Dead birds are real

 According to a study presented to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech 2023 Forum (deep breath) it is now possible to incorporate stuffed dead bird parts into drones for use in spying on other birds.  And humans.  Why go to all that trouble just to find out what birds are doing?

In other science news, Elon Musk, who made his fortune off electric cars that drive themselves off cliffs, says he is afraid artificial intelligence will kill us all.  Like Trump's wind turbines.  

The ever-classy Ann Coulter has emerged from her lair to inject some overt racism into the 2024 campaign, proposing that Nikki Haley "go back to your own country."  She's still seething because Haley pulled down the Confederate battle flag which flew over the South Carolina state house until the mass murder at Mother Emanuel Church.  An expert on India, Coulter asked, "Did you know they have a rat temple, where they worship rats?"  That would be Karni Mata, considered the reincarnation of the goddess Durga.  Haley, whatever else she is, is not a Hindu.  

What she is is a proudly anti-LGBTQ bigot.  She told some voters in New Hampshire that Floridastan's "don't say gay" law "doesn't go far enough," and when she's "a badass woman in the White House" there will be no sex education of any kind, ever, no way.  Take that, Governissimo RINO.

First in the alphabet and first in the hearts of state killing fans, Alabama is tinkering with a new way to execute people:  nitrogen hypoxia.  State senator Trip Pittman, winner of Redneck Name of the Week, says it's "a more humane option," no worse than passing out on a suddenly depressurized airplane.  As Barbara Graham asks in I Want To Live! "How would you know?"

Depression can follow any life-changing event:  childbirth, battle experience or a major stroke or heart attack.  This has been well known for years.  Senator John Fetterman checked himself into a hospital for treatment of severe depression.  In his case, the stress of a new job surrounded by idiots may have exacerbated other health issues.  As you might expect, responses follow party lines because this is the country we deserve.  

Want to hear what the stars of Fox "News" say when they're not frowning into the camera getting worked up about pronouns or gas stoves?  Dominion Voting Systems has the good stuff.  Their $1.6 billion defamation suit against Uncle Rupert's flagship yielded some fascinating quotes, all extracted under oath.

"Sidney Powell is lying.  Fucking bitch."  (Tucker Carlson, 11/16/20)

"Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can.  We don't want to antagonize Trump further but Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt."  (Rupert Murdoch)

Rudy's "an insane person."  (Sean Hannity text message)

"Such an idiot."  (Laura Ingraham)

"What [Trump's] good at is destroying things.  He's the undisputed world champion of that.  He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong."  (Carlson)

It's all here, like Hunter Thompson and Bill Hicks sharing whiskey and 'shrooms in the beyond.  I haven't read it all but I really like the part about Antonin Scalia being killed in a "human hunting expedition" at Bohemian Grove.  How did that not make it to air?  (This is redacted, by the way -- imagine what they left out.)

As of last night Baby Tuckoo was still riding the election fraud hobbyhorse, wondering how "senile hermit" Joe Biden managed to get fifteen million more votes than "rock star crowd-surfer Barack Obama."  (I can answer that -- Obama never ran against Trump.)  Carlson knows his audience never read anything or listen to anything but Fox, so they'll never know what he and the other liars really think.  

In other redaction-related news, somebody was up late telling the functionally-illiterate Trump about the grand jury information released Wednesday by Judge Robert McBurney in Atlanta.  Since neither his name nor anyone else's was mentioned, Trump immediately hailed McBurney as "a Daniel come to judgment," a reference he and his court will never get.  "Thank you to the Special Grand Jury in the Great State of Georgia for your Patriotism & Courage.  Total exoneration.  The USA is very proud of you!!!"  Not so fast, fat man.  They also said they think at least some of the 75 witnesses should be charged with perjury and found "no evidence of widespread fraud" in the 2020 election.  Fani Willis is not done with you.

Neither is the Justice Department.  Five Proud Boys go on trial next month for seditious conspiracy and they want to call Trump as a witness.  He can moan about how being served with a subpoena is yet another tactic "like the KGB and Gestapo rolled into one!" and then get on the stand and invoke the Fifth Amendment like a badly dressed Frank Costello.  Fingers crossed.

Won't somebody think of the dogs?  Minnesota is moving toward legalizing recreational marijuana and state Senator John Jasinski (R-Ofcourse) wonders what future awaits all those drug-sniffing dogs.  They won't be put down, will they?  Perhaps they can be re-trained to identify idiots in, say, a certain building in St. Paul.

Now that a Christofascist majority has been installed on the Supreme Court, the Jesus crew are dreaming of federal laws outlawing every form of sexuality from romance novels to images of the female breast "below the top of the areola" (actual language in an actual Texas bill).  To protect minors, of course.  A comedian could be jailed for a "risque" joke half a century after Lenny Bruce, and art studios employing nude models could be closed in West Virginia.  Since most people find their wankbait on the internet now, they're very worried about how to censor everyone's computer.   Readers who want the next Fifty Shades installment would have to show ID (the first sold 35 million copies) and could probably be arrested if one of the kids got hold of it.  

I don't know what they'd do about underage golf fans who saw Tiger Woods hand a tampon to Justin Thomas at the Genesis Invitational, evidently a jokey way of saying "You drive like a girl."  I don't understand golf humor.  

  

Probably a beheadable offense in Saudi Arabia, which the US resembles more every day.

Also just as well Raquel Welch is not starting her career in this atmosphere.  I didn't know she was once married to Leonard Nimoy's ugly brother.

Joe Biden had a physical and was pronounced "a healthy, vigorous eighty-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency" despite a possibly cancerous skin lesion, non-valvular atrial fibrillation, occasional symptoms of gastroesophogeal reflux and stiffening of the spine.  But is he "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency"?  Are his "physical strength and stamina extraordinary"?  And what exactly did Harold Bornstein die from, in the busy month of January 2021?

"Trump's annual physical shows him beating Biden by 100 pounds."  (Andy Borowitz)

In at least one respect Nikki Haley is already in the big league:  Frankie Sullivan has demanded she stop using his song "Eye of the Tiger" in campaign events.  You're not a Republican until you've violated some songwriter's copyright and wishes, as far back as Reagan's tone-deaf appropriation of "Born in the USA."  Next:  Why Ukraine has always been part of Mother Russia.

Republicans are so busy protecting children's minds from Mrs. Doubtfire and books about Roberto Clemente that they forget their bodies are also at risk.  Packers Sanitation Services, Inc., of Wisconsin, definitely not affiliated with the Green Bay football team, was found by Labor Department investigators to be employing at least a hundred kids between 13 and 17 cleaning slaughterhouses at night.  In at least two states Republicans have introduced bills to lower the work age because so many jobs are unfilled.  Strategies such as paying adults more or hiring recent immigrants are considered impractical, i.e., expensive.  Besides, the children get invaluable experience.  FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 but, like Social Security, everything is up for grabs.  Including children's lives.

We thought child labor ended in the 1930s.  We also thought Nazism ended in the 1940s.  Silly us.

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