We visited the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio on our way to Oshkosh. This is a two-day museum if you want to read more than half of the signs and absorb the history and technical information that is being communicated (vastly more detail than at the Smithsonian Air and Space). The experience starts with words from President Nixon:
The curators are less prone to the Wright Brothers worship that pervades Dayton:
A Jenny is exhibited and also explained:
The museum seems to be run by a separate foundation so they’re perhaps not required to follow Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to refrain from dividing military personnel according to victimhood group. The museum celebrates Eugene Bullard, for example, not for being a military aviator but for being the “first Black military aviator”:
The drones that have transformed today’s battlefield were initially developed in Dayton, Ohio during WWI:
Here’s the only surviving Martin B-10 1930s bomber, out of 348 built:
The other side of the first massive hangar is devoted to more familiar World War II aircraft. Visitors are reminded that it was women who fought and won the largest battles, e.g., against bias, of World War II:
At least in the signage, there are few mixed feelings regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. The B-29 that devastated Nagasaki is on display:
On a more cheerful note, a PBY is painted with the rafts of the aviators rescued:
An original Me 262 is displayed along with a cutaway Jumo engine (note the Donald Trump/Elon Musk symbol on the tail):
The B-24 is named “Strawberry Bitch”. Maybe after someone got a bill for an annual on the four-engine machine?
The WWII hangar includes an original Mitsubishi Zero and this unusual Kamikaze trainer (one flight school that it would be great to fail out of!):
When the American flag is displayed we can refer to the official U.S. flag code for guidance on orientation, etc. I’m wondering what the corresponding document would be for the Rainbow Flag, which is far more sacred (it is permissible and protected speech to burn an American flag (Supreme Court) but burning a Rainbow Flag is punished by 15 years in prison).
Here’s what I assume is the proper way to display a trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag (flown by Joe Biden in 2023 and reported by state-sponsored PBS):
The trans-enhancing triangle is on the top.
Here’s part of a taxpayer-funded display of the state religion’s sacred symbol in Boise, Idaho on July 1, 2025 (after Pride but before Omnisexual Visibility Day (July 6));
The trans-enhancing triangle is on the bottom. That can’t be correct, I don’t think, but where is the flag code to establish authoritatively that it isn’t correct? (See Big Sky v. Jackson v. Park City as a summer destination for images of a taxpayer-funded display in 2023 where the triangles are on the top, just as Joe Biden set up.)
Speaking of the U.S. Flag Code and Boise, the folks who run the Zoo decided that the American flag fit perfectly into the Olive Baboon habitat:
The backup Baboon American flag boxes were displayed contrary to U.S. Flag Code (maybe a protest against the Trump administration?):
Finally, let’s have a look at post-Pride (July 2025) displays of the sacred flag and related symbols by merchants in Boise:
One establishment reminds the public that a MAGA hat can be considered “Nazi symbology” or, at least, Nazi-adjacent:
I talked to the pilots after the flight and learned that special sim training is required to operate at this airport. Here’s a best-case instrument approach plate for an aircraft that can climb at 420 feet per nautical mile (might be tough after an engine fails in an airliner):
Notice that the aircraft can’t land unless the lowest clouds are no lower than 900′ above the runway (minimum descent altitude (MDA) without seeing the runway is 6180′ and the runway is 5289′ (TDZE at the top)). That’s essentially visual flying conditions. “What if you’re at 200′ above the runway and a vehicle or another aircraft drives onto the runway?” I asked. “That becomes an ‘extraction’, not a missed approach,” the pilot responded. “Can it be done on one engine?” was my follow-up. “No.” (i.e., there are no good options for a go-around once close to the runway in the event of an engine failure). You can see from this plate that an airport built at JUNOL, just 10 nm south of KSUN, would be idiot-proof.
The downtown hotel recommended by the lawyer with whom I was working, a coronapanic refugee from San Francisco who never did go back to the office, was quoting $1,700 per night. I decided on the budget option of one of the last rooms at the venerable Sun Valley Lodge for $750 per night. While the elites swan around in their G-Wagons, Grenadiers, Ferraris, and restored classic cars, the local post office reminds the peasants how to renew their Medicaid:
(Why don’t the peasants get rich working in town and become ineligible for Medicaid? Most of the servers and cleaners in the village seemed to be from Eastern Europe, here in the U.S. on temporary work visas.)
