Granulocumulus Interaction Strikes Again

Most likely the President of Iran's helicopter had an encounter with a Granulocumulus cloud.

AP: Iran’s president killed in helicopter crash, election set for next month

Granulocumulus as in mountain hiding in the clouds (Granite+Cumulus).

It's likely this occurrence is what is known as a CFIT, or controlled flight into terrain event. This is where the operator of the craft which is otherwise working fine flies it into the ground. As the helicopter was flying in a mountainous area low visibility in fog, that is the pretty typical scenario for such. Combine it with potential maintenance issues on top of pilot disorientation, and this stuff happens.

On the upside, the "Butcher of Tehran" along with the other members of the Iranian regime onboard the helicopter are those whose deaths should not be mourned by decent folks. Considering they happily killed thousands of their own people, and orchestrated terror campaigns elsewhere including against the USA, the world is far better off without them.

Court: Election Redistricting To Favor Dems Has Racial Consequences

The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission , which just happened to redraw districts that ended up (quelle surprise) being heavily in favor of Democrats, drew some ire as the resulting districts diluted Blacks into multiple districts.  This dilution prevented Blacks from being assured of having a lock on Blacks as representatives in some districts that previously were assured of having a Black representative as a lock.

The Detroit Free Press: Court orders metro Detroit legislative maps redrawn

Now, the cracking and redistricting they are complaining about wasn't actually done to "prevent Black people from voting for the candidates of their choice"  it was about ensuring Democrats all won those seats. 

Putting Black-majority areas with their voters that vote 90%+ Democrat into other previously less partisan district ensured that result, even as it made Blacks not a majority in each of these districts. This meant in the Dem primaries a Black candidate wasn't assured of winning. Such lack of a racial lock is apparently bad. In short in their pursuit of a lock for the Dems (for noble, non-partisan reasons, of course), the Commission ticked off a key Dem constituency.

 Note, the results of the un-packing being complained about in the article:

The panel ordered the commission to redraw the following districts:

• House District 1, currently represented by state Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit.
• House District 7, currently represented by state Rep. Helena Scott, D-Detroit.
• House District 8, currently represented by state Rep. Mike McFall, D-Hazel Park.
• House District 10, currently represented by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit.
• House District 11, currently represented by state Rep. Veronica Paiz, D-Harper Woods.
• House District 12, currently represented by state Rep. Kimberly Edwards, D-Eastpointe.
• House District 14, currently represented by state Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit.
• Senate District 1, currently represented by state Sen. Erika Geiss, D-Detroit.
• Senate District 3, currently represented by state Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit.
• Senate District 6, currently represented by state Sen. Mary Cavanagh, D-Redford Township.
• Senate District 8, currently represented by state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak.
• State Senate District 10, currently represented by state Sen. Paul Wojno, D-Warren.
• State Senate District 11, currently represented by state Sen. Veronica Klinefelt, D-Eastpointe.

See how there's not a single, solitary R in that list?   

This is the result of  the creation of solid D-majorities in those districts by filtering Blacks into each to create solid D-safe districts instead of keeping solidly Black districts.

In short, the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission screwed up by not simply coming out and stating the truth - this wasn't racially motivated, it was instead very politically motivated to create Democrat-safe districts, which in doing so got rid of Black majority districts to spread that solid D-voting bloc around.

In short, it was gerrymandering of the very sort they bemoaned happening before, but since it helped the Ds, so it was the noble kind of gerrymander.

It's likely the redrawing will again create districts that favor Blacks by race (I had thought that doing things based on race was bad, but you know apparently locking things up for certain races is just ducky). 

It may even create a district where Republicans have at least a shot at winning, and my current gerrymandered (but for the best of intentions, right?) district which is in the list ordered to be redrawn, may even stop being completely overwhelmed by Detroit voters.  

One can hope for that anyways.

Another Completely Avoidable Police Firearms Accident

Unfortunately, people who handle firearms everyday often become complacent when handling firearms. 

This can lead to really avoidable accidents - such as in this case someone who had the smart idea of bringing a fully functional firearm and live ammunition to a role play training exercise.

