T
Trump has also enjoyed more leisure than ever: So far, the president has spent more than a fifth of his second term—about 21.95 percent—golfing. Trump has hit the links at least 106 times since he returned to office, which puts him on pace to exceed the 307 days he spent golfing over the course of his first term.
Former President Barack Obama, in comparison, racked up a total of 333 rounds of golf over eight years in office.
Hamas’s military chief in Gaza, Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, made a series of operational mistakes in the months after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that allowed Israeli intelligence to track and ultimately kill him in a strike on a Gaza City apartment, security sources told the Israeli news site Walla.
Haddad — known to Hamas operatives as “the Ghost” and described by Israeli officials as the last surviving senior architect of the October 7, 2023, massacre — was killed Friday in a precision strike on a residential building in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood. The IDF said three fighter jets dropped 13 munitions on the building and a vehicle that left the area moments later, killing Haddad along with his wife and a daughter, according to Hamas sources. Both of his sons had been killed in earlier Israeli strikes, in January and April of last year. Emergency services in Gaza put the total death toll at seven, with more than 50 wounded.
and
According to the defense sources cited by Walla, Haddad had for years moved almost exclusively through Hamas’s underground tunnel network, confiding his movements only to a tiny circle of aides. He survived multiple assassination attempts, dyed his hair and shaved much of his beard to alter his appearance, and reportedly surrounded himself at times with Israeli hostages to deter strikes.
and
In the end, the strike found Haddad above ground, in a hideout apartment in Rimal, surrounded by family members. When people inside the building attempted to flee in vehicles, the IDF struck a second time, hitting the car to prevent the escape of his associates and any possibility that Haddad himself might survive.
Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles Police detective who gained notoriety for his part in the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, has died. He was 78.
Fuhrman had been living in Idaho at the time of his death. Lynette Acebedo, the chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, confirmed his death to multiple outlets, saying, “There will be no other information provided through this office.” TMZ reported that he died May 12 and that he’d been battling an aggressive form of throat cancer.
Fuhrman was the detective who found a bloody glove at Simpson’s Brentwood estate while investigating the murders of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman, outside Simpson’s home on June 12, 1994. That glove became a key piece of evidence in the 1995 trial.
Montreal strippers are planning a strike for the weekend of the Canadian Grand Prix, hoping that withdrawing their labour on the busiest night of the year for the city's strip clubs will help them move towards their goal of full employment rights.
The Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC) have called the strike for May 23, the eve of the fifth race in the Formula One calendar, as part of a campaign to achieve recognition as employees with associated rights.
Beer tastes better from a bottle.
In this order:
- Coors Golden Banquet beer, The 1936 Stubby Bottle
- Piels Real Draft Beer 7 oz Bottles - Pony Barrel Bottle
- Schlitz pop-top, real gusto
End of discussion
Scratch off #3 from the list.
Last week, Pabst Brewing Company announced its plan to discontinue Schlitz, a once-beloved brand known as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous.” Pabst cited rising storage and shipping costs as the reasons for the decision to shut down the historic brand. Wisconsin Brewing Co. — which has brewed Pabst products in the past — will brew the last batch of Schlitz on May 23, Milwaukee Magazine reports.
Schlitz launched in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1849 as the flagship beer of Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, which reigned as the country’s largest brewery until Anheuser-Busch ousted it from that spot in the late 1950s. A series of production shortcuts and questionable ad campaigns for the American-style lager initiated the brand’s fall from grace in the second half of the century. Schlitz closed its home brewery in 1981, and Stroh Brewery Company purchased it the following year. Pabst then scooped it up in 1999.
A Southwest Airlines passenger's decision to fly with a humanoid robot prompted the budget carrier to review its policies, leading to a new restriction banning the transport of human-like devices. The recent traveler, Aaron Mehdizadeh, was traveling from Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Dallas Love Field (DAL) and brought his robot, Stewie, along.
The 3.5-foot (1.06-meter) robot is rented by Mehdizadeh through his business, The Robot Studio, and instead of flying the robot home as cargo, the owner decided to purchase Stewie a seat through the option to add a seat for fragile items such as musical equipment or wedding dresses.
and
Following the trip, the airline issued a safety alert announcing a new policy: it would no longer permit human-like or animal-like robots in the cabin or as checked baggage, regardless of the size or purpose of the equipment. This was done to ensure the airline complied with all lithium-ion battery safety guidelines.
In addition
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will appoint a five-person commission to administer the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which will last through Dec. 15, 2028, and have the power to issue apologies and pay people who submit claims. Trump will be able to fire commission members.
Same song, different day.
United States President Donald Trump has announced he will postpone a “scheduled attack” against Iran at the request of regional leaders in the Middle East.
The reversal, he said, came in light of the fact that “serious negotiations are now taking place”.
“A Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
It is unclear what, if any, breakthrough has been made in the stalled negotiations to end the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran.
I think you are mistaken in labeling this idolizing. A whole lot of folks, myself included, don’t care a great deal for Trump, but support many of his policies which address issues that have been kicked down the road by preceding more timid administrations.