Returning to swanning around, here are the resident swans in front of the Sun Valley Lodge:
The restaurant at the lodge isn’t abusively expensive, but if you want to save some $$ and honor Maryland’s leading citizen you can zip over to El Niño Y Pupuseria in downtown Ketchum for the inexpensive snack (pupusas) that purportedly resulted in Kilmar Armando Ábrego García being targeted by unspecified gangs in his native El Salvador. The restaurant is quite smoky inside so don’t go unless the weather is nice enough for dining at the outdoor tables.
For soups, sandwiches, and salads at breakfast and lunch hit Bigwood Bread Bakery & Cafe instead (recommended by a local). Grumpy’s was the recommended hamburger joint, but we didn’t try it.
Make reservations in advance for the Thursday night barbecue at Galena Lodge, which features good company at big tables and live music. Drive beyond Galena to the Galena Summit Overlook (8,440′ above sea level according to my phone), if not all the way to Stanley (next town north after Ketchum). Do some hiking on side trails before coming back to Galena Lodge and the easy trails that begin right from there. It would be great to have a Tesla full self-driving car for this journey so as to appreciate the scenery on both sides of the road.
Downtown has an interesting free museum on the opposite corner of an intersection from the library. Part of the museum features Ernest Hemingway. Note the #Truth that the Spanish Civil War was against Fascism. The progressives who traveled to Spain were definitely not fighting for Stalinism, forced collectivization, and the killing of roughly 7,000 Catholic priests.
Stickers in the gift shop remind patrons that the library and the museum are united under the sacred Rainbow Flag:
The Library has an awesome treehouse plus the usual books:
If you’ve got a lot of leftover climbing rope, the library stocks BDSM 101:
They’d just begun to run the lift up to the top of “Baldy” (just over 9000′):
It’s unclear why a 1940s or 1950s car is the right choice for mountain roads, but we saw quite a few beautiful classics in and around town. 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville:
1948 Buick Roadmaster in front of the (unimpressive) supermarket (drive 20 minutes south to Hailey to get to an Albertson’s):
And we found the same car later at the National Ballet of Canada performance in the Sun Valley Village:
Sun Valley is an awesome place to spend the summer, but it desperately needs a better airport. It’s not as offensively ritzy as Jackson, Wyoming (maybe because Idaho imposes a state personal income tax rate of over 5 percent vs. 0 percent in Wyoming?). It’s reasonably flat and easy to walk around. The access to trails and outdoor activities is as good as anywhere in the U.S.
What about as a year-round home, either in Ketchum or in Hailey (probably more practical)? Aside from the skiing opportunities, one big plus for young people seems to be college admissions. The kids I talked to who’d gone to high school in Idaho had been admitted to all of the colleges where they applied whereas the kids I know in Maskachusetts, except for one bizarrely superhuman half-Asian boy (admitted even to Harvard, the gold standard for Asian hate!), were rejected almost everywhere.
Loyal readers may remember that I’m an advocate for increasing the number of National Parks as the U.S. population is expanded via immigration. From 2020, Do we need some more national parks?:
Our National Park system was set up in 1872, i.e., for a country with a population of roughly 40 million. Today there are 330 million residents of the U.S. (or 350 million maybe?). Mobility, even in coronashutdown, is greater than it was in 1872. This leads to what I would have previously called “Manhattan-style crowding” in some parks (but now Manhattan has been de-crowded!).
(Note that, due to the population collapse and near-term extinction of the human race cited by Elon Musk, the official Census population right now is over 342 million, up more than 12 million from 2020; we’ve added humans comparable to Metro San Francisco and Metro Miami during humanity’s march to oblivion.)
Back in June, I visited Idaho’s Craters of the Moon National Monument, which could easily become a full National Park with a bit of development. Due to the lack of facilities, it’s certainly much more relaxing than the current slate of National Parks! I think this place could handle the construction of a lodge. There is a jet-capable airport a 15-minute drive away in nuclear-powered Arco, Idaho that is, wonderfully, named after our next President: AOC (6600′ runway, which is a little tight considering the 5,335′ altitude, but it looks as though it could be easily lengthened).
Some photos from a recent trip to Cleveland. Here’s some signage from the Cleveland History Center:
By 1920, according to the local history nerds, Cleveland was rich in precious immigrants, had achieved a dream level of diversity (30 different ethnic groups), and was “progressive”. Just a few years later, though, the economic and population growth was over. It doesn’t seem as though Cleveland per se has ever recovered even as many of its suburbs have prospered and even though Cleveland is home to one of the world’s most successful health care enterprises, the Cleveland Clinic.
