Bring Me a Pepsi, This Is Getting Good (Updated)

This article started making the rounds yesterday. One paragraph catches my eye: If you want to understand intra-GOP warfare, the decision-making process of our president, the implosion of the Republican healthcare plan, and the rest of the politics of the Trump era, you don’t need to know about Russian espionage tactics, the state of the white working class, […]

Tuesday Whiff o’ Putin

From a blog post I wrote on November 15th, one week after the election: “To the conspiracy theorists: I never thought I’d join you, but something about this election stinks. Along with GOP redistricting, gerrymandering, and voter suppression, there’s more than a whiff of Russian manipulation of electronic vote results in a few key states. […]

Wednesday Bag o’ Ooga-Booga

If we keep funding Social Security and Medicare at present levels, America will be broke in eight years. So said a Republican congressman on NPR. It’s ooga-booga, no different than stirring up poor whites with lies about inner-city blacks coming for their women. You know how Republicans always say we shouldn’t enact new programs without making sure they’re paid […]

Hearts & Minds? I’ll Settle for Behavior.

President Truman ordered the integration of the military in 1948. It didn’t happen overnight, but by 1953 and the end of the Korean War it was reality. My dad was Air Force and I grew up going to integrated DoD schools in Germany. My one exposure to official segregation came when we rotated back Stateside […]

Air-Minded: Passin’ Gas, Old School

Aerial refueling: also called air-to-air refueling and in-flight refueling. You can’t send a B-2 from Missouri to hit a high-priority ISIS target in Libya without it; nor can you deploy an expeditionary air wing to a combat zone in Afghanistan or the Middle East. Aerial refueling allows receiving aircraft to fly long distances or stay on station […]

Air-Minded: Magnesium Overcast Revisited

A few years ago I wrote a short post about the B-36 Peacemaker bomber. Here’s an excerpt: … even though I was around during the B-36 bomber’s heyday I never saw one in flight. It’s not something you’d forget: it would have been akin to seeing the Hindenburg or a tidal wave. They say the ground shook […]

Air-Minded: Cancel Order! (Updated)

I corrected a couple of minor errors in the original post. I have since learned more about early presidential aircraft, and will share that knowledge in a separate post, coming soon. —Paul When I read the president-elect’s now-famous tweet a few days ago, my thoughts turned to two presidential fleet aircraft I show visitors at the Pima Air […]

Air-Minded: Planes of Fame Photoblog II

On a motorcycle trip in April 2015 I visited and photoblogged the Planes of Fame Museum in Valle, Arizona. The Arizona facility is an annex of the main Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. This time around I pointed my Honda west toward Los Angeles and dropped in on the main facility. As with the […]