Yes but.........
Sen. Cassidy almost always voted in line with President Trump. He has some seniority in the US Congress. He is the current senator. So, it would be logical that he would not have a problem in his primary.
Looked what happened. Not really due to his policies, etc.
So, I think that there are ALOT of people who idolize President Trump and blindly follow whatever he says, even if a lot of them dont understand why he says it. It will be interesting to see what happens to Rep. Massie in a couple of weeks.
So, are flying cars finally ready to become part of everyday life? And if they are, what will they really change? Let’s look at the latest vehicles taking to the skies.
Joby Aviaton N545JX
Joby, partnered with Delta Airlines and Uber, has emerged as one of the front-runners in the race to get electric airborne commuter vehicles off the ground. In a recent demonstration, it showed that it could cut the hour-long car journey from JFK Airport to central Manhattan down to just seven minutes. Rather than personal vehicles for the very wealthy, Joby is focusing on advanced mobility for the masses, with a goal of eventually pricing services at around the same level as premium car hire services like Uber Black. The end goal is to make aerial commuting a day-to-day reality for ordinary people, saving them from endless traffic jams and train delays.
Ehang EH216-S
Most of the vehicles we’re looking at here are designed to be flown by pilots transporting passengers. The latest model in Ehang’s fleet, however, is entirely autonomous. It’s become the first self-flying air taxi service to be given regulatory approval to begin commercial operations in China, where it has begun offering sightseeing trips. With trials and pilot projects in 19 countries, often focusing on airport-to-city runs, Ehang is betting that the capacity and weight benefits will create a business advantage. The big question, though, is whether we’re ready to be flown through the skies in vehicles with no human pilots.
Alef Model A
This is the closest so far to the “traditional” flying car beloved of Back To The Future fans. Although it doesn’t resemble a Delorean, the Model A is designed as a road-legal electric vehicle that fits in a standard car garage, drives on existing roads and can also lift itself vertically into the air to fly. This represents an alternative vision of the future of advanced mobility, where existing infrastructure is reused, and the need for new infrastructure, such as “vertipads” and “vertiports” for taking off and landing, is reduced. Its business model is based on private ownership, presumably for people with very deep pockets, rather than public transport and ride share.
Whisk Aero Gen 6
Boeing subsidiary Whisk Aero gives us an insight into how incumbent aviation leaders are reacting to the emergence of personal air transport. Like Ehang, Whisk Aero’s Gen 6 is fully autonomous. This year, the company was picked by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to lead a national pilot program aimed at establishing safety rules and regulations for autonomous air travel. This shows the challenges go beyond building vehicles and include adapting air traffic control infrastructure to handle thousands of personal craft operating simultaneously.
Pivotal Helix
Highlighting the impact of regulation on the race for air taxi supremacy, Helix is specifically designed to weigh under the 348lbs FAA limit, above which vehicle operators need a pilot license. This means it could be limited to flying in “uncongested areas”. But Helix is designed for use in remote areas where deliveries are difficult, as well as for emergency services and military applications. It will probably be popular with daredevil amateur pilots who like the idea of a personal aircraft that’s as easy to fly as a toy drone, too. The attention given to his project and its predecessor Blackfly suggests that utility is envisaged for eVTOL that goes beyond commuting and urban uses.
SkyDrive SD-05
Skydrive is a Japanese air mobility startup with backing from Suzuki. Unlike larger Chinese and Western machines, Skydrive’s SD-05 is deliberately designed to be highly compact, in order to operate in crowded Asian megacities like Tokyo, Delhi and Jakarta. SkyDrive is also leveraging its partnerships with Japanese car manufacturers to create production lines more similar to those used for building cars than aircraft, increasing the speed and reducing the cost of production.
AutoFlight Prosperity And CarryAll
Autoflight, headquartered in China but with operations in Europe and the U.S., has two electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles making headlines: the passenger-carrying Prosperity and the cargo-focused CarryAll. The Carryall, with a maximum takeoff weight of one ton and a range of 200km, is the only cargo eVTOL I’ve covered here, and is already in use for transport and logistics tasks. The aim is to build a “low-altitude transport network” facilitating the transport of goods across China’s vast industrial zones.
Figured this belonged here as well as any place else.
A new Wikipedia-style site is purportedly made entirely of AI-hallucinations, treating visitors to preposterous insights beamed from a nonexistent reality.
Called “Halupedia,” its creators say that the “infinite” encyclopedia invents everything it contains on the fly, with each search term — or link click — becoming a prompt for an AI model on the backend, which relates information “in the deadpan register of a 19th-century scholarly press.”
“Every link leads to an entry that does not exist yet — until you click it,” reads the description on GitHub.
and
One of the top articles is about “The Great Pigeon Census of 1887,” which it claims was “an ambitious, if ultimately misguided, undertaking by the Royal Society for Avian Enumeration (RSFE) to meticulously count every gold-crested rock dove within the administrative boundaries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” The census was supposedly conceived by a “Sir Reginald Featherton,” who we’re told believed an accurate pigeon count was “crucial for understanding the nation’s urban resource allocation and for the fair distribution of Parliamentary Crumbs.”