Nearly every other American downtown has become gold-plated. How did Cleveland manage to fail?
Across town at the Aquarium, the scientists say that immigrants “cause harm to the habitat”:
Back to the history center… It’s free to anyone who wisely refrains from work (EBT card) and they’ve preserved their COVID signage and mask-wearing habits:
The museum reminds those who are buying Cirrus SR22 G7s at $1.4 million (now fully deductible in Year 1 due to the recent One Beautiful Bill) that we live in an inflation-free society. A P-51 Mustang that could take off at 12,000 lbs. and cruise at 315 knots cost $50,000 brand new or $3,500 lightly used:
If Tesla can get Optimus to work, how about a return to wood-sided cars? The robot can apply polish to the wood every week:
The museum’s collection is especially strong in hybrid and electric cars, some more than 100 years old. Visitors are reminded that Cleveland was at one time a close second to Detroit in mass production of automobiles (which raises the question of why Cleveland auto manufacturing faded into insignificance).
The museum was hosting a special show of Islamic-American fashion:
A temporary exhibition featured Black photographers and, as it happened, all of the photographs on display were of Black subjects (i.e., there weren’t photos of architecture, landscape, or nature taken by Black photographers, but only pictures of Black people by Black people):
(More than half of the money for any museum like this comes from taxpayers, either through deductibility of donations or from direct grants from the government. So taxpayers are funding exhibitions from which some artists/photographers are excluded due to skin color, apparently contrary to the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.)
American Haters falsely assert that native-born Americans are being replaced by migrants and that migrants are enjoying taxpayer-funded housing, health care, education, food, and smartphones.
The progressives behind the Boise Art Museum came up with a plan to silence these haters. Membership is $60 for native-born Americans and free for immigrants. Dividing patrons into a group that must pay and a group that need not pay will “bridge perceived divides across cultures”.
What else goes on at the art museum? The sculpture park is nice! Note that admission is also free via reciprocity for those who are members of Florida’s Ringling museum.
We also checked into the Basque Museum, which explains how Basque men came to Idaho to raise sheep on free federal land. Fifteen of them would share a modest-size house (i.e., they did not receive the “dignity” that is a migrant’s right today in the form of a 1BR or 2BR apartment). According to the museum, as soon as the Feds shut down the offer of free land, the Basques stopped coming to the U.S.
One of the restaurants in the Warehouse Food Hall combines Basque and Vietnamese. I can’t figure out why. (We had some great food, conviviality, and Basque language instruction at Ansots (shared a table with a lady who runs the local Basque immersion preschool for 20 kids; two teachers come over every year for 13 months from the Basque part of Spain).)
It looks as though Boise has had at least one immigrant from San Francisco…
Also, Elizabeth Warren was visiting at the same time that we did:
With a 9-year-old in tow, I traveled to Bar Harbor, Maine for this year’s Pride Festival:
We missed the Friday “All Ages Drag Show” due to a wedding rehearsal dinner, but managed to make it to the parade itself and the subsequent Pride festival.
The parade began with speeches on the Village Green.
Shortly before receiving an official government escort from two police cars, several speakers talked to the crowd about cruel official government oppression of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.
Child’s sign: “I get my cardio running away from heteronormal”.
Due to rain, the Pride Festival was moved to the YWCA, which explains that the “Christian faith” motivates it to “empower women” and “believe in science” (i.e., that some of the best “women” didn’t start out with a female gender assignment on their birth certificates).
Once inside, Queers for Palestine merchandise was available to purchase.
It’s a right-wing conspiracy theory that the 2SLGBTQQIA+ are targeting children. It’s just that there was a drag show for kids with free cupcakes and other sweets provided by Hannaford, the local supermarket that started in Maine and is now owned by Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch-Belgian conglomerate. Here’s the Hannaford table:
Happy kids watching the first drag queen:
We left as the second drag queen started her performance:
Don’t forget to #MaskUpToSaveLives
It’s too bad that we didn’t bring Mindy the Crippler (our golden retriever), though perhaps they’re using “dog” in the strict AKC sense and bitches are excluded:
We swung by the Hannaford supermarket on the way back to the hotel and had the chance to save our beloved planet via a reusable Pride-themed shopping bag:
We sadly missed the evening drag show due to the need to spend 6 hours huddled in a tent while rain poured down outside in 60 degree temps (an average summer wedding in Maine):
El Salvador is one of the world’s safest countries, according to one part of the U.S. government (State Department, which says it is safer than France or Sweden). The murder rate is less than 1/30th what Americans risk in what we’re told are our greatest cities. El Salvador is also one of the most dangerous countries on Earth, according to a different part. In fact, it is too dangerous for anyone to live in and that’s why any Salvadoran here in the U.S. is immune from deportation (“Temporary Protected Status” that is permanently extended).