The Detroit Free Press: Civilian injured in shooting during Michigan police training exercise.

That a live firearm and live ammunition was present anywhere during a role playing exercise raises a whole lot of question as to safety and planning (or lack of same) that went into that exercise:

A person taking part in a police training program in Taylor suffered a gunshot wound and was hospitalized, Michigan State Police said.

The shooting happened Sunday afternoon during the exercise at a Taylor city park for the city's volunteer auxiliary police program.

The civilian was a "role player" in a training scenario when an auxiliary officer in the training fired a shot from his service revolver, hitting the person in the abdomen, state police said. The person was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

If you're role-playing a scenario with other persons, you should be using blue guns or simunitions (and all the safety gear that requires) for your role play, not live weapons.

The Rule of "Treat All Guns as Though They are Loaded" gets ignored and an awful lot of these totally avoidable incidents occur.

It Would Take A Heart Of Stone Not To Laugh At East Lansing Residents

In the news, and it must be a slow news day over in EL,  East Lansing residents are complaining about noise from traffic along the main drag in the city.

East Lansing info: “Unbearably Ridiculous” Noise from Cars and Motorcycles Is Riling East Lansing Residents

But, the woke residents there also don't want police in the area, nor having police enforce minor infractions - like, you know, noise complaints.

Wing said that officers from the East Lansing Police Department are not helping so far as she can see.

. . .

Responding to complaints from people like Worth and Wing, at the June 8 meeting, East Lansing Police Chief Kim Johnson said that his officers had tried showing up in the West Grand River Ave. area to help, only to be asked by one resident to leave because that resident didn’t want armed police hanging out in the neighborhood.

Johnson said police were doing their best, but it is clear that with this issue, as with many others, ELPD now finds itself caught between people who want enforcement against disturbances of the peace by things like loud parties, fireworks, and noisy motorcycles, and people who want the police to back off of enforcement of non-violent offenses.

There have definitely been mixed messages on policing issues like this, with Council taking actions such as revising the disorderly conduct code to reduce the likelihood of a person being prosecuted for a “minor” offense while also wanting the police to stop motorcyclists for making loud noises – something that might be seen as a minor offense.

So get woke, push to defund the police, complain about their presence, insist they don't enforce the law on minor infractions, and revise city code to not enforce prosecution for minor offenses, and then complain when they don't enforce the law on minor infractions that are affecting your quality of life.

Next step:  Act all surprised when your woke policy of having the police not enforce minor infractions leads to higher crime in both minor and major categories, as minor crimes go unpunished and major offenders are not interdicted by being caught for a minor crime prior to their committing a major crime. 

Funny how that happens, eh?

Gov Half-Whit Caught (Again) Breaking Her Own Rules

Verily, laws are for the little people, not for one so important as our governor, especially when it's her own rules that she's breaking.

So, what happens when you get caught violating your own Covid-19 restrictions?

Why, you just say oops, and then you drop the rule:

The Detroit News:  Michigan's 6-person restaurant, bar rule rescinded after Whitmer's violation

The epidemic rules released by the state Department of Health and Human Services Monday have dropped requirements that restaurant and bar tables be limited to six people, with each table being six feet apart. 

The governor told the media at a Monday press conference that the determination to eliminate the rule "was made well before the weekend" and prior to her Saturday visit to East Lansing's Landshark.

And if you believe that second paragraph, I have a nice bridge a bit north of here joining two peninsulae that I'd like to sell you. 

Looks like she had a nice time Saturday busting her own rule:

That's 13 people, over twice the number allowed under her 6 person rule that was in force, and enforced against others.

But, we'll have to give the Governor some partial credit here.  

Since she was openly caught violating her own rule on camera, she at least didn't try to brazen it out as she has done over her Florida jaunt,  and so far, she did not say "Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?".

On the upside, assuming this is now a precedent, then the more rues she violates, the more these arbitrary and unilaterally set rules will go away, so that's something at least.

