In a perfect democracy, voters are attentive and well informed, and politicians discuss issues and debate the merits of policies like adults. We’re not there yet, especially on the Republican side of the aisle. The latest sickening example of Republicans acting like unruly children involves Go[...]
Archive for May, 2023
Air travel in Russia (video)
Same hard plastic seats in the terminal as you find in U.S. airports. They must’ve bought them from us. Or maybe we buy them from Russia. The airplane is a bit quaint, though. How many places can you still fly on a biplane? All seats are economy-class, of course — if you call them seats.[...]
Kari Lake rebuffed in court again
An Arizona trial court judge has again rejected Kari Lake’s claims that she lost the 2022 governor’s race because of misconduct by Maricopa County election officials (see story here). The same judge previously ruled Lake failed to prove any of her original 10 grounds for overturning the [...]
May 22nd, 2023 - 5:32 pm § in Misc., News Media
Pentagon explosion photo is AI fake
The photo below, which quickly went viral, isn’t real. It’s artificial intelligence fakery. But the stock market dipped on the “news;” somebody pocketed money from this hoax. Read story here. The internet has always been a cesspool of lies and misinformation, and it’s about to get[...]
May 21st, 2023 - 4:01 pm § in Misc.
Golf shot (video)
“It’s been a Block party all week at the PGA Championship, and the man at the heart of festivities is not done partying just yet,” a CNN story said (here) on Sunday, May 21, 2023. “Michael Block, the 46-year-old club pro who teaches golf lessons at a public course in California, [...]
May 21st, 2023 - 3:06 pm § in Misc.
Why grenades are lousy souvenirs
An Indiana souvenir collector apparently didn’t think ahead to when he’d pass on, and his family would clean out his house and go through his belongings. That’s what his son and grandchildren were doing when they found the grenade. It was the real thing, and somebody pulled the pin[...]
May 21st, 2023 - 1:32 am § in Schools & Colleges
Why not just respect people for who they are?
In Mississippi, a school district barred a trans girl from her high school graduation unless she dressed like a boy. A federal judge appointed by Trump upheld the district’s decision. (See story here). In New York, a private Christian college fired two dormitory supervisors for adding gender i[...]
May 21st, 2023 - 12:29 am § in Misc.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Balls Pyramid
Balls Pyramid (1,877′) is a volcanic plug in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand (more details here). It was first climbed in 1965, and access is now regulated. Return to The-Ave.US Home Page[...]
Colorado offers new evidence the GOP is turning off its own voters
Do Republicans’ problems go beyond voter antipathy to Trump? Is the GOP a Superfund site? At this point, that’s a belief and attitude among Democrats, but there’s not a lot of hard evidence. GOP candidates underperformed in 2022, but the high-profile losers were almost exclusively [...]
May 20th, 2023 - 12:11 am § in News Media, Schools & Colleges
Does this story have only one side?
J’den McAdory of Severn, Maryland, doesn’t like a new gun control law recently signed by Gov. Wes Moore, so he protested by parading with an AR-15 at an elementary school bus drop-off site. A news reporter tweeted: And he’s catching flak. Former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki sai[...]