Barr recognizes leadership when he sees it. //

“I was disheartened to learn of the resignation of Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best. Her leadership and demonstrated commitment to her oath of office reflected all that is good about America’s law enforcement. In the face of mob violence, she drew the line in the sand and said, “Enough!”, working tirelessly to save lives, protect her officers, and restore stability to Seattle. Her example should be an inspiration to all who respect the rule of law and cherish safety and security in their communities. This experience should be a lesson to state and local leaders about the real costs of irresponsible proposals to defund the police.”

Security researchers get a rare look at the 747s avionics systems //

Boeing’s 747-400 aircraft, first introduced in 1988, is still receiving critical software updates through 3.5-inch floppy disks. The Register reports that security researchers at Pen Test Partners recently got access to a British Airways 747, after the airline decided to retire its fleet following a plummet in travel during the coronavirus pandemic. The team was able to inspect the full avionics bay beneath the passenger deck, with its data center-like racks of modular black boxes that perform different functions for the plane. //

While it might sound surprising that 3.5-inch floppy disks are still in use on airplanes today, many of Boeing’s 737s have also been using floppy disks to load avionics software for years. The databases housed on these floppy discs are increasingly getting bigger, according to a 2015 report from Aviation Today. Some airlines have been moving away from the use of floppy discs, but others are stuck with engineers visiting each month to sit and load eight floppies with updates to airports, flight paths, runways, and more.

  Nicholas Ballasy over at Just The News is reporting that 10 members of the NIH panel responsible for setting the agency’s guidelines for treating COVID-19 are, in one way or another, pocketing a check from companies peddling COVID cures. 8 of the lucky buggers are being enriched by pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, makers of the drug remdesivir.

A naturalist cuts through the myths surrounding the invasive plant //

I believed, as many still do, that kudzu had eaten much of the South and would soon sink its teeth into the rest of the nation. //

The photographs of kudzu-smothered cars and houses that show up repeatedly in documentaries of Southern life evoke intractable poverty and defeat.

Confronted by these bleak images, some Southerners began to wear their kudzu proudly, evidence of their invincible spirit. Some discovered a kind of perverse pleasure in its rank growth, as it promised to engulf the abandoned farms, houses and junkyards people couldn’t bear to look at anymore. //

In the end, kudzu may prove to be among the least appropriate symbols of the Southern landscape and the planet’s future. But its mythic rise and fall should alert us to the careless secondhand way we sometimes view the living world, and how much more we might see if we just looked a little deeper.

Every dime from these corporations is a lie.

Julie Kelly's Disloyal Opposition is the essential book for understanding NeverTrump

Not just a childish prank //

Had Urooj Rahman been a 31-year-old roofer from Wheeling, WV, and firebombed a police car, no one would have said boo about sending him to prison for the rest of his life because the perception among our elites is that a lawyer who is a political terrorist is acting nobly to raise our consciousness and deserves only a mild reprimand that will not damage their passage to a Bill Ayers-esque future. The working class guy? Well, screw him. His life didn’t have much value, and he was probably going to die of a drug overdose anyway. //

This divide, this assumption that some members of society are more worthy of second chances than others and the subtext that the law is really made for the little people, not for members of our ruling class was at the heart of the Tea Party movement. The idea that we and our children are less worthy of mercy or consideration or just catching an even break than someone who has the right degree and right politics it what propelled Trump into the White House. //

Rahman and Mattis are criminals. Their action fits the textbook definition of terrorism. Their act was premeditated. All that letting them off easy will accomplish is to encourage other similarly minded cretins to imitate them and draw upon this precedent as to why there should be few if any, consequences. Pour encouragement les autres, as they say, these two need to be hammered to deter this behavior and to begin to return us to a single standard of justice for all.