The sophisticated chemistry involved in making the different colors and explosive behaviors of fireworks are seldom appreciated by the “ooh aah” crowds attending the displays, but suffice it to say that if you know, you know, and if you don’t, the show will still be impressive. However, fireworks can be even more impressive when viewed from above, or level with, the “bombs bursting in air.” Enjoy these looks at fireworks displays as seen from the Avgeek’s perspective.

A federal district court ruled last week that the Biden Department of Justice must hand over documents related to Biden’s executive order federalizing elections before the 2022 midterms and not after.

A “study” finding that COVID mitigation efforts in schools, including forced masking, were highly effective in stopping disease spread — and cited by the CDC and most states as the scientific basis for school mask mandates — was authored by LA County Office of Education bureaucrats, including the daughter of the county’s Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

Although study authors are required to disclose any conflicts of interest — and Ferrer is given a shout-out in the acknowledgements — the study states that no conflicts of interest were disclosed. //

Like her mother, Kaitlin Barnes is not a medical doctor. Barnes does not even have a scientific background or a Ph.D. in any field. Her professional background is a combination of her parents’ professions; Kenneth Barnes has had a long career in urban planning and community organizing. //

The study, published in August 2021, concluded that students who went to school during the winter of 2020-21 tested positive for COVID at a much lower rate than their peers who did not attend LA County schools. The authors also concluded that, therefore, the protocols in place in LA County were responsible for this.

What the greenies don’t understand, or can’t understand, or refuse to understand, or perhaps understand but pretend they don’t, or can’t, is that with fossil fuels, we can make an inhospitable climate more hospitable. The greens instead insist that fossil fuels have made and continue making an already hospitable climate inhospitable. But of course, any sentient human being knows this is violently foolish.

To prove how foolish this is, ask the people wiped out in Pompeii how hospitable the climate was on that day.

Or perhaps we might ask the 300,000 who died in 1839 during the deadly Cyclone how nice Mother Nature was on that lovely morning in India.

Or maybe the 1,000,000 who died in Bhola, Bangladesh, in 1970 from that weather event might have a different opinion.

Or we could ask the 2,000,000 dead Chinese who perished in 1887 during the Yellow River Flood. If not them, how about the 4,000,000 Chinese who perished 50 years later in yet another Yellow River Flood, this one occurring in 1931?

The 230,000 Chinese who died in 1975 during Typhoon Nina probably weren’t huge fans of the weather. Nor the 8,000 who died in the San Zenón hurricane in the Dominican Republic in 1935. And then there’s the 3,100 who died during the Cuba hurricane in the Cayman Islands in 1932…

Out of curiosity, how much C02 was in the atmosphere in 1887? Or in 1931? How about 1975?

Yeah, folks, don’t let the alarmists fool you today. Sure it’s hot. Of course, it’s hot. It might even be record-breaking hot. Records are made to be broken. It is July. We are in the peak of Summer.

The strategy from a public policy standpoint should be energy abundance and energy reliability so that as many people throughout the country, indeed throughout the world, have access to air conditioning during heatwaves and heaters powered by natural gas during winter freezes, as much of both as we can make possible through technological innovation, human ingenuity, sound market principles, and minimal government interference.

In other words, memo to politicians: Shut up and get out of the way. Allow the private sector to provide energy resources to those most in need of them, especially when they are most in need of them. In other words, don’t just do something; sit there.

Because even though the weather outside is frightful, the AC is so delightful. And since we’ve no place to go, let it blow, let it blow, let it blow…

When Cate & McGlone of Hollywood produced the film “JET MAINLINER Flight 803” for United Airlines in 1960, the subject of the film, the Douglas DC-8-21 airliner, had been in production for only a few months. Many of United’s initial batch of DC-8s were DC-8-11s which were upgraded to DC-8-12s and subsequently brought up to the DC-8-21 specifications over the next few years. United eventually became the largest DC-8 operator. The film, uploaded to Youtube by PeriscopeFilm, stars the United Airlines DC-8-21 Jet Mainliner.

The two-dose, protein-subunit vaccine is intended for a primary series, not boosters.

As reported by Just the News on Wednesday, the latest information appears to be the most damning yet; particularly for the Department of Justice:

In the final hours of the Trump presidency, the U.S. Justice Department raised privacy concerns to thwart the release of hundreds of pages of documents that Donald Trump had declassified to expose FBI abuses during the Russia collusion probe, and the agency then defied a subsequent order to release the materials after redactions were made, according to interviews and documents.

The previously untold story of how highly anticipated declassified material never became public is contained in a memo obtained by Just the News from the National Archives that was written by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows just hours before Trump left office on noon of Jan. 20, 2021. //

The documents that Trump declassified never saw the light of day, even though they were lawfully declassified by Trump and the DOJ was instructed by the president though Meadows to expeditiously release them after redacting private information as necessary. //

So let’s see: lawfully declassified documents, a very concise memo from Trump’s then chief of staff; yet the DOJ usurps presidential powers and blocks declassification, claiming some bogus security excuse.

Meadows told JTN on Tuesday he was “dismayed” that the DOJ ignored a lawful instruction from a sitting president and said it was part of a larger dynamic within the permanent federal bureaucracy (see: “deep state”) to repeatedly undercut Trump and protect itself. //

Meadows in his 2021 memo said White House lawyers told him the DOJ’s last-minute concerns were not legitimate because the executive office of the president was exempt from the Privacy Act.

In the interview on Tuesday night, he said he agreed in the final minutes of the presidency to let DOJ make redactions “out of an abundance of caution” and expected the DOJ would comply with Trump’s order. //

Former Trump adviser David Bossie, head of the Citizens United watchdog group — as I noted at the top, one of the groups targeted by the IRS — said the episode is a pointed reminder that the permanent bureaucracy in Washington wields so much power it can thwart the actions of a duly elected president. Not only true, as we’ve learned; but it should scare your socks off if you think about it, properly.

As to that pilot shortage we keep hearing about, there are, in fact, two shortages, the effects of which are overlapping. One is short-term and pandemic-related, per above. The second is more systemic and longer term.

Carriers are now taking on hundreds of new-hire pilots every month. This, combined with the lingering effects of the pandemic reshuffling, finds training departments overwhelmed, with long backlogs for classroom time, simulator slots, line certification flights, etc. Pilot training is modular, and it does not happen quickly. New-hire training can take several weeks, as can moving from one aircraft type to another, or upgrading from first officer to captain. Many pilots are sitting at home, waiting their turn. Thus, it’s less a dearth of pilots than a training system overload.

Then we have the other, more systemic shortage. As I talked about in this older article, this is a significantly bigger problem at the regional carrier level than at the majors. All of the legacy airlines are currently hiring, and although they’re having no trouble filling their slots, those pilots have to come from somewhere. This is causing a ripple effect downward through the industry. The regional sector has all but reinvented itself in a plea for new-hires, offering salary and benefits packages heretofore unheard of for entry-level airline pilots.

For decades, the salaries and working conditions at regional carriers were laughably substandard. In many cases pilots were asked to foot their own training costs, only to earn poverty level wages in return. And as the regional sector expanded, taking over more and more mainline flying, a job at a regional often meant an entire career at a regional. This led to fewer and fewer pilots getting into the business, helping create the shortage we have today. These companies now have little choice but to significantly improve pay scales and benefits, both to entice new-hire pilots and to retain the ones they already have. You could say they had it coming; there never needed to be a shortage in the first place.

Overall passenger numbers are still off about 15 percent from 2019. The problem is, the 85 percent who are back are being crammed into an infrastructure that can’t handle them.

What nobody is talking about, meanwhile, is the issue of airspace and runway saturation. It was bad enough pre-pandemic. Now, several upstart carriers are pumping even more airplanes into a system at or beyond maximum capacity. It’s especially bad in the eastern half of the U.S. Things run fairly smoothly when the weather is good, but the minute a storm develops, blocking off air routes, the delays and cancellations start to cascade.

Even on clear-weather days, the taxiway queues at airports like Newark or La Guardia can be hours long. Airlines need to better rationalize their schedules and, in many markets, consolidate departures to help reduce congestion. To this end, the short-haul widebody jet is a concept whose time has maybe returned.

Guide for using 112 Call Editor

This guide describes how to create custom calls for 112 Operator using the Call Editor Tool. Before reading this guide please read our Workshop Guide to get a better understanding of how mods work in 112 Operator. It's strongly advised to play 112 Operator, to get an understating of how the game works.