It's Not Like We Didn't Tell You That Woke Policies Have Consequences

Ah, those lovely and oh-so predictable moments when those woke-inspired policy choices come back to bite the Progressives in the butt.   Sadly thenon-woke get to suffer the consequences of their policy choices as well. 

1. Defund the Police:  Conservatives and others with common sense pointed out this was not a good idea and would lead to more crime and violence.

To no one's surprise, it did lead to increased crime and violence.

The Oregonian, first supported the defund the police movement, and defunding the Portland Police’s gun violence team in particular. They are now shocked, simply shocked, and dismayed at the violence, shootings and deaths that have resulted.  

The Oregonian is now advocating to reinstate the Portland Police’s gun violence team  after the reality of the crime increase after its disbandment and to actually fund the police, but the woke running Portland still have other ideas and will likely double-down on their failure.

2.  Ending Cash Bail / Low Bail:  Again, this has been pointed out to be a very bad idea with lots of consequences by releasing criminals onto the streets to continue to commit crimes.

Yep this Illinois state senator, advocated for and passed the law for eliminating cash bail. He's now all sorts of surprised when he's a victim of crime and the criminal who committed the crime against him gets out on low bail and can go on committing crimes? 

At least it's nice that someone who passed this idiotic law has to live with the consequences of his actions rather than being able to wall himself from the consequences of those actions.  This no cash bail policy has led to more crime everywhere it has been tried in the US so far, yet the progressives show no signs of backing away from this crime-increasing policy.  

These defund the police and no cash bail policies are brought to you by the same fools who couldn't figure out the correlation between criminals being locked up and resulting low crime rates.

Stuff Kids Say - High School Edition

The kids just returned back to school (via Zoom from home) after their break (also at home).

Leah reporting on her school day today while we were together eating dinner:

"Just finished the drug and alcohol unit in Health - Now, I know how to make a killer Long Island Ice Tea!"

The kid's got perfect timing, and yes, some liquids were coughed up in response.

So Texas, How's The Preview Of The Green New Deal Working Out For You?

So it turns out windmills don't handle icing conditions very well. Solar doesn't do well when covered in snow or in overcast conditions either.

MSN :   Texas electric grid operator says frozen wind turbines are hampering state's power output: report

About half of Texas' wind power generation capacity has been put on ice amid the state's historic winter storm, according to a report.

Oops. Add to that a sudden demand for natural gas for heating instead of electricity generation and there's not enough capacity to provide power.

It's definitely a cautionary tale of over-reliance on unreliable sources of energy such as solar and wind.    It's another cautionary tale of the failure to maintain and build an energy infrastructure able to keep up with the demand and have enough at the margins to handle an emergency. 

Pushing for the Green New Deal and not building reliable nuclear power and clean coal plants instead of expensive and unreliable wind and solar are going to end up putting us all in the dark and cold.

Springing Emotions

Happiness: Finding an AR-15 buffer spring that you thought had gone into the dimension of lost springs while you’re crawling around on the floor.

Sadness: The reason you’re crawling around on the floor and found the buffer spring in the first place is that an extra-power Glock extractor spring and bearing was launched at high speed to either somewhere in the room or into the dimension of lost springs, never to be found again.

Update:  In awesome customer service news,  I contacted Apex about purchasing a new spring to replace mine that had sprung as they did not shown them for sale individually on the website.

They quickly replied that they’ve been in the searching for springs situation before and they just went ahead and shipped a replacement out to me for free.  Apex has both great parts and great customer service - highly recommend.

Who Knew That Letting Violent Criminals Out Of Jail Would Lead To More Violent Crime?

Progressives don't seem to get the correlation between releasing violent criminals from jail and a subsequent rise in the violent crime rate.  It's a complete surprise.

The coronavirus is being used as an excuse for implementing all sorts of progressive ideas, including ending "mass incarceration".

The Detroit News:  Wayne County Jail COVID-19 releases include violent criminals

When a Wayne County judge announced eight months ago that he would begin releasing jail inmates in response to the coronavirus outbreak, he said people accused of violent crimes likely would stay behind bars.

