Hard pass. The most terrifying flight I’ve ever been on was in 1999 or 2000 on an old Soviet Ilyushin Il-62. My row of seats wasn’t fully bolted down so it rocked back and forth, the seatback couldn’t be put into the upright position (it just flopped up and down), the tray table had no latch, the bathroom door wouldn’t close, the cockpit door swung open from time to time, and the entire plane made a “rattle” that sounded like it was about to break into a million pieces. I will never, ever, ever fly on a second-hand Russian-made plane ever again.
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Cool app for Lego fans:
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The most terrifying flight I’ve ever been on was in 1999 or 2000 on an old Soviet Ilyushin Il-62.
I loved the flight I took on an Il-62, Aeroflot, about the same time. Very friendly staff, superb food, nice leg room… felt like a tad overpowered airplane a la BOAC’s old VC-10’s, but it was quiet once the intakes went supersonic… and the takeoff was more like a carrier launch… no Airbus “passenger comfort” switch or nothing… “in case of loss of cabin pressure, hold breath, no heavy items on overhead rack”. While circling up at Sheremetyevo I realized hadn’t been in a bank that hard since being in a glider with my Dad, and the approach to Ulan Bataar felt a bit like a bombing run (but then so does coming along the Thames for a landing at London City…) and the brakes caught fire.
But hey… if you walk away then it wasn’t a crash. 
I mean, the pilot’s in the front, eh?
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My youngest brother has the same problem with space allocation. He’s about the same height as you. Airplanes, buses, you name it. We took a flight once, and he could not sit comfortably straight. I can’t imagine how he’d sit in a Tijuana calafia (minivan taxi), because even I have issues and I’m only 5’9".
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As research by the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs underlines, younger Britons today have markedly shifted leftwards. Two-thirds would prefer to live in a socialist economic system, 72% support public ownership of industry and large majorities blame capitalism for the climate emergency and the housing crisis. The authors of the report were particularly disturbed by the staying power of these convictions: “It is no longer true that people ‘grow out’ of socialist ideas as they get older.”
The progressive social values of the young have undoubtedly been forged by the accumulation of successful struggles for the rights of minorities and women over many decades. Those outlooks become embedded in popular culture, reflected back by key cultural influencers, reinforcing their hegemony among younger generations. Mass mobilisations in support of movements ranging from Black Lives Matter to Extinction Rebellion – both on the streets and online – disseminate these ideas further. The young are also a diverse cohort: by 2015, one in three English primary students were from an ethnic minority. While, for instance, British newspapers light the touchpaper of moral panic against trans people, the young – and particularly younger women – support this profoundly marginalised minority in ever greater numbers.
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Spin-offs!
Moderna’s Next Act Is Using mRNA vs. Flu, Zika, HIV, and Cancer
The biotech has reached a $100 billion market cap. But after Covid, the challenges get even bigger.
But for Moderna Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel, the Covid vaccine is just the beginning. He’s long promised that if mRNA works, it will lead to a giant new industry capable of treating most everything from heart disease to cancer to rare genetic conditions. Moderna has drugs in trials for all three of these categories, and Bancel says his company can also become a dominant vaccine maker, developing shots for emerging viruses such as Nipah and Zika, as well as better-known, hard-to-target pathogens such as HIV.
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I mean, that’s where they were aiming the technology from the beginning. COVID was an urgent-but-unexpected detour.
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Fauci lays it on the line!! It had to be said. He will Fauci you up!
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What a fucking asshole. Just throw a lot of chaff in the air and act like you won something. KY should do batter.
(ETA: More details on the above video. Not in any way claiming this is good, other than Fauci firing back with both barrels of a clearly overmatched Paul. The RWNJ’s will eat this up, though. Chaos is their mudhole.)
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Oh, shit; he even put in a little ‘neck roll’ with it…
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Heh, I noticed that too!
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