Loose Ends (201)

• So all airline flights were grounded for several hours this morning because of software problems at the Federal Aviation Administration. Gosh, this might distract Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his all-important mission to remedy racist roads, and punishing Southwest Air Lines for their computer software problems. Southwest may be facing fines from the Dept. of Transportation, as well as reimbursing expenses for stranded passengers. Think anyone at the FAA will lose their job—or even be demoted—for this failure? Will the FAA reimburse any passengers stranded today? Heh.

I don’t expect today’s fiasco will help Mayor Pete’s 2024 presidential ambitions. Still, it is good to see the Department of Transportation has its priorities straight. From the latest DOT budget appropriation:

Also, the system that crashed is NOTAM, which used to mean “Notice to Airman” until the FAA got hold of Stanford’s banned words list:

• So now the climatistas want to take away all of our gas appliances, starting with kitchen stoves and ranges. I only have one message: They can pry my Wolf gas range from my cold dead fingers (especially the middle one) wrapped around my high capacity assault spatula.

As usual, guess who won’t be giving up their gas cooktop:

UPDATE—Turns out they’re all a bunch of hypocrites (I know, hardly breaking news):

• Scientific American continues is free-fall into becoming Wokerific American:

But when are they going to drop “American” from their title? Didn’t they get the Stanford language instructions?

• Oh yeah, Stanford has withdrawn that silly document. This is what happens when universities get caught being willfully stupid. A couple of nice bits from the article:

“I’ve always been proud to be an Iranian American immigrant. But to follow Stanford’s new language standards, I would need to call myself an ‘Iranian U.S.-citizen person-who-immigrated.’ This seems awfully wrong,” Code.org CEO Hadi Partov wrote in a Twitter thread.

“Stanford University published a list of ‘harmful language’ they want to eliminate. Including words like ‘brave’ and phrases like ‘kill two birds with one stone.’ Tyrannical insanity,” YouTuber Iman Gadzhi tweeted. “And you still think going to college will make you smart and successful?”

More and more people are answer that last question with a resounding No (especially young men, who are officially targeted for disapprobation in higher education today). College enrollment in the U.S. fell by 650,000 people this year, even as population continues to grow.

• Apparently USC’s School of Social Work didn’t get the Stanford announcement:

When is USC’s School of Social Work going to take the term “Work” out of the department’s formal title? Isn’t “work” another oppressive, white supremacist term?

Chaser—from a press release from Bentley University touting the expansion of their DEI programs:

According to LinkedIn, diversity and inclusion roles have increased 71% globally over the last five years, with median salaries ranging from $84,000 to $126,000. The racial justice movement has further accelerated demand, and industry experts predict continued exponential growth well into the future.

And things like the Stanford language guide and USC’s self-abasement is what we’re getting in return for all that money.

UPDATE from a knowledgeable reader about the first item here:

The FAA’s Notice to Airmen system started as a teletype thing way back in the 40s and 50s.  It was a way to make sure pilots knew about dangerous and different conditions on a short term basis.

The FAA has been dragging it along for years.  Bureaucrats and Ass Protectors have been steadily adding stupid stuff to the system that turns a couple of bullet point things you need to know into pages and pages of reading before you go fly.   Most of them are totally worthless waste of time.

It’s also not apparent whether the platforms the program is on are capable of the workload or it was hacked.