Depraved President Blames DEI for DC Air Collision

Does narcissism know no bounds?

No survivors have been found in the icy Potomac River following a midair crash on Wednesday night between an American Airlines plane and an Army Blackhawk helicopter.

Given that the crash was a major news event, it should surprise exactly nobody that President Trump would use it to get attention. He initially was reacting to internet rumors saying the Blackhawk helicopter deliberately targeted the airplane (terrorism).

Then Trump -first responders haven’t even fished out all the bodies in the river yet– held a presser where he joined the chorus of self-appointed internet experts saying the FAA’s air traffic controllers were to blame.

Actually, he said “low IQ FAA air traffic controllers” attributable to the DEI policies of Presidents Obama and Biden along with former Treasury Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He then read off a list of disabilities acceptable for consideration in the FAA hiring process –which are not the same as air traffic controllers.

The president was referencing a 10 year old FAA program (which existed during his entire first term) allowing them to hire people with disabilities. Yup, he’s taking this tragedy and immediately turning it into his political talking points.

Blame brown people. Blame women. Blame the disabled. He couldn’t be bothered to send condolences to the families of those who died at the press conference.

Here’s some dialogue from the presser: (Q’s are from several reporters)

• REPORTER: Are you saying this crash was somehow the result of diversity hiring?

• TRUMP: It just could have been

• REPORTER: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash

• TRUMP: Because I have common sense, ok? And unfortunately a lot of people don't

• COLLINS: We don't even yet know the names of the people killed and you're blaming Dems and DEI policies. Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation?

• TRUMP: No, I don't think so

• REPORTER: Does it comfort their families to hearing you blaming DEI?

• TRUMP: That's not a very smart question

Vice President JD Vance later chimed in with even if no one involved was part of a diversity program, it is still the fault of DEI, because DEI "exhausts" and strains everyone working in its midst.

God, these people are pigs. And proud of it. The MAGA faithful love this slop.

Via The New York Times:

• The flights of the jet plane and the helicopter had been normal leading up to the collision, according to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Helicopters and planes typically fly near each other in D.C. airspace, he said on Thursday.

• “This was not unusual with a military aircraft flying the river and an aircraft landing at DCA,” the code for Reagan Airport, said Mr. Duffy, adding that it had also been a clear night. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration would analyze the debris, he said. The pilot was also experienced, according to Robert Isom, chief executive of American Airlines.

• The moments before the collision appeared to have been captured in an audio recording, according to LiveATC.net, a website which streams air-traffic control radio transmissions. In the recording, an air traffic controller is heard instructing the helicopter to pass behind the jet. There was “not a breakdown” in communication between the two aircraft and the control tower, Mr. Duffy said.

Since February 2009, when the crew of a Colgan regional jet mis-managed an icing emergency, and crashed on approach to Buffalo, New York, a total of two people have died in US airline accidents (over more than 12 billion passenger journeys).

The safety-minded culture of the US air travel system has made commercial airline travel in the United States the safest mode of travel ever invented even as the airways near major airports are increasing crowded.

We currently do not have an FAA Administrator, because the previous one was forced out on inauguration day because he’d tried to fine Elon Musk’s space company for operating unsafely.

On the day after the inauguration, the Aviation Security Advisory Committee’s members received a memo from the Trump administration saying that the Department of Homeland Security was getting rid of the membership of all advisory committees in a “commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.” At the same time, Trump also fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard.

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NOTE: The fire hose of ‘news’ continued unabated yesterday, including a declaration by the President about a Guantanamo detention center for detained non-citizens. Although this was widely reported as an executive order, in fact there is only a memo on the subject.

The logistics and human rights issues of such a concentration camp don’t matter as much as the fact that the President said (and likely intends) something mean.

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Today's News Clips were all found on the Bluesky “Science” feed, as an example of the variety of content available. It’s not just politics, folks.

As Oceans Warm, Predators Are Falling Out of Sync with Their Prey by Andrew S Lewis at Yale Environment 360

• One of the few certainties in the marine ecosystem is that water temperature is on the rise, and rapidly so in the Northwest Atlantic. For example, between 2004 and 2019, the Gulf of Maine warmed more than seven times the global average, or “faster than 99 percent of the global ocean,” as the Gulf of Maine Research Institute puts it. In the southern Gulf of Maine and the Mid-Atlantic Bight, the heating has virtually eliminated one of the striped bass’s key food sources, the American lobster. This contraction in prey variety may be negatively impacting striped bass, especially older individuals, which can lack the fitness necessary to chase fast-moving prey, like menhaden and mackerel. The disappearance of lobster has forced them to compete for other resources with younger, more agile fish.

• “Fluctuations in the abundance of prey populations may… drive predators to consume less energy-dense but more abundant prey, leading to declines in predator condition,” Robert Murphy, a social scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and colleagues wrote in a 2022 study of striped bass feeding behavior. In his observations of striped bass, Waldman has indeed noted a constriction in diet. “It used to be that striped bass would come in small groups along the shore over the whole autumn and eat cockles and eels and crabs and lobster,” he said. “But now, it has shifted to this almost complete focus on big aggregations of bait fish.”

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Largest Study Ever Done on Cannabis and Brain Function Finds Impact on Working Memory by Julia Milzer at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

• The study, the largest of its kind ever to be completed, examined the effects of cannabis use on over 1,000 young adults aged 22 to 36 using brain imaging technology. The researchers found that 63% of heavy lifetime cannabis users exhibited reduced brain activity during a working memory task, while 68% of recent users also demonstrated a similar impact.

• This decline in brain activity was associated with worse performance on working memory – the ability to retain and use information to perform tasks. For example, working memory allows a person to follow instructions they’ve just been given or to mentally visualize and manipulate information, like solving a math problem.

• …

• In the study, heavy users are considered young adults who’ve used cannabis more than 1000 times over their lifetime. Whereas, using 10 to 999 times was considered a moderate user and less than 10 times was considered a nonuser.

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How the Occult Gave Birth to Science by Dale Markowitz at Nautilus Magazine

• Even well into the 17th century, as recognizable scientific institutions like the Royal Society sprang into existence, the supernatural held scientists in its thrall. Its president, Newton, practiced alchemy and deciphered biblical prophecy. Respected member and natural scientist Sir Kenelm Digby believed in “weapon salve”—a medical treatment that cured wounds when applied not to the wound itself, but to the weapon that had created it. Robert Boyle spent a good deal of time investigating second sight, the uncanny ability of some Scottish Highlanders to see into the future. Rene Descartes proposed a scientific explanation for cruenation—the commonly held belief that a murder victim’s corpse would spontaneously spout blood in the presence of its killer. William Harvey, known for discovering the circulation of blood in the body, once dissected a toad he thought was a witch’s familiar. As late as 1749, Linnaeus urged the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to launch a hunt for mermaids.

• To our contemporary ears, most all of this may sound fairly ridiculous. But as Edward Donlick puts it in The Clockwork Universe, “The world was so full of marvels, in other words, that the truly scientific approach was to reserve judgment about what was possible and what wasn’t, and to observe and experiment instead.” To the 17th-century scientist, anything was on the table, so long as it could be experimentally studied.

• Today, we know how the story ends: Belief in astrology, alchemy, and witchcraft declined in places where empiricism and skepticism became cornerstones of science. But perhaps early scientists’ fascination with the occult should remind us of other tenants of discovery: open-mindedness and curiosity. Witches, mermaids, and the philosopher’s stone may not have survived modern scrutiny, but it was curiosity about them that drove real progress and allowed early thinkers to stray from established norms. In this sense, curiosity is a kind of magic.