(no subject)

After every country in the world except the US and Canada grounded Boeing's 737 Max 8 planes, we were still flying them here. Daniel Elwell, acting directory of the FAA, seemed unconcerned. Before Trump appointed him acting director of the FAA, Daniel Elwell was an executive with a couple of aerospace industry lobbying organizations. Regarding the delayed action to ground the planes, CNN reports that "the agency had held off on the grounding because they expected to have more flight data by now. The process has been "lengthened" unexpectedly, [Elwell] said."

So, because the FAA didn't have enough data to start getting at the root cause of the recent crashes, they decided, well, might as well let 'em keep flying. The politicians who knowingly created this potentially deadly conflict of interest by going along with Trump's appointments of corporate patsies to oversight positions, in this and other industries, have blood on their hands.

Danae is flying to a conference this weekend and I was worried enough to tell Danae that I'd really like her to find out whether she'll be on a Max 8 and tell them to get her a different flight. Fortunately, the planes have finally been ordered grounded in the US as of yesterday.

Thanks to mai_neh for making me aware of the issue to begin with!

(no subject)

I thought, just for a moment, about wearing this to work today.

It's just as well I didn't since I dropped my first fork-full of pie right on my shirt this afternoon.