Denmark

(Thanks, Rebecca!)

The Weird, Scary Airspace Over Washington DC

Twenty-five years ago next month, a hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Since then, restrictions for airplanes flying over our nation's capital have been seriously beefed up. Unauthorized flights are liable to lead to arrest, fines, and even the danger of being shot down. But right in the middle of that restricted zone, we have Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) with tons of flights arriving and departing every day. On a side note, who designs an airport with three runways in which only one can be used at a time? 

Pilots who fly into Washington have a list of rules to follow, from registering identification to obtaining a password to staying in contact with control towers at all times. Older rules for DCA mandate that they follow DC's rivers to approach the airport. If you don't know all the rules, you have no business being there. Air traffic controllers have procedures that are just as strict and Byzantine. These rules are all in service of safety and for keeping the military from having to shoot down your plane. Half as Interesting gives us an overview of how complicated it all is. The video is only seven minutes long; the rest is promotional.   

Darth Vader Addresses the San Diego City Council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee

Public comments before government committees are usually not well attended, but they should be. Citizens think that their opinions will be listened to, much less considered. But when Darth Vader shows up, people listen. This Sith Lord came to praise the use of Flock cameras for surveillance, and returned to denounce funding of libraries and other services. It's a satirical wakeup call, yet we have to remember that many Star Wars fans love and identify with Darth Vader specifically because he's so evil. (via Laughing Squid) 

The History of Passports

Passports as we know them are a relatively recent invention. But travel documents have been around since ancient times. Whether those documents got you into a different country was often a crapshoot. Like many other systems, the birth point of the passport boils down to how you define one. And how you define borders, visas, and rules of passage. The journey to the standardized passport was a long and crooked one, since nations don't like to be told what to do, yet most still want their citizens to have freedom of travel. Even today, passport rules are different depending on who you are and where you are going. Not only that, but the rules can change suddenly. Let's hope you are not in an international airport lounge when that happens.   

SNAP Rules

Did you know that low-income Americans are forbidden from purchasing hot food items like rotisserie chicken at their local deli with SNAP benefits? It’s true. There are all sorts of arbitrary rules like this for public assistance programs.

— Senator Chris Larson (@senchrislarson.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 8:50 AM

And yet, when rich people want free money in the form of business grants or tax exemptions, there are often very little strings attached - if any. It’s time to stop policing people’s food choices and start regulating the big businesses that fail to pay living wages instead.

— Senator Chris Larson (@senchrislarson.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 8:50 AM

I can see how this happened. The government doesn't want to pay for restaurant meals, but in defining the terms, they run into the edge cases. Delis and grocery stores offer ready-made takeout meals like a restaurant. But here in the real world, rotisserie chicken from a grocery is often less expensive than buying a raw chicken. It's a great option for single working mothers. But it's an even greater option for people who don't have a kitchen. If you are living on the street, or in a motel shelter, or an SRO, a rotisserie chicken can be the difference between eating chips and eating protein.

That's What You Call a Flip-Flop

(via Bad Newspaper)

How the Nuclear Football Works

The "nuclear football" is a nickname for a briefcase that enables to US president to destroy the world. It contains instructions for destroying the world and the nuclear codes. It goes everywhere the president goes. Supposedly, once the codes are sent to the Pentagon and are confirmed and authorized, no one can rescind the orders to destroy the world. Yet in the real world, any link along the chain of command can decide maybe to not destroy the world. At least we can hope. This video is shorter than it look because the last 90 seconds is an ad.     

It's a Step

(via Bad Newspaper)

Replacing Politicians with Randomly Selected People

When the Greeks tried democracy, they did it a little differently. The idea that randomly-selected people could do the job seemed weird until they explained that those candidates would be vetted for ethics and general fitness. And when everyone has a stake in the process, they tend to be more informed. 

But there's nothing wrong with our current election system that couldn't be fixed. We should get rid of the electoral college, since it proved in 2016 that it doesn't do the job it was intended to do. And we should go back to limiting campaign contributions to real, individual people donating to registered campaigns. Other than that, we should focus on getting as many people involved as possible and making sure they are well-informed. That last part might be difficult, thanks to lack of civics education and the splintering of our media landscape, but it's worth a try.  


 

War or Not War

It's a matter of semantics. According to the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war. That hasn't happened since 1942. But if you call it something else....

Welcome to Zero-migration America

First, we spend 400 years bringing in people from around the world to build America. Then we go to war against anyone who wasn't born here. Talk about pulling up the ladder behind you! First, they made legal immigration so time-consuming and expensive that the process becomes useless for most people. Then they incarcerate those who went around the process. Finally, make sure no one wants to come here anymore. It will take generations to recover from this insanity, even if we get started now. 

How to Fix the House of Representatives

The number of Congress members in Washington has been 435 since 1929. This had led to problems in representing the US population by state, and why one person voting in Wyoming is equal to about four votes in Ohio in a national election -unless you vote for the minority party,  in which case your vote means nothing, but that's a subject for another day. We could fix this imbalance, but it would upset the status quo in Washington, and we can't have that because reasons. 

Why Do So Many Americans Not Know How Their Government Works?

I'm a Boomer, so all my civics education took place in elementary school. But it didn't stop there because I had to use that knowledge understand what was going on, like the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Cold War, etc. etc. Fifty years later, we have the technology to allow anyone to avoid any news altogether or select the slant of what they learn and don't learn about what's going on. And boy, people are really taking advantage of that opportunity for ignorance. The Founding Fathers would be ashamed.  

Oval Office

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— ✨⚡️ ℓуηԃα 👩🏻‍💻 🍿 (@lyndab.bsky.social) November 5, 2025 at 11:42 PM

In reference to the earlier labeling post. 

Adding Labels to the White House

Yikes. And it's color-coded in case he has trouble reading the sign. (via reddit) 

Meta

a

(via Bad Newspaper)

Social Security Cards Explained

Social Security numbers are confusing. The SSA tells you to never give your number out except to your employer and the government, but then the bank, the utility office, schools, and every store you visit want to know yours. And what do those numbers mean, anyway? CGP Grey explains social security numbers from their beginning to us in a way we can all understand, which is what he's good at. The part about the program's security has certainly changed since this video was made, because there's no security in government right now. (via reddit)

Limits

(via Bad Newspaper)

Beware Collateral Damage

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— Seth Abramson (@sethabramson.bsky.social) March 8, 2025 at 12:53 AM

Hey, it's what the people voted for.

Birthright Citizenship in the US

In the United States, everyone who is born here is a citizen, no matter who your parents are. That came in with the 14th Amendment. but the Amendment has been challenged over and over. There's a 45-second promotional break at 7:16. (via Laughing Squid)