That statement didn't really age well, nor did it take long to expire:

[The Judge then freed] at least 35 Wayne County Jail inmates who were accused or convicted of violent crimes, according to a Detroit News review of jail records.Among those released: four men who were convicted of criminal sexual assault, and 14 others who were convicted of assault. 

What could possibly go wrong?

One of the convicted sex offenders is back in jail after prosecutors say he got out and raped three women at knifepoint.

Oh, well, that.

Dozens of other jail inmates who currently are charged with or were convicted of nonviolent crimes, but who have had previous violent convictions, also were released because of COVID-19, according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

So even more things can go wrong. 

There is, of course, no consequences to the judge and others making these decisions to release these predators back into the community.

Do Check Your Ammo

With the current super-high demand for ammo and all manufacturers going at capacity, some slips are going to happen.

 

From a recent box of Federal American Eagle 9mm:

One bullet was not like the others:

Yes, it's a bullet perfectly loaded into a case - backwards.  Makes for an interesting 9mm hollow point.  

Did not try firing it.

Even 99.999% quality control means something will eventually slip by 0.001% of the time and when you're producing billions of rounds. . . .

No damage done, but it pays to actively look at your ammo from the box as you're loading it.

A Case Of A Premature Takeoff

An Air Maroc jet had a little problem with catching air at Frankfurt airport.

You're really not supposed to do that on takeoff.

What Is It That Happens When There's More Money Chasing Fewer Goods Again?

Oh yeah, that.

The Detroit Free Press: Food prices soar to highest one-month increase since 1974

Well, when you shut down all stores but those deemed essential, basically leaving groceries as the only thing to spend money on. Then combine it with the shutting down of processing plants and the collapse of the food supply chain when you shut down certain elements you managed to forget were essential, and add real problems at processing plants, and you get this.

Grocery store bills shot up April, showing the biggest monthly increase in nearly 50 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic's monthly Consumer Price Index report.

While overall the April CPI declined 0.8%, consumers on average paid 2.6% more for groceries. It's the largest one-month increase since February 1974. During the last 12 months, grocery prices rose 4.1%.

Price increases in the meat, poultry, fish and egg category were the steepest.

You Know That "No Weapons " Sign On The Courthouse Door?

They mean it when they put that sign up. They really mean it. It's not a polite suggestion.

The Detroit Free Press: Pontiac woman arrested after trying to bring stun gun to court

You need a Concealed Pistol License CPL to even carry a stun gun (Taser-type) in Michigan. The article isn't clear if this even was a legal stun gun device, but it is clear she lacked a CPL so could not have been legally carrying it in any case.

Now, even if she had CPL, which she did not, that still wouldn't let her carry it into the court. You would think the no weapons sign and metal detectors, not to mention the court officers at the door, would have tipped her off that she really shouldn't try to bring it into court.

Some people really can't pick up on very obvious clues not to do something felony-stupid.

Fragile Systems Are, By Definition, Fragile

During the height of the cold yesterday there was an emergency gas shortage caused by a fire at a Consumers Gas processing plant.

With just one facility knocked out of service, Consumers lost access to about 64% of their supply of gas available for heating and power generation. This caused emergency alerts throughout the state, complete with appeals for people to turn their thermostats down to use less gas, and the closure of factories to also conserve gas.

When a problem at a single facility can imperil 64% of your product at a time its most needed, that suggests you've got a less than reliable system with insufficient resiliency and emergency capacity in place for then the unexpected happens.

Combine this with Michigan Enviro's desire to get rid of coal and nuclear and use natural gas more heavily for power generation in the state as reported in detail by Right Michigan, and expect more of these unnecessary crises in the future.

A Funny Moment From The Arbitration

There's an old adage among lawyers - Never ask a question of a witness you don't know the answer to during a trial.

That also applies during an arbitration.

Claimant's attorney had a claimed star witness, he was supposed to testify early Thursday morning. Claimants attorney even stated he was so important may have to even suspend the arbitration as he had trouble getting the witness to appear especially as the witnesses wife had just been in a car accident that very morning.

