Nurse Appreciation Week!

From https://www.thrillist.com/news/nat…:
Throughout Nurse Appreciation Week, which starts with National Nurses Day on Wednesday, May 6, restaurants throughout the United States are offering free meals, coffees, and deep discounts to the nurses and healthcare workers who are busting their asses daily during the COVID-19 pandemic. Below, you'll find deals from places like Corner Bakery, Grimaldi's, Cumberland Farms, Steak 'N Shake, and tons of other chains that are doing their very small part to say thanks."

[A] boat, some guns, and 62 men of dubious military skill.

Raised from comments elsewhere:
I have never been a Green Beret, and I have never attempted a coup, though who knows where the future will take me. Nevertheless, I did assume — naïvely! erroneously! — that the first rule of organizing a coup is that you do not tweet about it. And doesn’t it require a lot of planning? Based on my many years spent playing successive versions of Civilization, I think that if you want to capture a country’s capital city, you are going to need more than a boat, some guns, and 62 men of dubious military skill."
(https://nymag.com/intelligencer/20…)

Edit to add quotes from a somewhat more serious article:

From https://apnews.com/79346b4e4286764…:

Planning for the incursion began after an April 30, 2019, barracks revolt by a cadre of soldiers who swore loyalty to Maduro’s would-be replacement, Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader recognized by the U.S. and some 60 other nations as Venezuela’s rightful leader. Contrary to U.S. expectations at the time, key Maduro aides never joined with the opposition and the government quickly quashed the uprising.

A few weeks later, some soldiers and politicians involved in the failed rebellion retreated to the JW Marriott in Bogota, Colombia. The hotel was a center of intrigue among Venezuelan exiles. For this occasion, conference rooms were reserved for what one participant described as the “Star Wars summit of anti-Maduro goofballs” — military deserters accused of drug trafficking, shady financiers and former Maduro officials seeking redemption.

Among those angling in the open lobby was Jordan Goudreau, an American citizen and three-time Bronze Star recipient for bravery in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he served as a medic in U.S. Army special forces, according to five people who met with the former soldier.

Those he interacted with in the U.S. and Colombia described him in interviews alternately as a freedom-loving patriot, a mercenary and a gifted warrior scarred by battle and in way over his head.
and
“He was always chasing the golden BB,” said Drew White, a former business partner at Silvercorp, using military slang for a one-in-a-million shot. White said he broke with his former special forces comrade last fall when Goudreau asked for help raising money to fund his regime change initiative.

“As supportive as you want to be as a friend, his head wasn’t in the world of reality,” said White. “Nothing he said lined up.”

“I’m not a person, I’m ‘we the people’.”

This woman is evidently confused about the nature of the society in which she is currently living.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singa…

Paramjeet Kaur, 40, who made headlines on Sunday after videos emerged of her claiming to be a “sovereign” when confronted at the market, allegedly failed to wear a mask when she was outside her home, as required by law, on more than one occasion."

In videos circulating online, the Singaporean, who was born here, can be seen claiming to be a “sovereign” while in a heated argument with passers-by.

“It means I have nothing to do with the police, it means I have no contract with the police. They have no say over me,” she says.

A man, who is off-screen, responds: “This doesn’t even make any sense. If you’re a person in Singapore, you have to follow the rules of Singapore.” But the woman replies: “That’s the thing – I’m not a person, I’m ‘we the people’.”

"A report by Chinese evening paper Lianhe Wanbao on Tuesday quotes a woman who identified herself as Kaur’s mother saying that Kaur is a physiotherapist who had lived in Australia for 20 years before returning to Singapore last year."
TIL that the "sovereign citizen" movement is a thing in Australia as well as the States.

Singapore, not so much.

(no subject)

People who get in my face when I disagree with them get less feedback from me. They also get less honest feedback.

They may not care. They evidently don't want my feedback. But I think enough of my opinions that I feel that it's their loss.

Also I feel I'm saving my own time by not engaging.

And now, Jet Airways.

I was never a huge fan of the airline but as is usual with airlines I'm on the side of more competition.

From https://www.bbc.com/news/business-…:
Passengers are stranded in India and around the world after Jet Airways suspended all international flights.

Flights from London, Paris and Amsterdam are among those grounded amid fears about the survival of India's largest private airline.

The airline cancelled all international flights until Monday when, according to reports, it will meet its lenders again to try to secure funding.

RIP, Wow Air.

Icelandic low-fare carrier Wow Air just stopped flying, stranding passengers on both sides of the Atlantic. The Washington Post has a story on what to do if you're stuck: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lif…

I'm sad about this, not because I ever had much intention of flying with them, but because when the transatlantic low-fare airlines like Laker Airways and People Express Airlines stop flying, the network carriers raise their prices.

RIP, Wow. Hope Norwegian stays in the air until the end of the summer.

(no subject)

From https://www.ft.com/content/b2e56c9…:
Every year, Chapman University in California publishes a fun list called the Survey of American Fears. In 2018, the biggest fear, for all Americans, was corrupt government officials. Money was at number four, but five of the top 10 fears were environmental. This is perhaps surprising, as politicians, especially in the US, often portray the environment as an elite concern. (By way of context, being murdered by a stranger was at number 50, one above sharks.)

“We are beginning to see trends that people tend to fear what they are exposed to in the media,” says Christopher Bader, the survey leader and a professor of sociology at Chapman. Media scare stories are, to an extent, fairly egalitarian and widely consumed. Plutocrats differ from the hoi polloi in that they have the means to do something about these newsworthy worries — which might explain the vogue among the Silicon Valley elite for post-apocalyptic boltholes in faraway places such as New Zealand.