraft and sent out fighters to intercept like the Supermarine Spitfire, but many bombers got through to deliver their deadly loads. In the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe aimed to destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF), both in the air and on the ground, while a secondary aim was to terrorize the civilian population. As the Luftwaffe began to lose the battle, so it concentrated more on civilian targets. Most raids were carried out at night since darkness was the best protection for the German bombers against fighters and anti-aircraft guns. The bombers were guided by radar to their targets, but bombing remained highly inaccurate so that even when strategic sites like factories were the target, there was usually great damage to civilian areas.

London was first bombed on 24 August 1940. The bombers were to attack an oil terminal but mistakenly hit the city, thus beginning a tit-for-tat bombing of civilian areas that escalated to unimaginable horrors like the total bombing of Coventry and Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah). The systematic bombing of London began on 7 September 1940 and continued until the middle of May 1941. The British press called this campaign "the Blitz". The East End of the city, where the docks were located, was a particular target. Other cities across Britain were also repeatedly hit. For civilians, not knowing where the bombers would hit next, air raid shelters became essential everywhere.

Continue reading...

[nocternalrandomness]

Az DPS Bell 407 at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport

[girlactionfigure]

⚠️THAI WARNING, KILLED BY ROCKETS - Real time from Israel  

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

⚠️The Nat. Sec. HQ calls on the Israeli public staying in Thailand to increase vigilance :

1. Avoid going to events with many participants that are identified with Israel, with an emphasis on those that are announced in advance or places of entertainment and gatherings that are identified with Israel.

2. Inform the local security forces if you are exposed to hostile activity targeted against Israelis/Jews.

3. Don’t publicly wear Israeli/Jewish symbols.

4. Avoid updating location details and travel plans on social networks.

These guidelines are valid for the entire country of Thailand.

▪️DEF. MIN. SAYS.. “There will be no ceasefire in Lebanon. We will continue striking Hezbollah until they are disarmed beyond the Litani River and the safety of northern residents (of Israel) is ensured.”

▪️MORE CREDIT CARD - CYBER ATTACK PROBLEMS.. Difficulties in credit payments with some providers due to a cyber attack on international Bezeq servers this afternoon.

▪️REGARDING THE NETANYAHU TRIAL.. The prosecutor's office OPPOSES Netanyahu's request to postpone his testimony due to lack of time to prepare BECAUSE OF WAR.

🔪TERROR - ATTEMPTED STABBING - near Dayr Sharaf.. terrorist shot, no injuries to IDF troops.

🔪TERROR - WELL POISONING.. Arab rioters from the village of Deir Davan today poisoned another water well in the pastures of Givat Or Meir, which is used for watering the hill's flock of sheep in Samaria, many goats poisoned.  No arrests.

💩IRAN SAYS.. spox of the Iranian govt Fatma Mahajrani: "Donald Trump must avoid any wrong choices that could violate the rights of the Iranian people."

♦️LEBANON - after warnings, IDF airstrikes on Beirut mid day.

♦️IDF - “we have destroyed 20 years of Hezbollah weapons production sites and warehouses in the heart of the Da'ahiya district, including a complex under five residential buildings containing about 50 families and located about 85 meters from a school.”

♦️LEBANON - A wave of Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon and reports of many terrorist being killed, per enemy reports.

♦️IRAN SHOT DOWN.. their own: Last week there was a news item about an Iranian fighter plane of the Phantom type that "crashed".  It did not crash, it was shot down by Iranian air defense in an area about 20 km from one of Iran's strategic facilities in Kermanasha. Oopsie.

❌ROCKET HIT - NAHARIYA market - from HEZBOLLAH - 2 killed.

⭕ROCKET HIT - KABARI - from HEZBOLLAH - 2 injured, shrapnel.

⭕ONGOING ROCKET and SUICIDE DRONE alerts across the north from HEZBOLLAH, with particular volumes across Nahariya, Acre, the Krayot, and Haifa, as well as Safed and the Golan and Upper Galilee towns.

⭕LONG RANGE ROCKETS at the Tel Aviv and wide surrounding areas from HEZBOLLAH, intercepted.

⭕HOUTHIS CLAIM.. “carried out two high-quality military operations, attacked two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones, and attacked the American aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with drones.”

[longwindedbore]

• The desire to push R&D costs off to the company’s suppliers meant that Boeing was essentially building its planes from kits that weren’t designed together, didn’t fit together, and didn’t meet the standard of quality the company had once been known for. This move may have been a short-term boon for company profits, the share price, or for CEO bonuses, but the reduction in quality has given rise to the phrase “If it’s a Boeing, I ain’t going.” I’m not sure there has ever been a more aggressive about-face on a company’s view by the global public. •

===================================

The problems are Systemic and require an expensive, extensive, and prolonged effort to correct.

Tying bonuses to safety - as announced by Boeing - ignores the potential and now realized Systemic catastrophes possiblities when mating components designed by different manufacturering entities. (As opppsed to subcontractors manufacturing to specifications and blueprints produced by Boeing.

The different components may all pass their individually manufacturers quality control as well as Boeing’s. As INDIVIDUAL components but FAIL to mesh in the completed aircraft.

The burgeoning examples are coming faster and faster. Executives aren’t going to solve these known issues let along figure out other weaknesses if Boeing has lost depth in engineering staff.

What a nightmare.

[follow-up-news]

The Federal Aviation Administration is temporarily barring drone flights over critical infrastructure at more than 20 locations in New Jersey. The restrictions, announced Thursday, come amid a flurry of reported drone sightings that have raised concerns across the Garden State and beyond. Homeland security officials continue to insist "there is no public safety threat relating to the reported drone sightings," the agency said in a statement, but said the temporary flight restrictions were issued "out of an abundance of caution." Locations covered by the temporary restrictions, which last for 30 days, include unspecified facilities in Jersey City, Camden, Elizabeth, Kearny, Bayonne and Bridgewater. In a joint statement earlier this week, authorities from DHS, the FBI, the FAA, and the Department of Defense said the vast majority reported unexplained drone sightings are actually general aviation planes or passenger jets, or commercial and hobbyist drones. "Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones," the agencies wrote.

[quaranmine]

Wildfire & Environmental Health

Here's a few interesting studies I read recently at work that were related to wildfire. Y'all know I find wildfire to be an interesting topic, and I'm an environmental scientist who primarily works in the public health sphere, so I thought I would share them!

The first is about metals found in wildfire suppressants. You know, the stuff they drop from planes?

This one immediately caught my interest since I primarily work in theings related to lead, which is a heavy metal. I had not thought about heavy metals in wildfire suppressants before, but it did not suprise me given our track record with fire fighting products in the past (PFAS in fire fighting foam and asbestos as a flame retardant....)

This study looked at fire suppressants approved by the US Forest Service and consumer use to see if it could contribute to increased heavy metals found in soil and water in areas following a wildfire. They looked at vanadium, chromium, manganese, copper, arsenic, cadmium, antimony, barium, thallium, and lead and found councentrations 4–2,880 times greater than drinking water regulatory limit. At least 8, if not all, of the above metals were found in every fire suppressant tested. The products themselves are not meant to be ingested, obviously, but the concern was that if it were many times above the drinking water maximum contaminant level, that it could still be high enough to impact drinking water quality if it ran off into a reservoir used for that. The Forest Service does have buffer zones around bodies of water where fire suppressants should not be dropped, but accidents happen frequently. They estimated that "fire retardant application in the U.S. contributed approximately 380,000 kg of toxic metals to the environment between 2009 and 2021."

All fire suppressants must be tested by the US Forest Service and have their full ingredient list disclosed, but for public facing material safety data sheets up to 20% can be considered "proprietary" and not disclosed. Chromium and cadmium are effective as aluminum corrosion inhibitors, so they have been added to prevent the product from corroding the aircraft's tanks. Chromium, cadmium, lead, copper, manganese, arsenic have all been documented a contaminants in phosphate ores, which could explain some of the heavy metal concentration in fire suppressants that contain phosphates (but not all of them contained phosphates.) Leaching from metal storage/production tanks could also potentially explain some of the metals in the fire suppressants.

This is an interesting article to me. The authors did not mention it, but I want to note that heavy metal contamination can be just as harmful to wildlife as it is to humans, so even if this contamination did not actually enter human drinking water, it could still kill wildlife. This is also just a terrible glimpse into the way we damage ecosystems. Decades of total fire suppression and poor forest management has lead to increasingly worse wildfires with more fuel to burn, and climate change is fueling through hotter and drier seasons, changed weather patterns, and more. Worse wildfires means fires that are harder to control, and thus fires that need increased use of fire suppressants....which are also toxic. Sigh.

The other one is a new study I just saw today, about the potential link between wildfire smoke inhalation and dementia:

This study looked at 1.2 million people in Southern California to see if long term exposure to wildfire fine particulate matter (PM2.5) was associated with dementia diagnosis. PM2.5 exposure is already known to be a risk factor for dementia but wildfire smoke is an increasingly common source of it that can have different chemical and physical properites than other sources of PM2.5. Wildfire-generated PM2.5 now accounts for "over 70% of total PM2.5 exposure on poor air quality days in California."

They found that for every one microgram increase in wildfire PM2.5 per cubic meter of air over the course of 3 years, the odds of dementia diagnosis rose by 18%. For comparison, the odds of dementia diagnosis for the same parameters of non-wildfire PM2.5 only rise by 3%. (This is compared to everyone's baseline risk, so it is still a fairly small risk over the total population.) The difference could because wildfire smoke participles often have higher concentrations of oxidative or inflammatory compounds, have a smaller average particle size, and typically spike intermittently at high levels at certain parts of the year. Low income communities and people of color were noted to be at higher risk—potentialy due to housing quality (air filtration) and systemic discrimination compounding their risks later in life.

This study is very full of statistics and analysis, so in full disclosure some of my summary is also based off a paywalled article I read first on it. It is an intersting study for sure—I would not have guessed that wildfire smoke specifically had so much higher of an impact than other sources of particulate matter.

Uh, happy Wednesday!