I certainly didn't want to suspend the arbitration so we all agreed the witness could appear just via voice on the phone. My clients knew his voice in any case.

One of the many claims claimant made was about some machines and his claim was they didn't work for the purpose they were sold by my client to be used by his client and others.

So we get his star witness on the line.

After a few questions about some other technical areas the going after that don't lead to much the claimant's attorney asks him:

"How well did the machines work?"

His star witnesses answer: "They worked great!".

Too bad you weren't there to see the look on his face at that answer. Priceless.

He persists: "But didn't they break down?"

His star witnesses answer: "Oh, there was some normal wear and tear, but nothing that was their fault".

To rub it in a bit there was just one question from me for that witness, "I just went to be sure we all heard you right, you said the machines worked great?"

"Yes", he said "Yes, they did".

No further questions.

Ensure Your Safety Before You Take A Selfie

Darwin claimed a Californian visiting Michigan recently.

The Detroit Free Press: Woman falls to her death taking selfies at Michigan landmark

A California woman slipped and fell to her death while taking selfies at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Wednesday afternoon.

[The woman], 32, was hiking solo on the North Country Trail and paused to take selfies near a 200-foot cliff edge that looked over Lake Superior. While taking pictures, she fatally fell into the lake, according to upper-Michigan based television station, WLUC.

In short a completely needless and preventable death.

The amount of people injured or indeed killed from taking selfies or otherwise burying their head in their phone is rather considerable. Being aware of your surroundings, especially when said surroundings lack guardrails to protect you from your own lack of awareness and footing, is rather paramount. Unfortunately, people often fail to be aware of their surroundings and think they live in a safe bubble. Reality sets in and their bubble pops, and often they do as well.

Now I'm not saying that taking selfies should be banned or anything, just some common-sense selfie control laws clearly need to be instituted, right? After all if it saves just one life . . . . .

The Latest Hack Attempt Of The Democrats Was By . . . . The Democrats Themselves

The latest hack attempt of the Democrat National Committee data was this week. It led to an outburst of claims of Russian collusion, etc, but now turns out not to have been by the Russians at all, nor of any outside party for that matter.

Instead, it was the work of the Democrats themselves.

The attempt was actually penetration testing by the Michigan Democratic Party to test security of the DNC's files. Apparently they forgot to tell the DNC they were doing it, which led to a wee bit of embarrassment as the DNC quickly cried "Russkie Wolf!".

The Detroit Free Press: Democratic data hack: Here's who was apparently behind it

Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Brandon Dillon acknowledged in a statement that the state organization's efforts to improve cybersecurity led to mistakes though he didn't elaborate.

. . .

CNN first reported the attempted back on Tuesday after the DNC told the FBI someone was trying to hack its voter database two years after successful Russian efforts to infiltrate its computer systems and release thousands of emails online, embarrassing the party during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Kinda Missing The Plot

From Small Dead Animals: Manitoba's NDP (New Democratic party - Canada's socialist political party that typically comes in third behind the Liberals and Conservatives, decided to tweet a wish of a Happy Passover to Jewish Manitobans.

With a picture of two ladies with a loaf of challah bread. Yes, really.

Considering the rules of Passover are pretty specific and pretty well known that you can't have challah bread, or any other leavened bread for that matter (amongst other things) during the eight days of Passover, and instead have to eat Matzah (unleavened bread) this is a bit of a faux pas.

Anyways, have a Happy Passover thos those who celebrate it, and a Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.

Speaking Of Mid Air Collisions . . . .

The below picture is what happens when a Daddy Cirrus SR22 loves a Mommy Cirrus SR20 very much:

Picture from @wjxt4/Twitter and Flying Magazine.

No, in 9 months there won't be a Cirrus Vision Jet created.

Nobody was killed or seriously injured during the crash that happened last week and the SR20 had a pilot and flight instructor on board and the SR22 that landed on top of them was allegedly flown by Rob Meier, a former player with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

That's a nice million dollar plus accident right there, and another reason to spend more time looking outside the airplane and to be careful out there.