Much like a genuine Wikipedia article, proper nouns often refer to another article, so if you wish, you can read more about the Royal Society for Avian Enumeration, or our knighted ornithologist Sir Featherton.
You can also invent new entries through the search box, and the site will provide a series of fabricated article titles related to your query. (Searching “bullsh*t” returned as one of the possibilities “The Gnomish Mandate of Circular Reasoning,” for example.) Click on one, and the site says it’s “resolving a minor scholarly dispute,” before landing on the newly-hallucinated, faux-authoritative article.
A U.S. Senate official on Saturday removed security funding that could be used for President Donald Trump's planned White House ballroom from a massive spending package, Democratic lawmakers said, imperiling Republican efforts to devote taxpayer money to the contentious project.
The decision by the Senate's parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, deals a blow to Trump and his administration, which has sought the money for security purposes related to the ballroom.
Trump has said the construction of the ballroom would be funded by $400 million in private donations. But Senate Republicans are seeking $1 billion in taxpayer funding to the Secret Service for security upgrades to the ballroom and other structures being built beneath it.
and
MacDonough ruled that the security funding provision falls under chamber rules that require 60 votes to pass most legislation, according to the office of Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.
https://www.bgr.com/2169915/why-american-spacecraft-land-in-the-ocean-russian-ones-dont/
It may sound obvious, but the United States has more access to the ocean than Russia, which is why NASA launches its rockets on or near the coast and lands them via splashdown. Since 1961, American crewed and uncrewed spacecraft have made it back to Earth using parachutes to slow their descent and the ocean to absorb the impact. From there, NASA and the U.S. military work together to bring the spacecraft and its crew out of the water and back to shore.
Only once has a crewed Russian mission ended in a splashdown: 1976's Soyuz 23. Even then, the water landing was an accident that nearly killed its two crew members, who ended up stuck in a partially frozen lake for around nine hours.
and
Given the key role water plays in shock absorption, Soyuz spacecraft need to do more than just deploy parachutes to lower their velocity enough for a safe landing. That is why they have retrorockets that fire just before touchdown, counteracting the descent to slow the craft to under five feet per second — far softer than the 80 feet per second at which American spacecraft hit the water.
The meaning of Taiwanese independence is that “Taiwan is not part of the People’s Republic of China [PRC]” and that “the Republic of China [ROC] and the PRC are not subordinate to each other,” President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.
Lai made the remarks at a youth forum for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) 40th anniversary, and comes after US President Donald Trump warned against Taiwanese independence.
Trump, who wrapped up a state visit to Beijing on Friday, said in an interview that “I’m not looking to have somebody go independent.”
Sovereignty is the foundation of statehood, Lai said, adding that without Taiwan, there would be no ROC, as the ROC and Taiwan have become inseparable.
Without sovereignty, there would be no democracy, he said.
Regardless of how the international community refers to the nation, all terms refer to the 23 million people of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, he said, expressing hope that efforts would be made to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty and democracy, and take care of its people.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2026/05/18/2003857511
I mentioned earlier that the latest Taiwan passports have Taiwan in big letters and Republic of China in small letters in the seal.
On another note, I was able to attend a performance of the Formosa Melody Music Center Two nights ago (Saturday night). They were really good. The head of TECO (basically the unofficial embassy) was there and gave a little speech. At the end of the Formosa Music performance, they brought out a Taiwan flag and everyone cheered. LOL. (But, more than 50% of the audience was Taiwanese, so I guess natural reaction. 555)
Link to videoHere is a general video of the Formosa Melody Music Center. At about 2 minutes, there is the "Taiwan guitar".
My wife knows Dr. Cassidy and I'm sure he meant well, as Louisiana has its share of pork in the bill. But I'm not voting for him again. Apparently, a lot of folks ain't happy with some senators.
A lot of people agreed with you.
Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming topped Cassidy in Saturday's GOP primary, according to The Associated Press.
With most results tabulated late in the evening, Letlow stood at 45% of the vote, Fleming at roughly 28% and Cassidy at just under 25%, Since no candidate cracked 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming will advance to next month's runoff for the Republican nomination. And Cassidy becomes the first elected Republican senator to lose renomination since Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012
and
Cassidy, in a speech to supporters after conceding, said "when you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you want it to."
"But you don't pout, you don't whine. You don't claim the election was stolen… You don't manufacture some excuse," Cassidy said in an apparent jab at Trump. "You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you've had that privilege. And that's what I'm doing right now."
Some comments by me
I am continually amazed the amount of people who still idolize President Trump. His cult of personality is much much stronger than I would have thought at this time.
I wonder if Sen. Cassidy will be a thorn for President Trump until January now that there is nothing to lose.
I like the harmony singing also
So, right now in the US, if you want to buy a gun, it has to be in person?
I dont agree with term limits, but do think that there should be an upper age limit.
Great pic!!!! 
Two handsome fellows.
