W

29. Views are my own. AvGeek. Currently Type Rated on the 737NG. He which hath no stomach to this fight let him depart. RTs not necessarily endorsements.

[Deuxvingarian @deuxvingarian]

"Hi there! My name's Kieran. I hope I can count on your support for our fantastic local Reform candidate in the upcoming by-election"

[The Grenada Loyalist @GrenadaLoyalist]

We now go live to Downing Street

[W @coadeyder]

If he calls for a GE, it will be delicious

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Keir Starmer is reportedly “weighing up his options” after multiple Cabinet Ministers told him to quit

[@BethRigby]

[Calgie @christiancalgie]

Til debt do us part

[Mac 🌹 @mactellomckeown]

Timely opportunity to repost this meme from 2019

[Ryan Bourne @MrRBourne]

The Irish defending the principle of bigger countries having territory rights to local islands nearby. Interesting.

[camilo @AscendedYield]

No Tax Rises On Working People Update

[Joe Rich @joerichlaw]

BREAKING: Labour Party officials Joel Bodmer, Shila Bodmer, Gabriel Leroy and Cllr Carole Bonner charged with conspiracy, computer misuse and rgging Parliamentary candidate selection process for 2024 General Election (via @RachaelBurford @StandardNews) https://t.co/0jMSbls0k9

[Inspector Gadget @InspGadgetBlogs]

The same RAF who were caught discriminating against white male candidates?

[Lord Cruddas of Shoreditch @peteratcmc]

So apart from trying to give away the Chagos islands.
Recognising Palestine.
13 ministerial resignations.
Showing full confidence in Morgan McSweeney, Peter Mandelson, Sue Gray and Lord Ali.
Blaming the far right for an island of strangers.
16 Policy U turns and rising.
Having no operable warships.
Not smashing the gangs.
Approving a huge Chinese embassy in London.
Spending 23 seconds laying a wreath in Southport only to rush back to a drinks party.
Raising income tax.
Raising inheritance tax.
Raising national insurance.
Raising capital gains tax.
Raising council tax.
Raising value added tax.
Raising mansion tax.
Increasing welfare spending and the minimum wage whilst freezing tax allowances.
Scrapping jury trials.
The only boat he has stopped is HMS dragon from crossing the channel.

What has Starmer really achieved apart from breakfast clubs and the decay of our country?

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Every measure you list involves spending wealth.
You don’t list one measure that creates wealth.
And if you don’t create wealth you will soon run out of it to spend, which is already happening (hence all your extra taxes and borrowing).

[W @coadeyder]

@LordHardThrashe Twas on the Vulcan too, I believe it was considered for the Saab viggen

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Please, please, read this, dear Lenny

It's real history and puts the whole sordid history of slavery into the right perspective

(Particularly important for people who think Britain started it !!)

[Isabel Paterson @IsabelPat1886]

Per below, envy-ridden politics has dominated government since the financial crisis.

Result: if you're a net contributor, the country hates you and begrudges you every little pleasure you have. You don't need it, others "need" it, so hand it over. More of it. All of it.

[Peter Hague @peterrhague]

Ghana really is pulling a fast one aren’t they? First they got paid for all the slaves they sold (until Britain stopped them) and now they want to get paid compensation for the existence of slavery by the people who stopped them doing it.

Anybody in Parliament who even hints at “reparations” is in my mind a straight up traitor. I, a taxpayer, don’t owe foreign scammers a penny.

[Christopher Lupine @LupineLives]

Basically this forever

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The air traffic controller cleared the fire truck onto the runway. Seconds later, the same controller screamed “stop, stop, stop.” The plane was doing 93 to 105 mph.

Both pilots are dead.

Everyone will frame this as controller error. One controller was simultaneously managing a United flight that aborted takeoff after an anti-ice warning, dispatching a fire truck across an active runway, and sequencing an inbound Air Canada landing at highway speed. At 11:40 PM. On a mandatory overtime shift at a facility that has been understaffed for years.

A system that assigns one person that workload will produce exactly this outcome. The only variable is when.

The FAA is short approximately 3,000 controllers. The headcount dropped 13% from 2010 to 2024 while flight volume rose 10%. Over 40% of the FAA’s 290 terminal facilities are understaffed. The New York TRACON, which manages the most congested airspace in America across LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark, has been chronically below target. Newark was operating at 59% of its staffing goal. LaGuardia handles 900 flights a day.

The hiring pipeline is broken at every stage. Only 2% of applicants complete the full process. Training takes up to 6 years. The FAA Academy in Oklahoma City is a bottleneck, with roughly 35% of trainees washing out. Congress blocked legislation to build a second academy. In one recent hiring cycle, the FAA brought on 1,512 candidates and lost 1,300 in the same window. Net gain: around 160 controllers for an entire country.

Three things need to happen and everyone who can make them happen has known for years.

Congress needs to fund and authorize a second FAA training academy. One facility in Oklahoma City cannot produce enough controllers for 900 million annual passengers. Members of Congress from Oklahoma have actively blocked this. That needs to end yesterday.

The FAA needs to cut certification time. Six years from application to fully certified controller is absurd. The agency’s own data shows tower simulators reduce certification time by 27%. They’ve installed them at 95 facilities. That should be every facility, and the simulated hours should count toward more of the certification requirement.

The FAA needs to stop plugging staffing gaps with mandatory overtime. Controllers at understaffed facilities are working six-day weeks rotating between morning, mid, and night shifts. The NTSB has flagged fatigue repeatedly. The controller last night was managing overlapping emergencies during a nighttime operation. Overtime is not a staffing plan. It’s a countdown to the next runway collision.

The controller said “I messed up” to a Frontier pilot who watched the whole thing. The pilot responded “No man, you did the best you could.”

One of them is right. The answer determines whether this happens again.

[W @coadeyder]

And there it is, another demand for cash for us to hand over our territory

[Politics Global @PolitlcsGlobal]

🚨🇨🇾 NEW: The Cypriot PM says an “open and frank conversation about the status and future of the British bases in Cyprus” is needed

[Skipster @FarRightSkip]

Happy St Patrick was actually British day!