I’m wondering if the El Salvador government should operate tours at its Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). This should appeal equally to Democrats and Republicans. To Democrats, the tour can be marketed as “Visit the folks who formerly embodied all that is best about the United States” (extra $5,000 fee to drink margaritas with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the most precious and important human ever to reside in Maryland). For Republicans, it can be marketed as a Fantasy Law & Order experience with an extra $5,000 fee to attend a morning briefing with CECOT guards, do physical training, and then practice on the rifle and pistol ranges.
It’s the 80th anniversary of a bombing raid on Tokyo in which the American military killed 100,000 Japanese civilians in one night (Wokipedia). Did the Japanese attack on our military installations in Hawaii justify our attacks on their civilians?
University of Alaska in Fairbanks runs a beautiful museum and it answers the above question to some extent.
Right now, about one fifth of the core exhibit space at the Museum of the North is devoted to the victimization of 220 Japanese-Alaskans whom President Franklin Roosevelt ordered interned (with Supreme Court approval) and also the evacuation of 800 Native Alaskans from islands thought vulnerable to Japanese attack.
The PhD scholars explain on a sign leading into the exhibit that the Japanese were on track to conquer interior Alaska, western Canada, and Seattle:
If we hadn’t waged total war on this enemy, including killing 100,000 civilians in one night (pre-atomic bombs), folks in Seattle would to this day be forced to live a Japanese lifestyle. Certainly, it wouldn’t have made sense to engage in the settlement negotiations that the Japanese expected after Pearl Harbor.
What else goes on in the museum? First, visitors are reminded of the irrationality of W-2/1099 work in the American Welfare State (admission is $20 for chumps; free for EBT cardholders):
The PhDs in charge of the museum use native languages whenever possible (Troth Yeddha’ is apparently not, as I’d thought, a location of one of Jabba the Hutt’s branch offices) and also note that the noble indigenous themselves don’t want to use these languages anymore (consistent with John McWhorter’s explanation of how humans converge toward a single language in a media- and telecommunications-rich world)
Compare your level of patience and attention to detail to Cynthia Gibson’s, who sewed salmon vertebrae into a dress:
Last month, I spent 1.5 hours at Alaska ComiCon in Fairbanks, which isn’t quite the jam-packed experience of the San Diego Comic-Con, but included the world’s largest balloon costume (Godzilla, of course!):
My friends picked me up for the short drive to the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum, which seems to be indirectly named for Ayn Rand, ironically famous for not having learned to drive despite living for a time in Los Angeles. (The connection seems to be that Tim Cerny, a real estate developer, liked Rand’s novel The Fountainhead and named his company after her and then the museum is named for the company.)
Despite the founder’s apparent free market orientation, the museum has an Elizabeth Warren section:
My favorite car was the Owen Magnetic, spiritual heir to the Chevrolet Volt, in which the internal combustion engine is a generator. It even had regen braking:
Here’s a 1932 Cadillac…
After 90 years of evolution, the ugly duckling 1932 Cadillac was transformed into the beautiful Escalade:
Americans 110 years ago hadn’t discovered the joys of helicopter parenting and, therefore, brothers aged 10 and 6 were able to ride on horses from Oklahoma to the East Coast, buy a car and learn to drive in NYC, and then drive back to Oklahoma (the horses went home by train). They met two presidents and both Wright brothers:
State-sponsored PBS did a show about them (I recently learned about this from a Facebook friend; it aired in April 2020, just as coronapanic was in full swing, but it is tough to imagine a lockdown strict enough that I would have the patience to watch PBS).
The museum covers the challenge of building a practical snowmobile, which didn’t happen until airplanes were into their second generation (most of the invention seems to have occurred first in Russia; Wokipedia).
I knew that Carl Fisher, the creator of Miami Beach and the Indy 500, had developed a gas-based “Prest-O-Lite” headlight, but didn’t realize that it involved a tank of acetylene right next to the driver!
For fans of the old Bell 47 and Hiller helicopters… the Franklin company that made their engines was produced cars with air-cooled engines back in 1905:
