Bottom line, according to the author? "He seems to hope to slip away without Americans noticing the magnitude of this defeat."

#3 | POSTED BY DONNERBOY

Sums up my own experience. I dove for years, spent ages as an air hog before finally settling down and only then getting into that magical glide through alien space. Where keeping alert, knowing and properly using your gear/gauges, being aware of depth/air supply/time considerations, and particularly knowing your physical and knowledge limitations in a situation where you simply cannot b.s. your way out are paramount. Our son became a dive master and worked through all sorts of certifications. He drew the line at large wrecks and caves. Both activities are in every possible way well beyond the zone of experience of those of us who have engaged in recreational diving. He's a brave guy, a first responder, and he got the distinct impression that when it came to cave diving it wasn't a question of whether you would die on a cave, just a matter of when,

Observations from Jonathan Volanthe, "one of the British cave divers who helped rescue 12 schoolboys from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018 " [who] says cave diving carries risks fundamentally different from open-water diving"

"If something goes wrong, you can't simply head to the surface because there's usually something that's preventing that ... Quite often in caves as well, it's very easy to swim in somewhere and then find you stirred some silt up," Volanthen says.

The combination of not being able to ascend to the surface and a poor-visibility exit makes it "much more difficult to get out" if a diver hits trouble, he says.

Adding depth to the equation, he says, exacerbates the dangers.

"The deeper you are, the more air you use, or the more gas, depending on what you're breathing ... Depth generally equals an increase in danger," Volanthen says. Divers must carefully manage gas supplies to ensure a slow ascent, to reduce the risk of decompression sickness.

"Pressure [as a result of depth] creates a situation where gas dissolves into the bloodstream, and that means you have to ascend slowly," he says.

Buen Dia, Coriolanus ... The Trump outfit is, swimming in a swamp populated by some rough crews.

Anyone involved in Trump's criminal enterprise who isn't already planning on looking pensively over their shoulders for the rest of their lives needs to replan. Crazies "settling scores" (including disaffected MAGAts grumpy about waiting for payday) will become participants in something of a competition with a running media tally. Maybe even a futures gambling market, with crypto and bitcoin? Well, there it is: Dim Donnie Jr's idea out of the bag

I can't understand how Republicans continue to support Trump. Can someone please explain it to me?
#12 | POSTED BY MADBOMBER

HL Mencken, probably. But he's dead, and has been for a decade less than Trump's been alive. Yet his perspective (particularly with respect to the Scopes "Monkey" Trial) goes marching on ... .

They missed the April 1 deadline, too, for these clunkers. Maybe MAGAJebus' 80th birthday? How about Halloween? It's *all* the Strait of Hormuz's fault. WHO knew it beat a pair? Venezuela's repressive new regime same as Venezuela's old repressive regime with a single cast change. Now, let's invade Cuba.

This is what happens when your foreign policy consists of what's going on inside a dementia victim's tie-dyed head.

You' hope they're good st something, because winning wars really hasn't been much on the menu since 1945.

Israeli Exceptionalism.

"I don't want to prejudge an investigation," JD Vance bleated to reporters at the White House

Puhleeze. That Yale DEI grad has already proudly admitted he has and will lie like a rug to grab attention. Yup, he is just as lacking in basic honesty as that. So he claims.

Trump will readily stretch the already wretched decision SCOTUS issued in Trump v United States (2024), and claim what amounts to sovereign immunity. Extending it to his family is quite a stretch, but MAGAts won't mind, the Republicans in coats and ties are cool with it, and the march over the cliff continues apace.

Happy 250th!

Authorities recovered more than 30 guns at suspects' residences, FBI says
Law enforcement seized more than 30 guns, including numerous pistols, rifles and shotguns, as well as a crossbow while executing three search warrants at residences associated with the suspects in yesterday's shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, said Mark Remily, the special agent in charge of FBI San Diego.

Besides, what kinda of MAGA have a bro suicide pact?

Aside from none of them being capable of serving as keymaster at a Mormon high school graduation party, you're kidding, right?

Viva la republica bananera!

Cooper is a high-level owner of this war. Given how easily the Israelis played him, Cooper gets understandably huffy when probed about this effup - of which he is a planner, aider and abetter. Unless, like Yamamoto a few years back, he might care to register his objections ... now.

Paxton is a hardcore MAGAman, with a mountain of ethical, legal and personal problems trailing in his tumultuous wake. You can see why MAGAJebus would glom onto him - and then there's this tidbit: Trump's DOJ dropped an ongoing criminal investigation into Paxton's activities. Whataguy, huh?

Not quite Tne Federalist Papers, is it? But that's how things are in MAGASwampLandia.

Richard Preston's The Hot Zone will get you picking up your ears anytime you hear that word: "Ebola."

Considering how he handled Covid ...

Congressman meets heel-clicker:

"Admiral, you're familiar with General Westmoreland?" he [Mouton] asked, invoking the Vietnam War commander synonymous with false optimism and catastrophic body counts.

"I'm very familiar, Congressman," Cooper replied. "He's well known for talking about body counts."

From there, Moulton walked Cooper through a litany of failures. Why was the strait closed under his watch when it had been open under every previous president? Why was Trump begging China for help to reopen it?

Cooper retreated to procedure: "My responsibility as a combatant commander is to lay out all the options and present those to the Secretary and the President. They make policy-level decisions."